Yes, this video is a bit irreverent…..but it’s also pretty funny.
Case in point: “From the guy who washed away your sins comes a beer to wash away your thirst.”
To quote the great Larry the Cable Guy, “I don’t care who ya are, that’s funny right there.”
As Christians we love our traditions.
It doesn’t matter if the tradition is sacred, like celebrating the Eucharist, or something more earthbound, like the annual 4th of July picnic. Whatever the tradition is that we embrace, we do it with gusto.
One such tradition that we seem to especially enjoy is the tradition of calling each other names.
When we were on the playground, calling each other names was anything but sacred and we had to be careful that our teachers didn’t overhear us, lest we be put in timeout. However, as adults, we’ve somehow convinced ourselves that our childhood shenanigans are in fact a divine calling.
Unlike our childhood, our name calling has become significantly less creative. In fact, we really just call each other the same thing over and over again.
Heretic.
Never mind the fact that heresy requires one, set agreed upon list of beliefs, which is difficult to come by when there are more than 10,000 different denominations. If somebody disagrees with us, then in our book, they’re a heretic.
But there’s a great irony in our name calling.
The truth of the matter is….we’re all heretics.
All of us.
A heretic is “a dissenter from established religious dogma” or “one who dissents from an accepted belief or doctrine.” Not quite as scary of a definition as you might have thought. There’s no mention of “a wolf among the sheep” or “the instrument of Satan.” However, if Webster’s dictionary is right, then all of us heretics.
The reason we have thousands of denominations today is simple. People don’t always agree, even good Christian people. When you couple that disagreement with an understanding of freedom that equates that ideal with “I have the right to do whatever I please”, then those “dissenters” will inevitably break away from the “established religion” or church or denomination or whatever to go off and start their own thing.
This breaking away is, of course, seen most clearly in the Reformation. Regardless of what you think of Martin Luther, John Calvin, or any of the other reformers, the Protestant Reformation was, by definition, an act of heresy in that men and women dissented from the established religious dogma and then broke away from Rome. Therefore, all of us who followed in their path by choosing Protestantism over Catholicism or Orthodoxy are heretics.
But, our Roman Catholic and Orthodox brothers and sisters shouldn’t get too comfortable. They’re heretics too.
In 1054, the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church became 2 holy, catholic, and apostolic churches when the Eastern church broke away from the Western Church (Rome) over several issues, most prominently the inclusion of the “filioque” to the Nicene Creed. While our Orthodox brothers and sisters would probably argue (and perhaps rightfully so) that Rome broke away from them by adding something to the faith, since the issue of papal authority was also one of their sticking points, and for the sake of argument, we’ll say that the East broke away from the West. In that case, our Orthodox brothers and sisters are, by definition, heretics.
But again, our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters aren’t out of the heretical woods either.
Sure, they can trace their history all the way back to Peter who was, depending on your theological perspective/particular Biblical interpretation, chosen by Jesus to lead the Church. However, and this may come as a shock to your system if you’re Roman Catholic, that doesn’t excuse Rome from heresy.
You see, when the Christian faith began it wasn’t a separate faith from Judaism. For the first followers of Jesus, and no doubt for Jesus himself, Christianity (or more precisely “the Way”) was the fulfillment of God’s promises to the people of Israel. Jesus was a Jew. His disciples were (mostly) Jews. Christianity, in its infancy, was simply a branch of Judaism which believed that Jesus was the promised Messiah.
Of course, we all know from history that this marriage didn’t last long. After the first Christians had been expelled from their synagogues one too many times for being “dissenters of the established (Jewish) religious dogma,” they eventually broke away to form what we now call the Church.
Which means, therefore, that every single person who has every worn the mantle of “Christian” is, by definition, a heretic.
So what does all of this mean?
For starters, it means that if someone ever calls you a heretic, you can look them in the eye with confidence and say, “You’re right, I am a heretic. And so are you.”
More importantly, this brief history lesson should remind us that in our zeal to “defend the faith” we should remember that the faith is not always as black and white as we may have come to believe. Furthermore, we should remember that the Christian faith is full of disagreement. It’s full of people who were at first labeled heretics, but who, over time, came to be regarded as great heroes of the faith.
