Josh Hamilton – NOT Ashamed of the Gospel

Okay, so everyone who knows me knows that I am a Yankee fan.  I can’t help it, its genetic – my mom was a Yankee fan.  I am also Puerto Rican, which basically means that, along with tan skin and enigmatic hair, the love of baseball is firmly rooted in my DNA.   Growing up in the Bronx seals the deal, it was a given that you were behind the Bronx Bombers.   My love affair with the Yankees began in 1976, at age 9, when I made it my life’s work to collect all of the team’s Topps baseball cards that year and Thurman Munson was my hero, later maturing to school girl crushes on Bucky Dent and Lou Pinella.   (And that Derek Jeter was, and still is, one fine-looking man!)  Get the picture?

So, no surprise, as it generally the case with New York transplants, it didn’t matter that I lived in Texas – I still rooted for the Yankees with my whole heart.   I can honestly say that I will never be a Texas Rangers fan, but there’s a certain outfielder that I can’t help but admire, not only for his game (which, from what I could tell from Game 6, is anointed and ordained), or even his testimony (http://www.iamsecond.com/#/seconds/Josh_Hamilton/), but for his amazing, unashamed, reverent and bold witness for Christ.  My ears wait expectantly at each and every interview to see how his words will bring God glory.  My jaw drops to the ground every time I hear him faithfully and respectfully give God the glory.   

It’s a fact – God showed up in MLB post season play this October. 

I know there are a lot of Christian athletes out there – not to say that they aren’t being used by God to further His kingdom, but there’s something really special about Josh Hamilton’s humility and his approach of awe and wonder in his post game interviews that really moves me.   It’s not the usual Christian athlete darling that ”thanks to the Man Upstairs” or a gives a rushed “thank you to my Lord and Savior for keeping me safe out there” that we might usually hear from pro athletes and pro racers, it’s a more genuine and sincere act of worship.

Although the Yankees aren’t in the World Series this year, I know that God is.  Josh Hamilton is an amazing example that God can do whatever He wants, where ever He wants, and my heart is overjoyed by that fact.   And I can’t wait to see what God’s going to do next!

To thine own self be true … ?

Shakespeare: Nothing is either right or wrong, only thinking makes it so.

Hemingway: Moral is what you feel good after.

Paul of Tarsus: Nothing is unclean in itself; but to him who thinks anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean.

What’s the difference? A cursory reading without context would lead us to believe that all three of these statements are basically saying the same thing in three distinctly different eras, but there is a major differentiator – centeredness.

While it might appear that all three of these men are all saying the same thing, both Hemingway and Shakespeare are looking inward, towards self and the rational conclusions that one can make from a completely personal and inward experience. They are self centered.

The self centered perspective relies on the personal experiences that shape us to draw conclusions about whether or not something is good, right or beneficial. This approach presupposes that I can trust my own judgment and that the filters which I use to view situations are clean and objective, because I have no emotional scarring that contribute any color to my perceptions, or that my damaged view works for me, and therefore it is good or right – the judgment call is solely and squarely in the eye of the beholder.

Paul’s statement is Christ centered. The filter that Paul applies and asks us to apply is simple: Do my actions honor or grieve Him? Does this particular action bring glory to God? 

It’s really not about me.

“I don’t want to be a hypocrite”

This is one of the primary ways that many of us choose to believe a lie and in doing so, we unwittingly separate ourselves from what is good, holy and right.  In fact, I submit that that this notion of “not being a hypocrite” held me captive and threatened me to the point of nearly missing it in my twenties.   I won’t read my Bible, because I am having ugly thoughts and I’m in a fight – I don’t want to be a hypocrite.   I would go to church, but I am still smoking/drinking/drugging/you fill in the blank-ing, and I don’t want to be a hypocrite. 

What do all these situations have in common?  They all presume that I, me alone, on my own – I must do something to clean up and fly right before I show up for God.    How incredibly self serving to think that in my own power, I can actually do that.  In essence, staying away from church or your Bible is telling God that He can’t save you - you must save yourself and clean up really good before you could stand in front of Him.   While its certainly true that the Most High God enjoys seeing his children clean and white, He knows that it is just not in us to do it for ourselves, heck, we couldn’t even identify what needed scrubbing until He gave the Law to point us to what was wrong.  It sounds harsh and its definitely an ego buster, but its impossible for us to save ourselves – we are incapable of it.

This is why Jesus’s redeeming act was so important … A holy God cannot condone sin or simply let it  pass.  That would contradict His nature, and praise God, He never changes.  Jesus willingly bore our sin, paid it all, and through him we gain the privilege of standing before God, blameless.  I can barely stand it – he paid the penalty for my, your, our sin – how grateful I am for that.

When I feel most tempted, most discouraged, most angry, most alone – those are the times I need to run to His word and meditate on what’s right, lovely, praiseworthy – if I let him, he meets me there and I am restored.   God keeps his promises.

What about the widows?

