The 2013 Blog Retrospective

Another good year, I'm happy to say, is passing by. 2013 brought a lot of good things for me both personally and professionally. Kate and I are happily expecting a baby in a couple of months and life is most certainly going to change, but in the meantime we've been having a lot of fun and enjoying life up in the cold north.

As a retrospective on the year I am highlighting one post a month from this blog. Each, in its own way, tells the story of 2013, as we winded through the news of the day, ministry here in Hallock, and life at home. I hope you enjoy and pick out a post or two to have a read.

January: Lance Armstrong and the power of myth-making

"Last night, when Armstrong was giving his "tell-all" interview with Oprah he talked a good deal about losing control of the narrative. In his way, this was Lance attempting to apologize, even if it appeared half-hearted at best. But it's also true that there was a narrative throughout Lance's career that was bigger and more mythical than anything reality could offer. This would have been true even if he has been racing cleanly, even if he would have been the person we wanted him to be, because the story offered something cogent that each of us could hold on to: we wanted to believe in Lance because if we believed in Lance it offered us an avenue to believe in ourselves. We wanted somebody to "defeat" cancer. We wanted him to rise above perhaps the most demanding aerobic sport in the world and we even wanted him to crush those who suggested the myth was anything but gleaming gold. In some sadistic way, we wanted Lance to shut up Betsy Andreu, Emma O'Reilly, Tyler Hamilton, Floyd Landis, and anybody else who threatened to tarnish the legend."

"What is truth?" Questions and answers in John's Gospel

Scripture: John 1:19-34

            The only thing more annoying than a person always asking “why?”—and, yes, some parents with young kids during the Christmas season can probably argue there’s nothing more annoying than that—is a person who always has an answer. That’s really an unfair statement (some people who give answers are compelling and many people who ask questions are doing us a favor), but I want to start there because we have this natural reaction both to questioners and know-it-alls that I find fascinating. Firstly, we have all had that person, hopefully a child, who is a perpetual “Why?” machine. “Why can’t I do this? Why not? Why? Why? Why?” Eventually, no matter how hard you resist, you will get down to the heart of the matter and the answer to “Why?” will always be “Because!” If you’re like me you hate that moment because the truth is I just don’t know, or I just don’t have a good reason, or I’m not willing to enter into a philosophical debate with a four-year-old. I want to suggest that there is more going on here than petty annoyance. When we dig deep enough underneath all of the questions, our only answer is ever really “because,” because all of our answers hinge only on guesses that lie under the assumptions on which we base our lives.

The Savior we need, not the Savior we want right now

Scripture: Luke 2:1-20

            A survey from the British Medical Journal made news this week, claiming that 1 in 200 American women say they have experienced a virgin birth. Frankly, I don’t know what to do with that, but it just seemed like this might be the time to bring it up. I guess my thoughts on any survey or eyewitness account of the miraculous is that, as much as we are advanced, rational people, our lives remain a mystery even to us. I’m not saying that I believe that anybody has a virgin birth these days—in fact, it would kind of change Christmas a little bit, no?—but what I am saying is that the closer we get to understanding the world around us the more mysterious it seems to become. And that’s part of what Christmas is about. As C.S. Lewis once pointed out, the reason Joseph was worried about Mary’s pregnancy was not because he didn’t understand where babies come from, but because he did!

When we try to describe the miraculous it ends up as a he-said, she-said kind of affair; like a courtroom that will, by the very definition of its rules, find any miracle implausible. I remember watching a Mythbusters episode a while back where they were testing whether plants react to human thoughts. Basically, they were staring at potted shrubs and thinking, “I really hate you, plant. I’m going to light you on fire!”—things of that nature. The astounding part was that the first time the Mythbusters did this test the plant, which they had hooked up to a polygraph, actually reacted. So, they tried it again; this time with a pane of glass between them and the plant; and then nothing happened. Cut to a seemingly relieved Grant Imahara telling the camera, “Since the results cannot be replicated, we cannot confirm this one. That’s science!” This stuck with me because Grant lays out science’s strength and weakness in one sentence—one-time events are out of bounds because the scientific method says they do not exist. I repeat C.S. Lewis: Joseph is not concerned because he doesn’t know where babies come from, but because he does.

Light it up: The light of the world and how we are unified by darkness

Scripture: John 1:1-18

            Yesterday was the shortest day—or, if you prefer, longest night—of the year, so it works out well that today we get to talk about light, because we’re all in need of a little more of it. All this darkness alters our moods, heightens our anxiety, and forces us indoors, making us at once more lethargic and, yet, on higher alert. Without the light, our nights get colder and we become gloomier. Our Confirmation kids’ art for today expresses more about light than anything else. It’s hard not to focus on that aspect of John 1 when Confirmation class ends this time of year in the dark.

            Our traditional scenes of Jesus’ birth are set at night. Our Christmas Eve services are candle-lit. We sing Silent Night. All is dark, and yet, in the words of that hymn, all is also bright. It’s almost as if that first Christmas was pointing toward the first chapter in Genesis. “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep…” Then, out of the darkness God said, “‘Let there be light’; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness.” The story of Jesus is, in a way, a retelling of that Genesis story set in a manger in Bethlehem. Just as light emerged from the darkness on that first day of creation, Jesus Christ was born as the light of the world in the midst of thick darkness, making it especially appropriate that we celebrate this day during the darkest days of our year. Light shines brightest in the darkest night. Christ was born into pure darkness; a light the likes of which the world had never seen.

An Ironic Sermon/Blog Post about the Cheapness of Words

Scripture: Isaiah 55:1-11

            There are many things in life we never fail to undervalue. Among them are natural things—plants and animals; rain and snow—that we take for granted, and then there are personality traits—faithfulness and humility—things that we enjoy in other people but rarely repay in kind—and finally there is something closer to our essence as human beings that we also tend to minimize: our words. One of the great casualties of this busy world with all our talking heads, tomes of print literature, and innumerable websites is the thoughtful word. There are fewer and fewer poets, even as there are more and more bloggers. There are fewer great wordsmiths, even as there are more text messages composed each day than all messages in any format in any year prior to the 20^th century. Anaphorisms like “Talk is cheap” and “Sticks and stones can break my bones but words will never hurt me” are common and accepted.

            In the 21^st century you can say anything and find an audience. The more controversial, the better. The less time you spend considering other opinions, the more response you will get. When it comes to words we have made thoughtfulness and clarity expendable and too often consider the measure of an author her volume and provocativeness. Thoughtfulness doesn’t sell very well anymore, and so all words are cheapened; a casualty of our race to the lowest common denominator.

