In his book Uncensored Grace, Pastor Jud Wilhite recounts the story of Cody Huff, a homeless man who lived in a field near his church in Las Vegas.  Cody’s slide into homelessness had begun from an unlikely place.  He had been a successful professional fisherman with features on ESPN and with $600,000 in savings. But a crack addiction had led to the loss of all his savings, his house, his motorcycle and his boat.

One day, some volunteers from Central Christian Church were handing out food in a nearby park and they offered Huff an opportunity to take a shower in their nearby church building. Although he loathed the idea of going to a church, Cody was desperate to clean off, so he warily ventured over.  This is how Cody describes it:

I walked into the church, and this lady named Michelle, who knew me from the homeless ministry, said, "Good morning, Cody. How are you?" Then she looked at me, and she said, "Cody, you need a hug." And I said, "Honey, you don't want to touch me because I haven't had a shower in 3 months." If Michelle heard me, she didn't seem to care. She walked up, and she looked in my eyes, and she gave me a big hug and told me that Jesus loved me. In that split second, I was somebody. She even remembered my name. That was the point where I knew that God was alive in this world.

That first experience of God’s love led to a relationship with the Central Christian Church and a renewed faith in Christ.  Huff began holding a Bible Study with other homeless people in the nearby park.  In three years time, Cody went from destitution to having a marriage, owning his own business and running a ministry to homeless people.

And it all began with someone who was unashamed to show God’s love to someone who didn’t look or act (or smell) like her.

After listing all of these virtues in Colossians chapter 3 (compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience) Paul finishes by reminding the Christians in Colosse, “ And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity (Colossians 3:14).”  I think Cody’s story is a perfect example of why Paul places love at the very top, the glue that “binds them all.”

This Sunday, we’re going to talk about what that love looks like, and why it surpasses every other virtue. I hope that our church can embody that for people who come our way as well.

And now, a lesson in Spiritual discipline from Van Halen.  That’s right.  That Van Halen.  Who would have thought that the band responsible for “Jump” and “Panama” and songs that my mother would have died to know I knew could also teach me about meditation?

In an ongoing effort to join our teenagers in working through a different spiritual discipline each month, this Sunday we’re going to talk about meditation. Before you get all worried, thinking that I’m going to have you chanting “ohm” in the pews, let me tell you that Christian meditation works a little differently.  I hope you’ll give it a chance, because it can really make a difference in your spiritual life.  How? Back to Van Halen…

Van Halen has a notorious stipulation included in their contracts with potential concert venues.  Before the band would play somewhere, that place had to agree to, among other things, a bowl of M&M’s with all the brown ones removed. 

So were these rockers just a bunch of divas? Perhaps they were, but not because of this. A picked over bowl of M&M’s served another purpose.  Lead singer, David Lee Roth, explained it in a memoir:  “Van Halen was the first band to take huge productions into tertiary, third-level markets. We'd pull up with nine 18-wheeler trucks, full of gear, where the standard was three trucks, max. And there were many, many technical errors…When I would walk backstage, if I saw a brown M&M in that bowl, well, we'd line-check the entire production. Guaranteed you'd run into a problem.”

The failure of a venue to pay attention to a small detail like brown M&M’s served as a warning that something important might also be missing.

And that right there is the point of meditation.  Meditation allows us to slow down and pay attention.  It calls on us to stop rushing around and gives God an opportunity to be heard above the noise and confusion.  Meditation is the means to an end.  It enables us to catch the big stuff that God is saying.

I recently rediscovered a poem by one-time U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins entitled “The Lanyard”.  The narrator of the poem remembers making a lanyard for his mother while at summer camp.  Here is an excerpt:

…I had never seen anyone use a lanyard
or wear one, if that’s what you did with them,
but that did not keep me from crossing
strand over strand again and again
until I had made a boxy
red and white lanyard for my mother.

