Knowledge and Empathy

Not long ago I watched a cable documentary on the interrogation by CIA agents of Al Quaida suspects.  This program outlined the intricate and detailed methods that have been put in place to break Al Quiada suspects down, to get information from them, to derive intel, to bring them to their knees.  These suspects had all been guilty of killing innocent people for the purpose of their dastardly cause.  It was a harrowing documentary.  However, one line in the documentary stuck out to me, and has remained with me ever since.  This CIA interviewer said that the two most important aspects to bring into a CIA interrogation of an adversarial suspect are:

Knowledge and Empathy

I couldn't believe my ears when I first heard it.  You mean that power and domination are not the keys to breaking suspects down?  You mean that cruelty and hate are not the two most important behavioral characteristics?  Really?  These two characteristics could apply to a good Sunday school lesson....

Knowledge and Empathy?

This show went on to illustrate how Knowledge was a critical piece to interrogation.  A person needs to understand all of the facts of a suspect, and that person's background, and that person's crime before going in to interrogate them.  That is obvious.  However, less obvious was the fact that Empathy was critical to helping a suspect to change or be reformed.  If an interrogator went into a questioning room with animus or anger or venom or hatred, the entire interview would  backfire.  A CIA  interviewer needed to demonstrate empathy, compassion, heart-felt connection, dare I say....love!

Jesus told us the same thing.  Love is the greatest power in the universe.  "Love the Lord Your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind," Jesus reminded us, and "Love your neighbor as yourself."  This, Jesus told us was  and is the greatest commandment of all time.  This embellishment of the SHEMA (Hear oh Israel) wasn't the most warm and fuzzy notion of all time, it was and is the most powerful.  The apostle Paul reiterates this same truth in the book of Corinthians, "And now those three remain:  faith, hope and love.  But the greatest of these is love." (1 Cor. 13:13).

A lot of times we humans feel that in order to better someone else we need to be meaner than them, harder than them, tougher than them, more acerbic than them, more cunning more dastardly.  However, quite the opposite is the truth.  What is really needed of us is that we become more loving than our adversaries or our opponents.  The one who loves more, wins.  The one who loves more...WINS

That's the story of the cross.  The one who loves more wins!!!

All For Now,
GB

Feeling is Not Believing

About five years ago, a man walked into my office at the church and introduced himself with a definitive introductory statement - "I can't feel!"  "Excuse me?" I asked.  "I," said the man, "display sociopathic tendencies."  Knowing that Atascadero State Psychiatric Hospital was less than 5 minutes from my church, a place where many violent sociopaths were housed - I instinctively reached for the buzzer on my phone to alert my assistant that she needed to intervene in my meeting ASAP.  "No," said the man, "don't worry, I'm harmless, I am just here for advice."  "What can I do for you?" I asked.  The man went on to say that he had been unable to feel ever since he was a young boy.  He didn't have the ability to empathize with the feelings of others, or the ability to actually feel pain or joy himself.  "My problem," said the man, "is that I wonder if I can believe in Jesus.  If I can't feel, then can I be a follower of Christ?  Don't I have to feel God in order to believe in him?"  My friend was asking a very important question.

This past week at FPC, we looked at the text of Naomi and Ruth (As Chuck Swindoll has said, this is the most beautiful story in the entire Bible).  The story, you will remember, hinges around the statement by Ruth that, "Where you go, I will go and where you stay I will stay.  Your people will be my people and your God my God.  Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried." (Ruth 1:16).  Ruth's definitive statement is striking for several reasons.  First, there seems to be no emotional (feeling) basis to the statement.  Naomi was demonstrating nothing resembling a warm fuzzy or a kind or a compassionate relationship with Ruth.  Ruth and Orphah, remember, are told to "Go back to their people."  Second, Ruth seems to be making this declaration with all of her being - she is all in in this decision to "Go with" Naomi.  Scholars have called this a Covenantal Relationship.  Covenant is marked by a reasoning deeper than emotion - it is marked by choice, and by commitment.  It would seem that Ruth is believing without feeling in this instance.  It would seem that;

Feeling is Not Believing

And thus answering my friend's question, of whether he could believe in God, without feeling God."  The answer is an indefatigable - YES!