Who mourns in lowly exile here: Dry bones and resurrection

Scripture: Ezekiel 37:1-14

In the winter of 2006, our Augustana Choir did our Christmas Vespers on the theme of the O Antiphons. An antiphon is a musical response by a choir or congregation, and the “O Antiphons” are the responses attributed to the last seven days before Christmas—called “O” Antiphons because they all begin with the word/letter “O.” Anyway, I think you’ve probably heard of these before even if you’re thinking that you haven’t. In fact, I can almost guarantee you have.

            So, I realize this is a blog, and audience participation is limited, but here's what I want you to do: I want you to think about the Advent season (not Christmas, Advent)—and I want you to think of any piece of music that represents this season to you. Now, I want to be clear again: we’re looking for a piece that represents Advent, not Christmas, so if you’re thinking of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer you might want to think of another one—in fact, if you’re thinking of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer you might want to think of a better Christmas song, too, but that’s another matter.

Preaching on golden idols is hard: A sermon on money, Black Friday, and generosity

Scripture: Daniel 3:1,8-30

           A seminary professor of mine once said, “The church tells us two things about money: 1. Money is evil, and 2. Give us your money.” Which is why it’s tough to talk about money from the pulpit. Honestly, I wrote a sermon this week and I just kept writing and writing hoping I’d get around to the brilliant point that would help make this easier and I just never got there (you’re welcome for not preaching that sermon). It was over two thousand words and went mostly nowhere, so last night I just tossed it in the proverbial trash (with computers that’s a lot less dramatic—it looks more like copy/paste/delete—but you get my drift), and I started over.

You see, this story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego is about golden idols, sort of. It’s about wealth and bowing to gods other than the true god, sort of. It’s about faithful Jews in a faithless land, sort of. It’s about a king that comes around, sort of. Basically that’s a lot of sort ofs, and the temptation with all of those “sort ofs” is to make a big elaborate point about them in the context of something we all experience, like—I don’t know—Black Friday. So, that’s what I was trying to do. Black Friday, golden idols, wealth, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego—it was coming together and, yet, it wasn’t. I mean, it’s like asking “Would Jesus shop on Black Friday?” If you ask the question you are obviously looking for a certain answer, and the entire sermon felt like a leading question. If I’m just up here to mold the scripture to my ends, then I can do better, and you can do better than me. Instead, I want to talk about money and purchases, but in a way that doesn’t sell out the church as if it were some moral high ground on the issue, and also in a way that honors the guilt we all have in talking about this subject.

Black Friday and Wendell Berry

On this Black Friday I am spending some time reading Wendell Berry's essay, "The Idea of a Local Economy" and reflecting on the following excerpt. If you have the time, consider letting it sit with you, too:

"We live, as we must sooner or later recognize, in an era of sentimental economics and, consequently, of sentimental politics. Sentimental communism holds in effect that everybody and everything should suffer for the good of "the many" who, though miserable in the present, will be happy in the future for exactly the same reasons that they are miserable in the present.

7 signs you're doing Christianity wrong

It's hard to be a Christian sometimes in this aggravating world that sometimes spits in the face of what you believe. I get that. I struggle, too, with how to live and love God in the best way that I can. I also read what other Christians write, listen to what other Christians say, and reflect on my own presuppositions about the faith, which has led me to this: there are some terrible ways to show your Christian faith and the internet has basically blown all of them up for the world to see.

So, here it is: a non-definitive list of signs that you're not doing this whole "being a Christian" thing very well. I hope it helps.

Seven signs you're doing Christianity wrong

This is Your Obligatory (Almost) December Post about Waiting

            It’s got a catchy title and everything. Wait, wait, wait—that’s what it’s all about! Now, if only I could actually follow my own advice...

            I’m writing this on a Tuesday morning when I have a dozen things that need to get done in the next several hours and there’s not enough time for any of it. Waiting is not an issue; actually, I need more time. I expect I'm not the only one feeling this way. This is my least favorite time of the year and it really isn’t close, because as much as people want to talk about the exciting hustle and bustle of the malls and the lights and the Christmas music, I’m mostly overwhelmed and uncomfortable being out in any of it. Oh, how I wish I could just read a book by a fire, but instead every day brings another list of things to do.

            Probably you have some combination of hockey and basketball games, Christmas concerts, shopping and travel in this season; possibly you have all of the above. So much stuff. I don’t mind being busy, but it’s kind of ruining the point of the season. For as much as anti-consumerist-minded Christians have chimed “Jesus is the reason for the season” over and over again, the reality of Advent is that it actually has nothing to do with Jesus—at least not yet. It’s a time of waiting and anticipation; hence the title: “Your obligatory (almost) December post about waiting.”

            But the problem isn’t just that we’re terrible at waiting. The problem is that there is no time to wait, because there is no time to waste—or so it seems... or so we’re told.

            Martin Luther once said, “I have so much to do that I shall spend the first three hours in prayer.”

Jeremiah 29:11 and the Challenge of Faith for the Twitter Generation

Scripture: Jeremiah 29:1, 4-14

            “For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.” I have to be careful whenever I say anything about this verse because my wife has it tattooed around her ankle, but she’s in Alexandria, so... here we go! She’s not alone in liking this either. Jeremiah 29:11 has been called the most popular biblical verse of my generation (I should probably explain at this point that I’m going to refer to my generation as the “millennial” generation because that’s become the cool thing to do; and I’m not sure yet if this is a compliment or a derogatory term, so for now I’ll go with it). Anyway, more than one stuffy commentator has noted with a kind of sweeping generalization that members of the millennial generation claim Jeremiah 29:11 as a personal motto because we are selfish and entitled, believing in a God who is out to serve us, and because, you know, we’re snotty kids who haven’t figured out what the real world is like. Basically, Jeremiah 29:11 has become the rallying point for theologians who want to paint a negative picture of America’s Christian youth.

            Like most stereotypes there’s a grain of truth in this. All of us pass the Bible through the lens of our own life experience. So, when a person’s life experience to this point covers only years in school, including perhaps bullying, struggling to find the right social group, discovering who you are against the backdrop of who others expect you to be, and never living up to the standards set by your parents, your friends, your church… in other words when life basically looks like forces outside of your control telling you what to do and be, it is awfully attractive to look for a promise that another force outside of your control has good plans for your life. If you want to understand why millennials love Jeremiah 29:11, you need to start by understanding what it means to be a teenager. Mostly, it’s rough.

The only thing you really need to know

This has been a rough week in our little corner of NW Minnesota.

And, frankly, the more words I use to say this the more it risks getting lost, so I just want to put it our there: You are loved. Whoever you are. It does not matter. And it's not only my love, because my love really isn't all that special. But let's start there: I love you. Now, you're freaked out. OK, freaked out is better than not knowing you're loved, so I'll take that hit. Now, let's go a step further: There are others much closer to you who love you too; they should probably say it, but some won't. It's just who they are. But it's not even their love that truly matters. I mean, we're all human: we love you, but we also love french fries. The love that matters is much deeper than mine or yours. It's this kind of love:

"For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 8:38-39).

