Live Your Moments: Recognize – It’s All Made Up

In a lot of family vans, they have movie players so the kids can watch movies while they ride along. You can’t do that while driving, believe me… not that I’ve done it. I don’t have to. I just replay them in my mind. I have them stored, in my brain. Apparently my storage space was full by the time I was twelve because all I have in my mind is movies from childhood.
So, while driving down the long highway, The Wizard of Oz started playing. I can’t decide on who I think is scarier Ms. Gulch on her bicycle, or the Wicked Witch. If you throw in the flying monkeys, I have to say the Wicked Witch, but before that I’d say it’s a tie.
Then, because I am a preacher, I can’t just replay The Wizard of Oz in my mind, I had to consider them philosophically, “Which place is real, is it Kansas or is it Oz?”
Think about it. If you’re first thought is, ‘Of course Kansas real. Oz is made up. It’s just a story, a product of someone’s imagination. Not Kansas. I’ve been to Kansas.’ I must point out to you, in the movie Kansas is in black and white while Oz is in color.
Continue reading “Live Your Moments: Recognize – It’s All Made Up”

Get Found!

When I was a youth, I remember a popular add campaign called, “I Found It.” There were bumper stickers, infomercials, and an I Found It book with testimonials from famous celebrities and athletes. What was it that people found which made such a difference in their lives? God. I can’t help but look back on my life since I got my I Found It book, bumper sticker, and read Tom Landry’s testimonial. In my life, my testimonials aren’t really about how many ways I have found God, but instead, my stories are about the many ways God has found me. I wander off, get caught up in current fads, totally doze off in my journey like the hare in Aesop’s fable, or camouflage myself and blend in like Adam and Eve in their cameo of fig leaves, and still, somehow, God finds me. Again, and again, I get found. No matter the degree I seem to be searching for God, or not, God seems to be searching for me. The parallel I’ve found is in how Robert Fulghum described one of my favorite games, Sardines.

In the early dry dark of an October’s Saturday evening, the neighborhood children are playing hide-and-seek. How long since I played hide-and-seek? Thirty years; maybe more. I remember how. I could become part of the game in a moment, if invited. Adults don’t play hide-and-seek. Not for fun, anyway. Too bad.
Did you have a kid in your neighborhood who always hid so good, nobody could find him? We did. After a while we would give up on him and go off, leaving him to rot wherever he was. Sooner or later he would show up, all mad because we didn’t keep looking for him. And we would get mad back because he wasn’t playing the game the way it was supposed to be played. There’s hiding and there’s finding, we’d say. And he’d say it was hide-and-seek, not hide-and-give-UP, and we’d all yell about who made the rules and who cared about who, anyway, and how we wouldn’t play with him anymore if he didn’t get it straight and who needed him anyhow, and things like that. Hide-and-seek-and-yell. No matter what, though, the next time he would hide too good again. He’s probably still hidden somewhere, for all I know.
As I write this, the neighborhood game goes on, and there is a kid under a pile of leaves in the yard just under my window. He has been there a long time now, and everybody else is found and they are about to give up on him over at the base. I considered going out to the base and telling them where he is hiding. And I thought about setting the leaves on fire to drive him out. Finally, I just yelled, “GET FOUND, KID!” out the window. And scared him so bad he probably wet his pants and started crying and ran home to tell his mother. It’s real hard to know how to be helpful sometimes.
A man I know found out last year he had terminal cancer. He was a doctor. And knew about dying, and he didn’t want to make his family and friends suffer through that with him. So he kept his secret. And died. Everybody said how brave he was to bear his suffering in silence and not tell everybody, and so on and so forth. But privately his family and friends said how angry they were that he didn’t need them, didn’t trust their strength. And it hurt that he didn’t say good-bye.
He hid too well. Getting found would have kept him in the game. Hide-and-seek, grown-up style. Wanting to hide. Needing to be sought. Confused about being found. “I don’t want anyone to know.” “What will people think?” “I don’t want to bother anyone.”
Better than hide-and-seek, I like the game called Sardines. In Sardines the person who is It goes and hides, and everybody goes looking for him. When you find him, you get in with him and hide there with him. Pretty soon everybody is hiding together, all stacked in a small space like puppies in a pile. And pretty soon somebody giggles and somebody laughs and everybody gets found.
Medieval theologians even described God in hide-and-seek terms, calling him Deus Absconditus. But me, I think old God is a Sardine player. And will be found the same way everybody gets found in Sardines – by the sound of laughter of those heaped together at the end.
“Olly-olly-oxen-free.” The kids out in the street are hollering the cry that says “Come on in, wherever you are. It’s a new game.” And so say I. To all those who have hid too good. Get found, kid! Olly-olly-oxen-free.

