Thanksgiving memories from a little boy

My memories of thanksgiving as a very young boy were of my family gathering at Grandma Lena’s house with everyone bringing something - like Aunt Teresa’s mashed potato surprise that taught me that surprise isn't always a good thing. Or Grandma Lola’s salad wreath filled with fruit cocktail, that kept moving a good ten minutes after you set it down, much like Grandma Lola herself.

Our stuffing had sage and raisins in it, our mashed potatoes were so light and buttery they were known to turn heathens into saints on the spot. And our green beans were so greased up that our lips had a permanent sheen of lard gloss for three days. The Ravioli sauce had been cooking for forty-eight hours and Grandma Lena’s home made Ravioli’s consisted of calves brains, turkey breast and left over roast all ground together with spinach and cheese. 

At each end of the table was a large wicker bottle of Claude’s home made wine.  If every thirteen-year-old boy could get drunk on Claude’s homebrew, drinking would cease to be a problem in our land.  The basic rule was “who eats the fastest eats the most”.  Most of these meals were a full five-course extravaganza with no time allowed for bloating until you were on your way home.  I remember riding home in the back seat of the car with my brother and sister next to me trying to not “flatulate” in the car (I usually failed). No one said anything cause we were all guilty at one time or another. 

So this thanksgiving keep the tradition going whatever it may be and remember, If a fellow isn't thankful for what he's got, he isn't likely to be thankful for what he's going to get.

A thankful Bob 

Quotes from "The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe" CS Lewis

Quoted from – “The Lion, The witch, and the Wardrobe”  CS Lewis

“Safe? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.” – The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe

Once upon a time…far, far away, there existed a kingdom without a King, where everyone was safe. In this Land of Safe, no one ever grew sick or ill. And no one ever died. The people were never hungry, never desperate, never thirsty, never sad. In this Land of Safe, always beautiful, never ugly; always full, never empty, the lonely people lived – Safe from the pain of war; Safe from the pain of anger; Safe from the pain of loss…Safe from the pain of love.

For in its essence, the idolatry of safety is nothing more than the desire to be free from the suffering of love. And so this land – safe, secure, happy, and comfortable – was a land without the dangers of compassion. The people all understood that hiding was the only way to be truly safe and so safety stayed in fashion. They were kind but never close. They were nice but never near. During the day they encased themselves in cubicles. At night they locked their doors and hid inside their fear. When they traveled, they sealed themselves inside moving metal boxes. They talked to one another, but only through machines. They worked safe jobs. Washed in safe bathrooms. Kept their money in safe banks. They Hid inside safe houses, that were built inside safe walls, surrounded by safe fences, and locked inside safe gates. Marriage? Far too dangerous; Babies? Much too perilous; Families? Way too hazardous…inside the Land of Safe.

So in this way the people lived – comfortable, happy, lonely, sad, unloving and afraid – until they eventually faded away into the nothing. Yes, this is how they lived, In the Land of Safe, Once upon a time, In this kingdom without a King.

One day this Land of Safe was interrupted by a Voice of Love who claimed to be a King. A Prophet King who was not safe, who sang throughout the town, dancing in the streets at night, who said he’d bring the heavens down. He told stories around the tables of dangerous rowdy friends. He claimed safety was an illusion and security was just a dream. He washed himself in rivers cold and drank deep from every stream, and walking everywhere he went, he cheered the hearts of children, romanced the hearts of women, and roused the hearts of men. He laughed at lightning, chased the thunder, and lept upon the waves – this Prophet King, this voice of Love, even called into the graves. Safety was a foolish hope, he said, that created loveless slaves. And so this King claimed this kingdom and declared it as is own, and said it was no longer safe to call His kingdom home. Yet, call it home He did, and even more; He called the Land, “Safe-No-More”, and said this land was created for…

Love and Love alone.

