Exodus Gods & Kings: Aiming For Greatness (Movie Review)

Posted on December 17, 2014 by Jacob Sahms

Exodus Gods & Kings was one of those ‘no-brainer’ films for me: it involved my favorite Old Testament figure and it was directed by Ridley Scott (Alien, Blade Runner, Gladiator, Prometheus, Kingdom of Heaven, Robin Hood, etc.) A dozen brave souls from church went together to see and discuss it, but the end result was a mashup of Cecil B. DeMille and scenes from Gladiator, without nearly the degree of introspection of Darren Aronofsky’s Noah. In fact, I’m not sure exactly what new look Scott wanted to bring to the age-old story of Moses, God, the pharaoh, and “let my people go.”

The film has the look, at the right times elegant and at others gritty, as long as you can look past the two main Europeans, Christian Bale and Joel Edgerton, playing Moses and Ramses. The special effects, from the chomping crocodiles to the burning bush to the crossing of the Red Sea, all have enough flash to make us think better of it. And the battle scenes, Scott’s period-piece flair, are hectic and action-packed.

I know from various interviews that Scott wanted to tell a big story with a naturalistic take on the various phenomena that are attended to in the Exodus event of the Old Testament. You’ll get no argument here that a certain amount of creative license has to go into the telling of an oft-told story. I’m not threatened by that: show me something that makes me think about it in a way I haven’t seen it before. But several points along the way left me wondering which story Scott was trying to tell.

#1 Scott seems to focus in on the Moses (Bale) versus Ramses (Edgerton) story from the get-go. There’s plenty of sibling rivalry (and Scott dedicates the film to his deceased brother and former creative partner, Tony) but the finale fails to emotionally connect us to the way that the two seem destined for confrontation. We understand Ramses wishes he had been his father’s favorite (Scott has him tell his sleeping child that he “sleeps well because he knows he’s loved” but Ramses can’t sleep) but the angst doesn’t develop organically (Sigourney Weaver as his mother is a blip on film). I see all of those earmarks in the first third of the film, but the middle and ending fail to satisfactorily wrap them all up.

The ‘other’ brother, Aaron (Andrew Tarbet), has few speaking lines, which is ironic, given that he’s the one appointed to do the talking because Moses isn’t much of a talker (Exodus 4:10-17). Of course, Scott needed Moses to be a warrior so Bale could play twelfth century B.C. Batman but to fail to investigate his hesitancy at speaking and leading doesn’t jive with the Maximus Decimus Meridius-like figure that Scott went for here.

#2 Moses is a faithless person, raised in the pharaoh’s palace without knowledge (subconsciously buried?) of his past life as an Israelite baby. He lacks the connection to the Israelites (which I get) but his transformation doesn’t really occur (from doubt to faith) until much later than seems necessary in the Biblical narrative. There’s no reason to expect his forth-with-it-ness throughout the story if he doesn’t believe. Of all of the points, this is the one that came closest to helping me re-examine the composite Moses in my head, but even it seems flat and not completely ripped into by the end of the film.

#3  God’s depiction and involvement as a direct actor and participant in the Biblical narrative is what ties the whole thing together. Here, he is a vengeful child, a figment of the imagination, a passing storm – all or none of the above. [If Moses is insane, then Aronofsky has already portrayed a Biblical figure as insane in a much more profound way.] But Ridley, intent on the humanistic take, fails to see that God is what drives this story, not Moses, in the Old Testament, even as he has Moses say, “This isn’t a very convincing story, or even a well-told one at that.” God acts in Exodus (the book) to move Moses, to move Pharaoh, to act divinely; in Scott’s version, God is nearly an afterthought. [It’s what leaves the Passover scene feeling empty, because sin and grace and protection aren’t unpacked (sheep or first/perfect sheep? Exodus 12), and it’s instead like Moses made it up.]

#4 Moses’ relationship with Zipporah (Exodus 2:21-22) shows a flash of romance, but seems to be a strange insert into the story; when we return to her character again, it’s one of several endings that Scott doesn’t seem happy with, as if he doesn’t know how to wrap the whole thing up without ending up in Canaan – and that would take forty years of wandering. Scott seems interested in these side stories to the main Moses narrative (like making Aaron Paul a contemporary of Bale’s Moses, as Joshua son of Nun (Ben Kingsley)) but none of them flesh-out, not even Miriam (Tara Fitzgerald), whose early scene may be the most compelling one on screen.

Finally, all of these good-but-not-great pieces scream a Director’s Cut. But after two-and-a-half hours of this, I was bored. Was the plague on the firstborn sons chilling? Of course! Were some of the scenes well-shot and powerful? Absolutely! But the script was too convoluted, the acting at times too ham-fisted (was that Moses or the Dark Knight in the stable scene?), and the overall package trailed off in the end like a story that didn’t know what to do with itself. For all of its differences from what I believe and think about the creation story, Noah was a better, more thought-provoking film.

Maybe Scott should’ve made Joseph: Slaves & Rulers and done better. He could’ve been epic, and not had to worry about God-as-character so much. I don’t mind the creative license to fill in the parts that are glossed over in the narrative, but to reduce God’s role to a fireside hallucination seems to be an adventure in missing the point. It’s a shame, because Moses is a figure we could all learn something from if shown in the right light.

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The Night Before Christmas Prep (Sunday’s Sermon Today)

Posted on December 17, 2014 by Jacob Sahms

I recently polled Facebook to see what people did to prepare for Christmas.

“We donate to an organization and place the card on the Christmas tree and open it last.”

“My wife and I will decorate our tree in the living room, and that night camp out on the floor and watch a christmas movie under the tree.”

“We fill a boxes with items marked with the countdown till Jesus birthday! ( usually starts on December 15th) It’s filled with small gifts, letters, sayings and love! We are making three this year!”

“We bake MANY Christmas cookies to give to friends and relatives. My mom did it and now we use many of the same recipes.”

There were favorite movies listed – from Andy Griffith’s to How the Grinch Stole Christmas to White Christmas , the participation in Christmas Eve services, and even some experiences of Christmas caroling. Oh, and lots of food-related traditions!