The sixteenth century Reformer, John Calvin, greatly distrusted the connection between feeling God and believing in God.  Calvin wrote, "Man's mind is like a store of idolatry and superstition; so much so that if a man believes his own mind it is certain that he will forsake God and forge some idol in his own brain."  Again, even more than distrusting feeling, Calvin seems to be suggesting that we should distrust our thoughts as well as our feelings.  (Remember, of course, that Calvin does not suffer from the Cartesian Dualism - the split between thoughts and feelings - that would become prevalent in enlightenment philosophy of later periods).  That Calvin, a towering legal and theological thinker would suggest that we should distrust our thoughts, is both an act of humility on Calvin's part, and an act of reality on my own (If Calvin distrusted his thoughts, I must surely distrust mine....).

Jesus seems to also validate the notion that we shouldn't necessarily trust our feelings when it comes to believing.  After Jesus comes back to life again, and visits his disciples in the upper room, Thomas asks to put his hands and fingers where the nails have gone through Jesus' hands.  In other words, Thomas does not believe because he does not feel/see God.  Jesus says to Thomas, "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." (John 20:29).  And Jesus might have added, "Blessed are those who believe without feeling me in their heart."

Why am I writing this blog post and laying out this philosophical argument that "Feeling is Not Believing?"  Simply because of this.  I know too many people who are basing their relationship with God only on the feelings they do or they do not have about Him.  If they feel good about their faith, they believe.  If they don't feel good about it, they don't believe.  Ultimately, belief in God begins with a decision (to Go where God Goes, that God's people will be our People).  It is usually after this initial decision that we then have feelings towards God (of love, affection, adoration, joy, completion, peace). But, in the case of my sociopathic friend, he will never have these feelings - but he still can BELIEVE!

Cerebrally...:-)
All For Now,
GB

My "A" Team

Every Thursday morning, at about 8:00AM, I begin the 5 hour process of writing a first draft of my Sunday message.  Usually this is a pleasant process, though sometimes it feels like I am wading through molasses in Minnesota in the middle of winter.  Before starting, I always try to remember what John Ortberg told me once about preaching and the importance of starting the process with "Joy."  A bad sermon is one that is written without "Joy," a good one always has "Joy", John told me.  And so, even if I am not feeling "Joy" as I begin my message writing process I always try to manufacture it, and pray for it.  There is always something to be joyful about.

One of the great encouragements to me is that each week, on Thursday morning, I do not write my sermons alone.  As I sit at my writing desk in my home, (and glue my butt to the chair - Dale Bruner's words not mine...), I remember that at the very same moment there are four incredible women in my church office who are meeting to pray for the church, to pray for the FPC ministry, and to pray for my sermon writing process.  These women, it must be said, are:

My "A" Team

My "A" Team take their jobs very seriously.  For example, a week or so ago, I was in my office because by some act of God I had actually finished my sermon draft a day earlier on Wednesday.  I entered my office at church.  For some reason it had slipped my mind that my "A" team were meeting there.  The women were all deep in prayer.  "What are you doing?" they asked.  "We were praying for you.  You are supposed to be writing your sermon."  "I know," said, "I finished yesterday."  They did not say it, but I sensed a collective message from their gaze; "Well, get back and work on it some more, we are praying for you..."

Prayer changes reality.  Let me say that again.  Prayer changes reality.  Many years ago in Seattle, Washington, a group of mothers decided that it was time that the University Presbyterian Church of Seattle, Washington had a serious University ministry.  These women decided that what they would do to help get the ball rolling was to meet weekly and to pray in a hotel lobby called, "The Inn."  Year after year they prayed.  No college program.  The moms went to the church leadership and decried the lack of a University ministry.  No college program.  The moms continued to meet and pray.  Every week they prayed in season and out of season.  Their main prayer?  A serious college program.  Finally, somewhere along the line, God answered that prayer.  Today, there is a program at UPC, Seattle that has somewhere between 1,000 and 1,500 college students a week, who meet on a Wednesday night.  The name of the program?  "The Inn" - named after the hotel where the handful of moms prayed for so many years.

The beginning of 'The Church" as we know it, is really a story about the power of prayer.  Jesus ascended into heaven, and for a long period, 10 days to be exact, the disciples were listless, lost, without purpose, without direction, without Jesus in their midst.  The Bible tells us that these early disciples and apostles (not just the first 12, but around 72), met in an upstairs room and prayed.  We do not know how long they prayed, but we know that somewhere along the way a wind entered that room and blew through, carrying with it little licks of fire on the tops of each of their heads.  We call this Pentecost (50 days after Easter).  The early disciples were God's "A" team of prayers.  If God was assisted by "A" team prayers, so can we be.  Who are your "A" team?  Do you serve on an "A" team of prayer?  Would you like to serve on my "A" team of prayer.  Give it a try.  And change the world!

