Sports and sinners.....

         

Those who know me, know that I love sports, both playing and watching.  I cut out clippings of the Minnesota Vikings in the 70’s and made scrapbooks.  I died a thousand deaths during the Vikes Super Bowl losses.  I screamed shouts of joy when the Twins won the World Series in ‘87 and ’91.  If Bud Grant would run for president I think I would vote for him.  We need some of his no nonsense leadership.  My dream when I was younger was to play a sport professionally. Then my talent (lack of) got in the way. I just gave up the dream a year ago.  Some of us are slow to accept the facts.

            I believe athletics, all competition for that matter, reveals character- it shows us ourselves.  I remember  getting so angry at losing the game of Monopoly to my cousin’s or siblings when we would play as kids.  The world domination game of Risk reveals my love of winning like few board games.   During competition we tend to blame others. We think we deserve special treatment.  We think something is okay if we can get by with it. (sorry.. it is a foul even when it is not called…) We think wearing a pair of sneakers allows us to speak harshly to another person with a whistle.  I don’t see that the Bible allows us to act one way on the basketball court and another way in the church lobby.  Do we tell our kids to “go ahead and cheat on the test... the teacher is letting you get by with it today”   Really?  "Go ahead and steal the candy.. the clerk is blind...."   Huh??  Aren’t we called to love our neighbor… even when we are competing against them?  Isn’t the referee our neighbor?

            The temptation for some followers of Jesus is to abandon sports.  I would encourage God’s people to redeem them. Keep them in their place, sports are not God. We don’t let sport dictate our families worship patterns.  We say no to a traveling team. People have done it before. What will it profit a man if he should gain the whole world (a good jump shot) and then forfeit his soul?

              Talk with your kids about what is going on in a game, look beyond the final score and see what is happening in your own soul and the soul of your children.  Issues of pride, grace, patience, fairness are there– then talk about how games show us our need of a Savior.  Sin is revealed.  That is okay.  In fact, I would argue that we are better for seeing what we are than pretending we are something we are not.  Tell your kids how thankful you are that Jesus has come for you. Then return to the game and treat as it is…. a game.  

Happiness Waits at the Stuff Mart

     Have you ever found yourself walking through a store, looking at the items for sale and then compare it to the same item you have at home and become less than content?  You see the big fluffy bath towels and then think of your towels at home that have lost some of their fluffiness and brightness due to a few dozen spins through the washing machine and you find yourself less than content with your towels.  Maybe for you it is clothes, or cars, or a smart phone, or church, or pastor, or someone else’s job, or family, or spouse.  Coveting is one of those sins that can be easily hid and often times culturally encouraged, yet is toxic to our soul. 

       I find that I will have this general unease in my soul after going “shopping” at a big box store.  I look at things I don’t need and don’t have room for and then am unhappy that I didn’t buy anything.   I see it in my boys,  we go to Wal-Mart and we look at the ball gloves and bats and the allure of the new becomes overwhelming. Begging often becomes the main mode of communication.   Prone to wander, Lord I feel it, the powerful line from the hymn says.             

            The 10^th Commandment says “Thou shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, manservant, maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”  

            How easily we think that “the next thing” will help us achieve the life that will satisfy, only to find out that those new towels don’t give the life that we thought they would. So we run to the next thing.  Meanwhile, Jesus calls to us. “Come to me all you who are thirsty and I will give you life giving water” He calls us to repent and run to him with our ever wandering hearts.  He is what our soul longs for.  He is what this coveting heart is thirsting for.   

"There's No Place Like Home"

Dorothy clicks her ruby red slippers together 3 times and repeats the magical phrase “there’s no place like home”, then with the magic of movies, Dorothy ends up back in her bedroom on her beloved Kansas farm, her trip to the land of OZ only a dream.  I still get a lump in my throat when I think of it.  I can see Dorothy sitting on her bed, with the music building  saying the line with joy- "there's no place like home" .

The 9^th Commandment says “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house”    God knew what he is was doing when he gave the people of Israel this commandment.  They had just left their homes in Egypt and would be living in tents- and soon be longing for the homes of their neighbors. 

            God has hard wired us to have a home. A place of rest and safety. A place that is ours. Coveting another’s home shows that something is wrong in our soul. We are no longer grateful for the place that God has given us. We are being pulled into the unending cycle of thinking a bigger, nicer, cleaner, newer home will heal the longing for a home that our soul has.

