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.