Without the great “heretic” Martin Luther, your Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, Lutheran, or in my case Nazarene church wouldn’t exist. Even for Roman Catholics, Martin Luther ultimately played a positive role. He spurred the church in Rome to undergo much needed reforms.
Granted, not all heretics turn out to be heroes and not all reformations are necessary. But when people come along preaching or teaching things we may happen to disagree with, we should think long and hard before we start name calling. They could very well be leading the church away, but like so many before them, they could be reminding us all what it really means to be the people of God.
So, the next time you get ready to label somebody a heretic, remember: you’re a heretic too.
Grace and peace,
Have you cast your vote for Jesus Christ?
If not, then here’s a song to inspire you to do your religio-political duty and cast your vote for Jesus…..whatever that means.
We’re just shocked that Rick Santorum hasn’t picked this gem up already and used it as his official campaign song. He’s really missing out.
(Apologies in advance for the audio. Maybe it’s my computer, but you’re probably going to need to crank up the volume to hear the music, but I promise it’s well worth the effort.)
We’ve posted several videos over the last year or so of people singing in church who should have never been allowed to sing in church.
God loves them just as much as the rest of us, but he didn’t bless them with the ability to sing.
So, what is a pastor supposed to do when somebody starts to sangin’ and everyone’s ears start to bleedin’?
Well, this pastor has found a solution.
It starts with sneaking up behind them and snatching the mic away while they’re not looking. Then you follow that up by telling the congregration how awful of a singer that person was, but you’ve got to balance things out by yelling at them for not having the “boldness for God” to stand up and demonstrate their own complete lack of talent.
This may only be amusing to us because we’re both in ministry, but if you’ve got this problem at your own church, you may want to consider sharing this video with your pastor.
We don’t know all the details about what happened between Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman on the night of February 26th. Regardless, a child is dead and that alone makes this a tragedy.
In the days and weeks since, countless people have spoken out against the apparent injustice surrounding the case. I have no doubt that the outcry will continue for some time to come, at least until justice or resolution is found, if they ever are.
That is a good thing. We should speak out against injustice and we should mourn the tragic loss of a child, but there’s a dirty little secret behind this whole thing that none of us want to talk about.
We may want to support Trayvon and we should, but if we really want to “do something about it”, we first need to strip away our own stereotypes, labels, and prejudices which define so much of how we live our own lives.
The dirty little secret behind the Trayvon Martin tragedy is that while George Zimmerman may have pulled the trigger, we all had a hand in killing Trayvon.
Every time we grab our wallets or purses when the wrong type of person walks by, whenever a church makes us comfortable because everyone in the pews look just like us, or when we simply make a snap, unconscious judgment about someone based on the way they look, we are boxing people into stereotypes and rendering them something into less than human. When this happens we feel free, if not justified, in treating them however we see fit.
In other words, we may never pull the trigger to end someone’s life, but we feed the culture of prejudice that empowers someone like George Zimmerman to pull the trigger for us.
But of course, George Zimmerman makes for a great scapegoat. He doesn’t look like most of us and we know next to nothing about him. So, we project our own guilt or sin onto him like some sort of Old Testament sacrifice.
Speaking of the Bible, there’s a similar story to Trayvon’s in the Gospel of John, although fortunately it didn’t end in tragedy.
One day Jesus was teaching in the temple. While Jesus was waxing eloquently about whatever Jesus was waxing about, the teachers of the Law and the Pharisees drug a woman through the crowd and slung her in front of Jesus. According to them, this woman was an adulteress.
Today, that might not mean much to many of us, since we’ve become so desensitized to it, but in Jesus’ time it was a big deal. It meant this woman could legally be put to death, but at the very least she would have to wear the label “adulteress” for the rest of her life and carry around the baggage and stereotypes that came with it. That meant she couldn’t show her face at the market without getting dirty looks. It meant that people would cross the street just to avoid her. It meant that if something bad happened in her neighborhood, she would be one of the first suspects because that’s what “those people”, those sinners, do. They cause problems.
This, of course, is the same story in which Jesus utters those immortal words “let he who is without sin cast the first stone.” However, what’s really incredible about this story and relevant for our purposes is that Jesus didn’t do anything dramatic to save this woman’s life. He didn’t walk across water, turn water into wine, or cast out any demons. He simply spoke up for this woman and treated her as an equal.
