Being Christian in a Secular World
Every year, Cassie has given the message in worship the Sunday following Christmas. Not only is this an awesome Christmas gift to me, but a wonderful opportunity to show the congregation that we are all messengers of Christ with our own stories to tell. I’m always proud of Cassie for being willing to let God use her as his messenger in this way. I know it’s been an inspiration to others that they too can tell their own stories.
A few decades ago I didn’t even know what ‘Secular’ meant. It is defined as “denoting attitudes, activities, or other things that have no religious or spiritual basis.” All of us can identify with being in the secular world. The grocery store, most businesses, television shows, and many of our hobbies are secular.
I attended a Christian workshop one time and they asked me to chart my faith journey on my life timeline. I’m 52 and growing up in the 70’s and 80’s there was often a reminder of Christianity in TV shows. I remember learning different things from Little House on the Prairie, the Waltons, and always the Snoopy Christmas cartoons. I wasn’t raised Christian so at the time I had limited knowledge except for a few Sundays at church with my grandparents. When we moved to Kentucky I was 9 years old and thus saw nothing unusual when my 4th grade teacher would read to us from the bible.
The Faith Building chart was essentially a flat line until age 21 and then it spiked really high. This happened because I was engaged to a Catholic and had to go through RCIA (Rites for Christian Initiation for Adults) if we were to marry. I spent a year working with the Catholic deacons and priests to learn about Christ and the Catholic church. It was an intense study to make sure you can truly accept the faith and the church doctrines. I’ve always said I know more about the Catholic church than the millions of average Catholics. On my 22nd birthday I was baptized and confirmed a Catholic.
I didn’t marry the Catholic, but I continued my Catholicism throughout my twenties. My older daughter, Evelyn, was baptized Catholic. It wasn’t until my 30s, when I was dating Craig, that we decided together to become Methodists but that is a different story.
Let’s come back to the here and now. This is what my Christian Focus chart would look like if I charted it today. In my first decade, I had little hills that would show up when I would watch those TV shows, experience church, or go through the Christmas season. The chart has peaks and valleys. In my mid-30s you can see another peak when I spent the year doing the intensive Discipleship course with a group at church and then my Emmaus weekend.
But this is only one of two charts: the first chart being Christian Focus and the second chart being Faith. Christian focus doesn’t mean you have faith. And faith doesn’t require Christian focus.
In today’s earlier reading, we hear one point that there is a relationship between Faith and Deeds. I challenge back that we can absolutely have Faith without deeds, just as we can have Faith without being fully focused on Christian topics.
My reasoning is found in the entire chapter of Ephesians 3: “God’s Marvelous Plan for the Gentiles”. We’re going to separate the chapter into three parts: Part (A) Christ is also for the Gentiles; Part (B) Paul’s duty to bring it to the Gentiles; and Part (C) is a beautiful prayer to bring Christ and faith to ourselves and others.
Let’s start with Verses 1-6:
1 For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles—
2 Surely you have heard about the administration of God’s grace that was given to me for you, 3 that is, the mystery made known to me by revelation, as I have already written briefly. 4 In reading this, then, you will be able to understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, 5 which was not made known to people in other generations as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to God’s holy apostles and prophets. 6 This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus.
I imagine Paul sitting in a dirty jail cell writing to these non-Jewish Ephesians. The other Apostles didn’t want the Gentiles to hear about Christ and didn’t believe that Gentiles (that’s us) were also redeemed by Christ’s sacrifice. Imagine in today’s world if certain websites or cable channels had information about Christianity that we aren’t allowed to see. But that’s not the case! Paul was the first to bring Christianity into the secular world. He didn’t require everyone to become Jewish or a rabbi. He wanted Christ to be everywhere, in everything, in everyone.
Which brings us to Part (B) versus 7-13 where Paul brings this message to the Gentiles:
7 I became a servant of this gospel by the gift of God’s grace given me through the working of his power. 8 Although I am less than the least of all the Lord’s people, this grace was given me: to preach to the Gentiles the boundless riches of Christ, 9 and to make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery, which for ages past was kept hidden in God, who created all things. 10 His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, 11 according to his eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord. 12 In him and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence. 13 I ask you, therefore, not to be discouraged because of my sufferings for you, which are your glory.
“And to make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery” is exactly the point! It doesn’t say here to “make disciples of Christ”… which is also a great thing. It says to “make plain to everyone”. He’s not telling us to become biblical scholars. I’m sure I have some statements wrong already in the sermon but that’s OK. This sermon is not to teach you biblical history. It’s telling us to get up and bring Christ into the normal things we do. It’s to be Christian because we made that choice when we accept Christ as our Savior. It’s to have faith because we love our God and Savior!
Most of you know that I’ve been working 6 days a week for the last year. In prior years I had time to read the entire bible over the year, listen to meditations, and participate in the work of the church. My time in the secular world is now 99% consumed with things that are not Christian. I wake up most days between 4:45am – 5:45am to get on work conference calls starting at 5 or 6 a.m. I don’t have breakfast and when I do get a lunch it can be anytime between 11 a.m. – 2 p.m. If I barely have time to eat, where is God going to fit in?
So I go back to my timeline charts. My “Christian Focus” chart is definitely in a valley at the moment. I will keep trying to read my Upper Room booklet but I fail frequently when I don’t have a consistent routine and schedule. I attend church when I’m not traveling. I receive daily Christian emails as a reminder to focus for a few minutes (or at least a minute!). I will keep working to include Christ but it’s not easy.
Now let’s go to the Faith chart. I’ve been doing the first sermon in January for a number of years as one of my Christmas gifts to Craig. A few years back I gave a sermon about death and how I used to be terrified at the thought of death. If I look at my faith chart, it is more of a stair step. There’s a large step which was a leap of faith with my baptism at age 22. For two more decades I had small steps in my faith chart. Then when I was 40 years old and my dad passed, I had a large leap of faith. I had to believe in the salvation of Christ if I was going to be with my dad in heaven. I had to stop fearing death and trust in Christ’s heavenly kingdom and his gift of salvation.
So you see in my Faith Journey it’s not always the Christian activities that bring us to where we are in our Faith. In 15 years when I reach my mid-60s and retire, I will love having the time to spend with God. I look forward to it. But until then, I’ve got to not feel guilty when I’m not devoting time to his word. I tell Jesus that I am a Christian out in the secular world. Representing him. Representing us.
Let us close with Part (C) versus 14-21 of Ephesians: the prayer. Please bow your heads.
14 For this reason I kneel before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. 16 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
20 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.
The Other America
I’d like to say I am free of bias, but that wouldn’t be completely honest.
I am a Bruin through and through and if you love UCLA, there is one school you do NOT love – USC also known as the University of Second Choice. We had quite a few other names for them as well, but many of them can’t be repeated in church. How anyone could be a fan of “that other school” is beyond me. UCLA is the #1 public university in the nation, the most applied school in the country, the second most national championships, and in the top 20 among all universities – public or private.[1] But USC is known for some things, too. For four times the cost, you too can attend this less prestigious school and if you have trouble getting in apparently you can pay Rick Singer to help you out. If you need a reference, just ask actress Lori Loughlin of Full House fame.[2] But in all seriousness…USC is a horrible school. Just kidding. Rivalries run deep. But if we’re not careful, friendly rivalries can turn into something more than just innocent jabs at one another and become much more insidious. We’ve seen people take to vandalism and property damage over something as silly as a school football game. But there’s a lot worse that can happen, too. I still remember Giants’ fan, Bryan Stow who was beaten outside of Dodgers Stadium for no other reason than wearing a Buster Posey jersey.[3] He was in a coma and it has taken him a very long time to recover. I don’t know if he ever fully will. Not long after that, there was a fan-related shooting at a Raiders-Niners preseason game where two people got gunned down.[4] And who can forget the riots in Vancouver when the Canucks lost in the Stanley Cup? 301 people were eventually arrested, 140 people were injured, 4 were stabbed and 9 police officers were hurt.[5] Over a hockey game.
