Can I make 8 turnovers and still get to heaven?

Really, it’s not just a facetious question!

Usually the content of the question is slightly different, but the intent is still the same. How bad can I be and still earn my eternal reward? Is there some point where even Jesus, in all His grace and mercy, will give up on me?

Let me say from the outset that it is a different question from “Can I make 8 turnovers and still have a job?” That question, purely a matter of law, is much easier to answer. No, you can’t. In a contractual world, you get paid for performance. And if you don’t perform – and one might argue that 8 turnovers indicates lack of performance – you ought not get paid, whether that be a salary of hundreds of thousands of dollars or the prestige of a starting position or whatever. In this life, you get paid to be good, and if you’re not good, you don’t get paid.

It is, after all, what makes this life understandable at all.

But, of course, as a matter of grace, you’re not getting paid to be good by God. That may come as a shock if you think about it a little bit. God does not pay us to be good, he just demands it. Luther says, “Therefore I surely ought to thank and praise, serve and obey him.” Nothing in it for me. As my father used to say, “Because I said so. That’s why!”

This is where faith trips us up every time. We like to see ourselves as the perfect free agents, owners of our own will, choosers of our moments and our destiny. We think that all of this good stuff is coming to us because we deserve it, we earned it. We may even be willing to take some responsibility for our faults. At least within reason. But that’s the brick wall that we never see coming. For that fault is a debt we could never pay off.

But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? Malachi 3:2

The problem with Grace is that it can never be a partial proposition. To get a little grace is to get it all, to receive forgiveness once is to stand beholden forever. As much as we’d like Grace to be our fall-back position, it belongs to a God who will not abide anything less that complete devotion, complete lordship, complete pardon.

But that’s what makes it Grace! For it is not a matter of 8 turnovers, no more than it would matter if it was 88 or only one. The question itself misses the point – our place with God never depends on what we do or do not do, but only in what God does. Or did, for he sent his only Son not merely for the drama but to change the very nature of heaven and earth and of us.

So, to paraphrase Dr. Luther, when you put the ball on the ground, really give it a boot. For the one who counts isn’t keeping score. Sometimes I think he might just be getting a good laugh at all of it.

Up, Up and Away

I hate having to confess to doing stupid things. But, as I must, I will. Last Friday, as I did my chores around the house, I kept one enraptured eye on the cable news running on my TV, watching and waiting to see what would happen with the now famous runaway balloon and its six-year-old passenger. I prayed for his safety, as did probably millions of other people.

I fell for the hoax.

In my own defense, how could I have known better? Well, maybe a little actual journalism on the part of anyone who works for the people who put the pictures on my TV might have altered the story before it was too late, but who’s to say? Given that the National Guard got caught up in the hunt, I feel somewhat acquitted. But still angry.

I am amazed at the brazen nerve of this family. Not surprised, but amazed nonetheless. Amazed by what they were willing to do, to put others through, to put even their small children through. Amazed at the depth of the deceit and the hubris all for a chance to be on TV. Again. I guess once was not, in fact, enough. For this is the new addiction of our age. Our lust for publicity is as unbounded as an junkie holding up a convenience store to get cash to score a quick hit. Thousands lining up for an American Idol audition. Not because they can sing, not necessarily because they want to bring their gift to the world, but because they know that the worst, the most embarrassing will get their 15 minutes of fame. And we gotta have our 15 minutes! Or even 15 seconds.

We long to be the next William Hung. Famous. For nothing. And what will save us from this self-destructive humiliation?

But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. Matthew 6:6

Faith lives in the constant tension of public and private, of a word that must be proclaimed from rooftops and a piety that must not aggrandize. I do not believe that Jesus means that we should never pray in public or show our faith to others (though I fear that many of my more Lutheran brethren wish he did), but that we should always guard against making grace a servant of our lesser nature, grasping glory for ourselves, shining forth not God’s light but mine.

In creating us as community, God gave birth to a public world. But like all of his good gifts, it is best when it serves his purposes and spoils when we twist it to our own. The world should watch us not to see us, but to see God in us, to behold the little Christ we are called to be. To show that, to jump up and down and scream and shout and seek every moment of attention available to us so that Christ would be known is a good thing indeed. A right thing.

If we do it well.

It is also a gift of God that we are given these small learning moments, and here is one to be sure. We are in danger of raising a generation impoverished of attention, because we are teaching our children all the wrong things about it. The spotlight of self-promotion burns harshly, and the reward of fame floats away like a helium-filled balloon. But to be an instrument of grace, to speak and be Christ in the world is true and never-ending glory.

It might not get you a TV show. But then again, you might not really need one.

Not the way I imagined he would fulfill his promise

He promised in his campaign that he would bring together disparate groups, that he would bridge vast divides and create new coalitions our of old enemies.

Who knew it would be the Republican National Committee and the Taliban?

Today they are one mind in their criticism and condemnation of the President Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize. As if it was his fault that the Nobel Committee chose to give him the award. As if there is something negative about an American President winning an award, or an American city being honored to host an Olympic games.

Was there someone else who was supposed to win?

This is the world where we live now, a world of institutionalized enmity with 24-hour-a-day cable news coverage. A world where we cheer our opponents losses and scoff at their victories. Not just civility, but basic sportsmanship, even humanity itself, has become an unaffordable luxury, an unprofitable lost art that will come to exist only in museums and old, old memories.

Which I think is exactly what this award is going to be a good thing.

I came late to the news this morning, having been up far too long into the night watching a football game. A hard fought game in ridiculous conditions with a stunning ending. But maybe the best moment for me wasn’t during the game, but right after, when the TV cameras caught the players of the teams crossing the field to shake a hand, pat a helmet, speak a small and gracious word. Which was why they played the game, after all.

I think it’s easy to miss the amazing importance of that. For 60 minutes they fought hard, hit hard, tried with every effort to defeat one another. But when the game was done these young men remembered their shared humanity, that they could be opponents without being enemies, that they could battle without hate.

I doubt that scene will make the ESPN highlights, which is too bad. Too bad for us. Too bad for our children. Where are they going to see that kind of example?

The news tells me of a recent political event, where attendees took turns shooting guns at a variety of targets, including one in the likeness of their political opponent who is, yes, a member of Congress. Yes, they shot guns at an effigy of a member of the United States Congress. Not a bunch of rednecks or hoodlums in some backyard or back alleyway, but elected officials and political figures and the person who believes themselves worthy of being in Congress themselves. I don’t think I’m ok with that. Are we replacing debate and dialog with gunplay? Yes, “pretend” gunplay. At least for now.

We have come to this point, that lacking real interest or efforts for peace or harmony or even adult conversation in our world, we are left only with those who have the vision and courage to at least hope for it. And if the Nobel Peace Prize committee has the wisdom to recognize that very rare hopefulness and the will to reward it, then I say good for them. The first step toward any goal, after all, is to desire it. And if this President has done nothing else than to truly desire a different politic, an open dialog with friend and enemy alike, a more civil society and a more peaceful world, then he has done much. Much worthy of great recognition.

Given that so few seem to desire the same thing, I await a more deserving winner.

