I want to start with what I believe to be the primary purpose and highest expectation of the sermon as it currently stands, or, at least as I see it.  To teach, exhort, inspire and bestow upon the worshipers right thinking, orthodoxy, or right action, orthopraxy.  A sermon is primarily either to help the hearers better understand some aspect of God or scriptures, or to move the hearers to some form of action.  In this case the expectation for a sermon would be for a clear thought or thoughts which are understandable, well thought out and pointing in a specific direction by the end of the sermon.  In this case, the preacher needs a high level of self assurance in what he or she is talking about, and a basic assumption that they are correct.

So what does it mean to speak rightly about God and what God want us to do, if that is what sermons are really all about.  We recently had a Bible Study on the book of Job, and at the end God tells Job that his friends had not spoken rightly of God, as Job had.  The primary difference in what Job had to say from what his friends had to say, when it came to God, was that Job said he didn’t understand and his friends said that they did.  To me, it seems like God says, to speak rightly about God, one must admit that they don’t understand.  This seems to strike a blow to a self assured style of speaking about God.  This may also be one of the biggest holes in much preaching, not leaving room for the mystery and transcendence of God.  I don’t think this means that this purpose for preaching must be entirely abandoned, but it might mean that we need to take away some of its primacy and make it only one part of the sermon, not the whole sermon or whole purpose of the sermon.

At some point after completing the right of passage, the young lady will receive that which makes her so excited, some modicum of freedom and possibility will open to her which was not previously available. She will be handed the keys to a car and she will be given the opportunity to use what she has learned, from the instruction and experience of her grandfather, and from the experience she has received in our parking lot. She will use this new talent to open up new possibilities and to live life in her own way. The experience and wisdom passed on to her by her grandfather will not be used in the same way he has used, but for something new and different, for it is her life that she is living, not his. That is what rights of passage are all about, preparing someone with the wisdom and experience of generations in order to help bring about new life.

All of this raises a question for me about the church, where are our rights of passage? I know, our right of passage, in a believers baptism church, is baptism, or confirmation in a church that baptizes infants. But, does this really do the same thing as a right of passage elsewhere in the world. It fits, in that we pass on knowledge and experience through pastor/confirmation class, but it seems lacking in the handing over the keys after we are done. Sure, those who have completed the class are welcomed as members and offered communion, but, that is doing the same thing with what they have been given as has always been done. Where is the freedom, possibility and opportunity that is supposed to come along with a right of passage? We, as in the Church, still have some learning to do when it comes to empowering believers for ministry.

There are many reasons we don’t realize our potential, and most of them boil down to one of three things, underestimating our potential, overestimating our potential, or being indifferent to our potential. Taking them in reverse order, indifference is a great threat in a society which believes it has it made and things don’t need to get much better, as long as they don’t get worse. We have shelter, food, clothing and safety, plus the opportunity to gain more of all the above, why would we care too much about our potential.

For people who know they are talented overestimating our potential is a very real danger. When I played basketball as a child my dad was the coach. He would always brag that at the end of games he could pull me aside and tell me that he needed me to turn it on and I would. I had learned that I didn’t need my best all the time, I was good enough without it for most sitations and I could trust it to be there when I needed it. There is not much in life that requires fully realizing our potential, though, and it never gets used even though we know it is there.

While both of these can be dangerous they do not close off potential, just lower the odds that it will be realized. Underestimating potential, on the other hand, eliminates it altogether. When we understimate potential we say it can’t be done and we limit what we are capable of. The Good News isn’t just a story from two thousand years ago, it is that we are created with the potential to transcend all limits, even death. The Good News is that the stories of a world redeemed which seem impossible are possible, that God’s creation is crackling with that potential. The Good News opens up the possibilities before us, and reminds us that when we set ourselves to do something, even the impossible, we have the potential to reach the limitless heavens.

I have started five posts but either have not felt good enough about them to publish, haven’t known how to finish them, they have lost their timeliness or I am not sure if they should be published yet. There have been a couple weeks out of the last nine when I have not written for the blog at all, but I have written most weeks. At some point I simply lost my comfort level with finishing the job or publishing or both.

The same thing can happen to our relationship with God. We don’t feel like we are ready or we are good enough or the timing is right and so we don’t really do anything. We may try to make a start but we certainly don’t make a commitment. We say a few prayers and maybe attend church but we don’t commit ourselves to the relationship.

We’ve all heard stories about perseverance like the inventor who took 408 failures before finally creating formula 409, now one of the top cleaning products around. Too often we don’t show that kind of “never give up” attitude on things that are important, not because we are lazy but because we don’t think we can do it. Sometimes, though, we just have fake it ’til we make it. Sometimes we just have to give it our best and trust that God can do something with it. Sometimes we have to remember that God knows the unfinished product. Sometimes we have to remember that the finishing is God’s job.

