When Lose-Lose Feels Like Win-Win

I admit it: I spend more time than I should watching TV and movies.  To make matters worse, much of what I watch has little or no lasting value.  But every now and then, I come across something that is just extraordinary!  I stumbled upon one of those little prizes earlier this week, when I watched the movie "Win Win," starring Paul Giamatti. (Watch the trailer here.)

What inspired me to even put it on my Blockbuster queue, I couldn't tell you, because the movie doesn't sound like much.  "A struggling lawyer and volunteer wrestling coach's chicanery comes back to haunt him when the teenage grandson of the client he's double-crossed comes into his life." (IMDb)

Often, this sort of dramatic offering is so dull and boring that I can't bear to watch to the end.  But this movie is just so REAL.  What makes it real, you ask?  Well, none of the main characters are "beautiful people" who look unbelievably perfect.  The main character, Mike, is a lawyer, yet he's struggling financially.  The sport we're following is high school wrestling of all things - nothing glamorous there!  The "chicanery" Mike attempts is small change for a movie plot - involving a mere $1,500 a month.  Everything in this movie is just so ordinary, I feel like this guy and his family could be my neighbor or someone who goes to my church.  

But that's where the ordinary ends.  What is extraordinary is how our hero Mike reacts when the circumstances turn against him.  Like anyone might, he starts out trying to hide his financial troubles and the deception he pulls to gain his family a little extra income.  When Kyle, a teenage boy and former wrestler, shows up, Mike's first thoughts are about finally coaching a winning team.  

But ultimately, Mike has to choose between his ill-gotten money and keeping Kyle as part of his family.  There is no magical last minute lottery ticket or unexpected twist of the plot to save him - he MUST make the hard choice.  And he does, happily!

I suppose what this movie really shows is the power of repentance and redemption and  reconciliation and relationship to bring joy to life.  These things have more power than money to make life worth living, even after making a terrible mistake.  And while this movie is not explicitly Christian, it certainly does a great job of conveying these themes that lie at the heart of the Christian message.  Jesus Christ came to save sinners and reconcile them with God.  With reconciliation comes renewed relationship, and with strong, wholesome relationship comes joy!

The world would judge that Mike wound up in a lose-lose scenario: he lost the extra income he tried to get, and his wrestling team didn't get to go to the state championships.  But in the more important realm of relationships, he gained a relationship with Kyle and restored the relationship with his wife.  And that makes him a winner all the way around!

Are there relationships in your life in need of reconciliation?  Perhaps it is even God with whom you need to reconcile?  Fear not, for Jesus has made reconciliation possible.  Don't be afraid to choose relationships over worldly success, for they are a source of great joy!

Wildebeest - Seeing Is Believing

I found this cute little animated cartoon about a couple of wildebeest at the watering hole.
It's only 1 minute long, so you should watch it now, before reading on....



Silly Wildebeest!  Won't believe the truth until they see it for themselves!  That really is the hard way to learn a lesson, but isn't it just how we people often operate, too?

Like Beest 1 and Beest 2, we stand shoulder to shoulder with our neighbors and look at the world around us.  Christians look at the world and see the marvelous creation of a loving God.  Atheists look at the very same world and see a product of chance, happenstance, and luck.  We moo at one another with our differing opinions, but until one or the other can somehow SHOW that their answer is the correct one, it remains just a mooing match.

And that's because it's had to believe difficult things, unbelievable things, contradictory things, without seeing them for yourself.  The Christian scripture gives us the example of St. Thomas, to reassure the doubters that it IS hard to believe unbelievable things, and it's okay to question hard things.

Thomas was absent when Jesus first appeared to his disciples after his resurrection.  Doubting Thomas refused to believe such an impossible thing unless he could see and touch for himself.  Lucky for him, he does have a chance to see (and touch!) the resurrected Lord, and he believes.  Jesus closes his interview with Thomas by saying,

"You believe because you have seen me. Blessed are those who believe without seeing me." (John 20:29)

But it is the rare person indeed who believes without seeing SOMETHING to convince them!  Followers of Jesus after his ascension can no longer point out direct evidence that he rose, because Jesus himself is no longer available to touch.  But I'm sure every believer has seen or heard some indirect testimony to the living Christ that has convinced them, whether it was a moving moment in worship, the suddenly powerful truth of a word of scripture, or the tangible evidence of another believer's changed life.