I remember growing up, Christmas was a full-time sprint. Even now, the day after Thanksgiving, when my family travels to my parents, we go out and cut down a Christmas tree, Griswold-style. [This year, my father really went against the grain- he replaced the blade of the saw for the first time in twenty years! Needless to say, the tree was cut down in record time.] An afternoon was spent making dozens of Christmas cookies, my mother wrote over a hundred Christmas cards, we went Christmas caroling, and I had an annual spot as a wise man in the Living Nativity. And I remember that I just wanted to cut to the ‘good stuff,’ the present getting. [Off the record, the truth is that I hated decorating. Don’t know why; I just did.]

But the older I get… the less I care about the Christmas present getting. Don’t get me wrong, it’s plenty of fun to receive gifts from people who know and love me. But along with the gift-getting not being the only thing I look forward to, there’s also a change in my attitude toward all of the preparations for Christmas.

Now, I write nearly two hundred Christmas cards. I’m the one searching out new Christmas music to add to the collection: from Trans-Siberian Orchestra and Third Day to this year’s Pentatonix and Idina Menzel. I’m the one showing our boys the Christmas specials from the tried-and-true Rudolph the Rednosed Reindeer and Frosty the Snowman to new classics Prep & Landing and Elf. [They’re not ready for The Santa Clause or A Christmas Carol yet!] I’m the one who is giddy about Christmas like Arthur, the youngest Claus in Arthur Christmas– and somehow, all of those preparations my parents worked to accomplish before Christmas seem super important now.

Those preparations may get me “in the mood” for Christmas, but it’s the work of our church that  really fires me up – whether it’s collecting coats or making turkey baskets, or meeting new people who come to check out our church at Christmastime. There’s joy in the preparation, not just in the actual celebration. There’s wonder in the buildup, in Advent itself, as we roll toward something, epic. Something so epic it took a whole squad of angels to announce, so epic that they went to the least, the last, and the forgotten-about in the society of Jesus’ day to get the word out.

Yep, they went to the shepherds.

The shepherds keeping watch of the flock – someone else’s flock because they were too poor to own the flock – by night. Then one angel appeared to them and the glory – the brightness – of the Lord shown around them, and to quote Linus, they were sore afraid. They were so afraid it hurt. They did not see this coming – they were unprepared.

But the angel said one of my favorite lines in the Bible – a message that God is speaking into our world right now: “Do not be afraid – for this is good news of great joy for all people- the Savior, the Messiah, is born!”

Friends, these unprepared, simple shepherds were told where to find the baby and they went. If no one had told them where to go or what to look for, they could not, they would not, have found Jesus. But the angel showed up and gave them the good news and told them to look for a baby in a manger.

I don’t know about you, but I can get sucked into thinking that Nativity Scenes are pretty normal looking. They’re in front of churches, at zoos, even in front of the bank! But no one, not even in Jesus’ day, expected a baby to be born and placed into a trough that animals eat out of. They might not have had USDA or Health Code regulations, but it was just common sense!

And the angel said that the baby would be in a manger – and that they should go look for him because he was the Savior of the world.

So, these men, who moments before had been scared stiff, so afraid it hurt, sore afraid, recognize this message of great joy for all people, and they go. 

They went with great haste and found the baby lying in the manger, and told everyone there – Mary? Joseph? the innkeeper? Others who were clued in? what the angels had told them. And “the shepherds returned [to the fields] glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.”

The shepherds were renewed in their effort of being good shepherds because of what they had seen. They knew this was different, spectacular, and they had to tell people about it. It wasn’t for them to keep it in – they had to share.

So, let’s recap:

-God chose to send angels to deliver the news to the lowest of the low – otherwise they wouldn’t have known. God picked the shepherds intentionally but they also needed to be told.

-The shepherds went fast– they knew it was important.

-The shepherds could not be silent because they knew it was great news.

These shepherds became the first evangelists, the first preachers, the first bringers of good news without any preparation or advanced thought. And the word of what had happened spread like wildfire.

So, I ask you today, have you heard the good news? Do you know that a Savior was born 2014 years ago, who would grow up to be the man who would live and die so that you could be forgiven? So that your relationships with others and God could be made right?

Do you recognize that there are people outside of churches and families and communities – and inside them to – who don’t know the good news because no one has told them?

Are you ready to move with great haste – without reservation – to grab your coworker, your spouse who won’t come to church, your children, your grandchildren, your parents, your friends and say, “There’s good news, not just for later, but for right now, and you need to hear it?”

Darius Rucker sings,

“I wonder what God wants for Christmas
Something that you can’t find in a store
Maybe peace on Earth, no more empty seats in church
Might be what’s on His wishlist
I wonder what God wants for Christmas

What do you give someone
Who gave His only Son
What if we believe in Him
Like He believes in us.”

I love Christmas, I really do. Not for the trappings, not for the doing, but because it’s the moment when the world, whether it’s ready to accept it or not, says Jesus’ name. You see, I don’t believe you can keep Christ out of Christmas – you can only try and deny it – but it’s our job to keep Christ in Christian, to be prepared to give an answer for the joy we know.

I think God wants for us to believe – and for us to believe enough to share that good news with others. So I hope you know – not know about or mentally understand or have heard of – the joy of Christmas this year. I hope you believe. 

I’m praying that this year, you will take the next three days and boldly invite people to church. Quite frankly, if someone doesn’t get it on Christmas Eve – well, it’s going to take a Christmas miracle. [I’ll get to that on Wednesday.] The truth is that people want to be invited, want to be welcomed, want to be told that they’re loved. So, if we know how all of that can happen – how they can meet the God of the universe and we don’t tell them, it’s like having the best Christmas gift in the whole world, plenty for everyone, and not sharing!

I hope that you will wrap yourself in bows made of family and friends, drink deep of the cheer spent singing loudly for all to hear, eat well in the nourishment of God’s holy word, and experience that excitement, that absolutely electric energy that the shepherds knew that day.

I hope you’ll spend a lifetime running to the manger – and then shouting, celebrating, sharing, excitedly, the good news for all people.

