A Christian Worldview from Silicon Valley

If you haven’t already, go read Vivian’s post. Right now. And comment, too, because we live for comments. Anyway, the following thoughts were inspired by what she said, and it would be grossly unfair to her to start here just because mine is at the top of the pile for the moment.

Nearly two years ago, I read Why Men Hate Going to Church. It opened my eyes to several things that had been right in front of me forever, yet I hadn’t been able to “see” them before. The book made me wonder if some church practices (passive activities, sweet songs, and so on) had become unduly feminine. As I grappled with that thought (continuing to this day), I came across an oddly titled book, Jesus: Mean and Wild. I had to buy it — that characterization was so different from Jesus as I had understood him to be, yet I wondered what a “mean and wild” Jesus might look like. Confession: I tossed it on my huge TBR(ead) pile of books and didn’t read it for a long time. But I looked at it. And I talked about it. Every time I mentioned the title, I’d get that, “You’re crazy!” look. Okay, whatever. Some people don’t recognize hyperbole for what it is.

At Lewis’ suggestion, I agreed to co-teach the Sermon on the Mount with him, but I told him up front, “This is not my favorite topic. I don’t get it, and I don’t like reading lectures.” He told me, “That’s okay. You’re gonna love it when we’re done, because it’s my very favorite thing!” Okay, the gauntlet had been thrown, and I picked it up.

But I am so far from the “Bible is simple. All ya gotta do is open it and read it and do it. Done deal.” Maybe I’m just thick-headed, but a lot of times when I read the Bible, I’m like, “So? What did that mean? How am I supposed to do that?” Did Jesus really want me to pluck out my eye or chop off my hand? (Interesting how most of us do recognize the hyperbole here; at least I haven’t noticed any one-eyed, one-armed Christians running around, though I bet they have sinned through their seeing or touching.) Most of the Bible is told in stories. The stories reveal — obliquely!!! — the heart of God, his goals and purposes for people, his disappointments with their actions, his irrational love for downtrodden, ostracized, marginalized groups (like Israel). (more…)

I’ve been thinking for many years about the idea of freedom, and I’m certain that there are nooks and crannies I have yet to discover, as well as many rooms into which I’ve only glanced.

One of those rooms is human slavery, a condition in which one person becomes the legal property of another and is forced to obey that person. On my own I can only explore this room intellectually, having never been a slave or a slave owner. I can explore it emotionally with the help of those who have known slaves or been slaves, and one who has helped me do a little of that is the poet Elma Stuckey, mother of my friend Sterling Stuckey. Her work in The Collected Poems of Elma Stuckey has touched me and taught me.

But there is one room at the intersection of freedom and slavery that I do know something of, and that is the spiritual room. The apostle Paul knew about it too, and what a person to write about it! He was, of all men, most “free.” He was an Israelite, a Pharisee, highly educated by the best of Rabbis, and he was also a Roman citizen. In his culture, in his time, no one could be his master.

Except that he made himself a slave to Christ, because he realized that otherwise he was a slave to sin.

There is amazing freedom in being a slave to Christ, and it is a condition I highly recommend. Most of us don’t, of course, think of our relationship to Jesus Christ in that way. We think of him as our brother, our savior, our friend. We sometimes even say that he is our Lord or our Master, but that doesn’t mean we are his slaves.

Or does it?

Getting to know people well is like a treasure quest to me. Meyers-Briggs notwithstanding, we’re all uniquely talented, quirky, marked by experience, and it’s my task to discover the special qualities of the people who cross my path. But the quest doesn’t always end with the person in front of me. Sometimes I get to meet the parents, and then the real fun begins:

So that’s where he got that verbal expression.
No wonder she’s paranoid about germs.
Ah, his dad is artistic, too.
And so on.

On April 1, as I sat outside the KLM gate in the Amsterdam airport, I saw the best example of a Bahiana (by-uh-nuh) that I have ever seen with my own eyes. The epitome of a traditional Bahiana is a large black woman from the state of Bahia (bah-ee-uh) in Brazil who dresses in a sumptuous dress and turban that enables her to carry a basket on her head. Because I was getting ready to board a flight to Uganda, East Africa, it dawned on me that I was not looking at a Brazilian, but an African. That was my first clue that I was about to meet Mama Africa.

Having spent eight years of my childhood in Brazil, I was intimately aware of the unique attributes of that country. It was obvious from history that the years of importing slaves had marked the culture in profound ways. However, I hadn’t expected the deluge of comparative details that assaulted me when I woke up the next day and began exploring Africa. I noticed similarities in architecture, engineering, clothing, handwriting, geology (red dirt=iron!), crafts, meals, plants, and so on. How wonderful to know the child and have the opportunity to meet the mother!

Jesus left heaven to dwell among us in order to give us a similar Aha! experience. He even uses the parent-child analogy, saying, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.” All people reflect God to a certain extent, since we are all made in His image, but the goal of a Christian is to grow more and more like God the Son, and thus, God the Father.

Do people look at you, just being yourself in your everyday activities, and think, “I know why she’s behaving, speaking, dressing, concluding in those unique, counter-cultural ways. It’s because she lives under the influence of her Father.”