In that day this Prophet King declared war on every gate that kept love from getting in and gave his life as ransom then to free all hearts from safety’s grip of hatred, greed, and fear.  He made the mute to sing with Him at the tables of dangerous friends; to cheer the hearts of children and rouse the hearts of men; to romance all women to unlock their hearts to believe in things above and to proclaim throughout the Land that nothing is safe from Love.

And so in the Land of Safe-No-More, the children would ask,” Is our King safe?” Then they heard their parents sing. “Of course He is not Safe my child. But He’s good. He is our King.”

What Makes A Disciple

What makes a disciple?­

“Now – here is my secret: I tell it to you with an openness of heart that I doubt I shall ever achieve again, so I pray that you are in a quiet room as you hear these words. My secret is that I need God –
that I am sick and can no longer make it alone. I need God to help me give, because I no longer seem to be capable of giving; to help me be kind, as I no longer seem capable of kindness; to help me love, as I seem beyond being able to love”    Life After God, Douglas Coupland,

Did you ever wonder why Jesus didn’t call anyone from the religious establishment or extant established religious movements to be one of his disciples? I think I’m starting to see it more clearly, both in the gospels and in my own experience.

It’s a shame that so many Bibles insert section headings and subheadings all over the place where they aren’t needed or helpful. Take for example Mark 3 - a very important passage, and the insertion of so many divisions breaks up what is clearly a unit with implications as a unit.

            Mk. 3:1---22  Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there with a withered hand.  And they watched Jesus, to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse him.  And he said to the man with the touch him.  And whenever the unclean spirits saw him, they fell down           before him and cried out, “You are the Son of God.”  And he strictly ordered them not to make him known.  And he went up on the mountain and called to him those whom he desired, and they came to him. And he appointed twelve (whom he also named apostles) so that they might be with him and he might send them out to preach and have authority to cast out demons. He appointed the twelve: Simon (to whom he gave the name Peter);  James the son of Zebedee and John the brother of James (to whom he gave the name Boanerges, that is, Sons of Thunder); Andrew, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus, and Simon the Cananaean, and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him. Then he went home, and the crowd gathered again, so that they could not even eat. And when his family heard it, they went out to seize him, for they were saying, “He is out of his mind.” And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying, “He is possessed by Beelzebul,” and “by the prince of demons he casts out the demons.”

You can find many good expositions of this passage, but I want to quickly note all the things that are going on around Jesus as he chooses the apostles.

1. He breaks the traditions of the Pharisees in the context of the Synagogue.


2. The Pharisees and supporters of Herod begin the plot to kill Jesus.


3. Jesus heals and cast out demons outside of the approved authorities of Judaism.


4. He appointed and authorized a group of unqualified, ragtag disciples to lead and continue his movement. The symbolism representing a symbolic “New Israel” wouldn’t have been missed.


5. His family concludes that he is “out of his mind,” most likely based on everything Jesus has been doing outside of the expected and approved confines of official Judaism.


6. The scribes from Jerusalem, representing the official assessment of Jesus, announce that Jesus’ power and authority are demonic.

The complications don’t end there, as Jesus pronounces blasphemy on this assessment and publicly identifies his movement as his family, both actions that further complicate an already tense and escalating situation between Jesus and the religious status quo.

Aside from his presence in the synagogue and observances at the temple, Jesus seems to do almost everything he can to telegraph to the official religious leaders of his time that they not only weren’t in the game, they were on the wrong team entirely. God was doing an end run around the theological teams of the time, and Jesus was in charge of the operation.

We don’t know a lot about Jesus’ apostles, but all the information we have gives a simple picture. These men were made up of followers of John the Baptist, fishermen, tax collectors and various disciples Jesus picked up along the way. Likely, few were literate.

None of them were part of the Pharisee movement. If the words of John and Jesus are indicative of how these men felt going in, it’s safe to say they weren’t fans of the establishment.

None of them were officially sanctioned rabbis or students of rabbis. I take their suspicion of Saul/Paul as a new apostle to include his identification with the establishment Judaism these men had never applauded or endorsed.

