What, Me Worry?

OK, confession time here.  I am a worrier, though I prefer to think of it as more of a planner.  There is nothing wrong with planning ahead in fact it is a really good idea.  The problem comes when we focus on the things that we can't prepare for.  Our lives are made up of millions of factors that we have no control over.  So I think the difference between planning and worry is about productivity.  If there are reasonable things that I can do to help for the future, like saving money or getting a physical then it is planning, but if there is nothing that can be done, then it is worry.  And worry is not a good thing.   Truth be told, I do both.

Disclaimer: Anxiety is not worry.  Some people have an anxiety disorder where through the chemical make up of their brains they feel the emotional responses panic or worry at inappropriate times.  Anxiety disorder is a medical condition and one that I am not well qualified to talk about.  So to be clear, when I talk about worry, I am not talking about anxiety. With worry we have a choice.

So why do we do it?  Why do so many of us spend much of our energy worried about things that we can't control?  I think of places and times where people live day to day.  If things go well today, they get food for today.  If not, they are hungry.  If things are going well today, is there a way to stretch this good fortune into tomorrow?  Who knows.  

I think that in our abundance we feel that everything should be under our control.  Since so many of our basic needs are met, we focus on things that are outside of our reach.  And when we let our minds sit there, then we can sink into a funk of worry.  

There is a difference between thinking "I will be happy today, no matter what the future brings" and "Sure, things are good now, but just how long will that last." And that is the real damage in worry.  It takes away today's happiness.

For a Christian, worry is really a spiritual issue.  On the one hand we know that God has a plan for us.  On the other hand, we don't always see what that plan is or how we will get there.  But that is what worry is all about.  Obsessing about things we don't know or can't control.  I think things would be easier if God just laid out the plan.  If He said "Here, You will do this and this and in the end you do this.  See," 

And while that would be easier from my perspective as a worrier, it would do nothing under the category of TRUST.  As we build our relationship with God, we need to trust in God.  And we need need to trust that His plan is the fight plan for the future.

Watch this video from Pastor Chris.

Worry will not add an hour to our lives.  Not only that but it can suck the joy out of the hours that we do have and it can separate us from a trusting relationship with God.

Silly Season

This election year is the one that never ends.  Usually at this point in the cycle each party has a nominee and things settle to the back burner for a while.  They pick up a bit for the conventions in the summer then on to full speed post Labor Day.  But nothing of the kind this cycle.  Each week brings us another do or die contest, and with the prospect of a brokered convention, the talking heads just can't get enough.

And since actual voting only happens every so often, the newies have to fill in the gaps with analysis.  There are the speeches and endorsements and polls.  And polls.  And Polls.  And then the breakdowns of the polls.

Part of the breakdown inevitably is about how candidates are doing with the "Christian Vote".   This always confuses me.  I know a lot of Christians who have vastly different political views including the subject of to what extent their Christianity should effect their political activism.  So when they talk about Christians as a demographic, I'm not really sure what that means.

I will say this.  There is a major difference between principles and politics.  As Christians there should be a set of principles that guide our life.  First and foremost we need to show love in all that we do.  The Bible says that the fruit of the spirit is "Love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control".  It would seem that as Christians we should be selecting candidates and positions that emulate these same principles.  But as we don't all agree with what these principles look like, it all becomes that much harder.  

Politics is something different.  Politics is all about amassing and maintaining power.  We build alliances.  And maybe we don't completely agree with that other group but we will still work together.  We do that for a while, then their issues get mixed up with our issues.  After a while the issue becomes about winning or losing.  It becomes about us vs them.  We can't act on that right now because there is an election coming up and we might lose.  

When losing is worse than accomplishing nothing, We have left the world of principles and entered the world of politics.

And that's what was going on when Jesus came to town.  Jesus brought a message of hope and love to a land that was thick with ceremony and tradition.  Jesus represented a challenge to the authority of the day,  The religious leaders had power and position and Jesus represented an end to it all.  

So they killed him.

In politics, position and power is more important than anything else.  But as Christians we should have other priorities.

Watch this clip from Pastor Chris.

Jesus represented a threat to the leaders of His time.  It is no different today,  Christian principles should never take a back seat to winning or losing. 

Forts, Castles and Walls to Hide Behind

When I was growing up and we went on family vacations we would often stop at forts.  We would see the displays and uniformed soldiers and watch them fire the cannons.  These were secure military facilities to house the troops and armaments safely.  In other times people built castles for the same purpose.  But here's the thing. A castle or a fort is not very significant if the soldiers stay inside.