Do you look at those around you and wonder, “I’m hearing certain language and seeing certain behaviors and observing certain thought processes in him that make me think he is a child of God.” Then what do you do?

On Easter Sunday I said in my message that Easter was the most important Christian day, more important than Christmas. Christmas is a big deal to me (not just for the presents), and I don’t mean to relegate it to some second class status, but I think it is important for us to recognize the differences in these two incredibly significant events in human history.

At Christmas we celebrate the coming of God to earth in human form as Jesus. At Easter we celebrate the return of Jesus to heaven to sit at the right hand of God. At Christmas we marvel with the shepherds who are told by angels that Jesus is here. At Easter we marvel with those at the tomb who are told by angels that Jesus is no longer here. At Christmas we are filled with joy because of a birth. At Easter we are filled with hope because of a resurrection. At Christmas we know that Jesus is with us. At Easter we know that we can be with him.

Christmas is comfortable, Easter is comforting. In religious terms, Christmas is fairly non-threatening. It is all about the baby and the wise men and the miracle of the virgin birth. Who, other than Herod, is threatened by the babe of Bethlehem? Oh, yes, it is also about Jesus, but only in the sweetest, gentlest way.

Easter is not so comfortable, preceded as it is by the terrible flogging of Jesus, his crown of thorns, his torn flesh, his blood, and ultimately his horrible crucifixion, including nails in his hands and feet and later a spear in his side. But for those who believe, all of that pain leads to something that is amazingly comforting.

So which would you have? Some say that without Christmas there would be no Easter, but the truth is that without Easter there would be no Christmas.

The worldview from Silicon Valley and the surrounding environs hasn’t always been about technology and money. Sometimes it has been about love, flowers, and very often it has been about music.

A little over three weeks ago, one person who was influenced by and influential in the world of music — and in the world of Jesus — died.

He was Larry Norman, and some at the Palo Alto Church of Christ had a “one degree of separation” relationship with Norman without even knowing it — he was the discoverer, early mentor, and friend of Randy Stonehill, who performed at PACC on December 2, 2007.

Larry Norman was, by all accounts, an amazing and powerful force. According to an obituary in the Guardian, he claimed to have had the idea of Jesus Rock in 1956 when he was just nine years old, “when he was as excited by the sound of Elvis Presley as he was by the words of Jesus Christ.”

But it was about 10 years later when he actually began the revolution that became Christian Rock.Behind and beyond the music, however, was Larry’s genuine love for the Lord and heart for the lost. According to his Gospel Music Hall of Fame biography, he started The Vineyard Church, which met in his living room in Los Angeles on Wednesdays. It is now comprised of more than 600 churches. He also led Susan Perlman to Christ, and with Moishe Rosen she founded Jews for Jesus.

(For a look at Larry at work, with a reference to the aforementioned Randy Stonehill, watch this YouTube video. Randy’s own memories of Larry are posted here.)

The Huffington Post obit included this paragraph:

While Christian Rock is sometimes assailed as formulaic and derivative, Norman was anything but and his admirers included Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan, The Pixies, Van Morrison, John Mellencamp and Sammy Davis, Jr. among others.

Among Norman’s amazing list of songs is one that many Christians know, I Wish We’d All Been Ready. Based on what I know of the life, work, and death of this incredible artist, he most definitely was.Here is what he dictated to his friend the day before he died:

I feel like a prize in a box of cracker jacks with God’s hand reaching down to pick me up. I have been under medical care for months. My wounds are getting bigger. I have trouble breathing. I am ready to fly home.

My brother Charles is right, I won’t be here much longer. I can’t do anything about it. My heart is too weak. I want to say goodbye to everyone. In the past you have generously supported me with prayer and finance and we will probably still need financial help.

My plan is to be buried in a simple pine box with some flowers inside. But still it will be costly because of funeral arrangement, transportation to the gravesite, entombment, coordination, legal papers etc. However money is not really what I need, I want to say I love you.I’d like to push back the darkness with my bravest effort. There will be a funeral posted here on the website, in case some of you want to attend. We are not sure of the date when I will die. Goodbye, farewell, we will meet again.

Goodbye, farewell, we’ll meet again
Somewhere beyond the sky.
I pray that you will stay with God
Goodbye, my friends, goodbye.

Larry

See you in heaven, Larry. Thanks for the music.

Someday, I want to visit The Hotel Utah in San Francisco, which hosts an open mic every Monday, featuring a scheduled musician and whoever else wants to play. Every week or so, host JJ Schultz sends me a note, subject line: “The Utah loves you…,” and saying something like: “Hello. Hope you’re doing good. I’m doing pretty good. Blah blah blah.* So-and-so gave a great performance and you can download it here….”

And one of my favorite music stations, KFOG, “World Class Rock,” emails a personalized note to registered Fogheads like me. The note goes something like this: “Dear Susan, Blah blah blah.* Love, KFOG.”

I like those notes. I appreciate knowing what’s waiting for me some future Monday, and it’s especially nice to get a weekly reminder that somebody loves me.

