Admittedly, this is a divisive thought to some, but I couldn't help thinking about it just this past Sunday. Simon Schama was on the radio talking about his recently published book The American Future: A History. I had been fortunate enough to catch the book when it was a four-part documentary on BBC America earlier this year.

Schama is a historian and professor at Columbia University. British by birth, he offers a particularly objective take on American history that is at times understanding verging on sympathetic. Each part of the documentary series corresponds to a chapter in his book, and, by the radio interview, contains much of the same information. Schama has chosen to frame the American narrative around four central themes, loosely (and varyingly) codified as American abundance, war, religion and immigration.

The interview was intriguing and Schama's easy-speaking academia is pleasant enough to listen to while heading to church, but he said one line when speaking of religion that distinctly caught my attention.Schama notes the British tendency to caricaturize Americans as rabid about their religion. As an aside he rightly notes that the British were equally devout in their own religious habits before World War II.

As a Southern evangelical, I can remember hearing sermons decrying the advance of religious antipathy (and its fraternal twin apathy) in England. It was a cautionary tale, often quoting dubious sources and futurists who saw America on a similar pattern of decline in the area of Christian zeal. It was, as some have said, "true enough" to find an audience. It was no secret that the clergy who once played prominent roles in British literature and popular culture were usurped for James Bond and other men of intellect and valor--the Christian religion was relegated to a minor character in the public sphere. 

Admittedly, religious liberty and the separation of church and state prevent this from being an equal comparison, but what struck me most in Schama's cursory remark was the question of whether or not war erodes civil understandings of religion.

This of course, is not merely limited to Britain. Only two weeks ago the "men's magazine" GQ claimed to have obtained classified military documents from none-other than Donald Rumsfeld that showed various scenes of soldiers, tanks and battle, all with handpicked Scriptures to add a sense of divine legitimacy to the Iraq War.

Religion has long been channeled as a justification for war, be it on the basic truth claims of one particular religion, or merely through an appeal to the moral and ethical responsibility of its adherents.

"War is hell" is the refrain across any number of ages, though precious few have reasonably considered "war AS hell".

In a "Suffering and Evil" class my last semester of seminary, we spent the better part of the semester languishing between competing theodicies. Though natural disasters and other "acts of God" seriously undermine most popular thought, the predominant metaphor for evil on a global scale was and is always war.

It would only follow that if war represents not only the abiding presence of evil in the world, but the gravitational force that pulls all parties to partake, on some level, in shared evil--it can only, naturally, erode the work of the Kingdom of God in the world.

At it's most basic level, war is destruction--as Mark in the musical Rent so resolutely affirms "The opposite of war isn't peace, it's creation."

I'm no historian, but I know enough to know that the US, though it encountered many losses, never knew the full horror of bombs being dropped across the mainland landscape. London knew quite a different story. I'm not convinced that those two things aren't somehow related.

The horrors of war erode not only our belief in a benevolent God but our most basic belief in progress--that things can and will actually be better. It unmasks our heavenly perceptions of what could be as what is is slowly bombed out and destroyed before our eyes.

When I was in seminary our Mission and Evangelism class took an immersion trip to Belgium and a side-trip to Coventry Cathedral in England. the roofless ruins above show the reality many of my friends beheld--a literal shell of what once was a glorious cathedral, rent apart by the metal and powder of German bombs.

What stands here literally may well also stand metaphorically--what remains of British Christianity is a shell of what once was--less because of secularization and apostasy, more that the realities of war make it all the more difficult to look heavenward.

On American soil, at least in my generation, the vulnerability suddenly felt in the wake of 9/11 was but a taste of that kind of conflict, and yet it was enough to shake the faith of any of us.

It may well be that the work of the Church in our time is not crusades for souls but tending the wounded psyches of men and women who bear the wounds of all manner of wars.

It may be that our task is once again to commit to the dream of the Kingdom

It may be time to commit to creation and growth, not contraction and ideology.

It may be the last, best, and only hope we have.

Truth be told, Jersey Boys is well out of the gate by now. By the time most musicals make it to Atlanta, they've collected their requisite Tony's and Drama Desk awards, and most often the actors garnering such prestige have long since moved onto other projects. Still, Jen and I hadn't seen Jersey Boys and were excited, despite being decidedly younger than the generation that first knew the hits of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons.

The show was great--sort of a juke-box musical ala Mamma Mia! in the way that it showcased the music of Frankie and the Four Seasons, but biographical in nature and theme. There was a sense of story that sucked in my generation who will occasionally confessed to getting sucked into every VH1 Behind the Music special, or, on particularly rainy, sleepy weekends, an E! True Hollywood Story marathon. Jersey Boys met and exceeded all expectations as it told the fascinating story of Frankie, Bob, Tom, and Nick (and every other iteration in between).

But easily the most pervasive theme/catchphrase (that didn't include all kinds of colorful "Jersey language") was when Tommy DeVito, the small-town fixer/mob boss/musician, would recite various details of the early life and times of he and Frankie's relationship. Almost without fail, Tommy would conclude each soliloquy with a raised right hand and the simple phrase "My hand to God..."

It was a punchline--a smooth-line from a smooth operator who had never kept any word, regardless of his hand position. There's a certain amount of heart to Tommy, but a basic ruthlessness that is equal parts greed and machismo. 

Without giving away the entire plot of the thing, suffice it to say that eventually another member of the band is added, Bob Gaudio, a piano man-songwriter. By the end of Act I, Bob and Frankie have worked out a side-deal. When Bob starts to draw up an official contract for the partnership, Frankie interrupts him and says "We make a Jersey contract." offering only a handshake and his word.

I don't even think by brain hesitated when it hyper-linked to the words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount 

People swore oaths all the time--it was the only way to seal a deal. Even Yahweh's covenant with Abram is sealed by a ritual ans swearing of an oath.

Frankie's promised hand to Bob was as tight of a contract as any sworn statement before a court official, but largely because each party agreed to participate in it...which got me thinking...

"...We're just skeptical about it's worth--of it being the the only thing." 

