Lessons Learned from the Death of an Icon

When the news broke about the death of pop legend Michael Jackson, I reacted in much the same way that many around me did– with detachment and indifference. He was, after all, a deranged multi-millionaire who liked drugs and, allegedly, young boys. I am sure I wasn’t the first to think the world was a better place without Michael Jackson and his eccentric personality.

Then the news coverage began. Round the clock media coverage of the King of Pop’s tragic demise. Itunes sales of Jacko’s records skyrocketed to the top of the charts almost immediately. Radio stations everywhere were playing montages of remembrance. Celebrities were swooning over his memory, remarking on all the wonderful times they shared with the pop icon.

All of it was just too much to bare. How could these people defend this sick and depraved human being?

Just as those thoughts came across my mind, Deepak Chopra appeared on the Keith Olbermann show and recounted his experiences with Michael Jackson. That’s when I realized that I was wrong. A three minute interview left Chopra with tears in his eyes, whispering a final homage to Michael, “his brother.” A visibly shaken Olbermann thanked Chopra for his insight…then he paused for what was an eternity in media time in order to collect his thoughts and continue. Chopra’s words had struck me just as intensely as they had Olbermann.

Suddenly I realized that I knew so very little about Michael,  the singing prodigy who was abused as a young boy and who led a life of profound fear and isolation that so many were quite unaware of. I was reminded by all of this Michael Jackson coverage that it is so easy to tear someone down, but it is incredibly difficult to admit that you are a part of a culture that inculcates celebrity obsession, drug abuse, and sexual abuse.
Michael Jackson certainly had problems. Anyone and everyone could see that. But his death reminds me that our world has so many problems of its own. Let’s take a look at ourselves, a look at the “Man in the Mirror,” and see if we can start to make this world a place where tragedies like Michael Jackson’s death no longer occur.

Divine Reconciliation

The holidays never fail to deliver a heavy dose of family drama. I suppose I should start preparing myself for it before my holiday breaks; it is obvious that I have yet to learn my lesson. What the drama does remind me of is the true story behind Christmas…

Someone told me today that they think it is “rather cliché” to reconcile with someone in response to the Christmas season. In my opinion, there simply isn’t a better time to reconcile.

The story behind Christmas really is anything but trite or cliché. It’s actually rather magnificent. It’s the story of humanity’s divine parent reconciling His lost children to Himself. It’s the story of our Heavenly Father choosing to empty Himself and experience the brokenness of the human experience. It certainly was within God’s right to remain angry with us, after all, we deserved it. The last thing that we deserved was the reconciliation offered through the work on Golgotha’s Cross.

It’s really a bummer about reconciliation–you cannot simply sit and wait for things to work themselves out. Reconciliation is about dropping your own right to be angry. Reconciliation is about surrendering your own will.

I challenge you (if anyone actually reads this) to consider reconciling with those in your life who you have the “right” to be angry with. They’ve hurt you, they’ve taken advantage of you, they’ve mocked you and cursed you…all I have to say is “welcome to God’s story.” If you think no one else knows what that feels like…you’re wrong.

So when Christmas morning rolls around remember that God surrendered His will to reconcile humanity to Himself. If God can do it…so can you.

Mercy for a Sinner

“To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’ But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”–Luke 18:9-14

This passage makes me cry every time I read it. I have officially renamed this parable the “Kleenex parable” because it makes me weep like nothing else. I weep because of how much I identify with the Pharisee. For a long time up until recently, I had been much more concerned with comparing my spiritual journey with those of everyone around me. I was quick to judge, and quick to condemn that which I saw as “ungodly.” Now I read Luke 18, and I weep because of my arrogance. I weep because of my blindness.

I’ve been hit from every angle by those Christians who keep telling me that they’ve got God figured out. They know how God votes and thus they think it’s their responsibility to vote and judge for God during their own lifetime. I can say all of this because I used to be one of those people. I spent a lot of my life speaking a lot of judgment that dripped with narcissism, arrogance, and a lack of compassion. I spent a lot of time ignoring Luke 18.

Tonight, I humbly declare that I’m just a tarnished tax collector in need of mercy. I don’t have the necessary audacity anymore to sit around and judge the godliness of others. The only thing I have the energy for is to simply surrender in love.

My prayer is that the body of Christ would look inside, beat on its heart, and ask for mercy. My prayer is that I might have the strength to be totally satisfied by God’s promised love, rather than feel as though I need the recognition of man. May we all come to realize that we were all sinking in the river of sin, but God’s net was and is big enough to save us all from drowning.

God have mercy on me, a sinner.

Sæglópur

Loneliness is not usually something that affects me. I’m beginning to feel its effects lately; I think the reason behind it is because I’m realizing that my definition of “alone” has been incorrect for a long time now. It’s a problem that I am writing this at 3:00 a.m. because I will probably regret it later; this is a topic I’m not too thrilled to write about, but it’s something I have to get out.

