Beautiful and Terrible

     I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.

-John 16:33 (NIV)

“Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid.”

     I’m reminded of that quote by Frederick Buechner this week. On the beautiful side of the equation, this week my son graduates from high school. We’ll celebrate this accomplishment enthusiastically, because it represents the culmination of twelve years of hard work. We forget as we enter adulthood the struggle, frustration, stress, and sometimes exhaustion of our school years. “The best years of our lives,” we call them, though I don’t think any of us really think so if we give it more than a moment’s thought. Josh deserves to celebrate this milestone and look forward to what comes next. His mom and I, his grandparents, his family and friends — we’re prouder of him than we can even say. So we’ll go downtown Thursday night, to the beautiful Auditorium Theater in the heart of Chicago, and we’ll cheer as he walks across the stage and gets his diploma. We’ll celebrate with family and friends all weekend. Everything else going on in the world, more or less, will kind of get put on hold for a couple of days.

     But, of course, we live in Buechner’s beautiful and terrible world. And on the terrible side of the equation is the worst mass shooting in U.S. history, inside (of all places) an Orlando nightclub. Less than a week after other parents lost their children, we’ll be cheering for ours. 

     The Orlando attacks, as terrible as they were, don’t make me afraid, really. Neither do the shootings that happen daily in my city, shootings that, if the victims were tallied up, would surpass Orlando as the worst mass shooting in just a couple of average weeks. But since they’re names just ticked off in newspaper columns, they kind of go over my head. The average shooting in Chicago doesn’t seem to even merit its own story anymore.

     It’s easy for me to think of tragedies like what happened in Orlando, or what happen each night in my city, as far-removed from me. To be honest, I’m in one very significant way different from the victims in Orlando: I’m not gay. That happened to other people, just like most of the shootings in my city seem to happen to other people, people who are affiliated with gangs and for whom violence is a way of life. 

     So I’m like most folks, I guess. I’m celebrating the milestone in my family, while the more distant tragedies kind of go on in the background. How else can you live? How else can you get out of bed in the morning? Yes, we live in a beautiful and terrible world, and we choose which of those adjectives to fixate on, which of those realities we allow to determine the lives we live.

     Buechner didn’t say what he said just to remark on the state of the world. He was speaking, when he said it, in God’s voice, as if the Creator was offering the world to the first man anew. “Here it is, your home. Sometimes it will be wonderful. Sometimes it will be horrific.” I like the quote because it doesn’t shy away from the ugliness and violence and pain in the world. It doesn’t invite us to pretend in the glow of the beautiful that the terrible cannot ever happen to us. It reminds us that both the beautiful and the terrible will touch us. We can’t pretend forever that the horrors of the world will somehow skip over us. And, if we’re fortunate enough to not be touched by some of them, we can’t pretend that the people to whom they’re happening don’t matter. 

    But it also reminds us not to live in fear. It tells us that when the world is terrible aren’t to be paralyzed by fear. And that we aren’t to ruin the beautiful moments by being afraid of the terrible ones that may be coming. We so easily make both mistakes. But do we or do we not, after all, believe in the One who tells us not to be afraid, that he has overcome the world? Can we say believe if the terrible so terrifies us that our lives bear witness only to the power of fear?

     “Take heart,” says Jesus. In the face of the terrible, we’re to bear up courageously. That doesn’t mean stick-on smiles and fake laughter. Courage doesn’t rule out tears, or grief, or sadness. It doesn’t require blindness to the ways the world can be terrible. Courage isn’t pretending the fire doesn’t exist; it’s doing the job of saving others regardless. Courage isn’t doing your best to fake being well; it’s facing sickness with faith and hope and the peace of Christ. 

     “I have overcome the world,” he says. Not “I might overcome the world,” not even “I will.” The tense is past: “I have overcome the world.” The promises of Jesus, the promises of peace and safety, sharing in God’s life, aren’t just promises for one day after we die. They are to inform our lives hear and now. “If God is for us, who can be against us?” asked one of Jesus’ followers. God’s intent was set long ago, his plan put into motion, and the resurrection of Jesus is not just another promise, it’s the final triumphant exclamation point. If Jesus is alive, then he has overcome the most terrible things the world can do. It’s no longer something to hope for. Now it’s something to believe in and live by.