I am going to be publishing those posts in the next week, and catch up on the weeks I have missed. I’m also going to try to spend more time committing to my relationship with God. I hope you will too.

It’s the oldest trick in the book. Literally.  Adam and Eve are in the garden when the serpent walks up (God doesn’t make it slither until after this). The serpent sets Eve up perfectly by insinuating that God really didn’t want what was best for them, otherwise, why wouldn’t he let them eat from any tree in the garden. When Eve protests that they are allowed to eat from all but one the serpent says that God is just threatening them, that God is jealously guarding this particular fruit, but, you can have some, really, go ahead, take what is rightfully yours. Eve falls for it, as we all have, and she eats, and so does Adam.

I started this post a month before Osama bin Laden was killed, but, the events that have taken place help to frame what has happened.  Many view the serpent of the Creation Story as Satan, and many also view bin Laden as Satan.  What made both evil was not only what they convinced others to do but also the ideology they were able to spread.  The ideology of us versus them, of division, of good and evil, and of hatred was at the heart of bin Laden, and at the heart of the serpent.  In that ideology the “them” becomes a group that is sub-human and deserving of death.  It is an ideology that says we can’t succeed unless “they” fail, for us to win “they” have to lose, for us to live “they” have to die.  This is the ideology embodied by evil, and it always involves claiming that “they” are evil.

Jesus’ response to this ideology is to radically re-imagining how we see the world.  He tells us to love “them”, to pray for “them”, to respond to evil with good.  He reaches out to “them”, the Roman Soldier who is an oppressor of God’s people, the Tax Collector who comes to take money that is rightfully ours, the Prostitute who tempts us to do what we know is wrong, the Demon Possessed who is a danger to our safety, and the Zealot who was nothing more than a first century terrorist.  Jesus’s response tells us that we cannot combat “them” with the same ideology “they” have, instead we love “them” and pray for “them” and see “them” as “us”.  Does it seem practical?  No.  Does it seem right, or just or possible?  No.  Maybe that’s because Jesus didn’t really mean them to be applied to the most extreme of our enemies or larger situations.  But maybe it’s because we can’t see any other way.

The first time I listened to this song I thought the line was, “I am the pack of lies, baby that keeps you safe” instead of sane.  I am not certain that it changes the meaning too much, though.  Whether the lies we are told and tell ourselves are used to keep us sane or safe, there is no doubt that they exist.  Our lives are built around the idea that we can secure ourselves, guaranteeing our safety and our sanity.  That is what the pack of lies is all about.  The pack of lies is full of suggestions that we can be safe and sane in a world that is far too unpredictable for true safety or sanity.

So the lies become our masters.  We become nothing more than slaves to those lies that promise safety and sanity.  Lies are particularly cruel masters, though, as the return that they promise is no more real than a mirage of water in a desert, an illusion created to make us believe something that is not real.  And so, we live life chained to these illusions, unable to shake ourselves free of the shackles because we would rather have our illusions than the fear and insanity that comes with seeing life as it is – unpredictable, unsafe, and insane.  The lies darken our vision and keep us from seeing things as they truly are.  We are thankful that they don’t let us see fully.  We believe the lies and we tell the lies to others.

But Jesus offers us the same thing that Nicodemus was offered in John chapter 3, which is new life, the opportunity to be born again.  This is not simply a born again that offers us assurance of salvation, which in many ways is part of the illusion of security, but born again to a life free from the idea that we can be safe and secure.  Jesus throws open to us the very gates of heaven, both in eternal life and in the here and now.  Jesus offers us freedom from the illusions of safety, from chains that make us think that life is all about creating safety.  We are freed to live out love unconditionally and without fear because our lives are no longer controlled by the illusion of safety and sanity.  This kind of living is to have already entered the gates of heaven.  But this is a choice, between the darkness of the lies, which keeps us from truly seeing, and the light of freedom, which reveals that it is those very lies which keep us from entering the gates, from living out love unconditionally.

The shadow of darkness is powerful, the shackles that bind us to the illusion of the lies are strong. Even after we choose the light the lies will remain with us, and we will be tempted to return to the darkness.  We will be told the lies again and again for as long as we live.  We cannot simply make the choice one time, we must make it over and over, until we enter into the gates for the final time and the Kingdom of Heaven is established.

The choice is there, the opportunity awaits, freedom and light are calling to us in the midst of the lies and the darkness.

Whether seen through the lens of a vengeful God or karmic retribution these statements are reprehensible and show a greater concern to feel comforted and safe than they do for the lives that have been lost and those who teeter on the brink of disaster.  We have such a great desire to feel like we understand something so tragic so that we can feel like we can avoid it.  It gives us a sense of control over our lives when we have been confronted by something so far beyond our control or our understanding.  We build our lives around the idea that we can control them, that we can understand them, and we cannot let go of this, even if it means laying blame implicitly or explicitly at the feet of the victims of such a tragedy.

