My Bad

Humor is a funny thing (pun intended). Just when you think you’ve got it figured out, something comes out of your mouth – or your keyboard – that blows up in your face.

On Saturday I posted something I thought was very funny: a picture of a scarecrow my kids had made in our backyard vegetable garden with the headline “We’re Celebrating Easter Weekend By Having a Real Crucifixion.” Now here’s how I thought that post would comes across:

Heavy and serious headline + cute and quaint family picture = lighthearted laughs

Not so much. Apparently at least a few people thought I was mocking Christ. I assure I wasn’t. If anything, I was mocking the tendency of missional/emerging Christians like myself to be overly serious and engage in increasingly contrived spiritual formation exercises like stations of the cross, labyrinths, etc. (this really was a self-critique…I’ve enjoyed doing both).

Anyway, like a joke that bombs on stage this one just didn’t play. Some people saw an offensive message; one that I didn’t intend. That’s not their fault, it’s mine. As a communicator I bear the initial burden of considering the variety of ways my words and images might be perceived, and the truth is I really didn’t consider that in this case. When that happens, an apology is necessary.

So…my bad. I blew it and it was my fault. If it matters, I wasn’t being intentionally irreverent in this case, and although I am often intentionally irreverent about inherited traditions, theological perspectives, and Christian culture (and generally don’t apologize for it), I would never be intentionally irreverent about Christ. Still, the burden of making that clear lies with me.

I’m pretty sure this qualifies as my first public apology. I’m also pretty sure it won’t be my last : )

Technorati Tags: apologies, Christ, Easter, Gardening

The Tale of Two Gardeners, An Easter Parable

I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. ~ John 12:24

Jesus said to them, “I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. ~ John 6:53

Once there were two men who longed for real tomatoes with good flavor – unlike the bland, waxy variety found in the chain supermarkets. So they both decided to start their own home gardens.

The first gardener bought the best seeds in the best seed catalog and picked out a nice patch of dirt behind his house with good sunlight. Since tomatoes are the gateway drug of home gardening, he couldn’t help but purchase a few pepper plants and eggplants too. He dug in the hard soil (there was a lot of clay in their area) and planted and watered his seeds, careful to space them apart properly, and reflecting on how – in a sense – the seed had to die before new life could spring from it.

Every day he was diligent to water and weed his garden and, sure enough, in about a week little sprouts poked through the surface. But neither the tomatoes nor the others plants grew as big as those in the catalog pictures, and although his tomatoes tasted far better than the waxy supermarket variety, they looked a bit scrawny and didn’t produce very much.

The second gardener bought the best seeds in the best seed catalog and picked out a nice patch of dirt behind his house with good sunlight. Since tomatoes are the gateway drug of home gardening, he couldn’t help but purchase a few pepper plants and eggplants too.

Because there was a lot of clay in their area he rented a roto-tiller and spent a day plowing up the hard dirt for his garden bed. The tiller violently ripped into the hard soil about a foot deep, churning everything over and deeply cultivating the topsoil and clay into a soft new mixture. Then he went to the local compost facility where grass clippings, pulled weeds, and other yard waste from all over the city was allowed to rot and decay into smelly black piles of rich organic matter. He filled his truck bed to the brim with this living-dead dirt and shoveled it onto his freshly-tilled planter beds. To this he added earthworm castings (worm poop!). He then folded all this deep into the soil turning it over and over again one shovel-full at a time.

Then he added organic fertilizer, made from decomposed bone, kelp, and fish meal. He sprinkled the ashy white powder all over the planter beds and raked it into the dirt, shaping the beds into gently sloping mounds, which were now smelly, soft, and a deep dark brown color. Into this graveyard of decomposed animal and vegetable waste he planted and watered his seeds, and reflected on how they would have to break open and “die” in order for life to spring from them. And he thought, too, of how the young plants would be – in a sense – eating the flesh and drinking the blood of all the animals and plants that were sacrificed and given on their behalf, and he marveled at how much death was required to produce rich, full life.

That summer his tomatoes outgrew their cages, and the pepper plants were so full they crowded each other in the beds. He picked so many big, beautiful tomatoes and peppers that he had to share them with his friends and neighbors since it was more than he could possible eat all by himself. And his tomatoes were very tasty.

Technorati Tags: Easter, Gardening, Jesus Christ, John, Parables

Holy Week, Day 6

Today is our final reading before Easter, and much like yesterday’s chapter, today’s is packed with action as Jesus approaches the climactic moment of his earthly ministry. Take time to read through Matthew 27 today and reflect on the questions below:

Questions for Reflection:

1. What scene or character in this chapter do you most identify with? Why?
2. Imagine you were one of Jesus’ disciples, and expected him to be the anointed one who finally overthrew the Roman oppressors and vindicated you and your people. How would this series of events impact you? How might you have made sense of it all?
3. There is a tension that runs throughout Jesus’ ministry between him and his followers: they want him to conquer with power but he typically serves and sacrifices instead – including giving the ultimate sacrifice. That is, Christ’s strength always looked like weakness. How does this tension continue today between Christ and his followers?

Technorati Tags: Easter, Holy Week, Ikon Community, Jesus, Matthew

Holy Week, Day Four

Today’s reading is a little longer, and introduces us to Jesus’ teachings about the end of the age – a subject we don’t often hear about during the Easter season, but one that is obviously tied to his resurrection. So, read Matthew Chapter 24 and 25 and reflect on the questions below.

Questions for Reflection

1. How would you sum up Chapter 24? What is the main thing Jesus seems to be trying to say?
2. How would you sum up the teaching of the three parables in Chapter 25?
3. Why do you think Jesus might be discussing this during the week leading up to his crucifixion and resurrection?
4. How do you think this subject of the end of the age might be relevant for us today?

Technorati Tags: Easter, Eschatology, Holy Week, Jesus, Matthew, Parables

Holy Week, Day Three

Today read Matthew Chapter 23 and contribute your thoughts to the comments below.

Questions for Reflection

1. What single saying in this long list of “woes” strikes you most or which one best sums up the whole list? Why?
2. If Jesus were to come today and give a modern version of the “woes” for Christians, what kinds of hypocritical behaviors do you think he would be condemning?

Technorati Tags: Easter, Holy Week, Jesus, Matthew

Holy Week, Day One

Last night at Ikon we kicked off Holy Week with our Palm Sunday gathering and today we begin a series of readings leading up to Easter. You are welcome to participate with us here or at the Ikon Community website.

Today read Matthew Chapter 21 and Zechariah 9:9-17 and contribute your thoughts to the comments below.

Questions for Reflection

1. Based on the prophecy in Zechariah 9, what would your expectations have been of Jesus if you were a Jew in that crowd?
2. If Jesus is the promised messiah, why do you think he did and said these things in Matt 21? Are his actions and teachings consistent with Zechariah 9?
3. What do you think Jesus is trying to get across in Matt 21?

Technorati Tags: Easter, Holy Week, Matthew, Triumphal Entry, Zechariah