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SUNDAY REFLECTION: Love The Sinner, Hate The Phrase

I’ve both heard and used the phrase, “love the sinner, hate the sin.” And while I’ve grown far less fond of it, my critique has less to do with its intrinsic contradiction and more to do with the fact that I’ve seldom heard it used (or used it myself) in any kind of seriousness; I generally don’t intent to love the person in question at all.

Of course, it’s problematic to make any phrase a mantra of the Christian life when it wasn’t something Jesus said. Jesus did say something like it when He said “Love your neighbor” which comes with no qualification.  But I think “love the sinner, hate the sin” has more similarity to another, well known teaching of Jesus:

“Love your enemies.”

The similarity, as I see it, is that both phrases/teachings share an intrinsic contradiction. If I love someone, they may still consider me an enemy, but my love for that person ought to make that same thing impossible for me. An enemy is someone I want to see fail, someone I must beat or destroy. In love, the way Jesus taught and lived it, I don’t stand against that person anymore, as is the posture of enemies. Instead, I am for them and want good for them.

I see “love the sinner, hate the sin” similarly. If I truly love someone, I’m likely not seeing them as primarily a sinner. In fact, I am convinced that seeing someone in a truly loving and Christian way means seeing her as primarily beloved of God; our differences and especially our faults, come second… at least.

And so, while I would rather friends cease from using the phrase “love the sinner, hate the sin” in exchange for the actual teachings of Jesus, I’m almost equally happy to hear and see it used in seriousness. In other words: what if I meant it when I said it? What if I took that charge to love someone I saw as a sinner? And what if that love transformed my vision (as true love does) and I no longer saw that person as primarily a sinner, but a whole person; conflicted and conflicting but above all a beloved child of God?

I think that would change everything… beginning with me.

44 days ago /  Tagged: , , , 42

“I’m Freezing.”… No, You’re Not.

Walking back to my car last night, I was grumbling to myself about the cold. Something like “aalskdjfa;sdcoldalsdjfkajsstupid.” I was mainly frustrated that my car’s heater is on the fritz and that my 15min drive was going to be “aalskdjfa;sdcoldalsdjfkajsstupid.”

In the stairwell of the lot where I’d parked was a woman with a dog explaining to the officer standing over her that she planned on sleeping beneath the stairs and would move on in the morning. He didn’t seem keen to allow that.

I don’t know her story.
I don’t know how she ended up where she is.
On the other hand, I do know my story.
I know exactly how I got where I am.
And that I have nothing to complain about.

–
Also, it’s good to be on the same page as Jimmy Kimmel:


 

 

155 days ago /  Tagged: , , , 2

The Incarnation and the Every Day

Part of the power the Incarnation story has for me is the 30 years of silence before the recorded part of Jesus’ life.  That silence says to me that until he was baptized by John, Jesus lived a life that was quite literally unremarkable, since nobody found much in it worth marking.  Many days, I find my life to be somewhat unremarkable; I work, I eat, I rest, I have time with family and friends… not even a flash of shekinah glory.  Some days I come to the end of wondering where the time went.  I am encouraged that Jesus lived such a life as well, at least for a time.

Unlike many other ancient Incarnation stories wherein a god takes on human form for a while and only to serve a special purpose, the God of the Bible, The Creator, The Name Above All Names, not only becomes a human being,…

He is carried in woman’s body…

born to that woman…

raised in a family with parents who taught him to feed himself…

had siblings..

had friends…

lived in a particular community…

held a job…

Which says to me that these things are not insignificant in their normality; that God finds it worth spending most of a human lifetime attending to simple things like work and neighbors and friendships and family.

In “The Magnificent Defeat” Frederick Buechner weaves together a series of extra-Biblical accounts of Jesus’ birth, written from the perspective of characters who appear in the Gospel account but don’t get much air-time. In the mouth of a shepherd who had heard the Angelic announcement, he places these words:

“That night (It was) like finally coming to– not things coming out of nowhere that had never been before, but things coming into focus that had been there always. The air wasn’t just emptiness any more. It was alive. And what you always though was silence stopped being silent and turned in the beating of wings, thousands and thousands of them. Only not just wings, but voices… high, wild like trumpets. The words I could never remember later, but something like what I’d yelled with my mouth full of bread “By God, it’s good, brothers! Everything. Everything!”

