“So what you are trying to tell me is the you will lend me money only if I don’t really need it?”

“You who have no money,
Come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
Without money and without cost.”

Some books just stay with you for years on end. You can see the lines on the page. The shade of the paper. The typeface. Even the original emotion can return in a memory.

Before I knew there was a list of acceptable books and authors, I read everything written by Phillp Yancey. Books. Articles. All of it. And then when I got to Seminary, I continued reading him, even though he seemed a little suspect.

I think about his book, What’s So Amazing About Grace? all the time. The stories mainly. But the book’s tone and message stay with me. More than anything he helped me see — we live in a world of “ungrace.”

It’s not only an indictment. It’s a statement of fact. The laws, the rules and the expectations recoil in the face of grace. Conditions upon conditions. We have to look for loopholes as we make our through the marketplace. All is to be traded. Gifts are given but with strings attached. And even when they are given freely, we naturally ask, “What’s the catch?”

We often speak of the glories of God’s grace in Jesus in the context of relationships. Which is right and true. But our world spins on what is earned. At least the world we have created. And we’ve created it in our own image.

I don’t know that the call is for businesses and governments to be more gracious. I’m not sure. But I do know the good news of grace in Christ stands askew to the ungrace they trade in.

This is the world I work in now. This world of numbers and bottom lines and earnings and bait disguised as free products.. While full of good people, they must like myself, wield the hammer of law on an anvil of hard cold ungrace.

Not so much an indictment as a statement of fact.

The Kingdom of God is a shot across the bow of our hearts. Hearts that list toward toward ungrace. Hearts too comfortable with the world of ungrace. Preferring it. The church becomes a marketplace of trade because our souls are mired in the marketplace’s ideals.

And then there’s the Kingdom of God, where the poor in spirit have reason to be happy. It’s a different economy altogether, where the laws of supply and demand are turned on their head. Every capitalist must check it at the Kingdom’s door.

Needing grace with nothing to offer is the position of the Kingdom. The King offers it freely. The one thing the world values above all other things is lack of need. Having something to offer gets the attention of bankers and merchants. And everyone else.

The King knows our need better than we do, sees it for all it is. And then with lovingkindness provides all and then some.

I think I’ve been had.

Everyday I have people sit in front of me and tell me far lass then the truth. It is one of the few carryovers of the pastorate into the world in which I work. Another carry over is talking with people in vulnerable situations needing a kind smile and listening ears and eyes.

Let’s call her “Cheryl.” I believed every word. And prayed for her. I even gave some advice on how to find some help, which she thanked me for. She repeatedly put her face in her young hands and said “oh God” over and over and over. She even told me God was the only reason she was surviving.

Now it is possible most of the story she told me is true…how she had been mistreated by a soon-to-be-ex-husband. It’s possible. But I still think I’ve been had. It could be she sat down at my desk and did not tell me the whole truth out of desperation. That’s certainly possible.

My first reaction? I don’t like being taken advantage of.

But then I thought for a few more moments. Why?

The one part of my job that I love is the opportunity to be kind when people least expect it. To go the extra mile to make sure people know that I am not there to take of advantage of them. Put them at ease. I’m pretty good at it.

I’ve been reading through Eugene Peterson’s memoir again. And last night I read his words on how people are not a problem to be solved but a story to be entered into. It’s good advice even when you aren’t a pastor.

So would I rather be taken advantage of when trying to help someone…or be so hard-hearted and cynical that kindness is the exception and not the rule?

While I understand the need to be as wise as serpents and innocent as doves, I also would prefer to be kind and deceived than cynical and defensive. I’ve had enough of that over the past couple of years.

I’m no hero here. I have to really fight anger and keep my natural inclinations at bay. The Spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.

Look, this is probably old hat to most people. But we’ve been a little guarded over the past couple of years. Being tender-hearted has not been easy when you feel you’ve been taken advantage of and been the recipient of unkindness, you tend to want to dish that out.

So no heroes here. Just some realization.

Last night I had one of those parental moments I don’t think I’ll ever forget. Not so much for what it taught my son, Knox, but for what it taught me. Reminded me of.

I turned out the lights and prayed with Knox and Dylan. Then as I went to kiss Knox good night, I realized he was upset.

“But I don’t want Easter to be over.”

He does this for every holiday and birthday. Some is exhaustion. Some is real disappointment that the long-awaited event is coming to a close. It was too brief.

So I asked him what it was he loved and would miss. And we ran through the list.

Hiding and looking for eggs? We can do that tomorrow when I get home from work!

The candy? We can eat some after dinner tomorrow night!