Imagine…if people can get this violent, defensive, and worked up over a ball game…
What happens when it comes to problems and issues rooted even deeper in our communities? As we celebrate the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., it’s hard not to reflect on the violence surrounding the racism that still exists in America. Racism runs far deeper than school rivalries or baseball legacies. Racism is fed to us, introduced to us, and perpetuated in small, insidious ways. It affects us deeply, and far too often, those of us who have to live with it learn to develop callouses over our souls to protect us from the harm that it does to our self-esteem, our sense of self-worth, and our pride. We do such a good job of covering it up, people think it doesn’t exist anymore. And for a while I even believed it. “We live in a post-racial society.” Except we don’t. And I hate to break it to you for those of you lucky enough not to be a victim of racism or racist beliefs, but it’s still out there. People are trying to make us aware of it so we can do something about it, but I hear others complaining that those scholars and educators and activists who are talking about it are the ones CREATING it. It’s like when you clean up the house, but don’t have time to really do a good job and you throw half of it under the bed – it’s like, “Don’t look under there!” If I don’t see it, it doesn’t exist. But it does.
There was a speech Dr. King gave 55 years ago.
It was called, “The Other America.” And in it, he shared some very prophetic words I’d like to share again with you today. Here’s what he said,
Now the other thing that we’ve got to come to see now that many of us didn’t see too well during the last ten years — that is that racism is still alive in American society. And much more widespread than we realized. And we must see racism for what it is. It is a myth of the superior and the inferior race. It is the false and tragic notion that one particular group, one particular race is responsible for all of the progress, all of the insights in the total flow of history. And the theory that another group or another race is totally depraved, innately impure, and innately inferior.
In the final analysis, racism is evil because its ultimate logic is genocide. Hitler was a sick and tragic man who carried racism to its logical conclusion. He ended up leading a nation to the point of killing about 6 million Jews. This is the tragedy of racism because its ultimate logic is genocide. If one says that I am not good enough to live next door to him; if one says that I am not good enough to eat at a lunch counter, or to have a good, decent job, or to go to school with him merely because of my race, he is saying consciously or unconsciously that I do not deserve to exist.
To use a philosophical analogy here, racism is not based on some empirical generalization; it is based rather on an ontological affirmation. It is not the assertion that certain people are behind culturally or otherwise because of environmental conditions. It is the affirmation that the very being of a people is inferior. And this is the great tragedy of it.
Remember, he wrote this 55 years ago and what haunts me is how relevant these words still are today. Racism is still here. And just like Dr. King said, it’s much more widespread than most of us realized. The idea that one group, one race is responsible for all the good in America and none of the bad is a delusion of the self. And Dr. King was right in another way – the logical conclusion to racism is genocide. Now, we may not be throwing people into camps, but we are causing a much slower death by attrition. By denial. By refusing to make the changes necessary to provide equal opportunity for us all. Racism is still just as insidious as it has ever been. It’s so easy for us to think racism is gone because we had swept it under the rug for so long until someone comes along and gives us all permission to be racist once again.
It happens in such small innocent (and not so innocent) ways.
We don’t even think about it at the time. Like when growing up, people would comment on how good my English was. Why wouldn’t it be? And they said it as if it was a compliment, like I should genuinely be proud of my “good English.” You might think, “Well, that’s not racist. They just didn’t know.” But would you make that same comment to a blonde hair, blue-eyed kid? Or when people assumed I was good at math because, you know, all Asian kids are good at math (admittedly I was). Until my cousin became a deputy in the Sheriff’s department, I was genuinely afraid of the police. I remember taking driving lessons from both my parents and they said, “If you’re ever pulled over for a ticket, put your hands on the wheel, don’t make any sudden moves, and ask for permission before reaching over to get your driver’s license and registration.” I remember asking why and they said, “If you make any sudden moves, they might think you’re going to reach for a gun and could shoot you.” You can believe I never forgot that lesson. I never even put two and two together that this might have anything to do with race until a comedian brought it up in a stand-up skit how his white friends had no fear of the police, and I asked Cassie, “Did you ever get taught that?” And she said, “No” like it had never crossed her mind. Racism doesn’t have to be all white hoods and burning crosses. It can be as subtle as speaking “good English.”
Both as a church and as the people of Christ, we have to be on the alert to our own prejudices.
Whether they are as simple as a school rivalry or as complex as systemic racism in America. We need to dig deeper to insure we are pulling up the roots of racism and not simply trimming back the weeds. As we reflect back on Dr. King’s legacy, I can’t help but echo the words of Paul’s letter to the Galatians when he wrote: 26 So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, 27 for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3) It’s time we started acting like it. Thankfully, that movement has begun. Over the past 20 years, congregations have become more racially diverse, but we have a long way to go. Findings by Baylor University show that while the number of diverse congregations have nearly tripled,[6] we still lag behind the ever-changing demographics of our neighborhood. Closing that gap is important for the church to grow and recent studies bear that out. In a study of 20,000 United Methodist churches, racially diverse churches had higher attendance levels than monochromatic churches over time[7] and as neighborhoods become more diverse, it will be important for our congregations to reach out and embrace those changes. Which is only one reason why BMUC needs to move beyond its ethnic heritage and embrace the wider community. Staying monochromatic doesn’t work and we are very monochromatic.[8] But other than our own survival, it makes sense. Both geographically and Biblically. Reaching out to our community who live within walking distance of our church would reasonably increase attendance since they live so close. And Biblically, it’s hard to ignore that passage from Revelation: “…there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. (Revelation 7:9).” God means for us to live in harmony with one another. It’s how he designed us.
It’s hard to let go of what we are familiar with.
But we have to ask ourselves, is this what was meant to be? Or are we created for something MORE? We could, for many long years, stay safely inside our monochromatic bubble. But would we then be advancing the very gospel we say we believe in? Or would we be playing it safe, afraid of the changes it might bring about, afraid of losing our heritage, when the truth is, we would be preserving our heritage by building on the foundations laid down by those saints who came before. Just as this church redesigned the landscaping of our building to become more inviting and welcoming, so we can redesign the landscape of our church to do the same. Let us continue to be that neighborhood church where everyone is welcome and together we can transform lives in the name of Jesus Christ. And to echo the words of Dr. King one last time, “And when this happens, when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:
Free at last! Free at last!
Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
[1] https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities ; http://fs.ncaa.org/Docs/stats/champs_records_book/Overall.pdf
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_college_admissions_bribery_scandal ; to be fair, there were students who got into UCLA using Rick’s “side door” technique (what most of us call bribery). The vast majority however attended USC.
[3] https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/10/us/bryan-stow-giants-first-pitch-spt-trnd/index.html
[4] https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/6881597/two-shot-candlestick-park-parking-lot-oakland-raiders-san-francisco-49ers-game
[5]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Vancouver_Stanley_Cup_riot#:~:text=The%202011%20Vancouver%20Stanley%20Cup%20riot%20was%20a,Finals%2C%20which%20won%20the%20Stanley%20Cup%20for%20Boston.
[6] https://www.baylor.edu/mediacommunications/news.php?action=story&story=220972
[7] https://www.baylor.edu/mediacommunications/news.php?action=story&story=222716
[8] Our membership in 2021 was 176 and of those 152 were identified as Asian. Only 24 were multiracial or of another ethnic background. By definitions commonly used, a diverse congregation is at least 20% or higher of some other ethnicity.
Escaping the Death Star
Han Solo started to celebrate a little early.
After escaping the Death Star, he felt pretty proud of himself. Sure, he lost the old man, but considering they just escaped from a fortress the size of a small moon (“That’s no moon…that’s a space station”), he thought he had done pretty well. They were even able to escape the clutches of the wing of TIE fighters that were sent after them. The old bucket of bolts held together, and the kid wasn’t half bad. He wasn’t Chewie, but he was definitely good in a fight. Feeling smug, Han says, “You know sometimes I amaze even myself.” But Princess Leia is about to throw a cold dose of reality on Han’s victory. “That doesn’t sound too hard. They let us go. It’s the only explanation for the ease of our escape…It’s not over yet.” Han immediately gets defensive. “It is for ME sister!” But eventually, Han comes to his senses and realizes he can’t leave his friends in a lurch. He has to see the job through, so he and Chewie take the Millennium Falcon back to the Death Star just in time to save his friend Luke from the clutches of Darth Vader. But what if Han decided to pack it in? What if he took the money and ran? What if he didn’t see it through?
There’s always an easy way out.
