Love

Goodness Precedes Greatness

"Goodness Precedes Greatmess" by Jon Foreman

Huffinton Post October 19, 2009.

I write songs for a living, which is to say that writing songs helps me to live. The song becomes a place where melody and tempo can cover some truly volatile topics. God, women, politics, sex, hatred, disillusionment- a song or a story can be a deeper vessel and more forgiving than most conversations. Poetry can get under the skin without your permission, and music can offer perspective or hope that might have been hidden before. And so the song becomes a vehicle to cover some serious ground.

These days I have a hard time writing a song that feels bright or hopeful. The unemployment rate is edging up even further and spending is down. Foreclosures are way up and stocks are down. Our headlines are full of war, natural disaster, and corruption. So I go looking for songs of hope and stories that remind me of the incredible privilege of living another day. I suppose I'm looking for a hero of sorts. Someone who rises above the situation and does something incredible.

Remember the guy who threw himself on top of the passenger who had suffered a seizure in the New York Subway? As the train was approaching he jumps down onto the tracks and risks his life to save the life of a complete stranger whose convulsions had thrown him into the path of an oncoming train. Incredible. Have you seen Team Hoyt, the dad who pushes his disabled son through all the marathons? They've even done the Iron Man competitions together as father and son, which makes me tear up. Or the story of Mother Teresa, a woman who gave her life to the less fortunate day after day after day. These are the stories that I want to sing about. These are stories of hope.

Such sacrifice, such patience and such goodness is rare and rightly called heroic. But these are not the heroes of our times. Wesley Autrey is not a household name and neither is Team Hoyt. If you want to know the heroes of our society, follow the money, look at the posters on the wall. We pay them seven digit salaries, we put their songs on our playlists, and follow them on Twitter. These are the heroes we emulate.

Let's face it. Mother Teresa doesn't look that good in a negligee. And Team Hoyt won't sell beer commercials to the networks. But when the ball players and the supermodels end up in rehab, we end up asking esoteric questions about what makes a hero. In the movies the good looking actor who gets the girl is easy to point to. But after he gets the girl, then the house, and then a few kids and then a divorce and then another girl. Then what? After all of the special effects are gone, we're left with an aging mortal who looks a bit awkward on the talk shows. Perhaps we've set our goals too low. Or perhaps we've got it backwards.

I would like to suggest that the best parts of our human nature can be seen in sacrifice or surrender. A mother sacrificing her time for her child, a teacher devoting her afternoons to help students off-the-clock. These are truly our most incredible moments as a species: moments of unmerited kindness. Goodness. Virtue. Nobility. Grace. Morality. These are the truly remarkable moments. Perhaps our current economic climate of debt needs a fresh perspective on worth and value. Maybe our monetary crisis indicates a broader loss of perspective.

We live in the land of plenty, the land of milk and honey, where the lottery of birth has given us the advantage of education, of wealth, and of opportunity. Ammon Hennessy puts it this way, "You came into the world armed to the teeth with... the weapons of privilege." A trip south of the border can be an incredible reminder. We are living in the land of entitlement, one of the wealthiest nations in the history of mankind. And yet, money cannot buy us the true wealth of happiness, or peace, or of a deeper form of a meaningful life.

Perhaps the current climate of uncertainty would be the appropriate time to ask the question: what are we aiming for? Our technological achievements as a species are impressive. Our cities, our advancements in flight and our iPhones are all fairly remarkable. But there is nothing heroic about my cell phone. There is nothing sacrificial about it. Where is the song that's worth singing? What is our measure of success? Renown psychiatrist Viktor E. Frankl says that "success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as a byproduct of one's surrender to a person other than oneself."

Maybe the fix is not the money. Maybe two and a half hours in a theatre isn't enough time for a hero to be born. Maybe it takes a lifetime- a lifetime like John M. Perkins. John Perkins is a man who devoted his life to those around him in simple and profound ways. He was quick to forgive, quick to utilize resources to help those in need. He has been a tireless civil rights worker who has endured beatings, harassments, and even prison for what he believes. With the help of his wife, Vera Mae, and a few others, he founded a health center, leadership development program, thrift store, low-income housing development and training center in his hometown of Mendenhall, Mississippi. His is a story of reconciliation, of forgiveness, of patience. He endured the suffering, holding on to a cause greater than himself.

John Perkins is a song I want to sing. A song of a great man, the story of a legend. How do you replicate this goodness? Do you monetize it? Do you subsidize it? No. It's bigger than Washington, it's bigger than Wall Street. And it looks better than Hollywood. His is the story of a hero, a song of hope. His is a story that reminds me of a goodness beneath the system. Though Perkins was a devout Christian, he was quick to point out that this goodness is bigger than stale religion. Mr. Perkins once said that "many congregations do nothing but outsource justice." John Perkins said it right- you can't outsource justice. You can't farm out goodness to someone else. Your life is yours alone. Those decisions are yours to make.

I am the system. You are the system. We, the system of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, choose goodness. Yes, the system is flawed. Yes, the church is flawed. Yes, Wall Street and Hollywood Boulevard are all fatally flawed. Yes, there will always be those who take the easy way out. But that ain't your game. Your choice is yours alone. Goodness precedes greatness. Maybe the mother will always have more power than the atomic bomb. Maybe under the skin there is a song of hope and meaning waiting to break free. Or maybe not. It's our story. You and I decide with our actions. It can be as small as simple courtesy. Or get involved in your hometown. Find out what the local food bank looks like. Look up the local Habitat for Humanity. What is the world you want? You choose it with every breath.

