Think And Let Think

I’ve been in ministry for roughly 5 years and I’ve finally figured it out. After all the sermons and all the meetings, after all the prayers and preparation, I know how to fix all the church’s problems. It’s time to make the church weird again.

It’s incredibly ironic that many of the people who want the Ten Commandments up in public are the same who perpetuate a culture in which divorce is over 50% (you shall not commit adultery), where we have more guns than human beings (you shall not kill), where capitalism is more important than community (honor the Sabbath), and where we spend more time worshipping celebrities than Almighty God (you shall have no other gods before me).

Lent is the perfect time to read about Abram and Sarai in church; they were imperfect people through whom God made the covenant promise a possibility -- just like us.

If God was willing to refrain from violence upon the world, if God was willing to hang up the bow, why haven’t we done the same?

When we wrestle with our mortality we catch a glimpse of who we really are, and we wonder about what we could become, should we have just a little more time.

The work of the Lord, of going to the margins for the sake of people on the margins is no easy task. For many, it results in punishment, isolation, and even death. Yet staying the course results not only in our transfigured lives, but also in the transfiguration of all things.

Fair warning: “practicing what you preach” is no easy thing. There will come times when the last thing we want to do is gather with the people whom we call the church. Whether it’s because they stand for different political realities, or they speak the truth in love (and it hurts), or they simply remind us too much of whom we really are, it is not easy being a faithful community together. Even Jesus needed time alone.

This is what I do know: The saving of anyone is something is not within our own power, it is exclusively God’s. No one can be saved – by virtue of what he/she can do. But everyone can be saved – by virtue of what God can do.

“How old is the earth?” might sound like an innocuous question without too many ramifications, but how we answer the question comes with a lot of consequences.

Evangelism always begins in friendship, in the intimacy of two people sharing life together. Evangelism takes place in the trust when listening becomes more important than talking. Evangelism comes to fruition when saving and winning others is more about them than us.

I have brought infants, toddlers, teenagers, and adults to the waters of baptism again and again because what God does through the Spirit is the most wonderfully disruptive thing that can ever take place. In those moments, God speaks from the torn open heavens, just like on the day Jesus was baptized to say, “You are my child.” And we are who God says we are.

A real old-fashioned Christmas, which is to say a biblical Christmas, is different. The strange new world of scripture opens up for us a scene where kings rage and wickedness rules the day, where the threat of taxation forces young couples to retreat to the comfort of their parents’ homes, and countries who think of themselves as the very best have forgotten the very least. You know, completely unlike today...

Mary, in her remarkable song, reminds us that wealth and power have no ultimate influence in the realm of God’s kingdom. In fact, they are used to serve the lowly. That’s not a popular message to bear during Christmas, but it wasn’t popular during the time of Mary either. In fact, that’s the message that got Jesus killed. But, thanks be to God, we know that what started in the womb was also there in the empty tomb.

The people receiving Jesus’ first sermon were uncomfortable with his proclamation such that they wanted to end his life. They couldn’t imagine God would so subvert and change the priorities of existence. They were far away from encountering a God who would resurrect his Son from beyond the grave. They were, in some ways, a lot like us.

We live in a world where women are made to feel less than men. And God is doing something about it.

As Christians, we rest in the darkness of Advent. But we also know the end of the story: we know that greater things are still to come, we know that only God can shake the foundations of the earth, we know that hope in God is unlike anything else in existence. We know all of this, because the promise in Mary's womb comes to fruition in the empty tomb.

When we feel the struggle of making a joyful noise amidst all the other noise this time of year, we return to God's great gift of music. For music is the magnificent agent that lifts our hearts to commune with the heavenly angelic choir. Music transforms our hearts such that we can know the Lord is good. Music is at the heart of God's majesty and mystery.

I have a love/hate relationship with church signs and billboards. There are some that will always make me laugh like, "The Church Isn't Full Of Hypocrites... There's Always Room For More." But there are also plenty of signs that make me cringe like: "Accept Jesus Or Go To Hell."

Tell the story when you are up and when you are down, when all is well and when all is hell, tell the story when you are received and when you are nowhere believed. Tell the story until sinners are justified, until the devil is terrified, until Jesus is magnified, and until God is satisfied!

In America we emphasize individual freedom to such a degree that we surround ourselves with people who look likes us, think likes us, and vote like us. But saints are people who give their lives not to a donkey, and not to an elephant, but to The Lamb.