Jesus, Story and Dos Equis: Or What I Learned From A Beer Commercial

Have you ever met anyone who doesn’t think Dos Equis “Most Interesting Man in the World” commercials are awesome? You know the one: a bearded Hemmingway-esque man in a suit, sitting at a table in some exotic locale surrounded by beautiful local women. The narrator tells of his character as grainy 8mm video of him cliff diving and bull fighting play in the background, “The police often question him just because they find him interesting”, “He's a lover, not a fighter, but he's also a fighter, so don't get any ideas".

The commercials tap into a sense of adventure and story most of us don’t experience in our own lives. We may have memories and moments of adventure but not a lifetimes worth. I’m reading a book about story right now and one of the author’s main points is that many of us don’t live a very good story. We can live a comfortable story without a lot of conflict and pretty one dimensional characters and wonder why life is so boring. I think I mostly agree with his sentiments.

But this idea of living a good story got me thinking of where Jesus fits into the picture. He is after all, the main character of the “greatest story ever told” and the center of our lives as believers. In fact one of the crazy things as Christians is that we get to enter into this ever expanding and seemingly never ending story of God as characters, each with a unique part to play…at least that’s what is supposed to happen.

I was reflecting this morning on how ‘boring’ a life with Jesus can seem and how this perception permeates both the Church and society in the West. Let’s be honest; for many people being a Christian means believing in the atonement, being as good as possible with the assurance of heaven in the end. To those on the outside looking in, being a Christian seems to be more closely intertwined with having a couple very strong political views and not getting drunk than it does with being a character in the story of Jesus. It is no wonder then, when people are not interested in talking or even thinking about Jesus. Why should they want Jesus if the story we as Christians are often telling is boring?

Think of Jesus in the Gospels, was he boring? Sure maybe in 21^st century America the general consensus is Jesus was a some holier than thou dude who spoke in parables and platitudes about morality and some other stuff and definitely sounds mind numbingly dull but the Jesus of the Gospels isn’t anything like that! Do you think the disciples would have left everything so they could sit around listening to some soft-spoken guy telling them to “love the little children” while the big eyed Precious Moments cretins smiled angelically up at him? No way! Jesus was unexpected, he was exciting, he was healing people and casting out demons and arguing with the Pharisees and all the while he was claiming to be the climax of the generations long story of Israel. He was anything but boring.

And yet today the very mention of the name Jesus makes people zone out. It can make me zone out. There are weeks when I don’t understand or fully grasp the story I am in, when I forget I am actually in the story of Jesus, that I have an important part to play in the community and relationships around me. Usually those weeks are full of selfish pursuits trying to fill a sense of adventure and purpose I mistakenly think Jesus cannot fill. But then some weeks, some mornings like today I remember just how crazy it is to be a follower of Jesus. To believe that God entered into the world in human form in order to defeat death and evil once and for all, that he suffered and died, that he was fully human and fully God, that he rose from the dead, that one day he is going to return to Earth to fully rid the world of evil and heal all of Creation!? Even if you don’t believe it you have to admit it’s a pretty compelling story. And that’s just the story of Jesus; the rest of the story of God, humanity and the world offered in the Bible is just as compelling, just as mind blowing...but we often forget this…we often think of Jesus as a morality to obey, not an adventure to embark on. What’s a better story, a relationship or a set of rules?

Part of me wonders if the reason the Left Behind/Rapture theology is so popular in Western Christianity is because it offers a compelling narrative. We are going to be snatched up into heaven and then all hell is going to break lose on earth? That’s some pretty intense adventurous stuff. Don’t get me wrong, I think its all nonsense and a total misreading of Scripture but it sure is a good story. And maybe it’s because of this many people are so passionate about it. I wonder how many people think of the story of their daily lives walking as a follower of Jesus in today’s world in the same passionate way. I wonder how often I do. My guess is if I grasped the enormity of the story I was a part of, following Jesus would be infinitely more compelling and adventurous and wonderful and more alive.

