An Unnatural Extreme

On September 11, 2001, I was working as a New Testament teacher at a private Christian school. Less in an attempt to preach and more in an attempt to keep my head and speak against my own anger and confusion, I read these words of Jesus to my 11th graders:


"You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven."


Within a few days, an angry parent had cornered me and said, "You are teaching our kids to love to an unnatural extreme."


I empathize with her anger. I do now and I did at the time. My reading was an attempt to let God's truth speak into my own head and heart as much as it was for my students. Furthermore, she may be the first person I ever met who understood the scandal that is the gospel. Love to an unnatural extreme.


God, I hope so. Wouldn't that be something to see?

Seven Stanzas at Easter

Make no mistake: if He rose at all
it was as His body;
if the cells’ dissolution did not reverse, the molecules
reknit, the amino acids rekindle,
the Church will fall.

It was not as the flowers,
each soft Spring recurrent;
it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled
eyes of the eleven apostles;
it was as His flesh: ours.

The same hinged thumbs and toes,
the same valved heart
that–pierced–died, withered, paused, and then
regathered out of enduring Might
new strength to enclose.

Let us not mock God with metaphor,
analogy, sidestepping transcendence;
making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the
faded credulity of earlier ages:
let us walk through the door.

The stone is rolled back, not papier-mâché,
not a stone in a story,
but the vast rock of materiality that in the slow
grinding of time will eclipse for each of us
the wide light of day.

And if we will have an angel at the tomb,
make it a real angel,
weighty with Max Planck’s quanta, vivid with hair,
opaque in the dawn light, robed in real linen
spun on a definite loom.

Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,
for our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,
lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are
embarrassed by the miracle,
and crushed by remonstrance.

-John Updike

Running On Empty

One of the things I give up every year for Lent is pop (many of you know this as soda or "Coke"). There are various reasons I do this, the two main ones being that it's difficult to do and that it's something I have too much of.

But I've been thinking about how pop also serves as the perfect metaphor for Lent as well. Pop is marketed to those who are thirsty and yet its ingredients insure that those who drink it will only be thirstier. It promises to fill you up, but is full of nothing that actually satisfies. It's like drinking a bottle full of empty, but still feeling full.

And that's what the season of Lent asks us to stop doing. We aren't meant to arbitrarily eliminate something from our schedules or diets, but to purposefully have less of something that is making us feel full while simultaneously making us more empty. It may be shopping, it may be food, it may be facebook, but we all have something empty that we're getting too much of. And that's what Lent is meant to help us have less of.

But the point of Lent isn't simply to have less of a bad thing, but more of a good thing; and that good thing is God. God whose fullness actually fills us and doesn't simply make us feel full. God whose fullness may begin with emptiness, but only as a way to cleanse and to make room.

The fact is that we all take in something that is fairly shallow or even empty. We give those things up for Lent in order to have less of them and more of God. The idea(l) is for the principles of Lent to carry over into life. Because, while it's true that a Coke a week won't hurt you, a lifetime of filling up on emptiness will destroy you completely.

Blessed Are The Losers

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, 
   for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 
Blessed are those who mourn, 
   for they will be comforted. 
Blessed are the meek, 
   for they will inherit the earth. 
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, 
   for they will be filled. 
Blessed are the merciful, 
   for they will be shown mercy. 
Blessed are the pure in heart, 
   for they will see God. 
Blessed are the peacemakers, 
   for they will be called children of God. 
Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, 
   for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

“Regardess of how you feel inside, always try to look like a winner.” –Arthur Ashe

“If you want to be a winner, hang around with winners.” –Christopher Furman

General Patton once famously stated that “Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser,” and you don’t have to look around long to see how often that’s true. We value power, popularity, and prosperity; we have entire sections in our bookstores dedicated to being a success and to learning how to win. Not only that, but we avoid those choices that might lead to having less, that might seem like a step down and can even avoid those people who might not look good or might not make us look good. We want to be loved; and Americans love a winner. And so we will do almost anything to win.

