Pontius Pilate asked Jesus, "What is truth?" (John 18:38)

And true to form, Jesus doesn't answer the question.  He leaves it hanging there, still to be wrestled with 2,000 years later.

In the world of church, truth matters.  A lot.  We try to decipher it so we then can proclaim it.

And the chilling thing is this:  some things are true whether you believe them or not.

Or even more to the point: some thing are true whether you want them to be or not.  There are a number of contentious issues about which I long to cater to conventional wisdom, changing social mores, and even peer pressure and say, "OK, you're right; I'm changing my mind & falling in with the (apparent) majority!"

But then due to a combination of the bible's witness, church history, and even personal experience (veering precariously close to the Wesleyan Quadrilateral!), I reconsider and land again on the side of certain truths that, while uncomfortable, are still . . . true.

So here they are: five things that a large part of me wishes weren't true, but I believe they are.

5.  When evangelicals and the Christian Right become too closely aligned with the Republican Party, the party advances and the church retreats.  By the same token, when a plurality of African-American churches and the Christial Left become too closely aligned with the Democratic Party, the party advances and the church retreats.  

4.  While Hinduism has many elements that appeal to Westerners who value spirituality over religion, its net effect on the people of India is the elevation of the elite and the subjugation of the masses.  Given our church's connection to the people of Odisha, India, I have more than a passing interest in the subject.  And according to one Russian pop singer, Hinduism is "the epitome of spirituality."  Well . . . . tell that to young girls born into the "prostitute caste" -- a life to which they are assigned at birth and from which they cannot escape.  Or to boys born into the "brick maker caste" -- a similarly hopeless and predetermined position for life.  While many Hindus are people of peace and serenity, the result of the religion on Indian society has been to create entrenched categories of masters and servants.

3.  Hell.  Yes.  While people I respect greatly disagree, the church's historic stand that regards hell as a place of everlasting regret and separation remains the most faithful to the whole of Scripture.

2.  I hope I keep my ordination credentials on this one, but . . . celibacy in singleness and faithfulness in heterosexual marriage is God's design for human sexuality.  Hebrews 13:4 is a beautiful summary statement -- not a proof text -- of everything else the NT says on the subject:  let the marriage bed be undefiled.

1.  You combine the poetry of Psalm 139:13-16 and the science of the ultrasound and the implication is clear:  that is a baby.

Yesterday's exploration of third line of the Apostles' Creed -- Conceived By The Holy Spirit, Born Of The Virgin Mary -- jumped off of four simple words from Luke 3:23:

So it was thought.

I was first alerted to the significance of those four words in a though-provoking blog post from one of the area's best-known pastors.  So when it came time to develop a sermon dealing with the virgin conception and delivery of Jesus, that phrase would not let me go.

And voila!, a sermon that simultaneously celebrates Luke's genius as an author and God's brilliance as a creator and conceiver.

I was backed yesterday by some incredible worship leading from our band and choir, so it was hard not to preach with some enthusiasm.

Anyway, here's a rough manuscript of the message itself, complete with a (relatively) full complement of graphics and a less-than-collegial shout out to one of our retired United Methodist bishops from the North Central Jurisdiction. 

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And check out what she heard me say (more than once):  Luke is a genius.  Which meant and means that even if you don’t believe the content of his story about Jesus, you have to appreciate the way he tells it.  He’s not some sort of sappy, corny devo writer; he is a literary genius, the kind of guy who packs all kinds of meaning in the land between the commas.  And we see his brilliance yet again – maybe more powerfully than ever – in today’s verse, 3:23: He was the son, so it was thought, of Joseph.

            So it was thought.  Now: that looks like a throwaway line, a line I had never paid attn. to until a fellow preacher showed it to me.  AND it is especially easy to overlook because it comes at the beginning of one of the most dreaded of biblical creations: a genealogy.  You know, begat him who begat her who begat him and we just want to skip right over it and get back to words we can pronounce rather than names we can’t, right?  Well, skip this gem of a phrase at your own peril.  “The son, so it was thought, of Joseph,” So it was a commonly held view during Jesus’ lifetime and then again 20 years later when Luke wrote that Jesus was a normal guy born the regular way.  He came from an apparently normal family (though there were whispers), had a regular job, did seem to have a bright glow about his face, but in all other respects he looked to be just another hard working Jewish carpenter in a long line of hard working Jewish carpenters.  One more on the list. So it was thought.  People thought Joseph was his biological father in the way everyone else has a biological father and what Luke is saying with his little aside is that people were badly, sadly, underestimating Jesus.  It takes a little bit of sarcasm, a hint of in-your-face, but that’s what he’s doing: they didn’t think enough of Jesus.