So let's think about that for a minute.  A fort is in a single location that provides security to a larger area.  It is a secure place for the soldiers to sleep at night and to keep supplies, but how much influence can be exerted from behind the walls.  Enemies could go around it and avoid the conflict.  To be able to secure an area, the soldiers must leave the security of the fort and explore the world beyond.

 

So let's compare a fort to a sanctuary.  A sanctuary is a safe place and you stay there.  Lately in the news there has been a controversy over "sanctuary cities", cities that don'y follow federal immigration laws.  Illegal immigrants can stay there in safety, but only if they stay there.  They aren't leaving and they don't plan on leaving.  In a wildlife sanctuary animals live there and they don't often leave.  

 

I think that our churches should be less like sanctuaries and more like forts.  We come into the church to recharge and recoup,  We can profess our faith and worship among other believers.  But if we are to have an impact we have to move beyond our walls and out into the world.

Of course we all physically leave the church building, but some of us never mentally leave the building.  We work around Christians.  All of our friends are Christians.  We watch Christian TV and listen to Christian radio.  And all of these things are good.  But if we never leave the fort, we have a very limited effect on the world around us.

Watch this video from Pastor Chris.

Jesus worshiped in the temple and prayed with His disciples, but he also walked among the masses and shared hope and healing with a part of the world that desperately needed it.  Just like today.  We would all do better to remember that part of Jesus's ministry so that the light of God can shine through us.

Technicalities

Our society is run on systems of laws and rules.  These come into play because there is a general principle that most people believe in.  Whether we are talking about sporting events or the common good, the trick comes when we have to define exactly what the standard is.  Take football for example, someone throws the ball, someone catches the ball.  Easy.

But what does it mean to catch the ball?  Well, you need to be on the field.  And what does that mean exactly?  Well both feet have to be on the field.  It's ok if your momentum carries you out of bounds afterwards, but when you actually catch the ball, both feet need to be on the field.  So they have got to a point where receivers practice dragging their toes along the grass as they reach for the ball and high def cameras are recording the rising of dust.  The question really isn't whether or not he caught the ball.  The question is if it should technically count as catching the ball.

So if there is a system of rules, then there are those things that are within the rules and those things that are outside and some things that are right on the edge.  I don't know how common it is in real life (I guess that it's not too common) but on TV it seems like the police are constantly performing illegal searches which result in evidence being disqualified.  It creates drama on the show because now we all know that they are guilty, but they may get found not guilty because of a technicality.

I think that it can work the other way too.  I have heard stories where evidence emerges that proves someone has been wrongly convicted of a crime, and yet they sit in jail because technicalities in the law forbid this new evidence being considered after a certain point in the process.  

Like most people, 90% of what I know about the legal system comes from watching TV, which means I really know nothing.  But it still goes along with my greater point.  Rules are good, but if we get too hung up on the technicalities, it is bad.

Which brings us to Jewish Law.  We are all familiar with the 10 commandments, but there are many more rules and laws than that.  Many Many more.  In total there are 613 Mitzvot or Laws.  Including prohibition against trimming your beard or women wearing men's clothing.  If we are looking at a set of rules with technicalities, there you go.  Jesus taught to look beyond the law to it's true purpose.  Jesus taught that all things must be done in love and while the law should be respected, it can never descend into a system that is just technicalities.

Watch this video from Pastor Chris.

Jesus taught us that the first and greatest commandment was to love.  God first, then each other.  The rules of the law should always be seen through the filter of love and never as a set of technicalities.  If we try to gain justification through the technicalities of the law, none of us can succeed.  If we gain justification through the love of Jesus Christ, then none of us can fail.

Check Check Check

If you have never been to a high school wrestling meet there is this point before it gets started where they do a skin check.  All of the wrestlers line up and the referee looks over their arms fingers and torso looking for rashes or other skin infections.  The reason they do this is easy to understand.  We know that certain skin issues are contagious and left unchecked it could spread through all of the wrestlers, and nobody wants that.

Sometime I think about how our understanding of disease has changed in the last 100-200 years.  The idea that germs cause disease was proven shortly before the Civil War and took a while to catch on.  Penicillin, the first true antibiotic wasn't discovered until 1928.  Think about that for a second.  Just 100 years ago if you were sick and went to the doctor, there was nothing that they could give you to make you better.