In our current climate of fear and debt I am reminded of what I hold most valuable in this life: the human souls closest to me. We need each other. Human beings will always be the most valuable natural resource on the planet. The human story is still unfolding. We are telling it as we speak. The human song is still weaving its way towards a chorus, through the suffering, through the fear. We need each other. We need heroes. Let your life be a beautiful song. We need hope. Tell a good story with the way you live. What is the world you want?

A Swift Kick in My Pants

My best friend has a shirt that says "Slacker" across it.
For some reason it's hilarious.
By no means is he a slacker, maybe that's why I think its funny.

We all love to slack off eh?
It just feels so good to throw aside our work and take some time for ourselves.
Who doesn't love breaking out the video games
or watching the television
when home-work and relationships just seem to be too much of effort at that moment.

Heck, by the time I actually finish writing this little article I'll have probably have turned on and off the t.v., opened and closed the fridge without taking anything out of it at least six times, and checked facebook probably while doing all of the above. Heck, I should be reading for school right now instead of doing this!

But there's something about slacking off that's different different from relaxing or rewarding yourself after a job well-done.
Slacking off is a means of avoidance.
We do it full-well-knowing that we should be doing something more important but ... we'd really just rather not.


If you were to open up a Bible to the very beginning you'd see the Book of Genesis (it's there on the left).
Without going too Biblical on you, what's important to see here is that
from the very very very very beginning God wanted humanity,
that's me and you,
to be involved in what He was doing.
God totally could have just waved his huge hands and created a finished world where everything was as it was supposed to be, a world that was fixed and never changing.
But that's not how it went down is it?
God wanted to work with us.
God wanted to let the best thing he ever made play a part in creating.
God wanted to let humans take the lead in helping to build a world of love, peace, justice and hope;
a world that would grow out of that image of God that is inside each one of us.

And of course we all know what happened.

Adam and Eve lived until they were old and grey in the Garden of Eden.
Cain and Abel were as best of friends as any parent could hope.
Everyone was happy and life was good.
War was never known.
Heck, war wasn't even a word because people were too busy being happy and peaceful.
Yup, the rest of the Bible is full of nice and happy stories.
God's world was going just like He planned it.

...
....
.....

Adam and Eve tried to make it on their own and hid from God.
Cain killed Abel.
Life was pretty crappy.
War was an all too familiar word, known and felt across the world.
Nope, just like we read throughout the rest of the Bible, God's world was going the opposite direction than He planned.

Humanity dropped the ball.
God was pointing one way and humanity was going another.

The writers of the Old Testament see this happening.
They are always talking about how humanity is moving 'east' away from Eden.
God's pointing west back to Eden but humanity's running off another way, taking the world with it.
God's world wasn't going where He planned.
Hatred.
Violence.
Injustice.
Despair.

Humanity slacked off.
Humanity was on Facebook.

So instead of starting all over again God tried something else.
He put into effect The Super Great Final Restorative Rescue Plan for the World.

It's a mouthful to keep saying over and over again
so we can just just shorten it to 'Jesus' instead.

It was in Jesus that God showed us what being human is supposed to be like.
God was basically saying 'This is what being human is supposed to be like! Be more like him!'
That's one of the beautiful things about what we call the Incarnation:
that God came down to us as a person so he could show us the way home.
That's why we say that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life.
Jesus is the way back to God's world of love, justice, peace and hope.
Jesus tells it the way it is, showing us what life is all abot.
Jesus lives that way out and invites us into it, to share it with him.

When we call ourselves followers and fans of Jesus it's not because we think he's pretty rad.
It means so much more than that.
When we call ourselves Christians it means that we've pledged allegiance to the world
that God wants to make happen and we will do it by the best way possible - being like Jesus.
And being like Jesus means going the second mile and giving our whole lives if we have to.

We'll love the people nobody else does.
We'll swallow our pride and do the dirty work.
We'll go out of our way to give hope and practice justice.
We'll step up to the plate.
We'll live the life Jesus did
We'll do what we were supposed to be doing all along - helping to build God's world.
We'll get out of God's way.

What's it called when we get in God's way?
When we run the opposite direction than where God's going?
There's a word that can sum up what we can call this.

That word is 'sin.'

Sin is what happens when we slack off from doing God's work.

When we slack off as Christians we do so much more than simply give Christianity a bad name.
We sin.
That's not good.
By saying that we're saying that we're becoming less like what God wants us to be like.
Slacking off as Christians is sin because
God is out there calling 'Hey! Let's go make something happen!'
and we look up,
we sigh,
we think 'maybe tomorrow. Starting tomorrow I'll make it happen.'
We turn on the tv, we pick up the novel, we walk past the homeless, we put ourselves first.

We avoid God's call when we say:
'Maybe tomorrow.'
'But I'm on vacation.'
'Im tired.'

God's world is too important to wait til tomorrow, to wait until you're back from vacation, to wait until you feel up to it.
No matter what we do for a living when it comes to following Jesus, slacking off is simply not an option.
Too much depends on it.
People depend on it.
Paul even writes about how creation itself - the rocks and trees! - depend on it.

