Who God Is Rooting For In The Super Bowl

Posted on January 31, 2013 by Jacob Sahms

Maybe it’s Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis’ fault. The man once accused of murder at the Super Bowl, the man convicted of obstruction of justice, and the man who quotes Bible verses to his teammates before every game may be singlehandedly responsible for the question, “who is God rooting for in the Super Bowl?” But it’s probably not just his fault.

Colin Kaepernick might be partly responsible, too. The man with the crazy tattoos and the speedy scamper has been outspoken about his faith, and the way that God has outlined a plan for him has San Francisco 49ers fans cheering.

And maybe it’s a little bit Tim Tebow’s fault. You know, the hot topic guy from last year who could hardly find a spot on the field this year, but one of the latest in a long line of NFLers who have played the game and spoken up about their faith when the spotlight was on them (Tony Dungy, Kurt Warner, Shaun Alexander, Reggie White, etc.) No one has been quite as polarizing as Tebow though!

I’ve still never heard the question posed as often as I have this week. Who does God want to win the Super Bowl?

I think it’s probably a sign of the times, that throwing “God” out there can attract attention and get people to tune in (or even read this post). But I’ve heard radio hosts trying to add up the number of religious people (Christians, Buddhists, etc.) on each team in the Super Bowl to see which one God is vying for. Which begs a few questions like a) why would God care? b) if God cared, why wouldn’t he just make it so? c) who do they think God is in the first place?

Some people can’t see how Christians would play football when the side effects of dominating someone on offense or defense can result in such physical confrontations that players are left concussed, paralyzed, or broken. But there are significant images in the Bible of competition and play that seem to make it “okay,” even if hurting someone else isn’t inline with what God expects from us. So, playing football = okay, but hurting someone = not okay. Fine line, right?

But where does this idea that “God is a ________ fan” come into play? Isn’t it just a matter of us trying to co-opt God for our own purposes, like… we do in everything else? Isn’t “God is a _____ fan” just prooftexting God into a situation we want to condone and claim as absolute right? Our own interests overwhelming moving from our minds to God’s will in a way that doesn’t make sense when it’s about social issues, money, relationships, or football?

When people, even people who have no belief in God, no interest in anything of faith, and yet they want to propose whether God is a 49ers fan or Ravens fan, we have the opportunity to point out what might have seemed obvious to Christians before: God loves everyone, equally. Which probably results in an answer to the original question, that’s how this Patriots fan feels about it:

God’s just rooting for a good game.

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Truth, Tolerance, And Sin

Posted on January 17, 2013 by Jacob Sahms

Lately, it seems like truth is under fire. We would be here all day talking about political truth; Manti T’eo, Heisman finalist, may or may not have been part of an elaborate hoax with an imaginary girlfriend; Lance Armstrong will supposedly tell the truth in a few hours; Chip Kelly, the Philadelphia Eagles’ new coach, told his players and school he wasn’t leaving Oregon hours before he left; Louie Giglio, previously the inaugural benediction provider, was removed from consideration after sharing his translation of Biblical truth.

Maybe the truth isn’t cut and dry. But where is truth and how can we find it? Our forefathers, who also seem to be under fire lately for their authorship in the Constitution in regards to gun control, wrote elsewhere in the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Which truth were they talking about?

In John 8, Jesus told the Jewish audience who believed him, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” But how do we know the truth? How can we determine what God really wants? That’s the question people of faith have been asking for thousands of years.

Paul later wrote in Romans 1 that “the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse….They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised.”

In between the 18th and 25th there are verses that are used by some to argue that the “truth” we should be focused on is about the sexuality of human beings, and that the idolatry of our current generation boils down to gender and sex. Regardless of what you think about the morality involved in sexuality,  it seems to me that there’s much more we’re watering down and simplifying away when we consider truth. And Paul thought we better get our story straight if we really wanted to follow God!

In his excellent song simply called “Truth,” Lecrae lays out that “some folks say, ‘All truth is relative, it just depends on what you believe.’ But that means you believe your own statement; that there’s no way to know what’s really true. If what’s true for you is true for you and what’s true for me is true for me, what if my truth says your’s is a lie? Is it still true?”

Whether it’s simply giving our word, denying God’s love to individuals based on their decisions, or misrepresenting our faith by our decisions, we are all peddling truth and lies. If we work to be “tolerant” rather than welcoming or loving, we can deny our own selves, and reject God in the process. But to deny that there is absolute truth is to deny our faith; if we deny the truth of sin, we water down the gospel to deny God the power to its fullest extent represented in the death and resurrection of Jesus.

We all know that Chip Kelly and Lance Armstrong lied (verdict is still out on Manti T’eo). We wouldn’t argue the facts. So if we believe that Jesus died on the cross to make the world right, then why did he do that? Because there was sin that couldn’t be forgiven without his sacrifice! “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, “Paul continued in Romans 3. But when we betray the truth, we can turn to the cross and be forgiven. That’s where grace trumps truth, tolerance, and sin. Thank God.