     Josh’ first day of preschool was September 11, 2001. He ends his high school career a few days after the deadliest attack on US soil since then. The world hasn’t gotten a lot better since then. But we don’t pin our hopes for the future on the idea of the world getting better. We pin them on the promise of Jesus sealed with that empty tomb. We take heart, believing that he  has indeed overcome the world. 

     If you’ve graduated this spring, or love someone who has, then that hope is for you.

Foreigners

“Hear my prayer, Lord, listen to my cry for help; do not be deaf to my weeping. I dwell with you as a foreigner, a stranger, as all my ancestors were.

-Psalm 39:12 (NIV)

Larissa Martinez moved to McKinney, Texas, from Mexico City in 2010, when she was 12 years old. Her mother had to work long hours to provide for Larissa and her sister, and Larissa had to take on responsibilities for her little sister that most 12-year-old girls in America don’t have to think about. “School became a safe haven for me,” Larissa says, “because despite not having internet, a washing machine, or even my own bed, I always had knowledge at my fingertips thanks to the library at my school.”

     Apparently, Larissa made good use of that library. She finished her high school career with almost a 5.0 GPA, and has a full ride to Yale in the fall. Last week, at McKinney Boyd High School’s graduation ceremony, Valedictorian Larissa Martinez spoke to her classmates and, as it turned out, a good portion of the world. Ironically for a girl who didn’t have internet access at home, her speech went viral.

     In her address, Larissa identifies three “Unexpected Realities” that have marked her life. The first was being an 11-year-old girl with an abusive and alcoholic father who naively thought that becoming an American would solve all her problems. The second was, at 12, trying to fit into a new culture while having her intelligence and accomplishments questioned and unacknowledged. As for the third — here, I’ll let Larissa tell you in her own words:

“Well, after all of these years, I’ve finally mustered up the courage to stand before you and share a struggle I’ve had to deal with each and every day. Unexpected Reality Number Three: I am one of the 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the shadows of the United States. I decided to stand before you today and reveal these Unexpected Realities because this might be my only chance to convey the truth to you that undocumented immigrants are people too.”

     I encourage you to watch Larissa’s speech. It will give you hope for the future, and it just might  change the way you think of undocumented immigrants. (Her opening joke about Beyonce and President Obama is pretty good, too.) 

     I know, immigration is a thorny political issue. Voices get pretty loud and strident on both sides of the debate, and both sides of the debate occasionally make some pretty good points as well. I don’t pretend to have answers; I don’t even know what questions to ask. Clearly, the system we have doesn’t work very well to deal with the sheer number of immigrants coming to our borders. (Larissa mentions in her speech that she’s been waiting for years for her application to even be processed.) 

     There’s a lot of space between those on one side who like the idea of a wall on the border, and those on the other who think we might as well do away with the border. But if you can listen to Larissa’s speech and still think that the immigration debate is simply a matter of law, then let me respectfully suggest to you that you’ve missed the point. Think of the myriad ways that Larissa’s life would be different if she and her mother weren’t living in America. Because they’re here, Larissa had teachers who didn’t ask for a green card, a school library with doors open for her. 

     Go back to the Old Testament and you start to notice a trend: God’s people have always been foreigners. Abram (Abraham) was told to leave his country and go to one that God would show him, and God promised him that one day he’d give the land which he lived in as a foreigner to his descendants. Moses was a Hebrew born in Egypt, and later lived as a foreigner in Midian. In view of their historic status as foreigners, God included in Israel’s Law a requirement that they should treat foreigners well. 

     God revealed himself to Israel as a God who “loves the foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing.” (Deuteronomy 10:18) Foreigners in Israel were invited to share in the joy of community celebrations, feasts, and worship, and they were not to be deprived of justice. They were to be provided for through charitable giving. God even promises to testify against those who treat foreigners unfairly. 

