Six Things I Learned From Mom (A Mustard Seed Musing)

Posted on May 8, 2014 by Jacob Sahms

I could write about the time my mom beat the snake to death in the driveway with a softball bat, and then carefully placed it in a glass jar so my biologist dad could identify whether it was poisonous or not.

I could write about the times my mom stayed up late with me to watch March Madness basketball games, to scream at the likes of UNC and cheer for little Davids going up against Goliaths.

I could write about the time my sister and I complained that were going to get yelled at for being late to practice until my mom said she’d go faster if we’d pay for any ticket she received on the way.

But those aren’t the formative moments that I had in mind as I reflected on Mother’s Day this year. Instead, the following nuggets are the things I consider when I reflect on what I learned from my mom.

1. On Right & Wrong: My mom went back to her second semester of college when I was in high school (and graduated with honors six years later with her Master’s degree, too!) Besides learning from her hardworking example, I learned from a few of her classes, like one on the Civil Rights Movement. Ever heard of PBS’ “Eyes On The Prize”? My sister (who is four years younger) and I both watched every episode because my mother borrowed it from the teacher and wanted us to know our history. From early on, I knew there was right and wrong, and I knew that just because it didn’t immediately impact me didn’t mean that I shouldn’t care or try to make a difference.

2. On Being A Man: I was fourteen, and American swimming was dominating in the World Championships and the Olympics. I had posters of Michael Jordan (the best thing UNC has ever produced), David Robinson, and several Olympians up on my wall. But I wanted to add one of Summer Sanders, and I told my mother I wanted to buy one. We talked for a few minutes, and she asked, “How will [my female friends at the time] feel when they come over and see those women in swimsuits on your wall? Will that make them feel good about themselves? What will they think?” That was the first time a conversation ended with a question.

3. On Being A Role Model: I was seventeen, and I was three years older than the next oldest kid in the youth group. There were no kids my age (or older) in the youth group at that point. I was bored, frustrated. One night, on the way home from church, I said, “I don’t want to go anymore.” My mom asked why and we talked about it for a little bit. Finally, she turned and asked me, “who will show the other kids that youth group is important if you aren’t there?” I never missed another youth group meeting… even when the Bulls were playing the Knicks.

4. On Getting Over Myself: I was eighteen, a first semester student in college, and I was miserable! Homesick, tired, not feeling particularly adapted, hungry for food I knew, etc. I called home one night and told my parents how upset I was, how much I disliked it there, and how ready I was to come home. After a few minutes of my rant, my mom said back to me, from hundreds of miles away, “You’ve spent a good amount of time talking about you and how unhappy you are. I know in high school you did a lot of service and that made you happy. What are you doing to make a difference there?” By the end of the first semester, I was involved in a half-dozen service organizations, and never looked back.

5. On Recognizing God’s Plan: I’d graduated from college and seminary, worked on my second job at a church, and entered the United Methodist denomination’s ordination process. One night, over a vacation, my mom shared with me how proud she and my dad were by how I’d pursued my call. She recounted how, before I was born, she had heard God tell her that He had a plan for me. It was at a time when things weren’t looking good, and my mom knew God was speaking to her. I didn’t know the story until my twenties, but the fact that my mom had that conviction provided me with encouragement even when the road to the pastorate got rough. [Editor’s note: Trust me, it gets rough.]

6. On Love & Marriage. Let’s face it, if you know my parents (and me), you know I’m more like my mom. Heart on my sleeve, unrelenting passion, no poker face. One night over the dishes, several years after I was married, we were talking about how you make it work for decade after decade in a world where divorce is more common. My mom told me that she and Dad were so solid because “Dad refuses to argue with me.” We talked longer, and I realized that this was the antithesis of what so many marriage books and seminars had told me: it doesn’t always get resolved, it doesn’t always get answered or handled or sorted out right away. Sometimes, someone just chooses to hold on, to love anyway, to be present, and not worry about who’s right. Sure, this was my mom complimenting my dad, but in that moment, I realized a great truth about my mom. My mom knows who she is and she’s good with that. And because she’s “comfortable in her own skin,” she helped form a strong bond between parents and let me be who I’m supposed to be.

Thanks, Mom.

I know not everyone had the mom that I did but I take this moment to ask you to consider what you’re doing to honor your mom, or to make a difference because you didn’t have one. Will you be a nurturing, safe presence in the life of someone else? Will you give love like you received, or like what you wished you’d received? Will you learn to forgive the hurt you carry? Will you recognize that what we have can break us… or make us stronger? This Mother’s Day, I hope you laugh, love, and live, because we’re made by a Creator God to do those things. We’re made to mentor, to parent, to provide for those who are in our care, regardless of our gender, our parental status, or our age. Who will you love unconditionally today?

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Ten Words #2: No Idols… Or Sacred Cows

Posted on May 7, 2014 by Jacob Sahms

No carved gods of any size, shape, or form of anything whatever, whether of things that fly or walk or swim. Don’t bow down to them and don’t serve them because I am God, your God, and I’m a most jealous God, punishing the children for any sins their parents pass on to them to the third, and yes, even to the fourth generation of those who hate me. But I’m unswervingly loyal to the thousands who love me and keep my commandments. (The Message, Exodus 20:4-6)

[This is Week 3 of the Ten Words series. For the previous week, click here.]

In Hindiusm, cows are sacred. They provide life through their milk, through their use of butter for making lamps, and their dung for making fuel. It is still illegal to kill a cow in India. The Whopper is not on the menu.

But in the 19th century, a phrase originated in the United States about the sacred cow. It meant “an individual, organization, institution, etc., considered to be exempt from criticism or questioning.”

Now, as a toddler, my parents used to put me in the car and drive me around to look at cows when I got cranky. As an adult, I understand that when people feel like their sacred cows are threatened, they get cranky!

What are our sacred cows? What are the things we consider indisputable, unchangeable, the things we get offended about when others challenge them?