That is part of the power of the Incarnation for me: That God not only abides mundane things, but dwells in them and does so gladly. That he dwells in me and my work and my community… and in the old porn theatre with aged brown carpeting where my community gathers on Sundays to celebrate and remember the One who is beyond naming, perfect in power, glorious and majestic.. and who was carried in the womb of a teenaged girl and born into the world just as I was.

It means everything matters.

176 days ago /  Tagged: , , , , 8
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Sunday Reflection: Worship Names What Matters Most

This is a short reflection I passed along to a few friends with whom I serve at my church’s Sunday gathering.

In his book “Dangerous Act Of Worship” Mark Labberton writes “Worship names what matters most… “ Mark has become a good friend and great mentor to me. His life and his work, including this book, are constant reminders to me of why I do what I do a a worshiper (including on Sunday nights). Even though Jesus, my community and my mission are deeply vital to me, I can and do grow emotionally and mentally distant from those things. Distracted, worried, busy, etc…

And so, once every week, we gather together to focus, to lay our worries down and to stop so that we can remember and practice what matters most. I think the songs we sing and our act of offering those songs help us to name for ourselves and one another “what matters most.” Namely, our relationship with God, with one another and our mission in the world.

Thank you for doing this with me. I think we do it well.

212 days ago /  Tagged: , , , 0

Sunday Reflection: Excavators and Elephants

Amy took our son, Asa to the Oakland Zoo. Eventually she brought him home. But this is a short story about what happened while they were there.

Asa loves the Zoo because he’s pretty fond of.. well.. all the animals, actually. And so, he along with hundreds of other kids walked and sprinted and wandered around the Zoo, pointing and naming and re-naming tigers and zebras and orangoutangs. Rounding a corner, a group of kids saw a cyclone fence set up around a grassy area. Something new! They ran to the fence while Asa trailed behind at his own pace. He tends to wander a bit; he’s more of an observer than an adventurer. The kids stood at the fence with their little hands wrapped around the steel chain links, eyes darting around in search for whatever was being kept inside. But there was, it appeared, nothing there.

“This is boring” one said. The others agreed and were soon bounding off to find another animal. Asa walked up to the fence and stood there for a moment. “Mom! Look!!” he said, pointing “an excavator!” Sure enough there was an excavator, sitting quietly inside the fence. The new display was under construction and a few pieces of construction equipment remained inside, resting from their work.

I want to see that way; see with eyes that recognize and receive what is there, even when (especially when) it’s not what I’m expecting.

Hope Deferred 
The darkness in the hearts of men
Is not illuminated from within
It takes a sword to break the skin
And let the healing sunlight in

So if the lamp of your eye is dark,
How dark indeed it is Inside your heart
If all you see is what is no there
The light of being turns to dark despair

Hey la la la

How do you see? Do you see clearly?
Do you see light but doubt it’s source?
And are you blinded by your vision?
Or deafened by the sound of your own voice?

A hope deferred can kill the heart
And make a mockery out of what’s really art
So set your sights up on the day
And may your eyes be free to see the light again,

Hey la la

289 days ago /  Tagged: , , , 0

Sunday Reflection: Chicken, Coffee, Marriage, SQUIRREL!!

First,.. two admissions:

1. I’ve not followed the Chick-Fil-A/Marriage thing very closely. Only recently have I tried to catch up reading anything about it.

2. I’ve really hesitated to say anything of my own because of the temperature in that room. Everything that goes in seems to get overheated.

I saw something floating around the net about another “appreciation day” in response to the first “appreciation day” which was in response to something the Chick-Fil-A guy said about marriage in an interview…  and the whole thing feels like an enormous distraction.  It seems to me that going to buy a chicken sandwich or a cup of coffee doesn’t do anything I personally need to do as relates to the conversation about Marriage.  In my everyday life, I’m actually in that conversation with actual people and I honestly cannot see how what taking part in an “appreciation day” does anything to move that conversation in one direction or the other.

