Life never leaves us alone, not for a minute. We think we have it all under control, we remember the lessons we learned in Classroom Management and Interventions for Severe Behavior Problems–a class in which we got an A–which was designed to teach us to never let a problem escalate, to always stay in control of the self. Yet still, despite how much we know and remember, we have a tendency to fail.

And after failure, we sit on a log on an ugly beach and start feeling like another piece of the garbage lying upon the beach–something the wind and waves haven’t carried off, something the cliff swallows nesting on hillside above will not be using for their nests. Yet, we hope. Annie Dillard wrote that we receive grace like a man trying to fill a cup in a waterfall.

Indeed.*

I’m like the beach upon

which I sit

Staring, aghast. Sand mottled with

Debris, detritus, and grit

Is unpleasant to behold, unsightly,

Dirty and cold.

My eyes–as anyone’s–are starved for

beauty here; grace.

For there is only ruin here

In this place.

I am an ugly, untended

Beach strewn

With sticks and rope and bottles;

Garbage left over from June.

I am littered with butts, straws,

Cans and mold.

My only hope is the waves small,

Beating a hasty retreat–

No more anxious to stay on the beach

Than tiny feet.

I am an ugly Lake Erie

Beach, not a white

Sand paradise whose water

Clear and bright

Lingers close to shore–or

So I’m told.

Dirty beach that I am I call out:

“Break, O Wave, upon this place.

“Break upon this beach, separate me

“From litter, dirty me with grace.”

*Sorry for the formatting. There are three stanzas. I hope you can figure out where they are, I couldn’t get the extra space to stay.

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I didn’t watch the Casey Anthony trial. I refuse to allow tragedy to be entertainment for me. Whenever I would tell that to people who were watching they would tell me it isn’t entertainment but they could never actually tell me what it was if it wasn’t entertainment.

Finally this past week, I figured it was going to end.  I was actually happy. I figured I’d be able to stop hearing about it.  Then came the acquittal.

Then came the facebook status updates blowing up…

Some languished at the lack of justice for the poor murdered little girl.

Some cried out about the injustice in the world.

Some wondered openly if there was such a thing as justice.

Some just went too far.

“Someday the jury will have to answer for what they did.”

“ I hope that God decides to take a loved one from the jury.”

“Someday that evil woman will get what she deserves. The coals of Hell will be heated for her forever!!!”

And they went on.  Many of my Christian friends were excitedly pointing to the day that this woman would end up in hell.

This post is not about her guilt or if there is a Hell.
This post is about Christians that miss the point of the gospel. This post is about God being in the redemption business.

Moses, David, Paul are all guilty of murder. They all killed people. It would be hard to argue that Paul didn’t  kill babies younger than this little girl in Florida.  They never got the justice “they had coming to them.”

God redeemed them. I have to say I didn’t see a lot of posts by Christians saying they hoped that would happen for this woman.

You see embedded in those posts was honest anger. I get that. But I also think there was a little bit of “I’m better than HER, because I would never do THAT!!!”

Yet, James says, if you break one part of the law you break it all.

So we’re all guilty and God is in the business of offering us all redemption, even child killers.  My desire for justice rails against that. My desire to love my own skin is thankful for it.

I don’t know if this woman is guilty or not. I imagine she probably is and yet the evidence wasn’t enough.

I know that wherever she is, and whatever she’s done Jesus died and rose again so she could have eternal life and be freed from the guilt of her actions. Jesus paid it all. All to him we all owe.

In the past day or so, I’ve had a friend who sent me a couple of links to articles on Cracked.com (Warning: NSFW language) with some interesting observations.  His first was this one, based on this Cracked article:

I was reading an article about how good news no one talks about is out there. One of those was about the gulf’s recovery from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. It made this point:

“What we will talk about is how no one expected fish, crab and shrimp catches to be average compared to past years or that oil chomping microbes would go to town feeding on our disaster. And more importantly, the Loop Current that was on track to carry the oil to the Florida Keys just broke. As in, it broke off into a big swirly hilariously named Franklin Eddy, which unexpectedly contained the oil in a tidy circle of cool. We’d like to think of Franklin as a bongo-playing beat poet who doesn’t have to play by your current rules, maaan.