What does Reaching out to the lost mean for Macland? I believe it is a challenge to Get Found! And help others do the same, for we, like Adam and Eve before us, hide far too well. So to all you who have been hiding, “Get Found!” Come out, come out, wherever you are.

For Fathers, Sons, and Daughters

In Matthew 6, Jesus taught his followers to pray in this way, “Our Father…”

As we approach Father’s Day, with a celebration of dads heavenly and otherwise, I see a parallel between God the rest of us regulars, we all want the same for our children, to grow, to become, to live, and to love. As my son Nathan continues to grow into his teenage year and is gaining wrestling skill from camp and club, I am well aware that it won’t be long until my son pins his father. For the hopeful continued growth for Cayla, Abbie, and Nathan, and to encourage all of us to continue to grow and encourage growth in each other, I offer this simple poem by Orval Lund that he wrote for his father.
Wrist-wrestling father
Orval Lund
for my father

On the maple wood we placed our elbows
and gripped hands, the object to bend
the other’s arm to the kitchen table.
We flexed our arms and waited for the sign.
I once shot a wild goose.
I once stood not twenty feet from a buck deer unnoticed.
I’ve seen a woods full of pink lady slippers.
I once caught a 19-inch trout on a tiny fly.
I’ve seen the Pacific, I’ve seen the Atlantic,
I’ve watched whales in each.
I once heard Lenny Bruce tell jokes.
I’ve seen Sandy Koufax pitch a baseball.
I’ve heard Paul Desmond play the saxophone.
I’ve been to London to see the Queen.
I’ve had dinner with a Nobel Prize poet.
I wrote a poem once with every word but one just right.
I’ve fathered two fine sons
and loved the same woman for twenty-five years.
But I’ve never been more amazed
than when I snapped my father’s arm down to the table.

What’s Your Vocation?

Ever wonder what the difference is between a job, a career, and a vocation? In this excerpt from Out of The Crowd, I try and help clarify the difference.
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When Jesus calls the first disciples, he calls them from not just their families, but out of their jobs and careers and into a vocation. The distinction between these three is significant and can be seen in Mark 1,

Jesus was walking along the Sea of Galilee, where he saw Simon and his brother Andrew, who were fishermen, casting nets into the lake.
Jesus speaks to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of people.” And immediately, they left their nets and followed him.
In a similar matter, after walking on a little farther, Jesus, now with Simon and Andrew tagging along, calls out to James and John who were in their family boat with their father, Zebedee. Like the two before, then immediately left their nets, their boat, and their father, and followed Jesus.

In this passage are three groups: the hired men, the fishermen, and the disciples or followers of Jesus. They illustrate the three different ways we work: jobs, careers, and vocations.

JOBS

A job involves basic skill, basic labor, and basic pay to try and meet basic needs. In the passage, these are the workers, those on Zebedee’s boat who likely did a day’s work for a day’s pay. My first job was in a textile mill in South Carolina when I was sixteen. I worked second shift, from 4:00 to midnight. I learned to drink coffee dispensed nightly for a quarter out of a vending machine and was paid by the hour.

