The Seven Deadly Sins--Greed

Been preaching on the Seven Deadly Sins—really interesting study. Just finished the sermon on greed. Here is a quote on greed from Clement of Alexandria, a second century theologian, that I found really interesting. I think that this was taken from a sermon he did from Mark 10 on the Rich Young Ruler. Clement notes that by making God your treasure we defeat the life stealing thief of greed. Here is what he says:

“For he who holds possessions and gold and silver and houses as gifts of God, and from them ministers to the salvation of men for God the giver, and knows that he possesses them for his brothers sakes rather than his own, and lives superior to the possession of them; who is not the slave of his possessions, and does not carry them about in his soul, nor limit and circumscribe his own life in them, but is ever striving to do some noble and divine deed; and who, if he is fated ever to be deprived of them, is able to bear their loss with a cheerful mind exactly as he bore their abundance—this is the man who is blessed by the Lord … a ready inheritor of the kingdom of heaven, not a rich man who cannot obtain life.”

Challenging thoughts. Greed is so much a part of our lives, we are completely unaware of it. 

Welcome Kaylee Becker

Here she is. Kaylee Joan Becker. Weighed in at 6 lbs 3 ozs and born October 28^th 2014. I like birthdays in multiples of seven—helps me remember. Jan’s birthday is October 21 and Kaylee’s is 7 days later. She’s grandchild number five. We are thrilled with her arrival and thank God for her life. Kaylee’s mom and dad Katie and Kyle are learning to sleep less and prioritize their time more. Katie, our daughter, had to go back to running her dance studio when an employee abruptly quit for family reasons (legitimate family reasons I might add!). It’s put a strain on an already tough situation. But we are proud of them both and most of all, we are proud of beautiful Kaylee. The name means pure and she’s a gift from God to all of us.

The Philly Marathon, Life, and Ministry

The long wait is over. After five years, I’ve returned to sub-three hour marathons, something that was, at one time, so predictable I didn’t even think about it. What a reality check! Injuries, age, and circumstance (heat, hills, and food poisoning to be specific) beat me to the finish line on more than one occasion. But on a cool day (it was 41 and partially cloudy at the start) on November 23, 2014 we did it. I mean “we” because Jan and some family friends, Dan and Mary Beth Wilkinson, were all part of it. The time 2:58:10 was better than I anticipated and sold me on the new training method I’ve been using. I’ll save an explanation of that for another post.

“Why would you do that?” people have asked. “I mean really?! Why go out and run like that or train like that? It seems a bit extreme.” I suppose it is extreme—like surfing in the winter is extreme and rock climbing is extreme, etc. But its more than just an addiction to extreme sports. To me, running marathons is like life. And to be specific, its like the Christian life. People in our culture don’t train for life, and consequently, we don’t stick it out when tough times come, etc. We give up on marriages, on relationships, on jobs, and other things way too easy. Dan captured some of my thinking on this in a coffee shop downtown the day before the race. Check it out.

Losing Weight--Again!

I’m losing weight, again. An elbow injury is keeping me from lifting weights, my schedule is keeping me from physical therapy that would put me on the path to elbow recovery, and my marathon training is cranking up the mileage and I’m burning thousands of calories at a time (Last Saturday I estimate that I burned 2200 calories in three hours). I’m having a hard time replenishing. I’m so busy I just don’t eat enough. One lady at church looked at me Sunday and said, “When you get back here, I’m going to fatten you up!” Hmmm. For what?

So I’m going on a see food diet. If I “see food” I’m going to eat it. I’m also going to put fasting on hold—something I did for a number of weeks. (I’d preached on it so decided to practice it leading to the inevitable loss of even more weight)

Here’s the plan: I’m going to eat smaller meals more often, and get physical therapy to get healed up so I can start to lift weights again. But the challenge to keep weight on when in serious training for marathons is really interesting. In High School and College I competed as a wrestler where I had to lose roughly fifteen pounds to make weight. The struggle to keep the weight off was sometimes brutally painful. I remember stepping on a scale once and weighing 140 lbs. I had to cut down to 118. The fear of losing 22 lbs in a short amount of time put me immediately on a diet. Now, I can’t keep weight on for the life of me. Not sure why. Wrestling practice in college was twice a day and was considerably more difficult than what I’m doing to train for marathons. I don't get it! 