Send in the Lutherans

The latest thing in naked power grabs disguised as religious movements is called The Conservative Bible Project, launched by Conservapedia, a web site whose title page proudly proclaims The Truth Shall Set You Free. My uncle used to tell me that when the salesman said, “let me tell you the truth,” you should get a tight hold of your wallet. It seems to be the intent of this project to provide “a strong framework that enables a thought-for-thought translation without corruption by liberal bias.” I must have missed the day at seminary where they covered the corrupting liberal bias of the Bible.

I’m keen to see how that will be accomplished. I wonder what method they will use to unearth the lost conservative ideas behind such seemingly liberal sayings as:

• The laborer deserves to be paid.
• Whoever is not against us is for us.
• Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
• One’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.
• Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s …
• Go out into the roads and lanes, and compel people to come in, so that my house may be filled.
• Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.
• If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also …
• Sell all that you own and distribute the money to the poor …

Those are just some of the sayings of Jesus from the Gospels. Lord help them if they try to read Isaiah.

All ludicrousness aside, behind this farce lies an interesting and important question. Since the Protestant Reformation, the supreme authority of what the Bible says has been taken as a article of faith for the church. What has never been answered completely is, what does the Bible say?

There is an assumption, of course, vital to fundamentalists everywhere, that the Bible is perfectly coherent and without guile or subtlety, that it speaks for itself and, as such, is the right and final authority for faith and life. Which must be why fundamentalist preachers spend so much time telling me what the Bible says. And even that works fairly well, until I find out that the Bible in fact tells me something else than what the preacher told me it said, hence requiring some momentous effort like the Conservative Bible Project to come along and save us all from these terrors.

Or we could just listen to the man who saved the Bible from the Dark Ages.

Luther taught us that the authority of the Bible comes not by its words, but from the giver of the Word, from the God of Scripture himself. He reminds us, as if we need to be reminded, that “God and the Scripture of God are two things, no less than the Creator and the creature are two things.” (Bondage of the Will) If he were with us today, I think he would find our obsession with the words of the Bible sinful and idolatrous, though neither new nor original. The Bible has become a modern Golden Calf, over which we cavort and screech every time we find its words in agreement with our own internal spiritual bias.

Luther once said that, left to our own devices, mankind would always seek to remake God in his own image. Or, at least in this case, to remake his Bible. The sense of distrust and despair, the fear that the words of the Bible could or should be written in any particular human viewpoint, is breathtaking. To reduce faith to the margins of human words is to grind it to dust and mix it in water and drink it. Which was what Moses did with the Golden Calf. This is the inspired Word of God, the Holy Spirit resides and reigns over it and speaks truth through it and calls and enlightens us by it. It does not need our help.

It does not deserve our scorn.

Maybe the greatest sin of all is the conceit which imagines to know the true but hidden intent, to see that which has been kept from the whole world until now. It is the greatest power move of all, tried and true, in which hearts have been broken, families and communities rent asunder, and much blood shed. It is the founding principle of radical elements of every great religion – Christian, Jewish, Islamic. Unable to submit to the Word, let us rewrite the texts themselves, and unlock the great secret and reveal that we were right the whole time.

As if there was any secret to what the Bible says.

There is, in fact, only one principal interpretive key, which cannot be cheaply labeled as either conservative or liberal. It is the cross of Jesus Christ, the power and the promise of a God who sacrifices his own best and most beloved for our salvation, who calls us to conform our lives that to this first and best example of self-giving love.

To know Christ, and, as Paul reminds us, to know “nothing … except him crucified,” is to be the master of Scriptures and the possessor of its every secret meaning. Even as God found the very human figure of Christ sufficient for the salvation of the whole creation, let us, by our faith, turn these pages and know that all we need has always been there.

Things you never hear at a post-game press conference ...

The coach could not, of course, accept the loss as anything but a loss. There is no such thing as a moral victory. His job is to produce wins, his success is measured in wins, he cannot coach his players to do anything else but win. I get that.

But I cannot help but see there a danger that modern sports reflects on our society, an us-vs.-them win-at-all-costs trash-talking rivalry-driven mentality which has escaped the playing field and is starting to dominate everything from our politics to our churches. I’m talking about a way of looking at life, as if it could be boiled down in the end to a win-loss record. As if.

I say this as a sports fan, but also as a person who seeks faith: there is more to life than winning.

And I think that anyone who has actually lived a life should know that.

Life is rich and complex. It has victories, sure, but losses as well. The great and self-destructive myth is an undefeated life. Not that perfection isn’t a worthy goal – Jesus called his disciples to be perfect “as your heavenly Father is perfect!” (Matthew 5:48). But who ever is? No, we are all the sum of some wins and some losses, and of all kinds of moments that are somewhere in between.

For surely the majority of our experience does not easily count itself as win or loss. I think that most of our days are some of both, our accomplishments neither complete success nor utter defeat. I find life to be a constant tango of steps forward and back, and that the whole of me is no more determined by the good things which I’ve done than by the bad. In fact, I think it’s a tie.

I think that may be ok.

For this is the real devil here – the presumption that we must either conquer or be conquered, that unless we defeat all comers we have no value, that each loss is a permanent shame. Here is a godly desire to do well now twisted by sin into anger, enmity, and many kinds of violence, against self and others, so we are no longer striving to be like our heavenly father, but seeking after a much harsher kind of lord. Such is a real loss.

Can we not raise a generation that knows how to lose? Too many of our children cannot accept loss with grace, cannot learn from it and grow from it, cannot rejoice for their conqueror and find, finally, the joy of the game itself. Too many cannot win graciously, cannot carry the day and bring others with, too many do not know the meaning of mercy and humility. Sports should be a tool for raising a better people – competitors who thrive whether they win or lose.

We surely need more of that outside the sporting field. Perhaps we could start by teaching more of it on the field.

On the stadium in Lincoln are carved the words, “Not the victory but the action; Not the goal but the game; In the deed the glory.” Those words have been on that stadium longer than the 300 game sellout streak, they have seen championships come and go with losing seasons interspersed, and have overlooked countless millions of fans and players alike with their eternal wisdom. They are why players shake hands before and after the game, why fans cheer for the opposing team at the end of the day, why we come there at all. Not to win, but just to play. Because football, not unlike life, is just a game.

Sometimes you lose. And that’s ok.

You see, the victory has already been won. What we do here and now, every good work, every hard-fought victory, is but a vague shadow of that eternal triumph. And in that promise is our opportunity to play better at the game simply for the sake of playing better, while it lasts, to know joy and hope and face each challenge with grit and grace.

Surely that is the better reason to play at all.

A "Leap" Into The Abyss

“To restore the sense of unity and purpose that American had in the days following 9/11”

That’s how one commentator described the intent of last weekend’s gathering in Washington, DC, at the instigation of Fox News host Glenn Beck. While my skepticism with Mr. Beck is at least partly due to his inability to spell his name correctly (the second “n” is superfluous, to my thinking), it is mostly due to his complete ignorance about the word “unity.”

