367. Church and Chocolate

[PREFACE]

This is the first sermon I got to preach at Findlay Street Christian Church.

To better understand some of what I say in the latter half of the sermon, I think it’s helpful to know that FSCC has been an open and affirming congregation since 1987 (it was actually the first OAA church in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and one of the first in seattle).

Come to think of it, I think this is actually the first time I’ve really talked about this on my blog. And while this is a sermon, and not a theological treatise on the subject, I’d love to hear feedback on the topic of OAA churches.

I welcome disagreement and push back but if comments become uncivil, I reserve the right to moderate comments as I see fit. (It pains me that I have to include this caveat, but trollers gonna troll.)

[END PREFACE]

Scripture readings for the day:
1 John 4:7-12
Acts 8:26-39

(I begin by taking out a bar of Theo’s Chocolate. I unwrap the bar. Break off a piece. Put it into my mouth. Close my eyes. Chew, and visibly enjoy.)

That was really delicious. I’m no expert on the world of fine chocolate, but let me tell you, that was really nice. A bit bitter at first, but then as I let it melt in my mouth and coat my palate, I got hints of cherry and orange, and a bit of really subtle, pleasant sourness near the end of it. Fine, chocolate really is one of the great gifts of God to us.

(I open my eyes and look out into the congregation.)

Why are you all looking at me like that?

Would you like me to say more about how that tasted? Would that give you a better idea of how amazing that was for me?

I can say more, I can try and use different metaphors and adjectives to describe the flavor, to give you a better idea of what I just experienced…

But that wouldn’t do, would it?

I could talk about the taste of this chocolate until I’m blue in the face but the funny thing is, the more I talk about it, the less you all care about what I say, because what are you all really thinking?

You’re thinking, “Shut up and give me some!”

Oh, and by the way, I have a few more bars of this chocolate that I’ll put out after service so we can all have some during coffee hour.

My point is, we experience the tactile world through our senses. And we try to share these experiences with one another through the words that we use. Have you ever stopped to think about how odd that is? I put a piece of this chocolate in my mouth and I experience it through my taste buds. But that’s the problem isn’t it?

I’m tasting it through my taste buds. I can’t get you to taste what I’m tasting. The best I can do is use descriptive words to talk about what I experienced as the taste filled my mouth, but no matter how poetic I am with words, you will never taste what I tasted until you put a piece into your own mouth.

Now if it’s this hard to talk about something like chocolate – something that we can hold and see and taste – how much more difficult is it to talk about God, something we can’t hold or see or taste?

Here at Findlay Street Christian Church, we read from God’s word, the Bible. We sing songs to, for, and about God. We share the peace of God with one another. We take communion. We learn about God through Pastor Joan’s sermons and from the other gifted teachers we have here.

All of these things that we say and do and sing to one another, that’s all good and necessary, but if we’re not careful, it can all become just talk about God. Remember how I said that talking about chocolate is different than actually tasting chocolate? Well, one of the things that I really appreciate about going to church here is that we don’t just talk about God, we actually do taste and experience God.

And why I can say this about us? I can say this, because love is here. Love is what changes our talk and our songs from mere words about God to an experience, a taste of God.

Here in 1 John, we read that God is love. Verse 12 says, “No one has ever seen God; [but] if we love one another, God lives in us, and God’s love is perfected in us.” And it’s important to note that word, “us.” That means all of us, together as a church – God lives in us and God’s love is perfected in us. Not in you or me, but in us.

The writer of 1 John tells us that God is love, and so when we love one another, we are experiencing God. Our songs aren’t just pretty words and melodies. When we sing these songs together with love, it’s like chewing chocolate and letting the taste fill our mouths. And here’s the really crazy thing. It’s like we’re all taking a bite out of the same delicious cosmic chocolate bar all at the same time. And when we sing, we’re sharing in and celebrating the same taste together.

Love – love of God and love of one another – is what brings about this unified, communal experience.

And speaking of love, want to know something else I love about this church?

I love that our love knows no boundaries. There is a place for everyone here.

And I know there are people out there who question this openness, but I think this odd little story in Acts about Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch suggests that our way of love is God’s way of love.

Here, we read about someone who traveled all the way from Ethiopia to Jerusalem to worship in the temple. That’s a journey of more than 1,600 miles, one way. It probably took about two months to cover that distance by chariot. And this was a royal court official – a treasurer, in fact. He probably had to jump through all kinds of hoops to take all that time off for this journey to Jerusalem.

Although it’s not explicit in the text, I think a really strong case can be made for the idea that even after traveling all this way, that this eunuch was turned away at the temple. Jewish law and customs of the day would have barred him from temple worship because of his status as a eunuch.

And that’s sad enough already, but it gets worse. In addition to wanting to worship in the temple, I think he journeyed all this way because he wanted to ask one of the rabbis about a passage of scripture in Isaiah, but no one would teach him.

And what was the question he wanted to ask?

Before I can get to that, I need to say a bit more about eunuchs in the first century. There were some who were born eunuchs, but there were many others who were forcibly made eunuchs (for a variety of reasons, all of them distasteful). The eunuch in this Acts passage was probably made that way, and I think that’s why he was studying this particular bit of Isaiah.

As someone who was made a eunuch against his will, thus having to live a life that had a social stigma attached to it, you can imagine him reading himself into this Isaiah text.