What convinced you to believe?

How can you show "the truth" so others might believe?

Find Your Greatness

I've been trained to expect ads from companies like Nike to feature toned athletic bodies, sweating and achieving athletic greatness of one sort or another.  The message is "buy our stuff if you want to become great like these beautiful, successful people."  So I was very pleasantly surprised by this Nike ad, which I've now seen a couple of times during the Olympics:



This 12-year-old boy from London, Ohio is neither toned nor displaying athletic greatness.  But the narrator tells us that greatness is not reserved for the chosen few with special gifts.  Greatness isn't rare or precious, or unique. His final words as we watch this boy doggedly jogging on are these: "We're all capable of it. All of us."

And the ordinariness of this boy - in such stark contrast to the feats of the Olympic athletes - reminded me that we really are not just capable of greatness, but we are from the moment of birth already great.

Our greatness begins in our identities as creatures made by God, and made in God's own image:

So God created human beings in his own image.
In the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them. 
(Genesis 1:27)

And God assured us that he sees something compelling in us, his creatures, when he sent Jesus for our sake, to redeem us from our sins:

For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son,
so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.
(John 3:16)

And God used the words of his servant, the apostle Paul, to remind us that as his beloved creatures, redeemed by Jesus' blood, we have a purpose and task to live into:

So I run with purpose in every step. I am not just shadowboxing.
(I Corinthians 9:26)

Yes, the only question of our greatness lies in whether we live into it fully, or merely leave it as an unfulfilled  potential for so very much more.  How will you live into your greatness today?

Hunger Games

I recently had the chance to read "The Hunger Games," by Suzanne Collins.  The basic premise of the story is that North America has become a country called Panem, which consists of  the Capital and 13 outlying Districts.  The Capital rules the Districts, but 75 years ago the Districts rebelled and District 13 was obliterated; the remaining Districts now function in virtual slavery.  As punishment and perpetual reminder of their failed rebellion, the Capital created The Hunger Games.  Each District must send a boy and a girl  aged  12 to 18 (called Tributes), to compete in a kill-or-be-killed death match for the entertainment of the Capital, and required viewing for the people in the Districts.  The winning Tribute earns a life of relative wealth and ease for the rest of their life, and earns favor and special rations of food and supplies for their entire District until the next Games.

The story, then, tells the tale of Katniss Everdeen, who winds up as the girl Tribute from District 12.  The book is a  fast-paced read, well written and engaging.  Even though it is labeled as a book for young people (in the bookstore you'll find it with things like "Twilight", and my local library has it in their Young Peoples Fiction collection), I found it an enjoyable and worthwhile read and recommend it for adult reading, too.  But, my main purpose today wan't just a book review...

What I find rolling around in my mind today from this story is the perpetual reminder, the perpetual sacrifice inflicted on the Districts by the Capital.  That is why the Capital holds the Games: to remind the Districts that resistance is futile, and to assert their dominance.

Thankfully, our gracious God does not treat us the way the Capital treats the Districts!  Can you imagine life with a reminder of ever sin, every shortcoming, every bad decision being perpetually waved before your eyes?  With the price for that sin being perpetually demanded?  With forgiveness not an option?

Thankfully our gracious God made a sacrifice of his Son, once for all, to pay for our sins.  And our gracious God chooses to forget our forgiven sins, so that we can live life in hope and thanksgiving.  All that's required is to acknowledge our sins, confess them to God, repent and ask forgiveness, and do our best to live a renewed life.

You might consider whether there is anyone you perpetually remind and punish for their past sins against you.  Is there a relative, friend, acquaintance, or co-worker who's past bad behavior you just can't let go of?  Or maybe that person is yourself?  I invite you to consider how God will so graciously forgive us, and where you might need to try to do the same.

