Month: March 2013 Page 1 of 2

Bono and Grover

On March 31, 2013

It is inscribed in the lore of Hope Presbyterian Church in Bradenton the Sunday that the preacher, showing off his “acquaintance” with pop culture, made reference to the lead singer of the band U2, pronouncing Bono with both o’s long. Whatever point I was making was quickly lost as those in the know snickered with silent amusement mixed with pity.

That was then. I’m far more careful now.

Sort of.

Easter Sunday at Covenant Presbyterian Church is one of two or three Sundays each year that we do not dismiss the children to children’s church before the sermon. So since my audience was much larger and much younger than normal, I made an extra effort to speak to the children.

My opening reference to The Wiggles went fine. No problem there.

But then, trying to give the children something to look forward to, I assured them that Elmo was going to make an appearance in the sermon. A brilliant strategy, thought I.

Twenty minutes in, when the slide with Elmo’s picture appeared, I expected, properly, for the children to perk up and some to say, “There he is!”

But they didn’t. I was surprised. Shocked, almost. I really expected them to be excited.

And then it was pointed out to me that the slide in question was in fact not Elmo, but Grover.

Grover

One child reportedly said to his parents after the sermon, “But Elmo never came.” This is a failure of Bono proportions.

As a follow up, after the service, I found this on my desk.

SesameStreet

I will be studying my Sesame Street characters this week.

And how to pronounce the names of major pop artists.

What will you be doing?

Easter Celebrates the Impossible

By Randy

On March 31, 2013

In Uncategorized

When the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. And they were saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance of the tomb?” And looking up, they saw that the stone had been rolled back— it was very large. And entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, dressed in a white robe, and they were alarmed. And he said to them, “Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen; he is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.” And they went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had seized them, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid. (Mark 16:1-8)

To be a Christian is to be a part of something impossible.

People struggle with Christianity as long as it contains vestiges of the impossible. An invisible God. A body of water split in two. A man raised from the dead. Things which our minds cannot comprehend.

That we are Christians is a glimpse into the impossible. Born children of wrath, we are welcomed as children of God. Inclined by nature to deify ourselves, we are moved to cast our crowns at the feet of Another. Those unable to imagine a god who can care for them find themselves comforted by his favor.

To be a Christian is to be a part of something impossible.

I might list the various persons who influenced over the years my Christian convictions – parents, pastors, friends – and sketch in great detail how their influence molded my ways of seeing God, but in the end they were channels he used to impossibly capture my heart. It was he who enabled me to delight in what my stubborn heart would otherwise have refused to see.

I think of others in my congregation, who sit with us on a Sunday morning, and I ponder why they are there. There is no plan or scheme that could have drawn them there. Only God. We are all a part of something impossible.

The Christian church by worshiping on Sunday is reminded that is a part of something impossible. It was on a Sunday, the first day of the week, that a group of women gathered at a tomb and found it empty. And at Easter we gather with them to once again peer into that empty tomb and declare, “He is not here. He is risen!” Impossible though it was and always will be.

Easter is that grand reminder that what is not possible for humanity is possible for God. To be a Christian is to be a part of something wonderfully impossible. And the God who did the impossible continues to surprise us with the impossible.

I cannot tell you where the next member of my church or yours will come from. But I can tell you that he or she will surprise us. There will be something impossible in their story, and the path that led them to us. And so we build relationships and probe our networks and live the gospel among those around us knowing that if any respond, it will be a surprise. It’s impossible. But we are a part of something impossible made possible.

This Easter, you may be facing impossible situations in your family, in your marriage, in your health, in your work, in your financial situation. Some hopes and dreams and expectations may have to die, and pain may have to be endured. But what God resurrects will be glorious, and we cannot now imagine it, because it may now seem impossible.

God calls us to ministry, to show mercy, to seek opportunities to speak the gospel into the lives of others. It’s impossible, we say. God cannot use us. Sure he can. To be a Christian is to be a part of something impossible.