         Karen and I talk about the feeling that we get when we travel to our respective "homes" - the place where we spent our first 18 years of our life, and which neither of us have lived close to for the last 30 years. The pull we feel to go back there. The stirring in our soul as we drive down the roads that lead us to those farms.  It is a powerful thing. 

            The truth is that our longing for a home for our soul is ultimately satisfied only in God himself. Jesus is our rest. He is our home.  Our temporary address here on earth is a gift from him to be enjoyed and cared for and used for rest for our bodies and a harbor for us and others. Yet it is a temporary address. We are created for God. Sin beckons us to find our home in anything but God.   Through faith in Jesus we have the promise of an eternal home with him. Then we will be able to finally truly say,  “there’s no place like home”

What's in a Name????  

          Many of us have the experience of someone using your name as a way to tease you.  They rhyme your name with something disrespectful and then sing song it. “Itchy Richy” was a favorite used against me. Poison Ivy was another non rhyming poke at me.  Our names matter, how we use them says a lot about us and our relationship with another.   We have a name for the one who holds all things together. We call him God.  He is Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  The Son has become human and has the name Jesus. 

            The 2^nd Commandment says “Thou shall not take the name of the Lord in vain”.  Have you ever used God’s name in a way that is not consistent with whom He is?  We give our children a great gift when we teach them to honor God by using his name respectfully.  We don’t use it as an exclamation point. I have heard a modern day take on this commandment is “No OMGs!” (O My God!). Is it honoring to God to use his name as way to comment about someone’s car, or hair, or facebook post?   Don’t be mistaken we should use God’s name often- but in a way that is respectful of whom God is. 

            This command gives us the chance to talk about how we need God’s forgiveness for how we use God and his name to give the impression that we are more spiritual than we are.  Ever pray and think more about how you sound to others than what you are really talking to the creator of the universe about?  Those of us who have been around church awhile are especially prone to this type of commandment breaking. Pastors can so easily fall prey to this kind of evil name dropping. A short article like this gives one more chance to do the same.  Even my repenting and talking about God needs to be washed in the blood of the lamb.  Thank God that Jesus came and lived and died and rose again for commandment breakers like me. 

About 4 years ago I wrote this document- as I reflect on it.. I see that it may be better entitled

 " Worthwhile goals for my life"                in it's unedited version......  

My vision for my girls….  – What I pray that God will bring to them in their husband. [and what my boys will be for their wives!] 

First draft- Nov  5, 2008

1. I desire that first and foremost that they marry men who will be fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ. That there life would be centered on knowing Jesus and making him known to others. That they would see their life as a gift to be lived for the glory of God- to use their talents and abilities to serve others.
2. They will be church- men.  They will not give into the popular North American cultural understanding of  Jesus and Me- and church as optional. But rather will follow the biblical view of the Christian life as lived in community with others in  a body/ house/ family/ temple and will give themselves to a local expression of Christ’s church.
3. That their main spiritual orientation would be one of grace and forgiveness. That they would know the riches of  God’s grace in their own soul and give it to others around them (family!)
4. That they would honor and love family.  Their own parents and siblings, Karen and I and our family,  but most of all that they would put their wife and children above their other earthly relationships.  That they would “leave father and mother and cleave to their wife- and become one flesh”
5. That they would be men of integrity.  That they would keep their promises. They would realize that their word is all that they have and will keep it at great personal cost to themselves.
6. That they would be men who will care for their wife and children and lead them with a servant spirit.  Not men without chests- but men who will lead by the force of their character and Godly example. They will be willing to put others ahead of themselves with a servant heart.
7. They will be men who will work.  They will not be afraid to get their hands dirty or do any kind of work that serves another- no matter how menial or culturally unacceptable it may be deemed.  They will not give into a spirit of laziness or sloth. This applies to all their vocations-  home, family, church, and job.
8. They would be men who exhibit a spirit of joy.  The basic tenor of their spirit will be hopeful and positive – rather than discouraging and despairing.
9. That they would be men of humble spirit.  That they would be quick to acknowledge their wrongdoing, and slow to point out the failings of others. That they would not be threatened by being found out that they were wrong- but see it as a chance to experience grace once again.  They would exhibit a life long love of learning and assume a posture of humble learning through out their life.
10. That they would be men who has a sense of humor and can lighten the load of others with life giving humor.

 I  write a short piece for the bulletin at my home church- Bethel Lutheran, this is what will appear this coming Sunday....