Look Where You're Going

Wow - nearly a year since my last post here - which was also a sermon text!  Well, I have another sermon text to post, this time a message I shared with my folks at St. Peter's Church in Purcellville.  We've been using the OT reading this summer, and have been following the life and times of King David.  Lucky me, I got the first half of the story of David and Bathsheba! (2 Samuel 11:1-15)

I hope that it not only feeds your soul, but keeps you on the road... :)
+++++

This morning we’re continuing to consider the life of King David – one of Israel’s heroes: a great king, a great warrior, a man who loved God so much that he is called a man after God’s own heart.

But today, we get to take a look at David’s dark days and bad behavior.  It’s a sorry circumstance that’s as much at home in a modern newspaper as in this 3,000 year old story:  A political leader starts from humble roots, operating with a sense of purpose and morality and “what’s right”.  He does things the way they should rightly be done, wins success after success, and gains power and fame.  But eventually, he starts to think a bit too highly of himself and his desires, and before you know it, power leads to corruption, and the tawdry story of a pregnant mistress and a murder plot hits the tabloids.

When we dig into this story, we notice that David’s been king of all Israel for a while now.  He’s got the powerful Ark of God residing in his capital city.  He’s defeated his enemies.  He da man!  Powerful, well-loved, and surrounded by servants just waiting to do his bidding so they might bask in David’s reflected glory.  It’s good to be king, and I think David is finding himself just a little too wonderful in his own mind…. 

Because you see, it’s spring, the scripture points out, the time when kings go out to battle, but David has chosen to stay home.  Why?  Maybe he was trying to give his general Joab some space to make a name for himself, or maybe David was feeling a bit run-down, a little sickly and thought it best to stay home and rest.  But the way this story is told, it sounds like David doesn’t think he needs to go, he’d rather stay in his comfortable palace than go and sleep rough on a battlefield -  he’s important enough, blessed enough, that he doesn’t need to go himself and be inconvenienced…

So here is David, pampering himself in his pleasant palace, looking out over his city, when he catches a glimpse of a lovely lady, the beautiful Bathsheba.  And he might have appreciated that little look and then gone back to his duties.  But David is a great king, so why not find out who this lovely creature is and enjoy her in his bedroom? 

That she’s a married woman doesn’t even seem to register to him – he just sends for her and has his way with her, and sends her back home.  When she finds she’s pregnant, they have a big problem, because her husband Uriah has been away with the army so that the child could not be his.  David calls him back to report on the war, but the honorable Uriah won’t go sleep with his wife– he doesn’t feel right having that sort of comfort while his fellow soldiers are at war.

David then arranges to send Uriah back into battle to a position where he will surely be killed, and that is where our reading for today ends.  It turns out that Uriah is indeed killed in battle, and David is now able to marry Bathsheba to hide his adulterous secret.   

What a sorry situation!  Israel’s great and honorable king David has descended into adultery, lies, and murder.  Oh how the mighty have fallen!  But – how did this happen?  How did David wind up like this after such a great start, and what can we learn to avoid this sort of thing ourselves?

It all comes down to this: You look where you’re going and you go where you’re looking.  It’s driving 101 – when you’re behind the wheel, you need to be looking where you want to go, because that’s where you’ll tend to steer to.  If you want to drive straight down the road but you’re staring off to the right at something along the side of the road, there’s a good chance you’ll find yourself in the ditch instead!   And when you have to do emergency maneuvers, its even more important to look where you want to go – you need to look at the gap you want to steer through and NOT at the tree you want to avoid! 

As in driving, so in life – your life tends to steer toward the things that you allow to engage your attention, whether that’s where you say you want to go or not.  And that’s where David went wrong.  Instead of brief glance at Bathsheba and then turning his eyes back to the road, he let her become an obsession, focusing his thoughts on having her, and then on covering up his little indiscretion, until he wound up in a flaming wreck in the ditch. 

Fortunately for us, we have a God who can make all things new, and even a fiery wreck like David’s smash-up with Bathsheba can be forgiven and restored and set back on the road if the driver can just realize their error and repent.  We’ll see how this happens for David in next week’s readings, so I’m not going to delve into repentance this morning.  I’m going to stick with accident avoidance. 

So – if we tend to go where we’re looking, what sort of distractions are likely to take our main attention off of following God and striving to be like our Lord Jesus, and send us off the road into the ditch or worse?  It’s all the same old things that have always distracted people from God: power, sex, wealth, with all their combinations and variations, from the mild and subtle to the wild and outrageous.  The distractions range from anything to everything!