Our politics? Our family? Our religious beliefs?

How do those things impact what we believe and how we act? How do we determine what’s real and what’s the image of the real? Why are they so important to us?

In our Scripture today from Exodus 32, the Israelites are fresh off an epic liberation by God. They know they’ve seen the miraculous in the twelve plagues, and they experienced the parting of the Red Sea. They went from absolutely incapacitated by slavery to free in the matter of a month.

And yet, while their leader and their God are up on Mount Sinai having a conversation, suddenly they decide that isn’t enough.  Hadn’t they just been freed from Egypt by that same God?

I think they got scared. I think they doubted. I think they panicked. I think the freedom from slavery combined with their presence in an unknown land, an unknown situation, won out. I think they longed for something they could touch; they wanted the comfortability of an icon, an idol, a thing, like what they’d seen the Egyptians worship.

Here we are again, back in a situation where the Israelites are more comfortable with the devil they know than the God they don’t.

They couldn’t see Moses; he was up the mountain having Starbucks and scones with God. But Aaron, Aaron was available. 

The Israelites longed for something they could hold onto, something they could wrap their minds around, something that seemed more real.

People make idols when what they worship doesn’t seem tangible enough, when they want to make something they can wrap their senses around.

So the people ask Aaron to make something they can see and touch because maybe Moses isn’t coming back.

That’s the other reason why they made the idol: they were afraid. Afraid like little kids in the dark, searching for their safety blanket, wanting the light left on, worried about what they can’t see around the corner.

Aaron tells them to take off the gold they have, their material wealth- it’s actually jewelry they stole from the Egyptians on the way out the door, and he irons it in the fire.

They are literally about to worship a cow made of gold. McDonalds, eat your heart out.

And Aaron takes it a step further and presents the golden calf, saying, “These are the gods who saved you from Egypt.”

God did that, but they can’t see God. Moses spoke for God but they can’t see Moses. So, in one felled swoop, they take this calf and put it in the spot that God actually created by freeing them, and they give an inanimate object for the glory and thanks that should have been God’s.

While God and Moses are talking about “you shall not have any other gods but me,” and “you shall not make any graven images.”

Sure, God is jealous, passionate, and wants to be worshipped, but this idol making moment isn’t healthy. The Israelites just gave up their financial flexibility, the gold they had as their first real property; they just bought into worshipping an object not a living, power; they just willfully allowed themselves to be deluded into rewriting history and ‘forgetting’ their heritage. (Some scholars say that the calf-worshipping celebration also included an orgy, so they dishonored themselves through their bodies and relationships further.)

Fastforward a few hours of partying, and Moses returns with the first set of Ten Words. His is mad. He breaks the set of tablets, he burns the calf in the fire, and he makes them drink it.

Moses literally takes their idol and says, “you want it to fill up the hole in you? You want to be one with the idol? Then take it in! Drink it up. Poison yourselves with it.” What a visual, physical image of their betrayal.

It must have really hurt Moses, to have gone through everything he had to set the people free from Egypt, to find out that they couldn’t be patient, couldn’t be faithful, for a whole day.

But you know, when you experience pain, it’s often because of those closest to you. Moses turns to his brother, the one who had spoken for him before Pharaoh. He asks why Aaron would’ve done that, made the calf. And Aaron gives the stupidest, most impossible excuse since I tried to fib to my parents when I was six…

“I threw [the gold] into the fire, and out came this calf!”

Isn’t that the way it is with us? We’ve probably never taken a thing, an inanimate object, and made an image out of it, forged it in the fire But sometimes, those things sneak their way in.

Sometimes, we let ourselves think or believe what we want to believe. We fool ourselves into focusing on the parts we want to and not on the parts that really are.

We convince ourselves that there are acceptable reasons to neglect our family, neglect our relationship with God, neglect taking care of ourselves.

Like working late…

Like being frustrated with life and seeking solace in people we shouldn’t, places we shouldn’t, or things we shouldn’t.

Like pursuing things that aren’t ours, in the wrong time.

And making excuses for those poor decisions.

We say things with a straight face, like “I threw those bracelets and earrings into the fire, and out walked a cow!”

We’re in good company.

A few years ago, my friend Chris pulled me aside and said, “I’ve got a confession to make.” I wasn’t his pastor, but he had something to get off his chest. Chris drove all over the state for work, spending hours in his car everyday, listening to the radio. He told me he’d realized that listening to NPR was detrimentally impacting his faith walk.

Wait, NPR? National Public Radio?

Chris shared that on Sunday, when the pastor at his church shared something that sounded different than what the commentators on NPR said, he tended to believe NPR. When NPR shared a different take on finance or the death penalty or welfare or health care, he ignored what the preacher had to say.

But after awhile, he realized that the preacher was sharing what Jesus had said, what God wanted. He came to understand for himself that he’d put NPR in the ‘god spot,’ instead of God.

The thing is, there’s a hole in our lives, in our hearts, that’s a God-sized hole. It’s too big for anything else to fit in, but like the Israelites, we try to jam other things in there to fill it up.

We might not worship the golden calf, but we make our sacred cows into something  like an idol.

The truth is that even something good can become an idol. Like the Ten Words. When we use them to judge others, when they represent justice that goes unfulfilled in the lives of those around us.

We articulate them differently, but they happen, even in church.

“We’ve never done it that way” or “But that’s the way we’ve always done it.”

“What if we don’t have enough? We don’t have any more to give.”

“We can’t help out, there’s just no time in the schedule.”

“These are the songs that God wants us to sing.”

“These are our people; those others out there, aren’t.”

“I’m sure God has someone else in mind who could do that.”

“God doesn’t really expect me to do that, right?”

Or better yet: we forget about God in the first place.

This year, it struck me forcefully that the same people who cheered Jesus on a Sunday, as he entered Jerusalem on the day of palms, were also the same ones calling for him to be executed on the cross on Good Friday.

