“’Do this in remembrance of me.’ Jesus invites you to commemorate his betrayal, death, and resurrection. His invitation makes space for ‘dangerous memory,’ a memory that, as post-Holocaust Catholic theologian Johann Baptist Metz tells us, ‘puts pressure on and questions our present because in it we remember an unfinished future.’ Memory can unsettle the unreconciled present and open up a future for the hopeless and the forgotten, the failed and the oppressed….Remembering keeps the ghosts alive so that they may warn and comfort, haunt and inspire the living: dangerous memories that rush toward an unfinished future. Making the absent present allows for processing grief, strengthening commitments, and opening up vision. Such remembrance commits you to work for a future for those who have been forgotten, erased, and left behind.”
-Hanna Reichel, For Such a Time as This, 88, 89
I believe that most of us experience an internal tug-of-war between the past and the future. In The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis’ titular demon supervisor advises his underling Wormwood that one of best ways to keep a human from doing good is to keep them ping-ponging between those two times that are not the present. One keeps trying to recapture or reach towards moments that are mist. It can keep a person from doing something.
The quote above resonates with me because it harnesses the past and unfinished future into a catalyst that animates our present. We remember the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus because it means something today and compels us to presently work for the Good that is already here, but also not yet. We remember the hope and pain of the past to do something that help us take some sort of step each and every day. We realize that the hope which exists within the gospel story is not yet fully realized. Many people are still being left behind and forgotten. The realization, as the theologian Metz states, puts pressure and questions on the present.
Being a parent forces you to take a close look at yourself. Of course, you don’t have to be a parent to self-examine, but there is something about the reality that another living human is under your care and protection for the foreseeable future that makes you take stock of your strengths, weaknesses, and beliefs. For example, I used to think I was a far more patient person before I had kids; like superhumanly patient. And then a crying toddler shows you the folly of that belief. On the flip side, time has moved on and having two teenagers affirms that, yes, I am ridiculously patient and that has been a strength as a parent.
Among many other reorienting moments that came with parenthood was full acceptance of our LGBTQ+ siblings. That process began many years earlier. As someone who studied religion, I knew that the biblical case against these individuals was not nearly as airtight as I was previously led to believe. Science and stories from people gave strong indication that this life was not a choice. And I had met gay and lesbian folks who were good people. The old axiom that you will know a tree by its fruit applies here.
But the tipping point was holding a tiny infant who I loved more than I thought possible and knowing that I never wanted him to be ashamed of who he is. I did not want a potential future in which one of my children came out as something other than heterosexual with the fear that we would not love them. Not accepting my child was not even conceivably on the table. So we raised our kids to know that LGBTQ+ were beloved members of God’s creation.
There is this typical ice breaker question that is some variation of “If you could have dinner with anyone famous living or dead, who would it be?” And one of my steadfast answers for almost twenty years has been Stephen Colbert. Through both The Colbert Report and The Late Show, he has given hours upon hours of laughter and more than enough on which to ponder. I feel like we’d have a lot to talk about since we are both unabashed nerds, products of the Palmetto State, and he just seems like a good hang.
Beyond all of that, I appreciate how honestly and humbly Colbert approaches his faith. There have been numerous times over the years when his comedy and conversations take a turn into the spiritual that is challenging and convicting. I remember an episode of The Colbert Report where one minute he was making a joke about Ben Franklin’s predilection for French prostitutes and then organically made his way to the following quote:
If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn't help the poor, either we have to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we've got to acknowledge that He commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition and then admit that we just don't want to do it.
Then there are the interviews that he has conducted on The Late Show. Colbert has said that he sort of found the heart of his show when he had a conversation with then-Vice President Biden about grief. Indeed the loss of his father and brothers at a young age has led him to create an empathetic space to explore loss in the midst of celebrities promoting their most recent projects (my mind immediately comes to a conversation that he had with Andrew Garfield about the loss of the actor’s mother).
On the way to school, the youngest burrowed his head into my arm. “I don’t like that you’re getting older.”
