Leap Day!

How are you celebrating Leap Day?

Will you jump to conclusions?

Take a leap of faith?

Turn over a new leap? (Sorry)

You can clear your biggest hurdles.

You can try the decaffeinated version and just take it one step at a time.

Some Leap Day traditions include women proposing marriage to men, playing Leap Frog, or planning for the next leap year (2028).

I looked up a list of Leap Day celebration ideas, but most of them were quite lame. Which seems sadly ironic for a day of leaping. I saw ideas like cook a meal, take some pictures, make a Leap Day T-shirt, prepare for spring. 

Seriously, "prepare for spring"? I need an extra day in February to inspire me to prepare for spring?

Well for me, I happen to be a the beach today, so I went for a walk and found lots of sea biscuits! We have never before found any of those shells at the shore, and today we saw dozens!

Whatever you do today, lame or not, I hope your Leap Day springs forth with joyful irony and fun memories! 

And as I think of it, I don't really remember any Leap Days from years past. Hmmm.

Steel-Man

I have been disappointed with the way some Christian thinkers engage in conversation about important subjects. I have noticed the tone used in dialogue tends to be far too polemical.

Too many Christians will state a point of view on, say, abortion or immigration or education. Then they will construct a straw-man version of the opposing point of view and proceed to dismantle and ridicule that position. 

So here are my concerns and observations.

First, Jesus told us to love our enemies, as well as our neighbors. These diatribes by Christians do not indicate a loving attitude toward anyone, especially anyone who disagrees.

Second, personal attacks and calling others stupid has never been very persuasive. If their goal is to persuade, they should find some commonality with those who disagree.

Third, the attacks on a straw-man don't prove much at all. They may energize those in agreement, but that doesn't really change anyone's mind.

Fourth, straw-man attacks tend to weaken the position they intend to affirm. When I hear a straw-man attack, I realize that the attacker has such a weak understanding of the issue that he/she cannot refute the true position of the opposition. 

Finally, in a straw-man attack I see someone who is actually afraid of dealing with truth. He/she would rather look good to a particular audience than actually convince someone to change his/her position.

Why not actually construct a robust, persuasive argument as the opposition would actually state it? Why not try to understand that position and make a case that sounds intellectually honest? Then you can seek truth with the opposition, raising actual points of disagreement. 

Seems to me that too many people are afraid to construct a steel-man for the sake of honest argument. We are more interested in ridiculing others and putting them down, than we are in actually seeking truth together.

No wonder we are so divided.

Troublesome King

In Matthew 2 we see the story of the Magi coming to visit Jesus. As they looked for the newborn king, they went to the capital, Jerusalem. When Herod the Great heard about this inquiry, he was troubled, Matthew tells us. I guess so. If a new king was born, the current king would certainly expect to know about it.

But Matthew notes that "all Jerusalem" was also troubled. I have always thought that the citizens were worried about King Herod's reaction to the news. But maybe these citizens were worried about the possibility of a new king upsetting the status quo.

In any society there are people who want to keep things as they are. They want to conserve the current systems. If the system works for me, why would I want it to change? Sure there are people who are struggling, but they can thrive too if they will get with the program.

But when this newborn king grew up, he turned things upside down, declaring that the poor in spirit, the mourners, the meek -- these were the blessed people. This message would really challenge the status quo. 

So, yeah, Herod and the powerful people in Jerusalem were right to be troubled.

Prophets and criticism

Israel was supposed to be God's chosen people to show God's goodness to the world. Israel had a few moments of faithfulness, but generally they were about as corrupt as the rest of the world. They oppressed foreigners and their own people. They failed to carry out justice. They set up systems to prop up the elite at the expense of the ordinary people. They worshiped other gods.

The prophets noted all these failures and called the kings to account. They called out the failures of diplomacy, failures of leadership, failures of worship. They criticized the government relentlessly. And this did not improve the popularity of the prophets.

The prophets stood up to the powerful, often at great cost. They were often hated. Their reports in the Bible were actually a minority report. They would have lost all the opinion polls in their day.

Their main job was to criticize and call God's people back to faith. They usually failed. But they did it anyway.

We need some prophets today. Not that we are God's chosen people. But there is so much to criticize in government and society today. Somebody needs to speak the truth.

