Today, it begins. Today is when everything came to a screeching halt and there was no other way to save those you love.  I can imagine the pain of having my friend betray me, I know that kind of pain that causes because it has happened to me but I am not like You, I ditched those friends, You forgave those friends and made them breakfast.

Tonight You’ll be arrested by men with no backbone.  They will come at night while You are praying with weapons because they were afraid of the crowds during the day, but you knew that.  You saw it since the beginning of time and you still went through it.  Thank you.

By Friday evening the sky went dark, the curtain tore, and you were dead.  This I don’t understand.  I don’t know why, would do this.  You have the power to come off the cross and you didn’t?  I don’t really get it.  I would have jumped off with the first tap of the first hammer, but thankfully your not me and I’m not you.

Saturday, I can identify with Saturday.  You’re still dead and your followers don’t know what to do, they feel a mix of abandoned and hopeless.  I get that and I know what it is to feel like You are far from me.  I understand the disciples, when I don’t know what to do next I go back to what I know. Sometimes it is fishing, sometimes it is just doing my thing the way I want.

Sunday…..Sunday is coming.  We’ll talk about Sunday when we get there, because Sunday is coming but we couldn’t have Sunday without Thursday, Friday, or Saturday.

- Amen

Jesus on the cross

Then the email usually follows with something to the effect of “I love Jesus and if you love Jesus you will send this to ONE MILLION PEOPLE in the next sixty seconds.” and then the email tells you that if you don’t send it to the random number of people then you have denied Jesus and Jesus will deny you before God and then usually they quote some obscure Bible verse or random quote from some random person who may or may not have existed.

As a pastor I get so many of these emails and, quite frankly, I delete every one.  However, the other day these emails got me in trouble.

A very nice, older, gentleman that I was friends with was sending me these emails and I informed him that by simply sending these emails does not make him, or anyone else, a better follower of Christ.  He agreed and I told him that I do not send them out to which he told me: “You are ashamed of Christ and He will deny you entrance on judgement day!”

REALLY OVER EMAILS!?!

After picking my jaw up off the floor I replied very calmly with a quote from Peter Rollins.

“I deny Jesus and the resurrection every time I see oppression and injustice and I do nothing.”

To that the man walked away from me and while he has been pleasant to me since then I have not gotten another email from him.

The cross, Jesus, the Resurrection, and the ascension have never been about emails or clogging up someone’s inbox and being obnoxious.  It has always been about seeing the lack of humanity and injustice in the world and doing something about it.

We can claim to be a follower of Jesus, but unless we are willing to follow Christ to the point of actually doing something to change the world then have we actually done something?  There is a TV commercial in my area that says “To do good you actually have to do something good.”  Doing good is more than clicking “forward,” it is actually moving forward.

If the umpire (who was a volunteer) called a strike and it was a ball the batter would freak out and players would scream at each other if they missed a catch.

Really?

It is CHURCH LEAGUE SOFTBALL. It isn’t that important.  No one is going to hell because they didn’t win the game.

Or maybe they think they are?  Maybe someone taught the players there is a cosmic scorekeeper who likes to keep track of your points and if you have enough points you get into heaven, and if you don’t have enough points then you don’t.  Almost a Karma idea of God.

God doesn’t work that way, God doesn’t keep score.  God doesn’t play by human rules or human score keeping methods instead the Bible talks about that all those who call on the name of Jesus will be saved.

No matter what, anything, no matter the church league softball score anyone who believes in Jesus is saved.

The scripture for this sermon was John 11:1-12:19 It was the death of Lazarus and the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem.  I didn’t read the scripture, only a few verses.

We talked about church, not as a building but as people, people who love Jesus and come together to worship Jesus the savior.  So then, that means the church did not hurt you.  The church can’t hurt you.  The people in the church who hurt you are the people who forget they are the church and started thinking about themselves instead of the church.

We starting with prayer and scripture reading then moved on to talking about Lazarus, Mary, and Martha.

They were siblings and they were friends of Jesus and yet things weren’t working out.  They went to Jesus and Jesus seemingly ignored them.  Things weren’t going the way they wanted.

We get that.  When our life isn’t right.  We pray to Jesus and Jesus doesn’t seem to answer.  It is those times that we need people around us.  When we shake our fist at Jesus and scream at Him because life isn’t right, because  the spit has hit the fan and the cancer is back, or our unemployment has run out, or our life just isn’t the way it is supposed to be, it is in those moments that we need people around us who love us, will clean us up and take us to the cancer appointments and the AA meetings.

Then notice what happens to Jesus, he is being hunted. Jesus can’t walk openly he is being hunted for doing the right thing.  As a result he retreats and surrounds himself with people who will care for him and comfort him.  This is the next reason we need a church family because when we are hunted by those who would take our lives we need people around us who will comfort us and keep us safe.