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Driving, Worth and Existentialism: A Confession of Sorts

“What if a person isn’t supposed to be alone, isn’t supposed to have glory on his own, but rather get glory from the God who loves him? What if, in the same way the sun feeds plants, God’s glory gives us life? What if our value exists because God takes pleasure in us?” ~ Donald Miller

If I am honest with myself, if we are all honest with ourselves, on any given day at any given moment, I operate as if I have glory on my own. What I mean is at some point during the day, and usually at multiple points, I have an interaction with another person in the world around me and my words or deeds are founded in my belief that I am more important, smarter or better than the other person in some way. I’ll give you an example: I struggle with anger when I drive. If someone is going to slow I get frustrated and move in close to try and get them to speed up. If someone cuts me off, I’ll swear (either out loud or in my head) at them and shake my head. But why? What gets me so angry? On the surface I would probably say, “Well, they just shouldn’t have done that” or “it was dangerous”, but the truth goes deeper. The truth is when I get angry on the road it is usually because I feel disrespected, like the offending party doesn’t give a crap about my existence, is barely aware of it or worse, is totally aware of it and yet values their own over mine.

I think this dynamic, this feeling of self-worth and self-righteousness is our misplaced need for the love of God playing itself out in our lives. Instead of seeking God and finding our worth in the fact He loves us, we constantly seek the approval and justification of our existence from other people. And when someone doesn’t approve, or doesn’t notice our worth we get very angry. I know this is true of me anyways.

In San Francisco, many people when asked if all humans have equal worth would say yes. Which I suppose is good, we do and it’s nice they think that. The problem is, for many, this is just lip service. They may say it and even think they believe it and yet live their lives as if they don’t believe it. For some, all humans have equal worth as long as their opinions line up with a certain political party or religious ideal. For others, all humans have equal rights until those equal rights infringe on their own private lives. And I bet if your follow up question was, “Well, why do they all have equal worth” you probably would get a pretty rambling answer.

But I think Donald Miller is onto something here. I think what gives people equal worth is the fact that God loves each one of us, not how much money we make, or how much we are adored by those around us, or how talented we are. I happen to believe this and I also happen to forget this on an hourly basis. My belief that God’s glory and love alone is what gives all humans worth is swell and dandy until someone drifts into my driving lane while yammering away on their cell phone at which point my red-faced cursing would seem to suggest, actually Josh, you really believe you are more valuable than that person. This is all very true and very convicting. I often am no better than Clamence in Camus’ The Fall when he says, “I could live happily only on condition that all individuals on earth…were turned toward me, eternally in suspense, devoid of independent life….doomed in short to sterility until the day I should deign to favor them,”.

And yet Jesus has changed all of this. Jesus’ very presence on earth, his life, his death and his resurrection were all confirmation, proof if you will, of just how valuable we are to God. Not because we have any inherent worth or value in ourselves, but because a perfect God loves us perfectly which makes us infinitely more valuable than if our worth was determined by ourselves. Imagine how radically changed your own life would be if you constantly lived your life through this reality. Imagine how changed your relationships would be, how changed your family would be, how changed your community would be, how changed your city or town would be, on and on until finally you come to how changed this whole world would be if the love of God for each person regardless of race, gender, age, or any other subdivision was known to everyone. If we all grasped how valuable we are and more importantly how valuable everyone else is in the eyes of God and how much He loves us and how it is this love that gives us value in the first place. My guess is this world would be a drastically transformed place. My guess is my own life would be a radically transformed one…and that is what I’m praying for, for this reality to really change not just my perspective but my heart. I’ll let you know how it goes.

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In The Big and The Small

Blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished!
-Luke 1:45

Faith in the Lord to accomplish what He has said, this is what the Lord desires. Faith in the big things: like one day we will be with our Lord with no pain and no sorrow, perfected on the new earth; and faith in the small things: like God called us to ministry in San Francisco and thus will provide the financial support to get us up there. Whether faith in the eternal or temporal the Lord values it the same, it is the state of the heart with which He is concerned.

Yet the faith in the big can inform and encourage our faith in the small and vice versa. If we truly believe God is who He says He is in His word we know that "The Lord of hosts has sworn: As I have planned so shall it be, and as I have purposed, so shall it stand." (Isaiah 14:24) We also know that "with Him there is no variation." (James 1:17) Therefore if we count sure our salvation in Christ, why should we be uncertain of His promises being accomplished in smaller ways. Additionally, if we have seen the Lord's faithfulness over and over again in our live in slighter circumstances why should we ever begin to doubt God's love for us or be half-convinced of His forgiveness?

We shouldn't, I shouldn't. I must stand today and say, "Lord I am as confident that you will get us up to San Francisco as I am that my name is written in Your Book of Life." This is what God desires; blessed are those who believe what the Lord has said will be accomplished in all circumstances.

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Does God Care About Sports?

Does God Care About Sports?

