Jack Sparrow & Jesus

This past week, on a flight from Orlando, Florida to Baltimore I read an interview with Johnny Depp in Vanity Fair magazine.  Through the years our family has enjoyed several of his movies.  In the interview Depp describes his life, his acting career and his future hopes.  Depp lives one of those, only-if-you-have-zillions-of-dollars lifestyles.  He owns homes in Europe and he often escapes to an island in the Caribbean that he purchased (that’s right, an entire island) that is situated next to another island he owns, I assume for the purpose of buffering anyone from living ‘next door.’  He spends his days traveling on his massive yacht (with full staff), playing guitar, painting, reading and listening to music – not to mention taking time for vacation with his family.

Somewhere in the article Depp reveals his heroes.  In fact he has named the coasts and various alcoves of the island after them.  They include actor Marlon Brando and journalist Hunter S. Thompson, to name two, both dead, Thompson by his own hand in 2005.

I wasn’t a Thompson reader, but certainly loved some of Brando’s roles, however what struck me was how Depp found ways to sort of elevate the reputations of these guys in his own mind – to make them larger than life.

And then there is Jesus.  The humility the prophets wrote of, and then His contemporaries witnessed, have never been expunged from His story.  He is still presented as the ‘suffering servant,’ the ‘humiliated one,’ and as one ‘despised and rejected by men’ (Isaiah 53:3).  His dark moment in the Garden of Gethsemane has not been ‘prettied up,’ nor His humiliating death erased from the woof and weft of the narrative.

In fact those who follow Jesus have come to realize that His greatness is found in His ability to sympathize with their brokenness, and His dearness is found in His unwillingness to cling to His greatness.  And it is that core humility that escapes most when they look for qualities that would define the gods they seek.

Today it occurred to me that one day someone will do with Depp what he has done with his heroes.  They will take the highlights and make them the entire reality, while Jesus directs us to the ‘lowlights’ of His earthly journey, and then invites us to find a God who refused to live above our condition.

I like that story better…

peace.

The Gospel and a Broken Windshield Wiper

While on vacation the right side windshield wiper on our rental car malfunctioned.  And it just so happens that we are visiting during that time in Miami when it pours in the afternoon.  It was one of those things where the rubber blade began to tear away from itself, like a long piece of black pasta flopping across the glass, soon to fall away and expose the metal casing that would eventually scrape the the windshield.

Going to the rental office was only the beginning of a journey that would take me back three times with various vendors in between, before finally being approved for the wiper to be replaced at no cost to me.

In the process I was reminded that there are some things we have to deal with in our lives – some things we can’t ignore and chalk up to the ‘cheap grace’ Dietrich Bonhoeffer speaks to in his amazing book, The Cost of Discipleship.

The fact is that when they go bad windshield wipers have to be replaced – it is an undeniable safety precaution– it has to be done.  And it is equally true that there are corners of our lives that can’t remain unattended to: attitudes – mindsets – positions, you name it.  When I am honest I have to admit that there are some things I prefer to hold on to.  I don’t let go of bitterness without a fight.  I’m prone to wallow in selfish behavior.  Pride and ego stalk me wherever I go – and I let them!  It’s a long list, really.

The Gospel demands more – not perfection, but surrender – the admission of one’s weakness and the admission of one’s self to the daily process of being, ‘transformed by the renewal of your minds’ (Romans 12:2), which bears the fruit of a continuing and flourishing relationship with the Father.

It is really all about relationship.  And the reality of this relationship means that there are some things in our lives we can’t be content to settle for.  Because while living in a broken world explains our brokenness, it doesn’t excuse our sin, in the same way that being unfinished doesn’t preclude the finishing work of God in our lives.  What they do is point us to Jesus who transforms us, not with heavy handed condemnation but with nail-scarred palms, that bear evidence to His commitment to hold us in love and  grace, even as He continuously enters into our lives and He prepares the Table for the Feast we will one day share.