She gave me life and milk from her breasts,
and I gave her a lanyard.
She nursed me in many a sick room,
lifted spoons of medicine to my lips,
laid cold face-cloths on my forehead,
and then led me out into the airy light

and taught me to walk and swim,
and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.
Here are thousands of meals, she said,
and here is clothing and a good education.
And here is your lanyard, I replied,
which I made with a little help from a counselor.

Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,
strong legs, bones and teeth,
and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,
and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp…

I love this poem, because it’s such a fitting picture of the way things work.  I love the contrast between the gifts of the mother and this one cheap, useless piece of plastic.  Our mothers give so much.  And nothing we give in return can measure up to the mountains of blessings they pour out onto us.

So today, on Mother’s Day, I hope you have been given something.  I’m sure that whatever you were given in no way measures up to what you have given out.  But I hope that it still reminds you just how important you moms are.  May God bless you as you bless us.

                                                    -Robert

In his book Seismic Shifts: The Little Changes That Make a Big Difference in Your Life Kevin Harney tells the following story:

A little boy sat on the floor of the church nursery with a red rubber ball in each arm and three Nerf balls clenched on the floor between his pudgy little knees. He was trying to protect all five from the other children in the nursery. The problem was, he could not hold all five at once, and the ball nearest to his feet was particularly vulnerable to being stolen. So, whenever another child showed an interest in playing with one of the balls, he snarled to make it clear these toys were not for sharing.

I suppose I should have stepped in and made the little guy give up one or two of the balls, but I was too wrapped up in the drama of it all. For about five minutes, this little guy growled, postured, and kept the other children away from the balls. Like a hyena hunched over the last scraps of a carcass, this snarling little canine was not in the mood for sharing. The other kids circled like vultures around the kill, looking for a way to jump in and snatch a ball without being attacked and bitten. I honestly did not know whether to laugh or cry as I watched.

Then it struck me: This little boy was not having any fun at all. There was no cheer within ten yards of this kid. Not only was he unhappy, but all the other kids seemed sad as well. His selfishness created a black hole that sucked all of the joy out of that nursery…. When church was over and his parents came to pick him up, he left the balls behind. I guess the old saying is true, you can't take it with you.

Blessed are those who outgrow their possessiveness, for they are able to relax.  I’ll bet you can identify with that boy trying so desperately to control and hang on to everything.  I can.  I have felt that tightness, that guardedness.  I have felt the anger and fear that come with a lack of generosity.  What a blessing it is when I’m able to let go of something and experience trust that God will more than provide for all of my needs.

This Sunday is At My Gate Sunday—a day where we highlight the work that’s being done by our partners at the Use Offot Church of Christ in Nigeria.  The funds we share with them have the opposite effect of the actions of the boy in the story.  Because you are willing to sacrifice a little bit, a great deal of good work is being done.  People are getting medical help, children are getting an education and young people are learning a trade.

In his book, Tattoos on the Heart (a book I can’t recommend strongly enough) Gregory Boyle retells the story of a 15-year-old gang member named Rigo. Rigo was getting ready for a special worship service for incarcerated youth when Boyle casually asked if Rigo's father would be coming. The following is a summary of their conversation:

"No," he said, "He's a heroin addict and never been in my life. Used to always beat me."  Then something snapped inside Rigo as he recalled an image from his childhood.

"I think I was in fourth grade," he began, "I came home. Sent home in the middle of the day … . [When I got home] my dad says, 'Why did they send you home?' And cuz my dad always beat me, I said, 'If I tell you, promise you won't hit me?' He just said, 'I'm your father. Course I'm not gonna hit you.' So I told him."

Rigo began to cry, and in a moment he started wailing and rocking back and forth. Boyle put his arm around him until he slowly calmed down. When Rigo could finally speak again, he spoke quietly, still in a state of shock: "He beat me with a pipe … with … a pipe."

After Rigo composed himself, Boyle asked about his mom. Rigo pointed to a small woman and said, "That's her over there … . There's no one like her." Then Rigo paused and said, "I've been locked up for a year and half. She comes to see me every Sunday. You know how many buses she takes every Sunday [to see me]?"

