On June 17, 2013

Tradition: How To Stick It to the Man

“Tradition is the living faith of the dead; traditionalism is the dead faith of the living. -Jaroslav Pelikan

So I’d like to start a small series for the next few weeks about tradition. Why we need it more than we think we do, and why it probably doesn’t mean what most of us think it means. Most of my friends tend to think about tradition in the same vein as maintaining status quo. But it actually can be one of the best resources to challenge it.

Here’s what I mean.

Maybe you’ve seen this video before. It’s from a slam poet named Jeffrey Benke who wrote and produced an incredibly well done video about the downside to American Christianity.

He wrote it as a Christian who was trying to wake up the American church to how they were being perceived by his peers. He wanted the church to know that they weren’t representing Jesus very well, and so he spent days and weeks writing and creating this. And as soon it went live it also went viral.

Turns out he was giving lots of people words and art to say what they had been feeling, because somewhere around 10 million people watched it within a few days. Personally, I must have had this video emailed to me a dozen times the week it came out. And whether you agree with this video or not, you have to admit Jeffrey was tapping into something that was widely felt and he was giving these people a voice.

And then the criticism started.

Preachers and Christian professors came out of the woodworks critiquing this poet for critiquing the church. They had well thought out, articulate arguments against what he was doing.

And the slam poet folded.

He totally just gave in, and said he was sorry.

And that’s a shame. Because the problem wasn’t the traditionalists that didn’t like someone critiquing them. The real problem was that this young man didn’t have a firmer grasp on tradition.

Advice to a Young Rebel

A few weeks after this all went down, a guy named David Brooks wrote an op-ed piece about this for the New York Times called “How to Fight the Man.” And it was genius. He made the point that this kids problem wasn’t that he was standing up against tradition, it was that he didn’t know enough tradition to stand up against much of anything. Here’s what he said:

“For generations people have been told: Think for yourself; come up with your own independent worldview. Unless your name is Nietzsche, that’s probably a bad idea….If you go out there armed with your own observations and sentiments, you will surely find yourself on very weak ground. You’ll lack the arguments, convictions and the coherent view of reality that you’ll need when challenged by a self-confident opposition. This is what happened to Jefferson Bethke.”

In other words, the problem is that we don’t have an alternative vision. We critique but we don’t know how to construct. My generation has a lot of angst about religious institutions (and just about every other kind of institution) but we don’t know what we want to replace them with. We just know what we don’t like. David Brooks goes on in his article to say that if he could offer any advice to a young rebel, it would be to understand the world that has come before you. The answer to defying tradition is to attach yourself to what he calls a counter-tradition.

Learn about the way people have lived counter-culturally before. From Amos to Augustine, the people of God have been in pits worse than some mere blog war in the past.

See Jeffrey Renke might have benefitted from knowing that, despite what his critiques were saying, The Bible and Christian history is filled with people and prophets who God sends a fresh hard word through for his people. And they almost never like it.

In other words, Renke was standing in a tradition that was much older and stronger. And had he realized that, he might have kept standing.

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On June 12, 2013

God at Work: All Work and No Play

“Someone’s going to always tell my kids that their dad was a great football player. But no one will be able to tell my kids that their dad was a great dad and a great husband, so I have to be able to show them that. And that’s what the next chapter of my career is going to be.” -NFL player Donald Driver on Retiring last year

Jesus at the office

I’ve talked before about how, growing up, my dad was the assistant manager at Wendy’s. But what I didn’t know until much later in life was that he was given plenty of chances to advance to his career. He was offered positions of store and even regional supervisor several different times. But he always turned them down.

Dad was always a hard worker. He showed up early and left late, and he loved his job. So when I found out that my dad had turned down these promotions I was confused, and asked him why?

His answer changed my view of work forever…But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Did you know that when earlier Christians listed the 7 deadly sins, they’re not re-inventing the wheel. Everyone of those sins were taken from the Greco-Roman list of vices.

Except for one.

Sloth.

Sloth is a uniquely Christian sin, because in the story God is telling, humans are held responsible to God for what they do with their lives. But that means more than we think it does.

Life Matters

There is an interesting tradition in the book of Proverbs that talks a lot about sloth. The Proverbs talks about the sluggard, the person who is just wasting away. Now I grew up hearing a lot about this particular tradition a lot, primarily by my mom trying to get me to do my chores, or get a job or whatever.

