suzy's birthday

This past week we observed the national holiday that is my wife's birthday (at least, that's typically the way she thinks about out). On Thursday, we decided to celebrate said holiday by eating as much of the most delicious food we could find. So here's a quick recap of our - I mean "Suzy's" - day.

Lunch at The Lazy Goat, one of our favorite restaurants, although we had only been there for dinner. Good decision to try lunch. Suzy's parents split a kebob and Mediterranean salad; Suzy had a Muffaletta panini; but I won the day with this beauty:

This is (was?) the Lamb Burgesa, a hamburger patty of lamb tucked inside a pillowy soft warm pita, with a feta spread, a minty yogurt, lettuce, tomato, and red onion. Out.of.this.world. If you like lamb, this is about the best lunch you could hope for. It had the rich warm flavor of the lamb, cooled and muted somewhat by the yogurt and feta. 

These are pomme frites (a fancy French word meaning "freedom fries"), but The Lazy Goat has their own take on this side dish. They're thin cut and fried crispy, giving them great texture. Then they get hit with some truffle oil, giving them almost a savory but sweet-ish kind of flavor, offset by the saltiness of the finely shredded asagio cheese. They were fantastic on their own, but dip them in the chipotle ketchup? Magnifique!


Amazingly, I was able to return to work for the rest of the day, before our dinner out at American Grocery.

This is the same place we went for my birthday, which you can read about here. We ordered very similarly, but because the seasons had changed, so had the menu. Instead of apples with our pork belly appetizer, we had peaches (a great switch!). The braised beef tongue was now a braised corned beef tongue, giving it a little extra bite. The fresh fruit cobbler, instead of apple with cinnamon ice cream, was strawberry with vanilla.

An amazing day of eating at (arguably...and I'll defend this) the two best restaurants in Greenville.

But one of the best parts of the day was getting to feed our almost-eight-month-old. He takes after his daddy in that he LOVES to eat. He goes zero-to-screaming-hungry in 6.3 seconds. He makes "mmmmmm..." noises when he takes a spoonful of baby food. And he can put away some food. This was his lunch (probably not as good as ours):

Stage three macaroni with butternut squash. Yum!

I really enjoy getting to feed him, not only for the entertainment value, but because it seems like we're connecting in some way. It's like table fellowship with any adult - I get to watch his reactions, "talk" with him, and share a bit of life together. All in all, it makes me really happy...and apparently him, too.

day thirteen: baby steps (part two)

Sorry for posting late. It has been a crazy week. I've been working too much, the baby hasn't been sleeping well, and I haven't been a very good spouse or father. I'm run down. Neverless...

Today (yesterday by now) felt much like Day Two, but this time we donated baby food to Safe Harbor, a non-profit that helps victims of domestic violence in upstate SC. You can click on the logo below to link to their homepage.

I know it may seem strange to donate food to an organization that combats domestic violence. But many times, when women contact Safe Harbor or come to the shelter, they have next-to-nothing with them. Escaping a domestic violence situation rarely provides an opportunity to pack thoroughly. So Safe Harbor is always in need of donations of food, toiletries, clothes, and - tragically - baby food and formula to feed their children, the most helpless of victims.

I have a special place in my heart for this organization, mainly because I won a sermon-writing contest they had during Domestic Violence Awareness month (October) a few years ago. It probably didn't hurt that it was the first annual contest and they didn't have anything to compare to from previous years. And I doubt there were many (if any) other applicants. Not to mention the fact that the Executive Director of Safe Harbor is a member of our church. :)

In any case, I ended up with the Working Together for Peace Award, landing me an appearance on The Peggy Denny Show, whose host is somewhat of a legend on local public access religious television (if there can even be such a thing...it seems ridiculous now that I type it out). So here's my shameless bit of self-promotion, titled "Gracious Submission."

            Before I read our scripture for today, let me begin by saying, It’s hard to preach a sermon on a sermon.  The author of the book of Hebrews, from which our text for today comes, calls this epistle a “word of exhortation,” meaning, basically, it’s a sermon.  And it’s harder than you might think to preach on that and make it meaningful and personal and relevant.  I mean, can you imagine me trying to preach on one of Stephen’s sermons and get something meaningful out of that?!  But I’m going to give it a shot with Hebrews.

            That being said, the scripture for today is Hebrews 4:14 – 5:10. 

As I read, I invite you to listen for a good word from God.

            [READ Hebrews 4:14-5:10]

            See what I mean?  It even sounds like a sermon—quotations of scripture, lofty theological ideas, and lots of religious rhetoric and persuasive language.  But it had to be this way. 

