Reading Scripture as a Tourist

From Steeped in the Holy: Preaching as Spiritual Practice by Raewynne J. Whiteley (p. 31-32):

“The easiest way to approach this world of Scripture is as a tourist. When we arrive in a new country as a tourist, we usually want to visit the famous sights: the major monuments, great museums, natural wonders. We take photographs of key places, we learn enough of the language to deal with our basic needs, but mostly we rely on guidebooks and interpreters. We steer clear of discomfort, and, on returning home, relive our memories through photographs and reminiscences; we temporarily gain new perspectives, but they are soon overcome by ordinary everyday living. 

When we approach Scripture as a tourist, we do exactly the same thing. We work our way down the list of must-see sites, the popular and the well-known. We take snapshots of our favorite Bible verses, and quickly move on from anything that makes us uncomfortable. We learn just enough of the language to deal with the basics—Christ, prophet, miracle—and leave the rest to the experts to worry about. And we return home, excitedly talking about what we have seen, but the excitement soon wears off and we go back to life as it had always been.”

A good perspective, I think.

75 Servants, 75 Guests, 75 Years: A Recap

This past weekend at the Farmington Church of Christ, in honor of our 75th anniversary, we had a special event called 75 Servants, 75 Guests, 75 Years.

Basically, the first part of the plan was to meet together as a church family on Saturday and serve our community through a variety of projects:

• Mowing lawns
• Free Car Wash
• Bagging and carrying groceries at IGA
• Washing windshields at gas stations
• Providing clothing and food free of charge
• Making lap quilts to take to widows
• Hauling brush
• Picking up trash from the side of the road
• Helping move furniture

Our goal was to have a minimum of 75 people from our church show up to work (hence, the “75 Servants”), and that goal was met—I counted almost 90 names on the sign-in sheet, and I know some people who were there neglected to sign in. The things we did weren’t exactly earth-shattering, but we hoped to have a positive impact on our community through service, and to show God’s love to those we came in contact with.

I know that our lawn-mowing crews made a particular impact. One lady who had been unable to take care of her lawn due to health issues was so appreciative that she described the men who came to cut her grass as “angels.” Another woman and her husband who had just had a new baby and gotten behind on yard work were so thankful to have that taken off their to-do list.

I had the privilege of working at our car wash (with a bunch of middle schoolers…let me tell you about that someday!), and enjoyed the puzzled looks on people’s faces as I tried to explain that we weren’t accepting donations—we just wanted to serve them. One man had come to get his car washed after running into some of our folks at a gas station. He asked what other kinds of projects we were doing and when I told him, he said, “That’s really cool.”

After we finished our service projects, we headed back to the church building to get everything cleaned and set up for our Friends & Family Day on Sunday, which was the second part of our big weekend. Keeping with the same theme, our goal was to have 75 Guests for worship Sunday morning, and toward that end, our members had been inviting friends, family members, and neighbors for weeks (and also some people that we met on Saturday).

I was overwhelmed by the response on Sunday. We ended up with 85 guests, and a total of over 300 in attendance (which is a big number for a church of 170-180!). We then had the privilege of witnessing one of our guests give his life to Christ in baptism, and afterwards we invited all of our guests to share a meal with us. I don’t know how many stayed for the meal, but I know our fellowship hall was packed.

It was a great weekend. I was humbled by the work done by our church family at work on Saturday, and to see the results of their willingness to invite others on Sunday. And perhaps I was most pleased that a bunch of people who are trying to follow Jesus were able to spend a weekend “going about and doing good” like He did. 

What an encouragement!

A Problem in Our Preaching

From David Buttrick in A Captive Voice: The Liberation of Preaching:

“But the truth is that most of our pulpits, Protestant and Catholic alike, have read scripture but then preached a psychological personalism for the past four decades, with sin as psychological dysfunction and salvation as inward good feeling.”

Is it any wonder that a distorted message leads to distorted disciples?

Baseball: Designed to Break Your Heart

A. Bart Giamatti, Major League Baseball’s seventh Commissioner and a formidable scholar (having previously served as the President of Yale University), once famously said about baseball:

It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone.

Giamatti knew what he was talking about. A lifelong Red Sox fan, he had the unenviable task of overseeing Pete Rose’s lifetime ban from baseball, and then suffered a fatal heart attack eight days later.

I find Giamatti’s words to be true in my own experience as a baseball player, fan, and amateur historian. As a player, the joys of fielding ground balls and taking batting practice were gradually overshadowed by the political squabbles of battling for playing time with coaches’ sons and the increasing awareness that I was never going to get a shot at the Big Leagues. As a fan, the majority of my childhood was spent rooting for Atlanta Braves, the winningest team of the 1990s, and yet, looking back, it is not the hundreds and hundreds of victories that I remember but the failures in the playoffs year after year. And as an amateur historian, the stories that most readily spring to mind tend to be the saddest ones.

It is some of these stories that I would like to share, on an intermittent basis, as part of a new series. Designed to break your heart or not, I love baseball, in large part because of the poignancy of its illustrious history.

Hope you enjoy them.