Oops. Got to go. Time to eat. And for those of you who read this post and struggle to take weight off? Please don't hate me. When people don't like me, I lose weight.

Exercise--the West's New Religion

In the front of his book, The Reason for God, Tim Keller notes that both orthodox Christianity and Secular irreligion (Atheism in some cases) are gaining footholds around the world. This sets us up for a philosophical and political clash of the Titans which we experience in a variety of ways. What I never expected, however, was to experience it in exercise.

Behold, the new religion of exercise. This religion has all the makings of a cult with its stringent orthodoxy (training with sledge hammers and tires), its well spoken advocates (coaches and workout instructors), and its more than willing participants (normally younger men and women). This is of interest to me since in the past ten years of my life I’ve dabbled in the extreme sport of marathon running. Now it would appear that training for marathons, and even running them, is really no longer extreme. It’s something people do to check off their “bucket list.” However, the new paradigm of exercise has taken things to another level. It’s not conditioning to accomplish a sport but conditioning for conditionings sake and often in the most extreme fashion. What is valued is the exercise for exercise itself. Instead of preparing us for some athletic competition, it drives the one exercising to what is ultimate, provides protection for a future apocalypse, and seeks to provide answers to life’s real meaning

New York Times writer, Heather Havrilesky, in an October 14, 2014 article entitled, Why Americans are so Fascinated by Extreme Fitness says this about this new tendency towards physical fitness:

“…our new religion has more than a little in common with the religions that brought our ancestors to America in the first place. Like the idealists and extremists who founded this country, the modern zealots of exercise turn their backs on the indulgences of our culture, seeking solace in self-abnegation and suffering. ‘This is the route to a better life,’ they tell us, gesturing at their sledgehammers and their kettlebells, their military drills and their dramatic re-enactments of hard labor. And in these uncertain times, it doesn’t sound so bad to be prepared for some coming disaster — or even for an actual job doing hard labor, if our empire ever falls.

It makes sense that for those segments of humanity who aren’t fighting for survival every day of their lives, the new definition of fulfillment is feeling as if you’re about to die. Maybe that’s the point. If we aren’t lugging five gallons of water back from a well 10 miles away or slamming a hammer into a mountainside, something feels as if it’s missing. Who wants to sit alone at a desk all day, then work out alone on a machine? Why can’t we suffer and sweat together, as a group, in a way that feels meaningful? Why can’t someone yell at us while we do it? For the privileged, maybe the most grueling path seems the most likely to lead to divinity. When I run on Sunday mornings, I pass seven packed, bustling fitness boutiques, and five nearly empty churches.” 

Did you get that? People rather suffer the extreme pain of “hard labor physical fitness” than the emptiness of religiousity. Very interesting. Truthfully, I agree with them. Churches are empty for a reason and exercise boutiques are full of people for a reason. Maybe we should consider why. After all, while exercise may prolong your life, it never promises to save your soul. If anything, it delays the inevitable. So why are churches so empty and exercise facilities so full? Maybe its because churches have lost their way, like everyone else, and haven’t figured it out yet. Check out the article. It will be worth a read.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/19/magazine/why-are-americans-so-fascinated-with-extreme-fitness.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3As%2C{%221%22%3A%22RI%3A8%22}

The Leaf Blower from Hell (or Heaven)

It happened last Sunday (Sept 7). I was preaching, which is normal for me on a Sunday, and just as I was heading into the punch lines of my sermon, it started: the leaf blower from hell.

I don’t know what possessed the guy to turn it on at that time, right next to a church—on a hot day with the windows open—but he did. If you do any public speaking, you know when you have most people’s attention. In this case, while not everyone was locked in on my biblical exposition, I had most of them in spite of just explaining a very difficult concept. But when the leaf blower started, people were looking towards the windows, and glancing around at each other with curious looks on their faces.