But will it lead you to the results you desire? For any venture to succeed, whether it’s defeating a galactic empire or learning how to properly cook a rack of ribs takes, among other things, perseverance. While talent, luck, and opportunity are definitely key components, it’s often perseverance that takes us over the edge. One of my favorite examples of this is the work ethic of Kobe Bryant.[1] Kobe is one of the best players ever to have played in the NBA. We can argue at length about who’s at the top of that list – Michael Jordan, LeBron James, etc., but Kobe is always in the conversation. With 5 national championships, 18 All-Star appearances in his 20 year career, a league MVP and two-time finals MVP, his bona fides are impeccable. And if you ever saw Kobe play in person, you’d know it wasn’t just hype or luck. This guy had some serious talent. But it wasn’t talent alone that made Kobe a success. Lots of people have talent who never achieve this level of excellence. What made Kobe truly great beyond his talent and skill is his perseverance. He could easily have coasted to an easy payday with the talent he had, but that talent was honed and perfected by his perseverance which never waned even as his accolades grew. To illustrate, Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh told a story about their experience with the Kobe work ethic. Bosh says, “We’re in Las Vegas and we all come down for team breakfast at the start of the whole training camp. And Kobe comes in with ice on his knees and with his trainers and stuff. He’s got sweat drenched through his workout gear. And I’m like, ‘It’s 8 o’clock in the morning, man. Where… is he coming from?'” Wade continues, “Everybody else just woke up…We’re all yawning, and he’s already three hours and a full workout into his day.”[2]
Putting in the hard work is key to success.
Malcolm Gladwell called this the “10,000-Hour Rule.” He felt that one component that made people outliers other than talent and luck was developing perseverance; that greatness was most often achieved after doing something for at least 10,000 hours and he cited the Beatles and Bill Gates as examples. But we can take this example too literally. To be great at cooking doesn’t just mean randomly cooking food for 10,000 hours. At some point in our lives many of us will have done that without becoming the next Julia Child. It’s really about a dedication to your craft – whatever it is. To reach a level of excellence is more about dedication than time. It’s about a persistence to carry on, even in the face of defeat and even after achieving success.
Persistence is also a key component of our faith.
We are in a dark time right now. And I mean more than simply it being winter and rainy. Our communities, our nation, and even our world are split between those who embrace the truth of the pandemic and those who don’t. With over 5.4 million people dead and nearly 300 million people infected, it’s hard to understand why some people aren’t taking this more seriously, but with cases drastically on the rise, vaccinations become even more important than ever before. Yet, almost everyone I talk to knows someone in their circle of family and friends who refuse to get vaccinated or who won’t wear a mask in a public setting. What’s odd is that Paul seemed to predict just such a time as this.
3 For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. 4 They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. 5 But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.
6 For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time for my departure is near. 7 I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. 8 Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing. – (2 Timothy 4:3-8)
It’s like Paul KNEW!
He knew there’d be a time like this and he’s warning us from across the centuries. Sadly, it’s not Paul having some sort of crystal ball into the future, but instead his understanding of the human condition. The situation we find ourselves in now is not new. It’s one that is repeated over and over again. Which is sad, but true. When it comes to gender equality, there are still people who believe women were created to be subservient to men. When it comes to racial justice, there are still people who fail to understand systemic racism and how it affects us all in insidious ways. When it comes to gender and sexual identity, there are still many, many people who see it as a sin or as a crime or as an abomination against God to see ourselves in a different light. Sadly, how people are reacting to the pandemic isn’t new or different or unique, but part of the greater sickness of our world that fails to follow one simple rule – love one another.
For us to make it through this time together requires our persistence.
It’s tempting to let our guard down. It’s not uncommon to think we’re invulnerable, even in the face of overwhelming evidence that we are not. And it’s so easy for us to just get tired of being vigilant against this pandemic. But now is not the time. It’s been a long two years and while things are definitely getting better, people are still dying by the thousands every day from just the coronavirus by itself. Estimates show nearly 6,000 people are dying worldwide with nearly 2.3 million coming down with the virus every 24 hours – and tragically that number is likely to be vastly underreported. Still, the evidence is clear. Get vaccinated. Get boosted. And be persistent in being precautious. Recent data shows unvaccinated people are still 4 times more likely to be infected by the coronavirus even with the omicron variant. They are 10 times more likely to become hospitalized, 17 times higher to be in the ICU, and 18 times higher to die from it. Wearing a mask, while it can be uncomfortable is important, not only for protecting you, but for protecting those around you. With omicron affecting both vaccinated and unvaccinated people, we need to take these precautions. A bit of being uncomfortable is a small choice to make if it could help save people’s lives. It is just one way for us to love our neighbor.
We can get through this together.
We’ve already adapted in many ways to the pandemic. Virtual meetings, virtual workspaces, creating more space for one another, but as Princess Leia would say, “It’s not over yet.” Let’s continue to take those steps we need to take to help one another out. Let’s do our part to keep our corner of the world safe and by doing so hopefully we will encourage those around us to remain steadfast in what they are doing too. Love of neighbor continues to be the key to success and it’s our perseverance through these difficult times that we see that love come to fruition. This is a choice we make, each and every day to love one another. The freedom to choose is an essential component to our faith and one not to be taken lightly. So will we choose the easy way out? Will we be tempted like Han Solo to take the money and run? Or will we do the hard work needed to achieve our long-term goals? As Paul wrote to the church in Corinth: “24 Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. 25 Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. 26 Therefore I do not run like someone running aimlessly; I do not fight like a boxer beating the air. 27 No, I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.” Stay strong. Stay vigilant. And may God bless you now and always.
[1] To learn about Kobe’s work ethic there are numerous reports of it. Here is just one from ESPN. https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/15179469/kobe-bryant-famous-pregame-shooting-routine
[2] https://www.espn.com/blog/truehoop/miamiheat/post/_/id/21385/heats-dwyane-wade-relishes-final-clashes-with-kobe
Reflections
What makes us Christians?
For those of us who say that we’re Christians, what is it that defines us as a people? Certain things about ourselves are determined for us. Things like our birth parents, our ethnicity, our skin color, the shape of our eyes, even the condition of our bodies to some extent. But other things we choose for ourselves. The people we choose to love and hold onto, our families, our spouses, our friends, and our faith. We choose to be Christian. But if that’s the case there has to be a way for us to determine if we are or not. Jesus made it really simple. Love one another. Not sometimes. All the time. Love one another.
The Pharisees were always trying to trip Jesus up.
They wanted to embarrass him, ridicule him, make him seem small in front of the crowds so people would stop following him, so they were always testing him (when they weren’t trying to kill him). And on this one particular day after finding out that Jesus had silenced their rivals, the Sadducees, they tried to get him with this question, “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” The Law, as you probably know, was the set of rules that had been passed down for generations by the Hebrew people. Maybe this expert was hoping he could get Jesus to make a mistake, but Jesus quickly answered the question, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
It’s kind of funny when you look at Jesus’ answer.
The expert never asked what the second greatest commandment was, but Jesus thought it was important enough to package them together. The truth is how can you truly love God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind if you don’t love your neighbor? John wrote about this in one of his letters to the church. In 1 John 4, he writes, “20 Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. 21 And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.” But that is a lesson far too many people seem to have forgotten. People who claim to be Christian, yet refuse to get vaccinated. People who claim to be Christian, but assault Asian-Americans (and elderly Asian-Americans at that) just because of how they look. People who claim to be Christian and assert that taking away a woman’s freedom to choose is about protecting life, but then feel equally passionate about denying them food, housing, and medical assistance. The hypocrisy of claiming to be Christian and yet clinging onto so many unchristian actions is sickening. And if it’s sickening to us, is it any wonder why there are so many who are abandoning the church?
The problem is people are hiding their own fears and prejudices behind the shield of Christianity.
Claiming it’s their faith that guides them gives them an out for behaving so poorly instead of owning up to the truth behind their claims. A close examination of our faith would reveal those hypocrisies for what they are. But most people on the outside are not familiar enough with our beliefs and our teachings to know the difference, so when someone claims faith as an excuse they think, “Well, who would want to be part of a faith that believes in THAT?” And they would be right. The answer is for us to get out into the world and SHOW our faith to others in tangible, real ways that reshape the conversation. Who we are as believers in Christ should be so obvious that the next time someone claims it’s their “God-given right” to own a gun and shoot someone, it’s easy to say, “No, it’s not.” We have to do a better job of showcasing our faith. Not with bumper stickers or t-shirts, but with genuine compassion for our fellow human beings. As John writes earlier in his letter, “8 Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth (1 John 3:18).” Indeed, this is completely in line with Jesus’ final commandment he gave to the disciples. When he said, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another (John 13:34-35).” It’s by our love that the world will recognize us for who we are.
When we were a very young church, we were a shelter for others in our neighborhood.
