evil – Page 2 – Salvaged Faith

Spiritually Blind

Posted on October 23, 2014Leave a comment

I mentioned earlier this week a youth group conversation about Mary Magdalene and demon possession. There are so many different ways of understanding what demon possession might have been about and what Mary’s demons might have been.

I’ve had demons explained away and described lots of different ways.

Illness.

Mental disorders and illness.

Cultural misunderstandings and differences.

And I started our conversation by talking about some of those things and how they might have applied to Mary Magdalene.

Then, I asked the question if the seven demons were cast out all at once, or in seven different encounters. We talked about the Gerasenes demoniac who had a “legion” of demons, all cast out at once. And one young woman very astutely pointed out they they must have been some real spiritual force because they entered the pigs and thousands of them died right then and there.

We don’t often see demons and angels in our world today, but we also aren’t looking. Or maybe, like some of us in this world are color blind, maybe the problem is that we are spiritually blind. Maybe we simply aren’t built to see spiritual forces in the world today.

Full props to our Director of Youth and Christian Inspiration, Mr. Vaughn, who pointed out that in John’s account of the resurrection, John and Simon Peter ran to the tomb and saw nothing but linen scraps lying inside, but Mary Magdalene saw the angels.

As a woman who had been possessed by demons, she had the spiritual sight to see the angelic presence, where John and Simon Peter saw emptiness and darkness.

The world is full of things I can’t comprehend or understand. Who am I to say that those who see auras or who sense the spiritual forces of evil are mistaken? What if I simply cannot see what they can?

Confrontations

Posted on September 8, 2014Leave a comment

[Wild west whistle]

We know how the story goes.

High noon.

Hot dusty street.

People hiding on porches and behind closed windows.

Good Guy meets Bad Guy for a showdown.

10 paces.

And then the confrontation.

As simple and pure and black and white as those old westerns were…. The world we live in is a whole lot more complicated than that.

There are no clear lines marked out in the road to separate the good from the bad.

Here in the church, in this community, we are each a mix of good and bad, saints and sinners, well-intentioned folks who stumble sometimes.

We aren’t perfect.

And even if we were all perfect, we are unique individuals with different perspectives and opinions.

So there are bound to be disagreements.

Rev. Dr. Jill Sanders is a Field Outreach Minister in our conference. She has often reminded me that conflict is simply two ideas existing in the same space.

Let me repeat that: Conflict is two ideas existing in the same space.

Maybe the conflict is over what color the carpet should be.

Or the style of music.

Or who gets to sit in the back pew.

Whenever two or more people have two or more ideas, there will be conflict.

It’s not about who is good and who is bad, who is right and who is wrong…. It is just that we are different.

Now, in the rest of the world when we experience conflict, we often chose to leave a situation. We might quit a job when we disagree with a management style. We might end a relationship if we find that we are no longer interested in the same things. We quit shopping at a store or eating at a restaurant if we have a bad experience. We can unfriend someone on Facebook with the click of a button when they start posting stuff we disagree with.

In a world of choice and options, we don’t always have to resolve our differences.

But Jesus tells us today in Matthew’s gospel that this isn’t how we treat one another in the Kingdom of God. This isn’t how we behave in the church.

If someone in the church offends you or causes a problem for you – you are called to address it… directly… one on one with that person.

And this is for one simple reason.

There is not a good side and a bad side in the body of Christ.

And we simply cannot walk away from one another.

We… the church… are one body.

God has brought us all together to form one community in Christ. As Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 12 – we can’t say to another part of this body “I don’t need you.” And we can’t simply walk away from the church without hurting both ourselves and the community.

Imagine what this body of Christ would look like if every time we disagreed or were offended we picked up our rocks and stones and left? What would be left of the church? What would be left of the witness of Jesus Christ in the world?

As Jin Kim writes regarding this passage, “What makes us Christian is not whether or not we fight, disagree, or wound each other, but how we go about addressing and resolving these issues.” (Feasting on the Word)

Jesus makes it very simple for us. When someone offends you or sins against you or hurts your feelings, tell them!

Respect that person enough to go directly to them and tell them how you feel. Be honest with them. And do it with love.

That doesn’t seem so hard, does it?

And yet, how often do we do exactly the opposite of this.

We sulk.

We go and tell someone else about our problem so that we can get them on our side.

We gossip.

We are passive aggressive with each other.

Or even worse, we yell and preach and emotionally and verbally beat up on the person who has made a mistake.

