tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-88963682582329522652024-03-19T04:47:11.097-04:00NickLannon.comNick Lannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12618434434679868344noreply@blogger.comBlogger325125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896368258232952265.post-35612366737949158652022-09-20T10:50:00.003-04:002022-09-20T10:51:13.473-04:00A Dishonest Manager, A Redeeming God<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZRd379gQQvCepAeYwkhIevHaKIH7qwiPyBswg7NF5tNOT0xiV2BXPOQ0DVy9wjsdNy93nO2X5mTw2_zc8NHOoN_EUk3ERg85JaEURdhD_chEyIAVa6QcKGuWLvubkZrsdgifaAvIpnWrwY3tTaxBYuKKADf-4flw2Z2E9PzXkARmfGO17M0nE0-_ndA/s1185/dishonest%20manager.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="622" data-original-width="1185" height="168" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZRd379gQQvCepAeYwkhIevHaKIH7qwiPyBswg7NF5tNOT0xiV2BXPOQ0DVy9wjsdNy93nO2X5mTw2_zc8NHOoN_EUk3ERg85JaEURdhD_chEyIAVa6QcKGuWLvubkZrsdgifaAvIpnWrwY3tTaxBYuKKADf-4flw2Z2E9PzXkARmfGO17M0nE0-_ndA/s320/dishonest%20manager.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p>Jesus’ parable of the dishonest manager (Luke 16) is widely considered one of his most difficult. There’s a lot going on, and this post isn’t meant to address all of it. But there is Good News to be found here, if we know where to look. Underneath the story of a dishonest worldly manager—just where you’d never expect to find it—is a Gospel story about how the law-giving God is also the saving God, the willing redeemer of sinners like you and me.</p><p>A manager, Jesus says, is accused by the boss of being dishonest with the accounts, and so he’s getting fired. Worried that he’ll have to find real work, and not having the skill or strength, and being too ashamed to beg, the manager goes out to the people who owe the boss, and he reduces their debts. And the man is commended, not only by his master, but by Jesus, too! What’s going on here?</p><p>To see, I want to point to a biblical construction that you might be familiar with, even if you’ve never given it much thought. It’s called an “argument from lesser to greater,” and it goes like this: if this one thing is true, how much more this other thing must be true as it relates to God. A classic example comes from a parable Jesus tells in Matthew 7 when he says, “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” This lesser-to-greater construction appears twice—by inference—in this parable of the dishonest manager:</p><p>1) if this dishonest manager finds himself in a bind with his earthly master, how much more will sinners like you and me find ourselves in a bind with our holy God?</p><p>2) if this master commends this dishonest manager for his shrewdness, how much more will our God commend us when we accept that the only way to redemption is to throw ourselves on his mercy?</p><p>Here’s how it works: this manager finds himself at a crisis point. He’s been caught out, and his future is at stake. He’s too weak to do manual labor, he’s too proud to beg. How is he going to ensure that he’s taken care of? What can he do? And here’s the point: you are just like him. Your future is similarly at stake. You’ve been caught out, too. You’ve done the things you ought not to have done, and you haven’t done the things you ought to have done. You have not loved God with your whole heart, soul, mind, and strength, and you have not loved your neighbor as yourself. Your eternal future is at stake, and you’re too weak to justify yourself. How are you going to ensure that you’re taken care of? What are you going to do?</p><p>Here is Jesus’ teaching: take your cue from this dishonest manager…and throw yourself on the mercy of your master. And the result? The very person against whom you have sinned will take care of you.</p><p>Now, this is hard to see in this parable; it’s not mentioned explicitly in the story. In fact, it seems more like the manager was ripping the master off at the beginning of the story, and ripping him off more at the end. The manager was doing something dishonest—something that got him fired—and now he’s reducing the amount of money that his master is going to get back from these loans. The master might be furious! And, of course, the master is still the master…if he had wanted to, he could have come in, seen what the dishonest manager had done, told everyone that, “no, actually, that guy had already been fired,” re-instituted the full debts and thrown this former manager in prison!</p><p>But there’s something else going on here. The dishonest manager has made a gamble. He’s taking an obvious risk, continuing to mess with the master’s books. He’s already been fired; now he’s risking an even worst punishment. But the gamble works: when the master sees what the manager has done, he commends him for it. And here’s why: because the dishonest manager, by his slashing of the debts, has made the master look generous.</p><p>Think about how this actually would have played out: the manager’s been fired, but when he walks out of the master’s office—still in possession of the books—no one else knows it yet! The master’s debtors still think this manager is working on behalf of the master. And he cuts down all their debts! These people—the ones who have taken out the loans—would all have thought the same thing: what a generous master this is, to reduce these debts like this! After all, it’s the master’s money! And so now we see the nature of the manager’s gamble: he’s betting that the master actually is generous, actually is merciful, and will appreciate being shown in this light. And, of course, it works. The master is indeed merciful, does appreciate being shown in this generous light, and shows mercy to the manager. And here’s that second argument from lesser to greater: if this master is like that, and commends this dishonest manager for his shrewdness, how much more will our God commend us when we throw ourselves on his mercy?</p><p>Remember: the manager isn’t being commended for his dishonesty, he’s being commended for his plan. He’s being commended for a realization: that the person who has judged him is also the one person who can help him. Who can forgive him. Who can redeem him. Who can make everything okay. And this is our situation, too.</p><p>When we get caught out, we want desperately to figure out a solution on our own. We like to hide our shame in that way. It’s a special torture, isn’t it, that the person usually best positioned to help you—your teacher, your boss—is the one you are most afraid of approaching. When the one you’ve wronged is the only one who can help. And so it is with God. But with our God there is Good News! You need not fear. Our God will indeed help. He will indeed redeem. He will indeed save.</p><p>It is against Almighty God that we have sinned. He is the creator, the law-giver, the holy one. We assume, with the logic of this world, that he will have no patience with us. No mercy, no compassion. And yet, not only is he, in fact, the only one who can save us, he has promised, in Jesus, to do so. He is the law-giver, yes. But he is also, in Christ, the law-keeper. He is the creator, yes. But he is also in Christ, the redeemer. He is the holy one, yes. But he is also, in Christ, the one who gives his righteous perfection to sinners like us.</p><p>The dishonest manager throws himself on the mercy of his master…and this, Jesus is teaching us, is the only thing for a sinner to do. You must confess, you must repent, you must come again to Almighty God, against whom you have sinned, and ask for mercy. And indeed, the Gospel of Jesus Christ proclaims that your master HAS indeed worked to redeem you. You were dead in trespasses and sins. You are—or maybe, now, for the first time, you can be—alive together with Christ. Jesus has come, and you are made new. He has lived, and you are saved. He has died, and you are resurrected. He has been raised again, and you are justified.</p><p>You have been a dishonest manager, but there is something you can do. Confess, and throw yourself on the mercy of the very one against whom you have sinned. Almighty God—your true and merciful master—will not throw you out of the kingdom. Far from it! You will be commended, not because of anything you have done but because of your reliance on what Christ has done for you.</p>Nick Lannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12618434434679868344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896368258232952265.post-78753754436433363272021-04-15T12:10:00.002-04:002021-04-15T16:51:59.306-04:00Who Are You? A Reflection for Ash Wednesday<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yPv1F0pUphE/YHinUxeyCHI/AAAAAAAAF54/7OPZamvsQSsl4rZhGVXylWa2DJcOImSCwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1080/ash%2Bwed.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="1080" height="111" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yPv1F0pUphE/YHinUxeyCHI/AAAAAAAAF54/7OPZamvsQSsl4rZhGVXylWa2DJcOImSCwCLcBGAsYHQ/w320-h111/ash%2Bwed.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p>Who are you? What was once a simple question, answered by giving your name, has become the chief question of our time. Who are you? People are fighting—perhaps as they have never fought before—for the exclusive right to answer that question on their own terms. Who are you? Well, as it turns out, the world has a lot of identities on offer. We have gender identities. Are you a man? A woman? Who are you? We have racial identities. Are you black? Or white? Or Hispanic? Who are you? We have sexual identities. Are you gay? Or straight? Who are you? The term “intersectionality” has gained prominence in the last 40 years or so, the idea that you are the sum of your social and political identities. You might be a short, Asian, woman. Or a tall, black, man. But there are more identities, aren’t there? Height, race, and gender are only three. We must include sex, class, religion, disability, and physical appearance. And on. And on. Who are you?</p><p>But even with all of that, we’re not nearly done defining ourselves yet. Sometimes, we additionally try to answer the “who are you” question with a catalog of our greatest successes. Maybe you’re the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. Or maybe your last name means something in the town where you live. Add those things to your social and political identities and you have a compelling answer when someone asks you who you are. A short, Asian man who is one of the most respected tax attorneys in the Midwest. But it can also be alluring—counter-intuitively—to identify ourselves by our greatest struggles. Maybe the color of your skin, or the fact that you’re from the wrong side of the tracks, or the kind of accent you have mean that people have traditionally thought less of you. Add those things to your social and political identities and, again, you have a powerful answer when someone asks you who you are. A tall, white woman from a tough neighborhood who didn’t any of the advantages the rest of you enjoyed.</p><p>But then you come to a church on Ash Wednesday, and you let a minister make an ashen cross on your forehead, and he answers the “who are you” question for you. He says, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” What is this? What’s going on here? Here it is: we come to worship laying down our supposed right to define ourselves. We acknowledge, in fact, that we never had that right. We set aside our successes and our struggles, we lay down our socio-political location and we let God tell us who we are. The ashes, of course, are optional, but let me encourage you: let a minister make an ashen cross on your forehead. And whether or not you get ashes, let Almighty God tell you who you are.</p><p>At first, this might seem oppressive. Someone else, a deity I’ve never seen and maybe don’t even believe in, is going to tell me who I am? How dare you even suggest such a thing! But let me suggest to you that not having to define yourself is great and comforting Good News. There is nothing more exhausting—and ultimately nothing more sure to end in death—than the attempt to self-create. Who are you? Ash Wednesday answers this question. Into all of these identities—the social and politicial identities as well as our successful identities and our struggling identities—into these identities God comes to say that we do not get to decide who we are and we do not have to decide who we are. In fact, God tells us, he decides who we are.</p><p>Before I tell you who God says that you are, let’s address—just briefly—the identities that the world tries to seduce us into creating for ourselves. As we do that, we’re going to let St. Paul, Jesus’ great interpreter and author of two thirds of the New Testament, confront them with God’s word, the actual announcement of the truth from Almighty God. We’re going to take them one by one: identity in terms of success, identity in terms of struggle, and then identity by socio-political location.</p><p>First, we are tempted to identify ourselves by our successes. You’re someone who went to that certain college. Or who drives that certain car. Or who married that certain girl. You’re someone people look up to, someone they can trust. You’re someone that other people want to be. That’s who you are. St. Paul says, “Oh, really? You think you’ve got something to brag about?” Paul puts his list of accomplishments up against anybody’s in Philippians chapter 3: “If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.” “I have the most successes,” he says. And yet, does he allow these successes to define him? No indeed. “But whatever gain I had,” he continues, “I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ”—and here’s the key phrase—“and be found in him.” Who is Paul? He is nothing other than someone who is found in Christ.</p><p>Second, we are tempted to identify ourselves by our struggles. You’re from a place at which other people look down. You had to fight for every inch you’ve gained. No one ever gave you anything for free. In fact, they oppressed you, and maybe your ancestors, too. That’s who you are. Well, Paul might think he has you beat in terms of suffering, too. Listen to Paul in 2 Corinthians 12: “To keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” And, of course, Paul is a man who is beaten, shipwrecked, imprisoned on multiple occasions, and eventually killed.</p><p>Paul’s thorn is a great mystery. But here’s the thing about the thorn: Paul mentions it here, and never talks about it again! And he must have pretty much never talked about it to anyone, because there’s not really even any church tradition that’s grown up around it. No one knows what it was that Paul begged God to relieve him of because Paul refused to be defined by it. He would not allow his greatest suffering to be his identity. No indeed. Listen to him in Romans 8: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, ‘For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.’ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Who is Paul? He is nothing other than a man who cannot be separated from the love of Christ.</p><p>So Paul refuses to be defined by his greatest successes and refuses to be defined by his greatest struggle. What about his socio-political location? He got into that a little bit back in Philippians 3 (remember?) talking about how perfectly Jewish he is: “circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews.” How might he respond to our intersectional approach to self-definition: man or woman, white or black, gay or straight, rich or poor, et cetera on into infinity? Paul refuses such definitions, too. Listen to him in Galatians 3: “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” The Good News of Jesus Christ is a universal leveler. Your ethnic, socioeconomic, and gender identities are all covered over—made invisible—by the covering and saving blood of Christ. Who is Paul? He is one with you, believer, no matter who you are, in Christ Jesus.</p><p>And so we come to Ash Wednesday, and the audacious claim of Christianity: that almighty God himself defines you. That the God who created the day and the night and the seasons of the year reserves the right to tell you who you are. To the one who would create himself, this is bad news. It’s the worst news. You are not your creator. You don’t get to decide. No wonder the world tears its clothes and gnashes its teeth. The allegedly self-made man hates this. But here’s the truth: the self-made man is doomed to die. But there is good news: Almighty God offers you a new creation in Christ and life eternally. God promises to make you new! That’s the Good News! You don’t have to make yourself! You are not the sum of your success or the sum of your struggles. You are not the pile of socio-political intersections that the world has decreed for you. You are in Christ! You are new! Remember the three ways Paul defined himself: 1) found in Christ, 2) unable to be separated from the love of Christ, and 3) one, together with every other believer, in Christ. That’s who you are: in Christ. A beloved child of God. You were dead in self-creation—ashes to ashes, dust to dust—but now you are alive!</p><p>Who are you? You are dead in trespasses and sins. Know that, as you receive a streak of ash on your forehead. Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return. You’re not practicing your piety…you’re acknowledging that you’re dead. Who are you? You are alive in Christ Jesus. Know that, as you come to the table to eat and drink his body and blood, broken and shed for you, giving you new life. You’re not practicing your piety…you’re celebrating your resurrection. We don’t identify ourselves by anything other than the identical ashen crosses on our foreheads and the identically undeserved saving death and resurrection of Christ that has been credited to our accounts. We are equally dead in trespasses and sins, and we are equally alive in Christ’s righteousness. That is who we are. And that is Good News for sinners. New life, created by God, for you.</p>Nick Lannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12618434434679868344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896368258232952265.post-40440957924789351322020-05-22T15:26:00.002-04:002020-06-23T09:46:38.307-04:00You're Not God. How Does that Make You Feel?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dVV8zV1k2BM/Xsgm7eaDJ9I/AAAAAAAAFig/pKs3qKWS2zIQ-6xL_Ri6gXdvI9bcb3WLQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/screamingman.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="675" data-original-width="1080" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dVV8zV1k2BM/Xsgm7eaDJ9I/AAAAAAAAFig/pKs3qKWS2zIQ-6xL_Ri6gXdvI9bcb3WLQCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/screamingman.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
The closing of my kids’ school system has done the seemingly impossible: it has made me identify with the angry mob that stoned Stephen! I know that the stereotype is a parent trying to tell a child something only to have the kid stick their fingers in their ears and go “LA- LA- LA- LA- LA!” to block them out. But I find that it’s not my kids who have their fingers in their ears. It’s me. God bless and be with primary school teachers and homeschoolers, because kids are <i>so loud</i>. It just never stops. And if you don’t successfully interrupt it, it’s exponential! On more than one occasion over these last couple weeks, my wife and I have looked up at each other across the dinner table to find that we both <i>literally had our fingers in our ears</i>. We’re trapped with the little darlings, all day every day, and just couldn’t take it anymore. Now, I haven’t found myself in a murderous rage yet. I haven’t taken up a stone…but—all of a sudden—I can sympathize!<br />
<br />
In Acts 7, Stephen witnesses to the crowd: “Look, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!” And the crowd “covered their ears, and with a loud shout all rushed together against him.” And they kill him.<br />
<br />
Let me give you a little background. In Acts 6, Stephen is described as “full of grace and power,” and as someone who “was doing great wonders and signs among the people.” This means that he was preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ and doing great works in his name. And—par for the course—this made the Jewish authorities angry, and Stephen is dragged before the council. When he’s asked if the accusations against him are true—that he’s speaking blasphemy against the law and Moses—he preaches a sermon, climaxing in Acts 6:51-53: “You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you. Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the Righteous One, whom you have now betrayed and murdered, you who received the law as delivered by angels and did not keep it.”<br />
<br />
