And he gave them the lands of the nations, and they took possession of the fruit of the people’s toil, that they might keep his statutes and observe his laws. Praise the Lord! – Psalm 105:44-45

Being an Episcopalian in exile, I generally use The Book of Common Prayer (BCP)  for my morning devotions. The daily devotions laid out in the BCP include a good portion of the Psalms, which I find myself rushing through quite often. The problem isn’t that I don’t like the Psalms – I do. Rather, I find them too demanding for my scattered brain in the morning. I’m constantly thinking about what I have to do, mentally building my checklist for the day. I rarely enjoy the now, relish in the moment, marinate in the Word.

Lately, I’ve been trying to deliberately slow down and really read these Psalms. To dwell on the significance of what they are saying. To mediate on how men thousands of years ago amazingly shared the same emotional up and down wrestling with what it means to live life and follow God.

This morning I pretty much sucked at that. Psalm 105 is:

1. Long

2. A relatively boring (by that I mean, something I’ve heard over and over again) litany of Jewish exodus.

By the time I was about halfway through the Psalm, I realized that my mind had completely drifted off to the day’s cares. So, redoubling, I went back to the beginning and started to read again. And I’m glad I did.

Because the story in Psalm 105 is not just a Jewish story. It is our story. A story of a God who seeks to rescue and redeem his people. A story of a God who is actively involved in better the lives of the people whom he loves. A story of a God who gives his grace and redeeming love unconditionally.

This is no better summed up than in the last verses of the Psalm when the Psalmist, who having just run through the cherished Exodus event, writes: “And he [God] gave… that they might keep his statutes and observe his laws. Praise the Lord!”

God didn’t give because the Jews had followed God’s statutes and laws. He gave so that they would do so out of loving response to God’s immeasurable goodness.

So today, as you go about doing the good works God has prepared in advance for you to do, do so as a response to God’s favor – not as a means to attain that favor. It goes better for us that way.

35 While he was still speaking, there came from the ruler’s house some who said, “Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the Teacher any further?” 36 But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the ruler of the synagogue, “Do not fear, only believe.” 37 And he allowed no one to follow him except Peter and James and John the brother of James. 38 They came to the house of the ruler of the synagogue, and Jesus saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly. 39 And when he had entered, he said to them, “Why are you making a commotion and weeping? The child is not dead but sleeping.” 40 And they laughed at him. But he put them all outside and took the child’s father and mother and those who were with him and went in where the child was. 41 Taking her by the hand he said to her, “Talitha cumi,” which means, “Little girl, I say to you, arise.” 42 And immediately the girl got up and began walking (for she was twelve years of age), and they were immediately overcome with amazement. 43 And he strictly charged them that no one should know this, and told them to give her something to eat.

Sad news came my way this week. An acquaintance of mine was traveling with one of my clients to Argentina. When he got off the plane, he did what all of us do and checked his cell phone messages. What he heard will change his life forever: His thirteen year old son had died while staying at his aunts. The boy was highly allergic to peanuts, and had ate a granola bar that contained them as a snack in the middle of the night. Whether he was too groggy to think clearly or he was disoriented from being in a new house, we don’t know. But what we do know is that one small decision has in the blink of an eye led to the tragic loss of my friend’s beloved son. He’s gone, and his father was not even there to hold is still body and weep.

It’s hard to find solace in the gospel’s for moments such as this, since there are no stories where the healing power of Jesus is not effective. But when I read the text quoted from Mark above, I do think we can find solace of a sort. The story has similarities. A man who is away. A child that has died. News comes to the father, and despair sets in. This father too was unable to hold his daughter and weep. To which, Jesus says, “Do not fear, only believe.” And the journey home begins.

As we know from the story, Jesus does raise this man’s daughter from the dead. Sadly, this is not the end of my friend’s story. Some might think that Jesus’ power to raise people from the dead is the point. And it is a point, but to me it’s not the point. The true power of this story is found in the words, “Talitha cumi,” which Jesus speaks over the child. As the text indicates, this phrase is literally translated, “Little girl, I say to you, arise.” What is lost in translation, is the compassion behind these words.

The phrase talitha cumi was a common one that would have been used to awake a sleeping child. It evokes images of a parent quietly going into their child’s room and gently touching them to awaken them, filled with tenderness, love, and compassion. “Wake up, little one.” Or in my home, “Bubba, it’s time to get up.” Imagine the horror, as many parent’s over time have experienced, of the gentle call to awaken to not be headed by the child. To find the child is not sleeping, but is dead.