Sounds like a lot of work huh?
To be on the ball all the time is hard work
but fortunately we're not alone.
We've got a whole whack of people trying to pull the impossible and change this world.
We've got a God saying 'Keep going. I will help you out. Let's make this world my world.'
Trust in that.
Hope in that.
Live in that.

Facebook can wait.
Go do something.
Live like Jesus.


May you have the strength to answer God's call.
May you experience the transforming power that working for the Kingdom of God can bring.
May you grow in that image of God within you.
Go in peace.
Go in love.
Go and do it loudly.
May the grace of God, the love of Christ, and the fellowship of the Spirit be with you always and forever.

It Begins with a Boat - Podcasted!

Dont you love hearing your own voice?!
This talk was given to a church in Toronto August 9th.
Basically the same as the post below but with sound!
Not the greatest sermon of my life but oh well.

it begins with a boat

73. 23. 1. 0.

It begins with a boat.

Now boats are one of those inventions,

airplanes are another,

that cause some of us to stop for a second and think:

“If God, being the thoughtful kind of God he is,

ever wanted us to be out in the water

or flying around in the air,

then he would have given us gills or wings.”

But instead, we wound up with arms and cheeks

which, if we ever find ourselves in the middle of the ocean

or falling from the sky,

tend to be pretty useless.

This, of course, begs the question:

‘why would someone even bother with a boat or a plane?’

Going out in the water can be scary and intimidating.

When you’re in a boat

and the sky grows dark and winds begin to howl,

you feel a knot form in your stomach,

your heart beats faster

and cold sweat trickles down your back,

because you know,

that with just your hands and feet to work with,

that you are totally out of your element

and your numbers are completely stacked against you.

73. 23. 1. 0.

It begins with a boat.

The boat’s full of disciples.

We find the story in Mark 4.

The disciples just had spent the day doing their thing,

helping Jesus spread the news that the Kingdom of Heaven had arrived

and that he, Jesus, is the way back to God.

But after trying to figure out all those parables

the disciples were tired and hungry

so they and Jesus got in a boat and went across the lake to rest.

Now,

depending on which translation of the Bible you use,

it could say they crossed a ‘lake’ or ‘sea.’

What they were actually crossing was the Sea of Galilee, which is really a massive fresh-water lake.

But, all we really need to know, is that this lake was famous for the storms that would randomly appear, even on the most beautiful of days.

So we assume that was the case here;

the day was beautiful, not a cloud in the sky

but once the disciples and Jesus got half way across the lake, that all changed.

Boat meets storm.

As if being in a boat is not uncomfortable enough,

being in a boat in the middle of a storm

well, it has the same affect as when,

one night, on the way home late from work

you suddenly remember its your wife’s birthday

and you are going home empty-handed:

Your eyes widen,

you swear under your breath,

you begin to panic

and you flinch because you can already feel,

almost by some primal male intuition,

the fury you are about to experience.

And you know there is not a thing you can do to make the situation better.

Storms and boats are never a great mix.

Every summer back in New Brunswick. my friend Rich and I go camping.

The first time we went was more of a spontaneous decision,

and that’s really just a polite way of saying

that we put next to no effort or thought into planning the trip.

So, off we went with our ourselves, tent, gear, guitar, Coleman stove, water, food, case of beer, two dogs and our eleven foot canoe.

Now, this trip is a perfect case for why our parents told us thought and planning are important things.

For those of you who know something about canoeing,

what happens when you put more than 500 pounds in an 11 foot canoe?

Yup, what you’re all thinking is pretty much exactly what happens.

The brim of your canoe is just about flush with the water.

That’s almost okay unless you happen to run into a storm.

So the day is gorgeous as we set out to the other side of the lake.

Not 200 yards from shore a storm hits.

Waves are crashing,

winds are blowing,

dogs are flipping out,

Rich is paddling,

I’m scooping water out while trying to save the case of beer and keep the guitar from getting wet,

and we fight for our lives.

The canoe, already too low in the water,

sinks lower and lower as more and more water flow into it …

to the point where just as we make it to safety

most of our stuff can be seen floating in the water leaving a nice little trail back to the dock.

The story is something we love to tell

but right there, in the thick of it,

all that we could think about was how helpless we were.

All we saw were the numbers stacked against us.

So, I, and perhaps you too,

can relate to how the disciples felt as the rain, wind and waves were crashing into their boat. We can relate to the sense of helplessness they felt.

We can imagine what was going on …

As the disciples began to lose hope and rejection set in,

they, no doubt, began reminiscing with each other:

“Well boys, it was good while it lasted! We had a good run!”

“Matthew, you’re actually a pretty good guy for a tax collector.”

Andrew yells to Peter:

“Dad was right! We never should have left his fishing company to follow this guy.

At least Dad knew how to predict if a storm was coming.”

Nathaniel hugs Thomas, saying:

“Thomas! We should have listened to you! You told us from the beginning getting in this boat wasn’t a good idea!”

And as the storm grew worse and worse

they became more terrified and convinced that this storm would send them and Jesus to their deaths.

Jesus?

We can get so caught up in the story that we can forget that he was in the boat too.

Where was Jesus in all of this?

Helping Philip steer the boat? No.

Trying to comfort Bartholomew and get him to bail water? No.

