Soaked in Blood

I remember reading of one denomination that undertook a major revision of its hymnal. Churches revising hymnals is certainly nothing unusual. In fact, if we tell people to take out a hymnal, we have to explain that we mean the old maroon book covered in dust underneath the chair in front of them (we usually just sing “off the wall.”)  But the reason for this particular revision of this particular denominational hymnal was to remove or revise all of those old hymns that seem so fixated on “blood.” You know the hymns—“Nothing But the Blood,” “Power in the Blood,” “Alas! And Did my Savior Bleed,” and “Have You Been to Jesus” (“Washed in the Blood of the Lamb.”). Their thinking was that modern sensitivities are too prim and proper to respond or relate to this obsession in these old hymns with blood. Most modern urban people can't relate to “Bringing in the Sheaves,” and neither can they relate to this emphasis on blood.  So we'll just avoid those songs altogether.

Frankly, there are some biblical allusions that I try to avoid. For example, I can’t remember ever preaching on the spiritual significance of the dowry Saul required of David for the hand of his daughter Michal (1 Sam 18:25). And then there’s the story of the Levite’s concubine in Judges 18 that is pretty gross as well. But as offensive as the topic of blood might be to modern sensitivities, there is simply no way to tell the gospel story without stressing the fact that the whole story is saturated in blood. Patty Kirk puts it this way in her spiritual memoir Amateur Believer--

The problem of Jesus' blood—what Catholics would appropriately call a mystery—is that it means everything. Not merely the blood covering Jesus when he suffered at our hands, but the gorier blood of our uncleanness—our urges and our hatreds, our humanness—that Jesus assumed when he died for us. It is the blood of our sin as well as the blood sprinkled to cleanse us of sin. The blood of the Israelites' sacrifices. The blood they smeared on their doorjambs to protect their firstborn children from death when the Lord passed over Egypt.

The blood we drink in celebrating communion represents the very essence of Jesus' dual identity as God and man. From his earthly beginning, even as a fetus deep in Mary's uterus, nurtured by the nutrients from her blood, Jesus drew life from his own unique blood, blood mysteriously human and divine simultaneously, special blood that made him the living Son of God and also, incomprehensibly, one of us, the Son of Man.

Communion evokes the bitter wine vinegar offered Jesus on the cross and also the wine we will drink with him in heaven. His death and his resurrection to eternal life. The spilled blood of our guilt and the pulsing blood of our hope. Sin. Sacrifice. Celebration. Blood is at the very core of our faith.

If people really are offended by the story of the blood of the cross, then you just might be telling the story correctly. Paul talks about “the offense of the cross” in Galatians 5:11. (That’s the verse before Paul wishes those who insisted that all be circumcised to follow Jewish tradition would just go ahead and castrate themselves; evidently Paul wasn't too concerned with our sensibilities, modern or otherwise).

The gospel is a story that is soaked in blood; you can't tell the gospel without it.  And you can't sing the gospel with the blood either.

A Truly Forgettable Sermon

Someone told me Sunday that while they thought that my sermon was particularly well done (thank you very much), they were pretty sure that no one would remember the sermon (so why should last Sunday be any different from usual?).  Nope, what people would remember was the YouTube Father's Day video "Dad Life" that I "borrowed" (ripped off) as a tribute to our fathers.  This was actually last year's video from Church on the Move in Tulsa, OK.  I'm sure their video this year was also well done and perhaps I'll "borrow" it next year.

Well the prophecy came true this morning when someone (no names, Michele) Face-booked me and asked for-- not my sermon notes or mp3 of my SERMON-- but the link for the video so their hubby could watch it.  So here it is.  Maybe if I made my own videos people would remember my sermons better!

Heart Improvement

You might recognize actor and comedian Jim Labriola from his recurring role on the hit TV show “Home Improvement.” These days Labriola makes his living as a Christian comedian, performing for people who specifically are looking for "clean entertainment." But in his bad old days, Labriola did stand up comedy the way it is expected from stand-up comedians— "injecting a few curse words here and there with a mixture of sexual innuendos added to the punch line."