You have to imagine that by this time, the council has about had it up to their eyeballs with this “you rejected and murdered the messiah” stuff. Peter preached it, the disciples have been going around proclaiming it…they’ve been trapped with these new Christians for weeks—all day every day with the little darlings—and they’re starting to get loud. And now here’s Stephen, giving to them again. It’s exponential. It’s driving them crazy. They can’t take it anymore. So they stick their fingers in their ears. Luke writes that “they covered their ears, and with a loud shout all rushed together against” Stephen.<br />
<br />
The people “cover their ears” against Stephen’s witness. Against his message. Against the truth that they are sinners in need of a savior. Consider for a moment the distinction between this and the reaction of the people to Peter’s sermon, preached in Acts 2. The climaxes of the two messages are almost identical, aren’t they? Stephen says, “Your ancestors killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the Righteous One, whom you have now betrayed and murdered, you who received the law as delivered by angels and did not keep it,” and Peter says, “Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made Jesus both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.” Peter’s audience was “cut to the heart,” repented, and was saved. Three thousand people came to saving faith in Jesus Christ that day. Here, a different audience hears the same accusation, but does not repent. Instead, they grit their teeth and become enraged. They close their ears to the message and murder the messenger. Peter becomes the first human head of the church, and Stephen becomes its first martyr.<br />
<br />
In the film <i>Rudy</i>, the titular character desperately wants to attend Notre Dame University, but doesn’t have the grades. Out of options, he goes to see a local priest. After telling the priest his story, Rudy asks, “Have I done everything I possibly can? Can you help me?” And the priest answers, “Son, in 35 years of religious studies, I’ve come up with only two hard incontrovertible facts: there is a God, and I’m not him.” Upon hearing this, Rudy covered his ears and with a loud shout took up a stone…no wait, that’s not what Rudy did at all. But you might have sympathized if he did, right? This is the offensive message that Peter and Stephen preach. This is the message that the Christian Church has been given to proclaim. This sermon, the one preached by Peter and Stephen, is the sermon we’ve been given to preach week after week: there is a God, and you’re not him. Rudy’s a good Christian boy, so he’s not offended. But this is as offensive as it gets! There is a God! You’re not him! He decides right and wrong, not you! You do not make yourself; you are his creation. No wonder Stephen is murdered.<br />
<br />
Jesus preaches the same offensive sermon in John 14. He says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.” This is the claim that makes people cover their ears and want to kill you. It is offensive in the extreme. I am the way. Not you. I am the truth. Not you. I am the life. Not you. Hearing this, we are ready to cover our ears and take up stones. But this is when the Spirit of God moves. And when the Spirit of God moves, something amazing happens. Something that turns the whole thing around.<br />
<br />
When the Spirit of God moves, the scales fall from the sinner’s eyes. And then, this very same sentence—“I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father except through me”—can heard as Good News to the faithful, both the brand-newly faithful or the long-term faithful: you don’t have to find your own way, your own truth, your own life. It is finished in Christ. You don’t have to be God, in charge of saving yourself. You have a God, and he has decided to save you.<br />
<br />
It makes total sense that the world stops up its ears and goes, “LA- LA- LA- LA- LA!” when we preach the sermon we’ve been given to preach, when we share the message we’ve been given to share. It even makes sense that, on occasion, we find that it works someone up into a murderous rage. “You are in desperate need. On your own, you are dead.” These are not comforting words unless your eyes have been opened to the truth: you’ve been on your own and have come to realize that you are dead. You’ve tried to make your own way and have discovered that you’re a complete failure. In light of the truth, these words become words of profound comfort. Jesus’ claim to be the way, the truth, and the life can be heard as exclusive, sure. There is no other way, no other truth, and no other life. But hear those words now from the perspective of the dying sinner: <i>There is a way. There is a truth. There is a life</i>. There is Jesus for you.<br />
<br />
This is Good News for sinners like me. Like you. You are not the boss. You are a creature, not the creator. There is a God, and you are not him. He decides what’s right and wrong, not you. But listen, sticking your fingers in your ears isn’t going to make it not true. It is the truth. There is a God, and you are not him. So we repent. We repent of our desire to be God. Of our desire to decide for ourselves what’s right and wrong. We repent for the first time, for the hundredth time, or for the millionth time. We repent knowing that we’re maybe only moments away from needing to do it again. We need a savior, and we need one every hour. Now hear that wonder of wonders, the Good News, the Gospel of Jesus Christ…you have that savior: Jesus Christ. Jesus, who lived, who died, and who was raised again. Jesus, who has made a way. Jesus, who <i>is</i> the truth. Jesus, in whom there is life, and life eternally. Indeed, his own life—the life of the very God that you are not—given for you.Nick Lannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12618434434679868344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896368258232952265.post-59258873288309253862020-04-29T11:06:00.001-04:002020-04-29T11:06:18.759-04:00Is the Law Legalistic?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ba1sww7gXoY/XqmX1f6AymI/AAAAAAAAFgc/NaLNtG64AHIyFlrLpIzg6Ey0yST015-GgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Jesus%2BSculpture.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="649" data-original-width="980" height="211" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ba1sww7gXoY/XqmX1f6AymI/AAAAAAAAFgc/NaLNtG64AHIyFlrLpIzg6Ey0yST015-GgCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/Jesus%2BSculpture.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
Christians are forever being called hypocrites online. Back when there were sports, a prime example was people who were made uncomfortable by the Super Bowl halftime show, which was, basically, a striptease, except the performers were already wearing so little that there was no reason to take anything off. Anyone who expressed any discomfort, especially for moral or religious reasons, was immediately labeled a hypocrite.<br />
<br />
Christians who claim to be “biblically orthodox” are, for many people in the world, simply hypocrites by definition, right? You’ve heard it: “You claim to espouse the love and grace of Jesus Christ, but then you want to impose all of these moral rules on people, claiming that they’re God’s rules. Why shouldn’t a nearly-naked Jennifer Lopez gyrate her you-know-what during a sporting event that my six-year-old is watching? What about the love and grace?” And I suppose there’s a kind of tension there. In fact, love, grace, and rules have always lived in a kind of tension…but it’s one that is understandable in Christ.<br />
<br />
After college, I was tangentially involved in a ministry called The Silver Ring Thing, in which teens would wear silver rings proclaiming their intention to save themselves sexually for marriage. This was my first experience with what all these years later has come to be known as “purity culture.” It wasn’t anything more, though, than an effort to help young people be obedient to God’s clear command in scripture that sex is to be reserved for marriage.<br />
<br />
Of course, problems cropped up quickly. First, the culture at large began to think this was ridiculous. “Sex is a natural part of life! It’s unhealthy to suppress these evolutionarily important urges!” And even, “How can you possibly know if you should marry someone if you don’t know if you’re sexually compatible? You’re doing yourself a disservice if you don’t have sex before marriage!” And second, the church (even the “good” parts) often began to struggle with this idea, too.<br />
<br />
People who were trying to understand the profound nature of the Gospel—the Good News that sinners are saved by grace alone through faith alone, outside anything they had ever done, were doing, or would ever do—would, on occasion, and I count myself among them, get confused about the law. About morality. About good works.<br />
<br />
Listen to Ephesians 2:8-9: “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” This is the Good News. Therefore, the erroneous thinking went, anyone who tells someone what to do, or how to be obedient to the law, is undermining salvation by grace through faith and working against the Gospel. In this way of thinking, the people behind The Silver Ring Thing were recast as legalists. And so “purity culture”—and just look this up if you don’t believe me—became a negative descriptor of the allegedly legalistic ways that law-loving holier-than-thou Christians were making people who sinned sexually feel badly about themselves.<br />
<br />
The problem with this thinking is that it’s not just some “purity culture” that gets a bad rap. It’s the desire for purity itself! All of a sudden, talking about God’s plan for sex—as laid out in the Bible—and striving to uphold it, was bad. If you claimed to believe in the Gospel, telling someone about God’s good design for sexual intimacy was somehow off limits! You weren’t allowed to do it! It was “legalism.”<br />
<br />
In this context, Jesus’ words at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5 are thrown into sharp relief: “You are the salt of the earth…Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven…Whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”<br />
<br />
Where does Jesus get off being so legalistic? Is this the same Jesus who would stand silent before his accusers, willingly go to a criminal’s cross outside the city walls, and shout “It is finished!” as he died for the sins of the world? Is this the same Jesus who is the gift of God which Ephesians says accomplishes our salvation not by our works, but by grace?<br />
<br />
This is the same Jesus. He upholds the law, and he saves us by grace.<br />
<br />
The truth is that Jesus is the gift of God by which we are saved and that he calls us to lead lives of radical obedience and holiness. After Paul tells us that we are saved through faith, as a gift from God, he tells us something else: “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Eph 2:10).<br />
<br />
Understood in that order, a Jesus who calls us to good works can start to make sense. This is how we can understand the relationship of the law—be salt, be a light to the world, obey the commandments and teach others to do the same—to the Gospel. This is how we can talk endlessly about the boundless love of Jesus and at the same time support, for instance, a biblically orthodox design for sexual purity. This is how we can relentlessly preach the finished work of Christ for sinners and at the same time desire to be faithful to the order for life that God has set out in Scripture. This is how we can say that God saves you completely outside of what you do and that what you do totally matters. We can say all of that because, as Ephesians proclaims, God has prepared good works for us. We are not on our own! We are not saved, turned loose, and commanded to do better. And we certainly are not saved on the condition of our obedience. No: in the package of your free salvation is a relationship with God, the gift of the Holy Spirit, and a set of good works that God has created just for you.<br />
<br />
You are, according to God’s own promise, a new creation in Christ. The law has done its killing work, and Jesus has done his resurrecting work. This new creation—you—will be the salt of the earth. You will be a light to the world. You will obey the commandments and call out in repentance when you fall short. As a community of the faithful, we will teach each other, by the guidance of the Holy Spirit, how to do these things. How to be salt. How to be light. How to be obedient, always remembering that this obedience is itself a gift from God, our loving a result of having first been loved, in our sin, by him.Nick Lannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12618434434679868344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896368258232952265.post-86725852504607579082019-01-10T13:53:00.000-05:002019-02-25T13:54:04.534-05:00Helen Maroulis and the Fear to End All Fears<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hcaS8_mG7mw/XHQ5GM2jhaI/AAAAAAAAFLY/kZkunCd_UsgGm-CTPMl90h6XTAH9MvqNgCLcBGAs/s1600/helenmaroulis.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="526" data-original-width="768" height="219" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hcaS8_mG7mw/XHQ5GM2jhaI/AAAAAAAAFLY/kZkunCd_UsgGm-CTPMl90h6XTAH9MvqNgCLcBGAs/s320/helenmaroulis.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">JACK GUEZ/AFP/GETTY IMAGES</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“I’m afraid. Like, of everything. Afraid of the dark. Afraid of people looking at me. Afraid of being home alone. Afraid of not being enough. Afraid of my fear. Afraid of your impression of me after you read about my fear.”</blockquote>
Helen Maroulis won a women’s wrestling gold medal at the Rio Olympic games, but that’s not the defining moment of her life. In fact, as indicated by <a href="https://www.si.com/thecauldron/2016/11/11/helen-maroulis-olympic-gold-medalist-fear-darkest-secret?fbclid=IwAR2bpKFmIjTdlqroYDRW42wFmCkLGrbqbS847ThtwrQwfWRJenNjSsdD2yk" target="_blank">her article</a> for <i>Sport’s Illustrated</i>’s The Cauldron, it doesn’t seem that her life has a defining moment as much as it has a defining <i>characteristic</i>: fear. She’s afraid. Like, of everything. She’s not being hyperbolic. She sleeps with a knife. When she’s home by herself, she leaves the lights on 24 hours a day.<br />
<br />
There are some who will read her story as a triumph of the human spirit, the tale of a young woman overcoming crippling fear to achieve greatness on the highest of platforms. But that’s not how Maroulis wants you to read her story. When she was brought in to inspire the Baltimore Ravens, their coach introduced her as “a legend.” But her words to the team were, “You don’t have to be the best. You just have to be enough. And on that day, I was enough.” Not exactly the stuff of Walt Disney screenwriting, is it?<br />
<br />
But the incredible thing is this: I don’t think Maroulis (by her own assertions) believes even that! She was enough to win that wrestling match, yes…but she would never say that she was enough, period. And that’s what she tried to communicate to the Ravens that day. She writes that she hopes they went into the game “carrying their fears with them.” In other words, she hopes that they went out onto the field like she went out onto the mat: terrified. Her journal from the day of the Olympic opening ceremony read:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I can’t stop crying. I’m making myself sick. For the first time in my life, I explained to Terry [my coach] what my anxiety was like. What it felt like to be afraid of irrational things. I was always afraid to tell him, because I was afraid he wouldn’t think I was mentally capable of a gold medal. And at the Olympics, I didn’t want to look weak.</blockquote>
Helen’s weakness and fear remind me of Psalm 121, in which the Psalmist understands that he, in and of himself, is not enough:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I lift up my eyes to the hills—from where will my help come?<br />My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.<br />He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber.<br />He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.<br />The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade at your right hand.<br />The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night.<br />The Lord will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life.<br />The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time on and forevermore.</blockquote>
The kind of fear that Maroulis is describing is typical of the human who experiences themselves as responsible for their own salvation. When Isaiah has a vision of the throne room of almighty God, he is terrified. His first emotion is outright horror and his first thought is that he is going to die: “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” (6:5) But, like the Psalmist, it turns out that he has a helper who is not him: “Then one of the seraphs flew to me, holding a live coal that had been taken from the altar with a pair of tongs. The seraph touched my mouth with it and said: ‘Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out’” (v. 6-7).<br />
<br />
In Jesus, we have a helper who is not us. But, crucially, he is so much more than a helper. He is not like Maroulis’s coach, who helped her overcome her fears to become a champion. He is not like Maroulis herself, who told the Ravens that they just had to be good enough. He is like no one other than who he is: Jesus Christ, savior and redeemer of the world.<br />
<br />
We are the fearful; he comes to the fearful. We wonder where our help comes from, and then lift our eyes up to the hill of Calvary and see that his work is finished. Jesus doesn’t promise that our lives will be without fear; in fact, he promises that our lives will be difficult. But he promises to be with us, even to the end of the age (Matthew 28:20). Remember how Helen Maroulis has to have all the lights on in her house when she’s alone? A Christian need never suffer this particular fear, for we are never alone. A live coal has been touched to our mouths, and our sin has been blotted out. Our help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth. All our fears can be cast upon him. His shoulders can bear the load.<br />
<br />
So take comfort: The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade at your right hand. The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life. The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time on and forevermore.Nick Lannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12618434434679868344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896368258232952265.post-76786474193266505502018-11-30T15:15:00.000-05:002018-12-04T15:15:55.438-05:00Not Yet: Serena Williams and Delayed Forgiveness<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Hc9uJo-h-gI/XAbgNPWRgRI/AAAAAAAAFBM/Ob7ADKW4NhsLfrgKIu3_1xGYs_GYHVJigCLcBGAs/s1600/Serena%2B-%2BEzra%2BShaw%2BGetty%2BImages.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="321" data-original-width="570" height="180" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Hc9uJo-h-gI/XAbgNPWRgRI/AAAAAAAAFBM/Ob7ADKW4NhsLfrgKIu3_1xGYs_GYHVJigCLcBGAs/s320/Serena%2B-%2BEzra%2BShaw%2BGetty%2BImages.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ezra Shaw/Getty Images</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
“I’m sorry.” “I forgive you.” These are two sentences that I find myself constantly demanding of my children…and I find that whether or not they mean them is immaterial. It’s like that great line in <i>Liar Liar</i> when Jim Carrey’s asking his son to recant his wish that his father would be unable to lie. The kid tries, but Carrey finds that the wish is still in effect. The kid admits that when he made the wish in the first place, he really meant it, but when he “un-wished” it, he didn’t. “Let’s do it again,” says a harried Carrey, “and this time…<i>mean it</i>.” One of the reasons it’s so funny is that it’s so obviously impossible. And yet, there I am, angrily demanding that my kids apologize to and forgive each other…wanting the words when the meaning is what’s important.<br />
<br />
Serena Williams, probably the greatest female tennis player to ever live, several months ago came into particularly brutal contact with the difference between saying “I forgive you” and meaning it. According to <a href="http://www.espn.com/tennis/story/_/id/24395862/serena-williams-reveals-learned-parole-sister-killer-just-match" target="_blank">this ESPN.com article</a> (by ESPN and the Associated Press), Williams found out that her sister’s murderer (her sister was shot and killed in 2003) was paroled three years before the end of his prison sentence only ten minutes before her match in the finals of the Mubadala Silicon Valley Classic, a match she went on to lose.<br />
<br />
Talking about the situation during the post-match press conference, Williams talked about forgiveness: “I’m not there yet. I would like to practice what I preach, and teach [daughter] Olympia that as well. I want to forgive. I have to get there. I’ll be there.”<br />
