Bologna

I played football for a couple of years in high school.

We had a small team, which meant a few of us had to play both offense and defense. I was one them. I would play nose guard on defense – faced up against the center, ready to pummel him and the quarterback behind him as soon as the ball moved a millimeter. On offense, they put me in the tailback position. I was faster and bigger than most guys on the team, and so I got to run the ball for awhile. It was “fun-ish” – I never got the hang of running low, so I was an easy target and took a beating in games.

One day in school, I got a detention. It could have been for any number of reasons. Was it taking too long of a lunch? Screwing around in the halls when I was supposed to be in class? General goofing off? Who can remember such details? What I do remember was that I missed football practice, which, at the time, didn’t seem like too big of a deal.

The next day, however, when I got my pads on and went to the field, the coach called another guy to play my spot. It appeared that the coach was not too impressed with my absence the day before. Neither was he too concerned about my feelings of passing my position along to a guy named Jay who happened to be in the right place at the right time.

I got passed up. I lost my position because I got a detention. I got a detention because I wasn’t being a good student and got busted for it. Therefore, I lost my position because I wasn’t behaving like a good student. Another guy got in ahead of me because I was focused on other things.

The targets of Jesus’ parable (Mt. 21:28-32) were the teachers and the scribes – men who garnered significant power over Jews in Jesus’ day. They were keenly interested in preserving what little power they had, enjoying all the privileges their titles afforded them. Rather then acknowledge that Jesus’ interpretation of the law was accurate (and in agreement with some of the best Jewish scholars of his day), the teachers recognized Jesus as a threat to their comfortable, self-serving establishment. These guys looked holy, but something was terribly wrong. On the outside, they wore what everybody would expect a religious leader to wear. But on the inside, there was a terrible lack of holiness. After this exchange, Jesus called them sons of the devil. A little later, he called them white washed tombs: clean on the outside, death on the inside.

Some people keep themselves feeling positive by finding fault with others and keeping them down. It’s sick, for sure, but we all do it from time to time. Last Sunday’s teaching fleshed this reality out a little bit. Nobody was very comfortable imagining Ted Bundy as a greeter, welcoming us into Heaven someday. Why? Because his choices of serial rape and murder were awful. Much worse than you and me, right? As long as Ted Bundy’s and Osama Bin Laden’s are around, we’re in good shape, because somebody is a bigger loser than we are! We feel good, until we consider our zip code. At that point we realize that 2/3 of the world is barely getting enough food to eat while we are spending billions trying to keep our weight down. We generally don’t think of ourselves as being on someone else’s Biggest Loser list, but collectively, we are, because we, collectively, allow millions to die needlessly when we could choose otherwise. Hmmm.

Anyway, the Pharisees loved to keep a few hated people groups in their lowly loser place: tax collectors and prostitutes were among their favorites to condemn.

Interestingly, however, when John the Baptist began teaching in places sinners would show up with little threat of Pharisees attending, the sinners got the message, embraced the invitation from God to have a much better life, and started living anew.

Could it be that these sinners had no desire to become like the people who looked religious because they could smell death on their breath? Perhaps the tax collectors and sinners had heard the basics of the message before, but tied with it was a plea to become like the Pharisees, and they couldn’t understand how God’s character jibed with the Pharisees’ attitude and behavior.

So Jesus levels them. Please note that Jesus doesn’t jump on the bandwagon of accusers. Were there plenty of people to call naughty in the first century? Sure. Was Jesus’ primary role to let everybody know how naughty they were? No. His role was to redeem. To free. To restore. To lift up. To bless. To give hope.

This is one of those reversal accounts where Jesus turns everything upside down. To the ones who are confident in their religiosity, Jesus says, “You’ve so missed it that the people you hate are getting in ahead of you. They’re walking in new life while you remain in your decaying cesspool of an existence, telling yourself you’re one of God’s best!”

To the ones who joyfully discovered the good news of God’s grace through John the Baptist, Jesus gives assurance: “You may have been reluctant and stubborn for awhile, but you got it and are living it – you’ve found life that is rich and full and blesses the world.”