Friends, this is good news.

peace

Fighting Jesus

Years ago, when we worked with Young People, we took them to Central Florida for a huge outdoor performance of the Passion Play.  As the title implies it was a re-enactment of the sufferings and resurrection of Jesus.  For decades Youth ministries from the region (including the one I grew up in) would travel to Lake Wales just to see the Floridian equivalent of the silver screen blockbuster, ‘King of Kings’ starring Jeffrey Hunter (the original Captain Christopher Pike, of the first USS Enterprise on Star Trek, in a later episode, I might add).

On this particular night however, shortly after the play opened, rain began to fall.  In fact it poured, and it didn’t take long for the play to close and for someone to come take the stage and offer rain checks for another show.  But we were on the first leg of a three-day retreat with our Young People.  There would be no opportunity for us to see the Passion Play the next evening, so after the rain died down I left the stands and behind the stage, to the dressing rooms where I found the actor who played Jesus removing his makeup.  He also happened to own the Passion Play and the people at the ticket booth told me that he had to approve any refund.

The funny thing is that even as I was talking with this guy I couldn’t get past the fact that he was dressed in a white robe with all the ‘Jesus’ trappings about him.  Unfortunately that is where the similarities ended.  The man wasn’t about to give up the money he had just collected.  So there, backstage, for about fifteen minutes I fought with Jesus for our money.  And amazingly, he finally relented.

To this day I still laugh out loud about that incident.  But it struck me this week (as I recounted the story to our Staff), that where this man was uncomfortable with my resistance, the real Jesus never would be.  In fact I think He invites our fight and is always ready for us to come to Him (Matthew 11:28-30), because there is something deeply honest and intimate about someone who has issues with God, and then takes them to Him before sterilizing themselves with religious buffers.  Jesus’ offer in Matthew 11 comes in the context of His denouncements of weighty legalists, so the promise of ‘rest’ is an assurance that regardless of what we ever bring, the response will always be laced with His Mercy.

A willingness to take Jesus on is evidence that we are God’s sons and daughters, or that we are headed in that direction.  Only because He is real, Jesus invites our fight, but also our sorrows, our weaknesses, our failures and our cries.  It isn’t an either-or thing.  Any true relationship demands the entire package.

My guess is that the Jesus I fought with gave in because he was old and tired.  He was the same guy who played Christ when I was a kid and so up close he looked old and weary.  He no longer had it in him to go 10 rounds.  But the real Jesus does – and He invites us to ‘bring it on.’  The Faith is that personal and we couldn’t have it any other way.

peace.

Freshly Cut

Last week was one of those where I had to mow the lawn and get a haircut within a few days of one another.  You have to understand that my hair, if not controlled, is a wild beast.  It seems that over night it mysteriously transforms me from a typical, nondescript individual to the lost twin of Moammar Kadafi (in fact, Katherine refers to me as Moammar when my hair becomes too long, or… bushy, that is).  My parents were thrilled when I graduated from Seminary because they were finally able to replace my High School graduation picture in the den (affectionately referred to as ‘the mushroom’).

Our lawn isn’t much different (and I wonder if lawns and owners are like that old cartoon that depicts people and their dogs as looking remarkably similar).  When I mow our grass it is spectacular.  But two or three rainy days with a lot of sunshine in between, and it becomes a yard worker’s (that would be me) nightmare.

Just this past week I had to constantly restart our poor machine because it couldn’t handle the thick grass.  Fortunately the barber’s razor is electrically powered!

Such is the nature of the lawn and a head full of hair – always growing, and always being trimmed.

Yesterday, while inspecting the already-growing lawn, I was reminded of this doctrine we call sanctification.  It teaches that as long as we are on the earth God is at work within us.  That’s the quick version, but it is a good starting place.  In other words, we are constantly being pruned and shaped by God’s indwelling Spirit, daily being confronted by our inner weaknesses, sins and struggles, relentlessly being challenged to live with a view toward the new heavens and the new earth, and daily being shaped to resemble Jesus more and more – a lifelong process every Christ-follower experiences. 