What does participation in an “appreciation day” establish? The numbers of people on either side of the “issue?”  Like the way we might size up the gang on the other side of the street before a fight? It really seems that these are the kinds of entry points into the marriage conversation that make sense for folks who don’t have an active stake in it already.  But for those I know who are more deeply invested, it’s simply not a serious enough expression. It’s the kind of thing that makes CNN, FOX and the rest pretty excited but that’s a pretty terrible measurement of real social impact. It’s a distraction… at best.

Are you a proponent of a particular marriage structure?  Want to change the minds of others as to what marriage means? My first question is “whose minds?” Do you have friends (actual people in your life, that is.. not on the web) who think otherwise? Then, instead of going out for chicken or coffee, make some chicken or coffee at your place and have a conversation. If you don’t have anyone’s name come to mind whose opinion you feel needs changing, then I’d suggest this isn’t your conversation, much less your fight and that by jumping into the fray you are becoming more like a thug than a beacon of any kind of goodness or truth.. much less love.

Love doesn’t just take presence.. it means presence. Presence to people rather than being present at a retail store.  To “be with regardless of” is the heart of the love of Jesus. That’s different than about “To purchase in defiance/support of.”  I get the need to make a statement. But I’d also suggest that the most vital statements we make are those we make in conversation with people we actually know.

On either “side” of the conversation is (somewhere beneath the chaos and distraction) a sincere desire to change the hearts and minds of those who see the world other than you do. A display of strength (measured by consumer sales of all things) does nothing to actually change minds or hearts. Love does that. But that takes a different (and better) kind of strength. 

317 days ago /  Tagged: , , , 1

Sunday Reflection: Sideways Trees And Broken Things

A creek runs along one of my favorite hiking trails in nearby Briones Regional Park. Some of the Valley Oaks grow at an angle into and out of that creek. They look as if they’ve fallen in but in most cases, they simply sprouted at that angle and have continued to grow that way as the creek has widened. So, instead of shooting upward toward the sky, many of their trunks grow sideways out of the creek wall.

Asa pointed at one such sideways tree and said “Broken, Dad. Tree broken.”  We’d seen a downed tree about half a mile back that was, in fact, broken.  This one was fully alive.

“No, buddy.” I responded. “That tree isn’t broken. It’s just…” and for a few moments I flipped through random articles in my mind about soil degradation and erosion, none of which he’d be interested in and would likely interrupt me to ask for cheese. I ended up saying “…that one’s just different.”

I suspect that won’t be the last of that conversation; the one about different not always meaning ‘broken‘ and familiar not always meaning whole, best or even “good.”  I hope he will grow to see that the difference between trees is part of what makes places like Briones beautiful. Just like the difference between his life experience and that of a friend is part of what makes friendship beautiful.

I pray that my son will first pay attention instead of first judge.
I pray that he will first look to see good instead of look to see fault.
I pray that he will first ask questions instead of state his case.
I pray that he will teach me to see this way when I forget.

345 days ago /  Tagged: , , 2
Inspiration generally gets me to the mountain. But once I’m there inspiration often fizzles because it doesn’t look like the mountain any more. It looks like work.

The mountain doesn’t look like the mountain when you’re on it.

Probably the best Craigslist purchase I’ve ever made was a Kelty kid back-pack for my son to hike with… Let me rephrase that. He doesn’t wear it. I wear it with him in it. So, he just hangs out back there, asking for cheese and grapes while I carry the extra 30 lbs. It’s quite a deal for him.

From a about two miles away, we stared talking about the mountain. “There it is” I’d say and he’d reply “Mountain! Hike it!” But as we got closer to the mountain itself we could no longer really see it. Once we were on the mountain, we really couldn’t “see it” at all; just the trail we were on, the rocks and the trees.

“Where mountain go?” Asa asked me.
“We’re on it, pal. This is the mountain.”