And in the process, we bring one another down, we bring the community down, and we bring the body of Christ down with us.

Instead, we should look to how our Lord and Savior dealt with our sin. We should approach one another with the same kind of confrontational love of Jesus Christ.

Oh yes, because we have offended Jesus with our action and our inaction.

We have sinned against God.

We aren’t perfect… remember?

And yet God doesn’t talk behind our backs or gossip or turn others against us.

No, God so loved you and me and this whole world that God came directly to us.

Jesus Christ, Immanuel, God-with-us.

Jesus came to you and me in order to show us how our lives had missed the mark and to invite us to get back on track.

Jesus came to invite us to become a part of his body, the church, to find our place… no matter how many times we messed up or no matter how bad we have been.

Jesus ate with the sinners and hung out with the prostitutes and invited the cheats and the swindles to follow him.

And when he came across someone who was straying from God’s will, he told them the truth.

To Peter, “Get behind me Satan.”

To the woman at the well, “You haven’t had just one husband, but many.”

To the woman caught in adultery, “Go and sin no more.”

Today, we are kicking off our fall lineup of activities here at the church. Some of us have had busy summers, but here we are, ready to learn and grow, sing and play, teach and serve.

And some things are different than they have been in the past. Some of us are new. Some of us are trying something we never have before.

And in the midst of the excitement and chaos, we will experiment and have a whole lot of fun.

But occasionally, we’ll step on each other’s toes.

Sometimes we will make mistakes.

There will most definitely be conflict, of some kind or another.

But we are the body of Christ.

We are the people of God.

And we need each other.

We need your smiles and your hugs, your questions and your insights. We need your hands to help us wash dishes and your voices to fill our choir. And you need us, too. You need our love and our support.

We have promised to be there for one another. That’s what being the church is all about.

Not taking sides.

Not stirring up problems.

But in love and care, supporting and encouraging one another to be the best we all can be.

So when you have a problem, be honest about it. Go to the person who has upset you and tell them how you feel. Do it in love. Find a way to work out your differences.

And if you are someone who is approached by another person here, listen. Admit where you’ve made mistakes.

If that doesn’t work, then invite someone else to come along and help mediate and help you work through the issue.

If that doesn’t work… if all else fails, then our scripture says to treat that person like a Gentile and a tax collector.

Well, we know how Jesus treated those folks. He loved them. He ate with them. He never stopped inviting them to follow.

Above all else, ask God to help you forgive one another and to mend the relationship.

God has the power to do just that. We know how Jesus gave his life to forgive us and make us his body. And the love of God and the grace of God can give us the strength to live together in unity and peace and we will be a stronger church BECAUSE of the conflict we experience.

Defeat Evil with Goodness

Posted on March 25, 2012Leave a comment

This past week, I listened to an interview between Terry Gross and Jason Segal – one of the producers and the star of the most recent Muppets movie.

Mr. Segal described what it was like to become a part of the Muppets franchise and how much he learned about Muppet culture. One of the things he discovered was that Muppets don’t ever make jokes at other people’s expense. They don’t ever make fun of other people. They are intrinsically good and kind and well intentioned.

And they do not ever try to get revenge or hurt someone else. Even when faced with their worst enemies – with someone who is trying to kill them or hurt them – they will respond with kindness.

In the very first Muppet movie – Kermit the Frog – was being pursued by Doc Hopper who wanted to loveable Muppet to be the spokesperson for his line of frog leg’s restaurants. Eventually, the story led to a western style showdown.

Even faced with his worst enemy, Kermit reached out in love. He shared compassion. He tried his best to warm the heart of our cold-hearted villain… asking “What’s the matter with you Hopper? Don’t you know what its like to have a dream? Who are you going to share your dream with?” and he was willing to die rather than fight or give in. Thankfully, Dr. Bunsen’s “insta-grow” invention kicked in just in time and Animal saved the day by scaring the villains away.

We might read our scripture this morning from Romans and we might watch that clip and scoff – a real person couldn’t be expected to do that. We have been taught to fight back, to defend ourselves, to seek revenge AND to win…

I know that when my back is against a wall, my first instinct is to do everything that I can to get away from the situation – violence included. Just ask either of my brothers after they have tried to tickle me.