These are not profound (or well written) epiphanies, but rather, random thoughts I had while watching Sportscenter one morning, so please excuse the lack of structure (and closure) in this post. Think of these as merely fun things to think about.

1) Does God care about sports?...short answer, No. There are days when I hear athletes often thanking God for their teams win, or their performance on the field and think, “God doesn’t care about your stupid football game.” Maybe it is a bit cold hearted, but excuse me if I have a bit of a problem thinking of God as intently concerned with the outcome of a sports game when there are wars, genocide, famines and diseases ravishing the world. At the same time, I do think God gives people the ability to perform excellently in sports and is glorified when they do. It is an interesting contrast: yes, as a God believing athlete, you should give praise to God for the talents He has given you, but you also shouldn’t be so naïve as to think God cares if your team wins or not. God doesn’t take sides.

2) Sport is a common, unifying thread throughout all humanity, no matter the culture, country or continent, sport or competition is everywhere. Even skinny hipsters race their fixies. Sport or competition seems to be inherently part of what it means to be human. Why is that? For one, I think it allows individuals to identify with a united community and allows very different people to be of “one mind and one spirit”, to quote Philippians. Of course that can be a good or bad thing. On the one hand, being a fan is always a form of tribalism and othering which in the worst cases can lead to violence and actual hatred of other humans simply because they support a team you despise. On the other hand, sports can unify a community in a profoundly positive way. Think of Nelson Mandela, using the South African Rugby team, a team that symbolized apartheid in every way so much so that black South Africans always cheered for whoever was playing them. Mandela used the team to unify a nation on the brink of a race war. In that instance, I think God really was on the side of South Africa in the Rugby World Cup. As weird as it may sound, I think there are times when God wills a side to victory, not because they other team is so evil, but because a victory would redeem or heal a particular community. Is this always the case? Of course not, but I think it happens once in a blue moon.

3) One of my friends had a profound thought while at a Dodger game once. He, a twenty-something, white guy was in the bathroom on a scorching hot day at The Ravine. It was so hot, he took off his shirt and put it under running water in the sink. At the sink next to him was a huge, Latino dude with tattoos everywhere. As he rinsed his shirt, the man next to him said, “Yo homes, that’s a good idea!” and proceeded to take off his shirt and do the same and the two started talking and had a conversation about the Dodgers. It was two profoundly different people, who would have never talked to each other in any other situation, connecting and having a shared experience of being a fan. My friend began to think about how the Church is similarly a community of people for whom the common denominator is Jesus, not personality, or interests, or gender, or ethnicity. I thought it was an interesting and valuable insight and one I plan to reflect on the next time I am at a Dodger game.

So what do you think?

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Quote of the Week: May 2-9th

A new weekly feature; some weeks the quote will be quite long, some weeks it will be short. There is no rhyme or reason to why I choose them other than they speak deeply to me.

“You are—strange though it may seem, almost as hard to believe as the resurrection itself—accomplishing something that will become in due course part of God’s new world. Every act of love, gratitude, and kindness; every work of art or music inspired by the love of God and delight in the beauty of his creation; every minute spent teaching a severely handicapped child to read or to walk; every act of care and nurture, of comfort and support, for one’s fellow human beings and for that matter one’s fellow nonhuman creatures; and of course every prayer, all Spirit-led teaching, every deed that spreads the gospel, builds up the church, embraces and embodies holiness rather than corruption, and makes the name of Jesus honored in the world—all of this will find its way through the resurrection power of God, into the new creation that God will one day make. That is the logic of the mission of God.”

~ Bishop N.T. Wright, “Surprised by Hope” pg 208

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Battling Cancer

I’m standing in a sterile, tiny hospital room with my dad sitting slightly upright in his bed with an IV hanging out of his arm. He is in good spirits, talking to those in the room with a quiet confidence and peace. My mom and my wife are sitting as the four of us wait for the doctor to come in and prep my dad for his surgery. Its Prostate Cancer vs. Amazing Technological Advancement in the Form of Precise, Surgical Robotics: Round I. Soon my dad will be wheeled into the operating room for an intense 5 hour surgery removing the cancer cells in his prostate. He will be tilted upside down and the doctor, using a remote controlled robot, will cut several inch-long incisions in his stomach and slice away the cancer from his body. For now though, the four of us sit and wait. We talk about a lot and my dad never shies away from questions about how he is doing with it all. Its one of the things I appreciate about my dad; he is open and honest and doesn’t try to act like everything is ok, but instead talks about what he is thinking and going through. Like me, he processes out loud.

