Gods and Koenigs

I wasn’t always the eloquent orator you see before you today. When I was a kid I had a speech impairment. And when I say a kid, I mean from age 19 on down. Once I got to college, I hooked up with some speech therapy (shout out to Linda Day) and got it taken care of.

Coincidently, during these same formative years I attended church, from one to three times a week, depending on the current church schedule. Never missed unless we were out of town, which only happened about once a year.

Back to the speech impediment, it was pretty hard to understand certain words I would say, so I’d talk around it. But in church, there was always a lot of reading out loud, so there was no getting around it there. My condition was obvious to everyone in church.

This church would have an attendance in the low 20s in the good years, and half that during the lean years. We went through a lot of pastors – some very good ones, and none that were all that bad. Although I have to say, most of the sermons didn’t really seem to have much to do with me or my life experience.

Wouldn’t it have been awesome if there was some story in the Bible that a pastor could have shared with me that would have provided me with some encouragement with that speech problem? Ironically, there is, but I didn’t come across it until I was in my 30s. It’s about one of the really obscure Old Testament prophets, you’ve probably never heard of him… what was that name again? Oh year, it’s Moses.

That’s right, Moses. Second only to Jesus himself as the coolest guy in the Bible. Baby-basket float tripping Moses. The stick changing to a snake that can kill your stick changing to a snake Moses. That guy.

The Moses who is so tough he beats people to death unintentionally- that’s like Mel Gibson cool, and I don’t mean the drunk anti-Semite, I’m talking about Mel back in the Lethal Weapon days. There’s a new movie coming out this weekend called Exodus – Gods and Kings. Moses is the lead role, and who did that get to play him? Batman, that’s who. The last time there was a big movie about Moses, they cast the spokesman for the NRA in the role – that’s how tough Moses is.

But for all of his awesomeness, when God called Moses, Moses told him that he had the wrong guy. Go ask someone else, God. That speech problem was his primary excuse. Exodus chapter 4, verse 10, he said “I am slow of speech and slow of tongue.”

God’s reply? Hey, your brother Aaron is a good talker. If you have any trouble, you can just get him to do the talking for you.

OK, when I was a kid, I would have totally put that verse on my brother. “Yo Tim, Exodus 4: 15-16. You’re up. Time for you to do some talking for me buddy. I’ll tell you what to say.” I would have used that daily.

Anyway, Moses gave in to God’s request and went on to do impressive stuff. If you want to know more, you can watch the movie. Unfortunately for me, I didn’t learn about Moses’s speaking problem soon enough to do me any good. I guess I was counting on the church services and daily Bible devotional readings too much – I should have done some study on my own. Depending on the print size, the Bible’s a good 1,000 pages long. It takes some time to take it all in.

This time a year, we hear a lot about what amounts to around three pages of the Bible. Great story – I’m certainly not going say it shouldn’t get its due. But let’s be open to what else the scripture has to offer. Let’s pray.

Gracious God, we give you thanks that we still have available the words of the Bible that were written thousands of years ago. We recognize that it is easier to read than it’s ever been. Help us to find the words to help us better live our lives, and find ways to share scripture with others in a way that it is helpful to them. Thy will be done. Amen.

Choices and Judgement

I like to ride motorcycles. I’ve had a lot of guys who don’t ride, but want to, ask me about it. All I can say is I don’t recommend it.

An accident that would amount to a minor inconvenience in a car would mean an extended hospital stay, or worse, on a motorcycle. They are fun, but I wouldn’t advise anyone to take it up.

One of my friends had been shopping for a motorcycle, but finally got a jeep instead. I’m glad. Duane Almond died on his motorcycle right after recording Live At Filmore East. Maybe if he’d been driving a jeep that day, kids today wouldn’t have to listen to Nickelback.

Riding a motorcycle is kind of like smoking. Maybe it’s enjoyable, but the negatives far outweigh the positives. Smoking is even more addictive than motorcycles, so you quickly get to the point where you’re no longer making a choice.

This is really just a prop for the sake of the video. Historically, the only time I’ve ever really smoked was at a party every few years, or when I wanted to annoy people around me. And since the cancer came up last year, I can’t really even pull that off now.

So how about a drink? The drinking question is easy. We have all seen what should have been good marriages come apart due to excessive boozing. We see people killed from drunk driving accidents all the time on the news. People make fools of themselves in public when they accidently get too drunk. Happy hours smooth the speed bumps on the road to infidelity. Years of casual drinking lead to not so casual liver failure. Visit any homeless shelter, or a park bench in good weather, and you’ll meet lots of guys who are big fans of the hooch. The biggest concern I have about some of my closest friends is that their drinking could get out of hand and cause bad things to happen.

So the alcohol question is a no brainer. Those Methodist Women got it right a 100 years ago with prohibition. Ban it. Pour it down the sewers. Smash the distilleries with sledge hammers.

But what would Jesus do? Surprisingly, his first recorded supernatural miracle was a divine beer run.

I’m talking about the book of John, chapter 2, verses 1-11. It was a wedding party, and a good one at that. Well into the celebration, they ran out of wine. I’ve been at wedding receptions when this happens, and let me tell you that the situation is that everyone is already drunk, and they would all be better off if they would just go home. But everyone’s having such a good time, no one wants to leave, but it’s hard to find an all-night liquor store in the year 30 A.D.

