Repenting and Rejoicing - Romans 7:21-8:2

2007-07-08 Canaan message

Good morning church. I hope you were able to get some rest and relaxation during the recent 4th of July holiday, recognizing not just the freedoms we have as citizens of this country, but more so enjoying the freedoms we have access to as citizens of God's Kingdom. I'll touch on this a bit more, later in today's message.

My original plan for this message was to follow up with Pastor Dan’s message from last week about “Pressing On Towards the Goal”, stopping to evaluate how you are doing in your spiritual journey as a disciple of Christ at the halfway point of the year. To that end, I provided some questions of reflection for you in the bulletin, as well as an insert covering the various lessons taught in sermons this year, in case there are any lessons that you need to revisit. I’d encourage you to take some time and let God speak to you in your spiritual journey so far.

As I was prepping, however, I felt God leading me to go in a little bit of a different direction. I want to talk a bit today on the topic of guilt and shame. A heavy topic, I know, but this happens to be a theme that God has been working out in my life over the first half or 2007.

Our church’s theme for this year is learning how to Rest, Renew, and Revive, where the overarching goal is to see how Jesus draws us in with his invitation lay our own worldly burdens down, and to take on the yoke of discipleship to find rest for our souls. Through spiritual disciplines such as prayer, reading the Word, fellowship, fasting, service, and giving, we have avenues to live out the love relationship with God that we were designed for. Then, living out of this God-given restful spirit that is deeply embedded within us, we can experience the transforming power of God in our attitudes, in the tasks of our lives, and in our relationships.

In my own life, I’ve tried to practice this spiritual rest as often as possible this year. I’ve tried to give Jesus the first thought of each day, and to have conversations with God throughout the day at work and at home. I’ve been able to see some fruits of this – such as gaining more discernment in decisions I’ve had to make about ministry and the use of my time, and also having some opportunities to talk about this kind of personal relationship with God with some friends of mine who aren’t Christian.

However, in this experience God has also been showing me that one way I can be blocked from experiencing the fullness of this love relationship with Him that I’ve been designed for is because of shame. In a psychological study entitled “Facing Shame”, two therapists defined the difference between guilt and shame this way: "While guilt is a painful feeling of regret and responsibility for one's actions, shame is a painful feeling about oneself as a person." To repeat – guilt a reaction to our actions, shame is a feeling about our very self.

Throughout my life as a Christian, for every wrong thing that I’ve done to another person or every sin that I’ve committed against God, I’ve internalized the feeling of guilt that would naturally arise so that it moves from being a regret for my action into a belief about the nature of who I am. I sometimes fall into the trap of believing that God couldn’t still love someone like me who fails repeatedly - or at the very least, makes up for his shortcomings by performing more spiritual activities, or serving more, or bringing more people to Christ.

Have you ever felt this way, or found yourself falling into a similar trap? Have you ever wondered why God wired human beings with the ability to feel guilt, and what purpose it could possibly serve to enable us to have a love relationship with God? Today I’d like to take a look at a few teachings from the Bible about the nature of guilt and shame, what repentance looks like, and why it is important to our ability to mature spiritually to have a right understanding of this aspect of human nature.

The first point to understand about guilt and shame is that the capacity for shame is built into every human being, but it was not originally intended that way. See Genesis 2:25 – after God creates the world, he creates man and woman. This verse says that they “were both naked, and they felt no shame.” There’s a perfect vulnerability and innocence that exists between man and woman, and between God and mankind. To illustrate this in modern terms, picture a toddler running around naked while his mortified mother runs after him with his clothes. The child has no idea that being naked is shameful, he just knows that he’s running around and having the time of his life. It is not until chapter 3 where, after the fall of man, they realize that they are naked, and they rush to try and cover up their shame with fig leaves. So since then, every person has the capacity to feel guilt due to our actions or behavior, and when we internalize that feeling to believe it about ourselves, then we have this shame to deal with.