Forgiveness and compassion and kindness towards our enemies is such a difficult thing to fathom. Some of us have been in life and death situations where we have had to defend and protect ourselves. A few of you have served our country and many of us have loved ones who have put their lives on the line in order to protect others. In the real world – you can’t just offer a flower and ask someone to be your friend… You can’t just say, I’m sorry… You can’t be nice and hope that someone who is ready to attack you will go away.

Which is why it is important to remember that the words found in Romans 12:16-21 are not rooted in fantasy. They are not simply wise words to remember and try to live by. They are words written by someone who has experienced the grace of God. They are words written by someone who has experienced the forgiving power of transformation. They are words written by someone who is a living witness to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

This book of Romans was written by an early enemy of the Christian faith. Long before he was the Apostle Paul – the fine, upstanding, young Jewish leader Saul – was one of the leading agents in suppressing the movement. He sought out the Christian followers to be executed for heresy. He not only breathed threats against the disciples of Jesus… he was on his way toDamascusto carry out those threats.

And yet, one of the greatest early enemies of Christianity was touched by Jesus on that road and his life was forever changed. And the disciples of Jesus Christ let him into their lives… witnessed his transformation and offered forgiveness and healing and love.

Paul, himself, witnessed what love could do to hatred. He experienced what forgiveness could do to revenge. He lived a life that exemplified compassion and grace towards his enemies. Whether he was in prison, or on trial, or experiencing the ongoing persecution of Christians himself, he remembered and lived out the faith that Jesus Christ had passed on to him.

In Romans 12: 14-15, Paul encourages us to not only bless our enemies but to weep with them and to rejoice with them. He is asking us to identify with them and to genuinely seek their good. When he and Silas were imprisoned unjustly in Philippi, they ministered to their jailer, and Paul remembered what it was like to be an unbeliever, remembered what it was like to be a persecutor. When we identify with our enemies, when we walk in their shoes, when we see them as human beings, we find it easier not only to love them… but also to forgive them and to share the good news with them.

In many ways, that is the amazing thing about our relationship with Jesus Christ. Because of our sin, because of the ways we had turned our backs to God over and over and over again… all of humanity had become enemies of God. Our love failed. We rejoiced in the darkness rather than the light.

And yet, rather than deliver us what we deserved, our God in heaven decided to become one of us. Jesus Christ humbled himself and laid aside his glory and became one of us – an infant placed in the hands of a humble family, a child learning in the temple, a young man teaching and preaching beside the sea. He became one of us, identified with us, took our life into his own in order that we might not receive justice… but that we might receive grace.

Next week we begin a long and dark week of persecution and trials in the life of Jesus… beginning with his triumphant entry into the city of Jerusalem. But as we have read in the scriptures and as we will experience in worship, Jesus not once cursed his enemies. Not once did he wish them harm. Not once did he become like them. He shows us how to love, how to forgive, and in the process to not be a passive bystander.

Perhaps one of the best examples of this is his encounter with the moneychangers in the temple. While John’s gospel includes this event at the beginning of his ministry, in each of the other gospels it takes place during that final week in Jerusalem. Knowing the persecution he would face, knowing the anger he would stir up, Jesus was not afraid to speak truth to power. He was not afraid to protest at an injustice and make a scene without hurting people, work for change without diminishing another human beings dignity. It is okay to be angry – but it is not okay for than anger to rule your heart. The real question is, how can our outrage, our frustration, our pain be used to work for love and justice and change in this world?

Theologian John Mabry writes:

Rosa Parks is an imitator of Christ, not because she suffered for taking her stand (or keeping her seat, in her case), but because she had the courage to believe in her own dignity and fought for it in spite of the conflict that resulted. Nelson Mandela is an imitator of Christ, not because he suffered in prison, but because he held out for peace and justice, and led a nation to resurrection. In each case it is not the suffering that is redemptive, but the courage to pursue justice in the face of pain and evil.

And that is what Christ did. He sought to share the good news of God with the world. He proclaimed the reign of God in the face of the reign ofRome. He sought to reconcile his enemies and restore the love of God in the temple and inJerusalemand in the world. And he was killed for it.

In the face of injustice and evil and oppression, we are called to overcome with goodness. We are called to overcome with love. We are called to overcome with compassion. We are called to not let those forces to control our own hearts.

Share the story of the Danish resistance to the Nazi occupation during WW2.

Maybe you have heard this before, but it is a parable worth repeating and remembering:

A Cherokee elder was teaching his children about life.

A fight is going on inside me,” he said to them. “It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil – he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.” He continued, “The other is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you – and inside every other person, too.”

