For some strange reason, it had to be ...

The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, "Look, here is the Lamb of God!" The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, "What are you looking for?" They said to him, "Rabbi" (which translated means Teacher), "where are you staying?" He said to them, "Come and see." They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day. It was about four o'clock in the afternoon. One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. He first found his brother Simon and said to him, "We have found the Messiah" (which is translated Anointed). He brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, "You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas" (which is translated Peter).

-    John 1:35-42

For some reason, I’ve never liked my name. I have nothing against my parents for choosing it, and I know a lot of people love it: “Joshua.” I don’t know. Too many syllables, I guess, which is why I insist on the short version. But “Josh” also means “to banter in a teasing way.” And that doesn’t describe my personality well at all: I’m generally very earnest, and I’m often the last person in the room to realize that someone is employing sarcasm.

But in the original Hebrew, my name actually means “God is salvation.” That’s better. And it turns out that the name Jesus is merely the Greek equivalent of Joshua, so it seems I have something big in common with someone very important. Whoa, hang on ... that’s way too much pressure.

Maybe I want Jesus to give me a new name. That’s a very important deal in the Bible: when you are given a new name, you are also given a mission. Abram and Sarai became Abraham and Sarah, and their mission was to be the parents of all monotheists. Later, Saul became Paul, a turncoat who began spreading the message of Jesus instead of working against it. And in between, Simon became Cephas … or, translated, Peter. That means Rock. Jesus’ nickname for Simon was “Rocky,” because Jesus could see how solid he was. Despite all his obvious flaws, Rocky was to found the Church.

I wonder what new name Jesus would give me? What name would Jesus give you? And what would your mission be?

Jesus’ first mission was to go into the wilderness. In Lent, we go with him. We all spend some time in the wilderness. And that wilderness could be anywhere … even "Tennessee." Here’s the ’90s hip hop group Arrested Development.

Oh Lord, deliver us from the elements ...

“It was not because you were more numerous than any other people that the Lord set his heart on you and chose you—for you were the fewest of all peoples. It was because the Lord loved you and kept the oath that he swore to your ancestors, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who maintains covenant loyalty with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations, and who repays in their own person those who reject him. He does not delay but repays in their own person those who reject him.”

- Deuteronomy 7:7-10

It’s not just raining in Seattle today. It’s pouring. Sure, we get a lot of rain here, but not all at once. Yesterday’s storm was a deluge reminiscent of my years in Michigan. It felt like our whole city was just going to float away. No doubt the rivers have risen around Puget Sound, and some areas will experience flooding.

I’ve heard it said that “you’re nobody ’til somebody loves you.” That’s what we hear from Deuteronomy today: that the ancient Israelites are a chosen people, set apart for God’s special protection not because they are good, not because they are worthy, but simply because God loves them.

Question: What does it mean to have God’s protection? Certainly it doesn’t mean that bad things like flooding and storms won’t affect us. So what does it mean? Have you ever felt protected by God? Tell your story. But as you do, bear in mind: what about those who weren’t protected in the same way you were?

From their 1983 album Mummer, here’s my favorite band ever: XTC, with “Deliver Us from the Elements.”

Take Off Your Mask

“Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” - The Book of Common Prayer

With lyrics that sound remarkably like something from the Book of Ecclesiastes, here’s Kansas with “Dust in the Wind.”

Mardi Gras is great fun—we wear masks, eat pancakes, and cut loose to New Orleans music. On Ash Wednesday, Lent begins, and we remove our masks. We have ashes imposed on our foreheads. To do this is to publicly admit that we are human—that we will die someday. Not everyone who attends the service is ready to do it … so they don’t.

Five and a half weeks later, Lent will end with another episode of vulnerability: on Maundy Thursday, we will wash each other’s feet. Not everybody who attends the Maundy Thursday service will be ready to do it … so they won’t.

Between now and then, people will prepare for baptism at the Easter Vigil. On the evening of April 23, we will gather in the darkness to light the new Paschal flame. Illuminated by candlelight, we will hear the story of our faith. And then, as our forty days in the desert draw to a close, we will accompany new Christians to the water. But why do they come to the water? What does baptism do, anyway?

