#ldat40 Lenten Devotional AT40 Day 9, The Heart Want What it Wants, Selena Gomez

This is a modern fairytale
No happy endings
No wind in our sails
But I can't imagine a life without
Breathless moments
Breaking me down down down

Gomez' fairytale is so very true it hurts.  The heart does want what it wants, but it so rarely seems to know what will satisfy. And we are left with no happy endings and no wind in our sails.  This morning I am seeking comfort in Psalm 51

Psa. 51:10   Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and put a new and right spirit within me.
11 Do not cast me away from your presence,
and do not take your holy spirit from me.
12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and sustain in me a willing spirit.

May be a spiritual heart transplant is necessary.  I pray that you receive the heart of Christ today so that you might really get what the heart wants and needs.

What do you think?

Lenten Devotional AT40 Day 8 Thinking Out Loud, Ed Sheeran

#LDAT40 Day 8

This Wednesday at MSU Wesley's weekly small group call Landon Hall Lunch Bunch we considered the question What's your favorite song on the radio?  Peer Minister Keeley Davenport answered "Thinking Out Loud, by Ed Sheeran"

"Is that the one where Ed sings when I can't walk anymore you're still going to love me?"  Keeley laughed and said yeah its something like that.  Point of fact the lyric goes:

When your legs don't work like they used to before
And I can't sweep you off of your feet
Will your mouth still remember the taste of my love?
Will your eyes still smile from your cheeks?

The follow up question for conversation was how does this song affect your spiritual life?   Keeley and I both thought this was an easy one.  Sheeran sings of a kind of love that transcends the physical, and this is the way God loves us.

This is not to say that this kind of divine transcendent love excludes the physical or natural world.  God's love includes the natural world and it supernatural-izes it in such a way that make the most out of love.  God's love is the kind of love that our hearts were created for.  It's the kind of love that flows out of us to our lovers and loved ones in ways so startling that it makes us all want to live our lives in an whole new way.

So lovers, what do you think?

Lenten Devotional AT40 Day 7, Love Me Harder, Ariana Grande

Lenten Devotional AT40 Day 7, Love Me Harder, Ariana Grande

The video for this song is a bit salacious.  If you have read the Song of Solomon you know that the Scriptures can get just as racy as Ariana Grande.  If you can hang into the video until about 2:43 you will encounter this wicked water effect that reminds me of the waters of baptism.  Baptism is not only an initiation into the church, its also a kind of merger into the life of God.   As we take on the life of God through the waters of baptism it doesn't matter if we are an infant or an adult, none of us can predict how hard living into the baptismal vow is going to be.

There will be times in our Christian lives when staying in love with God will require loving harder.  These are those moments when we are nearly completely annoyed with the people that God has put before us.  Or the times when we are nearly completely annoyed with our own lives.  That's when the loving get hard. Yet hear the good news.

Whilst Ariana song goes:

So what do I do if I can’t figure it out?
(You got to try, try, try again, yeah)
So what do I do if I can’t figure it out?
(I’m gonna leave, leave, leave again)


God will never, no never abandon you!  When you can't figure it out.  Try, try, try again.  And then if you still can't figure it out, stay open to the Spirit of God.  For as Romans 8:26 reads:

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes[a] with sighs too deep for words.

What do you think?


 

Lenten Devotional AT40 Day 6: I'm Not The Only One

Smith sings of an unfaithful partner.  This perusing the American Top Forty I have found that jealousy and unfaithfulness to be common themes in pop music.  Perhaps infidelity is a deeply ingrained condition of the collective human soul.

The prophet Hosea used his personal pain he felt regarding the infidelity of the mother of his children.  Hosea used this personal experience to project onto God and imagine how God feels when inflicted by our infidelity.

Sam Smith's sings with a passionate jealousy that's difficult to fabricate.  You can hear and feel his pain when he sings the lyric.

You've been so unavailable
Now sadly I know why
Your heart is unobtainable
Even though Lord knows you kept mine

How has our infidelity to God made us unavailable?  Unavailable to God and the people around us?  Our hearts are broke in our infidelity and the good news is that God has not abandoned us.  God has given us the very heart of Christ.  Will we accept that new heart that God has created for us in Christ?Will we love with the heart of Christ?

What do you think?

Lenten Devotional AT40 Day 5: Lips Are Movin, Meghan Trainor

Lenten Devotional AT40 Day 5: Lips Are Movin, Meghan Trainor

Meghan begins the song singing,

I know you lie
Cause your lips are moving
Tell me do you think I'm dumb?
I might be young, but I ain't stupid
Talking around in circles with your tongue
I gave you bass, You gave me sweet talk
Saying how I’m your number one
But I know you lie
Cause your lips are moving
Baby don't you know I'm done.