In the middle of this raging storm Jesus was asleep.

Jesus is fast asleep in the back of the boat.

Now let’s stop for a second and ask the obvious:

Why would Jesus be sleeping in the middle of a storm?!

The disciples, at least half of whom are fisherman and used to being in a boat,

are freaking out, and Jesus, a carpenter, who may have only made boats,

is catching a few winks in the back.

Why was Jesus sleeping?

The disciples wondered the same thing as they finally cried out:

"Jesus! Teacher! Don’t you care that we’re about to die?!”

73. 23. 1. 0.

Those are my numbers.

Those are the numbers stacked against me.

73 resumes. 23 online applications. 1 interview. 0 job.

The past five months have been for myself

and for a lot of others

a time of suspense and rejection.

When I was looking for work

there would be that initial period of suspense.

I would be full of hope that something, anything, would turn up.

Hope has, built into it, a sense of anticipation -

an anxious and expectant waiting and yearning.

You hope that special someone will finally clue in that you like them as you wait for some sort of clue that they feel the same way.

You hope that you will finally hear from your son or daughter after years of silence and waiting by the phone.

You hope your doctor will finally figure out what your body is fighting against as you wait and wait, growing weaker and weaker by the day.

The days pass on by as you stare at the phone waiting for good news …

wondering if the reason the phone hasn’t rang yet

is that something’s wrong with it

so you keep picking it up to see it’s working

and then wonder

if in the time you picked it up to see if its working

you missed the call you’ve waiting for

and you end up driving yourself into such a state of despair and depression that you have no idea what to do next.

After all that waiting …

hope starts to seem a bit silly.

We feel rejected. We feel disappointed. Letdown. Hopeless. Pathetic.

After all that suspense we finally realize that what we were hoping for is just not going to happen.

And that hurts!

Five months of suspense and rejection,

let alone a year or two,

of having your hopes deferred,

is enough to drop anyone to their knees

and make them feel like they are in a boat in the middle of a storm they will not survive.

Just like the disciples, it’s enough to make us cry out:

‘Jesus! Teacher! Don’t you care that we are about to die?!’

All of us,

at some point in our lives, will feel the sting of rejection.

All of us,

will feel like we are fighting a battle we can’t win

and will look up to the sky and tell God off

because our pain, misery and hopelessness is so unbearable and so unfair

that God, we will say, if he is any kind of God at all,

should have stepped in long ago to make things better.

When our numbers are stacked against us

hope for something else, anything else,

becomes too hard to have.

All we can see is the storm around us

and just like the disciples

we cry out:

“Jesus! Teacher! Don’t you care I’m about to die?!”

If we’re honest,

we can all say that we’ve shouted out those questions before.

They are good questions too; that needs to be understood.

We should never feel bad for arguing or being angry with God.

because God doesn’t want relationships of formality,

where we dress up and pretend to be somebody else or that we have it all together.

That’s not relationship.

Relationships are not based on fiction.

It’s not a relationship when we try to convince the other person that we’re something we’re not or when we hide our true feelings from them.

Relationship only comes out of honesty, love and acceptance;

it only happens when we come to each other just as we are and say:

“This is who I am and this is how I’m doing today.”

God wants a real relationship with us.

That’s why God became human.

He wants us just as we are because he loves just as we are.

Dressing up or pretending to have it all together defeats the point of the incarnation.

Having a relationship with God means that we are honest with him about who we are

and what we are feeling.

Being able to be ourselves, even when all we want to do is rage against and wrestle with God, is exactly what God wants.

And it also shows us how merciful and beautiful God is.

It shows us that God isn’t someone to be avoided in fear of retaliation,

or someone we must win over,

or someone we can’t ask those questions of.

It shows that God is someone to go to with our hearts on our sleeves and face full of tears. Just like a perfect parent, God loves us and wants to be with us even in our brokenness and anger.

All that to say, asking those questions is okay and coming to God with them is good.

But we also need to know that those questions are not unanswerable.

What we will see is that those questions will take us to a place where

we will look back on the storms that brought them on and say:

“I really had nothing to worry about.”

So to take us to that place, let’s go back to our first question:

Why is Jesus asleep in the boat?

A good friend of mine asked this question before.

She decided that the answer is in the question itself.

Jesus is asleep because he’s Jesus.

Being the Son of God has a few perks to it,

one being that storms don’t tend to bother you that much.

With the power to silence the winds and the rain,

that uneasiness we sometimes feel just doesn’t happen.

Jesus is God and those worries don’t really register; falling asleep in a boat,

even in a boat in the middle of a storm, isn’t as crazy an idea as we first thought.

So, if we know that Jesus is sleeping because he has power over the wind and rain

and would do something if things got too out of hand;

and if we also know the disciples knew that Jesus was God and could do those things,

then we no longer have to ask why Jesus was sleeping.

Our question changes. It’s no longer about Jesus.

Instead, our question gets turned back to the disciples:

“Why are they stressing out?”

Since we are share the same spot as the disciples here,

the question also gets thrown back at us.

If we know that God loves us and is in control,

or, in other words,

God can calm the storms in our lives,

then “why are we stressing out?”

We know the answer to those questions because Jesus tells us.

Beginning half way through verse 38:

The disciples were bailing water and yelling for Jesus to wake up and help.