The second point I want to make about guilt and shame is that often, we feel like we need to make some kind of restitution – we want to "pay back our offense" somehow. I'm sure you've felt it, or seen it in your parents or something - when you receive an unexpected gift or done a favor by someone else, you need to repay that person. Similarly if you screw up, it's not enough to apologize and accept forgiveness, but we feel like we need to make up for what we did. Now, don't get me wrong - in many cases it can be good and proper to try and repair the damage that we cause. However, the tragedy is that even if the offended party has forgiven us, until we make the attempt at paying it back, we don't feel like we're forgiven - we impose some kind of debt that stays with us, a debt that the forgiver doesn't want to impose on us.

For example, there was a time almost ten years ago where I was driving down to LA for a vacation with a car full of friends, while leading another car full of friends. Since I was speeding, and the other driver was trying to stay with me, when I saw the police lights flash behind me I had the double guilt of not just getting a ticket myself, but also getting my friend into trouble. Despite the fact that she promptly forgave me and forgot the incident, since mistakes happen, I ended up dwelling on that incident for the duration of the vacation, trying to think of ways to make it up, and preventing me from really being able to enjoy the vacation. On our way back up, I approached my friend to offer to pay for the ticket/driving school. She was stunned. "You're still thinking about that?" she asked. For no good reason, I had robbed myself of the enjoyment of the vacation. So again, the trap we can fall into is not being able to embrace forgiveness because we feel like our guilt or shame isn’t “paid back” in some way.

The final point I want to make about guilt and shame is the feeling that God must not want us back because of our repeated failures. Try as we might, we can’t help but see God as a kind of Cosmic Umpire who grants us only a few chances of repentance. In Luke 7:48, the story of the Jesus’ encounter with the sinful woman who anoints him with perfume, he says, “Your sins are forgiven.” In our minds, we have added the “If you sin again, though, that’s strike 2. 1 more sin after that, and I’m afraid you’re outta here!”

Those who have been in dating relationships may recognize this fear. When there is a fight, or an offense committed against one side, there will often be the accompanying anxiety that maybe this is the straw that breaks the camel’s back – that the sum total of all previous offenses, even if they are repented of, will cause the relationship to break.

Seeing repeated failures in our relationship with God can easily lead to the attitude, “What’s the point? Why keep trying? Won’t I just keep failing and acquiring more and more guilt?” As the famous American thinker Homer Simpson once said, “You tried your best, and you failed miserably. The lesson is, never try.”

So to reiterate, we are all built with the capacity for guilt and shame, we often feel like we need to do something about it to pay it back, and we believe that repeated failures can eventually lead to the exhaustion of God’s or another person’s patience and they will kick us out of their presence.

How do I reconcile John 10:10, Jesus' promise that those who come to him "will have life, and have it to the full", with the fact that it seems like my life is always in catch-up mode with all the busyness there is, and on top of that I either feel helpless or ashamed that I am not the Christian I should be?

The apostle Paul knew this dichotomy very well. Please turn with me to the book of Romans, chapter 7. Romans is considered by many Christians to be the most theologically-oriented books of the Bible. Here, the Apostle Paul has just spent several paragraphs writing about this very conflict – trying hard to be a Christian, but invariably failing. Let’s pick it up in verse 21:

21So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22For in my inner being I delight in God's law; 23but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. 24What a wretched man I am!

The Apostle Paul, who might very well have been the greatest Christian in history, struggled with the same issues many of us struggle with today. No matter how hard we try, by our own strength we can’t win the battle between the mind and heart that want to follow God, and the flesh that pulls us to earthly lusts. In his proclamation, “What a wretched man I am!” it sure sounds like he’s feeling aspects of the guilt and shame I mentioned earlier as being built into every person. But moving on with verse 24…

Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin. 1(but) Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, 2because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.

