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Because I hurt my hand (which'll soon heal), I’ve been lying on the couch for two days in a Codeine-induced haze. Codeine makes me feel listless, unmotivated, disinclined to move, and slightly nauseous.

I had planned to write nothing today. But I just now realized that today is February 13. Which makes tomorrow Valentine’s Day.

Which is a day that causes most men to feel listless, unmotivated, disinclined to move, and slightly nauseous.

Man, am I always ahead of the curve, or what?

Anyway, when I saw the date I knew what I had to do: rally myself to write one more thing before collapsing back on the couch like a drunk someone had dragged in from the local dive bar.

Men! If you have a wife or girlfriend, you must buy her stuff for Valentine’s Day! (And you should definitely do the same for a girl or women whom you want to be your wife or girlfriend. But that’s not what this article is about.)

I know Valentine’s Day seems stupid. I know it’s just obnoxious to basically be told to buy stuff—the exact same stuff  that everyone else is buying, on the exact same day, for the exact same reason, which in any sane world would be universally appreciated as the very opposite of romantic, since the whole thing about romantic love is how special and private it is between two people—and to then have to hand that stuff to your wife or girlfriend as some sort of weak proof that you love her.

Okay? I get the problem with Valentine’s Day. All men do. Men experience Valentine’s Day as if it were a day on which they were ordered by the government to wear a tutu, ballet slippers, and bows in their hair. It just feels extremely unnatural. And intrusive. And mostly insultingly obligatory.

The male aversion to Valentine’s Day probably has something to do with testosterone. Who knows? Who cares? It is what it is. (Which is the Ultimate Manly Motto—but whatever.)

If you’re a guy who struggles with doing Valentine’s Day the way you’re supposed to—which is to say, the way you know your girlfriend or wife wants you to—please consider this advice as totally excellent and correct:

Do it anyway.

Buy your girlfriend roses, a big card with huge scrolling letters all over it, some chocolates in a heart-shaped box, and maybe a cute little stuffed bear. Get whatever of that stuff you can afford—and if you can’t afford anything, make her something, or do something special for her. And then, on Valentine’s Day, present her with your best gift in the most romantic way possible.

And what is the secret to willingly and happily doing all that, you ask?

The secret to doing Valentine’s Day in a way that both you and your wife or girlfriend will find fulfilling is understanding that your wife or girlfriend knows how you feel about Valentine’s Day!

She knows! She gets it!

You hate Valentine’s Day.

That’s the whole point!

Women know men. They know that men enjoy walking down the street carrying roses and a big red heart-shaped box like men enjoy … I dunno, a glass of champagne with their cheeseburger. It’s not who they are. It’s not what they do.

Women know that.

It’s not the roses, the card, the balloon bouquet, or the box of chocolates. None of that really matters to the object of your affection. What matters is that you gave her the roses or card or balloon bouquet. What matters is that you sucked it up. You put aside your own concerns about you and who you are, and made it only about her.

You sacrificed! You delivered! You stepped up! You did the manly thing, and made sure that her roses came with a lovely decorative spray of baby’s breath.

You publicly and boldly declared your love for her. Even though doing so was acutely difficult for you. Even though the entire process made you feel awkward, and embarrassed, and extremely uncomfortable.

But you didn’t let that stop you, did you? No.

You did it anyway. You kept your eye on the prize.

And that, my friend, makes you her hero.

It also makes you really, really cute.

Pffft. How is that not a win-win?

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Here is Pastor Bob's sermon for today. Please pass it along to anyone you know who, for whatever reason, couldn't make it to church this morning. Gob bless.

Radical Witness
A sermon by Pastor Bob
February 5, 2012
Text: Matthew 10:40-42

Matthew 10:40-42

“Anyone who welcomes you welcomes me, and anyone who welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. Whoever welcomes a prophet as a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and whoever welcomes a righteous person as a righteous person will receive a righteous person’s reward. And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones who is my disciple, truly I tell you, that person will certainly not lose their reward.”

–Have you ever served on a jury?

–A few years ago I had such an opportunity.

–I had not served on a jury before and I was very excited.

–Would it be a murder trial? Kidnapping? Drug smuggling?

–You can imagine my disappointment when I discovered the trial was for a speeding ticket!

–But it was a doozy of a ticket: the defendant was charged for driving over 100 miles an hour.

