Spilled Wine

Around my house, going to the grocery store has been pretty low on the priority list. That could be because we have had other things going on, or it could be that I hate going and so I haven’t. Either way, it has made for some interesting discussions.

I have seen every member of my family walk into the kitchen hungry. They open the refrigerator, stand and look. Then they give the door a push and it goes closed. They move to the pantry. They stand and look at the shelves. The door closes and they walk out dejected.

At one point, Wendy declared definitively, “There is nothing to eat.”

I said, “Really? What do you want? Look again, there are all kinds of things in there; just use your imagination.”

In fact, our pantry is filled with food. The food is uninteresting and basic, but it fills the shelves.

That is, often, my experience with the Scriptures. I go to the shelves and declare them, “Empty.”

I stand and look, but nothing just jumps out at me. I guess that means there are no heat and eat meals. I shut it tight and walk away.

Wendy went back to the pantry and pulled out tomatoes, beans and corn. Then she went to the refrigerator and got some hamburger browned a day before. She put them all together for some taco soup. It was tasty. It was better than heat and serve.

The key to finding something satisfying from the Scriptures is the same–open it back up and read it again. This time, don’t look for something easy, look for something that is there.

These are our weekly Small Group videos…

Yesterday President Obama came out in favor of homosexual marriage.

Christians are rightly angry at the idea of homosexual marriage.  The Scriptures clearly teach marriage as between a man and a woman and homosexual behavior is plainly identified as sin.  So to combine homosexuality and marriage is anathema. 

I get that.  I agree with that, but did we give up our right to define the word when we gave it to the government to regulate?

We asked Caesar (the government) to certify marriage, and he did.  For years, the standard, even in the church, for marriage is the official, governmental standard.  It didn’t matter to us if you stood before a minister or the justice of the peace, if you were married, you were married.  Marriage was official.  Caesar said so.  The church affirmed.

But Caesar took marriage as his own.  He began re-defining it a long time ago.

Some states recognize “common law” marriages.  After a couple has been together and cohabited a certain amount of time, Caesar recognizes them as married.  For them to split up, there has to be a divorce.  A dissolution of the marriage.

Caesar says they are married.

Now Caesar wants to say that two men can be married.  Now Caesar wants to say two women can marry.  Caesar believes he owns marriage because marriage has long been a civil institution.  It is regulated and owned by Caesar.

We, the church, let Caesar have marriage because we thought it would impose our morality on society.  It did for some time.  Even people who had no commitment to the holy covenant of marriage nor the God who instituted it were duly married by Caesar and his appointees.  Some of those appointees were representatives of the church.

“By the power vested in me by Caesar, I now pronounce you husband and wife.”  We even operate as Caesar’s representative.

We willingly gave the government our word.  We gladly worked as Caesar’s representative.  We use Caesar’s system to authenticate marriage.  We gave marriage to Caesar.  Now (just now?) he is messing it up and we are up in arms.

Jesus said we are to render to Caesar the things that belong to him and to God the things that belong to Him.  The problem is, we’ve been sleeping with Caesar.  We married him and we have given him things that rightly belong to God.  Now what are we going to do about it?

One thing is for sure, it is going to be messy.

I think it might be a good idea not to share what is sacred with Caesar.

Every time I read the account of the betrayal of Jesus, I am struck by the response of all the disciples when Jesus says, “One of you will betray me.”  To a man, they all say, “It’s not me…is it?”

Surely all but one knew they were not the betrayer?  Right?

You know that dream you have where you go into work and you realize you are completely naked and no one can stop looking at you?  (I have never had that dream, but “a friend” told me he has.)

The disciples were sitting at a Passover meal completely naked and Jesus was looking at them.  They knew they had, within them, what it took to betray.  Something told them they might just be the one.  It terrified them.

I was visiting with some church leaders about forgiveness.  How do we instill grace in the people we lead?  How do we stop people from wagging their fingers at those who are struggling to forgive.  We dispense such sage advice as, “We need to forgive, because Jesus forgave.” and “We have to forgive, we don’t have a choice.”  It all sounds good and it is all true.  And as long as we are on the dispensing side, it is pretty tame stuff.

But what about when we are at the table?  When Jesus talks about forgiveness, I drop my eyes because I am certain everyone is looking at me.  Sometimes I might even pound the table and tell people to stop looking at me.  Sometimes I might point at them and say, “You need to have more grace.”

The truth is, I do that because I am naked.

I point my finger and pound the table because I know I have deep places where the light of forgiveness has never dared show its face.  I hear Jesus say, “One of you will betray me,” and something deep inside me wonders if it will be me.

Here are the last two videos we did….

This week I read an article which said Christians should be left-wing Democrats.

Before you get too excited, a good bit of the world think Christians should all be right-wing Republicans.

What are they thinking?

Do we really think Jesus would fall in line behind some sort of political party?  Do we really think Jesus would bow to the lobbyists who vie for their causes?  Do we really think Jesus would systematize compassion or would blindly ignore the poor?  Do we really think Jesus would stump for our candidate?

