Sycamore

Michael Spencer wrote something great today.  You should go read it now.

In something as small as a Halloween gesture:

(from a member at Summit Church in Durham, NC)

And something as large as knowing how Jesus would talk to it:

Nashville: I’m tired. Really tired. Especially tired of failing and then covering it up with a smile.

Jesus: “I will pour water on the thirsty land and streams on the dry ground.”

Nashville: I can’t see that. And it’s not just me. The whole world is a mess. What about 9/11? What about all the horrible things that keep happening?

Jesus: “I form light and I create darkness. I make well-being and I create calamity. I am the Lord, who does all these things.”

(There’s much more, and it’s great. You should read it.)

Church sign from Monday, October 26:

“Pobody’s Nerfect!”

The cringe factor on this one is off the scale, but I wonder if putting a sign like that outside most churches wouldn’t remind us (a) that it’s actually true and (b) we don’t have to take ourselves so incredibly seriously.  (Conviction for sin is weighty, but where sin abounds grace abounds all the more.  Did Christ die and rise so that we could live a life of record-breaking sullenness?)  The world could probably use an example of gospel motivated lightheartedness.

I have a very tenuous relationship with blogging.  Historically, I was an “early adopter” of blogging (this is geek-speak for someone who jump on the bandwagon early so that they can later whine about all the people that jumped on the bandwagon after them).  My old boss at Bel Air Presbyterian knew a guy who wrote a book on how blogs would change the world, so one day I got an email telling me I had a web page where I should write stuff down.

So I did.  It felt nice.  It was like stuff I was already thinking about had a payoff.  I even started thinking up new stuff just so I could write it down and someone could read it.  Pretty soon, anytime I had a half-way decent thought I found myself automatically phrasing it like a blog post.  It added an (albeit superficial) element of satisfaction - the thought felt more worthwhile when I thought about the idea that it would be published.  It became “official.”

It didn’t take long for me to realize how bad it is that all of my good thoughts became “official” when they became a part of my blog instead of when they became a part of my life.

Including sermon listening, Bible reading, theological knowledge, etc., we are constantly looking for ways to feel like we’ve accomplished something without actually changing our lives.  Technology has made this temptation a lot harder.  Podcasts mean you can now listen to ten sermons a week, and pride yourself on the fact that they are the best teachers around.   Wikipedia means you can skim off the top of all sorts of “knowledge” - someone else does the work, and you read the cliff notes.  Want to know all about justification by faith?  You can google it.

These tools can be really helpful, or they can be ways to avoid actually doing something.  I think we all could use a healthy dose of caution.  Today, it’s a lot easier to be a hearer of the word (or a blogger of the word, student of the word, connoisseur of the word) and not a doer.

(And yes, I do see the irony.)

Early church father Tertullian (160-230 A.D.), writing to his provincial Roman governors:

Proceed in your career of cruelty, but do not suppose that you will thus accomplish your purpose of extinguishing the hated sect [the Christians]. We are like the grass, which grows the more luxuriantly the oftener it is mown. The blood of Christians is the seed of Christianity. Your philosophers taught men to despise pain and death by words; but how few their converts compared with those of the Christians, who teach by example! The very obstinacy for which you upbraid us is the great propagator of our doctrines. For who can behold it, and not inquire into the nature of that faith which inspires such supernatural courage? Who can inquire into that faith, and not embrace it, and not desire himself to undergo the same sufferings in order that he may thus secure a participation in the fulness of divine favour?”

(Sometimes it’s not a death, but a Christ-like life, that makes people “inquire into the nature of that faith which inspires such supernatural courage”…)

Because I haven’t posted anything substantial in the last week, I wanted to come back with a bang - something emotionally charged, that uses our culture as a springboard to make you ask the big questions about life.  Something with characters you care about, people you root for, and a story that pits a lone hero fighting for what’s right against all odds.  Something that makes you laugh as well as cry - something that stays with you, haunts you, and leaves you breathless.

Here it is:

(HT: Rob)