I realize those are just words (and pretty simple ones at that), but on a day when I'm emotionally exhausted (and you very well might be too), it's hopefully enough.

So, you think you want justice to roll down like waters?

Scripture: Amos 1:1-2; 5:14-15, 21-24

            Justice is one of those tricky ideas that sounds really nice in principle—like, who could possibly be against justice? It’s like being against hope or brownies—but when justice actually comes somebody always has to pay. We default to a victim’s mindset, assuming that the comeuppance will be for somebody else when the reality is that it may just as well be you or me. I read an interview with Lance Armstrong this past week that just stuck with me: here’s a guy who was on the receiving end of justice—who did terrible things and is now getting what he almost certainly deserved—and, yet, he rails over and over against the unjustness of the witch hunt that brought him down. His hollow apologies betray a person who cannot see himself as anything but the victim, never as the perpetrator, in a world where justice always means getting his way. When asked if he thought justice was served, Armstrong said plainly, “No.”

            If justice is going to roll down like waters, as Amos famously says, perhaps that should make us uneasy. Perhaps we really don’t understand what justice is.

The thing we fear the most: Silence and the presence of God

Scripture: I Kings 9:9-18

            One of the things I worry that my children and grandchildren will be most deprived of in this busy world they are entering is silence, especially when it comes to being silent together. Being silent together is a lost art. Every day there are more and more things that fill our lives with background noise, making it harder to think, harder to meditate and harder to discern God’s voice in all the madness.

            You see this with the various screens that we put in front of ourselves: TV screens and computer screens and smart phone screens and tablet screens and many more. The audio and visual noise is comforting, even the vibration of a phone on so-called “silent” mode gives us positive feedback with every text message or Snap Chat. Every month and week and day silence is more elusive.

All Saints Day and the church militant

Happy All Saints Day!

Don't be ashamed if you don't know what to do with that greeting, because most of us don't. That's OK. We'll learn a little about this together.

Firstly, one of the main ways that we commemorate this day is by remembering the dead, which is fine, but also incomplete. It used to be that churches in the western world celebrated the Triduum of All Hallows, which was All Hallow's Eve on October 31, All Saints Day on November 1, and All Souls Day on November 2. If you celebrate all three then, yes, All Saints Day can be about the dead and only the dead. However, most Protestant churches don't celebrate all three anymore (if they celebrate any at all), which means that All Saints Day has taken on a new meaning.

On All Saints Day many churches ring bells or speak the names of those who have died in the last year. Again, it's a really nice gesture and those who have passed are certainly included in the saints, but saying names and singing hymns should not be the entirety of our All Saints commemoration. If you're following the traditions of mainline Protestantism (which, if you're Lutheran like me, you probably should consider doing) then the dead are not the only saints. In fact, all people--living and dead--are counted in the saints, and this is why we see no need to celebrate both All Saints and All Souls.

Lutherans believe that we are 100% saint and 100% sinner, and the only difference that death makes in the equation is that it finally sheds that sinful skin that we have worn in this life. So to celebrate only the dead on All Saints Day makes me a little suspicious that this is all just a little synchretistic with the Day of the Dead and other celebrations of that sort. Of course, remembering the dead offers a pastoral service, but if we want to be honest to the way we interpret All Saints Day it should also be bigger than that.

So, if we're all saints (living and dead), what is this day about anyway?

Be a member--why not--but, more importantly, be a follower

Scripture: 1 Kings 8:1-13

            Confirmation is a seminal event in the life of the church. It’s the day that brings to fruition the promises that were made in your baptism, and it is your opportunity to publicly respond to that baptismal promise that your parents and godparents made for you. But first I want to be clear about a couple things, the first of which I say every year and will continue to say every year until I’m satisfied we are a church that doesn’t act like this: confirmation is not graduation. We parade you up here in gowns and applaud for you so it feels like graduation, but it is my profound hope that you are not done with the church even as you are just becoming members. If so, we have failed you.

Confirmation also does not mean that you agree with every detail of what our church confesses. If we honestly felt that way none of you would be getting confirmed. You are all little heretics who think for yourselves, but it’s not a sin to have independent thoughts. To be a member of the church is not to become an automaton who goes through the motions of worship once a week. While we ask that you respect the traditions that have been handed down for tens, or hundreds, or, in some cases, thousands of years, you are free also to respectfully disagree with those traditions. People have disagreed about things as long as there has been a church, and they can do this and faithfully remain a part of the church because we do not worship traditions or theological viewpoints. We worship Jesus. All of our traditions and confessions and doctrines are cornerstones for temple-building, but the temple is not the thing that we worship.

The politicians we elect (then hate), and the ones we reject and God elects

Scripture: 1 Samuel 16:1-13

            As I read through the call of David this past week I was struck by the kind of people that God elects compared with the kind of people we elect. According to polls[1] from this past week 10% of Americans approve of the job that Congress is doing, 8.5% don’t know or care (which is probably misleading because I’m pretty sure at this point 100% of us don’t care, in addition to our other feelings), and 82.5% disapprove. Given the nature of things in Washington these days I can’t really say I’m stunned, but taken on its own those numbers are staggering. Isn’t it at least a little insane that only 1 out of 10 of us approve of the people that we elected to represent us? We live in a representative democracy wherein the people decide who gets to serve, and yet we pretty much all dislike the very people we have elected into that service. And though there is a side of us that really would never be completely content with any representative, the fact remains that a majority of us decided that each and every one of these people is the best person to serve our country.

So, we can be comforted in knowing that God chooses people very differently from us!

We like to go the sexy route in our elections. We like to pick the people who are really smart and attractive, who have a fancy degree from a prestigious university, and who have done a good job of running a business or making speeches. We assume that those are the kinds of people that we need running the country because they have experience doing important stuff, which suggests they can faithfully represent the issues that are important to us.

            Notice, on the other hand, that God calls a boy shepherd to be king. David isn’t especially smart; he’s not really attractive in the authoritative way we expect of our leaders; he has no experience with anything resembling politics; he has no business acumen; and God doesn’t even ask where he stands on the issues. What a mockery of the political process! David doesn’t know a thing about leadership, he has no political convictions whatsoever, and he never went to Yale or was made captain of the football team. No human being would have ever elected David to be king.

Eli: A priest in need of the cross

Scripture: 1 Samuel 3:1-21

            There are worse fates in life than to be born a pastor’s kid, but then again there are many better fates, too. I’m not one—a pastor’s kid—but I’ve seen them firsthand, and since I’m kind of going to have one myself soon I’ve been thinking about this some lately. Pastor’s kids, by no fault of their own, are held to an entirely different standards from other children; this is true of police kids and teacher’s kids, too, to different degrees. Because of this, these kids either rise up to that standard to become good, but often sheltered, children; or they fail to rise up to that standard and go the other way, doing pretty much anything they can to distance themselves from that responsibility unfairly entrusted to them.