Donald Miller, a young gifted author, spoke of an experiment he conducted at his college campus. In the middle of the university square, he constructed a confession booth. With great curiosity, some people would take a risk and enter in. They would sit there and ask, “So, am I supposed to tell you all the stuff I’ve done wrong now or something?”

Miller would reply something along these lines, “No, this is a different kind of confession booth. I am here as a representative of the Church of Jesus Christ to tell you how sorry I am for all the obvious sins the Church has committed against God and humanity. The Crusades, for instance, was a terrible mistake. Perpetuating slavery, racism, and sexism would be right up there, too. If the Church has ever done anything to hurt you or keep you from embracing God’s love and life, I am so sorry.”

People were shocked. Many wept. Many began to think differently about God that day because they saw humility instead of arrogance.

None of you will likely confuse yourself with a Pharisee. But don’t worry, nobody else has this difficulty. If you try to paste on a smiley face, use Churchy language, and yet harbor feelings of hatred against others made evident by your tone, innuendo, facial expressions, lack of interest in reaching out, etc., everybody but you will see your inner Pharisee. They will hear your words and your invitation to walk with God and cry out “Bologna!” (or something smellier). They won’t be interested in your Jesus because they have no interest in becoming like you.

You might not care. After all, they’re losers, right?

But here’s the deal. We’re about redeeming the world with the power and grace of God. When we blow off someone who has rejected our disjointed version of Jesus, we keep them out. That ticks God off, because not only are they stuck thanks to us, but everybody they may be able to impact is put on hold. Because we care more about ourselves than we do about God.

So, if you’re full of bologna, may you hear Jesus’ scathing words of accountability, a not-so-subtle invitation to do an about face and start loving people into the Kingdom instead of trying to force grace.

If you’ve been kept out of a relationship with God because of Pharisees, I am so sorry, especially if it was me! I hope that you will give Jesus a shot, because even though I’m not perfect in any way, there’s no better hope, no better life, than that which is offered us by God.

Your life may need some serious redeeming. You may be dying on the inside, and dying for something bigger than yourself for which to live. God’s message is clear: identify and let go of old destructive patterns, and trade up to God’s way of life. God’s way leads to wholeness, healthy relationships, smarter finances, better work ethic, a healthier world, and even global impact. Your heart of hearts desires it, and the world needs you.

After all, you don’t want to get to the end of your life and find out you settled for a bunch of bologna because of a bunch of people filled with bologna.

May you be patient enough to see yourself clearly, quiet enough to hear the inviting whisper of God, and courageous enough to say yes.

Think Again and Be Glad

After raping and murdering at least 28 young women and girls, Ted Bundy was executed on January 24, 1989.

Not long afterwards, we sat around a TV set up in their kitchen. I was a youth pastor for a house church near the university I attended in Kansas. We were doing something different that day. Instead of our usual Bible discussion, we were going to watch a provocative video - Ted Bundy confessing his faith in Christ just hours before his final breath. This was part of what he wanted to share with James Dobson (read the interview for yourself: http://www.pureintimacy.org/gr/intimacy/understanding/a0000082.cfm).

As we watched, we came to the part where Bundy referred to his newly professed faith in Jesus Christ, which gave him assurance of God's forgiveness, and confidence in being welcomed into heaven. Some of our house church members scoffed.

A discussion ensued after the video. The talk was not about some biblical allusion or about the dark road onto which sexual sin lures its victims. That would have been a good discussion.

We talked the whole morning about whether or not we believed his confession of sin and his acceptance of Christ was sincere enough to really warrant salvation - in particular, heaven.

The underlying issue was clear: some in our group were not too happy that Ted Bundy was going to potentially be on the welcoming committee when they arrive in heaven someday.

This lack of comfort with undeserving people receiving unwarranted and elaborate measures of grace was an issue Jesus faced in his ministry. He addressed it with a story about a landowner who hired workers at different times of the day, and at the end of the day, paid them all the same amount (Mt. 20:1-16). The workers who only put in an hour were, of course, elated with the landowner's generosity. But the workers who worked all day were ticked off, to say the least!

This parable has been rightfully applied as a lesson on God's grace for may circumstances, including God's forgiveness of tax collectors and sinners of many kinds, and God's welcoming of Gentiles into his Grace.

