Perceptions from a Pewboy

This weekend, my sermon revolved around the glimpse of heaven offered to us in Revelation chapter 7. In my preparation and research for the sermon, I stumbled upon the following words attributed to Friedrich Nietzsche, the 19th century atheistic philosopher: “In heaven all the interesting people are missing.”

I didn’t utilize the quote in my sermon, but I have been haunted by it since I first read it. Why would an atheistic philosopher (who most likely found the idea of heaven to be ridiculous) suggest that the heaven’s population is devoid of interesting people? Why would he come to the conclusion that believers in Christ (who, for Nietzsche, most likely represented the heavenly population) are something less than interesting?

Part of me wants to get defensive. “How dare you, Nietzsche! How dare you suggest that we believers are uninteresting! I’m not going to listen to your highfalutin criticism and your philosophical blasphemy! You obviously have a bias against Christianity. Therefore, I will not dignify your quote by giving it any attention whatsoever.”

But here’s the thing: What if Nietzsche had a point?

What if we Christ-followers have allowed ourselves to become so predictable, so formulaic, so dismissive, so mundane–so NORMAL–that we have lost our capacity to be truly interesting?

Please do not misunderstand what I am saying. I am not suggesting for a minute that it is our responsibility as Christ-followers to entertain the masses or to capitulate to all of the proclivities of a sin-sick world. We are after all (according to Willimon and Hauerwas) “resident aliens” who live life by the alternative narrative found in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. A world that does not know Christ as Lord will never fully be able to comprehend our peculiar way of doing life. Therefore, we must tread carefully upon this issue of endeavoring to be “interesting” to the world.

But isn’t there a right way for us to be interesting? Isn’t that part of what Jesus had in mind when he told us to be the salt of the earth? Wasn’t he suggesting that we make the world a more flavorful place, simply by virtue of our presence, our passion, our love, and our unwavering devotion to an always-compelling kingdom?

Allow me to get to the heart of the matter. I want Christ-followers to be some of the most interesting people around. I want us to be well-read and well-versed, not only biblically, but culturally as well. I want us to be good conversationalists who are as comfortable talking about current events as we are talking about the liturgical calendar and worship wars. I want us to be attentive to the stories that our culture is telling in its literature and media, so that we are fluent in the language and imagery with which our culture communicates. I want us to be compassionate scholars of Scripture whose knowledge of the biblical story equips us to discern the creative ways in which the eternal is still intersecting with the everyday. I want us to be the kind of people whose personalities are engaging, whose eagerness to hear the stories of others is authentic, and whose devotion to Christ is so wonderfully secure that defensiveness, dismissiveness, and combativeness are completely unnecessary.

I want us to be interesting, in other words, in all the right ways. I fear that, too often, we are not.

No, that’s a cop out. Let me make it more personal. I fear that, too often, yours truly is not.

Given my journeys into spiritual snobbery, my reliance upon predictable patterns and relationships, my fondness for self-righteousness, and my penchant for dismissiveness, I am often more insular than I am interesting. Anyone else have that problem?

Billy Joel gave fresh expression to Nietzsche’s viewpoint when he sang the following words in his song, ONLY THE GOOD DIE YOUNG: “I’d rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints. The sinners are much more fun.”

I am simply suggesting that we hear in Nietzsche and Joel a reminder that we live in a world that desperately needs for us to be interesting in all the right ways. Our evangelism, in fact, may just depend upon our willingness to incarnate the truth that Jesus is, among other things, incredibly interesting.

I am blown away by this news:

Serb media responded on Wednesday with a sense of pride and patriotism that a new mineral had been found in Serbia closely resembling the makeup of fictional “kryptonite,” which rendered Superman helpless.

Reacting to the discovery of the real new mineral in western Serbia, they pointed out that “kryptonite” was created from the remains of Superman’s home planet Krypton, destroyed in a fireball.

“Superman is a Serb!” was the conclusion drawn in headlines favored by several newspapers.

No wonder I could never find Metropolis on the map! It’s in friggin’ Serbia!

In a related story, it has been determined that the Green Lantern is Turkish; the Flash is Czechoslovakian; and the Atom has a bungalow in New Guinea.