            This is not a new problem. Eli, the priest in today’s scripture, has two of the worst pastor’s kids you can imagine. The two of them were doing the B.C. equivalent of spray painting the sanctuary, smoking behind the bleachers, and stealing mom and dad’s car. They went the “other” way, and for it Eli and his family are cursed.

This is basically a parent’s worst nightmare.

Cold, rain, pain and redemption, part III (The conclusion)

This is part 3 of 3 of my tale of trying to ride 100 miles in one go. Check out part I here and part II here.

The Monday after

I had a plan. It was brilliant. Yes, I was thwarted by weather and a cold on Saturday but I had this awesome opportunity to just do it again on Monday. I was already planning on riding 30 miles with Steve Peterson, the Assistant to the Bishop in NW Minnesota, and Nate Houge, a church musician and (as it happens) bike enthusiast. What if I just added in 70 miles on my own?

Sounded easy enough. At least it did Saturday when I got home and felt completely recovered from the cold. Things changed Sunday as the chest cold made its triumphant return. Still, I figured it would be gone by Monday morning and I would do it--I had to do it. To leave a goal unreached was absolutely unthinkable.

Cold, rain, pain and redemption, part II

This is part 2 of a 3 part tale of woe (and possibly redemption) about my challenges encountered trying to bike my first 100 mile century ride. Read the first part here.

Electronic Trouble

I got a tenth of a mile in before I hit my first snag. So, if you're counting, that's roughly 1/1000th of the way done. At least that's as far as the computer on my bike said I had ridden before it promptly stopped working. 0.0 MPH, it read, but I was definitely moving some MPH, which was actually really frustrating. I mean, how was I going to take a picture of the odometer showing 100.0 miles at the end of the day if it wasn't working?

I pulled over at the end of the first block, as Jeremy and Alex waited for me. I adjusted the sensors. Nothing. I tinkered with the wires. Nothing. Just 0.0. We rode on and I began to realize how often I stare at my computer. I had no idea how far I was going now; how long it was until the next rest stop; how fast or slow I was moving. This was not a game-changing problem, but it was certainly more than a petty annoyance. Like my bike jersey, this was rather an important part of my ride day stuff, and now it was sitting there uselessly at 0.0.

After a time I let Alex and Jeremy go ahead and sat on the side of the road, tinkering with the sensors and doing everything I could think of to make my little electronic gizmo work. Adjustment after adjustment did nothing until finally, as a last resort, I took the computer off the clip on the handlebars and then clipped it back in. It reset. I held my breath and spinned my front wheel. After a second the sensors engaged and 1.9 MPH showed up on the screen. It was working! I actually laughed. Then, setting my bike back down, I pedaled quickly ahead to catch back up with my riding partners. My computer was working; my cold was manageable; the day was looking up.

Cold, rain, pain, and redemption, part I

This is part 1 of (probably) 3 posts about my quest to bike 100 miles. Read part II here and part III here.

A likely failure
 
This all started last spring.

I was a very, very amateur bike rider who had this idea that I could bike 100 miles. Never mind that I had never before biked more than 50. Never mind that the ride where I planned to reach the mythical century, the Minnesota Ironman, was only the second time I'd be on my bike outside this year (thank you very much cold, cold, terribly cold and snowy spring!). Never mind, I was going to do it.

And then I didn't. I rode that day and felt pretty good through the first fifty miles before it all fell apart. I had something like an asthma attack. Unable to breathe, I limped into the Afton rest stop, dry heaving, and decided after spending some time under the medic tent to go no further. Actually, for the record, I don't think the student medics there were going to let me ride any further. I was done 60 miles in; a long, long way away from 100, but it wasn't the end of the world. I had trained well for that ride but the reality was that I still probably wouldn't have finished. Even if I didn't have a breathing problem I hadn't done a great job with nutrition and, like I said, I hadn't exactly had much opportunity to train outside.

Century, take II

Fast forward to this past week and I was ready for redemption. I had targeted the Headwaters 100 for months, carefully tailoring a training plan and even managing to eat better in the weeks leading up to the event. I was ready to do it.

Until everything fell apart.

We all find different things in life challenging: Moses' calling, our calling

Scripture: Exodus 4:10-17

            In Nadia Bolz-Weber’s new book, Pastrix, she tells a story of her time as a down-and-out alcoholic comic in Denver like this: “When I was working as a comic, normal noncomic people would often say, ‘Wow, I don’t know how you can get up in front of all those people with just a microphone.’ To which I would reply, ‘Wow, I don’t know how you can balance your checkbook and get up for work each day.’ We all find different things challenging in life. Speaking in front of hundreds of people was far less challenging for me than scheduling dental appointments.”

            We all find different things challenging in life. There’s a lot of wisdom in that short sentence. I can resonate with that quite a lot. It’s not that I don’t find this whole preaching thing a challenge some of the time, but compared to, I don’t know, tending a garden or changing oil or cooking dinner I’ll take preaching most any day. Some of you would prefer those things to preaching—I don’t know why. I’m clearly normal; all of you are clearly strange… or maybe we are all challenged by different things.

The power of the "certain place" in fishing, hunting, and worship

Scripture: Genesis 28:10-17

            “Jacob left Beer-sheba and went towards Haran. He came to a certain place and stayed there for the night, because the sun had set” (Gen 28:10-11).

            When I go fishing there are many things that go into the best kind of fishing spot. We look for rock piles or weed lines or drop offs or saddles between islands—those kinds of things—and we do this because certain species will relate to these features of the lake at certain times. This is what separates an angler who knows what they’re doing from a person who’s out to have a few beers under the guise of fishing. The same principles hold for hunting or wildlife viewing. The good angler or hunter or photographer looks in certain places at certain times with certain conditions, because that’s where the fish or the deer or the wildlife are likely to be.

            This is so commonplace for anglers and hunters that we often fail to consider why the fish or the deer are there in the first place. What is it about this place that attracts them again and again? Probably it has something to do with food and shelter, or something biological that triggers them to return to that spot for mating or spawning purposes. Many of the same fish—and many of the same deer—visit many of the same places again and again so, naturally, it pays to look in those spots first.

My Preaching Stats

Because, let's face it, all pastors should have trading cards. Here--in order to procrastinate just a little on a dreary, really dreary, way too dreary (seriously am I in Oregon right now?) kind of Friday--are the sermons I've preached by books of the Bible.

