Looking Below the Surface

“I’ve got good news and I’ve got bad news”, the doctor said.

         

He was an orthopedic surgeon to whom I had been referred six years ago after a 30-year battle with bad knees. I had my first knee surgery in 1977 following way too many years of abuse playing sports as a youth, in high school and college. I was coaching college football at the time and the Hope College team doctor did some minor work on my left knee which held up for 25 more years of abuse with long distance running, basketball, racquetball, softball and golf. Finally, after two more surgeries on the same knee, which provided little relief, I was a candidate for knee replacement. This orthopedic surgeon would have the final word and perform the surgery.

         

“The good news is that you have the heart of a thirty year old man, but you have the knees of a 95 year old. In fact, one of your knees isn’t even that good.”

         

I knew my left knee was bad. I could hardly walk without significant pain and could barely stand long enough to deliver a sermon, which made my sermons shorter! But I had no idea my right knee was deteriorated at all. It was, and still is, pain free (unless I overdo it on the treadmill too many days in a row...then I ache everywhere).

         

The only way I had any idea my right knee had problems was through the x-rays that were done. There was no outward sign that things were bad. I was blissfully unaware of any issues.

         

How many times isn’t that the case? Someone goes into the doctor for their annual checkup and the blood work reveals some kind of disease. A friend has an ache in their shoulder that they think is an issue with their rotator cuff and they discover a tumor instead. Your child goes into the dentist for a routine cleaning and x-rays reveal cavities.

         

Everything appears to be fine on the outside, but just below the surface, danger lingers.

         

Which brings us to the season of Lent. Traditionally Lent is a Christian observation of the 40-day season of the year that immediately precedes Easter. It is a time for introspection, self-examination and reflection on our relationship with God. In some traditions people engage in some kind of sacrifice to identify with the suffering Jesus endured during His 40 days in the wilderness prior to His public ministry.

         

Frederick Buechner writes this about Lent:

“After being baptized by John in the river Jordan, Jesus went off alone into the wilderness where He spent forty days asking Himself the question of what it meant to be Jesus. During Lent, Christians are supposed to ask in one way or another what it means to be themselves.”

         

Rather than living on the surface, we are supposed to spend some time in reflection wrestling with our own discipleship. Are we reflecting the image of Christ everyday? Are we living out “first things” (the essence of the grace, mercy and love of God), or are we distracted by “second things” (personal preferences, programs, how many, how much)?

Buechner suggests some other questions for Lenten reflection:

•  “If you had to bet everything you have on whether there is a God or whether there isn’t, which side would you bet your money on and why?” 
•  “When you look at your face in the mirror, what do you see in it that you most like and what do you see in it that you most deplore?” 
•  “If you had only one last message to leave to the handful of people who are the most important to you, what would it be in twenty-five words or less?” 
•  “Of all the things you have done in your life, which is the one you would most like to undo? Which is the one that makes you happiest to remember?" 
•  “Is there any person in the world, or any cause, that, if circumstances called for it, you would be willing to die for?” 
•  “If this were the last day of your life, what would you do with it?”

Buechner concludes with these words:

“To hear yourself try to answer questions like these is to begin to hear something not only of who you are but of what you are becoming and what you are failing to become. It can be a pretty depressing business all in all, but if sackcloth and ashes are at the start of it, something like Easter may be at the end.”

I’ve got some good news and some bad news.

         

Sometimes we have to rummage around inside of ourselves to find out what lies below that surface that might be painful, or difficult, or present problems down the road. If we find those things we have a chance to rid ourselves of then we can begin to be a healthier version of who God wants us to be.

         

That is the opportunity we have during the season of Lent.

Choked Up

It wasn’t on my radar screen, but some friends mentioned that an acquaintance had invested some money in the movie. It hadn’t done very well commercially and was available not long after release on DVD. They thought I might like it. So, last Friday night I watched Seven Days in Utopia.

Some would say it is a movie about golf. It is not a movie about golf. It is a movie about the personal journey of a young man who is a professional golfer. Golf is secondary to the story. It is a vehicle, not a centerpiece.

It is a movie with a Christian message and contains all the things I hate about movies that are “Christian.” The movie is cheesy. The acting is bad, even though one of the main characters is played by Robert Duvall. The story line is obvious and is not filled with any surprises. Golfer implodes, meets wise old guru, spends seven days with him, resolves issues with his father, wrestles with major life questions and accepts Jesus, showing up in church with his Bible in his hand.

Movie reviewer Roger Ebert wrote this about the movie:

“I would rather eat a golf ball than see this movie again. It tells the dreadful parable of a pro golfer who was abused by his dad, melts down in the Texas Open and stumbles into the clutches of an insufferable geezer in the town of Utopia, who promises him that after seven days in Utopia, he will be playing great golf. He will also find Jesus, but for that you don’t have to play golf, although it might help.”

I can’t really be against any of that. It is just so trite and simplistic. Real life isn’t that clean and easy.

And yet, when the movie came to the point where the main character went through some gut wrenching (cue the predictable melodramatic music) soul searching and moved to embrace Christ, I began to tear up. That caught me off guard. Up until that point, the movie was making me more angry than engaged. I almost turned it off (except I had paid to watch it), but it touched me.

