This is the second in a series of posts on “Less-hyped reasons I follow Jesus.” For a word of explanation on what I mean by that, you can read the first one here.

Jesus is Unstuffy.

I thought I made this word up, but the spell check on my computer didn’t alert me with a red-dashed line underneath it, so I guess it’s legitimate. So you can play it in your next Words with Friends game. You’re welcome.

For a religious leader, Jesus is remarkably unstuffy. The more I’ve gotten to know Him, the more I’ve really come to appreciate this, maybe as much as anything else I’ve discovered about Jesus. Partly because it’s rare to find a person who is an expert at anything that hasn’t let their skill or acumen affect their attitude (in a negative way). Partly because so many religious people seem to be so rigid and, well, unfun (ok, this one I did make up). But mostly because at one time I was headed on the path towards [spiritual] arrogance myself, and I believe Jesus very literally rescued me from that stuffy place. I imagine He probably flicked me on my [spiritual] skull and, with a gleam in His eye, said something like, “Lighten up! You’re just a goofball like everyone else!” To which I obviously responded, “Oh. You know You’re probably right.”

His touch works wonders.

Jesus was decidedly unstuffy. Which makes it very disheartening that so many of His followers are not. I think this is one of the biggest issues that some people have with Christians. As a group, we tend to be very stuffy. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of vitality to our lives, especially in light of what we believe. The way we speak about our beliefs can come across as very narrow and way too conventional. And our attitude towards those we feel are not doing it right spiritually or morally can be, well, a bit on the arrogant side of things.

The problem is when you’re stuffy, you don’t know it. Kind of like the ghosts (spoiler alert!) in the movie Sixth Sense don’t know their dead (“I see stuffy people.”). Self-awareness is not one of the hallmarks of a stuffy person. If it was, they would be appalled by their own attitude and begin to change it immediately. But this seldom happens. If you sang the song, “If you’re stuffy and you know it, clap your hands!” nobody would clap. It would just be real awkward. Because stuffy people don’t know they’re stuffy. Which is a real shame because when you’re nose gets stuffy, you work your hardest to un-stuff it. Stuffy is restricting, annoying, difficult. Unstuffy is free, wide open, delightful.

To help us out, I’ve compiled a list of characteristics that place you firmly in the stuffy camp. I’ve learned most of these from personal experience, and a little bit by observing others.

