Sin = Self Destructive Stuff

Ever since I graduated from seminary, and thought about theological things in a serious way, I have sort of wrestled with the concept of "sin". Not the actual actions of sin - those of course, I struggle with like everybody else, but rather, what "sin" itself means. What is "sin" in actuality?

The list of theological thinkers on the subject of sin are numerous. The Greek New Testament notion of sin came from a word associated with archery target practice. HAMARTIA is the Greek word Paul uses for sin. HAMARTIA means, "to fall short." Sin is falling short. Luther viewed sin as a sort of; "beard that grows on my face. It is an inimical part of my being. Every time I try to extirpate my sin, it grows back." Paul Tillich, from an opposite camp of reason, thought of sin as "separation - from God, separation from others and separation from self." These are all good thoughts, but for whatever reason, they have not been particularly helpful for me, personally, as a way of understanding sin. I still wonder, what is "sin?" What does it mean - on a basic level.

Here's my latest big idea about what "sin" is. It has been very helpful to me, personally. Sin, simply put, is anything that we do to our selves (or others) that is destructive. Sin = Self Destructive Stuff. And what is it that we do to ourselves that is self destructive? Here's my short list, what's yours?

* Gossip (hurts our relationship with others, and therefore hurts us)

* Overeating/Drinking (obviously self destructive)

* Insecurities (brutal on our "sense of self")

* Being Negative (Negativity breeds negativity - so it burdens the self)

* Pride (puts too much pressure on self, self folds under pressure)

My list continues, but for the eyes of my blog-friends, I will spare you the details.

For whatever reason, this formulation is really helpful to me. So, for example, when Jesus says to the woman who was caught in adultery, "go and sin no more," he's really saying, "go and be self-destructive no more." When Jesus goes to Nicodemus' house, the house of a "sinner". And he says, "Today, salvation has come into this house", Jesus is really saying, "Today, I have helped Nicodemus become less self-destructive in his life." When we think about the fact that Jesus died for our sins, what we are really saying is, "Jesus died for our self-destructive tendencies." He literally died in order to stop the endless tide of our self-destructive natures.

Tomorrow morning, I am going to wake up and start my day by doing as few "self destructive" things as possible. I will keep you posted about my progress....:-)

All for Now,

GB

Jack Welch and the Apostle Paul

When you think about the Apostle Paul - if you think about him at all - what are the first four images that come to your mind? For me, the answer is the image of a man who is on a long, hot walk, in the middle of the desert, being struck by lightning from out of nowhere. On that lonely road, Paul is brought to his knees before God on the road to Damascus. For me, the answer is also a person who taught and preached his whole life in public meeting spaces, town halls, and synogogues, an orator of soaring proportions. Another image I have is of a man who had the power to both heal and to cast out demons, and who is constantly being asked by his audiences to do both. Paul was a prophet - "a truth teller" - who didn't mince words or tell people what they wanted to hear, but rather, what they most needed to hear.

However, in my daily devotional time with the Bible this week, I made another profound discovery about the Apostle Paul - he was also a great administrator. One might even say that Paul was first and foremost a CEO!

The Apostle Paul was more like a Jack Welch, a Carly Fiorini, a Meg Whitman, a Steve Jobbs and a Bill Gates, than we really think about or realize. Paul was good at raising money, distributing collections, starting churches, developing young pastors (leaders), and overseeing management structures from afar. Paul's churches were like separate franchises, opened in different countries, across the entire Mediterranean world. These are all of the hallmarks of a great administrator.

One of the best examples of a Bible text that lends evidence to Paul's administrative ability is the last chapter of 1 Corinthians. Remember, 1 Corinthians? 1 Corinthians is the book where Paul writes one of the most famous love poems about God in the history of love poetry: "If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal..." (1 Cor. 13:1). It's a remarkable love poem. But then, flip three chapters forward, and you begin to hear the CEO Apostle Paul that stumbled upon in my devotional study this week: "Now, about the collection for God's people...on the first day of the week, each one of you should set aside a sum of money in keeping with his income, saving it up, so that when I come, no collections will have to be made." (1 Cor. 16:1-4). These are very specific managerial instructions. Paul wants things to run smoothly with relation to money. He is giving administrative instructions to his church leaders, so that the "show of money" doesn't become the center of attention when he is in town.