I had read earlier in the week that the latest class of Harvard Business School had initiated a sort of Hippocratic Oath for Corporate America. The "MBA Oath" as it has come to be known pledges ethical decision making in business that prevents the willful deception, use and abuse of individuals and funds for willful and deliberate gain. Some have called it a sort of "anti-Madoff clause", but that's scapegoating a bit (Madoff got all his moves from Zaccheus, after all).

What was perhaps most compelling about the interview were the two students interviewed. They were quite explicit about their belief that the business world is and should remain explicitly "for profit". What they rejected, however, was the now infamous me-generation credo of Gordon Gecko in Wall Street that "Greed is good." In the words of one student "I don't want to be 75 and look back...and realize I've left all these people in my wake along the way." only to hear the quick caveat of his colleague declaring they are "for profit......We're just skeptical about it's worth--of it being the the only thing."

Maybe it's the randomness of the idea--from the stage, to the Sermon on the Mount, to the speaker of my car on a Sunday morning, but I'd like to think there's a pattern here.

What I find most interesting is that these business school graduates are swearing an oath--their "yes" has been returned "insufficicent funds because of words like Ponzi, AIG and executive exuberance. They have to swear an oath to their customers, their colleagues--their fellow humanity--that they will carry out their business with a sense of purpose--that "business ethics" are not irreconcilable. 

Maybe their onto something or maybe their just getting back to Frankie and Bob. The question that lingers in my mind is what is our oath as a consumer?

If Bob broke the "Jersey contract" then Frankie would no longer be bound by it, and vice versa.

Inasmuch as those we entrust with our finances are swearing to behave responsibly, I have to wonder...what's my consumer responsibility? Where do I sign and what exactly should I be signing on for? How, in the words of Gandhi, do I begin to differentiate between what is enough for everyone's need, and yet insufficient for my own greed?

Maybe I should settle for a handshake.

 

I joined the facebook group for the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty because I find the Death Penalty to the most basic rejection of the sanctity of human life, even over and above all other issues. (I've written some about this and am glad to tell you the various reasons why if you want to have that conversation privately--I'd rather not has it out on here).

After joining the group I continued to get updates advising me of recent advocacy efforts, requests for contacting congresspersons and letter-writing campaigns. I must confess I turned a deaf ear to most of these until it got local--the pending execution of Georgia prisoner Troy Davis. I did, however, take notice of an unlikely news story the NCADP was plugging. In March, the State of New Mexico repealed the death penalty. Though there was some speculation of the "feared" innocence of some of those sentenced in the "pre-DNA" era, the principle reason cited was that capital punishment is simply too expensive an enterprise to maintain. Admittedly, the NCADP is glad to welcome any help it gets, regardless of motive, but they lauded the result as New Mexico became just the second state (after New York) to remove the death penalty altogether.

The motives clearly don't match and yet the desired result was the same--put an end to capital punishment (at leas tin New Mexico). There are plenty of folks who would write off such an incident as a pure coincidence--the rare point where a "win" for one vested interest shares turf with another. 

It was early 2008. The ONE campaign, which leads in advocacy and education efforts to address HIV/AIDS in Africa, as well as other issues of global poverty, was featuring a campaign called "On the Record" where every presidential candidate (all 15 at the time!) went on record regarding their plans to combat extreme poverty and global disease. You could (and still can here) view up to three presidential candidates positions in a convenient comparative grid. I decided to go with then Senator Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and, out of morbid curiosity, Governor Mike Huckabee.

I found more or less what I expected to find--both Clinton and Obama pledged unparalleled support in actual dollars, while Huckabee maintained Bush's PEPFAR (arguably the most influential contribution of his administration) as well as increasing certain items, though not at the amount pledged by Clinton or Obama.

What was fascinating was Huckabee's reply to the issues of "wat-san"--the availability of clean water and sanitation. Huckabee's reply was

Admittedly, there's no dollar amount given, and talk is cheap, particularly in an election year, but Huckabee had said elsewhere something closer to a "blank check" policy than any of his counterparts when it came to water and sanitation.

This is not say this earned my vote at any level, but it did make me consider how there are multiple ways to come around to something. Huckabee's rationale for clean wat-san, as well as his commitment to bed-nets to combat malaria, high-light his most basic political commitment to spending less. The logic is that people who are invested in at an early age--clean water, good sanitation, with mosquito nets and nourishment--these people are more likely to live longer, require less aid and services then people lacking such basic services, and will subsequently make greater contributions to their own well-being and the well-being of others.

Last week saw the brutal murder of George Tiller, a Kansas doctor who, among other things, had become a lightning-rod for the anti-abortion movement because of his willful decision to perform late-term abortions. He was killed in the foyer of his church , shot while handing out bulletins for the morning worship.

There are all sorts of responses popping up in the media maelstrom--some have recognized their own complicity in espousing hate towards Tiller while others have questioned the apparent silence  of much of the religious right. Then there are the heinous statements of some who claim to follow Jesus and are yet gratified by his death.

Perhaps the most interesting posts I found, however, come from the office of Planned Parenthood (of which Tiller was not a participating physician) and Robert P. George, the noted conservative Princeton Law Professor and anti-abortion activist. Planned Parenthood said nothing of the maliciousness of the shooter, nor did they make any allegations relating to his agenda (as many others have.) In fact, in terms of moral assessment, it was only George who used such language, calling it gravely wicked. Furthermore, the stoic, widely regarded Catholic professor said simply:

As a culture, if we produce anything that’s good or beautiful, or effective or helpful, we immediately feel the pressure to improve on it.

 

Every summer blockbuster now seems to leave room for a sequel 

Every product pitched is somehow new AND improved…think about that… 

Every season of fashion gives way to “what’s next” 

Every piece of technology is only good until it’s replaced with a better model. 

We don’t tend to think of “sequels” in the Bible, but our Scripture for today lands us smack in the middle of perhaps the best example of such a thing. 

Acts is Luke the 2^nd in a great many ways. Scholars have noted the narrative symmetry of the two books.

 They share the same author, Luke, an educated Gentile. 