Just like that, they’d forgotten who they worshipped, who they revered, who they’d placed their hope in, and they replaced it with something else.

The leadership and direction of the Pharisees was more tangible than the metaphysical, prophesied coming kingdom that this Messiah, Jesus, proclaimed.

When Jesus didn’t ride in like they expected and lead an armed revolution against the Romans, the people defaulted to thinking that what the Pharisees promised was the best that it could be.

It was easier to hold onto what they knew, the life they could count on even if they weren’t happy, than to embrace in faith what could be.

Rather than judge them, I think it’s wise for us to recognize that we’re that fickle sometimes, that we need to recognize that anything that isn’t God, isn’t of God, can become that idol to us.

Bob Dylan sang:

“But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed

You’re gonna have to serve somebody,

It may be the devil or it may be the Lord

But you’re gonna have to serve somebody.”

Too often, we don’t always recognize that what we serve isn’t obvious. That we become slaves to what we worship. That what we worship causes us to cut corners in other places.

We become slaves to the grind of our jobs, to perform, to accomplish, to rise in status or earnings. We cut corners to make the budget meet or rise to achieve our dream faster.

We become slaves to the almighty dollar, to get more, to make more, to have more. We ignore those in need and fail to be generous in a way that improves our relationships and community.

We become slaves, worshipping the relationships that make us feel good. (Have you ever considered that Facebook could be an idol?) We find ways to make relationships work for us rather than experiencing friendship in a way that makes us grow and helps support others.

We become slaves because, like the Israelites, we wrestle with our insecurity, impatience, fear, and selfishness, and try to solve them on our own.

The prophet Micah proclaimed this good news to the people of Israel, that still holds hope for us. It’s a story not of destruction and hell raining down, but a place where God has become so central that everything and everybody is at peace.

In the last days the mountain of the Lord’s temple will be established
 as the highest of the mountains;
it will be exalted above the hills,
 and peoples will stream to it. Many nations will come and say, ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
 to the temple of the God of Jacob.
He will teach us his ways,
 so that we may walk in his paths.’ The law will go out from Zion,
 the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He will judge between many peoples
 and will settle disputes for strong nations far and wide.
They will beat their swords into plowshares
 and their spears into pruning hooks.
Nation will not take up sword against nation,
 nor will they train for war anymore. Everyone will sit under their own vine
 and under their own fig tree,
and no one will make them afraid,
 for the Lord Almighty has spoken“(Micah 4:1-4).

Micah looks forward to that day when everyone will worship God, and everything else will fall into its right place, when life will be in the right perspective. There will be “balance in the Force,” there will be the people of God restored to their right relationship with God.

In a world where we’re so concerned with our own personal rights—everyone else gets raw deal, who cares– it’s time we put our personal and community sacred cows to sleep. That’s nowhere near as important as it is in church. We need to recognize that we can’t hold or box God in; we can’t let our understanding of God (however simplified) get in the way of worshipping the one, true God.

We’ve got to work toward the balance, toward the kingdom, toward putting our lives in the right order, with God in the center God spot, where only God belongs.

Sean Gladding wrote that the “opposite of faith is certainty.” We need to know that God is bigger and greater than even what we imagine. We can’t go expecting God just to look like what we think, expect, or want to find. We can’t get fooled into thinking that a calf could possibly stand in the place of God.

We need to stop being afraid. We need to stop worrying that our relevance is tied up in our 401ks, our “Protestant work ethic” (that has dropped the Protestant all together!), our relationships, and our unknowns.

We need to recognize that God showed up while the Israelites were still slaves to tell them to not be afraid. He didn’t first liberate them and then tell them who he was; no, he said he was with them and then he set them free.

Over and over again throughout the Bible, God told people through his own words, through angels, “do not be afraid.” It’s the first thing we should cling to when we want to start believing that maybe an idol would be better, maybe something we can control could actually make us feel whole, could actually save us.

We need to dive into the mystery, like kids jumping off the platform that seems too high or the diving board that seems too wobbly, into the mystery. Into the experience. Into the joy.

We need to meet God in our everyday lives, in the smoke on Mount Sinai, in the person of Jesus, and recognize that what God wants for us is so much more. That God is so much more. And that we don’t need anything else to take God’s place.

It’s time that we put to death our personal and corporate sacred cows. In the immortal words of Wendy, “Beef. It’s what’s for dinner.”

I am indebted to the work of my fellow Asbury Seminary alum, Sean Gladding, for reminding me of the beauty and necessity of the Ten Commandments in his book, Ten, available now.

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Amazing Spider-Man 2: For Love Of Gwen Stacy (Movie Review)

Posted on May 2, 2014 by Jacob Sahms

Watching Amazing Spider-Man 2, it’s not hard to believe that Peter Parker AKA Spider-Man and Gwen Stacy are really in love. Well, okay, Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone are really dating, and their chemistry gives the second (of what we can only assume will at least be another trilogy) the heart it needs. Sure, Jamie Foxx has an electric turn (see what I did there?) as Electro, and Paul Giamatti settles in as a tough supporting role as Rhino, and the special effects that Marc Webb works in are tremendous. But without the Peter/Gwen romance, this one falters in a place that Tobey Maguire’s Spidey didn’t (it was the third round that squashed him). Still, this is the work of the (500) Days of Summer director, so what exactly were we expecting?

The quick review: The second feature is not as good as the first, but still better than most of Maguire’s work. There are a few too many things going on for it to stay focused and the middle third gets a little long. But all of that can’t detract from a powerful finale act that finds us dealing with Peter’s love for Gwen and her history that Spidey fans are well aware of.