Literally, our neighborhood was a consequence of redlining by racist politicians of their day. It’s hard to believe in Berkeley where social justice is a bastion of our community that at one time we were segregated by race in these city streets, but it’s true. The area surrounding our church was specifically for Asian immigrants, particularly Japanese immigrants, and their families, so when the Methodist church decided to reach out to those immigrants, it only made sense to plant a church right in the middle of their community. THAT is the hallmark of Christianity and particularly of Methodism. Our Methodist history grew out of John Wesley’s desire to take Christianity to the people. Others thought he was crazy to go out into the park and into public gatherings to share the good news of Jesus, but he got tired of a church that was insular and isolated. He felt God’s call on his heart to share God’s Word any way that he could. And if that meant taking it to the people, then that’s what he did. He went to where the people were. Did he make mistakes? For sure. Was he always right? Not by a long shot. But his genuine desire to share God’s love formed the foundation for our church and others like it. It’s that belief that inspired people like Frank Herron Smith to reach out to a culture and a people very different from his own and work so hard at cultivating relationships across those barriers. It’s why we dedicated our sanctuary to his legacy, because the love he showed was so genuine we couldn’t help but be inspired by it. And indeed many were so inspired they followed in their footsteps to become pastors and missionaries and servants of God in their own right.
It’s time for us to reach out to our neighborhood and be our own inspiration to others.
Gone are the days of opening up the doors and watching people come in. Gone are the days when the church was the hub of society and the center of our social life. People would come to church to have those water cooler talks they might not otherwise have. You’d come to church to talk to your civic leaders or your teachers or your coach. You’d come to find spouses and dates to the prom and buddies to hang out with. Today that role has been taken by others who do it far better than we do. If not Starbucks then you’ve got Facebook and Instagram and a whole plethora of other options to build culture and connection. And people crave connection. Human beings are created by God to crave being in community. We’re just not exactly picky about what kind of community that is. So the church has to continue to evolve. We have to reach out in new ways and go beyond our doors and out into a world that needs the love of Christ more than ever before.
We have a unique opportunity.
Our church is so fortunate to be situated in the middle of an actual neighborhood. Most churches are located in downtown areas or on busy street corners where there is lots of traffic, and that might seem like a smart move to take advantage of being in a high traffic area, but BMUC is situated in the middle of a community. There are families living all around us. There are schools and houses and people living everyday lives right here where we are. Now it’s up to us to reach out to them, to take advantage of our location, our heritage, and our resources to share the love of Christ with those right here in our neighborhood. We already have this beautifully landscaped front area leading up to the church that’s warm and inviting, and we have this incredible lower parking lot that our entire neighborhood passes by every day. I’m hoping we can utilized these gifts in a way that will bring attention to who we are – not to brag or boast which is certainly unchristian – but to inspire and offer something everyone needs – the love of Jesus Christ.
I have a passion for outreach.
And that’s because I know if the people in the church hadn’t reached out to me, I never would have developed a relationship with Jesus. I would have been just another person who THOUGHT my life was swell. And it was. But my life is so much better and deeper and richer for having Christ in it. And don’t we want that for everybody? Wouldn’t this be a great world if everyone lived by the teachings of Christ? Loving one another and caring for each other? We can’t do that huddled inside the church. We have to invite people in and we have to open up our doors and take church outside the walls. And it has to be more than just movie nights and clean comedy. Our goal isn’t to have them walk into the building. That’s easy. Our goal is to invite them to explore a relationship with God. That’s why we do Cookies and Carols. Everyone loves singing Christmas songs, but we try to make sure we don’t just sing standards, but also hymns and carols we would typically sing in church that talk about Christ. That’s why we do the Easter Egg Hunt. Not just so kids get free candy, but so we can share the story of Jesus in a non-threatening, non-judgmental but fun way (that includes candy). And I’m hoping we can do other things that are both fun and faith-based. This year we’re planning on doing a Blessing of the Animals in our parking lot and invite the community along. Seems like everyone in Berkeley has a pet so why not offer to say a prayer of blessing over them and maybe offer some treats for both humans and pets alike? These are stepping stone ways of introducing faith without being overbearing or judgmental and I hope we expand on those invitational opportunities as we grow together.
I would also love for us to do mission work in the public eye.
Again, not to brag or pat ourselves on the back, but to do two things – one, give others outside the church the chance to participate in what we do on a regular basis and help others. And two, to let people know the church is about more than helping ourselves, but wanting to meet the needs of our community. The more people know us for our acts of love, kindness, and compassion, the more they’ll want to be a part of who we are. I believe people are drawn to that kind of positive energy that comes from helping one another.
Every church in America is worried about finances.
But if we FOCUS on that, if we make THAT the measure of success, we will fall short every time. It is the quickest way to spell failure. Instead, we need to focus on what we have to offer our community that might be different than what they hear about in the news and see on their screens. If they can come to know us by the love we share, if they realize what we stand for instead of what we stand against, it will inspire them to come see for themselves what it is that has transformed our lives. And after all, isn’t that what we are about? Transforming lives through Christ’s love?
The One Millionth Question
100 times.
What would you do if you got asked the same question 100 times? A day. When you’re a cast member at Disneyland it happens. Every. Single. Day. “Where’s the bathroom?” “Where’s Mickey?” “How do I find Space Mountain?” Over and over and over. But no question – and I mean no question – is as annoying as this one. “What time is the 3 o’clock parade?” I kid you not. Not once but many times a day would I get asked that question. It’s hard – I mean REALLY hard – not to get sarcastic at that point. The answer isn’t just obvious, but they said it themselves. “What time is the 3 o’clock parade?” Disney believes how you answer that question will determine how successful you are.
Assume that people aren’t stupid.
That’s a good place to start. Most of the time, what seems like a dumb question is really a cry for help. The person knows they need something, but doesn’t know how to ask for it. If they did, they wouldn’t be asking the question. Usually when people are asking you, “What time is the 3 o’clock parade?” what they’re really asking is, “What time will the parade get HERE?” If you’ve seen a parade at Disneyland, you know the 3 o’clock parade STARTS at 3 o’clock SOMEWHERE, but from one end to the other it can be half an hour later before it gets to where you are sitting. Maybe they want to know if they have time to grab a bite to eat. Or go to the restroom. Or change their kid’s diaper. There’s a lot hidden behind an innocent question and the role of a good Cast Member is to find out what it is people are really asking and help them as best you can. When you can do that, sometimes you can make a person’s whole day brighter. And if you’re really lucky, you can make an impact that lasts their whole life. You wouldn’t believe the heartwarming tales we hear from guests about how Cast Members have made their vacation. There was one family whose little boy lost his teddy bear at the park. They had searched everywhere and no one had been able to find it. They reported it to Lost and Found, left their name and room number, and left the park for the day. Later on, someone found that teddy bear and turned it in. The Cast Members at Lost and Found remembered how sad the little boy was and decided to do something special. They took the bear all over the park, snapping pictures with it and all sorts of different characters. They printed those pictures, put it in a small photo album with a letter from Mickey Mouse saying that his bear had missed him but had been well taken care of and returned the bear with the photo album and letter to the boy that night. That little boy couldn’t stop talking about what a great adventure his bear had and made that vacation so much better.
When people ask questions, often they’re a little bit lost.
Maybe not physically lost, but emotionally, spiritually, intellectually lost. And while it’s easy to dismiss them, when someone is willing to ask a question they are being vulnerable to us in that moment. How we treat them says a lot about us. I can’t help but think about the passage from Matthew 25 about the sheep and the goats. Jesus is telling his disciples a story about a day when everyone will be judged by what they’ve done in life and he starts separating people into two groups, one on his right and one on his left. He says to the group on his right, “‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’” We may not realize it, but how we treat people looking for help says more about us than about them.
Being lost is a horrible feeling.
And like I said, anyone asking a question is lost in their own way. Being in a strange place, even in a strange but friendly place, is filled with anxiety. But if we can be the people God calls us to be in those situations, we can offer the kind of hospitality that will offer a way to those who need it. When I think about that anxiety-filled moment, I think about this story we are about to read – the story of the Prodigal Son. If you’ve been in church for any length of time, you’ve probably heard this story, but even if you haven’t, it’s one that will probably feel familiar if you put yourself in the prodigal son’s shoes. For the life of me, I had no idea what “prodigal” meant. I had to look it up. People use the term “prodigal son” so often, it sounded like a good thing, like someone who returns home triumphantly. But “prodigal” means someone who wastes money extravagantly.[1] “Prodigal” means someone who wastes money extravagantly. So in this story the son who returns home is feeling ashamed, humbled, humiliated and is really not sure how his dad will receive him. But he has failed so miserably, he doesn’t have any choices left and decides to brave coming home. Imagine what that must have felt like, to have to walk into a situation where you’re not sure what will happen, what people will expect, how they will react and feeling awful about it. That’s the story we are sharing today. Put yourselves in the shoes of the Prodigal Son.
