Casting a Vision for God's Love is a Vital Part of Life: Record and Landmark Article June 21

Many of you who know me personally know that often times I can’t get through a conversation without talking about my dog. He is affectionately known as little man, and he is only little in size, not personality. When I first adopted him, he had been abused and lost one of his eyes due to neglect. This past week, he suffered a corneal abrasion in his other eye, and immediately I turned into an anxious wreck over my dog’s vision. The wonderful staff at the Animal Hospital of Statesville is treating him, and he’s getting to be more spoiled than most days. However, for me these questions of sight raised interesting questions about vision and what we see.

            As with any medical treatment, be it canine or human, one must consider all the possible outcomes of such treatment. I’ve given some thought as to my dog’s vision, and if something terrible or unforeseen happened, what life without vision would be like. Questions such as how to care for him, and if I had the option what would I want him to see last? I think that opened up a conversation in my life as well. Given the choice, what would I like to see last on this earth? If death or other calamities took my earthly vision what would be the last things I could hope to see.

            The obvious answers to these questions are almost surface level and simplistic. The list of loved ones and family members (both four-legged and two) comes to mind. But all of those answers to what we would like to see in our last moments of vision give a pretty clarifying statement about what we think of when we think of God.

            The idea I have that if given the choice, I would want to be surrounded by those things that remind me most of the love and grace extended to me by my Creator. These visual, tangible representations of Divine mystery intertwined with mortal beings and inanimate objects are what call us to a deeper understanding of God’s vision for us.

            Though I am worried about my dog as any pet owner would be, I know that if some day his vision is taken from him that doesn’t mean I’d stop loving or caring for him, in fact that love and care may increase. Likewise with the God of all things we can be assured that when we lose vision or life for that matter the God who created us doesn’t stop loving us, in fact, our presence and knowledge of the holy will only increase.

            This week, be assured in Heaven’s grace. Let grace be made evident through your relationships with humans and pets and all of creation. Make it evident to the point where even those who have lost their physical vision or even their spiritual vision may once again look upon the sunrise of faith and be lost in the mystery of it all. 

Record and Landmark Article: June 14th 2013

I’ve heard an enormous amount of chatter lately about the so-called ‘moral decline of America.’ So many people of various religious persuasions are convinced that our nation is headed toward a state of immorality and decline. One example is the debate of Boy Scouting and gay scouts. A number of people are on opposite sides of the spectrum. On one end, you have a group of people who ardently believe that Boy Scouting has lost its moorings and is forsaking its oath and law. They are convinced that they are right. On the other end, you have a group of people who believe that Boy Scouting is affirming its identity and oath by allowing gay scouts. They believe they are right. What complicates matters is that most of these people within this argument are Christians. So the question becomes, have we lost our way?

            I think the answer to what is going on here is far more complex than any of us are willing to admit. We live in a polarizing dichotomy that encourages words like ‘them’ and ‘us,’ beyond that there is a tendency to determine our own personal feelings as Divine will or inspiration. We all must be careful with these realities. To suggest that any of us know the heart and mind of God is to suggest that we have a monopoly on the wisdom of the ages and of our Creator. We must also be careful to shake our heads at the moral decline of America without looking at the church as a possible conduit for this decline to occur.

            The church is in a precarious position. There are those among us who address theo-political issues liberally, and those who address them conservatively. I use Boy Scouting as an example but there are a myriad of other situations to which this is true. To be true to ourselves and to the heart of God is to love each other in our disagreement, to be authentic to ourselves yet authentic to the community of faith of which we are apart.

            There’s a wonderful hymn with words such as these, “Whether our tomorrows be filled with good or ill, we'll triumph through our sorrows and rise to bless you still.” Our tomorrows are in jeopardy. However to listen to the heart of God is a dangerous game, because we can never really know the realities of the Divine, but we are called to follow it. We are called to listen as best we can. Listening requires us to forsake our certainty and begin to love everyone, even those who disagree with us. The Spirit of God is moving in our world, and I would hate if the church missed that movement. Within our time and our place, let us face these issues with the same dignity and grace that called Christ to come to this earth. There is difficulty in loving, but it is a good start to listening to God.  

P.S. I Love You

P.S. I Love You: Vacation Bible School Kickoff

June 9^th, 2013: The Third Sunday after Pentecost

Luke 10:25-37

First Baptist Church

            I take for my text, words from the Gospel of Luke. Jesus said, “Go and do likewise.” Will you pray with me?