Mary may have been a little drunk, because she said, “Jesus, do your thing with the wine.” It was like a mother asking her child to play a piano or recite a poem at a party. And Jesus responded likewise, “Ma, I’m not ready. Not here. Stop asking. You’re embarrassing me.” But Mary lived up to Jewish mother stereotype here, and persisted. And Jesus caved, and said, “All right, fill some jugs with water.”

Next thing you know, the wine was flowing.

Someone quickly mentioned the apparent party foul. Rather than starting off the wedding party with the good stuff, and bringing out the cheap stuff after everyone is drunk and doesn’t care, this party person, who must not have been too drunk yet, noticed that this wine was a lot better than what they had started out with. Jesus hadn’t just turned water into wine, he had turned water into really good wine. Party on, Jesus!

So where does this leave us? Alcohol is responsible for many of society’s ills, but Jesus used the power of God to create some, and he did it for people who had probably already had one too many.

Is the object lesson here that our mothers can talk us into anything?

Maybe Jesus was letting us know it is OK to cut loose sometime. Maybe the What Would Jesus Do question isn’t always as easy to answer as we think. This isn’t an excuse to cut loose all the time, and Jesus had much more to say about other things we need to be doing. But you can’t be service focused every minute, or you’ll probably crash and burn.

It’s also worth noting that Jesus wasn’t sneaking off with a secretary after work when he employed the wine conjuring ability. He was at a friend’s wedding, sitting around a table with his mother, for goodness sake. If you’re going to get tip the bottle, a family event that you’re at with your parents is a pretty safe place to do it.

Am I advocating drinking? Definitely not. Nor smoking or motorcycle riding. If you don’t do any of these things, you’re much better off. I hope my kids avoid all three. But if you are inclined to take a drink occasionally, there are several scriptures that advise you to take it easy.

Let’s pray.

Dear God, help us to not judge others for their vices, and to exercise restraint in ours. Your will be done. Amen. 

Solomon

If I didn’t have the constraints of time and money, I’d like to take a couple of years to travel the world – the whole world. Maybe not every single country, I wouldn’t want to be that legalistic about it, but most countries in all parts of the world. And while visiting each country, I’d like to father a child there. Then move on.

Then in about 20 years, I’d like to have a big gathering of the kids. All the Ferdinands, Fredricos, Fritzs, Alfreds, Frederic’s, Freidas and Freddies would come together for the first time at a big party at some neutral location, maybe Springfield. These international versions of me would have a great time getting to know each other and recognizing their similarities. It would make for a great cable show. It would be glorious.

You might think this ambition sounds rather covetous and adulterous for a Fred On Faith posting, and  both of those things make the top ten of sinning. To cover this, I would take along one of my clergy friends to marry me to the new mother of my child before there is any hanky-panky. This should meet everyone’s definition of a traditional, Bible based marriage, as I would be modeling it after everyone’s favorite Biblical wise-guy, Solomon.

Everyone knows King Solomon was wise. An outward sign of his wisdom is that he was stinking rich. Solomon is said to have had 700 wives, mostly princesses from foreign countries. In addition to be rich and powerful, he also wooed these women with words. He is largely credited with writing the naughty parts of the Bible that the truly wise skip over, or the bold try to awkwardly refer to in sermons about sex.

Solomon’s most famous story, and sign of wisdom, is the one about the baby in I Kings 3: 16 -28. You know the story, two women, one baby, both claim the little guy. They go to Solomon and ask for judgment. He says, “Cut him in two, give each half.” Real Mom says, “No way, she can have him rather than he be harmed.” Her compassion verifies her as the real Mom, so she gets the whole kid. Wow, Solomon is so wise.

But is this really a testament to wisdom? Maybe Solomon was just having a bad day. Two arguing women and a crying baby show up at his throne, both with a hold of the tyke, and Solomon says to cut the kid in half just to get rid of them. Remember Solomon had 700 wives, he may have not valued babies all that highly.

So that’s it? We have one uncut baby and bunch of mediocre poetry erotica, and three thousand years later everyone is still talking about how wise this guy is? Those 700 wives eventually led him astray, because they lived with him. Remember in my plan, the foreign princesses would stay in their respective homelands. Who’s wise now?

But no, I’ll admit that I believe Solomon was pretty wise, but I don’t attribute it to his wealth, women, role in custody disputes, or his creative writing. I give it to him for his prayer. I Kings 3: 5 – 14 describes God appearing to Solomon in a dream, and asking what he desired. His only request was to have an understanding mind and to be able to discern good from evil.

Right answer! This pleased God. Rather than seeking more money, long life or the defeat of his enemies, the one thing that Solomon wanted more than anything else was to know how to do the right thing. An earnest prayer for the gift of discernment is one that we can all pray together. Let’s do that.

Dear God, you’ve heard our prayers to change the hearts and minds of others, you’ve heard countless prayers asking you to divinely intervene to change the course of nature… forgive for failing to pray the prayer that we should all pray every day, the prayer for the wisdom to do the right thing. May we all be more wise. Amen.