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Can Lance Armstrong Come Clean?

Posted on January 17, 2013 by Jacob Sahms

With apologies to Barry Bonds, Marion Jones, Tonya Harding, Maradona, and Pete Rose, Lance Armstrong may be the biggest sports cheater of all time. He did what most would call impossible: he got me to watch a cycling event! But he also won seven Tour de Frances, beat cancer, helped political figures campaign for office, won dozens of awards for sports accomplishments and charity, and started the LiveStrong Foundation which has inspired many and raised millions of dollars toward cancer research.

And tomorrow night, he will go where other broken-down celebrities have gone before: he’ll sit down with Oprah Winfrey to bare his soul.

Talking heads have been debating this one for weeks. Some think Armstrong should fade into the darkness and leave his tarnished legend alone. Others think he should really, really, really bare his soul, admitting to everything he’s ever done (like the fat kid in The Goonies). But we’ll find out tomorrow night what Armstrong’s really aiming for, why he would come out to address these questions after years of denial, lawsuits, countersuits, and angry statements against the ethical standards of others.

WHY? That’s the question that defines so many of the deeper thoughts of our lives. Why do bad things happen? Why do we want things we shouldn’t have? Why do we cross moral boundaries to achieve things that will ultimately fade away? Why would Armstrong apologize or confess, now?

Here’s hoping that Armstrong is confessing for these reasons, and these selfless reasons alone: to protect the ongoing efforts of his foundation, to ensure that what he did wrong won’t undo what he did right, to establish that he was wrong for cheating so that those who looked to him as a role model will see someone who is willing to take responsibility for his own actions. Armstrong will be like King David of the Old Testament, but which David? The one who took what he wanted through deceit, manipulation, and murder? Or the one who recognized his sin and chose to seek forgiveness, and make things right?

History will remember Armstrong as a cheater in a sport dominated by cheaters. But we’ll see if Armstrong can come clean about the people he hurt, and finally prove to be a “stand-up guy.” If he can do that, the world will remember Armstrong as more than a cheater: he’ll be remembered as a hero who fell from grace, but chose to rise up with grace and ask for forgiveness.

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Gangster Squad: Not Exactly Untouchable

Posted on January 17, 2013 by Jacob Sahms

With Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone, Gangster Squad was a must-see. I figured that it was a January movie that might actually pan out to be better than the post-Christmas/pre-May stint. But given that Josh Brolin, Nick Nolte, Sean Penn, Giovanni Ribisi, Anthony Mackie, Michael Pena, Robert Patrick, and Mireille Enos (The Killing) are also along for the ride about dangerous lawmen during Prohibition, I thought this period piece might actually rock.

But Gangster Squad never gets us to believe. Sure, Brolin’s Purple-Hearted Sergeant O’Mara wants to keep Los Angeles clean from Penn’s sadistic savage Mickey Cohen, even while his wife (Enos) is begging him to make more cautious decisions. We’re supposed to understand that the pure-hearted veteran can’t sit by and watch his city torn apart, but we’re also aware that there’s something more dangerous in his intentions: he’s dealing with PTSD and realizing that he can’t settle down like he should with his wife and child.

Others fill out their sizable cut-outs: Gosling is the devil-may-care who doesn’t see the world getting any better and thinks his sergeant should leave Cohen alone; Ribisi is the geeky sacrificial lamb who is the inspirational lynchpin; Mackie and Pena are the token minorities; Patrick is the old timer sure shot, who looks like he stepped off the set of Tombstone and forgot to change outfits.

But while on one level we know that we should root for the good cops, the sad truth is that Cohen is a much more compelling character. We just don’t quite get to the point where Brolin and Gosling make us care, even when the good guys experience tragedy and loss. Is it the material, the acting, or the complete package?

It’s not the material, and the acting, well, it’s okay for January. But watching Gangster Squad sent me back to two excellent cop/gangster movies, and no, I don’t mean Denzel Washington’s American Gangster. Re-watching The Untouchables and L.A. Confidential, I was struck by the way that we’re forced to care about Kevin Costner’s Eliot Ness and Guy Pearce’s Ed, one historical and one imagined. Given the nominations and wins the two gangster films racked up, it’s obvious they were good, but their sustained emotional power shows off something that Gangster Squad aimed for and just couldn’t ever establish.

Maybe it’s the fact that these latest crimefighters don’t seem to win by doing anything different than the enemies they face; maybe it’s the level of acting mixed with dialogue that seems forced, like by wearing a fedora it transforms a modern-day actor into a baaaaaaad man. Whatever it is, you’d be better served by dialing up one of those older films, and watching a real story unfold, translated to your modern eyes by some real acting masters.

