Band of Brothers

"Never put yourself in a position where you can take from these men." The words spoken so eloquently by Sgt. Winters in the HBO mini-series Band of Brothers resounded within me. In this scene, one of the commanding officers plays poker with the other men. Sgt. Winters reprimands him for it and challenges him to think about what would have happened if he would have won.

The scene has played over and over in my mind. As most of you know I am a media whore. I love to search for truth in the weirdest places, so it is no surprise that I found a truth on this episode.

This scene caused me to reflect on my own journey and that of the church. To take pop culture or a show and turn it into a spiritual lesson can seem a bit…Purpose Driven so to speak. The underlining principle however, resounds as something a bit more of substance.

Several years ago I was in my youth group getting ready to go on a mission's trip. Most of us in the youth group couldn't afford to go with the price of the plane tickets, food, and lodging. We decided to have a car wash for the community. We had our event and raised a good bit of money. Several people would ask what our cause was and we would reply, "A mission's trip" to which most of them would say, "Isn't that nice".

What is wrong with this picture? Hundreds and thousands of churches probably have car washes every year in their community. I am in no way saying they are wrong, but I wonder what these churches do to serve the community.

We have been called to servant hood and are not willing to be selfless and serve without a benefit to us. So many times I think to myself that I deserve something from someone or something. Somehow in my mind, I think that people owe me or that I am somehow better than everyone. This goes against what I am starting to learn about being a missional Christian as a citizen of The Kingdom of God. I think that I missed the point of what service is all about. In fact, I know I have.

When I hear the word, "Service" I think of two scenarios. The first is in a restaurant. I think of a waitress that serves me food and then I give her a tip. She serves me in order to get money to pay bills, rent, gas, etc. The second I think of is tennis. Although I am not good at sports and can barely play tennis, this is what I think of. I can remember one of the times that I "Attempted" to play this sport. I sat on the other side of the net and went A.D.D. for a moment (Probably a bird flew by and I thought, "How nice.") and the aggravated voice came from across the net shouting, "Service!" My friend was shouting this in order to cause me to react and volley the ball back across the net so he could score on me…again.

I am starting to realize that my idea of "Service" is way off from the call of Christ to serve. Even when I attempt to do something nice, I am somehow expect to be rewarded for it. So what happens when we start to take advantage of those we love because we want something? We begin to feel that these people, who we are called to serve, are worth less than the object that we crave. In the case of the car wash, we crave the money that we need in order to go do missions. The people that would come through the car wash were not people who we loved, but an organic ATM.

Christ calls us to act as though we have only one motive which is "Love". Instead of serving someone with the idea or intent of "Taking", I should serve with the motivation that I love them.

I would like to take this moment to apologize for the way I have acted towards some of you in this regard. I have hurt some of the people that I am closest to because of what I thought I deserved. I pray that I can love you all more because of being shown "The beast" inside. Let us work together towards the Kingdom.

On a crazy journey with you,

 

Argument from Emotion or Frustrations with Hal Lindsay’s Neo-Platonism and How It Has Effected the Christian Mind

Disclaimer: This post is merely a smattering of emotional argumentation. If you disagree with me, that is fine but know that what I am saying may be wrong and I recognize that. What I am really trying to do is get some things off my chest.

I like this world. There, I said it. Yes I have been told that this world is bad and to love this world is paganism and so on and so forth. I guess when I see this world I don't really account for many of the injustices that surround it. Yes, I recognize that people have forced other people into slavery. I recognize that there are starving children in countries and that they have no one to care for them. I recognize that there are millions and perhaps billions of people who are sick, hurting and dying. I know this. I feel for all of these people and it makes me sick.

I am not exactly sure that I am ready to start turning my nausea about injustice, genocide, greed, and the likes to, "Hating the world". Maybe I am wrong but when I think about a sunset, a great film, music, dancing, poetry, a good beer, coffee, pizza, the ocean, a lover, a smile, the first snow fall, a spring morning, learning, reading, writing, etc I will forget about all the world's problems and think only of the moment. In that moment I am beyond myself and transcend above the problems that we face in our world. I feel like my heaven would look a lot like eternity on this world.

What if this world was made new? When I say new, it doesn't mean start from scratch but fix this one.

I think of a child who has her favorite stuffed animal. This stuffed animal, Bonky if you will, goes every where with her. Bonky sleeps next to her, is in her arms when she cries, and sits on her bed when she gets too old to play with toys. Bonky is looking worn out with a missing eye, stuffing coming out, and several seams are ripped open.

One day, her mom is in the local department store and sees an exact replica of Bonky. Quickly, she snatches him up and buys it. The mom comes home and grabs Bonky and throws him in the trash and replaces him with this new stuffed animal.

Why would we wince at this as spectators?

Does this world need to be fixed? Of course, but I don't think it has to be replaced. Creation is in desperate need of repair. It is falling apart at the seams in a lot of ways, but I firmly belief that instead of "running it into the ground" maybe we should start thinking of ways to improve it.