Sheesh. Is there no such thing as a bona fide American hero anymore?!!!!

By the way, in an actual comic book narrative, Captain America, an iconic hero, was recently shot to death by his brainwashed lover, Sharon Carter. (Man, I hate when that happens.) It was all part of a diabolical plot hatched by the Red Skull and Dr. Faustus.

Comic book fans are still in shock over the tragedy.

So, let’s recap: Superman is a Serb, and Captain America is dead.

Welcome to Postmodernity, where people prefer anti-heroes to heroes, and where even Peter Parker has to face his dark side.

On last night’s very entertaining episode of Boston Legal, attorney Denny Crane (played by the incomparable William Shatner), gets into hot water by telling an African-American attorney that he would be a perfect addition to the law firm because he “doesn’t sound black.”

The fact that the African-American attorney was played by Jaleel White (TV’s “Urkel” from years back) made it all the more gripping.

Anyway, at the end of the episode, Shirley Schmidt (played by Candice Bergen), one of the firm’s senior partners, addresses the press on behalf of the firm. Her remarks concluded with these words:

Denny Crane’s statement speaks to an insidious form of racism that exists in a white collar society that prefers to take its blacks as it takes its coffee–with a little cream and sugar. I’m not proud of it. But until we confront that truth, we will not change it.

It was probably the most honest acknowledgement of institutional racism that I have heard in a long time. Unfortunately, it came from the lips of a television character instead of, say, Don Imus. Or Mel Gibson. Or Michael Richards. Or any one of a number of church folks!

In 2004, the band Modest Mouse released a CD entitled “Good News for People Who Love Bad News.” For my money, that remains one of the coolest titles for a CD that I have ever heard.

Characterized by edgy and unintuitive musical expression coupled with social commentary that is as compelling as it is startling, the CD takes the listener into what might be described as the nooks and crannies of postmodern culture.

The other day, I listened to a song from that CD that I found to be particularly insightful. I don’t think that I had ever listened to it carefully before. The song is entitled “The Good Times Are Killing Me.” These are some of the lyrics:

The good times are killing me.
Enough hair of the dog to make myself an entire rug.
The good times are killing me.
Late nights with warm, warm whiskey.
Have one, have twenty more ‘one mores’ and, oh, it does not relent.
The good times are killing me.
Get sucked it and stuck in late nights with more folks that I don’t know.
The good times are killing me.
Shrug off shortsighted false excitement, and, oh, what can I say?
The good times are killing me.

It is an interesting thought, isn’t it–being “killed” by the relentless pursuit of what we perceive to be our various “good times?” It reminds me of a book written by Neil Postman several years back entitled “Amusing Ourselves to Death.” Both the song and the book put forth the idea that it is thoroughly possible to become emotionally numb and ethically moribund when we allow ourselves to be governed by the desire to satisfy every one of our appetites the minute it demands to be satisfied.

The whole thing inspires me to do some honest self-inventory. Which of my “good times” are good because they actually bear witness to the goodness of God? And which of my “good times” do I label “good” simply because of their short-lived euphoria and their capacity to shield me from things that I find unsettling?

Where is it, in other words, that my good times are killing me?

I am convinced that one of the most frequently overlooked distinctions in our various theological frameworks is the distinction between living out of a sense of conviction and living out of a spirit of certainty. This distinction, I think, impacts everything from our worldview to our evangelism, everything from our ecclesiastical identity to our interaction with the world.

Consider this quote from Brad Cecil (who is connected to an emerging ministry in Texas called AXXESS):

We are very aware that we have a faith construct that works for our community. That means we have a community of strongly held historic Christian beliefs. But we are always aware that we could be wrong. We are not foundational empiricists who feel that we have reduced our faith to the point of irreducible certainty. (This quote appears in the book EMERGING CHURCHES, written by Eddie Gibbs and Ryan Bolger.)

As children of the Enlightenment ethos, we have often been conditioned to believe that certainty (defined as a condition undergirded by empirical and irrefutable propositions), is the preferred status of every faith journey. The end result of such an emphasis, of course, is what I have come to call an idolatry of certainty. It is an idolatry that sets up an artificial theological construct in which anything less than certainty is questioned.

