Surrounded

I haven't posted anything other than my ramblings in a while so I thought I would share a few of my favorite photos from this summer. As I was looking through these photos today, choosing some to post, it reminded me again of just how much beauty and life surround us all the time. Undoubtedly, there is much ugliness and brokenness in our world but there is also such an overwhelming and lavish wealth of God's creativity constantly surrounding us... such a means of grace.

You can click here to see the album I've been building all summer long.

A Conversation about Creation.

Recently, I have been enjoying a coversation over facebook with my cousin Steve, who directs a Christian campground (www.camponeway.org) here in Illinois. He believes that the scientific theory of evolution contradicts the first two chapters of Genesis. I, on the other hand, believe that the theory of evolution can co-exist with a less literal reading of Genesis 1 and 2. I thought it would be worth reproducing my rather lengthy response here on my blog. I thought about posting our smaller exchanges within this conversation to give more context to this discussion but I didn't want it to become overwhelming. (This is already pretty long as it is.) I think what I've wriitten here can more or less stand on its own and represents well why i read Genesis 1 and 2 the way that I do.

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I, too, am glad that as you mentioned in your response and as I mentioned in our previous discussion that we are in much more agreement than disagreement here. We both agree that God created which is the important affirmation as far as our faith is concerned. However, as we’ve already seen in the discussion so far this question is connected to other important ones such as how we interpret scripture and the nature of God. So while I don’t think we have to ultimately agree on the issue, I think it is worthy of the discussion.

First, I want to address what may be a difference in the way that we are using the term “literal”. For example, in your opening line you say that there are “poetic books in the Bible that have very literal application to our lives.” By that, I assume you mean that the Bible has a very real or true application for us which we are really meant to live out. Obviously, I agree wholeheartedly but I don’t think I am using the word in the same way. In other words, I’d have to assume that by your use of the word that the less literal something is then the less true or real it is. We often use the word that way in common parlance. For example, I might say “After such a difficult week of work, I was literally spent.” Of course, what we mean in such an instance is to say that we were really tired and so we add the word literally as a way of emphasizing that. However, in reality we were not actually spent as some kind of currency which is what “literally” would really mean in this instance. On the other hand, when we are being very technically specific and we use the word “literal” in reference to language or literature, it is in no way an indication of how true we think something is. You can see this in the example above. To recognize that being “spent” is not a literal designation of us as a commodity which can be traded but that it is a metaphor for how tired we are does not make it any less true. It only says something about how we have chosen to communicate that truth. To say that we are “spent” communicates the same thing but in a more vivid and meaningful way than simply saying “I’m really tired.”


I believe that the same is true when we come to the creation narratives. To say that I don’t take the creation stories literally does not mean that I regard them as somehow less true than if I did take them literally. It is actually a statement about the kind of truth I believe is being communicated in those stories. I don’t think that those stories were intended to communicate the “how” of creation. I believe it is the purpose of science to answer the “how” question. I believe the purpose of the creation narratives is to answer the infinitely more important questions of “why were we created?”, by whom were we created?” and “what does it all mean?” (This, by the way, is what the writers of the article meant when they said that the Bible is sometimes treated like a science book. They mean that some look to the Bible for the answer to the how questions when that is not a question that God or the Biblical authors intended to address within Scripture.)


You might ask then why I get to decide which kinds of questions the Bible can answer and which it can’t. The answer, of course, is that I don’t. However, what I believe that I can and must do as a faithful reader of Scripture is to pay attention to the cues that the Bible itself gives as to what kinds of questions it is trying to answer. One of those cues is the fact that the Bible is always concerned with who God is and what God is doing. Even the books of the Bible that we normally call historical are not history in the sense of simply keeping records of human actions. No, they unapologetically make God and what God is doing through human beings the center of the story at all times. I think that by it’s own contents Scripture shows us that it’s primary purpose is not to describe what happened (history) as much as it is to say what those happenings communicate about who God is (theology). The Bible suggests itself first and foremost as a book of theology before it is anything else. As such, we should look to it for theological answers rather than scientific and historical ones.


However, this by no means settles the question. This is because more so than many other religions, Christianity’s theology is connected to its history. In other words, God often reveals himself to us through historical events, the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ being the primary example. In those places, the “how” question of history becomes inseparable from the theological question of what it all means. For example, Paul says in 1 Corinthians, “if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins”. This is an example of history and theology being inseparable. Jesus’ resurrection can not simply be a metaphor for new life in Paul’s theology. If Jesus has not been bodily raised in a very literal and historical sense, then we are all hopelessly lost in the power of sin because the new age in which the Spirit of God has been poured out on all believers has not actually begun as Jesus’ resurrection indicated in Paul’s thought.