     Apparently, when Israel found security and prosperity in their own land it was easy for them to forget that they had once been foreigners in a strange land too.

     So maybe, as God’s people, what we need to do before we can add something meaningful to the immigration debate is to remember that we are foreigners too. Whatever your birth certificate or your passport says, believers in Christ are to live as foreigners in this world. We’re citizens of a different country, and our hope is not in the security of our jobs or our property values or our children’s access to the Ivy League. 

     We’re called in Christ to cast our lot with the One who didn’t have a place to lay his head, and with those who through the centuries have looked with faith for God to build them a city where they would be truly at home. If our attitudes toward the foreigners among us don’t look much like God’s, then it may be because we’re too at home here, too invested in being secure and prosperous in our nice neighborhoods, in our kids’ schools not being “burdened” with too many ESL students. It might be because we’ve forgotten that, in the words of Larissa Martinez (but also in the spirit of the Bible), “immigrants are people too.” 

     That’s not primarily a political position. It’s not to say that there shouldn’t be immigration laws. None of us, though, are given the responsibility for enforcing whatever laws there may be. We are, however, given the responsibility to treat the foreigners among us with love, justice, respect, and care. We have to ask ourselves honestly how much of our attitudes toward immigrants around us comes from a desire to preserve our security as Americans. And whether that desire might conflict with our status as citizens of the kingdom of God.  

     Let’s not forget where our true citizenship is. Then we’ll remember how to treat foreigners among us.

From Judge to Friend

Stop judging by mere appearances, but instead judge correctly.

-John 7:24 (NIV)

When Lavante Dell was pulled over by a police officer in Westland, Michigan, he probably had an idea of how it was going to go. 

     Lavante, a black man, was pulled over in the predominantly white Detroit suburb for having tinted windows on his car. As the officer, Joshua Scaglione, was walking back to his car to run Lavante’s license and registration, he noticed Lavante’s 3-year-old daughter in the back, belted in but not in a car seat. Officer Scaglione asked Lavante why the girl wasn’t in the appropriate seat, and Lavante began explaining that he couldn’t afford one. That’s when Officer Scaglione asked him to get out of the car. And this, no doubt, is where Lavante thought it could go bad. There are too many stories, after all, that start just this way, with a white police officer asking a black man to get out of the car. But Lavante got out.

     Officer Scaglione  asked for some more information about his financial situation. Then he asked where he was going. Finally, he asked, “Can you follow me to Wal-Mart?”

     And that’s how it came about that Lavante and Officer Scaglione walked into Wal-Mart like, as Lavante put it in a Facebook post, “we were best friends.” Officer Scaglione bought Lavante a car seat — after asking his daughter what color and design she wanted. (Pink, incidentally.) 

     Lavante was so surprised that he didn’t think about asking the officer his name, or even looking at his name tag. He posted on Facebook, then spent some time on the phone with the police department trying to track down the officer who had been so kind to him. And, eventually, he found Officer Scaglione. The Westland Police Department arranged a meeting with, of course, cameras present, though of course Officer Scaglione dismissed all the attention by saying he was just doing his job, and that giving Lavante a ticket would have just made his situation worse. Of his gift, he simply said, “You have a daughter and she is a Number 1 priority and you deserve it.”

     Lavante’s takeaway from his experience is a bit cliched, perhaps, but still true: “never judge a book by its cover.”

      Either Lavante or Officer Scaglione could have. Either could have taken a glance at the situation and assumed they knew all they needed to know about each other: a young black man who didn’t care about his daughter, a racist white cop who was never going to give a black man in a white suburb the benefit of the doubt. But by suspending judgement, the two of them (Lavante chose to cooperate, remember) wrote a story that judging by appearances could never have written.

     Honestly, we judge by appearances so often we might not even know when we’re doing it. It’s how we process information — we relate it to something we already know. So you see a guy with a sign at an intersection, and you immediately think you know his story. Someone hurts me, and I immediately assume I know why. We see someone dressed well at church, and someone dressed shabbily, and we make all kinds of assumptions about success and morality and even faith.