<br />
“I have to get there. I’ll be there.” These words bring to mind one of Jesus’ lesser-known parables (Matthew 21:28-32), that of two sons who are asked by their father to go work in a vineyard. The first son says no, but then later actually does go to work. The second son says yes, but, in the end, doesn’t go. Which son, Jesus wants to know, did the will of his father? The answer, to us, is obvious. The son who actually does the work is the one who has done his father’s will, of course. It’s so obvious, in fact, that even the chief priests and elders, those constant misinterpreters of Jesus, get the answer right. But the point is deeper.<br />
<br />
In the parable of the two sons, Jesus is saying something pretty radical: if you don’t feel it, don’t say it! This is the exact opposite of the “fake it ‘til you make it” philosophy that is often espoused. The son who refuses to do what his father asks—to his father’s face no less—is said to be in the right! Jesus, of course, is playing the long game. As he pointed out so often, God is far more interested in what is going on on the inside than what we show on the outside.<br />
<br />
Say it again…and this time…<i>mean it</i>.<br />
<br />
Serena Williams is being honest. She isn’t yet able to forgive her sister’s murderer. Like the first son is Jesus’ parable, she lets the truth of her heart show. She must have felt some pressure, both as someone who wants to forgive—who knows it’s the right thing to do—and who wants to set a good example for her daughter, to say “I forgive him,” even if it wasn’t true. Think of the pressure you might feel if someone asked you how your walk with the Lord was going. Or how you’re enjoying your daily quiet times. The urge to project a goodness that doesn’t actually exist is almost overwhelming. The second son succumbed. But Serena didn’t.<br />
<br />
That second son didn’t want to go work in the vineyard. Of course he didn’t. He said he did because he knew that working in the vineyard was the right thing to do, and he wanted to be someone who did the right thing. But his heart wasn’t in it, so he never went. Serena is like the first son: she doesn’t want to do the right thing right now. Her heart’s not in it, and she’s strong enough to admit it. This is confession.<br />
<br />
John writes that, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8) This is that second son. There is no good news for him yet…he has not confessed. But John has good news for the sons—and for you and me and Serena Williams—who confess their weakness, rebelliousness, and sin: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (v.9).<br />
<br />
So, in the end, Serena’s right. Like the first son, she will be there. She will get to forgiveness. But not through saying the things she thinks she’s supposed to say, or even doing the things she thinks she’s supposed to do. Jesus, who is faithful and just, will forgive her unwillingness to forgive. He will change her heart. And he will do the same for you.Nick Lannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12618434434679868344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896368258232952265.post-53367212987731182262018-11-02T09:23:00.000-04:002018-11-13T09:24:09.181-05:00You (and Kirk Cousins) Are Going to Die<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-YzBHCNWftB4/W-reHrUg2lI/AAAAAAAAFAM/p4vlXC-gZZUrI72UpPpwSIeAMBRuEmmbgCLcBGAs/s1600/kirkcousins.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="534" data-original-width="768" height="222" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-YzBHCNWftB4/W-reHrUg2lI/AAAAAAAAFAM/p4vlXC-gZZUrI72UpPpwSIeAMBRuEmmbgCLcBGAs/s320/kirkcousins.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
Kirk Cousins, the quarterback for the Minnesota Vikings, has a sculpture outside his house with an odd purpose: it’s intended to remind him that he’s going to die.<br />
<br />
Well, sort of.<br />
<br />
Planning to live to 90, the quarterback has a jar of 720 stones (one for each month he intends to live) at his home. Each month, he takes a stone out of the jar and carries it with him. He <a href="http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/25024166/minnesota-vikings-quarterback-kirk-cousins-confronts-mortality-stone-form" target="_blank">told ESPN’s Tory Zawacki Roy</a> that “every month [he’s] going to take out a stone, put it in [his] pocket, and think: ‘Once this month is over, this is gone. You can’t get it back, it’s gone for good.’”<br />
<br />
It’s only a little morbid until you remember that, as Cousins takes out the stones, he has a visual reminder—right outside his front door, no less—that his time on Earth is getting shorter and shorter. That’s really morbid.<br />
<br />
But it’s also religious. It’s an idea that came to Cousins from a Bible teacher, in response to Psalm 90:12: “Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” This verse, Cousins says, is “about the importance of leaving a mark and making a deposit in people’s lives in a way that matters. In other words, when you have an understanding that life is coming to an end someday, and that we only have so many days? There’s wisdom in that.”<br />
<br />
So, my goodness. As it turns out, the stone in Cousins’ pocket isn’t actually there to remind him that he’s going to die. It’s there to remind him that his life isn’t good enough. Roy ends the article with Cousins saying, “it’s just a healthy reminder, make life about other people, invest in other people, knowing that in the end, that’s a life well-lived.” That’s not true, exactly. That’s not a healthy reminder, it’s a deadly one. When I thought Cousins was reminding himself of his finitude, his mortality, and his humanness, I was on board. A stone like that would be a constant reminder that I needed a savior! I was ready to get the stones set up at my front door, too.<br />
<br />
But this? A stone that reminds me every day that I’m leaving a legacy? A stone that makes my heart sink every time I feel it? A stone that’s constantly whispering “you’re not good enough” in my ear? No thank you. That’s not healthy, that’s deadly.<br />
<br />
Christians needn’t fear death, but not because we’re committed to living a life “well-lived.” In fact, that commitment will cause us to fear death! Like Tennessee Ernie Ford sang in “Sixteen Tons,” <i>St. Peter don’t you call me/’cause I can’t go/I owe my soul to the company store.</i> We will fear death as long as we’re worried that we haven’t lived our life well enough. We can’t afford that final bell to ring…we haven’t gotten our work done yet! And we will always have that worry. What we need is not a reminder in our pocket that we need to do better. We need an announcement in our ear that someone has been good enough for us.<br />
<br />
We need to be reminded of our mortality. But not to spur us on to better lives. We need to be reminded of our mortality to force us to call out for a savior.<br />
<br />
So by all means, figure out how long you hope to live. Put a pile of stones outside your house. Carry one of the stones in your pocket. Take note of how little time you have left. But at the end of each day, note that you have, once again, failed to save yourself. But then, remember the Good News: our God didn’t wait for us to live a life well-lived. He sent his son, Jesus Christ, to not only live that life, but to give it to us.<br />
<br />
Yes, you will die. But, on account of Christ’s life—not yours—you will live forever.Nick Lannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12618434434679868344noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896368258232952265.post-37076522817222241532018-10-03T23:01:00.000-04:002018-10-30T23:02:19.922-04:00Jesus, Save Patrick Mahomes<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-I2xBx_hTnhU/W9kbAbUipoI/AAAAAAAAE_0/HDp88hST9zgNsG7SdUgLGc4WKjbcUG-EwCLcBGAs/s1600/mahomes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="512" data-original-width="768" height="213" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-I2xBx_hTnhU/W9kbAbUipoI/AAAAAAAAE_0/HDp88hST9zgNsG7SdUgLGc4WKjbcUG-EwCLcBGAs/s320/mahomes.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
Patrick Mahomes is the second-year (but first year as the starter) quarterback for the Kansas City Chiefs. He is lighting the NFL on fire. I know, I know…that metaphor isn’t quite right. He’s blowing the NFL up like a nuclear warhead. Mahomes had more touchdown passes through the first three weeks of the season than…anyone ever. He’s got an incredibly strong arm, agility to beat the band, and the smarts to make the right reads and find the right receivers.<br />
<br />
And then he played on Monday Night Football for the first time.<br />
<br />
At the beginning, he wasn’t his normal (well, normal for four total NFL starts) stellar self, and I thought I was going to write a post about how we’re all human, even Patrick Mahomes. He was bouncing balls at his receiver’s feet and the Chiefs were losing to the Denver Broncos. But then, Mahomes (and, to be fair, the rest of his team) recovered from a ten-point fourth-quarter deficit to score the game-winning touchdown with under two minutes left. Mahomes-mania has reached an ever-higher fever pitch this week.<br />
<br />
One play in particular during that fourth quarter, Mahomes was flushed out of the pocket (oh yes, on Monday night, he had more passing yards from outside the pocket than…anyone ever) to his left and scrambled toward the sideline. All-pro Von Miller dogged him, not giving him any space to pull his arm back to throw. What did Mahomes do? He calmly transferred the ball<i> into his left hand</i> and shot-putted it forward to his receiver. Miller looked as incredulous as the announcers sounded.<br />
<br />
Jesus, save Patrick Mahomes. Do it today, even though today is the today on which it appears he needs saving least.<br />
<br />
This is a prayer that we all might pray for ourselves: that when things are going well we remember from whence our saving comes. God, prevent us from being like the rich young ruler, who couldn’t see past his riches to Christ’s saving grace and went away sad (Mark 10, Matthew 19). Don’t let us allow our successes, our triumphs, our strengths, or our victories blind us to our need for you.<br />
<br />
May God help us to remember the truth: that on our best days, he had to die for us. And when we forget, and think we’re doing well—when we think we’re Patrick Mahomes—and then start to think that our forgetfulness makes us the worst…may he remind of this other truth: that on our worst days, he did die for us. Amen.Nick Lannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12618434434679868344noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896368258232952265.post-56371471017932206472018-09-18T14:59:00.000-04:002018-10-01T15:00:35.704-04:00Holding Out...Forever<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-TP6ee4eH_Tg/W7JuZVB5czI/AAAAAAAAE_M/2qytyvvCj7QmXAU-Crh755WkFRmIR3O-QCLcBGAs/s1600/leveonbellholdoutupdate.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="483" data-original-width="768" height="200" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-TP6ee4eH_Tg/W7JuZVB5czI/AAAAAAAAE_M/2qytyvvCj7QmXAU-Crh755WkFRmIR3O-QCLcBGAs/s320/leveonbellholdoutupdate.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Joe Sargent/Getty Images</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The NFL season is in full swing. I know that’s more of a baseball metaphor, but “the NFL season is in full tackle” doesn’t really get my point across. One of the nice things about the start of the actual season (versus the coverage of the preseason) is that most of the stories we read about the league deal with what’s going on on the field. Who won last week? Who’s playing well? Who isn’t? Which teams are living up to expectations, or down to them? Who is under- or over-achieving? A major reason that the NFL preseason is so tiresome is that, having come to the (correct) conclusion that the “games” are absolutely meaningless, the press turns to off-the-field and procedural stuff to feed the ravenous monster that is football fandom. So we get interminable stories about “Twitter beef,” which practice squad player might get cut this week, and—perhaps least interestingly of all—why certain players are “holding out” and when they might come back.<br />
<br />
Every year, there are players who “hold out.” This, in short, means that a player is dissatisfied with his contract and is therefore refusing to show up to work until he is offered a new one. The mechanism of this is usually that Player A willingly signs a contract only to see that, in the subsequent weeks or years, Players B and C, who are demonstrably less talented than player A (at least, in Player A’s opinion), sign better contracts. More money, more guarantees, more, more more. Player A gets frustrated and demands a new contract, refusing to play until he gets one.<br />
<br />
We fans are then subjected to the never-ending rumor mill: is the team going to give in? The player is under contract, after all, so they don’t have to cave to his pressure…but they want to look like a team who “takes care” of their players so that future players might sign there in free agency. Does this player “deserve” the more lucrative contract he desires? No one says anything publicly, because it’s against league rules, so we get reports from people “close to the situation” or people “familiar with Player A’s thinking.”<br />
<br />
It’s exhausting.<br />
<br />
But this year, it got me thinking. Thinking, actually, of a classic hymn. Joseph Hart’s “Come Ye Sinners, Poor and Needy” (1759) includes this powerful verse:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Come, ye weary, heavy-laden,<br />Lost and ruined by the fall;<br />If you tarry till you’re better,<br />You will never come at all.</blockquote>
These NFL hold-outs are trying to do the impossible: wait until everything is just right before they put their pads on. Christians know that “just right” doesn’t exist…at least, not outside of Christ.<br />
<br />
The thinking is related, isn’t it? The football player wants to get what he deserves before he comes. Too many people think similarly: we want desperately to become deserving before we approach God. We want to be assured that we will hear those coveted words: “Well done, good and faithful servant” (Matthew 25:21). In both cases, though it works itself out slightly differently, it’s all about deserving. Joseph Hart, though, knows that deserving is beyond our sinful grasp. We are “lost and ruined by the fall.” If we were to hold out—to wait until we are better to try to approach God—we’d never get there. We’d never feel good enough, prepared enough, righteous…enough.<br />
<br />
But in God’s economy, “deserving” isn’t something that’s expected of us, it is something that is given to us. That “well done, good and faithful servant” is a benediction spoken to Jesus Christ and then given to us in that indelible moment on the cross when all of his deserving became ours.<br />
<br />
In the hold out of our sinful lives, God comes to us while we pout at home, fixated on what we do or don’t deserve. He comes to us while we are in our contract dispute, while we are his enemy (Romans 5:10). We needn’t tarry, after all…in Christ, we have already been declared worthy. In and on account of Christ, we deserve all that God can—and does—give. Our hold out, in fact, is already over!<br />
<br />
Another verse of Hart’s hymn:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
View Him prostrate in the garden;<br />On the ground your Maker lies;<br />On the bloody tree behold Him;<br />Sinner, will this not suffice?</blockquote>
Indeed, it will suffice. And it does.Nick Lannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12618434434679868344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896368258232952265.post-37090104453734899392018-08-16T14:51:00.000-04:002018-09-05T14:51:54.636-04:00Ashley Horner is More Impressive than You<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-FAVB84cXrMk/W5AljsIL9xI/AAAAAAAAE-o/PUmc9o9zc5AsK7FgO1xP0IPMPpcsYYNPwCLcBGAs/s1600/horner.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="333" data-original-width="500" height="213" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-FAVB84cXrMk/W5AljsIL9xI/AAAAAAAAE-o/PUmc9o9zc5AsK7FgO1xP0IPMPpcsYYNPwCLcBGAs/s320/horner.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
Ashley Horner plans to complete 50 Ironman-distance triathlons (a 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile bike, and a 26.2-mile run) in the 48 contiguous United States (and Haiti) … in 50 days. Her story is detailed in this piece for ESPNw by Kelaine Conochan. She’s a “fitness celebrity” but has never completed an Ironman-distance triathlon in her life.<br />
<br />
Excuse me? Ma’am? Just who is it that you’re trying to impress?<br />
<br />
Now, Horner would probably say that she’s not trying to impress anyone. What she has said is that she’s doing it to empower women, and she’s also doing it to raise awareness of and money for an orphanage in Haiti. But her claims that she’s not trying to impress anyone fall on deaf ears. Those words ring with the same tune that plays when people say things like, “I have no regrets,” or “I don’t care what anyone thinks of me.” These are things that people say—and things that people mean—but that aren’t actually true. Everyone has regrets. Everyone cares what other people think of them. And no one runs 50 Ironmans (Ironmen?) in 50 days without trying to impress someone.<br />
<br />
See, we’re all trying to impress someone. Even if that someone is ourselves, or our projections of our dead fathers, or God, or the nameless void that is “the universe.” We are all engaged in this effort to impress, to self-justify.<br />
<br />
This will sound silly—though, in the face of what Ashley Horner is primed to attempt, most things will—but I remember thinking, when my wife and I were almost settled into our first home together, that if we just found the right couch to go on a certain wall in the living room, everything would be all right. Ridiculous, right? But take a second. Reflect on your own life. What silly things have you found yourself thinking about where, if they just worked out in the right way, then everything would be all right. If you just got into that school. Or got that promotion. Or got that girl to say yes. Or got that guy to like that particular Instagram post. We are all constantly engaged in this effort to self-justify. We are on a quest: for the right couch, the right school, the right job, the right guy. The problem is that the quest is never-ending.<br />
<br />
When we brought home the couch that was going to make everything all right, it was raining. We were careful, and we got the couch into the house and in place without ruining it. But later that day, we went outside and discovered that the trunk of our car had a leak in it and was completely full of water. Nothing was all right once again.<br />
<br />
This is the problem that Ashley Horner, as a member of the human race, will run into. She may well, of course, run into it before her Ironman quest is even over. Most experts don’t think that her body will be able to do what she’s planning to ask of it. It will shut down at some point, refusing to let her go on. But even if she finishes her 50 triathlons, what will happen on the morning of the fifty-first day?<br />
<br />
She’ll wake up, and everything won’t be all right.<br />
<br />
The orphanage in Haiti will eventually use up the money she raises. Children will still be without parents. There will still be women who don’t believe that they can do anything they set their minds to. What will Ashley Horner do then? Will she do 51 triathlons in 51 days? One hundred triathlons in one hundred days? Where does it end?<br />
<br />
From Cochrane’s piece:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“Billy Edwards, coach of the Naval Academy’s three-time national championship triathlon team and a 19-time Ironman finisher, has his doubts: ‘In my opinion, she’s probably going to fail. Over the course of 50 days, there’s going to be a point where she encounters the limits of her physical ability.’” This will be the key moment for Horner, as it is for all of us. Edwards wonders where Horner will compromise. Maybe extend the time frame, or go to regular triathlons instead of Ironman-length. But for true efforts at self-justification, compromise is the same as failure. Ashley Horner says as much: “Bottom line, I’m going to do whatever it takes to get it done.”</blockquote>
But it’s when we “reach the limits of [our] ability” that we can go a different way than throwing ourselves blindly against the brick wall of “do whatever it takes.” After all, some things can’t be done. Jesus Christ offers another way.<br />
<br />