All For Now,
GB

Outlasting Your Pacemaker

Here's my favorite recent story about longevity.  Two weeks ago, I met a man who is 97 years old.  He is in very good health, considering he has almost lived for an entire century (for example, I am shy of this man's age by 10 years and half of a century, and I wouldn't want to arm wrestle this fella...).  But here's the thing that blew me away.  My friend just had a new pacemaker implanted a month ago.  It turns out that when he was 77 years old, he had a pace maker put in.  Pacemakers (usually made by Medtronics in Minneapolis...I played bagpipes once for one of their corporate parties, but I digress), have a life span of 20 years.  Most people have pacemakers implanted in their late 70's, and the theory goes that most people won't last as long as their pacemaker, so why bother with a longevity of more than 20 years on them.  But not my friend.  He's in tip top shape, and told me that he looks forward to getting another pacemaker put in in 20 years - the age of 117!!  (Can you say "Methuselah's progeny?")

There are so many directions we could go with this amazing story, theologically.  We could talk about the way that human desire and will always out-trumps science and technology.  We could think about how God does what God wants with a person's physical health and well-being, irregardless of what the intentions of doctors sometimes are.  We could speculate about how many beats the human heart has in a lifetime and that a heart that beats for God never runs out.  But what I want to think about for a moment is simply the power of eternal life.  The power that God gives all of us to:

Outlast our Pacemakers

Most of us live this life with an underlying sense that we will die someday.  It's not something that we think about everyday, but subconsciously this thought lurks beneath the surface of our thoughts all the time.  Freud called it a "death instinct."  Christianity, one might say, offers us a "life instinct."  What we are promised as Christ followers is that all of us have the opportunity to live forever with God.  That as our bodies continue to fall a part, that our souls, connected to God, actually get stronger, more lively, more agile, more passionate, more exuberant, more purposeful, more...eternal.  That though science continually provides us more and more ways of prolonging the physical, flesh, human parts of our lives, God's plan is that they will fall a part, and in the process of doing so, our soul's will continue to flourish.

(By the way, please see the recent cover of Time magazine and it's feature article about how the next generation babies will likely live into to their 120's...I thought health care costs were already inflated...how will we care for people who live that long?  Oh well, it's probably not my generation's worry:-)

Here's my deep question of the week though.  To what extent is my 97 year old friend's heart deeply connected to his soul, and to what extent is it connected to his pace-maker?  In other words, what is it that is beating within his chest, ultimately?  Is it a machine, or is it something stronger, something more vital, something more everlasting?  Is my friend's soul the one that is making his heart beat, or is his heart simply a muscle that flexes and recedes, and blood flows through his body?

One thing I know to be true.  My friend will in fact live to 117 (And beyond)...pacemaker or not!

All For Now,
GB

Zoo Church

Before my recollections of my recent trip to Mexico fade from my memory too much, let me offer one last blog post on the subject.  While we were in Puerta Vallarta, our family visited the local zoo.  To be honest, we had not heard too much about the zoo beforehand (which should have been a clue), and we didn't read anything nice about it in any of the guide books.  But my 4 year old daughter Haley is a future zoologist (she visited the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo no less than 48 times in one season - they literally know her by name there), and so we went to the zoo.

What was very strange about this particular zoo is that the animals were all extremely close to the front of the exhibits (The above is an actual picture I took of a jaguar).  There were not just one species of animal in a cage but two or three (there were tigers with cheetahs with lions with jaguars all in the same cage).  The animals were full of life.  Too much so!!  When you visit the San Diego Zoo, for example, you will often find that in a huge arena for an animal, you might catch a glimpse of their tail or a flash of their stripes, but that is about it.  Here, the animals were on top of each other.  It was as if they were performing for us.  It was like a movie set for Dr. Do Little.  Something was not right with this scene.  Something was not right with this zoo.  This was too "in your face" too "raw" too "right up close" too "experiential".  (As a side note, I'm told that back in the day when people would visit Jim Jones' compound in Gianna, the same could be said...things were too perfect, too much, too....wrong).

It turns out that this zoo was in fact drugging the animals so that they were very docile and close to the cage.  Also, this zoo was not feeding the animals enough food, so they were extra agitated, extra in your face, wanting to be fed.  The animals were put in cages that were too small to make them forced to be near the front where you could see them.  It was sort of a shocking experience...