Had it not been for Franklin, the oil would have hit the Keys and made its way up the East Coast, and there wouldn’t have been a whole lot we could have done to stop it. Thanks to Franklin, which no longer exists, much of the Florida coast was spared from the oil altogether.”

I don’t really have much of a point except to say maybe the hand of God is was in this. Its nice to remember this when life fights dirty.”

I found this profound for a couple of reasons: First off, it is a demonstration of how God is such an awesome engineer (says the professional engineer), who has contingency plans within contingency plans within contingency plans for when we make things go awry. Secondly, it just reminded me how negative I sometimes feel when I listen to too much news – because bad news sells, so we rarely hear good news (or Good News) from the news media.

The second article, 7 “Ancient” Forms of Mysticism That are Recent Inventions, made me laugh even more:

Yoga as we know it today — a set of postures (asanas) combined with breathing techniques — dates back to around the grand old year of 1960. In other words, yoga is as old as Bono.

So all of the Yoga wars that have been fought “for God” by Johnny Mac an others are all just pretty much (as previously noted) bunk.

So, maybe quoting Cracked.com from time to time is a little bit like quoting Cretin poets.

(OK, technically Saturday, but I was on the road all day and didn’t get a chance to post anything)

I marvel at how, too often, we define people by what they’ve done. We do it with others and with ourselves. And we sometimes do it with those whose lives are recorded in the Bible. I think the epitome of this error is when we talk about “The Woman Caught in Adultery.” Anyone with a basic knowledge of the gospels is probably familiar with her story. (If not, it’s recorded here in John 8.) And yet when we get to heaven, we will not see her bearing that scarlet letter. In the eyes of God, she is not “The Woman Caught in Adultery.” She had a name in life, and now she has a new name. This is how we will know her.

From this day forward, I’m going to call her “No Longer Condemned.”
This poem is written from her perspective.

Caught in the act,
Without defense,
Too late to retract,
This latest offense.

Pulled from the bed of my illicit lover,
Frantically grabbing a sheet to cover
My naked body from the leering eyes
Of lustful men in religious disguise.

They wrongly believe their self-righteous zeal
Will appease the lust and guilt that they feel.
So they lash out, condemning, accusing,
Oblivious to the grace they are abusing.

And yet I cannot deny
I’m guilty of this crime
I confess I did not try
To even resist this time

Self-loathing swarms,
And overtakes me.
Self-pity storms,
And nearly breaks me.

They drag me before a rabbi from Nazareth,
I feel like bait in a trap they have set,
Caught so they can try to catch him,
Accused so they accuse him of sin.

Confusion mixed with humiliation,
No way out of this shameful situation.
How did I ever come to this place
Of such dishonor and disgrace?

Just an adulteress without a name,
I feel the rising blush of shame,
My nakedness runs deeper than skin,
Dark passions lurking deep within.

Defenseless I weep,
As each accusation rips
And pierces deep
Like arrows with poisoned tips.

But in my disgrace,
Here in my fears
I find a safe place
From these verbal spears.

This man, this teacher
This prophet, this preacher
Looks upon me with love, not lust
With eyes that invoke hope and trust

And in the midst of this chaos and din
The noise and mayhem don’t seem to faze him.
He calmly traces his finger in the sand
Absorbing all their raging demands

When he looks up, his gaze pierces each heart
And his soft, yet firm, answer tears them apart,
“Let any one of you who is not a sinner
Be the first to throw a stone at her.”

As this truth takes hold,
The clamor dies down
Stones once held
Now fall to the ground.

And starting from the oldest man,
They quietly, slowly leave,
Convicted that their scheming plan
Revealed their own hypocrisy.

I find myself alone
With this new-found friend.
I find myself known
And no longer condemned.

His hand and his love raise me to my feet.
My shame is lifted and my fears retreat.
My accusers have dispersed like my guilt
And finally all my defenses wilt.
With love in his voice and in his eyes,
He peels away my thin disguise.

He asks, “Where are your accusers?
Does no one condemn you?”
Timidly, I reply, “No one, sir.”
Though I can hardly believe it’s true.

Then with a voice soft and sweet
That bids my fear and shame retreat,
I hear the words like refreshing water,
“Neither do I condemn you, my daughter.
You are redeemed and restored,
In my grace, go and sin no more.”