It would be tempting, at this point, to say something like, “When you come to the end of yourself, Jesus Christ takes over.” And while that’s pretty good news, it’s not the Good News—the Gospel that the disciples, Paul, and the Church have been proclaiming since that Sunday morning so long ago. Indeed, it’s the fact of that Sunday morning—that where there was once a body there is now an empty tomb—that makes the Good News better than “Jesus takes over where you leave off.”<br />
<br />
Jesus raises the dead to life. Constantly throwing yourself against a brick wall … well, that’s something zombies do. Have you seen a zombie movie recently? They’re always crashing again and again into walls, windows, et cetera, trying to get through where they can’t get through. And why? Because they’re dead. Our efforts at self-justification are fruitless for the same reason. We don’t fail because we haven’t trained enough. We don’t fail because we’re not empowered. We don’t fail because we lack confidence. We fail because we’re dead.<br />
<br />
In Christ, however, we are alive. Bottom line, he already did whatever it took to get it done. The sins of the world, borne on his shoulders. His divine righteousness, given to us. 50 triathlons in 50 days or a pulled muscle getting out of bed. It is finished.Nick Lannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12618434434679868344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896368258232952265.post-21803025951717439472018-07-24T15:27:00.001-04:002018-07-24T15:28:12.024-04:00The Ones that Haunt You<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hsDORGY7q6U/W1d9glvwS9I/AAAAAAAAE9M/9_3qwI135REEHMchEehoWzkY4wkNgPEggCLcBGAs/s1600/redick.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="1000" height="192" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hsDORGY7q6U/W1d9glvwS9I/AAAAAAAAE9M/9_3qwI135REEHMchEehoWzkY4wkNgPEggCLcBGAs/s320/redick.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
On a May 23 episode of his “Bill Simmons Podcast,” Simmons interviewed Philadelphia 76er J. J. Redick about the end of the Sixers’ NBA season. They discussed who had played well, how the Sixers could improve the next year, and much more. Eventually, talk turned to a big shot that could have put Game 5 away for the Sixers, a shot that Redick missed. Here’s Redick:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The shot that will kill me … and the one that I haven’t really gotten over … was 109-107, under a minute-and-a-half to play, T. J. [McConnell] drove baseline and hit me on the wing and I probably got my best look I got all series. And, uh, I just missed it. That would have put us up five, in Game 5 … at that point I think we would have had a really good chance to close out that game. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I think it was 2011, Atlanta in the first round, Game 6 … and we were down two and Stan [Van Gundy, then coach of the Orlando Magic, for whom Redick played at the time] set up a little play for me to come off a little pin-down from Dwight [Howard] … and [I] missed it left, and we lost the series on that play. Those are the ones, when you look back on your career—yeah, I’ve hit game-winners, I’ve hit shots to send games into overtime, I’ve hit shots that, you know, put the game away … you hit clutch shots … you remember the ones you missed, though. Those are the ones that just haunt you, that you think about all the time.</blockquote>
In Matthew 16, Jesus tells his disciples to “be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees” (v. 6). Some years later, Paul is writing to the Galatians and telling them to, similarly, beware of what he has called “the circumcision party.” He, too, uses a bread-based analogy, saying, “a little leaven leavens the whole lump” (5:9). Jesus and Paul are making the same point that J. J. Redick is: a little Law (criticism or judgment) can make you forget all about grace.<br />
<br />
A few years ago, a man visited my church for the first time. He came up to me after the service and went on and on about how much he’d loved the service. He’d loved the music, and the sermon, and the friendliness, and everything about the place. Well, except he just had one question: why, he wondered, during the Prayers of the People, did we pray for the President of the United States and the Governor of the State of New Jersey but not for the mayor of our town? Didn’t it make more sense for us to pray for the people who had more direct political influence over the lives of our parishioners?<br />
<br />
Notice, all these years later, that this story has stuck with me. I don’t remember what he’d liked about the music, or what he’d liked about the sermon. But I remember specifically what he didn’t like about the Prayers of the People. As he walked away from me, my overall feeling about the interaction was a negative one, rather than a positive one. After all, he’d criticized my church.<br />
<br />
A little leaven had leavened the whole lump.<br />
<br />
You know what I’m talking about. My little Prayers of the People story immediately brought up some incident in your life where one word of criticism overwhelmed a heap of praise. We humans are so attuned to these bits of leaven—the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees—that we latch on to them to the exclusion of anything else. This is why, as proclaimers of God’s Good News about Jesus Christ—whether we find ourselves in pulpits on Sunday mornings or not—we cannot let even a word of Law taint that proclamation.<br />
<br />
Now, let’s be clear: we allow—no, we encourage and demand!—that many words of Law pave the way for that proclamation. Speaking the truth into a sinful world requires the stout proclamation of God’s Law. Like Amos prophesied, we set a plumb line in the midst of our people, to show them just how crooked they are (Am 7:7-9). But once the people are destroyed by that plumb line, when they have been shown what great sinners they are, the Law has done its work. It must be kept in its own loaf. Now it’s time for the comfortable words:<br />
<br />
Come unto me, all ye that travail and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you (Mt 11:28).<br />
<br />
God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, to the end that all that believe in him should not perish, but have everlasting life (Jn 3:16).<br />
<br />
This is a true saying, and worthy of all to be received, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners (1 Tm 1:15).<br />
<br />
If anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and he is the perfect offering for our sins, and not for ours only, but for the sins of the whole world (1 Jn 2:1-2).<br />
<br />
There’s not a word of criticism there. No exhortation. No leaven. This lump must not be leavened. The urge to introduce just a little yeast is strong: don’t people need to be told how to live now? Don’t they need to be shown the way? Martin Luther likened this attitude to thinking of the Law as a cute kitten. Surely, letting this kitty out of its cage won’t cause any problems, will it? But the Law isn’t a kitten; it’s a lion, and it will devour you. A little leaven will leaven the whole lump. A little criticism overwhelms a heap of praise. One missed shot crowds out dozens of makes.<br />
<br />
So let us celebrate Christ’s unleavened bread: It is finished. Three words, no strings attached. In him, there is no criticism. In him, there is only comfort.Nick Lannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12618434434679868344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896368258232952265.post-74120396358697426452018-07-13T10:13:00.001-04:002018-07-13T10:13:30.464-04:00(VIDEO) Not Weak on Sanctification: Christians Grow in ReverseIn the Spring of 2018, I was invited to give a breakout session at the 11th Mockingbird Conference in New York City. Here's what happened:<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" mozallowfullscreen="" src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/277464613?title=0&byline=0" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="640"></iframe>
<a href="https://vimeo.com/277464613">Not Weak on Sanctification: Christians Grow in Reverse - Nick Lannon</a> from <a href="https://vimeo.com/user17947816">Mockingbird</a> on <a href="https://vimeo.com/">Vimeo</a>.Nick Lannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12618434434679868344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896368258232952265.post-1372871276531598632018-07-05T11:32:00.000-04:002018-07-05T11:36:13.769-04:00Tiger Woods is Getting Better and Getting Worse<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-XBKUb7H34Lg/Wz46l-Z8RtI/AAAAAAAAE8o/NFhzKEvOgtgAIwPyoIVPOPKV82aMH_jpwCLcBGAs/s1600/tiger.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="576" data-original-width="1024" height="180" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-XBKUb7H34Lg/Wz46l-Z8RtI/AAAAAAAAE8o/NFhzKEvOgtgAIwPyoIVPOPKV82aMH_jpwCLcBGAs/s320/tiger.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
Tiger Woods finished fourth in a PGA tournament this past weekend.<br />
<br />
He’s back.<br />
<br />
Or is he?<br />
<br />
Tiger's last win came in 2013 at the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational. His last major championship was the 2008 US Open. Shortly thereafter (Thanksgiving of 2009) Woods famously crashed his car outside his Florida mansion, was exposed as a serial cheater and sex addict, and began one of the most precipitous slides from public grace in the history of sports. But now, almost a decade—and a ton of public apologizing and image-burnishing—later, people are ready for Woods to be back.<br />
<br />
The problem is, he just won’t seem to come.<br />
<br />
For years, every time Tiger would enter a tournament, the speculation was rampant: could Tiger win? Could he drive the ball straight? Could he hit fairways? Could he putt? He would occasionally start a tournament well only to completely falter on the weekend (Gold tournaments are made up of four rounds, played Thursday through Sunday). There was a period where it seemed that if he wasn’t playing well, he’d feign an injury and withdraw from the tournament altogether. And <em>then</em> there were years in which he actually was injured, and hardly played at all.<br />
<br />
Now that he’s back playing regularly, he is a regular topic of conversion, no matter how well he plays. After each tournament, commentators breathlessly ask themselves—whether Tiger’s performance was good, bad, or indifferent—what it means for Tiger’s future. Is he back? Isn’t he?<br />
<br />
I’m reminded of the great Beatles song “Getting Better” (serious hat tip here to Paul Zahl, who references this song all the time) in which Paul McCartney sings, “It’s getting better all the time” and band replies, “Can’t get no worse!” This is certainly the story of Tiger Woods’ last decade…and it’s probably the story of your entire life.<br />
<br />
“Getting better” is an appealing narrative. It makes sense to us. One of the reasons it makes sense is that it is a staple of fictional stories: books, movies, television shows; so many of the stories we watch and read are about characters who start at one place, go on a journey—whether internal or external, whether epic or minute—and end up somewhere else, usually improved. This makes us feel good, being the aspirational people we are. We want to go on a similar journey. We can all feel the discrepancy between who we are now and who we wish to be (to say nothing of the discrepancy between who we are now and who God wishes us to be!) and so we’re always looking for that metaphorical ladder to climb to get to where we want to go.<br />
<br />
The ladder that “Getting Better” posits, though, is a mysterious one. In sense, it’s climbable: who amongst us can’t point to some area of improvement in their life with a hearty “Thank God!”? But this ladder has a pernicious habit: as we climb, the rung we’ve just clambered over disappears beneath us. Yes, it’s getting better all the time, but it also “can’t get no worse.” We’re always on the very bottom rung!<br />
<br />
For every round Tiger Woods spends hitting every fairway, there seems to be a round during which his putter absolutely deserts him. For every cut he makes, there are a few he misses. And that’s totally glossing over perhaps his most profound truth: after every future tournament he might win, he goes home to a very different life than the one he was trying to live a decade ago. His wife is no longer his wife. His sins and predilections are public knowledge. Sure, it’s getting better all the time. He might even win another major one day. But it can’t get no worse, either.<br />
<br />
This bifurcated state of affairs—our God-given improvements combined with the fact that we might fall off the bottom rung of the ladder at any moment—make the Good News of the Gospel all the more good. We have a God who, though helping us up the ladder, does not actually seem to regard our climb as anything to get excited about. No, he got excited about sending his son, Jesus Christ, <em>down to the bottom of the ladder</em>. Jesus is there when we fall. Jesus is there when it can’t get no worse. Jesus is there when we’ve crashed our car into a tree outside our own house and our soon-to-be-ex-wife is bashing in the window with the very implement that made us famous. But she’s not trying to save us; she’s trying to kill us. Jesus, though, is there to save.<br />
<br />
So. Is Tiger back? Well, yes and no. He’s playing better, that’s for sure. He’s steadily climbing the ladder back into contention. But…he could fall off at any moment. So could you. Rest, then, in the assurance that God is not waiting for you at the top of some ladder, really hoping you can make it all way. He didn’t wait. While you were crumpled in a desolate ball at the bottom, he sent his son to you. Sure, it’s getting better all the time, and it can’t get no worse. But for those of us who’ve fallen off and are now cradled in the arms of our suffering savior, it can’t get no better, either.<br />
<br />
<iframe allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/gplia9D6rcY" width="560"></iframe>
Nick Lannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12618434434679868344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896368258232952265.post-90902742507468382212018-06-07T10:28:00.000-04:002018-06-08T10:34:56.312-04:00The Necessary Execution: Preaching, Losing, and LeBron James<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/proxy/RDsdLoSXG55KFDAjGZE3z-BIlnFWKo3ek9sbUodsz3o2Bwsi_0erPBPybMgywhxDYDws-OF7ZViELPisk-c2rR9kSb8kyA-JcTMexVxkmhSsLHGo9TGWwHYYizSh7RdFkmOhxA" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" border="0" class="wp-image-101288 size-full alignnone" src="http://mbird.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/GettyImages-541547614-1496070792.jpg" height="175" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
I thought that the conventional wisdom was that sons turned into their mothers. It seems that, on the other hand, I’m turning into my mother-in-law.<br />
<br />
We’re different in profound ways, of course—though we both love her daughter—but I’m discovering that when it comes to watching sporting events in which we’re heavily invested, I’m picking up her mannerisms.<br />
<br />
It used to be that I was the only person I knew who could happily watch a sporting event on my DVR. I’d record the game, stay off social media, and watch it later, skipping through the commercials. I’ve heard, time and again, that live sports are the only kind of television that’s “DVR proof,” that viewers lose the communal excitement that comes with watching a game at the same time as the rest of the country. I never found that I lost any of the excitement. I could get just as worked up hour later, as long as I didn’t know the outcome. The time lag never bothered me.<br />
<br />
My mother-in-law never watches sports live, either, but for a totally different reason. Whereas I simply didn’t want to have to sit through the commercials, she actually didn’t want to experience the emotional rollercoaster that comes with watching sports. So, we’d both record a game (say, a LeBron James basketball game for me and a University of Oregon football game for her) and wait until later to watch it. But while I’d stay off the internet, hoping not to spoil my viewing experience, my mother-in-law specifically finds out what happened in the game, <em>and then only watches if her team won! </em>For years, I viewed this as a betrayal of everything sports is about. It’s about the ride, I’d argue, and if you lose that…well, why watch?<br />
<br />
But now I’m doing exactly the same thing.<br />
<br />
LeBron James is about to (probably) get swept out of the NBA Finals by the Golden State Warriors. In fact, by the time you read this, it may well have already happened. But guess what? In these playoffs, a spring and summer in which his Cavaliers defeated the Indiana Pacers and the Boston Celtics in seven games and are about to lose to the Warriors in four, <em>I’ve never seen the Cavs lose</em>. It goes back into the regular season, too. The Cavs had a tough season, making significant trades, losing over thirty games, and finishing fourth in the their conference, despite having the best player in the world (and either the first- or second-best player of all time—come at me) on their team. I haven’t seen the Cavs lose since around Valentine’s Day.<br />
<br />
I record the games, find out what happens, and only watch the wins.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/proxy/pSbqrrAIXntRMZwrb1t9KVkSfKUeP4d851tm9N0b59IS4BETaUFuAnQUnilzVFOFrp--qSpFSLzyxz9hUlRQCwsx1PR2gl3w8rZOIQrf1Y_j" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" border="0" class="wp-image-101290 size-full alignnone" src="http://mbird.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/1527836181924.jpg" height="180" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
Okay, I’m exaggerating a bit. I’ve watched almost all of the games in these Finals. But I don’t want to watch the losses, and I still find out what happens in advance. What’s happening to me? Am I a sports fan? Am I broken?<br />
<br />
It wasn’t until I read something that my friend Adam Morton wrote about preaching that it all clicked into place. Here’s what Adam said:
<br />
<blockquote>
True gospel preaching hits a strong discordant note. God's love for us is very unlike what we usually conceive as love—it strikes against our sensibilities, is startlingly unromantic. Above all, it forgives, and right in the midst of the offense. Does it have power to change the world? Well, it made the world, and makes it new—but here the contrast, because the world wants no part of that…To present Jesus as dying for us without also noting that we did not want this bizarre gift (indeed, we effected the dying part) is to bury the lede. We do not want to be forgiven. Rather, we want to be in a position to say, “Thanks, I'm sure it's lovely, but I don't need that.” But to be forgiven by God, and so raised in Christ, is to be reduced to nothing in ourselves. A true sermon needs to kill its hearers…else it remains just a lovely speech. No choices left to make, no goals left to accomplish, no future to live into. A preacher is an executioner.</blockquote>
“A preacher is an executioner.” Incredible, and I couldn’t agree more. But no one wants to be executed! We will do anything to avoid laying our necks on that bloodstained block. So what do we do? Most of us obey the urge to simply find someone who will tell us what we want to hear. And not just in church…this is our natural state. So I spare myself the emotional rollercoaster—and the risk—of living and dying with a basketball team. I find out what happens in advance. If the guillotine comes down, I excuse myself. In this way, I can trick myself into thinking that my favorite team never loses a game.<br />
<br />
In the same way that I can’t handle a simple truth—LeBron James loses basketball games—people in pews can’t handle it either. When a preacher tells me that I’m a sinner in need of a savior, I get my back up. I say, as Adam suggests, “Thanks, I'm sure it's lovely, but I don't need that.” I don’t want to be reduced to nothing.<br />
<br />
I need a preacher who will give me what I don’t want. I need an executioner. I need, every week, to have done to me what was done at my baptism: I need someone to bury me with Christ, and to raise me to new life in him.<br />
<br />
I’ll be watching on Friday night as the Warriors likely sweep that Cavs and win the championship. I need to see it. I need to see my favorite things die. It won’t be pleasant. But confession never is. Thank God, we have been offered comfortable words in face of uncomfortable truth: “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:8-9).<br />
<br />
LeBron James will lose. You will, too. Our favorite things—up to and including our own self-sufficiency—will die. In Jesus, though, we are raised to a new life where there is only victory. A victory which is Christ's alone.