The grandchildren thought about it and after a minute one of them asked, “Which wolf will win?”

The elder simply replied, “The one you feed.”

Let us feed the wolf of love in our lives. Let us be imitators of Christ Jesus – standing up for what is right, blessing and not cursing our enemies, showering them with love and compassion and forgiveness… so that we do not ourselves become that very thing which we despise.

Amen and Amen.

Clearing the Clutter

Posted on February 13, 2011Leave a comment

Look at what I’ve done for you today: I’ve placed in front of you

Life and Good
Death and Evil…
I call Heaven and Earth to witness against you today: I place before you Life and Death, Blessing and Curse. Choose life so that you and your children will live. And love GOD, your God, listening obediently to him, firmly embracing him. (Deuteronomy 30)

(prayer)

How many of you have had a busy week? How many of you are looking ahead to a busy and jampacked week?

As we wait upon God’s word today, I want to invite you to take that little slip of paper you were given as you walked in this morning and to write down on it all of the things that take up your time right now. Everything – from walking the dog… to the hours you spend working or serving here at church… to the television shows you watch. What has occupied your week past and what kinds of things will occupy next week. It doesn’t have to be precise… this is just for you… an estimate. Let’s give ourselves about five minutes to do this…

How did it feel to write all of those things down? To name all of the ways that your life is busy?

If you were to lump these tasks and events into categories – things in your life that tug on you and pull on you from different directions, what kind of categories might we lift up?

(work, family, church, sports, recreation…)
That is quite a list!

Each and every single day of our lives, we are bombarded with choices. We are pulled by commitments. We are asked to live within these multiple communities.

For these past few weeks, we have been taking a look at the world through Paul’s letter to the church in Corinth. As we have done so, we have become aware of some realities about this world outside the church walls.

1) It is a win/lose world out there… and sometimes we let that seep into our church life as well. Instead of getting wrapped up in winning and losing, we are called to be fools for Christ.

2) This world is full of fads and changing tides… and the church is often quick to jump on the bandwagon and lose the core of our message. Instead, we need to keep centered on the cross and the good news of God.

3) The world tells us bigger is better. The church often believes that and feels pressure to get more butts in the seats and more dollars in the offering plate. But Paul reminds us that our weakness is God’s strength and that small churches can do powerful things.

Today, the reality we face is that we are busy people. We are pulled in so many different directions. Some weeks, I know it is hard for you to give the church even an hour of your time.

And we all know the families that surround us who run with their kids from this thing to that and on Sunday mornings breathe a sigh of relief that one more week is over… but can’t we please stay in bed for another hour.

This world is exhausting.

It is fast paced.

It is chaotic.

It drains us.

This morning in our scriptures, we are reminded that we have a choice in this world between the things that give us life and the things that take life away.

As Moses stood before the people on the edge of the promised land, he shared with them the simple choice they faced.

I call Heaven and Earth to witness against you today: I place before you Life and Death, Blessing and Curse. Choose life so that you and your children will live. And love GOD, your God, listening obediently to him, firmly embracing him.

The people quickly chose life! Who wouldn’t right? They mentally made the assent that they would live according to God, that they would love God and their neighbor…

But then they crossed into the land of milk and honey and before they even realized it, they were caught up in distractions. Their choice never got translated from their head into their hearts and into their hands. And they found themselves broken and scattered and falling apart in exile. Moses had spoken truthfully… If you have a change of heart… you will most certainly die.

Fast forward many, many generations.

Paul writes to the church in Corinth and offers a piece of wisdom:

“It’s not the latest message, but more like the oldest—what God determined as the way to bring out his best in us, long before we ever arrived on the scene… The Spirit, not content to flit around on the surface, dives into the depths of God, and brings out what God planned all along… God offers a full report on the gifts of life and salvation that he is giving us… he taught us person-to-person through Jesus, and we’re passing it on to you in the same firsthand, personal way…

The simple truth, Paul passes along is this:

The unspiritual self, just as it is by nature, can’t receive the gifts of God’s Spirit. There’s no capacity for them. They seem like so much silliness. Spirit can be known only by spirit—God’s Spirit and our spirits in open communion.”

Do we want to choose life in this generation? Do we want to choose the ways of God?

Then we have to make room for the Spirit. We have to spend time with our Lord.

We have to clear some space in the chaos of these things that tug on us for God.

Perhaps one of the greatest gifts that we can offer one another and all of those busy, exhausted families outside those doors is Sabbath.