The book of Proverbs says things like, “Go to the ant you sluggard, consider it’s ways and be wise.” Sloth I was taught, means to be lazy and to not be working. But that’s a very small view of sloth.

In fact, I think part of the reason Americans have such a poor view of work and play is because we don’t understand what sloth really is. There is a proverb that actually says, “The sluggard says, “There’s a lion outside! I’ll be killed in the public square!” The Sluggard is borrowing trouble where there is none. He’s using excuses of danger and risk to just avoid living life. One of the definition of sloth in the Bible is not just avoiding work, it is anxious apathy.

Sloth is saying no to the endless potential and possibilities that God has given us. Sloth is reaching for any reason to not risk anything. It’s seeing a lion where there isn’t one.

But Sloth is more than just anxiety and it’s more than just laziness. There is another side to sloth that I don’t think we American Christians get. but desperately need.

The word for sloth is the word Acedia. It’s really a word that means melancholy or sadness, it is a word about someone who avoids the pain of actually being fully alive. There are lot’s of ways to avoid life, and work can be one of those ways.

Gaining the World

So back to my dad.

I asked him why he didn’t take that job, even though it would have meant a lot more money for our family. And my dad said, “I did that for you and the family. I didn’t want to give my best energy to someone or somewhere else.”

How cool is that? Dad knew the difference between providing for a family and neglecting one. And despite the enormous amount of pressure society puts on men to be a certain definition of successful, my dad chose to do the first, not the latter.

Dorothy Sayers wrote about sloth. And I love her definition:

“Laziness (the way we normally define sloth) is not the real nature of this condition. Really it means a life driven by mere cost-benefit analysis of “What’s in it for me…instead” It is the sin which believes in nothing, cares for purpose in nothing, enjoys nothing, loves nothing, hates nothing, find purpose in nothing, lives for nothing and only remains alive because there is nothing for which it will die. We have known it far too well for many years, the only thing perhaps we have not known about it is it is a mortal sin.”

American’s work more than any society in the history of the world. We don’t know how to play, we don’t really know how to party, all we know is how to work…and more often than not, it is not just a good work ethic. It’s sloth.

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On June 10, 2013

Churches Shaped By Mission

NT Wright on “Church Shaped by Mission” from Fuller Theological Seminary on Vimeo.

If you lead or serve in a local church, than this post is for you. Hold off on watching the video above for a second.

Last week I was in a meeting of a group of ministers and seminary professors who were trying to figure out how churches and seminaries can work better together for training future ministers.

It was an incredible meeting, and kudos to our seminaries for caring enough to ask the question, “How can we do better?” One of the more interesting parts of the conversation came when one of the ministers was talking about the tension between the ideal and the real. The way he said it was that he was, “I learned in seminary to be suspicious of anything that worked. Because pragmatic or practical ministry involves compromise and using methods that are less than ideal.”

And immediately we all knew what he meant.

I mean can we really say that the Cross “worked?” Isn’t Christianity a faith about dying to ourselves? Should we really compromise in order to be more effective?

But the problem is that in order to lead a local church you have to compromise and learn to work pragmatically. You are dealing with real people with problems that don’t come in textbook formats. And you learn quickly in ministry that for all your preparations and theories that the local church isn’t a laboratory. And that what works in theory doesn’t always work in practice.

So back to this video. This video is from the New Testament scholar N.T. Wright teaching at Fuller Seminary a few years ago. They were asking him about this exact thing, he was talking to preachers from churches from a hundred different traditions, who were basically wanting to know how to do we hold this tension between the ideal and the real?

I love his answer.

Keep the ideal in mind. Remember that there is a new Heaven and a New Earth coming, and remember what that vision for the future looks like, because that’s more than just the Christian hope. That’s the Christian mission.

It is the mission that should inform every church.

Let’s just hopefully and pragmatically stumble toward that.

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On June 4, 2013

An Interview With Gabe Lyons

Last month, I had the pleasure to sit down with Gabe Lyons, the author of one of my favorite books, The Next Christians, to talk with him about his idea that the Next Christians are passionate about Restoration. Obviously as someone who belongs to a church that is committed to A Restoration Movement, I’ve found this language very helpful.