Book	#
Genesis	19
Exodus	5
Leviticus	0
Numbers	1
Deuteronomy	1
Joshua	0
Judges	0
Ruth	1
1 Samuel	0
2 Samuel	4
1 Kings	4
2 Kings	0
1 Chronicles	1
2 Chronicles	0
Ezra	0
Nehemiah	0
Esther	0
Job	0
Psalms	12
Proverbs	0
Ecclesiastes	4
Song of Solomon	1
Isaiah	5
Jeremiah	1
Lamentations	0
Ezekiel	0
Daniel	1
Hosea	0
Joel	1
Amos	1
Obadiah	0
Jonah	2
Micah	0
Nahum	0
Habakkuk	0
Zephaniah	0
Haggai	0
Zechariah	0
Malachi	0
Matthew	6
Mark	6
Luke	26
John	19
Acts	6
Romans	6
1 Corinthians	6
2 Corinthians	1
Galatians	5
Ephesians	1
Philippians	0
Colossians	1
1 Thessalonians	1
2 Thessalonians	0
1 Timothy	0
2 Timothy	0
Titus	0
Philemon	0
Hebrews	0
James	0
1 Peter	0
2 Peter	0
1 John	2
2 John	0
3 John	0
Jude	0
Revelation	15

What a boring, un-annotated list that is! OK, here's something better. (Wait, you're thinking, this topic could be potentially not-boring? Maybe that's a stretch, but less boring perhaps.)

The key stats:
Total sermons: 165
# on the OT: 64
# on the NT: 101
OT books preached on at least once: 17 out of 39
NT books preached on at least once: 14 out of 27
Book preached on most often: Luke (26 times)
Books preached on more than ten times: Luke, Genesis (19), John (19), Revelation (15), Psalms (12)
# on the Torah: 26 (15.7%)
# on the History/Writings/Wisdom of the OT: 27 (16.4%)
# on the Prophets: 11 (6.7%)
# on the Gospels: 57 (34.5%)
# on Acts/Letters of the NT: 44 (26.7%)

You can't run away from the questions: Abraham and the binding of Isaac

Scripture: Genesis 22:1-17

            Difficult questions scare us. Seriously, we don’t like them. “What do you want for dinner?” is a challenging enough question most days; don’t even consider asking us anything deep and existential. Of course, since we don’t like these questions it’s a bit annoying when they show up in places like the Bible, because we like to think that we like the Bible. It’s convenient when the Bible says nice things we can agree with, but it’s not so convenient when the Bible actually challenges us with a situation, or a God, that we don’t like to imagine. 

Every one of us faces difficult questions in our daily lives—questions that we mostly choose to ignore, because they often hide in everyday situations. Here are a few:

Why don’t I do the things that I know I should do?

What is it that worries me about the future?

Why am I so afraid of making mistakes?

Why do I matter?

When should I speak up and when should I be silent?

What mistakes do I make over and over again?

And maybe most importantly: Why am I a Minnesota Vikings fan?

The most complicated of existential questions.

Faith, sports, and what is really important

An article for the Kittson County Enterprise, September 18 edition
 
            I remember vividly my high school baseball coach telling us as a team one day early in the season that baseball was the most important thing any time we were with the team for practice or a game. Outside of those times, faith and family and all sorts of things were more important than baseball, but during baseball time baseball was all that mattered. Rewind a couple hours and I had just listened to my choir director telling us that during choir rehearsal and performances choir was the most important thing. Outside of choir time other things were important, but when it came to scheduled choral events choir was all that mattered. Naturally, my baseball practices and choir concerts almost always seemed to overlap.

I get it. My coach and choir director were each teaching me about commitment, and hard work, and excellence. The lessons learned in any sport or activity can—and do—carry over into countless others in life, so I’m not going to pretend like baseball and choir did not matter. In part they make me the person that I am today. However, I do have to take issue with this idea that any sport or any activity is ever the most important thing at any moment in time. It’s not. I’m sorry.

Biking the farmland, setting goals, and what's ahead

Recently I have been riding my bike a lot. That's not really all that new, but for most of the last few years I've done a fair balance of running and biking and other things--swimming and basketball and Insanity and whatever else. But right now? Just biking. All the time.

There are a few reasons for this. One: I kinda like biking. Two: My knees appreciate the rest from running. And three: My main goal for this year was to do my first century--a 100 mile ride. Hopefully, 19 days from today, that goal will be achieved at the Headwaters 100.

So, I figured it might be time to let people know how things were coming along. I'm entirely certain that most people really don't care about details of training plans and whatnot, so for you, don't worry, I'm not going to get too into specifics. But one of the things I've realized recently is that people actually do enjoy reading about these kinds of stories--OK, I've actually only realized I enjoy reading these kinds of things; I have no idea if you do. I suppose you can vote by not clicking on the link the next time I post something like it.

New beginnings, nervousness, and God's proclamation that it's all good.

Scripture: Genesis 1:1-2:4a

             

            Last week I preached on the end, so where better to start with this week than the beginning (especially appropriate because this time of year is the beginning of a lot of things: a school year, Sunday School and Confirmation, choirs, sports seasons, you name it)? So, even as the seasons change, the harvest moves forward and the leaves start to turn, this is still very much a time for new beginnings. That can be good news and also bad news, because, even as we are excited by new things, we—human beings—just happen to also be really terrible at new beginnings. Even in the most subtly new situation we revert to our six-year-old self waiting for the bus on the first day of school. Even those of us who love going to school get nervous on the first day; and it's the same thing with a first day on the job, first day of parenthood, first day of retirement. For that matter, it's the same our first time driving a car; first time on a plane; first time ziplining; first time riding a bike; first time holding a baby. Every expert in every field had a first time, though by the time we consider them an expert they have honed their skills and made it look like they have been doing this forever. Of course they haven’t, and, depending on the difficulty of their area of expertise, they were probably darn nervous their first time. This is life.

Do you believe in miracles? Sports, narrative, and why we care about this so much.

This is a story about Chris Horner, but it's also a lot bigger than Chris Horner. This is a story about Lance Armstrong and Mark McGwire, Michael Johnson and Marion Jones. It's also a story about the 1980 Olympic Hockey Team, Texas Western, the Springboks, the Miracle Mets, and Buster Douglas. Heck, it's even a story about Rocky Balboa. So it's a BIG story, but we have to start somewhere. The question is where...

"For I know the plans I have for you"--Revelation, Jeremiah, and the telos of all things

Scripture: Revelation 22:8-21

            “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says God, “The first and the last, the arkhay and the telos.” Since I know all of you are experts in Ancient Greek I won’t spend too much time on this but, for my sake, let’s review exactly what that means. God is the Alpha and the Omega—already we’re using Greek terms here. The Greek alphabet runs from Alpha to Omega, like our A to Z. God is also the first and the last, and finally the beginning and the end—the arkhay and the telos. At first blush it seems like those words are just repetitive. If God is the first and the last then clearly God is also the beginning and the end. Silly Greek-speakers, English must just be a more efficient language.