It’s the best way to prepare for Christmas.

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Twas Three Nights Before Christmas (A Mustard Seed Musing)

Posted on December 15, 2014 by Jacob Sahms

So, A Visit From Saint Nick (sometimes referred to by the story version title, Twas The Night Before Christmas) influences next Sunday’s sermon. Just for kicks, I sat down to see what I’d come up with if I played with Clement Moore’s poem. I can say for sure that his rhymed better.

Twas three nights before Christmas, when outside the church

Not a pastor was stirring, no one went to search,

The poinsettias were hung from the railing with care,

On Christmas Eve they assumed…maybe people’d come there.

 

The children showed up dressed up in their best,

With joy in their hearts and love in their chest.

Then Moms in their jewelry, and Dads in their coats,

Settled into the pews, prepared to sing notes.

 

The sermon they were sure would maybe be riveting

But nothing they’d hear would make their life pivoting

With no expectations that their lives would change

They went through the motions, no knowledge of strange…

 

When suddenly in the midst of worship there arose a clatter

They turned in a flash to see could be the matter

Through the back doors came a blast of bright light

And the preacher knew this was going to be some kind of night.

 

On the man’s face there was some kind of glow

He’d burst in to see if this be worship or some kind of show

Had the people come waiting for entertainment near

Or was there an expectation that God would be here?

 

With wings unfurled, both bright and thick,

The people knew a message awaited, bold and quick,

Rather than wait for a moment, the angel came

Up to the front, and with boldness proclaim:

 

“This Christmas, make it more than show

Take your heart and your love and then go!

Take the gospel of forgiveness well past this wall

Run fast, tell it quick, bring it to one and all!”

 

Then without another word, he turned back to go

And the people said later that they’d never know

If the message was a warning or invitation made

They knew they were loved by God’s messenger paid.

 

The children ran to see him fly out of sight,

As the church people spilled out of pews into the night

God’s presence was felt and they knew it was given

That to tell of Christ’s birth, they’d better get livin’.

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Is It A Wonderful Life Without Jesus? (Sunday’s Sermon Today)

Posted on December 10, 2014 by Jacob Sahms

Are you afraid of the dark? There’s something disquieting about it. I know as a kid I didn’t like to go into our basement by myself. My family made a joke about the three men who lived there (real funny, right?) and somehow, realizing how ridiculous it was for there to be people living in our little house and for me to not know it, I got over being scared of going in the basement.

But I still don’t like being in the dark much. The dark is different – other- we can’t see where we’re going and sometimes we run into things!

There’s a joke my kids like: “Where was Goofy when the lights went out?” The answer, of course, is “in the dark.” That’s pretty much where the people of the world were before Jesus – and not just because electricity hadn’t been harnessed yet.

Where were Mary and Joseph in an occupied country before Jesus was born? In the dark.

Where were the shepherds before the angels appeared to them?  In the dark.

Where were the wise men/people/kings before they followed the star?  In the dark.

Without Jesus, we’re in the dark. John 1:5 states, “the light (and by that he means Jesus) shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it.” Martin Luther King Jr. made it practical for us: “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

God sent Jesus to earth to live with us, to show us what light and love look like. Unfortunately, not everyone ‘got’ it, that Jesus was the light. They were too used to the dark, and too comfortable stumbling around blind. Unfortunately, the church and church people have not always taught people about how much God cares about love first.

Sometimes, the church shows up and says, “you’re getting this all wrong.”

Sometimes, church people show up and say, “the way we do things is better than yours.”

Do you like being told you’re wrong or that someone else does things better? I know I don’t!

But the truth is that the gospel of John says that Jesus focused on something different when he explained his purpose: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

Jesus’ purpose was to show love. Jesus’ birth was about setting up God’s greatest display of compassion. It’s not that Jesus came near but Jesus came with. He didn’t come close to us, but to be us, to be with us, to teach, to heal, to love, and to save.

That is the good news of Christmas: that’s the good news of great joy for all people.

God loves you. God wants what’s best for you. God wants you to know that his way is full of grace and freedom and love that will give you a way through, out, around, and over the problems at home, at work, with addiction, with pride, with broken relationships, self-doubts, and out-of-control emotions.

I’ve known that truth since I was a little kid. I was blessed to be raised in a Christian home, by a mother and father who had been raised to love God through Jesus Christ by their parents. It wasn’t a big decision, a “conversion experience” that changed my heart from disbelief to belief, but it’s instead been a gradual opening of my heart to understanding better what God wants from me. And I’m still growing.

But what if my parents weren’t raised in church? What if I didn’t grow up in church? I think sometimes that I’d be in the dark about what it meant to be loved by God.

I could sleep in on Sundays. I wouldn’t be a pastor. I probably wouldn’t have met my wife at a chapel service. I wouldn’t know a good number of my closest friends.

That’s the kind of alternative reality that reminds me of It’s A Wonderful Life, the Frank Capra story about George Bailey, who lives his whole life trying to be “good” and to do the right thing, but who continually bangs his head against the brick wall in town of the evil banker, Mr. Potter. Mr. Potter finally causes George’s whole life to unravel, all of the deals he’s made and all of the people he’s helped in the attempt to be ‘good,’ come undone. And George wishes he had never been born.

Because this a Christmas movie – there’s an angel named Clarence. Of course, Clarence takes George on a spin through memory lane, although this isn’t reality, this is reality where George doesn’t exist. George sees that his town is now Potterville, that the people he helped never received help, that all of the good he did thinking it was ‘just the right thing to do’ served a greater purpose. And when he repents of his wish, when he chooses to make a different life then the community wraps itself around him and he experiences grace again.

George realizes that it wasn’t about doing the right thing for praise or to feel good about it, but that there was a higher purpose, that he brought people together and inspired them, too. George realizes the grace of what it means to experience Christmas, to experience God-with-us, Immanuel, through the friendship and care of his angel, Clarence.

George experiences Christmas for real for the first time because he experiences life without Christmas. George experiences the grace of second chances. George experiences the grace of community.