“Like a sheep I was led to the slaughter… In my humiliation, justice was denied me.”

I think this is why he made the long trek to Jerusalem. He wanted to know if he could find, in these words of Isaiah, some comfort for the injustice done to him. But no one in Jerusalem would talk to him. And so he turned around and started on the long, lonely road back to Ethiopia, still reading this bit of Isaiah to himself, over and over again – pondering it’s meaning.

So here he is, on this slow chariot ride back home, when out of nowhere, Philip runs up next to him and asks, “do you understand what you’re reading?” And can you hear the disappointment in his voice as he replies, “How can I, unless someone will talk to me about it?”

And then Philip begins with this Isaiah text and goes on to tell him about Jesus, about a savior who preached a story of profound, all-inclusive love.

A lot of biblical commentators talk about how later in Acts 10 and 11, Christianity expands from a Jewish sect to one that welcomes Gentiles but they seem to overlook this bit in chapter 8, which is strange because the story of a eunuch being baptized into the faith is a radical move. If a eunuch, who belonged to one of the most shamed and ostracized segments of society, can become a Christian, Gentile converts are basically an afterthought.

And I don’t know, maybe that’s why it doesn’t get the attention it deserves. Maybe that kind of Gospel love is so open and so expansive, it makes people uncomfortable.

But not here.

There is a whole world out there that’s tired of hearing words about God. They don’t want to hear about how good the chocolate is, they want a taste of it. And the tragedy is, some of the people who are the most hungry for a taste of God’s love are the ones that the church turns away.

But not here.

In the next few months, we’re going to have to have some difficult talks about the budget and our property and along with that, we’ll have to talk about our mission and identity. There are no easy answers or obvious ways forward, but I hope that in these discussions, we remember that we have really delicious chocolate here. And we allow everyone to take a bite.

The world is starving for a taste of God’s love.

And here, we feast every week.

And so, let the feast continue.

366. (classroom) sermon on Mark 11:1-11

[PREFACE]

I wanna say right up front that the ending of this sermon is a cop out. There really isn’t an ending. I ran out of time and couldn’t close the deal.

It’s a narrative form sermon based on Mark 11:1-11. I wanted to experiment with a different kind of sermon, one that didn’t preach as much as tell. It was my first attempt at the form and it was both a lot more fun and a lot harder than I thought it would be – especially when it came time to come up with a good ending, which I failed to do. But our homiletics teacher pushes us to try new things and so I did.

[END PREFACE]

Mark 11:1-11
(1) When they were approaching Jerusalem, at Bethphage and Bethany, near the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples (2)and said to them, ‘Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately as you enter it, you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden; untie it and bring it. (3)If anyone says to you, “Why are you doing this?” just say this, “The Lord needs it and will send it back here immediately.” ’

(4)They went away and found a colt tied near a door, outside in the street. As they were untying it, (5)some of the bystanders said to them, ‘What are you doing, untying the colt?’ (6)They told them what Jesus had said; and they allowed them to take it. (7)Then they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it; and he sat on it. (8)Many people spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut in the fields. (9)Then those who went ahead and those who followed were shouting,

‘Hosanna!
 Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!

(10)   Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David!
Hosanna in the highest heaven!’

(11) Then he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple; and when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.

My name is Deborah.

I am one of the two disciples Jesus sent to fetch a colt for him. I went along with my friend Mary (no not that Mary… or that one either – Mary was a very common name in our time.)

You seem surprised that two women were sent. You shouldn’t be. Why do you think we were left unnamed by Mark?

But back to our story here.

We were walking on a road that took us between Bethany and Bethphage. We were going up the Mount of Olives and in the distance we were able to see Jerusalem. We were close.

And we weren’t the only ones.

This was Passover time. There were many people on these roads traveling towards Jerusalem. Some people make pilgrimage to Jerusalem every year. Most, at least once in their lifetime. These were crowded, busy roads we were on.

We bumped into all sorts along the way. Some had heard of Jesus and were intrigued. Some had never heard and wondered, “could this be the one?” Most people ignored us and our group – they had seen this before: a group of disciples traveling with their beloved rabbi.

So we’re getting near the top of Mount Olive and we stop.

Oh, I have to tell you a story here. Bartimaeus – the blind man Jesus had healed the other day? A character, that one. He yelled to get the attention of Jesus. Do you have any idea how loudly you have to yell into a crowd to get that kind of attention? Well that sort of volume and tenacity is inbred – it’s part of who this guy is. If he was loud before being healed, he was even more so afterwards, always asking people, “What’s this? What’s that? What do you call this color again?” And again, no volume control.

So you can imagine the silence was conspicuous as we took this rest stop. And maybe this is why Jesus decided to stop.

See, Bartimaeus was right up there at the head of the group. He was looking out over Jerusalem. He had tears in his eyes and a huge grin on his face. He didn’t say a word, but we all understood.

Jesus comes up to Mary and I and says, “I have a job for you.”

For us?

Yeah, you’ll be perfect for this… and then he tells us the job.

“So you want us to go steal a colt?” Mary said.

“Well, stealing is kind of a heavy word…”

“But you’re asking us to walk into town, find a colt, untie it, and bring it back. What would you call that?”

“I call it the new economy of the new kingdom. Come on, you know the owner will be in town for Passover, he’s not going to be needing it. We’ll have it back before he knew it was ever gone. And besides, we need it for that thing we’re doing tomorrow.”

