Unexpected

As a young boy, I fell in love for the first time, and it was one of those sweaty, dirty, bouncy, affairs. Not too surprisingly, it still goes on. My dad walked me into the backyard, and told me to look up. There was a basketball pole and hoop, stretching forever skyward, and my interest was piqued. I learned the fine art of dribbling, shooting, pretending, and dodging. The pole was cemented in and the base was not level at the ground. If the shot was made just right, and I was standing just wrong...I would get nutted. The ball would bounce right up into my groinal region, and after much pulsation and tears, I would pick myself up and shoot again. It was here that I learned to shoot a sky-hook. Dad was 6'4 and I needed a shot that he couldn't block. The red dirt around the goal became my stomping ground, and eventually around age 10, I beat my dad pretty easily. Unexpectedly, he died in 1983, at the age of 35. That evening I watched my favorite player, Dr. J defeat "Mr. Sky Hook" Kareem Abdul Jabbar in the NBA finals. In high school we played thousands of games of 21 or HORSE or 2 on 2, and I was the star. The perfect afternoon consisted of rigging a Jam box out the back door, blasting some Journey or Prince, and shooting hoops. Many times I would go in the house, remove my socks, and spend lots of time scrubbing off my clay mired legs. I played on the goal on the hill, beside the well until we moved from there in the early 90's.

Today, I went into work and my day did not go as expected. One of our Truck Unloaders died from a heart attack last night. He was 41 years old. He left a wife and 2 kids, ages 4 and 9. I was pretty shaken today, not because he and I were good friends(we were not), but because of the thoughts that dashed about in my mind. I guess because he was young, and left two kids and a wife, 1983 came running backward and knocked on my soul. I thought of my Mom and her strength, and my sister and her love for my father, and the face of the 12 year old redhead hoop star and hurt flooded me. Unexpected emotion on a Wednesday, usually reserved for Sunday.

I left work and walked to the Toy Department. I picked up a large box and some football cards. After paying, I loaded the box in my car, sticking out of the trunk, and headed for home. My night has been immersed in grace and memories...if I didn't know better I can see clay on my feet and hear someone say...look at the rim...follow through...Good Shot Son!

Awe and Wonder

Today, we began the advent season during worship. The sermon focused on Christ being our hope in a world that often seems stagnant, lifeless, and dark. At the conclusion of the service, I lit the candle on the Advent wreath and said, "Christ is the Word made flesh; God dwelling among us, living, moving, and breathing." My son, who is not yet four, seeing the candle light up, in a loud whisper, said,"Wow!" In this sacred moment, a lady in her early eighties dabbed a tear from her left eye, someone coughed, and a father swelled up with pride. Perhaps...maybe...possibly...a little child shall lead them.May we keep our sense of childlike awe and wonder...as we see our Father continue to do amazing things.

Blasphemy

I am a holiday traditionalist, and a creature of habit, when it comes to celebrations. I drink the same nog, deck the same halls, sing the same songs, and especially watch the same movies. Last night, I began to pull the holiday stuff out of the rubbermaid container, and almost had a moment of orgasmic ecstasy. On the top of all the ornaments, garland, and fru-fru was my video collection. My favorites leapt out and danced before my eyes. I have all the Rankin Bass movies: Frosty, Santa Claus is Coming to Town, Little Drummer Boy, The Year without a Santa Claus, and the BEST movie ever for Christmas...Rudolph. I know it by heart, sing all the songs, and do a mean Yukon Cornelius impersonation (which my wife thinks is sexy!). My second favorite movie of the bunch is "How the Grinch Stole Christmas." I saw these movies and was sooo excited. My son came out and jumped up and down. I began to melt, thinking that he shared my joy for the classics. He reached in and grabbed a movie that we had bought last year. He began to jump up and down, and yell..."Daddy, Daddy." It was a Wiggles movie titled, "Santa's Rocking Christmas," and he has watched this horrible movie for 2 days. A Blasphemy....a break from tradition.

As we celebrate Advent, it is so important to realize that we are immersed in a tradition that is a departure from the norm. Jews saw God, as the one who was far away, so holy that approaching him, especially seeing him, could possibly result in death. Notice that any encounter with the semblance of the divine in the scriptures, especially angels, were always prefaced with the warning.."Fear Not." The absurd aspect of advent is that God became like us, He wrapped Himself in the sinful flesh of humanity, and walked among us. The Word became Flesh and dwelt among us...that is unfathomable. Instead of wrapping himself in the flesh of an earthly King to be served, and admired, He became a baby, a crying, screaming, pooping, baby that would grow up and die for us. The unapproachable One can only be approached through Christ; God in the flesh.