So last month, when I found out that Gabe was going to be in a neighboring state I flew down to talk with him about how to help make his book more known to our tribe.

I’m very passionate about the ideas that Gabe talks about in his book, if you are a regular reader here you may remember that I’ve talked about Gabe’s book earlier here and here. If you are a member of Churches of Christ, or a church leader on any level, I highly recommend reading his book.

The Next Christians was recently re-released with a new chapter, and you can buy it here,

Special thanks to the Pleasant Valley Church for partnering with Highland to make this video.

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On May 30, 2013

God at Work: Serving the World

“Everybody wants to change the world, nobody wants to do the dishes.” -Shane Claiborne

“It’s difficult to make predictions, especially about the future.” -Yogi Berra

Jesus at the office

One of the most notable ways that humans have changed the world in the last hundred years is the way we talk about changing the world. In the 19th century nobody was really talking like this. In the 19th century there were only four books written with a mention of “changing the world.” In the last few decades we’ve written over a million!

Confidence Monitors

Andy Crouch in his book Culture Makers gives a few examples of these books, The Riddle of the Compass: The Invention that Changed the World. Twelve Lesbians Who Changed the World, Five Speeches That Changed the World , or my favorite Mauve: How One Man Invented a Color That Changed the World.

When did we start letting this get by our editors? Does anybody really think Mauve changed the world?

But under these titles and over-used language is an idea that runs deep in our bones. The world is not right, and we can change it.

But can we? Really? My generation has a lot of confidence. We grew up on Mr. Roger’s telling us we were special and we believed him. Often we forget that we are just one of seven billion people who are alive today. And that really our lives, at their best, are just a small drop in a ocean of God’s reality.

There are 1.5 Million books that in the Harvard Library that are about Changing the world.

And not one of them was written before 1900.

Andy Crouch has a great word of caution for all us world changers though. He points out that none of us know what we are really doing. We had no idea that inventing the Freeway would create the Fast-food phenomenon and the rise of obesity, or that the invention of the phone would make also lead to children moving away from families.

We have not come to terms with the fact that for all our best intentions the world will change us, much more than we will change it. In the words of Andy Crouch:

“Beware of world Changers, they have not yet learned the true meaning of sin.”

In the Palace, Under The Cross

Growing up one of my favorite stories was Esther. It’s a story that can rival any Disney screenplay because it’s got everything: good vs. evil, powerful vs. weak, romance and humor, and a girl who is asked to risk everything to save the people she loves.

If you’ve never heard the story, go back and read it sometime, it is brilliant. But the part I want to emphasize today is when Ester finds out that her husband the King is going to kill the Jews (without knowing she is one of them). Her uncle talks her into telling the King that she is also a Jew. Even though she could die too.

But she does it, she leverages the little bit of influence she has to serve the few people she can. Even though it could cost her her life. In fact, this is what Ester says:

Go, gather together all the Jews who are in Susa, and fast for me. Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my attendants will fast as you do. When this is done, I will go to the king, even though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish.”

If I perish, I perish.

Did you know that Ester is called Queen 14 times in this book, and 13 of those times come after she lays her life on the line!

Her initial instincts are for self-preservation and safety, but when she risks her own life in service to the greater good, she suddenly becomes known as the queen.

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On May 23, 2013

When The Saints Go Marching In

130521083430-01-ok-tornado-0521-horizontal-galleryIt’s been a heavy week. Especially if you live in Oklahoma.

But It’s been a hard week for anyone with a heart, we’ve all seen the pictures and video, and most of us have gone home and hugged the people we love a little harder.

Maybe you heard about the theological and political debates that it immediately spawned, or maybe you didn’t. But let me tell you what I’ve learned: Whenever something tragic like this happens, we immediately see two things happen. People try to leverage the event for more power or influence, and some people run to it to serve the ones who are hurting.

Why Bad Things Happen

So there’s this one time where Jesus is walking toward Jerusalem and some religious people stop him and ask him a pretty pointed question. They ask Jesus about these current events where some Galillean Jews had gone to the Temple and Pilate, for some reason, had gone in and slaughtered them

And so they were wanting some commentary from Jesus on why this happened.

