What the frak is the “biblical definition of marriage?” I’m sick and tired of politicians and religious leaders ranting about this issue and make it sound as if this is the issue on which America will stand or fall.
“Biblical” marriage, if you didn’t realize it, can occur when a man rapes a woman and pays the bride price. (Deuteronomy 22:28-29) The Mosaic Law also commands a man to marry his brother’s wife if his brother dies and doesn’t have any children. Then he is to raise the child up as if it was his brother’s child.
Biblical study and the use of Scripture is a very tricky thing and takes much forethought and care. Marriage, as it is practiced in the Western world, has nothing to do with the Bible and everything to do with inheritance laws as our culture has received them down through the centuries. These laws, in case you did not know, are based on Roman custom.
So, do I sound like a ranting liberal to you right now? If so, you’ve probably ignored me after the first paragraph. This is not a liberal or conservative matter. The problem is we have people making an issue like this sound like it’s the hinge point of American morality (thanks Billy Graham–I do a great impression of you) and the most pressing problem our country faces.
God…help…us. We have record unemployment, debt levels through the roof, a multitude of homeless and hungry people and religious leaders and politicians want us to worry about marriage? Are you kidding me? Are we that naive and foolish? Can’t we see a smoke blind for what it is?
If politicians and well paid religious leaders cause us to focus on so-called “morality” issues then they’ve done their job because we will ignore the real moral problems facing our country. Let us argue about the definition of marriage, right? Because Jesus said that was our number one concern, right? Or did he?
Matthew 25:31-40,““When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me. ’ Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you? ’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me. ’”
This is the text of the message from September 23, 2012. If you were present and heard the message, you’ll know it’s always a bit different from what I’ve written down.
A sacrament is a sign that catches our attention and leads us to remembrance by bringing us into a transformative experience with God and other people through Jesus Christ. Jesus is met in mystery and revelation and these sacraments are a visible sign of grace/Jesus working into and through our lives.
William Stringfellow said, “The daily witness of the Christian in the world is essentially sacramental, rather than moralistic.” Too often Christianity is seen as living out the correct set of moral rules instead of living Christ to the world around us. We aren’t called to be moral or particularly righteous in the face of others. We are, rather, called to bring grace in the form of reconciliation into the lives of others–as both sign and sacrament.
The sign we are looking for today is one of reconciliation. We’ve seen quite a bit about this in reading James but let us take these words of reconciliation with us as we approach the Scripture from the Gospel of Mark.
Christian psychologist and writer Richard Beck says that being the sacrament means two things. ”First, it means that Christians in the world should be signs of grace. In a world governed by death and ruled by the principalities and powers [James calls them demonic forces] Christians should be sacraments–visible signs of resurrection, love, freedom, life and grace. Second, Christians in the world should be effective signs of grace. Insofar as we are able we should bring resurrection, love and grace into the lives of others by making ourselves available to the world in the midst of death’s works. And so, may we be sacraments this day and every day.”
The reason we need reconciliation is because we’re often blind to the Living Jesus in the world around us. The disciples in our text still cannot grasp who this Jesus is and it causes them to argue over their own status. I believe our pride urges us to seek status instead of seeking God and, in this striving for place and position; we end up arguing with one another. We’re not very different from the disciples, are we?
In reading James, believers are told to submit to God and we will overcome our disputes with one another. The question that remains is, “How do we do this?” I believe the answer is by becoming living sacraments through acts of reconciliation.
Symbols of Reconciliation. What do they look like? They look like a little child who in Jesus’ time was a symbol of weakness & powerlessness and this is what our symbols should look like as well. In our culture, children are not seen as signs or symbols of weakness for the most part. In fact, in many ways, they often have more power than adults would like to believe. Just ask any marketing professional. “Market to the children,” they’ll say, “because that is where the money is!” I think this is happening, in some ways, because humanity is trying to make up for lost time.Throughout most of our human history children were seen as the weakest and least important part of society. They weren’t any “good” or of any use until they were older and able to work or provide their family with an heir. This is why I believe Jesus turns the cultural ideas of his world upside down. Jesus takes the weak and helpless of his age and sees them as God’s symbol of reconciliation. Why does he do this?
Let’s think about it for a moment. Reconciliation can only come from a place of strength. Jesus, the leader of this band of men, is the one they all looked up to and he shows his followers any who think they are strong SHOULD DECLARE THEMSELVES WEAK. To make things right with another (reconcile) and for the presence of God to be in the midst of it all (sacrament) those of us who think we’re strong must become weak. Reconciliation must then proceed from the strong toward the weak. However, in our culture and the way we’ve taught our children we’ve said it’s the weak one’s job to make overtures to the more powerful. Isn’t that the story we tell our children when they’re being bullied? Go make friends with the bullies. Talk to them. They’ll not bother you if you become their friend.