In this way, Christ approaches the lifeless body of this little girl. His father-like compassion is aroused, and quietly  and with gentleness (I imagine) he says, “Talitha cumi.”

I cannot explain why my friend’s child did not wake up. But I do hope that he was awakened by our Lord unto eternal life with a gentle holding of the hand, and the words, “Wake up, little one.”

Now, Jesus could have simply exposed the motives of the man’s heart, accusing him directly of his hypocrisy. Instead, Jesus asks a question, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” He answers a question with another question – a question that entraps the lawyer in the very web he was trying to weave for Jesus. The lawyer knows the right answer, gives the right answer, but shows he does not understand the Law’s intent:

And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” And he [Jesus] said to him, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.”

But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

At this point Jesus tells his famous parable about a Good Samaritan, ending again with a question instead of a direct answer:

“Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” He [the lawyer] said, “The one who showed him mercy.” And Jesus said to him, “You go, and do likewise.”

This is really genius. Christ, though he knows the lawyer is attempting to trap him, never feels the need to justify or one-up the man by directly accusing. Christ uses pointed questions to expose the motives that are in the man’s heart. Christ does not need to condemn the man for he is already condemned by the motives of his heart. This pattern is evident throughout much of Jesus’ ministry. In Luke 14:1-6 for instance, Jesus uses questions to turn the tables on his would be accusers:

One Sabbath, when he went to dine at the house of a ruler of the Pharisees, they were watching him carefully. And behold, there was a man before him who had dropsy. And Jesus responded to the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, “Is it lawful to heal on the the Sabbath, or not?” But they remained silent. Then he took him and healed him and sent him away. And he said to them, “Which of you, having a son or an ox that has fallen into a well on a Sabbath day, will not immediately pull him out?” And they could not reply to these things.

This passage is part of a long-running exchange between the Pharisees and Jesus on the Sabbath, in which the Pharisees were continually trying to trap Jesus and make him out to be a Sabbath breaker in order to discredit him and his ministry. But again, Jesus exposes the true motives of their hearts through simple, but pointed, questions.

1. Rather than justify himself, Jesus puts it on the Pharisees to justify his not healing the man. 
2. Instead of justifying his healing on the Sabbath, Jesus’ question requires the Pharisees to theologically justify their interpretation of the Law.
3. Jesus exposes that their intent is not to see the Law fulfilled perfectly (and thus glorify God), but to justify their own inaction and lack of compassion by pointing out that if someone (or something – an ox!) were suffering, they would move to save them. In this way he shows that they are guilty of not loving their neighbor as themselves. 

So here’s my takeaway: Ask more pointed questions. Accuse less. Often we are slow to listen, quick to speak, and ready to condemn with our own words when the motives of a person’s heart will be so much more effective when rightly exposed. 

Ask the pointed question.

My grandpa died just a few days after Christmas. I’m glad that I got to see him one last time, and that by God’s providence I made the trek to Seattle with my wife and son for the Christmas holiday. But it was strange going through those emails beginning in early December, filled with joy, hope, and expectation centered around our family gathering, and then in the space of literally minutes going through emails from late December and early January, filled with grief, pain, and confusion, centered around the death of my grandpa and the details for his memorial.

Technology is a weird thing. Ten years ago, I would never have had an experience quite like that. Nor would I be blogging about it. Yet, here we are, engaging in this medium, not even sure how it really effects us mentally or emotionally.

Anyway, I wrote an essay about my grandpa, which I read at the memorial a couple months ago. I’ve been asked to share it by a few folks, and my email project inspired me to go ahead and post it. It’s long. No need to read it through, or at all for that matter, but at least it’s here. A digital relic for a dying age:

Brand My Memory by Jacob Johnson

You enjoy work and will love your grandchildren, and somewhere in there you die.
-    Annie Dillard, “How to Live”

Personally, I’m a bit of a bull-shitter myself.
- The cartoon bull on a poster in Grandpa’s garage

Death, as we know, is the great equalizer. It is a cold shower, a sobering and shocking dousing, at best vaguely expected, at worst a horrible surprise. Like all good shocks, it get’s you thinking. What is right and important? How is life to be lived? Often it is as introspective as it is objective. The experience of mourning and remembering and wishing and hoping is a personal one, as much about the lover as the loved one.