This is a lesson all of us need to hear.
Jesus’ world was filled with people very much like George Zimmerman, or at least our charicature of the man. The Pharisees and teachers of the Law weren’t the only ones to treat adulterers the way we see in this story. They were simply the personification of a culture that judged and treated everyone based on predetermined roles, labels, and stereotypes. It was a culture not unlike our own.
While we like to cast ourselves in the role of Jesus, the great defender of the innocent, the truth is most of us would have been no different that the Pharisees and teachers of the Law. We may not have been ready to pick up a stone, but like the rest of the crowd we would have ignored the woman on the street, given her dirty looks, and assumed the worst of her in the future. In other words, in this story, we would be George Zimmerman.
So, when Jesus simply speaks up for this woman and refuses to see her as nothing more than a stereotype, he quite literally speaks new life into her situation. Jesus not only prevents a brutal execution by refusing to buy into the idea that “those people” are all the same, he resurrects this woman from a life of persecution and oppression. In doing so he offers her hope for the future and all of us a new way of living together in a community defined not by prejudice and judgment, but compassion and grace. A community where tragedies like the death of innocent minority children would never happen.
If we really want change the state of our country, if we really want to put an end to unnecessary tragedies like Trayvon Martin, if we really want to live in a world where people are judged not by the color of their skin, but the content of their character, then at least two things must happen.
First, we must be honest about and confront our own prejudices. Don’t kid yourself, we all have them. Only when the dirty little secrets of our own prejudices and biases are brought into the light can they be incinerated and our character refined into the Christ-likeness we want to embody. Only then can we have hope for cultivating the type of community Jesus imagined when he stood between the persecuted and their oppressors.
Secondly, and most importantly, we must begin to see others the way that Jesus saw them. When we look at people we tend to see only their shortcomings and assume the worst about them. So we treat them as something less than human. When Jesus saw people, he looked beyond their outer appearance and into their heart where, despite their imperfections, he was able to see the hope and limitless potential that was hidden within. Therefore, he treated them as people made in the image of God.
You and I have the ability to save lives or, like Jesus, resurrect lives that have been lost to prejudice, persecution, and oppression. If we can begin to see people as Jesus sees them, if we can find the courage to speak up in their defense, and if we can treat them with love and grace as equals, then we can do more than stop the tossing of a few rocks.
We can stop bullets.
Grace and peace,
The more I read the Bible the less convinced I am that it was created to be an answer book.
That’s not to say we can’t find answers to life’s questions in the Bible, but I’m increasingly less convinced that the purpose of the Bible is to be an answer book, or perhaps more precisely, a reference book we can turn to to prove our point or prove others wrong.
Obviously, there are any number of passages that we can use as proof texts to make whatever case we’re trying to make. To be fair, sometimes that is a completely valid thing to do. But I think the Bible is more interested in asking questions than it is providing definitive answers.
From Genesis to Revelation, the Bible is a collection of questions, questions, and more questions.
Am I my brother’s keeper? – Cain
Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt? – Moses
My God, My God, why have you forsaken me? – David
What strength do I have that I should still hope? – Job
How long oh Lord, must I call for your help? – Habakkuk
Who is this that even the wind and the sea obey him? – The Disciples
Who do you say that I am? – Jesus
What does this mean? – Disciples at Pentecost
These are questions that the people of God continue to ask today, which I think is wonderful, not because it means we haven’t found “sufficient answers”, but because it makes the Bible more “real” and in turn it becomes that much more relatable and applicable.
If the Bible were nothing more than a collection of perfect people who always had quick, easy answers to all of their problems it would be completely unapproachable because we would have no way to connect to those sorts of stories. Instead, what we encounter are people not that unlike ourselves who live lives just as difficult and flawed as our own. Like our own lives, these Biblical characters struggle to find the answers they are looking for.
While some of us find beauty in this openendedness, fundamentalism cowers before it in fear. In their never-ending pursuit of control, fundamentalists, like Job’s friends, demand and then provide final, absolute, and exhaustive answers to any and every question they encounter even when God doesn’t seem to do so.
