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It’s a pretty funny world that we live in.

It turns out that the quintessentially all-American slacker-guy character on those clever FreeCreditReport.com commercials isn’t American at all. He is a French Canadian from Quebec by the name of Eric Violette. Complete with French Canadian accent. The ads were not filmed in a suburban basement in Cleveland or a seafood Restaurant in Omaha. They were filmed in Montreal.

Who’d thunk?

It is, of course, the nature of TV to present the world as allusion, as perception, as the shadow of reality either as we hope it would be or fear it actually might. It is why we love it so much, because it sets us free from the hard truths of the real world, grants us escape both from the boredom and the perils of daily life.

Which is why the TV world is starting to invade the real world. Because we know that it’s much more fun, much more thrilling, much more safe, and much more pleasurable than real life. Given the choice between the life I’m living and the one I’m watching on the TV, I’ll take the TV.

And it’s simpler. Easier.

But not this week.

We call this Holy Week, these all powerful, history-shaping events of Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter. The Triumphal Entry, the Last Supper, the Crucifixion. Events that are beyond historical, more than real. Days that define us no matter how we obfuscate. The Resurrection. Reality that cannot be contained within the stark boundary of what we know. Or even imagine.

Jesus looks down from the cross and mocks our simulated sufferings, our feigned indignations, our imaginary hardships. Our self-pity rings hollow in the face of his wounds, his blood, his death. The cross calls us harshly and directly back to reality, it calls us to put to death every self-deception, every false nuance, every cleverly misspoken word, every outright lie.

Dr. Luther taught us that a right understanding of the cross requires us to “call the thing what it actually is.” (Heidelberg Disputation) So, this week (at least) let us rather call things what they are.

· The phrase “in the crosshairs” is, in fact, a violent metaphor which has no place in constructive public debate and does not belong on the lips of people who aspire to be leaders in this country or any other.

· “No” for the sake of no is obstructionist, regardless of your convictions.

· Pedophilia is not a sexual orientation, it is a crime with neither excuse nor exemption. It deserves to be treated as such in every circumstance.

· If the cost of reconciliation is land, continuing to build new settlements is not a commitment to peace.

· "Christian" and "militia" are contradictory, not complimentary, terms.

It is the nature of politicians, human beings all, to not mean what they say. It is the failure of a TV addled generation that we accept it. It is why we do not progress as people – if we say nothing, then to do what we say is to do nothing. But thanks be to God for the gift of grace, for now he does what he says. Love is not word or concept, it is an amazing reality, plainly visible on the cross, daily available in the living and resurrected word.

As He practices what he preaches, so let us strive to do the same. Let us call ourselves what we truly are – debtors to his compassion and hopers for the resurrected life.

A good Holy Week and Happy Easter to all.

Buzzer beaters and legislative compromises

You have to admit, it was a pretty improbable ending.

The outcome seemed, at least by most accounts, a foregone conclusion. The heavy weight of history and tradition, the clear opinion of pundits, odds makers and amateur observers alike made it obvious to all that this was not going to happen. Never.

Even the President didn’t predict it.

But then, the long determined effort, the defiant march forward, the last-minute scramble, and suddenly, for the sake of much toil against a seemingly superior foe, victory! To the consternation of many, the unexpected happens.

And that was just the basketball tournament.

On a side note, that the winning shot was made by the son of an Iranian immigrant with the extraordinary name of Ali Farokhmanesh is an amazing and fun conversation all to itself. Perhaps electing a President with the middle name Hussein had a greater impact on the world than we knew.

Sunday night, after more than a year of debating, cajoling, deal-making, huckstering and occasionally, if rarely, leading, the House of Representatives voted for Health Care Reform in America. It is, to be sure, not the legislation that many people (including this writer) wanted. It is not single payer Health Care. It does not contain the stronger guarantee of coverage for all that a robust Public Option for Health Insurance would have provided.

Perhaps some day in the future we will take another step in that direction. Perhaps our children will finish what we were unable to accomplish.

But it does one important thing - it proudly and clearly signals a new value in our society. No longer will it be the case in America that anyone should go without health care because they can’t afford it.

And it only took some 100 years to get here.

