On Church and Mother's Day

Good morning!  We may as well start out by naming the elephant in the room: it’s Mother’s Day.  Sure, it’s the Fourth Sunday of Easter, but really, we all know, it’s Mother’s Day.  You know?  I mean, what’s the resurrection of Christ compared to the awesomeness of moms, right?  

Mother’s Day is incredibly complicated.  On the surface, it seems simple.  Yay, moms.  Let’s have a day to celebrate them, and all the hard work they do, and how much they love their kids!  And there is nothing inherently wrong about this.  But let’s dig a little deeper and underneath that, “yay, moms,” there’s often a lot of other stuff.  We all come here today with our own baggage about moms and motherhood and Mother’s Day - We're so incredibly grateful for our mothers, we're sad that they're no longer with us, we have a terrible relationship with them for whatever reason, our own children -- intentionally or unintentionally -- make it extremely difficult to be a mother, we desperately want to be mothers and are stuck feeling angry or jealous towards those who already are, we feel like we are bad mothers or "not real women" because we have suffered miscarriages or couldn't conceive at all or we delivered by c-section instead of naturally.  Maybe you never knew your biological mom, or she did a terrible job of caring for you as a child, or maybe her brain is wracked by Alzheimer’s and you just don’t know how to relate to her anymore.  Maybe your child has wandered off the beaten path and you wonder what you did wrong in raising him, or whatever.  Even for those of us who have a generally good relationship with our still-living mothers, it isn’t perfect, is it?  No family is, after all.  Mother’s Day is about so much, much more than just flowers and breakfast in bed.  Yes?

So it’s good that Mother’s Day is not a liturgical holiday.  It is not marked in red on the Church Calendar.  It’s not a feast day like Christmas or Easter or Pentecost – All Saints or Ascension or Holy Trinity Sunday or even Reformation Day.  We needn't - and shouldn't - let this holiday, and however we feel about it, define our Christian life.  Because the Church is not about mothers.  It is about Jesus.  Even when the Church has traditionally lifted up specific women like the Virgin Mary or her cousin, Elizabeth, who were both prominent maternal figures, the point is not that they were mothers, but that they pointed to Christ.  Mary’s Magnificat, in Luke 1, is not about “Yay, God made me a mother,” but “yay, God has saved his people!”  Elizabeth’s greeting to Mary is not, “congrats on being pregnant – by the way, how’d that happen?”  It’s, “Come on in, dear mother of my Lord!  And look, the child in my own womb is leaping for joy in the presence of the prenatal Christ!”  Mothers are a good and wonderful thing – and they are meant by God to love and serve and raise their children, and most of them do a darn fine job of it.  But motherhood, and families in general, are not, and cannot be, the focal point of church – ever.  The focus of church is always and only Christ.  

Even our Bible texts for today call us to that.  Let’s look at the story from Acts – the book of Acts, more fully, the Acts of the Apostles, is basically Volume II of the Gospel of Luke.  It’s written by Luke, and it picks up shortly after the first Easter, in the time of the very early Church, as Jesus’ disciples and other believers in Christ began to get their bearings and get organized in a world – and a religion – that had been forever changed by the Resurrection.  And in today’s reading, we get a brief glimpse of what life was like for them.  

“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.  Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles.  All the believers were together and had everything in common.  They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need.  Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people.  And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.” (Acts 2:42-47)

 Now, it’s important to recognize that these were normal people we are talking about.  They are not living in some ancient hippie commune, or leading some sort of desert monastic life where the cares of the world wouldn’t distract them from religious practice.  Those sorts of lifestyles didn’t develop for at least another couple hundred years.  These are people who had jobs to complete and fields to till and laundry to do and meals to get on the table.  Kids to get to bed even when it was light outside way past bedtime and ill relatives to care for and the thousand other things that come along with daily life.  And surely they lived their lives in all the ways that it was necessary to do so.

But they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.  What do we devote ourselves to?  Work? Sports? Money? Politics? Family?  On this Mother’s Day, it is critical that we remember that families – nuclear families, extended families, friends who are basically family – are important things.  They are gifts from God to us, so that we can be cared for and loved, nourished and nurtured, and experience companionship and a good – abundant, Jesus might say – life.  But they are not God.  They are not God.  