     Judging by appearances is easier, of course. It’s faster than gathering the information needed to make a right judgment. It’s the path of least resistance because it feeds our own preconceptions and prejudices.

     But, of course, judging by appearances usually gets us on the wrong side. Judging by appearances has led us, hasn’t it, to taking the side of the tyrant against the tyrannized? It’s caused us to vilify virtue while glorifying evil and corruption. Judging by appearances has given the well-mannered, the eloquent, the educated, the charming a pass to do whatever they like, without accountability. It’s allowed free reign to those who look, speak, act, and dress like the majority.

     Judging by appearances lets us dismiss uncritically any thought, any idea, any person that doesn’t line up with our experiences, assumptions, and prejudices. When we judge by appearances, the mistakes of those we dislike become character flaws while the deep-seated immorality of those we approve can be overlooked or written off.  

     We can, apparently, even mistake the work of God for the work of the Devil. And vice-versa, probably.

     And so Jesus reminds us not to judge by appearances. In other places, he says not to judge at all. I tend to think in both places he means pretty much the same thing. Judging by appearances can be a handy way to dismiss someone, to deny him or her personhood, to in effect objectify them as a caricature of a human being. Though there are times when perhaps we must make a judgment about a person’s words, or actions — such as the judgment about Jesus’ words or actions that he invited — we’re never to let knee-jerk surface judgments cloud the picture.

      The only way to avoid this, probably, is the way that Lavante Dell and Joshua Scaglione took. We have to be willing to get to know one another. We have to be willing to push past the surface impressions to the people underneath. We have to learn each others’ stories, become comfortable with the fact that all of us are big collections of mixed motives, past mistakes and hopes for the future, successes and failures, victories and defeats. When we do, we can start to see God’s fingerprints on one another, and to believe that every one of us is loved by him and depends entirely on him.

     Then, maybe, we’ll start to treat each other with the generosity, grace, and love that Jesus was known for. And maybe we’ll be able to see the hypocrisy, selfishness, and violence around us — and in us — for what it is, too. The way that he did.

     Maybe there’s someone right now who you’re judging by appearances, some situation that you haven’t looked at 6 inches below the surface. If so, you’re in no position to make a right judgment. Give judgment to the Lord, and instead get to know that person. Move toward her or him in a spirit of love and grace. And just see if, like Lavante and Officer Scaglione, you might find a friend.

Unwritten Rules

     I have applied all this to Apollos and myself for your benefit, brothers and sisters, so that you may learn through us the meaning of the saying, “Nothing beyond what is written,” so that none of you will be puffed up in favor of one against another.

-1 Corinthians 4:6 (NRSV)

If you’re much into baseball, then you’ve probably seen “The Punch Heard ‘Round the World” — Rangers infielder Rougned Odor catching Bluejays outfielder Jose Bautista with a right cross after Baustista’s hard slide in a game last weekend. It’s just the latest entry in a long series of baseball altercations that revolve around what pundits refer to as baseball’s “unwritten rules.” 

     The fight really started during the playoffs last season, when Bautista flipped his bat in celebration after a clutch home run against the Rangers. That’s one of the unwritten rules — you can’t celebrate a home run in a way that the other team might consider showing up their pitcher. So, you can pump a fist as you round the bases, or high-five your teammates at the plate, or even go back out of the dugout and tip your cap to the crowd. But you can’t flip your bat. You might hurt the pitcher’s feelings. 

     So Bautista was on base in the game last weekend because Rangers pitcher Matt Bush had hit him with a pitch — almost certainly intentionally, almost certainly in retaliation for the bat flip. That’s another unwritten rule: there are times a pitcher must throw at a batter. In the logic of baseball’s unwritten rules, Bautista had earned a beaning by celebrating a home run he hit off an entirely different pitcher in an entirely different game that happened last season. Oh, and Bush wasn’t even on the team last year when the bat flip happened. 