11 …“There was a man who had two sons. 12 The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them.
13 “Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. 14 After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. 15 So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. 16 He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.
17 “When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! 18 I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. 19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.’ 20 So he got up and went to his father.
“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.
21 “The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’
22 “But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. 23 Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. 24 For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.” (Luke 15:11-24)
What that must have felt like to be greeted like that!
To be accepted so lovingly and openly, to be made welcome by people whom he thought might treat him badly or with judgment. Instead to have pretty much the exact opposite happen must have been more than he could have hoped for. And that’s the kind of people God calls us to be. God wants us to be people of extravagant hospitality. To use what we have to help others know the love of God.
Disney’s philosophy of extravagant hospitality can be boiled down to two sentences.
Exceed guest expectations. Pay attention to details. Exceed guest expectations. Pay attention to details. It’s in everything they do. From the lightbulbs in the stores, to the smell of vanilla coming out of the vents at the candy shop, to making sure the streets are clean. The key to exceeding expectations comes down to putting yourself in the other person’s shoes, trying to understand what THEY need and what THEY want, and helping them find it. Sometimes that means anticipating their needs even before they walk in the door. For us, that takes a different form. Really good welcome bags for 1st time guests, putting together creative worship that’s also relatable, having a clean worship space, being well-organized…there is so much that goes into creating an atmosphere that helps that person walking in those doors to feel more at ease. Stepping into a church often takes a great amount of courage. Even if you know people, if you’re here searching for answers to your faith questions, it’s intimidating. Creating that atmosphere of extravagant hospitality becomes so important to ease those feelings and make it possible for someone to be open to where God is leading them. Some of you might be wondering why we’re talking so much about Disney in church. Do I want us to BE Disney? No. Do I want us to be LIKE Disney? When it comes to extravagant hospitality, yes. We shouldn’t be afraid of taking the best of what the world has to offer and make it our own. If we’re going to reach beyond these walls to influence the lives of those around us, we have to be innovative and adapt what works in the world and make it work for the church. A church afraid to change is a church that is slowly dying, but created us to bring life into the world. Let us be that light and that life!
[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=prodigal&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8
We Create Happiness
We create happiness.
That is the key to Disney’s success. Eighty percent of businesses fail in the first 18 months.[1] Churches seemingly do better, but after only four years 32% of them shut their doors, too. And those numbers don’t reflect stagnant churches or those that never get off the ground. But Disney just keeps swimming, just keeps swimming. Not only do they seem to keep adding new parks, but the ones they do have continue to bring in visitors by the millions – 157 million to be exact.[2] At the end of the 2018 fiscal year, the theme park division alone made over 20 BILLION dollars thanks to those visitors.[3] When I started as a cast member, the cost to get in the park was just under $18.00. Thirty years later that cost has risen over 800%, and yet there are more people coming to the park every day than there ever were when I was there. How does happiness spell out success for Disney?
It almost didn’t.
Walt’s vision for the company was a singular passionate focus on creating happiness in whatever form that took – movies, television, theme parks. It drove everything he did. And because he was so passionate about it, it led him to be an innovator and creator of new things. The multiplane camera, audio-animatronics, covered trashcans, and a family-friendly amusement park are just a few of those ideas. But after Walt died, the company changed their focus from being a creator of happiness to being a keeper of Walt’s legacy. They thought they were honoring Walt by protecting his company, but what they didn’t realize was his success was due to Walt’s singular drive to keep getting better, to find new ways of making people happy. Disney instead went into turtle mode, more concerned about keeping things the status quo than looking ahead into the future and they almost lost the company. But they found new leadership in another visionary, Michael Eisner, and Walt’s nephew Roy, who understood Walt’s passion, and they were able to reinvigorate the company behind Walt’s singular principle – We Create Happiness.
To be successful, you need to have that singular focus.
Something that drives you. Something you’re passionate about. And something that meets the needs of the world around you. That isn’t a Disney platform for success, but a formula for success we can apply anywhere including the church. Too many churches lose that singular focus and become turtles. They stop having a purpose beyond existence, keeping the status quo. But we can be successful in what we do as a church if we have a purpose that meets the needs of the world around us and we focus on that purpose. What is it the world needs that the church can provide? What is it that people can only get from the church? The answer is the love of Jesus Christ. The fullest expression of Christ’s love lives within the body of Christ and we are that body. We are the hands of feet of Jesus to the world. That’s why our vision is, “Transforming lives through Christ’s love.” As a church we believe that life is better with Christ. We know the love of Christ can sustain us through hard times and can make us into better people. We know living a life modeled after Jesus not only makes the world a better place to live in, but gives us a sense of peace and joy. And that’s why our focus has to be “Transforming lives through Christ’s love.”
13 Once again Jesus went out beside the lake. A large crowd came to him, and he began to teach them. 14 As he walked along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” Jesus told him, and Levi got up and followed him.
15 While Jesus was having dinner at Levi’s house, many tax collectors and sinners were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. 16 When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?”
17 On hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
Jesus went where he was needed.
It was a central aspect of his teaching and it’s what he did in day-to-day life. He sat down with his disciples and taught about it like in the parables of the Lost Sheep and the Lost Coin. He lived it like in this passage where he had dinner with the tax collectors and the sinners. But the Pharisees didn’t get it. They looked down on people they thought weren’t worthy or who weren’t like them and thought Jesus shouldn’t be bothering with “those people.” But Jesus told them, it is for those very people he was here. People who were right with God, who knew God, who felt God’s love didn’t need him. It was for the people who were distant from God who needed him the most. He didn’t wait for them to come to him. He went to them. He came to them where they were, ate with them, got to know them, spent time with them so they would know the love he had for them. He didn’t force them to adapt his ways. Instead, he met them where they were in life. There are tons of stories about this in the Bible. Like the story of Peter seeing the image of Christ who told him not to judge the Gentiles because they didn’t live by Jewish standards. Or the story of Paul who said he became like those around him so that he might win some to the heart of Christ. It was a strategy that worked then and still one that works now.
Walt’s philosophy was simple – find out what the people want.
He once said, “You don’t build it for yourself. You know what the people want and you build it for them.” And the way he did that was by paying attention to others, learning what they wanted, and really listening to their needs. One time when Disneyland was first open, some of his team noticed that people were walking through the flower bed. They were creating their own path and the people around him were saying, “I guess we need to build a fence here to make sure people don’t walk through the flower bed.” Walt said, “No, what we need to do is tear out the flower bed and create a better walkway. People are telling us what they need with their actions. We need to listen to them.” And he did. How well are we listening to our community? How well are we responding to the needs of those around us? I often think of something another Craig said (Craig Groeschel of LifeChurch.tv), “To reach people no one else is reaching, we have to do what no one else is doing.”[4] We have to be innovative and break barriers to reach people with the love of Christ. We have to have extravagant generosity and abundant kindness and patience. We have to meet people where they are at and find ways to show the love of Christ.
We provide something unique.
Something you can’t find anywhere else – the transformative power of Jesus Christ through his love. With a gift so extraordinary, you have to wonder why the whole world isn’t Christian. Maybe it’s because we have lost our focus. Maybe we’ve become too much like a turtle and started worrying more about preserving the church we love instead of transforming the church into what it needs to be. When we keep our heads in the game, when we keep the main thing, the main thing, the rest will take care of itself. At a Disney Institute class on leadership, they told us the key to their success was this focus on purpose – We Create Happiness. As long as they hold on to that, everything else the world measures as a success – money, influence, etc. – will follow. Other companies, other organizations, start worrying about the bottom-line, about how much their stock is worth, about how they stack up to other theme parks and movie studios. But Disney focuses on its one true purpose, on what the world needs and what they can provide – happiness. They know if they do a good job with that, the rest will follow. The same is true for the church. When we start worrying about how much money is in the bank or how many people are in the seats over how many people know the love of Christ, we will certainly lose our focus. But if we keep in the forefront of our minds how best to show the love of Christ, how we can be relevant to this generation and the next, we won’t ever have to worry because our impact will shine.