• Taking yourself too seriously. If you find yourself getting offended a lot, then this probably means you’re guilty of this one. When people tease you or make fun of your faith or Christianity in general, your first instinct is to get real defensive and angry. I used to live here. I was building on some prime real estate. Here’s what I realized one day: the world is not out to get me. Everyone gets teased, everyone gets made fun of, everyone talks behind everyone else’s back, every faith system in the world gets lampooned. That’s just the way of things. Jesus was no exception. He got hammered in the court of public opinion. And how He handled the criticisms was strong and brilliant and freeing. He also warned His followers that criticism was inevitable and not to worry about it, to even feel honored because it puts us in great company. His words might be summed up, “Haters gonna hate,” or something like that.
• Jumping through hoops. Stuffy people love hoops. The more, the (un)merrier. Once, early in my career, I was at a youth ski trip with about 3 other churches from our area. One of them was a Catholic church youth group led by a godly woman named Barb, who loved her teens and wanted them to know Jesus as much or more so than I did my own. During the session the first night, the worship leader we hired to do the services asked one of his friends to come up and deliver a “brief” testimony. After about 40 minutes or so of talking, the young preacher man (he was younger than me so he had to have been early twenties) gave an “invitation” in which he asked anyone who wanted Jesus to come forward. The worship leader played a slow song (apparently you can’t walk forward in a church service to a fast song. That must be in the Bible somewhere, but I’ve yet to locate chapter and verse), and nobody came forward. Nobody…except for every single kid from the Catholic youth group. Hallelujah! Revival has broken out! we all thought. After the service, my friend Barb was very upset. She explained to us that in the Catholic church, it’s customary for everyone to go to the altar every time they go to Mass. So when the young preacher asked for everyone who wanted Jesus to come forward, they were all over it. It’s what they do. My friend was upset because she didn’t want her teenagers to get confused about what they were doing. It was very important for us to reaffirm that these teens didn’t need to jump through another hoop if they wanted Jesus. After offering a sincere apology to our friend, myself and the other youth pastors went and explained the situation to the worship leader and the young preacher. The young preacher looked at us as if what we were saying may have come from the Book of Satan and the conversation quickly ended (stuffiness knows no age). The next night, young preacher got up and delivered another “brief” testimony. When he was done, he asked that anyone who wanted Jesus to please come forward. I looked up to see every kid from the Catholic youth group walking to the front once again. Now, if you found yourself thinking, “maybe those young people just really needed Jesus!” you might be stuffy. You see, one of the most helpful truths of Christianity is Jesus’ claim that He, alone is the way to God. No good deeds, no “trying,” no special formulas or spiritual rules. Just Jesus. Wow. That’s freeing! But, man, have we tried to add some other stuff on top of it. I’ve been in many church environments where people were told that “praying the [sinners] prayer” would get you to God. Only the phrase “praying the prayer” is nowhere in the gospels. I’ve listened as many evangelists told their audiences that “if you’re 99% sure, you’re 100% lost” as if God’s grace was not big enough to cover their 1% or 8% or 42% uncertainty. This claim also cannot be found in the gospels. I’m sure a lot of people who said that were well-meaning, but some of them were just looking to inflate their “salvation numbers” for the brochure. The Bible also says nothing of denominations, or going to the front of the church while singing a slow song, or speaking with a minister, or joining a church. Although those may all be good things, they can turn us stuffy if we make them hoops that others must jump through in order to get to God. Jesus said He is the way. Faith in Jesus. That’s it. Powerful. Beautiful. Freeing. Very unstuffy stuff.
• Assigning conviction to others. When stuffy people read the Bible, or listen to a sermon, or read a book about spirituality, they’ve always got someone in mind that needs to apply what they’re hearing or reading. The problem is, it’s hardly ever themselves. Jesus was always whizzing zingers right under the noses of the stuffy people of His day, and they didn’t even know He was talking about them. They just assumed He must have meant somebody else. They were jumping through all of the proper hoops, so they were good. But the gospel is personal. It applies to me. To you. Everyone who reads it. Sure, there’s a place for interpretation, for preaching and teaching. But only after I’ve let those truths saturate, convict, and change me.
• Missing the point. This whole thing is about love. Any honest and objective reading of how Jesus lived and taught will reveal this. Doctrine, sacrifice, discipline, they’re all important. But only if they’re leading us to love God and people more. Sometimes people try to communicate it this way, “it’s about a relationship, not a religion.” And that sounds good, but even that can become just another thing we say, another ritual. And Jesus didn’t have any problem with religion itself. As best I can tell, Jesus observed all of the religious traditions of His day, right down to what He wore. It wasn’t religion He had a problem with. It was when people made religion the point instead of knowing and loving God. There are many aspects of religion that can bring us closer to God, communion, baptism, and spiritual disciplines come to mind. The problem comes when we being to think those things are the point. When we do that, we’ve missed it. The point is loving God more, loving people more. Jesus could not have been more clear on this.

I follow Jesus. One of the things I love most about Him is that he’s not stuffy. He’s not arrogant about His knowledge. He’s not into hoops. He’s unwaveringly tender and His truths are freeing in a way that nothing else on this earth can touch. The more I follow Him, the more tender and freeing my interactions with others should become.

If you’re unstuffy and you know it, clap your hands.

Clap. Clap.

[I'm a follower of Jesus.

I made that decision a long time ago. The moment I realized that I was a mess and was helpless to do anything about it on my own. I have faith that in that moment, because of my belief in the grace of God and the sacrifice of Jesus, my sins were forgiven and I was granted eternal life. I was originally attracted to Jesus because He met a need in my life that no one else could satisfy. And the promise of eternal life was just too good to pass up. I suspect that most Christians come to Him in similar ways and for much the same reason. As I grew physically, emotionally, and spiritually, it was the understanding of His unconditional, relentless love that kept drawing me closer to Jesus. And as I became an adult and found the purpose for which He created me, it is the hope and reality of full, free life that has compelled me to continue on the path of finding his sandal-shaped footprints and placing my unworthy feet inside them.

