Lift A Leg...Find A Tree

I went to go clean this house with one of my friends the other day and part of the house-sitting was also taking care of a dog. And so I go and change his water and fill up his food bowl and picked his poop up. And he got soaked by the sprinklers and got all dirty and his lower half just got immersed in mud. And at that point, I had to reprimand him for getting too close. For being dirty, I just didn’t want to get dirty. The association costs me too much. He is definitely fun as entertainment, and maybe that is all he is there for, to serve my need to be entertained.
Maybe it is the same for the homeless person. Maybe it is the same for the outsider, the “uncool” person. They provide us opportunity for social commentary as we drive on by in our convenient lexus cages. They provide enough guilt to toss up a prayer as we walk on by. They drive us to talk about love and that is as far as we go. They make us uncomfortable. And the association might be too much to our precious reputation. Yet, scripture says Christ was a friend “of” sinners. Not “to” sinners. This is what pissed off the Pharisees. Jesus loved the outsiders. The “dirty” people, the unclean. He calls us, from the Old Testament to the New and beyond to love the outsider, the marginalized and the poor. Who are those people in your world: the elderly person next door, the nerd in your 3rd period class, the prostitute who sits on the corner, or the guy who holds the cardboard sign…We are called to love these people. Christ even says that there is some mysterious connection between loving the outsider and actually partaking in experiencing him. Loving the outsider does not mean we give them a handful of change, it means we befriend them. Mutual reciprocity. You share life with them. Speak of your stressful day at work, your victory at golf, your frustrations with your relationship with God…

I Vote For...

Have you ever mismatched? You know, when you go to your closet and then set out your clothes and the morning arrives to find you on your way. Then when it’s already too late, you realize you have mismatched shoes and socks. And then you have those awkward moments wondering the whole time if you should say anything before someone else does…one of those days.
I believe we have mismatched our values with nationalism. We have embraced something like the American Dream and have discovered scripture to justify it. We embrace the American way as the correct way to do things. We think country pride is biblical. Ironically, scripture does speak on this. With the story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in the Old Testament. These guys were friends of Daniel and also the same three guys who had the walk-in BBQ with Jesus as the fourth guy (Read Daniel). They were told by the King to bow down to the country idol, to serve the countries idealism of the King being God. And they wouldn’t. They didn’t back down. They did allow their country politics to dictate their spirituality or way of life. They allowed their spirituality to dictate those and many other things. Yet, we have claimed Christianity to be a republican religion. We have claimed America as a Christian nation. Christ-following is very different from Christianity. The first designates followership. The second is a religion which man has created which includes the proper way to vote. In fact, scripture does include a promotion to nationalism, but not of the physical world. All over the book of Hebrews is this idea that we are strangers of this world, but that our citizenship is of the unseen world. That our clothes are supposed to be righteousness. Righteousness in it’s depth of meaning refers to us living out our lives scandalously and discovering who we each are meant to be in Christ. That our national anthem should be worship to the King through our lives. That our politics should be advocating transformation in our lives and in the lives of others.

Don't Move

WHATEVER YOU DO, DON’T MOVE
Taste the reminiscent discord in your voice
Dance with the silence in a room alone
Where no one knows your home
Stay in this place, frozen, cold
As a lovers go, destruction is our wake
We’ve left the circus for another day
Embrace the tide that swept us away
And said goodbye before yesterday
If only it was today, would there be more to say…
Take the cue cards from behind the screen
Live out the last act like steve mcqueen
Let it roll. Down off our backs. Sip martinis and finally relax
And be complacent with what we’ve got
That seems to work for the world so far

Return of The Musical...