–It least that’s what the state patrolman said when he witnessed the car blazing past him on the other side of the highway.

–But the patrolman hadn’t actually clocked the car with his radar gun.

–He couldn’t, because he was on the other side of the road, and by the time another patrolman caught up to him, the car had slowed down.

–So what to do?

–The patrolman witnessed that the driver was going much faster than the rest of the traffic, which was going roughly the speed limit.

–The patrolman had experience and training that informed him of the accuracy of his witness.

–Yet was it enough?

–Without a smoking radar gun, was the patrolman’s testimony witness enough?

–I remember that trial when I think about what it means to be a Christian witness.

–It’s not always easy to witness to our faith.

–We have no uncontroversial piece of data about the existence, actions and incarnation of God.

–Basically, until Christ comes again—until the dead are raised, and the culmination of the Kingdom of God is fulfilled—-there are still a lot of questions on the table about God.

–It is the nature of our faith.

–It is not always an easy witness.

–Jesus realized this as he sent out his disciples to share the gospel with the world.

–He sent out his disciples with words that we overhear in chapter 10 of Matthew’s gospel.

–In the verses before, Jesus tells them that being a disciple is not easy.

–First of all, witnessing to our faith is not a money-maker.

–Second, Jesus pushes his disciples beyond their comfort zones.

–To share with those who are wounded both inside and out.

–To be with those who society casts aside.

–Jesus does not just send us to the neighbor next door, but to those who we would never consider our neighbor.

–Third, Jesus also realizes that witnessing to the gospel can be met with disbelief and utter rejection.

–People today point to the difficulties of the Christian churches.

–Given the scandals, misconduct, and the often unchristian rhetoric of some Christians, many folks are put off by the Church.

–And it has become culturally popular in some circles to not have any affiliation with a specific organized religion or community.

–Fourth, when it comes to witnessing the reality of Christ in our lives, we may find our priorities challenged.

–I ask us all this morning, what do you and I put before our God?

–Our families? Our friends? Our job? Our leisure?

–You must not miss the radicality of Jesus’ words to his disciples and to us.

–We do our best to try and domesticate Jesus’ call of discipleship and witness.

–We turn them into rules, into steps for better living.

–We sprinkle them into the cracks of our lives.

–But we are so careful not to let them take root in us.

–But what if they did?

–What if we let this gospel loose in our lives?

–What if we allowed it to take hold of our actions, our relationships, and everything we hold dear?

–What if we were a witness of Christ’s abiding love to not only the world but to the very core of our selves.

–Could we stand to let God into the depths of our hurt, into our shame, into what keeps us from truly living?

–Is it possible to allow the Spirit of God in? Do we dare?

–This morning we will witness such a moment in Anne’s baptism.

–Anne, our exchange student from China, has over the past year graced her host family, the Dunns, and our own community with her warmth, her curiosity, and her newly found faith.

–Such a faith came from Anne’s own persistent quest to understand, but also from the persistent witness of her new sister, Rachel Dunn.

–Rachel as you might suspect, is one of God’s busiest disciples.

–And besides sharing her life with Anne over this past year, she shared her God.

–And now Anne and Rachel are not only sisters through a year of living together, but are sisters forever in God.

–They are family in the deepest sense.

–And we are so lucky to be the larger family that is blessed by such a relationship.

–We are a crucible for God’s love.

–A place of the Living Word.

–A table where one is fed.

–If you are looking for the truth of God with radar gun precision then you are actually in the right place.

–For you—for we—truly are the body of Christ.

–As Christ says in our gospel reading this morning:

–“Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.”

–God bless you in your own journey of faith and witness.

–God bless you in your relationships and work.

–God bless as you find yourselves caught in God’s love.

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This was sent me last week:

Dear John,

I am a secular humanist who practices Buddhism. I am writing to you because I appreciate your writings regarding people like me who do not follow Jesus. I would like to share some of my history with you, and explain why I no longer follow god.

When my son was nine years old, he was raped by his best friend and his best friend’s parents. All together. All in one night. He was drugged, and when he woke up in the middle of being raped, a gun was held to his head. He was told that both he and I would die if he told anyone, or attempted to stop himself from being raped.

Anyone who allows that to happen to a nine-year-old boy, or who has foreknowledge of such an event and does not stop it, is evil, and deserves no more respect than the actual perpetrators.

