Yesterday at church the guest speaker made a statement that made me go, “HUH?” During his sermon he listed several iconic brainiac types and then made an observation that Jesus was not on this list of intelligent people. He went on to say that he’d never seen a list of the world’s most intelligent people that DID include Jesus and He couldn’t figure that out, because he believes Jesus is the most intelligent man that ever lived. I mean no disrespect (to either this speaker or Jesus) but I’d have to disagree.

It’s not that I think Jesus lacks intelligence, but more that Jesus is divine and not limited by any human measurement of brain power. Intelligence is far too finite to impose on the Son of God. I’m all for seeing Jesus as approachable and real, but intelligent? That’s not even a word on my radar when it comes to describing Jesus.

Most loving? Yes! Most gracious? Without a doubt! Most forgiving? Absolutely! Most caring? Definitely! I could go on but you get what I’m saying. The IQ of Jesus is of no concern to me. I wonder if this same speaker has another sermon that reveals Jesus’ Myers-Briggs profile? OK, I crossed the line there.

Here’s my point: When we talk about Jesus let’s talk about Him in terms that matter. 

I guess there are people who think Jesus is really like this:

Finally they came to Kansas City and I got to experience what I thought might never happen. When The Police first announced their tour more than a year ago Kansas City wasn’t on the list. We explored the idea of going to another city to hear them but it was going to be cost prohibitive. When they extended their tour Kansas City was on the list and the date went on the calendar.

The concert was really amazing. How three guys can make so much music is pretty unbelievable. During their final song (pre-encore) I was caught off guard, not with anything they did but by my own reaction. Recently I’ve been reading a lot about God’s love and grace and have sort of been living in a continual state of awe. Although I still don’t fully understand the richness and depth of God’s love for me, I have a much stronger grasp of it now than I did when I was younger. There really are some things good about getting older.

For some this may sound odd and for others it might border on sacrilegious, but as I stood in that arena with around 12,000 other people I quit hearing the voice of Sting and began hearing select lyrics as if they were coming from God. It was a unique worship experience.

Every breath you take
Every move you make
Every bond you break
Every step you take
Ill be watching you

To hear those words coming from God’s heart to my ears was powerful and humbling. There would have been a time in my life that putting those words in a God context would have meant He was maybe watching me to catch me doing something wrong. However, I’ve come to realize that’s not God and doesn’t accurately represent His character. He’s watching me through eyes of love. When I DO stumble along the way He changes His tune, but only slightly.

Oh, can’t you see
You belong to me
How my poor heart aches
With every breath you take

For me, life doesn’t get better than knowing I belong to Him and He loves me unconditionally. My devotion and love for God has moved beyond obligation and has become a response to His devotion and love for me. I wonder if anyone else in that arena had a similar experience?

This morning I was reading N. T. Wright’s Simply Christian and came across a great quote. I was actually sitting in the warm Arizona sunshine enjoying a few days of relaxation while I’m sure many folks were in church. I was, in essence having a time of communion with God as I read and enjoyed the sounds of nature that were so alive on this mild, desert morning. The words that especially caught my eye, and were so refreshing to me were describing the church,

It’s where you’ll find people learning to pray, coming to faith, struggling with temptation, finding new purpose, and getting in touch with a new power to carry that purpose out. It’s where people bring their own small faith and discover, in getting together with others to worship the one true God, that the whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts.

I find this so refreshing because it has nothing to do with the externals we tend to associate with “worship” today. Those externals of music, sound, style, programs, design and many other so called features churches talk about to market themselves to an uninterested, disengaged public. I find myself longing for authenticity, relationship, transparency, shared struggles, and in general being loved and accepted rather than judged. Why, in so many instances has church become a place for performance rather than community? 

I love getting together with a group of people and just being me; being accepted like I am and being appreciated in spite of how different I may or may not be from the others in the group. That seems to happen more outside the church than within. More with the so-called non-Christians than with those who call themselves believers. I wonder what that means! 

I used to love hearing people say, “Great worship today.” Not so much anymore. Although I understand their intent and they believe God was present among us, I also know what they’re really talking about is the music. Somehow it’s become less acceptable to “compliment” musicianship, and more acceptable to only categorize it as being worship. It’s as if we’ve somehow decided music is now the only acceptable form of worship, and in many churches I’ve attended that’s reflected in the attitudes of the worshippers.

Don’t get me wrong, I believe music is an incredible form of expressing our emotion and thought and as such should be a powerful part of our corporate experience. But if music is the only form our expression takes then our worship is lopsided and incomplete. Be assured, God will always accept our offering of love when we come to Him with clean hands and a pure heart, but there are so many more ways of expression than music.

I love my wife Jacque more today than I ever dreamed possible back in 1977 when I first said, “I love you.” That being true, I try to find new ways of expressing my love so it’s an accurate reflection of the depth and richness of my emotion. If I only said those three words over and over again, at some point they’d become commonplace and lose their appeal and impact. Out of love it’s up to me to keep my expression fresh and appealing.

In recent years I’ve learned to express my love for Jacque in ways that are meaningful to her. Before then I guess my expressions of love were based more on my preferences than hers. I don’t think this was a conscious thing on my part but more an indication of the maturity level of my love. As my love for her has grown and matured so has the variety and depth of my expression. In that process I’ve grown to understand that if my love is pure then my expression needs to be focused on her preferences more than my own, otherwise it’s about me. While she never tires of hearing the three words I would daresay they’ve become far more meaningful as I’ve expressed them more on “her terms” than mine.

