Lake Louise Church of the Nazarene

I officiated at a funeral last week. It was a tragedy all around. A young woman, 20, commited suicide. She happened to be a lesbian. One of the triggers for her was a betrayal by her girlfriend. It was too much and this young woman made a bad choice to end her life. 

At the funeral, a friend of the family said something to that effect. After the service another young lady got after me about how I shouldn’t blame homosexuality for the suicide. Nothing like that was said. But, I believe that was what she was expecting. There has been a long history of the churches dim view of suicide and homosexuality. So, this young lady was loaded for bear. She was ready to hear condemnation and wrath. She got was she was looking for, I guess. 

 You don’t have to be a lesbian to hear things that aren’t there. You could be divorced, had an abortion, stolen something, or lied. If you are looking for a judgmental or angry God you will find it even in the midst of love. Recognizing that we all have filters on the way we hear things will help in hearing what is really being said. Asking questions, like this young lady did, will help clarify the meaning of things. Then, we can all move forward to hearing with new ears.

What are you looking for when you are talking to people or going to church? Are you looking for grace, hope, and mercy? Or are you looking for condemnation, guilt, and shame?

Philip told Nathanael that he found the one they were looking for. What are you looking for?

Sometimes I wonder where I left my sense of humor. Seriously, I like to laugh, have fun, tell a joke (funny or not), but when I start writing I get all serious. I used to write and find humor in all sorts of things. People said that it reflected who they knew me to be. Now I’m like a grumpy old man sitting on a porch yelling at people to slow down. Where did my sense of humor go?

Maybe it was in my Masters degree. My first paper was filled with witty insights, social commentary, and a healthy dose of sarcasm. Then I realized that Masters Degree students have no sense of humor. This is serious work. These are serious times. There are governments to reclaim, religious ideas to refute, Bible translations to defend, and denominations to promote. We are not in a ‘fun and games’ time of our lives. These are serious times and they require serious people. Maybe I lost my sense of humor somewhere between deconstructionist theology and the theoretical foundations of human nature. See, nothing about that sentence was fun or funny.

Maybe I lost my sense of humor because I just found out that the world is supposed to end in December of 2012. Yep, people got tired of Christians predicting when Jesus would show up so they have jumped ship to the Mayan calendar for a dose of world ending terror. The difference is that the Mayan story lacks an airlift rescue before it all goes bad. All of that makes me wish Y2K was true because all that crisis predicted was a total economic and societal collapse, but there would still be sunsets. On the bright side, we still get one more Summer Olympics to watch and at least one more Fall color tour. We will, evidently miss Christmas. Maybe this 2012 idea will build up steam in the Christian community and we’ll give a rebuttal that the actual time of Jesus’ arrival is later. Then we could sell a few more books and stuff. After all, if you add the digits in 2013 they equal six and you can’t go wrong predicting the end of the world when the numbers add up to six, right?

Maybe I lost my sense of humor because of the political climate of our time. If Carbon Dioxide is one of the culprits of global warming, the temperature is going to climb over the next couple of weeks and months because of the political conventions. We have politicians yapping about all sorts of things. Each party is staking their claim to God and their right to rule. And we Christians on both sides are poking holes in their lives and policies trying to prove that our candidate is actually the ‘chosen’ candidate. I almost expect to hear the voice of James Earl Jones say at the end each political ad, “I’m God and I approve this message.”

Maybe I lost my sense of humor because I lost sight that God has never been too concerned about who was king, emperor, Caesar, or president. Maybe I lost my sense of humor because I forgot that Jesus has already been crowned King. Maybe I lost my sense of humor because I forgot to love the things that God loves. Maybe if I realized that nothing can come between me and God I would get my sense of humor back. If Justin Timberlake can bring sexy back, maybe God can bring funny back. What do you think?

I like classical music. I know there are many types of music; rap, rock, blues, jazz and classical to name a few. And of all the music out there, the music I don’t get is Avant-garde. It is music that is full of discordant, non-existent rhythm or form. There are long sections of discord and few brief interludes of harmony. The harmony is welcome and all too brief. It’s almost as if you could pick the ‘song’ up anywhere and there would be no difference. Avant-garde is musical chaos. A symphony on the other hand is full of rhythm and harmony. Yes, there are moments of discord but they quickly or ultimately end in beauty.

Our lives without Christ are avant-garde. It is full of discord and disharmony. The brief moments of harmony are all too short and quickly resolve into nerve jarring and ear shattering noise.

With Christ our lives take on a dynamic that is full of challenge and change. It is full of beauty and harmony. The rhythm of our lives, just like a symphony and its many movements, will change. There will moments of slowing and moments of increasing tempo. There will quiet and imperceptible changes and subtle harmonies that will often go unnoticed. There will be passages that the volume will increase to the point of shear loudness but will resolve into tranquility and peace.

In the symphony of life our discordant notes are not the rule but moments or measures of our life where we feel the need for harmony most keenly. And the conductor of life will ultimately resolve those measures in beauty.

Our lives are sometimes the melody. We play our notes and there is a comfort in these notes, a familiarity. Sometimes our lives are harmony. We don’t understand the part we play. There is something vaguely familiar, but it escapes us. Sometimes our lives are the discordant note that is harsh, unlikable and unappealing. We play our notes and wince at the volume and tone. And those not playing the same tune will look at us like we are nuts. It is not until we play our notes in the company of others that the true wonder of the composers work is fully appreciated.