I had no idea this had happened at all. My son hid it from me because he was in fear for my life.

My son is now sixteen years old, and deeply troubled. He physically lashes out; his behavior became increasingly sexual and inappropriate. Finally, he tried to harm himself. He was admitted to a mental hospital, and has bounced from hospital to hospital ever since. He hasn’t been able to make it on the outside for more than a couple months at a time.

I had always taken my son to church. I prayed over him every night; I read my bible daily (and knew it well). I believed and trusted god with my own life—and especially with my son’s life, since he was born three months early. I dedicated him to god while they held him nearby the operating table so I could see him before they whisked him off to the neonatal intensive care unit.

I also believed god through my first (very young, very brief) marriage, and also throughout my second marriage to a philandering preacher’s son, who beat me and my son, as his father had done to his mother and children before him.

With regards to this second marriage, every single leader of my church—from the head pastor, to associate pastors, to bible study leaders, and all the way down—told me to stick it out. One church leader told me that I should “pray the bruises away,” literally. They said that. And I heard this exact same thing from the leaders of more than one church, because we moved a couple times.

So those are the big reasons why I no longer follow god. I’d rather burn for eternity than follow someone who would allow all this.

Since leaving God behind I have less guilt, and have been building a more solid and secure life for myself. It is hard sometimes to not be able to place all my burdens on Jesus; it would be nice to have someone else carry them for a while. But he couldn’t help my son, so he certainly cannot help me. I believe it is a matter of self-delusion to find peace from faith; I find the same peace nowadays when I practice meditation, which involves no deity.

The little reasons I don’t follow god? They are all ones I find in your articles: the inconsistency of believers, the greed, the judgmentalism. The hate spewed by followers of Christ—or followers of any religion, really—seems to be poisoning the world.

I hope you will take the time to respond to this. I would be interested in your thoughts. Thanks for reading.

Dear woman who has suffered so much I barely know how or where to start with this:

It means more than I can possibly say that you trust me enough to bring this to me. It’s a genuine honor. Thank you for it.

You amaze me. You have ultimately responded to the morass of dark pain that has been so much of your life by lighting your own way out of it. That is absolutely inspiring.

Instead of staying beaten, as most anyone would, you’re rejuvenating. You’re meditating. From all through which you’ve thought and fought you’ve forged an actual, practical philosophy. So I cannot be in anything but sheer awe of your strength.

That said, I pray that you will not find too offensive my saying this: God did not harm your poor child. God did not beat you. God did not tell you to pray your bruises away.

It was not God who did those things. It was ignorant, vile people.

Your complaint against God is that he didn’t stop those ignorant, vile people from doing the ignorant, vile things they did.

What you are in essence asking about God is what throughout time people have always asked about God: Why does he allow evil to exist?

And that excellent simple question has an excellent, simple answer: God allows people to do whatever horrible, vile, evil things they want to, because to do otherwise would be to violate people’s free will, which is something that God’s love for all people absolutely prevents him from doing.

God gave us free will. And he will not take it from us. And we do not want him to take it from us. Free will is what defines us. It’s our most precious attribute. Without free will we are at best animals, and at worst mindless automatons.

God gave us our free will because he wants us fully independent. He so loves us, in other words, that he gave us the power to reject him. That is love, and full respect. We would not want, or stand for, anything less.

The great downside of free will is that it grants each and every one of us the capability of violating the free will of anyone weaker than ourselves. That’s a despicable thing to do, of course: it is what crime is. Ultimately all crime boils down to one person exercising their free will to in some way override the free will of another—which we all understand as such an egregious thing to do that we punish the perpetrator of such a violation by in turn removing, via imprisonment, their free will.

Life is about the exchange and negotiation of relative free wills.

The irreducible truth is that right now, if I want to, I can beat my wife. She is weaker than I; she could not stop me from doing that. I am free to commit that atrocity.

What you would wish is for God to stop me from doing that, to stay my hand. You wish for God to look down, see that I am about to strike my wife, and somehow arrest that action: freeze me in mid-motion, paralyze my arm, instantly replace my crazed fury with peaceful thoughts and feelings.

You want God to in some way directly and purposefully violate my free will. You essentially and explicitly want me, at God’s will, to at that moment transform into God’s puppet.

