The End is The Beginning

Yes, I did go to see the last Harry Potter movie.  No, I didn't see it at midnight, but I saw it within 24 hours of its grand opening.  I would like to state, with confidence and authority, that I am not a Harry Potter groupie.  However, I would be stretching the truth a good bit so I will confess my fascination and endure the assault on my reputation.  Oh wait, I keep forgetting, Harry Potter suits my reputation just fine.

I liked the movie.  I will confess that I am with all the purist who are a little put out with the short cuts and the modifications to the story line.  I will also acknowledge that that story line stays fairly true and it's unlikely that anyone would sit through a five hour movie...well, twice anyway.  It was nice to see Hogwarts again, I really enjoyed the dialogue between characters, and Miss McGonagall was delightful.  Neville didn't get as much credit as he deserved and I was sorry the scene between he and Harry was cut on Harry's way to meet Valdemort.  That was one of the tender moments in the book I really enjoyed.  I was also sorry that the duel with Valdemort was more action and less verbal, that was one of the best dialogues in the book.  I have often thought that you could write a "God in Literature" thesis based on the end of this series.

Okay, I am about to blow the movie for you, so stop reading here if you want to be surprised. 

The story of God seems to be stamped all over the conclusion of this series.  I don't know JK Rowling, I don't know a thing about her or her faith, but the Harry Potter series goes a long way towards creating a parable of sorts that explains Christianity to millions of people in the most interesting way.  Valdemort, who is the embodiment of evil, has done all that is possible to make himself immortal, to make evil win out in the end.  Harry fights valiantly only to realize, that having done all he could to by fighting, he is left to surrender, and die so others might live.  His death is the death of evil once and for all.   Only in dying to defeat evil, Harry  is 'resurrected' to complete the battle, when love triumphs in the end.  If this is all sounding vaguely familiar it is because, while a pale comparison, this is the Good News lived out in Jesus.  Jesus, fully man and fully God, dies in order that evil, sin, separation and death will be defeated, arises again providing, reconciliation, eternal life, and hope for all those who call on his name.  Love triumphs there too.  Isn't God amazing?  Do you know how many people have met Harry Potter thinking it was just good fantasy stuff who may one day say, "Whoa, Jesus did that?  For me?"

It is not just Harry, the story is told in various ways in all kinds of generations.  The truth of it is so fundamental that God's story pops up in a million ways.  I know that some Doubting Thomas is right now thinking, how can I be sure that stories about people who lay down their lives for others verify the Gospel?  Could it be that the Gospel picks up this common theme and is a variation on that? 

It may be that everyone has to wrestle with these kind of questions themselves.  I have had that battle and I am happy to tell you that I am sure.  I have worked out my salvation with fear and trembling, just as Paul advises, I expect I will go on working it out!  God is gracious though and some of these battles result in victories that lead to healing and wholeness. 

First, there is the historical data and eye witnesses, after all Luke seems to have done some in depth reporting naming people, locations and times.  Those early witnesses didn't just tell people, they lived their faith, and died for it as well.   Surely, if this was simply a fascinating story from the imagination of some monk or another, someone would have said so by now.  You know what gossips we are!

Second, for several thousands of years, we stiff necked, argumentative, wacky, opinionated, knuckle headed people have done all that we can to push, pull, strain, regulate, impose, and intellectualize God right out of existence, and yet God is unfazed.  In fact, God is still God and takes all of the incredible nonsense we concoct and still reaches people every day in spite of the great help we try to give Him.   People who have had some of the worst examples of what following God is supposed to be like, somehow still choose to follow God.  This is nothing short of miraculous.

Finally, God has loved me faithfully.  I have no doubt that God,revealed in Jesus, loves me enough to make the sacrifice of everything in order to give me everything.  Not at all because I am so worth while, because by no real worldly measurement do I have much value, but because having known me since my mother's womb and called me His own, God hungered to have me know Him as my own.  I can't tell you how I know, though I can point to a hundred stories, episodes, wonders over the years.  I can tell you that sometimes the battles have been fierce, but in the end I have been called to come and die, so I might truly live.  I can point to the same things in those I have been blessed to journey with.  God's love triumphs and evil is defeated, both at the end and in the present.  If God is for us, who can be against us?!

So Harry Potter has come to a conclusion, but a new story begins.  It is the same in the Kingdom of God.  We welcome home a new soul and the celebration is loud and the party is fun.  Now one more light illuminates the path for the next traveler seeking the way home   The end is truly the beginning.  It's so good, I just may have to read it again.  Good God stories are just that way!