Much of the noise around this event – and the preceding “Tea Party” gatherings, too - seems to echo a “hands off” kind of value system, as in hands off my money or hands off my guns. The prevailing mood of the crowd seems to be a shared anger over not getting their way, of having things taken from them by force, of evil leaders who would “share their wealth” (evidently even of those who have none to share.) It bespeaks a fear of intrusion and demands from which they ought to, by their very definition of America, be free.

Is that our perfect and patriotic vision of America? Fighting because we don’t want to have to share our toys?

This is so NOT what brought us together in the days following 9/11. It was a sense of responsibility and sacrifice for others, of firemen and policemen rushing into mortal danger to save lives regardless of their own safety, of citizens gladly and hopefully giving their time and opening up their wallets to aid victims of the tragedies, or people of all politics and philosophies setting aside their distrust and disapproval to work and cry and pray together.

9/11 reminded us that we HAD to stick together and care for each other, with no thought of price, that we could not afford the cost of hate. Sadly, it seems that the lesson did not stick.

We love unity in theory, but never in practice. In practice, in truth, unity demands shared space, a giving up for the other, a valuable forfeit of self to ensure peace. It is a basic fact that in a diverse society, living together means that no one gets all the stuff they want or gets their way all the time. It is true in families and it is true in nations. The more I demand that the world accommodate my own wants/needs/desires, the less unity I can expect.

Nor can unity be defined by anger. Some cohesion, among a few same-thinking people, is not unity. Which makes me doubt that this gathering, or any other like it, seeks unity. It makes me certain that it is not intended to honor the days following 9/11, but to cash in on them for some other, ugly and dark purpose.

Can we have a godly sense of unity in America? (or anywhere else, for that matter?) Not until we take His word to heart:

On the contrary, the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and those members of the body that we think less honorable we clothe with greater honor, and our less respectable members are treated with greater respect; whereas our more respectable members do not need this. But God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior member, that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it. 1 Corinthians 12:22-26

Paul words are clear. We cannot have unity while some of our members suffer. We cannot have unity while the gap between the poor and the wealthy in our society grows and grows with each passing year. We cannot have unity while some of our members cannot get health care that they need. We cannot have unity while it is acceptable to lift up symbols of racial hatred in our public discourse. We cannot have unity while some of our members are suffering and the rest refuse their responsibility to end it.

We cannot have unity as long as we refuse to pay its price. On 9/11, we glimpsed the horrific face of disunity, and while some faced up to their responsibility in those important days, mostly we missed our opportunity to do something about it. That we continue to suffer still leads me to this last conclusion …

I am not of the habit of writing words like this, but I find them unavoidable. This anger is a manifestation of wrath and sin among us, which will consume us, until we improve (at whatever cost) the lives of the weaker and inferior and less respectable among us. I am not an apocalyptic, but I find these events a sure sign of the brokenness and mortality and finitude which is this world. It calls us to long for the green shoots of the world to come and spring up among us and whisper to us that this is not all we are or all we can be.

Unity, I think, is less of a work than a prayer, a gift, a grace. May God grant that it may be. And soon.

To my friend whom I've deleted on Facebook: I'm sorry but I just can't listen to it anymore

I swear I didn’t plan it this way.

But there they were on Sunday, printed large in the regular bulletin, the appointed Lectionary reading for the day as determined by some far off committee of academics and wiser people than I, the words of Paul in his letter to the church at Ephesus:

“Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another …” (Ephesians 4:31, NRSV)

Did they have cable news in Paul’s day, too?

Where has decency gone in America? When did we determine that shouting louder than anyone else would advance solutions to our problems? When did we decide that the swastika, a symbol of horrors that are still frighteningly memorable to living people on this planet, was acceptable for polite people to use in any context or for any purpose? Is that the only visual aid available? And forgive my disrespect, but for a former vice-presidential candidate to even imply, let alone state outright, that our government would desire to kill her child because of his disability, is so simply beyond believability as to be more than a just spin or falsehood – it is a slanderous lie designed for a grave purpose. What that purpose is, I cannot imagine.

I pray that someone might help me understand what drives the noise.

Perhaps you will say that many people feel distrustful. I can understand this. I can understand that people do not wish to lose control over their health care, their choice of doctor, their ability to make decisions about medicines and procedures and hospital stays. I can understand that they are fearful that this intervention will destroy what is perceived to be the best health care system in the world. I could understand this, if it were so.

I wonder who really gets to choose their own doctors. I do not, at least not past a small list approved by the PPO that my insurance company has assigned to me.

I participate in my health care decisions, I research and test what my doctor tells me, but mostly I do what I’m told. I choose between the couple of options present to me, if there is more than one. I’ve never advised my doctor on what to do, what diagnosis to make, what medicine to prescribe. Have you?

I know patients who were dismissed from a hospital before they were ready, not because they wanted to go home, but because their insurance plan would not allow a longer stay. I know some who ended up back in the hospital again, and so do you.

And because there seems to be a failure to report the truth among either media or politicians, let us debunk this one other well kept myth. We do not have the best health care in the world. According to the World Health Organization, which did not vote in the last election, we rank 37th. According to the real outcomes that matter, like life expectancy, 36 other nations have better health care than the United States. Nations from every corner of the globe, not all of which should do better than us. Maybe they spend more time and energy figuring out how to care for one another and less time and energy screaming on the 6:00 news.

Do we fear rationing of our health care? I expect that the 45 million people who are rationed right out of the health care system in America because they can’t afford health insurance could tell us what a real nightmare that can be. Now, that’s something to raise our voices about. That’s an injustice. That’s a corruption worthy of an increase in our collective blood pressure.

Except that doesn’t seem to be what all the screaming is about.

Angry children yell and scream at each other because they lack the mental and social capacity to resolve their conflict. They are helpless, and so they exercise their frustration in whatever level of violence is readily available. Friends, are we really merely angry children?

Last week, for the first time, I deleted a friend from Facebook. I admit to feelings of pride as the number of my friends on Facebook had climbed into high atmospheres. It felt good. But I found myself saddened and hurt and disappointed by the constant tirades and rants and name-calling that substituted for worthy discourse. I determined to let go, and take Paul’s advice, that instead of allowing the sun to “go down on my anger,” I would shut it off and lead a different life:

“… be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you. Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” (Ephesians 4:32-5:2, NRSV)

Like Paul, I should hope and pray that we might.

What I wish they would say about Health Care in America

Isn’t this a pro-life issue?

That seems to me a question that never gets asked in the health-care debate. The conversation seems to get bogged down talk of economics and insurance regulations and bureaucracies, but the powerful moral dimension gets little play. At least on my news. And I wonder why.

When it comes to abortion, the pro-life movement is impossible to ignore. Now, where tens of millions of Americans are going without needed medicine and medical treatment because they simply cannot afford it, where 14,000 men, women, and especially children lose their health coverage every day, where life and death questions are being decided by a profit and loss statement in some insurance company’s boardroom, where are the posters and bullhorns and the new conferences?

Thou shall not kill. It says it very clearly in my Bible. In more than one place. Every person who suffers and dies for lack of access to health care is blood-guilt on us all. Every sick child. Every missed surgery. Every pill not taken because it could not be purchased. It is not just statistics, not simply someone else's problem, it is a poor reflection on the world we have made and fight to maintain, it is our great and shared shame.