Note that in the original text, there was no chapter break here. It’s apparent from context that the thoughts of chapter 7 are intended to continue into the beginning of chapter 8. Here are a few lessons that we can learn, some that I’ve gleaned from Pastor Ray Stedman of PBC and some others that I observed in the text:

First, God is not angry with the struggle that we have. He knows we will try, and sometimes fail, to manage our lives in a way that honors him; he knows that we will sometimes fall prey to temptation. However, we see here in Romans that Paul’s struggle with his sin, the guilt that he’s feeling, causes him to run to Jesus. God intends for the natural feeling of guilt and shame that is inevitably a part of every person’s life to cause us to run to him because he is the only one who can do something about it! Rather than hiding behind the fig leaves of our shame, in this love relationship that he wants with his people, he designs even guilt to be used as a way for us to return to him.

Rather than the Umpire waiting to call us out when we use up our strikes, the illustration of this struggle is more akin to that of a father watching his child take his first steps. There are many babies around Canaan now, many of whom we’ve seen learn to walk before our very eyes. Of course they’re going to be clumsy! Of course they’re going to fall and maybe bang their heads on a railing or scrape their knees! But do you see their parents running over to them and yelling at them for being dumb enough to fall? Of course not! They pick them up, dust them off, maybe kiss a scrape, encourage them, and show them how to do it right. God is not angry with our struggles and failures when we confess them and repent of them; rather, he delights in these attempts to walk because our struggles drive us to Christ for help.

Second, for anyone who has ever felt guilt or shame, verse 1 of chapter 8 may be the most beautiful words you can hear – For those who are in Christ Jesus, there is now NO CONDEMNATION. No condemnation! None! There is no rejection by God of those who are in Christ. There is nothing we can do to “pay it off” when there wasn’t any condemnation in the first place. We don’t need to fear that he will leave us, because of how bad our sin is or how often we fail, because we can remain in Christ and not be rejected by God.

Finally, we have the hope of victory – Romans 8:2 says, “Through Christ Jesus, the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.” One day, this struggle will be no more. So for those who are in Christ Jesus, there is no condemnation for our struggles today, and one day these struggles will cease as we experience the freedom of the Spirit of life setting us free from sin and death.

So how do we make sure that we are in Christ? The Bible teaches about a concept called “repentance.” Talking about repentance could easily be an entirely new message, but simply defined, this means admitting our wrong, feeling sorrow for it, and returning to the love relationship with God that we are designed for. Whether or not you already count yourself a follower of Christ, the feeling of guilt and shame that we all have can, on its own, cause us to live very narrow, dissatisfying lives marked by the fear of doing anything because we might do something wrong, lacking hope that there might be more to life than trying to avoid shame. However, as we’ve learned today, the guilt and shame of wrongdoing can, at its best, cause us to run to God and restore that relationship with him that he wants with us, and in our hearts, we want with him. God turns this seemingly destructive, universal quality of guilt into the motivator which drives us back to him.

Combining this idea of repentance with the lessons from Romans helps us address the other issues of guilt and shame. First, we don’t have to impose a debt on ourselves to act as payment for an offense against God. When we repent, we have already been forgiven. There is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus, remember? It is a tragedy when we deny ourselves the enjoyment of God’s presence because we think we haven’t “earned it”, the truth is we haven’t earned it because we can’t - but he gives it to us because he desires this love relationship with us.

Second, we can rest assured that there is nothing we can do to make God love us more, and nothing we can do to make God love us less. As Pastor Tim Keller puts it, “We are more despicable than we ever dared believe, yet we are more loved than we ever dared hope.” We don’t have to fear strike 3 from the Cosmic Umpire when we are in Christ, because we are assured that God loves us and our destination is secure. We can venture out in the freedom to live our lives with excellence, we can fail without having to fear, and we can continue to repent and return to God with love and rejoicing - without thinking that God will run out of forgiveness to give.

Finally, we have the best blessing of all – the opportunity to experience the kingdom of God in the here and now. Brother Lawrence, in his book “Practicing the Presence of God”, wrote that as he worked and went about his daily business, he would begin by asking God to grant him the grace to continue in His presence. He would continue the conversation continually, offering all his actions to him. Periodically he would examine himself, give thanks to God for any good work done, ask for God’s pardon for any bad work or deviation from the conversation with God, and then immediately continue to enjoy God’s presence. He said, “By rising after my falls, and by frequently renewed acts of faith and love, I come to a state where it would be difficult for me not to think of God.”