In his booklet “Holy Baptism: A Guide for Parents and Godparents,” theologian John Westerhoff writes:

Baptism is a sacrament, not magic. The purpose of a sacrament is to make us aware of a truth that is not self-evident so that we might benefit from it. Sacraments are symbolic, ritual acts of revelation. Magical acts, on the other hand, are intended to acquire something we would not otherwise be able to possess. Magic, for example, would be an action performed to convince God to do something God would not do without our convincing.

God doesn’t need our baptism—we do. God loves each and every one of us unconditionally, and that’s difficult to believe. God loves us in a way we can’t earn … that we don’t deserve … and that we can never be apart from. Unfortunately, many people go through life unaware of this boundless love, or actively refusing to believe it.

In fact, this kind of love is so hard to believe that we need to engage in a public ritual—a sacrament—to begin to grasp what’s going on here. Jesus himself was baptized, so we are, too. We want to show everybody that God washes away all our sins, all our guilt, all the things that might ever come between us and God’s love.

During the forty days of Lent, we will mute our joy and listen for God’s judging voice. Loving judgment flows from God perpetually, and in that judging, we will find growth. We will undertake self-discipline and prayer. It’s time to do our spring cleaning, clearing out the cobwebs in our minds, scrubbing the dingy corners of our hearts … and, above all, removing our masks so God can see us just as we are. When that happens, we will find that God has always loved and affirmed us and wants us to grow joyfully into the people we were always meant to be.

So come to the water. Come to the table. Come join our family. Come dance and play and be friends with God; God is already friends with you. These are not demands, and they are not requirements. We do it this way because this is how we perceive God at work in the world: inviting, but not forcing. Maybe you’re not ready, but we’re inviting you anyway. Take off your mask. Take off your shoes. Be vulnerable.

We are Christians. Lent and Easter are our story. Come tell the story with us.

Conversations with kids about death

We’ve been talking a lot about death in my family. Christy lost a beloved great-uncle last Friday; happily, she and Sarah got to pay him a visit a few days before he died. And one of our cats, Epitome, is getting very old and creaky, and we’re waiting for word from the vet on whether her kidneys are failing. Sarah is aware that our kitty will probably die in the next few months, if not sooner.

After all this, I found myself being asked last night, “What’s Ash Wednesday?” If the “sex talk” is the one that scares parents the most, the “death talk” may come in a close second. Yet kids don’t carry the same baggage we do about death. Sarah knows that we will all die someday, and we've talked about it many times since she was about two. So by now, I wasn't scared at all ... just a little overwhelmed.


I explained to Sarah that Ash Wednesday is the first day of Lent, and that at this service, a priest or deacon marks your forehead with ashes in the shape of a cross and says, "Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return."

"Dust?" Sarah laughed about that. I tried to explain a little about the idea of returning to the earth, but mostly, I just let the liturgical language speak for itself. Better yet, Sarah will get to experience it first-hand tomorrow night.

I love to tell the Godly Play story of Abraham and Sarah. Kids eat this story up—they love that it takes place in a giant sandbox, and they love the language about how “people don’t go into the desert unless they absolutely have to.” They love the language describing prayer: "Abraham came so close to God, and God came so close to him, that Abraham knew what God wanted him to do." And: "Abraham went up on a hill and prayed again, and God was there too. God wasn't just here or there ... God was everywhere!"

At one point late in the story, I tell the story of Sarah dying, and later, of Abraham dying. I dig a little pit in the sand with my finger to indicate the burial of a body. While I’m doing this, I quietly cover the figure of the dead person with my hand and remove it; most kids don’t notice where it went because they’re focusing on my finger digging in the sand.

I always ask the kids after a Godly Play story, “What was your favorite part?” The vast majority of kids talk about the deaths. Kids love to hear death spoken of gently, respectfully, reverently. And they love to hear, “By this time, Sarah was very old and full of years. She died, and Abraham buried her in a cave near the Oaks of Mamre.”

Kids make sense of the world by playing. For them, death is just one more thing about life that needs to have sense made of it. Liturgy is how adults play, to make sense of the most important things in life and beyond life.

Consider bringing your kids to an Ash Wednesday service tomorrow night. Don’t worry about whether they sit quietly the whole time. Bring crayons and paper. You may not think they’re “getting anything out of it." But it is by bringing our children to church that, over time, they learn to speak the language of Christianity and make sense of the relationship they already have with God, who loves them and speaks to them in the silence of their hearts every day.