Luke tells the story of the good news—the “gospel” of Jesus Christ—his birth, life, teachings, death, resurrection and ascension. 

Acts tells the story of the church that carried the Gospel—it’s birth, early life, figures and structure, going and sending. 

Luke 2 tells the story of the birth of Jesus.

 Acts 2 tells the story of the birth of the church.

 Church tradition calls this “Pentecost Sunday”—the day when the Holy Spirit descended on a rag-tag group of Jesus-followers, gathered together plotting their next move. “Something like” Scripture says—“something like” tongues of fire descend on those gathered few and they immediately went OUT. 

They went out, but they didn’t go far. In fact, they need only turn around to the crowd that had come expecting a meteor shower or some sort of astronomical display, only to find a group of people gathered together.

 Just as Luke spoke of shepherds coming to Bethlehem he now speaks of crowds gathering around Jesus’ followers. The difference between Luke and Acts is now seen in the makeup of the audience—these are not a monolithic group of wandering shepherds, but a diverse tapestry of tribes and empires, peoples and cultures, each with their own customs and traditions, beliefs and languages.

The story goes that the crowd of followers gathered on that day began to speak in other tongues “as the Spirit gave them utterance”. I know this subject makes Baptists squirm a little bit, but this is not the kind of tongues Paul talks about in some of his letters. These “tongues of fire” empowered the disciples to speak to the various communities that had been brought to their upper-room doorstep. It allowed them to speak the fullness of the Good News of Jesus in a language the people could understand—their own tongue.

The gathered communities don’t know what to do with this information…it simply doesn’t add up. These people are all Galileans by birth—they’re not even particularly cultured or well-traveled folks—so how is it that they are each speaking to us in our own language—in the words and phrases our parents used to sing to us, scold us and direct us?

Then there’s something of a laundry list of cultures—Medes, Parthians, Cretans and Arabs, Cappadocians, Elamites, Phyrigians, Proselytes—you get the idea.

And the Scripture says it all:

“All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another ‘WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?!?!??!’” 

More or less, it meant that the message had shifted. Jesus the Christ, the Jewish boy who was also somehow fully God had now moved beyond all borders.

 Knowing what we now know it’s easy to wonder how they didn’t see this coming. The narrative theme of the entire Bible is that God longs to be in fellowship with God’s own creation—ALL of us, not just some.

            We see that in the Garden of Eden, with man and woman in beautiful divine relationship with one another and with God. We see it in God’s love for Abraham and a covenant established with Abram. Many times we think God’s love stopped with Israel—that there is no room in God’s kingdom for those beyond the genetic pool of the Hebrews, but the witness of Scripture disagrees. Earlier in Luke’s gospel Jesus is in his own hometown and when the people demand a magic-show miracle he reminds them of the history they’ve so quickly forgotten.

            Elijah was sent to raise a dead boy to life at a time when there was a famine and Hebrew children dropping like flies. Still, God chose to heal only a widow of Zarephath—a heathen, an “other”—someone beyond the realm of Israel.

            Then Jesus reminds them of the story of Elisha who healed Naaman of leprosy. Naaman wasn’t just an enemy of Israel, he was a military commander! Imagine if a US soldier had spent time to tend the wounds of an Al-Qaeda operative or a Viet-Cong years ago! Some would have called it treason, but in these situations, Jesus reminds the crowd (and us) that it was a divine act on the part of the God of Israel to push salvation beyond the walls of Israel. To suggest, even at a very early point in the history of the Jewish people that this salvation was, in fact, for EVERYONE.

            But that’s not all. The prophets continue to point to this, each one of them screaming more loudly than the last—do not neglect the stranger, the immigrant, the one in your midst that wouldn’t normally be there. Extend grace to these—give them food, water and shelter.

            Most of us think of Jonah as a fish story, forgetting that what put Jonah into the whale wasn’t simple disobedience but bigotry. After the Babylonians had led his people away into captivity with hooks in their jaws Jonah thought they were unworthy of God’s provision and care. He refused to carry a message of reconciliation and so we get a rare glimpse of humor in the Bible as the prodigal prophet becomes fish-bait.

            The last verse of Jonah even takes it a step further—this message of salvation and restoration isn;’t just about the battle for the souls of men and women—apparently it goes to the larger culture, economy, eco-system and structure.

            But Nineveh has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned about that great city?

 God cares about the cattle? seriously? is this the theme of Scripture? A God that cares about humans and cattle? Jews and Babylonians? Widows and War criminals? 

the answer, in a word? YES.

 We quote it all the time, but we scarcely take time to notice the implications. 

“For God so loved THE WORLD that he gave his one and only son.” 

Not Kennesaw, not white-anglo-saxon protestants, not single moms, not the disenfranchised or abused, but the WORLD. The answer is not one over another, but “D. ALL OF THE ABOVE.”

 And as each tribe and race heard the full message of Jesus and him crucified in their own tongue that day they asked each other “WHAT     DOES   THIS     MEAN!?!?”

 In the Spirit of Luke and Acts, I’d like to take the second part of our time together this morning to ask that question of us.

 We are a church—a gathered community of people who confess that Jesus is Lord. We may differ in our understanding of particular aspects of other things, but we agree that Jesus is Lord and he represents the best way in which we can understand, comprehend and embrace the limitless love of a gracious God.

 We bring to this place our own stories of faith and culture—our own “tongues”, ultimately familiar only to us, but over time shared with the church as a whole, for the purpose of growing into better followers of Jesus. 

At it’s most basic level, this is my job as Associate Pastor for Faith Development—trying to find the point and places where we engage one another and know one another well enough to speak the truth in love and become better disciples of Jesus—people who are following more closely today then we did yesterday.

 Part of my story is the story of my “home” church—the place that nourished my faith from a young age through adolescence, eventually into a call to ministry and college. When I was 18 a motion was brought before our church by a committee that had been tasked with evaluating the future growth and facility needs of our church.