            But actually the two words here—arkhay and telos—are far more interesting than that. When the Hebrew Bible was translated into Greek, into what is called the Septuagint, the first words in Genesis 1 were “En arkhay ayn ho logos.”[1] In the beginning was the word. About two thousand pages later, give or take whatever kind of Bible you’re reading, God is professed to be both in the beginning—the arkhay—and in the end—the telos. The word telos conveys both a final destination and a purpose. So, the telos of creation is not just the end of the world but its ultimate purpose as well. We have no word in English that can give us the same depth of meaning of telos, which is a shame because it means that our language does not allow us the same ability to see an end as definitively purposeful. It means it is hard for us to understand that God is not only the creator of the world, and God is not only the one who will bring about its end, but God is also the telos—the purpose and end for all life.

Being present in the present: The real challenge of "Always being made new"

Scripture: Revelation 21:1-7

           This year the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America celebrates 25 years of ministry, and as part of this year-long celebration the church has picked the theme of “Always being made new” with the theme verse which we just happened to read today from Revelation 21:5, “See, I am making all things new.” I’m not going to pretend like this isn’t an intentional message for a church that has sometimes struggled to be proactive in anticipating the future. We are being made new every day, but as a church both nationally and locally some of that newness has been challenging. Locally, our churches have had our share of new and difficult challenges in the last twenty-five years. In fact, the one thing I have heard perhaps more than anything else since taking over this call a year and a half ago is that we have been in need of a new start. A year and a half later, some of my newness has worn off, which means with every passing day it’s a little harder to focus on always being made new, to be the church which Martin Luther called “semper reformanda”—always reforming.

            Of course, there is an underbelly to this idea of always being made new; I know some people have a bone to pick with this theme. Always being made new does not mean we do not honor the past; it does not mean newness for newness’ sake; and it does not mean that new is equated with “better” and old with “useless.” We are made new not because new things are inherently better but because, left to our own devices, we make poor choices and are in need of a word of forgiveness every single day—newness every day.

Lutherans are weird

Scripture: Revelation 20:11-15

Being a Lutheran is a strange thing. If you are one you probably know this. We have potlucks and sing German and northern-Europeans hymns; we meet in church buildings with hard-backed pews; we revel in the good ol’ days when confirmation was tougher than school and nobody—and I mean, nobody—dared approach the pastor to ask how he was doing (and it was always a “he”). This is our heritage. It’s very strange, but so are we. Ours is a story of hard work and piety, which is also strange come to think of it, since Lutherans then turn around and preach that nothing we do makes any difference for our salvation.

Weird.

Lutherans live life straddling a barbed-wire fence between grace and good works. Life is much easier if you camp on one side of the fence or the other. One side of the fence is for those who like to demonstrate their faithfulness through action. For these folks, what they do and say defines who they are, demonstrating that they are good people—good Christians. The other side of the fence is for those who believe that God loves them just the way they are, who believe absolutely nothing is required of them, especially when it comes to God’s love and salvation. 99% of the world lives on either side of that fence of good works and grace, but Lutherans are just a little slow. We go out of our way, mind you, to sit on top of the barbed wire, straddling both sides. Culturally we are a people of hard work; theologically we are a people all about grace.

We are so weird.

How I "won" a triathlon... and then didn't

Now, firstly I have big news: Kate is pregnant. I feel like I’m obligated to say that before writing anything else because it is, well, big news. But since I’ve also known about it for awhile it’s breaking news to you and not so much to me, so you’ll have to excuse me for writing about something other than my unbridled joy at becoming a father. Don’t get me wrong, we’re excited. I just have other things happening, too!

Add to that the awesome day of youth activities we had in church today, culminating with three baptisms, and things are just awesome (that's double the awesome, y'all!). Today's service is the happy reason I am not posting a sermon this week (because our youth talked, which is frankly better for all of us anyway). So that, too, was exceptional and at some point I’ll probably write more.

But if you clicked on this post because it said “triathlon” all of that is neither here nor there. So, onward!

My "old man" face. Patented.

Babylon and the importance of community in the digital age

Scripture: Revelation 18:1-3, 21-24

    One of the most frequently used metaphors in the Bible for the kingdom of God is the “city on a hill.” The city on a hill metaphor resonated with people in the Middle East because it recalled the city of Jerusalem, which was built upon a hill, and the “New Jerusalem” which the book of Revelation tells us will be the centerpiece of the reign of God on earth. But to understand why Jerusalem matters so much requires going beyond the important events that happened there. Of course Jerusalem is an incredibly important historical city because of the temple and Jesus’ triumphal entry on Palm Sunday, the crucifixion and the resurrection, but this vision of the city on a hill looks well beyond the past into a future that is bigger than geography and history. The New Jerusalem is a place where God promises to build a community open on all sides where all peoples will worship as one. It is a city on a hill in the sense that it is both a vision of a future and a reality just out of our reach.

    But if we’re honest with ourselves this is a really tough metaphor for us to get, and it’s not only because Hallock, Minnesota looks nothing like Jerusalem. Part of the trouble stems from the strange idea of what a “city of God” will look like. Not everybody likes the idea of a “city” to begin with because of the crushing congestion, the politics and the sheer overwhelming speed of life, so the idea of the zenith of creation culminating with God creating one big city may not exactly be our preferred vision of the afterlife. And that’s OK, because the New Jerusalem—and everything it represents—could just as easily be called a community.

The Bible: Absolute or Conceptual... or can both be faithful?

First off, I should probably begin by saying this will be nowhere near comprehensive. For a comprehensive reading on the topic of the Bible start with reading the actual thing (crazy, I know) and then move on to everything that has been written about it in the last 2000 years. That should tide you through lunchtime.

The astounding thing I suppose is that Christians still haven't got this whole Bible thing figured out, or at the very least we absolutely do not agree on it. Take this tweet:

Now, let me begin by saying I love that Rachel Held Evans retweeted this without comment. She just put it out there for us to decide. Evans has been in the news lately because of a piece she did for CNN on "Why millenials are leaving the church." Check out the article. It was good, if not exactly earth-shattering. What has been more interesting has been the response: Mainline Protestants hypocritically tooting their horns at the evangelical exodus from the church, others who have engaged Evans' speculation thoughtfully and on point, and then things like the above from within evangelical circles calling out Evans for being unbiblical--or something to that effect.