There are painful moments because in the process God shows us who we really are, but then there is relief as He draws us before His Throne and dispenses Grace.  And it is that daily work of God in our lives that reminds us that at one in the same time we are both unfinished, and completely loved and kept by the Father until He brings us home.

What struck me was that if we are perfectly honest, we don’t really like this process in its rawest form – because there is something in us that has a hard time believing God would love us enough to endure our garbage.  And then it hit me that the only lawns you don’t mow and the only hair you don’t cut are those that don’t grow, right?  We’re talking artificial turf and fake hair.  Because the alternative to the need for consistent maintenance is an artificial existence – an artificial appearance, even.  And so we are trimmed because we are living, breathing and growing vessels – we are human.  And God has built into His Redemptive work, a vehicle – sanctification – in which to confront our mess and keep us human all at the same time.

Friends, this is such Good News.

peace.

Broken Bread

On Sunday we celebrated Easter – the Resurrection of Jesus.  I preached Luke’s account of two travelers joined by the Risen Christ as they made their way home to Emmaus from Jerusalem.  We typically use the event to describe yet another ‘proof’ that Jesus rose from the Grave – one more eyewitness account.  And to be sure, it is a compelling argument.  However I have found that such arguments tend to be more effective as reassurances to those who already believe in Jesus.

There is nothing wrong, and everything right with rehearsing what we have as Christ-followers.  In the Resurrection we are assured that sin has been crushed under the weight of Christ’s Righteousness – that the Grave could not hold Him, and therefore will not hold us in death.  Because Jesus has risen, we will too, and have, because we are His through faith.

But the big story is that in conquering the Grave Jesus authenticated His message that the Kingdom of God had arrived, evidenced in the meal He shared with His new friends in Emmaus.  To fully appreciate this you have to go to the first meal recorded in the Bible – when Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, in the Garden.  The first meal represented the desecration of all God had made and declared to be good.  When Jesus broke that bread and shared that meal, post-resurrection, He signaled a new day – a new hope.  The Son of God had reversed the Curse of the Garden.  Where the ‘first Adam’ (Romans 5) had eaten to our damnation, the ‘second Adam’ ate to our shared Redemption in Him.

What strikes me is that Jesus did so with two people who would remain on earth after He ascended into heaven.  He would return home, but they would still face the broken things that define a sin-stained world – and so do we.

Lesslie Newbigin, in his The Good Shepherd, says, “The Church is not an organization of spiritual giants.  It is broken men and women who can lead others to the Cross.”

Perhaps our friends’ eyes were opened when they saw the wounds on Jesus’ hands.  Whatever God used to illuminate them, in that one gesture Jesus demonstrated that a hungry world can catch glimpses of the new heavens and the new earth – not in grand sermons, but in fellow travelers that have met the Risen Christ, and who dare to share the ‘meal’ of love at the table of their lives.

peace.

Redemption in the Ruins

The Cross in this picture was taken at a local property that is being restored for the purpose of housing women in recovery who need a fresh start and a safe place to make it.  The property is sprawling.  One day the grounds will display a garden that will grow herbs and vegetables cultivated for the purpose of training in the culinary arts.

The buildings are a different story – they are historic and beautiful, and one day will be housing and serve as classrooms for these women, but for now they are also old and in near disrepair.  Squatters filled the condemned halls that long went without water and electricity.  What once was obviously a magnificent spread of stately edifices is now in ruins.

Work teams have been scheduled year-round for the purpose of restoration, and it was while a group from our church worked in one of the buildings that I saw the Cross.  It was situated on the edge of two or three panels of dry wall that awaited their destined installation.  How and why it got there is a mystery, yet somehow it spoke volumes to me.

It is Holy Week.  We celebrate Jesus.  In describing His death, we think and speak in terms of Sacrifice and Substitution – both packed with meaning.  But this week I have been struck by the level of intimacy Jesus was willing to involve Himself in on our behalf.  We celebrate that He came and entered into our mess.  In Jesus God took on the human condition.