Last, when Jesus enters Jerusalem He is going because He is going to change the world.  Jesus is on the cusp of history.  This is again when we need that church family around us.  When our world changes we need those people around us. When we get married, kids are born, loved ones passes, jobs change, move, etc… these are times when our whole world changes.

Finally, if you are a follower of Jesus and you can’t be the kind of church that helps when it hits the fan or give comfort to those who are hunted, or even guide those whose world is changing, then leave because that is when people get hurt.

You can listen to the full text on iTunes or by clicking here.

Words create entire worlds.  Words can change everything and create an entire world.

If you disagree that words have the power to create new worlds read Genesis 1.  God’s words can create a brand new world.

Our words have the same ability.  Maybe not to the same extant but when we come to a person, friend, family member and we pick our words they can destroy their world or create a world.

Imagine your friend who has been told their entire life they are worthless and notice how their world looks to them?  They are beat down, oppressed, and feel like they are no good.

Suddenly when someone comes to this friend and shares with them words that tell them they are not worthless that person’s entire world changes.  They see a whole new world before them because someone believes in them.

Maybe it isn’t you, but you know this person.  What words are you sharing with them? What world are you creating for them?

Maybe this is you? If your world is not the way you want it, because too many people have used the wrong words, then know that God has words for you that you are NOT worthless and you have value simply because God loves you and because God created you.

Recently I was asked to write a blog as a “contributing author” on another website called “called to youth ministry”  They are a new site helping youth workers.  I am honored to help them and I guess this now makes me “internet-famous?” Either way here is what I wrote for them, but if you are a youth worker be sure to check out their site too.

The parable of the good Samaritan, chances are if you are reading this you know the story.  If you were to try to fit your job description into one of the characters who would you be? Most youth leaders, directors, pastors, volunteers will tell you they are the Samaritan who goes around pulling teens out of ditches and helping them with everything they need at great expense to themselves (How often do you not get reimbursed for that soda you bought your youth while you were talking with them?).

However there is a problem with being the good Samaritan, actually there are several problems.

1. Sometimes the teens want to be in the ditch.  Some teens like where they are and no matter how hard we try nothing seems to get them out.  No matter how good our programming is or how “cool” and “relevant” to the culture we are those teens want to stay there.

2. We can’t get every teen out of the ditch.  Sometimes a new youth shows up and we don’t say high, because we are dealing with the teenage girls having a crisis of the hour, and as result that new teen never comes back.  Or we go on vacation and miss something important or the parents move away or there are just to many kids.

3. Some youth get back in the ditch.  I don’t understand it.  You know the youth.  The ones who are the leaders of the group and the ones we spend years pouring into and you know on senior night that they will “make it” and their faith is strong.  Then you see them six months later and they have flunked out of college and they spend their time drunk or hung over.

This all leads to some very burned out, broke, tired, and guilty feeling good Samaritans.

So then, what if Youth workers were not the good Samaritans in the story but what if Jesus was the good Samaritan and we were the inn keeper?

What if instead of us trying to pick up everyone out of the ditch we let Jesus save the world, which is what He is good at, and those that Jesus brings to us we take care of with what Jesus has given to us and promised us more of when he returns?

If we do that then suddenly numbers, salary, hours, and our budget, don’t matter.  All that matters is who Jesus has us taking care of.

Certainly it means we still go out and meet youth and we are still active in the lives of youth.  We don’t sit behind a desk and wait for a youth to walk in but it means that every youth we see is not our responsibility to save, they are Jesus’ responsibility to save. They are now our responsibility to disciple and take care of until he returns.

This takes a tremendous pressure of our backs because we no longer need to try to save every kid, Jesus is working on them in His time, not ours.  We no longer need to worry that a teen fell through the cracks because Jesus is already on the other side of those cracks waiting for that teen with open arms.

So then, are you a tired, worn out, exhausted youth worker?  Maybe you need to stop trying to be the good Samaritan and be the inn keeper who takes care of those Jesus has already put in your life and work on healing them.

At the same time, in your tired, worn out, exhausted shell of a youth worker let Jesus be your good Samaritan who pulls you out of the ditch (that ditch of “gotta do better, or need a promotion, or Jesus wants me to work harder, or any others) you find yourself in and let him bind your wounds and carry you to a better place where you can be taken care of so that you can rest and heal so you can then be the best inn keeper you can be.

John retells this miracle of a man born blind begging at the temple gates.

Immediately after telling this miracle (or any miracle) people generally fall into two categories.

1. says this is simply a story to teach good morals and didn’t actually happen.

2. says this is fact and actually happened.

I wouldn’t dare tell you which group to be in but I would push you to think about your situation.

If you are in the first group and you believe that miracles don’t happen and everything is simply reducible to what we can explain and everything fits into a nice little box.  Sometimes life doesn’t.  Sometimes there are things in life that can’t fit into our prescribed boxes.