My strong feeling, however, is that certainty is not all that it’s cracked up to be. I am not at all convinced that a condition of certainty, insofar as certainty implies an iron-clad and unbendable worldview, is the kind of condition that the Lord Jesus came into this world to make possible. Historically, we have manipulated and exploited the things about which we feel certain. There is a long and bloody history to be told about the way in which the world has treated people who did not embrace the “certainty” of Roman paganism; or the “certainty” of the Aryan supremacy of the Nazi regime; or even the “certainty” of an American brand of capitalism. To put it as simply as I can put it, a condition of certainty tends to spawn a dangerous and pathological desire to protect, defend, and manipulate the thing about which we are certain, since we cannot afford to consider the possibility that we might be wrong.

Much more appealing to me is the idea of living out of a sense of conviction. Certainty is based upon an empirical worldview. Conviction is based upon an investment of faith and trust. Certainty tends to breed arrogance and hierarchy. Conviction tends to be held with humility, because a person of conviction never loses touch with the possibility that he or she might be wrong. Certainty often hinders community, since it treats as “enemies” those who live outside of the certainty. Conviction allows for relationship and dialogue, even with those who do not share the conviction.

Come to think of it, the most important and transformational things in my life are based, not upon certainty, but upon conviction. When I think about my relationship with my wife, for example, there is no way that I can be CERTAIN that she loves me. I cannot prove her love, in other words, in a way that is empirical and irrefutable. I could tell you that we have been married for 15 years, but that doesn’t PROVE her love. (She might just be someone who likes the security of being in a relationship.) I could tell you that she speaks often of her love for me, but that doesn’t PROVE her love either. (She might just be perpetuating the illusion of romance with her vocabulary.) And yet, I am convinced that my marriage is the greatest blessing of my life. I believe this, not because of certainty, but because of my conviction that Tara loves me and that I love her right back.

Love. Trust. Hope. Mercy. Faith. None of these can be proven with certainty. When held with conviction, however, they become the most significant and transformational components of the human pilgrimage.

My most deeply held convictions are that Jesus is risen, that Jesus is Lord, and that Jesus is the Savior of the world. I’d like to think that I would rather die than surrender these convictions. That is how deeply I hold them. In terms of Christian apologetics, I am convinced that there are several good reasons to believe these things about Jesus. It is not a blind and uninformed faith, in other words. But the Lordship of Jesus cannot be bottled up in a container so crass as certainty. Rather, it is held with a conviction that is as humble as it is passionate.

Help me on this issue, friends. Am I indeed discerning a legitimate distinction here? Or am I simply up to semantics again?

Check out this portion of an article from a Berlin newspaper. I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried!

Business is booming for a Berlin entrepreneur’s unique service — delivering break-up messages for a fee.

Bernd Dressler, who charges 50 euros ($68) to tell people they have been dumped, says he has helped end 200 relationships in the last 11 months.

“I almost never get invited in for a coffee,” he told the Berliner Morgenpost newspaper on Monday. “Most of the time they’re totally surprised.”

Breaking the bad news only takes about three minutes and often leaves the message recipients in a state of shock, said Dressler, a trained economist.

Why do I find such a story interesting enough to share? I’m not certain about that. I suppose that it has something to do with the fact that, after I finished chuckling over the idea of a surrogate “breaker-upper,” I couldn’t help but think that such a development is the very epitome of what I consider to be a troubling human tendency: specifically, our tendency to let ourselves off the hook emotionally and spiritually.

It is unsettling, after all, to voice one’s desire to break up with someone. It demands the risk of honest self-revelation and the awkwardness of expressing dissatisfaction with the way things are. The appeal of a surrogate or substitute “hatchet man,” then, is obvious. Such a service lets the dissatisfied party off the emotional hook. It removes him or her from the pain of actually having to be honest in a moment of face-to-face communicational intimacy. For $68, a person can find a quick and convenient escape route from a relationship that has become undesirable. True, one’s personal integrity is jettisoned in the process. But that is a small price to pay for avoiding the unpleasantness of actual interaction.

