Sermon for the Sixth Sunday after Epiphany - "God-Centered Life"

            I hung a BC comic strip on the door of my study at my last call, in Minnesota.  When we moved, I accidentally ripped it in half, and without thinking I just threw it away.  Now I can’t find it online, but I remember that it said, “ser-mon: An inspired message directed mainly at those who are not in attendance.”  It’s been informing how I preach ever since I first read it, laughed out loud, and then winced. 

Going to Worship with Denis Leary

I went to church with Denis Leary this morning.

In a manner of speaking, of course - no, Denis Leary did not make his way to an ELCA congregation in rural Iowa. At least, if he did, no one noticed. But I went to worship with him all the same.

I was in a bad mood this morning. For some reason, the Unbloggableness (henceforth known as "U.B." because I'm tired of typing out the whole thing) popped into my head as I was leaving the house for a supply date at a local congregation. Ten minutes of seething behind the wheel is not a good way to prepare oneself to preach to a group of people who've recently lost an interim pastor to illness and haven't seen you in two years. I tried various musics and podcasts and just couldn't get my mind of the shitty turn things had taken vis-a-vis the U.B. No particular reason - I guess this morning was just my turn on the shit wheel. It happens, you know.

I pulled into a drive-thru coffee shop for some extra caffeine and scrolled through my iPod while I was waiting for the car in front of me to get their order when "No Cure for Cancer" popped up. Some of you may have forgotten this little gem, or maybe you're too young to remember that Denis Leary was a comedian long before "Rescue Me" or any of the other projects he's done as an actor. His act is not for the uptight or easily offended, especially when it comes to religion, Catholicism in particular. For some reason, his combination of anger and profanity was just what I needed to put me in the right state of mind. I laughed all the way to the church, enjoyed the service tremendously, including several conversations with members after worship, and then I laughed all the way home. In fact, I had a great day after a lousy start, thanks to Denis Leary and the myriad ways he can use the F-bomb in the course of a single rant.

Perhaps this is a sign of the life we've been living lately: the best pick-me-up I've had in months came from a guy screaming, "Your life didn't turn out the way you wanted it to? Hey, pal, I wanted to be the starting centerfielder for the Boston Red Sox. Life sucks: get a fucking helmet!" We have so much for which we are rightfully thankful, yet the U.B. has made us perpetually aware how quickly things can change and how dreadfully we can be hurt.

What I have always appreciated about Denis Leary is his absolute refusal to engage in bullshit. Having been a fan for years, I've caught him on talk shows and other places and have always enjoyed the fact that he simply doesn't care how you feel about what he says. We both work in words, Denis Leary and I, yet he has a freedom of which I can only dream, for the most part. The more outrageous his act, the more people will come to hear it, whereas my job is to disappear entirely and let Jesus be the outrageous one, and me simply the guy pointing directly at him.

I don't want to be a person who engages in bullshit. We've got far too little time on this earth to waste it saying things we don't mean and putting up with crap that isn't true. There are far too many of us in the church who value tranquility and "niceness" above all other characteristics, when what might be more healthy is a good dose of plain speaking or even anger at times. I don't mean the kind of vengeful, hateful anger that seeks the destruction of what is good, of course, but there is certainly a place for anger about mistreatment, unrepentant sin and the expectation that bullshit is better than honesty that might get uncomfortable.

There's no grandiose statement here at the end of this reflection. I won't promise to call "Bullshit!" whenever I see it (even though it's a wicked fun game and you should try it sometime). I just had a good ride to church with Denis today and thought you should hear about it. He's a good guy, that Denis - his language is a little rough, but he says the kind of things I often think in my head but don't have the guts to say out loud. I think he and I should ride to church together more often; if you want to come along, don't say I didn't warn you.

Grace & peace,

Scott

And Some Get Wicked Funny

I'm not a subtle person by any means, especially when I'm angry, and I was angry when I wrote yesterday. Lily Coyle of Minneapolis, on the other hand, was not angry. Or, if she was, she's much more cool-headed than I. Most people can only wish they could write satire this good.

Dear Pat Robertson,

I know that you know that all press is good press, so I appreciate the shout-out. And you make God look like a big mean bully who kicks people when they are down, so I'm all over that action. But when you say that Haiti has made a pact with me, it is totally humiliating.

I may be evil incarnate, but I'm no welcher. The way you put it, making a deal with me leaves folks desperate and impoverished. Sure, in the afterlife, but when I strike bargains with people, they first get something here on earth -- glamour, beauty, talent, wealth, fame, glory, a golden fiddle. Those Haitians have nothing, and I mean nothing. And that was before the earthquake. Haven't you seen "Crossroads"? Or "Damn Yankees"?