“Why is that?”
“Because you’re one year closer to death.”
“There it is.” That’s my kid. Very sweet. Very sensitive. Brutally, bordering on inappropriately blunt. “Well, it’s better than the alternative.”
“Getting younger?” He thinks for a second. “Oh…dying.”
“Yeah, you can’t get younger.” I scratch him on the head. “And hopefully I have a ways to go. Ideally, I’ll still be kicking around when you turn 43.”
“You’ll be 73. So that’s reasonable”
“Yeah.”
“Granddad will be 103.”
“Less likely. But maybe. I hope he is as long as he’s happy.”
“And healthy. Happy, healthy, and alive.” Then he goes into a bit from an episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine which makes me laugh.
Birthdays, as my oldest posited this morning, are kind of weird when you get older. Or at least they morph into something different from the second Christmas-esque excitement when you’re a kid. Because there does get to be that point where it creeps into your mind that you are a year closer to death. And that forces you take stock of your life which is a hit-or-miss affair due to being human’s volatility.
One day last week, I picked you up from school after took one of your AP exams and then I moved over to the passenger seat so you could practice driving. In the midst of being hyper vigilant about your speed, how quickly you stopped, how close you were to the side of the road, and what every single other car on the road was doing, I had a distinct moment of looking over at you and realizing that so much is changing. And we’re only at the start.
Today you turn 16. You are about to wrap up your sophomore year of high school. You’ll take a driver’s license test in just a few weeks. We have three more summers before you go off to college. There are times it seems like yesterday when you were sitting in the living room watching cartoons with a couple of dozen superhero toys. There are times it seems like last week when you were a newborn sleeping in my arms.
The feeling of you being 16 is kind of like being the passenger in the car while you are driving. I have a ton of confidence in you and trust you. And I worry about your lack of experience in a big, sometimes frightening world and whether I have taught you well enough. I am wary of everyone else on the road. I wonder if you are going too fast even though you are going an appropriate speed and I am the one who encouraged you not to go as slow in the first place. It is all very exciting, humbling, frightening, and new.
Christmas 1988. My brother Taylor and I receive the Nintendo Entertainment System packaged with Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt and we have been fans ever since. We have grown up with the Japanese company’s gaming systems; the adventures of Mario, Luigi, Yoshi, Link, Zelda, Donkey and Diddy Kong, and more have been a consistent presence in our lives. Even though we are in three different states now as adults, Taylor, my sister Shari, myself, and our kids will get together every so often and play Mario Kart online. We love Nintendo, which is a weird thing to say about a corporation that makes a billion dollars but it is what it is.
With all that said, I loved the Keza MacDonald’s book Super Nintendo: The Game-Changing Company That Unlocked the Power of Play. Not only is it an engaging journey through video game history through the lens of Nintendo’s iconic (and less iconic) franchises, but the book also has a great deal to say about creativity, community, and culture. In fact, it is that last idea that got me thinking about how this video game company can teach the church (or any other organization) even as I am a bit of an outsider to that world presently.
Here is one of two quotes that jumped out at me from the chapter “Splatoon” which looks at how Nintendo continues innovate and create over 40 years into its video game endeavors:
“Happy Easter?”
That is the first thing EA said to me as I woke up on Easter morning. I stretched and rubbed my eyes.
“I still believe in Jesus. It’s just the church that I’m not sure about.”
Some context: This was the first Easter in our 20+ years of marriage (and likely in either of our lives) in which we did not have a church to attend. It’s been about a year since we’ve gone to church as a family. Honestly, the church that we attended after I stepped down from working in a congregation had a tall order to tend to our hurting family. It was a good group of people, but the services and community never really clicked with our boys. Then early last year, I got moved to a Sunday morning shift. EA tried for a bit to go by herself but it wasn’t what she needed. In the end, I was gone for about eight months before anyone in the church really noticed and we decided to take a break.