We were introduced to a new mythos in the first of Webb’s Spider-Man movies: Peter’s father was an OsCorp employee who developed radioactive spiders, which were used to weaponize people. In this sequel, we have the “where’d he go?” and “will Peter find out?” wrapped up. But somehow, that spirited piece ends up being too much, when we mix in the overall development of Spider-Man’s main villain, Electro, the building tension between Peter and Gwen (over his promise to her father), the growing tension between Peter and Harry Osborne (Dane DeHaan, playing marvelously), and Marvel’s obsession with building toward a Sinister Six. It’s unfortunate, because having seen Spider-Man 3, I’m aware that too many villains can spoil the party: we want to know their backstory, their animosity toward our hero, etc. Here, three villains proves to make the movie feel too long in the development, even if we do see that they’re driven to madness by the way they’re rejected by their families/society.

That said, the rapport between Garfield and Stone is terrific. The stylized Manhattan is epic, and the (copied from Spider-Man 2) sentiment revolving around a kid and his hero is enough to make you cheer. [It goes without saying that this is the kind of hero mantra being preached in places around the world, none more than NYC post-9/11 and Boston post-Marathon bombing.] I didn’t see it in 3D ($17.50, really?) but the action pops off the screen anyway, and I thought one of Spidey’s leaps down off a building might make me motion sick. It’s actually quite fun.

But, true to Spider-Man lore, we’ve got to kiss Gwen goodbye, and we find that while she provided the grounding for his decision-making, we’re up against it now. Now, he has to step out of the shadows on his own: Aunt May (Sally Field) can’t carry his emotional load, Uncle Ben (Martin Sheen) and his parents are gone, and Gwen can’t help. Except for what might as well have been a time-released video note, reminding Peter that “we have to be greater than what we suffer” in a scene that hammers home the power of hope.

In Romans 5:3-5, Paul says, ” We also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.” It’s almost as if the thesis statement of the movie was ripped from the Bible, and Peter’s future is tied to how well he internalizes his muse’s encouragement. We’ll have to wait until 2016 to see how that plays out, and whether the Garfield/Stone pairing can survive.

For now, we hope.

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Ten Words #1: God Doesn’t Have An Identity Crisis

Posted on April 30, 2014 by Jacob Sahms

The first word: “I am God, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of a life of slavery. No other gods, only me” (The Message, Exodus 20:1-3). 

[This is Week 2 of the Ten Words series. To read the intro, click here.]

Do you know anyone who has an identity crisis? They’re not sure who they are or what their purpose is. We often joke about midlife crises or other aging situations, but the truth is, that many of us (or someone we know) have struggled to figure out who we are and how we are supposed to live.

In high school, I knew a guy named Rick. Rick was pretty cool, friendly enough, and most people I knew liked Rick. But Rick had a strange habit of introducing himself to you and working in the fact that he had been a starting forward for the state championship hockey  team– he never forgot to show off his high school champion ring! Some of you are thinking, “well, that’s something to be proud of!” True, but Rick was forty-five years old at the time, and the admissions counselor of a different high school!

Somehow, that hockey championship was still the thing that he was the most proud of.

In our Scripture today, we hear God explain who he is and what’s important to keeping the covenant that was first established with Abraham in Genesis. It’s an echo of the experience Moses had with the burning bush in Exodus 3.

When Moses approached the burning bush, he didn’t know what he was getting himself into. But hundreds of miles and several plagues later, he finds himself standing on the top of a mountain having a one-on-one conversation with God that would define nations and world views forever.

When Moses approached the burning bush, he didn’t know that God was about to call him out of his role as fugitive sheepherder. When Moses starts to get cold feet (amazing, so close to the fire!), he asks who he’s supposed to tell the Israelites who will be liberating them and who empowered him (Moses) to be the spokesperson. He wants to know why they should listen to Moses… or this voice in the burning bush.

Yahweh speaks back this straightforward answer: “I Am Who I Am.This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I Am has sent me to you'” (Exodus 3:14).

When God speaks to Moses, he doesn’t define himself by any characteristics, any explanation, any definition of time and space. He simply says, “I am.”

I am here.

I exist.

I AM.

Think about that: “I am” is the most basic sentence in the human language. It, all by itself, shares our individuality, our place in the world, that we matter.

It seems so simple, really. That Yahweh, who had called the Israelites through Abraham, and faithfully cared for them, would be the same God would rescued them from slavery. To those of us who have a monotheistic worldview, this is straightforward. But we’re getting our Scripture out of context: The Israelites weren’t sure that it was God and no one else. They’d just spent time with the Egyptians and their pantheon of religious icons.

And here is God saying: “this is me, and only me. And to fulfill this covenant together, your side of it means that you will only worship me. We’re not playing games; we’re not dividing loyalties. You are going to be all-in with me, the way that I am all-in with you.”

No masks, no identity crises, no nothing.

God is putting himself out there for the Israelites to see and experience. There’s a vulnerability there, with no masks and no mediums in between.

There’s an establishment of Yahweh God as the central focus and force in all of human existence. Louie Giglio has summed it up by saying, “I am not but I know I Am.” It’s an echo of the story found in Genesis 1, where God decides to make humanity in the image of God, the imago dei. It’s a reminder to the Israelites on Mount Sinai that the first thing they need to remember as a freed people is that they are not the image of the Egyptians or something formed with human hands, they are made in the image of God. 

The God who is the only one. The God who was, who is, and who is to come.

We need to remember that God’s words were a reminder to the Israelites that God is faithful whether we are or not. God IS while other things WERE. Other things pass by but God IS constant.

God doesn’t have an identity crisis. God knows who God is. God doesn’t need masks or descriptors. God IS the answer to the questions about whether we matter or not, why we’re here, and where we’re going.

It’s not just a claim by God to establish himself as the central focus, but it’s an opportunity for the people of God to be reminded of their value, their purpose, their place in the created world.

They are special, and loved, and worth it. It’s something they needed to be reminded of after years of being told (and shown) how worthless they were.

Now, flash forward several thousand years, and humanity experiences Jesus. In Romans 8, Paul wrote that Jesus came to be a fulfillment to the law that began with “I am the Lord your God.”