Most of my life has been about building walls. I got picked on as a kid, for reasons that I never really understood, and to fix it, I first tried beating up the bullies. I decked a kid in the third grade (Brandon something was his name, a real jerk, this kid). Unfortunately, he had a lot of 5th grader friends who made me pretty miserable. So, realizing I couldn’t kick their asses, I decided I better be smarter than them. So I learned big words, read big books, gained the favor of my teachers, and then I decided I was just better than these hoodlums, and the rest of my early academic career I simply ignored them.

I carried that grade-school foundation with me into high school. I carried a grudge against people because I assumed that even if they acted like they liked me…they probably didn’t. So, I learned how to put walls up, protect my feelings, cut off the emotions, and pretty much ignore everything around me. I pretty much died inside. None of my friendships were really real, they were flimsy, shallow, and trifling relationships. These people simply did not know me. High school was not a good time for me. Granted, I did a pretty good job making everything seem like it was great on the exterior, but internally, there was really nothing going on. It’s weird though, I really didn’t care about not having anybody close to me; in fact, I pretty much enjoyed my space. When people got too close, I pushed them back, sometimes gently, and sometimes I shoved. People learned their place, and kept their conversations to small talk; never did anything go deeper than, “how was your weekend.” I was completely closed off, and thus, I was protected.

Now I am a junior in college and things are beginning to change. The me that existed in high school is almost completely gone. One of my professors says that these two years of college have been an “age of deconstruction” for me; I’ve been deconstructing all of the things that I’ve been taught that I simply accepted without question. With this questioning, the walls that I’ve had built up have been slowly coming down. Now that the walls are falling, I’m not protected anymore. Suddenly I feel really alone. It’s not that there’s no one physically around…I am surrounded by people all the time. The problem is, I never learned how to let people into my life; even though I don’t want to, I’ve kept everyone at a great distance.

I realized that this is why I have always been so skeptical of marriage. I never thought that I would ever want to get married, but I didn’t really know why I felt that way. I realize now that it is because I have intimacy problems. I am afraid of marriage because marriage means letting another person see the real me…quite honestly, I would be afraid that my wife wouldn’t like the real me very much. I’m starting to get over those feelings, and I’m beginning to think that someday I do want to be married, and I do want to have a family; I really do want that intimacy in my life, I just need to figure out this whole “opening up” thing.

So, I just want to apologize to you, whoever you are. If you feel like I didn’t let you in, if I didn’t share more of my life with you, if you felt like I didn’t care about you…I’m sorry, I just don’t know how these relationship things work. I’m still a little kid when it comes to that stuff. I’m still stuck in grade-school thinking that there’s no one out there who actually cares about who I really am inside. The thing is, I really want someone to care.

I’m feeling a bit like I’m sæglópur (“lost at sea”)…maybe one day, someone will find me.

EUANGELION

Today I realized what the good news really is. Here it is: you are loved. This is where it all begins. This is where it all ends. You, the downtrodden, the weary, the outcast, the hated, the marginalized, the beaten, the ostracized, the broken…you are loved. There it is, Euangelion…it’s Good News.

I say this is where it all begins because this is the fundamental lens through which humanity must be viewed. If we are truly made in God’s image, and God’s good news is a proclamation of everlasting love, then Christ-followers, as His ambassadors must also see humanity through this lens. We must see the worth of every human being. We must, as Mother Theresa so eloquently puts it, “see God in the eyes of every human being.” This of course does not negate the fact that we are a broken people…in fact, it only reinforces it. It reinforces the fact that we are all in need of the same undying love that can only be found in one Source.

My point when it comes to proclamation of the euangelion is essentially this…if that kind of love can only be found in one Source, then one might expect that those who are exposed to that kind of love might wonder where such love comes from. It is at this point that the beauty of euangelion is found. The fact is, the good news is not all that great if we tell people that we are somehow more complete then them. It’s not so great if we tell them that the ways that they experience meaning aren’t Biblically sound. It’s not so great if we tell them that they have to give away their cultural identity if they want to experience “right” Christianity. I will tell you when the good news turn into really Good News, that is when we proclaim that the love of Christ trancends prejudice, it transcends bias, it transcends race, language, gender, and cultural barriers. All of a sudden, the Good News means something everywhere you take it.

What is my point? My point is that if God is love, and God is universal…than Love is the universal language by which His followers must speak. I cannot linguistically preach the Good News to my Italian speaking friends, but I can speak in Love. Love requires no verbs or adjectives, it is unconcerned with phrases and semantics. What it does require is a transformed heart, and a transformed way of viewing the world. It means being open to thinking about the ways you have seen people as less than what their Creator sees them as. It means letting go of your pride, of your malice, and of your part in the perpetuation of hatred in this world.