We won’t have time to go into this in depth this morning, but I encourage you to find some time to go through Psalm 51, which is David’s prayer of repentance after committing multiple sins due to his adultery with Bathsheba in 2 Samuel 11. I’m going to invite the worship team to come up for a few final songs of response, including singing through this Psalm. I know that history shows that by Wednesday of this week, you will probably have forgotten this message, but I pray that God might touch you during this time to be able to repent if you need – and to rejoice because he gives you the reason to.

Prayer:
Father, we thank you that you gave the life of your Son to pay the penalty of death for our wrongdoing. We thank you that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. As we continue to learn and practice what it means to rest in you and be renewed and revived by you, we pray that if we ever feel any guilt, that we would run to you and repent of our wrongdoing. Then we will be able to rejoice in you, the God who loves us and welcomes us back each time. In the name of Jesus, Amen.

Prayer request

I'll be giving the message in Sunday service this week. I'd appreciate prayer for the preparation process, nerves, and focus on conveying what God wants to say rather than what I want to say. Thanks!

I'll probably copy and paste the sermon in its entirety here, after Sunday, for any feedback and suggestions for improvement.

Book Tag

Got tagged by Maria a long time ago, and I've got a few moments of not-work and before-commute-home, so...

One book...

that is changing your life: Other than the Bible, I'll say Now Discover Your Strengths (Buckingham and Clifton) which was given to me as a birthday gift by Shal, since I'm reading it right now and it has some interesting insights into how people are wired.

that you've read more than once: Almost all the novels on my bookshelf - various Tom Clancy, Clive Cussler, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, other sci-fi - I like reading a good novel in bed for a while before falling asleep, so I tend to re-read books.

that you'd want on a deserted island: Practical value: some sort of Army Field Manual on wilderness survival. Entertainment value: Probably Lord of the Rings. Spiritual growth: Celebration of Discipline (Foster) or Systematic Theology (Grudem).

that made you laugh: Any of the Calvin and Hobbes compilations by Bill Watterson. Maybe that's cheating...

that made you cry: Don't think I've ever cried reading a book.

that you wish you had written: The Great Divorce (CS Lewis)

that you wish had never been written: Can't think of any.

that you're currently reading: Now Discover Your Strengths (Buckingham/Clifton), The Cardinal of the Kremlin (Clancy)

that you've been meaning to read: The Imitation of Christ, Thomas A Kempis

that you haven't been able to get through no matter how many times you've started it: Currently midway through Imitation of Christ, but I wonder whether I will be able to finish it. Also I've read through the first few novels in Mike P's Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Hitchhiker's Guide, Restaurant at the End of the Universe) but haven't been able to get through the rest yet.

Telling stories...

While perusing through the blogs on my Google Reader and Xanga subscriptions, and lamenting yet again the strange malaise I find myself in with regards to the long gaps in between posts on this blog (when one of my 2007 New Year's resolutions was to post 2 times per week - ha!), I came to a realization:

I am not a very good storyteller.

Looking at the many blogs I am subscribed to (~60+ at last count), they range from blogs of personal friends from high school, college, church, as well as a few working professionals, musicians, and some couple-of-degree-separation people whose writing I simply connect with. Many of my friends are talented storytellers and can imbue the mundane events of their days with spirit, humor, and dramatic tension. Now that the Internet privacy taboo has relaxed some, they will also often use photos to illustrate their lives so that the world can see, but primarily for the benefit of giving their friends and family a continued connection into their lives.

I, on the other hand, have no gift for weaving the events of my life in such a way as to form an interesting story. My recounts of events tend to come out rather bland and lengthy (as many have let me know). Heck, I am also horrid at relating stories in person (as anyone who has tried to pry the story of how Shal and I began dating can attest).