Eternal life. Unconditional love. Freedom and fullness. Those are all true and beautiful reasons for my desire to know and love Jesus. But as I've grown in my faith over the years, as we've gotten to know each other better, Jesus and I, there are so many more reasons for my fascination with Him, my commitment to Him, my faith in Him. Sure, Heaven, love, abundance, those get all of the hype, and they deserve it. But there are also some less-hyped reasons that my love affair with Jesus has continued to grow. Over the next week or so, I'll share a few of them with you. - mp]

One time, I was at the beach with some cool college students from my church. It was Siesta Key, Florida. The sand there is the purest in the world, they say. Over 90% pure quartz, or something like that. It feels as soft and cool as baby powder, without the dusty mess. Anyway, we had 2 Waverunners with us that week.  In order to get these fun machines to the ocean side, it was about an hour ride from the bay on the opposite side of the island. So every morning a group brought them around to the ocean side and then returned them in the evening.

On our last day, the rope from a wakeboard got caught in the intake of one of the Waverunners, rendering it useless. We tried for a long while to fix it, but we didn’t have the tools or know-how to make it happen. Eventually, we just tied the dead Waverunner to the back of the one that still worked and a few students began the process of towing it back to the dock on the bayside. My friend, Matt ended up on the machine that was being towed. It took over 3 hours to make it back around to the opposite side. 3 hours, on the back of a dead Waverunner, salt water spraying his face, sun beating down. On top of that, it was a Red Tide, a combination of algae and dead fish that produces a rather unpleasant smell.

When Matt finally arrived at the place where they would take the Waverunners out of the water, after 3 hours of smelly salt water smacking him in the face, he encountered something rather unique. He came upon a completely intoxicated man in blue jean shorts, holding a beer in one hand and laying in the shallow water up to his neck, surrounded on all sides by jellyfish that didn’t appear to be harming him at all. My friend Matt looked at him and said, “Man, how are these jellyfish not stinging you?” The man calmly replied, “You don’t [expletive] with the fish, and the fish don’t [expletive] you. It’s a hard truth, but that’s the gospel.”

I heard Matt tell that story immediately after it happened. I’ve heard him tell it literally hundreds of times since then. It’s still one of the most unique, incredible, and funny stories I know of, and I laugh every time I hear it. And a significant portion of the power and uniqueness of the story is the way Matt tells it. Matt is one of my closest friends and one of my favorite things about him is his story-telling passion and ability. He’s one of the best I know. When Matt tells a story, it’s an event. He gets up from his seat. He paces. He waves his arms in cadence with the rhythm of the story he’s recounting, the inflection in his voice rising and falling with the tempo of the narrative. It’s an engaging and interactive experience.

I love listening to stories. (I love telling them, too.) I highly admire people who can not only tell a story, but tell it well, in a way that engages me emotionally. You probably do, too. You make not think of them as storytellers. They may go by the term blogger, or author, or columnist, or screenwriter. But what they’re doing is creating stories, stories that affect us in ways that we know and can feel (and in ways that we may not even realize).

Jesus did this a lot. In the gospels, people were always marveling about how commanding He was while teaching. Jesus engaged His audience and made them feel what He was saying. He was captivating, magnetic, moving. One of His preferred teaching methods was story-telling. About a third of His recorded teachings were parables. Stories. With a twist. The best kind. And I can just imagine when He would tell a story that He would stand up, and his followers would scoot up to the edge of the rock or patch of grass they were sitting on, and Jesus would pace back and forth, His arms waving to the rhythm of the tale, the inflection of his voice rising and falling with the tempo of the story.