Genetic Connections

The family has just gathered again.  This time we did so to celebrate the mother's birthday, having attained the eight decade this year.  We were gathered at the home of the baby in the family, now greying like those who are foolish enough not to take the necessary measures to ensure this does not happen.  I believe we call them pigment impaired, but I am not sure of the correct terminology there. 

We started off the day with a rousing game of corn hole.  I must confess that up until now, I have been in a corn hole free zone.  The title alone has been enough to keep this 'been made perfect, being made holy' being on the sidelines.  That, and no ability to throw with any kind of precision.  Okay maybe the throwing thing has precedence, but regardless, let's just say I haven't played.  However, I am confident that even if I was wonderful at this game, the family would mercilessly make fun of me so there was no risk involved, and I tossed my first corn bag.  Turns out I was hideous, but I enjoyed it tremendously anyway.  Those who were not bad then took over and the games became more cutthroat, also typical family behavior. 

There is something about my family that makes the relation unique.  It is not a Walton family kind of connection.  We are fiercely independent, and none of us are alike, but there is no doubt we are a family.  The years we spend growing up together were more often in Nerf wars than in holding hands and singing "Let there be peace on earth".  Someone in my house was yelling often enough that we were never intimidated by this behavior.  Mostly we were checking out the direction, and weighing the potential personal impact.  We didn't mind picking on each other, but we didn't let others participate.

While we celebrated together, I watched my children, now adults themselves, play with my siblings.  Though we have never been close enough to be together often geographically, my family circle is still connected.  It is hard to fathom how that can be, but it just is.  There is something in the genetics that makes us a family even if months have gone by and there has been little contact.   In a crisis, everyone responds.  When there is a party we all try to come. If there is a need someone will fill it, often with a sigh.   It's not Norman Rockwell after all.

I can't help wondering if this is what is missing in the local church today.  This connection that has little to do with shared interest, fun programming, inspired worship, though all of that plays a part.  I wonder if we need more of the connection that comes from belonging, as brothers and sisters, that has nothing to do with us and everything to do with our Father.  I know we are working hard on making God gender neutral, but really God is not genderless.  God is gender full.  God is both male and female, both mother and father, and the key to the spiritual genetics that make us family members.  As children of God, we belong to this family.  We may be in conflict, we may be nothing alike, we have a variety of tastes, but we are related and the relation means that we are safe because we belong. 

I don't think it will be hard to attract people to a family get together, particularly when the family is enjoying each other, and is happy to welcome new kinfolk.  That feeling of belonging, of having a connection that might be stretched, bent, ignored, and still be connected is contagious.  Dysfunctional families, as most are, are hardly the stuff of those darling Currier and Ives greeting cards.  The local church isn't either and probably functions best when we remember that.  It looks good for the pictures, but it isn't real life.  There are characters in most families, after all. 

So, what if worship became a family get together each week?  I wonder if that would change how we feel about gathering, how we might behave while we were there, and who we might want to invite.  Somehow talking about God together each week would be different if we remembered we were talking about the Father/Mother we all share.   All kinds of possibilities exist in a family when the members know that they are loved, connected and valued.   Parties might spring up quite naturally!

My family is quirky, unique, frustrating, fabulous, creative, lazy, opinionated, hardworking, peace loving, argumentative, funny, sarcastic, talented, smart, goofy, uncoordinated, athletic, well read, liberal, conservative, generous, tall, short, couch potatoes, techno geeks, and so much more.  We are fun to be with, and exasperating almost at the same time.  Strange how that works!  Still, we have not had much difficulty in finding others who want to be a part, there seem to be new members all the time.  Must be the genetics!

The Patriotic Christian

I am one of those 'proud to be American' types that have been the negative focus of some of the politically correct movement inside the church.   Let me say that I do not think this is because I am naturally on the opposite side of any form of political correctness.  Or because I am oppositional defiant, as I have so often been accused.  And I don't think it is because I often choose the other side, just because I can be, though honesty forces me to admit that any of these reasons would probably be enough for me. 

'Get the American flag out of the Sanctuary', I hear a lot these days. 'The anti Christ is likely to be Lee Greenwood, and the military is already in his pocket'.  There has been such a wave of only anti patriotic religious stuff, that it makes my head hurt.  I wonder why on earth we think it is worth this kind of attention.  I mean honestly people, if Nero really did fiddle while Rome burned, has he become the patron saint of the mainline church?!