At the end of the my son's favorite video, all the Wiggles , goofy characters, and even Greg Brady (I told you it was AWFUL) join hands and sing "Silent Night" together. Wiggly,Goofy characters and has-beens celebrating the Incarnation...sounds like a traditional Christmas to me.

Behealed Preacher

During worship this morning, I felt and looked like death. Three large bumps have appeared on my forehead, I am still feverishly sweaty and blizzardly chilly. I am hacking up aliens and probably smell bad too. Since I am the preacher, and my wife is out of town...I had to go to church. So, the smiley, happy, bubbly mask was applied and I took off on my Golf Cart. To ride a golf cart to worship is pretty cool, I must admit. But not even that helped my attitude, I was still being a big baby!

After winding up the sermon, we transitioned into a time of Thanksgiving prayer. Many people shared, some prayed, voices cracked, and then...God spoke. James, a blind man, burdened with MS, dependent on a wheelchair, and living alone, spoke in a quiet, weak voice. His prayer was brief and life changing for me.

"Lord, thank you for making me just the way I am. Thank You and I love You. Amen"

Well...my zits are still ugly, I smell bad, and I don't want to deal with people today, but because of James,
I am reminded of a t-shirt slogan that says,"I know I'm Special cause God don't make no Junk!!

Roll On, James...and thanks for the Sermon!

Who do you love?

Jesus loves the little children, and as a matter of fact, the song says that color is not a big deal in the economy of God. We know that Jesus loves old people, as well, because He makes the leaves to turn bright colors, so that the geezers can go to the mountains. He gave someone the wisdom to create Viagra, but we will stick to the mountain story. One of our founding fathers, Ben Franklin said, "Beer is living proof that God loves us, and wants us to be happy." So, God loves a lot of folk, and we as the church are called to do the same. I have decided that I am going to love everyone and that idea is pretty fun.
Growing up in church, I was taught to love folk. Our main reason for being, the church people said, was to evangelize. We are to tell others about this love, and invite them to church. This would enable them to get to know God, and to give their money, and hang out with the "Good" people. We could invite them, as long as they were like us. You know, white folk that are not poor, usually 2 parent families, liked NASCAR, football, and chicken. No "niggers" allowed, if mixed race babies came, there were whispers and prayers that the dad would never show up to worship with the white mom. If you were too poor, you were not really welcome. Alcoholics, at least those who were honest about liking to drink, please stay away. If you smoke...we will let you in...just keep some mints handy. If you could use a little soap in your crevices, it would be wise to clean yourself up before entering the sanctuary. If you were Gay...."No queers in HERE."
Somewhere along the way, the Kingdom of God became the Country Club of Conformity. If we listen closely, I think we can hear God vomit, and YELL, " So this is what I bought you for, so that you would forget where you came from, or in reality, still are. If your souls were turned inside out for the world to see, then how brazen would you be? Romans tells you the consequences of a law based faith...You ALWAYS lose!!"
What then is an adequate picture of the Kingdom of God? Frederick Buechner, my favorite author, puts it this way,

"God is the eccentric host who, when the country-club crowd all turn out to have other more important things to do than come live it up with him, goes out into the skid rows and soup kitchens and charity wards and brings home a freak show. The man with no legs who sells shoelaces at the corner. The old woman in the moth-eaten fur coat who makes her daily rounds of the garbage cans. The old wino with his pint in a brown paper bag. The pusher, the whore, the village idiot who stands at the blinker light waving his hand as the cars go by. They are all seated at the damask-laid table in the great hall. The candles are all lit and the champagne glasses filled. At a sign from the host the musicians in their gallery strike up, "Amazing Grace." If you have to explain it, don't bother." (Telling the Truth, Buechner, 1977)

I couldn't have said it better myself.

In My blood

My blood has been infected with something for 30 plus years. My dad gave me an orange shirt with a tiger paw on the front when I was a wee one, and it was then that the love for Clemson began. On Saturday afternoons, we would cook steaks on the grill. We lived on a lake, and just inside the door to our boat house was a radio. WFBC would broadcast the TigerTailgate show and the velvet voice of Jim Phillips would tell the story of mighty Tiger battles with UGA, MD, UNC, NC State, and on the last Saturday of the regular season....the Gamecocks. In the backyard I would play with my nerf football, throwing the perfect spiral, running and catching the game winning pass. If I dropped it, then the defense was offsides...and I tried again.In 1981, my dad and I sat around a TV, and watched Clemson beat Nebraska for the national Championship. It was chilly that evening, and our propane stove in the corner was firing. We called it our Butt stove, as we all took turns warming our buns, not leaving until our legs were "medium rare."In 1983, my father died. The butt stove was still burning, but not much joy was to be found. The games continued in the backyard, but sometimes I would quit before I became the hero. My mom tried her best, and did a great job, but all attempts were feeble, and the gash within my soul would not stop bleeding. I did not choose my parents. For some reason, out of their love for each other, I came to be. I did not choose Clemson as my team, it was chosen for me...and I am thankful. I even married a lovely lady from a family of Tiger grads. Each day, our son goes to school with an orange backpack emblazoned with a tiger paw. This reminds me of heritage, history, identity, and spirituality. Jesus says in John 15, "You have not chosen me...but I have chosen you. We have something in our blood...he is our lifeforce, our defense, our reason for being. The church is something BIG, far bigger than the sum of it's parts, and I am glad the Christ chose me. What about you?