And this is where we get it wrong. In the world of Jesus, and one that goes against our very human desire to be stronger and greater than others, it is the one who is in the place of position and power (Jesus in this instance) who is called to do the work of reconciliation and extend it to those who are weak by learning to live into the very weakness they sought to exploit in others!
How and where is this weakness formed? It’s formed in community. Notice the two sacraments of the Methodist Church and most other mainline denominations are communion and baptism. The key to the transforming power of Jesus in the sacramental act of reconciliation is found in communion and by this I don’t mean just bread and wine.
I mean real community. The place where things get ugly. This isn’t a community we can run away from very easily. I am speaking of communities from which no matter how hard we try we can’t escape. I’m talking about relationships in which we’re bound through blood, sweat, and tears. These relationships do not let go of us easily. In a day and age when it is becoming easier and easier to leap from one community to another, we must find the presence of Christ in the community in which we live and be willing to go through the ebbs and flows of this community life. Or, as Len Sweet put it, we’re called to “fallin love with our zip code.”
Jean Vanier said this about community:
Community is the place where our limitations, our fears, and our egotism are revealed to us. We discover our poverty and our weaknesses, our inability to get on with some people, our mental and emotional blocks, our affective and sexual disturbances, our seemingly insatiable desires, our frustrations and jealousies, our hatred and our wish to destroy. While we are alone, we could believe we loved everyone. Now that we are with others, living with them all the time, we realize how incapable we are of loving, how much we deny to others, how closed in on ourselves we are.
In our current climate in America I’d say reconciliation would be seen as a weakness to be exploited and this is also true around the world. Political reconciliation, in such a world, is often professional suicide. What would the world look like if this really occurred? What would happen in a world where political professionals began to practice true reconciliation? I believe, sadly, our moral indignation keeps us from being the sacrament of reconciliation. We want to be so filled with moral outrage that we don’t know how to love our neighbor.
The practical way to live out reconciliation is found in this simple phrase my mother shared with me very often over the years. In all her grand wisdom, she would say, “Derek, shut the hell up and listen.” Grand advice! Leonard Sweet says it more politely, “If we spent half as much time preparing to listen as we do preparing to speak, there might be more around of what is called communion.” Personally, I think we need to hear it both ways.
Too often we can’t bring ourselves into reconciliation with others because we want to do all the talking. We want everything to go our own way. We want to be in control of our anger. We want to harbor our pain and that’s why we cut ourselves off from community: so we can be alone and no longer love.
In my last message I spoke about how the cross is a symbol of Resurrection but it’s also a sign of Reconciliation and I want to explore that thought a bit. Reconciliation that comes from God and flows toward human beings is always a two way street. God, through Christ, brings us into relationship with God’s own self and, in the midst of God’s love and mercy, we walk into that relationship.
With human beings, this reconciliation may, sadly, be only one way but that still doesn’t mean we should not actively seek it out. Especially if we are the one in the place of power. It’s so easy to not worry about reconciliation when we are in the place of strength and this is what keeps us from having enduring relationships on an individual, family, or national level. We’ve forgotten to let the “strong say I’m weak.”
So with that I’ll end with the ultimate symbol of reconciliation. The cross. Two sticks connected together. One stick points vertically toward heaven and the other points horizontally toward our fellow human beings. The Cross is meant to restore our relationship with God and it also calls us to reconciliation with our fellow human beings. Jesus told us you can’t have one without the other. He proved this in his life with his friends, his death on that cross, and in his resurrection life he pours out on all of the world. Or, as He put it, “Love God with all your heart, mind, and strength AND your neighbor as yourself.”
I’ve been asked in the past if I would post some of my sermon notes online. Since I’ve started a sermon series on The Sacramental Life a few weeks ago, I thought I’d post my notes so you might have an idea of what a preacher’s notes look like. I’m trying to edit them as best as possible but I still want to give you a bit of a look at what I’m viewing when I’m preaching.
The Sacramental Life: Taking Up the Cross
Opening Prayer:O Cross of Christ, the hope of Christians, the guide of the wayward, the haven of the storm-tossed, the victory in wartime, the security of the civilized world, for the sick a physician, for the dead resurrection, have mercy on us.
Don’t stumble over the words! For many people from various faith backgrounds, I have found that when I use a word such as “sacrament” it turns them off. Immediately their minds shut down because it’s not a part of their experience. Hopefully, I will help turn this around. As a bit of background, this isn’t a word I used early on in my Christian journey but I’ve learned to find it very helpful for me because it communicates a sense of mystery which is something I find lacking in many Christian stories today.
