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A week ago Tuesday:

As he does five days a week, my son emerges from his room around 6:00 a.m. dressed in shorts and shirt courtesy of the school’s athletic department. His first class of the day is football. On most mornings that’s a good thing: roll out of bed, put on your athletic clothes, eat some breakfast and go. But this is not most mornings.

It’s Day One of Hell Week.

The term Hell Week is a bit of a misnomer. While most of the players would say the intense workouts consisting of everything from bear crawls and up downs, tire flips and sleds to good old fashioned power lifting, sprints and jumping rope is hell, it typically doesn’t last a week. Instead, it goes on until the coaches decide it’s over. If one or more of your teammates isn’t putting forth his best effort, everyone pays for it with added days. It’s a way to simultaneously strengthen the team and thin out the herd. Some set themselves apart, others decide it’s not worth it and quit football altogether. Most just keep their heads down and endure.

Knowing my son, it came as no surprise when I saw the anxiety on his face last Tuesday morning. He’s been through hell week before, but as a freshman with an all freshman class. This year he’s in there with the big boys–all upperclass linemen. He’s going to have to prove his worth against bigger and more experienced athletes. Still, it’s the first day. Getting stressed out to a point where you can’t even eat breakfast isn’t going to do you any good.  I told him as much, not that any of my advice penetrated the fog of anxiety he was in.

As expected, Day One was “hellish”. They were divided up into 4 groups: A, B, C and D–“A” being the best. My son was put on the “B” team, which considering that “A” consisted of mostly varsity players, I thought was pretty good. But by the end of class, he had been moved to the “C” team. When he got home, he didn’t want to talk about it. “I just have to do better”, he said.

In some situations, I would have left it at that–let him lick his wounds and try again tomorrow. But not this time, because there is absolutely no good reason he should have been moved down. I say this not because I’m one of those parents who thinks my kid is better than he really is. I say this because I’ve spent the last two off seasons driving my son to and from strength and conditioning training five days a week; watching him build muscle, speed and agility performing most of the drills the coaches are putting them through now. If he got moved down, I knew it had more to do with the muscle in that big head of his than any of the muscles used to push sleds and flip tractor tires.

I couldn’t let it go. I pressed him. I asked him what was so hard about the first day of hell week. They didn’t do anything he hasn’t done before.  He finally told me what the problem was.

Son: Mom, I’m afraid of getting hurt.

Me: You’re afraid of getting hurt? After going through a year of weight and speed training specifically designed to prevent injury? After putting in more time in a year than many of your teammates put in their entire high school athletic careers you’re afraid of getting hurt? After two seasons of playing football essentially injury free you’re afraid of getting hurt? If you go into hell week thinking you’re going to get hurt one of two thing will happen. You’re either going to get hurt, or you’re going to perform under your potential and all that training will have been a big waste of time and money.

By Wednesday, he had been moved back up to “B” team with a personal goal of being moved up to “A”, provided that hell week continues past Thursday. We’ll see what happens.

You can’t play a contact sport like football if you’re afraid of getting hurt. What you can do is trust your hard work and training.

You can’t stand up and sing in front of a crowd if you’re afraid of forgetting the lyrics or singing off key. What you can do is rehearse the song so many times that it’s forever burned into your mind.

You can’t write a book if you’re afraid of being panned by critics. What you can do is write the best story you can, and then you write it again with the knowledge that there’s no such thing as a universal audience for a book. If someone doesn’t like your work, it’s because it’s just not for them.

You can’t ride a bike, learn to drive, interview for a job, save a life, fall in love, lead someone to Christ or make a difference if you’re afraid of getting hurt.

Life is full of hurt. When we choose not to pursue something out of fear, we feel the hurt of regret for what could have been.

And that’s the kind of hurt we can seldom overcome.

image courtesy of google images

Last year, in a response to a post my friend Billy Coffey wrote entitled The luckiest boy in the world, I wrote a post about my own personal experience with the aftermath of divorced parents. My parents’ divorce was extremely painful for everyone involved, but I still maintain that I’m a better for experience, even though I would never wish it on anyone:

“Not all children of divorce live their lives as victims. Some of us are stronger for it, because we had a parent who didn’t allow their circumstances to dictate whether or not they did the right thing. They did right thing despite their circumstances.”