Now in asking Jesus this question about suffering they are conjuring up all kinds of images, and thoughts that were common in the 1st century.

Actually they are common in all centuries.

They’re asking why, why does this happen, what does God think about this, is God angry, is this God’s punishment? They’re just enunciating a question that has been around since time began.

And that’s why Jesus answers the way He does. He brings up a natural disaster, and he tells them that these people didn’t die because they were more guilty, that we are all broken.

Now I think what Jesus does here is pretty genius. He doesn’t let them draw a straight line from cause and effect for specific sin to specific punishment.

Which is what religious leaders sometimes do, it seems like every time there is a natural catastrophe someone will try to leverage others pain for their own temporary glory. It’s started within two hours of the Moore tornado, because it always does. But I’ve noticed when they say that a certain catastrophe was due to a specific sin they tend to say that it’s a sin that they don’t struggle with.

No religious leader ever says the reason God sent that earthquake is because they were being materialistic, or prideful.

But Jesus response to tragedies like this isn’t to name a specific sin, but to point that there is this deep brokenness in the world. And unless we forget it’s in us too.

That’s why Jesus says Repent, because we are part of the problem, but we can also be a part of the solution.

In fact, as soon as I hear about tragedies like this week, I immediately wonder how long it will take before the world sees the church show up.

Because It seems like we always do.

When the Saints Come Marching In265904e9a0dbb6758fffb87f7635fe87

A few chapters earlier in the same Gospel, Jesus starting getting people to help share in his ministry. He sends out 72 of his followers to different villages to preach and to heal.

And when they get back, they say, “even the demons submit to us in your name.”And Jesus responds with something that I love. He says:

“I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you. However, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”

He saw Satan fall like Lightening.

The disciples has been walking over hot sand, knocking on doors, asking to see the sick, announcing the coming of Jesus. All their actions took place in the visible world, which they could touch, smell and see.

But Jesus sees more, he saw that those actions in the visible world were having a startling impact on the invisible world. What we do has both personal and cosmological implications.

When natural disasters happen, it always takes me to dark places for a bit. When Leslie and I were at the Hills Church we did Tsunami relief and it was incredibly beautiful and tragic to hear the stories. It all started because one of our members saw the Tsunami on television and flew directly to the worst hit part of Sri Lanka and started making large promises on behalf of the church. And they kept them!

Earlier this week I spent the afternoon with Jon and Joann Jones. A few years ago the Burmese people had a horrible cyclone hit their refuge camp and do great damage, and if you remember that, when you heard that story you had to wonder where is God in that? But while all that was going on my friend Jon Jones was over there.

He’s been going over there for many years, working with those people, trying to get them food. He once told me that he couldn’t see an American dollar anymore without thinking about how much rice it will buy.

But I started thinking about it, this whole time, I was seeing that picture and asking where is God?

This week as soon as heard the story about Oklahoma and the great tragedy of Moore joining the great tragedies of history. I started hearing stories about elementary school teachers protecting their children at great risk to themselves. I immediately started hearing stories about churches and first responders making sacrifices and opening homes for victims.

It’s easy to pontificate and theologize about why bad things like tornadoes and tsunamis happen. It’s easy to use them as a platform to further whatever particular axe you have to grind, but let me tell you who you want to listen to right now. Ask the first responders and those churches who have skin in the game.

Ask the saints who are marching in.

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On May 21, 2013

God at Work: The Work of the People

“The society which scorns excellence in plumbing because plumbing is a humble activity, and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because philosophy is an exalted activity, will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy. Neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water.” -John W. Gardner

Jesus at the office

A few weeks ago, I had lunch with a successful business man and Highland Church member. We were talking about shared history and people that we both knew, and then we got on to the topic of vocation. And I asked my friend, does what we do on Sunday in worship connect to what you do in your job at all?

And my friend, being honest, said “No.”

Which is a shame…

In the day that Jesus was born, the wealthy Roman people had certain ideas about the universe. They Believed that the gods had made tiers or levels of people. Some were created to work in the trenches, some where created as peasants and tradespeople, and others were created for more “noble” tasks, like reading and thinking…Particularly thinking about philosophies that make thinking people more important than peasants and workers.

And into that world, Jesus is born. According to the Christian story, God enters the world, not through a school in Athens or a Senator’s tudor in Rome, but through a carpenter.