            People continue to underestimate him, don’t they?  The so it was thought of Luke 3 has become the so it is thought of 2013.  So it is thought he’s a great teacher.  So it is thought he is a swell guy.  So it is thought he is one religious option among many.  So it is thought that he is a guru.  So it is thought he is a major inconvenience on what you want to do. So it is thought that he is a Family Values Republican.  So it is thought that he is a Peace Loving, Gun Outlawing Democrat.  And maybe . . . one of these descriptions is the extent to which you have thought of him.  And I simply want to suggest that all the folks in history – from Luke’s day up through a couple of generations ago -- who have misinterpreted or underestimated Jesus, those who have been the “thinkers” in the “so it was thought” have gone to the grave.  And stayed there.  The same kind of grave from which he rose.  That’s all I want to suggest.  Luke is a genius and in a slightly off-hand but thoroughly sarcastic comment he delivers a devastating blow to anyone, anywhere, at any time who would underestimate Jesus.  Typical Luke; he brings it home brilliantly.

            Because I don’t want you to fall into the trap of Conventional Wisdom; I don’t want you to settle for being one of the “so it was thought” crowd.  Luke’s line here is his subtle yet defiant way of saying it may have been thought but all them thinkers was wrong!  Take a look at Luke 1:34-35: 

 

"'How will this be," Mary asked the angel, 'since I am a virgin?'  The angel answered, 'The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.  So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.'"

 

See that?  The Holy Spirit “hovers” or “overshadows” Mary in the same way he did with the waters at the Creation (Genesis 1:2) and in a marvelous act of re-creation he conceives Jesus.  Not Joseph.  Not normal.  Not scalable or repeatable.  Spirit creates in Genesis 1 and when the world is thoroughly messed up, the Spirit recreates in a virgin’s womb in Luke 1.  Now: how does this work biologically?  I DON’T KNOW!!  But I believe it in large part because we are surrounded by centuries of people much closer to these events than we are, people who believed it to the point of death.  Going back to those very first Xns who read these events not as allegory or myth or fairy tale but as reality-stretching, mind-bending truth.  And isn’t it interesting . . . Luke devotes more space and energy to the Virgin Conception of Jesus than any other gospel writer . . . AND HE WAS A DOCTOR!  (Probably not an ob-gyn, but still!)  So he knew how these things work.  Or in the case of Jesus, how they didn’t work.  And Luke’s genius is a large part of the reason why the Creed say, He was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary.  “So it was thought”?  Hardly.  So it IS SAID.

            Now you might think talking about this in church is like preaching to the choir (though I’ve preached to some choirs who didn’t believe a word I said), but not so fast.  See, staring the early 20^thCentury, some church leaders (even Methodist!) became too sophisticated to believe that Jesus had a supernatural conception anymore and began to teach that in bible colleges, seminaries, and churches.  They began to regard this belief as optional and this part of the creed as poetry. 

 

Even one of our own bishops – in this case the former Methodist leader for Illinois – said this:  “To treat this myth as historic fact is to do an injustice to its intended purpose and to run the risk of idolatry itself . . .” 

 

So church leadership declaring that reciting this portion of the creed as history and not poetry runs the risk of idolatry.  Well.  When church leaders become part of the "so it was thought" crowd, you've got some serious problems.. 

 

Can I tell you what happens to the faith if that bishop is right and Jesus was conceived the “normal” way?  It's like this:

 

 

 

 

Something vital is missing, right?  The whole thing loses its coherence and beauty! That’s what happens!  The whole faith that brings us here is compromised.  Here’s why, and it’s not complicated but it is significant:  if Jesus was conceived the same way as all of us – IOW if the answer to the “whose your daddy?” question is Joseph – then what did he inherit?  The same thing all of us inherited from our parents!  The sin nature.  And if he had a sin nature, it is inevitable that he sinned.  And if he sinned then his death on the cross does NOTHING for us and our sins; it was simply the consequence of his own.  If he wasn’t sinless he couldn’t be our sin bearer.  So the Jesus story – from these beginnings to the future end – all connects together and if we discard THAT (The Virgin Birth) we almost of necessity discard THIS

 

 

One has no real meaning without the other.