Unfortunately, however, in our culture “family” can become just as much of an idol as an Old Testament golden calf.  It is very easy for us to let “family” slide into first place when it comes to our priorities.  We say it, don’t we, without even blinking an eye: “my life revolves around my family,” or “my life revolves around my kids,”.  And often this happens without our even noticing.  But we wake up one morning and find that the faults of our mother are the entire reason why we can’t seem to get our own life together, and we must ponder this, and wallow in it endlessly.  Or that literally every waking moment of our day is devoted to our children and grandchildren and their needs/wants/desires/or 1000 extracurricular, extra-expensive, extra-time-consuming activities.  This is how our culture is, is it not?  But this is a problem.

Because as Christians, we are not given license to “devote ourselves” to anything other than Christ.  Parents, and grandparents: yes, this means that your children or grandchildren are not the most important people in your life.  Jesus is.  Kids: your friends and family are not the most important people in your life.  Jesus is.  Husbands and wives: your spouse is not the most important person in your life.  Jesus is.  Those of you who have a family structure that doesn’t look like you wish it did: because you lack …. Spouse, children, godly parents, whatever, that cannot be what defines your life.  Jesus is what defines your life. 

Jesus is the Good Shepherd.  Jesus is the Gate.  Jesus is the One by whom we go in and out and are led to food and water and a safe pasture to graze.  Jesus is the One who provides us a fence to protect us from danger, who shields us from thieves and robbers who come to kill and destroy.  Jesus is the only one who can lead us through the valley of the shadow of death, because He has been there first, Himself.  Jesus is the one whom our life revolves around, because it is He who literally gives you life, life abundant, and it is He in whom you have goodness and mercy because you dwell in His house forever.  

What a blessing that is!  What love!  In a culture – and even, too often, a Church – that idolizes “family” above all else, how wonderful it is to know that Jesus the Good Shepherd who leads you beside still waters and restores your soul, the Gate who protects you from evil and opens the doors of Heaven, that same Jesus promises us life and goodness and mercy simply because He loves you – regardless of what your earthly family does or does not look like.  

He leads you to waters that are more still and refreshing than the most tightly tucked-in covers of a bedtime routine.  His goodness and mercy are more than even the most Pinterest-obsessed SuperMom could ever provide.  He protects you from enemies far greater than even abusive or neglectful parents.  His rod and staff comfort you more than a longed-for baby in a barren womb. 

It is to Him and him alone that we look, for the fulfillment of every need, not out of blind obligation “or else”, but because He is our Shepherd.  He calls you by name, and you know His voice.  He knows exactly where the green pastures and still waters are – because He is the green pastures and still waters.  It is safe to follow him, even through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, because He alone knows the way out. 

Mama sheep – and Daddy sheep – you could do nothing better for your children and grandchildren, than to teach them this.  And in fact, all of us here in this congregation are sheep who are led by the Good Shepherd.  We care about, and find a good deal of things in this world important, worthy, helpful, useful, lovely things to support and take part in.  But like the early Church, we devote ourselves only to the teaching of the apostles, to prayer and fellowship and breaking of the bread.  As St. Peter writes, yes, we had all gone astray like distracted, dumb little sheep.  But through the death and resurrection of Jesus, regardless of any other fact about your life, you have been returned to the Shepherd of your soul, and you will dwell in the house of the Lord – forever.  

My goodness, but your cup overflows!

Amen. 

On the Conversion of St. Paul

Good morning!  So, if you were here last week, you know that we celebrated Peter’s confession of faith, when he declared that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.  This week, we are transferring Saturday’s celebration of St. Paul’s conversion to today, and remembering his story, his faith, and most especially, the way that God worked in his life. 

In the same way that last week we celebrated not so much Peter himself, but the faith that God had placed in Peter’s heart, the faith upon which Jesus builds the church, today we remember Paul’s conversion – not because of how awesome Paul is, but because of how awesome Jesus is.

Let’s start, though, by taking a good look at Paul, at who he was, and the life he lived, so that we have a really good context for seeing the work of Jesus. 