Sacrament as defined in the dictionary: A religious ceremony or act of the Christian church that is regarded as an outward visible sign of an inward and spiritually divine grace.
The definition of sacrament which I will be working with is, “A sacrament is a sign that catches our attention and leads us to remembrance by bringing us into a transformative experience with God through Jesus Christ.Jesus is met in mystery and revelation and these sacraments become a visible sign of grace/Jesus working into and through our lives.
And it is this Jesus who turns the signs upside down! Take the word Christ. It hasn’t been seen in Mark’s Gospel since the first verse and Jesus tells them to KEEP IT A SECRET. Why? Why keep silent about Him being the Christ when He is openly telling them He will suffer? It’s because Jesus wants to change the way people see who the Christ is meant to be.
Instead of seeing him as a coming King who would smash his enemies or view him as a political liberator who would get all the right people on his side Jesus is re-imagining the Hebrew idea of a Messiah/Christ to be that of the Suffering Servant…this Jesus is to be the Crucified One.
And that’s what I want us to do today. Re-Image how we view the sacramental life. For some this is a new term, for others it’s loaded with baggage, and today I want all of us to see it in a fresh way.
Let’s view Self-Denial and Cross Carrying as a sacrament. Even the Psalmist understands this idea. Don’t we see hints of carrying a cross in these words from Psalm 116 “I was brought very low and [the Lord] helped me…for [the Lord] has rescued my life from death, my eyes from tears, and my feet from stumbling“?
Pain & trial are part of life & without God walking with us they don’t make sense. It’s not about “Why does God allow it?” but, rather, “Where is God in the midst of it all?”
Jesus’ followers must be willing to embrace hardship, shame, and suffering with Him. He has suffered and pain is a part of life so we walk with One who knows exactly what it’s all about. In fact, we find especially present in these moments.
The cross is an instrument of murder/death yet it is also a symbol of resurrection. In the cross there is death AND life. The reason we cannot live into the sacramental life/divine presence of Christ is because we’re too busy dying instead of living.
What are the sacramental acts (outward visible signs of God’s inward transformation) that we practice? In this passage, two acts are mentioned: self-denial & taking up the cross.
But what do they look like? And where do they occur?
For Jesus’ early followers these acts often began in the big places (family, society) but, we find, in our culture it can become the smallest of places.
Self-denial in Worship.
Taking up the Cross in Worship.
I was speaking with another minister recently and he mentioned it would be interesting if someone drove by a church early on a Sunday morning and it was packed. He then proceeded to say the person driving buy wouldn’t know what was happening because it couldn’t be a funeral or a wedding, right? No one has funerals or weddings early on a Sunday morning, do they?
Then it hit me. Every time God’s people gather together to worship it should be both a funeral and a wedding! When we gather together we should lay all of our sin, faults, and frustrations on this instrument of death and just let them die. Then, after a few moments, we would return to the cross and look at it in a new light. Now we look at it and realize it’s empty. The Bridegroom has come down off the cross and has destroyed sin, death, and the grave! It’s time to celebrate a wedding of ourselves as God’s people and worship in happiness and joy.
Now, how do we practice the next sacramental act?
Self-denial in the present moment.
Be attentive. We have to learn to shut up and LISTEN!
This sacramental act was brought home to me recently when I was in Portland. I was walking down the street late at night and saw a bedraggled lady begging on the street corner. I pulled some money out of my wallet and walked on my way. She tried to call out, “Thank you” but I just kept walking. I’d done my Christian duty, right? No, I had not. I’d sinned because I wasn’t being attentive.
This was brought to life to me the next day when I saw Jesus. Where did I see Jesus? I saw him a few streets over from where I’d been the previous night. He was bending over talking to yet another street person. Oh, this didn’t look like the Jesus we’re familiar with in all of our paintings and images. Jesus looked like a young man in his late twenties or early thirties wearing shorts and talking to a homeless person. I never saw this Jesus give the man any money but I did see this Jesus giving the man his time.
I stood back at a distance and watched Jesus at work. When he was finished talking with this man, they shook hands and I heard the man say to this Jesus, “Thank you” and this Jesus smiled at him, acknowledged him as a human being, and walked slowly away. This was the sacrament in action.
I’m beginning to realize this particular Jesus practiced self-denial and knew what it meant to see the cross as a life giving experience. I’m realizing that walking in suffering and self-denial are moments of divine grace for Jesus walks with us and in us during those times. This is why they are sacramental acts.