Lord of love,

            Allow us to show your love to the loveless so they lovely be. May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be pleasing in your sight oh God our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

            P.S. I love you is a 2007 film that tells the story of Holly and Gerry who are madly, deeply in love. The story opens with Gerry dying of brain cancer. Deeply broken, Holly withdraws until one day, on her 30^th birthday she receives a letter from none other than her late husband Gerry. Throughout the movie we discover that Gerry has written a series of letters to help Holly face the future without him, and they come from the most unlikely of places. Gerry’s ultimate goal is for Holly to abandon her fear of falling in love again. But in a beautiful token of his love for her, he ends every letter with, P.S. I love you. We’ll get back to that though.

Back in the day… The day being around the turn of the century something incredible happened. Mind you it was the 21^st century but nonetheless iTunes, a new way of listening to and buying music was unleashed upon the world. For those of you who may not be as tech savvy as I think I am, let me explain. iTunes was released by an up-and-coming company called Apple to coincide with the release of new iPod. This was a new way of listening to music; this was to be the future. Now well into the 21^st century we not only have iPods, but also iPhones, iPads and other gadgets but the one constant through it all has been iTunes.

            When iTunes was first released I very vividly remember a situation that occurred when I was old enough to order my first song. I don’t even remember the song anymore but I do remember sitting with my dad at the computer and seeing the thousands and thousands of songs available, all for a mere 99 cents at the time. When you select a song that you might want to buy you have the option to preview the song. Back then; you would listen to a minor snippet, a microcosm of the song in about 15 seconds. After it was over you had the choice to buy the song or leave it be, based on the preview you just heard.

            I remember loving the song, knowing that this song would define my life and forever more be synonymous with the journey of life I was embarking on. That was until I heard the whole song. The 15 seconds made the song sound life-changing and awe-inspiring, but after listening the 3 minutes it took to get through the wretched excuse for music, I felt strangely let down, and realized that if iTunes, much less life was going to be like this I wanted nothing to do with it.

            I have a feeling that the lawyer felt a little of the same way when he stood up like any lawyer would do to test Jesus. First, let’s note that it’s important not to condemn the lawyer for testing Jesus, whether we like it or not we’re all guilty of asking Jesus tough questions to try and trap him into a box we’ve formed and created to show him who’s boss. “What must I do to inherit the Kingdom of God?” Jesus, not wanting to go to deep into this gives the answer of what the law says, “You shall love the Lord your God will all your heart, soul, mind and strength; And you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

            The lawyer who was as headstrong as he was stubborn asks Jesus to clarify, “Who is my neighbor?” I’m sure the lawyer thought he had Jesus pinned down. But Jesus doesn’t just give a 15 second iTunes preview as to who your neighbor is. Jesus tells a story, a story that is now iconic with the Christian faith. A preview of life the lawyer probably didn’t like. The parable of the Good Samaritan goes like this:

            On the Jericho road a man was robbed, beaten and left for dead on the side of that highway. Luckily, a priest was passing by. But when the priest saw this mess he thought it best not to get involved and we should let the Jericho Police handle it, so he went on his way. Thankfully, however, a Levite was on the same road around the same time when he noticed the half-dead man. Not wanting to miss his lunch appointment he went on his way towards wherever he was going. Finally, a Samaritan of all people came near him and knew something must be done. So in good faith and devotion the Samaritan took him and bandaged his wounds and took him to the nearest infirmary and paid for his healthcare.

            This story is challenging to us on so many levels, for a man to offer another person free healthcare in our day and time is to suggest that you want to start a political brawl. Complicated by this, the man offering the free healthcare would be the equivalent in our culture to a turban-wearing, terrorist that we’ve picked out as the demise of our nation. Tensions were at an all time high when this story was told. Jews and Samaritans were readying for conflict. You see, Samaritans were descendants of a mixed population occupying what the Jews perceived to be their land following the conquest by Assyria in 722 B.C.E. They opposed the building of the temple, they worshipped at their own sight on a mountain. These people were socially outcast, religiously and ethnically unclean, and heretics in the eyes of the Jews. I dare say that if you don’t believe history repeats itself one would need to look no further than the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that is going on today to realize that history has a way of bringing things back for round two.

            So what does this story have to do with people living in North America in the 21^st century? The text that sticks out to me as the most is the challenging is the commission gives at the end of the parable. As almost a postscript after Jesus has told the story and the lawyer has given his recourse Jesus says, “P.S. Go and do likewise.” Go and do likewise, probably some of the most troubling and terrifying words in the whole of the Gospel.