And that’s ok. We need to push and pull, laugh and cry, to accept that we lost more than just a person, but a part of ourselves. And we ache and we hurt, and we smile and we cry as we reminisce and run into tender memories at every corner. This, I suspect will last for quite some time.

And death carries with it great mythos. My, oh my, it is a heady topic. A frosty glass of porter on a cold winter’s day. To be dwelt on, savored, sipped. It must be explored, not flown over. Pushed and prodded. Search out its corners; put your hands down the crevices. As Shakespeare said, it is the undiscovered country.

We don’t know what happens after death. We have our ideas. But in the end they are speculation, a veiled realization – a hope to which we are attached like a lifeline. The only certainty we have about death is that it happens. And it will one day happen to us, and to those we love.

Still, we try to forget this inconvenient truth. We live our lives in the illusion of permanence. And for good reason we go about acting as if this ultimate reality doesn’t exist Otherwise we would be paralyzed with fear and contempt, or we would waste our lives in revelry. Instead, we work hard for whatever we believe will make life worth living: wealth, fame, family, or God – or some combination thereof. And we live, quite happily, in the illusion that these things will be a part of us, with us, forever.
But every so often there is an interruption. Things we deemed reliable fail us. Surprise events breach our walls of expectation. Life throws us a curveball. These are often minor things, quickly forgotten. A light switch not working, or the cable going out. These, we think, are flukes – errors in an otherwise wholly reliable program. Surely, they are not the norm because they are random and happen so little – to us.

So, we choose not to focus on these interruptions. Instead, we work hard. We build a better light bulb. We invent digital cable. We get a promotion. We improve and invent and push and strive. We seek control and grasp sand.
Yet, impermanence is not a fluke. It is the norm. The better light bulb burns out. The union job gets phased out. The cable gets cut – usually during the football game. The flower withers. The tree falls. Lakes evaporate. Rivers run dry. And people you love most pass on.

But impermanence is, of course, not the whole story. It is only half. There is also permanence. There is love, laughter, family. There is always a new light bulb to be found. The cable comes back on. You get a new job. A new tree grows. New lakes form. Rivers carve out new winding ways. And the memories of those you love remain, and the bits of soul they planted in you are passed on to others – your children or your friends – to those that know that you are not a whole but a sum of parts.

Tonight as I was eating dinner, I used a torn piece of bread to scoop food onto my fork, and I got to thinking how I’d seen grandpa do that a million times. Now I was doing it. Sometimes I’ll catch myself telling stories like grandpa does, long, drawn out stories that you know have a punch line, but you can’t guess what it is or how you’re going to get to it; or I’ll see myself in the mirror and catch a phantom drift across my face, a merging of the past with the present, when the Irish blood flowing in my veins is magnified, and all I’d need would be a sailor suit to be him. When I smoked Camels, the brand he smoked for over sixty years, I caught myself putting the tip of my tongue out to wet my lips and putting the cigarette to my lips, my forefinger and thumb cradling the filter, the rest of my fingers raised slightly in the air, holding in the smoke and surveying the world around me, knowing I’m not perfect, but that I’m here; I’m living.

See. Little bits of soul.

And then there are the memories.

Prior to his death, they would often float lazily like a piece of driftwood into my consciousness and settle on the sand of my mind to be discovered unexpectedly, a long forgotten moment of joy. And I would pause. And dwell. And cherish.
Now, after his death, they come on like a flood.

I remember smiley-face pancakes at five am. I remember the bed bugs song, and the whiskey river. I remember long drawn out stories – but not the stories themselves. I remember warmth and generosity and toughness. I remember finding golf balls in the rough, teeing off when the marshal wasn’t looking, stories about his pal Brown, V-neck sweaters, the way his shoulders shook when he laughed, the firmness of his handshake, the fresh smell of his clothes, and the age spots on his face. I remember his goodness and gentleness. I remember him as a man I want to one day be like.

I will say this. Grandpa’s death has taught me something about life. I’ll never forget returning to my mom’s house after seeing grandpa’s still body, cold like the snow on the Everett streets, having kissed his forehead for the last time, the hot tears traveling down my cheeks, and the staleness of the air still burning in my nostrils; how my son, Liam, with joy and expectation on his face ran into my arms, and told me about his morning adventures, blissfully ignorant and totally enthralled with me.
And I thought, this is a moment grandpa would appreciate.