And with such a vast array of things to lead us off of the road to Godly living, how can we possibly hope to stay on track?  Well, God in his wisdom has given us some tools, and there are three in particular that I’ll share with you.

First off, our weekly worship is a very overt and intentional directing of our hearts and minds toward God.  Scripture and preaching and hymns and prayers not only connect us with God, but may show us places where our attention has been inappropriately wandering.  Have you ever had the experience of hearing something that seemed to be illuminated with a sort of Holy Hiliter, pointing out some sinful thing you need to change but have perhaps been ignoring?  I know I’ve felt that sort of conviction!

So weekly worship is essential, but that leaves an awful lot of the week without guidance.  You can get WAYYYYY off the road if you only look to God for an hour or so on Sundays!  We need guidance during the week, and the surest way to get it is with God’s own roadmap, Holy Scripture.  Daily scripture reading makes it easier to keep our attention on God – and to hear Him calling out for our attention when we’re heading off into some ditch that we haven’t noticed.  Add daily prayer and you’ve got the second great tool to keep you turning back to God.

But weekly worship and daily prayer and scripture may still not be enough to keep us straight – after all, I bet David himself did those things, but still he got off-course.  What David didn’t have was friends and advisors who might actually confront him if they knew he was doing something wrong.  David sent his army off to war – who was left to advise him?  No one but servants…  So the third tool we have is fellowship and accountability through others. 

We all need spiritual friends with whom we share our lives – people who have our permission to tell it like it is when they see us heading for a ditch.  Friends who will speak the truth to us in love and help keep us on the road to life in Christ.  If David had had someone to poke him in the arm and say “what do you think you’re doing?” when he sent for a married woman to sleep with, maybe this whole incident may have been avoided.  God himself said it when Adam was created – “it is not good for the man to be alone.”  We all need companions on this way.

You see, we live in an age that prizes “following your nose.”  If it feels good, do it.  Whatever captures your fancy should be pursued, and there is no notion that there is even a road that should be followed.  So it’s imperative that we use the tools God has given us if we want to follow His ways and have eternal life.  Worship.  Study and pray.  Let yourself be accountable.  Do everything in your power to keep your attention on God. 

 

Look where you want to be going, or you may go where you find you’ve been looking.

Again I say, Look where you want to be going, or you may go where you find you’ve been looking.

Drifting...

It's hard to get where you want to go by drifting.

Sit in a canoe on a lake and you'll either go nowhere, or you'll drift in whatever direction the wind happens to carry you.

Sit in a canoe on a river, and you'll get carried along in the direction of the current.  If you're lucky, you might get a gentle trip like the lazy river at a waterpark.  But maybe you'll get a harrowing trip through rocks and rapids, and there is no telling whether the current will carry you safely through, flip your boat, dash you to bits on a rock, or throw you over a waterfall.

Unless your destination is "wherever I happen to end up," you'll never get there by merely drifting.

As followers of Lord Jesus, we have a destination - to grow into his image, to become the women and men God intends us to be.  Jesus never said to people, "Believe in me, then just kick back and let the current of life  take you where it will."  No, he never said that at all.  Jesus calls us to action - on-going action.  Believe, take on his yoke, deny yourself, pick up your cross, follow...

Sometimes, a season of drifting is necessary and good - when you've been navigating difficult waters and finally find yourself out of the rapids for awhile, it's good to rest and take stock, repair you boat, get ready for what may be around the next bend.  That is purposeful, intentional drifting, and we all need some.

But continual mindless drifting - consciously choosing to make no choice about one's direction - does nothing but waste time.  The longer one drifts, the more difficult it can become to find the motivation to sit up, check out the surroundings, choose a course, and start doing something - anything - to start moving in that direction.

If you've been just drifting along in your walk with Jesus, maybe today is your day to get back on course.  If you need help setting a direction, here's a link to "Forward Day By Day," a daily devotional that follows the lectionary readings used by The Episcopal Church.  You can find more resources there as well, to help you chart a course.  Good Sailing!