After time had passed, God’s people still didn’t see how valuable they were. They still couldn’t see that the Ten Words were designed to show them how to value their neighbor as the image of God.

So Jesus arrives, and Paul says, in Romans 8:3-4, 12-16:

“For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

“Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation—but it is not to the flesh, to live according to it. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live. For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, ‘Abba, Father.’ The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.”

The Ten Words… fulfilled in Jesus… were to unite the people in spirit with each other and with God. To value and revere God above all and in all, was also to say that what God is all about, God’s people should be all about.

The God who liberated the people of Israel from slavery in Exodus and who set the people free from sin through Jesus, wants us to be about liberation.

“Love, it will not betray, dismay, or enslave you. It will set you free,” sings Mumford & Sons in “Sigh No More.” That’s what God wanted his followers to get from the Ten Words but they missed the first one and skipped to the prohibitions. That’s why Jesus had to come as the spirit-made-flesh, to be incarnational, God-with-us.

If we’re serious with ourselves, we have Jesus’ teachings and we still don’t know how to live or love. Sure, we can read about it or talk about it, but we get caught up in all of the little stuff.

We forget the basics: that God is God, that we are not, and that, if we would merely be faithful, that God promises to be with us.

Paul understood that. He wrote in Philippians 2:5-8: “In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God,
 did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing
 by taking the very nature of a servant,
 being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man,
 he humbled himself
 by becoming obedient to death—
 even death on a cross!”

So, how can we “get it”? How can we follow through with this “no other gods” word?

1- By refusing to make ourselves the “god” of our life. Remember, God said that he and he alone had freed the Israelites. They hadn’t done it by themselves or for themselves. It’s a reminder that we can’t be forgiven of our sins on our own recognizance; we need the love of Jesus and his resurrected sacrifice to be made right before an almighty God.

2-By refusing to let anything else sit in the God-sized whole in our life. Some have said that when we’re addicted to something, we make it thing that is ‘god’ of our life. We’d do anything to get that thing, to have more of that thing.

3-To be like God, to follow in the footsteps of Jesus, we must be active in setting others free, in vocally, not just ‘by our behavior,’ in the things we advocate and the way we behave. Theologian Fred Craddock says, “We’ve told ourselves we can walk the walk, ‘I’ll let my life be my witness’. But the problem is it’s not true. It’s a cop-out. It’s not enough to walk the walk. Someone has to talk the talk.” To fulfill the covenant, we have to be like God who wants to be known as the ‘Slave Freer.’

Of course, we’re just getting started. There’s still the space between who we want to be and who we are. But it’s not just enough to be set free from slavery, we have to live free. William Wallace, in Braveheart, said, “Every man dies, but not every man truly lives.”

If we believe in the covenant, if we believe that God’s words to the people and Jesus’ life really matter, that sin and death don’t get the last words, that there’s a comma between death and what comes next and not a period at the end, we need to live differently.

Too often, we’re like the Israelites, who thought that slavery, and wandering in the wilderness were all that was. Too often, we throw a pity party for ourselves instead of boldly proclaiming the message of freedom in the cross of Jesus and living it out.

This week, in Justice Awakening, I read the story of South Korea’s Onnuri Community Church in Seoul, who recognized that to bear the image of God, they had to pursue mishpat or dikaisoyne (justice), that singing “This Is My Father’s World” wasn’t enough. They recognized that human trafficking was such an epidemic in their community and their country, that they set out to end the trading of people as slaves.

It’s the kind of thing that Steve McQueen (the director, not the actor) talked about when 12 Years A Slave won the Oscar for best picture. It’s what Martin Luther King Jr. was talking about when he said, “if one is oppressed, all are oppressed.”

The church began to research the problem and study possible solutions. They figured out that human trafficking generates $32 billion dollars a year, and that reasons ranged from labor use, mail-order brides, begging, child soldiers, organ trafficking, adoption, and sexual exploitation. The victims weren’t of just one population but many, and their freedom wasn’t nearly as sudden or forceful as Liam Neeson’s Taken might lead us to believe.

Pastor Eddie Byun knew Micah 6:8, “He has told you, O man, what is good and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” It’s back to the Garden of Eden, with God walking side-by-side with ‘Adam,’ and back to Mountain Sinai where God is setting up the covenant.

“I will take care of you, and in return, you will honor me.”

“I will be your God and you will be my people.”

“You will follow these words, and I will call you mine.”

Of course, those in involved in the sex trade weren’t Byun’s only opposition. Church people said things like, “It’s not the church’s role to be involved. Let the ‘experts’ handle it. Stick to the gospel! Stick to the ministry! It’s just a passing fad. Isn’t it too dangerous?”

Byun wrote, “The church has gotten too used to not taking risks. For far too long we’ve let governments do what God has called the church to do. We are letting others take the role of church in our communities and forgetting that Jesus was the great abolitionist. In fact, we’re letting the world take over our identity!”

There’s that whole identity thing again. Who are we? Whose are we?

We’re called to free captives to slavery and captives to addiction. We’re called to serve those others neglect and to comfort those who others won’t touch. We’re called to give money to those in need and to use our spending and voting to impact the way that corporations and our government handle fair trade and other people. We’re supposed to advocate for those who can’t speak for themselves!

As United Methodists, we don’t even need to look to William Wilberforce to understand that slavery is incompatible with our beliefs. John Wesley fought for the freedom of slaves from Africa and the indentured servitude of his fellow Englishman. He spoke against prostitution, gambling and other evils which are used to hold people down for profit.

Byun quoted Edmund Burke (who Bruce Wayne AKA Christian Bale quoted in Batman Begins): “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”

We can’t do nothing! We’re living into the covenant. We’re saved by the death and resurrection of Jesus! If we believe it, we have to, we’re obligated to, do something.