This does not simply lay the blame at the feet of the victims, though, it also lays the blame at the feet of the God who is proclaimed to be a God of love.  This problem shows itself in our language about tragedy, as we call what happened in New Orleans, Haiti and Japan “Acts of God”.  It also shows itself when honest atheistic and agnostic people ask Christians to explain how God can allow something like this to happen, or possibly even cause it.  I have sought an answer to this question many times, and while I think I can touch on the subject, I certainly cannot explain it beyond a reasonable doubt.  Many of my answers, such as free will or God is there with those who suffer, fall short of what I wish I knew and could report to those asking the questions.

All I can say is this, God is big enough to take the blame from those seeking to discredit God but Christians don’t do any good suggesting God acts heinously; the victims deserve our prayers and help not our blame; I do not believe this or other tragedies to be “Acts of God”; and God is there with the victims seeking to comfort, heal and restore and we should be doing the same.

Today is the beginning of the Lenten Season, which has become a time to give up one of your favorite things for forty days.  (It’s okay, you can cheat on Sundays.)  Whether you are giving up chocolate, soda, television, facebook or anything else, it has primarily become a time to change on the surface, and only as a symbol of what you are willing to give up for God.  As soon as Lent is over we oftentimes gorge ourselves on whatever it is we have given up.  So, then, what is the purpose of Lent, what good does it do, and is it a worthwhile endeavor at all?

If this is all Lent is, then no, it is not really worthwhile because we are not doing anything that could change us.  There are many things that Lent is supposed to be about as a season, and I don’t intend to cover them all here, just one.  Lent is, or at least can be, about journeying with the Messiah from the relative safety and comfort of a normal life towards a life of sacrifice, from the chasing after ease at all costs towards seeking the Kingdom of God in an oftentimes hostile world.

This journey is certainly not for the faint of heart, nor is it for those who want their faith to do something for them instead of asking something of them.  This road will darken the further we travel down it, and it will test us to the depths of our faith.  This is indeed the road that led to the Messiah’s suffering and crucifixion, and to the death of many of His followers in the early church.  This is a road that leads many to say farewell to following Christ.

But it is the fact that the road darkens that calls us to follow the Messiah down it.  If we are truly people of the light then the road which darkens is where we are called to shine our light.  It does not do us any good to shine our light where there is already light, but where there is darkness our light is needed.  This is the journey which Lent beckons us on, the journey that shapes our faith, that strengthen our character and provides us the opportunity to do something tangible.  I hope that we are not found to be faithless during this journey.

There is a great temptation here, at least for me, to take this story and start picking it apart in order to better understand it, or, more honestly, to see what we can learn from it.  What does this story tell us that we can translate into our lives or how can this story inspire us to action?  When I started writing this morning I was looking for those exact things, those exact ideas, but that really isn’t always the point of a story, there doesn’t have to be a moral, we don’t always have to look deeper and deeper into a text to find meaning, and sometimes we just won’t be inspired to do something.

That isn’t to say that there is nothing more to the story of the Transfiguration, that there aren’t deeper layers or things we can learn.  We could talk about the desire of the disciples to do something for Jesus and Moses and Elijah and what that says about them and in turn what it says about us.  Or we could talk about what God says about Jesus, how we should respond to that proclamation.  We could even talk about the importance of Moses and Elijah’s presence at the transfiguration.  But not today.

Sometimes we just need to stand in awe.

There are plenty of reasons that I can come up with for wanting worship to be perfect and plenty for not wanting it to be perfect.  I want to focus on two reasons I don’t think worship should be perfect.  But first, I want to add the caveat that I am not saying that I am sure worship shouldn’t be perfect but we should at least question the assumption that it should be.  First, I think that perfect worship can be a barrier for imperfect people to experience God.  Second, I think that when we are focused on having a perfect worship then we become so critical of imperfection that we worship the service not God.

When we attempt to make worship perfect then we have a tendency to exclude that which is imperfect, both intentionally and unintentionally.  Intentionally, we try to make sure that we only have the best; the best readers, the best singers, the best preachers or whatever else.  And our definitions of the best tend to be narrow and exclude those who may be able to bring us a word from God or an experience with God in the midst of their imperfection.  Unintentionally, we may make those who are deeply scarred and badly broken feel like they aren’t good enough to be present in our worship.  If someone who is keenly aware of their imperfection finds themselves in a service that is geared around being perfect then they will not feel like they belong or are welcomed.

As for ourselves, if we are spending our timing worrying about the worship being perfect then we are focused on the perfection of the wrong thing.  We are called to worship God, who is perfect, but we are called to worship God as ourselves, imperfect and flawed.  Focusing on worship being perfect takes our focus off of God, and may prevent us from experiencing God, as our focus is on being critical of the service instead of on encountering God.  We should try to make worship good, but our focus should be on creating opportunities to experience God, not on making every element of the service perfect.