i attribute the following roles to my people in sarnia
joe: father
nathan: jealous brother
daniel: servant (intern!)
darryl: friend, possibly family member, possibly servant

I played (fairly) competitive volleyball on Tuesday night for the first time in about 6 months and by the end of the 2.5 hour marathon I thought my legs were going to collapse. I actually felt pretty good yesterday but today- today my legs feel like ground beef.

The moral of the story is that I should play volleyball more often. Or perhaps it’s that I should never play volleyball again. I can’t decide.

The end.

It struck me while living in Palestine that one of the main differences between Islam and Christianity is the notion of grace in the latter.  All of the posturing and right action among my muslim friends gave me the prevailing notion that it meant something; that in some way they were crossing off the t’s and dotting the i’s, and in some way earning God’s favour. Of course Christians do this as well, with our ideas of “finding God’s precise will for my life”, (really, will that please God?), doing devotions and err on the side of caution when it comes to any issue that might be considered a gray area, lest we upset God.

In my early twenties I remember being fascinated with God’s faithfulness and I suppose in many ways I still am, which is why I have a particularly soft spot in my heart for Hosea. I love that story.  Inevitably this fascination expanded to include the notion of grace which, in my mind used to be the equivalent phrase for “God isn’t pissed off at me anymore”.  Hurray for grace!

Lately though I’ve been thinking that grace is much more about God’ action out of love revealed in Christ; “behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” Of course this action has been completed in full, on the cross at a particular point in history which covers (i think) the past, present and future. This, I think means that yes, God not only isn’t pissed off but he was waiting for this exact moment when Jesus fulfills the law and pays the price in full.  There is now no condemnation; only grace is left.

This notion, that all has been paid and grace becomes the rule, not the exception is something that I think we’re called to model as Jesus people and especially in the church.  Even as I type this I know I lack congruence between that idea and how I live, but I feel I ought to try and do that.  If Jesus says I can’t remember your sins yesterday, today or tomorrow aren’t we to do likewise?

Of course my Muslim friends are close- closer than I ever imagined to experiencing the grace of Issa.  It’s right there on the tip of their nose- but it doesn’t make sense to them, or to me for that matter that God isn’t in the business of creating a superhuman race of uber disciplined religious fanatics.  That’s why the tax collector got it.  It’s why the prostitute got it- because they knew they had nothing to bring to the table and the recognition that you have nothing to offer is when grace begins to take root.

Aaron Espe says it like this…

I fell on my face again.
I swear it never ends,
I guess I am your replica
and just someone who pretends

I fell on my face again,
so I tried to make amends
but it only put me on the floor,
begging a forgotten friend

Grace, what a lovely thing. 
Grace, what a lovely thing. 
Grace what a lovely thing,
You’ve got me on my feet again.

Fall again, I can feel it, please don’t let me. 
Fall again, I can feel it, please don’t let me.

Grace, what a lovely thing. 
Grace, what a lovely thing.
Grace what a lovely thing,
You’ve got me on my feet again.

I’m watching the Terminator with friends.  I hate the Terminator but I like my friends.  This is love.

Actually, technically I’m blogging while they watch the Terminator.  This is being disengaged.

As some of you may know I moved to Sarnia for an indefinite amount of time. A by-product of my time in Sarnia means that I get to hang out with folks from theStory, a Free Methodist church that was planted three or so years ago by some good friends of mine.

One of my friends, Nathan Colquhoun is one of the co-founders of Epiphaneia and part of his responsibilities used to be to come up with designs for our website and promotional materials. Exactly 3 months ago at one of our meetings he said “I’m not very good at designing stuff; I just get lucky sometimes”.  So he passed design along to our friend Darryl, who is certainly more than capable, but…

Nathan is a liar. The following is the poster that Nathan whipped up for December’s advent theme at theStory: expecting.

Did I mention that I love this stuff?  As their lead pastor Joe so poignantly said last week “Mary missed her period.  Think about it.  Advent is messy”.

I first began listening to what might be considered folk music when I came across Andrew Osenga’s “Souvenirs and Postcards” album in 2003. It was sad and beautiful and full of hope. As I’m a creature of habit I believe I listened to it on repeat whenever I was driving for close to three months. Since that time I began a courtship of the the genre through people such as Patty Griffin and Aaron Espy and then had my feelings cemented with the likes of Grififn House, Alexi Murdoch and The Weepies. Today without shame I can say that there’s almost nothing I’d rather listen to than music that is almost exclusively acoustic by folks with beards and that contains lyrics that are most appropriate in autumn.