The end of the world and fleeing from death: The one with Will Smith fighting aliens, Voldemort and angels pouring out bowls of wrath

Scripture: Revelation 15:1-8

In this summer of reading through Revelation, I would be remiss if I didn’t take one Sunday to talk about the end of the world. And not just new creation, which we’ll get to by the end of the book, but the actual end of the world—you know, the Will Smith, Jeff Goldblum, and Bill Pullman fighting off aliens kind of end of the world, or the Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck on an asteroid kind of end of the world. Hollywood gets these visions of the end of the world, but probably already many of you have no idea what I’m talking about, so… back to Revelation!

The book of Revelation gives us several visions of the end of the world—in fact, it probably offers too many visions to give us an accurate, unified impression of it—but there are some general themes. Firstly, there are going to be some disastrous events. This really shouldn’t come as a surprise, because whether it’s global warming, nuclear winter, meteors, aliens or angels pouring out bowls of wrath, most ways that we imagine Armageddon are not very pleasant. Secondly, these disastrous events are going to unfold in quick succession. Again, this is something Hollywood has figured out for us. Every movie about the end of the world seems to take place within a matter of days from start to finish.

And lastly, this whole end of the world business? We aren’t going to like it.

In Hallock, this is home

I was a little stressed this week. OK, actually a lot. And I couldn't put my finger on it. I assumed it was something to do with returning from a mission trip and trying to catch up on sleep--I'm sure that was part of it. I assumed it also had something to do with catching up on work and the return of general monotony to the routine--that was surely part of it, too. Then, I assumed it was that I had reached my limit of extroversion in the past week--yep, that too. But I think none of those were actually the main reason for my stress.

Yesterday, Kate and I finished painting our living room--finally! As we put things back into place I could absolutely feel the stress lifting from my life. It was weird. There's no reason why the location of furniture should be such a big deal, except IT WAS. I could not focus, could not rest, could not let go of things, until things were as they should be--until, in short, I had a place to call home.

Coming back from Idaho is always a maudlin experience for me. Home is Golden Valley, Minnesota, and home is now Hallock, Minnesota, but home is also the ponderosa pines of northern Idaho, the banks of Lake Coeur d'Alene, and the shores of Shoshone Creek. Of course, it was wildly appropriate and completely random that I was reading Bill Bryson's At Home over the course of the week I was there. Home is weird; it's the intersection of a place and feelings and people and all sorts of things that are harder to put our fingers on. Going off to Idaho reminded me of home out there, but it also strengthened my ties to Hallock back here. It's weird. And beautiful. And I don't get it.

Mission trips and mission at home

Scripture: Revelation 12

            When we think about the Devil and the nature of evil—if we ever do think about these things—we tend to think about terrible temptations, murder and violence, utter depravity and the like. It’s easy for us to see evil at work in big forces outside of our control—things like terrorism and addiction. The nightly news is draped with images of sin and the power of the Devil, but we should certainly remember that these are not the only images of evil in our lives.

            On the bus ride home from our youth’s mission trip in Idaho a couple nights ago I asked a couple of our young people what I should preach on—because, honestly, I didn’t have much clue. What ensued was twenty minutes of deciding how to re-create a heavenly battle scene for all of you complete with fiery swords and flying angels and evil dragons. They had picked out characters and everything. It was a lot of fun, but I decided—perhaps wisely, perhaps foolheartedly—to not act out a heavenly battle on the altar. The youth were understandably disappointed. But that is what this is about, isn’t it? This is the only scene in the traditions of Christianity or Judaism where there is actually a battle in heaven. It is the ultimate, epic, Spielberg-esque prequel to our lives on this planet. Satan, that great deceiver, is defeated dramatically and cast to this earth where he meets first Jesus, against whom his power is useless, and so he is forced to focus on Adam and Eve, forever changing the history of humankind.

            This dragon story is virtually identical to a myth in the Greek tradition about the god, Apollo. Ancient readers would have picked up that John was adapting the Apollo story and using it to point to Jesus. In so doing, the real effect of the dragon and the angels is that it gives an explanation to one of the most troubling effects of life on this earth: it tells us to origins of evil.

            I suppose that upon descending to earth the Devil could have begun to wage a violent war on human beings, but it’s telling that he doesn’t. Instead, the Devil does something far more effective: he whispers in the ears the most tempting of ideas and, slowly, things begin to unravel. The Devil is more interested in silence than a bang. See, there was no headway to be had with Jesus. Satan seemed like an unstoppable force when he landed upon the earth but in Jesus he met something fundamentally good that he could not touch. So he had to settle for the rest of us, causing the earth to quake, famine and war, visible signs of brokenness, and far more.

The Tour and the Church

The following is an article for the Kittson County Enterprise, July 10 edition.

I love the Tour de France. I realize it’s a completely niche sport that not everybody can get into—and that’s fine—but I find it absolutely fascinating. I also remember the first time I watched a cycling race. Honestly, I had no idea what was going on. There were riders out front called the breakaway, something called a peloton (a large group of riders) and the commentators were talking about stages and the general classification and all sorts of things that didn’t make a lot of sense. Then they mentioned the teams. How, I wondered, can a team possibly help one of their riders? It’s not like they could push one another. Was it just moral support? I was lost.

I suspect this is something like what it is to walk into a church for the first time. Most people who grow up attending a particular denomination have an idea of the traditions, customs and signs of worship within that church, but this makes it hard to remember that there are many people outside that church that have no idea why you do things the way you do. Just because they are not part of the in-crowd does not make them inferior or any less valuable in God’s eyes. It’s a dangerous practice for a church to assert their superiority over those on the outside—in fact, I can imagine few ways to be less Christian!

This is worship. This is worship.

Scripture: Revelation 7:9-17

In heaven there are no committees.

Now, I know for some of you that is a pretty blasphemous way to start a sermon, and I don’t want to give the wrong impression here. I love what committees do for the sake of the church and for my sanity as well. We have many dedicated, hardworking and genuinely necessary committees in this church. They mostly function very well together and I could not do my job without them. However, in spite of these things I am sorry to say that heaven still has no need of committees.

This is why.

If a committee were charged with organizing this giant worship service with the Lamb on the throne in Revelation 7 it would have been bogged down in all sorts of disagreements, and it never would have happened. The idea of opening up worship to great, uncountable multitudes from every corner of the world, every tribe and tongue, would have paralyzed the heavenly worship committee. How could we possibly all worship together? And, most importantly, how could we make enough coffee and bars to serve them all?

Lake of the Woods trip 2013

So, mostly this blog has become for sermons and whatnot. That's nice but it's also somewhat a bad sign that I have had little time for other things. OK, so life is life and sometimes you do what you do to get by, but when an opportunity comes for something else it should not be ignored. Hence, Lake of the Woods trip 2013. If you're not interested in what I do on vacation that's just fine, but if you are here it is. Enjoy. Oh, and here's a warning: It's not exactly relaxing.