The committee brought back a recommendation that the church relocate from its then current location in South Cobb County to 40 acres of land in east Paulding County. There was a fair amount of discussion and evaluation before making such a decision. There were passionate individuals on either side of it, but the proposal had more than enough votes to pass. I remember four men, pillars of the church—prayer warriors—the kind of guys who listened first then talked—four men I respected deeply and who helped model faith for me.

They voted against the proposal. They wouldn’t speak publicly about it, but agreed to talk to individuals who approached them privately. I goaded my Dad until he talked to one of them to get the scoop. The answer he came back with, at the time, floored me. Their reply basically was “This is painful and I’ve prayed over it for weeks now. Yes, the community around this church is changing. Yes, the church is landlocked and would have to grow up and not out and that isn’t the best financial option. But God has placed us in THIS community. There are still needs all around us. There are children to be loved and taught the Bible, there are families that are breaking apart, addicts who need a safe place to recover in community. We just think we’re supposed to be about that in this community.”

I thought they were crazy. East Paulding county, in those days, might as well have been the Western Frontier in the early 1800’s. It was a place of limitless growth and possibilities. It only made sense to leave and go somewhere where God could bless us and we could increase in any number of ways.

A couple of weeks ago I had a meeting with another Pastor in our immediate area. We started telling a little bit about ourselves and our background. I paused when he mentioned that he used to run an after-school program at a high school less than one mile from the former address of my “home” church. He started the program after a group of 11-16 year olds viciously assaulted a mentally handicapped girl in a home a bike’s ride away from my old church. He said he felt like there had to be a witness in that community—something positive—computers and basketball, tutoring and robotics—all to give the kids something to do that was positive instead of acting on base impulses and with horrific violence.

I admired what he had done, but I felt some complicity. I had been there and left. What’s more, the church I had known, once relocated, found itself within a chip-shot of two other Baptist churches, all with the same demographic and target audience.

Folks, I’m not meaning to question God’s wisdom and I grant that on any given day and all of us can miss what the Spirit whispers in our ears. What I am saying is that conversation made me wonder whether or not we had truly heard the Spirit when it was trying to teach us to speak in the tongues of our neighbors.

So where does that put Towne View? How well are we speaking in the tongues of our neighbors? Do we know them? and what kind of neighbor are we being?

A few months ago I was watching a program on a church in an economically depressed suburb of Chicago. Despite a main street that looked like a ghost town and city unemployment at 48% a local church was thriving. Members were being added on a daily basis, over 90% of them from less than a quarter mile of the church. When he was interviewed, the journalist asked the Pastor how they were doing it. He said that he stood up one morning, preaching to a committed few and said “If this church closed it’s doors tomorrow would this community notice?” After silently answering that question, the congregation determined to do something about it. They set up a food pantry, job network and transportation ministry for seniors. They renovated a nearby community center and offered youth programs in computers, football, soccer and science. They baptized over 200 people in one year and added hundreds more to the church roll. And giving quadrupled, even in the most economically depressed county in Illinois.

 Naturally, I began to ask that question of Towne View

If Towne View closed its door tomorrow, who else in this community notice?

Would Camden Shiloh notice? or the Villas? Greenhouse apartments or Poplar Place? College Place or Dunmovin? Shiloh Green or Highland Court? Laurel’s Edge or Clarinbridge? KSU or Palmer Middle School?

 The answer, of course, was yes.

 About 100 college students who meet here once a week for worship and fellowship would notice.

 Residents from highland Court and Laurel’s Edge would notice when there are no carolers at Christmas or turkeys for thanksgiving dinner.

 Residents of neighboring apartments and subdivisions would notice when there’s no Easter Eggstravaganza or Fall Family Fun Fair for their children.

 Thousands of residents would head to a different polling place that may or may not offer coffee and a sugar rush of desserts.

 Chalker would notice when there aren’t new backpacks loaded with school supplies.

 150 children would notice. In three weeks they’ll be running all over this property, about 100 of which don’t go here and 50 of which will have no church affiliation—what is our witness to THEM?

There are items on the sponsor board outside that represent those children—craft supplies and bible study materials, decorations and teacher guides that will tell them the story of Jesus—what does it say to the community if we don’t meet those needs?

There are people who have ignored the excuses in their heads—they didn’t listen when their brain said “You’ve done your time.” or “I don’t do kids.” They’ve committed themselves to being salt and light to these children—to tell them the story of Jesus. Some of you are those people—your name is on that board out there. Some you aren’t yet but you need to be.

We have maintained a tremendous witness to this community, but we can’t afford to rest on our laurels—to be a living church is to be a moving, going, growing community of Jesus-followers.

So what else would this community miss? How else are we reaching the people around us? Are we ignoring the most basic command of Christ to first love God and our neighbor?

A few weeks ago we commissioned missionaries to go and to serve, even now as a team of Builders for Christ gathers in Ohio for worship this morning. Jim encouraged us in that sermon to go and preach the gospel, and many of us have. But have those of us who have stayed still preached the gospel? Have we carried the fullness of the Good News—not just a tract and a smile and a prayer that everything will be alright, but the kind of transformative, life—giving full Gospel that calls us to engage that family, that person. To help find jobs for the jobless, hope for the hopeless, recovery for the addict, peace for the single-parent at their breaking point, hope and home for the immigrant.

Have we been Jesus to people? Have we offered them something that changes every bit of who they are or have we been lulled into complacency by the joy and fellowship we share? Life here is good—people here are good but normally when you have something this good you want to share it…

Way back in Acts the fist disciples were supernaturally gifted to speak in the native tongues of the people crowded at their door. I don’t think it’s stretching too much to say we’ve been provided a similar opportunity. We can’t all know the ins and outs of being unemployed, or an immigrant to a strange new country, or in the middle of divorce or cancer, but we can empathize. We can love that person and make every effort to listen to them, to care for them, to befriend them as Jesus has befriended us.

 Every moment we spend in rapt attention listening to their stories we learn to speak a new language.

 Every time we stop in the middle of an ordinary day to think of that neighbor we enter into their world—we begin to speak and think in their native tongue.

 You may not know Spanish of Swahili but you know love.

 You may not make a lot of money but you know the pressures it brings.