     And then there’s the matter of the hard slide. Bautista slid late, and he slid at Odor instead of at the bag. This is most commonly done to break up a potential double play, which is ostensibly what Bautista was doing in this case. But it really looked more like he was trying to hurt Odor to get some payback for getting plunked. It’s another of those “unwritten rules” of baseball, though in this case it runs counter to a new written rule that says a baserunner can’t interfere with an infielder trying to turn a double play. 

     If you’re confused, don’t be surprised. You’re not a Major League baseball player, and so the minutiae of the unwritten rules understandably eludes you. But note this: at any time, the progression of events that led to the punch could have been interrupted, either by application of the written rules or by one player choosing not to escalate. But, with everyone reading off those unwritten rules, the two teams moved inexorably toward the punch.

     That’s the problem with unwritten rules: they generally have the power to escalate conflict, but none to  resolve it. 

     It’s a good thing the church has never had a problem with unwritten rules.

     All right, I’ll wait while you catch your breath and wipe away the tears from the outburst of laughter. 

     Historically, I guess it’s true: the church has created, lived with, and divided over a lot of unwritten rules. The excuse we’ve used is the importance of being doctrinally correct, and so strong-willed leaders have forced their understandings of what “right” is on the church at large. And so we’ve been inundated by unwritten rules about everything from the relationship between the Father, Son, and Spirit  to the relationship between grace and works to the amount a believer should give every Sunday. We’ve had, at various times and places, unwritten rules about how many converts a Christian should make, how many drinks a Christian can have, and how churches should be governed. In my own little fellowship of believers, I’ve known folks with hard and rigid unwritten rules about how many cups we can use in communion, whether it’s OK to have Sunday School classes or not, and whether or not it’s OK to clap in a worship service.

     But the church does have written rules: the Bible, of course, though sometimes certainty on what is written in the Bible can be hard to come by. There are some disputes in the church that could be settled by an appeal to Scripture, but the fact is a lot of our disputes come from the fact that honest people who want to please the Lord read the Bible differently. And, maybe, once we’ve made our cases to each other, it’s important to assume the best of one another and agree to disagree. Instead of going beyond what is written and judging brothers and sisters who see things differently, we could give each other a break and praise God for our diversity. We aren’t, after all, the Lord’s people because we have the Bible exactly right.

     We’re the Lord’s people because of Jesus, the One through whom God has made himself known most clearly. John the Evangelist calls him the Word made flesh, and so maybe we should turn to him as the “written” rule to displace our unwritten ones.  Through Jesus, God says “this is who I am and this is what I care about most.” The early church even read their Bible, the Jewish scriptures, through the lens of this new thing God had done in Jesus. Those Old Testament texts had meaning back when they were written, but they took on new meaning as the church saw them in a different light, the light cast by Jesus.      

     Remember the lesson of baseball: unwritten rules have the power to escalate conflict, but none to  resolve it. When we go “beyond what is written,” we get in trouble. When we make our opinions on the Bible equal to the Bible itself, when we make tradition into law, or when we read the Bible without “reading” the Word made flesh, we invariably get it wrong. We hurt people, we divide churches, we fail in our responsibility to be salt and light, and we bring shame on the name of Jesus. 

      This is a particular danger for people who take their identity so heavily from Scripture. We can easily allow ourselves to make the mistake of those who ended up opposing Jesus’ work because of their unwritten rules. 

      If you can’t imagine Jesus doing what you’re doing, saying what you’re saying — then you’re wrong.

     That’s a rule you can write down.

Close to Mom

For this is what the Lord says…

As a mother comforts her child,

    so will I comfort you….

-Isaiah 66:12-13 (NIV)

Mike Trout lives with his mother. But he’s decided it’s time to move out.

     It’s not really all that unusual for a 24-year-old to live at home. There’s a lot said these days about the lack of good jobs for young adults, so for a lot of 20-somethings living on your own isn’t economically feasible. Others are still in school, working on a college or graduate degree. Some, maybe, have chosen to live at home to help parents who have health problems or economic problems of their own. Living with your parents at 24 is really nothing to be ashamed of. 

     For Mike, though, it is unusual. He isn’t in school. His parents are fine. And Mike Trout does have a job. It is seasonal work, but it pays pretty well.