We get just a short background to this at the beginning of the Acts reading, so I want to flesh it out a little more, so that we’re all on the same page to start.  So, Paul, who Acts chapter 13 also tells us went by the name of Saul, which is the name that is used in this part of the story – this Saul guy was Jewish.  Now, we have talked before about Peter, or the other disciples, or Jesus, or most of the people who hung around Jesus during his ministry, and how they were good, faithful, Jewish people.  But Saul was, well, his religiosity, his zeal for the Jewish religion, and more than that, for the God of the Jews, far outstripped everyone else around him.  Saul wasn’t the sort who came to church most weekends, and made sure the kids got to well, Saturday School and confirmation.  Saul wasn’t even the sort to be a local synagogue leader, or to volunteer at the Temple to usher or read the Scriptures once a month.  Saul was Jewish to beat the band.  He grew up in a household filled with faith.  He had the Scriptures – what we call the Old Testament – memorized backwards and forwards.  He studied under all the best rabbis and priests and teachers.  He read everything he could get his hands on.  He was consumed with evangelistic fervor.  He loved the Lord, the one who had promised to save his people, to one day bring them a Messiah who would deliver them from all their enemies.  He trusted God’s promises, and he was willing to defend God at all costs. 

If you were someone who said something untrue – something heretical or blasphemous or just plain mean or wrong about God – Saul was perfectly happy to correct you. He wasn’t going to let anybody stand in the way of knowing and believing the correct things about his God, the God of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, the God who had promised a Messiah, but who hadn’t yet delivered.  He followed every last rule and law of the Jewish religion – dotting all his I’s and crossing all his T’s – because this was what God had said to do, so, I better do it, and so should everybody else.  This was Saul.  100% sold out for God.  And so Saul also knew that one of the things you don’t do – in fact, the primary thing you don’t do, when you are a follower of God, is to go running around following other gods, claiming somebody or something else is God, and worshipping that. 

And to a great extent, Saul is not wrong.  Even today, when we read the Old Testament, we assume that it’s all about rules, and it’s about not doing bad things, and following the Ten Commandments and being a good religious person.  But that’s actually only sort of true – see, when God gets angry at the Israelites for all of the bad things they keep doing, it’s less about the fact that they did those specific sins, and more about the fact that they had first turned their hearts over to other pagan gods.  The confirmation class this year has been reading through the sections of the Old Testament, and right now we’re at the part that is all about the kings and prophets.  There are some good kings, and lot of bad kings, and it turns out that the primary characteristic of a bad king is one who doesn’t follow the Lord, one who turns away from the Lord, and then, because his eyes are turned toward other gods, begins to do all sorts of evil things – once you’ve broken the first commandment, the rest just fall like dominoes…

So Saul, in being zealous for the primacy of God, well, let’s just say that his heart is in the right place.  But unfortunately, we all know, that our heart can be in the right place, and we can still be radically, totally, completely wrong.  And this is what had happened to Saul.

You see, Jesus is the fulfillment of the Jewish religion.  In his conception and his birth, in his ministry, his death, and his resurrection, and in his ascension to the throne in heaven, Jesus is proved to be the Messiah that God promised long ago, that the prophets spoke of, that the Israelites had been waiting, and waiting, and waiting for.  When we speak of the relationships between Jesus, and Jews, and Christians, it’s not that Jesus is Christian, just like all of us, and we’re waiting for the Jewish people to get on board with that and join Christianity like they’re supposed to.  It’s actually almost the opposite – Jesus is the Jewish Messiah, the fulfillment of all the Old Testament promises of God, promises that God made to his chosen people, the nation of Israel – also known as the Israelites or the Hebrews.  And it is we, the Christians without Jewish ancestry, who are grafted – adopted – into that family, that nation of Israel, to whom the promises were first given. 

But if like Saul you are Jewish, and you don’t believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the promised one, then when Jewish people who do believe begin encouraging others to follow Jesus, to believe that He is the one who fulfills the promises, that He himself is God, and should be worshipped and praised as such, well then, it looks like you’re leading people into idolatry, does it not?  It would look like you were saying untrue things about God, and worshipping false gods and denying the faith.

This is where Saul is at, before his conversion.  At the beginning of the Acts reading today: Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples.  Yes, Saul had gone so far as to be an accomplice to murder.  One of the apostles – Stephen – was the first person to be killed for his faith in Jesus.  He had been out witnessing to Christ, and the Jewish leaders had gotten a hold of him, and for his so-called “offense” against the Jewish faith, Stephen was stoned to death.  And the Bible tells us that Saul was there, not throwing stones, but holding the coats of the men who were.  