Rigo started sobbing with the same ferocity as before. After catching his breath, he gasped through the sobs, "Seven buses. She takes … seven … buses. Imagine."

Boyle concluded this story with an analogy. God, as revealed in the person of Jesus, loves us like Rigo's mother loved her son—with commitment, steadfastness, and sacrifice. According to Boyle, we have a God "who takes seven buses, just to arrive at us."

In our passage for this Sunday Paul reminds us to “clothe ourselves with compassion.”  And he bases his charge on the same fact as Boyle.  We show compassion toward others because Christ has shown compassion for us.

Say you’ve got a little time to kill and you want to create your own little civilization and then rule over its inhabitants as their deity.  Well it just so happens that there’s an app for that. One of the most popular apps for the iPhone is a game called “Pocket God.”  Here’s a description of the game as given by the app store: “What kind of god would you be? Benevolent or vengeful? Play Pocket God and discover the answer within yourself. On a remote island, you are the all-powerful god that rules over the primitive islanders. You can bring new life, and then take it away just as quickly.”

In my never-ending pursuit of journalistic integrity I decided to purchase this app for myself…errr, I mean for you.  You know…just so I can tell you what it’s like.

After playing it for ten minutes, I have figured out how to strike the islanders with lightning, set them on fire, flick them into the sea, dangle them over a shark until it eats them, and deprive them of bathroom privileges until they pop. (To the game-makers’ credit, this is all portrayed in a very “Tom & Jerry like” manner.)  I also discovered how to give them fire, help them catch a fish, and roast a seagull for them.  But I must point out that there are many more opportunities to wreak havoc than to create prosperity.

I guess we understand why. It’s more fun, isn’t it?  I think most people, if given absolute power over an imaginary group, prefer to have a little bit of not so harmless fun with them.  From a human point of view, wrath is easier to imagine (and enjoy) than mercy.

That’s just one of the reasons that Jesus’ statement below is so revolutionary.  People who follow Jesus’ command on this are turning things upside down.  They’re really upsetting the apple cart.  What we expect is revenge.  What Jesus gives is forgiveness and love and prayers for our enemies.

It also tells us something about our understanding of God as opposed to who God really is.    How Blessed are we that are God is “slow to anger and abounding in love!”  When our God picks us up, it is not to toss us into a volcano.  It is in order to embrace us.

                                                                                           -Robert

  “You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven.” –Jesus, Matthew 5:43-45

This will be my 39^th Easter.  I don’t remember all of them.  I don’t remember most of them.  I don’t even remember a third of them.  In his book A Thousand Miles in a Million Years Donald Miller astutely points out how little of our lives we actually remember.  It’s a little frightening when you think about it.  It might be that I can’t even reconstruct a single Easter in its entirety.  Not even last year’s.  All I have are snapshots in my mind:

• ·        From childhood, I remember the goodies: white wicker baskets inundated with plastic green grass and so much love-it or hate-it candy.  (People seem to either love or hate Cadbury Crème eggs and those marshmallowy easter eggs).
• ·        I remember a lot of polyester suits (almost always pastel blue) and a lot of clip-on ties.
• ·        I remember sunrise services at my grandmother’s church, Mt. Olivet Christian Church in Rose Hill, Virginia.  How cool the air was and how wet the grass was and how strange it was to be at church before dawn.
• ·        I remember the out-of-tune piano and the equally out-of-tune voices that sang “Low in the Grave He Lay” and “Victory in Jesus.” I didn’t know they were out of tune, and I loved them for their volume.
• ·        I remember a lot of ham.
• ·        As an adult, I remember a lot of Easter dinners at the Cuthrell’s.
• ·        I remember walking around with my children in the front yard and pointing out the hundreds of eggs sitting in plain view while they slowly crouched and placed them in their baskets.
• ·        Now I I remember watching a child run with a pack of older children into the backyard and search frantically for every well-hidden egg they could find.

There’s more, I’m sure, but nothing’s coming to mind right now.  Thirty-nine Easters seems like a lot, given how little I remember from all of them. 