Why is this new discovery so exciting to me? Partly because I have come to realize that great church leadership must include the ability to preach, teach, counsel, and minister to. However it also requires the ability to administer, to manage, to direct, and oversee. This discovery also helps me to see Paul as a more nuanced person than I once believed. Paul is not the one dimensional preacher that Sunday School teachers would like him to be. Paul was savvy, strategic, cunning and purposeful. This discovery also helps to explain a lot of Paul's anxiety and agitation that he expresses after he leaves a church. His thoughts an anxieties are those of a CEO, trying to keep hundreds of details in his head at once.

All for Now,

GB

Poem

Oh to be two

And to sit on a swing

And not to have a care in the world.

All for now,

GB

Change the Water in Your Bowl

It has been raining in Paso Robles a lot lately. By a lot, I mean, for the past month or so...pretty much nonstop. I'm checking to see if we are getting anywhere near Bangladesh in terms of sheer water volume, but I still think we have a long way to go in order to compare. In the midst of the aforementioned veritable monsoon conditions, my daughter Haley has been a bit stir crazy. The other day she put both hands on the back door pane of glass and said, "Outside, Now!" Frankly, I knew how she felt. But where does one take a two year old when it's raining? The park was out because of flash flood advisories, the swimming pool was shut for fear of lightning storms, Costco was too far away. So...we went to the pet store.

** Special note for parents..., if you need a good outing with your child that is free, the pet store is amazing. Thousands of pets, all in a small space. The dogs all need love, the lizards just need to be looked at...

Ok, so, while at the pet store, my daughter Haley and I bought a fish. Upon driving home Haley declared to me that, "His name is Fyulix," "Oh, cute...Felix the fish?" I asked.. "No, Fyulix." So, we now have a fish named "Fyulix", who lives in a bowl on the kitchen table.

Now, I have owned fish before, so I was very hesitant to have anything to do with acquiring a new one. My experience has always been that the pet store owners will tell you that they are easy, but by the end of the process, you end up requiring precision chemical TLC, perfect amounts of food, purifiers, pumps, thermometers, gauges, and multitudinous calibrated instruments. By the time you walk out, you have spent more on your fish than you would a vintage bottle of Chateaux La Fite.

The man who sold me "Fyulix" told me that all that this particular fish needed was a change of water once a week. And he was right. For about a month now, every week, I have been changing the water in "Fyulix's" bowl. By the end of the week Fyulix is sluggish and slow. After his water change, Fyulix is alive and awake.

So, here's my question for the week. It's a deep and penetrating spiritual question. When was the last time you changed the water in your bowl? I don't mean changed your bowl. Changing your bowl won't get you there. When did you change the water in your bowl? When did you add more oxygen to your life? Not someone else's life. But your own. Not an imaginary life, but your life.

I believe what most people need, including myself, is to change the water in their bowl. The water in our bowls consists of the people we associate with, the books we read, the films we watch, the amount we are talking to God, the time we spend in the Bible... not to mention the amount of time swim in our own....fish stuff.

The apostle Paul talked about putting on "new clothes for God." Paul was onto something, but I need more than new clothes. I need new water!

After Easter, I will be starting a new series at Highlands called, "Oxygen." The main theme of this series will be how we can add oxygen to our lives. How to change the water in our bowls. I'll be talking to God...and of course, watching "Fyulix" for answers to this question...

All for Now,

GB

Just Remember Who's Town This Is....

