Deal Me In

I’ve come to find that churches are the worst places to clean and organize. The reason for this is because nobody ever throws anything away, and the reason nobody ever throws anything away is because nobody owns the stuff at a church, and nobody feels that they have the authority to get rid of it. So, things that haven’t been used in 20 years in a church get put into a box and tucked away into a corner closet because you never know, somebody might use that stuff someday. I and a few other folks at the church have been trying to clean the place up and get things better organized, and we’ve found boxes and boxes of files, decorations, and all kinds of other weird stuff that hasn’t seen the light of day since the 80’s. Don’t tell anybody, but much of that stuff has finally found its proper place in the dumpster.

Above is a picture of my favorite discovery so far. I know what you’re thinking…that is the sweetest deck of Jesus playing cards I’ve ever seen. That’s exactly what I thought when uncovered several packs of these babies. I was ready to call up the boys and have a sanctified game of Texas Hold’em right there in the church. I hoped in this deck that the King, Queen, and Jack have been replaced by the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I hear a Holy Flush is the new highest hand you could have in poker.

To my dismay, the above cards weren’t actually playing cards. The other side is totally blank. I have no idea what they were used for. I’m thinking about drawing in all the appropriate numbers and symbols and making my self the sweetest deck of cards ever.

The Shack

A friend recently asked me if I had read "The Shack" and what I thought about it. So, I figured I'd post my response to him:

Dear friend,

Back in October a lady from our church came up to me and said, "Pastor Tristan, you have to read "The Shack." I want to know what you think about it. I loved it so much that I went out and bought a second copy, so take this one and let me know what you think.”

My first thought was, oh great, now I have to read some poorly written Christian fiction book (not exactly my favorite genre). But I did want to read because I really appreciate the lady who gave it to me. She's only been a Christian for a few years, so I figured I'd bite the bullet and suffer through some cheesy Christian novel in order to connect with her.

A few pages into "The Shack," I was pleasantly surprised to find that the book was fairly well written. Also, I was relieved to find that its plot didn’t center on a dispensationalist view of the end times…I’m amazed at how many of those the Christian press can publish in a given year! When I finished reading it I had a lot of thoughts on the book, but I’ll try to limit them here to a few positive ones and a few negative ones:

Here's what I liked: 1. Young at least attempted portray God as Triune. All attempts to write about the Trinity in fiction will fail because the Trinity is intrinsically mysterious and beyond our understanding, but I found it refreshing that Young emphasized God's 3-ness. Most popular writers tend to write generically about God, and their writings unintentionally assume God’s oneness. The Trinity is central to all we believe about God, so I commend Young’s attempt to bring the Trinity into popular Christian conversation, even though his attempt falls short at times.

2. The book is about suffering and the problem of evil, and I think it does an ok job of addressing the question of how a Good and All-powerful God would allow people to suffer. I believe this is the hardest questions that Christians have to answer, and Young does an adequate job of speaking to this question in the form of popular fiction.

3. Young also stresses freewill. I’ve read a few scathing critiques of “The Shack” by popular evangelicals, but almost all of them were from a Calvinist background. I could see why a Calvinist wouldn’t like this book because the characters are free and God’s sovereignty doesn’t infringe upon their freedom.

Here's what I didn't like: 1. I have to agree with you that Eugene Peterson’s statement was laughable. I think we need to give “The Shack” a few hundred more years of assessment before we put it on par with “Pilgrim’s Progress.”

2. There was one passage that I found particularly troubling in which Jesus says something like "it doesn't really matter if a person is a Christian or not. If a person really wants to seek me, they will find me. All ways lead to me" (that's not an exact quote, but it was something like that). Anyway, in this one passage, the Jesus character seems closer to being a Unitarian than a Christian. Because Young focuses so much on the Trinity, it wouldn’t be fair to label him as a Unitarian, but I did have big problems with that one passage.

3. Along the lines of the last point, one of my friends thinks that “The Shack” implicitly affirms universalism, and I can definitely see what he means. The book consistently paints a picture of Jesus as Loving and Good but fails to recognize him as the Coming King and Judge. In Young’s defense, the book isn’t about judgment, but any hint of judgment by Trinity seems to be missing.

Curious if any of you have read it or have any thoughs?

Latest on Jovi

They say that weight training works because it stresses out muscles and breaks them down. Then when your muscles get rest and protein, they recover and become stronger than they were before you worked them out.