Jesus opened his eyes, rose, stretched out his arms and said

"Peace. Be still."

The wind stopped blowing,

the waves stopped crashing

and peace swept across the lake.

They were safe, alive, and a rainbow spread across the sky.

Jesus then looked down at them and asked:

“Why are you stressing out? Have you no faith?”

Have you no faith?

Faith is what this story is all about.

Faith is the answer to all our question.

No matter how we define it,

to have faith means to trust and have hope regardless of the circumstances.

It’s about living like you believe God’s Spirit moves among us.

It’s about knowing that if you cry out, you will be answered.

As church,

faith is at the core of who we are and what we’re about.

It’s faith that makes us different,

that brings us together,

that transforms us,

that drives us forward.

Its faith that gives us the audacity to

chase after Christ and live like we’re forgiven.

And I say ‘audacity’ because faith is not dictated by human norms and conventions.

Faith is not dictated by what science or logic or common sense say is possible.

Faith is rooted in something else all together.

Faith is rooted in the fact that we believe in and follow the God of the Impossible.

God of the Impossible.

The title doesn’t appear in the Bible but there’s a good theological basis for it.

God is a God of the Impossible because he breaks down our limitations,

works in completely nonsensical ways,

and continuously makes new and impossible things happen.

God looks at the situations we’ve deemed a lost cause

and says “Hmm … I can do something with this.”

Faith, then, is an audacious act.

It’s a radical way of living with the hope that the impossible will and does happen.

And faith, while we sometimes say it’s something we have,

really is more of a way of being or living.

It transforms us from the inside out,

it transforms us, Church,

from a people of limitations and boundaries to a people of hope and audacity.

When we live by faith we no longer fear with the same hopelessness

those storms and numbers because we know that despite everything at hand, God can still make something happen.

It’s our faith that assures us that when we feel like we’re alone in a boat about to get swallowed up by the sea that we are not alone

but God is with us, listening to our cries and saying:

“I will hold you until this is over. I am here and this is not the end. Trust me.”

It is faith that lets us defy the odds and not be beaten down by our numbers.

Even when the boat sinks

it’s faith that lets us walk on water.

Walking on water captures the idea of what it means to live in faith.

For this we turn back to Matthew 14.

Again, it begins with a boat.

The disciples,

having been stuck out at sea all night because of some strong winds,

wake up in the morning to see a man walking towards them on the water.

Now, even back then, someone walking on water wasn’t something you’d see everyday. So understandably, the disciples began to freak out.

They cried ‘It’s a ghost!”

But that ghost answered back: “It’s me, Jesus. Don’t be afraid!”

The disciples, though, were not convinced. All except for Peter.

Peter, in one of his rare moments of being on the ball,

shows us what it means to live in faith.

Peter yelled across water: ‘Jesus, if that’s you, tell me to come to you.”

We should all take note from this because Peter’s faith here is stunning.

He’s not an idiot; he knows perfectly well where he is and where Jesus is;

he knows that between him and Jesus is whole lot of ocean.

But he also knows that Jesus is God and can make the impossible happen.

Peter believes that if Jesus tells him to do something,

no matter how ridiculous and crazy it sounds, he will be able to do it.

Peter trusts Jesus.

So when Jesus said, “Come,” Peter gave it no second thought.

He stepped out of the boat and began to walk towards him … one foot in front of the next … walking on water.

Peter walked on water! He did the impossible!

That’s like saying he flew or blew up a building with his eyes.

But Peter isn’t Super-man.

Peter is just a believer; a man who lives in faith.

What we see in Peter is a radical contrast to normalcy and faithlessness,

to letting the world control what we think is possible,

to being trapped within our small imaginations.

Peter’s actions are an example of the kind of faith that Jesus was looking for in the other story.

A faith that remembers who Jesus is

and a faith that doesn’t quit when the writing on the wall says otherwise.

A faith that knows God can do the impossible.

A faith that makes you walk upon the water.

But …

I can hear them asking now:

“Now, I have to stop you there.

I’m with you so far but don’t you know what happens at the end of this story?”

Ok, let's go there.

What does happen to Peter at the end of the story?

He sinks and gets asked, again, why he has no faith.

However, this doesn’t take away from Peter’s example of faith

and, if anything, it highlights something even more important.

Back to verse 30.

“As Peter was walking towards Jesus … “

so he’s looking straight at him,

“he noticed the strong wind,

became frightened and began to sink.”

So what happened here?

Peter began to sink as soon as he took his eyes off Jesus!

He let doubt get his way and he forgot that Jesus was there with him.

But what happened next is amazing.

“Peter became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out: ‘Jesus, Save me!’

Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him.”

Jesus saved him the moment Peter cried out for help.

Jesus immediately caught him.

Here we’re reminded that when we cry out to God for help,

He will catch us.

We will be saved.

The end of the story is pretty interesting too.

When Jesus catches Peter he doesn’t put him right back in the boat.

That happens later.

When Jesus catches Peter he simply holds him.

They’re still standing on the water!

This is really important because it goes against what’s popular in a lot of Christianity:

the idea that God will make your life problem-free or that God will whisk you away to the moment something bad starts to happen.

Everyone single one of us knows that’s just not true. Our lives are proof.

Being rescued or held by God doesn’t always mean the trouble is over.