Of course, in my sarcasm, I do not mean to imply that I am somehow above this penchant for finding quick liberation from emotional and spiritual hooks. Far from it. In fact, not so long ago, I found myself “using” my church’s committee structure to “solve” a controversial issue in our church. I made the decision, in other words, to address the problem administratively instead of pursuing a more relational and dialogical course of action that might deal compassionately with all the parties involved. Without going into specifics, suffice it to say that I let myself off the relational hook by choosing a more expedient course of action. In a sense, the church’s committee structure served as a surrogate “hatchet man,” (and I didn’t even have to pay $68!).

I’ve repented and made amends in the aftermath. But, when I find myself chuckling at the dude in Berlin who does other people’s emotional dirty work, perhaps I should remind myself not to chuckle too loudly.

Like all of you, I am sitting here endeavoring to make sense of the senseless and to reason my way through that which can only be described as horrifically unreasonable.

As of the most recent information, thirty-three people were killed today on the campus of Virginia Tech University. One of the people who died was a young man who, for reasons unknown, walked into one of the buildings on campus carrying a couple of handguns and opened fire on students and faculty, killing many before finally turning one of his weapons on himself.

I have no easy answers for people who ask “Why?” Theological platitudes and spiritual sound bites fall woefully short, as they always do. All that I have to offer is the broken heart of a pastor who believes with all of his soul that we live in the steadfast presence of an intimate God who weeps with us when we weep, who breaks and bleeds with us when we break and bleed.

Of course, I also live in the abiding conviction that ours is a God who specializes in resurrection, a God who loves to take hold of death and despair for the purpose of transforming it into new life and new hope. Not even the carnage of what took place at Virginia Tech is beyond the scope of God’s redemptive grace.

Allow me to share with you the content of my broken heart.

I am heartbroken that a young man, for whatever reason, would make the decision to wage such a starkly violent and deadly campaign. What would lead a person to such a dreadful decision? A mental collapse? An intersection of desperate circumstances? I’m sure that we will learn more about the shooter in the days ahead. But no amount of speculation or investigation will provide all of the details concerning the tragic mystery of a young man’s journey into mass murder.

I am heartbroken over this day’s news coverage and my own addiction to it. All day long, television reporters have interviewed people and officials, practically begging for information long before there was anything official or meaningful to say. I try to tell myself that these reporters are merely doing their job, that they are responsible journalists who are faithfully attempting to keep the public informed of a tragedy with national implications. I fear, however, that the reporters’ desperate and (at times) irresponsible prodding is an intentional appeal to the pathological voyeurism of our culture. To put it as simply as I can put it, violence is a seductive and addictive spectacle. Am I watching the news right now for the purpose of deepening my compassion and prayer? Or am I watching simply to satisfy my lust for more lurid details?

I am heartbroken for the families and friends of the victims, all of whom are attempting to process the profundity of this tragedy, even as I type these words. I have been praying for them all day long, even though I don’t know who they are. Prayer is strange that way, isn’t it? It is a discipline that enables me to experience spiritual intimacy and connectedness with people I have never met.

I am heartbroken for the police officers and medical teams and surviving victims who will no doubt be haunted by the painful and vivid memories of what they have seen today. I am praying for them as well.

Perhaps most of all, I am heartbroken by the horrendous distortion of God’s design for human relationship that today’s violence represents.

Tonight, I write as a heartbroken pastor in deep prayer. I am confident, however, that God will do what God does best. Where there is despair, God will be at work to generate hope. Where there is a need for community and prayer, God will open doors so that the church’s people might bring the ministry of Christ. Where there is brokenness, God will initiate a journey toward healing and wholeness.

After all, at the very heart of the narrative that undergirds our faith is the journey from a cross to an empty tomb, the journey from crucifixion to resurrection. With all of my heart and soul, I believe that our resurrecting God is already redemptively at work on the campus of Virginia Tech and in the homes of the victims’ families and friends. God weeps with those who are weeping tonight. But weeping is not the end of the story. Through divine tears, God is looking toward the redemptive future into which this tragedy will unfold and into which God by grace will lead us all.