And Jesus spends 30 years learning how to make with his hands.

Idols and Work

The Jewish Scholar Nahum Sarma points out that the book of Genesis is doing so many things that we are unaware of. For example, in Genesis 4:19-22, Genesis lists off a number of random occupations and inventions. But this is more than just letting us know who invented the harp or camping. Back in the day that Genesis was written it was commonly assumed that the gods were the ones who came up with these ideas.

So the Egyptians thought that the god Thot invented the scales, and Osiris invented agriculture…but here right in the first few chapter of the Bible we read that God has given the gift of creation to people. And it appears that no matter how bad the world gets, God still wants to co-create with them.

The common way of viewing the world was that we were dependent on the gods for everything…but Genesis tacitly rejects this idea. Human history is not something we are passive in. It is something God wants to do with and through us.

One of the interesting things that I’ve learned about Christian culture over my last three decades is how much we fail to get this.

We don’t create culture, we consume it or parody it. And sometimes we say that we should engage it, but typically that just means we should “think about it” from a distance, or have a small group to talk about the movie/book/album and what ways we saw gospel undertones. Which is all well and good, but….

The one thing that I see missing today in most Christian circles is the one thing that the Scriptures are truing to give us.

A passion to create. Sometime new and fresh and innovative and good. Not just coping “American Idol” and calling it “Gifted” (an actual real thing that we did).

But the most toxic thing we did was turn our work from a way to worship to what we worship. In his book Wisdom Meets Passion, Dan Miller points out:

“The new generations want to change the world. Nothing is more frightening than the prospect of mediocrity. Yes, they may appear narcissistic-self-centered rather than other-focused.But they are looking for redemption, a cause that validates their very existence.’

Now that sounds good, but in fact it is one of the biggest problems we face as humans. Because if your work or cause is what validates your existence, you can be sure that you will only hurt your work or cause. It can’t bear that kind of weight.

Coram Deo

There’s an old Latin saying “Coram Deo” that means before the Face of God. It basically means that everything we do is done in His presence, but it also means that God is working alongside us, and that one day our work will quality control tested by Him.

Not just preachers and bishops and priests, but retailers and artists and teachers. In fact, the word liturgy actually doesn’t mean worship the way you think it does. It really just means “The Work of the People” because you are working along side God, your work is worship.

And this actually helps to explain history a bit better. Because for thousands of years this is exactly what Jews and Christians have done. We have been a compelling force for good in the world. Ethopians monks created Cappacino’s (the word comes from the Capuchin monks), We created hospitals and medicine, and explored and discovered the universe God made (in fact, now that we are understanding the Mideval ages better, we realize that Christians weren’t anti-science, if anything the reverse was true!)

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On May 18, 2013

Everyday Idolatry: The Religion of Control

“The ivory gods,

And the ebony gods,

And the gods of diamond and jade,

Sit silently on their temple shelves

While the people

Are afraid.

Yet the ivory gods,

And the ebony gods,

And the gods of diamond-jade,

Are only silly puppet gods

That the people themselves

Have made.”

–Langston Hughes

Temple in Chennai, India

We never really lose control, we only lose the illusion that we were ever in control in the first place.” – Barbara Brown Taylor

A few years ago I was reading a book on idolatry that was pretty eye-opening for me. Most of us think of idolatry as kind of a bizarre, primitive ritual that people in 3rd world countries used to struggle with. And even then we don’t understand what we don’t understand.

We make some huge assumptions that people today are smarter than people back then. But I don’t think that’s true. People knew back then that they were worshipping something made of wood and stone, they understood that they were making something and then praising it. But they just understood the universe a bit differently.

Richard Keyes points out that the Sumerian-Mesoptamian culture featured two levels of gods. They had this idea that gods come in pairs. So you’ve got your nearby idol, and your far away god. So idols were so popular because they offer humans a sense of well-being, the feeling that they can control their everyday lives. They relate to how to control this world.. the idols worked because they were thought to get the gods to aid people in the everyday realms of sexuality, relationships, finances and health.

So The Sumerians/Mesopotamian culture had as its close gods the Marduks and Baals, but it also had the faraway god El, who had created the world…he was a good God, but if you wanted to get the girl, or to get rich quick, you needed to buy an idol.