And then he met Jesus. He was invited by his sister-in-law to a non-denominational church "where people raised their hands and were happy." He said of the preacher, "I never heard a guy talk so much about Jesus almost as if he knew him personally." He continued to go to the church, got to know some people and a few months later decided to give his life to Jesus. But when you give your life to Jesus, Jesus doesn't just leave you alone. Jesus takes us "Just As I Am," but He never leaves us this way. Labriola read from Ephesians 5:4, "Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving." He decided that this verse was speaking directly to him. "I can't just read the Bible and go up on stage and do the opposite." So he cleaned up his act… literally.

Today he performs for churches and Christian gatherings, but also in secular settings. He was surpsied how many people appreciated his “clean humor.” People come thank him for the option of taking their families to a comedy show “without the overlaying fear of listening to an uncomfortable joke while sitting next to your grandma.” His newest CD is entitled "Heart Improvement."

The problem with going to the doctor is that he doesn’t want to just fix whatever ache or pain we are complaining about that day. He also wants us to lose weight, get our blood pressure and cholesterol under control and a myriad of other things we just as soon he not mess with. And that is the way it is with the Great Physician. When we come to Him, he wants to change everything about us that is contrary to our spiritual health. We can’t compartmentalize our lives so that we have one set of values for work and career and entertainment and another one for church and family. Jesus wants us all, and that means that everything has to change. That’s not easy, but that is the deal.

Reasons for NOT Not Going to Church

We had a very blessed day at Denbigh yesterday.  We had a larger number of people present, which is good since we are getting into our summer-slump time.  We had former members and down-the-street-neighbors (the Birkenbuel's) back visiting with us, and that was good.  We honored a family that was leaving us (the Higgins); it's sad that they are leaving but good we got to thank them.  Mary Robinson made a presentation of an beautiful quilt to Janice Barker to let Ben and Janice know we are thinking of them.  And we prayed with Brenda and Sammy for them to get through their grand-baby's funeral today (and raised more than enough money to pay the cemetery). The worship was great (we sang all Fanny J. Crosby or Dennis Jernigan songs, an interesting combination that somehow seemed to work). My Bible class was on sex and I got to wear a funny hat in the middle of my sermon.  It really was a great day!

We began the service with this YouTube video entitled "Reasons (Why People Don't Come to Church)."  The video is produced by the Central Christian Church in Las Vegas (hey, if you don't want me borrowing your creativity, then don't post it on YouTube).  I thought it was a pretty good summary of what we are called to be as a church.



After yesterday, I felt very blessed that God has placed me in the church here at Denbigh.  We are far from perfect, but I think we do a pretty good job of meeting people where they are and letting them know that while socks are optional, grace isn't... and that it's OK not to be OK... really.

My How Time Flies

Lynn and I were blown away yesterday as our church honored us for our 31st anniversary at Denbigh with a dinner after church (including two HUGE cakes) and a painting-style picture of our Denbigh church family (now hanging in my office). Lynn and I came to Denbigh as the associate/youth minister in May of 1980 (this picture was taken a few months after our arrival).  Lloyd Unsell, the pulpit preacher, left about 2 months later to return to Oklahoma, and I received very quick and unwelcome promotion. (My Dad was one of the elders at the time, and some expressed concern that this was a conflict of interest; we decided that nepotism was OK… as long as you kept it in the family.) Technically, I served for several years as the "Interim Evangelist" while the elders looked for a new pulpit guy. But they hated going through a selection process and kept putting off actually looking for a new guy. After several years, they decided I was doing an OK job… and no one else was willing to work for $200 a week. After 31 years, Lynn and I are still here.

Denbigh is an area dominated by military and government service workers, so while we’ve been here 31 years, almost no one else at church has been. We did a survey several years ago and found that almost half of our people had been at Denbigh less than two years! That is one of the secrets of our longevity… the church keeps changing. Another secret may be wrapped up in an old “preacher story.”