And that’s true. We did need the colt for that thing. You people, I hear you have a name for this kind of street art – a flash mob? That’s what we were doing. We had been getting ready for days, gathering branches and leaves. It was going to be something.

“So, will you do it?”

I looked at Mary and she looked at me as if you say, “it’s up to you.”

“Yeah, sure. We’re down,” I said.

And then we did the thing.

We go down to the village, spot a colt, start untying it and sure enough, someone sees us and asks us what we’re doing.

Mary and I look at one another and then I say, “The Lord needs it.”

The guy says, “the master needs a colt now? During Passover?”

We nod.

Guy pauses for a moment, just staring at us, and then he says, “alright. I never do understand that guy. Sending some strangers all the way up from Jerusalem just to get this colt and I don’t even wanna know why he doesn’t bother to…”

His voice trailed off as he walked away. Mary and I looked at each other, giggled, then made our way back to the group.

The next day, our flash mob went off without a hitch. It was prophetic performance art at its best. And like any good work of art, it had multiple interpretations. Some saw it as a mockery of royal pomp and circumstance. Some saw it as a crazy Jewish cult doing some crazy, Jewish cultish thing. Some thought it was dangerous and warned us to cut it out – the Romans aren’t exactly known to hold a high appreciation for protest as performance.

Honestly, even we disciples didn’t all know exactly what it was all about. It was all of those interpretations and none of them, at least not entirely.

Me?

I thought about what Jesus said, justifying the taking of that colt he was riding on – “the new economy of the new kingdom.”

That’s a dangerous word to use – “kingdom.” Because for about a century now, Rome was the only kingdom people were allowed to speak about.

Of course we were sick of Rome. They mocked our God, stole from our temples, made us pay their taxes, worship their emperor.

But we also feared Rome. We all knew what they did to traitors.

But here we were with Jesus who refused to keep quiet about his kingdom. And we knew walking into Jerusalem meant kingdoms were going to clash. And nobody knew what would happen.

Well, one person did, but I don’t think anyone wanted to believe him.

But I heard.

Just before healing Bartimaeus, Jesus talked for the third time about his death. But Jesus was always saying strange things right? So most people figured he was speaking another parable that they couldn’t understand.

But I heard. I could see the way his face changed and how his voice lowered whenever he spoke about his death. It was small and subtle, but I could see it. He meant it. He knew what he was talking about.

By the time we finally made it into Jerusalem, it was already dark. Really dark. The energy of the day had waned – the novelty of the flash mob had long since petered out. We rolled in quiet and the temple was empty.

Most people immediately turned around to find a place to sleep – some finding inns, some on the streets, some walking back outside the city to make camp. Me – I had to grab the colt to take back the next day.

And so I made my way up to Jesus. He was standing in the Court of the Gentiles. The twelve were off to the side making something to eat, talking amongst themselves.

“Rabbi, the colt…”

He had already dismounted. He was standing beside the colt looking out into the temple courtyard at all of these tables. Something was stirring deep inside of him but I couldn’t tell exactly what.

He turned to me, looked into my eyes for a moment and then said, “you know don’t you? You know what’s going to happen here, why I’ve come.”

I nodded. I knew that he had come to die.

He gave me the reigns of the colt and walked back towards the twelve.

And I made my way back to Mary.

365. symbols, advertising, and communion

[PREFACE]

I REALLY want to write up part three of my series of posts on What We Talk About When We Talk About God but I am in grad school and the end of the Spring semester is approaching which means work is piling up that I need to get to (stuff I’m already behind on).

But because I’m trying to stick to my one-post-per-week schedule, I did want to put something up.

At my seminary, we have a weekly Wednesday communion service. The services are organized and led by students and this past week was my turn to work with a few other people to do communion for the school. One of my jobs was to write up and deliver a brief homily, which I reworked slightly for this week’s blog post.

[END PREFACE]

I want to talk briefly about symbols.

Our world is inundated with them. I think I’ve been more aware of them since moving to Seattle because back in Hawaii, there are laws that prohibit billboards and limit the size of business signage. I remember when I first got to Seattle, there were huge images everywhere – all over the place. And so in-your-face, begging to be seen, forcing themselves into your peripheral vision.

And yeah, on the one hand it’s kind of a bummer to have all of this extraneous imagery but on the other hand, sometimes it can be fun.

…because advertisers and the designers who work for them can be really inventive and clever with images and symbols.

Take a look at this Amazon logo. What’s up with that arrow – is it just a bit of visual flair or is it doing something more? Well, Amazon is all about delivering goods and so the arrow makes sense. And you could also see the arrow as a coy smile, highlighting the friendly nature of the company. Pretty obvious stuff right?

But can you see where the arrow goes? Notice it goes from A to Z, symbolizing how these days they sell everything from A to Z. It’s also a reference to the fact that they began as a bookseller – books composed by letters of the alphabet – A to Z.

Or here’s a more subtle one – one that most people don’t notice but I warn you, once you do see it, you can’t unsee it.

At first glance, it looks like a straightforward logo. I mean, there are different colors and the D is pressed right up against the E – nothing really special about that.

But there is something more.

Can you see it? Would you like to?

FedEx is a delivery company and to symbolize that, they’ve cleverly incorporated an arrow into their logo. Can you see it?

Take a look at the white space where the E and the X meet.