So, how does God want us to express our love to Him? In as many ways as our God-given creativity will allow. It’s for sure we’re not limited to music, and definitely not one style or sound of music. The options are myriad and God stands ready to receive whatever we offer Him. So when you say, “Great worship today,” what do you mean?

A community is a group of people who care about each other more than they should.

This quote is from a significant business book of 2000, The Cluetrain Manifesto: The End of Business as Usual. I’ve been reflecting on that quote and have come to like it on multiple levels. When you place it within the context of Christian community it becomes especially interesting.

Have you ever been part of a group of people where things have just clicked? You loved being together. You’d do anything for each other. You looked for excuses to spend time with each other, and when you were together the conversation flowed effortlessly. By all outward appearances you cared about each other more than you should – at least that’s what some were maybe thinking.

I believe this is the kind of community Jesus speaks of, and longs for us to experience. The Acts 2 kind of daily gatherings where people just did life with each other. From the outside looking in I imagine there were many people who thought they cared about each other more than they should. But that’s part of what happens when there’s a supernatural kind of connection between people. You can’t explain all of the reasons why you just love being together.

I’m not talking about some kind of exclusive group that keeps others out; that’s not Acts 2 (the Lord added to their number daily). I’m speaking of true community where people join together largely because of shared experience, shared purpose and goals. A community where God is really at the center and life is truly a shared experience. You can call it whatever you like: Small Group, Sunday School, Church, Affinity Group, Organic Church, Body of Christ, Community.

No huge point here, just a reminder that God flows through community; the body of Christ.

Yesterday at work one of my employees casually commented about God not liking her very much right then, and that He was punishing her. She laughed a little after she said it and during her laughter I commented that I was quite certain that God liked her, and the current issues with her son and the other difficulties she’s dealing have nothing to do with God punishing her. “That’s not who God is,” I told her. To which she quickly said, “Oh He’s punishing me alright.”

I left the room wondering why she has such a distorted view of such a loving God. My understanding of God is so different from hers, and it’s a shame, no it’s more of a tragedy for anyone to see God through such a distorted lens. Viewing God in such a skewed fashion is like seeing Him upside down.

God is God. God is love. God is merciful and kind. God is truth. Life happens. Good stuff, bad stuff. In between stuff. God is neither a cosmic killjoy or a genie in a bottle. God is God!

Being a dad can be the most rewarding thing in the world. There are those times when your heart is so full you don’t think it will hold anymore. This past weekend I had such a time. Although my fiftieth birthday is still a few days away we celebrated over the weekend because our three out-of-town kids were here over their Spring Break. We had a really wonderful dinner at home and retold some funny stories from the kids’ childhood. It was a lot of fun. After dinner our kids brought out some birthday gifts. Jacque (my wife) had told them to be creative, very personal and to not spend much money.

Jessica, our oldest gave me a beautiful scrap book that she had loaded up with stories from her life. On each page she captured a different phase of our life together. Some of the memories were fun and some even a little painful. Each of them express our lives together as father and daughter. Among many other things she said, “I would not be the person I am today without you.” In the back of the book she had written out the words to the song, I Love You, Lord. It’s a song I used to sing to her at bedtime when she was a little girl, and then when she got married I quoted it within the ceremony. It has always been a special song for the two of us. At the bottom of that back page was an envelope and inside was a CD. She and our son Ryan had recorded their own arrangement of the song the night before. Listening to it is just one of those moments for me. It will never get old — go ahead and listen.

Ryan, our fun loving, non-sentimental son (the one who engineered the recording of I Love You Lord, and played drums, keyboards and who knows what else) gave me a card and inside he had written words that I will cherish the rest of my life. While I’m unwilling to share all of them with the world I will proudly say that according to him, I am his hero and inspiration — it doesn’t get any better than that. Along with the card he gave me an N scale, toy train caboose to keep on my desk. He’s always loved trains, and he and I have had some great model train memories over the years. The caboose will remind me of him every time I see it.

My baby girl Aimee made me a beautiful card and mounted it in a floating frame. The card says,

Holds you when you cry, scolds you when you break the rules, shines with pride when you succeed, and has faith in you even when you fail. I love you. Happy 50th.

It summarizes what she knows about me. It will find a special place on my office wall.

Jacque and I are very blessed and proud parents. We’ve got three great kids of our own and two of them have married great kids. Throughout our adult lives people have asked us how we’ve raised such great kids, and while I think the reasons go far beyond this simplistic answer I usually say something like, we spent lots of time together. Much of it around the dinner table sharing the highlights (and sometimes lowlights) from our day, laughing and occasionally crying.

I could keep writing but there’s really no point. God has blessed us and I’m thankful. Turning fifty couldn’t be any better than this

I grew up in a very non-liturgical church. I hate to put this in writing but in our church most liturgy was more likely viewed as mindless repetition. Reflecting back I now understand it was a matter of ignorance more than preference. We had a Good Friday service a few of my growing up years but many times we went from Easter to Palm Sunday with no focus on the passion of Christ. I never heard the term Maundy Thursday until I was an adult.

In more recent history I have come to appreciate much of what I missed during my growing up years. One of those is Maundy Thursday and the focus it provides. In my reading this morning I ran across this short hymn sometimes sung on Maundy Thursday in Eastern Orthodox services. I offer it here for reflection.

Of Thy Mystical Supper, O Son of God, accept me today as a communicant; for I will not speak of Thy Mystery to Thine enemies, neither like Judas will I give Thee a kiss. But like the Thief will I confess Thee: Remember me, O Lord, in Thy Kingdom.