It's clear that Trainor desires more than lip service in a lover.  The same is true for God.  We are now five days into the lenten journey.  How are you doing in your repentance discipline.  Remember this season is an opportunity to turn your life around toward God.  Have you gone deeper in this repentance or has it remained lip service?

I can hear John the Baptist singing along with Meghan Trainor when he chides the crowds in Luke 3: 7-8.

When crowds of people came out for baptism because it was the popular thing to do, John exploded: “Brood of snakes! What do you think you’re doing slithering down here to the river? Do you think a little water on your snakeskins is going to deflect God’s judgment?  It’s your life that must change, not your skin.

Our lenten disciplines need to go deeper than the ash on our foreheads.  God wants more than our words to change, God desires for our lives to change.  That's going deep! That kind repentance is a real turn around.  Lips Are Movin, but are our lives bearing the fruit of repentance?

What do you think?

Lenten Devotional AT40 Day 4, Take Me to Church, Hozier

Lenten Devotional AT40 Day 4, Take Me to Church, Hozier

This unlikely pop song has surfaced unresolved angst in contemporary culture. Here's an excerpt from Chris Reimenschneider of the Star Tribune,

Laced with traces of American gospel and southern R&B music, it sounds darker and rawer than Smith’s and Adele’s similarly blue-eyed-soul work. Also, the lyrics and especially the song’s music video are partly inspired by a touchy topic that even his sound-alike singer Elton John would have been timid about tackling 30 years ago: the Catholic Church’s and other organizations’ stance against same-sex marriages and homosexuality.“The song is about how sexuality and love are such a basic, integral part of humanity,” Hozier explained.“For the church or any organization like a government to question who you love or who you have sex with just seems to go against humanity. I’m not condemning the church or religion on the whole, just that one policy, which seems so wrong to me. And obviously I’m not alone in thinking that.”(www.startibune.com/entertainment/music/292710011.html)

For me the song up earths the question of what it means to be human, and part of the created order. Christian teaching on creation, resurrection of the body, and the incarnation certainly over come the notion that the material world is inherently evil. And yet our religious institution still formulates rules that echo Hozier's lyric.

'We were born sick, ' you heard them say it

I don't imagine this question of humanity and the church's propensity to "go against" humanity is limited to sexuality. I have witnessed church policy deny humanity in when we fail to stand against torture, poverty, injustice, or war. To paraphrase Lisa Batten's favorite Theologian, When we deny humanity we also deny the resurrection (See Peter Rollins).

This song stirs up a persistent problem in the life of a Christian. How can do we be human and still walk in the way of Christ. Paul describes the paradox of humanity and sin in Romans 7:15.

I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.

This is a tension that ought not be swept under the rug. It's a struggle that all disciples should personally take up, before they cast stones. Christ invited the faithful to ponder the question of humanity and sin as he drew in the earth in John 8:7-8. Maybe it is in this pondering that the Holy Spirit enters in and we are made clean, maybe this is what Hozier is driving at in the lyric,

In the madness and soil of that sad earthly sceneOnly then I am HumanOnly then I am CleanAmen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

What do you think?

Lenten Devotional AT40 Day 3: Jealous, Nick Jonas

Jealous, Nick Jonas stream on Spotify

This song was number 3 in the nation on Feb 14, 2015 so I am listening to it for my morning devotional on this third day of Lent.

In Exodus 20:5 Moses reminds us that Yahweh desires our undivided devotion.
"You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God,"

Jonas sings in the chorus,
I mean no disrespect
It’s my right to be hellish
I still get jealous.

As Creator, God has a right to our love and devotion, and like Jonas means no disrespect in this admission of jealousy.  God's love is offered with absolute pure intent.  Even though God is all powerful, God avoids coercing the return of this affection because this is wouldn't be love at all.   My colleague Charlie Farnum says this makes God more than powerful, it makes God very powerful.  God sets Godself up for jealousy by allowing us free will to return this divine love on our own.  All the while there are a cloud of distractions that vie for our attention and devotion.

In Luke 10: 40-41. Martha was distracted with all her preparations, and the fact that her sister wasn't helping her.  Jesus reminds us in his answer to Martha that even our worry and anxiety can be distractions from our fully returning the Love of God.  And this feeds the kind of jealousy that Nick Jonas is singing about.  What do you think?