         

That happens to me most of the time when someone, either on television, in a movie, or in real life embraces Jesus. It doesn’t matter what the circumstances might be, how corny or predictable the story, how poorly written, or pitifully acted, when people meet Jesus, it touches me.

Jesus came to seek and save the lost, people who do not know the way, and He described Himself as “the way.” When people find “the way,” somehow it touches my heart. There is nothing more important we can be doing that pointing people to “the way.” I hope to get choked up more often.

Kindergarten

One thing people notice when they come to my office is the walls of bookshelves jam packed with books. I have some similar shelves at home. I like to read and the number of books I own is not so much a measure of intellectual curiosity, but personal longevity (age)! If you are around long enough and you like books, they accumulate.

         

Safely tucked away next to Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion, Louis Berkhof’s, Systematic Theology, Sydney Ahlstrom’s, A Religious History of the American People, and volumes upon volumes of Old and New Testament commentaries is Robert Fulghum’s, All I Really Needed to know I Learned in Kindergarten. Fulghum’s premise is that if we master the lessons we learn in kindergarten, Share everything, Play fair, Don’t hit people, Clean up your own mess, Flush, Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you, we have everything we need for the rest of our lives.

I thought of that the other day when I was talking with a man who is in the process of writing a book on leadership. He told me that his four pillars for leadership are:   

          Be Nice

          Listen

          Don’t get caught up in minutiae

          Always, Always, Always...tell the truth

         

Really, those are leadership principles worthy of being published in a book? Then, the more I thought about it, the more I realized as a person who studies and reads about leadership, I realized that as simple as those four things seem to be, they are rarely practiced by leaders.

Are we nice to people, genuinely nice to everyone? We set up parameters, resonate with certain personality types, decide who is worthy of our time and interest and are often abrupt and rude to people. Then there is the other side of being nice. Some people don’t think you are nice if you don’t agree with them, or give them what they want, or if you don’t handle something the way they think it should have been handled.

Do we listen to other people? Listening, real listening is a rare trait. “When you listen to the conversations of the world, most often they are conversations of the deaf.” It is a way of saying, we aren’t very good listeners. Too often we have our own agenda, are planning our response, and only heard words that are spoken, and therefore we are not very good listeners.

Getting caught up in minutiae is easy. Every day is filled with minutiae. And one person’s minutiae is another person’s “this is of ultimate importance”. Sometimes when I refuse to get caught up in minutiae, people don’t think I am very nice.

Always, always, always...tell the truth. It is amazing how few times we really tell the truth to people. We hesitate because it may hurt someone’s feelings, or might cause tension in the relationship. I have found that by not telling the truth about why a decision is being made if often leads to misunderstanding which drags on and raises a lot more questions in the end which is more painful that telling the truth up front.

These leadership principles seem like we should have learned them in kindergarten, which we may have, but somehow we have lost them along the way. Certainly they are principles that Jesus practiced in His ministry and that He passed on to us.

Maybe we should follow Jesus back to kindergarten.

Super Sunday

This week they will play the Super Bowl. Super Bowl 46 I believe (I never was very good with Roman numerals.) I probably have seen them all, but maybe not in their entirety. Some I have quit watching because they were boring. Some I didn’t get to see much of because we were at a Super Bowl Party and there was much more socializing going on than game watching. There was a period of my life where I missed the Super Bowl because I was leading an evening worship service. I remember those services well because it was usually me, the organist or other musicians, and four other people who didn’t care about football! During that phase of my life, I recorded the game on my VCR (remember those?)

         

The Super Bowl has become an all-consuming phenomenon. Media coverage is continuous for the two weeks leading up to the game. Everyone gets in on the act of predicting results and choosing their favorite teams. The Super Bowl is the most watched television program of the year. Becky doesn’t like football, but she does watch the Super Bowl because of the commercials. She finds something else to do while the game is being played and rushes back to watch during the commercials! This year I may record the game so we can watch the commercials again, not the game.

         

Some people deride all the attention given to the Super Bowl. It is just a game. There are much more important issues for us to spend time and money on. People in the world are still hungry, at war, dying of disease, and being ill treated. I read an article this week about increased sex trafficking of minors being brought into the host Super Bowl City for the weekend. Millions of dollars are bet on the Super Bowl.

         

I don’t disagree that there are more important issues in the world than a football game, but that doesn’t change the fact there will be a Super Bowl, and all the hoopla that goes with it will continue.

         

There will be a segment of Christians who will lead an outcry that a football game gets too much attention and that they would hope that God would garner as much attention. Certainly God’s rule and reign and the salvation of mankind merits more attention than a football game. Whenever I see Christians protesting the Super Bowl I cringe because those protests are the very kind of thing that leads to a segment of the population viewing Christians as judgmental and critical.

         

I could complain about the Super Bowl; all the attention it gets; all the money that is spent; all the things that deserve a fraction of the focus. But that wouldn’t change anything. The culture isn’t changed by lobbing grenades at cultural icons from a distance.

         

I think God uses me to change the world differently. God wants me to love the people that I encounter every day; to show an interest in the activities of children and adults; to listen to the stories people try to share; to simply be nice to everyone....everyone!; to speak the truth in love.

         

The world is changed by each of us reflecting the image of Jesus every day, in every situation, with every person we meet.

         

So, I will join the rest of America and enjoy the Super Bowl, both the game and the commercials.

         

Oh, by the way....Go Patriots!