And then there’s this symbol. It’s called the Star of Life and you’ll find it on all ambulances. And that bit in the middle is called the Rod of Asclepius.

As an aside, always take sermon illustrations with a grain of salt. Sometimes a big grain.

Because here’s the thing. When I first started working on this reflection piece, I was going to talk about how the symbol at the center of the Star of Life came from this week’s lectionary reading in Numbers (21:4-9) – the story where the Israelites, out in the wilderness, on their way to the promised land, are complaining AGAIN. In this text, God gets upset, and sends a bunch of poisonous snakes on the plain and people start dying. Moses prays for them and God tells him to take one of these snakes and to put it up on a pole. And then every one who looked at that snake, that symbol lived.

And I had heard in some sermon somewhere in my past that this medical symbol came directly out of this passage… But then I started researching the symbol and found that it actually has Greek origins. That said, the history of how it actually got to be associated with the medical profession isn’t quite so clear. It might be related to the Numbers text, it might not.

All that to say, whether or not this symbol has direct ties to the Numbers passage, it certainly has resonances. And like the Amazon and the FedEx logo, it’s kind of fun to have the eyes to see something that’s out there in public, hiding in plain sight.

Later in our service we will participate in another symbol – something else that’s out in the wider world, something that looks ordinary at first glance but takes on deeper meaning once you have the eyes to see.

And I’m speaking, of course, about communion. Bread and wine that looks ordinary but for those with the eyes to see, it’s so much more.

for those who enjoyed my “damage and desire” series…

About a month ago, I wrote a series of posts talking about how many churches don’t handle the topic of sexual desire very well (to put it mildly).

I just found out there’s a documentary that’s trying to get made that deals is very much in the same vein – it’s called Jesus Don’t Let Me Die Before I’ve Had Sex and it looks AMAZING!

They’re looking to raise some money in order to really do this project right. They’re about 2/3 of the way to reaching their fundraising goal but they only have until this Thursday (03/15) to raise the rest.

Check out the promo video (below) and I think you’ll agree that this is something that needs to be made, needs to be seen, and in order for that to happen, it NEEDS to be funded.

Please, please, please, click here to visit their Kickstarter campaign and donate.

I’ve donated and I hope you will too. (And if you’re in the Seattle area, maybe we can get a group together to see it when it comes out!)

364. what we talk about when we talk about God (part two)

(Click here for part one.)

Let me start with another story. It’s the story that actually got me thinking about writing this new blog series.

A few weeks ago, I was having lunch with a couple friends. We got to talking about seminary and my future plans to plant a church and one of my friends turned and asked me, “do you still believe in God?”

And then I paused.

It was a long pause.

And even when I did get around to formulating an answer, I remember it came out slowly.

And while I know I didn’t say, “no,” I don’t remember saying, “yes,” either.

There was a time, not too long ago, when that pause would have really worried me, but you know, while I was sitting in that pause, trying to figure out what I wanted to say about God, I felt totally calm. It didn’t concern me at all that I didn’t want to answer with an immediate, “yes, of course I do.”

There was a time in my life when I felt I really needed that kind of certainty – or at least I felt that I needed to give the impression that I had certainty.

But I didn’t have that certainty anymore. I wasn’t certain either way – that there was or there wasn’t a God. And again, it didn’t concern me that I wasn’t certain.

And I knew the best way for me to sort out what I thought about God was to blog about it.

More than writing about my belief (or disbelief) in God (something I hope to get to in the next post), what I really want to write about is that pause. Because a lot of thoughts were swirling around my head in the midst of that long pause, but they were all jumbled and jangled. Which is probably why I can’t remember what I said in response.

In my last post, I wrote about how I didn’t want to have an idolatrous view of God – a view of God that wasn’t really God. I think that’s one of the things I came to realize in the space of that pause. I realized, if I were to simply say “yes,” the God that my friend would understand me saying yes to was not the God I believed in – not exactly.

Let me put this another way. Imagine two conversations.

Conversation one:

John: You can shoot that target with a spear or with a bow and arrow – which do you want?
Jane: Give me the bow.

Conversation two:

John: Which broach do you want to wear tonight, the flower or the bow?
Jane: Give me the bow.

Even though Jane says the exact same thing in both conversations, she means something entirely different each time.

That’s kind of how I felt in my conversation about God. In my pause, I realized that if I were to simply say, “yes, I believe in God,” the “God” that my friend thought I was referencing would be very different from the “God” that I wanted to reference.

Conversation three:

John: You can shoot that target with a spear or with a bow and arrow – which do you want?
Jane: I want to wear the bow.
John: …?

The miscommunication in that last example is clear. John is asking about a bow and arrow, while Jane is talking about a broach, even though they’re using the same word, “bow.” And while the misunderstanding wouldn’t have been as great in my conversation, the point is the same. “God” for me was different than “God” for my friend. That’s the thing that I was struggling to sort through in my long pause before I answered.

I knew that the God that my friend was asking me about was the traditional Judeo-Christian idea about God – an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent deity. But I don’t know that I believe in that God anymore and so I couldn’t simply say, “yes.”

I used to believe in that conception of God, but I don’t anymore. And there are lots of reasons why, but let me point out two of them:

1. The traditional view of God is too abstract for me.
   God is far too other for me to relate to in any real way. I’m weak and can’t relate to an all-powerful God. My perspective and my knowledge is severely limited – I can’t relate to an all-seeing, all-knowing God. I am particularized in time and space – I can’t relate to an ever-present God that transcends space and time.
    