There are moments when I don’t like that intimacy – when I would rather the roof cave in and the walls decay, and the brush to become overgrown than for God to be so close to me that He can detect every nuance of sin’s ugly stain that runs so deep within.  He knows – He sees – There is nothing I can hide – not only because He is God, but also, and especially because Jesus took on flesh and blood – His body to be given and His blood to be spilled – He became a hideous display because that is what humanity is – it is what I am.  I don’t want Him to see me, and perhaps, more, I don’t like that He became me.

There is no sterile version, yet there is no more beautiful one either.  Paul says, ‘God made him who knew no sin to become sin that we might become the righteousness of God’ (2 Corinthians 5:21).  The Cross is a supreme act of intimacy in which sorrow, rejection, death and love conjoined in one man – Jesus.

This is Good News.

peace.

Yard Hose Theology

The other day I washed my Jeep (you know… the lonely vehicle in the snowy church parking lot.  Hint: look one post down).  Amazingly it was only a week after 6-8 inches of snow fell in the area.  So on a beautiful, 70-degree, sun-soaked day, I spent a couple hours in shorts and a t-shirt on the very driveway we had cleared of snow (bundled in full winter garb) just seven days before.  A chill has since returned – it seems winter’s last gasp.

That first car washing of the year comes with the annual regimen of reconnecting the hoses and reengaging the water.  During the winter months the water flow to the outdoors faucets is cut off – the threat of burst pipes during a hard freeze too risky (and expensive) a proposition to neglect doing so.  However the process is painless and the time needed, minimal.

With the fresh flow of water come good things.  Salty roads, sidewalks and vehicles are relieved of the ugly reminders of icy months.  The fact that we can access water again brings the ‘feel’ of warmth.

Reconnecting to God has its correlations.  With our own demons, skeletons, daily struggles with sin and personal failures come cold seasons that leave us feeling ugly, unconnected and in need of a washing that only Jesus brings.

The scriptures call the process ‘Repentance’ and the cleansing, ‘Forgiveness,’ clearly promising that if we ‘confess’ God will forgive (1 John 1:9), only to discover that He is a Father who does not ‘treat us as our sins deserve’ (Psalm 103:10).  Like with the first hose usage in the spring, initially it all seems so daunting – to come to God, disconnected, broken, ashamed and fear-filled – to admit sin, to acknowledge guilt and to take responsibility – but Jesus accepts our approach gently and with compassionate embrace.

Unfortunately, clean as my Jeep looked after the washing, every ding and dent remained, serving as reminders of my sloppy parking.  Yet even in that reflection there is something unspeakably sweet about the fact that until Jesus makes all things new, the Father fully receives us, dings and all, with delight and compassion, when we flee to Him.  No physical rinse compares with the relief an unfinished Christ-follower experiences upon tasting God’s Forgiveness.

peace.

Milestones

I flicked this picture of my Jeep early this past Sunday, overlooking the lower parking lot area of our church. There had been a dusting through the night and it was quite cold. The next day we would get the kind of snowfall that our family looks forward to each year – the ‘get out of jail (uh… school) free,’ kind of snow. But on this day it was appropriate to take a pic of that lone vehicle at roughly 6:30 AM. It represented three years to the day that I have served as the pastor of this church (March 1). I’m not exactly sure what that means, but it seems to me that milestones matter. Jesus tells us that ‘in this life we will have trouble,’ but that we can take heart because He has ‘overcome the world’ (John 16:33). We unfinished ones will never enjoy perfection in this life, and to be sure there will be rough patches, but for the journey we are taken places and given moments and experiences that I think serve as God’s reminders that He isn’t finished with us – and that He hasn’t forgotten that we are His.

This is Good News.

peace.

An Open Letter to Michael Phelps

Friends – I sent this out to the Baltimore Sun, but they had received enough mail to not print it – though they agreed.  So here it is…

Dear Michael,

Undoubtedly you have received thousands of letters of support, however I thought that I’d write to you as though to my son.  We do, in fact, have a son your age (23), and so in that regard, I know a bit about what I am speaking of.  And I am aware of your precious Mother – her support and love are obvious, so please don’t take this as from one who thinks anything other than good things about her.  Take it as from one of her friends who stands by her and her son.

