Riff God

In a recent viral video, musician Alex Chadwick fired up his 1958 Fender Strat and 

ripped through “100 Riffs (A Brief History of Rock n’ Roll)": 

In the course of these twelve minutes Alex plays riffs from Chuck Berry through the Rolling Stones and Jimi Hendrix to Queen and Van Halen and on through U2, Guns n’ Roses, the White Stripes, and Foo Fighters, illustrating an important truth: it’s all about the riff.

The riff is fundamental in blues, jazz and, of course, rock n’ roll. It’s that opening melodic or chordal bit, that motif that establishes the tone and structure of the whole song and will likely appear a few more times. But perhaps what most characterizes a riff is its association with a whole song. You know if it’s going to be “Pretty Woman” or “Sweet Home Alabama” or “Layla” by the riff. (Tellingly, Eric Clapton introduced his popular live unplugged version of “Layla” with the challenge, “Let’s see if you can spot this one.” The reason it was hard to “spot” was that he had changed the famous riff and, yes, it changed the song dramatically.) So it’s not just a cool instrumental thing that has lots of significance on its own. It’s that that instrumental thing—cool as it may be—has significance mainly because it points to the whole song. The lights go out, the opening riff thunders from the speakers, and the hands go into the air because you know that song…you love that song! That’s rock n’ roll.

Heaven and Earth are full 

of the glory of God riffs

God is a riff God. Not a riff god like Jimi Hendrix, but a big-“G” God who reveals himself and his kingdom in the form of riffs. All creation is riff after glorious riff, whether DNA or daisies or daughters or days-and-nights. God seems to love creating so much that he does it over and over, often stringing things together with riffs.

God reveals himself in the Bible this way. There’s the opening riff of God as Creator of all that is, seen and unseen. After it starts things off in Genesis, we hear it again in all kinds of big moments. From the starry-sky covenant with Abraham to reminding a doubtful, stammering Moses who it was who gave people their mouths and ears; from putting Job on trial with the question, “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?” to the psalmist’s humble affirmation that the LORD made “mere mortals” and “crowned them with glory and honor”; and from the Gospel of John’s new creation story to coming full circle with Paul’s glorious creedal statement that all things—seen and unseen—are made by and for Jesus; and then on to the new heavens and the new earth: in all these the Creator-God riff resonates. And it is heard in the world today—heaven and earth are full of the glory of God riffs.

Of course that’s just one riff among many. If you’ll listen attentively you’ll hear. There are number riffs like 40 and 12 and 7. There are water riffs like the pre-creation chaos and Eden’s rivers and the flood and the Red Sea and baptism and Jesus walking on it and New Jerusalem’s river of life. There are tree riffs like Eden’s trees of life and of the knowledge of good and evil, and Abraham’s oak and the lover’s apple and Zaccheus’ sycamore and a cursed fig and Christ’s cross and New Jerusalem’s tree of life. And there are grand, sweeping thematic riffs like exile and homecoming—heard in the Israelites’ captivity and exodus and in Jesus’ parables like the Prodigal Son and, of course, in the story of humanity’s fall and redemption.

Picking up on these riffs is really fun. You should try it. You just may find your fist shooting up into the air when you hear them. They aren’t always readily heard. It often took many generations before Scripture writers could listen back and pick out the riffs. They had to get to a certain point in the God-song before they began to recognize that same riff that had been repeated, and then to work out what it was about God and his kingdom that it was telling his people. Likewise, in our lives, it sometimes takes a while before we begin to pick up on God-riffs, to listen back to the God-song our life is playing and hear the riffs he keeps bringing in. But when we do, when we pick up on them and even learn to play along, we find our lives resounding with nothing less than the music of God. Here’s how it works...to be continued...

Beggar's Banquet

"Tie him up, hands and feet, and throw him
into the darkness outside!"

Here's a tough one: After the right people refuse to come, EVERYONE--even the riff-raff--gets invited to this wedding banquet a king is throwing for his son. We like that part. But then when the king shows up, he finds this one guy not wearing a wedding suit and he tosses the guy out. We don't talk about that part.

Jesus has a way of getting on my nerves sometimes, as he does with this parable from Matthew 22:1-14. He gets on my nerves when he catches me off guard and when I don't understand him. He's supposed to stop at that part where everyone gets to come. The chosen ones refuse so the servants go out to the streets and the slums and make everyone feel cherished and special by inviting them to this sumptuous banquet.