He looked at me with that funny-sad-serious face only toddlers can really muster and said, again “Where mountain go?”  That made me think of a line from an old Toad The Wet Sprocket song that goes something like:  “Sometimes, when you’re that close to something that big you can’t see anything at all.”

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had an inspiring idea and been moved to start work on it but then lost a sense of motivation once it became about putting one foot in front of the other and only being faced by the details or challenges in the work phase.

Inspiration generally gets me to the mountain. But once I’m there inspiration often fizzles because it doesn’t look like the mountain any more. It looks like about 400ft of dusty trail. It looks like a blank page in front of me instead of a finished book. It looks cliche and bad transitions instead of a song. It looks like work. I do get inspired and that’s how things get started. But at some point, I’ve simply got to get to work. 

351 days ago /  Tagged: , , 4
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Sunday Reflection: BART Trains & Bad Words

I was taking my two-year-old son to BART.  He completely freaks out about trains, including BART trains, which means it costs me about $3.50 to be a Hero of Fatherhood if I take the two-stop jaunt from North Concord to Walnut Creek.  Jumping in the car, I asked “Are you ready buddy?” To which he responded “Daddy wallet?” He was used to me needing to to back inside and get my wallet because I often forget it. He was right to ask… I didn’t have it.

I banged the steering wheel with my right palm and said “Crap. I’ll be right back, pal.”

When I got back into the car, Asa greeted me with a hearty “Crap! Wallet!” and whacked his toy school bus against his thigh. When I caught his eye in the rearview mirror he was smiling and raising the bus over his head for another rendition. This time with more feeling:

“CRAP! WALLET!”

I thought for a long minute about whether or not to directly deal with his use of the word but thought better of it. Besides the fact that “crap” is  That wasn’t the issue. Foul language wasn’t the issue. The issue was that I’d forgotten something very basic about being Human, not to mention being a father…

I am always teaching
I am always training
I am always discipling
I am always infusing the world around me with myself and my way of living.

The decision before me is never whether or not to pass myself on in some way (even absence is a way of life that can be passed on) but whether or not I will intentionally do so.

—

(*BART image by Tim Preut, whose BART photo project can be found here)

359 days ago /  Tagged: , , , 0
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Sunday Reflection: The Cost of Just Living

Last year around this time, Nathan George from Trade as One spoke here in Concord.  He made a compelling (and overwhelming) case for rethinking consumer habits.  In his estimation, the majority of clothes worn in the room that night were products of an exploitative manufacturing system; a system in which workers often labored for un-livable wages and at times labored for no pay at all.  He told stories of children who would work the rest of their lives to pay a man who loaned their parents money at an interest rate that was impossible for them to pay back.

Shortly after the the Trade As One event, I overheard this conversation between two men who had attended:

A. Did you like it?
B. I don’t know if I liked it but it was really powerful. What’d you think?
A.  I thought it was unrealistic.
B. You mean, you don’t think those things happen with kids?
A. No, I guess that part happens… It’s just really frustrating, you know? I mean.. as if I’m supposed to rifle through all my drawers and closets to see which of my clothes was made by slaves. I’d have to change everything.
B. Right. But I think that’s the point. We have to live differently now.

The more I learn about modern day slavery, the more I find my fingerprints all over the crime scene.  The fact that I am either ignorant of or comfortable with the cost of my consumer comforts is what sets the stage for nine-year-old girls to be trafficked for sex; the bottom line being that my way of life is worth whatever it costs someone else.  The line between directly using someone for instant gratification and indirectly using someone so that I can pay less for products is nowhere near as thick as I once thought.

Nathan George’s challenge is to take this connection seriously.  If I want to participate in the redemptive, healing arc of justice, seeing people set free from a life of slavery, it will cost me to do so. I cannot just live my life and then, at times, do justice because  I can’t just do justice, I have to live it.  When Sara and Troy Groves heard about the work of IJM to bring rescue to victims of slavery, sexual exploitation and other forms of violent oppression, they approached founder Gary Haugen and asked “What can we do?”  Gary responded “Become a person of Justice.”

380 days ago /  Tagged: , , , , , , , 15
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