The epistle we know as Hebrews was originally a homily written and delivered to a congregation about 50 or 60 years after the death of Jesus.  And this congregation is tired—tired of serving, tired of spiritual struggle, tired of education, tired of worship.  Does that sound familiar to anyone?  They are tired of following Jesus…and it can certainly be tiring, can’t it?  They are tired of walking the walk of faith, and they might just walk away from the faith.

I know that many of us here today are tired.  I can see it in your faces on Sunday mornings, and I know it’s not just because of the sermons.  We are tired of living in this-world as opposed to God’s kingdom; we are tired of living in a world where pain and suffering are realities of life, where war and disease ravage our planet, where the earth is misused and abused, and where injustice prevails more than justice, it seems.  It is hard, it is tiring, to be a person of faith.  It is hard to serve and struggle and learn and worship. 

So, it might just be that the congregation here at Earle Street is not all that far removed from the congregation of Hebrews.

But notice: to encourage and exhort his congregation, the writer of the epistle doesn’t appeal to group dynamics, or conflict management, or the reorganization of administration, or changes in worship.  He appeals to Jesus, to the meaning of Jesus’ life and to Jesus’ role as the “great high priest”—as our great high priest.  He dares to ask and answer the question, “What does Jesus’ life mean for our life of faith?”

            For the writer of Hebrews, the focal point of Jesus’ life is his role as priest.  Now, as Baptists, it might be hard for us to think of Jesus as a priest, but consider for a moment what a priest does—a priest serves as a type of mediator between God and people, with one foot in the sacred and one foot in the secular, bridging the gap between the human and the divine, drawing God to humanity and humanity to God. 

In these ways, Jesus is clearly a priest.  What the priest does is who Jesus is.  And because Jesus—fully divine and fully human—serves in this priestly role, we have access to grace and mercy and God’s timely help.  Fred Craddock paraphrased an ancient understanding of Christ in this way:  “He was as we are, and therefore he will help; he was not as we are, therefore he can.”  Because we “hold fast to our confession”—to Jesus as the incarnate Son of God—we can draw near to God, just as God has drawn near to us in the person of Christ.

It is a bit strange, though, that our great high priest is one who suffered and died a shameful death.  Our great high priest is one who was made low, like us.  He experienced what we experience, he faced what we face—pain, suffering, and even death—and so he sympathizes with us.  Whereas the human high priest “deals gently,” moderating his or her feelings, Christ sympathizes.  That word is actually a Greek word, sympatheo, which means “to feel with” or “to suffer with.”  He is not just addressing our needs in the midst of pain, but because he knows our pain, he experiences it with us.  German theologian Jurgen Moltmann put it this way, “God suffers with us – God suffers from us – God suffers for us.” 

Because God entered into creation in the person of Christ—knowing our weaknesses, feeling our pain, and suffering with us—the channels of grace and mercy are opened wide.  Jesus carries our needs and distresses, our pain and suffering, our hunger for justice and cries for peace directly to the dwelling place of God, and we can approach God with boldness—in Greek, literally, “saying everything.”

            I realize that this does not ease the pain we do experience.  It doesn’t explain why we suffer.  In fact, the question of how a good and loving God could allow evil and suffering has plagued people of every generation.  And standing here today, I don’t have an answer to it.

            In fact, when I first read this passage, that question came to mind.  In verse 7 of chapter 5, it says that Jesus prayed to the one who was able to save him from death and he was heard out of his reverent—his gracious— submission. 

But Jesus did suffer and die.  And although this might sound like a theological contradiction, I don’t think it is.  I think it ties us even closer to Jesus.  He prayed, “saying everything,” with loud cries and tears, in the garden and on the cross.  Yet he remained completely faithful to God’s purposes, even in the face of death, even though he did not necessarily have an assurance of deliverance—much like us.

We know this kind of suffering.  We know the experience of never feeling safe, even in our own home; we know the bruises of abuse that run much deeper than our skin, but go into our very being.  We know what it is like to sit in a hospital waiting room for hours, not knowing what the outcome might be.  We know the pain of watching loved ones lie in a nursing home bed, having forgotten where or even who they are.  We know the sorrow of losing a friend, or a parent, or a child.  We certainly know pain and suffering.

But so does God…and not just in the Christ event.  People around the world suffer daily—from poverty and disease, from war and hate.  Christ is crucified every day.  There are countless crosses that litter the horizon of history.

            So why would we want to submit to that?

