Last Shot Faith

Someone had to take the shot. Someone who believed had to take the shot. Someone who believed in what he could not yet see had to take the shot.

The game was tied at 74. Now, with seconds remaining, underdog Villanova had the ball and a chance to win a national championship in the NCAA Division 1 Men’s Basketball Tournament.  Junior Kris Jenkins inbounded the ball to one of the team’s stars and its leader, Ryan Arcidiacono, who quickly advanced the ball toward ‘Nova’s basket. The players were about to execute the designed play called “Nova”. Arcidiacono was the first option to try to make the winning play. Jenkins was the third option.

Someone had to take the shot. Arcidiacono could have attempted the shot, and if he made it, he would be a hero among the ‘Nova faithful for life and beyond.  But then he did something that defies the thinking of most elite athletes: he passed the ball.  What motivated “The Pass” was the shouting of Jenkins behind him asking for the ball, and the belief, the faith of Arcidiacono that Jenkins could; that Jenkins would make the shot.

The Thursday before the national championship game the team’s chaplain, the Rev. Robert Hagan, Father Rob, taught the team about Maundy Thursday by having them wash each other’s feet at the pre-game meal.  In modeling the servant lesson of Jesus to his disciples, Father Rob was teaching everyone about the fact that each team member was equal; they all served each other and a greater, common cause.  On the Easter Sunday before the final game Father Rob preached about the miracle of the Resurrection, telling the team that “faith is believing before you see, when your ship is on the horizon and you don’t know what’s on the other side.”

And now, full of faith in his teammate, Arcidiacono passed the ball to Jenkins, who was full of faith that what he could not yet see was real.  Someone who believed in what he could not yet see took the shot that someone had to take. Ball in flight, clock ticking to zero, swish. Faith becomes sight. Are you willing to take “The Shot”? Believe.

(Source: Luke Winn in Sports Illustrated, April 11, 2016)

Show Them Your Wounds

Wounds are evidence of life, or at least of having lived, and, at best, of being alive.

The evidence that Jesus’ friend, Thomas, demanded to see before he would believe his friends story that they had seen the Risen Jesus was the wounds on Jesus’ body left there from the crucifixion.  Thomas, we can infer, had seen Jesus die. Really die. Now his closest friends were telling his that this very man he saw die was really alive. “Show me the wounds and I will believe you,” said Thomas.

I was speaking with someone going through a difficult rehab from recent surgery about his own hard road. That led our conversation to reflecting on the other people we both knew who were suffering, some of them terminal diseases. What is the possible purpose God has in mind for allowing such suffering?  People much smarter than me have struggled with that question, and some of them have come up with some good answers, some not so satisfying. Most often my answer to people who are suffering is that I do not understand it myself, but I know that God promises to be with us in both joy and suffering. It is not God’s choice that God’s children suffer. God bears it with us.

You have wounds too, right? You are suffering right now, and you have doubt and fear. And if that is not true for your right now, it has been and it will be. None are exempt. Even Jesus. And if anyone never deserved to suffer it was this man, who was really perfect.  So how did Jesus use his wounds, the evidence that he had died, in some redemptive way? He used his wounds to prove he is alive. Thomas believed not because he saw his friend’s face, or heard his voice, but because he saw the wounds on the body of the man he had seen die. The wounds were evidence that the living man was the same man as the one Thomas had seen die. The wounds were evidence of new life.

It can be hard for us to show our wounds.  We prefer to hide our wounds. But God can use our wounds too, to show our families, our friends, our co-workers, what faith looks like.  It is the testimony  of a person assailed by life who  still can say, “God is holding my hand through it all” that leads the seeking to see Jesus is still alive. With you.  

A Room With a View

Today we remember the waiting of the truly dead Jesus. The waiting for the spark of new life to be delivered at some point before the tomorrow’s dawn.  I am imagining the moment right after Jesus arose, still in the tomb, and the first ray of light breaks through the just-beginning-to-roll-away stone. Perhaps this is what the view from this borrowed room gave Jesus upon waking from the one night he was dead and waiting for the light. Perhaps this was his thought about the blessed duty which awaited him:

“The birds are singing their feathers off,

the grass is on its way to being

greener, so green it’s almost blinding,

and the sun has lit the top of the hill

in front of the hill where the sun is rising.