But that’s a story you say. How does it relate to real life and death and all of that stuff in between like mortgages, and layoffs, and getting uninvited to Christmas dinner, and raising our kids, and dealing with our addictions?

How about a real life version?

I was recently told the story of the Knoxes who had planned out their vacation to travel overseas at Thanksgiving to see their grown son, his wife, and their three grandparents (two of whom they’d never met before). But the Tuesday of their visit, their son went to sleep and never woke up. So they grieved and tried to help their daughter-in-law, and had to return to the U.S. They consoled their two other children, and then went back home. Then they went back to church.

And everyone cried, and hugged them. DURING THE CHURCH SERVICE!

It’s been several weeks and they will be wrestling with the absence, the sadness for awhile. Being in church doesn’t make the real world go away. But they knew they were supposed to be back in the church they’d worshipped in for thirty years. Because that’s where their community was. That’s where they could be held, comforted; that’s where they could find people who would listen to them scream and cry, who would dry their tears and cry with them. That’s where they were reminded that death isn’t forever; that Jesus’ resurrection means resurrection for them and for their son, too.

So, I wonder, if we could see the world without Jesus and recognize that it’s not so wonderful. Without grace, life is cold and harsh. Without grace, where do the Knoxes go?

In another story shared with me this week, a young man named Bryan broke his C5 vertebrae by diving into shallow water here in Florida. As the family was swirling in this disaster, they connected with Alan Brown, who twenty-six years ago, suffered the same injury in the exact same way (diving in shallow water) and has been in a wheelchair since. Brown rushed to Bryan’s bedside to talk to him and his family. When Alan gets there, he sees that Bryan is in the same hospital, and in EXACT same hospital room that Alan had been lying in 26 years ago. When Alan was asked how it felt to be back there, he said, “I go back there a lot.” Of course he does, always helping others with their injuries. He then said, “I leave there crying. But it fuels me.” Brown was asked what he told Bryan’s family. Did he tell them their son would be okay? That their lives would change? Nope. He told them this, which I’m carrying with me everywhere today: “You’re not alone. You’re never alone.” (Brad Meltzer)

The story of Christmas is that we are not alone. Immanuel, God is with us. God wanted to be with you and with me so he came as a a baby. That’s a true story – and it shines for us to see in the month of December.

But in the story of Christmas, not everyone can see the story. We need people to point to the grace in Christmas. To point beyond doing the right things, whether it’s giving of our time, or our money, or our stuff, because it feels right, to doing good because we recognize that we were loved first. By God. In the story of Christmas, we need a reminder that the world has hope, that we have hope, that there is hope.

In the story of that first Christmas, it’s angels – maybe not quite like the wingless Clarence – but angels who announce the coming birth to Jesus, the coming birth to Joseph, the baby’s birth to the shepherds – who are in the dark themselves, and to the wise men- who follow the star through the dark.

So, who is it that bears the good news today? Who reminds people that their lives, whether everything is going well now or everything is going poorly, matter to God and that God has a plan? Who tells them what God is really hoping that they’ll get out of Christmas this year?

I think that’s our job.

A week ago, I found myself in an interesting conversation with a person of faith, who has some beliefs about God that are similar to mine, and then some that are… not. We talked about the importance of Christmas, the importance of generosity, and the importance of telling people about Jesus. And then the woman told me, “We need to grab onto as many people as we can because this world is going to hell in a hand basket – we know how this is going to end!”

And I thought, Um, maybe we’re not on the same page.

See, I do believe that everyone has a choice to make: will they accept Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross and recognize that the miracle of Christmas was God breaking through, or will they continue to move through life and figure that they can do it better on their own? But I don’t think the message of Christmas is about judgment, about hell, about the end of the world.

I think it’s about the beginning. I think it’s about the wonderful life that the angels proclaimed to Mary, Joseph, and the shepherds.

I think it’s about God saying to each and every one of us, together in community, that we are made in God’s image, that we are loved unconditionally, that we matter, that what we’ve done or what’s been done to us doesn’t have to be what we’re known for. That we can change and grow and be miracle workers, too, if we’d just accept the message.

The message that we’re not supposed to be afraid of the dark anymore.

The message that we’re forgiven even before we admit we’ve got a problem.

The message that says the message is for everyone, not just the good ones, or the privileged. Mike Slaughter even says that it’s not really the gospel if it’s not good news for the poor!

The message that this is all about what God is going to do, has done, and is doing- to bring peace on Earth.

That’s the message I want to share on Christmas. That’s the message that I want to shine like a bright light into our community, to highlight the divides we’re seeing in Ferguson and Staten Island, to reflect into the dark corners of homelessness and hunger, to remind people that they are not alone.

It’s the message our church is sending with coats for kids, and through Toys for Tots, and in turkey baskets. It’s spread through the dinners for homeless men like the one we’ll share on December 30, through the Empty Bowls program on Super Bowl Sunday, through the auction in May, through VBS.

The world wants us to believe that it is dark outside and it’s going to stay that way. The world wants us to be convinced that it’s dog-eat-dog, that only the strong survive, that every person is an island.

To which I say, not so fast.

I say that there’s a new day coming when the light will be all there is, when all of our pain, frustration, addiction, homelessness, hunger, not enough, all of our want will be no more- and everyone will have enough. Because everyone will have enough in the light, in the glory of the kingdom of God.

I recognize that everyone is communicating a message. We’re all shining or reflecting something. This Christmas, I want the lights of this church to announce that the gospel of Jesus Christ is to set free those in bondage to desperation and addiction, to free us from isolation and having to fight through the darkness on our own, to make love the way we act and speak and live.

I admit that we’re not there yet – but I believe we’re supposed to strive for it. To shine for it.

Because no one should be afraid of the dark.

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“No One Is Free When Others Are Oppressed” (A Mustard Seed Musing)

Posted on December 5, 2014 by Jacob Sahms

Facebook makes me want to throw up sometimes. I’m not talking about other people’s taste in clothing, or food, or even sports teams. No, I’m considering the bile expounded upon by folks I know – and some I’ll never meet- about the death of Mike Brown and Eric Garner. While one may argue for self-defense in the first, the second is a near replication of Fruitvale Station’s real-life Oakland BART incident. Friends, this is getting ridiculous.