I’m not easily aroused to hope. I stand at the edge of the Red Sea and prepare to die while Moses lifts his rod and the sea parts. I do not easily grab hold of the impossible and move forward. But that is what God calls us to.

This Easter my prayer is that we will once more be reminded that to be a Christian is to be a part of something wonderfully impossible.

—

Note: this was adapted from ConTent, the newsletter of Covenant Presbyterian Church of Oviedo, Florida

Nickel, RIP

By Randy

On March 30, 2013

In Sports

He had a good life, my nickel. But with Indiana’s loss, his run is over.

If anyone is interested, I will give him free to a good home.

The Cornerstone

By Randy

On March 30, 2013

In Theology

The New Testament writers are united in identifying the ‘stone the builders rejected’ which has become the ‘chief cornerstone’ with Jesus (Psalm 118:22, and Matthew 21:42, Mark 12:10, Luke 20:17, Acts 4:17, and 1 Peter 2:7).

A Christian’s faith can often be shaken and challenged. Doubt can be a real companion for sensitive souls. Easter returns us to the cornerstone of our faith, Jesus Christ once rejected now raised from the dead.

And this effects everything.

“The resurrection gives coherence to the entire New Testament: to the story of the virgin birth, to the miracles, to the transfiguration, to the titles ascribed to Jesus, to the worship accorded him, to Pentecost, to the idea of ‘en Christou’, to the perception of his death as an atoning sacrifice, to the expectation of the parousia, to the hope of resurrection and to the belief in a final judgment. It explains the disciples’ faith and martyrdom, the survival of the church, the expansion of Christianity and the existence of the Gospel of John.” (Donald Macleod, The Person of Christ, page 237)

Nickel Fading Fast

By Randy

On March 27, 2013

In Sports

At the end of the second round of the NCAA tournament, my precious Nickel is showing his limitations. He’s not doing badly, but his stellar first round picks were not matched by his second round. Silver’s were more, well, sterling.

So, here are the scores following the second round (second round games score two points/victory).

Offensive Ranking: 20
Defensive Ranking: 30
Average Ranking: 35
Nickel: 34
Silver: 44

Nickel does pick FGCU to beat Florida. Bet your bracket doesn’t even have FGCU PLAYING Florida. So there.

Dr. Jeremiah, Reprise

By Randy

On March 27, 2013

In Christian Life

Thoughts this week have been driven by a desire to see the hope of Christ rekindled in those for whom it has burned dimly, that as we come to the celebration of Easter we might indeed be renewed in the joy of life given by the life of Him raised from the grave.

These thoughts lead me to a post made a couple of years ago. I repost it here for the sake of those who struggle. Some have found it helpful. I trust others might as well.

———————————

Prone to self-pity, I told my wife the other day that I must like despair like some like ice cream since I indulge so often. But though our thoughts may be trained to flow down well-worn channels, we are never meant to stay there.

My Bible reading plan for the other morning had me reading the book of Lamentations. This is by no means the first place I’d go to or recommend going to when one is feeling the weight of life, and I had little hope of the morning’s reading bringing much comfort.

But the prophet Jeremiah, the book’s reluctant author, has been nicknamed ‘the weeping prophet’ not because he curled up in a useless puddle in the face of the affairs of life, but because he gave expression to the frustrations that life brought to him. He took those frustrations to the One whom he believed to be the source of life.

He wrote as the city of Jerusalem fell apart around him under a Babylonian siege. That siege, Jeremiah had repeatedly pointed out, was the judgment of God upon the squishy, superficial spirituality of Israel. God had had enough and was bringing his promised judgment.

As I sat in “Dr. Jeremiah’s” couch, he showed me that affliction and sin all mixed up and confounded can drag one from freedom to bondage.

“She who was a princess among the provinces has become a slave.” (1:1)

He showed me as well that it is okay to trace this to its source.

