The first Chinese born Olympic champion

In a Bible study today on Philippians 1, we spoke about how in the Roman world, one would wish someone else "success and happiness". This is true today, as a Christmas card wished my family "a successful and happy 2009".

The Christian hope for life is different. Paul the Apostle wrote to the Christians in Philippi that he laboured for them, and prayed for them. He was the one who first preached the Gospel to them, and he continued to act for their benefit from afar. He says that it was for their "progress and joy in the faith" that he worked.

Progress instead of Success because you never "arrive" as a Christian. Our final chapter is not written in this life, but in the next.

Joy instead of Happiness because the latter is based on circumstances while the former is not, but on an abiding peace and hope.

In the course of our discussion, I made reference to an article on Eric Liddell who was made famous in the American consciousness with the film "Chariots of Fire". Liddell went on to serve as a missionary in China, and died at the end of WW2 in an internment camp. The article describes a fellow Scotsman who locates and marks Liddell's grave, and the impact this has on Liddell's surviving daughter. Here was a man who ran the race!

Photo: Liddell at the 1924 Paris Olympic Games

Below the Surface

I'm pretty excited about this series in Philippians.

When I thought I was going to do further research in New Testament studies, it was Philippians that drew my attention. In four short chapters, it bubbles with joy in the midst of sorrow, purpose and meaning in the midst of confusion and conflict, and the liberating truth that knowing Jesus is of surpassing worth compared to even the best things we have otherwise in life.

And as a precursor, Acts 16, the account of the founding of the Church at Philippi, has gripping stuff.

You can also see here the publicity that our esteemed Princeton seminary intern Marc Choi put together for the men's sessions in midtown, and we'll also have coed studies downtown. Looking forward to it.

What's your favourite bit of Philippians, if you have one, gentle reader?

These are a few of my favorite things

I was speaking, or rather, leading a conversation on Psalm 34 this evening at a FOCUS meeting here in NYC. How wonderful that these students and their leaders get together for fun, food (always including Orangina, showing that anything can become a tradition), and a discussion on a passage in the Bible. Those are some of my favourite things: people getting together for the sake of it, digging into the Bible together, and Orangina. Though the latter was exhausted before I arrived...

In any case, in my bit, I mentioned visiting my wife's family home in rural Ontario, Canada. The land and lake there yield many delights: maple syrup in the past couple of months, wild raspberries in the summer, lovely firewood in super-abundance, fish that enjoy taking hold of the lines of delighted seven year olds, hours of card games and homemade pies. What joy it all is, and how extraordinary to think that given the best things we enjoy today will pale, inexpressibly so, compared to what is ahead for those who love God. I love old things, but the new things will be better. Here is Revelation 21:

¹Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. ²I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. ³And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ⁴He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away." ⁵He who was seated on the throne said, "I am making everything new!"

What an interesting thing to consider -- what gives us joy will in some way be renewed and recreated; and I guess, be fulfilled in some way.

Now back to 1 Peter, my text for Sunday at Christ Church...

Abide

For the Bible study some guys come along to at Rockefeller Center, we're having a mini-series on the Psalms.

The Psalms are deep, and yield treasure each time I come back to one that I think I know well enough.

Today we considered Psalm 65, and how the Lord meets us in our sin, in the spectacular and in the everyday rhythms of life (about a third each of the psalm). Anyway, there is abiding joy that the psalmists convey, of the security and protection in knowing God.

I love this photo as a visual image of that notion. The lighthouse keeper has his hands in his pockets, not holding on for dear life as I would have guessed with that storm surge on!

Walking from my son's school down to midtown this morning, I was thinking about our plastic society, in which presentation trumps substance; and this clip (1 minute, 16 seconds long) came to mind, in which a PR firm invents a disease to rescue the career of a politician who has fallen out of favor in the public eye. It's crass, but humorous, and reminds me that we need truth, not spin, to sustain us.

Lighthouse photo, Jean Guichard

More than a Feeling

Getting ready to speak on 1 Peter 1:13 - 2:3, I've been amazed at a little tidbit that I won't have time to explore much in the sermon. It's that love is "more than a feeling" as the song title of the 80's megagroup Boston describes.

Love and indeed desires grow, organically and inevitably, from a changed heart. That much I'm used to reading in the New Testament. It can't be forced by me.

Yet alongside these very clear images are commands to love, and even a command to desire something appears in 1 Peter! That is very counter our cultural view of love in America in the early 21st century. It's even counter some (according to the New Testament, apparently counterfeit) versions of Christianity out there.