If I had a thing going with Haiti, there'd be lots of banks, skyscrapers, SUVs, exclusive night clubs, Botox -- that kind of thing. An 80 percent poverty rate is so not my style. Nothing against it -- I'm just saying: Not how I roll.

You're doing great work, Pat, and I don't want to clip your wings -- just, come on, you're making me look bad. And not the good kind of bad. Keep blaming God. That's working. But leave me out of it, please. Or we may need to renegotiate your own contract.

Best, Satan

Now THAT is good satire, folks. Prayers for Haiti continue to ascend.

Friday Five: Countdown to Christmas

Songbird had the Friday Five yesterday. One thing I've noticed is that as a parent, I get more done when it's NOT a snow day: we spent most of yesterday managing kids instead of relaxing and taking it easy. And the parental weirdness continues... By the by, I swear that every time I navigate away from this page the spacing between paragraphs gets larger. Sometimes Blogger does some crazy formatting stuff...

It's true.

There are only five full days before Christmas Day, and whether you use them for shopping, wrapping, preaching, worshiping, singing or traveling or even wishing the whole darn thing were over last Tuesday, there's a good chance they will be busy ones.

So let's make this easy, if we can: tell us five things you need to accomplish before Christmas Eve.

Let me start by confessing that we have sucked at Christmas the last couple of years. In 2007, we were preparing to move and chasing an 11 month-old around the house. So, no tree, and the holiday photocards we ordered from Snapfish sat around our old house and our new one until we threw them out sometime in March. This year, again, no tree, though I don't feel bad about it because I'd rather spend December doing pretty much anything BUT chase two girls away from the tree all day long. So, the goal this year? Don't suck so much. Thankfully, that sets the bar pretty low.

1. Write the Christmas letter and send the cards to our friends and family.

2. Get Kristin's present (going to do that this afternoon - I know what I'm getting her, I just need to buy it locally so as to save on shipping).

3. Start working on 2008 Taxes (because I WILL NOT file an extension for a third straight year)

4. Enjoy the start of the college football bowl season (please, God, let there be some decent games - January through August is the longest time of the year!)

5. Continue to enjoy a remarkably angst-free Advent. Thankfully, it appears that the Society for the Preservation of Advent finds its work much less demanding in the midst of an economic downturn.

Bonus "to-do" item: maintain a good sense of humor - it makes everything else so much more enjoyable. Thus, I give you the following cartoon:

Sermon for the Twenty-sixth Sunday after Pentecost - "More Useless Cramming"

In December 1992, I was a freshman music education major at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. My friend Mike and I were in the same section of Music Theory 101, and our final exam was Friday morning at 8:00 a.m. All semester, we had laughed at the choir people who were getting their first real work in music theory: being instrumentalists, we’d been dealing with notation and chord structures since we first started playing. But by the time the final rolled around, we’d moved into stuff that was advanced enough to require studying, which we didn’t do, of course. So, on Thursday night we decided we needed to do a bit of studying. We started by heading over to my dorm room for coffee, and spent an hour or so listening to the marching band CD I’d just bought the day before. From there we were drawn into a discussion of the finer points of Monty Python, complete with a listen to the Monty Python tape I’d just purchased at a local record story. Around 3:00 A.M. we finally actually started studying, and at 6:30 we decided we’d had enough and breakfast was in order. So, off to Denny’s we went, and at 8:00 we walked into the music building, arm in arm, singing Monty Python’s “Lumberjack Song” at the top of our lungs to celebrate the end of the semester.

The question I want to ask you this morning is, “How much of the information on that exam do you think is still with me today?” You know how this works: the classes you attend diligently, in which you read the assigned work and complete the assigned homework, are the classes that give you knowledge that remains with you. The classes you skip, the reading you don’t do, the homework you don’t complete, until you cram for the final so you can pass the test? Those are the classes that don’t stay with you. That’s the information you have to learn again. My brother Brian is an elementary school teacher, and one of his primary complaints about the “No Child Left Behind” education standards is this: he spends more time “teaching to the test” than he does educating young minds and teaching children how to think, study and grow. Nothing you’ve ever learned in a cramming session will change your life – you’ll pass the test, maybe, and move on, nothing more, and that, friends, is the tragedy of the Parable of the Bridesmaids this morning.

The word our New Revised Standard Edition translates “Keep awake” is gregoreo. Eugene Boring is a Matthew scholar who says that the translation isn’t quite right.