CAREERS

A career differs from a job in training and role. A career has background, education, experience, and investment. Jesus encountered some career fishermen in Zebedee and sons with their boat. They had training, skill, and investment in the family business. After college, I went to seminary, twice. I earned masters degrees in youth ministry and divinity. I studied Greek and Hebrew and passed ordination exams. This is my career, accepted into the Presbyterian system, ordained, blessed, and allowed to pastor. I even have a pension. Do you think Andrew or Simon asked Jesus if he had a health plan or a pension program before dropping their nets at the shore? Likely not.
The word, “career,” comes from the Latin word for car, which comes from carrera, which means “racetrack.” Like a racetrack, careers have structure, direction, and competition. And, like a racetrack, a career can have you feeling like you are going very fast, around, and around, in circles, never ending. No matter who wins a particular race, another competition will start shortly, and another, and another. And if you cannot fill your lane, don’t worry, there will be another to take your place and the race will keep moving, and moving, and moving.
Students are set on college tracks and career tracks taught to compete with each other in race after race, score after score. Students are ranked, from first to last, high to low, with their cumulative score or grade point average. We score their schools as well. The hope is to prepare students to take their place in society and to keep racing as our economy depends on it. They are promised great rewards for their effort, and if they work hard enough and succeed, they can drink from the cup of glory, whatever that is.
Kierkegaard warned about the effects of our jobs and careers and the responsibility of communities to watch out for each other in this story,
A farm village’s crop was infested by a strange bug that contaminated all their food. Once they realized that eating the food made them crazy, they quit eating it. Then they started to starve. The village leaders met and agreed they must eat to survive, but they also decided to work together to remind each other that the very food they ate to survive made them crazy.
Taking our place in crowds, pursuing careers, doing all that we do for food, family, groups, culture, is dangerous when we forget the madness that they can produce, then around and around we go, faster and faster and call it life, saying, “We have no choice.”
When you live going only in circles, how can a sense of direction be possible? The church should be that village voice, the agreement upon leaders that the very food that we eat makes us mad, calling the crowds into question, challenging our consumer economy, our chasing the dollar. We should join the prophets, poets, and playwrights, like Charles Bukowski,

Some lose all mind
and become soul, insane
some lose all soul
and become mind, intellectual
some lose both
and become accepted.

In a critique of business life in America, Arthur Miller wrote The Death of a Salesman. Willy Loman, the tragic character who dominates the play, is laid to rest in a cemetery following his suicide. At the graveside on a bleak and rainy day, the immediate family is huddled together along with a couple of friends. His wife cries softly over the casket, “Why? Why? Why did you do it, Willy?” It is then that Willy’s son, Biff, speaks and says, “Aw, shucks, Mom. Aw, shucks. He had all the wrong dreams. He had all the wrong dreams.”

VOCATION

When I read or tell of the calling of the disciples, I am often asked, “How could they just leave everything – job, career, family, and follow Jesus with no more information, and no guarantees?”
My question is, “How could they not?” James, John, Simon, and Andrew weren’t very good fishermen, we have record of them fishing all night and not catching anything on more than one occasion, and they seldom seem to be fishing but are instead always fixing their boat or mending their nets. But there is more, besides giving them an out to a career they seem ill suited for, Jesus gave them their calling, their vocatio. “Vocation” comes from the Latin word, vocare, which means, “to call.” Carl Jung describes people with vocation,

What is it, in the end, that induces someone to go his own way and to rise out of unconscious identity with the mass as out of a swathing mist? Not necessity, for necessity comes to many, and they all take refuge in convention. Not moral decision, for nine times out of ten we decide for convention likewise. What is it, then, that inexorably tips the scales in favor of the extra-ordinary?

It is what is commonly called vocation: an irrational factor that destines a person to emancipate himself from the herd and from its well-worn paths.
Vocation is not for God to hear you calling, but for you to hear God’s calling. Vocation is not for God to respond to the desires of your heart but for you to align your life with the passion and fire of God’s heart. Vocation is not for you to have a five-year plan that makes sense to you but for you to live in a way that makes sense to God. To align your life with the heart of God, to live Jesus’ way in the world, to discover your distinctive and particular place as an alive human in the image of God will give purpose and meaning to your life, Frederick Buechner said,

The vocation for you is the one in which your deep gladness and the world’s deep need meet – something that not only makes you happy but that the world needs to have done.

Vocation is both self-fulfilling and world fulfilling. It is both living into your calling of becoming not just a beloved child of God, but a beloved adult of God and facilitating the world’s growth into The Kingdom of God, which Jesus illustrated in Matthew 5 with the following imagery,

Each of you is the salt of the earth. If salt has no flavor, can you make it salty again? No, unless it gives flavor to food, it’s thrown out and trampled on. Each of you is the light of the world. When people get together and build a city, they don’t hide it in a valley but put it on a hill so others can come to it. In the same way, why would anyone light a candle or a lamp and put it under a bucket? No, you put it on the table so that it gives light to all the house.