You see, I live in an underworld,

It’s beautiful and strange…

One of my duties is to speak

of joy-in the face of everything

against it. I’m speaking of it now.” (Excerpt from Sunrise in the Underworld by Maurice Manning, Christian Century, January 6, 2016)

God, bless the rest of the saints whose graves Jesus sanctified with his death; give certain hope to the living that all of your saints, even I, will one day receive that spark of new life right before the dawn, when, as we awaken to the sound of the trumpet, we shall hear such birds and see such grass and hear such joy from His still speaking voice. Amen.

The Journey of Discovering God's Plan

Marco Rubio, a United States Senator from Florida, was in the eyes of most political experts destined to become the next great Republican President. He had all of the attributes: young, handsome, good family, clean past, compelling “bootstraps” story, eloquent. How could he fail? But then he did. And what he said the primary election night when he got walloped in his own state of Florida reveals the depth of faith one needs to pursue any worthwhile goal.  Senator Rubio believed, up until that night, that it was God’s will that Marco Rubio should be the next President of the United States of America.  And in this I am sure he is not alone. Several, but not all, of the other candidates for the highest elected office in the world, I am sure, also believe it is God’s will that they will be the chosen one. Faith that we are doing God’s will keeps us focused in the face of the most daunting of the challenges and personal attacks that comes with pursuing anything worth accomplishing in life and for God.

Which leads me to the question of the day: what do we do when we find out we misunderstood God’s will?  Senator Rubio’s remarks, offered as he suspended his campaign, offer a lesson in understanding the will of God for our lives. He said: “…it is not God's plan that I be president in 2016 or maybe ever….” Then he goes on to offer this mini-sermon: “"He has a plan for every one of our lives. Everything that comes from God is good. God is perfect. God makes no mistakes. And He has things planned for all of us."

When I watched Sen. Rubio give this speech, my mind went to how it would be for him going to bed that night. Would he be angry with God? Would he cry the tears that come with the realization that God’s will and his own will were not one and the same? The lesson is that sometimes we think we are doing God’s good and perfect will and then, one night, we get the news: we were wrong. God has a different plan. Not a Plan B, because God only has Plan A. We need Plan B (or C) because God reveals his will in his own time and sometimes in startling ways, only after we have spent most of our lives pursuing our Plan A because we thought it was God’s Plan A as well.

God does have a plan for Sen. Rubio’s life.  He will now engage in the struggle of aligning his will with God’s will. When you are disappointed and frustrated with your life, wondering how you could have so misunderstood God, you will do well to recall Marco’s maxim:  “God is good. God is perfect. God makes no mistakes. God has a plan.”

"Seeing the Real Boo"

Remember “To Kill a Mockingbird”? You probably read it (or were supposed to read it) in high school. I know I read it, and I remembered it was about a lawyer who defended a wrongly-accused African-American man in the Deep South. What I had forgotten was the real point of the story: seeing the real Boo. The last page had for me a “take-your-breath” away moment. The last paragraphs provide a stunning summary  of why human beings are so bad at making peace and so good at creating strife. It explains why successful political speech still begins by painting others as a Boo we need to fear. It offers a formula for peace among nations and neighborhoods.

Boo was the reclusive neighbor of Jem and his little sister, Scout. Jem, Scout and their friend, Dill, spend their summers trying to get Boo to come out of his house. They are so afraid of Boo that they fear just walking by the place, and to go up to his door is seen as walking into the doorway of death.  In the end, of course, we discover the truth about Boo, that he was the protector of the children, saving them from death. Boo is spared from the reach of the law because, after all, “it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.”

Scout view of Boo changes when she walks Boo home after he saves her, and as she turns to leave, she sees the world (their neighborhood) from Boo’s point of view. Now she begins to understand who Boo really is.

The novel concludes as Atticus is putting young Scout to bed the night of the violent attack upon her, and he reads her a story to help her sleep.  It’s a story about a “three-fingered boy” who his friends accused of “messin’ up their clubhouse and throwin’ ink all over it an’…” Scout explains the meaning of the story to her father: “An’ they chased him ‘n’ never could catch him ‘cause they didn’t know what he looked like, an’ Atticus, when they finally saw him, why he hadn’t done any of those things…Atticus, he was real nice….”  To which Atticus replies, “Most people are, Scout, when you finally see them.”