They do this because they fear unanswered questions. They fear unanswered questions because they refuse to relinquish even the slightest bit of control over their faith, their life, or even God. It is this refusal to live with the unanswered that leads to so much unnecessary conflict, division, and condemnation in the church.
The irony, of course, is that the control which fundamentalism demands is both impossible to possess and antithetical to a faith who’s oldest hymn describes a Savior who’s Lordship is defined by relinquishing control.
But I am convinced that the Bible’s openended questions are something to embrace, rather than fear.
They remind us that the Bible was not written directly by the hand of God. After all, why would God ask so many question God already knows the answer to? Instead, what we witness is a God who has invited God’s people to participate in God’s redemptive work in the world.
In turn, this combination of human participation and unanswered questions allows us to continue participating today in the answering of these important questions while also continuing to ask more questions of our own.
Over time we discover some of the answers to these questions, but this isn’t an invitation to answer every question or solve every case. It’s an invitation to live in the tension of the unanswered, the only place where true growth and discovery can occur.
Having prepackaged answers to everything stunts our growth, while also arrogantly and naively assuming to comprehend the incredible complexity and diversity of the human experience.
Allowing life’s most difficult questions to be unresolved allows us to honor the complexity and diversity of our lives and in so doing begin to address those questions in a more honest and effective way. It allows us to grow into the people God created to be, rather than artificially forcing us into a form God very well may never have intended us to fit into.
To borrow an old movie cliche, rather than using the Bible as a quick reference answer book, I think we should use it “ask the right questions”. Even in doing so, we may not always find the answers or if we do they may not be answers we like, but by learning learning to ask questions, rather than forcing out answers from every page of the Bible we join in the tradition of God’s people who’s relationship with God is, in so many ways, defined by their/our questions. In other words, we become who we have always been.
Once again, I do not say all of this to imply that the Bible doesn’t contain “answers” to the questions we have in life. However, we must be extremely careful in how we glean those answers, for more often than not I am afraid those “answers” tend to be our own creation, rather than the voice of God.
Answer are good, but often times questions are even better. Answers leave us as stagnant, preformed people. Questions allow our relationship with God to be dynamic, open, and honest.
God doesn’t fear our questions. No one in the Bible is ever condemned for asking God questions. Even Jesus asked questions! If anything, the Bible’s immense collection of questions should tell us that God welcomes questions with open arms.
So, don’t be afraid to ask questions. And when you find the courage to ask questions, never stop asking them. It’s ok to ask difficult questions about the Bible. God doesn’t fear your tough questions. And it’s even ok to critique the Bible.
Why?
Because as soon as we question or critique God and the Bible, they will turn around and do the same to us. And that is a very good thing. For like Moses or the 12 apostles, it is out of that exchange that we grow into the people God created us to be.
Grace and peace,
This story is absolutely fascinating to me.
Forget about “contemporary” and “traditional” services.
A church in Wisconsin has now created a service targeted specifically at registered sex offenders since, by law, they can’t be around children and, let’s be honest, most “upstanding” church members wouldn’t want to share a pew with them anyway.
Apparently, they haven’t had anyone attend yet, but they’re going to keep at it.
For those on the outside of the church, and many within her doors, this idea probably sounds a bit reprehensible. After all, you don’t get much worse than someone who sexually abuses a child, or anyone else for that matter. Shouldn’t we be locking our doors and pointing them out in public as the devil incarnate?
So, what is this church thinking?
Well, and I know you may not like it and I’m not completely comfortable with it myself, I think what this church is doing is trying to be like Jesus.
I think they’re trying to take seriously God’s call to take care of and minister to the outcast, even when that outcast is someone who is sick and has been in prison.
Like it our not, perfect or not, I think this church is trying to live out the kingdom of God on earth by extending grace and forgiveness to those who need it the most.
It might seem easy to criticize this church, but how exactly would we go about doing that?
Do we tell them that sex offenders don’t deserve grace and forgiveness?
I hope not, because last time I checked, neither do any of us.
By Larry Mcshane / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
A Wisconsin church offered a special church service for convicted sex offenders — but none of the sinners showed for their shot at spiritual redemption.
The First Congregational Church of Christ opened its doors for the first service on Feb. 23, only to find no worshippers from its target audience appeared.