What I find somewhat odd is that I love reading and listening to stories, and I feel like I've read enough to be able to recognize quality... yet frustratingly I can read my own storytelling and deem it boring. It's kind of similar to music - I can analyze the poetry of lyrics in good songwriting, I can listen carefully to each instrument in a mix and ferret out little nuggets of musicianship that inspire awe and a sense of beauty in me... and yet every attempt I make at creating my own song ends up with me giving up half-baked because I can't stand my own banality.

I also do enjoy writing, but rather than storytelling, it may be primarily in the realm of making observations - whether humorous, poignant, tragic, or other. Perhaps I'll just have to develop this style of writing instead.

Weekly musings

This week's links and thoughts...

How to be the perfect boyfriend/girlfriend

Videos of the week, courtesy of Alex. While funny (in a British humor kind of way), there's actually a decent amount of truth in these about the ways men and women are and relate to each other.

VideoJug: How To Be The Perfect Boyfriend

Favorite points: It's important to seem interested no matter how confused you are, because girls value communication above everything... Deodorant is for after the shower, not instead of it.


VideoJug: How To Be The Perfect Girlfriend

Favorite points: Men like grunting, fighting, and measuring things... Men like explaining things.

Radio

While my music tastes have evolved mostly into rock and folk with a strong focus on a "band" sound and strong songwriting, there are occasional times where I just want to listen to some of the amusing, brainless pop/hip-hop/R&B music from back in the '90s during junior high and high school when I first started listening to music. Now that Movin' 99.7 has reformatted itself from an oldies station to "modern" pop/hip-hop/R&B current and classic stuff, I'll occasionally tune in to catch stuff from C&C Music Factory, Diddy, MC Hammer, and classic Madonna and Michael and Janet Jackson. Check it out to be transported back in time.

Look, I'm still young-ish!

Last week I joined Facebook, which, for those not in the know, is a social networking site akin to Friendster, except, well, successful. It's made significant inroads into impacting the modern high school and college culture - being able to leave messages for people, post profiles, and neat features like being able to post photo albums and then tag the photos with your friends' names so they can click on their own name and see the photos where they show up in albums other than their own. I rarely check it, but it's a nice vehicle outside blogger to keep tabs on what's going on with the high schoolers.

Kindred spirit

I've read with some interest the story and politics of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, due to the flood of national media coverage as well as Danny's unabashed fandom. I like a lot of what he has to say, but one thing that is definitely a point in his favor? While other candidates play baseball or football, Obama plays blacktop hoops. The article mentions that one reason he sees the court as a sanctuary of sorts is because the game is a great equalizer - you may be teamed with a powerful Congressman and a blue collar construction worker, but during the game it's all about winning and taking on whoever's got next. The article's description of his game: "Barack Obama is a wily player of pickup basketball, the version of the game with unspoken rules, no referee and lots of elbows. He has been playing since adolescence, on cracked-asphalt playgrounds and at exclusive health clubs, developing a quick offensive style, a left-handed jump shot and relationships that have extended into the political arena."

Just call me Lance Armstrong

Back in college, I used to ride my bike to and from class from my apartment. Despite the numerous hills in Berkeley, as well as cars and pedestrians and a couple of falls, I enjoyed the feeling of being able to whiz to class on the other side of campus within 10 minutes when walking would take closer to 25.

Yesterday, after a gracious bike tuneup by Mike L on Memorial Day, I was able to take my bike onto the light rail with me to work, then riding back the 8+ miles to Mountain View. It felt really good. Some things that came to mind:

- Effective multitasking is always satisfying, especially when you can combine activities that are often mundane (working out + getting home)
- Overpasses are killer on momentum
- When I drive to work and I can see the mountains ringing the valley clearly without much smog, it's particularly satisfying to know that I helped in some small way with that
- My butt feels awfully bony and sore today after ~40 minutes on a hard, uncomfortable seat. I may need to get a nicer cushion and a blinker

Gonna aim to bike home at least once a week. We'll see if I can hold to that.

Wiser?

The older that I get, I figure everyone is dying
They're all dying for a change
I know that I am dying for some action
- Derek Webb, "Dance"

Entering the last year of my twenties, a couple of observations:
- I am now as old as some high school kids thought I was 5 years ago (another account of the same story). Since I was 29 5 years ago, I guess I must be in my mid-30s now.