The same passage gives the sense that there is unselfconscious activity, growing naturally from a relationship with God (a loving Father we seek to please and emulate, a loving Saviour whose kindness fires our hearts to serve Him, etc.); and alongside this, also the clear command to love, and to have new desires.

Gosh, love is commanded. More than a feeling. And feelings (or at least desires) are commanded, too! Certainly something outside of a person must be at work to make this true -- it cannot possibly be self-generated.

The only similar thing that comes to mind is teaching novice crews how to row. I had to command from the outside something that would become second nature to them. They lacked a vision for what was possible, because in their pre-rowing state, they did not consider certain movements to be normal. A fresh word consistently applied from outside was required to make the new thing endure. And more often than not, it was necessarily to physically move the rowers shoulders, hands, back, etc.

What do you think? Or am I in the clouds here?

My favourite version of Boston's "More than a Feeling" is the Scrubs lip-sync band, check it out here.

photo: Reuters, of Chris Nilsson, coach of the Cambridge University Boat Club.

42 disgusting grams

Having last worked from a study in the rear of my house, the lunch run consisted of about twenty paces to the kitchen, where more often than not I joined the Authoress and our brood for soup and a sandwich, or cheese, fruit and bread, or whatever.

Nowadays, I work out of church office in midtown Manhattan. This helps with meetings immensely, as we are twenty paces or so from thousands of people working nearby, some dozens of whom come along to our Bible studies during the week.

However, it's been years since the high-rise office building has been my experience, with the attendant time and economic pressures on lunch. Do I buy a sandwich for eight bucks, or bring one from home that is mushy by midday? A friend here recommended a protein shake as a way to get the stuff the body needs while having a cost of only a couple bucks per shake.

I was game because it was chocolate flavored. But it turns out having as many grams of protein as a steak in a milkshake is about as pleasant as, well, drinking a steak milkshake. So I'm glad some people like these things, but I'll try some other way.

So I feel a bit French today as I disdain the notion of a quick meal in favor of sitting down to enjoy the goodness of creation in culinary form.

There is every indication in the New Testament that such things will be banished from the heavenly banquet...

Nobbled

I wonder if this resonates with you:

I showed up last week at my daughter's basketball league, where I expected to sit quietly on the sidelines watching her try out for the team in the youth league, and when she wasn't playing, trim a minute or two out of my sermon for the next day.

However, on arrival, I was given a clipboard and told that I was a coach of one of the teams! I recall answering an email from The Authoress who asked if I was interested in coaching, but replying by saying no, I didn't think I could this year with all the transitions but would try to help out next year. The matron of the league, a friendly and quite bold ruler of the fiefdom that is Yorkville Basketball, took the mere expression of possible interest as a definite commitment.

In the UK, this is called being nobbled. It has the sense of being won over to another side, or of being kidnapped, but usually both senses of the word are in play simultaneously. The American equivalent is to be "roped in".

So, having coached girls crew in the past, I now found myself scouting players with the assessing eyes of parents upon me, who wondered if they would be happy to have their daughters on my team. Fortunately, the mercy of the other coaches landed me with the equivalent of the first draft pick, a girl who scored half of our points in the first game (a victory). I initially resented being nobbled, and part of me still feels that resentment. But I also am coaching, something that another part of me looks forward to doing.

On balance, do you like being nobbled, or does the resentment overwhelm the good thing you've been called upon to do. This is something I am very careful of as a clergyman, trying to give people the opportunity to say "no" but still needing to put requests out there.

If you are a praying person, please do keep my two older daughters on your rota as the level of competition is pretty intense, and they are just learning the rules of the game. Being tall only goes so far, and we'll need some grace all around!

Nobbled.

Bono, Progress & Joy

Yesterday I happened to be in Philippians, where I was struck afresh by a statement Paul made from prison to these people he loved and to whom he longed to return. People imprisoned are ultimately broken down by being cut off from love and fellowship with others. Paul wrote that he was confident he would be released and be restored to the Philippians so that he could continue to aid their "progress and joy in the faith" (Phil 1.20).

Paul addresses their common life together, including quarrels and disputes they had, and encourages them from his suffering that what they experience in this life has eternal value. But what stood out to me yesterday is from (a rather famous) passage at the end:


Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.