But the truth is that you do not, in fact, want that. Because you would not want God to also be able to at will transform you into his mindless, will-free puppet. Ultimately you would insist for me what you certainly insist upon for yourself: absolute freedom.

Every blessing carries its own curse. The blessing of free will is the curse of human evil. The two are inseparable. That cannot change.

If you want will that is truly free—if you want everyone to have the kind of autonomy you certainly desire for yourself—then you want stronger people to be able to victimize weaker people. I know that feels pretty distinctly counterintuitive—but, if you think about it, that is where you arrive. It is where we all arrive. No human being wants a God who is constantly busy monitoring their every action and thought, and preventing or suddenly changing those which he feels cross the line between good and evil, between right and wrong, between acceptable and unacceptable.

None of wants to exist on a slope so weird, slippery, random, and out of control. Not you. Not me. Not anyone. We don’t want God interfering with our lives and identity that way. And we can’t wish for others what we don’t want for ourselves.

I’d be the last person in the world to blame you for rejecting God. But the hard truth remains that it was not God who betrayed you. It was people. And God did not stop those people from committing their horrible transgressions against you and your son for the same reason he did not stop you from recovering from those transgressions in the valiant, ennobling way you have. With all my heart I hope that the damage done your son is in time similarly undone.

Below is a video about this very matter that I once wrote and produced via the free online tools available at xtranormal.com. (When you make these things, you have no control over the look of your chosen setting, character, or character’s voice—and you have few enough choices for either those. So you just … do what you can.)

Again, I’m profoundly humbled and honored that you wrote and allowed me to share in this manner your gut-wrenching and ultimately inspiring story. As I say, I’ve zero interest in trying to turn you into a Christian. But, man, I know that if I were Christ, I’d want nothing more than to have on my team someone of your quality, drive, and integrity. I don’t know much about much, but I’m certain of one thing: God would love to have you back.

As, most certainly, would I. Please write me again sometime, and tell me how you and your son are doing. In the meantime all my love to you, and thanks again.

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Here is this morning's word from my friend Pastor Bob, who ministers in a church in San Diego. Please share/forward this sermon to anyone you know who, for whatever reason, might not have made it to church this morning.

An Unclean Spirit
A sermon by Pastor Bob
January 29, 2012
Text: Mark 1 :21-28

Mark 1 :21-28

They went to Capernaum, and when the Sabbath came, Jesus went into the synagogue and began to teach. The people were amazed at his teaching, because he taught them as one who had authority, not as the teachers of the law. Just then a man in their synagogue who was possessed by an impure spirit cried out, “What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God!”

“Be quiet!” said Jesus sternly. “Come out of him!” The impure spirit shook the man violently and came out of him with a shriek.

The people were all so amazed that they asked each other, “What is this? A new teaching—and with authority! He even gives orders to impure spirits and they obey him.” News about him spread quickly over the whole region of Galilee.

--Our gospel reading for this morning touches on something that is not easy to talk about, especially in the 21^st century.

--It is about evil in this world.

--And not just abstract evil, but tangible evil that possesses.

--Evil that restrains our lives, our hope, our faith.

--Our text begins with Jesus attending worship at a synagogue in Capernaum.

--Sometimes we forget that Jesus was a good Jew who worshiped at whatever synagogue was close.

--And in this case, Jesus was teaching as well as worshiping.

--Jesus was a teacher, a rabbi.

--Only after years of training could one become a rabbi, and only after many more years would a rabbi begin to speak with authority---with their own voice, that went beyond just repeating what other famous rabbis had said many years before.

--Yet, here was Jesus, speaking with such authority that it went beyond the scholars of the day.

--It went beyond what anyone was expecting to hear.

--It was something new.

---It was the voice of God.

--And if anyone missed that fact, it was not the unclean spirit of this story.

--In the midst of worship came a voice that must have shaken the hearts of all who heard it.

--A voice coming from someone in the synagogue crying out,

--“What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.”

--Now, notice first that the unclean spirit uses the word “us.” “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?”

--Apparently there is more than one unclean spirit.

--Perhaps there are more unclean spirits in the one man.

--Or perhaps this is not the only person with an unclean spirit.

--In any case, it is evident that from the beginning that this unclean spirit is not alone.

--That its strength perhaps relies on its numbers.

--We too might relate to this reality.

--That when we face times of darkness and despair in our lives, it seems to multiply.

--To touch the many aspects of our lives.

