The Gospel According to Slim Goodbody

He was the camel that broke the last straw. As a sermon illustration, I showed a YouTube video of Slim Goodbody, the cheesy, nutrition superhero from 80’s PBS shorts who sported an “anglo” (think afro, but on a white dude) and danced around in a bodysuit with innards painted on one half and bones on the other. Remember him? The video helped me relate how important inner health is to the proper functioning of a “body in motion,” the Church – with the race of Hebrews 12 in view. It was a meaningful ice-breaker. And an older couple left our church over it. Apparently, a humorous video meant to help people think about the importance of their inner life – their feelings, thoughts and motivations toward living in spiritual health outwardly -was just too much. It makes me sad, but also mad at religion and how it has helped people starving for truth to fill their bellies up on forms. It’s like opening a bag of Doritos by eating the bag first.

I honestly think they believe I violated something sacred or time-honored by using a silly video in a sermon. What happened to the Puritan preacher standing there in a collar up to his ears, peering over a lectern, sounding like Che Guevara for Jesus? What happened to the sweaty brow, the podium slamming and the urgent pacing? And why are these young preachers always talking about their own shortcomings? They’re supposed to be “reverends.” It pains me, but I know they don’t get it. I’ve asked myself several times if I made a mistake with that video. Was that a bit too much? Was I overstepping, considering some people are still wearing ties at our church while others wear flip-flops? Did I far overshoot the middle? Maybe.

But I know that Jesus ministry was pretty base by some standards. He often used everyday stories to “get around to” the Torah (insert sarcasm). He showed them stuff and then said stuff. He made no sense to the masses sometimes, provoked thinking, asked hard questions, wrote with his finger in the dirt and often kept scandalous company. He used food (and other objects) to symbolize the significance of his life and teaching. He just didn’t fit into the religious forms of the day.  Then again, he performed miracles. But apparently not the kind of “signs” that would satisfy and convince the religious types. Goes to show you can’t polish the apple’s core.

Point is, even “video illustration > sermon > nifty Powerpoint” equation is a form and not the Gospel itself. This too shall pass. But I hope the folks who are rebirthed in our community of faith will be able to tell the difference in 30 years when the next jackleg like me stands up there and tries to poke his finger into their temporal lobes.    

Consumerism (and Humor-ism)

Watch this…

http://www.comedycentral.com/motherload/?ml_video=84033

They Might Be Grease Spots

When I worked and studied at Wheaton College, I got sick to death of people talking about being “intentional.” It was “intentionality” this and “on purpose” that. But the further away my life moves from that season, the more I hear sense and beauty in the song that broken record played. I’ve got a second child about to enter this world and my son, Silas, is already beginning to mimic me when I yell at distracted drivers who perform the same idiotic maneuvers I am prone to making. On some levels, his attention to my life petrifies me, I kid you not. I don’t want to have to think about everything I say and do, but I have no choice do I? My life is writing on his in much the same way I am now pecking out letters to form words which are constituting a transfer of my ideas into your consciousness.

 I am a pastor. One of those people everyone expects to be an example of polished piety. I had lunch with a guy last week who jokingly said he needs a pastor who’s a better person than him so that God hears my prayers for him when he offers only unworthy ones, and he’s not sure if I’ll do. Then the conversation shifted to nihilism (That’s another post. I’ll get to it.). So I feel the burden of intentionality, not just because I’m a pastor, but because there are people buzzing around my life like the Japanese Beetles that are swarming my shrubberies right now. I’m not polished. Or pious. But I feel better about that when I know I’m being myself on purpose. I’m so busy and it’s a challenge to stop, zoom out, ask “why,” etc. I don’t feel better about it because I’ve exercised discipline and therefore been more responsible. I feel better because I sense the presence of God in the absence of my impulsiveness. I think I’ve discovered that intentionality is at the core of redemptive history. God wastes no word or action. The layers and layers of meaning in Scripture that all point toward Jesus coming back tattooed and on his horse are ”on purpose” to enlighten our hearts when they bog down in the mud of religious activity and hearing the same stuff all the time but rarely feeling anything consequential as a result of it.

So I guess Colossians 3:23 is asking us to consider our ways in light of the fact that in the end they are “unto God” and not men, rooting their value in eternity. They are deliberate matters of the heart, not reactions. I don’t know about you, but that gives me pause. If God had simply reacted to the events of his creation, we wouldn’t simply be fallen. We would already have met our sudden stop.    