It is in a life with Christ that each of our parts come together and makes sense. But it is also in the playing the parts to the end. There are unfinished symphonies, there are unfinished lives. God has not written an unfinished work. There are movements, transitions, and different musical journeys and feelings. It is in the completion of the piece that one finds resolution to the conflicts introduced. You cannot listen to a symphony and stop at a conflict. It must be finished to understand why it was there. It must be played completely through in order to understand and see what the conductor’s ultimate goal was in the writing.

Each one of us has been given an instrument and notes to play. Each one of us has a part. Alone we may find the parts boring, tedious or too difficult. Alone we find our instrument lacks importance. In an orchestra, however, each part and note brings a splendor we hoped for. In an orchestra our single note takes on consequence. It means something. It is important. In the orchestra of life we shout that our notes and instruments matter.

While I believe that a child with a $5 toy piano could write an avant-garde piece of music, it takes a master’s touch to write a true masterpiece. I have heard different orchestras play the same composition of music and each had a slightly different interpretation, even though the music was the same. It was played with excellence and it pointed to the skill of the conductor and the skill of the composer.

Our symphonic lives bring glory to God, the Creator of our lives, and Jesus Christ the author and finisher of our faith. Your instrument matters, your note or notes matter. Play. Play with all that you have been given. Seek the orchestra and play. You will find beauty. You will find you matter. You will find that God knows what He is doing. And you will find purpose. I promise.

The sheer madness of life is stultifying. While I write this, crimes, deaths, abuse, sickness and accidents will take and maim lives. Children will be born and children will die. Other people will be determining where to take a family vacation. Life marches on and does not skip a beat regardless of life or death, sickness or healing. It is into this maddening monotony that we minister.

We have a calling on our lives to make a difference in the name of Jesus. We have been called and empowered by the Spirit of God to go forth and proclaim God’s favor to all the people. We have a heightened sense of the cruelty, injustice, bitterness and rage in the world. We see things that are wrong and desire to fix them because we carry within us the Spirit of the Living God. We know that we can make a difference with a word, a prayer or the laying on of hands. Yet, despite our fervent and sincere prayers, the parade of life marches on without a moment’s hesitation.

It must be me. My faith is fragile and weak. I need more of everything. Jesus raised the dead, healed the sick and on and on. We are supposed to do greater things than he did. So, I try harder. I jump in front of the parade and extend my hand in authority and command it to stop. No one flinches. No one stops. I am unable to stop the insanity to which I have been called to minister. I have failed, no matter the effort. In defeat, I sit and watch the parade.

The cure to my torment is the calming voice of Jesus. He beckons me to come to him for rest. Yes, life will continue to march on. I recognize that life went on when Jesus died. It marched along when we thought the world should stand still. My hope is to find my reality, meaning, identity and strength in Jesus Christ. He is gentle and humble in heart and will give me rest. I will burn out if I forget that the light I cast in this world marks my place with a shadow. In Jesus, however, my place is marked with blood in the Book of Life for all of eternity.

I am thankful for Jesus.

It is one of the first things I learned when I became a Christian. I have used them repeatedly. I don’t think they are wrong. It’s just that I am not sure what to do with them. They are the ‘Magic Words’ of evangelism.You know them I am sure. You may have heard of them as the “Four Spiritual Laws”. You may know them as the “ABCs of Salvation”. The “Roman Road” comes to mind. But they are almost all magic words.Let me explain.

When we lead someone to the Lord Jesus Christ and they want to be forgiven their sins and go to heaven when they die, we run through some sort of Scripture program of what it means to be saved. We lead them in the sinner’s prayer and they are saved, Praise the Lord! Then, we tell them they need to start reading their Bible, be baptized and worship (or some variation of those things). And that’s it.

There is a question that used to sit at the back of my head is now working its way onto this page. The question is, “Is that it?” I look at Alcoholics Anonymous and they do a whole bunch more to get sober than we Christians do to get saved. An Alcoholic admits that his or her life is unmanageable and that they are powerless. We do that, too. They come to believe in a power greater than themselves that can restore them to sanity. We are still tracking. They make a decision to turn their lives over to God. Ditto.

Then something insane happens. The person in AA make a fearless moral inventory of their lives. They confess their sins to another human being. I could go on, but it is just insanity. They go beyond admitting that they are a hopeless drunk and take care of business.Sure, I know there are Christians that go farther than simply admitting they are sinners saved by grace, but not a lot. If we are to truly become like Jesus, we need to do more than just get saved. I can hear some of you thinking that is blasphemy. Is it? What would happen if we truly got our garbage out in the open and let God deal with it? What would be the result if we began to deal with our broken relationships and make restitution for the things we have done wrong? I think amazing things would happen. It is imperative that we move past the “magic words” and started to do the hard work of letting God into our lives for real change. That is a journey and not a destination.

How about an example ripped from today’s headlines (Dramatic, yes?): A young Hollywood starlet just was busted for Driving Under the Influence even though she just go out of rehab two weeks ago. She probably learned a lot about addiction and alcoholism.  I am sure she didn’t drink in rehab. Obviously, sobriety is more than not drinking. How do I know? Because she gets out and goes right back to her old habits and ends up drinking and driving, again. She needs to change some habits and become a different person, not just quit drinking. It isn’t good enough for her to admit she has a drinking problem, she needs to face lifestyle habits and personal issues for real change to take place. The same is true for us. We admit our sins, and ask Jesus to forgive us. Then, we need to change our old habits and replace them with new ones. Transformation is more important than information. Without it, we, like this young starlet, will end up right back where Jesus found us. In other words, we need more than magic words. What do you think? Let me know.