<!-- Blogger automated replacement: "https://images-blogger-opensocial.googleusercontent.com/gadgets/proxy?url=http%3A%2F%2Fmbird.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2018%2F06%2F1527836181924.jpg&container=blogger&gadget=a&rewriteMime=image%2F*" with "https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/proxy/pSbqrrAIXntRMZwrb1t9KVkSfKUeP4d851tm9N0b59IS4BETaUFuAnQUnilzVFOFrp--qSpFSLzyxz9hUlRQCwsx1PR2gl3w8rZOIQrf1Y_j" --><!-- Blogger automated replacement: "https://images-blogger-opensocial.googleusercontent.com/gadgets/proxy?url=http%3A%2F%2Fmbird.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2018%2F06%2FGettyImages-541547614-1496070792.jpg&container=blogger&gadget=a&rewriteMime=image%2F*" with "https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/proxy/RDsdLoSXG55KFDAjGZE3z-BIlnFWKo3ek9sbUodsz3o2Bwsi_0erPBPybMgywhxDYDws-OF7ZViELPisk-c2rR9kSb8kyA-JcTMexVxkmhSsLHGo9TGWwHYYizSh7RdFkmOhxA" -->Nick Lannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12618434434679868344noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896368258232952265.post-16572888050933641552018-05-22T15:04:00.000-04:002018-05-23T15:05:21.519-04:00LeBron, Rest, and Execution, and Will<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/proxy/Tm6CupveC870He9EGTQLClfQMdgg6Tm5qG-vLdMbGcMP9aLii2vn9iePhM6x_G4No7Ai8AFdr62wvNkc9N4xNDNBNfw8qFSRzdYvwd5CWyVmbbPRsxcVFqdJ42mXLqH3RoFFK8mZnE1ez36lciVEQ1SxS0SnCVC1-F43qyyenYXS8A" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" border="0" class="wp-image-100669 size-full alignnone" src="http://www.mbird.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/lebron-james-cavs-ftr-051618jpg_1ayk9e8a44q5w1y0lby55o0zap.jpg" height="180" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
I ran into a fascinating juxtaposition in a fascinating (for a difference reason) article recently. The article in question, <a href="http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/23384071/lebron-james-plays-rests-keep-cleveland-cavaliers-hopes-alive" rel="noopener" target="_blank">an ESPN piece by Brian Windhorst</a>, is about LeBron James “perfecting the art of resting while playing.” If that sounds counter-intuitive, it probably should. We’re used to thinking of athletes “giving 100%” (if not more; there’s always that mythical “110%” that people are always claiming to reach) while they’re on the court, field, pitch, or whatever. Then, they come out of the game and rest until they’re ready to go back in and give it 100% again. Of course, in sports like soccer or tennis—what I like to call the “run all the time and never stop sports”—it doesn’t quite work that way. But in basketball, the sport LeBron James plays, it does.<br />
<br />
So it strikes us as odd that Windhorst writes something like,
<br />
<blockquote>
No one would ever call James slow, but he is when he wants to be. During the regular season, James' average speed during games was 3.85 mph, according to Second Spectrum tracking data. Of all players who averaged at least 20 minutes a game, that ranked in the bottom 10 in speed. That's correct: James moved slower than just about any rotation player in the league. And since the playoffs started, James has gotten even slower. His average has slipped to 3.69 mph. Here's why: James walks a lot. During the regular season, about 74.4 percent of James' time on the court was spent walking. Again, this was in the top 10 in the league. Almost no one walked up and down the floor more than James. And in the playoffs, he's walking even more—78.7 percent of the time.</blockquote>
Walking? Going slow when he’s able to go fast? Is this laziness? No, Windhorst says, it’s James recognizing that his team cannot compete without him on the floor. James knows that the Cavaliers are sunk without him, so he does what he can to make sure he’s always there. He’s constantly dealing with the brink of exhaustion, all so that, in a game’s biggest moments, he’s available with some energy left to do what it takes to get his team the win.<br />
<br />
And that—the idea that he’s always on the knife’s edge of being too tired to go on—is what makes the end of the article so fascinating. Windhorst writes, in the second-to-last paragraph, that “Over the course of games, playoff series and even playoff runs, these little [saved pockets of energy] often add up. It isn't unusual to see James show fatigue at stretches during games, especially in the fourth quarter. Second Spectrum data shows that's when he runs the slowest, at 3.4 mph on average. So that when he needs something extra, he has it.” Almost immediately thereafter, he quotes Tyronn Lue, the Cavaliers head coach, saying, “[LeBron] gets tired after the game, but not during the game. I think it's his mental toughness. Not giving in to fatigue is a big part of who he is.”<br />
<br />
Did you see it?
<br />
<br />
Windhorst: “It isn’t unusual to see James show fatigue at stretches during games.”<br />
<br />
Lue: “He gets tired after the game, but not during the game.”
<br />
<br />
Which is it? What’s going on here?<br />
<br />
Well, Lue gives us a clue. He attributes James’s supposed ability to not get tired during a game to “mental toughness,” as though it’s possible to simply decide not to get tired. Gosh…wouldn’t that be wonderful? Now, to be fair to Lue, I think what he’s trying to do is to laud James’s ability to <em>overcome</em> his exhaustion, to still do amazing things <em>despite</em> how tired he is. But this is sports-speak <em>par excellence</em>. Take, for example, this tweet, sent by Fox Sports personality Chris Broussard during the Cavaliers’ loss to the Celtics on Tuesday night: “Boston just flat-out exhibiting more grit, guts, heart, hustle and execution.” Notice his urge to credit Boston’s grit, guts, and heart before turning to more measurable things like execution. This is the age-old desire to say that the winning team “wanted it more” rather than to simply say that they “played better.”<br />
<br />
Does LeBron James have enough mental toughness to decide not to be tired? Of course not. He does have the mental acuity to figure out ways to save up his energy, but he can’t just <em>decide</em> not to be tired. You’ve seen this in your own life, too: You don’t have the requisite mental toughness to decide lots of things. Try deciding to not be hungry when you’re starving or early when you’re late, to say nothing of deciding to be in a good mood when you’re in a bad one, or deciding to be happy when you’re sad. You can push through hunger…but it doesn’t make you not hungry. You can paste a smile on your face, but it doesn’t make you not sad. LeBron isn’t free to choose…he has to laboriously save up little pockets of energy throughout the game so that they’re available to him in crunch time. He has to stay just barely on the right side of exhaustion to avoid having nothing left when he needs it most. When LeBron’s tired, he doesn’t decide not to be. He walks. He’s less powerful than Lue thinks he is. He’s less free. In theological language, he’s bound. So are we. We’re not free to choose either. We can choose to <em>look</em> happy, but not to <em>be</em> happy.<br />
<br />
So if our wills fail us and our execution is lacking, too, because, unlike LeBron, we are often exhausted during the game…where do we turn? When we are exhausted, and haven’t adequately saved up a store of emergency energy, when our grit, guts, heart, hustle, and execution all fall short, we look somewhere else besides within. When no one would ever praise our mental toughness, we lift our eyes heavenward:
<br />
<blockquote>
I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth. He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade on your right hand. The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life. The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore (Psalm 121).</blockquote>
LeBron, it seems, only slumbers after the game is over...and usually wins. I am exhausted all the way through, and seem to always lose. Our God, though, is on the side of losers. He’s with the exhausted. He will not let our foot be moved, and he will not slumber, or abandon us. Not ever.
<!-- Blogger automated replacement: "https://images-blogger-opensocial.googleusercontent.com/gadgets/proxy?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mbird.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2018%2F05%2Flebron-james-cavs-ftr-051618jpg_1ayk9e8a44q5w1y0lby55o0zap.jpg&container=blogger&gadget=a&rewriteMime=image%2F*" with "https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/proxy/Tm6CupveC870He9EGTQLClfQMdgg6Tm5qG-vLdMbGcMP9aLii2vn9iePhM6x_G4No7Ai8AFdr62wvNkc9N4xNDNBNfw8qFSRzdYvwd5CWyVmbbPRsxcVFqdJ42mXLqH3RoFFK8mZnE1ez36lciVEQ1SxS0SnCVC1-F43qyyenYXS8A" -->Nick Lannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12618434434679868344noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896368258232952265.post-28322932075662807602018-05-04T15:01:00.000-04:002018-05-23T15:02:16.900-04:00Mamba Mentality for Losers<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/proxy/3BTsrodKPrPfcvrEa132x_XQxXjYu2IfsFM4G-zg3SyY92weG4HTsAsIZ_THyuIolZYju6XXkK2ogPViHi5GmZVFHYjO33U6AooifQZ5r8KyhZ_IKaAwwLBB6u8UIaJiilpx3hQ" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" border="0" class="wp-image-99974 size-full alignnone" src="http://www.mbird.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/hersweat-kobe-bryant-farewell.png" height="213" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
Kobe Bryant won’t go away. I was desperately waiting for him to retire so that I wouldn’t have to watch his brand of basketball or listen to his brand of pop-psychology anymore.<br />
<br />
Then he retired. But now he's back.<br />
<br />
Bryant developed a reputation during his playing career for being ultra-competitive (true) and always coming through in big moments (not true). There’s a difference, you see, between being willing to <em>take</em> an important shot at the end of a basketball game (competitive fire) and <em>actually making</em> that shot (coming through). Bryant was always willing to shoot it, regardless of the presence of more-open teammates, but his reputation belies his statistics about making it. In fact, Bryant holds the record for most missed shots in NBA history. In the final game of his career, he famously scored 60 points. What’s less reported is that <em>it took him fifty shots to do it</em>. The rest of his team shot nineteen times total. That’s a microcosm of Kobe’s entire professional life. In one of the most important games of his career, game 7 of the 2010 NBA finals (a finals in which he would win MVP), he shot 6-of-24.
<br />
<br />
And yet, he’s The Black Mamba.<br />
<br />
Sorry. I don’t like Kobe. Is that coming through?<br />
<br />
Bryant has been retired for several years, but the media doesn’t seem to want to let him fade into the obscurity his few detractors think he deserves. He has a new show called “Detail” during which he analyzes games during this year’s NBA playoffs. I’m sure he spends it lauding players who are willing to take bad shots and criticizing players who pass the ball to open teammates. That’s just not the Mamba way.<br />
<br />
Actually, it’s not "the Mamba Way," it's “Mamba Mentality” or #mambamentality. #MambaMentality is a term that Kobe has coined (he’s big on this; he gave himself his “Black Mamba” nickname) to describe his essence as he might come across it in another player. Russell Westbrook, for instance, who just last week took 43 shots in his Thunder’s season-ending loss to the Utah Jazz, could be said to possess #mambamentality. Not that Kobe said so. No, Kobe reserves #mambamentality for winners.<br />
<br />
A few weeks ago, during the Women's NCAA Tournament, Notre Dame’s Arike Ogunbowale made last-second game-winning shots in consecutive games (the National semi-final and the National Championship game) to secure the 2018 NCAA championship for her school. After the game, she was rewarded with a tweet from the Mamba himself: “Big time shot Arike! We are a @UConnWBB family but we love seeing great players making great plays. I know my lil sis @jewellloyd is happy Well done @ndwbb good luck on Sunday #mambamentality.”<br />
<br />
And, I mean, fair enough. It was inarguably a big-time shot. But #mambamentality? Where was Russell Westbrook’s tweet? Where are the tweets for all the losers who take big-time shots and miss them?<br />
<br />
Where’s the tweet for me?<br />
<br />
Kobe is trading in bad news here: His #mambamentality asks for something, but then judges with the benefit of hindsight. If the shot goes in, you had #mambamentality. If you miss, you’re just another failure. The irony, of course, is that Kobe missed far more than he made. And while, yes, it’s true that everyone misses more than they make, Kobe (recall) has <em>literally missed more than anyone else ever</em>. Several years ago, Henry Abbott of ESPN wrote <a href="http://www.espn.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/24200/the-truth-about-kobe-bryant-in-crunch-time" rel="noopener" target="_blank">an article about “the truth”</a> about Kobe Bryant in crunch time. A representative section:
<br />
<blockquote>
Ask pundits. Ask general managers. Ask players. Ask almost anybody. Who would you like to have take the last shot with the game on the line? Kobe Bryant wins by a country mile. Every time. (In a general-manager poll this season, he earned 79 percent of the vote, his ninth consecutive blowout.) There is not really any other serious candidate. Ask me, though (as Ryen Russillo did last week and Mike Trudell the other day), and I'll tell you I don't know who's the best, but with all due respect to Bryant's amazing abilities scoring the ball, there's zero chance he's the king of crunch time.</blockquote>
So we are left with a delicious irony: Kobe Bryant, who developed the idea of #mambamentality to reflect his willingness to take (over against his ability to make) big shots, now only bestows #mambamentality on people who can actually make those shots. Kobe wouldn't actually qualify for membership in his own club.<br />
<br />
Perhaps it seems like it should go without saying that the God of the Christian gospel is not like this. But it doesn’t go without saying. Many Christians—and most non-Christians—assume that God deals out his grace and love like Kobe deals out #mambamentality tweets. To the shot-makers. To the winners. To the success stories.<br />
<br />
It’s not true.<br />
<br />
An old Mike Yaconelli quote (from his <a href="https://amzn.to/2HSfEYT" rel="noopener" target="_blank"><em>Messy Spirituality</em></a>) popped up in my social media feed the other day:
<br />
<blockquote>
Nothing in the church makes people more angry than grace. It's ironic: we stumble into a party we weren't invited to and find the uninvited standing at the door making sure no other uninviteds get in. Then a strange phenomenon occurs: as soon as we are included in the party because of Jesus' irresponsible love, we decide to make grace "more responsible" by becoming self-appointed Kingdom Monitors, guarding the kingdom of God, keeping the riffraff out (which, as I understand it, are who the kingdom of God is supposed to include).</blockquote>
Kobe, who—as a great shot-misser—was given the undeserved clutch reputation, is now serving as the guard at the door of #mambamentality, and only the successful shot-makers need apply. The Kingdom of the God of the Gospel, on the other hand, includes great shot-missers like Kobe and Russell Westbrook, great shot-makers like Arike Ogunbowale, and perhaps most stunningly, you. And me.<br />
<br />
The Good News about Jesus Christ is that our inclusion is not based on our performance, but on his. #mambamentality is out the door.<br />
<br />
We shoot. We miss. We’re in. #GospelMentality.
<!-- Blogger automated replacement: "https://images-blogger-opensocial.googleusercontent.com/gadgets/proxy?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mbird.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2018%2F05%2Fhersweat-kobe-bryant-farewell.png&container=blogger&gadget=a&rewriteMime=image%2F*" with "https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/proxy/3BTsrodKPrPfcvrEa132x_XQxXjYu2IfsFM4G-zg3SyY92weG4HTsAsIZ_THyuIolZYju6XXkK2ogPViHi5GmZVFHYjO33U6AooifQZ5r8KyhZ_IKaAwwLBB6u8UIaJiilpx3hQ" -->Nick Lannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12618434434679868344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896368258232952265.post-36906644829191781112018-04-13T11:39:00.000-04:002018-05-23T11:39:27.161-04:00Geno Auriemma and the Tyranny of…Wait, Didn’t We Just Do This?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/proxy/z4fAgoINBHBnQNlCHuYZ3o7h3Z8oDXMA_4D3oUzmbFqqB6zJo5G4s5vOrcuWRuAFoffl-PhPNKndBtwKckgbnaMtOVXMWfd6GwdOiYYmRJNxYqwK_RbmOzf87LnHgJwiAJJ9_azBK3UZamgRPUURS5SN8ZlHWADiMw" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" border="0" class="wp-image-99445 size-large alignnone" src="http://mbird.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/3690581449001_5764786339001_5764689242001-vs-1024x681.jpg" height="212" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
Geno Auriemma is the high priest of women’s college basketball. His career record is 1027-136, which, I promise you, is not a typo. I checked it a bunch of times. His University of Connecticut basketball team is the unquestioned top dog (it’s a pun…they’re the Huskies) in the sport. They get all best recruits, lose an average of about one game a season, and nearly always win the N<span style="font-family: , "blinkmacsystemfont" , "segoe ui" , "roboto" , , "ubuntu" , "cantarell" , "helvetica neue" , sans-serif;">ational Championship.</span><br />
<br />
But Auriemma’s not satisfied. He has no peace.<br />
<br />
Sports seems to provide the perfect crucible for this sort of impossible-to-satisfy quest. <a href="http://www.nicklannon.com/2018/03/tom-time-and-tyranny-of-perfection.html" target="_blank">Tom Brady’s on it</a>, and so is almost every other athlete, from the superstars that you watch on television to the kids in your son’s YMCA league. <a href="http://www.nicklannon.com/2010/02/weight-of-olympic-expectations.html" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Bode Miller was</a>, and then found release, and wasn’t. There’s always another shot to be made, another goal to be scored, another level to reach. LeBron James has talked about “chasing the ghost” of Michael Jordan. It’s an apt metaphor: unless your name is Ray Stantz, Peter Venkman, Winston Zeddmore, or Egon Spengler, you’re not catching a ghost. In the world of sport and competition, the tyranny of perfection will raise its ugly head again and again.<br />
<br />
Recently, ESPN’s Wright Thompson wrote <a href="http://www.espn.com/espnw/feature/22832792/uconn-coach-geno-auriemma-only-pretending-okay" rel="noopener" target="_blank">a feature about Auriemma</a> and his pursuit of his 12<sup>th</sup> national title—which would eventually end in a nail-biting loss to Notre Dame in the national semi-final—called “Pretending to be Okay.” The subtitle is “Geno Auriemma judges his teams and his career against an unattainable ideal. Wright Thompson rides shotgun with the Huskies as they go for title No. 12 and discovers the coach's lone enemy: Auriemma himself.”<br />
<br />
Geno, it seems, needs Jesus.<br />
<br />
I don’t mean that in the sense that I know that Auriemma’s not a Christian and that he needs to be told the Good News about Jesus…I mean it in the sense that a Southern grandma might say it to a young boy struggling with some issue—some “unattainable ideal”—in his life: “Son, you need Jesus!”<br />
<br />
Thompson writes, “[Auriemma’s] talking about the first title in 1995 and how that felt so satisfying. ‘I gotta say,’ he says, ‘It's been all downhill from there. Unless we win a national championship, it's a bad year.’” Auriemma, the greatest in the world at what he does, considers himself to have been on a downhill slide <em>for the last twenty-three years</em>! Thompson continues, chillingly, “The need for perfection, in conflict with the human inability to ever actually achieve it, seems like a recipe for a one-way ticket to a loony bin. Auriemma laughs and smiles. ‘I got a bag of pills in my briefcase,’ he says. ‘I got issues.’”<br />
<br />
We are all, every one of us, acquainted with perfection, even if we never get nearly as close to it as Auriemma has (and he has several literally perfect—undefeated—seasons on his resumé). We know about perfection because, whether we believe in him or not, perfection is out there. A perfect God created this world, making us—down in our bones—attuned to the existence of such a perfection.<br />
<br />
And we can feel that we’re falling short. All the wins, all the accolades, all the times Geno hears that some NBA team should really try to hire him don’t do anything to assuage that tickle in the back of his mind: “I’m not perfect.”<br />
<br />
To combat it, Geno takes pills. I take Jesus. “The need for perfection, in conflict with the human inability to ever actually achieve it, seems like a recipe for a one-way ticket to a loony bin…” but for Jesus.<br />
<br />
In Matthew 5:48, when Jesus addresses our need to be perfect directly (“You therefore must be perfect, as your father in heaven is perfect”) he does it in the context of having already promised to be perfect for us. As he begins the Sermon on the Mount, in which he’ll announce this perfect standard, he makes sure to remind his listeners that perfection isn’t really part of their job description. It’s part of his. In verse 17, he says, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” Jesus has come to be the perfection that Geno Auriemma so desperately seeks. Jesus has come to be the righteousness that you so desperately need. That unreachable standard is fulfilled in Jesus.<br />
<br />
We’re all Geno Auriemma. To borrow his phrase, we all got issues. But those of us who know Christ have something bigger than our issues. Jesus said that “in the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). He meant nothing less than that. In Christ, the world—and all of its demands—is overcome.<br />
<br />
In the middle of Thompson’s piece, Auriemma gives what might be considered a little summary of his life. He says, “Everyone else thinks you have a flawless team, and you're the only one who's miserable.” This is the opposite of Gospel Christianity in every way: a Christian knows for sure that he or she is not flawless, and is in fact nowhere near so. And yet, because of Christ’s misery spilled out for us, we can have that one thing that eludes Auriemma: a peace that passes all understanding (Philippians 4:7). Our misery for Christ’s perfection. Christ’s perfection for our misery. An unreachable standard fulfilled, once and for all. In light of that, you can rest in the peace of Christ’s perfection for you.