I acknowledge my uncertainty about the church is a bit over-dramatic. Of course, there are great churches out there. There are wonderful people in congregations where my family and I have experienced the most pain. It’s akin to writing off burritos for life because you got violent food poisoning from one (This is based on a true story; I have not written off burritos just that particular Chipotle location). But the church hurt is real. As is the MAGA-fication of the denomination in which I grew up that feels so antithetical to the teachings of Jesus. So we don’t have a place to call home and it’s weird and sad and understandable.
Absurdist Note: I really want to add “Woo-ooh!” after the title. If you know, you know.
I have not pulled off this year’s Lenten disciplines the way that I set out to. When this 40 day period began, I set out to take on this fasts/spiritual practices:
Stop drinking Coca-Cola
Stop eating French fries
Stop playing Disney Solitaire on my phone
Do a daily devotional from Richard Rohr’s Wondrous Encounters
Write a blog five days a week
When the war in Iran began and threw another log on the fire that is the world, it pained me both spiritually and physically. One of the ways that played out was headaches and since headaches were already part of removing the caffeine of Coca-Cola from my life, I decided I probably shouldn’t compound a problem and began drinking Coke again. I have had French fries a few times; not many, mind you, but enough to break up the fast. There have been several multiple day stretches where I did not do my devotional. And my efforts to blog five times a week quickly fell by the wayside. I have managed to keep from playing Disney Solitaire, but that still puts my Lenten average in Mendoza Line territory.
Several hundred, some may say several thousand, years worth of anticipation hung thick in the air. Like summer humidity that sticks to your shirt the second you step outside, you couldn’t avoid it if you wanted to. Especially not during Passover week.
There was a guy making his way into Jerusalem; a guy claiming to be the Messiah. This was nothing new. He would not be the first that people claimed would save us. There had been tons of guys going around saying that they were the One; saying that they were going to show Rome what’s what. So a would-be messiah making his way to Jerusalem was about as common as a singer-songwriter making their way to Nashville.
But this felt different. He seemed different. Now there was a fair amount of debate whether he was the right or wrong kind of different. For starters, word got out that he had tried to keep a lot of the messiah talk and even tales of his miracles under wraps. But it is difficult to keep those kind of stories quiet: dead men walking, the blind seeing, demons plunging a herd of pigs over a cliff, and thousands fed from a lunch meant for a single kid. You can tell people to keep that hush-hush all you want, but it’s not going to happen.
This is video of the sermon that I preached this past Sunday at The Bridge worship service in which I wrestle with Romans 6, particularly the famous 23rd verse which states “The wages of sin are death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord.” I also get interrupted by Siri on my watch and whiff big time on a fish-related joke.
I am going to go against everything that Julie Andrews believed in and start at the end rather than the beginning. Romans 6:23—“For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord”—is one of the earliest verses that I memorized. It is part of a series of verses known as the Roman Road. Has anyone here heard of the Roman Road? Not the Appian Way that led to Rome but the parts of Paul’s letter that is supposed to lay out the road to salvation?
In my church we were taught the Roman Road early on. You start on the road with Romans 3:23, which is our problem as humans: “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Then you come to the consequence of our problem in the first part of Romans 6:23, that our sin warrants death. But then the turn comes when you double back to Romans 5:8 which tells us that “God demonstrates His own love for us in this: while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.” Then the road ends at our response in Romans 10:9: “For if you confess with your mouth that ‘Jesus is Lord’ and believe in your heart God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” That was the Roman Road: a quick and easy way to lay out the plan of salvation for little Baptist kids.
It may sound like I’m trying to knock that approach but that’s not my aim. As a teaching tool, the Roman Road was very effective. After all, it is still with me after all these years. And there are important lessons to remember along that path. We do all mess up and fall short of what God asks of us. God does love us so much that Christ came to earth to live with us, show us what love is, and die even though we mess up all the time. But it was presented as a quick and easy transaction; a way to go to heaven when you die. And I just think that the Christian faith is far more than a spiritual transaction that determines our afterlife. I need it to be more than that. As a result, I have been in an epic wrestling match with Romans 6:23 all week long and even late into last night.