But I see this story's drama taking place regularly. There is a part of us that isn't too happy when somebody we can't stand "gets" the whole grace of God thing. Why? Because we want to see them pay for their sin.

Some people "get" the whole Jesus/Grace of God thing earlier than later. Others don't seem interested in getting it until they are nearing their last breath. The comment I hear most often from those who got it early, in response to those getting it late, goes something like this: "It just doesn't seem fair that they got to live it up and do all the fun stuff, and then get let off the hook, while I've been faithful all this time, going to church, not doing all that stuff they got to do."

The implication is that the partier got away with something, and the early believer somehow got the raw end of the deal.

Sometimes this happens in marriages. One spouse will "get" the principles of a healthy relationship and being living accordingly, but gets mad that their spouse gets to still get away with bad behavior.

But maybe we need to think again.

Ted Bundy wasn't exactly a happy camper during his horror-inflicting years. He was miserable, trying to satisfy a deep-seated emptiness by stealing the life of others.

The workers in the parable who got to work from the first round of hiring spent the day knowing that they were going to get paid when the day was over. That meant they knew they were going to feed their families that night. They were going to have peace that day, because they got to work earlier than later.

And those who seemingly got away with "the high life" before coming to Jesus will be the first to tell you that those years were empty without a relationship with God. Partying, self-centered living - these prior ways of life just simply do not compare to the depth of meaning and quality of existence found only through faith.

And how about husbands or wives who don't get the principles that lead to marriage? Rather than get angry, feel sorry for them, because they are unwittingly blinded and shackled by whatever lesser understanding of marriage they're living under. Their quality of life stinks - it has to - because their level of intimacy cannot be too deep with shallow principles.

So, as you journey through life, when you are tempted to cry "injustice" when a serial-rapist/murderer gets to go to heaven, think again, and mourn that that person, for whatever number of reasons, missed life, and caused others to miss it as well. And be glad, because that same eternal reservoir of grace that provided for Ted Bundy is going to still be flowing for you someday, even though somebody somewhere will probably be cursing the fact that you got in...

When you see somebody get it late in life, don't get indignant, be humbled by the sad reality that it took so long. And be glad that they finally got it, because now they can experience life in a way that is richer and deeper and more meaningful and more world-redeeming that ever before.

When someone you love doesn't get it, but you do, pray for their awakening instead of judging them. Mourn that they are settling for a joy that pales in comparison to that which Christ brings. And be glad that you have awakened to God's incredible grace and love for you and the whole world, and has given you the privilege of loving someone in healthy ways.

May you be slow to judge God and others. May you reflect on the obvious blessing you have, instead of focusing on what you think is someone else's special deal. May you view everything through the lens of God's grace, that you may help more and more people get it and live in it, that they may think again, and be glad.

Good Lovin'

Derek was ticked. He had text-messaged his best friend some playful words about a girl he wanted to date. The kind of off-color stuff most people laugh at, but aren’t really appropriate, and would cause great embarrassment if it ever got into the wrong hands, which it did, because Derek’s buddy (or former buddy) shared it with ten other friends, who shared it with the very girl Derek was interested in. Derek didn’t think he could ever forgive his former best friend.

Jenny was extremely hurt because her friends didn’t call her when they went out last Friday night. She was home alone, wondering what was up, only to find out the next day that nobody thought to call her. She felt lonely and rejected. She was not going to forgive her friends for being so rude.

Tracey would not forgive her mother and father. How could she? Now 25 years old, she still struggled to sleep through the night, remembering those many nights as a young girl when her father would come into her room and force himself on her, threatening her with the wellbeing of her sister if she ever broke silence about what was going on. She couldn’t forgive her father. And she couldn’t forgive her mother who let it happen.

Mark wasn’t planning to forgive his wife anytime soon. Probably never. She cheated on him. That’s unforgivable.

Michael wasn’t planning to forgive the guy who lived next door who made a racial inference toward him, and followed it up with an “I’m just kiddin’ around.”

Sandy didn’t intend to forgive the people who invited her to church, but then treated her with disgust when they found out she was a lesbian. She didn’t plan on visiting their church, either.

Stan wasn’t about to forgive his company for laying him off in such a bad economy – what was he supposed to do now?