So let it be with you. Let your light shine so that others may see the wonder of what you do and give glory. Being flavor for the earth, letting our light shine, stepping out like a city on a hill, or a singer on stage, can take great courage, bravery that often takes years to develop.

One of my dearest friends is Etta Britt. She got her first ‘record deal’ a little older than the Nashville norm. Here is a selection of an article by Lori Weiss in The Huffington Post on Etta’s story, It Ain’t Over – Out of the Shadows, Mom Signs Record Deal at 55.

From the time Etta Britt was a young girl, she was singing back-up for Diana Ross. It’s just that Diana didn’t know it. Because Etta was in front of her bedroom mirror in Louisville, Kentucky — hair brush in hand, as a microphone, of course — pretending she was one of the Supremes.
“I’d stand there for hours,” Etta laughed, “and pretend I was on stage. And my brother would come in and tease me, and I’d throw the hairbrush at him.”
“When I walk out on stage, I often say ‘You’re probably wondering who I am. Well, I’m a 55-year-old woman who just got her first record deal.’ And I get a standing ovation.
“Just like the title of the CD, I feel like I’m coming out of the shadows,” Etta said with a tear in her eye. “And now I’m showing my daughters that it doesn’t matter what your age is — you can still make your dreams come true.”

Etta came out of her shadows, her cultural, familial, and her own mental crowd to let her light shine. She celebrated the voice she had to share and the songs she has to sing, and encourages others to do the same. When you step out like Etta, it gives other people encouragement to come out of their own shadows and let their light shine. If you get the chance to watch a singer like Etta, one who is a band leader as well as a performer, one who is an encourager sharing both her light and the spotlight, sharing her music and weaving together the music of others, then you can see how one soul taking her place encourages others to do the same.

Etta and I have found these words by Author Marianne Williamson encouraging in both coming out of the shadows and the crowd,

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate,
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be?
Who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small doesn’t serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking
so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.
We were born to make manifest
the glory of God within us.
It is not just in some of us: it is in (all of us),
And as we let our own light shine,
we unconsciously give other people
permission to do the same.

Let Your Light Shine

I’m preaching today on the light of the world passage from the Sermon on The Mount in Matthew 5:

Matthew 5: ¹³“You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and
trampled under foot. ¹⁴“You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. ¹⁵No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. ¹⁶In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.

I am amazed at how different images from a scripture I’m living with during the week come to the surface when I’m thinking through my lenses of a Biblical passage. So often we make Jesus a person who is one in a billion, a person like no other, and, I believe, we miss where Jesus’ identity and life point us.

Continue reading “Let Your Light Shine”

A Tigger or an Eeyore?

Galatians 5:²²By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, JOY, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, ²³gentleness, and self-control.

Randy Pausch began his famous Last Lecture telling of his diagnosis,
   If you look at my CAT scans, there are approximately 10 tumors in my liver, and the doctors told me 3-6 months of good health left. That was a month ago, so you can do the math… So that is what it is. We can’t change it, and we just have to decide how we’re going to respond to that. We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand.
   Pausch goes on to say later in the lecture,
   …you just have to decide if you’re a Tigger or an Eeyore . I think I’m clear on where I stand on the Tigger/Eyore debate. Never lose the childlike wonder. It’s just too important. Continue reading “A Tigger or an Eeyore?”

From Members to Disciples

Recent church powerpoint on transforming church communities to focusing on raising disciples rather than attracting members can be downloaded by clicking here: From Members to Disciples or pasting this link: https://davidjonespub.com/wp-content/uploads/From-Members-to-Disciples.pptx

Audio can be found at: http://macland.podbean.com/

Why Jesus Died

To this day, I am haunted by a sermon that I heard. The church is Ebenezer Baptist in Atlanta where Martin Luther King, Jr. and Sr. both preached. I was there with a seminary group on the Sunday before Easter.
The preacher asked, “Why did Jesus have to die?” We thought about it while he went on to describe all the details of Jesus trial, beating, crucifixion and death?
He asked again, “Why did Jesus have to die?” Then described the scene of Jesus death again.
Then he said, “There is one thing I want to know? Why was Jesus alone? Where were the disciples?” We all knew they were off hiding. Continue reading “Why Jesus Died”

Throughout These Forty Days

Forty is a number that shows up again and again in the Bible. In the flood story, it rained forty days and forty nights. After they were liberated from slavery in Egypt, the Israelites wandered in the desert for forty years. Jesus, after his baptism, was sent out into the desert where he fasted, prayed, and wrestled with the devil for forty days and nights.