Matthew opposes the frantic quest for [information about the end of time], and
he pictures faithful disciples as those who do their duty at appropriate times
and are thus prepared for the [coming of Jesus] whenever it comes. Such
disciples can lay down to sleep in confidence, rather than being kept awake by
panicky last-minute anxiety. Thus the Matthean meaning for gregoreo is "be
prepared," not "keep awake"/"watch," and it might be so translated in this
context.[1]

How many of you guys were Boy Scouts at one time or another? I was. Remember the Boy Scout motto? “Be Prepared.” I was a lousy Boy Scout, mostly because I was never prepared for anything. Why prepare when there’s always someone who’ll help you get things done when the time comes? But what does it mean to “Be Prepared?” As I recall, there was a Boy Scout handbook that came in pretty handy when it came to being prepared. Likewise a compass, pocketknife and other basic equipment when we went camping, not to mention sleeping bags and tents, since you’d be wet and cold at night without them. The Boy Scouts weren’t just talking about a mindset when they said, “Be Prepared:” you are actually supposed to see to it that you’ve got the things you might need with you. You pack the equipment you’ll need for the journey, and you know the skills that will come in handy should you need to improvise. You certainly want to make sure your lamp has enough kerosene to last the night if you go out in the dark, right?

Boy Scout mottos and three-fingered salutes are useless when you’re in the middle of the woods: what you need is a compass and orienteering skills. Last-minute cramming fueled by Denny’s coffee and a healthy dose of Monty Python is useless when you’re a college student who’s supposed to be learning professional skills that will last a lifetime: what you need is knowledge embedded in your mind through practice, repetition and application. In the same way, we cannot find our way into the reign of God with empty lamps and the appearance of good behavior. The foolish bridesmaids are doing more useless cramming, and because they were not ready, they suffer the consequences of their lack of preparation.

So, what are we to do? How are we to “keep awake” or “be prepared?” There are three parts to what Jesus asks of us in this parable. The first part is simple: show up. Woody Allen once said, “Eighty percent of success is showing up.” He’s right. You won’t truly learn anything here at Iowa State if you don’t show up for your classes. Likewise, you won’t be transformed by the good news of Jesus Christ if you don’t have a regular encounter with it. Read your Bible, with others when you can. Pray, again, with others when you can. Make time to contemplate what it means to live as a disciple of Jesus.

The next part is more complex: give up. Understand this and things are going to change for you, instantly. You live in an environment where your worth is determined by what you produce, by the tests you pass, by the honors and awards you earn through hard work. For the arena of college education, that’s fine – it’s as it should be. But that is not how life in the reign of God is structured. The kingdom of God is not marked by our accomplishments or our glory – it is marked by the cross of Jesus Christ alone, and all of creation, everything in this world, falls under its shadow. There is no test for you to pass: you were brought into the reign of God when you were brought to the baptismal font, washed clean in the name of Jesus and sealed by the Holy Spirit through water and word. The life of following Jesus isn’t even pass/fail: you’ve been marked for God forever and no accomplishment of your own can ever make you more worthy of God’s love or more beloved by Christ Jesus. Give up, folks: there’s no extra credit in heaven, and the only being in heaven that gets a summa cum laude is the one with the scars in his hands, feet and side. He earned those scars in love, and that same love is his gift to you – receive it gladly and offer it to others with joy.

Finally, wake up! Did you notice the funny thing about Jesus’ parable? All ten of the bridesmaids fell asleep! You are not being called to a life of endless all-nighters and constant worry about missing the moment. Let’s go back to the academic arena for a moment: why are you pursuing a degree from this university? Once you get that degree, once all the classes are done, what are you going to do? You’ll be contributing something to the world, whether it’s science or accounting or music or teaching or whatever. Your education here teaches you how to interpret the world in which you live and how to help others live in that world – is it so hard to believe that Jesus asks the same of all of us who come to him in faith? The church does not exist simply to help people pass some sort of exam: we’re here to be transformed by the Holy Spirit for life in the world God has made. This life has times of great celebration and times of great sorrow. This life has times of struggle and strife and times of peace and contemplation. This life has times of intense hard work, and times of sweet, blessed rest. When you give up your idolatrous quest for self-justification and show up to be transformed by the reign of God, you will know when the time has come to wake up. When the bridegroom came in the parable, there was a loud cry of welcome, and the bridesmaids all woke up and prepared their lamps. It’s a matter of trust, to know that, yes, the end of time is coming, that God will one day make all things new. But that time is not yet here, and while we wait for it to come, we do not wait in anxiety or apathy. We wait with joy, knowing that because Christ has invited us to be prepared, we are to be part of what is to come, and the feast with which this new creation will be inaugurated will be great indeed.

Be prepared, beloved of Christ! Don't wait for the end and think that more useless cramming is the answer: the reign of God is near! Show up and be transformed, give up and be made holy, wake up and welcome your Savior. Christ be with you all. Amen.