Saul firmly believed in his zeal for the faith, in his willingness to condemn Jesus-followers, that he was pointing people toward the one true God and away from false idols.

And yet, he was incredibly wrong.  He was so, so, so wrong.  Poor Saul, he just doesn’t get it. 

Do you know people like this?  People who just…for some reason…can’t grasp faith?  People who claim to basically believe in like, God or something, but they don’t really get it.  People who think they know God, but really, Jesus is just kind of a peripheral thing to their lives?  Are you people like this?  Someone who comes to church because it’s “what good people do”, but when other people are talking about Jesus and faith…you just kind of bow out of the conversation, because you don’t quite get it? 

If this is you, or someone that you know and love, then listen up – Saul’s story isn’t done.

Because as Saul was hunting down followers of the Way – the first term they used to describe Christians – as Saul was, in his ignorance, seeking out the Lord’s disciples to kill or imprison them, Jesus came to Saul.  In a brilliant flash of light, Saul was struck blind, and heard Jesus personally speaking to him: Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?  I am Jesus, who you are persecuting.  Go into the city, and you will be told what to do.”

And so Saul follows instructions, goes into the city of Damascus, and is met by a man named Ananias, whom the Lord had sent to lay hands on Saul so that Saul’s blindness would be healed.  So the two of them meet up, and Ananias does as he’s told.  Saul is filled with the Holy Spirit, and something like scales fell from his eyes, and he could see again, and was baptized.

Now this is another one of those stories that has two layers of meaning to it – first is the literal, historical level.  We believe that this is actually what happened, and how it happened.  And there’s also a metaphorical level to it as well – Saul had been struck with physical blindness, yes, but he had also been experiencing spiritual blindness.  He simply couldn’t see that Jesus was the Messiah, the fulfillment of the promises to Israel, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  And as the scales fell from his eyes and his physical blindness was cured, his spiritual blindness was also cured – by the power of the Holy Spirit, who opened Saul’s eyes, both physically and spiritually. 

Don’t miss that part – that it was solely through the action of God, that Saul was brought to an understanding of the truth about Jesus. 

Luke tells us this in Acts, Paul relays it himself in the reading from Galatians.  Jesus came and revealed himself to Paul, to one for whom it seemed that all hope would be lost, one who just didn’t get it.  But God intervened.  The Holy Spirit came and personally brought Paul to faith in Jesus – just as the Holy Spirit does for each one of us – and from there, Paul went on to an incredible life as an apostle – a witness, a missionary, a pastor, a preacher, a teacher – throughout all of the Middle East, the Mediterranean, and Asia Minor.  The man who participated in the killing of the very first Christian martyr is the same man who later wrote 1/3 of the New Testament, and traveled through much of the known world to spread the message of Christ and build the local church wherever he went.  

Yay, Paul, but more importantly, yay God!  This is a story of hope.  When we celebrate the conversion of Paul, what we are really celebrating is the power of God to transform hearts, to bring people to Jesus, and to work powerfully in each of our lives.  If God takes it upon himself to knock Paul upside the head when he needs it, then there is still hope for each of us, yes?  If someone who is so opposed to Christ as Paul can be brought to faith, then there is still hope for all of your children and grandchildren who are uninterested, to say the least, in Jesus…right? 

This is the message of Paul’s conversion – that it is never too late, that someone is never too far gone, or too opposed to God, for God to work miracles.  That even though we share our faith with other people, it is not our responsibility to pressure people – ourselves or anybody else – into believing – that the Holy Spirit will work faith when and where He wills, at precisely the right moment to serve God’s purposes.

If you struggle to believe some days…or every day…(and really, don’t we all?)  If you know someone who seems downright opposed to the message of Christ…do not lose heart, and do not despair.  God wants every single person – each one of you, and each one that each of you loves and cares for – to come to know him through faith in Jesus Christ.  And he does not give up on any of us.  It may seem like a long time coming, we may not notice the miniscule adjustments he is slowly, patiently, tenderly knitting into our souls, but He is faithful.  We only need to look at the Cross to see the extent to which he will go to bring each of us back into the fold. 