The Onnuri Community Church launched HOPE Be Restored (HBR) (“Helping the Oppressed and Prisoners of injustice Escape and Be Restored”) in 2010 and set up teams of people to pray for those who were mistreated, to raise awareness about the global problem of trafficking, to research the situations and find ways to help, to build networks and set up opportunities for healing, and to team to rescue and prevent those in slavery.

Byun says that his church prays for the victims, the traffickers, and the justice system, for the places where slaves are ‘broken’ to be destroyed, for the people doing the rescuing, for the church to be proactive, and for more people to get involved.

Late in the book, he quotes David Bastone (Not For Sale): “There are times to read history, and there are times to make history. We live right now at one of those epic moments in the fight for human freedom. We no longer have to wonder how we might respond to our moment of truth. It is we who are on the stage, and we can change the winds of history with our actions. Future generations will look back to judge our choices and be inspired or disappointed.”

No pressure, right?

But you say, ‘what can I do in my little corner of the world? I don’t know anyone who is kidnapped or imprisoned!’

Consider where you shop. Consider where you eat. Think about the situations you know of or can research where people are denied their identities, where they are held back by other people, or their addiction, or their economic situation, and recognize that we have it good so that we can be a blessing to others.

Injustice takes many faces, and the Israelites knew that. Evil shows up in the spears of the Roman soldiers who beat Jesus and in the casual, empty tones of those who called for him to be crucified. Not all slavery looks the same.

But by claiming your identity in the one, true God, you can make a difference.

This week, ask how you can be a slave freer, how you can bear the image of God into the world in the way you serve others, preserving justice, and showing mercy.

Jesus broke the chains of slavery to sin and death. We are to do the same.

Rise up, to be breakers of chains, and slayers of injustice.

Rise, to be the church.

I am indebted to the work of my fellow Asbury Seminary alum, Sean Gladding, for reminding me of the beauty and necessity of the Ten Commandments in his book, Ten, available now.

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Eddie Byun’s Justice Awakening: End Human Trafficking… Now (Book Review)

Posted on April 29, 2014 by Jacob Sahms

In Justice Awakening, I read the story of South Korea’s Onnuri Community Church in Seoul, who recognized that to bear the image of God, they had to pursue mishpat or dikaisoyne (justice), that singing “This Is My Father’s World” wasn’t enough. They recognized that human trafficking was such an epidemic in their community and their country, that they set out to end the trading of people as slaves.

The church began to research the problem and study possible solutions. They figured out that human trafficking generates $32 billion dollars a year, and that reasons ranged from labor use, mail-order brides, begging, child soldiers, organ trafficking, adoption, and sexual exploitation. The victims weren’t of just one population but many, and their freedom wasn’t nearly as sudden or forceful as Liam Neeson’s Taken might lead us to believe.

Of course, those in involved in the sex trade weren’t Byun’s only opposition. Church people said things like, “It’s not the church’s role to be involved. Let the ‘experts’ handle it. Stick to the gospel! Stick to the ministry! It’s just a passing fad. Isn’t it too dangerous?”

Byun wrote, “The church has gotten too used to not taking risks. For far too long we’ve let governments do what God has called the church to do. We are letting others take the role of church in our communities and forgetting that Jesus was the great abolitionist. In fact, we’re letting the world take over our identity!”

So the Onnuri Community Church launched HOPE Be Restored (HBR) (“Helping the Oppressed and Prisoners of injustice Escape and Be Restored”) in 2010 and set up teams of people to pray for those who were mistreated, to raise awareness about the global problem of trafficking, to research the situations and find ways to help, to build networks and set up opportunities for healing, and to team to rescue and prevent those in slavery.

Byun says that his church prays for the victims, the traffickers, and the justice system, for the places where slaves are ‘broken’ to be destroyed, for the people doing the rescuing, for the church to be proactive, and for more people to get involved. He urges us to do the same… and to do more than read his book!

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David Baldacci’s The Target: Face Your Demons (Book Review)

Posted on April 29, 2014 by Jacob Sahms

The latest thriller by David Baldacci doesn’t just follow our heroes, Will Robie and Jessica Reel, and their enemy. No, this series of parallel tales tells at least four stories that could stand on their own, intermingling and twisting together and apart until the final battle royale we’ve come to expect. Like King and Maxwell, Baldacci’s characters-turned-TNT action show, our pair of CIA operatives-turned-heroes banter, philosophize, and battle evil in whatever forms it may present itself in twenty-eighth novel.

In the “main” storyline, we find some shadowy, government nemeses of Robie and Reel’s drawing them in to a showdown with equally shadowy enemy agents from North Korea. Baldacci digs into the characterization of one of them, Yie Chung-Cha, so deeply, that we can even empathize with her position as a former concentration camp prisoner-turned-assassin. [Trust me, you will.] In another offshoot from the main story, we track a Neo-Nazi murderer on death row who sets in motion a plan to ‘reunite’ with his estranged daughter, inciting a showdown with some twenty-first century Hitler groupies. And finally, in what might best be compared to the stellar finale of Patriot Games with our heroes defending the lives of the First Family. That doesn’t even cover the extraction from an internment camp or the battle on a train!

Baldacci’s writing style is slick, with entertaining dialogue and even description to flesh out both his characters and their surroundings. It’s exciting action mixed with an underlying sense of morality, as usual. This time, we’re looking at how several of the characters deal with their pasts and how it affects who they’ve become, as well as sentiments around revenge and forgiveness. In several cases, forgiveness comes hard (doesn’t it usually?) and allows us to see that revenge on a personal or global level often just begets more violence, not satisfaction or peace.

Not everyone will want to take the thought deeper, but how do we apply that to our own lives? Are we always seeking revenge, whether it’s being cut off in the parking lot or deep hurt from our childhood? It seems there’s never any satisfaction, even when Baldacci’s ‘revengers’ are in the right. We could learn from that… even if we’re not highly-effective government assassins.