Check out this report from an Amsterdam newspaper:

A Dutch police station trying to help Muslim detainees face Mecca for their prayers painted arrows in cells pointing in the wrong direction. The Segbroek police station in The Hague borrowed the idea of putting compass marks on ceilings from an Amsterdam hotel, the Dutch daily De Telegraaf reported on Friday. Muslims pray five times a day, facing east in the direction of Mecca. But the arrows in Segbroek pointed west. ‘This is a really gigantic, stupid blunder,’ a police spokesman told the De Telegraaf.

As followers of Jesus, of course, we are not particularly concerned with the geographical particulars of our prayer posture. Nevertheless, this news report inspired me to wonder about how many times I have found myself “praying in the wrong direction,” metaphorically speaking.

How many times, for example, have I treated prayer as an extension of my own egocentric wish-list, as though prayer were nothing more than a means by which to manifest my personal agenda?

How often have I prayed with a spirit of unadulterated arrogance, looking upon my prayer as an opportunity to instruct a perfectly sovereign God in matters of world affairs and human relationship?

How many times have I attempted to impress God with the frequency, the earnestness, or the vocabulary of my prayers?

On how many occasions have I evaluated the effectiveness of my prayer by the number of words or petitions that I have offered, or by whether or not God has responded to my prayers with precisely the response that I have sought?

How frequently during my prayers have I been facing in the direction of my own will instead of subordinating myself to the Lordship of Jesus and listening humbly for his voice–a voice that often resonates within our soul when we will dare to quiet ourselves in prayer?

How often, in other words, have I prayed in the wrong direction, not geographically, but spiritually?

The most important lesson in prayer that I ever learned came through the experience of a dear friend of mine whose son had to be life-flighted to Children’s Hospital with a severe head injury. For a 24-hour period, no one knew whether the boy would live or die.

He lived. Beyond that, he made a complete recovery and is now enjoying his high school experience.

A couple of weeks after the experience, I had lunch with my friend, the boy’s father. “You know,” he said to me that day, “throughout the whole time of crisis, my family felt completely sustained by the prayers of God’s people.”

Without thinking, I responded with a vapid inquiry. “You really believe that, don’t you?”

“Absolutely,” he responded. “There were 14 different churches praying for us. Catholic Churches. Baptist Churches. Methodist Churches. Non-denominational churches. We were being held up in prayer by all kinds of different believers. And I knew in my heart that those prayers were going to accomplish one of two things for us.”

“One of two things, Nathan?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I knew that those prayers were either going to save my little boy, or they were going to save the rest of us if my little boy died.”

I knew that I had just encountered the theology of prayer that I want to have when I grow up–a theology of prayer that believes that the prayer of righteous people is powerful and effective, no matter whether or not prayer produces our intended results. It is a theology of prayer that recognizes that, when our prayers are not answered in precisely the way we want them to be answered, it does not mean that God is not listening or that God does not care. It simply means that God is responding to our prayer in a way that we do not yet understand. It may even mean that God is utilizing our prayers to bring about a result that is far more redemptive in the long run than the immediate result for which we had prayed.

The theology of prayer that I encountered that day, in other words, demands prayer that is prayed in the right direction. It demands the kind of prayer that is more about relationship than it is about immediate results; the kind of prayer that is more about leaning into God than it is about manipulating God; the kind of prayer that is more about a receptive heart than it is about an established agenda.

I ask you to pray for me. Be assured, I am praying for you.

I think that it’s going to be a great night tonight!

At 6:00 PM, we will hold our weekly SATURDAY NIGHT worship event. As a congregation, we will sing praises to God and continue in our celebration of the good news that Jesus Christ is risen!

That, in an of itself, would be enough to make it a great night. But wait! There’s more!

Immediately following the service, Tara and I will head into Pittsburgh for the purpose of seeing Jerry Seinfeld at the Benedum Center. How cool is that?! As Kramer might say………….giddiyup!

Here’s a little something from Seinfeld’s book “Sein Language” to make you chuckle:

“People love to push their doctors on me. I always ask the same question: ‘Is he good?’ They always say this: ‘Oh, he’s the best. This guy’s the best.’”