I think our stressful travel must have been the equivalent of weight training for Jovi’s mind and development. When headed out on Christmas, she was able to roll over and only in one direction. Now, just in the past few weeks, she has gone from rolling, to crawling, to pulling herself up into a standing position. I figure that if we take her on few more stressful trips, we can probably get her walking, talking, and maybe even writing my sermons for me by next year.

The Trip from Hades

It’s been quite some time since I last touched base with the blogging world. Forgive my absenteeism. Jill, Jovi, and I were traveling over the holidays. We returned home for one week before heading out again for meetings with my denomination in Ohio. The last couple of weeks I feel like we’re just trying to catch up with work at the church and around the house, so my blogging has been on the back burner. But, it is good to be home.

Do you ever feel like God is just messing with ya? I’ve never really thought this, but by the end of our trip, I was beginning to wonder. We headed out Christmas morning to fly to Minnesota for few days to celebrate with Jill’s family. Our first flight was canceled. We showed up at the airport for the next available flight, and it was delayed for about 3 hours. We finally boarded the plane and took off. We landed in Chicago and were supposed to have a brief layover, but they didn’t have any gates open for us to get off of the plane, so we sat on the runway for over an hour, causing us to miss our connecting flight. We hung in Chicago for quite some time....our next flight was delayed, but eventually we finally made it to MN.

While in MN Jovi got sick and pretty much hated everybody but her mom for those few days. The following Tuesday morning we got in the car to drive from Jill’s parent’s house to the Twin Cities to catch our flight home. We set out really early because it was snowing hard. A drive that normally takes about 2 ½ to 3 hours took us about 5 ½ hours. We were stopped for over an hour at one point because of an accident. We finally arrived and stood in line for over an hour waiting to get our ticket. All the flights were delayed. Eventually we boarded the plane at about 8 pm. After boarding the plane we sat on the plane for over an hour before taking off….familiar story. Remember all of this was with a 6 month old baby! We finally got to Chicago. Our next flight was delayed again (making it a perfect 4 out of 4 for delays). We tried to drive to see my parents in Ohio, but the snowy roads nearly killed us, so we eventually stopped at 2:30 in the morning. What a nightmare!

So, what did I learn from all of this? 1) While part of me wants to say a big “Bah Humbug” to ever traveling again over the holidays, I came to realize that my experience this Christmas was much more an authentic representation of the first Christmas than my usual Christmas rituals. Rather than waking up Christmas morning to a big breakfast with family, laughing together, opening presents, and celebrating, this Christmas I was stressed, traveling, dealing with circumstances that were beyond my control, and trying to appease a crying, tired baby. I can imagine that Joseph must have felt the same way about the Roman government forcing him to travel to Bethlehem with his pregnant wife as I did about the airlines this Christmas.

2) True joy is most apparent in the midst of suffering. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that we really “suffered” on this trip, but the lack of sleep, the stress, the crying kid, the bad weather, and all the delays can certainly steal one’s Christmas spirit. After our second miserable day of traveling, while we were sitting on the plane on the runway, most people’s tempers were getting hot. You could hear people on the plane rustling in their seats, complaining to one another, and being very short with the flight-attendants. I was just like everybody else, getting very frustrated, but then I prayed and God spoke to my heart and reminded me how blessed I was. In that moment I couldn’t help but smile. I began to think that God was just messing with me this whole trip, like some cosmic practical joke, and it made me laugh. I realized that joy is so much deeper than our circumstances. I chatted and joked with the flight-attendant and let her hold Jovi. Jovi eventually started crying, and the flight-attendant asked me what’s wrong with her. I said, “She hates your airline,” and the people in our section all started laughing. Things really weren’t that bad. I don’t want to be happy; I want to have joy

Grace

I can’t help but feel overwhelmingly blessed lately. There are so many things in my life that bring such joy, and I know that all of these things are graces given by the Father. In no way do I deserve the life and blessings that I have been given. I have an amazing wife who is one of the most loving and genuine people I know. I have a beautiful daughter who makes me laugh and fills my heart with joy. I have a church that reminds me daily of God’s love and challenges me to be a better man. I have the privilege of serving Christ’s body as my occupation and vocation. I have been forgiven and am loved by God. I have been blessed so much, and sometimes I’m not even sure why. This is grace.