When Jesus tells the story in Luke 15 of the reckless grace of the father who allows his son back into his home and his inheritance after the son had blown his first share of this father’s estate in “wild living,” I can feel the shame of the son in my own failures and shame. I can relate to the love of the father as I think about my own children. When Jesus talks about a person whose home doesn’t make it through a particularly violent storm because they didn’t build it on the right foundation, the imagery of hurricanes bearing down, rain falling, winds howling, motivates me to make sure my life is on a sure base, because I know that life storms are coming, and coming fast and hard. I could go on and on and on. Stories reach our hearts and minds in places that lecture can’t even come close to.

I feel like we’ve lost the ability to tell good stories in our Christian culture. This is sad to me. If Jesus modeled communicating His message in story form about one out of every three times, and we are becoming more and more like Him, then maybe a natural result of following Jesus should be that our stories get better and more powerful. Feels like the opposite is happening a lot of the time. We’re great at sermonizing, but we don’t seem to tell very good stories. Not that I have any problem with sermons, I prepare and preach sermons often, and I listen to several every month. But it feels like we’ve abandoned other forms of communicating and put all of our eggs in the lecture-format basket.  Even the movies Christians make end up feeling like a 2-hour sermon. Movies are supposed to be stories, not sermons. When I go see a film, I don’t want to be preached to. I want to hear, see, feel a story. I can draw my own conclusions about life, and morality, and God without having them spoon-fed to me. That’s the wonder of the human intellect. That’s the beauty and power of story.

(Note: There’s a new movie coming out this weekend based on a book that has influenced my spirituality as much as any book I’ve ever read. It’s called Blue Like Jazz. I’m really hopeful that this movie – written, produced, and made by followers of Jesus – will be a story and not a sermon. A chance to engage other people who may not have committed their hearts and lives to following Jesus in conversations about what it means to be a person of faith.)

Jesus was a great story-teller. Maybe the best ever. I love that about Him. It’s not something I ever thought of when I committed to following Him, but it makes me want to stay close on His heels now. I want to learn to tell stories like He did. I want to stand up and pace, wave my arms, adjust my voice, and captivate an audience (whether it be hundreds or just a few friends), make them feel something, something that will stay with them, something they’ll have to wrestle with, something that will be a catalyst for them in their spiritual journey.

I’m a follower of Jesus. The more I know Him, the more I should listen to and contemplate His stories, the more I should appreciate story-telling, the more I should be telling stories of my own. Stories that bend and shape and reset the moral compass of those listening. Stories with a twist. The best kind.

If all I do is lecture people about faith, I’ve missed a big part of the power of God’s love and the heart of Jesus’ message.

It’s a hard truth, but that’s the gospel.

“He is not here; he has risen, just as he said.” – Matthew 28:6

When I read this today, I thought of something I hadn’t in quite a while.

The feeling of utter surprise that must have overtaken the women when they heard those words.

They didn’t go to Jesus’ tomb expecting a miracle. They weren’t prepared for a celebration. They were there to continue the mourning process. You know how it is when you’ve lost a loved one. In your grief, you just keep going back to the place where their body remains. You don’t know why, but you do. There’s something about being there that makes you feel closer.

And so there they were. Surprised, shocked, in the best possible way. Sure, Jesus had said He would be raised from the dead. But they didn’t believe Him. Neither would we. How often does a person die and live to tell about it?

It wasn’t likely. In fact, it was the most unlikely scenario for them to come upon. At a time when it didn’t seem possible, at the apex of their mourning, Jesus surprised them with joy, excitement, hope.

So of all the many things that we can say and know about Resurrection Sunday, one of the most comforting is that Easter reminds us that our sorrow will not strangle us forever. At a time when it doesn’t seem possible, in the most unexpected way, Jesus gently takes our tune of mourning and writes over it a victory song.

It’s a song so pure you can’t help but dance to it.

Dance, for His song is true.

Dance for His song is beautiful.

Dance for His song is everlasting.