So, I have been up on the NW Angle three years straight for muskie fishing with my buddy, Carl. I'd been to the Angle before these trips but never for anything quite so crazy. This is not your grandpa's walleye trip. It's 12-14 hour days of sun and wind and sometimes waves and always fishing--lots of fishing.

Day 1: Steak

We arrived in the Angle late Sunday afternoon with the idea of getting on the water ASAP. Basically the philosophy of this entire trip is: Fish whenever fishing is possible. Sunday night fishing was possible; hence we fished. We didn't catch much (by that I mean we caught nothing) and it was only a mini little four hour tour. So, the order of the day was rainbows and steak--in that order, but not necessarily by preference.

To become bound to the things that matter

Text: Ruth 1:16-17

I don't normally publish wedding (or funeral) sermons but I had multiple requests in this case so here it is. Names and places have been removed for the sake of the couple but otherwise the sermon is unaltered.

One little verse from Ruth sums up your responsibilities and commitments in the married life. “Where you go, I will go; where you stay, I will stay; where you die, I will die.” That’s not something you hear much these days. I mean, people get married because they really like each other and it’s the thing to do when two people really like each other; and people get married because they have children together or want to have children together; or people even get married for taxes or completely practical reasons, and because of this “Where you go, I will go” has lost its simplicity. You two know about going places together. It’s taken you on a bit of an adventure so far and it has brought you back here today. Nobody knows where it goes from here. The simple promise you are making now is that this journey will not be a solo effort; instead, you will be in it together—for better and, sometimes, for worse.

Maybe you’ve had people jokingly rib you over this whole marriage thing. There’s this widespread attitude that in marriage you will lose your freedom—that tomorrow you will be less free than you were today. And, honestly, it’s kind of true. This is a commitment that will eliminate possibilities from your life. In fact, from here on out in every big event that you share together possibilities for the future will disappear because you will make choices that take you down one path and close other paths entirely. This journey might include big moves, additions to the family, new jobs, and other things that will take you by surprise, but all of these things will mean eliminating possible futures from your life, always making you less and less free.

What is the church? People + Worship + ... Evangelism??

            I’m going to ask a question. It’s such a completely obvious question that it seems almost like a silly thing to bring up, but then again the most obvious questions tend to be the ones that never get asked. So, here we go: What is the church?

            OK, so there are a few levels to that question. Most often when pastor-folk ask ‘What is church?’ they are trying to get you to say this: “The church is not the building but the people.” Gold star. 100% on your confirmation test. Congrats. That’s a great answer. In fact, it’s an answer we need to give more often. We tend to revere our church buildings too much. Like Peter following the transfiguration of Jesus on the mountain, our first thought in the midst of something holy is to build a dwelling place for God (Luke 9:33). But (of course there’s always a “but”) the church is also more than just people. What are those people doing? Why are they gathering? What is their purpose? So many questions...

The four horsemen: Been there, done that

Text: Revelation 6:1-8

           I’m going to start this sermon-blog with a little survey. Now, I know what happens when I ask you a question involving raising your hands in worship—three of you will raise your hands about as high as your mouths and the rest of you look will around like I’m not talking to you. But since this is online hopefully you can at least answer in your head. Don't raise your hand. That might make your family or the other people at the coffee shop think there's something wrong. So, here’s the deal. This is a multiple choice question. There are no correct answers. However, there is one way to get the question wrong and that is if you don’t answer. So here’s the question: Which of the four horsemen do you find the scariest?

            Listen to your four choices and think about it. There’s the white horse, which represents conquest, especially by a foreign power; there’s the red horse, which represents internal conflict and violence; there’s the black horse, which represents economic insecurity and famine; and finally, the pale green horse that represents death. White horse, conquest; red horse, violence; black horse, famine; green horse, death. Those are your choices. Which do you find the scariest?

Boredom, prayer, and why reading Revelation stresses us out

Revelation 5:1-14

            Do you know that feeling when you’ve had something absolutely amazing happen—when your whole world has been rocked and nothing will ever again be the same? Have you ever had an experience so incredible and otherworldly that you have to share it? I hope you have. And I bet most of us at least have some idea what that is like. Every once in awhile the stars align and we have that perfect, often unexpected, moment. But if you have had such a moment you probably also know the feeling of trying to share it with somebody else.

            It’s hard for us to relate to subjective experiences. After our youth’s mission trip to Colorado last year we tried to share with you what it was like to experience some of the relationships we built and the emotions that we felt. Again this year when we return from our mission trip to Idaho we are planning to take a Sunday to share the same things. Of course, mission trips are far from the only time we experience these seminal moments in our lives. It happens when babies are born; it happens in moments of intense spirituality or the euphoria of your sports team winning a championship. Each of those moments is beautiful and equally challenging to share with others who are not a part of them from the beginning.

One big, stinking church

Text: Revelation 3:14-22

This is adapted from a sermon preached at midweek services at Zion Lutheran in Lake Bronson, MN.

            This summer at Grace and Red River we’re taking a narrative lectionary tour through Revelation so I’m going to share a little bit of that with you today. Together with the Acts reading we have a pretty clear central theme for the service which is: churches in need of repentance. And I know there’s nothing like a guest preacher coming into a place that is not his own and preaching on churches in need of repentance, so here we go!

             The truth is, whether I’m here at Zion or home at Grace or Red River or basically at any church in the world, we have the same basic need for repentance because we mostly have the same problems. I know some churches are big and others small; some are financially secure and others barely holding on, so it might seem on the surface like these churches have very different problems, but I want to suggest that it actually comes down to much the same thing. The book of Revelation was written to seven churches in seven different situations, but I can guarantee that your church fits into more than one of these categories; in fact, if your church is like mine then it fits into all seven. Every church has a problem sometimes with complacency, sometimes with assimilation, and sometimes with fear of the outsider. And I know this because, in spite of the fact that some churches are big and others are small, some are secure and others are struggling, we are nonetheless part of the same big, stinking church.

The surprising theology of happiness

Text: Revelation 3:14-22

            There is a famous 1978 study on the relativity of happiness in which a trio of psychologists set out to discover whether people become happier after they win the lottery. They tested their hypothesis by assessing the happiness of people who win the lottery over time and comparing it with a control group as well as a group of people who lost a limb as the result of an accident. That’s right, the main contrast in this study was between lottery winners and amputees. This research has been repeated a couple of times since with near identical results.

            On the surface this seems like an awfully strange experiment. Not all of us may buy into the idea that money brings happiness but I bet most of us would think: “It can’t hurt!” Either way, given the choice between winning the lottery or losing a limb I’m going to guess we would all make the same choice. And at first the study agreed with our gut instincts. Immediately after winning the lottery people are happier! Surprise, surprise.

The problem is that it doesn’t last.