Liturgical Pop Music for Lent

At the beginning of each new church season, I like to offer music for the season. I have mixed these songs together--and sometimes created mash-ups--into suites on themes of Lent. If you like something you hear, go buy it! (Right-click each header to download the suite.)

Lent Suite 1: Ashes (Ash Wednesday, March 9)

Ludwig van Beethoven - String Quartet in C# Minor, 1st Movement / Church of the Apostles - Psalm Fifty-One
Kansas - Dust in the Wind
XTC - Deliver Us from the Elements
Sixpence None the Richer - Love, Salvation, the Fear of Death

Lent Suite 2: Desert (March 13)

Arrested Development - Tennessee
Crowded House - Into Temptation
Temple of the Dog - Hunger Strike
U2 - Vertigo
Collective Soul - The World I Know
The Choir - Wilderness

Lent Suite 3: Suffering (March 20)

R.E.M. - Losing My Religion
XTC - The Man Who Sailed Around His Soul
Alice in Chains - Them Bones
Sixpence None the Richer - Meaningless
Sufjan Stevens - Flint (For the Unemployed and Underpaid)

Lent Suite 4: Experience (March 27)

Indigo Girls - Closer to Fine
Sufjan Stevens - Casimir Pulaski Day
XTC - Dear God
R.E.M. - Hope
Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - Jesus Met the Woman at the Well

Lent Suite 5: Return (April 6)

Death Angel - Veil of Deception
Toad the Wet Sprocket - Before You Were Born
Paula Cole - Me
Indigo Girls - Prince of Darkness
Susan Werner - Forgiveness

Lent Suite 6: Liberation (April 13)

Tina Cousins - Pray
Crowded House - Don't Dream It's Over
Simon & Garfunkel - Sparrow
Blind Melon - Change
U2 - Walk On

Stay tuned for music from Holy Week as we get closer to it.

Adventures in the wardrobe

I just re-watched the recent movie version of "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe." It's just OK. But every time I engage the story again in any form, I get something new out of it.

When the children arrive at the old professor's house, it's big and full of ancient artifacts. Mrs. McCready is clearly devoted to the professor, but she doesn't know the side of him we come to know: that of Digory, the boy who was there when Narnia was created. It seems her main job is to protect the dignity of the house and its owner, and that doesn't include relating to the children's sense of wonder at all.

The professor's name is Digory Kirke. Kirke = Church. C. S. Lewis uses this play on words in another book, "The Pilgrim's Regress," in which "Mother Kirk" represents The Church.

So a child's first impression of the Church is that it is large, imposing, fascinating, untouchable, and not a most welcoming place. It has gatekeepers, like Mrs. McCready, who have little or no imagination and who serve only to protect the institution.

But hidden away in it somewhere is a wardrobe: the door to a world that is much bigger on the inside than on the outside. The trick is to get curious enough to find it!

Reboot ...

I haven't written in an awfully long time. As I see Lent begin to rear its contemplative head ... later than at any other time in my young life, and yet still arriving surprisingly quickly ... I know I need to write more often.

I intend to blog every day during Lent. If I created a "YouTube Lent calendar" as I did for Advent, would you follow it?

In the meantime, here's a thought I also posted on Facebook:

Praise your children for being curious. Praise them for their hard work and persistence. Praise them for acts of compassion. But never praise them for being smart. They won't know how to replicate the results, and worse yet, they may begin to think everything worth doing should come easily to them.

Growing beyond our own lives

Sometimes while sitting in church, I can’t help but grab a pen and start writing. Thoughts flood my mind. I think: “I know I’m not preaching today, but I have a sermon anyway!”

It was like that yesterday. I was particularly struck by the modern paraphrase of Psalm 15 by Stephen Mitchell:

Lord, who can be trusted with power, and who may act in your place?

Those with a passion for justice, who speak the truth from their hearts;

Who have let go of selfish interests and grown beyond their own lives;

Who see the wretched as their family and the poor as their flesh and blood.

They alone are impartial and worthy of the people’s trust

Their compassion lights up the whole earth, and their kindness endures forever.

It occurred to me that my work as a youth minister—and as a Christian formation director for all ages—could be summed up in the task of urging people to “grow beyond their own lives.”

When have you grown beyond your own life?

This one's all pop ... name that tune.