So then, the question becomes this: “Why would I interpret this passage in 1 Corinthians so literally while interpreting Genesis 1 and 2 more metaphorically?” My answer is that hopefully the only reason I would do this is because a careful reading of scripture taking into consideration all of its literary, cultural, and historical complexities urges me to do so. It is NOT because I believe that science demands that I believe something other than what the Bible says. It is very important to me that in my own personal journey and growth in faith, I did not begin to read Genesis 1 and 2 metaphorically because I felt I had to do so in order to be considered intellectually respectable in light of scientific evidence. I did so because I believed and still believe that a faithful reading of Scripture pushed me in that direction.


So why did I feel that Scripture itself pushed in that direction? Again, it is important to go back to the distinction I made above concerning how we use the word “literally”. All good Christians read the Bible literally in the colloquial sense of the word. That is, every committed Christian believes that the Bible is really, genuinely true and that it has very real meaning for our lives today. That much is non-negotiable. However, we’ve already noted in our previous conversations that no one reads the whole Bible literally in the technical sense of that word. For example, it would simply be foolish to think that when Jesus says in John that he is the bread of life or a vine (and the disciples the branches) or a shepherd that Jesus meant for us to take any of these things literally. They are obviously metaphors. The point that Jesus is making with those metaphors are really genuinely true but they are not literally true, that is, they are not communicated in a literal way. I hope that simple example is enough to illustrate that no one reads the whole Bible literally and that everyone who has ever read the Bible has made decisions about what to take literally and what to take metaphorically.


So then, how do we decide what should be taken literally and what should be read in some other way? Of course, most of the time this comes to us intuitively, as it does in the examples from John’s gospel. It just makes very little sense to read the text any other way. But what do we do when it’s not so obvious? How do we decide in places where there are often disagreements such as in Genesis 1 and 2? Again, my hope is that we pay attention to the text itself and try to hear it as clearly as we can through all the years of history and the cultural and linguistic differences that divide us from its original writing. After all, history, culture, and language are exceedingly important factors when it comes to our ability to discern metaphorical language. If someone from your mom and dad’s neck of the woods said to a person in my town who is not a sports fan “I bleed orange.” they may simply wonder if that person has some kind of blood disorder rather than recognizing that they are indicating their loyalty to the Clemson Tigers. How much more difficult is it for us then reading a text written in a vastly different language and culture thousands of years ago? With that in mind, I think the following factors are significant in how we decide to read the Genesis story.


Adam is the Hebrew word for humanity. I think that if we were reading any other story and in the story there was a character named “humanity” we would immediately assume that we were not supposed to understand this story as a historical account but instead as an observation about the plight of all humankind, wouldn’t we?


There are actually two creation stories. The first story is Genesis 1:1-2:3. The second is from 2:4-2:25. Notice how 2:4 starts the story over again. (This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created…Wait, I thought we just heard that account?) The stories do no contradict each other but they certainly tell it differently. In my opinion, this pushes us toward the conclusion that neither account was focused on the “how” of the creation. Instead, each was focusing on a different aspect of its significance.


These stories are not unique in the literature of the Ancient Near East. Most of the cultures that surrounded Israel told somewhat similar creation stories. The theology of Israel’s creation story is obviously very different from those of these other cultures. However, the way the stories are told, the images and literary devices that are used are not too dissimilar to those of the pagan cultures that surrounded Israel. It seems to me that God used the literary conventions of the day to express through Israel his role as creator. If this is the case, then again it seems that the “how” is not as important as the “who” and the “why” since that is what would set this story off from other stories of its kind.

Of course, this does not make it an open and shut case by any means. But I think these kinds of things at least urge us to seriously consider whether we are missing something if we read these passages literally.


I want to address one last important question you brought up in your note. You wrote “IF the Genesis accounting of creation is meant to be poetic, but Evolution is really how man was created then it’s very deceiving.” If I understand you correctly, what you are saying is “If God used evolution, why not just come out and say that plainly and clearly in scripture? Why bother using metaphorical language when it runs the risk of being so unclear or even misleading?” I think there are a couple important things to address here. First, I think that God reveals himself to humanity in ways that make sense in the culture and time he is speaking. For example, when God revealed himself in Jesus he did not come as some eternal, angelic being. He came as a 1st century Jew to speak to 1^st century Jews. Similarly, I don’t think it would have made much sense for God to speak to ancient Israelites about creation in the terms and categories of thought that were only developed in recent centuries. God spoke through the literary conventions of the day.


Second, I think it is very unlikely that the ancient Israelites who first told and heard these stories found their metaphorical quality to be as misleading as we might. I hope that I’ve already shown that some of the reasons that the metaphorical quality of the text might seem misleading are only because of the language, culture, and history that stand between us and it. I suspect that if we were ancient Israelites hearing this story we would intuitively “get it” much as we get the metaphorical language of our own day which is so common that we forget it is even metaphorical.