“…because the LORD has afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions.” (1:5)

The cause may be my sin, but the source of the affliction is and always will be God. It does not help to try to sidestep God’s sovereignty when we are suffering. In fact, it is appropriate to give full vent to how this makes us feel.

“The Lord has swallowed up without mercy all the habitations of Jacob….” (2:2)

It seems wrong to accuse God of acting “without mercy”, but when that is the way it feels, that is what we need to say. But in Jeremiah I see as well one who, giving vent to bitter honesty, cannot remain at the place of bitter honesty. That is the case with any who truly know God. Yes speaking with such honesty is good, but we must at some point emerge elsewhere.

“The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” (3:22, 23)

I want to live in that verse, but I often don’t. I think that one of the reasons public worship is so important is that being with God’s people under the ministry of God’s word is a place where, if even for a brief moment, God can move us from the despair of 2:2 to the affirmation of 3:22, 23.

But we want to be there always, not just for a brief moment, we protest from Dr. Jeremiah’s couch. He knows that. But he also knows that in God’s wisdom there is ordained a time for everything under heaven, and for some times we must wait.

“The LORD is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him. It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD.” (3:25, 26)

Waiting is something foreign to me and to many others. Waiting is not what spoiled and soft children are prone to practice. But waiting, nevertheless, is what God demands.

It does not take one long to realize that the afflictions facing the Israelites and observed and experienced by Jeremiah were far worse than those faced by the readers of this blog (both of us). Nevertheless, ours FEEL as real and as painful and the hard place for all of us is to wait quietly. Quiet waiting is a far better place than quiet (or noisy) desperation.

And so Dr. Jeremiah dismisses us from his office with a prayer purged of complaint and focused as it ought to be.

“Restore us to yourself, O LORD, that we may be restored! Renew our days as of old….” (5:21)

The ellipses can be used to hide things to make the text say what I want it to say. Many writers hide behind abbreviated texts. Here note that I have dropped an important qualifier from the text.

“…unless you have utterly rejected us, and you remain exceedingly angry with us.’

What Jeremiah could only sense is what we know to be fact – that we may trust in one who was utterly rejected for us, so that we might know that God would never remain exceedingly angry with us.

With that hope we leave our appointment with this soul doctor. And the good thing is that his consultation was free.

Dark Night Rises

By Randy

On March 26, 2013

In Church, Ministry

Eugene Peterson, in reflecting on the longing for intimacy with God, often elusive, of which I wrote yesterday, speaks these hopeful words:

“The appetites that God has created in us lead to the satisfactions he has promised.”

That is hopeful, but it does not promise immediate satisfaction. And so Peterson reflects on the role of pastoral ministry in guiding struggling Christians through what has been called such ‘dark nights’ of the soul. The counsel he gives pastors is applicable to all Christians as we come alongside of others who are struggling.

Too often all we know to offer those struggling spiritually are trite and simple “fixes” to their struggle of doubt and loneliness. Rather what they may need are friends comfortable with walking with them through the valley of the shadow doubt and even death. They need friends who understand that such spiritual struggles are not abnormal and cannot be rushed.

Peterson’s words are not only wise and refreshing, but counterintuitive in our technocratic age. It is good for us to hear them.

5 Smooth Stones

“The accounts of saints who tell of the ‘dark nights’ of the soul are familiar. Their search for God seems endless and futile, but is broken into by moments of ecstasy when they find (or our found by) the one they sought….”

“Pastoral work acknowledges the difficulty and the pain of the quest and shares it. It does not attribute the agony of longing to a neurosis, it does not search for a cause in moral deficiency, it does not try to ‘cure’ it by working for an adaptive adjustment to ‘reality.’ It honors the quest. The difficult painful moments of unfulfilled longing are integral to the nature of the relationships.