Space…

Time…

To simply let God into our lives.

Sabbath, at its core, is taking time to remember that we do not create life – it is a gift from God.

The exhortation to rest on the Sabbath reminds us that we cannot do it all… and that ultimately the things of this world are in God’s hands.

At a recent clergy event, I was asked to help lead our opening worship.

I knew that some of them would be worried about folks at home who might be in the hospital or troubled. I knew that some would be thinking ahead to their sermons for the next Sunday. I knew some would have their minds set on their kids, or their parents, and the family concerns that plague them. I knew some would have their fingers ever connected to their blackberrys and would try to stay in contact with all of the business of the church, even as they were supposed to be fully present with us.

So, I lead the group in a ritual of setting aside the things that were on our minds. Much like what we did this morning, I invited them to write down all the things that were distracting them on a slip of paper and to fold it up and put it away.

This ritual was an act of trust… trust that for these six hours we were gathered together that our lives back home could wait… trust that our lay people in our churches could take care of the things we left them… trust that God in his infinite wisdom could be trusted to take care of these things so that we could focus and be present in this moment with one another and with God’s holy word.

Take that list that you made this morning.

It represents all of your choices and commitments and communities.

It represents all of the things that tug on your heart.

Sometimes these things lead us towards God… and sometimes they pull us away from the source of life.

For that is what God is… He is life itself and when we seek him we will find exuberant life.

Fold that piece of paper up and I want you to write four simple words that Dave Crow, our district superintendent shared with me…

“Choose Well. Choose Life.”

youth group and hitler

Posted on February 9, 2011Leave a comment

I don’t have the energy or discipline required for 6-9th grade boys and girls. It is exhausting. But I love them, so every Wednesday night, we gather.
Tonight, with Valentine’s Day coming up I found this cheesy game in an email about collecting hearts and whoever gets the most wins and then some even more cheesier questions and love. But the follow-up scripture was a very familiar one that is dear to my heart:

You shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart and with all of your soul and with all of your strength and with all of your mind. And you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

So we played it. And it was kind of fun.But then it came the time to talk about it.

We got to talking about who our neighbors were. Were they just the old couple who lives next door? Or the cranky mom who won’t let us play basketball? Just people in our town? In our county? In our state? in the world?

In the way things do happen with this extremely talkative group (which was only boys by this point), we got to talking about “illegal immigrants” (I’m trying very hard to encourage folks to use the term undocumented… many of them actually did come here legally but circumstances have prevented them from going home, renewing visas, etc.) and “terrorists.”

We started asking whether it was fair to characterize a whole group of people.

We asked if people who do bad things deserve our hatred or our love if we are Christians.

We started wondering about how folks get to the point where they allow terrible things to happen in their own country, like people in Nazi Germany. We wondered if we would have stood up for our neighbors and faced prison and death on behalf of another person. Would we have gone along, or would we have sacrificed ourselves and our families?

Would we have tried to leave? Where would we have gone? Would we have entered a country illegally if we thought it was our only place of escape and refuge? Would people have welcomed us or turned us away? Where are the folks who come here coming from? Would they have come legally if they had the option?

We found ourselves ending with Deuteronomy 10

Look around you: Everything you see is God’s—the heavens above and beyond, the Earth, and everything on it. But it was your ancestors who God fell in love with; he picked their children—that’s you!—out of all the other peoples. That’s where we are right now. So cut away the thick calluses from your heart and stop being so willfully hardheaded. God, your God, is the God of all gods, he’s the Master of all masters, a God immense and powerful and awesome. He doesn’t play favorites, takes no bribes, makes sure orphans and widows are treated fairly, takes loving care of foreigners by seeing that they get food and clothing.

You must treat foreigners with the same loving care—
remember, you were once foreigners in Egypt.
Reverently respect God, your God, serve him, hold tight to him,
back up your promises with the authority of his name.
He’s your praise! He’s your God!
He did all these tremendous, these staggering things
that you saw with your own eyes. (The Message, verses 14-21)

It was not at all where we thought the evening would end up… but these kids are smart. And when you can get them to talk one at a time, they have some fascinating things to say. My prayer is that they will go home and never look at their neighbors… the grumpy guy next door, or the strangers who live all around us, or the brothers and sisters we see on the television half way across the world… the same way again.