We mark Jesus’ forty days in the season of Lent from Ash Wednesday to Easter. For our congregation, I’ve sent out a daily poem and prayer to facilitate time with God on this forty day journey. For the unconventional who may not want an email a day or who may want to pray another forty days after Easter or in some other part of the year, here are the days poems and prayers for reflection in one document.

40 Days PDF

40 Days WORD DOC Preview

From Committees to Teams

I keynoted an event for Cherokee Presbytery on going from committees to teams. Here is the Powerpoint. Click to download: Team Approach

One Solitary Life

When you’re not sure whether or not what you might do today or who you might contact has meaning, remember Jesus as reflected in James Allen Francis.

One Solitary Life
by James Allen Francis (1926)

He was born in an obscure village
The child of a peasant woman
He grew up in another obscure village
Where he worked in a carpenter shop
Until he was thirty when public opinion turned against him
He never wrote a book
He never held an office
He never went to college
He never visited a big city
He never travelled more than two hundred miles
From the place where he was born
He did none of the things
Usually associated with greatness
He had no credentials but himself
He was only thirty three
His friends ran away
One of them denied him
He was turned over to his enemies
And went through the mockery of a trial
He was nailed to a cross between two thieves
While dying, his executioners gambled for his clothing
The only property he had on earth
When he was dead
He was laid in a borrowed grave
Through the pity of a friend
Nineteen centuries have come and gone
And today Jesus is the central figure of the human race
And the leader of mankind’s progress
All the armies that have ever marched
All the navies that have ever sailed
All the parliaments that have ever sat
All the kings that ever reigned put together
Have not affected the life of mankind on earth
As powerfully as that one solitary life

From poet to psychologist, Scott Peck observed, The whole course of human history may depend on a change of heart in one solitary and even humble individual…. For it is in the solitary mind and soul of the individual that the battle between good and evil is waged and ultimately won or lost. Who knows, maybe you’re the one solitary individual who will change the course of history – maybe it’s today!

The Parable of The Song

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John each gave their perspective on the gospel, or good news, of Jesus. Each version is a little different from the other. A common comparison is one song shared by different people. Here are three versions of a song by Travis Meadows, “What We Ain’t Got.” The first version is Jake Owen’s interpretation, then an acapella group, Home Free, shares their perspective, and finally, the original from the song writer, Travis Meadows. One song, three different takes on it. See what differences and similarities you notice. (Travis will be live at Macland Presbyterian in Powder Springs, GA, on Saturday, January 21st at 7:00. $10 cover charge.)

Practices for New Life in The New Year

Moment Practices

Whether it is the best of times
or the worst of times,
it is the only time we have.
Art Buchwald

Confessing my own limitations, I am very unzen-like, uncalm, unquiet, in internally nonpeaceful. My moments go by worried too much about the future, trying to prelive all possible events, or regretting my past and attempting to avoid reliving any painful past experience. “Now,” “being present,” and “in the moment” are foreign to me.

Though a pastor, I find the teachings of Jesus more difficult than the creeds about virgin birth, resurrection, or ascension. I struggle more with passages like this one from The Sermon on the Mount,

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?

In order to learn what I do not comprehend, we started a community in Nashville focused on singers and songwriters that we called The Moment. The blog posts that follow are some of our practices that have helped us to become more present beginning with this one,

Continue reading “Practices for New Life in The New Year”

New Year’s Transformation: One Step at a Time

I love musicians. I don’t just love them for the songs the create, I love them for the lessons they share. As a pastor, we miss what musicians take for granted.

Practice: No matter how good you get as a musician, you still need to practice. Religious people often forget that no matter what your faith – it takes practice.