<!-- Blogger automated replacement: "https://images-blogger-opensocial.googleusercontent.com/gadgets/proxy?url=http%3A%2F%2Fmbird.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2018%2F04%2F3690581449001_5764786339001_5764689242001-vs-1024x681.jpg&container=blogger&gadget=a&rewriteMime=image%2F*" with "https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/proxy/z4fAgoINBHBnQNlCHuYZ3o7h3Z8oDXMA_4D3oUzmbFqqB6zJo5G4s5vOrcuWRuAFoffl-PhPNKndBtwKckgbnaMtOVXMWfd6GwdOiYYmRJNxYqwK_RbmOzf87LnHgJwiAJJ9_azBK3UZamgRPUURS5SN8ZlHWADiMw" -->Nick Lannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12618434434679868344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896368258232952265.post-17085628409658812222018-03-20T11:31:00.000-04:002018-05-23T11:32:12.640-04:00Tom, Time, and the Tyranny of Perfection<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/proxy/SNEq0eDdrbavMo48Re_aVf9G8zhQzhXOBi7YIj6OyiWiwHegddytmDeVHfq_ldD5PWX938sizm3vGks-gq5YVccXORTs_EaWARNo4OeGudBkF8mJFdg7iMQruWUUAVc" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" border="0" class="wp-image-98680 size-full aligncenter" src="http://mbird.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/bradysbjpg-b93f269c057aeaac.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
I’m finally ready for Tom Brady again. Are you? We watched as he was doubted at points during the second-to-most-recent NFL season—during which he was thirty-nine years old—only to come back and win the Super Bowl. We watched as he was lauded last season—at forty—only to lose the Super Bowl. We’ve listened to sports talk radio wonder how long he can play, how long he can be good, how long, how long, how long. I needed a break. How long, Oh Lord (Psalm 40), must we listen to stories about Tom Brady?<br />
<br />
It’s March, and I guess I’m ready again. The first thing I read that got me interested in Brady again was this article from the website <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/tom-brady-is-drowning-in-his-own-junk-science-advice/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">FiveThirtyEight</a> about Brady’s “TB12” method (subtitle: How to Achieve a Lifetime of Sustained Peak Performance) which reads like one of those 20/20 exposes of Benny Hinn’s ministry. You know, the ones where they catch, with hidden cameras, Hinn’s minions pre-placing empty wheelchairs and discover that his own ministry is buying thousands and thousands of copies of his book. Brady’s TB12 book, according to the piece, reads as more of an advertisement for a set of products (that he sells) than as honest-though-scientifically-suspect advice for achieving your best.<br />
<br />
His new (actually several months old, but like I said, I’m only just now ready for Brady again) Facebook show “Tom vs. Time” has very much the same ring to it. Tellingly, at the very beginning of the first episode, Brady goes into a cupboard of scrapbooks and pulls one out at random. It’s from 2007, the year the previously undefeated Patriots lost to the Giants in the Super Bowl. He mumbles something about how that wasn’t a very happy ending and puts the book back. He grabs 2015, which ended in a Super Bowl win over the Falcons. Cue the highlight reel, and we’re back in Benny Hinn land. 2007 doesn’t fit the narrative: Tom Brady is a winner, and he wants you to be one, too.<br />
<br />
Oh, and he just happens to have a couple products for sale that might help you get there.<br />
<br />
Aside from the shopworn hucksterism—which is as old as snake oil and Uncle Rufus’ Old-Fashioned Family Recipe Cure-All Tonic—the most interesting thing about “Tom vs. Time” is the un-self-consciously ironic nature of the whole enterprise. The title, of course, is the most obvious example, but they don’t run away from the idea. They play audio of talk radio hosts proclaiming that “Father Time is undefeated” and have Brady himself saying that, after eighteen years in the league, and all the practice and film sessions and input and coaching that have come with those years, he really should be perfect by now. He’s not kidding.<br />
<br />
I’ve talked before (though perhaps elsewhere?) about my brief high school high jumping career, and the painful existential truth of any high jump competition: the bar always wins. In the high jump, the person who wins the competition is simply the person who loses last. The judges just keep moving the bar up, and up, and up, until the last competitor knocks it down three times. The high jump bar is undefeated, just like Father Time. Tom versus time is a contest in which the outcome is predetermined. No amount of pseudo-science (heck, no amount of <em>real</em> science) is going to give Tom Brady this victory. Martin Luther said that the quest for glory—a quest that Tom Brady admits eagerly and repeatedly that he is on—can never be satisfied; it must be extinguished. There is no peace, apparently, even in Super Bowl victories…Brady laments his imperfections even as the camera catches a fan in the stand holding up a poster of Brady with the legend G.O.A.T. (“Greatest of All Time”) under his picture. Brady needs to give up, but it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen…at least not of his own volition. After all, the man is starring in a show called “Tom vs. Time.”<br />
<br />
One of the first sentences Brady speaks in the series is, “If you want to compete with me, you better be ready to give up your life, because I am going to give up mine.” The tragedy of Tom Brady is that he is giving up his life even now. Sure, Gisele and the kids make a pretty family for Facebook’s cameras, but Brady’s quest is an onerous one. “If you choose something,” he says as he walks across his sun-dappled backyard, “you’re not choosing something else.” Fittingly, though sadly, he’s walking away from his family as he says it.<br />
<br />
What Brady is seeking so stringently is not actually victory, or greatness, or longevity, or acclaim. Though he doesn’t know it, he’s seeking forgiveness. Forgiveness for the mistakes he’s made in games, for the times he’s fallen short, for the times he’s chosen football over family. But he’s walking down a road that cannot—by definition—end in forgiveness, because forgiveness is not righteousness (however one defines it) achieved. Forgiveness is righteousness received.
<br />
<br />
There’s an old African-American spiritual I couldn’t get out of my head while watching “Tom vs. Time”: Peace Like a River. As I watched, I found myself wanting peace for Tom Brady. Luckily for me, as a Steelers fan, I don’t believe that more victories will give him peace. He doesn’t need any more of those. He’s had plenty, and is still “giving up his life” and battling time itself. His quest can never be satisfied. Peace will come when it’s extinguished. Here’s praying that he has ears to hear about a righteousness that cannot be achieved, but must be received…a righteousness that says, “I forgive you.”
<!-- Blogger automated replacement: "https://images-blogger-opensocial.googleusercontent.com/gadgets/proxy?url=http%3A%2F%2Fmbird.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2018%2F03%2Fbradysbjpg-b93f269c057aeaac.jpg&container=blogger&gadget=a&rewriteMime=image%2F*" with "https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/proxy/SNEq0eDdrbavMo48Re_aVf9G8zhQzhXOBi7YIj6OyiWiwHegddytmDeVHfq_ldD5PWX938sizm3vGks-gq5YVccXORTs_EaWARNo4OeGudBkF8mJFdg7iMQruWUUAVc" -->Nick Lannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12618434434679868344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896368258232952265.post-50871204332742385982018-03-01T11:28:00.000-05:002018-05-23T11:28:27.167-04:00Done and Never Done<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/proxy/VRdcubmWCE3cr4VB3tsjSXVTbXmumIV-582-7SR1VxDRFojudvNHkNFCXh_cs9btkV3_taZ2ih8FRMVDahHgWUJ-x0jvbK4wBcXTa-NYLuUXKc9-YatMsnViFDffXTLNrQorlfWOsmn4-d1X3MgFAIzssnLGcCfqldjMRGpFHf0Q" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" border="0" class="wp-image-98121 size-large alignnone" src="http://mbird.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/hi-res-0bea301a26eb7fb9f6dabfe17f6247ba_crop_north-1-1024x683.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
This NBA season has seen a spike in contentious behavior and talk between players and referees. Technical fouls are up, ejections are up, but most obviously, criticism is up. Referees aren’t available to the media, so we don’t have public instances of them criticizing players, but players are contractually obligated to talk to the media, so we have plenty of examples of them complaining about the refs. I guess that’s how the transaction works: a frustrated player complains after a frustrated official calls a technical foul. Which came first, the complaint or the technical? In a sense, this is nothing new: people have always rebelled against those tasked with keeping them in line. Even the most law-abiding among us feels a quickening of our heartbeat when we see a police car…the tension is real. It’s a fact of life.<br />
<br />
Or is it?<br />
<br />
Carmelo Anthony, a former perennial All-Star nearing the end of his career (at least, nearing the end of his career as an impactful player) <a href="http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/22115496/russell-westbrook-oklahoma-city-thunder-ejected-upsetting-carmelo-anthony" rel="noopener" target="_blank">recently made a fascinating comment</a>, attempting to call into question this basic fact of life. After his teammate, Russell Westbrook, was ejected from a game on January 15<sup>th</sup> after being assessed two technical fouls, Anthony said, “I'm done with them,” cutting off a question about the officials. “I'm done with the refs. No disrespect, but I'm done with those guys.”<br />
<br />
Let’s set aside for a moment the hilariously oxymoronic quality of his last sentence (No disrespect intended by my disrespectful comments) and focus on this point: he’s done with the refs. This is, itself, almost a non-sensical claim. Unless he’s planning to retire from the NBA, Carmelo Anthony cannot, by definition, be “done” with the refs. They are employed and empowered by the league to police his on-court behavior. Period. It would make as little sense if I said “I’m done with the police.” I could more readily say “I’m done” with more obviously ubiquitous things like capitalism or toilets. Those things are more easily eschewed than the police. No matter how “off the grid” I go, the police have still be given jurisdiction over me. If I break the law, all my protestations that “I’m done” with the police will fall on deaf ears.<br />
<br />
Paul says in Galatians that “God is not mocked” (6:7). Part of what he’s getting at is that we cannot dismissively wave God away. Not believing in God is like not believing in gravity: it might work out okay for a time but it just means that the apple that will inevitably fall on your head will come as a great surprise. For example, there has recently been significant flooding in my hometown of Louisville, Kentucky, and I can imagine Carmelo Anthony looking out his Ohio River-side window (he doesn’t live here, but you’ll forgive the image) and saying, “I'm done with this flood. No disrespect, but I'm done with all that water.” Making such a statement makes us feel powerful, as though we have the authority and ability to banish the thing that constricts us, but it will not keep the water from pouring into our basement and ruining all of our stored Christmas decorations.<br />
<br />
When people dismiss God, they are usually dismissing his law: “I don’t want anyone to tell me what to do.” But God is not mocked; his law still condemns all people, for it is written on our hearts (Romans 2:15). This is why the people who are supposedly the most free, those who have rejected any overarching system, are just as weighted down by life as anyone else. God is not mocked, the law is real, and the floodwaters are rising.<br />
<br />
Better then, when you hear about a flood, to escape. Better then, when you hear the proclamation of the law (e.g. “Therefore you must be perfect, as your Father in Heaven is perfect” [Matthew 5:48]) to call out for a savior. Saying, “That doesn’t apply to me” is the same as saying “I’m done with the refs” or “I’m done with all this water.” It’s a good soundbite, but it doesn’t keep you dry, or in the game.<br />
<br />
The law was given—the floodwaters have come—to show you your need for savior (Romans 3:20). It applies to you. You’re not done with the refs. But the refs don’t have the final word over you. Jesus Christ has that, and his word over you is “It is finished.” You’re not done with the refs, but the refs are done with you.