How will we enter into these sacramental acts in our life? Where will we bring the cross as the death/life instrument which it is? Where will we deny ourselves to allow this Jesus to walk in and through us?
In June of this year, I published Part One of what, in gamer terms, I thought would be a “one-shot” adventure. However, after talking with my friend Connie Waters she mentioned a conversation she’d had with Phyllis Tickle about CyberChurch. With that in mind, I believe it’s time I elaborated a bit more.
As most stories do, the conversation I had with Connie did not begin today but it’s been an ongoing theme in my life and ministry over the years. To sum it up quickly, Connie mentioned to me Phyllis was talking about some form of CyberChurch. It’s not a new concept, as you can see from my previous blog on the topic, but I’m afraid people just aren’t understanding where I’m coming from on this matter.
Every time someone hears about churches meeting in Second Life or other online expressions of the Christian faith, I generally receive a phone call, email, Tweet, or Facebook message asking me my thoughts on the matter. For some reason, people think The Geekpreacher would be falling all over himself to be involved with some of these ministries. And, guess what, they’re both right and wrong at the same time.
The rightness of it is simple. I love to see creative expressions of the Christian faith moving and growing throughout the world and I’m a firm believer the age of instant access will play an important role in the evolution (yeah, I said it) of our faith and how we express it. So, yes, I want to be all over it.
However, what people do not seem to understand is I have not, nor believe I ever will, advocate a totally online existence as the normative experience of the Christian faith. I don’t believe the faith is ever meant to be totally digitized where we’re living in some avatar world with no real connections. I’ve spoken about this in the past but it bears repeating.
It’s the most basic thing of all. If you sit down and break bread with someone on a regular basis, it becomes harder and harder to “troll” them on the interwebz and when you argue, fuss, and fight (as all humans will) chances are you’ll have to find some way to make up. We are called to be an embodied people with an embodied existence. All my Sci-Fi Geek friends who have seen the new Battlestar Galactica or Caprica series can easily see these “digital beings” are continually looking to be embodied. They want to see, hear, taste, feel, and touch because these things are basic to being human.
This is why the Christian faith is one of Resurrection. We don’t talk about going to Nirvana or some disembodied heaven where we’re spirit creatures sitting on clouds sipping mint julips for all eternity. If that were the case, I’d be wanting asking God why I was in hell! Now, let me be a good Methodist and take the middle ground here. If that’s what you’re looking for in an after life, I’m happy for you but this is not the Christian story. Our story of faith is about a New Heaven and a New Earth. A place where I will be able to enjoy creation in all its God given glory. Do I know what it’s going to look like? Nope. I have my speculations but they’re just that….speculations.
The point being is our expression of the faith is built around the concept of community (communion). This is the way Jesus gave it to us: over a common meal sitting down with his friends. In the end, the essence of what I’m trying to get across is CyberChurch or whatever you’re calling it is great for facilitating relationships. It’s helpful in building them and keeping people in contact over hundreds and thousands of miles. However, I’ve found in my 15+ years of online engagement there is something within the majority of people I’ve met that’s made us want to find a way to get together and meet.
So, my Emergent brothers, sisters, and everything in between never forget there is a reason we’re embodied. Use these wonderful tools to find a way to get together and break bread and if you’re ever in my neck of the woods stop on by and we’ll have a cold one and fire up the grill. Then I think we’ll find the Jesus who was somewhat present in our online conversations even more present in our face-to-face connections as we hug one another’s necks, weep over loss, and rejoice in the goodness of God together.
Many people will be or have already been blogging about this “day of infamy” and I’m no different. Eleven years ago to the day I woke up with a strange song on my lips: The Ballad of the Green Beret.
A decade later I still don’t quite understand it. I’ve never been in the Army and having this song running through my mind that morning was odd. It was even stranger an hour later when I heard the first plane had crashed into the Twin Towers.
As a geek, I’m still trying to process it. In some ways, I feel as if I have a warriors soul but philosopher and cleric also hold sway there as well. All I can say is the idea of people dying for an ideal holds an iconic sway in my life.
And this is where my internal battle really begins to war within myself. I am a Jesus follower. I follow the God-Man whose name has been used to engage in war on so many levels. His name has been invoked throughout the Western world causing men and women to engage in a civic religion which often has little to do with him.
What do I do with all of this? How do I reconcile the Prince of Peace with my own desire for warfare? How do I handle this Man who told us to pray for our enemies and love those who use us badly? This Man said he would suffer and die yet he fought not against it.
Eleven years after 9/11 all I can think to do is place the wings of a snow white dove upon my breast and try and be an agent of God’s love to all around me. I am to show mercy and kindness to those who find this an alien concept and to pray, wherever this life leads me and whatever my fate, those same wings would land upon the breast of my children and they would follow in my faltering steps toward a more peaceful and better world.
Whenever the battle comes, we are to engage it with the Sword of the Spirit which is the Story of God. The God who became man, the God who was born and walked along dusty roads, the God who was beaten, scorned, laughed at and abused yet remains the God who loves all. The proof of this love? An empty tomb and hearts full of kindness and mercy toward neighbor and stranger, friend and enemy.
I spent the last week in Portland, Oregon beginning work on my Doctorate of Ministry through George Fox Evangelical Seminary. I thought, after graduating seminary last May, I would take a break so I could get down to the “nuts and bolts” of ministry. Instead of worrying about parishioners, outreach and classwork, I would be able to focus on the two I thought most important: parishioners and outreach.
Well, it seems that God’s plans and providence work out a bit differently. First, I was brought into the crisp, sharp reality this program is about the “nuts and bolts” of ministry. Second, it showed me the direction I often line out for myself, while similar to God’s direction, isn’t exactly the same. It’s a bit like a snapshot…I see the picture and it looks really nice and then someone comes up to me with a picture of the same scene from a different angle and it looks so much better.
This is what God is doing through this program. For so long, I’ve understood the power of story and symbols. So much so that I’ve come to appreciate not having grown up in church. Instead of being infected with years of Bible drills where individual verses were memorized, I grew up with a life of stories. Stories shared with me by my parents which were a bit of family history, a touch of laughter, and a hint of music. So, when I came to faith in my early twenties, I read the Bible as a book of stories. Reading it this way was (and remains) a powerfully transforming experience.
Rather quickly, however, I was brought into the world of doctrine and dogma. The problem this caused was the tradition in which I came to faith in often didn’t tie its doctrines into the history of faith. These doctrines and dogma weren’t really connected to any story but were presented as propositions one must believe and communicate. Something inside me enjoyed these propositions but a bit of the story began to die. The rich tapestry of Scripture was being eaten away as I was taught to seek out doctrine instead of unraveling the interplay of the story found woven throughout the text.
It took me a number of years before I was able to come back to the beauty of the story. NT Wright, an Anglican minister, wrote a number of books that helped me along this path but I must say that the seminary I attended was also helpful as I had teachers who were able to emphasize the power of the story and its relationship to the whole. (A caveat…many teachers emphasized the role of the story within a specific book of the Bible but I have been quite fortunate to meet interesting people who have been able to help me see the Bible as a book with many stories working together to make a whole. This book truly is greater than the sum of its parts.)
So, here I am: Stepping out on faith, wondering where the finances to pay for this program will come from because I want to tell this grand story so much better. In fact, I don’t want to just tell the story better but I want to visualize the future of this story for it to make an impact in the present. I want to tell this old, old, Jesus story in fresh futuristic ways. I believe Dr. Leonard Sweet will help me along the way. He is the professor who will conduct our onsite intensives throughout the duration of this program as well as someone I’ve come to know over the last few years. He earned my respect through his heartfelt desire to gaze into what we often see as the dark abyss of the future and find its hidden light. In doing so, he is helping us shine the light of the Jesus story along our inevitable journey toward the future.
So, I must be willing to cast my gaze forward and find new ways to tell the story. This future may seem dark and foreboding but if we look really hard we will see a twinkle of light; and if we stretch out our arms we may be able to grasp this light and bring it into God’s present.
My friends and I arrived in Indianapolis fairly early on Wednesday morning. We did so because we thought traveling at night would be much easier and, while it was very tiring, that worked out really well. The traffic on the road was light and we were abale to avoid a good deal of this summer’s often unbearable heat.
So, what’s The Geekpreacher doing at GenCon? Another year has come and I have the opportunity to once more take part in the Christianity & Gaming Panel as well as speak during the worship on Sunday. Both are sponsored by the Christian Gamer’s Guild. (The CGG is a community of Christians who like to play games. We gather through various online media for support, discussion, and a bit of friendship. I’ve been a part of this community since the mid-1990s and it has allowed me to meet some good people who share a common faith and a common love of gaming and a variety of other “geeky goodness.”)
After arriving at our hotel early and, thanks be to God, being allowed to check in early the guys traveling with me were able to take a brief nap before helping me over at the auction hall. I’d have liked to have been able to nap as well but, instead, I ended up spending forty-five minutes on the phone listening to someone who just needed to talk. This is the nature of what I’ve been called to do. It’s not always easy but I love every opportunity to bring and/or be Christ to those around me so that can be pretty awesome.
After the guys woke up, we went to the auction room at the Indianapolis Convention center where many of GenCon’s main activities occur. I had preregistered the items I’m selling this year thinking that would speed up the process but I was wrong! The lines and the amount of products people are selling seems to grow every year. I wonder if that is a statement on our current economy and/or the state of our hobby? I’m not quite sure. (I am selling some of my own collectibles to fund my trip to GenCon. This is not a ministry activity for which I’m paid or reimbursed so every little bit helps. Maybe this is a sign of the economy because I found myself selling more items this year than I’ve done in the past.)
So, now I find myself waiting. I’m thinking this is going to be a boring wait and then two people walk up whom I haven’t seen since last year. Both of them are great, Christian friends I’ve made over the years and come from varied Christian backgrounds. One is a self-described “Belly-Dancing Baptist Bibliophile” and we stood around just chatting about the interesting things God has been doing in their lives. This was a great experience. Hearing and seeing the great joy their faith brings them as well as the amazing activity God is doing in their lives is simply amazing. So, right away I know this is going to be a great Con. We also talk about the struggles as well but even the struggles seem to be a joy for them. Just…plain…awesome.
As we are talking, Frank Mentzer makes his way over to say hello. Frank is always a very fun and congenial conversationalist and my friends are having a bit of “fame” shock. Frank isn’t the type of guy who basks in hero worship and he proceeds to tell us about a great book that has just been written detailing the history of our hobby. I have my friend Ben take a picture of the book as it seems like something I may be able to use for my doctoral work coming up in a few weeks.
Well, it ends up taking a few hours to have my items entered into the auction and by this time we are all hungry. We’ve missed lunch and it’s been a long time since breakfast. One of my friends, who is local to Indy, takes us to Scotty’s Brewhouse where we have some good food and fun. Scotty’s does a great job of catering to gamer’s during GenCon so we see things like “Dragon Ale” on the menu as well as some “Troll Stones” and various other “geeky” menu items. We even receive some dice for ordering off the GenCon menu. As we joke with the waiters and waitresses and incessantly tease the manager (Okay, Ben did a lot of teasing. He’s a fun, guy to have along.) we find some of the tension from waiting at the auction has worn off.
We make it back to the hotel room where we relax for a bit. My friends decide to go find some early gaming but I’m worn out so I call it an early night. I take some time to talk to my wife and children on the phone (as well as review our new Wednesday programming with my awesome wife), read over the Scriptures for Sunday, and then hear the fire alarm go off at the hotel. Ends up being a false alarm. I’m wondering if some gamers were just having a bit of fun with us but everything turned out okay. Head back to the room, read a bit more, spend some time in prayer, and crash….HARD! Ended up waking up fairly early and see that both my friends have made it back to the room safely and are crashed out in their various spots.
Overall, I would say it was a good day. Met many friends I know from the “Con scene” and had some excellent spiritual conversations. This Geekpreacher thing is a great way of being “me” to the world around me and I must say I enjoy it immensely. I know for some of my fellow geeks/gamers/nerds I’m a bit of an odd animal but the responses are almost always overwhelmingly positive. I am still amazed at the intelligence, wit, and wisdom of the geek community but that’s part of it, right? So, I’m looking forward to Day Two and seeing what it will bring.
If you see me around the Con, make sure to stop by and say “Hello!” And, you know what, I may even listen to your story about your favorite character.
Just thought I’d share a bit of insight into my week. It doesn’t have all the details but some have asked me how a Geekpreacher spends his time.
So far this has been an interesting week. My wife went back to work and that’s always a sad time for me. I love having her home during the summer and, honestly, it helps me understand how beautiful it would be if she didn’t have to work outside the home. However, I also see how much she loves teaching these children and I find that a measure of grace from God, given to her, for the children’s betterment.
Her cousin, Marc, also came to vist this week on his way to his new military station. We haven’t seen him in 3 or 4 years and it was wonderful seeing this man whom we’d last saw as a boy. His maturity and strength are amazing and I will continue to pray he grows in wisdom as the days and years go by.
Lastly, I’ve gone back to cooking now that she is at work. Monday night we had oven roast pork butt with one of my special BBQ concoctions to baste it with along with some really good mashed potatoes and salad. Last night, I made a pot of Jambalaya with a bit of my own twist and it seemed to go over well. I also took some to the Lodge meeting and they also seemed to enjoy it.
So, tonight? I made a Tuna Fettuccine Alfredo with a good deal of seasoning and everyone seemed to enjoy it as well. Tomorrow night’s dinner will be a simpler fare….we’re having breakfast for dinner.
Of course, all of this has been on top of my regular work. I’m trying to finish working on this sermon which I’ve had outlined for the past few weeks but it seems the phone rings or something comes up each time I pick up the text and begin to work with it. So, it’s no wonder I’m going to stay up another hour and read the Gospel of John Chapter 6 one more time and do a bit of study.
Yes, that’s just part of my week. (Oh, and I also received my “official” acceptance into the Doctorate of Ministry program at George Fox so I’m excited and anxious about that as well. Now I just have to find a way to fund it!)
If you read my home page, I’ve defined geeks this way for many years “A person with a devotion to something in a way that places him or her outside the mainstream.” I still believe in this definition but I need to make an apology…an apology for my own hypocrisy. For a very long time, I have been telling people to find their “inner geek” and have told numerous people each of us has a bit of geek inside of ourselves. However, I don’t know if I have fully lived into that truth.
With the recent article Booth Babes Need Not Apply written by Joe Peacock and posted on CNN, I felt myself readily agreeing with him in a number of ways. I have read a number of posts since that time and I realize others saw things in the article that I failed to see. I saw the article as being opposed to those “faking” their geekiness but there were a number of underlying issues going on in my own subculture that I’d failed to comprehend.
One of the main areas is the way women are often treated in many geeky hobbies. In the sci-fi, comic, and fantasy side of geek culture, women have long found themselves objectified. The boys only club mindset has prevailed in a number of areas in geekdom and, honestly, I have never fully understood it. As a young man, I often wished I would meet a geeky girl long before this was seen as popular or “sexy.” I just wanted to meet someone of the opposite sex who had similar interests as myself. This, for me and many other geeky guys of my generation, was something virtually unknown.
When we fast forward to today, we see a proliferation of women in the geek culture and many of us are excited about it. Women bring an entirely different perspective to the hobby and often have insights men have often overlooked. As a husband to a geeky wife and father to a geeky daughter, I am continually amazed at the way they help me see my own world.
So, where does my hypocrisy come into the picture? The simple truth is somewhere deep inside I have never liked the idea of “popular” people claiming the title of geek. I have heard athletes, models, and even Miss America claim to be geeks…..and it made me mad. Why? Why was I so mad? Well, I didn’t feel like they had earned the title. For those who came up as nerds, dorks, and/or geeks in my generation, it generally meant you received quite a few butt kickings and often didn’t have too many dates. When someone who has went through all of these things sees people claim this title whom we don’t feel “paid their dues” we tend to get mad about it. (I am reminded of early Christians who went willingly to martyrdom to “prove” their faith. I think I, as well as many others, have had a martyrdom complex for too long.)
The problem is I don’t know what dues these people may have paid for their geekiness. I don’t know the scorn or derision they may have received in their lives nor do I know if they hid their geekiness as some deep, dark secret they weren’t able to share with their family and friends. (Having met a few people like this over the years, I am coming to realize there are more of these types of geeks than you might imagine. The tears I’ve seen coming from a man who was afraid to share his geekiness with his family nearly broke my heart.)
The sad reality is I have been doing the one thing Christians are often accused of: being judgmental. This is an area I’ve specifically tried to avoid in my life and ministry over the last five years but it still retains a foothold in my heart. So, now it looks like I have yet another unresolved area of sin in my life I need to get over.
Now that I have admitted my own failing and sinful hypocrisy, I do need to make one last point. Christians are often accused of this particular sin and, sadly, the accusation is more often true than not. As human beings, we seem to hate hypocrisy in others but are very good at overlooking it in our own lives. It is painful to be that self-aware and we don’t like it so we find it in others and try to squash them as quickly as possible. (Note that my phrasing is intentional. Human beings don’t like to squash hypocrisy, we like squashing the hypocrites. It’s much more fun bringing someone down than actually bringing a change about in their lives, right?)
For many of us in the geek community, we have become angry as we have seen our hobbies infiltrated by someone trying to make a quick buck. We get even angrier when we see a man or a woman acting as if they’re into our hobbies just so they might be able to sell us another piece of merchandise. We want to purify our hobbies of all those we deem “inferior” or not properly “initiated” into its mysteries. Sound familiar? Have you ever heard of the Crusades or the Puritans? Aren’t we, as geeks, being just as bad as those exclusionary people who have gone before us?
At the risk of being accused of being a “dirty hippy”, the key to all this frustration, anger, and attitude is we all need to learn to get along. Forgiveness, acceptance of all people, kindness, mercy. Does any of this sound familiar? Let us hear the words of Jesus, brother and sister geeks, and try and live by them, “Do not judge others, and you will not be judged. For you will be treated as you treat others. The standard you use in judging is the standard by which you will be judged.” (Jesus, The Gospel of Matthew 7:1-2, New Living Translation)
San Diego Comic Con has been in Geek News a great deal the last few weeks. Over the years it has become the Mecca of Geekiness for quite a few comic book nerds. (Sadly, this particular nerd has never had the opportunity to attend.) However, some of the news I have been reading has not come across positively. Many articles and blogs on the interwebz have been talking about how SDCC has become a “pop culture event” more than a comic book convention. Some have mentioned how difficult it has become for the average fan to get into SDCC and when they do, these fans find it very hard to interact with the artists and writers of their favorite comics.
It would seem, from the interactions I’ve had over Twitter and Facebook, that the common geeks and nerds feel as if they are being shoved out of the way at SDCC to make room for Hollywood. SDCC is becoming an opportunity for the beautiful people to show off their talents and advertise their newest projects. Is this bad? For Hollywood, it’s not bad at all. For those seeking to promote the next blockbuster movie or video game, it’s really good marketing. However, for the average geek or nerd who just wants a chance to chat with their favorite artist or comic company it becomes a bit of a problem.
Why has this problem come to life? I believe it is because we’ve gone mainstream and, honestly, this has not been historically good for fringe groups. For example, Christians have often faced similar problems down through the years. Early Christianity made many inroads among slaves and the poor because it offered them an equality that the surrounding culture did not. Early Christians felt empowered by an equality unheard of during this period in history! For someone to say, “there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male or female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus” was a radical idea and it’s still one many people have trouble grasping.
However, after a few centuries, the Empire took over. If you know a bit of history or have watched the Star Wars films, you realize the state has often co-opted local religions for its own purposes. (Darth Vader, anyone?) The people on the margins find themselves forced out of an active role in their faith communities while the people with power and influence rise to the top. Some of the ones in power even began to change the Christian story to the point it would become unrecognizable to Christians who had just lived a few hundred years before.
Instead of a story that gives hope to the poor and hurting, it becomes one of power and privilege. The leaders of that time took the idea of Christ as King and used that story to place themselves in His seat. They built up kingdoms and wealth and ignored the plight of the geek…errr….the Christians that were on the fringes. Eventually, those on the fringes find there is no longer a place for them in the faith and they move on to something else or end up becoming a cog in the religious machine of the powerful.
I see the same thing happening in geek culture. Much like the early Christians, geeks got very happy when we saw nerdy things becoming mainstream. Hey, we have made it! No more getting beat up and bullied, right? You like the movies and stories we like so we can all be friends, right? Nope. Didn’t happen. The stories that got many of us through much ridicule and bullying are now blasting from almost every movie theater but the non-geeks are starting to claim them as their story and rewrite them. Geeks who are unaware of their history of being on the outside also start writing these new stories. How could this happen? Surely we would be able to lend our voice to these great stories? Don’t we have people like Kevin Smith working hard to make sure geek stories are being told? No, instead we see people like Smith often forced off mainstream projects because he tries to keep it real. He doesn’t seem to have forgotten the school of hard knocks that many geeks experienced as they were growing up.
So, like early Christianity, geeks are realizing our stories are being stolen from us. Pop culture has taken over and it is making it difficult for us to go on our geek pilgrimages. It has also begun to renvision many of our stories.
SPOILERS AHEAD!
For instance, the newest Spiderman movie left out one of the most famous lines often attributed to either Peter Parker or Uncle Ben. The line is, “With great power, comes great responsibility.” (In the original comic, it was a blurb at the end of the story.) I believe the director’s excuse for this is that the “subtext” of this line was present throughout the story but I would have to disagree. This was an egregious error! This line becomes Peter Parker/Spiderman’s moral compass down through the years. It is a creed he is called affirm and reaffirm on an almost daily basis.
Of course, this isn’t my only problem with the movie. We get to see Peter Parker use his “great power” to bully Flash Thompson making himself no better than the one he beats up. We also see them denerdify Peter’s science geekiness. Yes, the guy from the comics who can’t get a date because he studies hard and works in the science lab is changed to a cool skateboarder who steals his web fluid from Oscorp and later claims it as his own invention. He also takes his father’s math formula to Dr. Conners and tells the good Doctor it was his original idea.
So, geeks and Christians, if you go mainstream remember that you’re going to lose a bit of your story in the telling. Often you will find yourself given “great power” and it will tempt you to avoid the great responsibility coming your way. You will also find that this great power makes it much easier to ignore the poor and hurting and just focus on your own desires and quest for personal vengeance. The Peter Parker of the comics learned rather quickly that this was not the proper path and I know this isn’t the message from the Greatest Story ever told.
Michah 6:8,
“He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?”
