Tebow Mania

In ancient Rome, unscrupulous potters would fill cracks and chips in their wares with wax to hide the defects.  Cover over the imperfections and they could sell the piece at a higher price.  Pots that should have been shelved in back aisles at Big Lots were transformed into flawless earthenware vessels and displayed (in soft light) at Pottery Barn.  To combat this dishonest marketing, reputable merchants resorted to marking their workmanship with the label "sine cera," Latin for "without wax."  This became the basis of our English word sincere.  


The image is fitting.  Scripture describes us as "jars of clay" (2 Corinthains 4:7).  And these are jars with cracks and chips.  I know my own desire to hide those defects behind a layer of wax.  I want to sell you a better version of myself than is real.  I can fake it pretty well.  I can pull it off, at least in some settings.  It's easier to fool people when the pot is in the store window than when it's in the home.  Fill it with stew and hang it over a fire and all that wax begins to melt.  I can fool the casual acquaintance, but the intimate relations will see through the wax.  They can tell what is true and what is fake.


I am not a sports analyst.  Not by a long shot.  I am in the scandalous 1% - the tiny fraction American males who have no interest in the NFL.  I usually wait until the Super Bowl to watch my first full game of the season.  But I am a cultural observer and, as such, it has been hard to escape Tebow mania.  He is polarizing, both for his orthodox faith and his unorthodox football.   I feel inept to comment on his football. But allow me the liberty to comment, just briefly, on his faith.


By all accounts of those who know him best, his faith is sincere.  His display of devotion to God is without wax, a true expression of his genuine love for the Lord.  In victory and defeat he gives praise to his Lord and Savior.  This is not something he turns on in public.  He is the same on the field and off the field.   Urban Meyer, his coach at the University of Florida, said of Tebow, "Everything you see is true."


So when he bows his knee, or points skyward, or gives praise to God in his post game interviews, it is not a performance. With most athletes, expressions of faith often feel waxy.  But in Tebow's case, this is clay we are seeing.  This is the real Tebow, not a glossy coating he hides behind.  It comes across as sincere.


Ironically, what is pure clay for Tebow has been loaded with wax by the media and hijacked by pop culture.  The idea of Tebowing has been reduced to a move that is symbolic of Tebow, the football player, not reflective of Christianity, the faith.   It is a flimsy pointer to matters more substantial.  Headlines and sounds bites use religious language in a flippant manner.  It's all very gimmicky.


But this isn't Tebow's doing.  He is just allowing his faith to infiltrate his life.  If it weren't on the football field it would be in the board room, or on the sales floor, or in the shop, or whatever work environment he were in.  This is Tebow, pure clay.  To act otherwise would be to coat himself with wax.   


So don't get hung up on the wax that the media traffics in.  Instead, look for clay.  Sincere faith expressed by a man who loves God more than football. And allow that to serve as a motivation to live your life with the same sincerity.

God In Flesh

I don't write poetry.  This may be as close as I've come, possibly even crossing the line. Typically, the incarnation is approached from a historical or theological angle. This is my attempt to come at it from a practical point of view. 

The incarnation.

The all powerful God embracing impotence

A hurricane in a thimble.

The all present God confined to a space

Bethlehem, in a feeding trough.

In this manner

In this place

God arrives, in flesh.

Deity stripped of finery. 

The Desired of all Nations in his birthday suit.

The naked truth.

God undressed. 

It’s a bit awkward, don’t you think. 

All this skin.  

Too much exposure for a holy moment.

No pipe organs or stained glass. 

Rather dust and dung, flies and flesh.

We’ll avert our eyes,

swaddle him quickly,

lay him (modestly) in a manger.

Have we forgetten

That before the babe was wrapped in clothes

He was dripping with amniotic fluid,

Naked as a jay bird.

What if there is an implication in this.

A living parable,

A whisper of truth.

This is a frightening prospect.

If God came naked, so must I.

Stripping myself of self-sufficiency, hypocrisy, pride

 Laying aside the whitewash, the mask, the pretense.

Exposing my true self –

Which from some angles,

under bright light,

is mortifying

And, ironically, life giving

So I swallow hard, and begin unbuttoning.

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Church is For the Empty

This was published in the Syracuse Post-Standard in February 2009.  It was the first piece I ever had published.  I still consider it one of the best things I've ever written.  I thought I'd share it with all of you.  

I used to work with a woman whom, whenever the subject of church came up, said something to the effect that if she were to walk into a church, the walls would fall in on her. 

In her mind, her lifestyle was too wild for the fragile purity of the church. It was said as a lighthearted joke, but even so, the impression she had is disappointing to me.  Sadly, many Christians have communicated that the church is no place for those with sordid lives.

If that were true, the church would be no place for me.  I am a sinner, and not merely in a theoretical, abstract sense.  The catalog of my sins goes far beyond mild infractions or momentary slip ups. I have an established pattern  of deception that has compromised my reputation, strained my marriage, and damaged numerous relationships…My sinful choices have wreaked havoc in my life.

And this is why I need the church so desperately.  When criticized for spending time with those whom had a reputation as sinners, Jesus defended himself saying, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick…For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners” (Matthew 9:12,13). 

The church is a clinic for wounded sinners; a place of healing for those who have burned bridges and broken trust, for those who have binged on pleasure and purged on guilt; for those who feel hopeless, weary, empty, and beat down.  For those like me. 

The hymn "Rock of Ages" speaks of God's double cure - salvation from sin's guilt and power.  Through Christ I am delivered from sin's guilt in a moment when he freely grants  forgiveness to my troubled soul in response to my faith.  But I am delivered from sin's power over a lifetime.  I have destructive patterns that have been tread often enough they have become ruts.  Without continual focus, I settle into them quickly. 

The church helps tug me from those patterns through worship, meditation, prayer, teaching, fellowship, and service - all part of a spiritual therapy to aid in my healing.  I have good days and bad days; days of progress and days of setback, but all under the care of the Great Physician.

But while the church is intended to be a clinic, I've often treated it like a health club.  I've traded in my hospital gown for Under Armor.  Instead of addressing my ailment, I'm preoccupied with proving my strength and stamina. 

I want to be seen as a model of robust spiritual health, not a case study of spiritual frailty. Multiply that deception throughout a congregation and it's easy to understand why observers could see the church as unaccepting of those with lives in disarray.  My pride causes me to minimize and excuse my weaknesses.  But beneath the image I project is a more honest self, sweeping up the shards of my life and struggling to make sense of them. 

I believe that if the church is to live up to it's calling, then it will be through people like me being vulnerable enough to admit their need for help.  When I speak of my own failures, those around me feel safer to share their own. 

And as we bring these things into the light, they are that much easier to treat.  Ironically, in admitting weakness, I find strength.  As I tell my story I find support, encouragement, accountability, and, in turn, healing.

In the past I would have labeled my failures as a case of the sniffles - bothersome, but manageable with a box of tissues on hand.  More recently I've come to see my failures as a cancer of the soul demanding aggressive treatment.  

Martin Luther said “Be a sinner and let your sins be strong, but let your trust in Christ be stronger.”  I believe the church is for people like that - those with a severe case of sin and strong confidence in God's ability to heal.   The church can not only withstand their presence, it was designed for them.

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