Over Christmas weekend, I heard a lot of good family stories. But none of them tops the following story - completely true, so I'm told - about my grandpa James Baird while he served as pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Elko, Nevada, in the 1940's.

It was a snowy month of December, with westerly desert winds, coming off the Sierras and whipping the white farm houses and red painted barns of Elko, Nevada with the power of a sandblaster. In those days, the late 1940's, the mainstreets of Elko were as likely to see a herd of cows being driven down the center of Main Street as they were to see a white stretch limo, or a black be-curtained hearse. Cheap bars and tacky saloons lined both sides of the street, and were punctuated only by a wayward tumbleweed that occasionally blew past their doors or the bellicose drunk who crawled into the gutters. It was a cowboy, drinking man's, rough and tumble, tough dude's town.

The toughest place in town was not the bar, however, but the corner bank, where a self described "lowlife" banker and casino owner named Mr. Tibbs held court and ruled over Elko like a Columbian drug Lord. From the back of a smoky office, Tibbs swilled cheap whiskey from a chiseled tumbler and sent assignments out to his lackeys and "henchmen."

By contrast, on the other end of town, stood the First Presbyterian Church, where Rev. James Baird, a 28 year old pastor, served as senior and solo pastor. First Presbyterian Church had had a tough year. The finances were down and attendance was simply holding steady. The building, erected during the turn of the century, needed a new coat of paint. In the 5 years that Rev. Baird had served as senior pastor of PFC, he had developed a reputation among the Elko establishment for being a fiery young preacher who wasn't afraid to, "call a sin a sin." From the spindly "knox style pulpit" in the sanctuary, Baird had been known to speak against the evils of drinking, gambling, prostitution, and dancing - often all in the same sermon. While never naming anyone in particular, the city of Elko all knew that Rev. Baird was taking square aim at Mr. Tibbs. Tibbs relied on the gambling, prostitution and drinking trade to stay in business. Rev. Baird was calling Tibb's activities sinful...and Mr. Tibbs didn't like it.

One Sunday, Tibbs sent several of his "henchmen" to sit in the back row of the First Presbyterian Church of Elko. The men wore black suits, trench coats and bandito mustaches. Guns could be seen inside the hit men's coats. Just outside the door, several other men were sent to stand and send ominous, and miasmic fear into the spines of worshipers who attended there. Tibbs had intended to elicit fear, and he was good at it. After three Sundays of this intimidation and fear, Rev. Baird had had enough.

One Sunday, after the sermon, and after the thugs arrived in their usual fashion of fear and loathing, Rev. Baird finished his sermon with a crisp, "And the Lord is in this Place...". After the benediction, Baird marched directly out the back doors of church, down main street, through the front doors of the bank, past the blonde secretary in the front, past the teller with a red and black arm band. While still wearing his pulpit robe, Rev. Baird walked up to Tibbs, pointed a finger in his face, and said, "Just Remember Tibbs..Just Remember Who's Town This Is..."

Of course my grandpa meant that it was God's town. Though Mr. Tibbs assumed that grandpa meant it was his town. Mr. Tibbs backed down after that...or so the story goes...

All for Now,

GB

The Manger & The Cross

I don't know about you, but I have always preferred to experience my holidays in separate seasons. In this regard, I like to think of holidays as individualized events - each occupying a separate month, silo, or parking spot. So, Halloween should be Halloween, and Thanksgiving should be Thanksgiving, Veterans Day should be about Veterans, and Birthdays should be Birthdays. Because this is the case, I've never been a fan of fireworks in December, Valentine Cards in July, turkey in January, or dress up parties - any time of the year. And, my general aversion to holiday "cross-pollinization" would also include a dislike of Christmas sermons with overt references to the crucifixion of Christ or Easter sermons that reference Mary's immaculate conception (call me rigid:-). As the book of Ecclesiastes reminds us; "There is a time for everything, a season for everything under heaven..."

All of this said, my mind was verily changed, just this past week, after the following episode...