Lost – The Oldest Game Ever Played

Posted on August 13, 2009Leave a comment

In the second part of the pilot, we find John Locke sitting on the beach setting up a backgammon board. Young Walt walks up and wants to know what the game is and how to play.

In his usual enigmatic way, Locke replies, holding up the black and white counters, “two players, two sides, one is light, one is dark.”

That theme of light and dark, good and evil, white and black flows throughout the series of lost. Constantly you are trying to figure out who is good, who is bad, and which side the characters are playing on.

Having known very little about the actual game of backgammon, I did some research. In the game, the goal is to get all of your counters/checkers/stones off of the board. The checkers are initially set up at various set locations across the board and the light and dark pieces are moved in opposite directions, each player trying to get their pieces “home.” It is the roll of the dice that determines how many moves each person can make.

Opposing forces, two sides, each trying to make it “home.”

Later, I want to discuss what it might mean for each side to make their stragetic moves in their attempts to get home, but right now, I’m struck by the contrast between black and white.

In Christian theology, there is a battle between good and evil, between the forces of light and the forces of darkness. This is talked about both cosmically in the sense of Christ’s victory over the forces of Satan and individually as our hearts and minds are up for grabs. Christians are called to live in the light, to clothe themselves with rightousness, to put all darkness and evil out of their lives. There is no inbetween. Those who are “lukewarm” might as well be on the darkside. The choice is clear.

Yet even in the midst of this black and white, either/or language, there exists within theology another current that talks about the grey area… the both/and. Lutheran theology claims that we are simultaneously sinners and saints, darkness and light living together. In Methodist theology, we talk about sanctification – that God’s grace flows within us from the moment of justification and over time, we are gradually perfected in God’s eyes – that someday we reach that moment of perfection, but that in the meantime we are people of the light who struggle with the darkness within us.

The question is one of if and when redemption can come. If we are filled with darkness and evil, can we ever change our ways? If we are filled with light and goodness, can we ever fall from grace?

The characters on Lost constantly struggle with these questions. As we are introduced to Kate, Sawyer, Charlie, Eko, Sun, and others, we see the destruction that their past lives have caused. We see the hurt and pain they have caused not only others, but also themselves. And while at the same time running from their past, they are also running towards a new future. In small ways throughout their lives they have done redeemable acts – like Sawyer leaving his “commission” to the daughter he has never met, or Eko trying to help the villagers get their vaccine – although he chose a path of killing to get there. Their lives are a mixed back of light and darkness, each vying with the other to take control of these individuals.

The island in many ways gives them a clean slate – a tabula rasa, as one of the first episodes puts it. It is a fresh start and a chance for them to make themselves over as new people, without their past haunting them.

The ability to say that they are sorry, to confess the wrongs of their lives and to make amends is difficult. Kate finds that she cannot apologize for killing her step-father, nor Eko for the destruction that followed as he tried to save his brother from a similiar fate. But Charlie does find ways to say that he is sorry and successfully gives up heroin use. Sawyer makes amends with the survivors by throwing a boar feast. Juliet tries to prove she is on the side of the survivors through telling the truth about being a “mole.”

And yet, as fear and anger take over, darkness again creeps in. On the first night in their camp, Eko takes the lives of two men that have tried to haul him off. Sayid returns to torture as a means of getting information. Sawyer just cannot leave the con alone when he feels that power has slipped away from him.

In the game of backgammon, light and darkness cannot exist on the same point at the same time. Either there are too many counters of the one color and the other cannot move in, or there is a one on one confrontation. As the light or dark counter moves onto a point occupied by another – the “blot” – the blot must leave the board and is placed on the bar between the sides of the board. That counter must now start from the beginning and make its way all the way back around the board.

That constant interplay, the struggle between light and dark is present in our lives. Faced with temptation, encountered with fear, we must make a choice to move and to confront those opposing forces or to sit back and wait for the darkness to win. As we see all too clearly in Lost, mistrust and secrecy become avenues for darkness to work. Yet, we know through scriptures that through prayer, through community, through open hearts, we are strengthened by others and by God to face those opposing forces. Jack’s famous, “live together, die alone,” is not only a statement about survival – but a recipe for how they can strengthen themselves for the battle of hearts and minds. If only they could figure out a way to follow it.

t.v. is taking over my life!

Posted on August 12, 2009Leave a comment

So, I will be the first to admit that I love television. I’m a sucker for an hour long episode (well, 42 minutes). I like to just relax in front of our t.v. and slip away to another world for a while.