For me, it is a another reminder of the miraculous way that God works. Despite the name-calling, the fear-mongering, the outright lying by politicians and pundits and TV talking heads passing themselves off as journalists, the deed is done. Notwithstanding the worst of human nature, the goal is met. Many obstacles had to be overcome, most of them of our own making, but here we are in a brand new world, resurrected again.

St. Paul says that God’s Word exists in the world as a treasure in “clay jars.” Pedestrian, brittle, broken pottery holding that of greatest value. Politicians actually passing important legislation. It seems that we have proven once again how much God loves to work through the incredible messiness of human activity. Maybe he just loves an underdog as much as the next guy. Because there is nothing like a big upset to turn your bracket upside down and change everything.

Not too long ago it seemed like it was going to take a last minute, long three-pointer to get a Health Care bill passed. And so it did. Thanks, Ali.

In which Glen Beck does something good for the world

Thank God for Glenn Beck!

In the second century, a man named Marcion came to Rome. He was a avid student of Paul, and he noticed that there was a dramatic difference between the wrath-filled, eye-for-an-eye God of the Old Testament, and the merciful, forgiving Jesus Christ of the New Testament. They were, in his eyes, obviously not the same God. And so he collected the first Bible, including 11 epistles and the Gospel of Luke, and proclaimed the new, and superior, deity Jesus Christ as the replacement for the vengeful, smiting God of the Torah.

He did the church a favor. His heresy forced the church to consider carefully its relationship to the Jewish Scriptures, to put its theological house in order and to properly proclaim the amazing story of love that is the whole history of God with his peoples, from the beginning of creation to the empty tomb of Easter. Marcion made the church of Jesus Christ better by being so amazingly ,dramatically wrong.

And now Glenn Beck has done the same.

On a recent radio show, Beck urged his listeners to “run as fast as you can” from any church that preaches social justice. First of all, that’s probably correct. Social justice is a political category. Preachers of the gospel should not preach social justice. They should preach Biblical Justice. Which is a far more worthy of Beck’s fright.

Socialism (which is what he really means) is a political system that provides financial support to the poor through various taxes imposed on the working class and the wealthy. It aims to redistribute society’s wealth, causing the rich to be not-so-rich so that the poor are not-so-poor.

Weenies.

Biblical Justice demands much more. Much more. God complains against those who “rob the poor of my people of their right, that widows may be your spoil, and that you may make the orphans your prey …” (Isaiah 10:2). The very existence of the poor is an indictment against the rich; no, against the whole of society. If even one goes without, one orphan, one widow goes uncared for, then all are condemned. Period.

Biblical justice is hard, It is not for the faint of heart.

Biblical justice does not suffer fools, it is not a part-time occupation, it is not for pretenders or do-gooders or theorists. Or radio talk-show hosts.

Biblical justice is not about charity, about generosity, even about love. Those are each good things, but pale in comparison. Even if Bill Gates gives a billion dollars to good causes, he still has four billion to live on, which I’m guessing means he can still live pretty well, much better say, than the average person living in their car. The issue is not how much rich people give to charity or how heavy their tax burden is. No, the issue is the very notion that some people should be rewarded and some should not, that some should have and some should not. In the kingdom of God, ruled by Grace and not by sin, there should be no poor people. There should be no rich people. There should only be God's people.

And God's word declares that we should aspire not to work at the problem, not to advance the cause, but to end poverty. Period. That is the only acceptable “ism” in the eyes of our God.

I don’t imagine that Glenn Beck can get his head around that idea. Then again, no one can. But let us give thanks for his willingness to allow his ignorance and pettiness to be publicly displayed, that a real conversation might be engaged, that discerning people of faith might speak the right Word of God into the darkness that passes for public discourse in America.

Beck has drawn a lot of angry reaction. Perhaps he deserves it, probably he intended it. But let’s allow the dust to settle, and see if instead we can coax some small part of the truth to arise. That is God’s purpose for heretics, after all. For blowhards, idiots, and small-minded fools, too.

May his will be done!

to live an After Life

Is there life after Easter?