<!-- Blogger automated replacement: "https://images-blogger-opensocial.googleusercontent.com/gadgets/proxy?url=http%3A%2F%2Fmbird.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2018%2F03%2Fhi-res-0bea301a26eb7fb9f6dabfe17f6247ba_crop_north-1-1024x683.jpg&container=blogger&gadget=a&rewriteMime=image%2F*" with "https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/proxy/VRdcubmWCE3cr4VB3tsjSXVTbXmumIV-582-7SR1VxDRFojudvNHkNFCXh_cs9btkV3_taZ2ih8FRMVDahHgWUJ-x0jvbK4wBcXTa-NYLuUXKc9-YatMsnViFDffXTLNrQorlfWOsmn4-d1X3MgFAIzssnLGcCfqldjMRGpFHf0Q" -->Nick Lannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12618434434679868344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896368258232952265.post-51928418489952268932018-02-17T10:01:00.000-05:002018-05-22T15:15:40.925-04:00A Funeral Sermon for a Friend<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-h5ej_5TS4hw/WonAseb6s0I/AAAAAAAAEzc/f4xN3yU8Xd48D9UfEw7v30FiyRE3P-TOgCLcBGAs/s1600/Funeral.jpg.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="800" height="180" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-h5ej_5TS4hw/WonAseb6s0I/AAAAAAAAEzc/f4xN3yU8Xd48D9UfEw7v30FiyRE3P-TOgCLcBGAs/s320/Funeral.jpg.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. (Revelation 7:14-17)</blockquote>
I knew my friend well for a few years but, on reflection, never that deeply. My now-wife lived with her before we were married, and though our paths crossed socially, the connection was never particularly profound. For instance, I know she liked the movie <i>Labyrinth</i>, but I don't know how she liked to spend her vacations. I don't know how she related to her kids, or her favorite things to share with her husband. Perhaps, then, you're wondering how I can prepare a sermon for the funeral of woman I didn’t know deeply? Too many questions seem unanswered: was she good or bad? Honest or deceitful? Caring or cold?<br />
<br />
The truth is, though these questions—while important to knowing her as a person—are ultimately unimportant in getting to know her most profound identity: redeemed child of God.<br />
<br />
I didn’t know her deeply, but I know one thing down to the very marrow of my bones: she is gone too soon. It's not supposed to be this way. Of course, even when a person dies in their nineties, with no pain and surrounded by their loving family...it's not supposed to be that way, either. The bald and hateful fact of death is a result of the brokenness of this world, a place that is groaning in pain. It is the wages of sin, of our separation from God. There's a reason that John, in his vision in the book of Revelation, calls this life "the great tribulation." Tribulation, indeed. Those of us who had to watch her, her husband, the kids, and their families go through the pain of the last several weeks know all too well what tribulation is.<br />
<br />
Today, though our tribulation continues, and is made all the more painful by her absence, her own tribulation is ended. She is washed white in the blood of the lamb. She is sheltered by his presence. So, in a sense, we celebrate.<br />
<br />
See, funerals are a curious time for Christians: we are sad, and yet we celebrate. We laugh and cry, almost at the same time. We are crushed, and yet are hopeful. We feel, at the death of a loved one, the profound disconnect between the way things are and the way things ought to be. And the juxtapositions don't stop there: our beloved friend, mother, wife, and sister in Christ, is dead. And yet, we find ourselves assured that, actually, no, she is alive! "Jesus said...'I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live'" (John 11:25). The dead in Christ...are alive? Can we believe it? Listen to the rest of the full scene from Revelation 7:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”</blockquote>
On account of Christ’s rising from the dead and defeating death by dying, we need never fear that death will have the final word over any one of us. Salvation belongs to our God. He secured it by overcoming death forever. The empty tomb is the foundation of our hope. This is why we celebrate, this is why we can laugh. We are part of that mighty multitude praising God, for salvation belongs to him...and he has decided to give it to us. This is why my friend's death can be a celebration, why we can laugh when we think of her. Not because we’re not sad. We are. Profoundly sad. We celebrate because our hope is founded on nothing less than the risen Christ, our savior who has promised just such a resurrection to us. My friend, today, has been given her promised resurrection.<br />
<br />
So nothing less than a miracle has happened, a miracle that happened once and is now extended: our savior, who was dead, is alive. And he has promised that eternal life to us.<br />
<br />
We don’t lose heart because of the hope we have in Jesus. We can laugh because of the peace we have in Jesus. After all, he said, “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). Therefore I can proclaim good news to you: that our friend is enjoying eternal heavenly peace with her Lord and Savior Jesus Christ because that peace is not dependent on her! Her peace is dependent on—and secured by—that same Lord and savior Jesus Christ.<br />
<br />
You see, it’s not important that I didn’t know my friend deeply. What <i>is</i> important is that she was known and loved by Jesus. She knew Jesus, and took her comfort in him. Jesus knew her, and died on the cross for her.<br />
<br />
So it doesn’t matter if she was good or bad, though she was good. It doesn’t matter if she was honest or deceitful, though she was honest. It doesn’t matter if she was caring or cold, though she was caring. She was a Christian, beloved by God on account of Christ. <i>That's</i> what matters. Her eternal life is secured by the goodness of Jesus.<br />
<br />
This is the Good News for us today: A sinful human being, even one as wonderful as my friend, today is at rest with Christ in paradise. We know that Jesus has recognized a sheep of his own fold, a lamb of his own flock, a sinner of his own redeeming. My friend is his. The disconnect between the way things are and the way things ought to be is—for her—closed forever. For her, things are now—and will be forever—just as they ought to be. As John’s vision in Revelation chapter 7 attests, she is before the throne of God and serves him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will shelter her with his presence. Never again will she hunger; never again will she thirst. The sun will not beat down on her, nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be her shepherd; he will lead her to springs of living water. And God will wipe away every tear from her eyes.<br />
<br />
This miracle is true for my friend today. Amen.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
Nick Lannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12618434434679868344noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896368258232952265.post-51762678371609388852018-02-13T11:22:00.000-05:002018-05-23T11:22:20.299-04:00Chris Mazdzer, Passive Righteousness, and the Fastest Sport on Ice<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/proxy/L5wr9-DWCWmZlZXwAVgakmt7yyoO5AZOxK0D5QOtgWDMExjo0A5FaPiGuWO7J-AonckaYMO5m2lU-vnPnbIQDeaCQ4N9QLH8jISE-Zl9Di11xcXhYJ5TbA9airqUvdTe7CVpgjnV2azemsOSUgcz" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" border="0" class="wp-image-97763 size-large alignnone" src="http://mbird.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/PYEONGCHANG_OLYMPICS_LUGE_48271284-1024x667.jpg" height="208" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
The other day, Chris Mazdzer did something no American has ever done: medal in the Olympic luge. You know the luge, it’s the one where the seemingly rubber-suited guys lie on their back on a sled and hurtle down the bobsled track at 80 miles an hour, sneaking an occasional peak to see where in God’s name they’re going and on which upcoming turn they might die. It’s a sport dominated by Eastern Europeans, because we Americans have apparently decided we have better things to do, like explaining, during literally every single routine, the excruciatingly simple colored dots scoring system used for figure skating. Note to Johnny Weir: we get it. Seriously.<br />
<br />
As an Olympic-level Olympics addict, I am accustomed to the studio host throwing it down to Lewis Johnson, who’s standing there with the athlete who either 1) just accomplished the thing they’ve spent decades working toward and who is now being given sixty seconds to put “how they feel” into words, or 2) just made a tiny mistake nullifying the accomplishment that they’ve spent decades working toward and who is now being given sixty seconds to put “how they feel” into words. Invariably, win or lose, the athlete will pull out some worn platitude about effort or desire or about never letting anyone (or anything, including the only moments-old failure) stand in the way of your dreams.<br />
<br />
It’s the worst. But enter Chris Mazdzer, who'd just won a silver medal. He had something quite different to say:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
"Honestly? It's all in the mentality. I was so comfortable with who I am. I had to go through those ruts to be comfortable with who I am <em>without</em> results. Basically, as a human, I'm comfortable where I'm at, I know what I can do, I know what I can give to the world...I was just so relaxed, just knowing that. I was really at peace with myself. So no matter what happened, I have an amazing group of friends and family that are there to support me, and I think they give me tons of energy for this."</blockquote>
Martin Luther, the great Reformer, talked about a difference (and necessary distinction) between "active" and "passive" righteousness, and that’s just what Mazdzer is getting at here, most likely without knowing it. Luther said that it was only when a person could accept that all the goodness, love, and acceptance (in other words, righteousness) that one could possibly need was received passively (i.e. without doing anything to earn or previously merit it) from God via his one-way action could that person then turn around and love their neighbor (“active righteousness”) without needing anything from him or her in return. So, contrary to the world’s way of thinking, which teaches that the quality of love you show your neighbor determines the quality of love you receive from God, Christianity teaches the exact opposite: that a righteousness with which you act must necessarily come from a righteousness you have first received.<br />
<br />
This, by the way, is Good News: you are righteous because God, on account of Christ, has decided to call you so, not because you have earned the moniker by the sweat of your spiritual brow.<br />
<br />
Chris Mazdzer gets it. If he had to slide fast to earn the love and acceptance of his family, he’s done for. He might as well have—and probably would have—crashed into the first turn. How sweet it is for him, then, to know that the love and acceptance of his family is something <em>he already possesses</em>! He is comfortable with who he is, with his righteousness, <em>without results</em>. His righteousness is completely passive. He is free to go all out, court failure, and actually win (or at least come as close to winning as an American luger could possibly get)!<br />
<br />
If you had to worry (as perhaps you have, or even do) that your belovedness was contingent on your service, you’d be done for. The best case scenario there is tireless effort, leading inevitably to either self-righteousness or despair. Enough is never enough. The worst case scenario is walking off the field (or descending from the luge start house) without even trying. Why try to please such a demanding God? The good news for Christians is that our demanding God is pleased already, but not by us: "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased" (Matthew <span class="aBn" data-term="goog_933281631" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ">3:17</span></span>). When we lie back on the luge and look down the track of the Christian life (too far? I’ve stretched the metaphor too far, haven’t I? Oh well, might as well plow ahead...), we can push off knowing that we can crash into every turn all the way down and not sacrifice one iota of love, acceptance, and favor that is ours, from God, on account of Christ. We didn’t do anything to earn it—we received it passively—and so don’t need to worry about losing it. As Chris Mazdzer slid perfectly, knowing that he was beloved even if he finished last, we can crash and burn, cross the finish line last, look up, and see our name atop the leaderboard.<br />
<br />
In Christ, victory is yours, before you even begin. So feel free to go sledding.
<!-- Blogger automated replacement: "https://images-blogger-opensocial.googleusercontent.com/gadgets/proxy?url=http%3A%2F%2Fmbird.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2018%2F02%2FPYEONGCHANG_OLYMPICS_LUGE_48271284-1024x667.jpg&container=blogger&gadget=a&rewriteMime=image%2F*" with "https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/proxy/L5wr9-DWCWmZlZXwAVgakmt7yyoO5AZOxK0D5QOtgWDMExjo0A5FaPiGuWO7J-AonckaYMO5m2lU-vnPnbIQDeaCQ4N9QLH8jISE-Zl9Di11xcXhYJ5TbA9airqUvdTe7CVpgjnV2azemsOSUgcz" -->Nick Lannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12618434434679868344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896368258232952265.post-3337676024547101082018-01-18T15:11:00.000-05:002018-05-22T15:15:11.329-04:00Death, Taxes, and the New England Patriots<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FF9f4Wuwxd0/WwRsNnIeN4I/AAAAAAAAE2Q/9rdPvCxzaKweOcpSL414aTAzDC_3gIFVwCLcBGAs/s1600/steelerslosing.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="628" data-original-width="960" height="209" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FF9f4Wuwxd0/WwRsNnIeN4I/AAAAAAAAE2Q/9rdPvCxzaKweOcpSL414aTAzDC_3gIFVwCLcBGAs/s320/steelerslosing.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
I’m a Pittsburgh Steelers fan. In the main, the Steelers are a pretty great team for whom to root. They’re almost always pretty good, and win their division most years. Their ownership is stable, evidenced by the fact that they’ve had three coaches since 1969. For comparison’s sake, the Cleveland Browns—a nominal rival of the Steelers—have had eighteen coaches in that same period. The Browns are terrible. One of my favorite statistics is that, since he entered the league, Ben Roethlisberger, the Steelers’ veteran quarterback, is the winningest quarterback at the Browns’ stadium…and he plays there once per season. The Steelers have won six Super Bowls, more than any other franchise.<br />
<br />
Yes, being a Steelers fan is a pretty good life. Except for the New England Patriots. There’s a simple truth here: the Patriots are better than the Steelers in just about every way. Their quarterback (Tom Brady) is better than ours. Their coach (Bill Belichick) is better than ours. They’ve been to seven consecutive AFC Championship games. Neither of the two Super Bowls the Steelers have won in the Brady era have featured victories against the Patriots. Brady is 7-2 all-time against Roethlisberger. I could say that our uniforms are better than theirs—this is inarguably true—but when you start getting down to hosiery, you know you’re scraping the bottom of the barrel.<br />
<br />
This past weekend, the Steelers and the Patriots both played football games in which they were heavily favored for the right to meet each other in the AFC Championship game. The Patriots played (and soundly defeated) the Tennessee Titans, because of course they did. The Steelers played (and lost to) the Jacksonville Jaguars.<br />
<br />
This recent loss to Jacksonville is, by any measure, a complete embarrassment. ESPN personality Michael Wilbon called the Steelers (seven point favorites pre-game) “dogs.” There’s at least some honor is losing to Brady. But the Jaguars’ quarterback, Blake Bortles, is the anti-Tom Brady. While Brady is almost universally regarded as the greatest of all time, Bortles has spent his short NFL career becoming a walking punchline. In August, when asked about how practicing against Drew Brees helped his defense, Saints defensive end Cameron Jordan said, “It helps the defense. It’s not like we're going against Blake Bortles.” In September, Ted Cruz—yes, that one—tweeted that “losing to Blake Bortles twice in one week would just be cruel.” Blake Bortles, and the rest of the Jaguars, put 45 points on the Steelers on Sunday afternoon.<br />
<br />
So why am I not rending my garments? Why am I not gnashing my teeth? Because the Steelers were going to lose to the Patriots this upcoming week anyway.<br />
<br />
In 2 Corinthians 3, Paul writes about two "ministries." Here’s what he says:
<br />
<blockquote>
“Now if the ministry of death, carved in letters on stone, came with such glory that the Israelites could not gaze at Moses' face because of its glory, which was being brought to an end, will not the ministry of the Spirit have even more glory? For if there was glory in the ministry of condemnation, the ministry of righteousness must far exceed it in glory. Indeed, in this case, what once had glory has come to have no glory at all, because of the glory that surpasses it. For if what was being brought to an end came with glory, much more will what is permanent have glory” (v.7-11).</blockquote>
The New England Patriots are a ministry of death. Their greatness is carved in letters on stone. They are so glorious that mere mortals cannot look them full in the face. Tom Brady wears Ugg boots in public and barely takes any heat for it. The Patriots are unassailable. I do not rend my garments and I do not gnash my teeth for a simple reason: I am already dead.<br />
<br />
The glory of the Patriots has destroyed the ability of a loss to the Jaguars to affect me. I’m dead already. This is how, if you’ll pardon the admittedly superficial example, the ministry “carved in letters on stone” works. God’s law—holy and righteous as it is—destroys any chance for victory. The bare existence of the Patriots terminates any hope I might have for Steelers glory. There’s no use, for instance, in saying “Wait until next year.” The Patriots will be there. They are eternal. They are carved in letters on stone. As Martin Luther so eloquently put it, “The quest for glory can never be satisfied. It must be extinguished.” Notice the source of the action here: the quest must be extinguished <em>by some outside force</em>. No one willingly puts away their quest for glory. It must be ripped from their cold, dead hands. This is a Patriots specialty. The law is glorious, so glorious that it hurts the eyes…but it will crush you. Just ask the Tennessee Titans.<br />
<br />
But there is a more glorious glory.<br />
<br />
While the ministry carved in letters on stone—the law—brings death, there is a better glory. It’s Case Keenum. Ha. Just kidding. The better glory is a ministry of righteousness and peace. “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid,” says Jesus in John 14:27. Grace and mercy are foreign concepts in the world of professional sports. If you don’t perform, you lose. If you don’t perform, you get fired. If you don’t perform, Blake Bortles beats you.<br />
<br />
From the smoking ashes of our quests for glory, though, Jesus raises up a new life. This new life is a peaceful life; it does not depend on anything for sustenance but the free gift of Christ himself. His success, given for our failure; his faithfulness, given for our faithlessness; his victory, given for our defeat.<br />
<br />
The law of sin and death, carved in letters on stone, is defeated forever. Unlike the Patriots. I doubt they’ll ever lose again.Nick Lannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12618434434679868344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896368258232952265.post-42706948410772482302018-01-05T15:04:00.000-05:002018-05-22T15:15:25.400-04:00UCF Tries to Make Themselves...Just Like Me<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-gTlpUmn1o4s/WwRqx59nHAI/AAAAAAAAE2E/JrcsVH_4JLMHjUXDt9bZ3KMhmRY_tXUtgCLcBGAs/s1600/UCF-coach.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="518" data-original-width="920" height="180" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-gTlpUmn1o4s/WwRqx59nHAI/AAAAAAAAE2E/JrcsVH_4JLMHjUXDt9bZ3KMhmRY_tXUtgCLcBGAs/s320/UCF-coach.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
Are you excited for the Georgia/Alabama game on Monday? The one that will crown the 2018 National Champi…oh, wait. Apparently the University of Central Florida <a href="http://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/21951014/ucf-knights-raise-national-championship-banner" rel="noopener" target="_blank">already claimed the 2018 National Championship</a> after their Peach Bowl victory over Auburn (admittedly, the only team who beat both Georgia and Alabama this season). What are we to make of this? In one sense, it’s almost honorable: the school is celebrating a group of students who accomplished something remarkable and is even paying its coaches the national championship bonuses called for in their contracts. There is even precedent for this behavior: calling yourself a national champion—despite the facts of the case—<a href="http://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/21954302/ucf-not-first-school-call-national-champion" rel="noopener" target="_blank">doesn’t seem to be anything new</a>. There’s even the (potentially, for you) compelling argument that…who cares? This is a “sports ball” issue and, honestly, isn’t there so much else in this world upon which we might more profitably spend our time?<br />
<br />
But—all of that aside—there is that one little thing: either Georgia or Alabama will be BCS National Champions…not UCF.<br />
<br />
I’m not here to dump on UCF, though…I’m here to say that I AM UCF. I totally and completely understand the urge to self-proclaim. To self-create. To self-justify. It is perhaps the most human urge there is.<br />
<br />
In the 90s, there was a small-time (though they seemed like they might be pretty big back then) band called Incubus, and their hit album was called “Make Yourself.” (<a href="http://www.nicklannon.com/2009/06/thoughts-on-kobe-and-sex-demons.html">I’ve actually written about this album before</a>). The gist of the title track is that you’ve got to make yourself, because if anyone else does it, they’re going to mess everything up.<br />
<br />
This is the opposite of the truth. We are all making ourselves all of the time, and we are incessantly messing everything up. There is perhaps no more self-evident truth in the world today: to the extent that I am in charge of myself, I mess up.<br />
<br />
The only reason I don’t hang a pastor-of-the-year banner inside my house is that my own family would laugh at me. No one else is going to name me pastor of the year, so I’d better do it myself, right? No one else is going to value me, so I'd better value myself. No one else is going to...but wait: what if someone has? What if I already had all the value I could ever need? What if I was already as secure in my belovedness as I ever could be? What if I was already as justified as it was possible to be?<br />
<br />
I am. You are, too.<br />
<br />
That is exactly what the Good News about Jesus Christ proclaims. That is the Christian Gospel. There is no need to self-create: you are created in the image of—and then redeemed by—God.<br />
<br />
There is no need to self-justify: the righteous blood of Christ has accomplished that justification for you.
There is no need to hang a National Championship banner…you already had an incredible season. The thing that UCF sought so desperately—excellence and dominance—is already theirs. That thing we seek so desperately—love and acceptance—is already ours in Christ.<br />
<br />
It is finished.
Nick Lannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12618434434679868344noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896368258232952265.post-12071801171593643592017-07-31T11:19:00.000-04:002018-05-08T11:22:51.947-04:00The Celebration Department<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/proxy/MoO_9aVVXw3SiG-jDSE3bcq2322ZU-KEcCj4JNdVi0zUF-_BcRO8W_lfngIown3rM7mxhABQDyZ2oJE7SXwf5hV665tQPRsNYwDK7V2LaxRuCMNV6QX7" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" border="0" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-91933" src="http://www.mbird.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/carlton-500x284.jpg" height="181" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
I want to be clear about something from the very start: I adore my cell phone. From the very first time I found myself in the grocery store, not knowing if my wife wanted tuna fish packed in water or in oil <em>and I was actually able to call and find out</em>, I was in love. I like social media, being able to keep up with my friends…GPS maps…weather prediction…google at my fingertips…it’s all incredible. I do admit, though, to a certain disturbing compulsion with the phone. Whenever there’s a moment in which nothing else is going on, I feel that itch in my fingers. What’s going on? Has anyone emailed me? How many likes does my last Instagram post have? I’ve even, I’m ashamed to admit, texted while driving. What am I thinking? Why do I that? Where does this compulsion to go to my phone come from?<br />
<br />
I never really knew, until Louis CK told me. Here’s what he said, during an appearance on CONAN:
<br />
<blockquote>
Underneath everything in our lives there’s that thing. That empty. That forever empty. That knowledge that it’s all for nothing and that you’re alone. And when things clear away, and you’re not watching anything, or you’re in your car, that knowledge that you’re alone starts to visit on you. Just this sadness. Life is tremendously sad. That’s why we text and drive. I look around, pretty much 100% of people driving are texting. People are willing to risk taking a life and ruining their own because they don’t want to be alone for a second. Because it’s so hard.</blockquote>
“People are willing to risk taking a life and ruining their own because they don’t want to be alone for a second. Because it’s so hard.” Now, of course, as Christians we do not believe that it’s all for nothing and we do not believe that we are alone. And yet…we know the feeling, don’t we? All people do.<br />
<br />
Remember Paul’s agonized cry at the end of Romans 7? After he laments his inability to do the good things that he wants to do and his compulsion to do the things that he hates, he shouts out into the void, “Who will rescue me from this body of death?” (v. 24) Anyone who has come face-to-face with the truth about themselves has screamed this question. Maybe not out an open window; maybe not out loud at all. Maybe just through clenched teeth looking in the mirror this morning. “Who can save me from this incredible mess I’ve made?” This is what Louis CK is talking about. This is the empty that most people feel, and the reason we can’t stand being alone. We need a rescuer: “Who will rescue me from this body of death?” This is the universal human cry. St. Paul, Louis CK, you, me…all of us. So who <em>will</em> rescue us? Well, we know the answer—spoiler alert, our savior is Jesus Christ, redeemer of the world—but let’s think for a moment about that daily empty that Louis CK talks about. Who will save us from that?<br />
<br />
Most people, Christians included, come somehow to the conclusion that they are going to have to save themselves. The problem is that we are inveterate doers, not able to trust others to do things for us. We like, when we see a problem, to roll up our sleeves and get to work. We are producers; we like tangible results. We like to look back at the end of a day and see a job well done. But truly introspective people—people who are honest <em>with</em> themselves <em>about</em> themselves—know that things don’t work out so simply. Things aren’t right just the way they are. People feel the friction between the way things are and the way they’re supposed to be. That’s why everyone’s striving, working, struggling. Every person you see on the street…every person you meet in your life…is trying to figure out a way to get from the way things are to the way things ought to be. Because at the end of most days, we look back and don't see a job well done. Our tangible results are disappointing. Our personal production department hasn’t met its quota. We got to work, but our work left us short of our goal. And we wake up the next morning, get to work again, and more often than not come away once again defeated. As Louis CK says, life is tremendously sad.