Another Fine Piece of Journalism

What makes a man a man? What makes a woman a woman? Maybe I’m just a rural simpleton, but I’ve always assumed that being a man or a woman had at least something to do with the kind of reproductive organs you have. I know I’m naïve, and forgive my being blunt, but I always assumed that the fact that I have a penis qualified me as being a man, maybe not a manly man, but a man nonetheless. Apparently I was wrong….at least according to the major news organizations in our country.

Have you seen the story of the person in the above picture? Barbara Walters had “him” on her top ten list of fascinating people of 2008. Several months ago ABC News reported the headline, “Pregnant Man Weeks Away from Giving Birth.” CNN reported just over a week ago, “The pregnant man who gave birth to a daughter earlier this year says he is expecting a second child.” These aren't tabloids. They’re supposed to be reputable news organizations. The pregnant man has been on Oprah and Larry King, and the buzz and absurdity goes on and on.

Can I just say something to help clear things up for anyone who’s confused? Here’s my headline….this just in…“The Pregnant Man Has No Penis.” That’s right. This is not a story of a modern biological miracle. The pregnant man in fact has a vagina, uterus, ovaries, fallopian tubes…yep, the whole female reproductive system which according to my very basic understanding of gender make him not really a him but a her. There is no real earth shattering story here. It’s a simple case of a woman who feels that she is a man, so she has taken hormone treatments, had some cosmetic surgeries performed, and has begun to act as if she were a man. But, she still has all the raw materials of being a woman.

This story is only a story because the news media has been sensationalizing it and manipulating ignorant people by reporting vague details about the person’s true gender. Most reports, like the ones above, refer to the person only as a man. A few reports say that he was actually “born as a woman,” but even this comment leads one to infer that she had an actual sex change operation. The story just isn’t a real story.

Now, if someday they figure out how to truly impregnate a real man, that will be a story worth reporting. I for one, look forward to that day, because then we men can finally dispel the myth that childbirth is so painful. I mean, come on, how bad can it be?

Just kidding, ladies.

Merry Christivus

So, Jill and I were decorating for Christmas yesterday…I know, I know, it’s not even Thanksgiving yet; but what can I say, we love Christmas and we’re going to be out of town for Thanksgiving anyway….and as I was putting up our fake Christmas tree, I discovered this perfect blending of the symbols of Christmas and Festivus. It’s part Christmas tree, part Festivus pole. You can put your presents under it Christmas morning, and then air your grievances next to it in the evening. For those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about, you need to watch more Seinfeld.

The First Supper

Last meals can be pretty important. I think it must be one of the highlights of the whole death-row experience. Jesus had a pretty important last supper with his disciples, but I've never given much thought on first meals. Well, here's Jovi's first experience eating solid foods (if you can call them solid). Anyway, she's doing a pretty good job with it. You can tell that she enjoys it by the death grip she gets on that spoon.

Parable on Tax Cuts

Most of the time when Jesus taught, he used parables. Why? I think it was because we can all relate to stories and see truth that we might not otherwise grasp. Somebody sent me this modern parable yesterday regarding our current tax system. It illustrates the absurdity in what so many people argue about taxes and economics. Hope you enjoy:

A brilliant explanation of our tax system, the impact of a tax cut, and the public reaction -

Every day 10 men go out for a beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would look something like this:
The first 4 men (the poorest) would pay nothing
The fifth would pay $1
The sixth would pay $3
The seventh would pay $7
The eighth would pay $12
The ninth would pay $18
The tenth (richest) would pay $59

So that is what they decided to do. The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement until one day, the owner threw them a curve. "Since you are all such good customers," he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20. "Drinks for the ten now cost just $80."

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay taxes, so the first four men were unaffected. But what about the other six men - the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would pay their "fair share?"

They realized that $20 divided by 6 was $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everyone's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer. So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.

And so - The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings)
The sixth man now paid $2 instead of $3 (33% savings)
The seventh man now paid $5 instead of $7 (28% savings)
The eighth man now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings)
The ninth man now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings)
The tenth man now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings)

Each of the six was better off than before and the first four continued to drink for free. But once outside the bar, the men began to compare their savings. "I only got $1 out of the $20," declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man, "but he got $10." "Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man, "I only saved a dollar too. It's unfair that he got ten times more than I." "That's true!" shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get back $10 when I only got $2? The wealthy get all the breaks!" "Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison. "We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!" The nine men surrounded the tenth man and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man did not show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had beer without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money among all of them for even half of the bill!

And that my children is how our tax code works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most dollar benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas or in Mexico where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.