Let no one despise your youth, but set the believers an example in speech and conduct, in love, in faith, in purity. - 1 Timothy 4.12

Pharmacists, military officers, cops, and daycare providers: what do these professions have in common? Americans trust them more than pastors.

The Gallup Pole has released its annual survey of where Americans rank various professions in terms of honesty and ethical standards. Nurses once again lead the field with an eighty-two percent ranking. Ministers bat below five hundred and finish ninth in a field of twenty-one. Some good news: we did beat out lawyers, car mechanics, and members of Congress.

Paul admonishes Timothy to overcome the stereotypes of immaturity by displaying the marks of wisdom. He wants his protege to be an "example," the pattern on which other Christians model themselves. The apostle seems unconcerned with the opinions of outsiders, but does want pastors to provide a worthy example of honesty and ethics to other Christians. He even prescribes the means by which his friend can overcome the prevailing bias against Millennials: good preaching (v.13) and self-awareness (v.16). 

Timothy labors under the handicap of his "youth," a term which probably puts him somewhere north of thirty and south of forty. Having long ago left those numbers behind on my own odometer, I find this passage still speaks to me. Creaking knees and a propensity to naps make me ponder the words of Shakespeare's fool in "King Lear" - "Thou shouldst not have been old till thou hadst been wise." Youth is fleeting, but immaturity can be the gift that keeps on giving. 

No pastor ever outgrows the need for mature ministry, and Paul's prescription likewise remains valid: the study of Scripture reveals God's ethical standards, and the study of self keeps us honest regarding them. It interests me that Paul did not say anything to Timothy about being a leader, about organizing events, about buying sermons off the internet to clear one's schedule for vision casting (all things I have heard suggested in various church growth manuals). Paul offers simple instructions: Know God's Word, and know yourself in relation to that Word. Preach well from your pulpit and in your practice. People might never trust us more than nurses, but surely we at least have a shot at overtaking pharmacists?

For more on this survey see: Nurses Keep Healthy Lead as Most Honest, Ethical Profession

Currying Favor

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. - Philippians 4.13

Stephen Curry is a great basketball player. Over the course of his career he's hit nearly half of his shots, forty percent from three-point-land, and better than nine-out-of-ten from the line. In last year's NBA championship series he notched his first playoff triple-double, exceeding single-digits in scoring, rebounds, and assists. 

Stephen Curry is a devout Christian. He takes every opportunity to bear witness to his faith in interviews and to speak at public events. His private life gives credence to his public confession.

Stephen Curry has the Bible a little bit wrong. He is famous for inscribing Scripture on his sneakers, with Romans 8.28 a favorite. In 2014, Under Armor released its Curry One shoe with "I can do all things" stitched inside the tongue. "Every time you put on a shoe," he explained, "it's a reminder of what is possible."

Well, not really. Curry, for instance, couldn't overcome slumping playoff statistics and lead his team to a championship over the Cleveland Cavaliers. I, for instance, couldn't dunk on LeBron James if I wore Curry Shoes with the entire King James Version hand-written on them in Hebrew and Greek.

When Paul said "all things," he didn't mean "all things." In context, he meant faithfulness to Christ across the entire range of material wealth. In Philippians 4, Paul thanks the congregation for their generous financial gift but assures them he's not in the ministry for the money. I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need. THAT is the "all things" to which the next verse refers. Curry's ability on the hardwood is impressive, but nothing compared to the power of God displayed in his ability to handle tons of money and armies of admirers without succumbing to pride. That same grace will allow him to maintain his testimony when his gifts fade and even if his finances falter.

May we be the kind of Christians who can do all things even in the face of the things we fail to do, and who find that Christ strengthens us most when our weaknesses are most on display.

So Lot went up and said to his sons-in-law, who were to marry his daughters, "Up, get out of this place, for the Lord is about to destroy the city." - Genesis 19.14

Oops.

Last Saturday, in a foul-up that dwarfs Steve Harvey calling out the wrong name for Miss America or Faye Dunnaway announcing the wrong name for Best Picture, an unidentified veteran of the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency declared an immanent nuclear attack on the fiftieth state. During a routine exercise, the hapless employee clicked the wrong option on his computer, then confirmed it on the did-you-really-mean-to-do-that? screen. Cell phones all over the islands beeped and buzzed with instructions to duck and cover. “This is not a drill,” the message blared. It took a half hour to post a disclaimer. The agency has not fired the employee nor mentioned his name, but they have reassigned him to a job that doesn’t involve fooling around with the warning system.