What are you doing, Jesus?! 

You messed up the whole story!

The camera shifts to the banquet hall, to the grand double-doors where homeless vets are dropping their "will work for food" signs and filling their plates at the banquet table; where prostitutes are tugging awkwardly at their short skirts and sitting down at the king's table; where even corrupt Wall Street golden boys are coming empty-handed to stand at the back of a line that stretches out the door. The camera pans back to reveal the line of undesirables stretching across the grounds, out the front gate, and down the street. The music comes up as the credits roll. The End?

No, because at least one guy doesn't have the right clothes? So he's outta there! What are you doing, Jesus?! You messed up the whole story!

I think the irritation comes from the subtlety and seeming randomness, characteristic of a parable. There's a scene that I think is understood for Jesus, but which the movie needs to show to make sense of it all. After getting their fill at the banquet, the homeless vet gets up and finds an old dealer friend and the two go off into a room and start shooting heroin; the prostitute starts hitting on the groomsmen to try and drum up some business; the Wall Streeters make rotten business deals with unsuspecting guests at the dinner table. Everyone has a good time while widows sit alone at their kitchen tables and AIDS-orphans forage for food in the dumpsters. But we're at the banquet, so everything is fine, right?

It's not enough to come to the banquet. We also have to change our clothes. It may not be heroin or prostitution or white-collar crime. But compulsive eating and pornography and consumerism will do nicely. We each have our stinky rags that we parade around in as if we're fine, though for most of us it's our underwear. We keep our rot to ourselves, satisfied that we're at the banquet. We're satisfied that we're telling everyone they're ok: "God loves you and your cute little cancerous corruption..." Oh, we might pick and choose a few things we don't like, a few types we don't allow: "You can't stay at the banquet and be _____!"

Thing is, Jesus seems to have something to say about it. And I'll warn you, it might get on your nerves.

Shadow

I'm haunted by the way of the cross. The shadow of the cross falls on my path, a path I hope will be sunny and covered with moss and flowers. Instead, it is often rocky and unclear. And there's that shadow.

I still am often confused by the way of the cross, that God incarnate, hanging on a cross, is somehow the Good News. I don't believe the cross alone is necessarily the Good News. The Incarnation, the message and ministry of the kingdom and, of course, the resurrection are all part of the Good News story. But right there smack in the middle is that cross.

And so today, I would like to just revel in the union of God and humanity in that act of utter divine humility, the Incarnation. I would like to sound the kingdom call for all to come and be healed and find wholeness of love and life in the kingdom of the heavens. I would like to imagine the wonder of life in the new creation, the consummation of all things in the glorious resurrection to never-ending glory.

But I look down that path--in places sunny and flowery, but often so covered with weeds and stickers as to be almost utterly obscured--and I see that long shadow. And I look behind to see the cross as something 2000 years in the past, only to see the cross on my own back, casting its shadow on every step of my journey.

Life Liturgy: Gotta Serve Somebody

"You gotta serve somebody...It may be the devil, or it may be the Lord, but you're gonna have to serve somebody." --Bob Dylan's "Gotta Serve Somebody"

Our day-to-day lives are worship services. For many of us they're the kinds of worship services God doesn't attend, those Isaiah 1 worship services that God detests because they're full of sound and fury signifying nothing. Our hands are covered with the blood of the innocents and our hearts are far from God, while our lips speak empty words of flattery and pucker to kiss the hind-end of anyone who will help us up to the next rung.

But if we'll take seriously our call to leitourgia (lit. "work, occupation, service"), we begin to move beyond only the liturgy reserved for religious services and into something new: Life Liturgy. Our Life Liturgy is the intentional ordering of our day-to-day lives to turn them away from the apathetic hum-drum of the status quo and the Joneses, and toward the electric mystery of the presence of God. This reordering can be kicked off in three recognitions:

1) We Worship God in Our Being: All things are from God, through God, and to God...to God be glory forever! (Rom. 11:36). The very existence of our lives--first in the mind of God, then in creation--is an act of worship. God is delighted that he made us! Going about dividing the world between "sacred" and "secular" does us little good. The best thing we can do is to LIVE LIFE FULLY...reveling in the whole earth that is full of God's glory!