[1] Boring, M. Eugene. The New Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. © 1994, Abingdon Press, Nashville. P. 451 [my interpretations in brackets]

Funny Papers Friday Five

Let me begin by saying that I LOVE the comics. I do read the whole paper, but I usually save the comics for the end so I can end on a good note. I've been known to laugh out loud if a particularly good strip has been posted, and one of the few downsides to our new home in Ames is that neither of the local papers has a comics section worth much of anything. Thank you, Presbyterian Gal, for one of the best Friday Fives we've had in a long time. Laugh out loud funny!

After an exhausting election here in the states it's time for some spirit
lifting! Join me with a nice cup of tea or coffee or cocoa and let's sit back
and read the Funny Papers!

1. What was your favorite comic strip as a child?

Garfield. Those of us who grew up in the 80s in the U.S. might remember the book orders you could make in elementary school - I bought Garfield books whenever those sales were going on. For some reason I just loved that cat, and to this day I can't eat lasagna without thinking of that poor, undertall cat who suffers life with Jon and Odie.

2. Which comic strip today most consistently tickles your funny bone?

Get Fuzzy. By far the funniest strip going right now. For a couple of years now, Kristin has gotten me the Get Fuzzy desk calendar and it's one of the best gifts she could have given. Here are two of the best:

3. Which Peanuts character is closest to being you?

I think I've always identified with Linus most of all, though as far as personality goes I'd probably say I'm as bossy and overbearing as Lucy. That's the beauty of Peanuts: Charles Schulz created characters that touched on the humanity of all of us.

4. Some say that comic strips have replaced philosophy as a paying job, so to speak. Does this ring true with you?

See above. Though there is, of course, still a need for philosophers (and you could argue that those of us in preaching ministries take up some of that burden, too), philosophy is useless if it can't be understood by a wide reach of people. The great comics and their writers are really commenting on life, not just making us laugh.

5. What do you think the appeal is for the really long running comic strips like Blondie, Family Circus, Dennis the Menace as some examples?

Well, the three you mentioned are saccharin sweet, and though Blondie is okay I'm not really a fan of the other two. That having been said, there's something that obviously connects with people there. For Better or Worse is the same, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who'll note that it's one of the few comics that told a story, which unfortunately has come to an end this year.

Bonus question: Which discontinued comic strip would you like to see back in print?

Two: Calvin & Hobbes, and The Far Side. Both were brilliant beyond comparison, and losing them both in the space of a few years was devastating to a connisseur like myself.

I'd also add the folks who do cartoons for The Wittenburg Door - they've been doing funny Christian comics for years upon years.

Another Unfortunate Headline (Seriously, Is ANYONE Checking These Things?)

From ELCA News:

"ELCA Radio Ministry Features Head of John Deere"

I'm thinking it's a good thing it's not the ELCA video ministry - Peter Marty interviewing a 122 years-dead cranium wouldn't look good...

To Boldly Go Where No Copy Editor Has Gone Before

Here's what I read in last night's edition of our local paper:

LOS ANGELES (AP) — William Shatner is setting his phaser to stun against his old "Star Trek" co-star George Takei.

In a video posted on Shatner's Web site Wednesday, he lashed out at Takei for not inviting him to his wedding last month. The 77-year-old Kirk said Takei, who played Enterprise helmsman Sulu, apparently harbors a grudge against him that kept him from being invited to Takei's nuptials.

"The whole thing makes me feel badly," Shatner said in the video. "Poor man. There is such a sickness there. It's so patently obvious that there is a psychosis there. I don't know what his original thing about me was. I have no idea."

Oops - you can't make this stuff up!

Monday MEEme

RevKim tagged me for a meme. Six Unremarkable Things About Me. Note that this is NOT to be confused with the "7 for 700" due in a few weeks.

1. For a couple of years in college, my shirts consisted almost 100% of marching band and church camp t-shirts.

2. I have become my mother when it comes to cleaning, laundry, etc. I've been known to rearrange dishes and glasses until everything that needs washing gets a spot, and it's arranged in such a way that it's most efficient also: big plates behind little plates, etc. I think I may actually suffer from a mild form of OCD when it comes to such things, because I get irritated if Kristin does my laundry and doesn't put things away as I'd like them to be put away. For example, my shirts in my closet must all face the same direction, arranged by type (button-down, polo, t-shirts, starting each with short sleeves and moving to long-sleeves). All right, that may be a bit remarkable. Enough of the anal retentive stuff.

3. I have a small hemangioma underneath my right eye.

4. I cannot eat cooked squash, and can barely stomach muskmelon and cantelope. If I try to eat cooked squash my throat will lock up and my gag reflex kicks in.

5. I don't wear any gold jewelry, watches or rings, at least, as far as I'm aware. My wedding band and watch are both silver (the watch has a black leather band).

6. Boxers. 'Nuff said.

So, there's your Monday Meme. And now for something completely different: