The Burr in the Burgh

We've all seen the Hollywood personalities addicted to cosmetic surgery. It weirds me out to see Burt Reynolds or Joan Rivers these days. They look like they're made of wax.

At least Joan Rivers is honest about it. In this telling article, she reveals that many entertainers are actually filled with self-loathing.

What are your thoughts about cosmetic surgery? I'm not talking about reparative plastic procedures for someone with an injury or malformity. I'm referring to purely elective procedures that people have in order to enhance or improve their appearance.

This week, I am at Grace Lutheran Church in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I'm sitting in on a continuing education class for pastors on Leviticus. Our instructor is Dr. John Kleinig, Old Testament scholar at Australian Lutheran College.

He is quite fantastic and has me convinced that Leviticus is - by Christians - the most tragically neglected book of the Bible. My pastor, Rev. David Petersen, blogged several times recently about his experience with this course when it was offered in Fort Wayne.

The over-arching theme of Leviticus is holiness. The concept of holiness is the key for understanding the whole arrangement of worship in Israel and God’s involvement in worship. It has crucial implications for Christian worship as well.

First of all, only God is holy. No one and nothing apart from God is holy. There is no other sources of holiness. How do things and people become holy? Only by contact with God. The trouble is that sinful people who come into contact with God (without mediation) are destroyed, just as fire burns chaff and light scatters darkness. We sinful beings are in need of a means to access God (atonement; Great High Priest, Christ as intercessor).

I am attracted to this teaching, not only because I recognize the scriptural soundness of it, but because I am annoyed by the buddy/buddy informality that permeates much of contemporary Christianity. Nothing is sacred. God is a benign cuddly grandpa.

According to this story, some activists are trying to get a chimpanzee certain legal rights by having a court declare him a person.

So what makes someone a person anyway? We pro-lifers understand that an unborn child - at every stage of development - is a person. What about this creature who shares 99.4% of our DNA?

Holy Scripture differentiates between human beings and the other living creatures by teaching that Adam and Eve were formed in the image and likeness of God. This is said of no other being.

Can one be a person and then cease being a person? Terri Schiavo?

Humorist Dave Barry has this fun take on what is actually quite a helpful little text. Go here to read Barry's review of Send: The Essential Guide to Email for Office and Home.

In The Freedom of a Christian, Martin Luther expounds on how the sinner is justified and united with Christ.

The third incomparable benefit of faith is that it unites the soul with Christ as a bride is united with her bridegroom. By this mystery, the Apostle teaches, Christ and the soul become one flesh (Eph. 5:31-32). And if they are one flesh and there is between them a true marriage - indeed the most perfect of all marriages. . . it follows that everything they have they hold in common, the good as well as the evil. Accordingly the believing soul can boast of and glory in whatever Christ has as though it were its own, and whatever the soul has Christ claims as his own.

Let us compared these and we shall see inestimable benefits. Christ is full of grace, life, and salvation. The soul is full of sins, death, and damnation. Now let faith come between them and sins, death, and damnation will be Christ's, while grace, life, and salvation will be the soul's; for if Christ is a bridegroom, he must take upon himself the things which are his bride's and bestow upon her the things that are his. If he gives her his body and very self, how shall he not give her all that is his? And if he takes the body of the bride, how shall he not take all that is hers?

The other day in chapel, we prayed the litany. One of the lines in this wonderful prayer is our petition asking God to save us from a sudden and evil death.

Have you ever thought about that? Don't most people actually want to die suddenly? What's the alternative? A slow and lingering death?

I have a hunch that this is a petition many pray, but simply don't mean (but never think about it either).

What exactly is the problem with a sudden death? We might be able to understand what an evil death would be, but why do we wish to be spared a sudden death?

You know Shakespeare's Hamlet. One of the prince's greatest sorrows at his father's death is that he was murdered while he slept. They poured poison in the poor king's ear. Prince Hamlet explains that the murderers killed his father twice because not only did they slay his body but by killing him unexpectedly, he had no occasion to shrive himself (g0 to receive private absolution).

Are you prepared to die? How does one become prepared? A sudden death suggests that one has not had opportunity to ready oneself to meet the Maker. I suppose this would be a more pressing concern if I feared thousands of years in purgatory.

A Christian finds great comfort indeed from making personal confession and receiving God's gracious absolution from the pastor. And it is a joy and consolation w/o comparison to partake of the Holy Eucharist. As a congregational pastor, I had the opportunity to stand at the deathbeds of many people and offer them God's grace and mercy. Not only was this a comfort for the dying person, but certainly also for the family.

Should this mean, however, that a Christian who is baptized into Christ and faithfully makes use of the means of grace throughout his life, relying on God's mercy, should be overly distressed at the prospect of a sudden death, as if the eternal outcome were are at urgent risk?

Oh, I was just rifling through the pockets on one of my suit coats and came across one of my ubiquitous notepads. I like to always have a pad and pen with me wherever I am so that I can take notes about whatever. I get all kinds of ideas throughout the day.

Often, I take notes when listening to sermons. This is especially true on Sunday mornings when listening to Pastor Petersen.

Some time ago, he preached on Luke 18:9-14, the story of the Pharisee and the tax collector who both go to the Temple to pray. I'm not going to try to reconstruct pastor's sermon. You can (and probably should) read the whole manuscript here. I just want to share with you some of the disconnected notes I jotted that morning.

• It's easy to hate the Pharisee who thinks he is better than others. We think we are better than him.


• All sins are dangerous. There are always victims.
  


• All who trust in themselves go to hell.


• The Tax Collector was reckoned righteous because he despaired of himself.
  


• The difference between our sins and theirs is like the difference between calling Pluto a planet or an asteroid. It makes no difference. It's still there.
  


• Everyone who hopes for mercy from Jesus Christ receives it.


• The mercy of the Lord endures forever.


• No one who hopes for mercy is denied.
  

One of the neatest things about living on our beautiful 190 acre seminary campus is the waterfowl. Squads of ducks and geese call our little lake home, at least for part of the year. Watching them nest and rear their young gives me a genuine Tony Soprano moment.

People who know me know that I am a fan of director Quentin Tarantino. We can argue about that later, if you like.

So it was almost a necessity that I go see the big Q's latest cinematic discharge: Grindhouse. I have strongly mixed feelings about this project, an ambitious double feature with Tarantino chum, fellow director, Robert Rodriguez.

Grindhouse is really two completely separate movies played back to back with a brief intermission filled with phony trailers. The first half of the double was Planet Terror, a zombie pic directed by R. Rodriguez. I hated it.

I don't mind horror or zombies in themselves. Some of my favorite movies are horror pictures and a couple of them feature zombies. But this one just took gross to a whole new level, a level I -for one- simply did not need. There was just nothing funny or cool about it to outweigh the yuck.

But the second half of the double feature was completely different, the one from Quentin. It was called Death Proof and is your basic pyscho-killer car caper. This movie was a blast of fun. Yes, it does have moments of profanity and titillation, but these are small and peripheral. There is also violence; one scene in particular was excruciating and literally knocked the breath out of me just to watch it. But mostly, it is a red-blooded car chase that sent my adrenaline to the moon. I have never spontaneously blurted, "WHOOAAA!!!!" out loud in a theater before. But I did this time.

I've tried to like Rodriguez films in the past, but have usually been unhappy. Desperado (1995) with Antonio Banderas was the only one of his projects I could bear to watch again. Sin City was OK, but the best parts of that were the story, dialog and visual style which came from Frank Miller. That and a killer cast. I'm not sure how much to credit Rodriguez since the credits list Tarantino as an assistant director. I'm inclined to think that what's good about Sin City came from Miller and the big Q.

Quentin (if you are reading this blog), re-release Death Proof as a single feature. Drop the Rodriguez disgrace. It's pulling you down. Like all of Tarantino's films, Death Proof needs to be watched over and over again (just like certain episodes of Sponge Bob). Everything Q does is a cult film. So if he won't cut himself free of the lousy zombie bomb, I'll have to buy my next Grindhouse ticket, go eat a burger and come back 90 minutes into it.

Premiere magazine lists the 100 Greatest movie lines. See here. Any of your faves that they missed?

Christopher Tolkien, the son of the famous father, has edited and released a "new" volume of the lore of Middle Earth. The Children of Hurin is based on a story the master first wrote in 1919. Tolkien fans know that he constantly revised and re-wrote his tales all his life long. What Christopher appears to have done is compiled the stories of this cycle and edited and conflated them into this new volume, never previously published.

The reviews are quite intriguing. See here. And here.

Third Week of Easter

April 25, 2007

Text: Acts 9:1-20

Before Paul was called Paul, he was known as Saul of Tarsus. Saul was a highly learned scholar, a Pharisee, an expert in the Law. He was also one of the earliest and more feverish opponents of Christianity. We know from the book of Acts and from Paul’s own writings that he had once been a persecutor of the church. He was personally responsible for arresting, harassing, and even murdering those who believed and followed Jesus Christ. It is Paul who writes about himself in one of his letters calling himself “the Chief of Sinners.”

I think it’s safe to say that Paul, while he was still known as Saul, was not a righteous man. He had a form of righteousness, to be sure. He was an avid follower of the Law of Moses. He knew which foods were kosher, which holy days to observe. He was strictly devoted to the outward forms of his religion while failing to comprehend the meaning behind it all.

But the type of righteousness I’m talking about here is not the type of righteousness which places us in good standing with God. A man could follow all the ceremonial niceties perfectly but still be as lost as a tax collector if he did not have faith in God’s Messiah.

Saul had an outward righteousness, a civic righteousness, you might even say a ceremonial righteousness. And none of that is bad. It’s just not sufficient. It’s only bad if you trust in it for salvation.

It’s the same way with us today. While none of us is probably all that worked up over things like circumcision, kosher diet, and animal sacrifices. We do get excited about outward righteousness in other ways. We care if a person is a good, decent person, a law abiding neighbor, a considerate person. For instance, a husband who is faithful to his wife, who is a spiritual leader in the household and provides for his family is what we would probably call a good man.

We’ve all gone to funerals where we hear people say things like “john was such a good person.” That always makes me cringe a little because Jesus said there is no one good except one person and that is God himself. And St. Paul wrote in Romans chapter 3: There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.”

So on the one hand, no human being, other that Jesus Christ who is God-in-the-flesh, can truly be called good. But even having said all that, we do sometimes use the word simply to refer to the outward behavior of a person. Who would you rather have as a next door neighbor, a peaceful, law-abiding family man who is kind and considerate of other people’s feelings? Or would you rather have an obnoxious, selfish neighbor who couldn’t care less about you or anyone else? You’d rather have the first guy because he’s a good person and the second guy is not.

So Saul of Tarsus, later to be renamed Paul, was one of the good guys. At least on the surface of it. He obeyed the law. He kept the commandments as best he could. So there is a sort of outward righteousness, an outer goodness to him.

But on the inside, not so much. Do you remember what Jesus called the Pharisees? He called them whitewashed sepulchers. A sepulcher, of course, is a tomb. And a whitewashed sepulcher is just a thing filled with dead rotting stinking filth that happens to be nice and shiny and white on the outside.

Are you a whitewashed sepulcher? In the end, it doesn’t matter what people see when they look at you. They may all say at your funeral, “Oh, what a good person she was.” But God alone sees the inside. He knows what lies on the heart. He is not tricked by our brightly polished outward appearance of goodness. He sees the selfishness, lust, greed, and pride. The outer righteousness I’ve been talking about is good for this life, for this world. It makes for good neighbors. But it is totally worthless when it comes to salvation.

The only righteousness which counts before the judgment seat of God is the righteousness of Jesus Christ Himself. Jesus said that unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees you will never enter the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 5:20). Jesus is the only truly righteous man who has ever lived.

How then can any of us ever be saved? If being a good decent person is not good enough, and if you have to have perfect righteousness and if Jesus is the only man who was ever perfectly righteous, what will happen to us? It’s a fair question. Here is the answer. You will be saved because God credits the very righteousness of Jesus Christ to you. Jesus is righteous but you get the credit. And that’s because it went the other first on the cross: you are the sinner, but Jesus took the blame. It’s what might be called an alien righteousness because it comes from outside of you. To all who trust in Him, to all who have faith, God credits the righteousness of Jesus Christ. That’s what we mean when we emphasize that salvation is a gift from God. There is nothing you can ever do to earn His merit or favor. But you don’t have to. Christ has merited it for you.

On his road to Damascus, on the way to go capture and persecute more believers, the post-resurrection Lord appeared to him. This was shortly after Easter and after the Ascension. So the Jesus whom Saul encounters is the exalted Lord in all of his radiance and light. And you’ll notice that Saul is struck blind from the experience. Or was he?

Before he encountered Jesus, he could see, yet he was spiritually blind. He didn’t need anyone to help him walk around, but he was in the dark when it comes to the things of God. He was devoted to keeping the law and placed his faith in the power of the law to save him. But while the Law of God is powerful to do a lot of things, the one thing it cannot do is save a sinful man. The Law may help us achieve a certain sort of outward righteousness like I’ve noted, but this is simply not good enough. For God does not look only at the outside of a man, but at his inside, the most intimate thoughts and desires of his mind and heart. And on this basis, at the very least, we are all condemned and lost.

A fellow pastor likes to use this illustration. Think about what a very terrible thing it would be if they ever invent a mind-reading machine. What would it be like if scientists were to actually create a device that would enable other people to see and read your thoughts? I think masses of people would be jumping off of cliffs if that were to happen. Do you really want your spouse, your children, your parents, your boss, your pastor, your neighbor to know everything that goes on inside your head? Wouldn’t you be ashamed? I confess that I would be.