The prizes y’all got? We will put the net on the basketball goal and shoot baskets with the new ball until the $6 ball bursts!

And what about celebrating Jesus rising from the dead? Knox, that’s a everyday event. We don’t have to fear death and we have forever with the King of the Universe to look forward to.

Both of us had teary smiles. I kissed him again and quietly thanked God for the reminder. And for a church where I know the importance of the resurrection is not limited to an annual event. And I immediately looked forward to celebrating communion next Sunday.

I need to start this post with the usual qualification…

I think evangelism and missions are good and necessary parts of the Christian life. And this post is a not criticism of those things in and of themselves. So please do respond as if I have attacked them.

But I do still wonder why we talk about evangelism and missions the way we do.

Maybe it’s the pastoral heart that still beats beneath. But I worry about how we talk when we talk about them. The language we use. The tone. The commands.

The guilt.

There is no instance in the New Testament of reprimand for not being involved in evangelism. There is no shaming people for not going on the mission field.  Or considering it. Not from Jesus. Not from Paul. Nor from any of the other Apostles and writers in the New Testament.

Am I saying this should free us from the desire to see others enter the Kingdom? Of course not. And should we tell others of the glories of our King? Of course.

But it has to be significant that while we find it very easy and natural to talk about everyone’s responsibility to evangelize and to shame those who do not, nothing similar ever happens in holy writ.

Usually it is those with the gift of evangelism who are the most eager to evangelize and then they see those who do not have the same passion for it, in a negative light. So you would expect Paul, the great evangelist…a blood-earnest evangelist to shame someone or point out the guilt of those who have not been evangelizing.

Unless you think everyone he talked with was already doing evangelism as they ought to and there was no need for a reprimand or command or hint of guilt.

Again a pastoral heart beats. Many people are used to hearing the guilt-inducing lecture of the need for more evangelism, they just assume they are guilty and then wallow away in it. And it’s a guilt that goes much further than the Scriptures.

The Scriptures give us a lot to feel guilty about. I cannot see that this is one of them. If I can be proved wrong, I’m willing to listen. Regardless, we in modern-day evangelicalism make people feel guilty more than the NT does.

And though I am not a pastor anymore, my pastoral heart beats with a fear of men and women laboring under a yoke that is not easy and burden far too heavy.

1) If some visitor is sitting in my seat at church on Sunday because they only go to church once or twice a year, I’ma go nuts.

2) Sometimes I forget what I’ve blogged/said and repeat myself. Sorry about that.

3) Do liberals still not like the Patriot Act? Can’t tell.

4) Still waiting on a Groupon for Five Guys.

5) That thing you’re passionate about? Your tendency will be to see everything through that particular lens. And expect everyone else to also.

6) My hometown is getting a new ballpark for the local minor league team. I drove by it today and was blown away with how great it looks. A lot of cynicism about downtown was dealt a blow.

7) Sometimes I forget what I’ve blogged/said and repeat myself. Sorry about that.

8) One of the reasons I continue to go back to C.S. Lewis and Eugene Peterson and Brennan Manning is because of how loving they are towards people in their writings. And even when I disagree with them they seem to be driven in those areas by love of God and man. And I love them for it.

9) My pastor is pretty funny and that means a lot.

10) If Moneyball was on Netflix I would have already seen it a dozen times.

11) In McGrath’s new biography of Lewis, he cannot understand why Lewis would spend 3 chapters in Surprised By Joy talking about his misery in a particular school. This is because McGrath must not understand the place of Joy in a man’s life when his waking moment’s are dominated by experiences which are the opposite of what he is seeking.

12) Numbers have no conscience. Zero.

13) There are a number things in my life I have not gotten right. Choosing a wife is the one thing I’m certain I’ve gotten right. And starting Kozma at SS next week on my fantasy team.

I listen to albums like most people watch movies.

So that I can listen without interruption, I set aside time to do this. Been doing it since I bought my first album in the eighties. It’s never wasted time. Sometimes I listen over and over and over. More often than not, I stop at the end and take the end of the album as the end of the listening and go do something else entirely with those notes still circling in my head, now more clear.

So when I wrote The God of the Mundane, I would listen to albums straight through while writing. A little Josh Ritter, some Gaslight Anthem. Dylan. Anything with a story to tell. But mostly I listened to Springsteen’s Darkness on the Edge of Town.

I honestly cannot remember if it was intentional or not.

Springsteen’s songs and his album, Nebraska had been favorites for years. But a few years ago, I starting listening to Born to Run and Darkness alot. I’d finish listening to them in chronological order and know I was listening to something profound. Born to Run, his breakout album, with all it’s passion and energy and youth and need to escape was perfect for sweaty summer nights. And then Darkness, that tour de force of understanding and taking the world as it is and packing some of those dreams away into the attic.