When we’re going through the dark places, it’s so difficult to see the clarity of light they may someday bring to us.

A few months ago, my daughter told me that the parents of one of her best friends were getting a divorce. While I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised given the divorce rate in this country, I was. I know them to be a close family who love their three children very much. When my daughter told me of the divorce, she told me she didn’t know why her parents were getting a divorce and that she didn’t feel right asking. I told her that was okay, that if her friend wanted to talk about it she would. But her most important role as a friend right now is just to be there, to show her friend that even if her immediate future may be filled with inconsistencies and unknowns, her friendship remains a constant.

There have been many times over the past few months when her friend will call and ask to come over, and each time we pick her up. Sometimes for a sleepover, sometimes just for a few hours. I don’t think she’s escaping anything more dubious than the sadness that comes from knowing the house she’s grown up in will soon belong to another family. I think she just wants to be free of the big, heavy, grown-up worries that 10 year old girls shouldn’t have to carry. Even if it’s just  for a little while. Without fail, when we drop her back off at home we tell her she is always welcome at our house.

The greatest gift of my own personal experience with divorce is the ability to pass on my empathy and compassion to my daughter without her having to go through that particular dark place herself.

And I would never know the beautiful clarity of that particular light had I not gone through my own darkness.

If you watch or read the news with any regularity, you may have seen snippets of the commencement speech where speaker David McCullough, Jr. tells the graduating class of Wellesley High School that they are not special. Much to-do was made of what some might call mean-spirited exhortations. Most of the clips I’ve seen have been the portion of the speech where he says things like:

If everyone is special then no one is. If everyone gets a trophy, trophies become meaningless. In our unspoken but not so subtle Darwinian competition with one another which springs, I think, from our fear of our own insignificance, a subset of our dread of mortality, we have of late, we Americans to our detriment come to love accolades more than genuine achievement. We have come to see them as the point, and we’re happy to compromise standards or ignore reality if we suspect that’s the quickest way or only way to have something to put on the mantelpiece. Something to pose with, crow about, something with which to leverage ourselves into a better spot on the social totem pole.

No longer is it how you play the game, no longer is it even whether you win or lose, or learn, or grow, or enjoy yourself doing it. Now it’s, “So what does this get me?” As a consequence we’ve cheapened worthy endeavors, and building a Guatemalan medical clinic becomes more about the application to Boden than the well being of Guatemalans. It’s an epidemic and in its way not even dear old Wellesley High is immune–one of the best of the 37,000 nationwide Wellesley high school, where good is no longer good enough, where a B is the new C and the mid-level curriculum is called “advanced college placement”. And I hope you caught me when I said “one of the best”. I said “one of the best” so we can feel better about ourselves, so we can bask in a little easy distinction, however vague and unverifiable and count ourselves among the elite—whoever they might be—and enjoy a perceived leg up on the perceived competition. But the phrase defies logic. By definition there can only be one best. You’re it or you’re not.

Even those who whole-heartedly agreed with what Mr. McCullough was telling these young men and women are getting an incomplete understanding of what the man was ultimately trying to get across to them if they did not hear his speech in its entirety, because I believe the most important portion of this speech was left of the news room editing floor:

Like accolades ought to be, the fulfilled life is a consequence, a gratifying by-product. It’s what happens when you’re thinking about more important things. Climb the mountain not to plant your flag, but to embrace the challenge, enjoy the air and behold the view. Climb it so you can see the world, not so the world can see you. Go to Paris to be in Paris, not to cross it off your list and congratulate yourself for being worldly. Exercise freewill and creative independent thought not for the satisfactions they will bring you, but for the good they will do others—the rest of the 6.8 billion and those who will follow them. And then, you too will discover the great and curious truth of the human experience is that selflessness is the best thing you can do for yourself. The sweetest joys of life, then, come only with the recognition that you’re not special, because everyone is.