 You may have never been abandoned by someone but you’ve had your heartbroken.

 You may not have a chemical dependency but you can know what it’s like to try to fill a void in your life like a bottomless pit.

 You may not have an early education degree, but you can give a five year old a cup of Kool-Aid and a smile.

 Pentecost is the story of the birth of God’s church—the big picture, capital “C” church that is as wide and deep as all of humanity. One article I read this week put it better than I could:

God doesn’t move according to the pronouncements of Church councils or by the declarations of religious leaders. God’s Spirit works like the wind, blowing where it chooses. It’s blowing even now in our world! Can we hear it? Are we open to its urgings, even if it moves us in uncomfortable ways? John 3:16 doesn’t say, “For God so loved the Church . . .” It says, “For God so loved the world”! John 3:17 doesn’t say that God condemns the world, but that God sent his Son into the world to save it. God doesn’t call us to church membership; God calls us to become fully human by following Christ, serving and loving others. There’s a big difference between church work and the work of the Church. The former keeps us busy maintaining an institution, while the latter takes us out of our comfort zones and sends us into the world to join the work of God’s Spirit, making all things new. Eternal life is not what happens when life ends; it’s what happens when life begins through the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ.

We invited to participate in that blessed community. At some point in time someone spoke to us in our native tongue and shared with us the story of Jesus. Inasmuch as we have received, we go now to do likewise. To take the gospel to this community, this people, this place. To shine God’s light to Kennesaw and to Acworth, to KSU and Chalker Elementary. To share God’s love with everyone on Frey, Busbee and Shiloh and everywhere in between.

Thankfully this church is still here—we haven’t closed any doors or ceased to do ministry, but we do risk forgetting the Spirit which gives us the power to move and to love, to give and to serve. We have been given this incredible opportunity—this diverse community of faith and experiences, callings and professions, passions and personalities and we may be tempted to ask ourselves “What does this mean?”

It means that we have been given all we need to speak in the tongues of our neighbors—that they might hear the good news of Jesus Christ that sets them free from all sorts of bondage to broken relationships and career choices, behavior patterns and addictions.

It means that we have a job to do, but not one that we do in our own power—it is a job that we do as the Spirit gives us strength. Ask someone who has worked VBS or is on Builders for Christ—by Wednesday you don’t HAVE any strength left—it is the Spirit at work IN US!!!

It means that we must be a good neighbor. It means we ought to know the people in our own neighborhood.

It means that we must risk putting aside our own assumptions in order to be Jesus to people.

It means that we must first seek to understand our community, not assume that they should first understand us.

It means that we carry the life-giving message of Jesus.

It means that we have a reason to be here on Sundays other than swapping stories about our weeks.

It means we have a purpose and a connection—one that’s only as good as our willingness to extend it to everyone.

It means that God so loved the world that he gave his only son—for you, me, Greenhouse, KSU, Laurel’s Edge—all of us.

It means sitting on the sidelines is not an option.

It means that church is not a spectator sport.

It means that we are the ones Christ left in charge of this little corner of God’s world at this place and time.

We know what it means—the question is what will we do with it?

Like most concepts, heaven is an idea(l) still very much under construction, inasmuch my own sense of faith and pilgrimage are. What I continue to find is that at each point in the trail there is a mass-media explosion of song and verse, images and visions. Even trying to put it all together in these few words on a screen seems doomed. Still, it's only fair to try and trace this idea and whether or not we're going there, it's coming here or how we'll know the difference.

I'll Fly Away: 

I was at a conference last week where the speaker was telling a story where a colleague was bemoaning the way in which the Church's songs betray its' own theology. His object of attack in this case was a sort of hee-haw rendition of I'll Fly Away. After lampooning the song, the professor went on to say that visions of a heaven that's "out there", beyond what we can see or experience, natively shift our perspective from the suffering in our midst, to the point of giving us a way out. His point was that we can become disengaged from the suffering around us.

Fortunately, one bright student pushed back a bit and asked the professor where that song came from. The professor gruffly muttered "some sort of spiritual, I don't know..." (it was actually written in 1929 by Albert Brumley, a white cotton-farmer from Oklahoma as a "gospel song"). The student pushed further.

"I understand what you're saying, but that song and more like it were instrumental during the civil rights movement. Many of them took their sentiment from earlier spirituals. When you're being tortured and oppressed, hearing that heaven is just like earth isn't a message of hope--in fact, it sounds a lot like hell."

Truth be told, while I'm not a fan of the way in which the professor mocked I'll Fly Away, I get where he was trying to go. He was reacting against something that had nothing to do with the civil rights movement and liberation. I was raised in a suburban home outside Atlanta, so rural country churches were not my experience, but many of them had informed and nurtured the faith of many members of our congregation. 

Their spirits soared anytime the Music Minister dared to pull out "Will the Circle Be Unbroken?",  "When the Roll is Called Up Yonder" or "Beulahland", a song my father-in-law has sung at more funerals of these good folks then he could count.

But it wasn't just the songs. The songs were a sort of soundtrack to a divine, as-yet-unseen glistening city, with gates of pearl, streets of gold and crystal clear rivers and streams. I remember hearing one evangelist detail exactly what each "mansion in glory" would look like while still another used the visions of Ezekiel and Revelation to draw a heavenly blueprint.

To my child-like brain the closest thing to a gold road was the yellow-brick road in The Wizard of Oz which worked, by and large because it appealed to those most basic flights of fantasy. I couldn't imagine what I would see and do, but it sounded like an incredible theme park of mansions and buildings, a new attraction around every corner. 

It sounded like Six Flags but better.

And when your 8, 9, 10, 11 years old, what kid doesn't want to go to Six Flags?

The promise of mansions and gold may have been enough motivation for an 11-year old to walk an aisle, but they're not enough to force allegiance to an idea. This happens all the time. We get a desire for a certain item, we work for it, and as we get closer to attaining it something else catches our attention. The original item isn't good enough anymore, and we begin to question why we ever wanted that in the first place.