The beauty of a television show – especially those “hour long” epi’s is that you slowly, chunk by chunk make your way through a story. Yet they are short enough that when my ADD (self-diagnosed) gets the better of my I can hop away and mow the lawn or wash dishes.

This summer, my husband and I have made our way through seasons 1 & 2 of Dexter – a showtime series about a serial killer who only kills murderers and works forensics for the police department. In some ways, it’s just an escape, but as a theologian and as a philospher, I also see so many themes that we need to deal with in our everyday lives: redemption, good and evil, morality and sin, what it means to be human.

Our instant play for Dexter isn’t available for season 3 so we are waiting for it to be released. And instead, we began to watch Lost.

Now, in the whole time that Lost was on the air, I maybe watched one episode. I didn’t want to get into the hype. But now that I have been watching it for a solid week (we just started season 3) I’m hooked. There is so much symbolism and many of the same themes that came through in Dexter – good and evil, redemption, and others – our purpose/destiny/fate, what it means to be family/community, questions of whether there is a God.

For the past few days now I’ve been thinking about blogging through the series and taking some notes – kind of a gospel according to lost type of thing. As far as I can tell, no one has really done it yet – aside from an article published by the Christian Research Institute. We’ll see if I have time to go back through some episdoes and really do it or not.

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Posted on January 22, 2009Leave a comment

Another Wednesday morning conversation with local pastors on the lectionary. I really enjoy this time to meet with my colleagues and talk about how to translate the gospel into plain language and a word that our congregation can make a part of their lives. The scriptures are tricky. They are written in ancient languages, in ancient contexts, and they use ideas and concepts that really just don’t translate to our world today.

This morning in particular, we talked about the first healing in the gospel of Mark. I hadn’t thought about this before, but there isn’t a whole lot of demonic activity in the Old Testament. And there isn’t a whole lot of demonic activity after Jesus either. At least not in the same sense that we see in these scriptures. As I talked with a friend about it today, we talked about how the “powers” might work in our world today.

In all honesty he said, if evil works through manipulation – then in people who are superstitious and believe in spirits – then working through evil spirits and demons makes sense. But in our modern scientific culture, we don’t buy the whole “spirits” thing. What if the devil is simply working through other means – through means by which we can be manipulated – reason, science, false theology, etc.

I hadn’t ever thought of that before – and it really made sense. I think that throughout history God reaches out to us in different ways – so why not the evil powers of the world as well?

After that, i headed to the church for our weekly bible study. This group basically reads through a book or section of the bible and we try to understand it, but mostly, it is to get a feel for the whole story. Right now we are in Numbers, and I found myself stopping the group after every paragraph to explain a few important pieces. We were reading in particular the section where it talks about what a man should do if he is jealous and suspects his wife of cheating. There is all of this talk of bitter water and the priest and fallen thighs and it made no sense. So I translated. “If a guy is jealous, he takes his wife to the priest, who then administers this bitter water solution… if she is pregnant (presumably by another man) it will cause a miscarriage. If she is not pregnant, either she has not been cheating and is cleared, or doesn’t get caught… but it’s likely that she won’t do it again. All guys are in the clear and won’t get in trouble for their actions.”

Comments ranged from “that’s not fair” to “why would they do that?” I explained that one reason is that women were viewed much differently – as property, as the belonging of the husband in this time. But also, that the law actually provided a way for a woman to prove her innocence – so in that sense, it was protective.

We also talked about the vow of the Nazarite. And I noticed in particular a different understanding of what sin might be within these passages. The Nazarite is not allowed to touch a corpse, but if someone dies right next to that person, and so they are unwillfully put in contact with the corpse, they have still sinned. There is a process for cleansing and setting things right in relationship to God and their vows.

We think about sin and law as an act that ‘I’ have done that breaks a law. It carries a sense of guilt and punishment. But when we think about law as order, as a process, as a way of being – then sin is simply when that order gets out of balance. What is required is not punishment, but restoration.

I have found that my congregation really tends to think of the law as this harsh thing that condemns and convicts – the law needs to be laid down – God is always telling us how we are supposed to act and we are faithful if we follow all those laws to a “T”. I’m really trying to get them to have a more graceful understanding of the law. God’s Word should rule our lives, and God’s grace is what saves us and the law is still a good thing that helps us to live more in line with God’s will. But it is also in many places used to describe a way of being that is not in line with our culture, and we have to use God’s grace to interpret the laws we read in Numbers.