It is a great sin that our neighbors are doing without necessary medical care because someone else cannot profit from it.

I hear it said that it’s too expensive. We can’t afford it. It will overload our national debt for years and years to come. Is that what we truly want to say? That we are willing to sacrifice the health and life of our neighbors because we are unwilling to pay a few more dollars in taxes each year? How shall we explain that to St. Peter at the inevitable time?

I fear that too many of my pro-life brethren are silent now because, having sold their soul to the one particular political party, they are not capable of taking this stand against them. I’d like to be wrong about that, but probably am not.

There is a constant hue and cry over the lack of morality and decency in our politicians and our government in this country. Here is a first and easy step toward a more godly world. That we should stand up for the ideal that every person has the right to the medical treatment they needs is undoubtedly a very Christian notion. Let us honor our God by doing this necessary and right thing.

Plains folks have lost a hero.

The most trusted man in America. Not a bad nickname to have.

Walter Cronkite, gone now to join the creator, enjoyed this appellation for many years. And rightly so I believe. But I wonder what it was that made him so. What particular characteristic, what mannerism, what wisdom did he possess or share entitle him to such respect?

Imagine that you would consider to offer any of the current television news celebrities, broadcast or cable, the honorarium of “most trusted.” Add in all the print journalists you know as well. Imagine calling most of them even trusted at all! You should be laughed off of the screen.

It is not just that they do not bring the same gravity to their work, though that is part of it. There is a flippancy of manner and a looseness with facts about today’s news media that truly frightens me. There is altogether too much willingness to share unsubstantiated gossip and untested rumor as if it were gospel in all the media, from mainstream to internet. I think it the a most dangerous ingredient in the decline of our public conversation.

But Walter Cronkite was more than just accurate in his reporting. It was something else about him, about his approach, about his person, that lent him the bearing which attracted our trust. There was a sense of genuineness about him, a authenticity that is much missing in our reality TV age.

He cared about the news. He knew it mattered to people, to all people, not just to the people who were on his side of the political spectrum. He respected the institutions of our society, the politicians, even the ones he disagreed with. He spoke in the same tenor of John Kennedy and Richard Nixon. He had more than objectivity, he had integrity, a very rare trait these days. You cannot imagine him speaking in the same words or tones about any person in the way a Bill O’Reilly or Glen Beck regularly speaks about our president.

And in that way, he was always right.

Not just accurate or correct, but right. Right in his decorum, right in his language, right in his being. He celebrated great accomplishments as they deserved, he mourned great tragedies as they demanded. He was not there to sell us, to berate us, to persuade us, but to tell us, to show us, to serve us. He was not concerned with explaining the news or interpreting the news or even making the news, just with sharing the world “the way it was.”

To watch over mouth and tongue is to keep out of trouble. The proud, haughty person, named “Scoffer,” acts with arrogant pride. Proverbs 21:23-24

Goodbye, Walter. We wish you could come back and make it be “the way it is” all over again.

But Independent of What?

Is Bernie Madoff an American Hero?

Consider the facts! He battled against the tyrannical oppression of mindless over-regulation and exercised the very best of capitalist ideals. He bought low and sold high. He single-mindedly pursued the good of profit. He improved himself and the lifestyle of his family. He crushed the cause of socialism by bankrupting bleeding heart liberals who only existed to redistribute the wealth of the hard-working few to the undeserving many.

Well, perhaps not.

But tell me - when did hatred of government come to pass for patriotism? This past holiday, while many gave thanks for the forming of this nation, too many others gathered in protest of its very existence. Has our public education system failed so drastically that we no longer understand that one cannot be a nation without government? Do we no longer understand that the existence of a public body which regulates common life for the best good for the most people is the very definition of what the Declaration meant to accomplish when the founders signed it in 1776?

And do they not know that it is also a Godly thing that they defy?

Let every person be subject to the governing authorities; for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Do you wish to have no fear of the authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive its approval … Romans 13:1,3

This is the Madoff question. If you suppose him to be an aberrance, one occasional quirk in the human gene pool, then you might argue that government is the enemy. But if you are clear-headed and honest and have even the slightest experience with people or familiarity with news headlines then you know that a tiny Madoff seed lives in each of us. Few of us climb to such dizzying heights of evil and carnage. Mostly of our bad is petty and pitiful, but bad nevertheless, and destructive for its own sake, and for the sake of the good of all, worthy of restraint.

Do we imagine that God does not know this? Do we grieve grace so much that we cannot accept the gift of government, to aid us in our struggle to uphold his vision of peace and justice? Do we doubt his redemption so much that we would rather allow evil free run than be put out in joining the battle to progress toward his kingdom, if only in small, insignificant steps?

What exactly are we protesting against?

You will remind me, of course, that it was a Declaration of Independence that they signed in Philadelphia that hot summer long ago. But independence of what? Of common humanity? Of mutual responsibility? Of society at all? It was taxation without representation they feared, not taxation at all, not shared sacrifice, not the very hard work of the grand vision of what could be accomplished when all humanity joined its one work.

The founders loved government. They loved it so much that they dared to imagine it embracing not just some the people, but all of them.

For the same reason you also pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, busy with this very thing. Pay to all what is due them—taxes to whom taxes are due, revenue to whom revenue is due, respect to whom respect is due, honor to whom honor is due. Romans 13:6-7

America is so much - her people, her industriousness, her role in history, her works both good and bad. But it is the height of ignorance to suggest that we can be American without our government. Human institution, fragile, occasionally incompetent and far-too-often corrupt, yes, but the American government it is. There is none like it in the world. It is that institution that men and women have died for, and that we all should aspire to love.

And it is the birth of that government we celebrate. It is what it means to be an American.

Of spangled vests and bubblegum music

A-B-C, easy as one-two-three …

It was a crowd favorite every Saturday afternoon at Skateland in 1970. Round and round the rink we rolled to favorites like the Jackson 5. It was, I can say without fear, a different time. Now my children roll their eyes to such silly, sweet music. They guffaw at the rhinestones and the wide lapels and the platform heels for guys. And rightly so. Sigh.

The recent passing of favored icons compels our nostalgia. Ed McMahon was more than a TV star, he was a time-keeper. Bedtime was always marked with the familiar theme music and the ubiquitous “Heeeeere’s Johny!” Farah’s red swim suit did not just propel us into puberty, it made us a generation, an age, a time. We were the first to consider it plausible that private detectives could look like supermodels, that bikinis and guns could go together, and we changed both men and women because of it.

And Michael. They will say that his greatest album came in the 80's, and will speak endlessly of the strange creature he became in his later years, but I will always remember the Jackson 5 dream I wanted to live.

And now they are gone from us, these and many more, reminding us that nothing is forever, everything passes, nothing lasts. Will we?

“For everything,” says the Teacher, “there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven.”