When we read about the leper colonies in ancient times, I think that we can be a little hard on the people of the day.  Leper colonies sound harsh and beating lepers away with a stick even more so.  But that is looking at it through our prism of modern medicine.  If one our family had a disease like leprosy, we would get them medicine and in the mean time care for them in ways that won't let the disease spread.  

But in those days all that they knew is that if you had contact with a leper, then there was a good chance that you would become a leper too.  And since they didn't know about bacteria, they assumed that their sin became your sin through this contact.  Based on the information that they had a the time, it was a pretty reasonable conclusion.

And all of this makes the actions of Jesus comforting and healing lepers so incredible.  He walked among the lepers and healed their diseases.  Maybe he knew that he couldn't catch leprosy that way.  Maybe he knew that he could be healed.  Maybe he knew that he would soon be killed and it wouldn't matter if he did catch it. Maybe Maybe Maybe. 

Personally, I like to think that His heart was so full of compassion that He couldn't help Himself.  He saw someone in pain, someone who was suffering, someone who needed to know that they mattered in the world, and Jesus was there.

Watch this clip from Pastor Chris.

Jesus touched the untouchable.  He loved the unloved.  He brought healing to a badly wounded world, and he is still doing it today.

The Right Address

For most of us our house number is just where we get our mail.  The actual digits that make up the number really aren't that important.  But there are some people for whom that number is a very big deal.

So every city has the old money area.  These people got their fortunes the old fashioned way, they inherited it from rich ancestors.  Their relatives came over on the Mayflower and made a fortune investing in corn futures.  You get the point.  So in one particular neighborhood in the Detroit area, the more established, old money streets have three digit addresses, and it is a big deal.  This means if your address is 231 Oak Lane that is more prestigious that 25641 Sycamore Place,  This is so important that some of the residents of five digit streets petitioned the city to change their addresses to three digits thus improving their property values.  And the current three digit street residents are objecting as to protect their standing.  And yes this is a real thing.

For most of us the address thing seems ridiculous.  But it all comes down to associating with the "right types" of people. The thinking goes that there are certain types of people and we don't want those people living here, then we would be like them.  

There is a posh resort in Florida that has been in the news lately due to its connection to a certain outspoken business man turned politician.  It is said that it is open to anyone and everyone.  All you need to do to join is pay the $150,000 annual membership fee.  So yeah, pretty much anyone can join.

It is all the same thing.  Their are certain social classes and often one class puts up barriers to prevent another class from entering.  They see status by association and it can be lost if the wrong sort are milling around.

 

This sense of class and association is nothing new.  It has been around since there have been people living in groups.  I'm sure that once upon a time there was a caveman who would wouldn't want those people living in the cave next door.  And of course it was true in Israel 2000 years ago when the son of a carpenter came on the scene.

Jesus didn't come to town and ingratiate himself into the right circles with the best people.  No, Jesus went to the masses.  Jesus went to the down and out.  He went to the sinners.  He went to those who needed him most.  And in doing so he taught us all that true status is not achieved through our associations with other people, out three digit addresses or the type of country club we can belong to.  True status comes from our relationship with God and nothing else.

Watch this video from Pastor Chris.

Maybe the most widely known verse in the Bible is John 3:16.  "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life."

God loved the world and whoever believes.  It does not say that the right people have special favor with God.  Jesus came for everyone to establish a relationship with God.  And that is something that we all need, no matter what social class we were born into.

From the Abyss

Living in Michigan we get used to being surrounded by big water.  I grew up near Lake St Claire and never understood why it wasn't one of them, until I looked at a map.  For as big as it is, it is no where near the size of the five.  The biggest of the bigs is Lake Superior.  All by itself it is about the size of South Carolina and at one point it is 1200 feet deep.  The cold deep waters are home to whitefish and shipwrecks.  And while Lake Superior is deep, it is no where close to the record.

The deepest lake in the world is Lake Baikal in Russia.  It is over 5,000 feet deep and it is the largest lake by volume in the world.  But even Baikal is a mere puddle compared to the oceans.  When we talk about the depth of the ocean we like to focus on the Mariana Trench and its 36,000 feet of depth, but I like to think of the ocean floor.  The ocean floor is made of vast, sediment covered planes that are 2-3 miles down.  They call this feature the abyssal plane.  

The abyssal plane covers 50% of the Earth's surface and is home to all manner of strange creatures.  These creatures exist without light, under near freezing temperatures and pressures 200 times greater than on the surface.

So this is our abyss.  Deep.  Cold.  Devoid of Light.  