--Until it seems like the whole world is against us.

--Such is the nature of darkness in our lives.

--Secondly, we don’t know whether the person with the unclean spirit had just arrived in the synagogue.

--Or, whether that person had been there all along.

--Slowly absorbing Christ’s words, letting them percolate, and finally being compelled to scream out.

--What we do know is that this unclean spirit shatters the moment with both profound fear and profound truth.

--The unclean spirit does not want to be anywhere near Jesus.

--It cannot tolerate Jesus’ teaching.

--It cannot bear such authority, such power, such love.

--It knows that the gig is up.

--That its time in this man was close to an end.

--The unclean spirit knows that Jesus can see it for what it is.

--That though the people around him are oblivious or perhaps ignoring the unclean spirit’s reality:

--Jesus knows.

--Now as we think about our own lives, aren’t we often oblivious to such things as well?

--Are we inclined to see or feel the pain in others?

--Are we likely reach out and break the seeming continuity of despair?

--Often, it is something or someone outside of ourselves who sees the truth of the situation with us.

--Who can look at our situation, and see it for what it is.

--Ironically, here it is the unclean spirit who first recognizes and speaks the truth.

--The elephant in the middle of the synagogue that day is not that there is present an unclean spirit or even a legion of unclean spirits.

--It is that the Son of God is in their midst.

--That in such a presence, everything is exposed for what it is.

--Not just the bad, but the good.

--And so in the middle of an ordinary service of worship the unclean spirit declares something extraordinary.

--That this man from Nazareth is more than a teacher; that he is the “Holy One of God.”

--It is in this person that God sends the promise that something new is happening.

--Jesus is no ordinary teacher, no mere liberator of minds.

--Jesus is here to free a world from all unclean spirits, from all the broken pieces of our lives: from death itself.

--The unclean spirit knows this, or is afraid of this possibility.

--Jesus rebukes the unclean spirit to be silent.

--And instantly it leaves the helpless man.

--It was then that the people in the synagogue began to have an inkling of who Jesus is.

--Before, they had seen him as a persuasive teacher.

--But now they recognized that his authority and power was beyond their experience.

--And as our text concludes, Jesus’ fame spread all across the region of Galilee.

--Now, as we try and absorb this gospel this morning, I have a few cautions for us.

--Most of us, when we imagine ourselves in this story, place ourselves in the crowd of those surrounding the man with the unclean spirit.

--He had an unclean spirit; we are somehow clean.

--We don’t want to think that we are occupied by darkness and temptation.

--And so, in our own fear, we are prone to, in one way or another, point our finger at the other, instead of at ourselves.

--The problem with this, of course, is Jesus.

--Jesus did not come into this world to simply teach us a little bit about ourselves, to share some wisdom concerning the world, and then leave.

--No. Jesus came so that we would believe in him, and in such faith have everlasting life with him.

--The reality of our situation is that we still need Jesus.

--That though we are promised salvation, we still live in the brokenness of sin.

--And that every day brings own its temptations and even trials.

--I wish I could say that because you believe you will not face difficult times. But we all know that is not true.

--I do believe that because of our faith, we are better equipped to face them

--To acknowledge them, name them and move to something better.

--Believe it or not, I think we can also learn from the unclean spirit.

--We must not forget that the unclean spirit in this story was part of an “us,” part of a community.

--Only as a community can any of us truly face the darkness.

--Jesus’ words: where two or three are gathered in his name, he will be present.

--It is true that the acts of individuals are important.

--However, it is as a community that we are truly the body of Christ.

--None of us here are completely holy, completely perfect in every way.

--But together we combine not only our collective weaknesses, but our collective strengths.

--And these are exhibited most profoundly in our love for each other in God.

--Brothers and sisters in Christ.

--Here is our reality:

--We live in both a strange time of challenges and an amazing time of opportunities.

--Our challenges are readily evident:

--Our economy is down.

--We are challenged by unemployment.

--Our youth search for identity in a confusing world.

--Yet, our opportunities are equally real:

--We as a community are empowered by the Holy Spirit.

--We are fed by its word and promise that God not only hears our prayers, but empowers us to take on the challenges of this world together.

--And we, like those in the synagogue that day, cannot help but be possessed by God’s spirit to share the love of God to everyone around us.

--Everyone in San Diego.

--Everyone in the world.

--Everyone, always.