It is, I suppose, a question that is particularly concerning to preachers. The gist of the puzzle is the realization that, putting so much energy and attention and time into planning for one great day, for one special holiday, it is much too easy to forget to plan for whatever will come afterwards.

It happens to me every year. Somewhere along the path of Lent the idea will sneak into the edges of my consciousness that Easter will come and then there will be an “after Easter” in which I will need to be prepared to preach, teach, plan, and basically do life some more. Even though my whole focus is on one day, life begets the constant reminder of what comes next.

I wonder if basketball players have the same problem in the tournament season. Every game is win-or-go-home. But if you win, and of course you hope that you do, you have to turn in a matter of days or perhaps hours and play a game which you haven’t thought too much about, what with concentrating on winning the one at hand first.

And how do you do that?

It is something like a life question. Existence comes at us in a series of events, tests, victories, moments, crisis’, each demanding our full attention and desire. And after each one comes yet another and another and another for which, it often turns out, we are scarcely prepared.

We are always looking forward to an Easter of one kind or another. But will we be ready for what comes next?

I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. John 10:10

Faith, it turns out, is not so much as a destination as a launching. We search for the instance of belief, but it is to what follows that we are called. Grace is not a moment, an act, but a flow, a direction. Life is not a test, but an engagement in learning, growing, changing, an irresistible movement, towards, forward, yearning, stretching …

It is our nature to turn time into the finite, to seek an end of it, whether it be our own or someone else’s. This is the nature of our brokenness or perhaps the definition of all of it. That we even imagine a horizon, let alone seek its conquest, is the smallness of spirit that defies the God who made us. We are travelers, pilgrims, journeying along a creation, here for a time but then again here for much time, for pressing on time, for a next experience of time. We are not about things in the singular, we are born to the life eternal, not just for then but to bring its sense and meaning into now.

Abundant life means more than this life, it demands our constant faith and hope in after.

I should probably be getting ready for that.

They call it "joy!" You should try it.

You knew it was going to be something special.

Let me say from the start that I’m not really a hockey fan. And so even though I knew it was going to be a big game, I didn’t watch much of the gold medal match at the Olympics between the US and Canada - only switching over from time to time so I could keep an eye on the score and be able to talk intelligently about the outcome on Monday. That is, until it went to overtime, at which point I put down the remote and settled in to watch what I knew was going to be a great finish.

Let me also say that I was truly rooting for the good ‘ole US to win, what with being a proud American and having heard how really well they had played for the entire tournament and remembering very well how amazing the Miracle on Ice was 30 years ago.

But I wasn’t unhappy with the outcome. Because as soon as I saw Canada score, I knew something great was going to happen, something we hardly ever see, something I wish we could see more often. I knew we were about to see a truly rare experience in human life.

I knew we were about to see joy.

Now, real joy is a extraordinary thing. The average person has occasional bouts of happiness, fits of giggles and even occasional moments of satiety. But joy, real joy, pure joy, well, you don’t see that very often. That sweet release, that complete free assurance that the world is right in its orbit and things are the best they can be, that is a exceptional thing indeed.

I understand. After all, the opposite of joy, whatever we might name it, is far more prevalent on this side of the Kingdom. We experience so much misery, sadness, suffering and sorrow that we become acclimated to it, prepared for it, even expectant of it. We stand in the midst of bliss waiting for the the rain to fall, for the other shoe to drop, for reality to come crashing down on whatever parade has come our way.

We believe in gloom, because it is what we see and experience. Joy, on the other hand, lives among us mostly as myth. Unprepared, we are disqualified in its presence.

I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete. John 15:11

If only we believed it. If only we could, for even one moment, live by faith and not merely by sight, if we could trust the God of what will be and not the Devil of what is, then we might find one of those elusive moments and experience joy, be captivated and carried away by it, and sing, O Lord, sing. Not unlike those Canadians, who’s rafter-shaking rendition of their National Anthem raised shivers up and down my spine.

No, a hockey game is not forever. Nor is much of what can bring joy in this world, for life, such as it is, will always be waiting. But joy is forever, and sometimes we can taste it and touch it, even briefly, and be transported in Spirit to what will come. A victory, a birth, a sunny day, these are the reminders that the world is more than it seems, and so are we.

Complete the joy!