A long time ago, twenty-plus years at least, my mother sat me down and had me watch the PBS miniseries Eyes on the Prize. I remember wondering at first why Mom thought this was so important we’d skip cartoons or playing outside or whatever it was we were giving up. And then she explained how wars had been fought and people had struggled to make our country truly free. And free for everyone. And how the freedom was still being fought for. And how my sister and I should be fighting for the freedom of others.

I was fourteen.

“No man is above the law and no man is below it.”–Teddy Roosevelt

As an adult, I look around my corner of the world and it seems that we have made the law into something that protects those it wants to protect, but even in the case of death at the hands of the said law, justice can’t be had for others. I don’t have an argument for what happened in Ferguson or Queens: but when a person dies, our law (and our conscience, we hope) should beg for a serious investigation. Unfortunately, some are quick to dismiss these deaths as the end result of poor decisions on the part of the dead; I thank God I am not held guilty for my past mistakes. Some want to make this political but it’s not left or right or middle to be a human; when you’re dead, you are no longer registered with your party. You can debate the law (stealing cigarettes, selling them tax-free): I will not debate justice.

So, I find myself this day wondering what the world has come to when anyone can read about the death of a man and use that moment as an anthem for us versus them, or cheer the “way it was deserved”. I find myself wondering how we can understand the past (we don’t) and think that white people aren’t privileged in America (we are) or think that violence in our outrage will somehow make things better (it won’t) or that if the races of these individuals were switched, there would be trials (there would be). Okay, so of the first two I am sure, and of the last, I submit my humble opinion.

Yes, we shouldn’t steal, shouldn’t commit acts of violence, shouldn’t disobey the law. But when we assume justice instead of acting it out (“truth in action,” said Benjamin Disraeli), when we use violence to combat violence (“hate cannot drive out hate,” said MLK), when we sit in silence while others are persecuted (Abraham Lincoln called that cowardice), we fail to be a humanity that was made in the image of God.

I beg you to pray for the world we live in, and pray for our children who will reap what we sow.

I beg you to pray for the fallen on every side, and those who mourn them.

I beg you to pray for those who have taken lives, that God would bring peace to their hearts.

And I beg that you would pray for you and I, whether you agree with my words or not, that God would reshape our hearts and make us compassionate, and pure, and grace-filled.

I beg you to pray for love.

“What the world needs now is love, sweet love
It’s the only thing that there’s just too little of”–“What The World Needs Now”

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One Magical Christmas: An Angel, Santa, & A Kid Walk Into A Situation (Movie Review)

Posted on December 4, 2014 by Jacob Sahms

I had a vague recollection of a movie from the 1980s where some unfortunate, tragic events occur and show a family what the Christmas spirit is really about, tugging at the back of my memory. So, I searched by various terms (the only other thing I could remember was “shooting in a bank robbery”) and discovered the film was One Magical Christmas. Given that I’m a Christmas film junkie, and we’re doing a sixteen-film Christmas Film Eliminator at Hollywood Jesus, I used the wonders of Amazon Prime and sat down to watch the film thirty years later.

Mary Steenburgen plays the matriarch of Grainger household, burdened by an out-of-work husband (Gary Basaraba), two children, a terrible job, and a growing stack of bills. But unlike some who find the glass half-full, or see the silver lining, Ginny Grainger is angry at the world. Especially at Christmastime.

But Grainger’s daughter Abbie (Elisabeth Harnois) believes – and she ends up joining forces with an angel (Harry Dean Stanton) and Santa (Jan Rubes) to right wrongs and to bring her mother some Christmas cheer. It’s interesting that it combines the heavenly and the North Pole-y to make it work. [That’s Disney for you.] And the plot holes are at times wide enough to roll through lying down. But it still works in that sacred place that is Christmas movies.

Grainger is saved, and her husband is … healed? fixed? resurrected? because of faith. Faith in Santa, faith in the angel, faith in love or Christmas or something that brings them to the place and time where miracles happen and love occurs. Isn’t that what we really want from Christmas? We don’t have to understand it- heck, we put aside the need to get how reindeer or sleighs fly, how many animals were in the stabled when Jesus was born, if someone upstairs or in the North Pole or in heaven, really knows if we’re naughty or nice, because internally, we want to believe. 

We know we need faith- even when we’re not sure what we should have faith in. And Christmas films seem to point faintly to something miraculous and spiritual and heavenly. Because, to paraphrase the Lion in The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, “there’s an older, deeper magic still.”

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An Innkeeper, Home Alone? (Sunday’s Sermon Today)

Posted on December 3, 2014 by Jacob Sahms

“There was no room for them in the inn.”

Without a doubt, that’s the scariest phrase for me in the opening vignettes of Jesus’ miraculous birth and life. Not that an unwed, teenage girl would be his mother; not that his adoptive father was ready to divorce said mother. No, the most terrifying phrase in this story revolves around the fact that the God of the universe came to the world as a tiny, little baby and we couldn’t find a room for him to be born in. 

Fragile, baby, human Jesus was laid in a manger. Because there was no room for him.

For so much of my experience of the story, I’ve always judged the innkeeper, the one who sent newlywed Mary and Joseph scurrying into a stable as as Mary went into labor, who thought that the manger was a great place for a newborn to cry.

But, what if I’ve been getting this all wrong? There’s no mention of the actual innkeeper, no context in which to place the person who directed the couple to the stable. So, imagine with me now, what if….

In a land occupied by the Holy Roman Empire, two brothers wrestled and played, under the watchful eye of their mother and father. I don’t quite have in mind that this family was the Hiltons per se, but they were the fine hoteliers who owned the best inns up and down the route from Hebron to Jerusalem. The best of the best went there to stay – people longed to find room to rest on their journey, to see the sights. Both boys knew how to care for the customers’ needs: running errands, lugging bags, setting up the delivery of this food or that treat, as serves the hospitality business. There was even the one time that the stranger brought a broken man, beaten and left for dead, and paid their father to let him stay and feed him until he could recuperate. What generosity! But as the boys grew, one became discontented with the life that he lived, within the context of the family trade.