And as I bent over, picked Liam up, and whispered in his ear, “I sure missed you. You are my favorite,” I felt a joy unspeakable enter my soul, and the weight of the day was gone. In that moment grace and peace, the very presence of God, entered into the room. And I knew my grandpa Mac wasn’t gone. His legacy lived on, in me and in you.  In the everyday actions we take, and in the way in which we approach the world.

I always thought that Liam would learn all the jokes and songs and stories from the source, from early morning breakfasts and after-dinner table talk. I assumed that he would know the man. I had comfortably settled into permanence. And now that impermanence has settled itself in the house, taken off his shoes, and peeked in the fridge, maybe even rearranged a few pieces of furniture, I’ve reassessed what it will mean for my son to know my grandfather – his great-grandfather, in more ways that one.
Sure we have pictures, and yes, there are videos. But how will he really know him? Through me. In the way that I love, talk, share, and teach. In the faces I make, the way I too say, “Hey,” loudly and boisterously when Liam walks into the room, the things I laugh at, and the jokes I tell. By personally being a bit of a bull-shitter myself. Liam may not recognize these things as my grandfather, but I will. And I will see those things in my son as he grows. Little pieces of soul.

We are the permanence of those who have poured into us. We are the living, breathing relics of our ancestors. We do not pass on; we pass forward. A branded memory.

Thanks be to God.

So, I’m starting a theology pub. What is that you might ask? Good question. I don’t really know. It’s a relatively new idea – at least for modern American evangelicals. For folks such as Luther, whose wife brewed beer, and who enjoyed throwing a few back while discussing justification by faith with the locals, it was a simple way of life that didn’t need a cool title:

“Whenever the devil pesters you, at once seek out the company of friends, drink more, joke and jest, or engage in some form of merriment.” Martin Luther

For Luther, beer was a gift from God, not to be shunned, but rather to be enjoyed – and it was best enjoyed in the company of others. I’ll just get the caveat out of the way here, Luther was against drunkenness (as we all should be).

Sermon on Soberness and Moderation against Gluttony and Drunkenness, 1 Peter 4:7-11, May 18, 1539

God does not forbid you to drink, as do the Turks; he permits you to drink wine and beer: he does not make a law of it. But do not make a pig of yourself; remain a human being. If you are a human being, then keep your human self-control. Even though we do not have a command of God, we should nevertheless be ashamed that we are thus spit upon by other peoples. If you want to be a Christian, do not argue in this way: Nobody reproaches me, therefore God does not reproach me. So it has been from the time of Noah. And so it was with the Sodomites, who wanted to rape the angels; they were all so drunk they could not find the door. Sodom and Gomorrah perished because of a flood of drunkenness; this vice was punished. God does not tolerate such confusion and inordinate use of his creatures [i.e., food and drink]. (As quoted on Ted Tschopp’s Blog)

So with all this in mind (and the fact that I love pubs and beer – as do most of my un-christian friends), I thought what better way to be missional than to bring the gospel into the context of a local pub. So that is what we are going to do.

I’m, of course, not nearly the first to do this. Earlier this week I had a great conversation with Joe Thorn, pastor of Redeemer Fellowship in the Chicago area. He just hosted his first Theology Pub in March. Around twenty or so people showed up to talk about God, society, and culture – around 40% were unchurched and unchristian. Everyone loved it. The buzz is already building and a number of people who might not otherwise step foot in a church are very excited about the prospect of discussing Theology at a local pub.The eventual goal for Joe is to have a 50-50 split of church members/christians and unchristian folk.

I’m encouraged to hear the groundswell that is building around Redeemer’s program. Our own Lord is of course a model for us in this sense because he was quite often mocked for hanging out with “sinners” by “holy” pharisees.

Matthew 11:19
“The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is justified by her deeds.”

Mark 2:15-17
“15And as he reclined at table in his house, many tax collectors and sinners were reclining with Jesus and his disciples, for there were many who followed him.  16And the scribes of1 the Pharisees, when they saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, said to his disciples, ‘Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?’  17And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.’”

In is in this spirit that I wish to start a Theology Pub – not as a cool anti-evangelical emergent thing, but rather as an intentional missional (by missional, I mean this) endeavor intent on spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ to “those that are sick.” One pint at a time.

Please keep me in your prayers as I work towards launching this exciting adventure. Grace and peace.

http://theresurgence.com/valentines_day_2009

It may be a Hallmark holiday, but it’s her Hallmark holiday…smart men know this. Good luck.