This is video of the sermon that I preached this past Sunday at The Bridge worship service in which I took a big picture view of Paul’s letter to the Philippians and what we can learn from the joy that helped him rise above his imprisoned circumstances. I also talk about being locked up in a jail-themed escape room with middle schoolers and how praying over students at summer camp felt like a personal prison break. Hope you enjoy.
This past week, our middle schoolers did a local missions camp that we’ve come to call Light Up Music City. This is something that Katie Gossage and I threw together in a pinch a few years ago and it has become a cool regular part of our summer. For about half of the day, we serve somewhere in the Nashville area. This year we volunteered at Fall-Hamilton Elementary, Second Harvest, and GraceWorks Ministries out in Franklin. The other half, we’ll do something like canoe the Harpeth or go to Topgolf.
On Tuesday—by popular demand—we went to the Escape Game. For those of you who haven’t been to one of these, you are “locked” in some sort of themed room, you’re given a story like you are spies in a foreign country or you’re astronauts on a Martian space station, and then you have one hour to solve a series of intricate puzzles in order to escape from the room.
That is how I found myself locked into prison with five middle school guys one afternoon this week. I should have known we were in for an experience from two things the Escape Game guy said. First, he told us that Prison Break was the hardest room that they had. Then, he apologized that we weren’t starting on time. They had to clean up a little bit more because “it got a little crazy in there for the last group.” I gave him a quizzical look and he just kind of raised his eyebrows at me and I am still uncertain if I want to know what went down for the group before us. So with the reality that this room was the toughest to escape and the possibility that the prior group went Lord of the Flies on each other, he locked three of us in one cell and three in another and told us that getting out of our respective cells was just the first step of breaking out.
You were so excited to turn 9 today. I don’t know if I have ever met anyone who was as pumped to hit that age as you have been. 10? Sure. It’s double digits. And you will be ecstatic to turn 10 I am sure. But today you turned 9 and today that was the greatest thing of all.
Every year, I feel like I am going to do an increasingly inadequate job of writing these letters to you. The older you get the more enmeshed you are into our lives. It becomes increasingly difficult to remember a time when your presence didn’t fill our home, when your squinty, freckled smile didn’t greet us in the morning, when you didn’t crawl up into one of our laps.
And I know I have mentioned this before, but it also doesn’t feel like it should have been this long. Nine? How do we have a nine year old kid? You’re a year away from ending your elementary school career. And, yes, part of that is because Nashville public schools do middle school from 5th to 8th grade—which seems absurd to me—but the reality is still staring your mom and I in the face. You should not be this old, but it also feels like you’ve always been with us. Parenting is weird, buddy.
I go through these seasons when I listen to an album over and over again. Eventually those songs become intertwined with specific eras in my life. Since high school, there have been about a dozen or so of these kind of albums. In the Fall of 2013, that album was Vampire Weekend’s excellent (and ridiculously named) third album Modern Vampires of the City.
It was a season in my life when I was agonizing over whether to continue on a path that I loved but was becoming increasingly unsustainable. The unease, discontent, and against-odds glimpses of hope in songs like “Unbelievers,” “Hannah Hunt,” “Ya Hey,” and others evoke that time in which I ultimately decided to stalk out into an unknown wilderness that eventually led me here.
Now nearly 6 years later, Vampire Weekend has released their followup Father of the Bride (I think they are intentionally trolling people with album titles). I don’t know if this collection of songs will join my pantheon of signpost albums. I was initially underwhelmed by it, but I have warmed up to it a bit more. A major reason why I’ve listened to this release enough for it to grow on me is because I’ve been obsessed with the second track of the album ever since I laid ears on it. Musically, “Harmony Hall” is gorgeous. It lights up all sorts of melodic receptors in my brain. When you marry that music to lyrics that simultaneously capture and haunt me it turns into one of those songs that I restart the second it begins to fade out.