Jesus told His disciples that they were to become fishers of men.  They would be pulling people out of the deep.  They would retrieving the lost and bringing them to the surface.  Now I know that when the Bible refers to the abyss, the writers are referring to Hell and not the ocean.  But pulling a drowning person from the cold dark of the ocean may be as good of an analogy as we can muster in our limited experiences.

Watch this clip from Pastor Chris.

Jesus brought a message of hope.  He told the disciples that they would be pulling people out of the depths and back from the brink.  As Christians we can let this same hope shine through us to provide light to those in deep.

Norm Reference

Grading on a curve.  This is a practice in some college classes for assigning grades.  It works like this.  The scores are ranked from lowest to highest.  The average score and those around it are given a grade of C.  Those a bit farther away from the middle are given Bs and Ds, while those at the extremes are given As and Fs.  It is called a curve because when the grades are ranked there are more scores near the average and it creates a graph that looks like a bell.

Now the curve has advantages and disadvantages.  In some college classes there are a certain number of students who don't take it seriously and will fill in the bottom.  There are also those students who excel and they will take the places at the top.  So what is created is more or less a competition of sorts.  It doesn't matter how much of the material that you master as long as you are better than the others.  On the other hand, if you are in a particularly great group, but the worst in that group, it doesn't look so good for you.

What we call "Grading on a Curve", statisticians call "Norm Reference".  It means how well we perform compared to the average or the "Norm".  By contrast, "Criteria Reference" means that there is some objective standard.  The grade is assigned based on how well you meet that standard, not how well you compare to others,  

It is like the baby development charts.  It says that at three months the baby should be holding their head up.  It doesn't say which baby is the best at holding their head up or the first (though parents might be watching for this).  The chart sets a specific milestone and we evaluate whether or not they meet the expectation.

So in school, work or life we have certain expectation of how the world should be.  Whether we have them in written form or just in the back of our heads, the expectations are still there.  Expectations, however, are limited by vision.  We use our own experiences to set goals that are reasonable or even ambitious, but maybe even that is way below what is possible,

God has a vision for each of us.  It is not a norm referenced vision that ranks us based on how good other people are or on the average standard of living.  It is not criteria referenced to the worlds standard of success.  It is a vision based on the potential that each of us has when following the path that God has for us.

Watch this video from Pastor Chris.

Jesus brought Heaven to Earth.  Jesus brought the divine to the mundane.  And in doing so, Jesus change the expectations for everyone for all time.  It is a standard that we can never measure up to on our own, but through surrendering out will to God, success is guaranteed.

Endorsements

Celebrity endorsements have been a mainstay of advertisers for generations.  They say that over two hundred years ago the Wedgwood Pottery Company used the fact that the royal family used their pieces to bolster their brand.  And in the 19th century Mark Twain appeared in advertisements for cigars.  And today of course, celebrity endorsements are so common that they are expected.  Some pro athletes make much more money on endorsements than on the sport that they play.

Some celebrities endorse political candidates.  This doesn't make a lot of sense to me.  We are left thinking, "This person is a great singer and actor, so it would only make sense that they would be a great judge of who should run the country." I think that it is mostly about attention.  The celebrity gets attention and the politician gets attention and the news channels cover it like it is actual news, so why not.  

My personal favorite of the celebrity endorsements is the "Most Interesting Man in the World" campaign.  It is an endorsement, but the person wasn't a celebrity before the add campaign.  They were actually able to create their own celebrity then use his fame to promote their product.  I'm not sure if beer sales have gone up under this campaign, but there have been an incredible number of internet memes spawned as a result. 

So celebrity endorsements are a powerful tool.  But what is even more powerful is a message that sells itself without endorsements and ad campaigns.  Many business owners will tell you that their best advertisement is through word-of-mouth or that their product sells itself.

And so it went when Jesus Christ began his ministry.  He could have gone to the religious leaders in Jerusalem and then used their notoriety and standing to legitimize his own.  But that was not the route that he took.  He went to Galilee.  He went to the outcasts, the sick, the unclean.  He spoke of love and redemption and that the Kingdom of God was open to all.  It was a message so powerful that it needed no endorsement then and it still resonates today.  

Watch this clip from Pastor Chris.

The message of Jesus Christ is that we all have sinned, we all have made mistakes, we all fallen short of the Glory of God.  But also redemption is available to us all.  Redemption is not a Wedgwood Vase found in a royal palace, or a Ferrari driven by a rich athlete.  Redemption is available to all who seek it.  Redemption is there for each of us and all we need to do is ask.  

That is a message that spreads no matter who is saying it.