Third and most importantly, I think that God would reveal himself through metaphorical language and therefore take the chance of it being misunderstood because metaphorical language expresses something deeper and more meaningful that plain, literal language can not. Just as “I’m completely spent” communicates something a little more than its literal meaning of “I’m really tired” and “I am the bread of life” is so much richer and deeper in meaning than whatever literal meaning to which we might try to narrow it down. So also “The Lord God formed man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living being” says something more profound in that single sentence about the relationship between God, humanity, and the earth than could be said in thousands of words of plain, literal writing. Metaphorical, poetic, narrative language has the power to express something that technical or literal language can not.

So there are some of the reasons that I read Genesis 1 and 2 the way that I do. I’ll look forward to hearing what you think about all that. Hope all goes well during your camp this weekend.

Caribbean Vacation

I don't think I realized how badly I needed a vacation until it came close to time to leave. I was so excited to leave for the Caribbean that I could barely sleep on Thursday night. It didn't help that we had to get up at 3:15 a.m. Friday morning in order to get to the airport by 4:45a.m. for our early morning flight that departed at 6:10 a.m. Fortunately, the flight to Florida was more or less uneventful. We had a rather long layover in Chicago during which we met a mother and daughter who were on their way to a wedding in Texas and a Mormon family with whom we had an interesting discussion about faith. Hannah was fussy at times due to the confined spaces and long periods of having to sit still but did pretty well most of the way. We arrived in Florida just enough ahead of the rest of the Metcalfe clan to get something to eat before we went down to pick up our luggage from the baggage claim. Once the whole crew was together we rented two vans in order to get to the hotel where we would be staying for the night before leaving for the cruise Saturday morning. The "crew" included Jess, Hannah, and I, Mark and Joy (Jess' dad and mom), Miranda, Nate, and Olivia Patenode (Jess' older sister, her husband, and their daughter), Emily (Jess' younger sister), Andrew and Joline (Jess' younger brother and his wife), Jen and Emma Duschene (friends of the family), and Dirk and Mardi Ellis (also friends of the family and of our church family here in Clinton as well by an interesting twist of fate). We went out for dinner that night and picked up a few last minute items at Target and then tried to get some rest before the big day. Unfortunately for us, Hannah was so completely exhausted that she was wired and didn't sleep well at all. After only about an hour of sleep, she woke up at 1:30 in the morning screaming so hard that I thought something was physically wrong with her. Eventually, she did drop off to sleep for the rest of the night and we made catching her up on sleep a priority for the first few days of the cruise which we did fairly successfully.

Saturday morning we drove about an hour from Orlando where we had spent the night to Port Canaveral. We grabbed some breakfast near the port and then made our way to the terminal. We dropped off our luggage to be loaded onto the ship later and then most of us made our way through security while Mark, Nate, and Dirk returned the rental vehicles. Apparently, the Avis shuttles where a bit slow but they eventually made it back and we all boarded the ship together. We grabbed lunch at the buffet on the ship before we even found our rooms. I also enjoyed my first slice of pizza from the 24-hour pizzeria on board ship at that first meal, an action I would repeat many times over during the trip. The ship left port sometime that afternoon and we were at sea for the rest of that day and all of Sunday as well since we had to make our way all the way down to Mexico. I was glad we were at sea for the first day because it gave us the opportunity to explore the ship right away. (It also gave us the opportunity to begin to adjust to the constant rocking which wasn't enough to make you sick but was enough to make me a little dizzy and unbalanced the first night). Nate, Andrew, and I played some mini-golf and volleyball. There was half a basketball court as well on which I won a game of knock-out later in the day. There were also two small pools which I didn't realize were filled with salt water until I jumped into one of them. (The pools really gave you a sense of the boat rocking as they sloshed back and forth.) Other forms of entertainment included hot tubs, lots of live music, a theater (which I think our room must have been directly above), a deli, a grill, a small library, shops, a casino, a kids camp, and probably a few others things I'm forgetting. We realized pretty quickly too that it was college spring break week so we were on quite the party ship.Despite the many forms of entertainment, I would say there were probably two things I enjoyed about being on the ship itself more than anything else. One was simply being in the warmth and sunshine of the Caribbean in mid-March. I thrive on sunshine and it felt so good just to soak it up. The second highlight of the ship in my opinion was the dinners (or supper, as many folks here in Clinton would say). The great thing about the dinners was not only the exceptional quality of the food and the service but also that you could order whatever you wanted without fear of not liking it because if you didn't like it you could just order something else. As a result, I tried some food I hadn't had before including oysters, snapper, smoked salmon, duck, and crab cake of which the snapper and the duck are probably the only things I would eat again. The prime rib I had the last night was amazing and the steak and ribs were pretty good too. We also enjoyed getting to know our servers Baryo and Arifin very much. (My father-in-law took some excellent pictures of the ship's interior and the food which you can view here along with the many other pictures he took.)