   And I don’t want to believe in a God that I can’t relate to.

2. The traditional view of God is too concrete for me.
   I don’t want a God that can be defined. Any God that can be described is a God that’s too small, too limited, too fixed to really be God.
    
   And I don’t want to believe in a God that can be easily and readily defined.

As part of my seminary training, I’ve been interning at a wonderful church called Findlay Street Christian Church. As I was reading and wrestling with how to talk about God for this blog series, I asked my pastor/mentor how she understood and talked about God, and I really liked what she had to say. She said when she talks about God, she has to use the language of poetry – language that pushes beyond language.

And that got me thinking about a scene from the movie, Contact, where Jodie Foster’s character, Dr. Eleanor “Ellie” Ann Arroway is sent out into “space” and gets to see all kinds of amazing galactic scenery. She’s a scientist and so she does her best to accurately describe the journey she’s on but at one point she sees something far beyond anything she’s ever experienced – something for which there is no technical terminology. In response, she says,

“…celestial event.
No…
No words could describe it.
Poetry! They should’ve sent a poet.
It’s so beautiful, beautiful.
So beautiful…
I had no idea.”

(watch about the 1:40 mark to see the quote)

Here, Ellie is confronted with something that cannot be captured with precise, scientific clarity – something that can’t be described by ordinary words. And so she says that they should have sent a poet – someone with the ability to push past the normal limitations of words.

Ellie’s sense of bewilderment and inability to translate what she was seeing into words is the same thing my pastor was getting at when she said she has to appeal to the power of poetry in order to talk about God. Because ordinary words just won’t work.

Now I suppose it’s all well and good to say that God is beyond language, but we are a communicating species and part of the role of a (future) pastor is to talk about God and so I have to be able to say something, and not everyone’s going to let me get away with quoting e e cummings or Meister Eckhart.

And so I’ll give it a shot and say this.

The Bible says that God is love.

But what is love? I actually got to hear Peter Rollins speak a few weeks ago and in his talk he said this about love. “Love does not exist, love calls things into existence.” And by that he means that love isn’t a thing. That’s why (as the eminent theologians Lennon and McCartney assert) you can’t buy love.

Love is something that happens in between, in relationship. Love is never a static thing, it’s dynamic. Love opens up possibilities in both the lover and the one loved. When Rollins says, “love calls things into existence,” he’s talking about how the thing or the person you love is constantly unfolding before you. Love is like a key that unlocks an entirely new world – the interior universe of the one loved. The lover recognizes that love is a bridge between these two realities. And in the crossing, something entirely unexpected and new is created and experienced – a sum exponentially greater than its parts.

In the movie, Sleepless in Seattle, Tom Hanks’ character gets asked, “Sam, what was so special about your wife?” And Sam responds,

Oh, well, it was a million tiny little things that when you add them all up, it just meant that we were supposed to be together.

And I knew it. I knew it the first time I touched her.

It was like coming home, only to no home I’d ever known.

(watch around the 0:49 mark to see the quote)

That last line captures perfectly what Rollins is trying to say. In love, Sam discovered an entirely new conception of home – an idea of home that, prior to loving this person, did not exist. And in their relationship, that idea of home was made real, it was embodied in their marriage relationship – in love.

But even with all of these powerful, amazing features, love is not a thing in and of itself. You can’t bottle it up, it won’t sit upon the shelf. It only exists in spaces between. It takes up no space at all and yet it can feel larger than the multiverse itself.

So what do I talk about when I talk about God?

I talk about love. (Yeah, I know, ironic.)

Looking back now, I think this is how I would have liked to respond to my friend who asked me if I believed in God.

I think I would have wanted to say, “I believe in God as revealed in love.”

And I think that would have been an opening into quite a lovely conversation – one that never would have been possible had I just said “yes” or “no.”

[POSTSCRIPT]

Belief in God as revealed in love.

That’s a different sort of believing isn’t it?

Stay tuned, more on this in my next post.

363. what we talk about when we talk about God (part one)

[PREFACE]

(The title for this entry is blatantly stolen from a short story by one of my favorite authors, Raymond Carver.)

This post is my attempt to understand God. Nothing more (I’m not trying to change anyone else’s mind), nothing less (I am trying to work this out for myself). I had meant to take on this topic in just one blog post, but turns out, it’s gonna be another multi-part blog series.

As always, thoughts, comments, questions, critiques welcome in the comments section.

[END PREFACE]

I want to start with a story. It happened to me a few days ago.

I was hungry and went to grab a burrito at Rancho Bravo, up on Capitol Hill. I was taking a break from reading for and preparing to write this blog post so I had my trusty Mission Workshop Rambler backpack with me and stuffed inside this backpack were my iPad (for reading) and my MacBook (for writing). I got my order, put my bag down, and started wolfing down one of their amazing Bravo burritos. It was delicious, just what I needed.

Now Rancho Bravo is right next door to The Elliot Bay Book Company. They always have an interesting selection of books on display (their staff recommendations section is particularly noteworthy) and so I went over to browse the aisles. After a while, I decided it was time for me to get back to work and I knew where I wanted to go – a new coffee shop in Fremont called Milstead & Company. These guys are SERIOUS coffee nerds. They make every cup to order and before brewing, they weigh, separately, the amount of coffee and the amount of (precisely temperature controlled) water used. They don’t eyeball anything.