EncounterMICall in Detroit!

Charles Boayue III has some history with the church.  He grew up as the son of a United Methodist pastor.  He served as a leader on the district youth council, organizing charity basketball tournaments.  He spent Summers as a Detroit Annual Conference Mission Intern, leading kids camps and vacation bible schools.

Metropolitan UMC is a church with history.  It is a congregation in the New Center area, reclaiming its role as an epicenter for community life and faith.

Now Metro UMC and Charles are teaming up through the EncounterMICall intern program.  As Metro develops an outreach to international students at Wayne State University, Charles will help them meet students, organize gatherings, and strategize next steps.  In cooperation with the developing network of Motor City Wesley groups, we are excited about expanding the diversity of our community, stitching together people from around the world through "conspiracies of goodness,"  and enjoying both the heritage of a historic congregation and the innovation of a new student leader.

Thanks Charles and Metro UMC! And, blessings on your new partnership!

Ashes to Go at Michigan State University

I headed out to share Ashes to Go this year for Ash Wednesday on campus.  I typically set up at Wells Hall where the infamous Wells Hall Preacher reminds students who pass by that they are likely to burn in hell.  I rather like the juxtaposition of an invitation begin the Lenten journey toward Easter. This year as it was really cold I decided to head over to the MSU Student Union.  I enjoyed meeting students.  This is what I say.

"Good Morning!  Happy Ash Wednesday.  Would you like some Ash for your journey?"

This is what students say.

"Is today Ash Wednesday already?, I have to call my mom and remind her"
"I am so glad your here I wasn't able to make it to church"
"No thanks, I am not catholic" (it's ok I am not either)
"What's the tattoo on your head?"
"I have been looking all over for you"
"No thanks"

After about an hour and 15 minutes of sharing and meeting people.  The MSU Union Facilities Manager came approached me.

"Good Morning! Happy Ash Wednesday. Would you like some Ash?", I said.

She said, "No Thanks" and then informed me that as I had not applied to solicit through her office that I would have to cease and desist.  When I told her that I was part of the Registered Religious Advisors on Campus and apologized for not completing the appropriate forms, and explained that I was only in the Union today due to the cold. She told me that there was a service in the MSU Chapel on Wednesday evening that the Union would be directing students toward.  Not wanting to put up a fight, I complied left the building and spent the rest of my time outside the MSU Union building.

This experience left me feeling like a real rebel for Jesus!

Then I headed over to Landon Hall across the street where I regularly gather for a weekly Wednesday lunch bunch.  The staff there immediately greeted me with a warmer welcome and asked me to share ashes with them and pray with them. Students would come to our table and ask if they could get some ashes.   I guess its easier to begin the Lenten journey when you have spent some time in that community breaking bread.

Lenten Devotional AT40 Day 2: Blank Space Taylor Swift

Lenten Devotional AT40 Day 2: Blank Space Taylor Swift

This song describes a desire for long lasting and faithful relationship. Swift longs for a relationship that will stand the test of time but she gets a long list of crash and burns. 

The video is filled with images of the good life fancy cars, great shoes, suits, and dresses. My guess is that Taylor had a rather self indulgent wardrobe budget. She gets that none of these material items satisfy, and fall short. Despite the long list of ex-lovers and the heaps of material goods that don't satiate, Taylor persists in a quest for true love. 

They'll tell you I'm insane
But I got a blank space baby
And I'll write your name

This line from the chorus reminds me of the Isaiah 49: 15-16

Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. See I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands. 

The prophets often use the image of an unfaithful lover to illustrate humanities infidelity to God. 

Perhaps God is as "Drunk on Jealousy" as Swift in the second verse, and desires for humanity to return to God in love. This is the only love that will truly satisfy. 

What do you think?

Lenten Devotional AT40 Day 1: Uptown Funk, Mark Ronson

Lenten Devotional AT40 Day 1: Uptown Funk, Mark Ronson

Gospel according to The American Top Forty. 

My Lenten spiritual journey this year involves a daily meditation on the American Top Forty list for Saturday Feb 14, 2015. Each day I will reflect on one of the songs on that list. I will begin with the number one song and conclude with the fortieth song. 

Today's song is Up Town Funk by Mark Ronson. I love that this song has a Hallelujah chorus that disrupts the Lenten fast right on Ash Wednesday. This reminds me that the good news of Christ is disruptive, especially in the uptown crowd. 

The song has a great beat that sucks you in. Throughout this song there is a reversal of fortune vibe that approximates Jesus sermon on the mount. What do you think?