Sometimes all it takes to get through a storm is the comfort of a strong hand to hold.

The trouble doesn’t go away but we know that we are going to be okay because we’ve got something to hold on.

Jon Foreman, one of my favourite poets calls this a beautiful letdown:

that even in the middle of our letdowns and darkest days there is something beautiful,

a hand to hold on to.

Even in the middle of our storms God is still there reaching out to catch us and hold us tightly until the sun shines again.

Peter knew about beautiful letdowns and had faith God was with him.

We must have the same kind of faith as Peter.

We must be water-walkers.

We are the gathered,

we are the faithful,

those who step out in faith despite the circumstances

and despite the numbers

because we have the audacity to say that through Christ anything is possible.

By our faith and conviction that there is a better way,

we walk,

or as the Psalmist wrote,

we dance, we dance with faith.

We are those who, by faith, dance upon injustice because we know there is a better way.

We are those who dance upon despair because we know there is hope.

We are those who dance upon loneliness because we know there is love.

We are those who dance upon guilt and shame because we know there is forgiveness.

We are those who point to the rainbow because we know there is trust.

We are those who, by faith, walk upon the water.

Even if our boat tips or that phone call never comes

we will be carry on

because Jesus will be there holding our hand and He can do the impossible.

It may begin with a boat.

The numbers may be 73. 23. 1. 0.

But it always ends with Jesus.

It always ends with Jesus.

So when you’re on that boat

and you’re on your knees bailing water as fast as your little arms can

look out to the sea and see that someone is right there walking towards you with his arms wide open.

His name is Jesus.

He will understand.

He is the answer that you’ve been waiting for.

Walk in faith with him.

Live in faith.

Jesus is Annoying (the sermon)

I love Jesus. I think he’s pretty awesome.
But sometimes,
sometimes, I find
he can be, kind of, annoying.

It’s just that he won’t stop challenging me to step out of my comfort zone,
or telling me he wants more than just a ‘safe faith.’
He calls me out on having one foot in his camp
and one foot in mine
… day after day of that …
I mean, ‘Jesus, really? What more could you possibly want?!’

Maybe some of you have had similar experiences and
have asked that question a few times in your life.

The answer,
as we hear in John 12 and see in Mark 10,
is that the Annoying Jesus has a point.
Safe faith and a life of ‘lazy Christianity’ is not what God wants.
God does call for more, a lot more,
and wants both our feet in his camp
because it’s when we’re fully committed to him that
we are given something beautiful - life.

The passage in John is a difficult one; not only is there a lot going on but the messages aren’t easy either.

When we finally do understand what Jesus is saying we find the passage makes us uncomfortable and even offended.
So maybe we skip over it and jump ahead to something less demanding.
But as a professor of mine always says,
‘if you read the Bible and aren’t offended and made uncomfortable, you’re not really reading it.’

When we join Jesus in here
he is not too far off from enacting the climax of God’s rescue plan for the world.
It would be soon that he is crucified,
transforming a Roman symbol of oppression and death into the Christian symbol of liberation and life.
I am, of course, talking about what? The cross.
And it’s here in this passage that Jesus,
once again,
offers the challenge of what it really means to really follow him and carry that cross.

“Listen carefully,” Jesus said, “Unless a grain of wheat is buried in the ground, dead to the world, it is never any more than a grain of wheat.
If it is buried, it sprouts and reproduces itself many times over.”

Now, Jesus had many titles but Farmer-Jesus was not one of them.
With Jesus dispensing gardening advice it’s no wonder people
then, and today, get a little confused about this passage.
But some horticultural history can help shed some light on where Farmer-Jesus is going with this.

Back in the 1st century it was thought that a seed, when buried, actually dies.
It’s by dying that the seed changes into a plant.
We need to understand that idea because ‘dying into new life’
is central to what Jesus is talking about.

Jesus continued …

“In the same way,
(So Jesus is talking about people now)
anyone who holds on to life just as it is
destroys that life.
But if you let it go you'll have it forever, real and eternal.”

In other words, like that seed, people had to ‘let go’ of their lives,
they had to die to an older way of being
and make room for the ways of Jesus.
It’s then, in that transformation, they would experience true life.

We get another glimpse of this in the passage we read from Mark’s Gospel.
The rich man,
having been told that a moral and good life is actually not what Jesus wants,
is annoyed and frustrated when Jesus tells him to go and sell all his possessions.
Wealth is equated with possessions,
and what Jesus is essentially telling him is that your identity and your life
cannot be about your money or having nice things;
instead, your life must be about following me.
Jesus is telling him “Get rid of all that stuff so that can happen. Those things are getting in the way of you giving yourself to me.”

Is it then any wonder we’re told later in both John and Mark
that the people were offended and confused?!
Jesus had just told them that in order to receive this new and full life
they had to step out of their comfort zones.
He said that to be in God’s camp, they had to let go of their lives and leave them behind.
It’s only then,
when God’s Word guides their lives,
that they embody and follow Jesus,
that they’ll experience new life, a life in its absolute fullness.

To live,
to truly live then,
was not just to be alive,
but is to be in Christ.
Anything else is a pale imitation.

This is crazy revolutionary because Jesus had just thrown out the idea that faith
is based on ancestry and race as the Jewish tradition held. He had just said that faith,
and thereby redemption,
is about a matter of belief.