Do you really believe in a world where the influence of the church is at a historically low point, close to irrelevant, that what we should worry about is where we place the American flag?  Do you think this will be attractive to the Joe American we are hoping to welcome into God's Kingdom?  Hey, come on in, but check your love for you native land at the door.  We are above that sort of thing here.  Heck ya, sign me up!

All sarcasm aside for the time being, and this will be a brief respite, I like being an American.  I do not consider it higher than my status as being a child of God, and I do not think I am somehow superior to anyone else on the planet, but I like my heritage.  I like the country in which I live, I like the freedom I have to believe as I wish, work where I want, entertain myself in mostly whatever ways occur to me. (I say mostly only because some of the ideas that occur to me are neither safe or affordable. )  I do not think the country has been without flaw and failure.  I don't think we can claim our history has been without shame or horrors.  Even with all that, I can think of no where else in the world I would rather live.   I am willing to lay that down if it is a stumbling block to someone.  I do not have to say the pledge of allegiance, or sing God bless America, if someone is going to get all hot and bothered.  I am all about being sensitive to my brothers and sisters if this is a stumbling block for some. 

What I am not about is supporting the political posturings of some who seem to want the church to be an extension of their party affiliates, on either side.  I hope everyone votes and takes their rights and responsibilities as citizens seriously, we all are called to be faithful to the authorities over us.  But do not mix up preference politically with the call of the church.  We are not called to be conservative or liberal, we are called to be surrendered servants, who are faithful to God's calling, whether it suits us or not.  We serve all, we go anywhere and we do whatever, regardless of our likes, dislikes, personal agenda or political persuasions.  

Having ranted and raved, I must also confess, I have my own political opinions.  They are less absolute than they once were, as life has taught me there is no absolute except for the nature of God.  I am less likely to vote a party line or assume anything, but I have my own set of biases.  No one is exempt in carefully separating the revelation of God in the scripture and traditions of the church from the filters we carry, political, personal, cultural.   Before we open our mouths to speak an opinion, we might do well to consider if we are speaking for God or for us, and give or take credit as appropriate.

If you are a patriotic Christian, a very happy July 4th to you.  If you are not, well, enjoy the fireworks and the day off.  It's not hard to find a reason to be grateful, one way or the other.  I will move on to the next thing I can be opposed to.  So much to argue about, so little time.

Grace, Grace, God's Grace

Have you ever noticed that while we sing about grace, and we are so grateful for grace, and we talk about how fortunate we are that God gives us grace, we are just sick over needing it.  We are sick in ourselves, and we are sick about it in others.  Grace, sure.  Failure, not so much.  Stupid decisions, please get a life!  Use your head, people!  Can you believe what I did?  Can you believe what he/she/they/those guys did?  We say you are forgiven, but we remember.  We say there is grace but somethings are just not really redeemable by grace...are they?  Gosh, lets just say I hope not.  I am depending on God meaning exactly what God says. 

Today I received a very difficult phone call.  A precious person, so dear to my heart, made a very poor decision which could have resulted in injury to others and did result in some damage.   My precious person is still precious to me, maybe even more so, and the overwhelming need to tilt my head sideways and say, "what were you thinking" has very little impact on the love.  I am shamefully aware this has not been my reaction to everyone in the past, far and recent.  Some people do not get the same grace because I don't love them the same way.  How awful, no wonder I feel shame.

I am the man in the parable who has been forgiven a debt so large I could never have repaid it.  In fact, having been forgiven all that debt, I have gone on incurring debt that continues to be forgiven.  But those who have been in debt to me are required to meet certain standards before they can be forgiven.  They have to be people I love anyway.  They have to be trying to change whatever it was that caused the indebtedness to begin with.  They have to do things that make sense to me.  Who on earth do I think I am????

There is a place for accountability.  There is the need for brothers and sisters to come along side those who have caused an offense that requires grace to cover and lovingly help them make different choices in the future.  We might even be one of the places where they can turn when they need someone to stand with them, are in a bad place and need a way out.  There are times when we can lovingly speak truth into people or situations or even issues that are God given opportunities of light and life.  We do not hand alcohol to those who are far too susceptible.  We do not help people keep their blinders fully in place.  We do not aid and abet denial, avoidance, delusion.  But we never withhold grace, and the love of God.  Not if we want to take hold of that which Christ has already taken hold of for us.

Oh that today I might love as I have been loved, forgive as I have been forgiven, pour grace out on those who really need it today.  And God bless my precious person!