Here’s the text that’s generally attached to the forward-

This machine was built as a collaborative effort between the Robert M. Trammell Music Conservatory and the Sharon Wick School of
Engineering at the University of Iowa . Amazingly, 97% of the machines components came from John Deere Industries and Irrigation Equipment of Bancroft, Iowa, yes farm equipment!

It took the team a combined 13,029 hours of set-up, alignment, calibration, and tuning before filming this video. It is now on display in the Matthew Gerhard Alumni Hall at the University and is already slated to be donated to the Smithsonian..
At no time does a ball fall on the floor.

I really enjoyed watching this video and my mind was going in some interesting directions as I pondered spiritual thoughts that could be attached to this machine, the way it was transformed from machine equipment into something that plays beautiful music, etc.  But then I thought, “you know what, something seems a little odd about this video, I better do my due diligence and check to make sure it’s true.”

Of course, I was disappointed when I found out that this was another bogus forward.  The video is actually a computer animation entitled, “Pipe Dreams”.  Still interesting, but not nearly as cool.

So here’s the question that comes to my mind now- why do people do this?  Think of all those forwards out there that don’t just manipulate the truth but include compelte falsehoods.  Sometimes forwards work a little like the game telephone, but to get to this point, where a school of engineering, a school of music, and farm equipment, is invented, I’m guessing it takes someone just lying.  Why?  Why do you think people are inspired to create false forwards, to take stories and claim they’re true, to manipulate videos, etc?  What is it in the human psyce that makes people want to do this kind of thing?

Is it simply a desire to see if they can get others to believe the fiction they create?  A desire to be a little famous?  Every time I read a forward I like I’m hopeful, but always a little skeptical too.  It’s an interesting study of human nature, and the brokenness of sin, to see the manipulation that happens via forwards.

And at the same time, it’s interesting to see how often forwards are sent on with the desire to uplift or create joy. The other side of human nature also exhibited.  I guess in a forward like this, we recognize both natures present, just as they’re present in us.

We understand family as a place where we all come together, regardless of differences, because something deeper draws us together.  Blood is thicker than water. 

So what does that mean for church?  As thick as blood ties might be, the draw in church is even stronger.  In church we are united by the figure of Christ, the one who has died for our sins, and who says we need to place relationship with him in the center of all others, to place his goals in the center of all other facets of our lives.

This is a powerful draw, but also a powerful and challenging call. And the call is to gather with folks who will be quite different from us, people who we then say we’re going to voluntarily join.

So the challenge this week is to look out at your community of Christ this week.  Look to those who are different from you, and think about how you can love them in an even deeper way.  After all, if we can love family because of our ties through some common blood and genes, how much more can we love our brothers and sisters with whom we share the blood of Christ.

(1)  Tommie Harris – football player, millionaire – punching another player in full view of the head umpire, 27 TV cameras, and 80,000 fans?

Or

(2) holding up your iPhone to block your son’s efforts to spray orange paint all over your head…

Tough call…vote in the comments…

That’s where he brings up the metaphor of mirror or window.  So often the Church and the churches that are part of it, seem to be more reflection of society than they are windows into a different reality.  Now obviously we need to be able to communicate with society, but there has to be something different going on in our churches.  We have to operate with grace as that’s the one thing the world can’t offer, can’t find outside the Church.

He closes by talking about how we sometimes forget this call to be windows to something different.  He even pushes us with this thought and I like his words, so I’ll simply close with them and let you think and react.  Remember, when he’s talking to keep the focus on grace, not merely a reaction against some of the politics of the day.

“Jesus was not crucified for being a good citizen, for being just a little nicer than everyone else. The powers of his day correctly saw him and his followers as subversives because they took orders form a highter power than Rome or Jerusalem.  What would a subversive church look like in the modern United States?”

This may seem a bit off topic for a blog about faith & life, but Panera has been a staple for me in both these arenas for quite some time.  The seminary Dan and I attended was right across the street from the corporate headquarters of ‘Saint Louis Bread Company‘ – aka – ‘Panera’.  Their flagship store was within walking distance of campus and served as an awesome way to get quality nourishment to prepare for the deep dive into theological matters like the modalistic monarchians of the early 3rd century or the communion of attributes (Communicatio idiomatum) of Christ’s divine and human natures.   As you can imagine, working these matters out at Panera took a long time and allowed me to sample most of the menu!  (Not to mention that Panera donated all their day old bread and pastries to the sem – YUM!)

I’ve got an Asiago bagel in hand this morning along with a light roast coffee.  A great way to start the day!

For lunch, I’d recommend the Pick 2:  1/2 Frontega Chicken panini and 1/2 Fuji Apple Chicken Signature Salad.  Mmmmm…

What do you like at Panera?

Here’s another story

Well, first I’m going to break it to you.  The story isn’t true, at least not in the forms we commonly see. 

This is another one of those Christian forwards that I find challenging.  Do you take some truth from it, the basic message that we need to stand up for our faith?  The truth that God can do what he wants when he wants?  Certainly many of us have been challenged before and it’s nice to see the story of someone who felt some backup when they stood up for their faith.  Maybe you’ve gotten into debates with your friends or coworkers, or a high school teacher, or even a college professor as in this video.  It would be nice if God occasionally gave us some proof that could be seen by others (e.g. lighting some drenched wood on fire- 1 Kings 18).