What does it all mean? I promise you this…that when this becomes the lens through which you view the world, the good news will quickly turn into Great News. There are a lot of people who are tired of all the bad news on the evening newscast, and I say, let’s give them the Good stuff.

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

All of a sudden this passage is taking on new meaning and that is Euangelion.

It’s Not So Fundamental

I have never been so convinced of one thing in my life more than right now; what is this epiphany I have had? Essentially, I am firm in my conviction that life is incredibly messy and chaotic; life is confusing and it is difficult, and honestly, life normally produces far more questions that it produces answers. For this reason I feel it necessary to address a very large and very loud group of people within my faith tradition…let’s call them the Fundamentalists (you know who you are). These are the folks that would like to simplify life down to what you can and cannot do, in fact, they would like to simplify faith down to that as well, a simple laundry list of do’s and don’ts and doctrinal statements. Frankly, the Christian faith is fraught with individuals who think this way, and even within those who recognize the complexities of life there is still a fundamentalist core that says they must define themselves by what they are against rather than what they are for.

This is the line of thinking that scares me. For one, it seems largely irrational, after all, could you imagine someone running a political campaign where all they did is simply list of all the things they are against? Eventually, people would start expecting some comment on what they actually do stand for, and what they will get done in their political tenure. Unfortunately, too many fundamentalists have actually rejected the fundamentals of Jesus. These folks tend to forget the harsh words Jesus had for the Pharisees who had morphed faith into a holiness code. Despite Jesus seemingly harsh treatment of Pharisees in the New Testament, Pharisaism is alive and thriving today. It thrives in Christian communities who reject the mysteries of God and try and simplify Him using the scientific method. It thrives on Christian college campuses where students refuse to ask difficult questions about their faith for fear that their world will simply come crashing down. Frankly, for many of these folks, having everything crash down might not be such a bad thing.

So, what’s the point? Here’s why I am frustrated: we are losing a generation. We are losing a generation because Christians refuse to speak the language of that generation. Good luck to the fundamentalists who think they are going to scientifically prove the tenets of Christian faith to a postmodern generation. Good luck to the fundamentalists who think being anti-film, anti-music, anti-gay, and anti-culture is actually the way to go when it comes to reaching a generation for Christ. Personally, I think most “outsiders” of the Christian faith are tired of the Christian agenda that seems more interested in conservative politics rather than the needs of real hurting people.

We are losing a generation to brokenness. We are losing a generation to rape, abuse, molestation, and divorce. We are losing a generation to violence, gangs, drugs, and suicide. We are losing a generation because of bad politics, war, and intolerance. We are losing a generation because of Pat Robertson, Fred Phelps, and every other “Christian” who espouses hatred rather than love. We are losing a generation because of people like Joel Osteen who would rather give you the “seven steps to becoming the best you” rather than teach about the transforming power of faith through Jesus Christ. We are losing a generation because modern Christianity cannot answer the questions of our postmodern world.

My message to the fundamentalists: please stop talking…you’re making Jesus look bad. Another message to the fundamentalists: the teachings of Jesus are actually more important than the commentaries of the Apostle Paul (it’s the whole God in flesh vs. Man thing…God always wins). It’s interesting that most people really like Jesus when they get to know the real Him, but people really distrust most “Christ-followers.” Perhaps Gandhi said it best: “I love your Christ, but it is just that so many of you Christians are so unlike your Christ.” That line of thinking is echoed in the thinking of the new generation. Somehow, we need to get people to Jesus without exposing them to Christianity (I haven’t figured out how yet).

Fundamentally, our Lord’s message was Himself. He did not come merely to preach a Gospel; He himself is that Gospel. He did not come merely to give bread; He said, “I am the bread.” He did not come merely to shed light; He said, “I am the light.” He did not come merely to show the door; He said, “I am the door.” He did not come merely to name a shepherd; He said, “I am the shepherd.” He did not come merely to point the way; He said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” –J. Sidlow Baxter

Too Many Tears

I grew up believing that men shouldn’t cry; I was taught that crying was a sign of weakness. Until today, I have never really been comfortable with crying, especially in front of others, and yet, I have cried more in the last year than perhaps in my entire life. I’ve been unable to pinpoint the source of my tears, that is until this morning, when I realized that my tears are God’s way of telling me, “Something is terribly wrong with this world.”

Today I heard a young woman tell her story about her tears and where they led her. They led her to Africa. They led her to an organization that exists to bring clean drinking water to a continent that is being ravaged by the AIDS epidemic. This was her story, and it brought me to tears. Tonight, I went to a meeting to hear this young woman describe her journey in more detailed terms, and she also took questions from the group who attended. I decided to raise my hand and ask a question…

“I know that there are obvious challenges for those involved in the mission’s organization, and I’m sure that sometimes it is tempting to simply give up hope, and give up altogether, but I also wonder what it must feel like to be an African living in those conditions…have they given up hope, or is their resolve strong?”