Of course everyone is happy that Kim Jong Un hadn’t decided to prove how big his button is, but the incident poses problems for future scenarios. If such a siren ever sounds for real, people may be less likely to pay attention. As President Bush once famously remarked, “Fool me once shame on - shame on you. Fool me - you can’t get fooled again.”

When Lot announced Sodom’s doom to his sons-in-law they laughed him off. As my grandfather once paraphrased their scorn, “Hey, dad - when did you get religion?” Abraham’s nephew had learned to live in comfortable coexistence with the wicked culture of the cities of the plain, holding his nose to fend off a stink so foul it offended the very nostrils of God. If the place was so awful, the young men reasoned, Lot wouldn’t need a divine nuclear strike to drive him away.

Christians claim to know for a fact that this present world careens on a collision-course with judgment, but too often we cuddle comfortably in its richly upholstered cess pool. You can’t holler that the house is on fire if you refuse to abandon your Barcalounger. Complicity with society’s regrettable, but profitable, sexism, racism, and economic injustice taint our all-points-bulletins of impending doom. “Come ye out from among them and be ye separate,” Paul thunders to the Corinthian Christians whose ambidextrous spirituality let their left hands destroy what their right hands were doing.

May God’s Holy Spirit indwell us to such an extent that our earthly attitudes never transfer our heavenly hopes from a battle line to a punch line. May the errant text messages of our actions never make a mockery of the innerant Text of our convictions.

Come and See, Go and Show - A Meditation on Martin Luther King Day

Nathaniel said to him, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth." - John 1.46

Nathaniel was probably right about Nazareth. Nazareth was a third-rate town in a third-world country. Nazareth was the hood, the block, the barrio, the trailer park. Nazareth was. Nazareth was the redneck, red-lined retreat of rubes.

     Nazareth was an intellectual sinkhole.

          Nazareth was a religious black hole.

               Nazareth was a ____-hole.

And Nazareth was the source of salvation.

Philip did not argue with his friend; he simply said, "Come and see."

I was not raised to honor the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. In my Christian community his speeches were not occasions for celebration and his murder was not an occasion for grief.

     He loved my Jesus. . .but questioned my country.

     He preached my gospels. . .but condemned my ghettos.

     He spoke my language. . .but questioned my privilege.

Yet the core of the gospel of Jesus Christ is, in a sense, a message of mistakes and a preaching of surprises.

     The gospel declares that there is good news. . .but it comes from a bad place.

     The gospel affirms that we have the right proclamation. . . but it is proclaimed by the wrong                  person.

     The gospel insists that we have the right truth. . .but that we hear it at the wrong time.

     The gospel proclaims eternal redemption. . .but demands temporal repentance.

I stand before you today as one formerly mistaken and now awakened, as one formerly certain and now surprised, and I owe my presence in this place today to friends who said, "Come and see."

To a white professor my students said, "Come and see," and showed me an intellectual excellence that humbled my academic pride.

To a white preacher my black preacher-friends said, "Come and see," and showed me a hermeneutic that magnified a minority message.

To a white Baptist the African-American church said, "Come and see," and welcomed me to a body of Jesus Christ that had grown in the soil of Jim Crow.

They invited me to come and see, and I came and saw, and now I can no longer unsee. I can no longer see a privilege bought at the price of prejudice. I can no longer unsee the ease that surfs on a sea of anger. I can no longer unsee that justice delayed is justice denied.

Philip said, "Come and see," and Nathaniel came and saw, and Jesus said, "You will see greater things than these." Our nation, now more than ever, needs to see even greater things than Dr. King lived long enough to show us, and so to this assembly I no longer say, "Come and see," but "Go and show!"

Go and show privilege to those who reap its rewards. Go and show love to those who profit from hate. Go and show excellence to those who expect indolence. Go and show the real Jesus to those who worship a cardboard cutout and a flannel-graph God.

Go to the classroom, the workplace, and the pulpit. Go to the academy, the ballot-box, and the marketplace. Go with forgiveness but go without compromises, for compromise with sin is delayed damnation. Go with gentleness but go without weakness, for weakness in the face of oppression is a compromise and not a cure. Go with anger but go without hatred, for hatred putrifies what anger would purify.

Can anything good come out of a ____-hole like Nazareth? But history teaches us that oftentimes good grows best in soil fertilized by the stink of oppression. I say to all of us assembled here today, "You have come and seen Now go and show!"
         

Beggars at the Feast

Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.
Matthew 22.9

The Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead fears that the homeless will foul up the royal wedding.