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Jodie Foster Speaks

Posted on January 17, 2013 by Jacob Sahms

I watched the Golden Globes because that’s what I do. I wanted to see if Daniel Day Lewis would win for Lincoln, I wanted to see if how many awards Les Mis would win. (Frankly, Lewis made me go to the public library for My Left Foot, Gangs of New York, and There Will Be Blood. I won’t be watching any musicals anytime soon, as I walked out of the Hugh Jackman/Anne Hathaway spectacular after forty minutes.) But I never expected to see Jodie Foster leave it all out there in the open.

After a few minutes of banter, Foster got to it: “But seriously, if you had been a public figure from the time that you were a toddler, if you’d had to fight for a life that felt real and honest and normal against all odds, then maybe you too might value privacy above all else. Privacy. Some day, in the future, people will look back and remember how beautiful it once was. I have given everything up there from the time that I was three years old.”

Foster came across as defiant, and brutal. I initially compared it to the speech that Michael Jordan gave on entering the Basketball Hall of Fame, but that was wrong (Jordan invited people who he felt had slighted them and tore them down, Foster merely admitted to a deep-seated pain.) Foster referenced her singleness, having separated from her children’s father and her gay partner. Her brokenness was shining through.

Foster publicly told her estranged mother that she loved her, and hoped that if the words would “magically and perfectly enter into your soul, fill you with grace and the joy of knowing that you did good in this life. You’re a great mom. Please take that with you when you’re finally OK to go.” The pain in her eyes bled through, but it was nothing compared to her big finale.

“Change, you gotta love it. I will continue to tell stories, to move people by being moved, the greatest job in the world. It’s just that from now on, I may be holding a different talking stick. And maybe it won’t be as sparkly, maybe it won’t open on 3,000 screens, maybe it will be so quiet and delicate that only dogs can hear it whistle. But it will be my writing on the wall. Jodie Foster was here, I still am, and I want to be seen, to be understood deeply and to be not so very lonely.”

Whatever you think about her decisions and choices, this was one giant cry for help, wasn’t it? Living a life in Hollywood has obviously taken its toll: what would you expect when you’re fifty and you’ve lived in the spotlight for forty-seven years? What would you expect after two serious relationships ended in pain and separation? How could we not recognize that for all of the sparkly awards, for all the applause, that Foster still lacked the things she wanted: peace, joy, and friendship.

Reading the speech again days later, I’m reminded of the times I’ve failed to acknowledge the pain I’ve caused or the hurt in someone else’s life, when I could’ve noticed them, acknowledged them, and, just momentarily, provided them a reminder that they are loved by the God of the universe. There is a solution to the problems of fame, fortune, isolation, and pain– it’s the eternal love of God and the promise that our lives have purpose.

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A New Hope @ Christmas 2012

Posted on January 14, 2013 by Jacob Sahms

On Christmas Eve 2012, I preached the following sermon (with a few edits) reflecting on Jesus’ birth, the kingdom of God, the Newtown, Connecticut, tragedy, and the hope we have to share with others. 

As many of you know, Walt Disney has purchased Lucasfilm, which includes my childhood favorites like E.T., Indiana Jones, and Star Wars. The good news is that the world of Luke, Leia, Han, and Obi-Wan will be just as alive for my children as it was for me. The bad news is that I’m not sure you can ever make anything quite as exciting as the original trilogy!

But the original Star Wars trilogy drops us in the midst of a great conflict between the villainous Empire and the Rebel Alliance, George Lucas’ space age mash-up of the American Revolution and Vietnam. Brave and noble warriors, the Jedi, rose up to battle these dark forces, bringing light to the people who had been enslaved, gathering a disparate people together behind the new hope of something better. Some people were on the fence; some gave up their idealism to join the more powerful, winning side. Some remained faithful even though it cost them much. But in the midst of that darkness, those in power could not, would not, give up their power so easily, and the conflict raged. Would one rise above the Empire’s control and lead the people to freedom? Could this dark world be driven back by someone wise, and brave, and pure? (Are you humming the theme song yet??)

The world Jesus entered as a baby was pretty grim, too. There wasn’t an abundance of food or money in Judea, and the people lived under the watchful, taxing eye of their Roman oppressors. It’s these rulers who sent Mary and Joseph hurrying to Bethlehem even though she was nine months pregnant, and these people who the Jewish people expected would one day be thrown off of their backs by a long-awaited warrior Messiah. But the Messiah didn’t really meet expectations, did he? He was born in a manger, not in the crib of kings, but homeless, with nothing to his name, but his mother’s love and his father’s devotion. He did not come with the crashing sounds of thunder and heralded by trumpets, but without fanfare, meek, mild, weak, and innocent.