I can’t say I’ve ever gotten this kind of a sign.  But I have felt God’s presence at times when I needed it most.  You know what I mean.  Opening up my devotions and getting just the right verse.  Having someone come up and tell me they were praying for me, even throwing out something like “I’m not sure why I was thinking about you yesterday, but I felt like I should pray for you”.  Those kinds of things.  God can work in whatever way he wants.  Sometimes he does give incredible signs. Sometimes he’s more subtle.  But while some may not find the whole “just the right Bible verse” discovery all that amazing, I find it perhaps the best.  After all, God promises he will always be there for us in the Scriptures.  God promises he will always give us the words we need, and in the Bible we have his Word to us.  So yes, these things are more than coincidences.

But back to the forward. The other angle that troubles me is how to deal with a forward like this that isn’t true.  I have a hard time referring to it or sending it on.  There may be a moral within that is true, but as Christians I think we need to show ourselves committed to truth as being grounded in fact.  We believe Jesus Christ really came to earth as a baby, grew up, died, and rose again.  These are more than stories with a spiritual, uplifting truth.  These things happened.  And we need to know these things really happened.  And as we move forward then I think we need to continue this pattern, in giving people truth.

Now that doesn’t mean we can’t use story.  I like fictional stories, as long as it’s clear that’s what they are.  Jesus used parables, so if you want to tell a story that’s true in the fashion of parables, that’s good.  Just make sure we all know that’s the case.  That’s where I have trouble with forwards like this.  They seem to claim fact while really being only parables.  In our world where truth is already seen as so mixed and gray, we need to be careful of that as ones who believe there is real truth, and the Truth, as found in Jesus Christ.

But then something surprising happened.  He actually prayed one night.  And what’s interesting is that his prayer wasn’t immediately one of repentance, but it was one of owning up to who he was, what he thought about God, and those other students that he was supposed to be witnessing to, and it wasn’t pretty.

But that wasn’t the end.  As he was praying he had a. . . well, almost a vision, but he describes it as more of a daydreamed parable.  Whatever it was, he saw the Good Samaritan appraoching the bloodied Jewish man on the side of the road. And as the Samaritan got closer, he saw that it was in fact Jesus. And as Jesus knelt to care for the man, he realized that the man was in fact him. And as Jesus got close, that’s when it happened.  He, the man in the vision at least, spit in Jesus’ face.

In that moment his cockiness and self-assurance were gone.  He was not the same man anymore.  I don’t imagine you could be after something like that.

I think this is an interesting story for a couple of reasons.  First it shatters some assumptions.  How often do we assume things about other people and their faith.  We don’t always know what we think we know.  Second, it speaks to the extents of how far God will go for his children.

So maybe take a moment and think about yourself, or those around you.  Pray that God would continue to reach inside you and bring renewal and strengthening to your faith.  Pray in thanks for all those times God has reached out to you, even when your actions amounted to those of this “daydreamed parable”, spitting in the face of the Lord.  How amazing is that grace. . .

Trudging through the spongy, rain soaked straw paths to discover that perfect pumpkin – the one with a solid base for standing on the front steps, a semi-flat front for easier carving, and no major punctures or insect infestations – was great fun for our family this week.  But the best part came when we flipped through the book of pumpkin carving designs with our 3.5 year old . He passed up all the designs we used as kids:  the triangle eyes, squiggly mouth, and vampire teeth.   How passe´ he thought as he snubbed his nose at them.  Instead he flipped to the back of the book and picked the most intricate design he could find:  a terrifying pumpkin headed man haunting a field, ready to come right out of his pumpkin prison to tear you to pieces!!

My wife’s response, “Boys are so wierd!”

It was the hardest design in the whole book, rated 4 out of 4 pumpkins in difficulty. But my wife was up to the task.  She used up all her creative energy for the day, but she did it!  I wonder what the kid’s going to pick next year!

What was your favorite halloween-pumpkin memory?

He talks about the time he’s spent with Christians in places where there’s intense persecution.  He’s spoken with house church leaders in China and pastors in Myanmar.  These are countries where leaders spend time in prison, and oftentimes those sentences are lengthy.  In anticipation of one visit, he was told, “expect that most of these men have been to prison for their faith”. So he asked if he should prepare a discussion on his book “Where is God When it Hurts” or something like that.  He was told no, that’s not a problem for these men, they expect persecution.  They’d rather have you speak about grace in a different way.

Wow, how big is that.  They expect persecution.  . . .

Can you imagine just expecting persecution to be part of your life. So much so, that you would rather a Christian author speak about God apart from simply how he helps us when we suffer.  Yancey contrasts that at the beginning of the devotion by calling to attention the fact that in our own world, where we rarely face real persecution, and where we have incredible amounts of posessions and human comforts, we are so often focused on why God allows us to suffer.

What does that say?

In some ways it’s an indictment.  We have become so comfortable that even small things can rock us.  At the same time, I know that oftentimes people are troubled when they do face real trials- sickness, death, someone losing the faith, etc.  What this tells me is that we can learn from our brothers and sisters across the world.  While we certainly don’t desire suffering, this is part of the Christian walk.  In fact, Jesus tells us to expect such things in our life.  It will come if we really want to walk with him.  And so we need to prepare ourselves for a sinful world that will include persecution and suffering.  These are not signs of God’s absence, but actually in some ways are places where we can find him that much closer.

It reaches into the hidden depths of my hope in Christ and reveals to me the wonder and beauty of His victory for us.  The lyrics of this song pass through my lips, but it is not I who is singing:  it is the Spirit who proclaims ” Jesus has overcome, and the grave is overwhelmed.  He is Risen! And I will rise!”

It’s more than an ‘instant classic’.  It’s more than a simple song that recaptures an often misconstrued teaching in Christianity (the resurrection).

It’s my hope.

Chris Tomlin’s   “I Will Rise”