What was striking to me was that Paul (at least in part) commands joy. And Paul himself didn't know the surprising ways that God would give the Philippians progress -- it didn't turn out to be through a return visit he made (he was executed eventually, and we have no record of his going back to Philippi). It would be others who would help these people accomplish what he longed for them to experience, even as his teaching them was the foundation.

When I went to see U2 in concert for the Zoo TV tour, I wouldn't have guessed that when Bono sang with a belly dancer in front of him that he meant the song "She moves in mysterious ways" had allusions to the Holy Spirit. But that's what he meant, along with describing a man's experience of a woman, physically and emotionally. Except for calling the Holy Spirit 'she', Paul was pretty much on board with some of this. He knew that the love of God and the goal of life was predictable but not necessarily all the things God leads his people through to get there.

Maybe that accords with your reading of the Bible maybe not, and maybe it accords with your experience --- that life is directed to an end and purpose, but the route is not what we'd expect.

Click here to see a wonderful Comic Relief spot showing the tension in Bono's charitable/political bent versus the band wanting to be a big rock band. Larry Mullen's line when he flips out learning an upcoming tour's proceeds will go to charity was classic: "I was saving up to buy Andorra!"

Kudos to anyone who can get the Easter-themed reference to the flower photo...

Tartan Sheep

As mentioned in a previous post (the Silent Monks "singing" the Messiah), I really love a silly idea/slightly humorous joke that is spun out to the extreme.

The BBC have a wonderful April Fools Day story of a farmer breeding sheep with tartan wool to assist in making patterned clothing.  This was accompanied by the enclosed photo.  The famous recent video was of a naturalist discovering some penguins who could fly.

The British are especially good at this, but we Americans can get in on the fun, too:  In 1996, Taco Bell announced that it had purchased the Liberty Bell, and that henceforth this national treasure would be known as the "Taco Liberty Bell".  White House spokesman Mike McCurry quipped that the Ford Motor Company had purchased the Lincoln Memorial, which was now called the "Ford Lincoln Mercury Memorial".

Any good April Fools stuff out there?

There was a funny story on LarkNews (which pokes fun of American evangelical culture without being disrespectful to God) had a funny account:  "Rapture Joke Provokes Heart Attack".  That story is as amusing as this send up of postmodern cool Christian lingo.

Amazing Dog Recovery

I love British comedy, from the Two Ronnies to Monty Python, to Fry & Laurie and many others.

When we're ready to get a dog, I'm definitely doing this as the children and I are on the way to get the dog.

I need a good backstory, though -- any creative ideas out there?

On another note, it can be crushing for folks when their pets die. In the midst of someone sort of musing on the idea in a theology class, "are there dogs/cats/parakeets" in heaven, a friend helpfully mentioned that actually for many people the loss of a pet is a source of great sorrow. He said that while he never speculated as to whether Fido or Fluffy was in heaven, he could say with confidence that all that God has created is in His hands. I'm more on the side of giving thanks for the creature whose companionship we enjoyed, but it was a helpful statement that sort of popped a hot air balloon of theological arrogance. Ah, seminary!

Boat Race Prediction

I'm going out on a limb here with my stance that underdog Cambridge will win this year's Boat Race.

The primary reason: Yes, it is generally an advantage to have a heavier crew and Oxford has the heaviest one in the history of the Boat Race. (The reason is that you race downstream on the Thames and there's a certain amount of oomph that weight provides.) Yet Oxford has a guy who weighs 16st 10, which is 234 lbs. But they also have a guy who weighs only 187 lbs. And they have a giant and a short guy (short in this context is 6'1"). I don't think that boat selection is going to work out for them.

So while the Dark Blues have more internationals with Olympic and World Championship experience under their belts, Boat Race stuff is weird, so cheer on the good guys in Light Blue to victory, I hope!

Now I have to figure out how quickly Sunday morning's service needs to be so that I can watch it...

Silent Monks

A friend sent me a rather amusing video of "Silent Monks" performing the Hallelujah chorus.

What I like about this is the level of complexity and preparation that followed on from a simple idea, drawing out a joke over a few minutes with laughter increasing along the way.

I happened to be talking with someone about ordination in the Church of England after the Christ Church evening service. And how bizarre the pre-ordination retreat was in the Diocese of York. The Anglo-Catholic guys had this sort of weird macho drinking thing going during the retreat, where they would gather at night with scotch and then get up early for morning prayer in the way that I think of college athletes having a game after a night out. The strange part was that they got together for drinking sessions during the two days of the retreat that were silent. Sort of "pass me a tumbler" with hand signals. The silent days were the best part of the retreat...