And what of the means by which the word spread? Sure, we know that wise seers later came bearing gifts, that a star surely gave them the means to find the baby. But they were late to the party! The first carriers of the word were shepherds, whose livelihood required them to spend night after night in the darkness, caring for sheep that couldn’t have even belonged to them. The lowest on the totem pole, those who cared for the unclean animals, these were the people chosen by God to carry the world, to bring the light to the rest of the world?

Given the state of things, I find myself wondering how their world looks different from ours. We grumble at the taxes put on us by the government, we worry about the things we must do for our families and the things we’re forced to do by others. We live in a state of hurrying from one thing to the next, striving to make ends meet and keep those in authority of us happy. But we live in a world beyond that of those shepherds, don’t we? We live in a world that continues to spin on after the death and miraculous resurrection of Jesus, where the truth has been presented to us by the once and future king of the universe himself.

Everything is changed… and yet nothing is changed.

The majority of our world still lives in the dark. There are those who have become so disabused of the idea that God would care enough about his own creation to humble himself to live our lives with us, to experience our pain, and to ultimately die on the cross. What kind of God is that anyway? But isn’t it true that that’s the kind of God we would WANT to serve? One who actually loved us? Others see this as too painful, too gritty.

And all loving God would never require so much pain and sadness to make the world right. It just can’t be that this baby born in a manger would be the same resurrected, nail-pierced man we worship on Easter. But then others see the only means of changing this world wrapped in violence, power, and control. That the Messiah who would come must forcefully need us, the Church, to take what is His, to claim it for him and stake violently the truths that we hold to be true. But if I may borrow from Star Wars again: “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”

God was already here before he sent Jesus. God didn’t need to show up… but we needed to be able to see him. God is present in our joy and present in our suffering and present even when we haven’t asked him to be there. The thing is, God doesn’t need our permission.

So what if God doesn’t need our defense? What if it really does make the most sense that on Christmas, What if the peace that the angels announced to the shepherds, the message they gave them to share is still the message that God brings to us at Christmas, asking each year that a few more of us would understand and believe?

Consider again these words spoken to the shepherds in Luke 2: “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger. Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”

“And on earth, peace.” Seriously, what does that look like? What would PEACE ON EARTH look like? Too often, we can act like peace on earth is only something meant for heaven. But if it was meant simply for heaven, why torture some poor, outcast shepherds with the suggestion that they might find it here and now? Doesn’t the “peace of earth” go with the “do not be afraid?” How are shepherds, fending off wolves and lions from killing their sheep, worrying about their master’s sheep falling into a ditch and breaking a leg, supposed to understand what “peace” looks like?

On Christmas Eve, 1914, 100,000 British and German troops were involved in unofficial cessations of fighting along the length of the Western Front. The Germans began by placing candles on their trenches and on Christmas trees, then continued the celebration by singing carols. The British responded by singing carols of their own. The two sides continued by shouting Christmas greetings to each other. Soon thereafter, there were excursions across No Man’s Land, where small gifts were exchanged, such as food, tobacco and alcohol, and souvenirs such as buttons and hats. The guns in the region fell silent. The truce also allowed a brief period where recently killed soldiers could be brought back behind their lines by burial parties. Joint services were held. But the peace only lasted a few days.

Two thousand years later and we’re still looking for peace. We’re looking for God to so overwhelm us and fill our senses that we ARE NOT AFRAID. Not afraid of living alone. Not afraid of losing our savings or our house or our car. Not afraid of death and dying, or the loss of a loved one. Not afraid that what we have isn’t good enough. Not afraid that our lives aren’t worth it. Not afraid that we haven’t stumbled so far that God doesn’t love us anymore.

HEAR THE GOOD NEWS: You are loved by the one, true God. Who made you individually in his image. Who created you for a purpose and longs to know you absolutely, intimately, in relationship. DO NOT FEAR. PEACE ON EARTH. It’s truly amazing to me, and I’ve been reading the Bible for awhile now! To go back and look at the ways that Isaiah prophesied about the kind of change Jesus would bring.

We read today from Isaiah 9 about how “the people walking in darkness” (the shepherds, us!) have seen a great light…” How this son born TO US would be the Counselor, the Everlasting Father, the prince of (what) PEACE!” Thousands of years before Jesus, this is prophesied. And his reign as prince is clothed in JUSTICE AND RIGHTEOUSNESS. Again, amazing… thousands of years before Jesus, God is giving his followers a heads up that Jesus is coming, that things won’t be the same, that PEACE and JUSTICE and RIGHTEOUSNESS would go hand in hand.

I’m sure that if I took a poll, you would uniformly admit to wanting peace. Wanting peace in your relationships Wanting peace in your children and grandchildren’s schools Wanting peace around the world. But if the Good News announced to the shepherds in that dark world two thousand years ago was that Jesus was the means of peace for everyone, what must we do to GRASP THAT PEACE right now?