If you haven’t seen the entire speech, I invite you to do so now. It is a great reminder for graduates and the rest of us to live our lives not for ourselves, but for others.

The release of Rob Bell’s controversial book Love Wins and the public discourse among Christians before and after its release hasn’t exactly been the greatest public relations coup in the history of the church. And let’s face it, we can say we love God and love people until we’re blue in the face, but if we don’t back up our words with the way we live and the way we treat each other, let alone those who aren’t Christians, we probably deserve much of the bad press we’ve received. I’m not suggesting we simply agree to disagree and not speak out against what we believe to be bad theology or legalism, we just need to do a better job with how we present our beliefs. The world is watching us.

I’ve often said that you can relate just about any life circumstance to an episode of Seinfeld, and I was only partly kidding. Funny how a show about nothing seemed to have covered just about everything. In the following montage, Puddy reminds us how NOT to be salt and light:

(Sorry, you’ll have to watch the clip on youtube because of copyright stuff.)

What important life lessons have you learned from Seinfeld?

Last Sunday I mentioned that Jeff preached a sermon on the Good Samaritan and that with his permission, I would write a post about it based on his sermon notes. This is that post. (The text in block quotes is taken directly from Jeff’s sermon last Sunday.)

Jeff began the sermon by showing this picture I had sent him a few days earlier:

“Isn’t it kind of amazing that a song that was made popular in the 1940’s would still be so well known that it could be the source of a joke for a t-shirt company in 2011? It seems like most of us can remember a time when “You put your right hand in, you put your right hand out…” I guess it’s all that repetition; there’s nothing new, so we don’t have too much trouble going through the motions.

I think the same thing happens with certain Bible stories. We hear them, and we’re sure we know what their all about, so we smile and go through the motions. Part of the trouble may be that so many of these stories have a good moral on the surface, and we get so used to hearing the moral, that we don’t look to see if something more is there. The story we’re looking at today has great potential for this.”

The Parable of the Good Samaritan

At the beginning of this parable, a teacher of the law, a man who has devoted his life to learning and observing Jewish law, asks Jesus, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” I think it’s safe to assume that this guy wasn’t asking Jesus this question because he didn’t know. He was asking Jesus this question to test him. To see if Jesus’s answer lined up with what he thought he already understood.

In response to this question, Jesus asks him a question: “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”

To which the lawyer responds: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind; and, Love your neighbor as yourself.”

“You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”

Think about that last line: “Do this and you will live”. By making this statement to the teacher of the law, Jesus is essentially telling him that he’s not currently loving God and loving his neighbor. He’s telling him he may know the the greatest commandment, but he’s not keeping it. As I read this passage, I’m thinking that this guy is pretty put out with Jesus. Who does this guy think he is telling me I’m not living right?

Jeff continues:

“Now the expert in the law is troubled. He wants to justify himself—literally, he wants to be declared righteous by his actions. So, he asks Jesus to clarify the parameters of measurement. “Define what you mean by ‘neighbor,’ and I’ll confirm that I’ve shown love to them, thus meeting your qualifications.”

Jesus could have given the lawyer a short answer. But every good teacher knows that it’s far better to guide someone to discover the answer for themselves—it just “sticks” in a much more powerful way. And Jesus is the Master teacher…”

Jesus begins to tell the story of the Good Samaritan:

“One particular stretch was ideal for an ambush, and was actually referred to as the “Way of Blood,” because of the number of people who were robbed and killed there. Having a character fall victim to robbers was really a pretty realistic scenario.

So as the man lies bleeding and half dead, a priest comes along, and at some point after him, a Levite does too. Again, this was a realistic scenario. They were both travelling the same way as the man who got robbed, which meant they were likely on their way home from working at the temple, which was in Jerusalem. Jericho was sort of a “bedroom community” of Jerusalem and many of the priests and Levites lived there.

For some reason, neither of these men stopped to help the victim. It’s easy for us to call these guys names and write them off as callous, uncaring, pompous hypocrites. But before we do, let me ask you: have you ever passed by an opportunity to show compassion to someone else?