He usually is the guy with the long gray beard. It probably hasn’t been groomed for months, maybe even years. You usually won’t find him in a nearby coffee shop or some bookstore or department store that raves of its newest fads. In fact, for him, clothes might be least of his many concerns. In most cases, he is the guy we tend to avoid. We tend to walk faster if we see him approaching us, as we juggle through our pockets and purses to find our keys to seem as if we have somewhere important to go. In reality, he is the guy we want to avoid, and for most of us, we do it artfully.
In the first century, being crippled had a very similar stigma attached to the status of the one who was crippled. It was believed that if you were born crippled that someone in your family committed an unpardonable sin, that the mark was a blemish on the generations of that family to come. You were not liked and you were not popular if you were the crippled guy. They would have special places for you…for many outside the city, or near the temple entrances was where they (the crippled ones) would choose to sit and beg for money. A little piece of the life we get to experience everyday. They were the epitome of the outsider. The poster-child for the marginalized. They lived and breathed rejection. But, today was different…
Peter and John were going through the temple, and saw this guy. And going through his day-to-day rhetoric of asking for money there was no expectation of change. What is interesting is Peter’s reply to the request. Basically he says: look here man, I don’t have any money to my name. I am poor as you are. But, way more important than that hamburger you’ve been dreaming about, I have something else (or someone else) who is much more important to your sustenance. And then after that, he tells the crippled man who has been sitting at the gate called Beautiful (ironic, huh? He has been told and treated by society as if he is ugly) to “Look up here”! (I am flashbacking to the movie “The Three Amigos” (lol))…really what he means is this…I am nobody special. I used to be where you are now. Which means there is hope for you. There is something beyond the mundaneness of expecting the same treatment everyday. There is transformation. I know how you feel, and there is more. Look at us! Look how God changed us. He can change you…then Peter uses an odd phrasing, never really seen before or after this encounter…he says “In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth!” not your typical, “in the name of Jesus”, but why? Because, the last time we hear anything about Nazareth, “ there is nothing good that can come from it”…in essence Peter is saying, “look at what Christ’s own people thought of Him, and look at who he really is”…he is letting the man know that there is more to what society says about him, there is more to him than what he has come to think of himself. He is valuable. And then tells him to be who he was meant to be by not being encumbered by his ailment. He basically gives him the license to live as a free man. As a person who is and has always been beautiful. We tend to look at this passage as how to react to the homeless person we run into you…but, really, what is crippling you? What is holding you back from knowing Christ deeper? What theologies, sermons, thoughts, fears, strengths, weaknesses, experiences are shaping you into a “crippled” person who is beginning to believe they are not or have not been beautiful…maybe you come to understand that you are the most prized creation. That more than any beautiful musical ever seen or made, you are the epitome of a beautiful song to God’s ear. More beautiful than Mona Lisa, or Starry Night, or Les Miserables …believe this, and you will change the world!!!

WAITING FOR THE BUS TO ARRIVE

it's so much easier to just let it run its course. i mean, sometimes fighting it just makes it worse, and even though we know the outcome, at the time giving in seems to be the best answer at the time. although, in the shadows lurks the shadow of that part of our soul we just just gave up and are not fully aware of. mercy, like air -- we need it. sometimes church loses all the spiritual resources it claims it has. we get disillusioned by the very things that seem to have it all together. we seem to have stomach pains over taking all the overspiritualized sweets that are bribe their way into our heads, until one day, theology itself fails us and leaves us to trust god and not our thoughts. we becom disillusioned by our own ghosts and our own ideas, that all that is left is either to completely run east of eden or into waiting arms of our Father, who like the father of the prodigal -- always waits....how cool is that?

Blessed Are The Poor...They See God

today i noticed that the outsider gets the boot. the marginalized ones get forced to walk on that white little part between the curb and the street. they are not worth our time to share a sidewalk with. this is so very sad. we leave them right where they are and blame them for their demise, when maybe, just maybe, life is what happened. it is not our responsibility to judge them, it is our job to love them despite the judgements that may well up deep inside. we must seem them as possible friends. as possible members in the family called the human race. there is no such status as subhuman. some may say this idealistic, but how do you change the world? one person at a time. we change our perspective. then, that's when the world begans its transformation. but maybe its too easy to stay where you are in your thoughts on all this, is it?

I wish it would rain...

we let it tell us what we can do. what we are able to do. what we should do. it's like we ask its permission to live. to breath even. we must not let the falling rain immoblize us from walking outside, we must do the exact opposite. we must let the rain inside, swim into our veins. let it become part of the experiences we go through. we must let it soak us, embrace the rain. because it will never be that kind of rain again. it will never be the rain on that day in that moment. we must dance, we must get a mess, we must live out our lives irregardless of the rain. we must not live within what might see permissive limitations bound by some weather. we must live out life passionately...and wish it would rain...