On Monday, we arrived in Cozumel, Mexico, a small island that has been developed pretty much just for the sake of tourism. After we all ate breakfast together and spent a little time on the deck surveying the coast, we made our way to the bottom of the boat and out onto the pier toward the tourist village. There was a tiny bit of rain and clouds that morning but they dissipated pretty quickly. We didn't have any plans for the day in Cozumel so we walked around the shops for a little while and took some pictures until we decided to head back to the ship for some lunch. After lunch, we left the babies with their grandparents and Jess, Mandy, Nate, Emily, and I decided to just walk along the coast outside of the tourist village. Of course, there were an unbelievable number of taxis waiting to take us wherever we might want to go on the island but all we really wanted to do was get away from the tourist scene a bit and enjoy the sunshine. We probably walked about a mile and a half when I stopped to get a soda. We hung out in that spot for a little while before we made the walk back to the ship.On Tuesday, we anchored off the coast of Belize City, Belize which is a tiny little country on the east coast of Central America bordered by Guatemala and Honduras. Belize was the only place that we stopped where there was not a pier at which the ship could dock. So after breakfast, we had to wait our turn to board a smaller boat that would take us from the ship into shore. Upon arriving on shore we were immediately overwhelmed by a multitude of people offering to take us on a variety of exotic excursions around Belize. However, Nate and I were somewhat determined to find the churches that we had worked on when we had been to Belize before, myself about 10 years ago and Nate about 12 years ago. We weren't sure we would be able to accomplish this task since it had been so long since we had been in Belize but the lady at the information desk assured us that if we asked a taxi driver about the Church of the Nazarene then he would know where to take us. So we found a taxi driver and quickly learned that a taxi ride in Belize is an adventure in itself. Our taxi driver only let up on his aggressive driving when he pulled to the side of the road to buy a beer which he drank while driving us to our destination. In spite of this, he did safely deliver us to the Church of the Nazarene... well, one of them anyway. I knew immediately upon arriving at our destination that this was not the church that I had worked on during my work and witness trip in high school. Nate was pretty certain it was where he had worked though he couldn't be sure since he had worked on the foundation of the building and had not seen the finished product. We learned later that everyone in Belize City knew of this Church of the Nazarene because there was a high school there which many of the residents had attended. Fortunately, the pastor of the church was there when we arrived and we got to meet him and the pastor of Belize City First Church of the Nazarene, which is the church where I had worked on my previous trip. We talked a little bit, prayed together, and exchanged e-mail addresses so that we might keep in touch. Our taxi driver then took us to First Church so that I could see the building I had worked on 10 years ago. We spent some time there and got to know Sandra, the pastor's wife, who eventually walked us back to the tourist village where we had began our journey and was ironically only a 10 or 15 minute walk from First Church.

On Wednesday our port was Costa Maya, Mexico. This was the one place where Jess and I had booked an excursion. So we left Hannah and Olivia with Mark and Joy and Jess, myself, Nate, Mandy, Emily, Andrew, and Joline all took a tour bus to the Mayan ruins at Chacchoben. Lizbeth was our tour guide and Nestor our driver. Lizbeth educated us greatly about Mayan culture, Chacchoben, and the surrounding area along the way. We learned that the Mexican government does not allow anyone to live in Costa Maya except those who work in some tourism related job and it showed. Much of our bus ride was through protected wetlands and un-inhabited areas. We also learned that most of the ruins at Chacchoben have been rebuilt according to how archeologist believed they were originally structured. However, there was one structure where the the original red stucco remained intact. It was fascinating to stand just inches away from something that was 1700 years old. The rebuilt structures were impressive as well, especially the main temple which set on a mound 40 ft high and was itself an additional 60 ft high, all built by an ancient culture dating back to as early as 1100 B.C. (though most of Chacchoben dates to 300 A.D.) with its primitive and limited architectural equipment. It was about an hour long bus ride between the ruins and the tourist village which left us just a little more than an hour to walk around there for a bit before getting back on the ship.


Thursday was another day at sea as we made our way back across the gulf. I had been intentional early in the week about making certain that I didn't get a sunburn so as not to ruin the rest of the week by doing so. Now that we were nearing the end of the week I was much less cautious and wanted to get as much sun as possible. As a result, I was a little pink by the end of the day but only my right shoulder proved to be much of a burn at all.

On Friday, we arrived in Nassau, Bahamas. After walking around the market near the pier briefly, Nate, Mandy, Olivia, Jess, Hannah, and I made our way to the pirate museum. You could tell that it was not a high budget museum but it was interesting nonetheless and we learned some interesting facts about pirates. As we left the museum, much of the rest of the family was already waiting for us outside. I made my way across the street to take pictures of a cathedral that had caught my eye and everyone else eventually followed. We then walked around some more of the city and shops. With just a few hours left at our last port of call, Jess and I began to realize that we really hadn't spent any time on the beach. That may sound odd on a Caribbean cruise but actually none of the ports where we stopped had beaches immediately available. Instead, you had to take a taxi to the nearest beach a few miles away. Nassau was no different but Jess and I decided it was worth the taxi fair to to get a little beach time in before we headed home. So the rest of our group went back to the boat, taking Hannah with them, while Jess and I found a taxi to take us to what was probably the most beautiful beach either of us has ever seen. (Our taxi experience here was similarly aggressive to that in Belize though minus the beer and slightly less expensive. However, this time we didn't really mind because it meant more time on the beach before we had to get back to the boat.) We didn't go swimming but we were able to walk up and down the beach enjoying the warm sun and sand and gorgeous blue water for just over an hour or so before we had to head back.