            You see for Jesus to tell us to go and do likewise is an example of love. We all have our conceptions of love, don’t we? Whether you have been influenced by culture, by a partner, or a friendship you know what love is. We’ve made it into a hallmark card best kept for when Valentine’s Day or an anniversary comes around. However any practitioner of such love would tell you that love is dirty, messy and most of the time challenging. To love someone the way the Samaritan and ultimately Jesus did would be to suggest that you are willing to go to the ends of the earth for someone in pain, someone in trouble, someone who is being oppressed.

            A few months back, Stephanie and I were hiking the Fire Tower trail on the Parkway. It’s my favorite trail, and with the company I had it couldn’t get much better than that. On our way back on that five-mile hike we saw a dog running towards us. We’d seen this dog with his owner on our way up and the owner was nowhere to be found. I think we both thought about if our dogs had run away us we would someone to wait with our dog. So, forsaking our meetings and events coming up we proceeded to wait with this sweet dog. A person past by, stopped for a moment and then in typical fashion kept on going. Finally when the owner was reunited with his lost friend, you could tell that both of them were relieved, thankful and happy.

            I tell you this story because in our lives we have opportunities to be the Good Samaritan. It may happen on a trail, in the store, at the office or even such a place as Vacation Bible School. But I must warn you, there is a tendency for all of us to idolize ourselves in the Good Samaritan in the story, we all want to be like him and rightfully so. But I would be remiss if I didn’t remind us all of the times that we have been less than good, and more like the Levite or the Priest.

            I remember when I was in middle school I was at a private Christian school. I was supposed to write a paper for my English class on a real life hero. I decided to write it on my associate pastor at the time, Jason. I was supposed to interview him and write a paper on his thoughts and actions. Now I consider myself a pretty decent writer and I knew this paper was a testament to Jason’s heroicness in my own life and the lives of others. I was excited to get it back until I saw all the red ink on the page. My paper hadn’t received high marks. It wasn’t due to my writing, or grammar or punctuation. It was due to the fact that Jason believed in a theology much different than that of my super-evangelical teacher. Jason believed in justice, reconciliation and a love that triumphed everything. My teacher inked my page with red so that I might never follow in that radical man’s footsteps.

            However that red ink on that page in middle school was a challenge to go and do likewise. To this day, that man stands as my hero in ministry and a colleague and friend who I adore. Sometimes even in our failures God brings about clarity and sometimes even a reality check.

            Another such reality check came in Statesville where I grew up. During the 1950’s segregated South some activists were ready to make a statement on integration and the Jim Crow laws. The white Presbyterian Church and the Baptist Church were the targets, and black activists were about to test the Samaritan in all of the men and women who sat in those pews. When the activists arrived at the Baptist Church the doors were locked and the service had been conveniently canceled. The priests and the Levites in 1950’s Statesville were found exactly where they should have been, in the church, but when it came time for someone oppressed, marginalized, and beaten by the bonds of segregation to be cared for the community walked away on the other side.

            What has been your Jericho Road moment? Where has been your moment where you have been a Levite or a priest? I tell you these not to depress you to a point of boredom, I tell you because there is good news in being a priest and a Levite. Sam Wells puts it this way, “Maybe you’ll know God’s presence every hour, every breath, every touch. But even if not, know that God is with you and God is for you in every moment of the universe’s existence. You may believe and trust in the living God. But even if not, the living God lives for you.” Friends throughout the course of our own existences we have been a part of the story of God’s redemptive love. Even when we know we’ve fallen strangely short in the light of the Gospel, even when the going gets tough and we are faced with the reality that we have been the priest and the Levite all along, God is redeeming God’s creation to God’s self. Even if the redemption means that it’s your heart God is changing, not someone else’s.

Go and do likewise. Do we know what that means? If I were any good at math I could tell you that Jesus’ commission to go and do likewise is a commission equal to a cross. The listeners of this story that were closer to Jesus all met their end because of this messy, dirty love for a Savior. They all were about to realize whether they wanted to or not that the Jericho road led not only to a Good Samaritan, but a martyr’s death.