This Sunday we will gather together and celebrate the first Easter, a significantly more memorable one than any of my thirty-nine.  And that’s the way it should be.  You’d think the fact that I can remember so little of my own might cause me some distress, but I find it oddly comforting.  Maybe because it puts things in their proper perspective.  It’s a perspective I’ll try to share with all of you this year.  And if I can’t?  Well, we’ll always have pastel polyester and Cadbury Crème.

The following comes from an article for Preachingtoday.com by Van Morris of Mt Washington Kentucky:

For 11 years, Mary Leonard of Louisville, Kentucky, has dealt with polymyositis, a rare inflammatory tissue disease that invades the muscles. There is no known cause or cure.

Mary's case turned deadly when the disease invaded her heart. In fact, in March of 2010, Mary was told by doctors that she had 24-48 hours to live. But after 20 days in a hospice center, another 51 days in rehab, and a number of days at home, Mary is still alive. She's now reflecting on the changes that take place when you learn your time is short.

"I call myself an average Christian," Mary says. "I don't know exactly why God has done this for me, but I do know that life looks different now."

Mary offers five life lessons she learned through the ordeal:

1. Know that prayer is powerful.
2. Mend fences now.
3. Release the reins of life to God.
4. Know that God is able—more than able.
5. Put your focus on what really matters.

In other words, things change drastically when we remember that life is limited.  We spend so much time trying to forget that fact.  Understandably so.  It’s not fun to dwell on our own mortality.  But, unfortunately, when we refuse to acknowledge our own finiteness, we cheat ourselves of the perspective that it brings.

The fact that Mary has spent so much time “walking through the valley of the shadow of death” has enabled her to tend to what really matters in life: trust in God, important relationships, etc.

This Sunday we will continue talking about Colossians 3:1-4, our theme passage for 2012. It has perhaps the most hopeful reminder I’ve ever seen of our mortality.  It reminds us that we are headed toward something.  More specifically that life in Christ is headed toward something—a purpose, a goal.  Our lives are not aimless.  God is at work in your life right now, he’s wanting to work in you to create something wonderful.  Can we remember that today?

                                                                                                 Robert Lee

When I was in college, I received multiple versions of the same email warning me that, if an oncoming car were to flash its high beams at me, I should under no circumstances respond in kind.  The forwarded email went on to say that gangs had begun a new form of initiation in which the prospect flashed his brights at oncoming cars.  When he got a car to flash back, the gangster-to-be was ordered to turn the car around and kill the driver of that car.  Only then would he be granted full membership.

Around the same time, multiple friends forwarded a story to me about a person who smuggled a cactus into the states following a vacation in Mexico.  He planted the cactus in his yard and began to water it conscientiously.  The cactus grew and grew and soon doubled its size.  Then one day, the homeowner was out back and he noticed the cactus shivering violently.  Not knowing what to do, he called a local plant shop.  After hearing his story, the store manager nervously asked some questions about the cactus and then, in a panic, told the man to hang up immediately and evacuate the house.  Just as he did so, the cactus in the backyard exploded and sprayed thousands and thousands of poisonous spiders all over the man’s property.

This was in the days before snopes.com or Google.  It was before everyone was naturally suspicious of anything that came as a forwarded email.  (Actually, this was before Microsoft Windows.  I read both of those emails in MS-DOS.)  And it was long enough ago that I believed both of the stories when I read them.  Then again, at that point I also believed that Oliver Stone’s JFK was an honest depiction of the Kennedy assassination.

I tell you all this to explain my current position on urban legends, forwarded emails and conspiracy theories.  I don’t believe any of them.  For me they are all false until proven true.  And even then, I’m not sure.  No doubt that means someday I’ll be on the wrong side of a conspiracy.  I’ll refuse to believe one that is true.  But more often than not, I believe I’ll be right.

There’s one glaring exception, one conspiracy theory that I embrace wholeheartedly. I’m going to tell you about it this Sunday.  I hope you’ll be enough of a crackpot to believe it with me.