There was once a church which had a reputation of firing their preacher every year. But then they hired a new guy and after his year was up, they extended his contract. They extended it again after his second year. And after the third year, they offered the guy a lifetime contract. Well, he was flattered and asked them why they once changed preachers every year and now had offered him a lifetime contract. One of the elders said, “Well, to tell you the truth, we don’t like preachers and we don’t really want a preacher; you are about as close to no preacher as we have been able to find!"  

So there may be several explanations for my ministerial longevity. Whatever the reasons, Lynn and I feel so blessed that we have been able to work with the Denbigh Church of Christ for all these years. From the very beginning, Denbigh has given me the greatest blessing a preacher can every hope to receive from a church—an openness to preach messages from scripture even when those messages don’t necessarily fit within our comfortable church tradition. The church has not always agreed with what I have preached, but they have always been willing to listen and to love me anyway. Sermons that at some places would have been “moving sermons” (sermons where the preacher has had to move afterwards) has been met at Denbigh with “you make me think today and I’ll have to do some more study on that.” There is no greater blessing a church can give a preacher than the willingness to listen and be driven back to the Book. Many preachers have to move all over the country in order to grow in their understandings and change their basic stances on basic issues; I have been blessed to stay at one place and grow and change and watch the church grow along with me.

Jesus said that “a prophet has no honor in his own country” (John 4:44). But then sometimes a preacher can be honored in his own country... much more than he deserves to be. “May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all” (2 Cor 13:14).

A Pinch and a Sip

OK, so maybe I’m not the brightest bulb in the chandelier. The clock ran out on my class Sunday before I got to this controversial point, so instead of being thankful that I was this “providentially hindered” and dropping it, I'm going to bring it up on my blog.  As they say, fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

First, some background. We practice baptism by full immersion in water, not sprinkling or pouring water. Paul in Romans 6 speaks of baptism as a burial, “We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.” Baptism is a recreation of the Christ-event in our lives as we die to sin, are buried in water and then rise out of the water to a new life. The Greek word “baptizo” from which we get the transliteration “baptism” originally meant “to dip repeatedly, to immerse, to submerge.” Sprinkling or pouring a little dirt is not a burial; sprinkling or pouring a little water is baptism.

I never know who (if anyone at all) ever reads this blog, and this emphasis on immersion may be news to you. But everyone in my class Sunday would have “amened” this point on baptism. Churches of Christ really stresses baptism; it’s a good thing someone else already had the copyright on “Baptist Church” or else we may have been tempted to call ourselves that! We stress baptism!  I remember listening in on a conversation while some of our folks debated whether or not a baptismal candidate who was standing in the water waiting for his turn to be baptized and then was eaten by a crocodile before his turn came would be saved, (After all, the croc pulled him completely under the water, so…). We do stress baptism, and baptism (baptize) means immersion.

Here’s the question for which I ran out of time and that I now foolishly ask. The word “Supper” as in “the Lord’s Supper” is the Greek word “deipnon” which (using the same lexicon I used above) means “supper, especially a formal meal usually held at the evening.” In other words, the word “supper” means “a full meal” just like “baptism” denoted a full immersion. So (do you see what's coming?) why is it NOT OK to use a little water sprinkled or poured on someone as a symbol of a burial but it is PERFECTLY OK to use a little pinch of cracker and sip of grape juice as a symbol in the Lord's Supper? Do we lose something of theological significance when we replace a meal eaten communally around a table (the model Jesus used) with a symbolic “pinch-and-sip” which we eat in private meditation with no real sharing or communion going on around a table?

For further study, let me recommend a book by my friend John Mark Hicks (most of my friends don’t even read books let along write them) entitled Come to the Table. His take is that we have, to our detriment, turned the Lord’s Supper from a table into an altar.

If you'll excuse me, I have to get ready for the new class I'm teaching Sunday based on Rob Bell's book Sex God.  His first chapter is entitled "God Wears Lipstick."  What on earth was I thinking?