But the thought occurred to me that many churches have a same or similar dynamic.  These churches might be called:

Zoo Churches

A zoo church is one where there is too much weekly expectation for an immediate transcendental experience of God.  A zoo church is where the pastors (zoo keepers...forgive the analogy) are more interested in flash and razzle-dazzle and people's artificial experience of God, than they are on the "real", deep-down..and it must be said, fleeting experience of God.  A zoo church is where things are "too" rosy, "too" be-miracled, "too" happy, "too" exciting, "too" off the hook.  A zoo church is not real.

The truth is that we as Christ followers are not supposed to have daily, constant, life-changing experiences with the divine.  Remember, it was only three disciples that accompanied Jesus to the top of the mountain for the "mountain-top" experience - James and John and Peter.  None of the other disciples went to the top of the mountain or had a mountain top experience in their entire life (not Thomas, or James Jesus' little brother, or Bartholemew or Matthew).  In other words, a normal Christian experience is actually one in which we may or may not experience a true "mountain-top experience" in our lives.

I have often been asked whether I have ever had an actual audible or visual experience of the voice or the body of God.  The answer is no.  I have felt a very tiny turning in my soul when I was on my knees in Austin, Minnesota, turning my heart towards God during my "second saving" (see previous blog post).  I have seen the beauty of God in insanely creative and vibrant ways (one that comes to mind is the sunset seen off of the southeastern tip of Africa, from Mozambique, looking into the Eastern, Indian Ocean).  But I have never actually heard the voice or seen the face of God.

I want to make clear what I am saying, before closing for the week.  I am not saying that God doesn't occasionally bring us huge, techni-colored, panoramic views of the kingdom of heaven.  God does.  I am not saying that God doesn't still speak audibly or visibly to people in this day and age.  God does.  I am not saying that occasionally, in the midst of worship, that it isn't possible to actually perceive the numinous face of God right in our midst.  Of course it is.  It's just that as Christ followers, we should always be aware of when things seem "too" manufactured, "too" manipulated, "too" constructed for our viewing pleasure, sometimes they are.

Remember, Aslan the lion wasn't ever in a cage at a zoo.  Aslan was the one who appeared only fleetingly in C.S. Lewis' stories, but when he did...flowers always grew behind his great tail.

All For Now,
GB

Dignity

I just returned from a week of R&R in Puerta Vallarta, Mexico.  It was a very restful and joyful time with family (and very inexpensive trip - given the US/Peso exchange rate).  One of the things that really struck me was something I didn't expect.  It was the reminder of the basic dignity of people who lived there.  Most of the people we encountered didn't own very much, they weren't wealthy, they didn't have soaring educational degrees, they didn't have great titles or professional credentials, but they had something much more important:

Dignity

One man we encountered was a server at a restaurant.  He was about 50 years old.  He dressed impeccably in a perfectly starched, white, button-down shirt.  His hair was slicked back perfectly like Desi Arnez from the old fashioned "I Love Lucy" shows.  His face was fairly stoical, but kind.  When he approached our table, he would stand exactly at the center of the end of the table when we spoke to us, and when he left, he bowed ever so slightly.  It was obvious that this man took the basic job that he did very seriously.  But, again, it wasn't that he was a perfectionist, it's that he demonstrated his work with an extreme sense of personal:

Dignity

Not to belabor the point, but on another occasion a taxi driver picked us up to drive from the airport to our hotel.  This man spoke almost impeccable English.  When I commented on his linguistic abilities, he said, "I can speak with you in any language that you choose."  After that, the taxi driver proceeded to speak German (from what little German I have taken, I would say, very well), and then Italian, and to top it off French.  How many college undergraduates in the United States, I wondered, would be able to do the same thing...speak 4-5 foreign languages with perfection.  The man was proud of his ability.  Language was obviously something that he had worked on with great attention.  But, again, deeper than his abilities was another more important quality:

Dignity

Dignity is different than self-confidence, although the two are somewhat related.  Dignity is a basic sense of self, that is ingrained and hard-wired.  Dignity connects to our behavior.  A person cannot have any sense of dignity if he/she does not behave in a certain way.  Dignity connects to honesty.  Dignity does not connect to money, or to power.