For many people this is the place where they "lose" faith, though it's debatable whether or not faith was ever part of a picture--aisles for conversion, prayers for golden tickets--there's an implicit risk of making a transaction, not a commitment. While most of my adolescence was spent in prophets of Baal-like blood-letting to show my commitment, I eventually found that the scandal of grace didn't require sacrifice, just an acknowledgment of mercy.

This remains the most spiritually significant epiphany of my faith-journey to date. Running headlong into grace and then kicking against it, begging for ways to prove your worth is exhausting, and that's something of the point. When you tire of kicking and screaming and fighting, there's always only the embrace of a loving Creator. Eventually, we rest in that.

The danger of this end is that it feels so liberating, so comforting, so life-giving that we lose a bit of our imagination. One of the triggers for this article was an interview I heard a few weeks ago on NPR . The Irish actor Gabriel Byrne was being interviewed and asked about a good many things, including his time growing up in Ireland, as well as entering (and subsequently leaving) seminary. When he managed convey that his home life was in some way lacking, the interviewer pressed. After a brief pause, the wizened actor mused "I think when most people think about heaven, what they are really thinking about is an idealized version of home."

I spent the better part of an 80-minute commute thinking about those words. I recalled sitting at my grandmother's house, crying like mad, longing to go back to my own home and sleep in my own bed. She would hold me and rock and softly sing "In the Sweet By-and-By." I can't hear that song to this day without thinking of her.

More specifically, I can't hear that song without thinking that that was, in that very moment, heaven. Unconditional love and acceptance wrapped up in a grandmother's embrace.

And that's when I thought Gabriel Byrne was onto something.

When I'm honest, the notion of heaven being like lying in my grandmother's arms is still appealing. That image has not left me and I still find a great deal of truth in it. 

The problem is somewhere in the embrace of God I thought "Everyone should know and understand this!" And somewhere along the line all that well-intentioned zeal became the ardent belief (which I still maintain) that as people who have been redeemed we are to take an active role in the work of redemption.

To this day I find myself fascinated by "re" words--renewal, restoration, reconciliation, revolution, restarting, rebuilding, reusing, reducing...the list goes on forever.

In fact, this idea is so heavily ingrained in me at this very minute that I feel myself giving way to it--to the belief that we could get there--or at very least get a glimpse--of what the kingdom (of God, of heaven) could actually look like.

Add to this mix a providential "shuffle" of the old iPod while still weighing the words of Gabriel Byrne that yielded the following song.

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There's a longing in Emmylou Harris' voice that is utterly transcendent. It speaks to something known only in glimpses and in dreams--a certain hopeful wistfulness that points to something still beyond, still greater.

I was soaking in the goodness of the song when I found my lips uttering the very words that challenged my musings on heaven and home. 

I first noticed it last week as various sports-talk hosts were debating the merits of any number of collegiate athletes preparing for the NFL draft last Saturday. At that specific time, the ongoing conversation surrounded Matthew Stafford, the overall number one pick and former university of Georgia quarterback. One host was delineating Stafford's weaknesses--occasionally poor decision making, forcing decisions, particularly under pressure. The other host responded with a litany of Stafford's successes and ended with "Everybody's a critic."

In all fairness, the hosts were just as likely "playing radio" as they could even actually believe and hold such positions, but the last phrase stuck with me.

Flash-forward to last night, as Jen and I made our Tuesday night ritual (with 30 million of our closest friends) of watching American Idol. I catch myself evaluating and critiquing every performance, most often agreeing with Simon and dismissing the other judges opinions as predictable pablum--worn adages masquerading as genuine critique. I confess I always get a little excited when Simon's evaluations (or the rare glimpse of original feedback from Randy or Kara) happens to echo something I had said or thought during the actual performance.

Clearly, I have a bias here (Adam Lambert is the lost love-child of Freddie Mercury and David Bowie and the most talented contestant ever on the show). That bias prevents me from offering genuine critique, and my lack of training/education/general involvement in any aspect of the music industry renders my opinion only as good as that of the other 30 million couch critics partaking in same said ritual.

Then I log-on to CNN and the New York Times today and splattered across the page(s) in manifold headlines is the same numbered phrase--"100 days". A soundbite from NPR earlier in the weak braced me for this, as the presidential historian being interviewed said the traditional indicator of Presidential success (which I think should be called "Executive Groundhog Day" or something similar) goes back to FDR's first 100 days during which the political groundwork of the New Deal was laid. The historian said Roosevelt both created and forever broke the mold for what could be accomplished in such a time.

So the Times and CNN have pundits from across the board weighing in with their letter grades on President no-longer-elect Obama, which vary from A's to F's to "a high incomplete". CNN has even tipped their hat to the user-generated revolution by featuring in the "headlines" on the main page an "iReport" opinion from "a GOP college student." I didn't find that a compelling source, so I can't tell you what grade said collegiate levied upon the present administration, but I fancy it was somewhere between a grim harbinger of things to come or something that might come out of a Magic 8-ball ("Outlook not so good" or "Reply hazy, try again.")

What I realized in the middle of all the bombardment of opinion and critique is that our culture seems to value the ability to be critical. In fairness, I'm chief offender here--there's very few things I can think of that I didn't/don't have an opinion on after (some) listening.

But I wonder where that kind of spirit gets us. 

On vacation last week I caught myself measuring and ranking restaurants by imaginary criteria-- 

All restaurants are not created equal, and I found my opinion of the food or service had little to no impact on Gabe's opinion (he favored the beachfront one where the waiters danced with him, even though it was overpriced).

And there I go again. The problem is, when I'm really honest, a culture that lauds criticism can only result in a sense that there's always something better around the corner.

The internet sensation of yester-week that was Susan Boyle --a dowdy Scottish cat-lady who wowed Simon Cowell on "Britain's Got Talent" with a West-end headliner voice--was quickly and sharply replaced two days later with a comparable headline "Young Stevie Wonder" steals spotlight from Susan Boyle on CNN.

A critical culture yields less than fifteen minutes of fame--it's always reminding us it's 14:59 and counting.

I think somewhere in the midst of that I lose the ability to savor the present. 