Not just that person on I-10 with a flat. Maybe a co-worker who you know has had a horrible day (or week or month). You can tell they really need someone, but you’re just so tired. Or you’ve got to get to that meeting. Or you just have to get home. Remember: this trip was about 17 miles, and probably took around 5+ hours to walk.

How about at home? You know that your husband, or wife, or kiddo really wants to talk, or play that game with you, or go do that thing with you that they’ve been telling you about for days or weeks. But you just got home. Or you really wanted to go work out tonight. Or you’re wiped and you just want a little down time.

I can hear the priest and the Levite: “What if he’s already dead? And look at that blood! Either way, I touch him and I’m ritualistically unclean, which means I might not be able to fulfill my next obligation at the temple. I can’t risk that- I have an obligation!” Or, “I’ve got so far to go, and my family is waiting for me. They are my priority- Honestly, I don’t even know this guy! What if this is a trap? Whether he’s hurt or not, if I stop I could get jumped and end up just like him…

I mean, maybe these guys aren’t rotten. Maybe they’re just… human.”

image courtesy of photobucket.com

At this point in the story, along comes a Samaritan man. By the time of this parable, the Jews considered the Samaritan nation completely impure and lower than dogs. And yet, Jesus chooses a Samaritan to be the hero of the story.

But the actions of the Samaritan in this story can teach us three important lessons about extending grace:

I. First, the Samaritan was PROACTIVE.

As soon as he saw the victimized man, the Samaritan felt pity and went to him. He engaged the man where he was, without hesitation.

II. Second, the Samaritan got MESSY.

He jumped right into the ugliness of the man’s situation. People didn’t carry around first aid kits, so I imagine that he had to tear up some of his own clothing for bandages. As he began to bandage the man’s wounds, the wine and the oil that was poured out would have mixed with the dirt and the blood and it would have been messy.

III. Finally, the Samaritan GAVE of HIMSELF.

He placed the man on his donkey and walked the rest of the 17 mile journey. He took the man to an inn, and cared for
him that night. As he prepared to leave the next day, he didn’t surrender his involvement. Instead, he gave the innkeeper two silver coins—two Denari—which would have covered the victims care for about three weeks. And he assured him that if there were more costs involved in the man’s recovery, he would pay for them upon his return.

After telling the parable, Jesus finishes the discussion with the lawyer:

Luke 10:36-37
36″Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”
37The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.” 
      Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”

I can just hear the lawyer as he grits his teeth and answers the question. He can’t even bring himself to say the word “Samaritan!” So he tells Jesus that the neighbor was “the one who had mercy on him.”

So what can we learn from this parable today?

I think a lot of people would say that this story teaches us how to love our neighbor, right? Well, the Samaritan is certainly an amazing example of that very thing. But we’ll miss the big point unless we remember one very important thing: The lawyer’s original question.

He asked Jesus, “What must I DO to inherit eternal life?” The lawyer wanted Jesus to tell him exactly who his neighbor was because he was trying to be made righteous by his own actions. In response, Jesus tells him that essentially, his “neighbor” is EVERYONE.

Don’t move on too quickly from this idea, because it’s not as clear and tidy as we sometimes want to make it. Think of actually responding to EVERYONE the way the Samaritan responded to the victim.

You must be proactive with every single person in your life! Everyone you meet must be a grade A, number 1, top priority for you.

You must jump into the mess of EVERYONE you know. Bandaging their wounds, addressing their hurts. You must be committed to their complete and total healing.

Finally, you must give of yourself sacrificially to EVERYBODY. Physically, emotionally financially, you give until it hurts. To every single person you come in contact with.

You can almost hear the lawyer walking away saying, “That’s impossible!”

And I can almost hear Jesus saying, “Yes it is.”

“For humanity…”

Ephesians 2:1-10
1As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 3All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. 4But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. 6And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—9not by works, so that no one can boast. 10For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Now THAT’S what it’s all about.

Final thoughts:

Looking at this parable with a new perspective completely blew me away. How many times have you heard or read this story? The obvious lesson is to love your neighbor, to give sacrificially, etc.