An important verse, even a great song, not just because it is of that generation, but because it is of all of them, the eternal and universal truth made for these times and for the next ones that will also surely come. All that is exists only for its time, until the next comes and what was is only memory. He is the God of ADD, never satisfied with what is, restlessly passing from season to season, from age to age, from the joy that is unto the joy yet to come.

Shall we fear this impetuous creator? By no means! Let us rather match his impatient love with our own, grateful for the moments that we are given and keen to share the next adventure. Having done great things, he is eager for the next. And rightly so. Aren’t we? For his journey is ours, marked with the signposts of our treasured memories but winding ever forward to new and wonderful places we cannot imagine.

Yes, our children will never have it as good as we did. Thanks be to God for that!

become the student, part II

Some more wonderful thoughts from our confirmation class! Today, we first spent time reading Psalms of Confession, and then tried our hand and writing some of our own. Here are their thoughts:

We try to be perfect, God, we try to hide our flaws,
but no matter what we do we cannot stop sinning.
We try and fail.
Lord, I have done wrong,
please forgive my doing.
I plead for your help - please forgive me.
It was I, Lord,
I know what I have done
and I am begging for mercy
and standing on my knees.

Then we turned our attention to the books of wisdom, Ecclesiastes and Proverbs. I challenged them to formulate some proverbs of their own, and this is what they came up with:

The greedy puts on extra sugar,
but the wise chooses the naturally sweet.
Many people think that they can't make a difference,
but the wise man knows that every can counts.
(this was originally a proverb about recycling, but there is greater wisdom here I think!)
God gives dreams to fill us with hope,
but the fool throws them away.
The wise man rejoices when dark clouds gather,
but the fool shuns the rain.
A friend's words bring joy and comfort,
but a stranger's greeting is unusual.

Hope you enjoy these words as much as I have. This is a pretty amazing group of young people.

Pastor Glen

The teacher becomes the student

This week at confirmation camp, I've invited our students to try their hand at writing. Today, we've been looking at lament psalms, and this is what they've written today:

Our world is dying,
people are not helping.
People are becoming poor
and no one puts a penny in their cup.

People should have the same rights!
Why separate someone becomes of their color or clique?

Fighting is not the answer.
Let the Lord help you!
The Lord will take you,
live your life well.

Stop the wars, O God, there is too much fighting in the world.

And some words of comfort:

The Lord will let you be with your loved ones,
you will be raised to heaven in time.
Be strong and don't give up,
let God take the lead.
He will always be there in the time of need,
never forsake or turn away from the Lord.
The Lord protects us,
we are his children.

And one more:

Do I do well, O Lord,
am I doing it right?
Talk to me and tell me yes,
your words are tried and true.

Tomorrow - Words of Wisdom! I can hardly wait.

a forgotten word

John 3:17 is the poor country cousin of Bible verses.

Everybody knows John 3:16. We’ve seen the crazy guy with the multi-colored wig at the football games with his big sign often enough to know that John 3:16 is important. Even Luther called it the gospel within the gospel. ““For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” It’s all there, everything that’s important to faith: the love of God, the sending of the Son, the end of death and the wide open door to heaven. A simple saying.

But the implications, oh, the implications. They’ll get your every time.

Which is where poor old 3:17 comes in. It is one thing to speak the tender and pleasant word of grace. It is whole other thing to be confronted directly with the full outcome of grace, to face what it really means, to be called to preach it boldly and live it wholly and allow it to change your beliefs and your actions. It seems well enough to say that God loves the world, that he gave us Jesus. But what if that actually meant something?

“Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” After the warm and fuzzy thoughts of verse 16, it seems that this grace stuff may not be as good a deal as we had originally hoped. No condemning? None at all? Because we need judgment. Judgment gives the world order, allows it to make sense. Please, we hope, we plead, at least a little judgment, at least a little punishment, at least a little wrath. For who will hold in check the forces of evil that surround us if we take condemnation completely off of the table!

Such need for judgment surely underlies the recent events in Wichita. For what else would oblige a man to enter a church (of all places) and boldly and take a gun and end a life? Because it was deserved, one would say. Because it was just. Because it was necessary to end the other wrong, the greater wrong. Let us consider that an argument could be made for such judgment, such condemnation. Dr. Tiller was an abortion doctor, even a late-term abortion doctor. Shall we just stand idly by as such acts are committed? Are we just spectators in God’s world, or is our calling to discipleship serious?

We need judgment, do we not? Shall evil reign freely?

But it is, of course, that same zeal which turns our condemnation back upon us. If not always as dramatically, we encounter our own destruction in the judgment of others. Judgment is our festering swamp, the quicksand that oozes us toward the oblivion of our own end. We are judgment addicts, living from one condemnation fix to another. But the joke is on us, for this is the painful truth of John 3:16 – there is no judgment which can redeem this world. There is only one path to freedom, the product of grace which is the Son. It is not just a nice thing. It is the death of condemnation, and, as such, of us.

The true tragedy of Wichita sleeps beneath the horror of a cold-blooded killing in the house of God. It is the death of faith, the repudiation of grace, the denial of the consequence of salvation. Yes, there is an end to the atrocity that is abortion in our world. But it must be God’s end, it must be an end found in the same grace that brought us Christ. For God has sent us this new day, not for our condemnation, but that we might all be saved.

It says so in John 3:17. Give it a read sometime.

Everything I know about Evangelism I learned from from teenage girls in love on Facebook!

Enough of seminars and specialists and books. Find a teenager in love and see what Evangelism aspires to be.

Their status update is a constant litany of sameness. Waiting for a date with their boyfriend. Getting ready for a date with their boyfriend. On a date with their boyfriend. Just home from a date with their boyfriend. Planning the next date with their boyfriend. Their perfect, sweet, wonderful, cute, can-do-no-wrong heaven-sent angel who rules their every thought and dream.

They can hardly believe love happened to them. And they must tell you all about it.

It is as if they had invented love. As if no one had ever loved before. As if, in the entire history of humankind, there had never been such a perfect union of souls, as if God had invented this whole love thing just for them. As if each day dawned new simply because of their love. As if, by the sheer virtue of their presence on the planet, birds knew to sing and flowers learned to bloom.

And as a wise and grizzled veteran of love, you want to help them. You want to warn them that teen love is fleeting and insubstantial. You say that it will not last. You say things like grow up, go out and find a job, get serious about your life, you should play the field a little before you throw your future away over some boy.

They will not listen. Would you?

Teenage girls in love do not judge you. They barely notice you, and then only as a beneficiary over whom to gush about the perfection which is their love. They have a certain amount of pity for you, not enjoying such love, but if you’re interested, they know a certain cute boy, very sweet, and they could set you up with him, yeah, we should double date …

Teenage girls do not explain love. They do not knock on your door or hand you a pamphlet. They do not write treatises about love – they write poems and songs. They see their love in everything around them. They ruin bookcovers with hearts and flowers and practiced signatures. They do not care that they are using up their cell phone minutes or missing their favorite TV show. They are in love.

And if the slightest misspoken word or misdeed should endanger their relationship, then all life must come to a halt until amends are made, for they could never go on without their love.