First of all, congratulations – while anything more would be gushing – suffice it to say that the entire world, and we are amazed with your accomplishments – and we are grateful for the absolute thrill and joy of the Olympics, largely because of you.

But you are 23 and your entire life you trained for that magical week in which you broke the Olympic Gold World Record.  Nearly every day of your young life, while little boys, and then young teenagers were playing sandlot football or Super Mario Brothers, you were working out.  When they were still hours away from awakening to each new day, you were in a pool, in the dark, in the cold of Baltimore, swimming laps.  When they were home, waiting for dinner, fighting over whose turn it was to choose the music you were back at the pool, swimming against a clock.  While other young people were experimenting with hairstyles, you were just trying to figure out how to keep yours from always looking ‘green’ from the chlorine.

And frankly, when they were making the kinds of mistakes and decisions we parents hope they won’t make, but ones we are glad they make when younger, you were conditioning your perfect body and sterile life in preparation for the Olympics.

All this to say, Michael, that what you did isn’t the end of the world – not by a long shot.  If I were your Dad I would tell you that it was a mistake – a dumb one.  Secretly I would be thrilled that you are okay.  I would already have assumed that you would have done something we wouldn’t approve of – that is part of the process of growing up in the normal world.  And I would tell you that we love you regardless of the fallout – that corporations and consequences don’t define human beings.

The reason for this letter is not to vet out every wrinkle of what this involves, but to say that while you have made a few dumb decisions, we are no less proud of you and grateful for you. And frankly, we are disappointed that the Kellogg Company has not taken a more courageous position.  Their decision to discontinue your contract is their loss, not yours.  And forgive us for having ever expected you to be anything other than what we would expect from our own imperfect, but normal and delightful children.

We can’t wait to see what comes of your life (you have many more years in front of you than behind you).  What the world may not stop to notice is that there is far more to you than a pound of gold.

Hang in there, kid.

Mike Khandjian

A Dad

 

peace.

Crazy People Spotted in Church

If you knew anything about the couple in this picture you would think that they had snapped.  However when you Google them they show up under ‘stability.’  He serves on the Missions Committee of our church.  She is deeply involved in our ESL ministry (English as a Second Language).  They travel to Asia and do amazing ministry there, welcoming internationals into their home and lives.  To top it off, they sit near the front in worship every Sunday!  Make no mistake about it – they are ‘church people.’

And yet, this is how they were dressed this past Sunday for worship – primed for the Super Bowl and displaying themselves as living declarations that they had obviously crossed over into the dark side of the National Football League.  Outrageous!

I love crazy people in the church.  Oh, don’t get me wrong – Dave and Julie are as solid as it gets.  But they are free – and that’s what I love.  There is a crazy freedom to the Gospel that enables us to dress wildly (even if as Pittsburg Steelers), to smile widely, to laugh uncontrollably and to pose shamelessly (well, you know what I mean…) – even in church.

With all the sorrows we witness and carry in this broken world there has to be time for laughter too.  Solomon says as much when he calls us to ‘be happy’ when ‘times are good’ (Ecclesiastes 7:14).  A few weeks ago Katherine and I heard a song on the radio – one I eventually downloaded (legally of course) simply because of its title: “What’s wrong (about feeling good)?”

If I were asked to add to the Beatitudes (which I haven’t been), mine might be, ‘Blessed are the lighthearted, for such is the laughter of the Kingdom.’  Though He didn’t actually say it, Jesus certainly lived this out, untamed and unleashed.  We can too – with nothing to hide and everything to look forward to in the new heavens and the new earth, the Gospel sets our hearts free to live in the laughter and liberation of the Savior Himself.

Way to go Dave and Julie (not to be interpreted as an endorsement for the Pittsburg Steelers)!

peace.