Happy Good Friday?

I really do love this time of year. As the weather begins to warm up and hues of green start to return to the world I always get a boost of encouragement to get work done. It may be when I'm most productive. Which is good news for me, since this week is also Holy Week, the final days of Lent, which, I think, is the busiest time of year for clergy. That busyness may be a little self-induced, but for many this is a time of intense spiritual discipline.

This year we'll be worshiping on both Thursday and Friday leading up to Easter, and we're going to worship in new ways. Part of that means that I am building a cross for our Good Friday service. Something has struck me as I've worked in planning and building such an object. In some sense this is a spiritual discipline, connecting to the labor of love that God pours out on creation, both in the way of a "carpenter" and in the significance of God's action on the cross.
However, it is also very much an odd juxtaposition of emotions, much in the same way that Good Friday is.
As a "spiritual but not religious" friend of mine once asked:

"Happy Good Friday?"

Happy Good Friday about sums it up. As I make the first cuts in the wood beams, I am reminded that this is both a symbol of God's love for the universe and also an instrument of torture and death. Those are two realities that don't fit together. They never were really meant to. When I think about what happened on Friday, on Golgotha two thousand years ago, I realize that the cross isn't God making good out of a bad situation. It is the goodness of God destroying the futility of evil. Jesus' crucifixion was an attempt to do away with something holy, but what is revealed on Sunday is that in the worst of human actions, evil sows seeds against itself. At just the moment when the prosecution rests its case against humanity and all possible hope seems lost, the judge throws the book at the prosecution.

As I put the final nails in to secure the beams, I do so with the realization that I have just created a replica of something on which real people have bled and died. I do so with the realization that what I have now built is the same thing that many have built out of reverence and many for evil. I do so knowing the very real human cost that such a thing represents, and millions of people who were and are "crucified" in some form or another in our world. Ultimately I do so with the knowledge that this cross represents the power of God over the evil in our world. Over hatred and violence, oppression and demonization. Over the power of sin and death.

"The power of God over the power of sin and death."

On Friday we will gather at the foot of this cross and lay our burdens down before it. Because, in Jesus, God has taken all of the worst things we could possibly come up with and subverted them, undermined our worst intentions to make something good and whole and beautiful.
On Friday we will morn and we will repent.
But what makes Friday "Good" is that the story does not end on the cross, or in the tomb. What makes Friday "Good" is that Sunday comes, a new day dawns for all of creation and we hear the first words of the day: "Do not be afraid."

The Things God is Terrible At (And Why That’s Good News for Us.) Part 1

As I was listening to the sermon in church the other Sunday, I was moved by the absolute truth of the mercy and grace that God gives. The scripture came from the Gospel of Matthew 13:1-8, 18-23; The parable of the sower. This parable is not new to me and the connection between unbelievable grace and God was certainly not new. But this is sort of how the sermon went and where my thoughts have gone:

The parable of the sower has a farmer sowing seed in a field. Some of the seed falls onto good soil, some falls onto rocky soil, some falls onto the path, and some more falls into some thorny bushes.  

Once the seeds mature and start to grow, the type of soil they’ve been sown into affects their growth. 

The seed on the path is immediately eaten by birds. 

The seed in the thorny bushes grows a little but is choked out by the thorns. 

The seed in the rocky soil begins to grow but the roots can’t dig in and they die. 

The seed in the good soil grows up good and strong. 

The thing about parables is that they always have some sort of hook. There is something not quite right in a parable and that is meant to challenge the listener’s outlook. In the Gospels, the disciples are often left scratching their heads at the parables Jesus tells. However, that does not mean that their content was completely foreign to the audience, just the connection between the story and God. 

So in this parable, the disciples convince Jesus to reveal to them the true meaning behind it.

Jesus explains that God is the farmer sowing seeds.

The plants are people who hear the message about God.

The types of soil are their faith.

But the thing to note about this parable is not really about the fate of the seeds. 

Anybody who has done any farming would automatically know that seeds sown into anything but good soil don’t really have great odds at making it as a fully grown plant.

That fact comes as no surprise to the people to whom Jesus is speaking. 

What does come off as a bit shocking is the farmer’s actions.

This is our hook.

This is where we learn something about the nature of God.

This is where the audience discovers that God is a terrible farmer.