Any experience of silent monastic communities out there? --- I actually like these sorts of retreats sometimes if they are simple and not giving the impression that one is extra holy when not talking.

Elvis has left the building

...for six days.

Blog will resume next week, dear Reader.

Encouragement for a Clone Trooper

"There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death." Romans 8.1,2

Picking up the thread of an earlier set of postings on this blog, I do think that it is a turning away from the truth about ourselves to say "I have no regrets". A Christian will have regrets, but these cause him or her, once again, to marvel at the liberty from being in Christ Jesus. No guilt! No condemnation (from God, self or others)!

Does the Clone Trooper have a soul to be saved? Discuss.

Click the title of this post to see an example of freedom in the midst of suffering...

Encountering John the Baptist on a crosstown bus

I was taking the two older girls sledding in Central Park, each of them with a friend from school. For us, that means taking the crosstown bus (at least until we move closer to the Park, a hope for next autumn!).

Several weeks ago my friend and former colleague Justin spoke about John the Baptist and what it would be like to meet a prophet today. With these four little kids in my charge, we had that experience on the bus.

A man with ragged beard, impossibly strange hat covered with odd buttons, clothes and hair in disorder, wearing one child's Spiderman glove, and asking loudly of everyone as he came down the aisle of the bus: "WHERE'S THE MOON? WHERE'S THE MOON?".

He came and sat amongst us and our toboggans. My first instinct was to move the children away, particularly those that didn't belong to me. But I figured two things: one, this guy hadn't done anything other than ask a strange question; and two, we had five seats together, which wasn't going to happen further up the bus!

It transpired that his question "WHERE'S THE MOON?" was based on the sculpture of the Earth outside the Time Warner Center on Columbus Circle (at the southwest end of Central Park for the readers from Europe, the Middle East, or New Jersey).

He was asking a question to provoke a question (as prophets do) in the mind of his hearers: "What do you mean, 'Where's the moon?'" My second daughter asked this question of him, and the prophet began to speak in very lucid terms indeed.

The 79th Street Crosstown Bus prophet had measured the size of the globe outside the Time Warner Center and calculated that the moon would be on 63rd Street and Central Park West. He explained that he was seeking planning permission from the Central Parks Conservancy for the task of putting a moon up with a sign, as a way to teach children the scale of the solar system.

The prophet was most impressed that my daughters and their friends could name all of the planets in the solar system. Someone even asked what school they attended...

Everyone on the back of the bus started to chip in with the fact that Pluto lost its status as a planet, but no one knew the name of the two new ones added in its place. It became a very jolly conversation as the prophet explained that the size of the galaxy would take us up to far Upstate New York (an impossible distance from the view of Manhattanites).

The man even helped the children un-wedge their sleds from the seats.

Now, I don't think every encounter with an odd man is going to go this way, but this one did. Neat to see what a little bit of interest in what someone had to say did in terms of opening things up. That was a child's initiative, not mine.

Scrubs and Sesame Street

The television show Scrubs has much to recommend it.

If you click on the title of this post, you can see a video summary of the instances when Sesame Street characters come into the show! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dF06yXYNQPU&feature=related).

For a couple of seasons it became a bit sleazy, on the orders of the network who wanted to boost ratings. But it settled down again in the main, and while it's not a show for kids, it is very amusing indeed.

And poignant.

There are instances where it can move from the ridiculous to the sublime, often with the use of music. Here is the list of songs on the best of Scrubs album:

	1.	Superman - Lazlo Bane
	2.	All in My Head - Shawn Mullins
	3.	Fresh Feeling - Eels
	4.	Good Time - Leroy
	5.	Good Life - Francis Dunnery
	6.	New Slang - The Shins
	7.	Beautiful World - Colin Hay
	8.	Hold on Hope - Guided By Voices
	9.	Fighting For My Love - Nil Lara
	10.	Dracula From Houston - Butthole Surfers
	11.	Hooch - Everything
	12.	Hallelujah - John Cale
	13.	Have It All - Jeremy Kay
	14.	End Credit Score - Jan Stevens
	15.	Overkill - Colin Hay

It somehow works to blend the silliness of having the Muppet characters in the daydream sequences of the show, alongside instances of sadness and joy in suffering and struggle.

So the point of this post is....I really like this show. So does the Authoress for that matter. What about you -- favourite Scrubs moments?

In the words of the Todd, "Blogger Five!"