A perfect God does not need Extra Credit

Yesterday, I was involved in a brief conversation that caught me completely off guard. This person said that God was working everything out in her life. She was being obedient (I first thought...Man, Wish I could do that) and because of that, God is working things out for her in the areas of relationships, job, and spiritual life. After the brief statement from the individual, I walked away...numb. She could have been absolutely correct, God could have been working things out just right. But, I wonder how often we say that God is doing this and God is doing that when we really have no clue about such things. I call this GODspeak. Most of the time, I don't even know what I am doing, I think I do but I am usually in a fog. I have no clue what my wife is doing...and my 5 year old son..I cannot even fathom!! If I cannot gauge the actions of humans, How can I dare to say that I know what God is doing? This God we serve often does not make sense. We have tamed Him so that we can place him in our hand, gaze at him, stroke him, and then cage him...only to be released at our pleasure.

This God that we flippantly talk about like our lazy uncle is the God that:
1-Created the world out of NOTHING
2-Spared a righteous Noah, who left the Ark, planted a vineyard and passed out buck-naked drunk.
3-Made a Covenant with Abraham...the liar, son of an idol maker, who never seemed to fully believe the promise..(See Hagar...Ishmael...etc.)
4-Allowed Sarah to be pregnant at a post menopausal age...Can you say 90's
5- Loved Jacob...the scheming deceiver...allowed the 12 tribes to flow from him.

We are just in the early stages of Genesis, and already this God makes no sense!! Usually we use God to affirm our own decisions, and desires. Because if I say God is involved...who would dare dispute or question.Back to the conversation.. So, if this relationship turns out to be a total bummer, if the woman loses her job, or becomes ill, does this mean God is not involved? Perhaps happiness is not always equal to Divine Intervention.What if one is born, the purity of his mother is questioned, he is from the wrong side of the tracks, nothing important happens in his childhood worth noting, he hangs out with a small gang of people of questionable reputation, and he dies a lonely death at a young age...Is God involved? If not, then the life of Christ described above is fruitless. God is often understood most clearly during times of pain and darkness.Televangelists speak of God as a Cosmic ATM. If you pull this lever, pray this prayer, sow this seed into their ministry, then God will BLESS you. God is not a trained monkey, responding to our stimulus...required to respond. Jesus, had nothing of material significance and could have used a battery operated beard and moustache trimmer...but He had enough. We have made him too cozy, too explainable, too chumsy. C.S. Lewis described Aslan, the God/Christ/redeemer figure in his Narnia series this way when the children ask if He is a Safe Lion, "Of course he Isn't Safe....But He is Good." Much more than a hot pot on a stove...we should handle Him with Great Care. He is the Enigma, the Unknowable Fact, the Intimate Stranger...the Aggressive Lover...the quiet Storm. What enigma is he to You??

A sermon revisited

The sermon this morning focused on Esau returning home just after Jacob and Rebekkah had deceived Isaac. Esau returned after Isaac had sent him away to hunt game and prepare his favorite stew....and then receive the Hebrew patriarchal blessing. Jacob, the deceiver, beat Esau to the punch, and received the blessing in a dramatic episode of trickery and dress-up. Disguised as Esau, Jacob conned Isaac into giving him the blessing intended for the oldest Son. Esau went about doing the task that Isaac had given him, returned from the field, and prepared the stew. He appeared before his father and said,"Father, here I am", to which he was greeted by the words that would probably haunt him forever. Looking into the face of his old, blind, pitiful, scammed father, Esau hears the question, "Who are You?" The welcome mat just got yanked from beneath the tired, clay mired feet of Esau, the hairy one.This story is extremely interesting when compared to the story of The Prodigal. The selfish Prodigal was welcomed with open arms by the Father who ran to meet him, and embraced him, and welcomed him home. Even after the son had been living it up with Women, Booze, and sleeping and eating with the pigs, the father said...Welcome Home.How do you view God? As the one who fails to even know who you are? As the one who gives Your blessing to someone else? Or perhaps he is the God who throws a party when you return to him and restores all that has been broken.This morning I saw a tear in the eye of a visitor during the sermon. She had been invited to worship by her neighbor. A few moments later she approached the Table, and heard the words, "The Body of Christ....Broken for You and The Blood of Christ Given for You", to which she replied..."Thanks Be To God." Although I did not smell the fatted calf, I could see a celebration begin on her face, realizing that God knows her intimately, and that she is welcomed home. Now, if I can only remember that the naked preacher can also look down and see the Welcome mat at the door of my Father's house. So...party On!!