Through the conversion of Paul, and his unfailing witness to Jesus – the same zeal that was once focused against Christ now set to the task of expanding God’s kingdom – through Paul, and the inspiration and workings of God in him, the church took root throughout the world.  Like the churches of Judea, that we heard from Galatians today, we praise God because the man who formerly persecuted Christians went on to preach the faith he once tried to destroy.  We remember and celebrate that today, that victory of God, and we remember and celebrate that what God did for Paul, he can and does also do for us, and for our loved ones. 

Paul experienced an epiphany of his own on the road to Damascus, as he saw Christ for who he truly is: and so let this also be our epiphany today – that Jesus Christ, the Messiah, the Son of the Living God, is the Lord of all, and he is working to bring us to himself in his own good time.  He is the one who has the power to work faith in each one of us, and he is the one for whom not a single one of us is too sinful, too unbelieving, too far gone to be brought to life, health, and salvation.  This Jesus whom Saul encountered, who was born for the shepherds and the wise men, for Mary and Joseph, for John the Baptist and Peter and the disciples and Paul – was born for each one of us, and he is graciously working in each of us for our benefit.  May you be blessed by this epiphany.

Amen. 

"...and this is what I am going to proclaim to you!"

So…the more I think about this (and I’ve been thinking about it a lot) – I really firmly believe that we are living in a “pre-Christian” age.  

I know, I know, the prevailing narrative of our times is that we are in a post-Christian world.  And in one sense, that is true.  As Europe was Christianized and then brought Christianity, more or less, to the New World and to other parts of the British Empire, “the world was Christian” – especially the West, or developed, world.  This is kind of an over-romanticized, simplistic version of the truth, but as a basic summary, I suppose it suffices.  

And so now, when much of the developed world including Europe and North America, is falling away from Christianity, or at least Christendom as we’ve romanticized it according to our visions of the Middle Ages and/or the 1950s, we talk about being in a post-Christian world.  People – society – the world used to be Christian, and now they’re not.

But…claiming to live in a “post-Christian world” assumes that most people in the world today have heard the message of Christianity (or even a reasonably orthodox approximation thereof), have sincerely evaluated it on its merits, and have rejected it.  We blame it on the Enlightenment, or the heathen Baby Boomers, or “taking prayer out of schools” or whatever.  We used to be Christian and now we’re not.  

Except, well…I just don’t think that’s true.

Instead, I think that we are living in a pre-Christian age.  I think that the vast, vast, vast majority of people living in the developed world today have not heard the gospel and rejected it; rather, they have never really heard it in the first place.  We aren’t dealing with individuals who need to be called back to the faith that they know but have left, we are dealing with individuals who need to be catechized in the first place. 

This is the “nones”.  In all the recent surveys that ask (especially younger) people what religion or faith tradition they hold to, when given the option of choosing from among various forms of Christianity or other world religions, a great number are now choosing “none of the above”.  And what we hear of “the nones” is that they “are good people”, are “spiritual but not religious”, care about “helping people and doing justice”, and so forth.  They aren’t hardened atheists, they are just sort of spiritual drifters, pulling together bits and pieces from a variety of traditions and sources, seeking after their own wisdom, trying to make their way in the world.  

And I don’t know about you, but this sounds an awful lot to me like, “…as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god.  So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship…” (Acts 17:23).  

Further, beyond the “nones,” I also believe that in identifying the pre-Christians among us, that we’re also talking about a whole lot of people who would check the “Christian” box, because it is still sort of culturally expected (particularly in certain locales), or because they go to church on Christmas Eve.  But these people, despite attending on Christmas, and possibly even getting their kids baptized, wouldn’t know Christianity if it bit them in the armpit.  I don’t say this to be mean or judgmental – I just say it because it’s true.  Lutherans argue that the basics of the faith are “the six chief parts” of the Small Catechism – the Ten Commandments, the Apostle’s Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, Baptism, Confession and Absolution, and the Lord’s Supper.  The writer of Hebrews claims they are “repentance from dead works and faith toward God, instruction about baptisms, laying on of hands, resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment.”  And let’s be real: a very significant number of people in the pews each week couldn’t give a 30 second overview of the Scriptures if their lives depended on it.