I am quieter than usual, ready for the surgery to start, not so I can escape the hospital but so it will be over. The nurses come in and the anesthesiologist begins his work and then Alex, mom and I are standing in a pale hallway as my dad falls asleep and is wheeled away.

Cancer is a funny thing…actually wait; it’s a horribly awful thing. It comes from nothing, overtakes areas of a body and eventually kills you. In some ways cancer is the best embodiment of how broken and fallen our world is. It is manifest evil whose whole existence is about subduing, weakening and destroying. Cancer is…well, pretty damn scary. For my dad to be diagnosed, then cut open was terrifying. My mind wanted to go to the worst of scenarios: a botched surgery, the cancer spreading far faster than doctors had anticipated, I even thought, what if there is a major earthquake in the middle of the operation or worse, what if the robot becomes self aware and my dad is the first victim of the unavoidable robot uprising?

I prayed throughout the weeks leading up to the surgery. I had many friends praying as well, asking God for his will to be done in the situation, for the surgeon to have steady hands and for my dad’s recovery to go well. I believed I had a peace about it but it wasn’t until I saw my dad in that bed, waiting to put his life and body in the hands of a stranger who was going to cut him open, that I was able to fully let go and place everything at the feet of Jesus. Seeing my dad’s peace and faith in the Lord allowed me to experience the same. Was I convinced that everything was going to work out perfectly?...No, but I was convinced that whatever happened, God was love and God knew better than I did.

My dad came home late the next day and I remember him asking me if I wanted to see something gross and of course I said yes. He pulled up his shirt and showed me five or six sets of staples holding his stomach incisions together. I couldn’t help but think without them his stomach would have had holes gushing out blood, like a hole in a water balloon filled with tomato juice. He was weak but alive, tired but lucid, needing rest but with his family. I wondered that night what a battle with cancer does to your relationship with God, how much the depths of one’s faith is tested when your life is on the line, and how tightly you would grasp onto the beauty of Jesus when the ugly destruction of cancer lines your insides…then I realized, in a different but no less profound way, I had myself been battling cancer. That my mom, my sister, my wife, my dad’s closest friends had all been battling cancer. And please don’t think I am minimizing my dad’s physical fight with cancer, but that battle does spill over and sweep up those closest to you. We all were asking ourselves those questions, all of us were having our faith tested.

It was then that I realized God had been trolling the depths of my faith as much as he had been my dad’s and I was forced to love him and hold on tightly to him in my own helplessness. I can tell you the beauty of Jesus is so much clearer in the midst of the ugliest things. Seeing my dad’s relationship with Christ overflowing with the knowledge of how loved he is, was humbling and wonderful and a memory I will no doubt go back to in the future.

This was my first real reflection on my dad’s cancer, the first time I have put anything about it into words and actually, the first thing I have written in over a month. Leave it to cancer to bust through writer’s block. My dad is currently doing well, his recovery continues and the cancer is officially gone from his body. The staples have been removed from his stomach and he is feeling better each day. Thanks to all those who prayed for him and our family in the past month and sorry it took so long for me to write about this. I just needed a few weeks for the reality of God’s love to sink in.

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A Glimpse Into My Quiet Time

After hearing the synopsis of the book my husband is currently reading, The Prophetic Imagination, my already good quiet time suddenly became alive. The book is about the importance of the church letting the truths of God capture their imaginations and the imagination of the surrounding community thus seeping into the way they live and interact with the world.

What would it look like to be wholly enraptured and convinced of the truths in Isaiah 52:12? How much peace and strength are we willing we sacrifice for the sake of widely accepted false realities? But more importantly, what hope this offers when we let it overwhelm our imaginations.

Isaiah 52:12

"For you shall not go in haste, and you shall not go in flight, for the Lord will go before you, and the God of Israel will be your rear guard."

Here God is calling Israel out of Babylon and into the peace, happiness and salvation (vs.7) He has for them. A seemingly terrifying task considering they were asked to defy the world's ruling empire at the time. But God's word is truth and transcends any seeming reality of the world. He calls them to be confident and full of faith in a situation where one would naturally terror. We as Christians should always walk in this way; confident that the Lord goes before us in everything and protects us from everything as we go, do or say. If we flee or act out of fear, we may precede the Lord and become vulnerable to attack. With prayer, petition and obedience to the guiding of the Spirit we must walk in the divine confidence that God goes before, with and defensively behind us in everything.

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