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Love

Mike Sares B/W Headshot

Pastor Mike Sares of Scum of the Earth Church

Mike Sares spoke about Marriage at Celebration this Sunday.

As the pastor of a church composed primarily of young adults, Mike gets to officiate at lots of weddings. It is always fun at weddings because everyone is so hopeful and optimistic. There is such good feeling of anticipating good feelings and everyone seems happy. In fact he’s come to suspect that the people he’s marrying are in love more with the feelings of happiness and anticipation and optimism than each other because in around two years, he begins to see these marriages crumble and then he’s counseling people in their divorces.

 

He pointed out that English has one word to express a feeling and a concept that the Greeks use four words to explain. He focussed on two of those Greek words: Agape – selfless, unconditional love purhaps best illustrated in a marriage relationship where one spouse has Alzheimers and the other stops being lover and becomes caregiver, nurturer and diaper changer and Eros – sexual, passionate and immediate – probably what a lot of us yearn for when we think about love. He pointed us to 1 Corinthians 13 for a look at what the Bible says about love. Then he pointed us to the Song of Songs to see what the Bible says about love. Mike urged us to consider that Eros was a feeling that was wonderful when it was right, it was awful when it goes wrong. The Romans had identified a demigod, named Cupid, who went around shooting arrows into people and caused them to fall in love with the wrong people. He challenged us to decide for ourselves whether we were going to idolize a Greek demigod or serve God by expressing our love by using Agape to drive our erotic expressions.

He expessed a deep issue with Disney Films by acknowledging that he had four children and had seen at least a whole generation of Princess movies with little conflicts in the life of a beautiful princess until she met, fell in love with and married the male lead and in every case lived ‘happily ever after’. All of those movies shaped his kids expectations of what good love and what marriage was like. The only Disney movie that even remotely matched his own experience was “Beauty and the Beast” where the beautiful, intelligent, strong willed female lead met and battled the brutish, stubborn, self absorbed male lead until she uncovered the aspects she could love. They worked it out.

In his own life, Mike met his wife while he was working as a lifeguard. One day he looked across the pool and saw a beautiful mermaid. He didn’t claim to Agape her immediately, but he did claim to try and describe his feelings as love at first sight. He described their relationship as tempestuous. They fell in love and out of love, then in love again and out of love again, and then in and out of love again, and then they fell in love and got married. Then they fell out of love again and it was awful and back in love and the make up sex was great. After a few more cycles of falling in love and out of love, they realized that they weren’t basing their relationship on the right love. As near as Mike could describe it, our heavenly Father finally seemed to take a bit of his heart and place it in the hearts of Mike and his wife so they could begin to love each other the way God wanted them to.

 

1 Corinthians 13

1 If I speak in the tonguest of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,t but do not have love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part,10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears.11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

 

 

2011 06 27 Steve Uncategorized Comments (0) Permalink

So, Just Represent Us

The government may quit tomorrow,Friday, April 8th, 2011.

Independence Hall

Independence Hall

Its not the first time, but I still have a hard time getting my head around it. Somehow too many people are getting a pass on not doing a good job. Its a job they wanted and its a job they said they were suited for. We believed them.

Now, I’m sure that some of my attitude about Congress’ inability to approve a budget, and some of my thoughts about how to reach a solution, are shaped by my politics which are certainly more red than blue (in an electoral sense.) I think that when no one can raise a majority on whether to spend

Capitol Hill

Capitol Hill

money in a particular area, then whether the money is there should be used as a tie-breaker. I think that if you hire people, you are as obligated to see that they get their pay as you are to see that they meet their responsibilities. I understand that Congress has passed a law that says they don’t get paid in situations like this. Personally, I believe that they haven’t earned that pay and should probably return any compensation they’ve received since this Congress was sworn in. Don’t point out that this problem could have been averted if Congress had done its job last year because if anyone knows how to get paid, its an elected federal employee.

I think it is absurd that the President would veto a bill that would cover the salary of our soldiers through this year because he wants a bigger allowance. I think its absurd that that our Republican party can only think a week ahead and doesn’t feel obligated to pay, say, the guys and gals at the USGS. Pay your people, don’t spend more than you have, work to earn your pay and produce measurable results. When it gets complicated, start over.

 

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2011 04 07 Steve Government Comments (0) Permalink

Legacy Faith

I went to a meeting this morning titled “Will Your Child Have Faith After High School?” I went because I’d like to know how to say “yes” to that question. I left the house at 8:00 AM on a Saturday. On Saturday, I don’t usually start cooking breakfast until 9:00 but I have a daughter I love very much and I really would like to say “yes” to that question.

It was worth the time. The speaker had done an in-depth study of some kids who were active in their church youth group in High School. She talked with each of these kids on their college campuses over the next four years. She was their Facebook friend. She got way too much information about what went right and what went wrong in their lives while they were in school.

She talked a lot at first about what college students experience and what it’s like to be a freshman on campus away from home. She spoke of the sense of suddenly finding yourself away from everyone who knows you and how disorienting that can be. She spoke of the extremely high value peer approval takes on as you have only your peers to relate to. She spoke of the weakness of a young college student’s sense of identity when that student has been completely removed from the context in which they have known themselves. She made it very clear that without the fellowship of believers, freshmen college students will, in the first month, probably from sheer loneliness, seek out the fellowship of unbelievers and gladly pay what ever the group demands whether it is inebriation with drugs or alcohol, physical intimacy without emotional commitment or, more likely, some combination.

The last part of her talk was more about what might be done by those who love those college bound church youth group members both before they go off to school and while they are finding their feet on that slippery unfamiliar landscape. Youth leaders should try to fill the gaps – and there will be gaps – in their kids’ understanding of the Gospel, church history and their own salvation so that when professors attack their faith on intellectual grounds they won’t believe that they must surrender immediately. Parents and other supporting members of the student’s fellowship should stay in contact with that student and alleviate some of the sense of  abandonment the student can’t help but feel. There should ideally be some plan for a quick trip home before the fall break.

Ultimately the faith of each college student is their own. Just like my faith, and the faith of everyone else, each college student’s faith may be shaped and influenced by others, but their response to God is their own. We can’t will our faith to our kids. What we can do is damp down the noise of those who live for the wrong side to a point that kids can hear themselves think – or even that still, small voice of God as He seeks to help each of them understand the height, the width, the depth and the breadth of His love.

In a concluding fit of shameless self promotion that I agreed with and will happily pass on to you, the presenter mentioned a couple books coming out late summer. They are both titled “Sticky Faith” with one being subtitled the youth worker edition. They are from Zondervan.

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2011 03 19 Steve Parenthood Comments (0) Permalink