We’ve been crying over the lack of peace via musics for awhile, especially in stories of protest and outrage at the wars we’ve faced in the last two hundred years. In 1849, Edmund Hamilton Sears commented on the wars going on then, between Mexico and the U.S., between slavery supporters and abolitionists in his hymn “It Came Upon A Midnight Clear.”

He wrote: “The world has suffered long; Beneath the angel-strain have rolled2 Two thousand years of wrong; And man, at war with man, hears not3 The love-song which they bring; O hush the noise, ye men of strife, And hear the angels sing. For lo, the days are hastening on, By prophet bards foretold, When with the ever-circling years Comes round the age of gold. When peace shall over all the earth Its ancient splendors fling, And the whole world give back the song, Which now the angels sing.”

We long for that peace, but we can’t seem to find it. I wonder sometimes if God isn’t shaking his head, wondering why we don’t get it? “Do they think I’m going to let it get so bad there’s nothing left? Are they waiting for me to show up and fix it miraculously? Wasn’t the miracle of Jesus enough? What about the miracles I’ve worked in their individual lives?”

Jesus never acted like the world wasn’t broken, like people weren’t suffering, like children weren’t dying. By the time he was four, King Herod had worked out a plot to kill all of the boys his age! A fact which seems eerily relevant in December 2012. But Jesus told his disciples to be peacemakers, to turn the other cheek, to literally lay down swords when soldiers came to arrest him in the garden of Gethsemane, to take up their cross days before he got up on his.

So why don’t we act like he asked his disciples to? What would it take for us to “GET” peace? In another song, one that has stuck in my head this December, as I watched mall shootings, abductions, bombings, and domestic violence flash across the ticker, hours before Sandy Hook Elementay made the news, speaks to the truth that peace isn’t EASY. Maybe it’s not even how we’re wired.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote in “I Heard The Bells On Christmas Day,” on the Christmas after his son had died fighting in the Civil War in Virginia, despairing the true dark nature of parts of our lives even in the face of celebrating Jesus’ birth: “And in despair I bowed my head;
”There is no peace on earth,” I said; “For hate is strong, And mocks the song Of peace on earth, good-will to men!”

But as a man of faith, he knew that our story doesn’t end with a period. It ends with an exclamation point. It ends with hope … like the Coke Zero commercial where the man keeps experiencing life but adding “and…” We know that even in the midst of our darkness that isn’t how the story ends. Wadsworth’s hymn closes: Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
”God is not dead, nor doth He sleep; The Wrong shall fail, The Right prevail, With peace on earth, good-will to men.” God’s not dead or asleep but he’s waiting for us to WAKE UP!

To grasp Right Prevailing and Goodwill to humankind But how do we become part of that? How do we hold onto that hope with our lives and our hearts? It seems like the examples range from pretty ordinary to amazingly serious.

If I say I want peace, I need to consider the way I treat my wife and my children.

If I say I want peace, then not only do I need to change the way I drive but the things I think about other people while I’m driving!

If I say I want peace, then it matters how I spend my money, what I watch, the language I use, and the people I associate with.

If I want peace, then I have to do something when there are people I know starving for food and love, or shivering with cold, in my community.

If I want peace, then the world events that threaten the safety of children I’ll never meet, and countries I’ll never see, have to matter to me.

If I want peace, then the example I set with my family and friends, the lessons on Jesus and the importance of my faith community, have to matter to me.

If I want peace, I have to choose NOT VIOLENCE. I need to choose forgiveness not hate; choose letting go rather than one upping; choose to lay my weapons physically, metaphorically, intellectually, and otherwise down to make myself vulnerable… to peace. I have to choose not to be a Christ-follower when it’s convenient but even when it hurts.

When I was a teenager, I remember a conversation about violence came up. At the time, my father owned hunting rifles, and someone asked him if he would ever use them on another human being. He told those of us who were there at the time that he would never point a weapon at another human being, even if that person in turn had a gun to my mother or my head, because killing them would end their ability to turn and choose God, but he knew where we stood. Someone accused him of not loving us enough, but it didn’t take me long to see that my Dad loved me absolutely, because he loved me as Jesus did—enough to follow through on what he believed regardless of the cost.

Jesus came to Earth as a vulnerable little baby to BRING PEACE. He came to bring FORGIVENESS and HEALING and COMFORT to a world where people were ashamed and scared and sick and isolated. He came to tell them that regardless of what they’d thought before or been told by someone who didn’t really know, in their case—the leaders and teachers about God!, GOD LOVED THEM UNCONDITIONALLY.

Jesus died for that message in the face of authority, and by the grace of Almighty God, he rose again. Jesus’ follow through was A-MA-ZING. How’s yours? Do you believe tonight that you are loved unconditionally? If no one else has ever said it this way before to you, know this: CHRISTMAS is not YOUR BIRTHDAY… but Jesus came so that you would have new birth. Jesus came just for you, and for you, and for you. You are LOVED.