On Saturday morning, we arrived back in Port Canaveral. We met to leave the ship around 7 a.m. to make sure we had plenty of time to get to the airport. It was a good thing too. We waited for the shuttle from the terminal to the Avis car rental place for about 45 minutes. Then when we arrived at Avis we found that they had given someone else the vans we had reserved. Mark and Nate made their way to the Thrifty Dollar car rental place across the street where it took about an hour to secure two other vans. We then had our hour drive back to Orlando where we said our goodbyes and went our separate ways in the airport. Jess, Hannah, and I grabbed some food before heading to the security checkpoint. When we arrived there we realized that Hannah was not marked on either of our boarding passes so we had to go back to the check in counter in order to have it changed so that we could get through security. We did finally make it to our gate on time only to find that our flight was delayed because of rain in Atlanta. Between the delay at the gate, the delay on the runway, and the holding pattern they put us in over Atlanta, we stepped off that plane about 10 minutes before our connecting flight was supposed to leave. "Fortunately" our connecting flight was delayed as well so we didn't miss it. However, we didn't ultimately get home until after 8 p.m. 13 hours of traveling with a one year old is no small task but it was worth it.

It was a truly an amazing vacation and it has really rekindled my interest in traveling outside the United States. Of course, the cruise itself was amazing, relaxing, and a whole long list of positive adjectives that I could use to describe it. It was one of those rare things that actually lives up to its hype. It was truly the vacation of a lifetime. However, I think more than anything it reminded me of how much I want to see other parts of the world (especially the warmer parts:). It has even given new life to a desire to do work and witness trips. Repeatedly while on this vacation, Jess and I talked about how great it was but how much we wish we could really get to know the people more and get to know their stories and what their lives were like rather than just saying "no thank you" to all of the things they were trying to sell us. So much about this trip reminded us that we have so much to learn, so much to experience; that behind the seemingly infinite number of unfamiliar faces we encountered there are an equally unlimited number of stories waiting to be told if only someone will listen, if only someone would hear what it is like to spend a day in their shoes. I believe that as we hear the stories of others, especially from those whose life experiences are vastly different from our own, it gives us greater persepctive on our own story, even on the Christian story. I hope it will not be long before I get to see other parts of the world once again. Whether for sabbath or for mission, I hope that my own story will continue to be given greater breadth and depth as it becomes intermingled with the stories of others around the world.

You can view the rest of the photos that Jess and I took here.

16 Random Things About Me

This post has been prompted by a similar note of the same title which I recieved on facebook from a friend. Usually, I'm not inclined to do things like this because I am not particularly clever at thinking up random things about myself that I think other people will find interesting and I usually don't want to put in the extra effort and time to try to make them interesting. At the current time, I definitely have plenty of other things I should be working on: we are in the process of closing on a house and getting ready to move, it is nearing Christmas time and I am pastor, well the list could go on and on. Ironically, it is probably due to the current chaos of my life that I am taking time to do something like this since it gives me some small measure of respite on a Saturday afternoon. Besides, I haven't written anything of a more personal nature on my blog for several weeks now. So here it goes...

1. I love being a daddy. I say this first of all just to reinforce what I said above about not being all that clever when it comes to being random. After all, this is something that all fathers are supposed to say. Nevertheless, there is a bit of randomness to this statement about myself mostly because it was unexpected for me. I never had any idea how much I would love being a father. Of course, I always thought there would be good things about having kids but I knew there would be not such great things too and overall, I was more or less ambivalent about the idea of kids. I wasn't against it. I just figured it would happen eventually and I was in no rush to get there. But now, I look forward to coming home every evening to find out what new and entertaining thing my daughter will do tonight. I love being her daddy.

2. I hate cliches. This comes to mind mostly because I realize how much of a cliche #1 is. But I really, really hate cliches. (I also hate that I don't know how to put the little accent line over the e in that word, only adding to my frustration with the word itself.) I especially hate it when people offer a cliche as if it is the most profound wisdom that has ever been uttered or as the final word on the matter. I find life to be messy, complex, chaotic, and disorganized and it annoys me when people either pretend that its not or just don't recognize it as such.

3. I love hiking but my wife is better at it than I am and we don't get to go nearly enough. I love being outside, especially in relatively remote and peaceful places. I think it is safe to say that I even regard such experiences as a spiritual discipline of sorts. The great thing about hiking is that it is the one athletic thing that my wife absolutely kicks my butt at. I don't know why. I just can't keep up with her. Although, there was this one time when we were hiking and Jess' shoes were hurting her feet so badly that I had to carry her half way down the mountain. I consider that one of the greatest physical feats of my life. Unfortunately, we don't get nearly enough chances to go on real mountainous hikes.