“It is not the pastor’s job to simplify the spiritual life, to devise common-denominator formulas, to smooth out the path of discipleship. Some difficulties are inherent in the way of spiritual growth — to deny them, to minimize them, or to offer shortcuts is to divert the person from true growth. It is the pastor’s task, rather, to be companion to persons who are in the midst of difficulty, to acknowledge the difficulty and thereby give it significance, and to converse and pray with them through the time so that the loneliness is lightened, somewhat, and hope is maintained, somehow.”

Eugene Peterson, Five Smooth Stones for Pastoral Work, pages 49-51

Until He Comes

By Randy

On March 25, 2013

In Uncategorized

When Christians celebrate the Lord’s Supper, we do so not merely as an ancient ritual celebrating a historical event. Rather, we come to the Table within an Easter framework, believing that he who lived and died is yet alive. Our participation is set in the context not only of ‘what he has done’ but also in the context of ‘until he comes’ (1 Corinthians 11:26).

Communion Rightfully, therefore, we come to the Table looking forward to the consummation when we will join with him at the eternal Table, where sin and pain and death will all be taken away and when we can dwell on his beauty and enjoy him forever. The joy and rest of that is beyond comprehension, and so we take the bread and drink the wine with great longing in our hearts.

But sometimes, we come empty. We come as those who are in the wilderness, whose ‘now’ experience of any taste of that which will be future is weak and diminished. We come lonely and isolated, assuming (often wrongly) that all around us are having a deep and refreshing walk with God while we feel exiled and cut off. We take the bread and drink the wine and walk away unfulfilled, and unaware of what the Spirit is doing deep within us.

Even then, we must come to the Table, and come again, with that Easter longing in our hearts, persisting in our longing ‘until he comes’. The coming we long for in such situations is not simply his return in glory, but his return in intimacy with our souls, which we passionately desire.

Our doctrine of the Holy Spirit dances around Jesus’ teaching that the Spirit ‘blows where he wills‘, coming and going according to his own purposes. We rather think we can by formulae get him to show up. That is, of course, a fiction. He will come when he wills, and he is never late.

The King, our covenanted husband, has his reasons for being away. But we long for him. We long for intimacy with him. We long to love him and to know his love. We come to the Table pursuing these longings until he comes, with the hope that come he will. Sometimes we take the bread and the wine with force, desperate to be fed with the One of whom these are symbols. In the midst of great doubt, there is an act of faith, performed until, in his time, he comes.

Come to the Table, until he comes.

Come, Lord Jesus.

Dead Heat

By Randy

On March 23, 2013

In Sports

In Nickel vs. Silver round one, Nickel is holding his own. But probably not for long. For full explanation of the categories below, see here. (But only if you have time to kill.)

At the end of the first round of 32 games, the brackets stand as follows:

Offense: 20 of 32

Defense: 16 of 32

Average: 19 of 32

Silver: 22 of 32

Nickel: 22 of 32

Thus far, massive computers and sophisticated metrics have failed to top a simple coin flip.

Nickel, by the way, is a BIG fan of Florida Gulf Coast University, taking them to the round of eight. We’ll see. Nickel also had Kansas State in the championship game.

Nickel vs. Silver

By Randy

On March 21, 2013

In Sports

Nate Silver is the ultra-geek whose statistical analysis last year was successful in predicting the outcome in every state in the 2012 presidential election. But his first love has been sports, and so he has turned his computers in the direction of the NCAA tournament.

It’s pretty impressive, really. He quantifies everything from strength of schedule to pre-season expectations to current injuries. But Nate Silver does not have my nickel.

I’m not going to count the play-in games of the past two nights in the bracket score. However, to whet our appetites for the ensuing battle, note that Silver’s computers generated predictions accurate for 3 of the four games. This beat three of my four brackets (explained here).

Offense: 0 of 4

Defense: 2 of 4

Average: 1 of 4

The one he could not top was my nickel, which matched his success rate of 3 of 4.

Let the games begin.