First century Galilee was a hotbed of Zealot resistance to Rome and “mongrel” religious movements. It was the worst possible place to find people to staff a movement that would have wanted any kind of mainstream respect or endorsement.

Now, I think it’s important that, no matter what we think about the “New Perspective” view of Judaism, that we understand something: many of these mainstream Jewish religious leaders were devout. We know that some in the Pharisee movement were interested in Jesus and some became believers. John’s Gospel tells us that a number of the priests “believed” in Jesus. Certainly there is evidence in early Christianity for the presence of those who were part of the religious establishment.

Jesus condemns the religious establishment for a collection of sins in places like (Mtt. 23) but Jesus also addresses some in the religious establishment with recognition that they are seeking to obey and honor God. Jesus certainly doesn’t divorce himself from Judaism or declare it to be the enemy. He does draw unmistakable lines regarding the Kingdom of God and his own person and mission.

In his conversation with Nicodemus, Jesus says “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things?” Think about that for a moment. Think about what Jesus is saying.

It’s plain to me that Jesus chose the apostles because they were teachable. As stubborn, ignorant, parochial, tribal, petty, selfish and slow to learn as they were, they were still more teachable than the religious establishment. They might not be the valedictorians at Pharisee U, but they could be molded, remade and made useful in the Jesus movement. They could learn about grace, the cross, the resurrection and the Kingdom of God present and at work in Jesus.

The religious leaders concluded that Jesus was demonic. Later, they would demand a “sign” in order to “believe.” When they do “believe,” John says Jesus does not entrust himself to them.

But a broken Peter says “Forgive me….for I am a sinful man.” To Peter, Jesus can say, “When you recover….strengthen your brothers.” To Peter, Jesus can say “Do you love me?…Feed my sheep.”

In other words, despite the tragic-comic characteristics of the disciples, they are still teachable. Thomas will make his speech, but he will kneel before the resurrected Jesus. They would all desert Jesus and head back to Galilee, but when they met the resurrected Lord, they could become bold and fearless world-changers.

These are men who would be slow to accept that the Kingdom of God was offered to the Gentiles, but it is Peter in Acts 10 who says he has learned that God is no respecter of persons.

I bring all of this to mind to say that to the extent that we become like the Pharisees and members of the religious establishment of Jesus day, we probably are not the kind of persons Jesus is going to be able to entrust with the Kingdom.

As I said, the Pharisees and others were often devoid, Biblically knowledgeable persons of strong convictions. They were sometimes prepared to put Jesus into one of their theological categories. They weren’t teachable on the level Jesus wanted his disciples to be teachable.

Following Jesus is not primarily about doctrinal indoctrination. Seminary and conferences, as valuable as they are, are not the paradigms for discipleship that Jesus had in mind.

Jesus’ classroom was the world. His books and lectures were the stories, parables, proclamations and applications that the disciples heard over and over again in various contexts. The center of the curriculum was the experience of Jesus himself, God with us in the world.

Remember that Jesus sent out the apostles to minister the words and works of the Kingdom in Israel before he sent them on their worldwide mission. He wasn’t wasting his time in the villages of Israel. He was training and preparing his apostles. He was working on the project of making them teachable men.

Jesus chose whom he did so that he could begin, not with seminary educations and minds stuffed full of books, but with men who believed, at best, a kind of unsophisticated folk theology, had a biased cultural background, but who had an openness to Jesus. From that beginning, Jesus would blow up their paradigms and revolutionize their world. He was not preparing them to be the theological faculty of Jesus University or the salesmen at Jesus Incorporated. They were apostles, with a clear mission statement in  -  Mark 3:14-15:

            14 And he appointed twelve (whom he also named apostles) so that they

            might be with him and he might send them out to preach 15 and have authority to cast out demons.

We are not in the unique historical roles of the apostles, but we are to be the kind of persons whom, having been with Jesus, our lives are more like him and less like the religious establishment of his day and ours.