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/proxy/UAfvBUaCK9ry_60QeJoHsB-aSKvgDoPvQWoTvQ1j-G9Q8crVRCGHdi24I8-3taRLSTodMw-U3GYjQ9Xa0JxU0fUbsebEZklmJD3YNlXteBvU9nGsltxy" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" border="0" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-91934" src="http://www.mbird.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/louisck-500x281.jpg" height="179" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
So, in general, we agree with Louis CK about our diagnosis. Life is tremendously sad. We don’t want to be alone for a second. Because it’s so hard.<br />
<br />
What’s the prescription? What will rescue us from this body of death? What’s the medicine we can take to fix things? How do we heal ourselves from this sickness? Like I said before, we are doers. We’re producers. We want to get to work healing ourselves, but what do we do? What’s the rehab regimen? Our cell phones can distract us for a few minutes, but they’re not a lasting solution.<br />
<br />
To find a more permanent healing, many Christians have turned to these verses from Romans, or the many like them in the New Testament: “For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace” (Romans 8:5-6). There you go, it seems…a simple prescription: set your mind on the things of the Spirit, and you will have life and peace. And don't live according to the flesh, because that leads to death. Sounds simple enough, right? And to our workaholic ears, our ears addicted to doing things, to production, it sounds downright attractive. It sounds like good medicine. But I think St. Paul is saying something a bit different. And thankfully, Jesus has words for us—in one of his most famous and oft-misunderstood parables—that can help us understand what Paul is saying here.<br />
<br />
You know it well, the parable of the sower (and you can read the whole thing in Matthew 13): there’s a sower sowing seeds, and seeds fall on different kinds of soil. Some fall on the path, some on rocky ground, some among thorns. All of these seeds fail to flourish. They’re eaten by birds, can’t be sustained by insufficient soil, or are choked by the thorns. Only seeds that fall on good soil flourish. The seeds that are eaten by birds symbolize people who don’t understand the word of the kingdom, the seeds sown on rocky ground symbolize people who fall away due to trouble or persecution because of a lack of deep roots of faith, and the seed sown amongst the thorns symbolize people whose faith is choked away by the cares of the world. Only the seed sown on the good soil, representing people who hear the word and understand it, can take root and grow, bearing fruit, thirty, sixty, or even a hundred-fold.<br />
<br />
Our natural instinct as human beings is to interpret this parable in the same way that we wanted to interpret those sentences from Romans 8. There, it was “live according to the spirit, don’t live according to the flesh.” Here, it’s “make sure you are the seed sown on good soil. Don’t be like the seed sown on the path, or on rocky ground, or among the thorns.”<br />
<br />
Here’s the thing, though: Jesus has told the parable of the sower in such a way that we simply <em>cannot interpret it like that</em>! That natural human interpretation—be careful what kind of seed you are—makes literally no sense in the context of the parable. How can a seed choose which kind of soil in which to be sown? It’s impossible! It’s the sower who sows the seeds! The seeds mindlessly fall wherever they are sown. Jesus has given us <em>the most passive illustration possible</em>. We are not the sower in his story. We are the seeds.<br />
<br />
Now, this is disturbing. I understand that. It seems to take away our agency. If we’re just the seeds, and we’re powerless to control where the sower sows us, how can we control our fates? How can we make sure we’re those flourishing seeds? Well, we can’t. We don't control our fates. But take comfort, brothers and sisters, this is <i>good</i> news. The fact that we are passive seeds being sown by an active sower is only scary until we know that the sower is God almighty, father of Jesus Christ, savior and redeemer of the world. To people who can’t always—or, let’s be honest, ever—control where our minds are set, hearing “to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace” is terrifyingly scary, until you read what Paul writes directly before and after it. Hear these words of comfort in Romans 8, verse 9: “But you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you.”<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/proxy/iRnpR_ky1KzIxoMiGU9-yhrWiHCRj4TJA4xaiRxf9PJzWxjg4Oiqh4NMZBpEy8EYFwr_OOCkzPgLlNsZLCWVlmVcQf8fcgZ8zxoqdG-WTwyFdc1cSJmSiUtLyCGt9Z2p" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" border="0" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-91935" src="http://www.mbird.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wheat-field_421-500x281.jpeg" height="179" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
Notice what’s missing? There are <em>no conditions</em>! No, if/then! Just “You are not in the flesh!” And guess what? If you look back at the scary verses—“to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace”—there are no conditions there either! No if/then. These verses are not prescriptions for you to use to heal yourself, they are not medicine; instead, they are descriptions of the goodness of the Good News! “To set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.”<br />
<br />
This is the sweetest Gospel, beautiful music to the ears of us who worry that we don’t adequately set our minds on the spirit, that we might have been sown on the path, or on rocky soil, or among the thorns, we whose hard work doesn’t yield the results we’d hoped and whose production departments have fallen well short of expectation. Right after we realize our shortcomings, our inability to do what we want and our compulsion to do the things we hate and we call out to God for a savior, we get one: “Thanks be to God, who saves through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 7:25). But Paul’s not done: “There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and to deal with sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, so that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit” (Romans 8:1-4).<br />
<br />
Hear the Good News today: On account of Christ, you don’t have to worry about whether you are in the Spirit or in the flesh. God has acted. On account of Christ, the God who gave his life for you, you are in the Spirit. You don’t have to worry about the kind of soil in which you’re planted. God has acted. On account of Christ, you <em>are</em> the seed thrown on good soil!<br />
<br />
We agreed on the diagnosis: simply put, life is impossible. What’s the prescription? How do you heal yourself? You don’t. God has acted. You are healed. There is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus and there is nothing more you must do. We don’t need to be doers anymore. We’ve been promoted! We’re not in the production department. We’re in the celebration department.<br />
<br />
So let’s celebrate. Let’s bask in the sunshine of a day in which there is no work to be done, our tangible results are prepared for us in advance by Christ, and the doors of our personal production departments are locked tight and there are banners hanging out the windows that read “It is Finished.” In Christ, God has done what your hard work couldn’t: made a sinner like you righteous. He has sown you on good, fertile soil and has sent his Spirit to dwell within you. He has finished the work and accomplished the goal of your salvation. “For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.” That is absolutely true. But take comfort. God has acted. In Christ, you are in the Spirit. In Christ, you have life and peace.
<!-- Blogger automated replacement: "https://images-blogger-opensocial.googleusercontent.com/gadgets/proxy?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mbird.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2017%2F07%2Fwheat-field_421-500x281.jpeg&container=blogger&gadget=a&rewriteMime=image%2F*" with "https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/proxy/iRnpR_ky1KzIxoMiGU9-yhrWiHCRj4TJA4xaiRxf9PJzWxjg4Oiqh4NMZBpEy8EYFwr_OOCkzPgLlNsZLCWVlmVcQf8fcgZ8zxoqdG-WTwyFdc1cSJmSiUtLyCGt9Z2p" --><!-- Blogger automated replacement: "https://images-blogger-opensocial.googleusercontent.com/gadgets/proxy?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mbird.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2017%2F07%2Fcarlton-500x284.jpg&container=blogger&gadget=a&rewriteMime=image%2F*" with "https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/proxy/MoO_9aVVXw3SiG-jDSE3bcq2322ZU-KEcCj4JNdVi0zUF-_BcRO8W_lfngIown3rM7mxhABQDyZ2oJE7SXwf5hV665tQPRsNYwDK7V2LaxRuCMNV6QX7" --><!-- Blogger automated replacement: "https://images-blogger-opensocial.googleusercontent.com/gadgets/proxy?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mbird.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2017%2F07%2Flouisck-500x281.jpg&container=blogger&gadget=a&rewriteMime=image%2F*" with "https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/proxy/UAfvBUaCK9ry_60QeJoHsB-aSKvgDoPvQWoTvQ1j-G9Q8crVRCGHdi24I8-3taRLSTodMw-U3GYjQ9Xa0JxU0fUbsebEZklmJD3YNlXteBvU9nGsltxy" -->Nick Lannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12618434434679868344noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896368258232952265.post-27803467270709584822017-07-04T11:05:00.000-04:002018-07-04T09:25:22.889-04:00Happy Independence Day: You're Not Free<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-KEkjsG8UhfA/WvG9gvlf7dI/AAAAAAAAE1k/EwBVHfwuVh46wU3qc_myS6IyXocgrgQQACLcBGAs/s1600/fourth%2Bof%2Bjuly%2Bfireworks.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="180" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-KEkjsG8UhfA/WvG9gvlf7dI/AAAAAAAAE1k/EwBVHfwuVh46wU3qc_myS6IyXocgrgQQACLcBGAs/s320/fourth%2Bof%2Bjuly%2Bfireworks.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with one another…wait, that sounds familiar. Has someone said that before?<br />
<br />
Those, of course, are the first words of the Declaration of Independence, the document that led to the American freedom from Great Britain that we’re celebrating this weekend. That freedom—and really, every freedom—is how we’ve come to define ourselves. We call ourselves “the land of the free,” don’t we? And we’re not alone. Every people longs to be free. From the Second Virginia Convention at St. John’s Church in Richmond where Patrick Henry stood up and shouted “Give me liberty or give me death!” to the highlands of Scotland where William Wallace screamed with his very last breath that “they may take our lives, but they can never take our freedom!,” freedom is our most precious possession. That’s why Wallace’s words are so moving to us: we’ll sacrifice anything for the sake of our freedom. They may take our lives, but they can never take our freedom.<br />
<br />
But that’s just what I’m going to do today. I’m going to take your freedom. Or, more accurately, I’m going to tell you that you never really had it in the first place. I’m going to suggest the unthinkable: that you’re not as free as you think you are. Since we all have a little Patrick Henry and William Wallace in us, you might find your hackles rising and the hair on the back of your neck standing up, your fight-or-flight response coming to attention. “Not free!” you’re wondering…“what is this clown talking about?” But stay with me: we’ll see together that, first of all, when we examine our lives, it’s actually pretty normal and obvious that we’re a lot less free than we thought, and finally, we’ll see that our relative lack of freedom is—counter-intuitively—actually wonderful Good News.<br />
<br />
Let us begin with a movie illustration. There’s a thought-provoking but ultimately-not-all-that-good movie from 2011 called <em>The Adjustment Bureau</em>, which stars Matt Damon as a politician who falls in love with a girl he's not "supposed" to. There’s a shadowy organization—the Adjustment Bureau of the title—whose job it is to keep us normal human beings on the course that “the Director” has planned out for us. It’s a movie about fate, about predestination, and about freedom. Damon decides to go against the wishes of the director and his plan, and to try to exert his freedom and be with the girl, no matter what.<br />
<br />
The larger plot of the movie brings up a lot of interesting things that we could talk about, but for now, I want to focus on just one particular scene. It’s a scene that, ironically, in this movie about freedom, is a beautiful illustration of our LACK of freedom.
Watch:<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ARJ3-i8YgTM" width="560"></iframe><br /></div>
<br />
Sound familiar at all? Sounds like every single day. But maybe you’re still skeptical. Perhaps you think that this kind of thing is unique to politicians. It isn’t. Every single one of us stands in front of our closet every morning—and choosing our outfit is probably the freest decision we imagine that we make—in bondage. We are <em>bound</em>, maybe only subconsciously, by the impression we want to make on the people we’re going to see that day. We want them to respect us, or to think we’re cool, to be impressed, to notice our bodies, to be aware that we can afford nice clothes…any of a hundred different things you might think about as you make your "free choice." It’s not that we’re robots who lack freedom, it’s that every decision we make is <em>pressured</em> by forces on every side. The email that you have to send that you read over and over again, choosing your words very carefully; the phone calls you make only after taking a deep breath and centering yourself…so much of your life is made up of responding to the myriad pressures in your life, doing things you feel like you have to do, or doing things in the WAY that you feel like you have to do them. This isn’t freedom. It’s bondage.<br />
<br />
So we’re not free. Happy Independence Day! And again, it’s not that we don’t have a will, it’s just that our wills aren’t quite as free as we thought they were. Theologians have called our wills "bound." It's actually very simple and totally makes sense when you think about it. Imagine you and your will standing in the center, but all the various forces in your life have thrown a lasso over you and are pulling you in all sorts of different directions. Your in-laws. Your spouse. Your friends. Your employer. Your plans for the future. The girl or boy you hope will notice you. The mistakes you hope to avoid. You and your will, pulled this way and that. That’s all we’re talking about here. You’ve got enough of these ropes around you, yanking you back and forth, that it’s pretty hard to think of yourself as free. You’re bound. St. Paul, in Romans 6, goes a step further and calls us slaves. This is strong language, but he’s got an important point to make. “Thanks be to God,” he says, “that you, having once been slaves of sin, have become obedient from the heart to the form of teaching to which you were entrusted, and that you, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness” (v. 17-18).<br />
<br />
Slaves. Ouch! But notice what he does: he only calls us slaves to give us Good News! “Thanks be to God!” he says. We’re not slaves to sin and the devil anymore, we’re slaves to righteousness and Jesus Christ. Before, we ran to and fro, trying to satisfy the various forces that had lassos around us, trying to justify ourselves in the eyes of…well, everyone. But this only led to a kind of death. You know the death he means…the lifeless, soul-crushing practice of trying to placate and satisfy everything and everyone in your life, only to feel, <em>every single time</em>, that you’re coming up short. That you haven't done enough. That you’re not good enough. “What advantage did you then get from trying to do that? From trying to save yourself?” Paul continues. “The end of those things is death. But now that you have been freed from sin and enslaved to God, the advantage you get is sanctification. The end is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:21-23).
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.mbird.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Adjustment-Bureau-01.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" class="size-full wp-image-91223 aligncenter" src="http://www.mbird.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Adjustment-Bureau-01.jpg" height="208" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
So we’re not free. But we’re slaves no longer to sin and death…Paul says that <em>now</em> we’re enslaved to righteousness, and to God. So that’s…better? I guess? It’s an odd image, especially to our American ears: enslaved to God. But let me explain it by telling you a story. I don’t know if this story is true—it was told to me as though it was. It might be apocryphal, told to make a point, but here’s hoping it really happened. Toward the end of the Civil War, before America’s slaves were freed, a northerner went to a slave auction and purchased a young slave girl. As they walked away from the auction, as the girl wondered and feared what this new master would be like, the man turned to her and said, “You’re free.” With amazement—and probably a little suspicion—she responded, “You mean, I’m free to do whatever I want?” “Yes,” he said. “And to say whatever I want to say?” “Yes, anything,” came the response. “And to be whatever I want to be?” “Yes.” “And even go wherever I want to go?” “Yes,” he answered with a smile. “You’re free to go wherever you’d like.” She looked at him intently, thought for a moment, and replied, “Then I will go with you.”<br />
<br />
This is our slavery to Christ. Paul says in 1 Corinthians that you are not your own. You were bought with a price: the precious blood of your savior Jesus Christ. This is how and why our current bondage can be such Good News: we are bound to Christ, <em>and bondage to Christ isn't slavery...it's emancipation</em>! It is freedom from trying to justify yourself, from trying to save yourself, and it is the freedom to rest in the salvation of Jesus. In baptism, we proclaim to you that you are <em>sealed</em> by the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ’s own. Forever. You’re <em>his</em>! This is Good News! This is the Gospel: You are not your own; therefore, you are never <em>on</em> your own. When we stand before a holy God and have to answer for the lives we’ve lived, on our own is the very last place that we want to be. The wages of sin is death, as Paul says. On our own, death is the only outcome. But we are Christ’s. We are never on our own, and the benefit of being Christ’s possession is eternal life.<br />
<br />
All the validation you seek from those phone calls, emails, wardrobe choices, job performances, relationship developments…all of it has lost its power over you. All the lassos you have wrapped around you, pulling you in a hundred different directions have been loosed. The cords were cut when Jesus cried “It is finished!” In Christ, you have all the validation you’ll ever need. You walk willingly with your new master, who has purchased you with his blood. Jesus says to his children, to you and to me, “I have bled for you. I have died for you. I have called you by name. You are mine.” You are not your own, and you are never on your own. You are Christ’s, sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked as his, forever.Nick Lannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12618434434679868344noreply@blogger.com1