Merely a boy, a young man of eighteen, the youngest brother watched how hard his older brother work, and saw how slow his progress was within the business. His father granted him privileges, but no ownership of any of their inns was granted – his older brother was always working, but never rewarded with his own space.

Wanting to experience more of the world than that gradual climb, the younger brother swilled down enough liquid courage to approach his father one day, and demand his inheritance, up front, in full. His father was beside himself, angry, sad, torn apart by his son’s brazenness and disrespect, but longing to see his child happy.

Within days, half of the family’s inns were put on the market; by the end of the month, the younger son had set out for foreign lands where he would enjoy the finer things and experience the world he’d longed to see. The elder brother brooded, having stomped out of a shouting match with his father, and cursing the day his younger brother had been born. The boys’ mother fell ill and died soon afterward, whether it was from her own burden of worry or a broken heart, no one was clear. And so father and eldest son settled in again to a corrupted pattern of hard work and sullen silences, with little love for their inns. And with the disinterest, the line of inns dwindled away, slowly.

Meanwhile, the younger son did what a young man with money will do. He squandered the money foolishly on food and drink, parties and women. He enjoyed himself but found that when his money dried up, so did his so-called relationships. He began applying for jobs, assuming his early skill set would earn him a spot in some foreign hostel. But foreigners are often discounted, even ones with great skill, and the young man found himself caring for the stable animals, the horses, the cows, the pigs.

Broken and alone, the young man took up a knife and a block of wood, and managed to whittle out a small reminder of home – a silhouette of a singular inn. As he whittled, he thought back to the songs of his youth, the echo of his parents’ voices, the thrill of serving up breakfast or showing a new guest into their room.

After selling off enough of his carvings, the younger son began the long trek home. His pride was gone: all he wanted was to accepted again into the household of his father, even if only as a servant. Of course, his father saw him coming – he had heard from a traveling salesman that his son had been sighted and was heading back to their home in Bethlehem. Greeting him like a visiting prince, the father welcomed him in and set out a heaping banquet before him.

This naturally didn’t sit well with the other brother, who himself had been caring for the animals in the fields that were required to provide the inn with what it needed in food, milk, and cloth. Arriving as the son went down, he heard the choruses of party songs, and asked one of the servants what all of the fuss was about. Upon hearing his brother had come home, he stalked off- and refused to return when his father approached.

Hours later, the two brothers met in the alley behind the inn. Don’t you know it’s your fault that mother died? Don’t you see that your greed reduced father to this? shouted the elder son, throwing his hands out to encompass the family’s one, remaining inn.

As happens in situations like these, there was nothing to be said or done that would restore order. Nothing that would bring the brothers together. Nothing, even including the passing of their aged father, who left the inn equally to the brothers, binding them financially together in the midst of their separation.

In time, the Roman emperor Caesar Augustus decreed that all of his occupied peoples would submit to a census. Knowing that there were certain taxes failing to reach his treasury, his advisors had told him that he would be able to tighten his control over the empire’s finances. So, each one of the nations under Rome’s thumb trickled the order down to every one of its citizens, even the lowliest of the low.

This provided a momentary financial boon to the two brothers, whose inn received an uptick in traffic. As people came from far and wide to Bethlehem – everyone whose parents had once lived there – the rooms were packed and the brothers hustled, forgetting their momentary strife to fulfill the need. Even the younger brother’s woodcarving business was tabled; what income he’d brought in to help make the bills had merely disappeared in the never-ending train of debt.

Before long, the brothers were turning away potential guests. This angered the older brother, who felt that the emperor’s edict would ultimately cause future guests to ignore the inn once word made its way around. Nothing the younger brother could say would pacify him.

One night, long after the sun had gone down, a couple arrived, bedraggled and exhausted. When they knocked on the inn’s door, the older brother sent his brother to send them away. No room! He roared. Another dissatisfied customer.

Apologetically, the younger brother answered the knocking and passed on the news. The husband visibly grimaced, whispering that this was their fifth attempt, and the younger brother knew that they were out of options. He held his hands up as if to say, what could I do? and turned to shut the door.

But something about the way that the woman placed her hand on her husband’s shoulder – or maybe it was the careful grace with which she moved – stopped him. Something made him pause, and he remembered all of the times he had slopped food for the animals while a stranger in the foreign land – and how his father had welcomed him back with grace and forgiveness.

The younger son called them back and hurried to catch up with them before they had turned the corner. He showed them to the stable, apologizing profusely for the lack of beds. The woman shook her head slowly as if to say that it wasn’t his fault and her husband led the donkey into the stable. Each of the animals paused as they entered, and quieted themselves in their stalls.

Promising to check on them in the morning, the innkeeper turned to leave yet again, when he heard the woman groan. Her husband caught an arm as she clutched her belly with the other; he asked with great worry if the baby was coming. And the younger brother knew then that she was pregnant.

Hurry, won’t you please, to keep some blankets? asked the husband. And the younger brother hurried back, through the alley and up the stairs past his brother. With urgency he’d never felt before, he dashed back with all of the spare bedding he could find, collecting a servant as he want to aid in the birthing process.

The baby cried innocently and then slept in his mother’s arms, under the protective watch of his father. Creeping away, the younger brother went back to his room, uncovering the finest work he had ever crafted. Intended for a rich farmer a town over, the manger he’d worked on for months would be the finest cradle the inn could provide. With great care, he left it set next to the sleeping mother and child, wondering what miracle of life this was that he’d seen that night.

Unable to sleep, he rose from his bed and walked down the hall of the upper level of the inn. His brother’s light was still on- and gently, he pushed the door open. His brother turned, and gently, the younger son explained what he had done, about the strangers in the stable. Incredulous that he’d let them stay without paying, he stormed after his younger brother to the stable.