New Songs: No matter how proficient an artist is, there are always new songs to learn. Too often we religious approach our sacred scriptures as if “God said it. I believe it. That settles it.” The United Church of Christ holds, and I agree, “God is still speaking.” No matter how many times you’ve heard a story, you can hear it in a new way as God can use any moment to bring forth a new creation.

Work is Play: Musicians play music. Religious people make sacrifices. For someone working at what they love, with people they love, you may give, you may even give up, but when it’s for the greater song, it’s not a sacrifice because it’s part of what you love. Religious folks seldom play. Perhaps a new statement for some could be, “In Christ we play…”

Moments Lead to Moments: Musicians finish a song. The song must end because if you keep playing it, you’ll ruin it. (Check out John Fogerty’s version of “I Heard It Through The Grapevine.”) Religious people try and live forever without ever facing an ending. For musicians, the end of one moment leads to the next.

One Step at a Time: Musicians learn about steps. You can’t take all steps at once. You can only take them one step at a time.

If you are making some big changes in your life this year, don’t resolve to do it all at once. Take it one beat, one moment, one step at a time.

Here is a wonderfully encouraging song for taking your steps, whether one step, twelve steps, or a journey of a million miles, take them as Mike Zito suggests. “One Step at a Time.”

Beyond Christmas to Christ – Good News for the New Year

Do you ever hear voices from your childhood? I do. I can still hear the promises. Like my parents, as they assured me, if I worked hard, then my hard work would pay off as I could create a life for myself and my future family.
I can still hear my teachers, encouraging me to study hard for every challenge, promising me if I would apply myself, get good grades, then I could go to any college I wanted and have whatever career I chose. I was eight. I did not know if I wanted to go to college. I didn’t know if you needed to go to college to be an astronaut. They assured me that I did.
From my coaches, I still can hear their voices, calling me by my last name, “Jones! Hustle! Get in the game! Get in the game!” The promise was there, if I worked hard, I might get to become a ‘starter’. I never made it. I was too slow. There wasn’t a sport that by the time I got off the bench and into the game, half the season wasn’t over. Still, I can hear them pushing me onward so that one day, I could drink from the cup of glory, whatever that was.
Among those voices, promising rewards for my effort, there was one other. A mysterious, legendary giant of a man. He promised me rewards for being good, tangible gifts of my own choosing to celebrate just how good I had been. He watched over me, paying close attention to who and how I was at home and at school, keeping track of everything I did, assuring me that if I was just good enough, I could make “The List”. He got me so excited about what I might get that I could barely sleep trusting that I had been a good boy and would make the cut. I still remember what we said about him, what we sang about him.

He’s making a list. He’s checking it twice,
gonna find out who’s naughty or nice…
He sees you when you’re sleeping,
he knows when you’re awake.
He knows when you’ve been bad or good,
so be good for goodness sake!

Besides being the mascot for Macy’s, Santa gives the basic message of society, the one we were all raised to believe, and the one we’ll likely pass on to our children, our cultural crowd’s norm: Do good, be good, and guaranteed, you’ll be rewarded. Do poorly, be bad, and sooner or later, guaranteed, you’ll be punished.
That’s what the shepherds must have been thinking when the angel appeared in the sky, “Uh-oh! Here it comes!” Punishment was surely on the way. The King James version states, “They were sore afraid,” which, to my young ears, always meant so scared it hurt.
The angel told them, “Fear not…” those beautiful words spoken on the first Christmas and the first Easter by messengers from God, “Fear not…” Perhaps the shepherds relaxed a little, realized they were in the midst of something wonderful, the work of God, not the typical reward and punishment, but good news… of grace.
“Fear not for behold I bring you tidings of great joy, for unto is born this day, in the city of David, a savior, who is Christ the Lord!”
“Fear not… for unto you…” Grace. The best Christmas gift ever.
Read more about life beyond Reward and Punishment in: Out of the Crowd front cover 21

What’s Your Christmas I.Q.?