4. I might be the least musical person you'll ever meet. I can't sing. The only instrument I play is my iPod and I probably have fewer songs on it than most people you know. I tried piano when I was a kid but ulitmately decided that music speaks a language that I can barely understand.

5. I am discovering the shaping power of communities. The importance of community and its ability to shape people to be more like Christ is something that I have affirmed theologically for several years now. It was a major theme of my education at Eastern Nazarene College and Nazarene Theological Seminary. But now I feel its importance. I am experiencing the importance of community because I can feel how my current community is shaping me to be a different person than I have been up to this point in my life. Of course, the other communities I've been a part of have shaped me profoundly. Its not that Clinton First Church of the Nazarne is shaping me any more than my family, my home church, ENC, or NTS did although it is shaping me in very determinative ways. Its simply that now having been a part of these different communities I can see how each one has redirected my life and reshaped me as a person immensely. Of course, some of the influence of these communities has to do with other aspects of my life only tangentially related to those communities themselves. For example, being married influenced my time at ENC and NTS, having a daughter has influenced me since being here in Clinton, and my role in each of those communities has been an important factor as well(student vs. pastor). But apart from these life changing factors, I can see how the communities themselves have had and are having a profound impact on who I am.

6. I really enjoy taking pictures, mostly of nature. Although, I can't really say I'm a photographer, not even an amateur one. In that sense, the digital camera, along with its editing software is a good friend of mine. My wife says I have an obsession with taking pictures of the sky.

7. I like pizza, cheeseburgers, and Chipotle burritos way too much. As a result, I am about 40 pounds heavier than I was when I got married. I used to balance my bad eating habits with ridiculous amounts of exercise but as there are more and more demands on my time I find it difficult to exercise as much as I used to. I guess that means my eating habits will have to change eventually.

8. Only half way there and I'm already having trouble thinking of things. My wife is the one who should really be doing this. She just said "I think I would need more than 16."

9. I would really like to see Israel, Greece, and Rome someday. For now, my travel records include only places between Toronto and Belize, the East Coast and Kansas. However, those records will soon include a trip to the Western Carribean which I am excited about.

10. I am unwittingly like a ninja. Completely by accident, I am constantly entering rooms so quietly that I scare people out of their skin when they suddenly realize I am there. My wife and my church secretary are my most frequent victims. If I ever leave the ministry maybe....

11. Actually, if for some strange reason I ever did leave the ministry I have no idea what other career I would find. I've spent the last 8 years of my life studying theology. I don't have any other skills! Good thing I like what I do and I believe its what God has called me to.

12. I can throw a frisbee further than you would think a frisbee could be thrown.

13. I enjoy reading and learning for learning's sake. I don't feel like everything I learn has to be immediately relevant or pragmatic, especially when it comes to theology. I think the most profoundly true thoughts that I've read or heard are the ones that may initially apear to be esoteric abstractions but actually turn out to have vast implications for the Church and the Christian life. Of course, some of those esoteric abstractions are just worthless distractions and vain words that have to be sifted through to find the real gems. Often, I enjoy the process of sifting as much as the gems themselves because there is learning in both.

14. I once averaged 19 points a game in a pretty competitive January term basketball league in college. The next year I was horrible but I was on a really good team and we won the championship. Both experiences were fun.

15. I hate Wal-mart! For a lot of different reasons too. Unfortunately, I find it to be a necessary part of my existence.

16. Every year, it seems like I feel more and more acutely aware of how badly our world needs for God's kingdom to come.

Firmly Planted Tree or Wind Blown Chaff?

The righteous faithful or wicked sinners. Blessed or not. A tree firmly planted by streams of water or chaff which is blown away by a simple breeze. Such is the contrast of Psalm 1. And it is not only a contrast of this first Psalm. This is a contrast common to the Psalms as a whole as this Psalm serves as a sort of introduction to the entire Psalter. It is even a contrast common to much of Scripture.

And yet this contrast bothers me. It bothers me because it seems entirely too black and white for the world in which we live. It seems too simple and straightforward to account for my every day experience in this world. Can we really split people into two basic categories; the righteous and the wicked? Doesn't that seem a bit extreme? It seems to me that we encounter varying levels of righteousness in every person we meet whoever they might be. I even find varying levels of righteousness and wickedness within myself from day to day. This simple black and white division of the world between the righteous and the wicked is certainly appealing in some ways. After all, life would be much simpler if everyone just had a sign to designate them as one or the other. This would help tremendously in knowing who we could trust and who we couldn't. But, of course, life just isn't that simple since there seems to be some saint and sinner in each of us.