Set on evicting the couple from the stable – it wasn’t up to code, and they weren’t paying – he turned the corner and … saw the baby. As baby’s can – as this baby still does – the isolation, the loneliness, the angst washed away. There was something more going on here, something crazy, and perfect, and miraculous. There was something wonderful about this place, where no baby was home alone, where even the homeless had found a place to rest.

Like the shepherds later that night, like the wise men who would follow the star to visit the child, the two brothers recognized something deeper and wider than they’d ever imagined. They experienced the raw, unadulterated love of God, present in the child loved by its parents. Miraculous and glorious, these two found themselves after being lost for so long, and experienced the joy of that first Christmas.

Did these two innkeepers ever reconcile? Was that baby enough? If we can believe in miracles and hearts growing two sizes that day and singing loud to spread Christmas cheer and following the star and our hearts being warmed… then can’t a story about a prodigal son and a miracle baby and a loving God work?

Can’t we believe that we’re called to be more generous, more loving, more forgiving, more like Jesus?

Maybe we got it wrong all along. Maybe the inn was full so those brothers could come together; maybe the inn was full so that they could forgive each other. Maybe this Christmas, you’ll recognize the slights and problems of the next few weeks, the pain and the longing, the celebrations and the excitement, all work together so that we can receive that baby. So that we can be changed.

May there be no room in the inns of our expectations – and may the stable of our hearts, the humble manger of our souls, be the humble sacrifice that we need.

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Random Thoughts From The Train (A Mustard Seed Musing)

Posted on November 29, 2014 by Jacob Sahms

While the airline fees predicate a certain socioeconomic class, the train still allows for a melting pot of cultural diversity. But you still need a ticket to ride. It’s kind of like grace- it may be free but it ain’t cheap.

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I wonder sometimes if this is what heaven is like, and then I realize there’s still a business class car and a quiet car. Man, if heaven is a quiet car, I’m in trouble. But at least my kids will be there with me.

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People seem to fall into two groups on the train- those who recognize everyone is doing their best and those who are annoyed there’s someone in their space. Maybe they should’ve driven their own car then. Unfortunately, that’s true of church people. We can either think church (especially the pews) are ours or we can see they’re actually for everyone else.

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It would be really easy to plug in the headphones and watch ten hours of extended Hobbit movies. But there’s a lot to see on the train, and the Americana flashing by out of the window. I wonder what we miss everyday because we don’t look up?

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The train is late, smells bad, is crowded, and has nasty bathrooms- my occasional take.

The train is an exciting adventure with new people, stuff to do, and a trip to grandparents’ house (or home)- my kids’ take.

Amazing what a difference in perspective makes. A little more wonder, a little less cynicism. I wonder what our Christmases would look like through the eyes of a child?

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From Thanksgiving to Thanksliving (A Mustard Seed Musing)

Posted on November 27, 2014 by Jacob Sahms

I have much to be thankful for: from a family who loves me to a job I love, from good friends who challenge me to hobbies that give me outlets to express myself, from good health to an understanding of purpose. Sure, I have enough “stuff,” too, but in an ever changing world, the things I cherish more and more are the intangibles, the moments spent with family and friends, the opportunities to make a difference, and the recognition that God has a plan for my life.

I wonder sometimes if we don’t take even our lives of faith for granted, while most of you reading this live in a reasonably safe country, with most of what you need, and the freedom to express yourselves. Do we stop and recognize that God is benevolent, and that everything we have is God’s to begin with? Do we recognize that original sin, the mess Adam & Eve got us into (literally or metaphorically, depending on how you look at it) would still have us in its grasp if it weren’t for Jesus’ death and resurrection?

Sometimes, I need to be reminded to be thankful for the “little things”: the bills being paid, the house being warm, the car starting (all of which take money and grace, too). But today I want to stop and thank God that we have life in the first place, and that God wants that life to be excellent and grace-filled, not that we’d have everything we wanted or be rich, but that we would have enough and that we’d see how we could be a blessing to others.

If I could hold that in the front of my heart, it wouldn’t just be a day I’d celebrate once a year but a lifestyle that could change my perspective. And that would certainly be worth celebrating!

Happy Thanksliving.

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A Christmas Story To Tell (Sunday’s Sermon Today- Advent 1)

Posted on November 26, 2014 by Jacob Sahms

What are your favorite stories? The ones you would re-read or re-watch, the ones you love to hear for yourself again and to tell others about? The ones you can tell by heart?

One of my favorite stories – and definitely movies- is The Princess Bride, written by William Goldman and directed by Rob Reiner. It is a story that has spawned quotes (“Inconceivable!” “As you wish!” “My name is Enigo Montoya…” “Mahwage”), that weaves together a daring rescue, revenge, a love story, humor, sword fighting, and Andre the Giant. It’s a story about the happy ever after, and the work that it takes to get there. And it has one of the best scores ever in cinema!

But the part of the story that isn’t always remembered is the framework of how we get the story. The movie actually opens with a small boy (played by Fred Savage) playing video games, home sick, and feeling pretty puny. But the boy’s grandpa shows up with his favorite book, and the one he once read to the boy’s father, and he delights in getting to share it with his grandson, who is…

Underwhelmed.

The boy thinks he knows exactly how this story is going to work. He cringes at the kissing scenes, he worries that it will be boring or stupid or unexciting. In fact, he’d initially rather stay alone, sick, and huddled under the covers than embrace the book. It’s a book! Not a movie, or a video game, and he is sure it won’t excite him.

Unfortunately, we act like that; we expect that we’ve got the Bible figured out. That we know what the stories will look like and sound like because, let’s face it, most of us have heard them before. Seriously, another Christmas? Another set of Advent sermons? Same Mary and Joseph, same manger, same shepherds. Blah, blah, blah.

But this story isn’t like any other stories. We saw last week how the prophets announced Jesus’ coming thousands of years before he arrived; we recognize that based on what Jesus said as an adult that came true through his death and resurrection that the details played out as they said they would.

This story, the intersection between God’s kingdom and the earthly world of the grind that we live in, this story of Immanuel, “God with us,” is different. And we need to recognize, like the boy does in Princess Bride, that what we recognize in retrospect is something wildly different than what we might have expected, and certainly what Mary and Joseph expected.