In the march for the next great band, performance, Lost episode, Grey's Anatomy episode, church event, mission trip, spiritual high...even *sigh* the next vacation...

In the act of critiquing what is for what could or should be, I risk missing the sacrament of what is.

And that loss is always, only, mine.

The responses were quick, and the respondents wide-ranging in the aforementioned spectrum, but they were unanimous on the first count--YES.

Apparently, American entitlement is so far-reaching that moms in Georgia, priests in Buckhead and even an ex-pat in Bulgaria can agree. 

From where I'm sitting there's any number of factors that got us here, but in the effort to maintain some sense of cohesiveness, I've narrowed it down to what I  "have seen and heard", but before that, a bit of a disclaimer--

I am an American and I am genuinely, sincerely, proud of that. I believe in the preservation of freedom for all individuals, especially those who hold views contrary to my own. My belief in freedom is not a pre-requisite to my deeply held religious faith, it is the conclusion, and one that informs my abiding sense that all human beings are created free and their rights are indeed, inalienable.

It was the first week of November when our Pastor's wife was in a car accident. Though severe, ongoing therapy has allowed her to make a strong recovery, but it meant I got the call to preach the sermon that week.

It just so happened that the lectionary text was Amos 5--the passage where Amos, the sycamore-tending shepherd of Tekoa, is calling down the rich who are gorging themselves at the expense of the poor and widowed. It was also in the middle of the economic collapse--at the point when banks were failing left and right--and here fell the text.

I wrestled and struggled with it all week, and like Jacob, came up limping. I didn't try to sugarcoat it, but I didn't shout it either. The reality is Amos is still talking to us, all these years later. It reminds us that economic collapse is often predicated on the greed of another, but when it gets catastrophic is when it works its way into all our homes, like insidious leaven. No one says "My insatiable desire for a flat screen caused this collapse." Wall Street fat-cats make much better targets.

I reminded them of the weeks earlier lectionary text--where God sends maggots to destroy the manna--not to suggest this was Providence, but to say it's not the first time nor the last and our confidence shouldn't be in anything we can trade or even bolt to the ground.

I tried to preach it as faithfully as possible, even after it had wrecked me. After the sermon a man in our church who I trust greatly shook my hand. "That was a good word--I think you're right about Amos and the economy and this stuff--it's hard though--it's hard to know how to do it because our whole society--capitalism...it's based on it." This from a banker who'd already had to let folks go as branches close.

He was saying and fighting a much harder battle than I was--how can we be Christians in free-market America? How do we do the Jesus-sized things without breaking the back of someone along the assembly line to get the aid where it needs to go?

I didn't have an answer...and neither did he.

I love NPR but I loathe the morning classical music. I'm coming around to some of it, but I'd much rather have another hour of Morning Edition. At 9AM if I'm not where I'm going then I flip it over to a local Atlanta station with a crazy morning show. It's a guilty pleasure, but there's normally something to make me laugh.

This particular morning the hosts were debating the journalistic integrity of a CNN reporter who apparently lost it on a participant in one of the many "tea parties" held on April 15. I missed the clip, and have resisted the urge to "YouTube" it. Rumor has it the host made herself look quite foolish, as well as amping up the news network wars. Callers were rolling into the station decrying the hosts own biases in reporting other stories. Eventually one caller who had participated in the local Atlanta "tea party" said the morning show host had erroneously reported a crowd of 2,000 at the Atlanta event when the actual number was closer 20,000. The show hosts debated their own objectivity for awhile, and my mind wandered to the business of tea parties and what the participants sought to accomplish. (see picture #2 above for sign of stated intent)

A friend of mine had a co-worker attend, even though her job is to work as a social-worker, filing paperwork for Medicaid, funded by the very taxes she was boycotting. I'm tempted to say a lot here--about how this is nothing like Boston--about how we're all represented, except maybe Puerto Rico. Moreover, I think it reflects a deeper strain in the American psyche.

I know a lot of folks--a lot of good folks--friends and mentors, family and colleagues who are politically persuaded to think that the role of government is non-interference. I understand the position--where they came from and how they got there. There is a "bootstrap" mentality among them that everyone should be able to forge their own path. There is a deep-seated belief that this is, in fact, what makes America great.

Political feelings aside, my biggest issue with this perspective is that it comes from people who were, at one point or another, handed boots. It may have been from birth, or the generosity of a friend or mentor, but at some point, all of us were given a break. And occasionally, and of their own accord, the same group of people would gladly help out another in need, but they don't want someone else doing that for them.

And I think this is the point where the American paradox emerges--our belief that you can do whatever you want, be whoever you want to be--the caveat is that you must be able to do it entirely, unequivocally by yourself. And when that happens, the rugged American entrepreneurial spirit of individualism is exalted. 

And the pedestal is never surrendered voluntarily.

My three-year old son will believe about anything I tell him--which is fun to me, but Jen disapproves. You could tell him that a flying praying mantis swoops through the night sky and reaches in the windows of anyone with lights on and sucks out their brains and he would believe it. Of course, I don't tell him things like that (at least not often), but you get the idea.

I was sitting in the sound booth at church, absolutely riveted as I listened to a missionary from New Orleans speaks. He works with Global Maritime Ministries, which manages to find point of contact and ministry to the naval workers who come through the port of New Orleans. Cruise ships and freighters, barges and sailboats make their way through the port every day, normally on tight schedules. The missionary's job is to provide a place for them to call home, check e-mail, have some coffee or blow off steam with a game of pool.

His message was compelling, and as he talked about how the average cruise ship worker is normally someone from an economically depressed country trying to make a living for their family, I pictured Pio and Miguel, Fifian, Romel and Wesley. Jen and I have only been on two cruises, but we learned enough of their stories to know it was true.

The missionary then said that one cruise purser--the "captain" of the lodging/entertainment side of the ship in port asked him to come aboard and meet some of the crew. As a chaplain of sorts, he was glad to meet the ship workers and build new relationships, not to mention that it was a plus to work personally with the purser. As they made their way through the ship, the purser casually turned to him and said "I really want you meet the crew--it's very important to me that they know that there is such a thing as a nice American."