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Get Church Right: Important Punctuation (A Mustard Seed Musing)

Posted on April 28, 2014 by Jacob Sahms

Easter is in the bag. Actually, it’s been a week. We’ve put away the Easter hymns, lilies (achoo!), and settled into the “normal life” of the church. Sure, we’ll celebrate Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, but we lack the impetus or understanding to make Easter a reality in our lives everyday.

But then something happens. Maybe it’s a close call. Maybe it’s a diagnosis. Maybe it’s the death of a friend.  Suddenly, we’re faced with one of those “come to Jesus” moments, and we begin to look at what really matters.

Somehow, the cranky moments with our kids are a little sweeter.

Somehow, the arguments with our spouse, parents, or friends don’t seem to be quite that important.

Somehow, the work that has kept us up at night for weeks could probably wait for another day.

It’s a life-changing type of move that we say we believe, but we sometimes have a hard time living out. It’s part of the struggle.

Christian rapper DA Truth raps that when we live the Christian life, death isn’t a period but a comma. Our problems, our life in a Good Friday world, is temporal, passing, and the joy of the Lord is what we’re to hold onto.

We share that on Easter, and at every funeral, but if we lived like it each moment, of every day…?

If we recognized that death was a comma; that our problems were mere stanzas, not the whole song; that our relationships were books, and our arguments were merely paragraphs; that our view was through a mirror darkly, but that God sees the great, panoramic picture:

Our world would be better…

Our happiness would increase…

Our relationships would be better…

Other people would be blessed.

I Corinthians 15:20 states, “But Christ HAS been raised from the dead” (emphasis mine!) It’s the final line in Paul’s argument about what it means to live in faith and hope in Jesus Christ. It’s the thesis statement.

It’s the truth we should seek to live out in our lives, because it will make all of the difference.

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Walking With The Enemy: Sheep In Wolf’s Clothing (Movie Review)

Posted on April 26, 2014 by Jacob Sahms

Walking with the Enemy is for fans of World War II movies that document the ways that people fought the annihilation of the Jews or used individuals inside of the Nazi war machine. It follows in the historical tradition of films like Schindler’s List, The Book Thief, Valkyrie, and The Boy With The Striped Pajamas). Based on the life and mission of real-life Hungarian Pinchas Tibor Rosenbaum, the film lays the background for us to understand the political tensions and war impact in Budapest as the bigger story allows Elek Cohen (Jonas Armstrong) to thrive under pressure.

Ben Kingsley is the big draw here on the baroque, as the country official wrestling with the bigger picture behind Cohen’s attempt to rescue his family and reunite with his lover. Kingsley is Regent Horthy, a real-life figure who attempted to keep Hungary outside of Hitler’s full attention (and wrath), but whose faltering support of the Third Reich draws suspicion. (Honestly, while Horthy’s efforts are important to the safety of his nation, it doesn’t play as powerfully as the side of the story involving Cohen.)

We know Cohen is different, in his defense of his friends when it comes to fisticuffs, but also in the way that he approaches potential revenge against those who abuse him. Is it merely being the son of a rabbi? Is he soft? Or is he, like Kiefer Sutherland’s POW in To End All Wars? Is there something deeper and philosophical underlying the historical thriller?

The film feels old-fashioned at times in its pacing, but unlike The Book Thief (which I’d read prior), it held my attention and drew me into the desperation and courage that Cohen showed. The violence isn’t graphic but it’s no less shocking when it comes. The casual nature of the Nazis’ actions lends itself to an easier comparison to the evils of today, and the way that the morality of our world can slide past a point of no return. What struck me most was the way that the gradual horror became evident. (At first, the Jews didn’t see the danger coming, even as their younger and more critical demographics urged them to consider the Nazis’ evil intentions.) Cohen runs into a consistent “but we don’t want to draw attention to ourselves” sentiment, like his efforts might be too dangerous, rather than less dangerous than just letting the Nazis have their way.

Jesus said, “no greater love has a man than this: that he lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). Cohen understands that sentiment to mean that he should defend the weak, rescue the imprisoned, etc. even when it moves past his understanding of family and his inner circle. He will take on the form of the enemy to disguise himself; he will walk into the gates of hell, undetected, even as he believes he is “only doing what anyone else would do.”

Still, for all of his success, he finds himself in a similar place to Oskar Schindler: he’s celebrated for those he saves and tormented by the memory of those he can’t, even as the trains deport more and more Jews. The cost is tremendous for the young man and his associates, but the cost of doing nothing would be even greater.

Cohen is heroic, not in a small way or in a one-time way, but in a practiced form of behavior that should inspire us all to work against the evil systems in our world, to make a difference.

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What I’ve Been Reading 4/24/14 (Book Review)

Posted on April 24, 2014 by Jacob Sahms

The book stack exceeded my reading ability during Lent and Holy Week, but now that things have slowed down (hah!) the books began calling to me again. Here’s what I’ve tackled lately.

Jeff Vandermeer, Annihilation. Vandermeer’s initial foray in the Southern Reach Trilogy, our story plays out like a “found footage” story that traces the exploration of the team sent to investigate “Area X.” It at first sounds like a joke: a biologist, an anthropologist, a surveyor, and a psychologist enter the forest. But it plays out anything like a joke, in a tale that echoes the works of Michael Crichton or Scott Smith’s The Ruins. We’re not given much in terms of dialogue or personal information: the focus is on the mission, the tension, the building terror. We know that the crew is here to discover truths that others failed to find (or at least report back on) but this is a book that trips back and forth across the line between metaphysical and the real.

Mike Mullin, Sunrise. The third installment of the Ashfall Trilogy finds sixteen-year-old Alex growing into the responsibility for survivors of the Yellowstone volcanic eruption as the responsible adults either die or fail to lead well. Having not read the previous two stories, and unaware at first that this was a sequel to the sequel, I dove in and appreciated the way that the plot moved quickly while not settling for action sequences. Alex is trying to make a way forward in this new world with his girlfriend Darla, protect his friends and family, and progress forward in a world that naturally develops after a natural disaster. Sure, there’s some leaps needed to get to this cataclysmic state but it’s a post-apocalyptic, dystopian world that mirrors the Hunger Games and yet comes across much more realistically. Mullin has delivered a powerful story that makes us care about Alex and his crew, but that also delivers when it comes to action and excitement.

