If you're an American and you care about the World Cup at all, you know about the third goal in our game last Friday; the non-goal; the disallowed goal. The blown call has the whole soccer world up in arms because it was such an obvious breach of justice. The Wiki page of the referee who made the call was defaced within minutes of the blown call, and there has even been a revival of discussions about the use of video replay in soccer, because it's obvious to everyone that it's a better game if officials get the call right.

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This isn't about basketball; it's about making God's reign visible.  

Dear John,

I'm not sure why we think about people more after they die than while they're alive, but your passing away this weekend at the age of 99 had me thinking about you, something I'd not done much of since college.  I'm one of the millions who knew of you and were affected by your life.  I played a little basketball in Jr. High and it was while I was in love with the game that you had your best years at UCLA.  Ten national titles in twelve years?  Nobody's ever come close to matching that, before our since.  But it was the way you built winners that impressed, even as a kid of 14.  You weren't throwing chairs and swearing, you were building young men by teaching the old school values of hard work, discipline, and integrity.  

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If you're climbing a rock face, the thing that spares you from death in the event of a fall is your protection (which is some sort of anchor you put in the rock that will put an end to your falling).  Of course, the higher you climb beyond your last piece of protection, the farther you'll fall if you fail.  This can have the effect of unnerving the climber, which ultimately negates the climber's skills, causing him/her to freeze with fear and eventually fall.

It's terrible irony that the very thing they fear, ends up happening, precisely because they're afraid of it happening.  "Fear" it turns out, is one of the worst enemies, just as Roosevelt, and Joshua, and the angel all said.  It has the power to strip us of our capacities, freezing out the kind of risk necessary someone's going to embody the generous, just, wall breaking, bridge building, life restoring character of Jesus.  Live too carefully, and you'll end up looking religious instead of righteous - painfully boring, and ridden with anxiety.

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Our refrigerator broke a few years ago.  Nearly every attempt I’ve ever made to fix something mechanical has resulted in further damage to already broken items, so when the cooling machine was whining, I did the smart thing: I stepped away from the appliance and called for help.  Soon a large man with tools was at our house.  He opened the freezer, which was stuffed beyond capacity with huge quantity “good deal” items from Costco. 

He turned to my wife and me.  “Do you see what you’ve done?”  he asked, glaring at us accusingly, his stares alternating between the freezer and us.  We told him that, no, we didn’t see ‘what we’ve done’, told him that we’d simply put things that needed to be frozen in the freezer, told him that we didn’t see the crime in that.

I'm getting ready to study the passage for this coming Sunday about the ten virgins, five of whom had oil in their lamps and five who didn't.  On the surface of it, the whole story seems to run contrary to the golden rule. "Do for others what you'd want others to do for you."  If I was out of oil, I'd want you to give me some oil - so if I have oil, and you don't, I need to give you some oil.  That's generosity.  That's charity.  That's the gospel.

Instead, Jesus confounds things for us by having the story unfold in exactly the opposite way.  When the bridegroom came, the five who didn't have enough oil asked for help.  The answer they received was, in essence, "Get your own oil.  If we help you, none of us will have enough.  Better that some of us get into the party (i.e. we who had the good sense to prepare).

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You've no doubt heard about the parable of the seed and the sower?  It's one of those stories I've seen illustrated with little shreds of flannel when I was in 2nd grade, heard it taught at camp by a guy who illustrated it in what was called a "chalk talk" and studied it in seminary.

In spite of all this, it was only today that I was really struck by the fact this guy wasn't very careful about where he put his seeds.  Rocky soil, good soil, the side of the road, amidst weeds... come on farmer man, take aim!  In spite of his seeming to sow seeds like a blind man, Jesus' interpretation of the parable says nothing about being more careful, no, "so folks, let's learn from this silly wasteful farmer about the importance of only planting seeds where we know they will be fruitful."  To the contrary, when Jesus says that "the seed is the word of God", He's saying:  "this is the way it is - the seed will be scattered everywhere - EVERYWHERE!"

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After spending a glorious Sunday afternoon watching the best Ice Hockey game ever (and I've seen many), I posted a tongue and cheek comment on my facebook page, indicating that Canada had both the gold medal and health care.  The comments that ensued were a reminder that Christians are as deeply divided and entrenched on this issue as everyone else.  We're red Christians and blue Christians - big government Christians, and small government Christians, and we're good at pushing each other's buttons.  I'm pretty certain though, when the comments were done being posted, nobody had changed their minds, or changed anyone else's mind either.  Perhaps the only thing that happened was a little bit of grace and charity was lost.  

All this leaves me wondering if there's value in the dialogues between blue and red Christians.  I think there can be, but only to the extent we hold these truths to be self-evident:

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There are many followers of Christ in this world who don't think much, if at all, about the connection between their food choices and their theology.  For many of these, there's a good chance they'll be eating a big slab of meat tonight, cooked over a fire, complemented by a pesticide laced salad, enhanced by an Italian Red, and washed down with coffee that was utterly affordable thanks to the rainforest that was cleared to increase the crop size.  None of these foods are seen as making a statement about their faith, but I'd argue that they do.  If I thought it was all going to burn up, especially in the near term (as I've been told it will, any day now, for the past 35 years), I'd join them in buying the most food for the least money.

Instead, I'll be having a slab of meat, a salad, red wine, and coffee, just like them, except utterly different. My meat will be grass fed, my salad organic and local, my wine from a local winery, and my coffee shade grown.  That is, at least, what I'll be eating when my food choices match my theology.  Believing that God's people are called to make God's good reign visible here and now in some small measure means that I need to make choices that exalt health, justice, and ecology (among other things) in all areas of my life, including "what's for dinner?"

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