- The older that I get, the more I'm realizing how much more growing up I still have to do. Our current Sunday School series is going through "Growing up as Asian-Americans", and I'm slowly coming to grips with how much I'm influenced by the cultural mores I've grown up with, and how I'm more strongly motivated by guilt, fear, and remorse rather than the promise of joy, peace, and happiness through God's grace. This will be a theme for me for a while.

- That being said, I'm all the more grateful for little things I've taken for granted in my earlier years - great parents + family, privileges, health, friendships, and everything else. Blessed. Thanks to God for everything.

On beauty

Two good posts recently on the beauty of God's creation and how every person is created to experience it in the very core of our being. Worth reading both of them in their entireties at the links below.

Excerpt from singer-songwriter Shaun Groves:

Here in this frozen sanctuary, mountains for walls, frothy silver clouds for ceiling, I’m stunned by the scope of creation outside the cul-de-sac. I’m happy. Not because of where I am but because being here I’m more aware than usual of everything good and beautiful in the world. Why does nature do that to some of us? Why don’t I make more time to walk in it? Some saint once said that if he looked at creation long enough God looked back.

And this morning He’s talking back too.

Here in all this perfect beauty a man is on the stage making liberal use of words like “imperfect”, “wicked”, “depraved”, and “sinful”. The paradox isn’t lost on me. There’s something, for me, about the collision of beauty and busted that grabs my heart and mind with both hands and demands their attention. The contrast is brutal. But the beauty also works to console and inspire me, to make me long for and realize what God is making of me: beauty.

Excerpt from Maria:

Other experiences that often move me to aesthetic pleasure: listening to a beautiful song, feeling its soul-thrilling melody bring inexplicable delight and joy; reading something well-written, enjoying each well-turned phrase and felicitous expression; seeing beautiful colors in nature (flowers) or man-made (clothing, shoes, purses, art), relishing in the bright hues, the intensity of shade, the suppleness of texture. There's something refreshing and restful about these simple pleasures.

Weekly Musings

Some thoughts from the week...

TV finales

A lackluster season of 24 ended not with a bang, but with a whimper. But at least they've acknowledged that they can't just plug different variables into the same formula and come back with the next season - I fully expect CTU to be retired (Bill tp Nadia: "Jack's not coming back. Let him go"). I'm kinda disappointed because this season started with great promise in the first 4 hours. Instead of dwelling on what went wrong, here's a list of what I thought was good about season 6 (spoilers for folks who want to watch on DVD):

Jack in the 1st 4 hours - he seemed to be a broken man after his 2 years of torture. Unfortunately they brought back "the old Jack" far too quickly - it would have been fascinating to see him continue with that vulnerability.
Assad - a unique character that was killed off far too soon. Plus, according to the gf, he was the best-looking guy on the show.
Tom Lennox - great acting, did slimy, principled, and cutthroat all very well.
... and that's about it.

Lost ended much better. It may have re-hooked me into the next few seasons as they finish up the story. Who would win if Sayid had to take on Jack Bauer? God forbid that they ever team up on anything.

The NBA and red meat

My carrot analogy with regard to the Warriors making the playoffs is apparently not a unique one:
From the Sports Guy, when the Celtics missed out on picking up either Oden or Durant in the NBA lottery:

You can't even fathom the pain. Everyone believes Celtics fans get a free pass with this stuff because we won 16 titles in 30 years. Actually, it's the opposite. Long-suffering fans of perennial losers don't know what they're missing. After all, how would they know? You can't miss steak if you've never eaten steak, right? But if you're fortunate enough to follow a perennially successful franchise, then that same franchise starts decomposing right in front of you ... what then?

Annoyance of the week
Eating a stalk of broccoli early in the week, I literally bit off a bit more than I could chew. I had to stretch my mouth so wide to get around the mouthful that when I bit down, I ended up scraping a flap of tissue off my inside cheek that's just kinda been hanging there since. Every so often when I chew on the left side of my mouth, I'll end up gnawing on that little piece of flesh.

