the church geek

“What is the chief end of man? The chief end of man is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.” As the Westminster Catechism suggests, glorifying God and enjoying Him forever ought to be the guiding principle that informs the whole of our life.

That is the concern of Psalm 145. Look for a moment at vs. 2. Almost word for word in concert with the Westminster Catechism it proclaims, “Every day I will bless you, and praise your name forever and ever.”

Psalm 145 is a Psalm of praise. This Psalm is all about glorifying God and enjoying Him forever. Its heart is worship and its soul is praise of God.

Frederick Beuchner, one of my favorite writers on faith, takes complex concepts and makes them simple. About worship, Beuchner says:

To worship God means to serve God. Basically there are two ways to do it. One way is to do things for God that God needs to have done – run errands for God, carry messages for God, fight on God’s side, feed God’s lambs, and so on.

The other way is to do things for God that you need to do – sing songs for God, create beautiful things for God, tell God what’s on your mind and in your heart, in general rejoice in God and make a fool of yourself for God the way lovers have always made fools of themselves for the one they love.

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We went to see Oliver Stone’s new movie “World Trade Center” last night which obviously is about the attacks of September 11th whose 5th Anniversary is coming up in little over a month.

There has been some question in the media as to whether the American public is ready for this movie. To be honest I was rather reluctant to see it; mostly for the same reason that I didn’t want to go see the Passion of the Christ - I just didn’t want to fork over $7.00 to have my emotions manipulated.

WTC follows the story of two Port Authority Police Officers who went inside the center to help with evacuations and were then trapped in the rubble as the towers collapsed. These two men were two of only twenty survivors pulled out of the wreckage. The movie details their heroism and the heroism of others involved in evacuation and rescue efforts.

As Lori said last night “There is absolutely nothing gratuitous about this movie.” As to be expected, I got wrapped up emotionally in the human drama of the two families as the events unfolded in the movie. But the sense of overwhelming grief, outrage, helplessness, compassion and various other emotions I felt on Sept 11th 2001 and in the days that followed were not exposed by Stone’s movie.

With realtively few exceptions we are not asked to question “Why?” nor to justify (or question) the wars that followed nor to focus outrage on the perpetrators. We are simply caught up in the drama of two families whose lives were forever changed on that fateful day.

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Regarding Spike Lees film “When the Levees Broke” a review in the Time’s Picayune says:

The tragic story of black New Orleans trapped in Katrina’s path has found a supreme chronicler, but the flooded-out residents of Lakeview or Old Metairie who attend tonight’s sold-out premiere at New Orleans Arena will spend all night sitting on a hard plastic chair and then wonder: Where am I in this?

I watched Spike’s film (which is well done and worthy of your time and attention) on Monday and Tuesday night but found myself struggling with exactly the same thing. In the last few years of living in New Orleans I rented a home in the Mid City area of N.O. that later found itself deluged by the flood waters of Katrina. A number of good friends with family homes in the LakeView area had their homes and everything they owned obliterated by the flood waters. Some have returned but others have chosen (or their work has chosen for them) to make new homes in places like Houston, Dallas, Atlanta, and Boston.

Where were their stories in Spike Lee’s film? Where was what could very well have been my own story in his film? To be sure they did not endure the failure of the government in the delay of rescue and evacuation efforts following the storm, because they had the resources along with the foresight to get out of harms way.

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I recently finished reading Douglas Brinkley’s book “The Great Deluge” and last night my wife and I watched the first two acts of Spike Lee’s “When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts” on HBO.

I simply cannot believe how irresponsible the Bush administration was in its delayed response, but what I find even more enraging is that the American public has not held this administration more accountable for its unconscionable efforts.

Sure Michael Brown lost his job, but he was just the fall guy. Let’s be honest, FEMA knew exactly what could happen to the city of New Orleans if those levee’s broke. (I worked for Tulane University in 2000-2001 doing Disaster Management and Hurricane Planning and worked directly with FEMA on an initiative called Disaster Resistant Universities…) so there was no excuse on the part of the Department of Homeland Security for not knowing what type of resources and how quickly they would be needed to get help to a city 80% submerged under water.

This was an act of pure negligence on the part of our government and quite frankly thousands of American citizens (both poor and middle class, black and white) were pawns trapped in a deadly and high-stakes political game.

And for that we ought to be mad.

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In the first chapter of his recent book “Free of Charge” Miroslav Volf tackles two common misconceptions held about God.

The first misconception sees God as a Negotiator. This view sees God as infinitely demanding while at the same time hoping that God might be willing to cut a deal. Those who see God as a negotiator, promise to do things for God if God will grant them what they wish for or what they need. Others who hold this view do things for God hoping to earn God’s favor and as a result to get something in return.

The second misconception sees God as Santa Claus. In this view, God is the great gift giver in the sky who gives gifts freely and demands nothing in return. God gives good gifts to us simply because as in the words of the famous Saturday Night Life character, Stuart Smalley, “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it, people like me.”

The problem with this view is that we forget that while God does indeed give us every good and perfect gift, there are certain demands and expectations that God has of us.

When Jesus was asked to summarize what it is that God asks of us, he started out with the first and greatest commandment “love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.” And finished with the second commandment which was like it, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

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I’m finally back from vacation; well actually I’ve been back for a couple of days already but this is the first time I’m getting to think about doing an actual blog entry. Maybe someday I’ll even get a chance to continue work on the re-design/re-development of the site.

Here’s a question that’s been bugging me for years, which has come to the forefront this week as I’m studying Psalm 32 for my next installment in my sermon series “Psalms Everyone Should Know and Why.”

The question is: If we say that forgiveness from God comes solely through the work of Christ on the cross, why then do we have Psalms like 32 and 51, which talk about confession and forgiveness on such a deep and personal level; seeking God for and rejoicing in the joy of forgiveness?

Psalm 51, attributed to David, is the request of a sinner to personally experience the joy of being forgiven by God. Exodus 34 and other texts echo the character of God towards forgiveness “The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.”

We tend to think of forgiveness as solely the business of the New Testament, so the answer one often hears is that these texts in the Old Testament anticipate the work of Jesus which will later come on the cross (in a way that can seem to communicate that Moses and David somehow knew that Jesus was coming some day….)

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