Apple states on their iPhone web page that they have over 500,00 apps for "work, play, and everything in between." Need to learn Cantonese - there's an app for that. Need to monitor your investment portfolio - there's an app for that. Need to find a friend from college, post a video of your 80 year old granny doing the "forbidden dance," or save the human race from a zombie Apocalypse - there's an app for that.
There seems to be an app for just about everything...everything except for despair, hopelessness, and emptiness. The app industry that drives and defines our over-connected existence is merely a well-developed, adroitly marketed symptom of an insatiable craving deep with in each of us. There is a craving within each of us that is beyond reason or rationality. It is a visceral craving that we attempt to satisfy through sex, alcohol, drugs, relationships, entertainment, success, wealth, possessions, and religion.
We are convinced that our craving's satisfaction is somehow tied to our own. If only we meet our every need, want, or desire then surely the craving will vanish. If I do whatever I want, whenever I want, with whomever I want surely the craving will subside? But here our intuition fails us. The more we cave into our every need, want, and desire the more insatiable our cravings become.
The cliched truth is that God is the only "app" than can satisfy our craving. But this ain't no genie in a bottle, hocus pocus, god of my understanding app. This is a God become flesh, take on all my s#!t, nailed to a cross, victory over death and darkness application.
Is there an app for despair, hopelessness, emptiness, and insatiable craving? There is. His name is Jesus.
Monday, May 7, 2012
Saturday, April 14, 2012
Camels and Cashmere Underwear
Luxury items fascinate me. My uber practical, paycheck to paycheck, associate pastor lifestyle can't quite comprehend the gold plated toilet seat, diamond studded watch, cashmere underwear, or $75,000 SUV with the home entertainment system. As much as I hate to admit it, those who own luxury items produce in me a constellation of emotions from envy to resentment. In my self-righteous moments, my criticism and judgment take on the words of Jesus, "It's easier for a camel to walk through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven." In those moments I hear myself cheering on Jesus and jeering at the wealthy, "That's what I'm talking about Jesus...Y'all better watch out Jesus (Spanish pronunciation) is about to get Old Testament on your punk @$#."
My trip down Condemnation Lane doesn't last more than a few blocks before Reverend Hammond's words echo in my ears, "Most pastors in Liberia make less than $100 a month. Many barely make $60." My peers in West Africa live in abject poverty as they serve a people and a nation ruined by years of civil war. My life is luxury stacked upon luxury compared to theirs - indoor plumbing, electricity, a living wage, health care, access to technology, educational opportunities, home ownership, automobiles, and food security. From their perspective, my 2002 Pathfinder is a Hummer, my 1,800 square foot home a mansion, and my monthly salary a king's ransom.
The hard truth is that the majority of the world looks more like West Africa than North America, and the greatest luxury in America does not involve wealth or material possession but God. In a nation that defines needs as smartphones, flat screens, and entertainment God is the ultimate luxury item. Who needs God when you live in a nation obssessed with and defined by self-interest, comfort, safety, and security.
God is a luxury who sometimes receives a passing nod when all is well, a heartfelt cry in despair, or an unbriddled curse in tragedy. But make no mistake, in a nation of untold luxury where the mainline church is dying like a third world epidemic, God is a luxury. Where are those damn microscopic camels when you need one?
My trip down Condemnation Lane doesn't last more than a few blocks before Reverend Hammond's words echo in my ears, "Most pastors in Liberia make less than $100 a month. Many barely make $60." My peers in West Africa live in abject poverty as they serve a people and a nation ruined by years of civil war. My life is luxury stacked upon luxury compared to theirs - indoor plumbing, electricity, a living wage, health care, access to technology, educational opportunities, home ownership, automobiles, and food security. From their perspective, my 2002 Pathfinder is a Hummer, my 1,800 square foot home a mansion, and my monthly salary a king's ransom.
The hard truth is that the majority of the world looks more like West Africa than North America, and the greatest luxury in America does not involve wealth or material possession but God. In a nation that defines needs as smartphones, flat screens, and entertainment God is the ultimate luxury item. Who needs God when you live in a nation obssessed with and defined by self-interest, comfort, safety, and security.
God is a luxury who sometimes receives a passing nod when all is well, a heartfelt cry in despair, or an unbriddled curse in tragedy. But make no mistake, in a nation of untold luxury where the mainline church is dying like a third world epidemic, God is a luxury. Where are those damn microscopic camels when you need one?
Friday, March 9, 2012
Out-patient Surgery
Yesterday I had my knee scoped at an outpatient surgery center. This morning as I lay in bed leg elevated, knee throbbing the thought hit me - the church isn't a hospital but an outpatient surgery center. I've heard many say that the church isn't a "museum for saints but a hospital for sinners." But the more I reflect on the story of God and the response that story necessitates the more I see the church as an outpatient surgery center. A hospital can be a place of healing, but more often it is a place of overwhelming pathology where sickness, infection, and, despair hover like a dense fog. Such potential toxicity fosters a sedate, sedentary environment where patients are discharged on the basis of insurance coverage rather than health.
An outpatient surgery center is by its nature a place of movement and targeted healing. Patients come to have conditions repaired, relieved, or removed. Though sore, in pain, and scarred patients are sent back into their lives, into their worlds to complete their rehab and recuperation. Their health is fully restored in and through the circumstances of life.
The gospel isn't an Amish Manifesto or a hospital name "Isolation General." The gospel is the story of engagement where the sick are brought to the physician to be treated and sent to gather the sick. To follow Jesus is to be an "out"-patient who discovers healing and is dis-"charged" to help others do the same. We aren't called to the infirmary but to the community. We are the sent out not the brought in. We are the way and not the destination. We are an "out"-patient surgery center and not a hospital.
An outpatient surgery center is by its nature a place of movement and targeted healing. Patients come to have conditions repaired, relieved, or removed. Though sore, in pain, and scarred patients are sent back into their lives, into their worlds to complete their rehab and recuperation. Their health is fully restored in and through the circumstances of life.
The gospel isn't an Amish Manifesto or a hospital name "Isolation General." The gospel is the story of engagement where the sick are brought to the physician to be treated and sent to gather the sick. To follow Jesus is to be an "out"-patient who discovers healing and is dis-"charged" to help others do the same. We aren't called to the infirmary but to the community. We are the sent out not the brought in. We are the way and not the destination. We are an "out"-patient surgery center and not a hospital.
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