There was a moment deep into Avengers: Endgame that knocked the wind out of me and I knew it was coming. If you haven’t been keeping up with the blockbuster behemoth, the previous movie devastatingly ends with the intergalactic villain Thanos wiping out the population of half the universe. So the whole premise of Endgame quickly becomes a desperate attempt to somehow, someway get those individuals back.
…
I think we all just really want to see resurrection.
In this world where there often seems to be so much darkness, we just desperately want to see that Hail Mary of Hope succeed. We want to know that the end is not the end. That belief that somehow, someway God is going to make all things right, that goodness triumphs, and resurrection is real is something that I still—in spite of all the obstacles—cling to.
I lied to a handful of ministers and then I walked out of the room.
I went to a youth minister’s conference with a couple of other individuals from our student ministry staff. The event was run by a conservative evangelical organization, which doesn’t exactly line up with our more mainline Protestant church. But I tried to go in with an open mind because you can and should be able to learn from people whose viewpoints are different from your own.
On the second day, I attended a breakout session about Generation Z (the placeholder name for the generation of which my students are part). I took studious notes. There were some good points in there; didn’t agree with everything. Yet when do you agree with everything? Then the leader announced that we were going to break up in small groups and talk about our youth as it pertained to human sexuality.
My stomach plummeted.
I knew that I was going to be the odd man out in this conversation. You’re not supposed to assume. But I assumed. And I assumed correctly. The guy to my right went first and the group proceeded to go counter-clockwise rendering my would-be dissent last. The others in that circle were not mean. They weren’t hostile. Yet what they were was certain.
I began Lent with the best of intentions. I made two manageable commitments: to give up Coke for those 40 days and to spend each morning meditating on scripture via sketching some sort of drawing. Cracks started forming as the season progressed but Holy Week took a sledgehammer to my Lenten practice. By Good Friday, I hadn’t done a morning meditation all week and I was walking into Youth Group with a Coke in my hand.
Serving in a church is one of my absolute favorite things. I love that I get to work with Youth, preach on occasion, and do things like Maundy Thursday worship services. But the preparation for and execution of a three-day stretch of a Maundy Thursday service, Good Friday Stations of the Cross, Good Friday Youth Group, and Good Friday Youth Lock-In on an already exhausted body and spirit hobbled me to the point where I was limping out of Lent. It was all great, but I was shot. On Easter Sunday, I wanted with all my heart to radiate energy for Christ had risen. Christ had risen indeed. I gave it what I had, but stumbled over my words to the point that I had to stop and reset while giving the Words of Institution for Communion.
This is video of the sermon that I preached a couple of Sundays ago at The Bridge worship service on Luke 7:36-8:3 about our assumptions, the stories the church has often told about women, and the great grace of God. Like I said when I posted the manuscript, the ending was a little bit different. Hope you enjoy.
I have a new office in our home and one of the things I am enjoying is decorating the space. I have placed books, Lego sets, and Funko Pops on the shelves. My wall has photos of family, places that I have traveled, artwork my siblings have given me, diplomas, etc. Across from my desk on the wall, hangs a cross that we got from a church in Reykjavik and a small colorfully-painted tile depicting Assisi. On the floor beneath them is the one item in here that I haven’t yet put up: my certificate of ordination.
I was ordained as a minister ten years ago today. It was a step with which I struggled for awhile. My Baptist roots fostered in me a firm belief in the priesthood of all believers. If you say that you are a follower of Jesus, then you are a minister. So the hierarchy implied by being called “Reverend” made me feel a little uncomfortable. I did not use the title for myself often unless I was writing my Congressperson. Despite these qualms, I did ultimately pursue ordination. I am glad that I did. I am just not totally sure what to make of it now.
I don’t serve as a vocational minister anymore; not in a church, not as a chaplain, not in some sort of parachurch organization. I am an Administrative Assistant in a hospital Spiritual Care department. In fact, I haven’t even attended a church service in maybe a year and a half save an Ash Wednesday service that I snuck off to at the beginning of Lent. I did officiate a wedding in a church over the summer; an experience that I loved and was very meaningful for me. But I don’t really know what to do about that ordination certificate. Or church.