But let’s lay off the guilt trips.  Again, this isn’t about judging people or making them feel bad for not knowing this stuff.  We could blame this on poor catechesis by the pastors of yore, or heathen Baby Boomers who didn’t take their kids to church, or suburban youth athletics that require Sunday games/practice, or whatever.  But that doesn’t solve the problem.  It doesn’t catechize the ignorant, and it doesn’t introduce Christ to the pagans, so it’s a waste of time.  

Look at the rest of the Acts story – the second half of Paul’s sentence:  “So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you.”  (emphasis mine)  And then he proceeds to do so.  Verses 24-31 constitute a fabulous Christianity “elevator speech”, that I think is worth memorizing, or at least, adapting to our own contexts and then memorizing.  

We Christians, and especially those of us who are “Christian public leaders”, live amongst “nones” and “just-shy-of-heathens, not-even-baby, ‘fetal’ Christians”, and we need to know how to teach the faith to these people.  We need to know how to introduce them to it, and how to teach them the basics, and how to teach them to teach others the basics.  

We are not in a post-Christian era, where people who know this stuff need to be called back to it.  We are in a pre-Christian era.  Without getting too big for my britches, we Christians (“public leaders” and non-pl’s alike) are like the Apostles.  We know this stuff, and a relative handful of other people do as well, but to the rest of the world, we are the stuff of myths and legends, we appear to be either crazy or awful, or both, depending on what rumors have been circulating in a particular neighborhood.  

Thinking about it like this has changed the way that I think about ministry inside and outside the walls of the congregation, and it’s definitely changed the way I think about evangelism.  We don’t live in some “Christian nation” that needs to recover its own values, or around people who are “backsliding” just because they’re terrible people.  We live in pagan freaking Athens.  They need to hear the story, and be told the Gospel.  They don’t know it.  They know they need something…but what that is, they can’t quite…or can only barely…put their finger on.

A lot of us – and I include myself here – look at the passing scene and want to “do something” – things are horrible, the world’s gone to hell in a handbasket, and people need to shape up!  So we say things like this:

“But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed.  God “will repay each person according to what they have done."  To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life.  But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger.” (Romans 2:5-8)

Or even, if we’re feeling a little more Gospel-y than Law-ish, we might go this route:

“Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified.  I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by believing what you heard? Are you so foolish? After beginning by means of the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by means of the flesh? Have you experienced so much in vain—if it really was in vain? So again I ask, does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you by the works of the law, or by your believing what you heard?” (Galatians 3:1b-5). 

But those sorts of messages are only helpful for people who are actually already Christians, who have been well-catechized, who “get it,” and need to be reminded of it.  It doesn’t work with people who really have no idea what you’re talking about it.  

Shouting Romans 2 or Galatians 3 at somebody who comes to church on Christmas – or never – is a little like yelling at me for not following the rules of lacrosse.  Well, one, I am not trying to play lacrosse, and two, I have seen a total of probably 30 seconds of the game being played, mostly if I flip to ESPN looking for baseball.  (Is that right? Are the two played during roughly the same season?)  I (think I) know that it’s big on the East Coast, played mostly by preppy white kids from the richy-rich suburbs.  I have a couple friends that I think used to play, but to tell the truth, the 30 seconds I’ve seen on TV makes it look hard and exhausting, and the uniforms aren’t even all that suitable for checking out players’, well, anyway… ;)  So don’t yell at me about lacrosse.  I will just stare at you like you’re crazy, wonder why you’re yelling at me, and then walk away to go find a good book.  

It’s my contention that we have an awful lot of people who don’t play lacrosse in this world.  There are an awful lot of people who worship statues to an unknown God, who need to hear this:

“The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands.  And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands.  God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said,‘We are his offspring.’ “Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by human design and skill. In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.”

Yes, some will sneer (see verse 32), and we can’t control that.  But some will want to hear more (we can’t control that either).  We need to give people the chance to hear it.  Give them the opportunity to want to hear more.  

I don’t know about you, but “and this is what I am going to proclaim to you” sounds like a pretty awesome, adventurous challenge.  How will you answer it?  What is your Christianity elevator speech (or as Peter might say, the ‘reason for the hope that you have within you’)?  Do you agree that we’re pre-Christian, not post-Christian?  

Talk to me, people!