But there is a deeper message that I took away from this sermon, and it is this:

I’m not the teacher of the law in this story.
I’m certainly not Jesus
I’m not the priest, the Levite or the Samaritan
and I’m guessing you’re not any of them either…

Who am I?

I’m the man left for dead on the Road to Jericho…

and time after time in my life…

Jesus is The Good Samaritan.

Love. Live. Serve.

As promised from last week, here’s my updated version of Robert Fulghum’s “All I Really Needed to know I Learned in Kindergarten”, the Seinfeld edition:

Most of what I really need to know about how to live, and what to do, and how to be, I learned from kindergarten or watching Seinfeld. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sandbox or on late night reruns on TBS.

These are the things I learned:

From kindergarten:
Share everything.

From Kramer:
“Retail is for suckers.”

From kindergarten:
Play fair.

From Jerry:
“To me, a lawyer is basically the person that knows the rules of the country. We’re all throwing the dice, playing the game, moving our pieces around the board, but if there is a problem the lawyer is the only person who has read the inside of the top of the box.”

From kindergarten:
Don’t hit people.

From Kramer:
“The camp ended a few days early….I punched Micky Mantle in the mouth.”

From kindergarten:
Put things back where you found them.

From Jerry:
“Very few crooks even go to the trouble to come up with a theme for their careers anymore. It makes them a lot tougher to spot. “Did you lose a Sony? It could be the Penguin. I think we can round him up; he’s dressed like a penguin. We can find him; he’s a penguin!”

From kindergarten:
Clean up your own mess.

From Frank:
SERENITY NOW! SERENITY NOW!

From kindergarten:
Don’t take things that aren’t yours.

From Kramer:
“Wait a minute. You mean to say that you drugged a woman so you could take advantage of her toys?”

From kindergarten:
Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody.

From Jerry:
“Why do people give each other flowers? To celebrate various important occasions, they’re killing living creatures? Why restrict it to plants? “Sweetheart, let’s make up. Have this deceased squirrel.”

From kindergarten:
Wash your hands before you eat.

From Jerry:
“When somebody has B.O., the “O” usually stays with the “B”. Once the “B” leaves, the “O” goes with it. “

From kindergarten:
Flush.

From Elaine:
“No, I don’t have a square to spare. I can’t spare a square.”

From kindergarten:
Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.

From Jerry:
“The black and white cookie. I love the black and white. Two races of flavour living side by side in harmony. It’s a wonderful thing, isn’t it?”

From kindergarten:
Live a balanced life. Learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work some every day.

From George:
“Just remember Jerry, it’s not a lie if you believe it.”

From kindergarten:
Take a nap every afternoon.

From Jerry:
“Sleep is separate from That, and I don’t see how sleep got all tied up and connected with That.”

From kindergarten:
When you go out into the world, watch for traffic, hold hands, and stick together.

From Jerry:
I can’t go to a bad movie by myself. What, am I gonna make sarcastic remarks to strangers?

From kindergarten:
Be aware of wonder.

From Elaine:
“I wanted to talk about how we had nothing to talk about.”

From kindergarten:
Remember the little seed in the plastic cup. The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.

From Newman:
“The mail never stops. It just keeps coming and coming and coming, there’s never a let-up. It’s relentless. Every day it piles up more and more and more! And you gotta get it out, but the more you get it out the more it keeps coming in. And then the bar code reader breaks and it’s Publisher’s Clearing House day!”

From kindergarten:
Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the plastic cup – they all die. So do we.

From Jerry:
“According to most studies, people’s number one fear is public speaking. Number two is death. Death is number two. Does that sound right? This means to the average person, if you go to a funeral, you’re better off in the casket than doing the eulogy.”

From kindergarten:
And then remember the book about Dick and Jane and the first word you learned, the biggest word of all: LOOK . Everything you need to know is in there somewhere. The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation, ecology and politics and sane living.

From Jerry:
“Sometimes the road less traveled is less traveled for a reason.”

What valuable life lesson have you learned from Seinfeld?

ADIOS MUCHACHOS!