It’s basically the plot to the Little Mermaid. Ursula-Little-Mermaid-disney-villains-1024501_720_480

Hocus Pocus

Have you ever noticed how rough the book of Leviticus is? For most of us, Leviticus is the graveyard that “reading through the Bible in a year plans” come to die. But if you pay attention, Leviticus is fascinating! It’s like a B-Grade Slasher film without a plot.

But the thing about this that we have just read over in the past…This is the first time that we know of that any god ever told anybody how to be at peace with them. Because that was the thing about the gods, you never knew where you stand with them.

And if you didn’t know where you stood, you would either try to offer them some kind of arbitrary sacrifice, or you would use magic to control them.

But that’s not just a problem those primitive people had, We moderns, with all our technology, still can’t help but feel a sense of out-of-controlness. I’ve been to several third world countries, I’ve seen people all over the place treat their religion as a kind of good-luck charm. They view God, as an impersonal force that controls fate. When I was in India, we saw people try and appease the gods with animal sacrifices.

Or what about Christians? We often treat prayer or church or our religious rituals the same way.

We have this sense that if I do my duty, then God ‘owes me.’ If I go to church or take communion or get baptized or whatever, then now God is somehow obligated to act accordingly. And it’s easy to see in other people, we recognize that when the batter at the plate does the sign of the cross, that’s not going to help improve his statistics.

But then we tell God we will go to church if he helps us get that date.

Because what we do is religion, what other people is “superstition.”

So we Worship as a kind of transaction: I’ve given God something, so it’s God’s turn to reciprocate. Or more common today, God’s people.

But don’t worry, we’re not the first Christians to do this.

In Latin, the words “Hoc Es Corpus” is This is the Body

And so we started using the language that they would use in Communion to manipulate the world in front of them.

But they got the words wrong, they started saying “Hocus Pocus”

That’s where we got that statement, not from the world of wizards and fairies, but from religious people who misunderstood God.

And we’ve been misunderstanding him ever since.

Jesus take the Wheel…Seriously.

A few weeks ago, I preached with Randy Harris at Highland, and Randy made the point that people who are afraid of Flying aren’t afriad of driving. Even though these same people know the statistics about driving fatalities being much more common than flying. These people aren’t stupid. They know they have a better chance of dying in a car than on a plane.

But in the car, at least they are the one with their hand on the wheel.

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On May 14, 2013

God At Work: A Day Off

“I took off 6 days between 1978-1984″ Bill Gates

Jesus at the office

For the past few months I’ve been writing about why work matters more than we think it does. I don’t hear churches or preachers talking very much about the other 6 days of the week, and I think that’s a shame. We’ve got to re-imagine what it looks like for a Christian to work in every sector of society.

But what do you do when work turns bad?

When the President Lyndon B. Johnson was on his deathbed he told his biographer that he had wasted his life.

Which is not what you would expect to hear a former President say.

He told his biographer that he realized that what he had really been searching for was immortality, and now that he was going to die, he watched the American people absorbed in a new President, and he realized that they would eventually forget him entirely. He told her that he wished he would have invested his life in his wife and children. Because he could have depended on them in a way he had just learned he couldn’t depend on the American people.

The Addiction of Work

One counselor who works with high ranking executives recently commented on the increasing burnout she’s seeing. She said that work is the newest addiction of choice.

There’s a guy named George Cloutier who specializes in maximizing productivity, he’s well respected in his circles and this is what he says.

As far as birthdays and anniversaries. You should absolutely make note of them–but not by taking long visits to the country with your spouse or going off on weekend getaways. That’s what jewelry is for. Or treat everybody to a steak dinner. It takes less time, so you can get on with running your business. If you are not focused–if family, friends and loved ones fill up your busy weekly schedule–you are probably failing to deliver real profits for your company….Love your business more than your family–it’s not an easy or popular attitude to adopt. Often you will feel tremendous pressure to take time away from your business to devote to family matters. But in the end, the best thing you can do for them is to create the legacy of a business that is thriving and financially sound. When you’re retired, wealthy, and able to spend Valentine’s Day and other special occasions with your kids and grandkids at your winter home in Hilton Head, you’ll be glad you devoted so much of your time to your first love: your business.