2) We Worship God in Our Surrender: Climbing up on the altar and laying ourselves bare before God, trusting only his goodness and mercy...this is Life Liturgy (Rom. 12:1). We can't give our minds to God but our bodies to the world...or give our affections to God but follow someone else's agenda for us. We must LOVE GOD COMPLETELY...whole mind, whole strength, whole heart, whole soul.

3) We Worship God in Our Transformation: We can come to know the mind and heart of God and, thus, God's will (Rom. 12:2). This is what the world so desperately wants to know: What does it all mean? Why am I here? What am I supposed to do? Who am I supposed to be? But we become like what we worship through the Life Liturgy we choose--either conforming to the image of those who really know no better than we do, or being transformed into the glorious image of God. We must LEARN APPRENTICESHIP to the only Master who is Love.

Our only hope amidst the fragmentation of our lives in pieces of sacred and secular, divided devotions between God and selfishness, conformity to the agendas of hollow men, is to begin to be intentional about our Life Liturgy. Because you're gonna have to serve somebody...choose this day whom you will serve.

Bullseye!

The source of discontent and anxiety, of struggle and fear and much evil is a matter of centeredness (or the lack thereof)--specifically centeredness in the authority of the God who is Love.


On the other hand, contentedness and confidence and peace and assurance and even righteousness and justification are found in the center, in trusting in and living for the authority of God as loving Sovereign and caring, nurturing Father.


"In what did the humility of Jesus consist? Low self-esteem, feelings of unworthiness, disappointment with his spiritual progress? Absurd! He was enthralled with his Father. In utter self-forgetfulness, he lived for God. The central theme in his personal life was the growing intimacy with, trust in, and love of his Abba. He lived securely in his Father's acceptance.


"'As the Father has loved me so have I loved you' (Jn. 15:9), he reassures us. Jesus' inner life was centered in God. His communion with his Abba transformed his vision of reality, enabling him to perceive divine love toward sinners and scalawags. Jesus did not live from himself or for himself but from the graciousness of the Other, who is incomprehensibly caring. He understood his Father's compassionate heart." --Brennan Manning, Ruthless Trust


This is the mark we are missing when we sin. Not that there are "do's" we failed at or "don'ts" that we did, like naughty school-children trying to win the favor of our teacher. The mark we are missing is centeredness in the authority of our loving, caring Father who is Lord and King of heaven and earth. We move from centeredness in God's authority to care for our lives, to guide us and empower us and provide for us. We move from centeredness in God's authority to have a plan--a loving plan--for all the world, for the lives around us. And we move from his invitation and empowerment for us to participate in realizing that plan.


In short, sin is not living in that bullseye that is life from and for God, not basing life on enthrallment with Abba and his love. In the end, what else is there? We find all manner of distracting targets and we shoot ourselves off in many different directions. Then we wonder why we're lost, why we can't find love, why we can't find God. But direction, love, and God are right where they've always been--right there at the center of it all, at the heart of the matter...of all that matters.

Jesus the Bomb

The first verses of John's Gospel are like an atomic bomb going off in the middle of history:

"The Word was God...
Through him all things were made...
In him was life...the light of all people...
To all who received him he gave the right and power to become children of God...
The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us...
Out of his fullness we have all received grace...Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known."
                                  ***BOOM!***

All else is just fallout from that explosion, either colliding with and being consumed by its glorious, holy radiance, or straining to slink off and put down roots in the shadows. But the darkness cannot comprehend--could never overcome--the sun of righteousness rising with healing in its wings.

And what of the children, the little ones who have thrown open the windows of their lives to bathe in the grace and truth? They are nothing less than sons and daughters of God, brothers and sisters of that atomic-bomb-of-a-Son. They are becoming one with the wind and fire of God's Spirit, making each little child another explosion in history as the kingdom of light pours into the fractures of the cowering kingdom of darkness. That's you. That's me. Out of his fullness we have all received grace.

The Monarch

All these Monarch butterflies are graceful, autumn-colored reminders to let the Wind of God move us as he pleases. It is for his good pleasure that all has been made, including us. And it pleases our Father to give the kingdom to his little ones.

Why do we ever doubt such a Creator, who wants nothing but our good--more good than we can ever desire or create for ourselves? Yet we wrestle and insist that we know better, that we can do better. Fear sometimes drives us--sometimes pride, certainly doubt. But it's always the case that we don't even know what to desire, much less how to get it. We don't know how to take a punch. We don't know how to die.