Perhaps no other time of year proves the saying of Lao Tzu, “Those who think they know, don’t.” Try this Christmas quiz and see if you know as much as you think you do…

1. Joseph was originally from… (Luke 2:3)
A. Bethlehem
B. Nazareth
C. Hebron
D. Jerusalem
E. None of the above

2. What does the Bible say that the Innkeeper said to Mary and Joseph? (Luke 2:7)
A. “There is no room in the inn.”
B. “I have a stable you can use.”
C. “Come back later and I should have some vacancies.”
D. Both A and B
E. None of the above

3. A manger is a…
A. Stable for domestic animals
B. Wooden hay storage bin
C. Feeding trough
D. Barn

ANSWERS:
1. A. He worked and currently lived in Nazareth, but he was returning to Bethlehem – “his own city” (See Luke 2:3).
2. E. In the Bible, the innkeeper didn’t “say” anything (See Luke 2:7)
3. C. Feeding trough

How many did you answer correctly? Want to learn more? Here is the whole test: Christmas Quiz

Give the World a Gift this Christmas

In this season of giving and receiving gifts to those we love, or those whose name we drew in an office party Secret Santa, reflect on this question, “What can I give the world?” If this is the season for celebrating when God so loved the world, God gave… What can you give the world?

Here is a song by Mipso, a trio formed in the fall of 2010 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina when Jacob, Joseph, and Wood were students at UNC – Chapel Hill. They graduated in May 2013, and took the show on the road.

The hope for the world is to “leave this wicked winter just a couple of acres greener when I go.”

How will the world be better because you’ve been here?

Too Much Stuff

Delbert McClinton, Lyle Lovett, and John Prine recorded a wonderful song I listen to this time of year that reminds me that whatever it is that I think I need this Christmas, it’s not more stuff. (Join many of us in Atlanta Variety Playhouse for the release of Delbert’s new CD on January 28 – I know, more stuff…)

If that doesn’t set my head straight, I turn to George Carlin philosophizing about stuff,

A couple of other helpful resources on stuff:

George Dawson learned to read when he was in his nineties. Mr. Dawson was asked if he saw life as

a cup half full or half empty. He replied, “Neither. It is enough,” which inspired me to write many a sermon and even a little book to remind myself when Enough is plenty.

Live Your Moments: Let Your Soul Sing

Can a commercial carry the impact of a hymn? This one does. In a rollicking fashion, this Discovery Channel video carries an awe and wonder in response to the classic hymn, “How Great Thou Art.” See if you don’t think so.

Likely the Psalmist in Psalm 8 felt a similar joy:

Psalm 8

Divine Majesty and Human Dignity

To the leader: according to The Gittith. A Psalm of David.

¹O Lord, our Sovereign,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!

You have set your glory above the heavens.
² Out of the mouths of babes and infants
you have founded a bulwark because of your foes,
to silence the enemy and the avenger.

³When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars that you have established;
⁴what are human beings that you are mindful of them,
mortals^[a] that you care for them?

Which Way is Jesus’ Way?

A friend asked me if this week if I believe that “Jesus is the way…” from John 14. I replied as I usually do, “Sure.” It’s an easy question. As a pastor, a professional Christian, I placed my bet a long time ago.
Even for amateur Christians, it’s still an easy question. All it asks of us is, “What do you think about Jesus?” or perhaps this year, “Who are you voting for Messiah?” In this simple do or don’t decision, the implication is that you pick Jesus in opposition to anyone else who might be, “The Way.” Jesus vs. Muhammad would be the latest prize fight with Jesus followers doing all the fighting. Imagine Jesus vs. Ali? He wouldn’t stand a chance, turning the other cheek… He’d get hammered. Good thing the faithful step in defending Jesus in a life or death fashion. That seems to be our way.
“Is Jesus The Way or is it Buddha? Muhammad? Confucius?” Through the years, as a pastor, I’ve seen some terrible behaviors from the true believers who could have voted any of the above. “Is Jesus the way?” no longer seems to challenge or transform us. It only seems to divide us, requiring us to vote for Jesus but then, apparently, giving us the liberty to do as we please, especially if we do so in Jesus’ name.
What does challenge me is when I turn the question around and then read the gospels. Then I don’t just ask about Jesus being “The Way,” but wonder, “What was Jesus way?” And if I dare apply it, I ask, “What would my life look like if I lived Jesus’ way?” That’s a much more problematic question. It requires me to do more than think, I have to consider, and ultimately, I have to choose. It takes me from, “What would Jesus do?” to “What would Jesus have me do?” or “What would I do if I was a follower of Jesus’ way into the world?” After all, if Jesus is the way, shouldn’t his way be my way?
Jesus’ way is different than the other ways, and I don’t mean in the traditional religious sense. We just don’t seem to notice. When a pharmaceutical company raises the prices on Epipens to an astronomical level, there should be no surprise. That’s what corporations do. It is their way. That’s how a corporation maximizes profit. Supply and demand determine the price. When politicians support their candidate justifying his or her actions, it is what politicians do. It is their way. Win at all costs. No matter what it takes. Integrity is sacrificed in the name of the greater good. The ends (all the good we will do) will justify the means (whatever it took to win). The writer of the book of Judges in the Bible twice critiques the people of that era, “everyone did that which was right in his or her own eyes.” (Judges 17:6, 21:25). Apparently they were even worse than Machiavelli who supposedly is the first to say, “The ends justify the means.” For them, they didn’t even care about the end result, each just did as he or she pleased.
For Jesus, the ends never justified the means, no matter how good the goal. For Jesus, the means were the end. That was and is his way. You love because you love, it’s your way, even if it gets you crucified. You don’t judge, condemn, or treat others with contempt, apparently even in the midst of a crucifixion, because that’s not your way. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. pointed out that for followers of Jesus, his way is our way, and that means, the ends never justify the means but the means are our ends, our goal, our way in the world. He preached,