We all have a “Boo” we fear, as neighbors and nations. What will it take for us to see the world from our “Boo’s” point of view?  Why do we insist on killing mockingbirds?

The Oscars, "Spotlight" and the Church

Don’t fill out your Oscars ballot based on my movie reviews. My taste in movies is not reflective of the Hollywood voters. Still, I enjoy movies and I try to watch as many of the nominated movies each year so I can compare my aesthetic values to those of whose lives are devoted to the art.  The movie that made me think the most; the one that I had to sit up for an extra hour digesting, was “Spotlight.”

If I was president of a seminary I would make “Spotlight” mandatory viewing for all of the students. I would encourage anyone who serves a church in any capacity, as a layperson or a professional, to watch the film and consider the message. The message I saw played out on the screen is this: I trust that Jesus knew what he was doing when he left the church to be run by human beings, but I wonder if there was another option if he would have taken it.  People who are called to serve the church, to be representatives of the Church (that is, of Christ; of God) must be constantly aware of the fact that their failure to be faithful to God can fatally harm the faith of the very people they are entrusted to serve.  When the servants of the Church fail they bring judgment on themselves because they bring judgment on God.  In my mind this is why James wrote, “Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.” (James 3:1)

I do not stand in judgment of the Roman Catholic Church or the priests whose behavior is revealed in “Spotlight.” God does.  But the real lesson of the movie for the rest of us is that God sometimes needs to use people who are “lapsed” in their faith to reveal the horrible things done in the name of protecting “religion” or “church.”  Does God forgive the priests who abused children? Yes. Does God forgive those who covered up the abuse because “the church does many good things for this town”? Yes. But, that does not mean that they do not suffer the consequences of a more strict judgment.  God sometimes give the spotlight to those “outside” the church to reform the inside.

Everyone who seeks to serve the Church of Jesus Christ will fail in some way because we are all human.  But the judgment will be harsh when the spotlight shines. We have been warned. And for that reason,  my “Oscar” for the best religious film of 2015 goes to “Spotlight.” 

"My Messy Room"

The junk is piled high and wide. I am in the midst of a forced cleaning of our “furnace room” because we need a new furnace (have you priced furnaces lately?). So far I have managed to move the junk about 20 feet, from the furnace room to the door in my home study. Up until recently, of course, that junk was precious to me. An old dehumidifier I was sure would miraculously heal itself the next time I plugged it in; basketball coaching shoes which I kept “just in case” I started coaching again; and enough assorted books and magazines to start a store. I am trying to work up the strength of mind and will to take it all to the town dump, but excuses abound, like “try writing about it and perhaps it will make the mess disappear.”

Kathleen Norris wrote an amazing book titled Amazing Grace, A Vocabulary of Faith containing short entries about faith and life.  In her  entry on “Repentance” she tells the story of a little boy who wrote a poem about how angry he gets when his father yells at him. In his poem his response, he imagines, is to “throw his sister down the stairs, and then to wreck his room, and finally to wreck the whole town.” The conclusion reads, “ ‘Then I sit in my messy house and say to myself I shouldn’t have done all that.”

It is hard to clean up the messes in our lives. Sometimes they come because we ignored the growing monster in the other room, allowing hurts and wounds to pile up because it was easier to throw them in the furnace room that throw them out when we knew we should have done so. Sometimes we allow our emotions to ruin not only our lives but our families, our homes and even “the whole town.”  It isn’t hard to create a messy room, but it is really hard to clean it up, as any mother of a teenager or wife of a “rat packer” like me can attest.  But, I know that once I get the junk out the door, into my trunk and delivered to the dump I will feel like a man set free.  The little boy, in his confessional poem, was taking the first step toward the healing that repentance offers in the great tradition of “Have mercy on me, O God….” (Psalm 51)

 This first weekend of Lent find a time to gather with others and begin cleaning up the mess we all carry around inside our lives, so that by Easter you have plenty of room for the sheer joy of the Resurrection to rise within you. Norris concludes,  “If the house is messy…why not make it into a place where God might wish to dwell.”  Time to clean.