You look at them with great scorn and deep jealousy. You are old and tired and you wish with every fiber of your being that you could feel that way again. But you’ve discovered life, and you have no time for fantasies and dreams like love and hope. But imagine if, even for a second, the church could be at least a little in teenage love with its perfect savior. What a different world it would be.

Like totally!

Theologian-in-Chief

In the true spirit of “the Priesthood of all Believers,” the President entered the theological fray during his commencement address at Notre Dame last weekend. He posits an interesting thought:

The ultimate irony of faith is that it necessarily admits doubt. It is the belief in things not seen. It is beyond our capacity as human beings to know with certainty what God has planned for us or what He asks of us, and those of us who believe must trust that His wisdom is greater than our own. This doubt should not push us away from our faith. But it should humble us. It should temper our passions, and cause us to be wary of self-righteousness.

This comment was a precursor, of course, to the President’s exhortation to a humbler, gentler discourse on topics of all kinds and in particular the one over which he found himself at odds with so much of his audience. But it also gets to the heart of matters, which is probably why he drew criticism. Michael Sean Winters says, “it is not doubt that invites humility. It is faith itself …” Pardon the pun, but from a purely empirical point of view, Winters’ point seems doubtful to me.

I see people every day who are doubtless and assured in their faith. They are on my Television and Radio and they pen strongly worded diatribes in my local newspaper and on the internet. They gather at places like Westboro Baptist church and are so absolutely certain of their dogma that they hardly blink as they consign their neighbors to eternal damnation. They wave and shout and cry in the pews, impressed at the dynamic power of their faith. They have humility, yes, the certain and confident humility that they have chosen wisely in their faith, they are awed by that to which they belong and don’t understand why I’m not awed as well.

But I also meet people who have a different kind of faith, a courageous faith that sees bluntly the works of this world and the dark thoughts of their hearts and trembles at the implausibility of their salvation. They carry thoroughly searched and worn out Bibles, and they pray quietly crumpled in their pews, not sure if they belong in the presence of such a God, but desperately hopeful that they might end up there regardless. Doubt is their assurance – there is nowhere else to turn.

Paul Tillich wrote in Dynamics of Faith that “serious doubt is confirmation of faith. It indicates the seriousness of the concern …” For faith to be humbling, it must be overwhelming, far above us, beyond understanding and even beyond belief. It is that God who merits trust and worship, and it is that God who rewards meekness each time we open our mouths. We speak of what we do not know because we must. It is the miracle of the Gospel.

Which is where, with all due respect, the President and his critics are mistaken. The question of faith becomes necessarily misdirected when it becomes a question of our faith. But the Gospel reminds us that faith itself is the gift of the resurrection, that every self-endeavor dies on the cross, that all human striving, with or without doubt is insufficient. “I believe that I cannot by my own faith or effort believe in my Lord Jesus Christ or come to him …”

Winters asserts confidently that, “there is nothing ironic about faith.” Really? I find it amazingly ironic to glorify an ancient symbol of torture and death, to feast on a bit of bread and wine and dare to call them body and blood, to pray to the very creator of all and be promised that he counts even the hairs on my head. Ironic? Please. More like ridiculous. Foolish. Unbelievable.

For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 1 Corinthians 1:22-24

a spring parable

In spring comes my nemesis.

They look innocent enough, to be sure, small golden wisps floating innocently to the warm spring earth. But, oh, how they float. By the thousands they come, a blizzard of debris that layers the ground with promises of yardwork, dirty fingernails and sore backs.

They are of course seeds, these falling helicopters from my wonderful maple tree, God’s clever plan to procreate acer saccharinum from generation to generation. And they are clever bits of biological engineering, wafting gently to the waiting ground, their slender fins atwirl, ensuring that they nose to the earth in such a way as to maximize their opportunity to find a fertile place waiting and stretch out their roots and make life.

One wonders about the farmer who sows his seeds so indiscriminately. For each that finds worthy ground, thousands end on roof and sidewalk. They fall millions by millions, but how many, really, might ever fulfill their purpose? One, or two? A handful at most. Small outcome for such great hope.

And as he sowed, some seed fell on the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Other seed fell on rocky ground, where it did not have much soil, and it sprang up quickly, since it had no depth of soil. And when the sun rose, it was scorched; and since it had no root, it withered away. Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain. (Mark 4:4-7)

Too often we view life as such a mistake. It falls all around us and we treat it as so much litter. It is in our way. It is not pleasing by our standards. It does not fit into our landscape. We cannot perceive its higher purpose, so we disregard both its creative source and its creative aspiration. It is too easy to dehumanize the other, to devalue and dispose. It is as if we despise it.

But even more so, we fear it. It overwhelms us, this promise of Grace. For God is the sower in this parable, casting seeds far and wide in some unknown but insistent plan. This is the unseen value of life, that it comes so abundantly, so madly. Where it seems only one or two seeds might do, God sends millions. Where we might plant more cautiously, God sows everywhere. Each seed carries in it a divine purpose. Each has hope.

So when we take up violence so easily, when we casually label enemy and terrorist, when we justify torture and murder, we mock the creator, the untamed sower, the giver of life. When we are miserly with our regard for others, we are immoral and we reap unto such judgment. We neglect the divine nature, that each life is the same, that each is valuable as the next, that we all fall from the same place to the same earth and in the divine grace we are one.

That is his secret. The divine plan escapes us, but we cannot escape it. We are all part of it, wherever we land. That we would have such grace for others would be a fruitful work indeed.

Other seed fell into good soil and brought forth grain, growing up and increasing and yielding thirty and sixty and a hundredfold.” Mark 4:8

Persistence of remembering

I’ve been haunted by Salvador Dali’s melting clocks, the vision of time passing as fading, dying, dripping slowly away into seeming nothingness. No end, no conclusion, no resolution, but intermindable useless death. Time, or maybe life, seems to be such, without hope or presence or meaning. Just an ethereal wisp, a foggy blanket, an unknown prison.

I wonder this on a week after Easter. There was this one day, this family reunion of a gathering, old unseen friends suddenly reappearing, recommuning, recommitting. Full congregations of well dressed smiling faces and children in bonnets and shined little boy shoes. We are all the church again, hail, we are here, and the meaning and purpose of this place is resurrected with Jesus, the stones of complacency and busyness and distance rolled away and life be praised.

But then a few days past, and the pews again vacated almost as quickly as the tomb. And now time again drips surrealy by, the days long and drawn slowly forward. I wonder, in the empty quiet of the church, if their experience is the same, if the days pass for them in slow motion, in a distant memory of a place they used to know but now only remember like an old faded picture, a worn and broken trinket of a happiness which may or may not have happened, as they return to what they imagine is real life but fear may only be the other.

There tugs at us a memory of a person we used to be, were meant to be, were once a part of if only in the most remote corner of evolution. If only we could reconnect to that memory, only rewrite ourselves into the story, then there might come to us again a realization of the promise of us. But rather we slip silently under and fade into our lives, death coming not in a moment or an end but slowly, surely, unwittingly, bleakly.