Now wait a minute.

That can’t be right.

Isn’t there some philosophical quandary about God and a rock so large that God couldn’t lift it, to help us demonstrate that the only real limits on God are the ones God chooses?

So how can God be terrible at something?

Well lets think about this parable.

Like I said, ANYONE who has ever farmed before would know not to throw seeds willy-nilly.

And here we inexplicably find God seeming to care for his seed like a happily careless child.

God doesn’t really seem concerned with growth models, harvest quotas, or the statistical advantages of the good soil.

God just throws caution to the wind and sows seed into every patch of soil around.

Now that is absolutely crazy.

That makes no sense.

Those numbers don’t add up, those odds are terrible.

Farmer God wastes energy, time and resources caring for seeds that have almost no chance of maturing.

And here’s the absolutely wonderful thing about God.

God isn’t us.

God doesn’t care about numbers,

or quotas

or growth models

or rates of efficiency.

God cares about creation,

for the chance of life,

for the beauty in overcoming the odds,

for the least of these.

When it comes to giving people a chance to be in relationship with God, God throws caution to the wind and sows like a careless child.

God doesn’t care where you’re coming from, what circumstances you’ve grown up in, the pressures of the world that surround you.

God loves you where you are.

God gives you a chance to grow.

God wants you to grow and mature.

God wants everyone to grow.

But here’s the thing.

Not everybody is in good soil.

Not everybody is ready.

But God knows that without the chance, 

Without that seed being sown in the rocky soil, 

No one would grow there anyway. 

So this was the central point of the sermon: What if we gave out the kind of grace that God gives out?

What if we threw caution to the wind and stopped caring about the right people to come along in order for us to show God’s grace and love?

What if we looked at everybody as a child of God,

A God that gives grace.

A God that sows seed like a child.

This all got me thinking, what else is God really terrible at?

Because odds are,

Whatever God is terrible at,

Is really good for us.

Gifts

Almost every night we do an evening worship session with our groups to give them a space to digest what they experienced during the day and relate those experiences to their faith. Tonight we asked the groups about gifts, and how their service relates. My coworker said something that I found to be very thought provoking. She said, “You guys have come here for a week and your experiences will last a week. But what you are doing, Ken will be living in that house for the next 3, 5, 10 years. The work you are doing in this week will be with him for a long time.” In other words, the actions that we carry out, the decisions we make, or even the gifts we give, may only last with us a short time, or in some memory. However, those same actions will continue to have an effect on someone else for a very long time. 

As I think about this revelation it reminds me of worship last night, where we talked about how God asks us to be a light and to do good. One of the questions we asked the youth was, why? Why does obeying that matter? Why should we do good things? If my coworker is right, it is because the effects of our actions last far longer than we may anticipate. God is asking us to act out of love because the choices we make will stick with others for a while and therefore the effects of our actions become magnified.

When folks come into the city and take pictures of all the abandoned buildings and then call them the “face” of Detroit, that has a lasting impact on the image of the city. When shows like Detroit 187 go on the air and claim to be the “real” Detroit, that has a lasting impact on the “safety” of the city. (By the way I know some folks who walked by one of the “murder” scenes from the show, all while being perfectly safe and enjoying their day in the real Detroit). When people talk about the “race riots” of the 60's and forget the race riots of the 40's, that has a lasting impact on the race relations in the city. 

When we go to work in the neighborhood and mow a few abandoned lots, that has a lasting impact on the safety of the neighborhood. When we are able to make a formerly unlivable house, livable again, that has a lasting impact on the quality of life in the neighborhood. When we till the land and successfully grow a crop of corn, that has a lasting impact on the hunger of the neighborhood. Because we do all of these things, instead of what so many other people do, we have a lasting impact on the faith of the neighborhood. It never ceases to amaze me when people see what our groups are doing and then come out and help. It also never ceases to amaze me, when I have a conversation with someone who stops by in the neighborhood and tells me that this work has restored their faith in God and what small acts of kindness are capable of doing.

We are to be lights in the world and do good, because a small act of kindness can go a long way, but so too can a small act of selfishness. That is why God is so good, because God allows us to minister to one another through love. Every group that comes in takes away the knowledge that they gave something of themselves, and that something will continue to grow and spread for a very long time.