Soak that in for a moment. Enjoy it. Reflect on what that means, that YOU ARE LOVED BY YOUR CREATOR, AND SAVIOR. God broke through the world as we know it, past technological expectations and scientific laws, because God knew we needed a new hope, something bigger and better than what we had before.

I hope that tonight, that this Christmas, you would recognize the stirring of God in your life, the knowledge that you are loved and forgiven, no matter what you’ve done, and that Jesus came to us as a baby to show us that we CAN make a difference in our lives, right now. Whether you met Jesus a long time ago or in the last ten minutes, change for good can occur right now and last forever.

We would all say that we want peace, and we would probably admit that we have things about our life that we want to change—we have things about ourselves that just aren’t quite right. But the answer to those questions, the thing that frees us from our doubts is the belief that Jesus is God’s son, and that he died for our sins. So many times, we feel like we can’t make a difference. We can’t even change our own situations!

But the truth is that God is with us, Emmanuel, that the light shines in us, like the lightsabers my little Jedi carry with them tonight, to light up the world and bring hope in the midst of darkness. We can change our attitudes. We CAN live a life of sacrifice, of unconditional love, of PEACE. We can make our random acts of violence into random acts of kindness. We can choose to forgive rather than to retaliate.

We can recognize, as Gandalf the Wise says in The Hobbit, that while some believe “it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found. I found it is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay… small acts of kindness and love.”

So how will you stand up to evil? How will you show that peace this Christmas? Will you pray for forgiveness for yourself tonight? Or forgive someone in your heart as we sing Christmas carols? Will it be tonight by calling a loved one who you’re estranged from and saying, Merry Christmas? Will it be tomorrow, by praying for peace worldwide with your family before having Christmas lunch?

Will you give away your extra food or extra clothes to someone in your neighborhood or a shelter who is in need, so that they would have what they need? Will you treat each person with respect and dignity whether you’re crashing the stores for post-Christmas shopping… or serving as one of the people in retail or food service who will be overworked and underpaid the next few days?

PEACE begins with us. Peace begins with the realization that this life isn’t about us. That we are here to love and be loved, to worship God, to celebrate life, to share our resources and be a blessing for others. When we can table what we want and focus instead on what God wants, we recognize that we are the shepherds, who have been living in the dark, isolated and alone, and that even at our worst, God uses us to spread a message of hope if we’ll only believe.

That the light of God has broken through to announce that THIS IS NOT THE BEST THERE IS!

That the best is yet to come. That we are not alone. That “best of all, God is with us.” Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me. Let it begin with you. Carry the good news from this place. Share it in the way you act and the way you talk. Share it in mercy and grace, in forgiveness and love. May Christmas truly be full of peace on earth. Amen.

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The Avengers- The Community Is Greater Than The Sum Of Its Parts (Movie Review)

Posted on May 25, 2012 by Jacob Sahms

I’m still a DC guy, and I’m holding out for The Dark Knight Rises. That said, this might be the best Marvel film made yet (touching out Captain America: First Avenger and X-Men: First Class). You’ve heard about the assembly of Captain America (Chris Evans), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), and Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), or at least, you’ve seen the trailer. But you may not have heard that the movie is packed with deeper subjects than eye-popping stunts and epic battles, even though there are plenty of those, too!

I’m going to go straight to the points that came to me as I watched. Spoilers should be expected!

1 – The unnamed Holocaust survivor who stands up to Loki in Germany was a “wow, they just went there” moment. Sure, X-Men: First Class can show how Magneto became like the people he hated, but here, a man stands and says he won’t bow to Loki, because he’s seen this before. Then Cap shows up, and people start to be inspired (watch it again, and see how the crowd starts to rise). I was reminded of Daniel and his three friends, who refused to bow to the king’s idol in the biblical book of Daniel; it’s an epic reminder that we are called to stand up to injustice, and that we are called to bow to no man.

2 – Agent Coulson’s death is epic. He dies doing his job, but he dies in a way that inspires the ego-loaded heroes to put aside their jockeying for “bigger” and work together. He proves that he’s willing to sacrifice it all to stop evil… or die trying. Coulson proves to be a Christ figure who inspires others to be like Christ (”greater love has no man than this, that he lay his life down for his friends”). One of the things the movie highlighted over and over was the power of inspiration.

3 – None of these superheroes want to work together. They have their own gifts and talents, and egos. But they are not nearly as powerful alone as they are together. I’m reminded of the way that we are all ego-laden, broken, troubled, and gifted on our own, but when we experience church in a real and powerful way, God uses our brokenness to make something better. The “Body of Christ” metaphor certainly came into play.