I must say, her response seemed to lack the language that I was looking for, but I will say this: there is absolutely nothing that could have prepared me for what she said next, she said this:

“So many Christians tout the line that they want to go to places like Africa and ‘show them the love of Jesus,’ but I don’t think they realize that the people in Africa understand the love of Jesus, and they understand it in a way that hardly any Americans could possibly understand, and it’s because it is really all they have to sustain them.”

In that moment, my world came crashing down. It took everything within me not to completely break down in front of everyone in the room. I was stunned. I was paralyzed by her words. And I realized why…because what she said was completely true. I have absolutely no idea what it is like to wake up in the morning and come to the realization that all I really have to get me through this day is the love of Christ. I tend to wake up and think about what I’m going to have for breakfast.

Here’s what I realized tonight: we need just about as much, if not more from the people of Africa then they need from us. Despite the disease, the poverty, the violence, and the constant stench of death, Christ is on display in the lives of so many Africans all around the continent. God is transforming hearts, one village at a time. I can do nothing but marvel at the kind of community that these villages experience; I can only imagine what America would be like if we became more like Africa…I think I would like it a lot. I can’t help but think that perhaps Africa should be sending just as many missionaries to America as America is sending to Africa.

Tonight I realized that my complacency, my selfishness, my apathy, and my pride really affect my brothers and sisters both in the U.S.A. but also around the world. Tonight, I sat in the lobby of my comfortable dorm building as people sat around me making plans to go out to eat or to go watch a movie, and yet all I could think about were the faces of my brothers and sisters all around the world who don’t even have clean water to drink.

The tears are starting to fall again, and I think it’s because there is so much more to be done.

Priorities

Heath Ledger died today. Everyone is talking about it.

In other news, twenty servicemen and women lost their lives this week in Iraq.  Africans are dying of AIDS at the alarming rate of one death every 13 seconds. There have been no fewer than 200,000 deaths caused by the genocide in Darfur. Also, today, 126,000 babies were aborted.

By the way, did anyone hear that Heath Ledger died? My condolences go out to his family and friends; my hope is that maybe my American compatriots will remember the thousands of people who die every single day and never receive an ounce of media coverage. These people do not die in high rise apartment buildings as they await a massage, they are dying in jungles, deserts, and city slums. They are the poorest of the poor.

Priority–”a thing that is regarded as more important than another.” I don’t mean to trivialize the death of a Hollywood icon, I just want to put it into perspective. An entire continent that is being ravaged by poverty, disease, and hunger should warrant a lot more news coverage than it actually does. The fact that the wealthiest and most powerful nation in the world cannot provide health care for the poorest of its citizens is a tragedy that deserves a front-page story.

Over 120,000 (and counting) have died today. Men, women, children, fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters…that is the news story left untold. Life is a gift, do not take it for granted.

Distractions

    I’m sitting in a chair in a crowded building and someone’s cell phone goes off…followed by the sound of milk being steamed for someone’s latte…followed by two teenage girls discussing their plans for the rest of the evening. This would be incredibly normal if I were sitting in a busy Starbucks, but this time, I am sitting in a church service as the lead Pastor is in the middle of his message.

Fast forward through the rest of the week. I hear a lot of the same old thing; I’m surrounded by Christians who are concerned that God doesn’t talk to them. They don’t feel like they have any direction, and most of them are desperate for a conversational relationship with their Creator. Pause. Time to take a three hour break for video games. Pause. Time to watch a movie. Pause. I just got a text message. Where was I? Oh yeah, rewind…a conversational relationship with their Creator.

The point is this…we live in a world full of things that distract us from God. Yes, the problem is not that God got tired of speaking…the problem is that His children got tired of listening. So, my suggestion is, turn the phone off, put the video game controller down, and spend some quiet time with God. He’s speaking, I promise. Just shut up and listen.

Ten Things I Would Teach My Son

1. I would teach him that he has a Father in heaven who loves him unconditionally.
2. I would teach him that every human being has the image of God stamped upon them.
3. I would teach him that hope is not irrational, because God is a God of hope.
4. I would teach him that one dream really can change the world.
5. I would teach him that every person is worthy of his respect.
6. I would teach him that love is the greatest weapon one can ever use.
7. I would teach him that his works speak far louder than his words.
8. I would teach him that hate is simply reflective of a person’s weakness.
9. I would teach him to see beauty despite all of the ugliness in this world.
10. Most importantly, I would tell him every single day that I love him so much that I would give my life for him.