But the Wind moves. Not an impersonal force, but the very Breath of God filling our blackening spiritual lungs with nothing less than God himself. We are to be one. This circumstance, that challenge, this opportunity, that intersection of our dreams and God's plans. If we will move with the Wind--through, around, within, above--we will experience it all...or at least enough. If we resist, we are grasping and punching...at the Wind. Much better to fly--like the Monarch.

Time to Slow Down

My family and I are going on vacation. It’s time to slow down and notice things. That seems to be what summer is about. Those Gershwin brothers got it right: Summertime, and the livin’ is easy. The smell of mowed grass and barbecue, the feel of the sun’s warmth, the glorious sight of baseball under a blue sky, these are a few of my favorite things! Whether packing in as many vacation experiences as possible or just sitting on the porch watching the sun go down each evening, summertime is an annual reminder to experience life. It is a time when we let life happen, rather than trying to force it into our own daily constraints.

Typically, the worst part of summer vacation is that it ends. So, here are a few summer ideas that might work in autumn, winter, and spring.

1) Let life happen. Make plans and work hard, but enjoy the passage of time.

2) Rest. A key about summer is that it seems to give us permission to relax, but God already gave us not just permission, but a command to rest. After all, he did!

3) Notice things. Each season has its own sights and sounds and smells that are the stuff of life. Make time to take it all in.

4) Enjoy loved ones. Family reunions, cookouts, ballgames, and vacations don’t have to end with the summer. Whatever it is, it should be shared with the people we love.

5) Worship. God made all of these seasons for his glory and to enrich our lives with their beauty and the lessons they can teach about living more faithfully in the process of life, death, and resurrection.

And right now it’s summer; so fire up the grill, pour the lemonade, and PLAY BALL! ...Or just play.

Falling in Love With the Church

Me being ordained in 2010, with my wife, the Bishop
and other elders laying hands on me.

My calling to pastoral ministry was a little odd. Other pastors talked about growing up in church, about how much it meant to them. They spoke about little old ladies pinching their cheeks and telling them they will make a fine pastor some day, and about youth pastors and older pastors giving them leadership roles and letting them "try on" pastoring for size. There seemed to be a rather clearly-marked path that led right through college to seminary and into the pulpit.


Not me. True, I was a child in church. I have memories of Pastor Ken Metzger yelling passionate sermons (and even scaring me a little), of Pastor Buff Hearn playing his guitar in church (can you really do that?!), of my mom playing the organ, of going to Sunday school and Vacation Bible School. And of course, my chubby cheeks were sufficiently pinched. I was a well-behaved church kid. But I didn't stay very active in church. And I was certainly never going to become a pastor.


Needless to say, things changed. There were a number of steps along that road that eventually did lead on to seminary and into the pulpit. Those seasons can be celebrated (and cursed) in other posts. But there was one main thing that opened my eyes and heart to pastoring: I fell in love with the church.


It wasn't just memories of bazaars and revivals and Christmas Eve candlelight services; of my grandfather being the first to arrive at church on Sunday to make the coffee and my grandmother leading Bible studies for the ladies circles. It was those things. But more than that, it was freaky mind-blowing stuff like this:


"I ask the God of our Master, Jesus Christ, the God of glory, to make you intelligent and discerning in knowing him personally, your eyes focused and clear, so that you can see exactly what it is he is calling you to do, grasp the immensity of this glorious way of life he has for his followers, oh, the utter extravagance of his work in us who trust him--endless energy, boundless strength!


"All this energy issues from Christ: God raised him from death and set him on a throne in deep heaven, in charge of running the universe, everything from galaxies to governments, no name and no power exempt from his rule. And not just for the time being, but forever. He is in charge of it all, has the final word on everything. At the center of all this, Christ rules the church. The church, you see, is not peripheral to the world; the world is peripheral to the church. The church is Christ's body, in which he speaks and acts, by which he fills everything with his presence." (Ephesians 1:17-23, The Message)


Not a bad way to spend a life. Of course one needn't be a pastor to be part of this. (Indeed, that might be a last resort for many of us.) No, it is the people: organ-playing moms and coffee-making grandfathers, guitar-playing pastors and cheek-pinching old ladies, young and old women and men with light or dark skin in cathedrals or huts playing organs or djembes, thousands in an arena or a dozen in a living room--all knit together...forever...joined to God at the center of eternity. Even me. Even you.