I have political bents.  I am wired up a certain way.  I, like you, or unlike you, am wired up as a conservative leaning Republican.  I find, in my gut, I line up there.

But it is not my gut that matters.

My gut is the same gut that covets and leers and hates and wanders from the truth.  My gut is the part of me that lead me astray.

When Jesus became Lord of my life, I became a follower of Jesus.  My political views were drowned in the water of baptism.  How I was originally wired is the flesh I battle against.  What is important is the rewiring Jesus did in my spirit.

That rewired spirit is radically different from anything in this world—liberal, conservative, Republican, Democrat.  My politics and my life are the same—denying myself, taking up a cross and following Jesus.

My office has four lights.  Three of them are lit.

Our dining room has eight light bulbs in one fixture.  Five are lit.

Our kitchen has seven light bulbs.  All of them are lit.  But it hasn’t always been so.  I just replaced six of them last week.  They never all go out at once.  They go out one at a time.

I even had a friend walk in and say, “How do you see in here?”

It doesn’t get all dark at once.  It just gets dimmer and dimmer until you can’t see any more.  When I went to change the light bulbs in the kitchen, I had to use a flashlight to even find the sockets.  Crazy.

I think it would be better to keep up changing bulbs.  They only go out one at a time, after all.  It can’t be that difficult.  We have a whole shelf full of light bulbs.  All I have to do is unwrap them, unscrew the old one and screw a new one in its place.  Then we have light.

I have noticed that it is easy for me to get progressively dim as well.  First one bulb, then another, then another.  Before long, it is dark.  It happens so easily.

First, I ignore the sunrise.  Then I don’t smell the dew.  Next I am not amazed by Mt. Hood.  I don’t notice the breath given to me.  I read the Gospels and don’t see good news.  I hear my children and don’t give thanks.  Before long, I rush through the day without even acknowledging God.

It comes Sunday and I am quite dim.  The sad thing is, I didn’t even notice myself dimming.

The solution is simple.  I just take a few of the dead bulbs out and screw in the lit ones.  It is not that tough to keep up with them.  I just have to do it.

It is truly amazing what a difference a few bulbs make.   I really love light.  I can’t believe I don’t notice the darkness creeping in.

All of us experience pain.  If we were to look closely at our lives, there would be segments of it that were long and difficult.  There were probably times you weren’t sure you could make it through.

What do we do with those times?

In the midst of them, I know what I do.  I cry out to God and say, “Why?”  I want to say, from the weakest possible theological footing, “I don’t deserve this.”  I say to Him, “I serve you and this is how you treat me?”  (If you do the same, read the Psalms, we are not alone!)

Give me a little time and my perspective changes.

When I look at who I am, as much as anything, shaped by the pain. The perspectives I have in my teaching come from pain.  My grit comes from pain. The compassion I have as a pastor comes from pain.  My confidence hope will win out comes from pain.  The depth of my soul comes from pain.

It is not that the good times didn’t shape me, they do.  Good times polish.  Painful times cut deeply and really change us.

Consider our redemption.  It is not in the beautiful nativity, or the feeding of the 5000, or turning water into wine we find our redemption, it is in the pain of the cross.  Further, the triumph of resurrection can only be formed by the defeat of the tomb.

May the pain you live shape you into the image of the resurrection.

As you guys know, I am contemplating mortality a lot these days.

There is something scarier than dying.  For Wendy and me it is living as someone else.  Every moment the brain tumor is in her head, she becomes a little less her.  Every surgery that has the hope of returning her also has the very real chance of pushing her even further away.

I am not sure I could handle that.

On Valentine’s Day, I received the soothing word of the Lord through Wendy.  We were talking about the upcoming surgery.  I told her I didn’t ever want her to forget my love for her.  She responded by taking my face in her hands and telling me, “I could never forget your love.  It is far too deep inside me to ever forget.”

I can handle whatever comes.

May the grace of God find its place so deep in you that you never forget it.

We recently had pictures taken of our family.  They were the best we have ever had.

Every picture is perfect as far as I can tell.  (Well, I am still bald, but you can only do so much.)  I have the pictures on my phone, FaceBook, television and soon on my wall.  Every single picture reflects the love we have in our family.  They are snapshots of life.

Sometimes I wish my life were a snapshot.

In the pictures, my children don’t talk back.  In the pictures, there are no bills.  In the pictures, I can’t see a brain tumor.  In the pictures we are static and we look happy.

But the pictures are not my life.  The pictures don’t breathe.  They are snapshots of life, but they are not alive.

My life is a symphony of happiness and sadness, joy and sorrow, health and sickness, pleasure and pain.

My life has a real story.  It has a beginning, a twisting plot, protagonists, antagonists, heroes and villains.  And my story will have an end.

I don’t know when it will end.  But it will.  And the end will not be as beautiful as the beginning, nor as soaring as some of the intervening time, but it is a part of the story none the less.

Life is not a snapshot.  Snapshots are pretty to look at, but they are not nearly as rich as real life.  I wouldn’t trade my life—even with the twists and turns—for a snapshot.  A real, breathing life is something to be treasured.   It is the real, eternal life Jesus promised.