“You have turned for me my mourning into dancing…” Psalm 30:11

I went to the World of Coca-Cola with my family today. At the beginning of the tour, there’s an animated film with cute cartoon characters and catchy sing-a-long tunes. It’s a little tale about what it takes to be happy by taking a peek at what happens inside a Coke machine once you put your money in. It’s all pretty good and entertaining except at the beginning what sets the whole crazy process in motion is one quarter going into the machine. Which is totally unrealistic. I can buy into a whole world of interesting and never-seen-before creatures inside every soda machine, who prepare the Coke from start to finish and send it down the chute with fireworks and live music playing, but only a quarter for a Coke? Please.

Anyway, one of the crazy creatures inside the machine are these furry things that look a bit like fuzzy earmuffs, only with big red lips on them.

(A depressed fuzzy ear muff creature)

And what happens in the film is one of these little guys is sad. He’s devastated because he fell in love with a dandelion, mistaking it for one of his own kind. And the dandelion just drifted away, as dandelions tend to do. And not seeing any other way possible to attain happiness other than in this one dandelion, the fuzzy ear muff creature just lays around all day, lonely and forlorn (it’s a classic Hollywood love story). That is, until the blue creature with the long neck who can sing and play guitar puts 2 empty coke bottles in front of fuzzy ear muff’s (heretofore unseen) eyes and points them in the direction of a whole field of dandelions, just waiting to be picked and loved.

Happiness. Returned.

When I saw all of this, it triggered thoughts of many people I’ve counseled with over the years. And not just because they look like fuzzy ear muffs with giant lips. It was the being zoned in on one dandelion person, one love that drifted away. It was being convinced there was only one way to true happiness, and when One Way was gone with the wind, it was all sadness, and being forlorn, and flopping around hopelessly. And sometimes I’ve had to play the role of the blue guy with the long neck who was good at playing the guitar (unfortunately I’m still not good at playing guitar, though occasionally I still try to be) and open their eyes to the abundance of other dandelions people out there, some just as wonderful, or even more so, than the one that drifted away.

I’m sure we’ve all been there. Focused in on that one person, thing, career, dream that we once had. It was once in our grasp, but somehow found itself caught on a breeze and wafted out of our lives. We watched it disappear and then flopped around, sad and forlorn, just wishing she would come back, that it would be like it used to be, that we could do the things we once did, that he would call, that we could somehow return to that place, that time, that life. And whether you’re on the inside of a Coke Machine or out in the real world, that’s no way to live. At least not a fulfilled and forward way.

Your dream is not back there. It’s up ahead.

Fulfillment is not in that person. It’s in a purpose.

Life isn’t found in that one thing. It’s found in the abundance.

And if you want proof, stop looking behind you and start looking in front of you.

And if you still don’t believe me, just grab a couple of empty coke bottles, put them up against your wide eyes, and take a look around. Dandelions are everywhere. Great, green fields of them. As far as the eye can see. Every one of them put in its place by the fingertips of God.

The God who makes life is big and beautiful.

We humans are a fascinating lot, aren’t we? This was my thought as I finished my workout earlier today. Fascinating because we come up with so many ways to separate ourselves from each other, label each other, seek out the differences in each other. When the truth is, at our core…

We’re really all the same.

We’re all a mixed bag of beauty and brokenness, hope and fear, faith and doubt, strength and fragility, love and selfishness. We are connected to each other by our shared and flawed humanity, by our inability to outmaneuver death, by our failure to find significance on our own. And yet we keep coming up with all of these categories to sever these connections and isolate ourselves in ways that are intended to make us feel unique but only seem lead us into pride, anger, loneliness.

Prideful, angry, lonely people. Humble, tender, fulfilled people. Always weaving in and out and through these realities, all at the same time.

We’re all the same.

This is one of the things that is so compelling about the gospel. It affirms the uniqueness of the individual’s soul while at the same time observing and affirming our common struggle. The gospel says we’re all a mess and in our very bones we know this to be true, whether we’d ever admit it or not. The gospel says death is inevitable and we are powerless to do anything about it on our own. The gospel reminds us all of our best efforts to create a fulfilling and happy life for ourselves are futile and doomed to fail. And as we reflect on the chaos and pain those efforts have caused, we are forced to surrender to the overwhelming weight of the evidence.