But as if that was not annoying enough,
what Jesus was doing was reiterating his call to kenosis –
an intentional willingness to put aside one’s own ambitions and desires –
one’s own life –
a letting go,
and emptying of self –
to make room for God.

That’s a huge challenge and the people, in both accounts we see, were having a hard time hearing it.
It was uncomfortable, it was annoying.

In that kenotic challenge, they heard the Annoying Jesus
because they weren’t ready to step up and follow him like that.
They were not ready to leave behind themselves and put both feet in God’s camp.
Maybe drag a foot behind them but that new life Jesus offered just seemed too much.

And you can follow someone you find annoying for only so far.
We have that problem too, I think.

Nobody, regardless of historical time or place or age is good at kenosis,
at leaving their own lives behind for the sake of something else.
Humans, it seems, are not very good at following someone else’s lead,
especially God’s.

A quick look throughout the Old Testament can show this …
Whenever God would send a prophet to tell humanity to smarten up and fly right,
well, that prophet usually wound up dead.

We are simply wired …
or perhaps it is better if I said we are ‘accustomed’ …
we are simply used to doing things our own way.
When someone tells us their way is best,
or that we are kind of missing the point,
their words don’t come across as wisdom or a good idea -
they come across as annoying.

When I was a boy,
one of my things my father would do with my brothers and me was take us out fishing.
What I remember more than anything,
was that I was arch and bitter enemies
with my life-jacket.

I hated that life jacket.
Not just because as the fashion-conscious six-year old I was,
I knew wearing the jacket was far less cool than going bare-chested;
but mostly because
by wearing that life-jacket I was saying that I couldn’t do it on my own.
Wearing that life jacket was annoying
because it implied I could not save myself.
It said I needed help, and that what I thought I could do easily, I really needed help with.

Jesus is like that life-jacket.
We struggle to follow, to wear, Christ,
the way God wants us to.
It’s too big, too bulky, the wrong colour …
He’s too annoying, too demanding, too scary, too complicated, too constrictive.
Just like the people around Jesus who complained and just like that rich man,
we too find reasons to not follow Jesus fully.

Instead of giving ourselves completely over,
we leave our wearing of Christ un-fastened or stuffed under the seat.
Despite the constant invitations from Jesus to zip-up and follow him,
we find life much easier this way with Jesus half off or almost hidden from view.

But … And ‘but’ is one of the greatest words that can be said in a sermon because it shows that no matter what the topic, no matter what trouble or predicament we get ourselves into, God always has something to say to help us out.
No wonder Jesus was fond of saying ‘But, I tell you this …”

But … as these passages show,
when we do get over ourselves and empty ourselves in order to fill up with Jesus,
our lives are opened up to a whole new world of beauty and meaning.
We find, as the scripture said, life abundant and eternal.


Life – real, full, abundant, amazing.
It’s in giving life over to Jesus,
it’s in the pursuit of being a fan and follower of him,
it’s in the act of letting go of our own agendas and own desires
that we experience life in such a way that we simply cannot if we simply hold on to ourselves.
It’s there, in that giving over to Christ, that act of faith, that one finds restoration into a life of grace and love and hope.
For what kind of life is worth living without grace, love and hope?

That’s one of the things that really really really needs to be heard from these passages.
That through Jesus, God offers new life, life as He intended it to be like.

This is not a life of mediocrity but a life restored, a life of purpose, fullness and love.

It is in Jesus, John wrote,
that we could awaken to the way that God is transforming the world to be.
A way we know is true because God raised it from the dead.


God offered in Jesus, a chance to experience life in ways people could not on their own. The world had simply got too used to doing things their own way,
of dismissing God’s callings from the prophets as too hard and too annoying,
The world became so used to doing things its own way and living for itself that those callings from God became fainter, and fainter until it was a mere whisper.

But …
through Jesus,
in an act that is so bewilderingly beautiful,
God became human so that call could hear his voice.
Jesus made it possible that the world could be given new life,
a life out of the shadows sin casts,
a life within the light of God, the one John calls ‘The Father of Light.’

Jesus, on his way to the cross,
was inviting them into that life
and today that invitation remains open for me and for you.


God wants you too.
God doesn’t want you to be content with mediocrity and annoyance.
God loves you and wants all of you, both feet, to experience that life of fullness;
a life of overcoming sin, a life without guilt, and no fear of death.
A life with Jesus, forgiven, restored, loved and free.
Through the scars and cross of Jesus we have been given true life, with all its benefits and fullness.

It was thinking about the scars of Christ that reminded me of a girl some good friends of mine met a few years back.

Her name was Rene.
And when Rene was a teenager, 17 or so, she confessed that he had lost all interest in living.
Rene would say she never knew what love or hope felt like.
Numbness she all too well but wanting to feel anything other than the lack of it,
she saw pain as the only way to make her feel human again.
Rene began cutting.
Cutting her arms just enough to feel the pain,
until the cuts got deeper and living began to make less and less sense.

It was in this dark year that as she walked home, heard some music, and stumbled into a church. It was there that she met some guys who played in the worship band
and first heard, first really heard, about this guy named Jesus.