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been hearing a lot about orphans – why we are all called to love them, how an “undone” moment after reading James 1:27 caused a twenty something girl to move to Eastern Europe to care for them and how a Village in Uganda was born around passionate discontent about the growing number of orphans – a legacy of years of civil war.  

“Don’t call yourself a believer if you’re not caring for orphans”, says Kay Warren, as reported in the Christian Post.

“In saying that orphan care is missional, I do not mean that every Christian is called to adopt or foster a child. But every Christian is called to care for orphans”, says Russell D. Moore in Christianity Today.

Let’s face it – orphans get a lot of attention – and rightfully so.  Pure religion.  We are called to care for orphans.  I am, however, increasingly disturbed that a lot of us tend to just skip over the widows part.  Its like we have selective vision when our Bibles are opened up to James 1:27 and our eyes leapfrog from pure religion straight to orphans.   In fact, every recent article I have read dealing with the subject, always mention widows as an ”also ran” to their younger counterparts, the orphans – why?  Has western culture, with survivor benefits, life insurance, and 401Ks successfully mitigated the widows’ need and suffering, thrusting this biblical mandate into irrelevance?   Would be nice, but I don’t think so.

Its so much easier to define “orphan” – a child with no parents.  Orphans don’t have the capacity to care for themselves, and they possess in their youth the infiniteness of possibility.  They are both hope and future.

Widows, on the other hand, having had the experience that age and exposure brings to a life, are not a blank slate.  They have life’s baggage, and we have a tendency to migrate to what we can shape (possibly because we are image bearers of Creator).  It is highly unlikely that we will be able to influence the radical change that we are almost always guaranteed when we assist the orphan.

Then of course, is our own baggage.  While only some of us will have known what it was like to be an orphan, most of us will someday come to know what it is to be a widow.  The widow’s future might be our own.  The possibilities become far too personal.

Paul defines a real “widow” as a woman over 60, and a widow who was to receive charity from the church was to have had one husband, and ”a reputation for good works; and if she has brought up children, if she has shown hospitality to strangers, if she has washed the saints’ feet, if she has assisted those in distress, and if she has devoted herself to every good work” (1 Tim 15:10) then the church was to care for her.  Widows are much harder to define and care for because they, much like us, have lived long enough to wrestle with their flesh and in some instance, with God.  They have the experience of challenge and surrender, just like us.    

The Bible tells us that we  have a biblical responsibility to care for widows as much as we do orphans. I am challenging myself to see how I might live out this part of pure religion.  Although I am not sure what it looks like yet, I have a growing sense of awareness that I pray will manifest itself into opportunity.

How dost I read thee? Let me count the ways…

I am swimming in Christian literature right now, at the deep end of the pool.   I just have to remember that when I go under, I have to follow the bubbles to the surface to breathe. 

I am not drowning.  I have simply gone multi-media in my “reading” habits.  

I read my first e-book in 2003, synched from my computer desktop to my pre-smartphone, completely “wired” Palm Pilot.  It was quite an empty experience reading  a very strange little font on a small screen with black letters across a grayish-green background.   Holding a cold, small electronic instrument just didn’t do it for me initially.  I missed turning pages and thumbing through the unread to see how much longer I had to the finish.  I wanted to hold the pages between where I started reading and where I was now in between my thumb and forefinger to see my progress.  Worst of all, it just smelled like my Palm Pilot, not a book. Oh, how I love the smell of books! 

I still love everything about literature in traditional print - I hope that books are never completely digitized, but after seven years of heavy exposure to a Blackberry, I can now appreciate the variety of ways I can partake of one of my favorite pastimes.  In the past month, I’ve read two books via Kindle simultaneously on my Blackberry, iTouch, desktop PC at work and laptop at home.   And most recently, I listened to my first audio-book. 

 

My book club’s June selection is Forgotten God, by Francis Chan.  I read it last summer after I nearly swallowed his first book, Crazy Love, whole.  I wasn’t supposed to be in town for our June meeting, but realized that I would be after my new grand niece decided to join us 10 days early, so I decided to re-read the book in time for our discussion. 

What happened next was providence - the book happened to be the free book selection this month at christianaudio.com-hallejuah!  Since I already read it, I thought this would be a great way to “refresh” myself on the book’s content.   I have to admit, the first few lines were a little “iffy” for me – Francis Chan was slightly stiff for the first few lines, but once he got going, he read the text with the same passion that he preaches with.  I came to realize that this was a GREAT way to experience a book.  While I prefer to be still and singularly focussed when I read, this was a great alternative, since I could drive, shop, and walk while listening.  After hearing each chapter again, I found myself going back to the text, highlighting sentences and phrases I had not previously seen until I had heard them.   

So I find myself at the deep end, the tips of my fingers wrinkled from prolonged exposure to the water, giddy with delight at all the ways I can experience literature.   I will take a deep breath and go under with confidence that each swim will be an enriching experience, regardless of the medium I choose to “read” in on any particular day.