And yet, we know that God knows our every thought and it hardly concerns us in the least. We act as if we are more afraid of what other people will think of us than with what God will think of us.

Saul could see and yet he was blind to the most important realities of life. And get this; it wasn’t until God made him blind that he could really see things as they truly are. Only after Saul was struck blind by Jesus on the Damascus road did he come to understand that Jesus Christ is Lord. Only after Saul was struck blind did he begin to see that the Messiah had to die in order to pay for the sins of the world, like a sacrificial lamb. Only after Saul was struck blind did he understand that people are not reckoned just in God’s sight on account of their obedience to the law but on account of the obedience of Jesus Christ.

This is how it is with God. You have to go blind before you learn to truly see. But more than that, you have to die before you can truly live. And you die to sin daily through repentance, through humbling yourself and confessing your faults, through admitting your shortcomings, through acknowledging your failure to obey God’s commandments in thought, word and deed. And it is on the other side of this daily dying to sin through humble repentance that God will raise you up from the dead. He will resurrect you, not just spiritually but also in your body on the last day, just as He raised Jesus bodily on the first Easter.

You could say that Saul was struck blind by Jesus. Or you could say that he was given sight for the very first time.

Amazing Grace, How sweet the sound

That saved a wretch like me.

I once was lost, but now am found.

Was blind, but now I see.

In Jesus’ name. Amen.

One of the most delightful customs in our beloved Lutheran church body is what takes place at the seminaries each spring. In April, our students receive their vicarage (internship) assignments and the graduates receive their call placements.

How wonderful it was to watch these highly dedicated men being sent to serve God's people in places such as Capistrano Beach, CA; Boulder, CO; Snohomish, WA; Wheaton, IL; Greensboro, NC; Midland, MI; Yuma, AZ; Kibera, Kenya; Plano, TX; Topeka, KS and many others.

If you're interested, you can see the list of names and places for our vicars, our deaconess interns, and our candidates.

Ever wonder what you'll look like in old age? Or what if you were a different race, or sex? Ever wonder what you'd look like in a painting by El Greco or Botticelli? Well, wonder no more. Go and enjoy the Face Transformer website.

HT: SouthCon

Sign seen in a church in California. What?! Why don't we want the cats to get in? I want the cats to come in.

So in tonight's Conan O'Brian, his monologue had these two funny jokes:

A clothing designer has announced the development of a new swimsuit for Muslim women. They're calling it the burkini. It's a burkha made into waterproof clothing. The announcement stated that it's perfect for the Muslim women who love to swim but hate getting stoned to death.

And, this from the Pittsburgh zoo. A polar bear had an infected tooth so the zookeepers gave it a root canal. Zoo officials are describing the bear as stable and they're describing the dentist as handless.

When I have to fly, I like to have a fun novel to occupy my mind. Boy, did I win the lottery with my latest. It's called Replay and it's by Ken Grimwood. What a fascinating book. The premise is that a man dies in 1988 and instantly re-awakens as himself back in 1963 while he's a freshman in college. The whole world is still his oyster and his life still lies before him. He has the opportunity, essentially, to re-live every major aspect of his adult life and can choose to do things differently. What would you do?

But then when 1988 hits again, he dies like before and returns once more. What lessons did he learn from his last attempt? This time around, he makes completely different choices, always in the chase for that elusive prize: Happiness.

Like most consumers of pop culture, I've read numerous books and seen films about time travel or other fantasies about alternate lives (Sliding Doors, Run Lola Run, Groundhog Day etc.). But this one is certainly one of the most entertaining, substantive and thought provoking. I'm about 75 pages from the end and I'm dying to see how it concludes. If Grimwood spins as satisfying a conclusion as he has a body of the story, this will make my list for favorite books read this year.

Even though The Burr no longer resides in the burgh, part of his heart remains in good 0l' southwest Pennsylvania. Here are some terrific photos of our former home town.

I am continually dumbfounded by how gullible people are when it comes to anti-Christian hype. Anyone who bothered to do five minutes of research could have debunked that ridiculous "Jesus' Tomb" business from James Cameron recently. But we don't want the facts to interfere with our Christian-bashing.

Not surprisingly, now many of the experts cited in Cameron's silly film are saying they were misconstrued, misquoted, etc. See here.

Certainly, the big media will saturate the airwaves with these corrections just as they did with the original sensational and preposterous claims . . . NOT!

I'm curious. What is your favorite dystopic vision of the future in books, television or film? Why? Here are some that come to mind.

Brave New World
Escape from New York
Buck Rogers
Terminator
1984
Children of Men
Minority Report
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