Now Jesus comes with a grace bound up only in his great love and our great need. He does not save us because we are worth saving and he is certainly not impressed with our money, our status, or what we will do to win. In fact, he often spoke against those things.

When Jesus walked the earth; he was known as one who hung out with tax collectors and sinners. In other words, he hung out with losers. In fact, so much of what those who rejected him rejected about him was how taken he was with "the least of these" and how unconcerned he was with winning. He was a loser. And that's why they killed him.

But it’s been over 2000 years since Jesus walked the earth and, in that time, we have created a gospel that celebrates the winner. The most blatant version draws direct connections between being rich and powerful and receiving God’s favor and has become known as the prosperity gospel, but even more subtle forms still hold up worldly “success.” How many of us have attended churches whose eldership was primarily doctors and lawyers? Now, how many of us have attended churches whose eldership included a janitor?

Jesus begins his sermon on the mount blessing the poor in spirit, the meek, and the merciful. But our world (including many of us who claim Christ) see this as weak and lame.

We spend our lives trying to impress, trying to please, and even trying to become the very opposite of the people Jesus blesses. Because the meek and the peacemakers and those who mourn still look more like losers than winners. And we are people who will do almost anything to not be a loser.

Richard Nixon once stated that “the game of life is to come up a winner, to be a success, to achieve what we set out to do.” He was one who once tried to gain the world and risked losing the one thing we’re called not to lose; his soul.

Christ comes calling us to repentance. To go a different way. To make a different choice. To worry less about success and about winning.

Christ calls the church to be a place where weakness is welcome and losers feel at home; where you can walk in the door even if you don't have a savings account or a job or a home.

A place where the poor in spirit are blessed, where those who mourn are comforted and where peacemaking is practiced and celebrated.

A place where purity of heart and hunger for righteousness are valued over talent and ability.

Let’s stop placing such a high value on who has the nicest house or the coolest clothes or the most impressive resume, on who has the best education or who has the most influence or who shows the most strength.


God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: "Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord."

The Last Ten Years

So, it's January 1, 2001 and the millennium has officially begun (that 2000 thing was a hoax folks, nothing's ever 0 years old). I am 24 years old, 2 1/2 years married, and on the verge of moving to Austin, TX for the first time. My wife, Rachel, is finishing up graduate school in Abilene, TX and I am finishing up 2 years of (sometimes very) odd jobs worked in order to put her through graduate school. We're both past tired of west Texas, have finished up what will turn out to be the most difficult year of our married life (in terms of the actual "being married" part) and are ready for whatever is next.

What's next is speech pathology in a private practice and discovering that this career thing comes with a steep learning curve. What's next is teaching American History/Government and Bible at a private Christian school the year of September 11, 2001. What's next is two unfulfilling jobs (one more than another); one quit and one endured and a desire to stay in Austin, but an even greater desire to find meaningful work.

What's next is a move to Durham, NC in search of that meaningful work and both finding it and then one losing it and then being generally miserable when it comes to some of the things that matter most like faith and God and church except when being the opposite of miserable when it comes to some of the other things that matter most like growing together as partners and friends and becoming parents to an amazing son.

What's next is deciding together that something's got to change and that God meant there to be more to life than safety and security and what's next is a leap into something new and moving back to Austin with a 6 month old kid and no jobs and back in with the folks at the age of 29. What's next is church-planting and working in a bookstore and finding that a minimum/hourly wage is better than salary and a savings account when the work is worth it and you're doing what you're supposed to be doing and what's next is learning new things and taking greater risks and highs and lows and ups and downs and joy and struggle and stuff you wish you'd have done differently and things you shouldn't have said and 10 year anniversaries and starting kindergarten and let's try to have another only to find out we can't and maybe we adopt only we can't seem to afford it and it turns out we're pregnant only weeks later we miscarry and we never thought we'd recover only it turns out we will and pain is part of life and with friends and family and faith and God we find we're more than making it.

And it's January 1, 2011 and I don't know what's next, but I'm excited to see.