On Saturday, I was attending our city's annual Christmas extravaganza; "Christmas on Vine Street." As usual, there were masses of children, hundreds of houses all decked out in Christmas glory, Christmas carols, sleigh rides, hot chocolate and the usual holiday frenzy. As Star and I and Haley were making our way down the street, marveling at the lights and the grandeur of it all, Star accidentally ran Haley's stroller (ever so slightly), into the leg of an erstwhile Christmas Caroler. It was actually more of a love tap than a running into... The man was wearing a green scarf, and a red had, and he had sleigh bells in his hand. Moments before our encounter, he had been singing a jolly tune (Jingle Bells, Deck the Halls). Wow his face was beet red with lividity and anger. "This is no place for a child's stroller!!!!" he boomed. "Oh really?" I wanted to say. "I had always thought that Christmas was first begun by a young lad who occupied a stroller (manger)." How was it that this man's outer joy was so much in disparity with his inner sense of joy.

Without going on about the histrionics of the whole episode, I have come to the basic conclusion that the man's problem was that he was suffering from a case of too much manger and not enough cross.

One of the very difficult things about Christmas is the perpetual aspirationalism of the entire holiday. Christmas aspires to be so much: a time of family wholeness, a place for individual bliss, a moment of community togetherness, a chance for church connectedness. Every year, Christmas aspires to be all of these things (and so much more). Sadly, it rarely achieves any of them. In a way, Christmas is the great set-up. It beckons us every year with an invocation to hope for all things, and then it often leaves us in January with a sense of the achievement of none of these things. Even back in the day, the manger was all that the world hoped for - but the cross ended up being all that the world really needed.

The Manger needs The Cross.

So, from now on, I am changing my tune. Holidays should be celebrated in separate seasons, but the Manger should always include a smattering of the Cross.

All for Now,

GB

Pastor John Pharisee

So, for years, when reading about "The Pharisees" in the Bible, I conjured up images of angry mobsters, riotous miscreants, seething religious fanatics, first century versions of Mr. Mephistopheles himself. The Pharisees were a "brood of vipers" as John called them. The Pharisees were the bad guys, the ones in black hats, the ones that the ominous music plays behind in "B" grade movies. Of course, by categorizing the Pharisees in such concrete and black and white terms, I was able to discount the Pharisees as "those guys" and definitely "not me".

However, I think I have stumbled upon a simple but important Biblical fact. The Pharisees were simply a group of struggling pastors. Let me say it again, The Pharisees were simple a group of struggling pastors.

The organization of early Jewish religious community life happened around a central place - the synagogue. The synagogue was just another name for a common church (First Baptist, First Methodist, Grace Lutheran, Community Congregational). In those days there was no such thing as "pastor care" or "ministerial counseling agencies." When there was a problem, it was the local rabbi's responsibility to solve it. When a pastor needed time away for refueling, there was no alloted study leave in the contract. Actually, there was no contract! The job of a rabbi, or Pharisee was ongoing and never ending. Unlike today, where churches are usually organized into committees, that share the burden of different functions, each synagogue stood alone, and the rabbi functioned as a solitary figure. So, the Pharisees struggled.

Let me now say that I would at one time have described myself as a struggling pastor - a Pharisee (though I must strongly emphasize that am not one now:-). Here is a short list of characteristics of a struggling pastor;

* Over worked

* Under paid

* Under appreciated

* Isolated and unsupported

* Jack of all church trades, master of none

* Jealous of other pastors who had bigger churches, or made more money

* Ready to quit my calling at the drop of a hat.

In short, the first century clerics (rabbis, Pharisees) simply needed a vacation. They were burned out. The ministry is a tough job, and it can seem unending at times. And so, when it came down to it, the Pharisees were angry, struggling pastors. Mostly, they were angry that another pastor, an unordained, young upstart by the name if YESHUA (Jesus) was taking all of their congregants and the lime light they felt so much that they deserved...

All for Now,

GB