4 – Cap and Iron Man argue about leadership, and Cap challenges Iron Man/Stark to be the kind of person who would lay down on the wire (set off the grenade) to save someone else. Stark quips back, “I’d just cut the wire,” but in the end, he proves to have heroic qualities that are not at all self-serving, and saves the day. It’s the epitome of what the team of Avengers will become at its best, and it allows us to see a depth of character and growth within their first partnership within community.

The movie is a pile of fun, but it’s not just fluff here. Joss Whedon certainly had some points to make, and this proved to be just as dynamic, if not more than anything that came before in the Marvel universe. “With great power comes great responsibility?” Move over!

Originally published on Hollywood Jesus

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Winter Olympics: Olympic Medal Designer Corrine Hunt (Interview)

Posted on February 24, 2010 by Jacob Sahms

“Olaka Iku Da Nala.”

So reads the website of Corrine Hunt, co-designer of the Olympic and Paralympic Medals for the 2010 Vancouver BC Olympic Games. Translated as “a really good day,” the phrase suits as a description of Hunt’s outlook even as her art takes center stage, over and over again throughout the Olympics.

Having received an Olympic torch as a birthday gift from a friend who carried it as part of the Canadian procession, Hunt has a bond to these games that will impact hundreds of athletes and inspire millions of people around the world. Her enthusiasm is infectious, but her humility is what makes her so easy to talk to. When talking about which Games she wants to see most she starts with speedskating, then ice hockey, and finally admits that all of the skiing events fascinate her as well.

Unfortunately, Hunt won’t be seeing as much of the Games as she’d like; she’s part of the Aboriginal Artisan Village with other artists from across Canada, who are selling their art to the gathering of nations in Vancouver. But she still had time to chat with Hollywood Jesus about her art, and the way it tells a greater story.

VANOC (Vancouver Organizing Committee) asked over three hundred artists to submit their proposal, Hunt said, and forty-eight submitted designs. “They shortlisted eight people and I was one of them. The initial process didn’t include design concepts but only our body of work.”

Hunt’s body of work began with the heritage of her First Nations status as a Komoyue and a Tlingit. The government grants Canadians like her Indian status, but she’s often referred to as an Aboriginal artist. Her diverse talents and interests led her off a commercial fishing boat and into anthropology. Now she says she wants to be a golf instructor. But she’s always been an artist.

“Many of my family members are artists,” Hunt says, “it’s part of our culture and part of who we are. I love art, I love modern art, traditional art, design. It’s part of who I am.”

But that’s only a means for Hunt to tell stories, and it’s the stories that drive her life and her art.

“I think storytelling is part of everybody’s life; it comes from different places. Whatever the religion or spirituality is that what we relate to, it’s about how we relate to our humanity or nature. We’re all struggling to figure out how we’ll survive; not to sound too utopian, but I love sitting and talking about what clients believe in or what our core values are. Respect for each other is paramount to what I do.”

That work is evident in the designs of the Olympic medals, but it’s apparent that Hunt’s work is always art and always tied to community. She’s been working on a project for a community in Ontario. “They saw the medal design and the idea of the orca. I’m working on a totem pole that’s called a community project,” said Hunt. “We rely on each other, play with each other, and that story will tell how we respect our environment and how the community itself will be designed. It’s not a cedar totem pole but it tells its story.”

But a totem pole?

“One of the problems is that the totem pole is seen in a pre-contact, pre-white man model. Although our culture travels with me in the modern world, I live outside my village because I live in Vancouver. We have to evolve to survive. That people see us as evolving and changing,” Hunt said.

Always teaching, always patient, Hunt takes the time to explain to an outsider, a novice to her art and her heritage, what it means to respect the story and translate it into terms that affect the world we live in.

“Last night, I met some athletes who had won at previous games, and they felt like there was something emotional in these medals that hadn’t been there before. Leo Ostbaum [the late architect of the Games] wanted to give the athletes something more, and he pushed the design in his part as the architect. It’s been a wonderful experience.”

These medals, 615 Olympic and 399 Paralympic medals, will each weigh more than a pound, and their undulating design sets them apart from anything that came before. Hunt’s pride in her work is obvious as she explains the mentality that went into their design.

“If you look at the channel for the orca, it’s in four pieces,” said Hunt. “I wanted to relate the athlete to the Games, and relate the athletes to the medals. Two of the panels have the orca head representing the athletes, and the other two have abstract orca bodies, and the five rings, which represent the five continents and Olympic rings.

“No athlete stands alone.”

At the same time, the Paralympic medals had quite a special meaning for Hunt. The same uncle who taught her to engrave metal is also a paraplegic, so it made these medals much more personal. “The raven in our culture is this wonderfully creative creature, accepting all of those things that are in us: the good, the bad, the mischievous. It’s based on a totem pole and the raven rising above the challenges and the obstacles, good or bad.

“I had looked at past medals, and wanted to make sure that the Paralympic medals were equal in size, beauty and shape. They are equal to the Olympic medal.”