But there is a persistence to Grace, too, a quiet not-quite-real tug at consciences and hearts that is more real than us, and cell by cell and bit by bit and memory by memory it drags us ever-complaining forth. Easter comes in passion and high drama, but the rest of the work of resurrection is slow, sure, holy work. We are becoming what we are, as death fades blackly from us there is revealed the truth underneath.

"But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day. The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to new life." II Peter 3:8-9

He persists. Alleluia, life persists.

The surprise that wasn't there

It’s almost hard to remember now, as the boys get older, how much they really loved Easter Egg hunts when they were little. You could just see the amazement in their eyes as our backyard - which they had inhabited for countless hours - was suddenly full of these wonderful treasures! Where did they come from? But that question was mostly lost in the joy of finding more and more and more …

And then the real fun – opening the eggs up and finding all the goodies – candy, coins, toys. Each egg seems to hold something even better than the last and the eyes grow rounder as the pile grows bigger and bigger and bigger …

The women traveling to the tomb on the first Easter Sunday had a similar, if completely opposite, experience. They knew perfectly well how things should be and what they would find and how they would feel and what they would do. And then, BANG! A barrier removed, an empty tomb, an Angel’s words, confusion, fear, wonderment, tears, and a world turned upside down. They came looking for death. But it was gone.

The best surprise is the one that’s not there!

We know what to do with things as they are, as they should be. We’ve known that since we were very young. But this Easter is a new experience, this empty-tomb-faith, this confrontation that sends us out back into the world empty-handed, with prior expectations askew and all the things we knew for sure now shattered and all we have to go on, to go with, finally, is the drama and magic of faith itself.

This is not candy or money or toys. It is much better. It is life. It is nothing that was, and everything that could be. Go. The tomb is empty. Death is over. Go.

The church is dead. Long live the church!

Just in time for our annual Good Friday observance, Newsweek writes up the 2009 American Religious Identification Survey and prophesies the death of Christianity in America. To be sure, the numbers are frightening. Self-identified Christians are decreasing as a portion of the population, the number of people who claim no affiliation with religion has nearly doubled in the last two decades.

I say, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:25)

Now, I agree, the problem is real. If anything, it is understated. Even among the vast majority of Americans who claim the Christian name, there is an ever declining population of regular church-goers and committed servants. Secreted beneath the glittering appeal of immense mega-churches is the unspoken family secret of thousands upon thousands of dying churches in small towns and city neighborhoods. And even among the remnant that clings to the church are a quiet many who have given up in spirit but not in name, who still sit in the pews, going through the motions of devotion, hardly moved and barely incarnate in the Spirit.

But I say that the problem in American is not the death of Christianity. It is the death of the church.

And it may be just in time.

I don’t accept that souls have changed, that humans have dramatically evolved into some new form of being in these last generations. Our innate desire to seek the divine, to find the elusive qualities of hope and grace and joy beyond the confines of this world is the same now as it was the first time our earliest ancestors stood on two legs and gazed at the stars above. The human need for faith transcends time and technology and cannot be delineated in National surveys. Those who believe least in the church in America voted the most in the last election for – wait for it – hope. We will always chafe against death and evil and always quest for their end. There will always be a Savior because there will always need to be.

But the church – she is a human and worldly thing, and her frailties and her sins are easily diagnosed and her days are always marked. Though her blessing and mission is to be the instrument by which God’s Word is channeled unto our striving, she is to many a hindrance to faith. The harder the church seeks to matter in the world, to sit among the powerful and share their influence, to use the channels of politics and law to advance her work, the more she becomes of the world. And the more the church becomes a part of this world the less she becomes of God, until finally God’s Word is mute and the church dies. And so she has.

That is what this survey and many others like it are telling us. The church of this age has failed. We have come to a new Babylonian Captivity, to borrow a phrase from Dr. Luther. The church has come to covet the role of the Pharisees and Chief Priests in the Passion drama, far too captivated by the sturm und drang of the blood and death of Good Friday to ever make it to Easter. In her legalisms and grasping for power, the church has closed the doors of the kingdom to those few, fervent believers who associate with her narrow dogma and so has driven away masses of the lost, of those seeking something greater, something more life-giving, you know, grace.

The church is dead. Long live the church!

We are brought to Good Friday to see God’s work in its purest form: the death of what cannot be for the sake of what must be. The cross is not just a horror picture to bring us to our knees in guilt and trepidation for some approaching day of Judgment. This is a saving work, a breaking down of broken and sinful human forms and human institutions so that something right may take their place. This is the great mystery of God, that every seed must fall to the earth and die, so that it might bear much fruit.

And so the promise beckons us. Easter is coming! Somewhere, beneath the facade of the church of this world is the hidden reality of grace. Like an Easter Egg well placed, it evades our first glance and calls us to seek in diligence and faithfulness. Even as the church passes from this form, God is fashioning a new creation, a new being, a new instrument of Grace and salvation and calling the faithful to His work. I do not write these words because I hate the church – no, I love the church. I pray that it may once again rise and become again God’s Word of Redemption in the world, that we may leave our anger and judgment and worldly lust for power in the tomb behind us and come out into the world where we are desperately needed.

Let this be the Easter that the church rises again. Hallelujah!

Giving what is due

Since I deigned to brag that my NCAA bracket was ahead of the President, it only seems right to acknowledge that he did, in fact, correctly pick North Carolina to win it all. I'm also imagining that Coach K may opt to breakfast on a little humble pie himself this morning. "Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but humbled himself ... " (Philippians 2:5-6)

Looking for an opening

Thomas, who was called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.” John 11:16

In the midst of all the festivities and observances of Holy Week, it’s easy to miss the other major event that comes with the arrival of April: Opening Day! (Perhaps you have the opposite experience.) And not to confuse the two, or even to equate them, but there is a striking similarity.

Finally.

That’s the feeling, after a long cold winter, after desperately following the Hot Stove League and imagining its impact on your favorite team, after long weeks of Spring Training and feverishly examining previously unknown and unheralded rookies, the day comes. Your own home team, in your own home park, bring on the hot dogs and the nachos and the cold beer (not quite so important in chilly April) and let’s PLAY BALL!

I wonder if Jerusalem felt the same way. Three long years of signs and miracles and preaching all around the countryside, in small hamlets and outlying places without names, growing in fame and reputation, but when, WHEN, will Jesus deign to step into the great city herself? That, as much as anything, might be the motivation behind the thronging crowds and the Hosannas and waving palms. Finally, he has come!

Palm Sunday is mostly a day that we observe as an end, or at least as the beginning of the end, the climax of horror and blood and death. But it is for Jesus a day of arrival, an entry, an opening. It is his way into Jerusalem and his way into us, and, as such, a beginning of victory and triumph, of life and life everlasting and abundant. The cross hides the mysteries of Heaven itself, this week is not merely the end of a long Lent but the beginning of a new life, the opening day to what will surely be our best season ever.

Yes, we have finally come, not to our end but to our opening, to the heavens opened up, the gate of eternity visible in death, mercy and divine grace shown in the very human misery of the cross. Prepare to see the stone rolled away, the tomb gaping open, prepare to hear angels bidding us who wait to live, and … let’s PLAY BALL!

Official Proclamation!