I was reading a couple of them the other day, feeling all warm and fuzzy inside when my brain kicked in — hello, “loves” me? Yeah, right. Me and thousands of other registered rock fans. Not! That is, the sentiment shown here is not even LIKE, much less LOVE. To love a person, one tiny prerequisite is that you know them, right? When I filled out the registration forms, I had to divulge some information, but I’m pretty sure I didn’t submit so much that they would truly know me, much less recognize me on the street.

Maybe knowledge isn’t the distinguishing factor. After all, what about Christians, who are called to love everyone, even strangers? Maybe what gives love its potency is not its label but its action. Y’know, like Jesus said: “If you gave a stranger food, drink, clothing, shelter, medical help, or encouragement in the form of a prison or hospital visit, it’s as though you had given it straight to me” (Susan’s down and dirty summary of Matthew 25:31-46). In other words, “Just Do It.”

In “Pagans, Christianity, and Charity,” Christopher Price cites examples of how Christians began showing a gritty kind of love that was unheard of in the ancient world, (more…)

This week I did something that most people would have found frivolous to the point of annoying — I sent an email and then sent it again just 2 minutes later, changing only the subject line and adding a brief note that only the subject line was different. I felt some anxiety for having thus cluttered my friend’s in-box with an unnecessary repeat. He responded with such joy, though, saying, “That’s like a *perfect* subject line!” As a fellow writer, he understood my motivation completely as well as my worry, and his reply unleashed in me a host of exaggeratedly happy feelings.

I love my friends, and I enjoy their replies to my notes, but the depth of feeling surprised me, so I’ve been thinking about what it means to be known and why its appeal is so great.

One of my relatives used to occasionally say to me something like, “Aha, I get you. I’ve got you pegged.” His remarks would annoy me to no end, though I wouldn’t tell him that, figuring he would redouble his efforts to predict me if he sensed a challenge. I assumed that my reaction was because I wanted to be a mystery of sorts, unknown and unpredictable. Later I decided that my irritation stemmed from the fact that he didn’t get me at all, but he was audacious enough to believe he did.

Here’s the kicker, though: (more…)

On the morning of February 23, 2008, those of us who were privileged to be at PACC heard an excellent address by Sterling Stuckey titled “Paul Robeson: Christianity, Commitment and Radicalism.” Sterling, a retired professor of history (Northwestern and University of California, Riverside) is an acknowledged expert on Paul Robeson, one of the most commanding figures in the American 20th century, if not in the world’s 20th century.

In anticipation of that talk, I looked last week more deeply into the life of Paul Robeson through the means of that great library, the Internet. I had known about Robeson on a cursory level, having first been told about him by my father, and much later having seen a PBS program about him in the American Masters series. (Sterling Stuckey, by the way, was one of the experts interviewed for that production.)

As I studied Robeson, I began to see some similarities between him and Jesus. But listening to Sterling made Robeson come even more to life, made him even more human, and both my admiration for that great man, who died in 1976, and how he reminded me of Jesus, who died 2000 years ago, were deepened.

The important question for all of us is this: Do we remind people of Jesus? When people look at our lives, will the greatest Life of all be remembered? A man like Paul Robeson only comes along once or twice in any generation — possibly not even that often. So I’m not saying we should be famous, that we should have a place on the world stage, or even the Broadway stage. Our audience may be smaller, but our influence, our being like Jesus, can and should be just as big.

Under the mercy,

Lewis

Mia is indeed a blessing. And, can she sing.

Do Re Mi Fa So La Ti Waaa!!!

She can do it around the clock, too.

More often than not, she just needs to be fed, changed or just cuddled for reassurance that all is well with the world.

It causes me to wonder about what it was like for Jesus when He was a newborn. Was He so helpless? Did he sing, too? Did he have tiny hands? Did he respond to the soft voice of his mother and deep voice of his earthly guardian, Joseph?

(more…)

As we walked from the 10th green to the 11th tee, I asked my friend about his friend Pete. I had just met Pete a couple of hours earlier and liked him right away, but he was in one of the two foursomes behind us so I hadn’t had a chance to get to know him at all. Mostly I wondered if he was what we Christians call “a believer.”

My friend said that Pete was not a Christian, although he might think of himself as a Christian, that he was recently married, and that he was an excellent athlete and very competitive.

“Is there an opportunity to talk to him about his faith?” I wondered.

My friend thought about that and said he thought there probably would be an opportunity for that — or more specifically that Pete would be open to such a conversation — around the time that he and his wife started having children.

My friend, by the way, is a long-time and very mature Christian who has spoken to many people personally and publicly about their need for Jesus. So he wasn’t putting this off because of any sort of fear, but he was putting it off (at least for now) until a more opportune time.

I marveled at my friend’s patience, and told him so.

Most of us have a sense of urgency when it comes to this kind of thing and if someone doesn’t listen to us the first time, we keep after them and keep after them until we “get them in the water” or (too often) drive them away forever.

There is little question that patience (part of the fruit borne in us by God’s Spirit) is a good thing. And I don’t wonder whether or not I have it, I wonder where I should be using it. Perhaps with some patience, I’ll find out.