I immediately got flustered and started sweating. I sweat very little so when I sweat, I’m uptight. It was so annoying I lost my place in my notes, couldn’t think straight, and essentially read the rest of the sermon directly from the notes so it would at least make sense to those who could actually hear it, or who tried to pay attention despite the distraction.

It was irritating to say the least. What was more irritating to me later was why I let it irritate me to begin with. Psalm 119:165 says, “Great peace (rest) have they who love your law, and nothing can make them stumble.” Clearly, my rest is not found in God’s providential work of leaf blowing. While I doubt very much that the person blowing leaves was antagonistic towards us as a Christian church, he or she was clearly used by God to teach me a lesson. Rest and peace is not found in a tranquil environment where I get my way all the time. It's found in the middle of God’s will. Humorously, last Sunday, that included a disruption in the middle of a sermon with a leaf blower. Why not laugh about it? Why not rest in Him in the midst of it? I choose to do so. So next Sunday Mr. Leaf Blower, bring it on!

The gospel says that its not how people respond to my preaching that makes me loved in Gods eyes but Gods dealing with the real issues in my life—my sin, my depravity, and the radical self-centeredness of my heart. So Mr. Leaf Blower, I invite you back (should you read this blog)—this time come to church (and leave your leaf blower outside) but should you turn that noisy thing on again, I’ll preach, laugh, and rest in Gods presence and not in whether or not I’m popular because I preached well.

The Human Stain--A Review

I just finished reading the novel The Human Stain by Philip Roth. The novel is set in a quaint New England college town, in Vermont. The story is intriguing in that it is framed in the late 90’s just following the President Clinton, Monica Lewinsky scandal and is told as if written by the writer Nathan Zuckerman. The plot is exceptional. There are more twists and turns in this novel than one could imagine. Roth is an excellent social critic. No one seems to escape his eye, especially the those in the tolerance movement.

Here is a short summary of what happens (Warning—I’m going to expose one major theme of the book so if you don’t want to lose the intrigue, stop reading this blog now). The distinguished and brilliant classics professor Coleman Silk offends some African American students, in his class by referring to them as spooks, as ghosts, since they’d never attended his lectures. The students got wind of it and charged him with racism. It’s a bogus charge, and one many on the faculty saw as such, but he ended up losing his job and his wife, over the whole affair. The book is built around that event and his reaction to it. What comes out, as the plot unfolds, is that everyone of the main characters has a secret. A secret so deep, and in some cases, so profoundly disturbing, that it acts like a stain on their humanity. It colors their perception of reality and yet also defines them. Roth’s secret is he’s African American himself. The term spooks couldn’t have possibly been used in a racially charged way. But no one ever finds out—except  Nathan Zuckerman.  

Roth, describing the stain through the lens of one of the characters says this, “The human stain…we leave a stain, we leave a trail, we leave our imprint. Impurity, cruelty, abuse, error, … there’s no other way to be here. Nothing to do with disobedience. Nothing to do with grace or salvation or redemption. It’s in everyone. Indwelling. Inherent. Defining. The stain that is there before its mark. The stain that proceeds disobedience and perplexes all explanation and understanding. It’s why all the cleansing is a joke…its inescapable.”(pg. 242)

I won’t take time to unpack the book. It is not an easy book to digest. I went on line after reading it to see what others had to say and one critic suggested that this was the kind of book that should be read by High School students. I don’t think so. It was pretty graphic at times but the critic was right in one regard. Everyone should understand that there truly is a human stain, and that stain, whether we are completely aware of it or not, is inescapable. You can’t get away from it. You can try to conceal it, but it won’t go away.

The question then becomes, how can it be dealt with? Roth offers no answer. The book is a description of human depravity and how that is used to hurt others and how that eventually hurts us. It’s thought provoking, I’ll say that. As a Christian, there is really only one answer—Jesus Christ. But there are a lot of people unwilling to consider that with all its ramifications.