I'd like to be among the first to make this April 1st Proclaimation - the community of faith ought to appropriate this secular holiday, known as "April Fool's Day," as an official observance of the church. It was St. Paul, after all, the great planter of the church, who first said, " We are fools for the sake of Christ." (I Corinthians 4:10) Let us wear our Jester's hats with pride!

My eldest, a sophomore in High School, has been encountering the horrible truth about the real world in his studies; experiencing the Holocaust and Darfur in the same week at school. He is in that place where many teenagers who are blessed with the gift of sensitivity find themselves: how can I go forward with my life in a world so broken and desperately evil?

And then last night, he (and a hundred or so of his classmates) put on a wonderful band concert, full of light and joy and surprising genius for a bunch of teenagers. And I was reminded of God's best prescription for dark and ugly days: seek beauty where you can find it, for somewhere, hidden under the gunk and grime of humanity breaks forth the splendor and grace of the kingdom which comes. Easter, death breaking forth from the tomb, life and hope in the cruel misery of the cross.

So let us embrace hope ridiculously, and cling to all things unreasonable: that in the midst of all manner of crisis, economic and political, national and personal, painful and media-driven, we are the fools who still believe in hope, we still trust, and we know the joke. Even here, even now, there is God.

Good one!

When your bracket is falling apart and all that’s left is heaven …

Actually, I’m surprised that I had made it this far. Usually the lifeguard is blowing the whistle and telling me to get out of the pool by the end of the first weekend, but this year I did pretty well until Michigan State made their run and took my tournament winner out and I went through the door with them.

I’m not really that much of a college basketball fan, a consequence of living too far from a local rooting interest in any serious contenders, but I usually fill out a bracket. Why not? It’s a simple diversion, a joyful connection with friends, a playful competition with a minimal stake or reward. I find it hard to apprehend the outrage over the President taking the time to fill out a bracket – and you only need to see his outcome to know that he didn’t put too much time or energy into it (after all, even I beat him!).

It is, of course, at the center of our nature to be competitive, evidenced by the overwhelming nation-wide interest in challenging each other to this contest of blindly foreseeing the outcome of a game played by 18-year-olds. People -especially guys! - I meet are deeply invested in perfecting their bracket, regardless of the fact that it involves something less than the cost of lunch at McDonald’s. There’s pride at stake, bragging rights, winning! And we’re all about that.

Which is the rub, of course. Don’t misunderstand – I’m for winning. I’m for striving, putting forth best efforts, honest competition and learning grace both in victory and defeat. It ought to be within our human nature to always seek success, and desire and drive for the best outcome in all we do. But we must recognize the line where that drive for victory becomes a drive for self, a compulsion for pride and the trappings of mastery which destroy grace, humility, and finally defeats faith.

The savior said, “For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life?" (Matthew 16:24-25) The life that matters is not a tournament, the prize we seek is not a trophy, the final score is measured not by what we have gained, but by what we have given, the victor’s crown is not gold but a twist of thorns covered in blood.

There is an opportunity in this season (the other March Madness that we call Lent) I hope, to be reminded again, that the true value in the tournament of life is not the rewards our labors bring to us, but the value they bring out from us.

Of Easter and Double-Dog-Dares ...

I double dog dare you!

When I was 11, it was the ultimate threat. You could maybe slip away from a simple dare, you could sometimes even evade a double dare, but there was no getting away from the dreaded double-dog-dare. When that challenge was thrown in your face and you saw the expectant and fearful looks on the faces of your friends, the meaning of life snapped into instant focus. Somehow, despite the screaming voices in your head and the butterflies churning around in your stomach, you knew you had to step up.

And so you did.

Fear is a strange thing. It is one of those absolutely common characteristics that make us all human. Sometimes we are victimized by our fear, sometimes we rise above it, but it remains always there, always influencing our choices, defining our makeup, shaping our destiny. Many of our moments of many of our days contain opportunities for fear, usually small frights that are easily overcome. Sometimes, though, there are those great fears, those double-dog-dares, that challenge us at the very core of who we are. Those contests can make us great. Or they can destroy us.

What amazes me most about fear, though, is that it is not real. Fear is not how we react when bad things happen, it’s how we react BEFORE the bad things happens. Fear is the reaction to what we anticipate, what we expect to happen IF we do or do not do a thing. Fear exists, in most part, within ourselves, in past memories and shared experiences and deeply ingrained expectations. It does not take much, no, hardly anything, to bring it up. It comes, whether we bid it or not. The challenge is to not let it destroy us.

Which leads to the answer to the most important question: how do I conquer fear?

The world is full of scared people. You hear it in their voices as they talk about their retirement accounts, the markets, their jobs. You see it in their faces when they hear their neighbor’s bad news and wonder, “What if that happens to me?” The news headlines scream that we should be even more afraid, of terrorism and war, of unemployment and financial ruin, of even each other. It’s a wonder that we haven’t all crumpled into a fetal position in some corner by now.

But we can’t live like that. When the world throws you the old double-dog-dare, you have to answer. The alternative is shame and humiliation and rejection. You have to find, somewhere within yourself, the courage to face that fear and take that dare and grow, live, even triumph.

When the women who followed Jesus traveled to his tomb on that first Easter Sunday, they were afraid. Afraid of the aftermaths from the horrid events of the past Friday, afraid that they wouldn’t be able to roll the stone away from the tomb’s entrance. Then, finding the stone moved and the tomb emptied, they faced a whole new level of fright on seeing the angel and hearing his words. And in its original ending, Mark leaves us in this very human place …

So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid. Mark 16:8

But, of course, we know that they didn’t. We know that somehow, in the face of the most amazing and frightening moment in all of history, they faced up to the angel’s double-dog-dare and they did go out and they did tell, and wow, did they tell! We are the heirs of their courage. We are their victory over fear.

So will we do the same? Will we find the power to overcome the fear of what might be in the awesome witness of what was, what is and what will be? For this is the promise of Easter, He has left the tomb behind, has put fear and terror and death behind him and beckons us forward to a place where we can conquer our fear and change ourselves and change our lives and change our world.

This Jesus, this living Jesus, is the one who is daring us now, double-dog-daring us to live with him, to come out from our own tombs and face the fears inside us and overcome them with the Spirit he has given us in our baptism. What will you dare to do in this brave new Easter world?

As someone who avidly reads several wonderful blogs, it seems a good idea to take up my own best efforts to add to the conversation, and, by some grace, improve the nature of the world we share.

Dr. Luther admonished us to make "plain utterances" of our faith. I find that a great challenge as a preacher, to speak those things which truly reflect the gifts of faith, but do so in a plain way, so that many can hear and know and feel and understand. It is our daily task to use the gift of language well, with beauty that is simple and available to all.

This place that I call home is named by many as the "Plains" because those who first encountered it found it lacking in grandeur, and consequently, interest. But those of us who have been raised here know that its plainness is its very beauty, and though we enjoy a visit to mountain and forest and city as much as anyone, we find ourselves longing for the vast openness and truth of the prairie.

I think many, many people long for that. I believe it often eludes us.

I should only hope that I could bring that same quality to the words that follow here.