     You may have heard of him, even. 

     He’s an outfielder for the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. He’s a four-time All-Star, two-time All-Star Game MVP, 2012 American League Rookie of the Year, and 2014 American League MVP.

     Not to mention the fact that he’s just entered the third year of a 6-year, $144.5 million contract. He’s set to make $15 million this year. So he thinks this is a pretty good time to move out. You know, now that he’s getting pretty self-sufficient.  

     So Mike bought a 300-acre farm. Not in Los Angeles, though. He’s really not interested in living a Hollywood life. Nope, his new home will be in Millville, New Jersey. Where he grew up. Just a few minutes from his mom. 

     I’m thankful to be able to say that I understand that impulse to stay close to your mom, close to your family, close to your home. I grew up in a family that was close, loving, nurturing. I’m thankful for a mom who put my sister and me first, always, who told us she loved us a lot but showed us even more. I’m thankful, too, that she didn’t smother us, or try to pull us back into the nest when it was time for us to leave. I’m thankful that she loves my wife and my son as much as she does me. 

     I moved 600 miles away, but that didn’t have to do with wanting to get away. It was because I knew that distance didn’t mean we couldn’t still be close. 

     So I’m thankful to be able to say that I understand the impulse to be close to my mom. There are a lot of people this Mother’s Day who can say that too, I’m sure. Even if they’re separated by distance, even (especially) if their mother has passed away, they understand the impulse to be close to her. If you’re in that category, be careful that you don’t take if for granted. It’s easy for those of us who have been so blessed to forget that not everyone understands the impulse to be close to their mother. There are many in our world, in fact, who would be downright puzzled by it. 

     There are those whose mothers treated them as though they were an inconvenience, an obstacle to the life they really wanted, told them in word and action that if only you hadn’t come along I could have had the life I was meant to have. Their mothers weren’t present for them in any real way, and they can’t fathom a world in which mother means anything more than the woman who gave birth to you.

     There are those whose mothers gave them up. Maybe for good reasons, maybe because they knew they couldn’t take care of a child, but who gave them up all the same. And maybe they were fortunate enough to find someone else who would be Mom to them, and maybe they have no resentment toward the woman who gave birth to them. Or maybe they still can’t understand why she’d leave them alone in the world. Either way, she’s not Mom, not really, and never will be.

     There are some for whom the roles of mother and child have been reversed as long as they can remember, some who have had to take care of their mothers, apologize for them, cover for them, clean up after them, wake them up, call 911 for them. Habits, addictions, have turned the relationship from one of closeness to one of codependency, at best. To escape from their mothers, in those cases, must seem far better than to be close.

   If you understand the impulse to be close to your mother this Mother’s Day, thank God for it. If you can, tell your Mom so as well. Tell her thank you for all she’s done for you, because you probably don’t know the half of it. Forgive her failures, and thank her and love her for what she’s done for you.

     If you don’t understand that impulse, then I hope you’ll understand the promise of God in Psalm 27: “Though my father and mother forsake me, the LORD will receive me.” What you didn’t get from your mother, your God will provide. He has more than enough love and grace to make up for what you didn’t receive, and he will happily pour that love out in your life. 

     We often think of God as our Father, and rightly so. But, now and then, you get a glimmer in the Bible of God as our Mother as well. “As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you.” I think of the comfort my Mom has given me — the comfort of acceptance and kindness, the comfort of knowing that whatever is going on, she’ll be there for me, the comfort of her faith in me — and I understand what the prophet is getting at. I understand it when I think of the ways I’ve seen my wife comfort our son. I understand — understand doesn’t really cover it, does it? I know intuitively — why I should want to be close to God. And what I can expect from him if I live near him. 

     So whether you can be near your mother today or not, I hope you’ll know too that your God is not some angry deity to fear. He’s a God of comfort, and he wants us very much to live near him. Wherever you make your home, don’t go far from him.

     And thanks, Mom, for showing me so much about the God who comforts me, and for so often and so faithfully being the one through whom he comforted me. Happy Mother’s Day!