I'm hardly a world traveler, but if the replies to my facebook status are any indication, our entitlement streak runs deep. I think this runs counter the Gospel in a hundred ways, but most of all I think it goes to our most basic level of awareness.

The life of faith forces us to look beyond ourselves to the God who created us. In turn, God re-directs us to the little reflections of glory running around us, passing us on the street or handing us our order at the fast food place.

Dr. Martin Luther King summed it up on a stormy night in Memphis. As he talked about the Good Samaritan, he said "The question is not 'If I do not help this man, What will happen to me?' The question is, 'If I do not help this man, what will happen to him?'."

The Gospel belies all our attempts at individualism--it is a call to life in community--to unity in many-ness.

The most telling aspect of our allegiance to that Kingdom may best be measured not by our patriotism or our W-2's, but the extent to which we affirm that our neighbors burden must only, always, become our own.

   

It's hard to exactly put words on all the feelings you experience when you return to a place that was so significant. Most people I know think of high school as the best days of their lives, but for me it was the four years I spent cloistered away in a small world known only to a few.

A great deal could be said (or written) about my time at Shorter and that of people I now consider lifelong friends. Now some eight years removed from it (12 since I started in 1997) the consensus opinion is that Shorter was more like a really long camp with classes then it was a traditional education.

There were never more than about 600 students on campus, which is enough to know everybody, or be only one step removed. Of course, the biggest surprise to me on my most recent climb up the hill wasn't how quickly the memories came back, but how those tiny bits of nostalgia were inextricably wed to the places where they occurred.

It was in that old hallway--Rome Hall, first floor, where I decided to see if my attempt at Shorter immortality remained. We had pulled our senior prank on our major professors, much of which had gone terribly, terribly wrong. A desk and priceless artifacts from global trips were destroyed, though all by accident--rice was spread and embarrassing pictures splayed all over campus.

The picture in question showed one major professor (who shall remain nameless) making the questionable decision to lay on the ground in the forefront of a Maymester picture snapped in England. Beyond the momentary embarrassment and frustration said professor would feel the next day, I wondered how long a copy would go unnoticed in, say an electrical panel box. 

Two weeks ago I got my answer. Last fall Jen and I had gone to the annual homecoming/Alumni weekend at Shorter. It was fun and all, but it's not the same--all sorts of people sitting around and ruminating on what was and having  a very difficult time reconciling it with what is, presently.

Still, I managed to check the eletrical panel in Rome Hall, just past the professors former office and the storied classroom.

I was shocked to find that as of that Alumni weekend, the picture was still there (see picture 2 above for proof).

Maybe I shouldn't have been shocked to find it was finally gone upon my return trip last week.

A hundred things have changed at Shorter, and I knew that well. The well-publicized conflict over the school's relationship with the Georgia Baptist Convention has led to a mass exodus of faculty and staff--so much so that there were no offices by which to linger and reminisce.

I had said myself "It's not how it was when I went there." but that sentence was always linked to the ensuing conflict.

For the first time, last week, I realized it had simply passed. It wasn't just all the "new"--the fountain, the revamped front circle, the post office or the coat of paint in Rome Hall--it was that this place which was and is so deeply ingrained in my psyche is, for the pajama-clad students passing by, theirs, and no longer mine.

I'd be lying if I didn't say there was a real sense of loss, but in letting go I can honestly say I felt some relief.

Sure, we all mourn for our youth a little, but I wouldn't trade who I am now for who I was then--I wouldn't swap the people I've come to know and love for this place for the relationships I had only at that place--I wouldn't even swap the present version of my college friends and their families for who they were then.

There's something about geography--a certain place--that is tied inextricably to memory. They take on a kind of Ebenezer quality--touchstones of where we were when, or perhaps who we were when.

But I cannot help but realize they are my memories, and others now and before me have their own.

The space does not belong to us, nor truly does the time. There are glories to be celebrated but even still there is the faintest reminder that they cannot compare to that which is still to be.

I think that's why God gave Israel Ebenezers, and perhaps why we grow nostalgic around certain places.

It's not to linger in mourning what was, but to believe that we are not yet what we will be, even as we are not now who we thought we'd be then.

It's something most of us grew up with, and, especially around Easter, something we hold dear. This is, after all, time to sing about "fountains filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins". Clearly, there's still much good to be said about this perspective and many hold it well. It has only been in a subsequent conversation with a friend and colleague that I considered questions at the very heart of the issue. The question he asked was, loosely, "if blood was not required, then why the cross?" Trying to answer that question led to two larger realities that I'm still wrestling with.

So rewind to last night, as Jen and I made a bleary-eyed drive back from the local Steak-n-Shake across the rolling hills of North Paulding County. The sky was post-thunderstorm radiant, with gold gilding the underbelly of massive, swift-moving clouds. The grass looked greener than any green has ever been. Cows were dotted the landscape like pastoral troops re-emerging after the fighting had ceased. The iPod was on shuffle and Gabe was in the back, yelling any-time I stopped singing to talk to Jen-""Daddy...daddy!....DADDY! Ning!" (which is how Gabe says "sing").

Gabe doesn't really know how to sing. He mostly hums and sings (sometimes) along with whatever tune he starts hearing. Occasionally he'll substitute the words he does know (imagine hearing kid names for bodily functions to the tune of "On Christ the Solid Rock I Stand"--sacrilege? maybe, but still hilarious.)

So when Kyle Matthews "What in the World" came up next, I knew something good was happening. There was Gabe in the back, pushing out sounds and non-words at freakishly high decibels. There were Jen and I, singing along--every single word. I thought about the words of the song and how I've been thinking for weeks now how adoption is what God does with us.

It's not exactly normal adoption, mind you, because as bearers of God's divine image, we are not victims of a merciless father, but merely prodigals--people who ran our own course to do our own thing to (we hoped) bring us fulfillment. And when the gold rings of self-medicating greed turned our fingers green we came to our senses.

Paul says "For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, "Abba! Father!".

Paul says "All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the ministry of reconciliation."

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