This contrast also bothers me because it sounds like exactly the kind of assumption that Jesus continually worked against in his own earthly ministry. As the gospels tell the story, it seems that Jesus repeatedly encountered the assumption that misfortune in life (the opposite of the blessedness described in this Psalm) was the result of one's sin. It seems that Jesus' contemporaries were constantly trying to separate the clean and holy from the unclean and unholy. Jesus, on the other hand, seems to be constantly destroying such a simplistic division between righteous and unrighteous. Instead of separating holy from unholy, Jesus continually points out the unholiness of those who think themselves holy and continually goes to those who are seen as unholy and makes them holy. Furthermore, this kind of simplistic attitude which Jesus challenged in his own day seems to be the root of much of the Church's troubles today. When we divide people into the righteous and the wicked, it leads to an arrogance and complaceny among those who considers themselves righteous as well as an animosity or at least condescendence toward those considered wicked. Certainly, these are attitudes which sound very little like those of Christ Jesus.

And yet...

This Psalm speaks a truth that every person who has ever walked with God and meditated on God's instruction knows to be true. There is, indeed, blessing and delight in the law of God, in living the life to which God calls us. Living in God's will firmly roots our lives and places us beside streams of life that sustain us in a way that nothing else can. It does this in a way that is almost inexplicable. It is not that living the life of righteousness guarantees that you will become healthy, wealthy, and wise. But blessedness should also not be relegated to simply a feeling or emotion. There is something real and concrete about God's blessing and yet it is not easily quantifiable by most of the standards that our world uses to measure things.

Perhaps if we see blessedness through the lense of Jesus' life, we will see that even God's blessing can sometimes lead us to the cross. Perhaps we will be less likely to so quickly separate people into the categories of righteous and sinner, seeing that the cross of Christ somehow represents an unexpected uniting of the fates of the righteous and the sinner. Perhaps Psalm 1 can be an invitation to the sinner in each of us to allow God's rightesouness to grow in us so that we might delight in God's law day and night, so that we might be a tree firmly transplated by streams of water, rather than chaff that is blown away in the wind. Perhaps the way of the wicked in each of us can perish even from our own lives which will in itself be a blessing as we anticipate the day when all wickedness will be eliminated from our world. Psalm 1 simultaneously offers an honest portrait of the destructive patterns of our world but contrasts it with an image of what life lived in God's grace can be.

Fall Fun

A Banquet in Death's Shadow

This week I will be preaching from one of the most familiar passages in all of Scripture: Psalm 23. Of course, for most of us this Psalm is heard most often (for some, exclusively) in the context of funerals. This is an appropriate setting for this Psalm since it speaks of not being afraid in the valley of death's shadow because God is with us and comforts us. The imagery of the Psalm itself is comforting as it paints the picture of a place filled with life and tranquility, green pastures and quiet waters.
Despite the appropriateness of these words for times of tragedy, this passage should not be relegated to those circumstances alone. The steadfast trust and confident hope that the Psalmist exhibits in this passage is one that should characterize every aspect of the life lived with trust in God. The heart of this passage is not so much the Christian response to tragedy, as it is an appropriate metaphor for understanding who God is, even as we face the large and small calamities of life.

Our God is a shepherd, that is, one who defends us and cares for us in ways that we can not even understand. He is one that leads us to places of life and peace. God is continually turning us (that is the root meaning of the word translated "restore" in v.3), guiding us down his path to proper relationships for his glory. At times those paths may even lead us into death's shadow, as they did for Jesus, but even then there is nothing to fear because God is with us and his rod and staff are more powerful than the things that threaten us. It seems, in verse 5, that even the valley of death's shadow does not prevent God from presenting a banquet so overwhelming in its extravagance that the Psalmist's cup overflows. If God can do this, then certainly God's goodness and faithful loving-kindness will always follow the Psalmist. Even when we find ourselves in a valley filled with fear, we are also, in some sense, in the house of the Lord, since his presence continues with us at all times just as the shepherd remains with his sheep.

This is one of the most remarkable things about Jesus' cross. It demostrates just how far God is willing to go to be with us; even through the valley of the shadow of death. In Jesus, the Psalmist's words about God take on flesh. Jesus celebrates a meal that represents the liberation of Israel even as his looming death on the cross casts its shadow over that meal. Jesus, the anointed one, is able to eat a meal in anticipation of the kingdom banquet even in death's shadow because his confidence and trust in the Father run deeper than any fear or pain this life can offer.

A New Day Dawns

Heirs of the New Creation

Have you ever lived in an apartment or house where you knew you wouldn't be living for very long? Jess and I have. In fact, that describes pretty much every place we have ever lived since we left our homes to go to college. (The view above is from one of those many residences; this one in Kansas City where we enjoyed many memories with other seminary students who lived on this street. As you can see, our cats enjoyed the view.) In the five years that Jess and I have been married, we have had five different addresses. Every place we have lived in, we have moved in knowing that we wouldn't be there for very long. This knowledge has a substantial impact on the way you live. It makes you hesitant to make any substantial investment in that space since you know that you won't be around very long to enjoy the fruits of your labor. Of course, you make the space livable. You make minor adjustments here and there, just enough to make things comfortable while you are there but any major projects would be unreasonable in light of the impermanence of your stay in that space.