Anyway, I got into my car, drove over to Milstead, looking forward to reading Peter Rollins’ new book, Insurrection (on which a lot of this blog post is based) while drinking a delicious cup of whatever exotic bean they were brewing that day. Lucky me, I found a parking spot right in front of the shop (uncommon). I reached around to the back seat to grab my backpack…

And it wasn’t there.

I knew immediately what I had done. I had left it at Rancho Bravo, more than an hour ago.

I freaked out. I immediately made a u-turn and started driving back. All the while I thought about how much stuff I had in that backpack. I thought about how Rancho Bravo is kind of a sketchy place – you have to get buzzed in to the part of the restaurant that has their bathrooms. I thought about how stupid I had been, leaving it there. I thought about how long I had been gone.

And I prayed that it would still be there – that someone would see it and turn it in to lost and found.

The drive seemed to take forever, but eventually I made it back to the restaurant. I walked in and the first thing I did was to look at the table where I had been sitting. My bag wasn’t there. I went up to the counter and asked one of the cashiers if anyone had turned in a backpack. He looked back at me with a blank look on his face.

My heart barfed inside my chest.

But.

But one of his coworkers overheard what I had said. She looked around behind the counter and asked me, “what color was it?”

“Blue,” I said.

She reached down and pulled my bag out.

My heart glowed inside my chest.

I thanked her and drove back to Milstead.

I’ll get back to this story in a bit.

First, I want to talk about the word, “idolatry.” Basically, in Christian theology, idolatry is worshiping anything that isn’t God. The first of the Ten Commandments deals head on with the issue.

(3) “You shall have no other gods before me.
(4) “You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. (5) You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, (6) but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.
(Exodus 20:3-6)

Idolatry is a really big deal. (Did you notice that bit in verse five about punishing children three to four generations out?)

The reason why I think it’s important for me to reflect seriously and carefully about how I understand God is because I don’t want to worship an idol.

Even if that idol is God.

Now what do I mean by that?

Well, remember that story about my backpack? After I got my stuff back, I thanked the cashier and then as soon as I got back to my car, I thanked God profusely. But what if my backpack hadn’t been there? What if instead of turning it in, someone had just walked off with it? If that had been the case, I would have blamed myself.

Do you see what’s odd about that? Get my stuff back – answered prayer, God is awesome, thank God! Lose my stuff – blame myself, I’m an idiot, I suck.

What’s up with that?

Why the two completely different reactions? If my stuff had gone missing, why did I blame myself instead of blaming God for not answering my prayers or for not being awesome? Or taken from the opposite end, after getting my stuff back, why did I immediately think that God was the awesome one? Why didn’t I just conclude that the person who chose to turn in my backpack was awesome?

And we see the same thing in sports all the time. Sometimes, when a Christian sports star wins some kind of big game or makes a big play, they make a gesture to give glory to God. Tebowing was in the news a lot these past few months and serves as a good example of this. But what happens when Tim’s team loses or one of his passes is intercepted? Does he still kneel and pray? Or does he blame himself? (I don’t know, does he? I don’t watch sports. If someone could straighten me out here, I’d appreciate it.)

My point is this.

For me and for sports stars, thanking God when things go well but blaming self when they don’t is really bad theology because it’s inconsistent.

And I think it’s even more than that.

I think it’s idolatry.

Let me get at this idea another way.

Back in ’89, a baseball movie called Major League came out. One of the characters was named Pedro Cerrano. He can’t hit curve balls because he thinks his bats are afraid of them. Opposing pitchers know Pedro can’t hit curve balls so of course, they keep throwing them at him and he keeps swinging and missing. Pedro believes that his voodoo god, Jobu, can cure his bats. There are a bunch of scenes in the movie showing him performing arcane rituals on his bats in the hopes that Jobu will cure them of their fear, thus allowing him to hit curve balls.

Most Christians would look at that and say, Pedro is worshiping an idol – a carved wooden doll that he thinks has the power to cure his bats of fear. This doesn’t work. Pedro keeps missing curve balls. Whenever this happens, Pedro thinks that he didn’t perform enough rituals for Jobu or didn’t perform them properly. He blames himself when Jobu doesn’t come through.

It doesn’t happen this way in the movie, but imagine what would happen if Jobu-believing Pedro ever did manage to connect with a curve ball. That would confirm to him that Jobu had cured his bats. And Pedro would have thanked Jobu.

Now what’s the difference between Pedro’s Jobu and the way I viewed God while praying about my backpack?

Maybe the difference is that Pedro was praying to and performing rituals for a carved wooden image that represents Jobu, whereas Christians do not pray to images or statues. But can’t an idea be just as much of an idol as a statue? In fact, an idolatrous idea is probably far more problematic than a physical idol because a statue can be thrown away whereas an idea is FAR harder to get rid of.

In the movie, Pedro eventually gets fed up with Jobu’s inability to help him hit curve balls. One day at bat, he explodes and says, “I’m pissed off now, Jobu. Look, I go to you. I stick up for you. You don’t help me now. I say ‘Fuck you,’ Jobu, I do it myself.” The pitcher throws him a curve ball and Pedro hits a huge home run. After that Pedro gets rid of his statues of Jobu and is done with him.