People who should know better are falling under the spell of loud politicians. Somebody needs to call this out. 

Bring on the prophets.

 

Come to your senses

Our guest speaker at Crossroads this morning, Guy Andrews, led us into the story of the Prodigal Son. The story is so familiar. I've heard so many sermons and Bible studies on this famous parable. But the story keeps yielding more profound truth.

You probably know the story, and you can find it in Luke 15. Jesus tells three stories there, and the last one is about three men. There's a father, an older son, and a younger son. The younger son wants to cash out of the family, so the father allows him to take his inheritance and walk away. This son has a great time partying, until the money runs out. His life gets pitiful. Then he comes to his senses.

He decides to go back home and beg to be let in the house. 

The father sees him coming, and runs out to meet him. The father forgives him and calls for a celebration.

Meanwhile, the older brother has stayed home, slaving away in the family fields. When he hears about his brother's return and the impending party, he can stand it. The father goes to see his older son and tries to explain why they had to celebrate. But older brother will have none of it. It's not fair for him to slave away and not ever have a party. "Everything I have is yours," the father tells him. 

The younger brother brought shame to the family and wasted all his wealth. Then he came to his senses. The father rejoiced because this son finally understood the value of relationship.

The older brother apparently brought respect to the family and never wasted wealth. But he never came to his senses. The father was sad because this son thought that honor, wealth, and obedience were more important than relationship.

Here's the point. The father rejoices when his sons come to their senses. Every day I need to come to my senses because every day I get things mixed up.

Coming to my senses brings me life.

Better than goody-goody

Jesus pronounces as "blessed" those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. (See Matthew 5:6.) When we think of righteousness, we think of good behavior, doing the right thing. It's a personal matter. You make sure that you follow all the rules. You check the boxes.

Those who hunger and thirst for that may seem, well, not much fun. They may come across as goody-goody, or self-righteous, or judgmental. They are so caught up with their rule following that they miss out on the joys of life. Maybe they think it's worth it, after all, they are promised future reward.

But Jesus does not say, "Blessed are the rule followers." 

We get tripped up by the word "righteousness." It's not about following rules and polishing your sterling reputation. It really means "right relationships." 

"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for right relationships." That puts a whole different spin on the saying. And notice what Jesus goes on to talk about in Matthew 5--settling disputes, not hating people, not objectifying people, serving those who oppress you. It really is about being in good relationship with other people.

If you hunger and thirst for right relationships, you can make your own world more peaceful, and you can surprise others by not being selfish. This is the kind of attitude that will make your world a better place. When lots of people live like that, you have a movement.

If you choose to live like that, Jesus says you will be filled. That's the kind of world I want to live in.

Checking on the Experiment

The New York Times daily email today noted the trouble with teens and smartphones. They found that the earlier children receive a smartphone, the more likely they are to struggle with mental health. 

A girl receiving her first phone at age 6 has over a 70% chance of experiencing mental health problems. 

We are all part of a grand experiment, a study of what happens to humanity when it has unlimited access to every connection all the time. I blogged about this grand experiment nearly 11 years ago. You can read that post here.  The experiment was just beginning then. The results of the experiment are disturbing.

Back then, we didn't realize how addictive electronic screens could be. Now we see the addiction and the depression, disconnection, bullying, shaming, distraction, insomnia, and loneliness that this technology has facilitated.

We are all lab rats. It's nearly impossible to opt out of the experiment. Those who do opt out look like kooks. But maybe we can at least dial it back. We can realize that our social media apps are actively working to keep us hooked. We can put limits on our screen time. We can turn off our phones.

Maybe you could try one of these ways of disconnecting.

• Turn off your phone at night.
• Make a habit of not looking at your phone first thing in the morning. Wait until after your workout or your first cup of coffee.
• Leave your phone in the car when you go out to eat.
• Turn off your phone for a couple of hours every Sunday afternoon. And take a nap or take a walk.
• Remember that the social media companies want to use you to make money. Limit their access to you.
• Say a prayer whenever scroll through your social media feed. Pray for someone you care about, pray for wisdom, pray for restraint.

We can't stop this experiment, but we can limit our participation. Looks like our mental health depends on it.