It seems that many Christians take precisely this same attitude toward the world that God has entrusted to us. The thinking often goes like this: "We are all going to be taken up to heaven with Jesus and this world is going to be destroyed anyway, so why bother trying to change it?" It is the mentality of "this world is not my home, I'm just passin' through". Therefore, the only point of any action in this world is to make sure that people have a relationship with Jesus so that their soul can go to heaven when they die. However, there is no sense in having any concern for the environment or social justice or making any kind of real investment in this earth since it is only a temporary residence. Unfortunately, this way of thinking seems to vastly misunderstand Jesus' words about being "in the world but not of the world" which has much more to do with not operating by the world's rules, ways of life, and power structures than it has to do with the physical earth.

In the sermon text for this week (Romans 8:12-25), Paul presents life in Christ quite in contrast to the above notion. He begins by continuing the theme from last week; that we are now able to live a different kind of life because the Holy Spirit is empowering us and leading us to abandon the ways of the flesh (which, similar to Jesus' use of the term "world", does not refer to the material itself as being evil but to the corrupted nature represented in that material). Paul then goes on to assure his audience that they have indeed received this new way of life by telling them that they are heirs of God's new creation. Paul reassures them that their sufferings are not a sign of God's absence from them; it is just a reality of the fallen, corrupted existence in which we live. However, Paul says, this will not always be the case. In v.19, he writes "For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God." Paul makes clear in this passage that salvation is not just about humanity. In fact, all of creation is anxiously awating the culmination of God's salvation. All of creation has been subjected to a kind of slavery, the kind of slavery that Paul has been articulating to describe the human predicament apart from Christ. But one day all of creation will be redeemed and made new, set free to bring glory to God as it was intended to do.

This is significant for us as Christians. If God is about the work of renewing and restoring our world, then certainly we should be as well. We are not about this work of renewal because we believe we can ever actually accomplish it ourselves but because it witnesses to the work that God has done, is doing, and will do. When we as Christians take care of our world and the people in it, we communicate to others that the God that we serve also cares about the world in which we live. Surely, as stewards of God's good creation, as a people awaiting the day when all things are made new, that is a message we should be communicating.

So a word of thanks...thanks to all those out there who are investing in this world. Thank you to the social workers, those in the environmental sciences, the teachers, the health care workers, those in law enforcement, and those who make the laws and many others whose compassion and mercy in this world witnesses to the Christian hope of what this world will one day be. Often, my career is referred to as "the ministry" but really I am just one of the ones fortunate enough to be a pastor for a living. There are so many who do very real and very important ministry in jobs that are in no way connected to the Church. Your tireless efforts, when done not for your own benefit but in service to others, are a ministry and a form of Christ-likeness all its own.

Vacation Bible School

This week our church has been filled with the enthusiasm and excitement of many children enjoying our week of Vacation Bible School. Here is a video that Jess put together of the opening night of VBS on Monday.

Upon exiting the church last night after VBS, we were treated to a remarkable mix of colors in the sky as the sun set. Jess tells me that I am obsessed with taking pictures of the sky. I have always been fascinated by sunsets and the vast expanse of sky over the farms of central Illinois serve well to further foster this fascination. Here are a few pictures from last night.

Tonight will be the last night of regular programming for Vacation Bible School since Friday night is the night for the parents to come and enjoy a cookout with their children and the VBS workers. As a result, we will have some type of invitation for the children in closing service tonight. I am still thinking through what exactly that invitation will look like (which is part of the reason I am writing about it now; I tend to think more clearly when I write out what I am thinking). There are a couple of challenges for me in a time of invitation like this one. The first is just trying to speak to children in a way that they will understand. This is a real challenge for me since I have so little experience speaking to kids, especially in large groups, and I really don't have much of a clue about how to communicate in a way that will make sense to them.

The second challenge will be the nature of the invitation itself and connecting it to the worshipping life of our church community (or at least some church community here in town, if the child's family already attends somewhere else). In other words, it would be all to easy to have an altar call where the kids who want to come to the altar, pray a prayer and that is the end of it. Instead, I hope to emphasize to the children that any decision that they make tonight is only the beginning of a very long journey. I want them to understand (again, without making things too complicated) that this decision that they make is not just a one time thing. If they really want to journey with Jesus and love God and serve others as they have been learning about over the past week, then it means becoming a part of the community that lives and teaches those things. Of course, this is not really a decision these children can make on their own and so it will mean speaking to their parents about the experience that their child has had and encouraging them to come to church or at least allowing our vans to pick them up. I truly hope that the time of invitation tonight can be more than a prayer soon forgotten. I hope that it can be a prayer that becomes a way of life for these children.