 And again, this all matters because church leaders themselves became the “so it was thought-ers.”  And when they did, they dragged chunks of the church down with them into that morass of underestimating Jesus!  Reinterpreting his purpose on earth to be a role model or political activist or wise teacher rather than the spotless Lamb of God.  May. It. Never. Be.

            So I just pray that kind of sloppy thinking and dangerous underestimating never happens here because you know what?  Jesus is more than you think.  So it was thought?  Hardly.  REFRAIN  Whatever wrong opinions of or wrong doctrines about Jesus exist in the world don’t change one iota who he really is.  Our confusions will never change the fact that he rose from the same grave that his underestimators occupy, that he is the A & O, the Hope Of Glory, the Risen King; and that he is all and is in all.  The best, most elevated thinking we can ever come up with about all that . . . and he is still more on top of it.  REFRAIN

            And think of it!  It all started in the womb!  As cells! 

 

 

 

Whatever you call that – an embryo, a fetus, zygotes – hey! how about a baby! – when that was inside Mary, he was God.  Think of it!  God allowed himself to be walled in a womb.  Unfathomable!  I told you Jesus is more than you can think!  But, moms, imagine when Mary first felt Jesus kick . . . God had begun to grow inside her belly.  Incomprehensible.  And yet we’re invited to believe in what is more than we can understand.  Because for God to be consistent, for God to identify with us at every level of our being, he had to go throw all that earthy, visceral, fleshly experience of being born.  And nursing.  And diapers.  And growing up.  He experienced all we experience so he could identify with it.  That’s born of the Virgin Mary.

            Yet for him to redeem all he experienced, for him to purchase us from our sin, the conception had to be supernatural; free of sin.  Not that married sex is sin.  It’s not!  (Can I hear an amen to that?) But it does pass on the sin gene we all have.  The Holy Spirit is the way around all that.  Conceived by the Holy Spirit gives us a Jesus who is 100 % man and 100 % God at the same time.  Can I explain that?  Nope.  Do I believe it?  Yep.  REFRAIN.

            And in that “more than you think” Jesus is a master at holding opposites together.  Think of the line: conceived by the HS, born of the Virgin Mary.  We’ve said it so often and with such monotone voices that we overlook how jarring it is: virgin conceives. Virgins can’t conceive!  Everyone who is or has been a parent of teenagers knows exactly what I’m saying!  But Jesus holds those impossibilities, those opposites together.  It’s not the last time.  Babies aren’t kings.  This one was.  Masters don’t serve.  This one did.  Saviors don’t die.  This one did.  Sinners can’t get saved.  Now we can.  All opposites.  And when Jesus is in charge they get held together – in the same way that the Virgin Birth holds the great truths of the faith together. 

            And there’s one other opposite here:  peasants can’t be prophets.     The only two human names mentioned in the Creed are Pontius Pilate and Mary.  Just two.  And Mary here is a 15 year old peasant girl and has to suffer the indignity of an out-of-wedlock pregnancy which by law was supposed to result in her death!  And her carpenter fiancé has to endure the snickers of everyone in town.  And yet that’s who God uses to carry him for nine months in preparation for his entrance into the world.  He carried them as they carried him.  Jesus is more than you think and so he’ll do more than you expect. 

 Listen to how Frederick Buecher says it: 

 

Once we have seen God in a stable, we can never be sure where he will appear or to what lengths he will go or to what ludicrous depths of self-humiliation he will descend in his wild pursuit of man.  If the holiness and the awful power & majesty of God were present in the birth of a peasant’s child, then there is no place or time so lowly and earthbound but that holiness can be present there too.

       

You know what all that means?  When you declare I believe in Jesus Christ . . . conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary you are declaring that you believe in a God who chooses the unlikeliest of people to do the most unexpected of things.  People like you.  That when you are sold out to the Jesus about whom you cannot think high enough he’ll do this crazy thing of allowing someone like YOU – couch potato, hothead, addict, philanderer, or wallflower – to carry him to folks around you.

           

            So it was thought?  No way. So he is.  And so you are.  A carrier of Jesus.  REFRAIN.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   

One of the ways we measure how well we are inviting all people into a living relationship with Jesus Christ is through what we call serving in love. 

The more people who adopt a servant life-style -- fostered by but not limited to church-related projects -- then the more we sense folks are coming to life at Good Shepherd.

So here are some friends from our church who are doing just that:


This team of people left early Thursday morning to go to Guyan Valley, West Virginia, where they will repair and refurbish homes in partnership with the Appalachia Service Project. 