So Long Insecurity (Now that you’ve better defined for me)…

I think I have actually found the second most least-liked word amongst 21st century Western Christian women … insecurity.  Insecurity, I find, is quickly closing the gap between itself and the reigning least liked word – submission. 

Submission is easy to hate – its oppressive, external, and always makes me cringe slightly as I picture dear Sarah calling Abraham her Master.  Unlike its top contender insecurity,  its afflicted and impersonal (I am of course, reflecting on a connotation based on a misunderstanding of the word, and I am actually a fan of submission in its intended context of succession and order, but this blog post isn’t about that ).

Insecurity, on the other hand, is more than personal, its the by-product of the most personal, most private and most painful moments we have endured in our walk on this earth.  At the outset, there might have been some relational element that fed the insecurity, but at the end of the day insecurity, at its best, soaks the fabric of our very being with fear, resentment, bitterness and loathing.  At its worst, it completely paralyzes us from reaching our potential and becoming the renewed person that Christ intends us to be, consigned to be perpetually yoked by our pasts and imperfections.    Its no small wonder that the moment any good Christian woman who truly believes she is past all of that shrinks at the thought of the ”i” word being used to describe her.   The blood of Jesus covered all of that, right?

I must admit, I was totally in that camp too when my church’s book club decided on Beth Moore’s new book, “So Long Insecurity, You’ve Been a Bad Friend to Me” as their summer selection.  I thought about skipping it, but then I heard a number of women who I deeply respect say the same thing over and over again about the book.

“It’s just not me.” 

“I don’t see myself in that.”

“I am not particularly insecure so I don’t think I would benefit.”

I saw a lot of “not me” in my general discussions, which practically echoed what I felt – I always felt pretty secure for all the reasons that anyone would believe someone would be secure – I was nurtured and brought up to believe I can be anything, do anything – I was blessed with a highly affirmational mother, who raised me to believe I was beautiful, smart, funny and talented.  I have a great career at a great company.  A wonderful husband.  I was however, intrigued at the concept of the book, and  since I subscribe to Shakespeare’s ”play within a play” theory, after having the same discussion with three different women, I looked in the mirror and said “the lady doth protest too much methinks”.  I downloaded a copy of the book to Kindle – thank God for e-books – I was embarrassed at the mere thought of having to explain THAT title if I decided to read on my lunch hour at work!  I have never been a bigger fan of the digital download.

Beth herself admits that she has written “a messy book” (and Lord knows, it really was – at some point I thought I might have been reading a rough draft), and boldly states that “passion isn’t always the best ink”.  I appreciate her honesty, and quite frankly, I am sure that if anyone other than Beth Moore tried to publish this book, it would have never made it to the presses.  It is much too fragmented and incohesive, but brilliantly reflective of the state of insecurity women in particular find themselves in the present day.

So, what, if anything, did I learn from reading this book, and what might you get out of it, if you are anything like me? 

I learned that

• Insecurity is more than a complex emotion - it’s a lie that files in the face of my renewed mind in Christ and redeemed condition. 
• Everybody’s got a pride problem, and pride is a cheap knockoff of my God-given dignity.
• Owning my pride problem is a relief. 

And those are just the highlights – I can’t say what God might have in this book for you, but I can say that if you got this far in reading my rant, I pray that you are intrigued enough to read it so that you don’t miss what God might have for you in it.

“I don’t necessarily advocate for Jesus, but he’s not a bad idea.”

The musical stylings of folk music and the amazing licks and lyrics of some of the most talented musicians I have heard in a long while were certainly a treat – three days of beautiful music at the Wanee Festival in Like Oak, Florida was a welcome retreat for the soul.  Awesome, inspiring, spirit moving, blue-sy gospel arrangements of old-time hymns not only moved the crowd, but covered it with a poignant and painful testimony of love lost, civil disenchantment, and good old-fashioned wrestling with God.   There was no doubt that many of these artists had an amazing testimony to share.  I heard it, I felt it even, in much of the music and performances throughout the weekend.

Which is why this seemingly benign statement made from the stage disturbed me.  This was probably the first time that I had heard a deliberate yet unintentionally dilution of the gospel, or at least the first time that it was so directionally opposed to everything else I had heard in the few hours before.    Its been a month since the festival, but still this statement is gnawing at me. 

What gives rise to a comment like this?  Biblical ignorance?  Witnessing with political correctness?    Is shame of the gospel at the heart of the statement?  

The gospel is hard.  The gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, but that doesn’t make the message a salve designed for human comfort and healing.   It’s life saving power isn’t always pretty.   I’ve been cut wide open by the gospel, and with both helplessness and hope I have surrendered to God’s word and the supernatural precision with which it slices.   

There are times when my heart breaks because of the gospel.  People I love and care for deeply live sinful lives, but if I dilute the gospel to avoid offending them, what then am I saying about Christ’s sacrifice?  By implication, I am softening the harsh reality of what it took to redeem a lost world. 

I want to be salt and light, have good, meaningful conversations about my savior, and know how to answer everyone, but not at the expense of truth.  That WOULD be a bad idea.