[1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericwagner/2013/09/12/five-reasons-8-out-of-10-businesses-fail/#755787b95e3c
[2] https://www.wdwinfo.com/news-stories/global-theme-park-attendance-grew-5-in-2018-with-disney-still-on-top/
[3] All park income figures from the WDC report from https://www.themeparkinsider.com/flume/201811/6396/
[4] From Catalyst West many years ago
The Billion Dollar Mistake
Part 1 of our 3 part Disney Series
It is never too late to change.
It is never too late to change. I had a guy come up to me once, a great guy, a salt of the earth kind of guy, a guy who most of us would have called devoted to Christ (I called him devoted to Christ) who said to me, “I’m too old to start reading the Bible.” I’ll tell you the same thing I told him. You’re never too old to start reading the Bible. You are never too old, never too young, never too overweight, never too weak, never too uneducated to start making the changes in your life to become better at whatever it is you need to become better at. I’m not saying things will work out the way you’re hoping for because otherwise I’d be a doctor / lawyer / Olympic gymnast right now. I am saying do not let your doubts and fears get in the way of being the person God created you to be. Do not let your preconceptions and misconceptions create roadblocks for the innovations God is trying to introduce in your life.
You probably noticed I like Disney. Just a little bit.
I admire how they have been able to be successful on just about every level of entertainment. And it’s not luck. They have done so in large part through strategic innovation. Over the next few weeks, we will take a look at how the Walt Disney Company uses strategic innovation to create environments for growth and how we can use those same techniques in our church to help us reach out in love for Jesus. Disney is constantly pushing boundaries on how to do things differently. And it is a willingness to embrace change that has allowed them to be a step or two or ten ahead of everybody else. For the past 10 years, Disney theme parks have nearly triple the attendance and quadruple the revenue of any other theme park.[1] In 2019, Disney had eight of the top ten films worldwide, all of which made more than a billion dollars each.[2] If we could capture the kind of magic people feel when visiting a theme park or seeing a Disney movie, we would have the same problems they do – how to manage too many people wanting to come experience what they have to offer. Wouldn’t that be a nice problem to have?
That doesn’t mean we are going to install a Rapture roller coaster.
Or build a dark ride called Voyage of the Twelve Disciples. But too often, we dismiss what we can learn from others and pass up opportunities that could help us achieve our goal – to bring the love of Christ to the world. Call it pride. Call it ignorance. We don’t always embrace change, especially if it comes from outside these walls. I don’t need to tell you how quickly church as we know it is becoming irrelevant to the outside world. Not the love of Christ. Not the Word of Christ. Not the lessons of Christ. But this institution we call the “church” is becoming irrelevant to the outside world. You only need to look at an attendance sheet to see that truth. As the number of people who are affiliated to a specific church decreases, what we’re finding is people still claim to feel a spiritual need. They’re just not finding it IN THE CHURCH! If we want to achieve our goal to bring the love of Christ to the world, we need to expand our idea of church, redefine what it means to be engaged in the church, and look for ways to be relevant to a world that needs the love of Christ more than ever.
The willingness to change is important.
When something isn’t working, you have to be willing to do what it takes to make it right. That’s one of the ways Disney has been so successful. More than most companies, Disney does the hard work to avoid the pitfalls BEFORE they happen and they do that by adapting quickly to the outside world. That doesn’t change their core beliefs or the purpose of the company. But they find ways to achieve their goals by being willing to change when it’s needed. This isn’t just a Disney philosophy. We see the apostle Paul echoing this same sentiment in his letter to the church at Corinth.
19 Though I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. 20 To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. 21 To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. 22 To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some. 23 I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.
Paul is the model for change.
There’s no one in the Bible who had a more drastic about face in his thinking than Paul and arguably people would say Paul did the most for bringing the love of Christ to others. He felt helping others to know Jesus was so important he would adapt to whatever circumstance he was in. He called it being made “a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible.” He didn’t consider it demeaning or compromising to adapt to his surroundings. In fact he felt it was necessary to meet people where they were. Whether it was with the Jews or with the Gentiles or with anyone he was willing to do whatever was necessary to help them understand what it meant to follow Christ. We need to meet people where they are, not where WE want them to be. And that means changing ourselves and how we relate to the world. Paul says in verse 22, “I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some.” Even Paul knew he wasn’t going to save the entire world by himself. Still, to even help some, he knew he would have to constantly change how he related to people. He couldn’t afford to wait for people to come to him and we need to do the same.
It takes a willingness to change.
For all their meticulous planning, Disney sometimes gets it wrong. That’s what happened with Disney’s billion-dollar mistake or as we call it today, Disney California Adventure. For nearly a decade they couldn’t figure out why people weren’t coming to the new park like they expected. When they did the research, they found out they had really missed the mark. They compromised their standards and cut corners to save money and it cost them dearly. They recycled old carnival rides with fancy paint jobs, but Disney fans saw right through it. The lack of Disney characters in the park made it feel even more un-Disney-like. So the Imagineers who create the magic went back to the drawing board and what they came up with cost nearly twice as much as it did to initially create the entire theme park. $1.1 billion! And it worked. Attendance increased by nearly 4 million visitors per year since the park’s opening, an increase of nearly 50%.[3] But it took a willingness to change to achieve the results they hoped for. They had to admit what they did wasn’t working and then be willing to do something about it.
What are we willing to do for Christ?
Can we be like Disney or better yet, can we follow the example of Paul? Can we be “all things to all people so that by all possible means we might save some?” It’s not easy, but then God has never asked us to do what’s easy. He just promises to be there with us as we do it. It requires sacrifice on our part. It means giving up the way we do things, things we love or things we are familiar with. It means volunteering for a children’s ministry when all your kids are grown and gone. It means reexamining how we give and how we worship and how we “do church.” It means giving things a chance we may not always agree with. The truth is how we do church is changing. The message isn’t but the method is. And the world needs the love of Christ more than ever before. If we are to be effective in reaching people with the love of Jesus we have to change with it.
One of the keys to Disneyland’s ongoing success is their willingness to change.
Walt was never afraid to do something different if it meant creating an environment that would welcome his guests. He is famous for saying, “Disneyland will never be completed, as long as there is imagination left in the world.” And he meant it. He once said, “To keep an operation like Disneyland going, you have to pour it in there. It’s what I call, ‘Keeping the show on the road.’ You have to keep throwing it in; you can’t sit back and let it ride.”[4] The same is true for the church and is true for ourselves. We can’t afford to sit back and let it ride. We need to challenge ourselves to grow and learn and get better at whatever it is we are doing. Whether that’s in the church, outside of the church, with our families, or even ourselves. I hope and pray that we will always have that spirit of being able to embrace change. When we are willing to change, we can change the world. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_amusement_park_rankings and https://www.statista.com/statistics/258810/theme-und-amusement-park-companies-ranked-by-revenue/
[2] https://www.boxofficemojo.com/year/world/2019/ – I included Spider-Man: Far From Home which is technically a Sony film but done in conjunction with Marvel and using Marvel characters. Since the pandemic, revenue has been hard to track and then this past year China has barred most US productions from showing their films in China.
[3] http://www.ocregister.com/articles/attendance-664115-percent-year.html
[4] http://www.ocregister.com/articles/disney-671663-disneyland-imagination.html
The Hamster Wheel
I never understood the hamster wheel.
If I were a hamster, I’d spend all day running around those plastic tube mazes. I was always fascinated by them. When I was a kid, I wanted to own a hamster just so I could build one of those hamster mansions with all those tubes and stuff and watch it run around. My friend Karleen had a couple of hamsters, but they didn’t do much except run on the hamster wheel. Now the hamster ball, I totally get it. You might be in a big plastic ball, but at least you’re going somewhere, but the wheel? I’d be bored to death. It just goes around and around and around. Where’s the sense of accomplishment? Sometimes life seems like a hamster wheel. We just keep going round and round, but then what?
God wants more for us than just the “rat race” of life.
God wants us to experience the full richness of his creation. And that’s why he created the Sabbath. It’s a time to pause and reflect and gives us the opportunity to draw closer to God. Whether that is by prayer and meditation, whether that’s in worship, or whether that’s with family and friends, we can feel the love of God reflected in those times. But do we stop long enough to really enjoy it? If not, we need to. God doesn’t offer the Sabbath as an option, God COMMANDS us to observe it. Even if you’ve never read the Bible, I’m sure you’ve heard of this section of it. It’s perhaps the most famous, often quoted, often referenced part of the Bible. That and John 3:16. This is the Ten Commandments. And within the Ten Commandments we find God calling us to observe the Sabbath. Let us read together from Exodus 20:8-11.
Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it Holy.
We don’t take the idea of Sabbath seriously in our culture.
We work 7 days a week. We are constantly connected to everything and everyone 24/7. We are figuratively running the hamster wheel of life and we never seem to get off to see what’s around us. We are checking our email, our apps, and our messages during dinner, at play, even on vacation. Setting aside a time to explore what God has to offer is something seemingly more and more rare. Back when we lived in Georgia, you couldn’t buy liquor on Sundays. To me that was a shock, not that I ever bought any, but Sunday was liquor-free. When you walked into the store, the alcohol aisle would be blocked off and you couldn’t even get to it. I thought that was pretty neat. I was told there was a time when you couldn’t even go to the store. Literally every place was closed on Sunday in observance of the Sabbath. Somehow, over time, the idea of Sabbath, like the idea of being closed, slowly disappeared. But there it is in black and white (or whatever color it is on your app), “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.” God included it as part of the Ten Commandments; he thought it was that important. Even higher up than “no murder,” “no adultery,” and “no stealing.” It’s hard for us to keep that in perspective, but it was listed before “no murder,” “no adultery,” and “no stealing.” References to the Sabbath occur all throughout the Bible – both Old and New Testament – and some of those passages are even more severe. Exodus 3 says that those who don’t observe the Sabbath should be put to death! Rest or die! Yet, we don’t value the Sabbath.
God built Sabbath into our system.
We are meant to observe it and when we don’t, our lives are the worse for wear. We are meant to rest, to give ourselves time to recuperate. Whether that’s physically, mentally, or emotionally, we need time to become healthy. Take sleep for example. People think they can “power through” and just “catch up” on the weekends, but studies have shown that isn’t how it works for your body or your brain. It’s what experts call “sleep debt.”[1] If you’re not getting the sleep your body needs, you keep accumulating that debt unless you find a way to restore the balance and if you don’t it has bad effects for your body – foggy brain, worsened vision, impaired driving, and trouble remembering just to name a few. Long term it can include obesity, insulin resistance, and even heart disease. There are penalties for not getting the rest we need.
In our heads, I think we know that. It’s getting us to DO something about it that’s tough.
Somehow, I think we’re almost afraid to take the rest we need. We’ve equated productivity with time spent doing something without realizing the benefits of rest and without recognizing the danger of constant motion WITHOUT rest. And even when we do realize we need a time for rejuvenation, we are pressured into skipping it either by ourselves or by others. As one writer put it, we are often applauded for our extra efforts “and rarely rebuked for working too long or hard.”[2] We often look at rest as a luxury instead of as a necessity and in that we are mistaken. God built the world with rest in mind. He wanted us to slow down and take it all in. To take time to process it all instead of simply going mindlessly from one thing to the next. To reflect on what has happened before so we can be better prepared for tomorrow. That includes spending time devoted to Christ. One of the most inspirational books I read was by Andy Stanley called “Choosing to Cheat.” In it, Andy wrote we’re always cheating someone of our time. There is always more work to be done, more things we could do with our families, or more time we could spend in prayer. There’s always MORE for us to do so we are always cheating somebody. We have to stop worrying about that and instead worry about what is the right thing for us to do.
It’s not always easy.
And at times it can really be tough to make those decisions, but I think in the long run when we choose to honor God’s commandment, God will look out for us. Now whether or not you support the politics of his son who currently runs the company, Truett Cathy applied this philosophy of Sabbath to his life and more importantly to his company – Chick-fil-a. When Truett first started Chick-fil-A (then the Dwarf Grill), he decided to stay closed on Sunday to give his employees and himself the opportunity to rest and worship God even though Sunday has traditionally been the busiest day of the week for restaurants. People thought he was crazy to give up on such a lucrative money-making day for his business, but he stuck by his decision; he was that firm in his beliefs. He felt being closed on Sunday said “two important things to people: One, that there must be something special about the way Chick-fil-A people view their spiritual life; and, two, that there must be something special about how Chick-fil-A feels about its people.”[3] Sticking to his beliefs helped his company grow into one of the top 3 restaurant chains in the United States behind only Starbucks and McDonald’s.[4] It probably seemed counter-intuitive to a lot of business people, but Truett felt his faith would steer him in the right direction. When we dare to do the counter-cultural, when we dare to do what’s right instead of what’s profitable, our life is often better for it. While it worked out monetarily for Truett Cathy, there are more ways to measure profitability than with money.
God is asking you to obey.
Our failure to observe the Sabbath is at least partially our failure to trust in God. We’ve placed other things over God even though we know God has our best interests at heart. Even if you regularly come to church, are you fully present when you’re here? Do you use this time to connect to your faith? Give yourself this time to recharge, not only physically but spiritually and open yourself up to where God is leading you. I’ll be taking a form of Sabbath over the next month. Pastoral ministry is a joy, but also very demanding and I know many pastors who have suffered from burnout, depression, anxiety, and stress because they never took the opportunity to give their bodies and their minds time to heal. Our church offers and encourages pastors to take a month away once every four years to explore new ideas for ministry and to grow in both our spiritual and educational walk. Too many pastors fail to take this time away, seeing it as a weakness instead of the strength it is meant to be, but it gives us the opportunity to not only renew and refresh our mind, body, and spirit, but helps us to learn and grow so we can be better and more effective when we return. I hope during this time away you will keep me and my family in prayer as I will for you. I also hope you will find Sabbath rest for your own body, mind, and soul. Take time each week to explore your faith, trust in God, and see how it affects your life. I’m guessing you might find there is more to life than the hamster wheel and instead a world of wonder awaits.
[1] www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-or-fiction-can-you-catch-up-on-sleep
[2]www.lifeway.com/pastors/2014/01/23/pastors-and-sabbath-the-importance-of-rest/
[3] www.chick-fil-a.com/media/PDF/closedonsundaypolicy.pdf
[4] https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/06/19/chick-fil-a-becomes-third-largest-restaurant-chain-us/
A Rainbow of Rom-Com References – Ted Lasso
My new favorite show is Ted Lasso.
Few shows have been so perfect at just the right time. In the middle of a pandemic with a divided country and racism rampant in the headlines, here comes Ted Lasso to offer us a better way. Ted encourages us to have faith, to “be like a goldfish,” to be curious instead of judgmental, and to believe in communism – “rom-communism;” the idea that everything will work out in the end. “Now, it may not work out like you think it will or how you hope it does, but believe me, it will all work out.” It’s just the prescription our souls need during this troubled time – a show filled with hope and optimism as Ted puts it in the “middle of the dark forest.”
At least that’s the way Ted puts it in one of the best episodes of Season Two so far, “Rainbow.” There have been other odes to romantic comedies in previous episodes, the most striking perhaps was the scene stolen from Love, Actually where Mark comes to Juliet’s door with cue cards to express his unrequited love for her. This time round, Phoebe, along with her Uncle Roy Kent and Keeley come up to Secret Santa Bernard’s house for a little visit. But this episode is chock full of comedy references including, but not limited to When Harry Met Sally, Jerry Macguire, Notting Hill, The Princess Bride, and Love, Actually.
Here are the ones I found. I would love to know from you what I missed. There are lots of rom-com tropes you could attribute to pretty much any film in that genre so these are just the ones that are pretty blatant.
Rebecca on Bantr: So reminiscent of You’ve Got Mail, a Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan film (referenced by Ted in the review room with the players) where two people are having a romantic correspondence via email without realizing they already have a relationship in person. But who is it she is having a relationship with? It’s hinted that it’s Ted himself! In an earlier Season 2 episode, Ted even mentions how cool it would be to find his true love on the app. I hope it is.
Ted and Roy at the Kebab Place: “I’ll have what he’s having.” So obviously a direct reference to When Harry Met Sally
Ted and Roy walking down the street: There’s a rapid fire of iconic rom-com quote variants here. When Harry Met Sally – “I’m sorry Roy, but I came here tonight ’cause when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life coaching with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start ASAP.” Jerry Macguire – “You complete our team.” Notting Hill – “I’m also just a coach, standing in front of a boy, asking him if…” (Ted doesn’t finish but you can bet he was going to say something like “he’ll coach with me”). The Princess Bride – “As you wish.” Even the scene is reminiscent of Harry and Sally walking down the tree lined street together.