The Teacher

For me, preaching is teaching. Many ministers try to indoctrinate their congregation in a Jim Jones, Peoples Temple, drink the Kool-Aid kind of way. I approach the pulpit in a different way. As I plan a sermon, I am lead by the following question....What are the needs of the people present? I have come to understand life in the following way: Each of us wants to be fully known, an Eden like experience, where we are naked and bouncy and transparent before others. But we have been paralyzed by fear and mistrust. When we were younger, we told our best friend a secret, and even after a double pinkie swear....it was told to someone else. Society told us that we must act or dress or speak a certain way to fit in. Our friends liked us in high school when we were cool or had a nice car or through the best party, or knew where to get alcohol without being carded. So, we became someone else, hiding behind a caricature of our authentic self, to live a life as a fraud, an actor, a mime. We want to be ourselves, to share openly who we are: alcoholic, psychotic, adulterer, obsessive, abuser, or controller. But we are afraid to be who we are....instead we are settling to be who others say we should be.

This point melts into the second one...Each of us also wants to be fully loved! We want people to love us and walk beside us and share our joys and pain. Most of our actions are a sad fumbling, drunken, attempt to cry out to others and say...love me...listen to me...help me to be me.We are really providing ministry to the lives of a person, when we allow them to be their Authentic self. We are whole only when we are fully known and fully loved..even after we are fully known. The scriptures tells of this because of the Love of Christ toward us. Romans 5:8 says that God knew us fully(While we were still sinners) and loved us anyway(Christ died for us).

We are only authentic when we realize that our merit is therefore, not based on our DOING, but is totally, hopelessly, and graciously based on our BEING. So, another Sunday is coming. We will gather around the table of Christ, and break bread and drink from the cup and hear Him whisper....."I love You.....still."

"You Look Marvelous." The Theology of Billy Crystal

I often only give compliments when I feel that I need to. Perhaps for self preservation, advancement, etc. Oddly, I have been thinking lately about how little I do for purely selfless reasons. Am I nice to my wife because she deserves it, or do I do it only for her to give me a few moments peace to read or watch sports? Am I spending time with my son because he is fabulous, or am I guided by the thought that I may die..and I wonder and wish that he will remember a dad who spent time with him. Do I call my mom because I love her, and am concerned about her...or am I worried about looking in a casket after she is dead and then becoming filled with guilt? Am I nice to people so that they will think that I am a nice guy, or am I genuinely concerned about them? Do I worship because God is Worthy, not because of what He has done, but simply because of who He is....or do I worship because I am guilted into doing it by my thought. Motives and motivation.....If we really question them, I think we will be surprised who we really are. Who are we? Probably a bunch of people, driven by ego and low self esteem, and usually as fake as Designer purses at the Jockey Lot.

The Gospel according to Arnold

Time seems to freeze as I step out from the congregation and walk toward the front of the room. I come from the group for a reason. I come from their midst because I am one of them. I am a struggler in the journey of Faith. I hurt, I screw off, I screw up, I am a selfish egomaniac, I am overly competitive, I love to be right, and I have fear. Many times weekly, a person like me, or perhaps very different, walks before a group and pauses. What do they see? What do they say?I hear the faint buzz of fluorescent bulbs from flickering lights overhead. An older lady who cannot see, fumbles with her watch. A blind gentleman that is in a wheelchair, suffering from MS fidgets, yet keeps his head facing forward. Someone drops a hymnal and I hear them grunt as they lean over to retrieve it. A middle age female pulls Tic-Tacs from her purse and these mini-maracas play a not so refreshing tune. It seems, almost miraculously, that now all eyes are on me....Awaiting the answer to the important question," What You talkin' bout preacher? " They each seem to say,"We know these stories, we have heard them over and over and over. We know the nuances of each Gospel. We know that Paul is important. The Satan snake is still a slithering story that we find hard to catch up to. We want a sermon with heart. A little dab of Truth would do us. Have you got a little of that preacher? Are your pockets full of condemnation? I hope not, as I get enough of that at work, at home, and especially when I look in the mirror. Is that your plan preacher? We need our shepherd to feed us, to lead us...not strike us."The preacher has a question too. This question cuts to the very marrow of my bones. It is the hangnail of my soul. This question I ask myself often...sometimes it haunts me and makes me wonder and even doubt. I have my answer to this question. I will share it with you soon! Yet, I wonder what is Your answer. First, reflect on my question......

Does this Message really matter?
Is it Truth? Does anyone really care?