Undeterred, the Madison-based church will continue the program every other Thursday through May.
“We truly want to be a church where everyone is welcome,” parishioner Susan Heneman told the Wisconsin State Journal. “We have to live this out, not just say it on paper.”
The program is an extension of the parish’s Prison Ministry, which typically works with those still behind bars.
The church bans all children from the church building during the services — a move that allows the sex offenders to attend without violating the terms of their release.
So, you may have to be a youth pastor to find this video amusing, but I think it’s hilarious.
Maybe that’s because I used to relish the opportunity to take school assignments and turn them into something incredibly ridiculous that the teacher never intended.
Pretty sure that is exactly what we have here.
From his description, this teen had to do some sort of school report on the stoning of Stephen found in the book of Acts. So, naturally he set the story to Katy Perry’s hit song “Firework.”
Personally, I applaud his sense of humor and the courage it must have taken to turn this video in to his teacher.
For the past few months at church I’ve been going through a series with my youth group called Ancestors.
It’s a collection of School House Rock-esque cartoons that tell the stories of many of the characters found in the Old Testament.
I’m usually not a fan of prepackaged curriculum since most of it is shallow, lame, and cheesy. This series, however, has been surprisingly “meaty”. And it comes with a bit of snark on the side, so I’m a fan.
This past Sunday we watched a clip about Rahab. She’s a footnote in the story of the people of God, but a fascinating one nonetheless.
Rahab was a hooker.
Seriously.
We meet Rahab when two Israelite spies who have come to Jericho to check out its defenses, mysteriously find themselves in the company of this Biblical madam. And by mysterious, I mean I’m pretty sure the spies were engaging in some, um, “extracurricular activities”on their mission.
To make a long story short, Rahab ends up striking a deal with the spies. She will save their lives if, in return, they will spare hers when the Israelities show up to conquer Jericho.
While the story of Rahab and the spies has all the makings of a Hollywood movie, what I find particularly fascinating is the fact that a hooker plays such a critical role in the story of the people of God. Being the Bible, we might expect the spies to find aid in a devote holy man or a dear old grandmother who has worshiped God her entire life.
Instead, we get a hooker.
What’s more, the Bible doesn’t shy away from Rahab’s occupation, which should tell us something. When God begins to work in our lives, God doesn’t care who we are or what we do. God only cares that we are willing to be used by God for the kingdom.
But not only that, and I think this may be the best part, God doesn’t wait for us to get our lives together before God chooses to work through us. God doesn’t wait for us to become saints before God deems of worthy of being God’s hands and feet in the world.
This should be simaltaneously empowering and convicting.
Empowering, in that regardless of our place in life, whether we are a successful business man or a lowly prostitute, a devote missionary or a riddled by doubt nobody, God is ready to use us to accomplish incredible things.
Convicting, in that most of us don’t find ourselves in such a difficult spot as Rahab, yet we constantly make excuses as to why we aren’t good enough or capable of doing the great things God has called each of us to do.
But if we could manage to find the courage and faith of this prostitute, the ripple effects of our willingness to allow God to work through us are unimaginable.
You see, this lowly, outcast prostitute had children, then grandchildren, then great-grandchildren, then great-great-grandchildren, and several great-grandchildren later, Rahab’s offspring gave birth to the Son of God.
That’s right.
Jesus’ great-great-great-great-great-great-too many to count-great-grandmother was a hooker.
In other words, without this hooker, there is no Jesus and through this hooker, salvation was extended to all of creation.
Now, you may want to argue that God could have simply used somebody else, but you would be missing the point. It’s the very fact that God chooses to use this hooker that makes all the difference.
What is so amazing about this story is what it teaches us about the grace of God. God doesn’t need perfect people to accomplish God’s plans. God seeks us out where we are and uses us in spite of our countless imperfections. In fact, if the Bible teaches us anything, it’s that God seems to prefer using people who are anything but saintly.
Now, we must remember that God doesn’t want us to stay where we are. Rahab doesn’t stay in Jericho. God meets us where we are so that God can take us somewhere better.
But if we can humble ourselves enough to learn something from the faith of hooker, and begin to see ourselves as God sees us, as clay ready to be molded, then there is no telling what incredible things God will accomplish through our lives.
Grace and peace,