Which brings me to the little confession at the beginning of this sermon. The disciples all came to see they needed God. Not that they HAD HIM, or UNDERSTOOD HIM, but that they needed this wild, unconfined, out-of-the-box God in ways they hadn’t even known they needed him before they met Jesus.

The establishment assessed Jesus on their terms. The disciples came to Jesus all kinds of ways, but in the end, they became the Apostles because they were able to live as men who NEEDED GOD, and the God they needed met them in Jesus.

Christian Pessimism

This post could get me in some trouble, but I like this kind of trouble.

Christian pessimism is the prevailing mood of the day in world affairs. And, hey- who can blame somebody for being a pessimist right now? Peggy Noonan (writes for the WSJ) reported that a major world diplomat looked at her after she asked his views on the prospects of peace in the middle east and said one word: "Unsolvable." Though the pessimists have seemed less consistent in their approach to American culture, they have been consistent on the middle east situation. It's bad, getting worse, and they like it that way. Two hours of listening to Christian talk radio confirmed that in my mind earlier this week.

This particular program was allowing Christians to call in and give their opinions on the overall middle east situation. Consistently, each caller’s opinion could generally be summarized as follows:

Modern Israel is the chosen people of God, and God gave them all the middle east from Egypt to Iraq to Syria. They have a right to this land no matter who else is there or how long they've been there. We must approve everything the government of Israel does, or we are going against God. (That was frequently referred to as being "Biblically aligned" with Israel, which means we get blessed in the deal, no matter what else might be going on.) The consensus solution is something drastic, like wipe out the Palestinians. (One woman referred to this as a "Holy War" that we must win. Holy Osama Bin Ladin, Batman! It's a Christian Jihad!) This is all part of the arrival of the anti-Christ, a European do-gooder who will wow the world with his ability to solve the unsolvable crisis. Anything the Palestinians do- from suicide/homicide attacks to pleas for American intervention- is terrorism. Anything Israel does is God's will. Best of all, if this keeps up, we will all soon be raptured and the Jews will turn to Christ, so let's keep our hands off and pray for the worst.

No one mentioned that there are thousands of Christian Arabs and Christian Palestinians. No one mentioned that Israel is an unbelieving nation where evangelism is illegal (yeah- just like some of those Muslim countries.) No one mentioned that Israel has developed an attitude towards the Palestinians as a race that justifies and excuses the worst kinds of discrimination. No one mentioned that there is good reason to believe scripture does not teach anything as stupid as a blanket approval of the actions of the government of Israel. No one mentioned peace, reconciliation and justice must apply to all sides. No one mentioned the fact that many Israelis and Palestinians live together in peace, and loathe what the younger generation of Palestinians are doing. No one mentioned the complex root causes of Palestinian violence in the despair of the refugee camps.  No one mentioned that America will soon face its own plague of suicide bombers if we cannot find a reasonable, justice-pursuing alternative to nuking the whole Arab world, one country at a time. And no one mentioned evangelizing the Palestinians, or Muslims in general.

Christian pessimism and Muslim extremism are a marriage made in hell. I think evangelical leaders would do well to say loudly and clearly, that there is no undercurrent of grinning apocalypticism in our dealings with the middle east. If anything in our faith should be animating us right now, it is that Jesus, a Palestinian Jew, would be putting himself in harm's way to bring together those who are choosing vengeance over reconciliation. The knee jerk Zionism of conservatives and the knee jerk backing of liberals needs to give way to a policy that recognizes the evil of terrorism and the evil of human pride, prejudice and stubbornness. And as Christians, our concern should be the evangelizing of all the peoples of the earth, including those who hate one another.

It took a generations to produce suicide bombers who hate people as a virtue. It may take as long to produce Christians who believe the Gospel enough to love their friends and their enemies and their friend's enemies. What we can't have is a Christianity that embraces the worst case as the best case, and excuses violence as the necessary fulfillment of prophecy. Scripture says that we must not lose heart and grow weary in doing good. I would urge every Christian to reject a view of the world that says giving up on peace and advocating war is what Jesus would do.