It was probably natural that I’d gravitate towards Darkness while writing a book about ordinary life and all the concerns of those who think it is not enough. Only the writings of Eugene Peterson were more influential.

So the question – why…how could a Springsteen album be so influential to a pastor writing a book?

Fast forward, Wendy.

All weekend I’ve been reading a new biography of Bruce, courtesy of the library. Once I got to the part where he started making albums I began listening to the albums as I’m reading about the recording and the touring for each one. When I got to the chapters dealing with the drawn out sessions of Darkness, I read the following – In the plangent “Racing (in the Street),” the triumph turns out to be the struggle itself, and the questing spirit that can fill the most mundane life with a kind of sanctification…”

Nearly every adult at some point stands neck deep in their own adulthood and has to reckon with the compromises it demands. Is this mundane life meaningful? Does God even care? And the internal fight between is this all there is? and should I want something more? can rage for years on end.

Springsteen is no believer. But his songs helped me see where people are. Something I honestly never cared to see while I was a pastor. I was too concerned with getting people to do something…anything to see the pain within. You worried about something so small as your work? Well, don’t waste your life then wondering and do something big for God.

Seriously. That’s no exaggeration.

It is very tempting for men and women to look back over their lives and wonder if it all mattered. The desk-job repeated every day. The diapers. The minivan over the sports car. Shoes over concert tickets. Home over happy hour. And it is just as easy to dismiss those concerns with so much coldness in the name of calling people to commitment.

And so I wrote the The God of the Mundane because I didn’t think pie-in-the-sky Christianity was any good at dealing with this. These aren’t people that need to work harder on their faith. They need an Object of Faith that cares about all the ordinary.

The “radical movement” is a call for escape – a baptized version of Born to Run. Maybe. Regardless, there are far too many voices telling everyone to do something else…be something else…live somewhere else.

But that’s just hollow talk to far too many –

She sits on the porch of her Daddy’s house
But all her pretty dreams are torn,
She stares off alone into the night
With the eyes of one who hates for just being born

They need a God who can infuse meaning in the middle of their mundane existence. They need a God for right where they are now.

The evangelical party line is that Jesus accepts people right where they are. But for the most part it’s a bait and switch. At least it was for me. I never really cared about where they were beyond wanting people to no longer be there. Whether they were unbelievers or just not doing well emotionally/spiritually, I was only prepared to diagnose the problem and move them on as quickly as possible.

Nothing to see here.

But there is much to see. And understand. And Springsteen helped me to stop and look around.

1) Just a reminder that you should not criticize the American Dream from an electronic device. You could break the Matrix.

2) God, through others, has provided for us this week in a way that chips away at my cynicism to reveal some tender hope underneath.

3) “…and in the backseat, we’re just trying to find some room for our knees…”

4) Last night I dreamed about baseball season and it was wonderful.

5) The pants of my favorite blue suit have a hole in them…may be a job for Knit Em Jenny.

6) Today David Platt, famous for his book critiquing the American Dream, will be speaking at a conference. You can watch the Livestream of his talk. Online. In high definition. On your computer. Or iPad. You know, using wifi.

7) My kids are awesome. Wanna borrow ’em?

8) Watching my wife cook is like a two-for-one deal.

9) You know you belong to a good church when you are not with them and you still feel like you are with them.

10) Windows down. Sunroof open. This on 11.

I write this on Monday, March 18th, 2013.

This is not the post I planned for today. And the post I’m gonna write runs the risk of looking like a pity party. But I want you to see something. And I ssume some of you need to see it as much as I did.

I took today off because I needed it. So after sleeping in and drinking the first cup of coffee I put my arms around Bethany and with two hurried sentences asked God to provide for our needs this week.

That was not a flippant prayer.

We enjoy a lot of comforts but paying bills without using our savings is not one of them. Our only real extravagances are the home we rent, Netflix and the cell phone plan. We have taken two family vacations. Ever. Recovering financially after vocational ministry is harder than I thought.

My prayers for provision are usually followed by a broken transmission. Or so it seems.

I tell you this only so you’ll see the goodness of God.

At 2 o’clock today, a stranger rings our door bell. Never seen her before in my life. She says she has a delivery for us from Sam’s and would not tell us who put her on the errand. All this is followed by confusion, smiles and incredulous wonder.

She was enjoying this possibly more than us.

I had forgotten about the prayer till we got it all inside and put the goods away. And then this old cynic’s heart beat bright red with the realization. I would like to tell you that this kinda thing never happens to us and that is why I am so cynical. but it does happen to us periodically. And I can only guess it happens more than I realize.