We all have stories of people who have hurt us, who deserve retribution, who we feel justified to judge.

Peter, the spokesman for Jesus’ disciples, asked Jesus about the rules of forgiveness (Matthew 18:21-35). Namely, he wanted to know how many times we should forgive people before letting them have it. Peter was probably confident in his guess of seven times. Seven was the number for completeness and perfection, plus it was more than double the traditional three times instructed by the rabbinical code.

Jesus drop-kicks Peter’s suggestion, and rattles his (and our) cage by instructing his disciples to extend unlimited forgiveness. Peter’s generosity in terms of grace turned out to be quite stingy in comparison, huh?

Noticing that Peter’s jaw had hit the floor in shock, Jesus told the story of the unforgiving servant. In this story, a servant (probably a high-ranking official) is brought before the king who demanded repayment of the servant’s debt. The amount owed was incalculable – more than the servant could every pay back in ten lifetimes. The king ordered him to be put into slavery. But the servant begged for leniency, and the king showed great mercy, canceling the entire debt. But that same servant, when he saw a man owing him a comparatively small amount, demanded repayment. When the guy said he didn’t have it and needed time, the servant wanted to beat him and jail him. The king got wind of this response, and called him to his court, where he reprimanded him for being so merciless when he had just received great mercy. Seeing his true colors, the king cast the servant into jail, where he would remain imprisoned for the rest of his life.

Many of us are imprisoned. We have been forgiven by the One we have offended the most – God, our Creator, the One who is keeping this whole thing going. We have been forgiven of all that we’ve ever done wrong, all thoughts, actions, attitudes – everything. And yet when we focus on the pain someone else has caused us, we can’t let it go, or them go. We hold onto the pain and anger. Still forgiven, we struggle to forgive others. We become embittered. We find ourselves in misery – a prison built by our own stubborn refusal to forgive as we’ve been forgiven.

That’s the irony, of course, that Lewis Smedes famously stated when he noted that when we forgive someone, we set a captive free, and discover that we were the ones in chains. It’s true.

Jesus basically makes a connection here between our capacity to forgive and the reality of forgiveness from God we’re walking in. In other words, our incapacity to forgive calls into question our own receipt of God’s forgiveness of our sin.

Note: It must be stated that God is not calling us to be doormats, taking abuse as it comes and never challenging it. The context of this story comes not long after instruction on how to hold people accountable for their poor choices.

This forgiveness stuff is directly related to the larger concept of love. The reality is that God wants us to be so overwhelmed and immersed by God’s love for us that the very same expressions of love flow out of us, pouring into a world stuck in a love drought. Living in and with this kind of love is the greatest gift we can offer each other, and the world. Read 1 Corinthians 13 and see how your love looks in comparison to this brief description.

The hardest and easiest people to love and forgive are those that mean the most to us – our closest friends, our spouse, our children, our coworkers. Paul, in speaking to the church at Ephesus in the first century, briefly described what love between a husband and wife should look like. The picture was a radical departure from anything in the ancient world – a Picasso among Monets. He made women functionally equal to men but telling husbands and wives to love each other as they had been loved by Christ. He told both parties to love and serve each other sacrificially, to put the others’ needs ahead of their own. He told men, in essence, to sacrifice their lives for the sake of their bride if necessary.

Radical love. Radical forgiveness. These are foreign concepts in our world today. But has the world’s approach worked very well? How well has the philosophy of retaliation worked for us in our pursuit of world peace? Has violence ever begat anything but violence?

There’s much more to say. Let’s simply say this: Derek, Jenny, Tracey, Mark, Michael, Sandy and Stan all have the choice to follow this world’s paradigm and choose not to forgive. Or, they could recognize that all people are broken, and all people find God equally forgiving, and therefore they could choose to forgive those who hurt them. One leads to perpetual suffering. The other leads to freedom and life. Which one should they choose? Which one should you choose?

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Blink For Jesus

In 1991, I took Lynne to my house for Christmas to meet my family. She learned things about me that she never could have apart from a family gathering. Aside from hearing stories about me being potty trained while watching Captain Kangaroo, and hitting my brother over the head with an A&W Rootbeer mug when he wouldn’t stop teasing me, she discovered something about the way I was formed.