One of the young women on the front row is a senior in high school.  In December, she wrote me a note on her Connection Card, letting me know she will major in construction management in college and desperately wanted to work on a mission team helping out with Hurricane Sandy.

While we don't have a team scheduled for New York (yet), we did have this opportunity.  So we made the call, extended the offer, and she responded with enthusiasm.  For good measure, she brought her older sister along.

Because the best time to start living -- and serving -- is now.

To begin yourself with some Charlotte-area projects in the coming days, sign up here.


 

I realize that when most people don't know what to do they do what they always do.

In other words, when faced with uncertainty, crisis, or chaos, most of us revert back to what is comfortable and fall back into the familiar.

This realization is especially instructive for those involved in any kind of spiritual leadership.

Because whenever I have times of uncertainty, crisis, chaos, or even "well, things are smooth, what should I do now?" I always go back to what I know how to do: prepare sermons and make visits.  It's what I've always done.  Get ready for Sunday by visiting people in the home or hospital Monday through Saturday.

What I don't do is fall into the unfamiliar or embrace the uncomfortable. 

Which for me would include:

Intentional discipleship of our church's leadership core;

Writing out a thorough, comprehensive ministry plan;

Having difficult conversations that are easier to delay or avoid;

Surprising the staff with gestures of affirmation and appreciation.

None of those are my default mode of operation.

All of them are vital not only to my growth as a leader and Good Shepherd's growth as a congregation.

So today, perhaps, I'll make it a point do some things that aren't natural but are essential.

 

Yesterday included two events not normally on my ministry schedule:  1) a pre-school celebration for our 2s & 3s classes and 2) a high school girls' softball game, cheering on a couple of young women from our church.

So why do I label today's post "Tuesday Trips"?

Because both events were for me trips down memory lane.

See, I remember being the dad of pre-schoolers way back in Monroe, North Carolina -- taking pictures of graduation ceremonies with our 35mm camera.

And then I remember many an afternoon spent watching our daughter play softball from elementary school all the way through her senior year in high school.

I guess what I'm saying is this: to have the memory, you've got to be there in the first place.

We got a lot of things wrong as parents, but through it all we placed a high premium on making memories.

Which means being there to make them.

If you've got young ones to day, what kind of memories are you making?

If you're like me and yours are now grown, how often do you re-live those moments you made?

All of us are a collection of memories.  Some of them need to be healed.  Some simply need to be acknowledged.  And some need to be celebrated.

I pray you'll spend today making the kind of memories you'll celebrate tomorrow.

Rock music is full of songs named after . . . females.

(Note: I almost titled the post "Named After Girls" but that's politically incorrect and I then almost opted for "Named After Women" but that's less-than-accurate, so I opted for the non-offensive and generally truthful "Named After Females."  So there.)

Some of the most well-known songs named after females didn't make the final list for the reasons listed below:

Lola -- Because to qualify for this list, not only does a song have to be named for a woman, it has to actually be about a woman.

Oh Sherry -- Because I have a deeply held personal conviction that neither Journey nor Steve Perry can appear on one of my top five lists.

Maggie May -- If Rod's worn out singing it, imagine how those of us feel who have been listening to it all these years?

Layla -- While it's probably the best song of the bunch, Layla wasn't her real name.  It was Patti, as in Patti Harrison, the wife of George. 

So here goes . . . my top five favorite songs named after girls/women/females:

5.  Roxanne, by the Police.  An absolute revelation of style, subject, and vocalization when it first came out.  This one was a shock to the system in the late 70s sounds fresh even today:


4.  Beth, by Kiss.  A Kiss song on one of my lists?  Really?!  Really.


3.  Billie Jean, by Michael Jackson.  Not that Billie Jean, tennis fans. 


2.  Amie, by Pure Prairie League.  What ever happened to PPL anyway?  If they could do a song that's this pretty, why aren't their more classics under their name?  This song inspired both the name and the spelling of a young woman who is both a former GSUMC staffer and the wife of a current GSUMC staffer. 


1.  Angie, by the Rolling Stones.  How did I know I was getting old and out of touch?  When upon moving to North Carolina in 1990 I met a young woman named Angie and I after I became acquainted with her I mentioned, "you can't say we never tried."  She had no idea what I meant, had never heard of the song, and barely knew about the Rolling Stones.  In spite of that failure, however, this remains a great, great song -- and my #1 named after a . . . woman/girl/female.