Jimmy Seibert, Passion & Purpose: Believing The Church Can Change The World. The Antioch Community Church sets out to make a difference in Waco, Texas, by taking ‘responsibility’ for the 450 homes in the nine block by nine block neighborhood that they would serve. Fourteen years later, the community is transformed, and the book sets out to give examples and practices that aided in the transition. Not only does Passion & Purpose narrate the story of the church’s origins, but it also dynamically presents the way that this church in Waco became a world changer, around the world.

Robert Costantini, The Deliverance of Evil. Translated from Italian, this book by an Italian businessman and academic narrates a murder investigation over twenty-five years, following the exploits of a detective in his young, frivolous years and his later, regretful ones. Michele Balistreri has his share of the party life in the early 1980s but he fails to solve the murder of the beautiful Elisa Sordi, whose murder seems tied not only to some political elements but also some Vatican ones. In 2006, he’s given another chance to make things right, and redeem his wasted youth, but the violence escalates as someone seems determined to reap the unsolved crime from 1982. A bit slow getting going, the final quarter delivers a complicated, powerful tale of regret, revenge, and the price of sin.

 

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Fight Church: Christian Fight Club? (Movie Review)

Posted on April 24, 2014 by Jacob Sahms

Director Bryan Storkel, the man behind Strictly Background and Holy Rollers, delivers another rocking documentary, this time exploring the world of Christians promoting MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) and using it as a vehicle for personal and community transformation. After a successful Kickstarter campaign, Storkel launched the film that examined several churches, pastors, and MMA fighters as they navigated the role of the ring and the message of Jesus Christ.

The main subject is Paul Burress of Victory Church in Rochester, NY, where MMA is currently illegal. Following in his father’s footsteps, he shepherds the church with a message that mixes Scripture, Christian axioms, and fighting, like this: “As Christians, what is our focus? If our focus isn’t on God, our focus is off. Sometimes in this world, we find ourselves in uncomfortable situations? …Sometimes, in life, you take shots.” Another pastor, Preston Hocker, focuses in on Christ’s love, even while training for the ring:  “Christians need to stop turning people off from Christ. We need to show people God’s love.”

So far, pretty middle of the road, right? There are the watchful fathers overseeing their young pastor friends, the power of the message and the Scripture, and even the dissenting voice of Father Durrell, who sees the fighting as the antithesis of the Scripture (“Cage fighting is about hating each other”) seems to be blowing smoke through the first third of the documentary. There are even UFC fighters you’ve potentially heard of who talk about their faith, from Jon Jones, who talks about being advised to tone down his faith to be more marketable, and Jason Haddon, who says his number one goal is to glorify God and to make him known.

So far, I’m channeling Gavin O’Connor’s Warrior here: the ring is a place to work out your issues and make the world right.

And then we run into John Renken, a former MMA fighter, who is now the pastor of Extreme Ministry in Tennessee. We watch him take his children to a gun range to fire automatic weapons, leaving the children and guns unattended while he fires others. He proposes that “Western Christianity has feminized men… Biggest problems in our society today is that we lack a warrior ethos,” before laughing at his children for crying when hot ejected cartridges cause them to bruise and bleed.  “I don’t have a problem with aggression at all.”

Wait, is the film saying that some people’s aggression in the ring doesn’t stay in the ring?

It’s hard to say. Renken is also the pastor shown wearing his gun in his waistband during church; the one who says the liberators’ cross means sometimes you’ve got to kill someone and that the Crusades were misrepresented; the one who says we shouldn’t be anyone’s whipping post per the Scriptures; and the one who challenges another gym owner to a fight when the man ‘insulted’ his wife on Facebook.

But still, Renken is sort of the far extreme the film represents. Sure, the other pro-fighting pastors talk about vigilance, preparation, and the battlefields, citing spiritual warfare texts in the Bible. Frankly, both sides see the Scripture proposing their elements about peace and warfare, and use it to prooftext themselves. (There are a few, like Scott “Bam Bam” Sullivan, former MMA fighter-turned-Christian apologist, who says the two things, faith and fighting, aren’t compatible.)

The final straw for me presented by the Storkel’s film was the kids.

Sure, we watch the crowd get amped up (it’s Maundy Thursday as I write this, and I thought about the crowd calling for Jesus’ head on Good Friday), and we see the pastors enter the cage and get their tail kicked. But when Burress’ teenage daughter gets abused in the ring, and twelve-year-old talks about ripping an eleven-year-old’s head off in the name of Jesus, there’s something… terrifying about this. When the absolute sadness is in the losing children’s eyes (and they are children, not ‘mighty men of valor’) and the disappointment is depicted in one boy’s father’s voice, the violence becomes that much more sickening. And it gives me pause, and not just about MMA.

I love watching football, but I wouldn’t let my sons play. I’d use a football analogy in church, and I’ve served as chaplain to a football team. I enjoy competing in sports, and have coached kids’ teams, and I know we can all get carried away.

So, where’s the line? Where can we draw it when it comes to competing against someone in a contact sport, intent on stopping them while succeeding ourselves? Where can we establish that a sport or a film or a [fill in the blank] is a platform that attracts so we can shout God’s name versus a situation that causes people to move farther away from the heart of worship and love?

Again, I’m left intrigued, entertained, challenged, and engaged by Storkel’s subject and his bipartisan presentation. It’s not a documentary just to educate or to ‘fill a niche.’ This is to draw us in, to make us think and pray and discuss, to challenge us to live out our vision of Christ-following that we would truly embrace the kingdom of God.

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