I love the movie “Chariots of Fire”.   The story of Eric Liddell’s 1924’s Olympic experience grabs at your heart and doesn’t let go.  Eric Liddell is to run the 100 meter sprint but refuses to participate in his heat due to the race occurring on Sunday, which he felt was a breaking of the Sabbath.  He withdrew from the race.  He went to worship that day and preached on Isaiah 40 “they that wait upon the Lord, shall renew their strength”.  

            We may dismiss this story as a quaint testimony from a by-gone time.  Please don’t.  Every generation, every family, needs to come to terms with these questions.  Whose drum beat are we marching to?  Who is leading this family?  If our government tells us how to worship will we obey?  If our friends make it uncomfortable for us will we continue to follow Jesus?  If our traveling team takes us away from corporate worship will we forgo gathering with our church family?   

            I cannot answer for you or your family.  I know that drift and apathy are natural to our soul.  We feel its pull, much like the constant current in a river that looks smooth, we can easily find ourselves pulled along by unseen forces.  Play the “what if” game.  Propose scenarios to your family and ask them what they will do and why.  Point one another to a gospel based response. “God, who rescued us, calls us to follow him- how do we live in line with His call?”  

Bras on Broadway

It definitely gets your attention. Nothing like a few hundred bra's hanging from a building that garners ones attention. The Hotel Donaldson in downtown Fargo is the host facility for an event called "Bras On Broadway"



It is an event  for raising support for the fight against cancer, a noble and honorable cause indeed. I can appreciate the cause - I do wonder what the method of fund raising says about the world that we live in . Let me say from the get go 2 things.

1. I hate cancer. It is part of the havoc that is in our world due to the fallen nature of our world. It takes many lives and should be fought against.

2. I love God's creation. All of it. God has created us male and female. He created each unique and beautiful. God also created the means for human kind to create more humans- and this is also good when used as God intended. So my thoughts on the bra's displayed is not due to thinking that "sex is bad and we must not talk about it " view of life. Quite on the contrary, I think it is one of God's better ideas. Really!

I have become aware of this event in a slightly different way because the Hotel Donaldson is across the street from the abortion clinic in downtown Fargo.  I have written before about my experience at the Red River Women's Clinic (abortion clinic- see pic below) in downtown Fargo. I have been involved in the 40 Days for Life ( click here for info ) peaceful protest against abortion for the last 3 years during the fall of the year. I go with others and we stand and pray and  show a peaceful prayerful presence outside of the abortion clinic.     It is a way to say that this great evil should not be happening.

In many ways these events have things in common- we both are working for the good of others. But it is more complicated than that. One also needs to think about the fact that the ends doesn't justify the means when it comes to noble causes. Some pro-life people have gotten this confused in the past and have justified behaviors that are wrong (harming those that disagree with us) in light of the evil of abortion. This is where I am troubled by the bra display. I agree with the goal- just think the means is wrong.

I believe that one of the things our society is putting at the center of it's world is sex. We have to live for something- and as people reject the truth of God they scramble to fill it. Pleasure is something that can quickly step into the gap when God is ignored/ dismissed. When you talk of pleasure- sex is one of the first things that comes to mind. Along with the worship of the god of sex and pleasure comes a loss of modesty.
The progression goes like this: 1. Sex is good. (true!) 2. All consensual sex is good (not true.) 3. Anything that celebrates, enables, and encourages more sex is good (not true) .

This is where I see the connection between the two- Bras on Broadway and the abortion clinic. Both are by-products of a culture that is sex centered.  The abortion facility is trying to remove the God given result of sex, a beautiful creation of God- a baby. The other is using our society's fixation on breasts and sex to raise money for a good cause.  The truth is there is another way... 

Now I am not going to picket the Bra's on Broadway event.  The two events do not compare in what is happening. Abortion is the taking of an innocent life. I believe that justice demands that we speak against this great evil.  The bra's displayed are simply immodest.  I do believe they are related in that  they both stem from a world view that puts man at it's center and glorifies sex as the supreme good of our existence. 

The solution is found in the gospel of Jesus Christ. I am the one who needs the gospel. I am the one who experiences the pull of the world on my own soul.  Our church needs it daily. It is what my kids need.  Jesus has come to bring us into a relationship of faith with the Father. His work will enable us to experience all that he has for us in the way that he made it to be used. That will be a blessing and joy for us and will bring glory to God as well.