Here are this week's top 10 pop hits in disguise. Name that title and/or artist. Let's see who can get the most, either here or on Facebook!

10) I wanna 3X, Girl 2X, See you 3X, Tonight 3X, is the night, positive affirmation 13X

9) (mumble mumble mumble) … SUPER COOL ACCORDION LICK! … (mumble mumble mumble)

8) Look out! A bumblebee! (I can tell from the colors.)

7) I’m! Havin’! A good time! But I think! I heard this song! In 2009! And it was called! I got a feeling! But it didn’t have! Bill Medley! And Jennifer Warnes! In a sample! From an ’80s movie! As the only! Redeeming thing about it!

6) Remember me? Yeah, I’m the super sexy Latino lover who wooed you back in 1999 with “Bailamos.” Yeah, you know what? Forget the wooing. You're getting into my bed right now, whether you like it or not. But it’s not sexual assault, because I’m a super sexy Latino lover, and on the radio, all women WANT to fall right into bed with me.

5) Everybody hates me, and that’s why everybody loves me! I do everything wrong, and you love it! Let’s drink a toast!

4) I’ve got Jesus on my neck-u-luss, so watch out. ’Cause my God can beat up your God.

3) Oh na na ... I can’t remember what I’m called. But I know it rhymes with “oh na na.”

2) Won’t you please retrieve this ordnance for me? Why not? All the cool kids are doing it. And if you don't hold onto this deadly weapon, that means you don't really love me.

1) I don’t really need to sing this song, because Christina Aguilera already sang “Beautiful.” But I’m going to take the same idea, give it a dance beat and update it by a decade. Oh, and pretend it’s summertime. Because all my songs seem to be set in the summertime.

Reading God’s Word with My Grandfather

I got a phone call this week from my Uncle Hal. He’s a Baptist pastor who is no longer working for the Church, and he called to offer me a complete collection of the Interpreter’s Bible, a multi-volume Bible with tons of helpful commentary. It’s the same set that both he and my grandfather used to write sermons many decades ago.

At first I resisted. I thought, “This gift will be heavy and bulky, and I’ll have to find shelf space for it. Besides, there’s a newer version of the Interpreter’s Bible out there that matches the translation we currently use in the Episcopal Church; that version would be much more useful to me.”

Then I thought more about my grandfather, Harold Fremont Smith, a Baptist pastor and a vital force in the American Baptist Church in the Pacific Northwest from the 1930s into the 1960s. He died in a car accident five years before I was born. To use the same books he used would be quite an honor. So I accepted the gift. See, it’s more than just words on a page. It’s the Word of God. I’ll take the books with me to seminary in Virginia this summer. I can imagine myself sitting there, writing papers or sermons with my grandfather right there at my shoulder, whispering inspiration into my ear. I hope I’ll be ready. I hope my ears will be open.

When I get ready to tell a Godly Play story with kids, I tell them, “You have to be ready! How do we get ready? Eyes open, ears open … mouths closed.” We adults could use the same advice in church on Sunday mornings. This is important stuff! We are gathered together to hear the Word of God: the family stories, the stories we tell again and again.

First we hear a reading from the Hebrew Scriptures, a/k/a the Old Testament. Usually it’s something from one of the prophets, or a formative story of the people of Israel. Next we join with the choir for a psalm, one of the hymns of ancient Israel. These are so varied, and their themes so universal, that we still use the same 150 psalms today. Following the psalm is the Epistle: a reading from the Christian Scriptures, a/k/a New Testament. This is usually a letter written in the earliest years of the Christian Church to communicate something of vital importance to a budding Christian community.

Next we hear from one of the four Gospels, the stories of Jesus. We stand for this reading because the Gospels are at the center of our faith. “Gospel” means “Good News.” And could once a week possibly be too often to hear a piece of Good News? Finally, we hear a sermon, an original reflection that opens the Scriptures to us in our own place and time.

The Liturgy of the Word is a time to open our ears. You may think we tell the same stories over and over again in church, but that’s not exactly true. The difference is you: you are different now than you were the last time you heard the story. If you open your ears, you may well find that the words mean something very different now than they did earlier in your life.

Although I never met my grandfather, I am different now than I used to be. Had my uncle given me these volumes when I was 12 or 18 or 25 or 35, I might not have been able to appreciate such a caring gift. Now it will mean much more to me.