The Bible doesn't really speak specifically about the character quality of dignity, but many of the real life characters in the Bible have a basic sense of dignity.  The woman who cleans her house all day long to search for a coin had personal dignity.  First, the house wasn't very large.  The house, probably more like a hut, had a dirt floor.  However, the woman had this sense that even though it was a dirt floor that it should be a clean dirt floor.  So, she swept the dirt.  Why was she cleaning?  It was more dignified to have a clean house.  And she was searching for a coin which she had lost.  Maybe she owned lots of coins, maybe this was her only coin.  We don't know for sure.  What we do know is that she searched for it all day long.  It was the dignified thing to do.

And now, I  am going to spend what free time I have to learn a few extra languages, to wear more impeccable clothes, to keep my house cleaner, to search for things that were lost.  Why?  Because I want what I observed these good people to have...

Dignity

All For Now,
GB

A Story Precedes The Truth

I just watched this year's academy award wining movie, "Lincoln" by Steven Spielberg.  In short, I can't wait to watch it again.  I have always been a Presidential history buff, but this movie captures Lincoln in a way that I have never witnessed before in writing.  Daniel Day Lewis (who should have gotten the award for Best Actor of the Century on this one) depicts the real humanity, humility and raw grit of Lincoln.  One of the things that I had forgotten about Lincoln was his story telling ability.  Lincoln just loved "spinning a yarn" about anything and everything.  But there was always  point to Lincoln's stories.  In one scene, which the movie depicts so well, Stanton, the Secretary of War is having an emotional meltdown about an attack that the South are waging against the North.  At this choice moment, Lincoln proceeds to tell a story about a portrait of George Washington hanging in a privy.  At first the story seems to have no purpose, but by the end, it is clear that Lincoln is telling it at that important moment in order to calm the nerves of the White House staff, and to refocus their minds. The story, in other words played an important role in the emotional health of the moment.

The Story Precedes the Truth

Many people have asked why I tell corny jokes in my sermons on Sunday.  The reasons are the same as the ones I saw depicted in the movie Lincoln.  A joke, about 3/4 of the way through the sermon changes the mindset and the mental focus of a congregation.  "Wait a minute," I can hear people saying in their minds, "we were in a serious moment, and now we are in a light hearted moment."  Jokes use a different part of the brain than serious thought.  And the truth is, that serious thought is always easier when it is done in a place of relaxation and ease.  Remember, it was Pythagoras who came up with an answer to algebra and geometry, not while sitting at his desk and thinking, but while lying in a bath and relaxing.  I have always found that it's in a place of relaxation that people can take in the deepest truths.

The Story Precedes the Truth

Jesus knew the art of story telling.  The Jewish culture is very much a story telling culture.  When people in ancient Israel weren't talking about Bible stories, they were recounting fictional stories of the creation of the beginning of the earth - Rahab the Leviathan battling Yahweh was one of their favorites.  In addition to Jewish culture being a story telling culture, the rabbinical tradition of the first century was a story telling profession.  Parables were the best way of conveying deep truths about life.  Jesus told hundreds of parables in his ministry.  Some of the parables were his own, some were long used stories retold and refashioned by Jesus.  But in all the cases of these stories, they have the same effect as the stories Lincoln told, they relaxed the audience, congregation, and gathering of people enough so that they were able to hear the deeper truths Jesus was trying to convey.

"There once was a father and two sons, one a prodigal and the other a Daddy's boy..." - leads to the truth of grace and love in the face of recklessness and sin.

"There once were two builders..." - leads to the truth of building a life on a firm foundation

"There once were two sons who went out to work in the fields.  One said he wouldn't work, but decided later to work.  The other said he would work very hard, but then didn't do a thing..." - leads to the truth of being honest in what you say you are going to do.

I have often thought of the art of story-telling (and joke telling) in the context of public speaking as the image of a bouncing ball on a table.  Let's say that the end goal is to have the ball rest on the table.  You  drop the ball above the table and watch it bounce.  Each bounce is closer to the table, as the ball comes to a rest.  Again, the goal is to have the ball be at rest on the table.  But you can't just drop a ball and expect it to stick to the table.  It must bounce, higher, less-high, middle, lower, lower and then rest.  A good story in our lives has the effect of the ball bouncing off the table.  Away, away away, closer, closer, stop.

The Story Precedes the Truth

After having written this blogpost, I realize that this is the most obvious of points to make about the parables and story telling in general.  But what I have recently discovered is the power of a story to take our minds out of the place of focus and attention of serious area of thought, into a place of imagination and lightness and truth.

All For Now,
GB