            The year was 1862, the battle of Fredericksburg had just ended between General Robert Edward Lee and General Ambrose Burnside. The story goes that General Lee was surveying the carnage of war when down in the gutter he saw a soldier wearing Union colors bloodied from the battle. It is said that General Lee got down off his horse and into the gutter to console a dying man. One of his lieutenants remarked that he didn’t know where God was amidst the war, General Lee is said to have replied that God was right there in the gutter with a dying man. This moment in 1862 was a turning point that Lee later wrote about when he knew that any solution to the conflict needed to be done as peacefully as possible.

            Friends we’ve come to the realization that love is of the Jericho Road. Love is something that we cannot explain and we dare not try to. Love requires of us more than we’d ever want to give so the choice becomes, will you give such love willingly? Will you be the person that gets down in the gutter with someone so different than you that you are at war with them? Will you get down and play with a kid who comes to our Vacation Bible School whose clothes are tattered and they look nothing like the children here today? Will you be obedient to that love to the point where you offer a helping hand to someone who has despised you? Will Willimon tells the story of one Sunday after preaching at Duke Chapel on forgiveness a middle-aged lady walked up to him and pointed her finger in his face and challenged him, “You mean to tell me I’m supposed to forgive my no-good, lying, stealing, cheating husband?” Willimon replied in the crass way he often does, “Ma’am I’m not telling you that, but Jesus is.”

            We have been told to go and do likewise, even when it hurts, even when it’s challenging. That is the reality of the Gospel text today, but wait there’s more. The story doesn’t end like the text suggests. Let’s use our holy imagination and look into a day not too long after this 1^st century Rabbi we now worship told the story of the Good Samaritan.

            Jerusalem in the 1^st century on a dark day, at least that’s how all of us picture Good Friday in our mind’s eye. We see the dark sky matched only by the darkness of three crosses on a hill. In an amazing act of ‘Go and Do likewise love’ the God incarnate stretched out his arms to embrace the world and the world nailed those arms to a cross. In those final moments of life I’m sure Christ borrowed words from that 1960’s song, “Some things are meant to be, take my hand, take my whole life too, for I can’t help falling in love with you.” And the savior of the nations dies, the finite end to a mortal life.

            But just in the distance, three days later, early on the first day of the week we here the ultimate P.S. I love you as a stone is rolled away and a king walks out. Like the letters Gerry wrote in the movie, Jesus doesn’t let death have the final say. This embrace is a reminder that neither height, nor depth, nor anything in all creation (including the challenges and joys of Vacation Bible School) can separate us from the love of God. That love that just won’t go away. So on our darkest days, on the days when we end up being more Levite than Samaritan, hear those life-altering words, go and do likewise. But Jesus offers us a parallel phrase, P.S. I love you. We don’t have to go and do likewise alone. Friends, go and do likewise, P.S. I love you. Amen.

Our Lives Are Haunted

This past weekend was a wonderful reminder of one of the most important acts the church participates in. I was at the North Carolina Aquarium at Fort Fischer, I saw Carolina Beach in the beauty of summer brilliance and closed the day with a walk along the Neuse River. This time spent with special people culminated Sunday morning when the church I serve in the mountains baptized three persons into the life of faith.

These instances reminded me of the 1992 Robert Redford film ‘A River Runs Through It.’ This movie is set in small town Montana where two very different sons of a Presbyterian minister come of age during Prohibition-era America. In the movie, one of the sons, Norman finally realizes as he’s fly-fishing on the Blackfoot River that, “Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world’s great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of those rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words or that of my past. I am haunted by waters.”

In one of the greatest acts of holy mischief, the church takes an element consigned to such destruction, despair and utter terror and pours it on someone or immerses someone to the point in which God cannot be taken from them. They are God’s beloved. They are then sent out, possibly to a wilderness or a temple to turn over tables and change the world. Throughout the story of our faith water has changed everything. From the flood in Genesis to the river of life in Revelation we see our lives intertwined with this life-giving force.

Friends, remember your baptism. Remember your initiation and calling into the wonderful community of faith that you now call home. Kindle anew the Spirit that led yourself or your parents up to the altar for baptism. Celebrate that grace at work in your life whether you knew it was there or not.

But be careful, often times we’d like it if baptism was for us the only way in which we could express our faith. But the God of our baptism calls us out of the waters and to take up a cross. Baptism is the beginning of something beautiful, something miraculous, but it is only the beginning.

This week remember that our lives are haunted by water for God is found in the water. God will do whatever it takes to reach us, racing through every street in every town, hamlet and city until we find ourselves lost in the beauty of the waters of life. Our lives are haunted by water and that’s the best reality anyone could ever have.