“But there can’t be this many ‘bests’. Somebody’s got to be graduating at the bottom of these classes in med school. Where are these doctors?! Are there people somewhere saying to their friends, ‘You should see my doctor, he’s the worst. He’s the absolute worst there is. Whatever you have, it’ll be worse after you see him. The man’s an absolute butcher.’”

“Here’s another thing: I have a friend who always recommends a doctor to me and then says, ‘Make sure that you tell him you know me.’ Why should I do that? What’s the difference?! He’s a doctor for crying out loud! What’s the doctor going to say? ‘Oh, you know Bob? In that case, I’ll give you the real medicine. I’ve been giving Tic Tacs to everybody else!’”

The worship of God, followed by a Seinfeld-generated time of laughter. I’m looking forward to it.

Our country first heard those now-famous words thirty-seven years ago today–April 13, 1970. On that day, an explosion occurred aboard the Apollo 13 spacecraft, which was en route to a lunar landing. The explosion crippled the spacecraft, causing the command module to lose its oxygen and electrical power. The three-man crew aboard Apollo 13 used the Lunar Module as a “lifeboat” in space. They endured difficult and terrifying conditions. Eventually, however, thanks to the ingenuity and creativity of the folks at NASA, the crew successfully returned to earth after a harrowing ordeal. The crew members (Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert, and Fred Haise) were not able to walk on the moon. But they were able to navigate their way back home when the odds were severely against them.

Thirty-seven years ago today, Commander Jim Lovell announced the crisis with these simple words: “Houston, we have a problem.” Actually, the precise rendering of the words was this: “Houston, we’ve had a problem.”

The events of the Apollo 13 mission are well-chronicled in the 1995 film APOLLO 13, directed by Ron Howard and starring Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, and Bill Paxton. In the film, Jim Lovell (played by Hanks) offers the following monologue, recounting what, for him, was a life-altering experience during World War II. I am uncertain of the monologue’s historicity. In the film, however, the monologue brings a much-needed expression hope concerning the ability to find one’s way home:

Uh well, I’ll tell ya, I remember this one time - I’m in a Banshee at night in combat conditions, so there’s no running lights on the carrier. It was the Shrangri-La, and we were in the Sea of Japan and my radar had jammed, and my homing signal was gone… because somebody in Japan was actually using the same frequency. And so it was - it was leading me away from where I was supposed to be. And I’m lookin’ down at a big, black ocean, so I flip on my map light, and then suddenly: zap. Everything shorts out right there in my cockpit. All my instruments are gone. My lights are gone. And I can’t even tell now what my altitude is. I know I’m running out of fuel, so I’m thinking about ditching in the ocean. And I, I look down there, and then in the darkness there’s this uh, there’s this green trail. It’s like a long carpet that’s just laid out right beneath me. And it was the algae, right? It was that phosphorescent stuff that gets churned up in the wake of a big ship. And it was - it was - it was leading me home. You know? If my cockpit lights hadn’t shorted out, there’s no way I’d ever been able to see that. So uh, you, uh, never know… what… what events are to transpire to get you home.

What a wonderful expression of the mystery and profundity of God’s providence: “You never know what events are to transpire to get you home.”

It makes me think of the Apostle Paul’s counsel to the Roman church: “We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28). The nuances of this scripture are important to note, I think. It is not “all things ARE good,” but rather, “all things WORK TOGETHER FOR good.” In the Greek, the verb utilized here to convey “working together” is a verb that connotes an uncommon partnering of circumstances, a cooperation of events that cannot be thwarted by any other force. In other words (if I might generate an intersection between cinema and Scripture), the Apostle Paul is essentially communicating to us a word of radical theological hope that sounds something like the word of hope communicated by Jim Lovell in APOLLO 13: “You never know what events are to transpire–or work together–to get you home.”

I am grateful for the story of the Apollo 13 mission and the inspiration that such a story brings, even thirty-seven years later. I am grateful for the events of my own life, even the ones that are painful and difficult to understand. Most of all, I am grateful for the sovereign God of the universe, who is bringing those events into a providential cooperation, the purpose of which is to “get me home” to where God would have me to be.