In our Scripture today, from Luke 1:25-38, Mary is touched by an angel. Well, maybe not touched but rather approached. She’s a teenager, engaged but not yet living with her fiancee, and the angel Gabriel shows up and informs her: ““Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.” Now, it says she’s ‘troubled,’ by what he says but not that there’s an angel standing in front of her.

Seriously. It’s not like God was sending out the angels to make announcements when it was going to rain or snow. The angels only showed up when it was specific and spectacular, miraculous. [It would be interesting to have angels announce the weather forecast because then the weather predictions would actually stand a chance of being right!]

The angel continues, after telling Mary not to be afraid, “You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.” This is fantastic news, we know, but to Mary, she doesn’t yet know why or how it will play out. At this point in the story, she’s just been told there’s a plan for her unborn baby that God knows about, and that the angel proceeds to explain to her how she’ll get pregnant when she is unmarried. She knows that her son is to follow in the family lineage to be a ruler, a kingdom, a leader. That’s still not the same thing as Mary knowing her son is God or what power his life will have.

But the angel isn’t done yet. He’s got another stop to make in our progression of birth announcements.

From Matthew 1:18-25, Joseph is minding his own business, putting in the final touches on a single life, of running a carpentry business. Did he really expect to have anything other than a quiet marriage arranged by his dear old mum and dad? Did he ever set out to be the earthly father of the Jewish Messiah, of the coming of God to earth, of a savior of the world?

One hardly thinks so.

Somehow though, Joseph finds out that Mary is pregnant, and he knows they haven’t been together yet. He thinks divorcing her quietly, because their engagement was the equivalent of our marriage, would be the most honorable thing to do. He doesn’t want her to be embarrassed even though he must’ve been uncomfortable himself, having learned from someone else that Mary was pregnant in the first place!

But our angel appears again. “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”

Suddenly, Joseph has been read in on what the point of the story is. What he expected and what he’d experienced before have been pushed aside for something greater, some reality that is higher and deeper and fuller than anything he ever imagined.

Joseph has been told that his adoptive son will “save the people from their sins.” Joseph gets the preview, the game-changing, life-affirming, God-is-with-us-and-this-will-work-out point thirty-three years before most of the rest of the world will even witness what happens. And why does he believe this?

Because an angel of the Lord is standing there, hovering there, however the angel works –it’s there. And Joseph (and Mary) know that they’ve experienced something miraculous, something powerful, something unexpected.

I wonder if we can recognize that. If we can peel back the expectations of our stories of Christmas. A baby, animals, a manger, shepherds, wise men, and see how dramatic and different this is.

I think that if we could really get Christmas, that it would change how we see church, and how we understand our lives of faith. I think that if we could see how amazing this story would’ve been to Mary and Joseph, who had no knowledge of Jesus’ walking on water or rising from dead, and what it would mean if we could wrestle with it further.

God invited Mary and Joseph to participate in a grand story, a story woven out of Eden, out of Egypt, out of occupation and out of struggle. He sent his heavenly messengers to announce these ‘breaking developments’ so that there would be no mistaking that what was happening here was divine and miraculous. God wanted Mary and Joseph to recognize that they were part of something greater, something wildly participatory outside of their normal expectations.

Those are stories of heroes, of knights and dragons, of space and great galactic battles, of underdogs beating unbalanced swarms of enemies, those were the stories I loved growing up (and still do) because I would imagine myself in them. And this story, this coming of Jesus, is God’s invitation, sent via by miraculous birth, to invite Mary, Joseph, and ultimately us, into the story.

God wanted to welcome them in and show them that Christmas was God’s way of breaking through all of the things that held them back. Through the hard times, and the anxiety, and the fear, and the isolation, and the need for purpose. God was breaking through to say, “I am here. You matter because I love you. And you can bring this good news to others.”

I believe that’s the same message that God whispers today, in the wind blowing through our souls, in the Christmas bells that ring in front of Walmart and on church wreaths, in the voices of children expressing their wonder and in old souls sharing their favorite Christmas memories.

That God is here. In the midst of the Fergusons and recessions, in the middle of our muddling through work and relationships, in the celebrations of family time and the thrill of buying presents for each other, in the spirit of Christmas that lifts us to generosity and goodness and love. Inside our church and out wandering the streets with some homeless soul. God is here. Immanuel.

I believe that we matter not because we have the right jobs or right connections or right amount of money in our checking accounts. I believe that we matter not because of our age or our skin color or our sexual orientation or our years spent in church. I believe that we matter not because of our usefulness or our education or our status in the community. I believe we matter because God breathed life into us when he created humankind and made us in the image of God; I believe we matter because God created us to be in relationship with him, for his glory, and because he loved us so much that he would send his son, a member of the Trinity, to earth to live with us, to be with us, to show us how to love, and to die on the cross for our sins.

And I believe that this story of God’s great love, introduced in the form of the baby Jesus, is a story that is so spectacular, that we’re supposed to share. We’re supposed to share this story like the angels, who announced what was coming, that first Advent. Jesus has come- he has lived and has died and has risen again. But the good news of Advent is that Jesus is coming again, that the kingdom of heaven is a here and a not yet. That the sorrows of this world, the uncertainty of our lives, will be peeled back by the blinding heavenly light of Jesus.

Mary and Joseph were occupied inhabitants of their own homeland, who were waiting for some glimmer of how the Messiah would come to save God’s people. But it wasn’t just a war fought between armies, or a battle over land that the Messiah came to fight. No, the Messiah, Jesus Christ, came to liberate humanity from its bondage to sin and death, from selfishness and moral decay, from evil and mean spiritedness. Jesus came to flip the script of the story on its head, and to say with authority, “God is here. You are loved. Share the good news.”

The radical, miraculous nature of a virgin birth is exotic enough, but the Christmas story exceeds BB guns, leg lamps, and the birth itself because it’s tied to Easter. 

God’s great gift was resurrection, and forgiveness of sins. God’s great gift is just part of the story- now it’s up to you to help write your chapter.

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