And this guy is serious.

Do you know when God first mentions the Sabbath?

It’s right after the Israelites are delivered from Egypt. They were slaves for a jerk named Pharaoh, And God knows that embedded in their DNA is that they think they are slaves.

Sabbath was God’s answer to slavery.

It’s God’s way of saying you’re not in Egypt anymore.

Sabbath is God’s way of letting you know you are worth more than what you do.

So God’s command is to carve out a day when all work is done, even if it’s not.

See the truth is that Sabbath isn’t voluntary. You’re going to take a Sabbath one way or another, the only question is do you want it to be a happy Sabbath, or a sad Sabbath. Do we want it to be a Sabbath with you riding in a red car with a siren on top going very fast (that’s a Sad Sabbath), or one that you took voluntarily?

How many of us if we were honest feel like there is this weight that follow us around everywhere?

That we are tied to our Blackberry’s or our Iphones, as if our identities depended on them.

I’ve had times in my life when I’d wake up in a panic during the middle of the night because I missed an email or didn’t return a phone call.

Rabbi’s are fond of saying that more than Israel keeping Sabbath, Sabbath kept Israel.

When they were under siege in Masada, they kept it during famine, and in drought, some of them even kept it in Hitlers concentration camps. Because real Sabbath, comes from the confidence that God is able to take care of things,

That God is big enough to take be in charge of things while you take a nap.

Real rest can only come by recognizing that God is God and I am not.

But real work comes from that too.

Breaks and Bricks Building with bricks

There’s a guy named Nehemiah in the Old Testment, and when we first meet Nehemiah he is in Exile. But at least he’s got a good job. He’s the cupbearer for the King, basically it means he drinks the wine before the King does to make sure no one is gunning for the King’s job.

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On May 9, 2013

How (Not) To Preach On Mother’s Day

“For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”- Paul

Honoring Mom

All this week I’ve received emails and Facebook messages from friends and mothers sending me to this blog. It’s a great blog for anyone in ministry to read about the hard side of Mother’s Day.

Over the past few years I’ve learned to just circle the day after Mother’s Day on my calendar as the day that I will get an angry email from someone…I just need to pick who I will get it from.

And I totally understand why.

We often talk about the Bible characters like Sarah or Hannah, and say things like, “to not be able to have a child back in that day was seen as a curse. Back in that day a woman felt like a failure if she didn’t have a child.” And we pretend like that is just a problem people used to have, back in the Old Testament.

Leslie and I first started trying to have children more than a year before we first got pregnant with Eden, and while I know it was just a year, for us it was a tough year. We started quietly wondering if something was wrong with us, or if we would ever be able to have kids.

And for a lot of people in our churches, that doesn’t just last a year.

But Jesus has a word for them this Sunday.

Great With (or Without) Child

There’s a time in the Gospels where Jesus is teaching, and someone just hollers out in the middle of his sermon “Blessed is the woman who gave birth to you, and nursed you.” Which is kind of creepy if you think about it.

Right in the middle of Jesus’ sermon, someone hollers out about Jesus’ nursing.

And you might expect Jesus to say something back like, “Yeah! Mom’s Awesome!” But he doesn’t.

Instead, Jesus replies by saying this, “Blessed rather are those who hear God’s Word and obey it.”

Now what Jesus is doing here is huge. He’s actually disagreeing with this person. John Ortberg points out that Jesus is saying that no longer is the highest calling of a woman to bear a child. Being a parent is a noble calling, but it’s not the ultimate one. And if you don’t, or are unable, to have children, you still haven’t missed out on the blessing and presence of God.

And this verse also has a lot to say about those of us who have kids.

Because this Mother’s day (or Father’s day) we’re also not defined by our kids lives…their choices, or how they turn out.

The Blessing of God is for those who hear the word of the LORD and obey. That’s the ultimate calling.

Mother God

But that doesn’t mean that we can’t learn something about God this Mother’s day.

I think most of us know that God transcends gender. He’s not male or female…in fact, there are many times in the Bible that God is described as a Mother…Like when Jesus says that he wishes he could protect Jerusalem like a Mother hen protects her chicks. In fact, one of the titles used for God in the Old Testament (specifically about his mercy) literally means “many breasted one”

Flannel-graph that.

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