Idolatrous ideas, however, can’t be just thrown away – they’re far sticker than that. Because here’s the thing. Our brain is wired to make connections. Even as I come to recognize that I may have an idolatrous idea about God, that idea is linked to a wide variety of other ideas. And for someone who’s been a Christian for over twenty years, the idea of God is a pretty central one – it serves as the foundation for much of how I see, understand, interact with, and live in the world.

Meister Eckhart, the 14th century Christian mystic, is known for saying, “I pray God to rid me of God.” He understood that any particular idea he might have about God can become an idol and so his prayer was that God would rid him of his idolatrous ideas about God.

And I think I’ve lived for far too long with just such an idolatrous idea about God. And I don’t want to do that anymore.

[POSTSCRIPT]

I’m not sure how many parts this new series will take up, but in the posts that follow, I hope to share some ideas about how I’m rethinking my ideas about God – ways that allow God to be God rather than the God I want or need or just happen to believe in at the time.

God, help me.

362. Hawaii food recommendations

[PREFACE]

Most of you know I was born and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii. In the past two weeks, I had two people tell me they were going to Hawaii and wanted some food recommendations. They wanted to know where the locals ate, where the real Hawaiian food could be found. I started an email with a few suggestions and before I knew it, the list was getting REALLY long. But I was having a blast writing it and didn’t want to stop.

And then I remembered that I’m trying to get back into the habit of posting at least one entry a week and since I hadn’t put anything up in the last few days, I figured this might make for a fun post.

(For my Hawaii readers, try leave your own kine favorite places fo go grind in da comments at da bottom li dat!)

[END PREFACE]

And now (in no particular order) to the food recs:

1. If you really wanna see where/how the locals eat, you gotta check out Side Street Inn. They have two locations.
   • The Kapahulu location is newer and nicer but…
   • …the one on Hopaka Street is the original (image below). This is where a lot of famous Hawaii chefs go after-hours to hang out and swap stories. As a small warning, parking is really hard to find at the Hopaka location and it’s in a rough looking area (especially if you go at night) but I would say that the area LOOKS a lot rougher than it actually is.

   

2. If you wanna try traditional Hawaiian food you have two choices.
• Ono Hawaiian Foods
• This place is TINY but super authentic and super good. It’s also close to Waikiki so if you’re staying there, it’s a short drive. Again, the place is tiny so there’s often a line outside waiting to get in, and no, they don’t take reservations. Because this is Hawaii, and that’s just not how we roll.
• Helena’s Hawaiian Food
• This place is bigger than Ono’s but not by much. There’s often still a line to get in. Oh, and the parking situation is horrible.
• Honestly, you can’t go wrong with either place. If you need tips on what to order… (both shops will have the dishes listed below)
  • I’d say definitely try the Laulau. It’ looks kinda disgusting but trust me, it’s AMAZING! It’s pork or fish (or both, sometimes they also include a tiny chunk of fat for an extra kick of awesome) wrapped in Taro leaves, held together by a Ti leaf and then steamed.
  • You should also try Pipi Kaula (pronounced pee-pee cow-lah) – it’s a traditional Hawaiian version of beef jerky, but more tender, juicy, and flavorful than anything Randy “Macho Man” Savage ever snapped into.
  • Of course Poi is (in)famous as Hawaiian food. It’s an acquired taste. I love it, but I totally understand why people unfamiliar with it would hate it. It’s taro root mashed into a paste, thinned with water. It’s purple and has the consistency (and, some would say, taste) of Elmer’s glue. A good way to eat it is to mix it with Lomi (pronounced low-me) Salmon (pronounced salmon). Lomi Salmon is a kind of fresh salmon salsa (it’s the pink stuff in the cup in the image below) and some people spoon it right into the Poi. Personally, I like Poi both ways – plain or with the Lomi Salmon – but if you’re new to Poi, I’d recommend mixing.



3. Ramen. Oh, dear Lord, I miss Hawaii ramen!
• My go-to place for ramen is Sanoya’s. They’re known for three things. 1) Their late hours (I think they close at 3 or 4am), 2) their awful service (you basically have to beg for a refill of water), and 3) their wide selection of ramen choices. It’s not the best ramen shop on the island, but I have fond memories of the place and I usually stop there at least once when I’m back. Two of my favorites are the Mapo Tofu Ramen and the Curry Ramen.
• I’ve never been to Ramen Nakamura in Waikiki (it opened up after I moved to the mainland), but I’ve heard nothing but good things about it from friends and in reviews.
• Oh, and here’s a fascinating article on the art of ramen noodle making in Hawaii (with food recs): Exploring the Noodleverse. It’s about a guy who customizes noodles to fit the broth at the more high-end ramen shops!



4. Meat Jun. Here’s a “Korean” dish you can only get in Hawaii. It’s thinly sliced beef dipped in egg batter and then deep fried. It’s served at almost all the Korean places in Hawaii but outside of Hawaii, it’s basically unheard of.
• My favorite is the meat jun at Million’s Restaurant (near Ala Moana Shopping Center).
• A lot of my friends, however, swear by Dong Yang’s meat jun. I never made it out there because it’s kinda far from where I lived, but it’s supposed to be the best on the island.