At first she struggled with Jesus.
She found those constant calls to follow him just too hard and too annoying so she kept her distance.
But slowly, Rene began to see what Jesus was all about.
She began to believe who he said he was, to follow his teachings and give herself over to him.
It was then, when she first have herself over to Jesus that Rene first felt love.
That is super cool. Think about that …
How overwhelmingly beautiful would it be to have love be the first thing to break through your numbness.
With that love and hope growing within her heart, Rene began to put away the knives.
The more she felt the love and embrace of Jesus,
the more alive and full she felt.

Jesus was Rene’s lifejacket.

Rene knows what it’s like to struggle with the Annoying Jesus
but she also knows how walking with Jesus can write Love over her scars.

Life in Jesus is not easy.
But what is important to know is that by turning to Jesus
and giving ourselves to him,
by emptying ourselves and growing into new life with God,
we are able to keep our heads above the waters and live,
with both feet,
in the place where Heaven and Earth meet.
It’s there,
in Christ,
that life, real and eternal is found and given freely.
It’s there that our pale imitations becomes coloured in with all the colours of God’s love and mercy.

And that is a life worth having.


Answer that annoying call of Jesus.
Zip up and wear Christ.
Experience the life given to you.
Go in peace, go love, do it loudly.
May the grace of God, the love of Christ
and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you always.

Castrated Men Ask Good Questions

"Would you spend eternity in hell to save your neighbour?"

Origen, a theologian from back in the early days of Christianity, asked that once.

It’s a crazy question, of course, but Origen was a little crazy himself.
In a really weird, and considering the effort that would have gone into it, admirable display of devotion to God Origen castrated himself.

Ouch.

"Would you spend eternity in hell to save your neighbour?"

The point of his question is so radically in touch with what Jesus taught and embodied that our only answer can be ‘yes.’

Scary.

Jesus was once hanging out with some Pharisees, think the church elite/debate team of the day, when they asked him: "What is the most important commandment?"
Now understand that this question was a big deal because the Jewish faith was centred around following the laws and teachings their tradition held because they believed that by doing so they would find relationship with God. So, this question is a big deal because they were essentially asking which law reveals the most about who God is and what God is like and how one is to be in relationship with Him. (Matt 22.34-40).

Deep.

Jesus answered their question: "Love your God with all your heart, all your soul and all your strength."

The Pharisees couldn't argue with that, a pretty solid answer by any means.
But, as was his annoying tendency, Jesus then does something they didn't expect … he keeps talking.

Don’t you hate how he does that? It even happens to us today. Just after we read something that makes us go a little too crazy with our highlighters or run to the computer to write some inspired Facebook message Jesus goes ‘Um, excuse me but actually …’ and then proceeds to completely shatter what we thought was a good and wholesome Jesus teaching.

Frig.

That Annoying Jesus is so important to keeping our faith focussed on the thing Jesus was pointing to himself, the Kingdom, because it constantly calls us on our B.S; it makes sure we are not content with moralistic living and simplistic theological lives but beckons us to a life of self-emptying and real worship. Jesus is doing this very thing with the Pharisees. He’s about to blow their minds by expanding the very nature of what God’s people are supposed to be like.

Jesus kept talking … "And another is like it; love your neighbour."
Jesus adds another commandment! Jesus isn’t simply being cheeky but showing that one cannot answer the Pharisees’ question with one commandment; the single most important commandment of loving God with all your heart, soul and strength needs to be guided, and even displayed, by a second commandment of loving your neighbour.

Boosh (minds being blown … hard to verbalize such a sound).

The Pharisees were blown away because Jesus just did something that to them messed with their sacred tradition and to us, in faithful hindsight, reveals the very heart of what being a believer in God and a follower of Jesus really calls for.

Our devotion or worship is not contingent on being pure in mind and body as a righteous living offering to God as upholding only that first commandment alone can suggest.
While that is indeed important, it misses the overall point of what that first commandment is all about. Devotion and worship are contingent on living missionally because it is through the interactions we have with the world around us that God is revealed, God’s mission is continued, and God’s world is restored.

Jesus made sure we saw that loving our neighbour is fundamentally and intimately linked with being a follower of him.
If we believe God’s way of life is the way to finding fullness of life and that way of being is truly human, we cannot ignore our neighbours. To do so would bare the rebuke of Isaiah in Isaiah 58 and Jesus in Matthew 25.31-46. Those also give great examples of who ‘neighbour’ actually is – humanity, creation, the lowest of the low and not those within simple geographic proximity.

We’re now back to answering the question from our castrated friend.

“Would you spend eternity in hell to save your neighbour?”

Yes.

We have to say yes.

It of course is not meant to be taken as a literal question but it still must be taken seriously for it challenges us on how much we live for ourselves and how much we live for God. If we are to seriously answer that we are followers of Jesus and it is in him that we live, we move and have our existence then we must be prepared to live as radically and revolutionary as Jesus calls us to do.

If we are to follow Jesus, the one we claim to be God incarnate, with all of ourselves, we must be willing to go the distance, that second mile, for our neighbours because it is there that God’s love is revealed and our actions become beautiful songs of worship.

It is there that we find that answering that question with a ‘yes’ is a joyful thing for it means we are beginning to the beauty and grace of the cross.



May you have the audacity to say yes.
May your mind be habitually blown by the ridiculous love of Jesus.
Go in love, go in peace and do it loudly.
May the grace of God, the love of Christ and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit
be with you always.
Amen.