Hunt’s impact on the medals is unique, but so was the partnership that led to their design. For the first time in anyone’s memory, two artists were asked if they would work together. “We didn’t know each other before we were chosen and early on they asked us if we would be interested in collaboration,” Hunt said. “Leo wanted to have a creative explosion from different areas; Omar [Arbel] was born in Jerusalem and moved to Canada when he was eighteen. Putting us together, we had to figure out what our purpose was. I guess I was supposed to be the storyteller, and Omar is more about the form. It was pretty seamless once we started working together, and really learned a lot from each other.

“We worked on how it would be shown, the shape of the medal, the undulating piece, and we modified it in the end to what it would look like. It’s not always easy collaborating but Leo really put that together, and really opened it up to make it quite unique.”

It should come as no surprise that this opportunity has opened the doors for more storytelling. The Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg has asked her to create a poster around the phrase being used from the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights, “everyone has a right.”

Hunt said hers will read “everyone has a right to be a raven now and then, and color outside the lines.” She adds, “It’s wonderful to be connected to something like that.”

Hunt’s connection with our site prompted a brief but deep discussion about what it meant to be of Jesus and engaged with Hollywood. Hunt had found beauty in the pursuit of Jesus before, through her mother, the most beautiful person she’s ever known, but our engaging culture seemed puzzling. We agreed that our encounter with our story as it intersected with the story of others was the place where we could grow, and our mutual desire to see peace reign was a standard we could build on. Staying faithful to the respect which her heritage teaches is crucial to Hunt, and it requires that she be open to the new learning experiences presented to her.

“I sort of followed the Jesus Seminar,” Hunt said. “Karen Armstrong won an award from Ted.com and they granted a wish. Armstrong’s idea for this Charter for Compassion crosses all of our spirituality and religion and we need to be the compassion entity. It’s a special opportunity, and we lay our lives down in that way and we can make this journey.”

Our paths diverged here, as Hunt was called away to more conversation in Vancouver, leaving the door open for further discussion around orcas, ravens, and the like. It’s fascinating, really, to consider who we are and what we’re meant to be. More and more, the world of sports provides us the opportunity to reach out to others, to make contact, and to share our compassion, and our passions. We strive for that goal, and we can’t ever give up.

It’s a really good day, isn’t it? You’re not alone, the sun keeps rising. Embrace the sunshine.

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Pirates of the Caribbean- At World’s End: All Plot, No Soul (Movie Review)

Posted on June 5, 2007 by Jacob Sahms

As far as trilogies go, Pirates of the Caribbean started out strong, but finished with a whimper. The promise of Curse of the Black Pearl shouldn’t be ignored, with great characterizations provided by Johnny Depp and Geoffrey Rush, but in the end, the lackluster love affair of Keira Knightley’s Elizabeth Swann and Orlando Bloom’s Will Turner did the trilogy a disservice. While other great trilogies had the drama and sauce of a Han-Leia-Luke triangle (yes, I’m ignoring the “first” three movies of the series) or the star-struck misery of the Aragorn-Eowyn-Arwen geometry, Pirates III falls flat.

The film’s plot seems to have three main goals when it begins: save Will’s father, Bootstrap; stop Lord Beckett from ending piracy; and save Captain Jack Sparrow from Davy Jones’ Locker. Along the way, there’s some nonsense about a pirate board meeting that contributed to the rather “bored” feeling that much of the audience seemed to share with me; the lovers in question spit and spat and don’t ever really show why we should care whether they’re together or not; and Johnny Depp proves to have run out of funny things to say and do. Chow Yun-Fat as Feng, pirate lord of Singapore has a presence, but Keith Richards as Jack’s father is a throwaway thanks to Depp’s devotion. I saw something in an interview with George Clooney about Ocean’s Twelve, and how they’d gotten too big for their britches, thinking their sheer star power could make the movie work. I’m afraid Depp & Co. may say the same a few years from now, even after the movie rakes in millions.

What’s left to be said that others haven’t already said? I’m not sure—I steer clear of reading other folks’ reviews until I’ve written my own! I will say that the most “spiritual” element of the movie for me is Bootstrap’s inability to be free of the Flying Dutchman. It appears that the sin that has grown and grasped him will not let him be free, and the desire he has isn’t strong enough to free him (even when Will provides a hand). And maybe that’s why, a week later, I don’t find myself that enamored with the film: the plot is convoluted, the characters flat and unlikeable, and the one shot the movie has at redemption is left unmoved.

The movie can make millions and that’s fine. It’s still ironic to me that a movie trilogy based on an amusement park ride has sparked millions in movie sales, toys, games and clothing. A real pirate’s booty, I guess. Unfortunately, this Pirate lacks the thing that the pirates of Dead Man’s Chest wanted most—a soul.

Originally published on Hollywood Jesus (my first movie review ever- 6/5/07!)

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