Video of the week
Passed along by Shally: "The Machine is Us/ing Us"
About 5 minutes, worth watching all the way through - good, concise commentary on the direction of the Internet (currently aka Web 2.0):



Disturbingly amusing story of the week
Joy's story at our CG free week about her dream where her bf Mike tried to kill her with a knife, and actually stuck her in the leg before being subdued by two other random guys from Canaan. This sparked a conversation about common dreams that we'd had before. Apparently, women in relationships will often dream of their husband/boyfriend cheating on them. Me, I usually end up as a martyr in mine... as I mentioned back in January.

Music of the week
Listened primarily to Stanfurd's acapella group Testimony this week. Love the way they use various vocal sounds to mimic guitars and other instruments. You can hear some song clips here, here, and here.

Christian thought of the week
Started reading My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers online this week. Good excerpt in 5/21's entry:

When we look at these words of Jesus, we immediately find them to be the most revolutionary that human ears have ever heard. ". . . seek first the kingdom of God . . . ." Even the most spiritually-minded of us argue the exact opposite, saying, "But I must live; I must make a certain amount of money; I must be clothed; I must be fed." The great concern of our lives is not the kingdom of God but how we are going to take care of ourselves to live. Jesus reversed the order by telling us to get the right relationship with God first, maintaining it as the primary concern of our lives, and never to place our concern on taking care of the other things of life.

NYC Highlights

Couple of quick highlights from my family's trip to Manhattan last weekend, Thursday through Sunday, in no particular order:

Having lunch w/ Drew - fellow Cal Bear, 2000 NYC missions teammate, and Canaan's young adult retreat speaker for this year. Hadn't seen him in a few years, and it was kinda surreal getting together in the city where we had spent so much time ministering with and to each other.

Seeing my first opera ever - it was a good idea to read the wiki entry beforehand because I then had an idea of what the plot was. 'Twas actually kind of dark - adultery, suicide, all set to huge voices and elaborate sets.

Two speeches at the NYU Law graduation
1) A pair of law students gave a joint speech. One was a former member of the Israeli Army, the other was a member of a Lebanonese village that the former's company had attacked. They had both lost friends to the other side, but said that through their education they were able to learn how to respect each other enough to try to find common ground. Very cool.

2) Keynote speech by Newark, NJ mayor Cory Booker, who we thought was an odd choice - no connection with NYU, no name recognition. He ended up weaving an inspiring tale of battling against social injustice in the projects of Newark while he was just a councilman, camping out in protest against crack houses and drug dealers while getting pelted by garbage and feces, and being able to make a difference. He exhorted the soon-to-be powerful and rich lawyer class to stand up for what is right, exuding an Obama-like charisma. Keep an eye out - we may see him more on the national stage depending on where he wants to take his career.

Shake Shack - Home of New York's best burger. In the picture, you can see one of their trademarks: a portabello mushroom, stuffed with cheese, breaded, and deep fried, then placed on top of the burger patty - awesomeness.


The peace and quiet of Fort Tryon Park


The view from the top of Rockefeller Center


Lion King Musical - innovative use of puppets, props, and lights to simulate the animals. Solid entertainment.


Seeing the prayer table at Washington Square Park - reminded me of the missions trip. You'd be surprised how many people are willing to accept free prayer.


One particular almost "Far Side"-ish comic wall at MOMA - some guy basically drew a bunch of "then and now" commentaries on today's world, compared to before, that were clever, funny, and kinda sad at the same time. Some examples:




Symphony at Carnegie Hall, playing Mendelssohn, Elliott Carter, and Mozart's 41st Symphony - spent most of the time listening to the percussionists.



The best highlight of all...
Seeing my little bro get hooded - congrats, buddy. For most of your life I've known you as a student, so it's kinda neat to think of you as a working man - well, after all that "bar" stuff and the subsequent 2-month celebration. [Morpheus voice]Welcome to the real world[/Morpheus voice].