When Prince Harry escorts his bride, American actress Meghan Markle, through the city streets, piles of blankets might clash with the happy couple’s royal progress to castle and court and the posh geezers of the tony suburb say that’s just not the done thing. For this reason, borough councilor Simon Dudley has instructed the Thames Valley Police to Hoover up the offending flotsam and move them, well, elsewhere - any elsewhere. Mr. Dudley tweeted this demand, by the way, from the ski slopes of Montana during his vacation.

One of the offenders, who gave his name only as “James,” exonerated Prince Harry himself of any blame. “Harry is the most common of all the royals and helps out poor people. I don’t think he had anything to do with this.” James even joked that eventually he might even score an invitation to the shindig.

Jesus once compared the Kingdom of Heaven to a royal wedding which the toffs and the prigs shunned (perhaps because the bride was a commoner, a foreigner, and a black - the Lord doesn’t give the details). When everyone refused delivery on the save-the-date notices, the king went a little bonkers. He issued orders for the Jordan Valley Police to kick in the doors of every condo and mansion in the neighborhood, haul the snobs into chokey, and level their digs.

Now he had a problem: The royal silk and silver draped the castle tables and his chefs had whomped up a ravishing feast. If nothing else, all those empty seats would be bad optics when the TV cameras and the tabloid paparazzi plastered them all over the media. So he sent his liveried lackeys onto the sidewalks with instructions to dig out the down-and-outers from beneath their bags of clothing and frowsty blankets and issue them monogrammed invitations. For the looks of the thing, he even issued tuxes and ball gowns and vouchers for free makeovers at the local salons. James and his pals sauntered into the hallowed halls as if they owned the place. He also hired a few bouncers to eighty-six those who put on enough side to dis the dress code.

I don’t know what might end up happening with the royal wedding. As an American, I seem to recall that we fought a whole war so that we wouldn’t have to care. I do know, however, that the King of Kings has called us all to the wedding feast of His Son. We can’t even plead, “But I don’t have anything to wear,” because He has provided a tailor-made white robe for every attendee, which we don after being washed clean in the blood of the Lamb.

Heaven is a funny place and full of surprises: The upper-crust gets turned away and the street people receive the royal treatment. In this parable, believers morph from the Bride to the guests to the hired help, and all of this leads me to ask: Are we faithfully handing out the engraved invites? And are we offering them to the right folks?

For more on this story, see Call to Remove Homeless (All 8) Before Royal Wedding Stirs Anger.

Your words have supported those who were stumbling, and you have made firm the feeble knees.

- Job 4.4

Bennett Moehring was right where every great athlete wants to be: in the clutch, with victory in the most important game of the season resting squarely on his shoulders.

Or, more accurately, his foot.

Moehring, a junior at the United States Naval Academy, took the field in the final seconds of the fourth quarter of the 2018 Army/Navy showdown. The Middies trailed 14-13 and only a forty-eight yard field goal could save the day. He'd already punched two through the uprights despite the swirling snow and keening wind. Moehring and his holder, Randy Beggs, had not only envisioned the outcome, but the aftermath: They planned to fall to their backs and make snow angels once their combined heroics brought home a victory. He signaled the center: perfect snap; solid placement; ideal impact.

He pushed it six inches to the left. 

As Army rejoiced in its second victory over Navy in as many seasons, Moehring's knees folded beneath him. Nearby teammates gripped his arms and kept him upright. "I'll never forget," he said later, "that my team wouldn't let me fall, even though I'd just let them down."

The encouragement continued in the locker room as players and coaches assured him he had not caused the defeat. His cell phone twitched with incoming texts from Navy alumns who assured him of their support. His knees held him up long enough to face reporters and graciously accept responsibility. 

"My team wouldn't let me fall, even though I'd just let them down."

Job's friends admire his habit of propping up friends in the face of failure. It's a shame they couldn't return the favor when he'd seen Satan snatch defeat from the jaws of a lifetime of victories. The two stories remind us to be encouragers. In English the word literally means those who put heart back into someone. Paul admonishes the Thessalonian Christians to "encourage one another and build each other up." It seems obvious but we often miss the simple fact that times of success do not require encouragement. 

If Moehring's example isn't enough, we could always look to Our Lord. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. - John 10.28. When we shank our tee-shots, flub our field goals, and find ourselves ready to fall, not in imitation of angelic celebration but in nerveless horror at our failures, a nail-pierced hand grabs on and holds us up. He will not let us fall, even when we've just let Him down.

Take courage; be encouraged; encourage.

For more details on this story, see Navy Kicker Turns Last-Second Loss into a Lesson on Leadership.