Love sweeps in and floods my soul,
For the first time ever, I feel whole.
Forgiveness and redemption are mine,
Mercy and grace, surreal and sublime.

No longer broken,
Or compelled to pretend,
Jesus has spoken,
I am no longer condemned.

I was writing this up as a post, and it just wasn’t coming together. So I tried a video instead.

Here’s the link that I reference (to the actual interview): John Piper interviews Rick Warren

I’ll note that if I hated Rick Warren with a passion, I’d still only have to change about 5% of this video. So a laundry list (given in the comment thread) of his errors will not be germane to the OP. Not that that’ll stop anyone. I’m pretty darn good at derailing myself. Just sayin’…

Why does everything seem to be about numbers and lists and steps?*

I was taking a minute this morning to peruse some of the headlining blog posts and the Twitter feed at Churchleaders.com and here’s a sampling of what I found:

Twelve Reasons Why Church Membership Matters

Ten Reasons Twitter is like a marathon

Ten Ministry Principles I Wish I Knew When I Started

Nine Reasons why you shouldn’t give up

Eight Leadership quotes and lessons from Super 8

Five Ways to Protect the Heart of a Leader

Five Distortions of the Gospel in our Day

Four Ways to Show Outsiders You Care

Three Stumbling Blocks to Forward Progress

Three Theological Foundations Shaping 21st Century Youth Ministry Strategy

Two Rules for Transparency in the Pulpit**

There was also an advertisement: 25 Proven Outreach ideas for your church.

Really?

And if I had looked harder, I’m sure I would have found 6 & 7, and maybe 11. (And believe me when I say there were other 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, 10, and 12’s scrolling on the Twitter feed and on the news page.

I have to be honest with you: this bores me to tears. Does anyone really expect anyone to keep all those numbers or lists in their head? This is one thing I dislike about the generation of humanity now living: everything can be summed up in a bulleted list. Sometimes I think preachers or writers do these list things because Jesus isn’t interesting enough. That’s just my opinion.

I’d like to see someone write an article at Churchleaders.com titled: One Reason Jesus is Enough.

I just want to take a moment to express my angst. I hate PowerPoint. And I hate lists. And I hate 3, 4, 5, or any ‘point’ sermons. I’m sure they are helpful for someone, but I’m not interested. I have also decided that if I ever have the privilege of preaching weekly in a local church again, I will not ever use PowerPoint. This is only tangentially related to my point.

OK. That’s my technology rant. Here’s my real point: Do we really need 2 of this or 3 of that or 9 of these and 10 of those? Do we? Is this the point of how to be a ‘good leader’ or how to ‘do the job well’? Isn’t One thing enough? Or is that too simple for the church to comprehend? Or are leaders simply incapable to understanding anything apart from a bullet point, numbered list?

I’m reminded of a song by Rich Mullins: My One Thing.

Everybody I know says they need just one thing
And what they really mean is that they
need just one thing more
And everybody seems to think
They’ve got it coming
Well I know that I don’t deserve You
Still I want to love and serve You
More and more
You’re my one thing

Save me from those things
That might distract me
Please take them away and purify my heart
I don’t want to lose the eternal for
The things that are passing
‘Cause what will I have when the world is gone
If it isn’t for the love that goes on and on with

‘Cause who have I in Heaven but You Jesus?
And what better could I hope
To find down here on earth?
Well I could cross the most distant reaches
Of this world, but I’d just be wasting my time
‘Cause I’m certain already I’m sure I’d find

You’re my one thing (one thing)
You’re my one thing (one thing)
And the pure in heart shall see God***

I’m not putting down Churchleaders.com or the people who write there. I’m just asking a question: Is it too simple to say to the leader: Jesus is enough? Is it naïve to say only One Thing matters?

Frankly, I think too many people make it way too difficult to be a Jesus follower let alone a preacher in the church.

“Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:13-14).

*Don’t read too much into this article. Mostly I found it amusing that so many articles began with the idea that “Here is a Definitive List of [some important topic]“. It seems about as creative as stacking rocks.

**I have written out the word for the numbers due to a formatting glitch. The articles themselves use the representative symbols (i.e., 12 or 2 or 3, etc.)

***That’s only a portion of the lyrics. There’s more. Mullins may not have been making my point, but I like the song and wanted to include it.