Every other faith system says there are differences, categories, scales. They claim you can earn a more favorable position with God in comparison to others, that God will love you more than less faithful people if you say the right things, do the right things, believe the right things. But what about the times when we don’t say the right things, don’t do the right things, and waver in our beliefs? And what about the times when all off those things are happening all at once?

I need someone who isn’t a mess to do something about my mess. I need someone who ventured into the darkness of death and returned triumphant. Like that scene in Rudyard Kipling’s Rikki-Tikki-Tavi where the mongoose follows Nagaina the evil cobra down into her hole and against all hope emerged from the ground, with the good news the evil snake of the garden had been destroyed, that life and peace and freedom were finally restored to their proper place. I need someone who can show me why I was created and how my life was meant to be lived.

The gospel names that someone.

It’s Jesus.

I need Him. You need Him. We all need Him.

We’re all the same.

Messy, incapable, insecure. Confident, talented, breathtaking.

All of us infinitely and eternally loved by God.

Fascinating.

I’ve been listening to a lot of podcasts lately. I’m kind of addicted. Probably why I haven’t been writing much at all. Just been soaking up all of that good info. It’s good to listen more than you speak. At least that’s the excuse I keep giving myself when I feel inferior for not writing more often ever.

Anyway, one of my favorite podcasts to listen to is called The Memory Palace. It’s a collection of historically-based stories that usually run anywhere from 3-10 minutes in length. I love story-telling, and this is story-telling at its finest. I highly recommend it. So a few days ago, I was listening to a story about the man who sat and guarded the first atomic bomb as it hung in the desert during a particularly violent storm in the 1940′s. The atomic bomb, the weapon that would be a breakthrough in military combat, effectively end World War 2 and catapult the world into the Cold War wasn’t called a bomb by those whose level of security clearance was high enough to know about it.

It was known simply as “The Gadget.”

No big deal. Nothing to see here. Just a “gadget.” The most destructive object ever created by human intellect and ingenuity, designed to destroy lives at an unprecedented rate and on a massive scale. It was just a “gadget” to the people who were conceiving it, planning it, building it. I suppose if they had referred to it as the Widespread Death and Misery Machine, it would have been difficult to give their life to work on that kind of project. So they substituted a euphemism for it. Something that would make it seem more palatable, less harmful, more worthy of commitment. A bomb is destructive, deadly, horrifying. A “gadget” is a tool, it’s whimsical, it’s harmless.

Fascinating.

And terrifying.

As I pondered the implications of this, my first thought went to all of the gadgets that we use today. Things we think we can’t live without and yet may or may not be bringing much death and destruction to our relationships or even our souls. But since I’m not ready to ditch all of this technology to live in an Amish paradise (I won’t even consider giving up my iPhone. It may destroy me one day, but what a way to go!), I quickly dragged those thoughts to the Trash Bin and hit “empty.” It was then that I was reminded of something similar, but different.

We all struggle with issues or pursuits that can potentially destroy us. Things we think we can’t do without but might end up wiping us out. As Donald Miller puts it in Blue Like Jazz, “sometimes the things we want most in life are the things that will kill us.” And we all face this struggle. But most of the time, we call it something different, something that makes it seem less deadly or have less power over us. We all have a “gadget” that, if deployed in all of its force, would bring us down, and possibly even everyone around us.

I thought of words and phrases, things like “comfort food,” “cocktail,” “hooking up.” That’s not an exhaustive list, and I’m not saying all of those things are bad, depending on the circumstances or your own definitions. But if you’re honest and self-aware, it would only take you a few moments to evaluate the things in your life that are harmful, things you’ve packaged in your mind and heart in a way so as to make them more acceptable. Less of a reminder of the potential harm they can do. After all, we’re all “medicating” in some way or another.

So this calls for some serious introspection on our part. As we evaluate our lives and hearts, we must ask ourselves, is this thing really just a “gadget?” Or is it a bomb that, when fully deployed, could bring destruction and devastation to my heart, relationships, or even my life.

It’s time to inspect our gadgets.

Woo hoo.