By speaking about what Jesus experienced in the “days of his flesh,” his gracious submission, his faithfulness, and the obedience he learned through suffering, the author is encouraging the hearers—including us!—to submit during our suffering and to be obedient to God.  And I have to admit, I don’t really like that submission language.  It has always bothered me.  Why should we submit to suffering, especially in light of our focus today on domestic violence awareness?  Still, I’m sure that many of us have heard stories about people that hit rock bottom in their pain or struggles, and finally gave in and turned to God.  And that is certainly a good thing.

            BUT…

            Gracious submission is not simply accepting or giving assent to suffering because we think that to do so is to be obedient.  We have mentioned that October is domestic violence awareness month, and this is one type of suffering in which there is nothing to be gained by being submissive or obedient.  Domestic violence is not about a loving God, become incarnate and suffering with us in our pain and struggles.  It is about control and violence…and that’s it.  There is nothing redemptive about it.

Gracious submission is not about submitting to violence, but about submitting to God’s grace, trusting in God’s goodness.  It is about acknowledging—even in the midst of our pain—that while we can’t necessarily explain it or give meaning to it, we do have the “blessed assurance" that God is with us.  It’s not that obedience is associated with happiness and disobedience with suffering.  In fact, the experience of Christ, if not our own experience, shatters that view.  But we are promised the grace of God’s presence.

            In divinity school one of the catchphrases we talked about in pastoral care was the “ministry of presence.”  The idea was: you didn’t always have to know what to say, you didn’t even have to say anything at all.  Many times, simply being present with a person in pain is a ministry in itself. 

In a way, Jesus is God’s “ministry of presence” with us.  In Christ, God stands with humanity—in our suffering, in our grief and sorrow, in our pain and fear—and God calls us to do the same for each other.  Jesus is our great high priest because of his gracious submission, but, as Stephen reminded us a few weeks ago, we are all priests.  We know each others’ struggles and pain and weaknesses.  We sympathize with one another, by sitting together in the hospital waiting rooms, or by visiting the nursing homes, or by shedding tears with those in sorrow, or by standing in solidarity with victims of injustice and inequality and hatred.  We sit together, we cry together, we pray together, and we stand together. 

And God is with us, too.  As Christians, we must descend into the depths of humanity to be with those who suffer, in the same way that God has descended to us in the person of Jesus, offering us grace and mercy, even in our pain and suffering.  We experience pain, we suffer, our weaknesses are made known every day.  But as Christians, our respite, our hope, and our promise is that God is with us.  And that is the source of our salvation…

…if we will submit our lives to God’s service. 

May we have the grace to make it so. 

AMEN.

day two: baby steps

Day two, and I'm already wondering what I've gotten myself into.

Suzy and her mom spent the entire morning at Costco, stocking up for what we'll be doing these next couple of weeks. They brought home boxes and boxes of food, now stacked up in the back room of our house. Then...*drumroll*... she showed me the receipt.

Sweet. Lord.

Hundreds of dollars later, and we didn't even get everything that we would need for just the first couple weeks of Lent! (By the way, I'm going to keep track of how much we spend on this 40 day project and post the total at the end.) And I still had to stop by the grocery store to pick up goods to donate to the Eastside Crisis Center, today's culinary care recipient.

But what to donate? This blog is gonna get really old really quickly if every other day you read, "...And so we took some more canned goods to yet another food pantry." So I thought we'd do something a little different.

Our tiny pile of baby food (picture enlarged so as not to be so embarrassing)

Baby food.

I had interned at a similar non-profit for a couple of summers during college, and I remembered that people would sometimes come in and ask for baby food or baby formula. The sad part was, we hardly ever had any on hand because people usually didn't donate it. Most people, like me up until that point, think of the hungry person to whom they give to be a grown man, probably homeless. But a parent or family with a baby? A baby in America wouldn't, couldn't, shouldn't be hungry...right?

Sadly, they can...and are. And these precious gifts from God didn't do anything to deserve to be hungry (of course, a homeless addict may not have either, but that's another sermon). As a new father, I can't imagine not being able to feed my baby when he's hungry, and it is unconscionable to me for someone else to have that kind of need.

But it happens...every day, even in our city. And as with most issues of poverty or hunger or injustice, I get overwhelmed. I never feel like I am doing enough. In fact, when I brought home a grocery bag filled with jars of baby food, I suggested that we give it all to the Crisis Center, and we could just buy more to give to other organizations. Suzy could tell that I was feeling the burden already. She reminded me that it's just day two. We've got thirty-eight more. We've got a lifetime, really.

What she said reminded me of a passage in The Message. Matthew 10:42 gets paraphrased like this:
     "This is a large work I've called you into, but don't be overwhelmed by it. It's best to start small. Give a cool cup of water to someone who's thirsty, for instance."

A cool cup of water.
A little jar of baby food.
Baby steps on our journey.