Dirty Hookers in the House of God

An insatiable desire for the infinite comes standard with a human body. You don’t even have to look under the hood. Our cravings make us swim mouth open in a constantly renewing stream of material goods, shallow relationships and experiences. Much of it is simple substitution for the pleasure we were made to find in God. Unfortunately, most of us don’t know that’s what is driving us into the arms of every lover with a promising bankroll of satisfaction or fulfillment. Centuries of unfaithfulness by God’s people, leading all the way to my living room, can best be described as one thing, really. Prostitution. Jeremiah, the weeping prophet, says it poetically: “On every high hill and under every spreading tree you lay down as a prostitute” (2:20b). Ezekiel slaps Jerusalem harder than a ruthless pimp: “You adulterous wife! You prefer strangers to your own husband! Every prostitute receives a fee, but you give gifts to all your lovers, bribing them to come to you from everywhere for your illicit favors” (16:32-33). Yikes! The list goes on. Elijah, Isaiah, Amos…

As sensual people, we’re simply willing to give ourselves away for the hope of a payoff. Last night, my brother used a term I was surprised to have not yet heard. It was “transactional spirituality” To sum it up, if we do something of value, we get something of value in return. Our gods – money, sex, power, respect – promise a payoff if we’ll do such and such to get it. And we paint God in those colors, don’t we? If we do good things, we’ll get to heaven. If we repeat the words the preacher tells us to right after he scares the begeezus out of us, we won’t have to go to hell and roast forever. If I sow the thousand dollar seed that the dude on TV with obvious dental veneers is calling for, I’ll “break the back of poverty” and possibly have my own Learjet one day. Excellent. Can’t wait. Maybe I can hire John Travolta to fly me around. Oh yeah, I didn’t have $1000 to give. I suppose maybe $100 will give poverty a nasty case of scoliosis.

David’s great great grand-mom, Rahab, was a prostitute, and one of two women mentioned in Hebrews 11, the “Faith Hall of Fame.” She was also an ancestor of Jesus of Nazareth. Interestingly enough, she was the first woman known to have put on a red light (think “red light district” and “Roxanne” by the Police) when she put her scarlet cord out the window as a sign of her faith and her pact with Jacob’s spies at Jericho. Apparently the glaring red symbol of a prostitute has ancient roots. The Gospels record in detail Jesus interacting with two, possibly three, sexually deviant women: A woman caught in adultery, the Samaritan woman at the well, and Mary Magdalene (Church tradition holds that Mary was possibly the woman caught in adultery or a demon-possessed prostitute). On one level, you could say that these were yet more examples of the grace of God in Jesus extended to the margins of society. On a deeper level, this is very symbolic. Jesus, God’s true and faithful Vine who would become Israel for Israel, meets compassionately with an adulterous woman who deserves death for her legal trespass, rejection for her cultural defiance and shame for her personal defilement. Yet he pardons her, sending her to be something else entirely. A flagrant example of grace. An undeniable testament of God’s mercy. A new covenant retelling of how God feels about his unfaithful wife. Rewind… read Hosea and try not to be awed by God’s desperate love for his dirty hooker wife!

And then there’s “Roxanne.” Listen to the words and maybe you can hear God, in Sting’s piercing register, calling out to you when you drift into the comforting arms of a high-paying job that requires low-lying ethics. “You don’t have to wear that dress.” When you’ve learned to savor the bitter lips of unforgiveness and the warmth of the resentment you swear you deserve to feel and can’t sleep without. “Those days are over.” When a steady visual diet of entertainment (now in high definition) offers you fading glee and you might otherwise devote your attention to getting some wisdom and revelation from the Scriptures. “You don’t have to sell your body to the night.” Need I even mention lust? (My favorite line: ”I loved you since I knew you. I wouldn’t talk down to you.”) It’s not a gospel song. Or is it?

Roxanne
You don’t have to put on the red light
Those days are over
You don’t have to sell your body to the night

Roxanne
You don’t have to wear that dress tonight
Walk the streets for money
You don’t care if its wrong or if its right

Roxanne
You don’t have to put on the red light I loved you since I knew you
I wouldn’t talk down to you
I have to tell you just how I feel
I wont share you with another boy

I know my mind is made up
So put away your make up
Told you once I wont tell you again
Its a bad way

Roxanne
You don’t have to put on the red light
Roxanne
You don’t have to put on the red light