Headline: Hell and Rapture Yesterday's News

• Most devastating tornado in decades rips through U.S. city.
• Dictators charged with crimes against humanity.
• Air strikes pound ancient nations.
• Nuclear disaster worse than previously assessed.
• Local grandparents murdered during robbery.
• Local teen gunned down in nightclub.

Murder, war, economic collapse, ecological turmoil...this is all in today's paper. Not an assessment of this year's, this month's, or even this week's news. Just today.

"Jesus is coming at 6 p.m. to take all the good people away from the bad people" and "Does hell really exist and, if so, who goes there?" That's what our culture thinks the church is about. In each of the above headlines, there are disciples of Jesus Christ working for peace, justice, reconciliation and healing.

But somehow we've allowed ourselves to get so caught up in conversations about hell and the rapture that we appear to be so heavenly (or hellishly) minded that we're no earthly good. This is NOT the case, but anyone on the street would be hard-pressed to come up with the name of a Christian working to end the modern slave trade or bringing potable water to a village, as opposed to, say, naming false prophets who put up irrelevant billboards.

Hell and the Rapture are not unimportant. Ask an addict or an AIDS orphan or those living in war-zones if they believe in hell. Ask a homeless family or a 13-year-old sex-slave or just any lonely, lost, marginalized, tormented soul if they're ready for Jesus to come back. It's not the subject...it's the framing.

Hell and the Rapture are not some trivial sci-fi fantasies that we speculate about over gourmet coffee. Hell is the life of death, the path away from the God who is Love toward destruction and loss. And hell is reflected in those headlines. The Rapture is the return of Christ--not to flee the earth that so desperately needs him, but to set right all that is so wrong and to bring his kingdom in all its fullness. The need for Christ's presence is also reflected in those headlines.

But in the meantime, the church must take her PR in hand. And this, not by more billboards and superficial marketing, but by framing the conversation around the true life of the church. Indeed, it is the very presence of Christ through the Spirit-filled life of his church that should be front and center in our conversation. There doesn't have to be speculation: the Son of God is here...really! The gospel cannot continue to be commandeered by attention mongers and false prophets. There are too many true Christians in the world doing the true work of Christ.

If it bleeds, it leads...I know. It's likely we'll never hear much about the real kingdom-building that humble Christians are doing every day. The media eats up sensationalism. But does the church have to feed the monster? It'll keep coming back around. There will be more scandalous tripe--a "lost" gospel or a Catholic conspiracy or a grilled Cheesus or Satan at a Starbucks. We already have the Rapture re-predicted for Autumn--I'm sad there won't be a World Series but at least we won't have to rake those leaves!

I urge all apprentices of Jesus to keep modeling the life of the Master. And when the opportunity arises--with and without words--turn sensationalized conversations toward this truth: God is Love. And may the headlines read: God's Kingdom Coming On Earth...Now!

Water-Diamonds

My 5-year-old daughter dives headlong into her pool. It's nothing fancy--just a good-sized inflatable pool with an inflatable slide. You plug the hose into the slide so water arcs onto it, making it slick like a slip-n-slide. It's a nice inflatable pool, but far from an in-the-ground pool pool. But to her, it's a slice of paradise.

She stands there, having unhooked the hose, and lets the water shoot overhead and splash down on her. She laughs uncontrollably. The sun glistens through the water, turning it into diamonds showering upon this little princess--cheap water-diamonds from a yellow hose and a backyard spigot. She doesn't know it's not a pool pool or that they are cheap water-diamonds. She only knows that all of time is present in this moment, a moment she will live in until her parents make her come inside. This is joy.

We need this joy. Somewhere between trying to be cool and trying to be responsible we stopped showering in water-diamonds. What we had wasn't enough. Who we were wasn't enough. Where we were heading wasn't clear and, so, became our obsession. How crazy is that? We became obsessed with the non-existent--things we didn't have, identities not our own, a future that was only a dream or a nightmare--and we called that "growing up."

We do better to "become like a little child." All of space and time are present in this little inflatable pool and yellow hose. There is sunshine and there are people I love. There is laughter and a shower of water-diamonds. There is joy...and I can dive headlong into it.