One of the great philosophical debates of history has been over the whole question of means and ends. And there have always been those who argued that the end justifies the means, that the means really aren’t important. The important thing is to get to the end, you see.
So, if you’re seeking to develop a just society, they say, the important thing is to get there, and the means are really unimportant; any means will do so long as they get you there? they may be violent, they may be untruthful means; they may even be unjust means to a just end. There have been those who have argued this throughout history. But we will never have peace in the world until men everywhere recognize that ends are not cut off from means, because the means represent the ideal in the making, and the end in process, and ultimately you can’t reach good ends through evil means, because the means represent the seed and the end represents the tree.
It’s one of the strangest things that all the great military geniuses of the world have talked about peace. The conquerors of old who came killing in pursuit of peace, Alexander, Julius Caesar, Charlemagne, and Napoleon, were akin in seeking a peaceful world order. If you will read Mein Kampf closely enough, you will discover that Hitler contended that everything he did in Germany was for peace. And the leaders of the world today talk eloquently about peace. Every time we drop our bombs in North Vietnam, President Johnson talks eloquently about peace. What is the problem? They are talking about peace as a distant goal, as an end we seek, but one day we must come to see that peace is not merely a distant goal we seek, but that it is a means by which we arrive at that goal. We must pursue peaceful ends through peaceful means. All of this is saying that, in the final analysis, means and ends must cohere because the end is preexistent in the means, and ultimately destructive means cannot bring about constructive ends.
Now let me say that the next thing we must be concerned about if we are to have peace on earth and good will toward men is the nonviolent affirmation of the sacredness of all human life. Every man is somebody because he is a child of God. And so when we say “Thou shalt not kill,” we’re really saying that human life is too sacred to be taken on the battlefields of the world. Man is more than a tiny vagary of whirling electrons or a wisp of smoke from a limitless smoldering. Man is a child of God, made in His image, and therefore must be respected as such.

Dr. King knew of what he spoke. Jesus’ way should be our way, and as Dr. King pointed out, the path to love begins with respect.
Will government or corporations or television guide you in any way other than what’s right in their own eyes? No. But we shouldn’t expect them to. When we do, we just look silly as Kurt Vonnegut observed,

For some reason, the most vocal Christians among us never mention the Beatitudes (Matthew 5). But, often with tears in their eyes, the demand that the Ten Commandments be posted in public buildings. And of course, that’s Moses, not Jesus. I haven’t heard one of them demand that the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, be posted anywhere. “Blessed are the merciful” in a courtroom? “Blessed are the peacemakers” in the Pentagon? Give me a break!”

Jesus never seemed to expect Caesars or Institutions to be role models or follow his way at all. That was the job of each individual disciple, or as those who lived in the communities of the early church were known, “The Followers of The Way.”