Up until that trip, she knew me as a typical young guy in love with his fiancée: very affectionate, regardless of the context. Holding hands wherever we went. A hug here, a kiss there – the romance was hot! But during that Christmas vacation, things went as cold as the Michigan winter at my parent’s place.

I would hardly get near Lynne. Forget a hug or a kiss –she was lucky to hold my hand. For her, it was like a different person took over her husband-to-be.

You probably wonder what Lynne must have said or done to make me so cold. The reality is that she didn’t do anything. The change was the environment, which triggered different behavior in me.

My family of origin is a loving family. We all get along fine. We like and love each other most of the timeJ. But my family is not overly affectionate. My parents love each other, but they generally never showed each other much affection in front of us kids, save a goodnight kiss (which was a quick peck on the lips). So, as I was growing up in their household, a paradigm was formed about marriage, a worldview was shaped about how men and women should behave around other people: treat each other like acquaintances! When I was thrust into that environment, that paradigm switched on, and my behavior radically changed from what Lynne had been used to. Being non-affectionate in that context was as thoughtless as blinking. I was blinking my paradigm. Blinking for my parents – their influence had shaped me to the point of auto-response.

Paradigms are like that. These mental models we all have cause us to think and behave without our even thinking about it – like blinking. As they develop in us, so we develop in them – they are so much a part of us that we don’t even realize they are always running in our mental background. Helping us make sense of reality. Guiding our feelings. Influencing our actions.

Paradigms are so strong that if new, true information comes to us, it generally only sticks if our paradigms can make sense of it. Think of trying to explain an iPod to an early American settler – they just don’t have the mental schema to make sense of what you’re saying.

Jack Mezirow, one of the leading thinkers regarding adult transformational learning, has basically stated that unless we know what we know – our paradigms, our mental constructs, our shaped perspective – we will not likely know any different. Very little growth, very little change.

Most people like to think that they have reached a level of introspective maturity that they are no longer controlled by the paradigms they once held – they’ve grown beyond earlier constructs. Are we really so free? Is it really that easy to mature our way out of our given scripts?

Are you sexist?

Are you racist?

Rather than take your word for it, why not put your paradigm to the test concerning these two issues (and others, if you like). Go to http://www.implicit.harvard.edu/ and take a test or two. You may be surprised by your own preferences. These preferences may belie your stated paradigms.

Getting hold of our personal paradigms are absolutely critical in growing as persons, in relationship with others, in our relationship to our world, and our relationship with God. If you don’t, you sentence yourself to being held hostage to your own mental constructs.

Amadou Diallo lost his life unnecessarily because others didn’t pay attention to their paradigms.

Abbie Conant struggled for equal rights because a man did not come to grips with his bias against women.

Abraham, the father of three of the world’s largest faith systems, only became such because he acknowledged the limits of his faith and life paradigm, and allowed God to stretch him to new heights and depths.

Jacob wrestled with two competing worldviews – one which only promoted his personal well-being, and another which would lead to his and the world’s well-being. He recognized it, and enabled the latter have the victory.

Joseph, the above Jacob’s 11th son, faced down his limiting mental constructs concerning God and grace, and because he did, a family was restored and an entire nation was saved.

Nicodemus was pretty sure he knew the things of God until Jesus spoke in such different language that he spent the next few years breaking out of his mental prison into a newfound hope in the God Jesus was proclaiming.

The Apostle Paul had a major paradigm shift that changed his faith, the course of his life, and world history. He blinked different after he saw the light.

Paradigms matter that much.

How are you doing with your understanding of your personal paradigms?

Richer experiences of life, healthier relationships, and a greater sense of hope lie just around the bend. But to get there, you first have to begin recognizing your paradigm, that lens through which you interpret everything, that construct that causes you to make the split-second decisions that illumine your hard-wiring.

May you have the insight to realize that you have been shaped by a wide range of influences that you may not yet understand. May you have courage to come to grips with what grips you. May you grow to a place where you are more and more shaped by the Spirit of God so that you think and act more and more like the Christ who saved and saves you. May you, sooner than later, blink for Jesus.

If you'd like to learn more about "blinking," read the book: Blink, by Malcom Gladwell.

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