Older couple in the stands: Again, another When Harry Met Sally reference just like the vignettes that break up scene changes in the movie. But this is a two-fer because they directly reference Titanic also.
Roy leaving the Sports Saturday set: Sleepless in Seattle comes to mind for me when Meg Ryan looks out and sees the Empire State Building and realizes she is about to let a chance at true love pass her by so she leaves her boyfriend and says “I have to go,” just like Roy tells Jeff.
Roy running to Nelson Point: A mix of maybe every rom-com ever? When Harry Met Sally – when Harry runs to find Sally; Notting Hill – when William takes multiple transportation to make it to Anna’s press conference
Higgins waiting for Mrs. Higgins: Another Love, Actually reference. Even the camera filter is the same as the one they used at the airport to show people reuniting
Roy and Ted on the pitch: “You had me at ‘coach.'” – Jerry Macguire. Enough said.
Genie in a Bottle
What would your three wishes be?
If tomorrow you found a genie in a bottle and they granted you three wishes to come true, what would your three wishes be? Now, as anyone knows who has seen Disney’s Aladdin, you can’t wish for more wishes. So barring that, take a moment and imagine what you’d wish for. I’ve vacillated between asking for things that help humanity like “world peace” and things of a more personal nature like a trillion dollars. I don’t know how long world peace would last, but it would be pretty nice. And with a trillion dollars I could end world hunger AND have enough left over for a nice house and a car. At least that was my thinking back when I was 10.
When it comes to prayer, we sometimes have a 10-year old theology.
Do you treat God like a genie in a bottle? Do you pray when you need something and then wait for it to happen? We think there’s something wrong when things don’t go our way. In fact, we get pretty upset about it because we treat God as if we only had three wishes. We pretty much ignore God unless we need something huge as if we’re saving him for the really important stuff. Miraculous healing. Getting that job we’ve been hoping for. Fixing our relationships. The big stuff we feel we can’t do on our own. We don’t come to God with silly things like being a better spouse or guidance on being a good parent. We can take care of that ourselves. Just go to Barnes and Noble and buy a book on it. We don’t need God for those things. So when we come to God with our big requests, we kind of expect him to answer. After all, isn’t that what he’s there for?
Some people take this to an extreme.
I had a friend who believed God would give you ANYTHING you wanted if you just had enough faith. Seriously. Anything. I questioned her about this and asked, “So if I wanted a Ferrari, God would just give it to me? Like POOF, here’s a Ferrari?” And in all seriousness she said yes. That if I had enough faith and just prayed over and over and over again for a Ferrari then God would give me a Ferrari. I must not have prayed hard enough. Or had enough faith because I still don’t have a Ferrari. Not that I want one now. The insurance alone wouldn’t be worth it. But I must have done something wrong since that prayer never came to pass. In her mind, God’s ability to grant wishes wasn’t limited by number or size. It was all based on your faith. If you didn’t have enough, you didn’t get it.
These are just a couple of the bad examples of prayer theology out there in the world today.
And the Bible doesn’t do a lot to clear those things up. Not unless you spend time actually studying it. Sometimes I cringe when I read certain passages like the one from Luke (Luke 11:5-8). It seems as if Jesus himself is saying that if you pester God long enough, he’ll eventually give you anything you want. Forget about love, God responds best to “shameless audacity!” Right? Isn’t that what it’s saying? But that isn’t what it’s saying. Jesus is trying to tell us to put our trust in God. We should be bold in our prayers instead of timid.[1] We should pray with persistence not because God will give in, but because our persistence is evidence of our trust in God. I know it seems like a cop out, but God doesn’t always answer our prayers in our time or in our way. But God is not bothered by our persistence. The other message Luke offers us is when we pray in our need especially in our need to help others or to act in ways that honor God, God will respond. Again, it may not be in the way we want or expect, but God is honored by the focus and meaning of our prayer. You notice in Jesus’ example it wasn’t about a guy praying to get a Ferrari. It was about a neighbor wanting to offer hospitality to a friend who has just returned on a journey. Now you can question why that friend came to your door in the middle of the night in the first place, but probably because that friend is also in need. And that changes the dynamic of the story. If you are knocking on God’s door to do God’s will, God will respond. If you’re bugging God for your own selfish ends, you’ll probably get a different response. Take a look at this passage from our reading today.
5 “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 6 But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. 7 And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. 8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
Prayer is about the heart.
Prayer is not about “what.” Prayer is about “why.” Prayer is not about “what,” it is about “why.” Look what Jesus tells his disciples, “…for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.” He doesn’t require you to pray to transmit your needs. He already knows them! Prayer is about something different. Prayer is about your earnestness to be in relation with God. Prayer is about trusting in God. It doesn’t matter what words you use or how many words you can cram into one sentence. Do you remember the story about the tax collector and the Pharisee who both go to the temple and pray? And the Pharisee goes on and on about what a good follower he is and he demeans the tax collector right in front of him. And the tax collector has a very simple, short prayer. “God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” That was it. And that was the prayer God was hoping for. Humble, sincere, trusting. Humble, sincere, trusting. That’s what matters to God.
The most effective prayers I’ve ever offered were like this.
The most effective prayers in my life came not from my desire for something, but from my humility, sincerity, and willingness to trust in God. And I actually did this once as Jesus described. I actually went into my room, closed the door, and just laid there on the floor in prayer. We were living in Georgia and my District Superintendent just called me to let me know that he had found a place for me to serve. The church I was at, Roswell UMC, was downsizing staff and as the newest member I was first on the list. So my DS was looking for a place for me to go and found a church in Covington, GA. Covington was about 2 hours away from our home and more with traffic and in Atlanta there is always traffic. Plus, they had a parsonage so we’d have to live in town and Cassie would have had to commute to work, meaning she would have to leave the house at about 5am each morning and return about 8pm each night every day. And at the time our girls were very young. Covington is also racially divided and I have to be honest I was a little worried about that. I was also worried a bit about the schools. It just seemed to be the wrong fit for our family and for the gifts and talents God had given me. So I prayed about it. I literally went into my closet (my closet was actually big enough for me to lay down inside of it), closed the door, and just prayed. I didn’t offer God a wish list. Instead I just said, “God, I can’t believe this is the place you want me to serve. It just doesn’t seem to be where my gifts would best be used, but if this is your will, I’ll make it work. But if it’s not, then please open a door and I will step through it.” After praying like that for a while, I got up and went into my office where I was working on some paperwork and in less than an hour I got an email from Rev. Mariellen Yoshino asking how I was doing. We had met at one of the Japanese Clergy Caucus meetings and she had recently been appointed to be the DS out here in our Cal-Nevada Conference. So I told her about my situation and that I was praying about it and almost immediately I got a response asking me to hold on for a while. About an hour later, I got a phone call from my DS saying that an amazing opportunity opened up in California and the Bishop has given permission for me to talk to the DS out there about it. He even said, “You know Craig, you don’t have to accept the position since it is out of conference, but we can’t offer you anything like this.” After I got off the phone with him, I talked to Rev. Mariellen who said she’d like me to come out to California and meet with a church she had in mind. So I did. Up until that point where I had laid down in prayer and just turned it over to God, everything had been going wrong. There was even more to the story than just that, but nothing seemed to be going our way. Then in one swift movement, suddenly new opportunities blossomed right in front of us. To me it was an answered prayer in the most profound and stunning way.
There have been other moments like that, too.
Times when I was humble enough to know I knew nothing. Times when I was actually able to lay down my fears and anxieties at God’s feet and trust in his judgment. Only in those moments was I really open to his movement. Only then did I hear God speak into my life in such a profound way. And I can tell you for sure that in each instance I did not know what to expect. God’s answer was completely different than what I would have picked for myself. And yet each answer was amazing. I don’t know how God will answer your prayers. I don’t know that you’ll even know when he does. I am sure there are many instances where God has impacted my life and at least for the moment I haven’t realized it. But I do know God is not a genie in a bottle waiting to answer your every need. I know God doesn’t base his answer to prayer on how hard you pray or how often you pray or how persistent you pray. I know God doesn’t promise to give you everything you want, but instead will be there for you in your need. So I encourage you to pray strongly and boldly and with your full trust in God. And know that God is listening. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
[1] https://bible.org/seriespage/9-persistent-friend-luke-115-13
Craig's Corner 