5. Zippy’s is a really popular local food franchise. I think they have some of the best mac salad. As for what to eat there…
• I love the Zip Pac (image below). The only bad thing about the Zip Pac is that it doesn’t come with Zippy’s awesome mac salad.
• To remedy that you might want to try one of their chili dishes. Just to let you know, this isn’t mainland chili. This is Zippy’s chili, which is something… different. I think it’s sublime, but if you taste it expecting Texas chili, you’re going to be really disappointed (if not offended). However, if you think of it as “chili” (note scare quotes), it can be a unique savory experience. You can get chili with rice, with spaghetti, or (my favorite) with fried chicken – ask for the Chili Chicken Mix Plate and strap in for a mouth-watering carb-splosion.
• Oh, and I feel I should warn you – I don’t know who they use as their interior decorator but they should fire them immediately. Some of their restaurants are SERIOUS eyesores. Their Vineyard location is a particularly fugly example. Consider yourself warned.



6. Rainbow Drive-In
   • Barak Obama eats here, what else do you need to know?
   • I’d recommend the Mixed Plate. It’s a HUGE plate of food so you might want to just split one order.
   • Honestly, I don’t have any other food recommendations for this place because the Mixed Plate is what I always order. Always. (Guilty confession: I’ve eaten an entire plate by myself. More than once… okay, almost every time.)

   

7. Deserts and sweets.
• Malasadas. Leonard’s Bakery is the spot to get these Portuguese delights. They’re sort of like a giant doughnut hole, sprinkled with sugar. Think of it as a big ball of deep fried, sugary bliss. They come with or without filling and they’re delicious either way. As a traditionalist, I prefer the ones without filling but if you get the ones with stuff inside, I won’t judge (life is far too short for that).



• Coco Puffs from Liliha Bakery. Have you ever tried Beard Papa’s cream puffs? For comparisons sake, I’d say that Liliha’s Coco Puffs make Beard Papa’s cream puffs taste like Papa’s beard. Boom!



• Shave Ice. (Note: it’s not shaved ice, it’s shave ice – no “d.” That’s not bad English, it’s just Hawaiian Pigeon.) This is not a snow cone. This is shave ice. Do NOT confuse the two. Hawaiian shave ice is shaved off of an ice block, not crushed. Think of it this way. Which would you rather ski on – a worn out bunny trail or fresh powder? Snow cone = bunny trail. Shave ice = fresh powder. To my mind, there are two places to get great shave ice.
• Matsumoto Shave Ice in historic Hale’iwa Town on the legendary North Shore. It’s the Platonic ideal of shave ice but as a townie, that was too far away for me.
• I preferred to get my shave ice at Waiola Shave Ice.
• I think they’re both great – Waiola’s was just closer to where I lived. (I always liked getting Azuki bean on the bottom.)



8. Now, for a difficult topic: coffee. As someone who’s lived in Seattle for over five years, I’ve become a spoiled coffee snob. Working at a coffee shop myself has also spoiled me for good coffee/espresso. Unfortunately, if you’re in need of a really nice doppio or latte, there aren’t many choices.
• Downtown Coffee. I only went there once but I’d say they made me the best (soy) latte I’ve ever had in Hawaii (image below). Problem with this place is that (true to its name) it actually is located in downtown Honolulu so parking is expensive and impossible to find. Basically, unless you work downtown, this place is too hard to get to just to get a delicious caffeine fix.



• Luckily, Honolulu Coffee Company has really upped their game in the time since I’ve been away. Last year, their barista trainer, Pete Licata, won second place in the World Barista Championship. His training has tricked down to the baristas that work their many locations (including, thankfully, two spots at Ala Moana Shopping Center). Only problem – they only have free wifi at their downtown location. Boo!
• All the great coffee joints in Seattle offer free wifi. The only local shop in Hawaii that serves halfway decent coffee and provides wifi is Glazer’s Coffee. They do nice latte art, but a great latte is far more than a nice pour. Still, they’re not bad… but not great.
• Honestly, apart from those three places, your best bet if you want good coffee/espresso is to go to Starbucks. All the other locally owned coffee places I’ve tried have ranged from bad to downright awful. I swear, at one shop, I saw a “barista” steaming milk in the freaking mug he was making a latte in. I can’t even begin to say how wrong that is. It’s like the coffee equivalent of cooking spaghetti sauce in the pot you used to boil the pasta… and not throwing out the water you used to boil the pasta.
9. Spam Musubi – how did I almost forget this?
   • You wanna hear something really crazy? 7-Eleven is a really good place to get Spam Musubi. Yeah, that 7-Eleven. One tip – go earlier in the day. That way your chances of getting a fresh one are better.
   • And speaking of Spam, wanna know where else you can get it? McDonalds. Yeah, that McDonalds. If you go there for breakfast, you can order Spam, eggs, and rice. Yeah, rice at McDonalds!

   

So, um, that turned out to be a much larger list than I had planned.

And now I’m starving!

Two last bits.

Anthony Bourdain did a great job covering the Hawaii food scene. He even visited some of the places listed above.

And lastly, I have a huge writer-crush on Sarah Vowell. She specializes in her own fetchingly snarky brand of historical narrative and last year she wrote a book called Unfamiliar Fishes, telling the tragic story of how American imperialism collided with the Kingdom of Hawai’i with predictably vile results. To promote the book, she filmed this video that talks (among other things) about the international origin of the plate lunch. For a non-local haole, she did a great job describing the unofficial dish of Hawaii.