If you are in the other group and the miracles are true and exactly how they happened.  Sometimes we spend so much time trying to figure out exactly what happened we miss what the miracle is saying to us today 2,000 years later. Recently , we changed our clocks ahead one hour and I hate it but I resign myself to it.  I get used to it and look forward to a day when it will change back but I don’t do anything about it.

This is where we find the blind man.  He was born that way and no one had ever been healed of being born that way and so he resigned himself to his situation to the point that when Jesus came by he didn’t even ask to be healed.

How often is this us, or our friends?  We resign to the situation we are and we hope that someday the situation will get better but not actually willing to do anything about because it is hard or because “we’ve never done it that way before.”

The disciples don’t help, they are more concerned with the intellectual problem of why the man is blind than helping the blind man.

Jesus tells the disciples that not all pain and suffering is because of sin, some of it is so that God can be glorified.

This doesn’t make me feel good. How much suffering do I see in which I am like the disciples and I wonder why a person is in the situation they are in, instead of helping them.

Jesus then heals the blind guy and then he gets hauled to the Pharisees.

How often does that happen? We finally have something good happen in our life, we finally get our blessing and all of a sudden these people who only want to keep the things as they are come in and like dogs and leave their mark in our territory.  They make us feel bad because we finally got something good.

The newly sighted man then sees Jesus but doesn’t know who he is but believe in him and then confesses him and then worships him.

This is what it is to be a Christian.  To believe in Christ.  To confess what you now believe and then to worship Christ.

Again, you can listen to the audio on iTunes (just search for Tanoma) or click here.

What do I do? How do I get out of this? Can I make a deal with you, God?  If you get me out of this I promise to do better next time?  Please Lord, you’re my last hope and now I need you!

I’m not sure what to do, I thought I had everything under control and now I don’t . All I know is right behind me is something I don’t want to see flashing lights behind me.  Save me! Keep me near you and remind me to breathe because these lights are getting brighter and in a few minutes I’m going to need to know that someone out there still loves me and still forgives me of trying to take the law into my own hands.

- Amen

Today I arrived at seminary and after my first class I turned on my laptop and was preparing to check my email and start researching a paper on Isaiah 61.  However, to my surprise the internet wasn’t working.

I knew it wasn’t my computer.  I am running a brand new top of the line Apple Mac Book Pro. I love this computer and it does everything I need it to do and more.  Besides that I have used computers on a regular basis since I was in the 3rd grade and my dad brought one home from work.  I went to technical school for computer repair.  I have held jobs in computer maintenance and while in high school I even had my own business fixing other people’s computers.

So I knew it wasn’t my computer because I am the master of all computers and they bow before me!  The problem with the internet connection must have been on the other end with the seminary.  Surely they would be to blame because they are not as smart as me when it comes to computers.  Right?

I figured before I went to complain that the seminary’s internet was malfunctioning and keeping me from my email I would check a few things and be well-armed with information.

Sure enough it was not the seminary’s internet it was my computer.  One setting was wrong and that made my internet stop working. It was not the very expensive server system that had broken but my computer that was malfunctioning because I had changed that setting the other day to make it run faster at home, not knowing it wouldn’t work at school.

How arrogant I was to think that a seminary that spends thousands of dollars and has a full-time staff to make sure their internet and network is working would be broken when in reality it was one computer.

Yet, how often do people do that? How often do things stop working and we immediately think that it can’t be me, someone else must be to blame.  It can’t be me it must be the tools or the car or the computer.

How often do we do this to God?  We feel distant or we feel alone and we begin to blame God?  We curse at God and scream out “Why have You left me?” How arrogant are we to assume God left us? What if God is in the exact same place and it is us who moved?

When times become hard maybe God did move away and maybe God is letting trials happen to build character OR maybe those times we feel distant and that God has left us are actually because we left God? Because we decided to try things on our own and that is exactly what is happening.

Think about it like this:  I have a son, I love my son so much and I take care of him but if one day he decides he knows better than me and wants to go out on his own and while he was out he ended up in a bad situation doing things he regretted and didn’t even have enough to eat, whose fault is that? Is it mine or is it his?

It wouldn’t be mine because if I hadn’t let him go he would have resented me forever but because he made his choices and he moved away it becomes his fault.

However, because I love my son, he can always come back to me.  If that were my son I would be waiting by the window for him to come back and I would watch and wait for him every day and if I ever saw him coming back I would run out and grab him and before he could say anything I would wrap my arms around him and hug him and throw him a huge party with the finest foods.

This story isn’t about myself or my son it is about us and God. Check out Luke 15:11ff.

When we have wandered far from God and have done things we regret we can curse God but it is not God’s fault if he had stopped us we would have resented him.  Instead we can come back and when we do we find that God was waiting for us and runs to us (God runs to us at full force with open arms) and he gives us a party.