Yesterday I taught Sunday School and it was on the King and the Kingdom. It’s more of an OT survey class but I decided to go rogue and tell them about the righteous, powerful, and loving King we have. And how I’ve needed that kind of King lately.

All of it was hard to say.

Mainly because I’ve struggled to buy it. Intellectually, I’m there. But my head falls into my hands wondering what the hell is gonna happen to us more often than not.

Sunday’s check to the church was the hardest bit of writing I’ve done lately.

I don’t tell you all this because I want pity. Honestly, I don’t. But I saw something. Something I would not see apart from the need being there and then dealt with like this.

Maybe…just maybe he wants even more for me to see that he – the King – will take care of us. His promises are true. It’s easy to value the tangible over the principal when you wonder what’s coming next. But in this already/not yet space we occupy, the promise can be worth more than the temporary fulfillment. And if I don’t believe that, then I might as well believe this is all there is….you know, like I did before the door bell rang.

For the last couple of weeks I’ve been a little unnerved about how the process of selecting the Pope has been discussed among evangelicals, specifically the Reformed community. My people. While many have been kind and respectful, others appear to be sitting around thinking about a funny tweet to thrust into the ether. (My tribe talks missional but they are more Chris Farley then Leslie Newbigen.)

Or they wanna refight the Reformation.

Don’t get me wrong, some is not mean-spirited and is genuinely lighthearted. But much shows absolute contempt.

But then I thought about Luther and all the contempt he displayed towards the Pope and all the trimmings. And I thought, maybe it’s OK to make fun.

But it never sat well with me.

And it’s not because I’m Catholic or heading that way. I’m sympathetic to Catholics and what they want out of their spirituality but I can’t go there. I’ll read Merton for sanity.

And then it landed on me this morning. The reason I was ill at ease about evangelicals making light of the papal process and then using Luther to defend it was this. Luther was taking aim at his own tradition. Not the tradition of his neighbor alone. Luther was not trying to start a new religion or denomination or sect. He was trying to reform the church already there. Luther was Roman Catholic, if you will. not Lutheran.

And of course they wanted to kill him. So his criticism and strong language should be seen in that light.

Here is what I think, you wanna be like Luther? Set your aim on all the silliness with evangelicalism. The legalism. The celebrity. The concerts disguised as worship. The worship disguised as concerts. The marketing ad nauseum. The legalism. The calls for radical living from pastors with iPads and iPhones who live in the suburbs with 3 bedrooms and 2 baths. Set your aim on the cover-up of sexual abuse. The legalism. Set your aim on a theology that questions everything and stands for nothing. The pastor as CEO. The pastor as rock star. The legalism.

Making fun of the conclave given the task of selecting the Pope is easy while living in the evangelical enclave. You lose nothing and get some laughs. Luther took on the church from within. And not for a laugh but because he genuinely sought God and cared for people.

Back before the great hard-drive crash of 2010, I had just bought Willie Nelson’s Red Headed Stranger. Checked it out of the library so I could reclaim it – that’s ethical, right? – and have not been able to stop listening to it.

As far as the business world is concerned, I’m a babe in the woods.

A generation raised on Dumb and Dumber will find almost nothing sacred and will make fun of anything and everything. The generation after them doesn’t stand a chance.

I’m waiting for my award…you know, because I’ve managed to raise my kids as Beatles fans.

I do not think evangelism is the best way to be a “light” in the workplace. It is being just and kind and compassionate in the  midst of world that is often cruel and cold and sleazy with a smile.

I truly thought that after John Piper retired he would go do missions overseas in a hard place. I’m not trying to be snarky here. I really did expect that to happen immediately upon retirement.

I renounce Satan and his Daylight Savings Time.

The great difficulty in my marriage is I am completely happy with the society of my wife. I don’t need time away from her and when I am away, I am anxious to be back. In other words, I’m a lot like my dad in reference to my mother.

I’d like for my kids to grow up with Willie Nelson songs in their head just like I did.

Even though I know I’m supposed to say that I want people to buy my book because I think it will encourage them and be a help to them…and while that’s true…I also want people to buy as many books as possible so I don’t have to get a second job.

A pastor who has a Twitter account but is not the one running it is absurd. I mean Taylor Swift even runs her own account. Probably not the best argument I could make but still…

Watched the movie version of The Road last night. And I tell ya, the first time you hear boy cry…I mean he sounded just like my son Knox and I had to go look in on him just to see him breathe in his sleep.

The way guys talk about their beards these days reminds me of teenage girls and the way they talk about their hair and makeup. Sorry, it’s just true guys.