On a semi related note I also like A Mighty Wind, a movie my father believes one needs to be “high” in order to find entertaining.

I remember the day I learned the definition of transsubstantiation. It was Dr. Carter’s Intro to Theology class and I was starting to fall in love with big words. For our exam we had to learn about 100 different terms, so I made a little roladex and went over it like a texas hold em addict at Rama.

Theodicy. Nice flop.
Parousia. Good pair going.
Soteriology. Trips!
TULIP. That makes the flush! I’m all in.

Now safely removed from those days I can say with confidence, ‘meh’. I certainly appreciated learning that stuff but am increasingly convinced that learning about and experiences definitions are entirely separate things. So for instance, everything I know about theodicy at the time was limited to my definition of it. These days I wonder why a friend is going through hell in her marriage or how come my mom is experiencing chronic pain with some strange disease. Similarly I’m less concerned about the parousia and what it looks like in future than what I experienced this week or month that contained hints of parousia. The shining sun and the stranger’s warm smile; the deep restlessness that something is happening, that Jesus is here and he’s already accomplished everything he said he would, it’s just a matter of opening my eyes to see the kingdom come.

I’ve been reading Robert Capon recently and I love him like no other author I’ve come across. For Capon, you can’t experience the kingdom in a spiritual, future realm. It’s not about then, it’s about then, now. The kingdom is not only coming but it has come and we need to deal with that now, in the present. Like those definitions, I can’t know what Chicken Pad Thai tastes like by memorizing the recipe. Instead I’ve got to take what I know about the recipe and put my hands to it, get dirty and (hopefully) savour it.

I suppose these thoughts come from a particular paragraph in Kingdom, Grace, Judgment….

“the last four paragraphs have been about theology- an enterprise that, despite the oftentimes homicidal urgency Christians attach to it, has yet to save anybody. What saves us is Jesus, and the way we lay hold of that salvation is by faith. And faith is something that, throughout this book, I shall resolutely refuse to let mean anything other than trusting Jesus.

The reason for my vehemence is that all of us are theologians. Everyone of us would rather choose the right-handed logicalities of theology over the left handed mystery of faith. Any day of the week- and twice on Sundays, often enough – we will labor with might and main to take the only thing that can save anyone and reduce it to a set of theological club rules designed to exclude almost everyone”

I’m so done with isolated theological definitions.

Discuss and hypothesize that the Lord is good? No thanks. At this point I’d rather taste and see.

I think that you, reader, can expect a good many Capon quotes on here in the coming weeks.

To all my nonbelieving, sort-of-believing, and used-to-be-believing friends: I feel like I should begin with a confession. I am sorry that so often the biggest obstacle to God has been Christians. Christians who have had so much to say with our mouths and so little to show with our lives. I am sorry that so often we have forgotten the Christ of our Christianity.

Read more:

While in Atlanta last October I discovered a new musician named Zach Williams. I’ve been listening to his album ‘Names that Fell’ consistently and found myself wanting to know whether there was any more music of his out there.

I thought I read that he had a band before this album and that the band was obviously Zach Williams and the Reformation. It only made sense. A) same name B) Zach is a church planter in NYC and obviously he would choose something like ‘reformation’ to be included in his band’s name.

Approximately 12 minutes ago I paid for the album from ZWR (as they seem to call themselves) and boy, was I wrong.

What I bought was this:

What I meant to find was more of this:

A compulsive buy gone terribly wrong. No offense ZWR.

I clearly missed the boat on all things pedro while i was listening to POD and Hillsongs during the height of Pedro the Lion’s popularity. These days I’m finding much more meaning in the cutting lyrics, sarcasm and honesty of the now defunct Pedro the Lion and the solo stuff from front man David Bazan. Currently my favorite song is Options which seems to be a sarcastic take on the [western] perception of marriage.

We were walking, holding hands
With our bare feet in the sand
And the seagulls overhead
When I broke the spell and said

“I could never divorce you
Without a good reason
And though I may never have to
It’s good to have options”

But for now, I need you
But for now, I need you
But for now, I need you

But it was only in my head
Because no one ever says
What they really mean to say
When there’s so much at stake

So I told her I loved her
And she told me she loved me
And I mostly believed her
And she mostly believed me