Perspective
Stories
Contents
“Perspective” by C. David McKirachan
“I’m Popeye the Sailor Man – toot toot” by C. David McKirachan
Perspective
by C. David McKirachan
Luke 5:1-11
I was driving home the other day and heard a panel discussion about Hell. It did not originate from South Carolina or Alabama, so I knew it had nothing to do with the football game. It was an interesting mix of people. A philosopher, an Episcopal priest, an Evangelical pastor, and a pastor who founded a church using a rethinking of our constructs about punishment and redemption as a center piece of his ministry.
Lots of the listener emails were pretty predictable, but one caught my attention. The emailer wondered if sinners were redeemed, forgiven and not forced to suffer and if that was fair to the victims of the sinners’ acts? Where was the justice?
Throughout my ministry I have encountered horrific acts of abuse, crime, manipulation, arrogance, neglect, self-centered judgement, prejudice, gleeful destruction, and willful pollution. I have seen innocence and beauty destroyed by whim and for profit. My initial response has predictably been anger. But as I’ve considered the perpetrators, I’ve always had a hard time maintaining rage that would allow me to find satisfaction in hurting and punishing. I’ve seen them as victims of their own crimes and usually of the crimes of others in their journey to the horrors in question. Our lives are so tangled with each other — none of us are innocent of insults and neglects that may divert some poor soul into the Gehennas of sin.
The panel on the radio really wrestled with the issue of justice and punishment. I was inordinately proud of them. But no one brought up the idea that God’s perspective is different than ours. We humans have all kinds of constructs that we decorate ourselves with, like fairness, law, justice, rights. Each and all of them are noble attempts to help us get along with each other and to protect the weak from the strong. To help us live beyond the law of tooth and claw, Lex Taliones, where might makes right, and the one with the machine gun wins. Such constructs allow us to have civilization. But none of them are perfect. Because we aren’t perfect.
A governor, in a moment of self-reflection, had all the prisoners on death row go through DNA testing and used the results to look into the evidence of the crimes they’d been convicted of. The results revealed that almost none of these people who had been found guilty could have committed the crimes for which they were about to be executed. He commuted their sentences and made a public statement that while he was governor, no one would be executed. He realized our justice system had holes in it.
God’s perspective is beyond us. The best understanding we have is through the incarnation and the cross. God loves us. That’s God’s perspective. If we are to move forward with some sort of an agenda from that, we must form lifestyles proceeding from that source. And we must always remember that our perspective is limited.
If we try to use God’s perspective of love, our lives will be messy, and weird, and self-sacrificing, and out of step, and periodically confusing. But we will know the peace of Christ, peace that passes all understanding.
Peter was a good man, a strong man, a fisherman, a leader, a man of courage, a responsible man, a husband, and a father. He went to synagogue, he probably knew how to read the Torah. But when he came up against Jesus he stepped into a yawning gulf where none of his categories or capabilities worked. He saw that his life was small and petty and limited. From then on, all this strong, responsible man could do was reach out for Jesus’ hand. It was all he had.
It occurred to me some years ago — what if somehow it was proven that all we believe in, the cross and the resurrection, my loving lord, was not real, that there was no spirit, that reality was limited to what we can see and touch? If all that was proven, I would keep believing, keep praying, keep reading scripture, keep sharing my faith, keep singing hymns, keep being a Christian. Two reasons support that. First, I think it’s the best and highest way to be. My faith is the best part of me, it leads and guides and helps me to be a better human being. It offers me a perspective on life and the world that is full of hope and courage. It helps me see and know that which is beyond sight and understanding. The second is less high and mighty and perhaps a bit selfish. In short: It’s a gas. It’s a joy. It’s a blast.
Besides, according to scripture, you can catch bigger fish.
* * *
I’m Popeye the Sailor Man – toot toot
by C. David McKirachan
1 Corinthians 15:1-11
Popeye was never my favorite cartoon character. With his strange arms, his insistence on knocking Bluto around, and his dependency on canned spinach (any vegetable that didn’t come out of my mother’s garden, fresh or canned, in her kitchen, was anathema), he disturbed my tender sensibilities. But…
There was one thing about him I liked. “I am what I am.” No one else said such a thing. There were a few Bluto’s in my life, any of which I would have loved to knock around (though I knew that was worse than canned spinach). But being able to say that simple phrase, “I am what I am. Toot toot,” would be a liberating experience. I did say it under my breath when I felt my back to the wall. Even though I couldn’t make it stick, it felt liberating.
Popeye was an average guy, weird, but average, until he saw the need for his magic juice, canned spinach. Wouldn’t it be nice to have something that worked like that? Then we could be who and what we were even in the face of injustice and brutality and cynicism.
By the time I ran into Paul’s proclamation, I was quite a bit older, but I was still beset by all the monsters that plague us. They were, in my more sophisticated form, more sophisticated and they knew new ways of torturing me because they rose out of my nearly adult sensibilities and sophistications. Instead of being about the fifth grader on the playground, they were about acceptance, loneliness, and acne.
I grew out of the acne but my boogie folk came with me. They developed with my growing sophistication, torturing me with anxiety about jobs, money, family troubles, turmoil in the world. They attacked me when people challenged me about the priorities I set for my ministry, about why I didn’t choose more good ol’ fashioned hymns, and why I didn’t know they were in the hospital (they figured ministers should know these things). The funny thing was my dreams were still full of Bluto’s, taking away what I treasured the most, making me powerless.
Paul faced monsters, just like we all do. I don’t know if he had dreams of Bluto. But people being people, he’d probably faced a bully or two. These Corinthian Christians were a challenge. They knew better than he did, and they weren’t afraid to tell him. They couldn’t get along with each other, him, or God, but why should that get in the way? They knew best. Sound familiar?
It’s called human.
Paul didn’t have canned spinach. But he did have the simple story of this guy named Jesus, whose life, death, and resurrection had drawn a line in history, shattered all the categories of sophisticated thinking and well thought out excuses for being idiots. Witnessed. It happened. Get over it.
But he knew that no matter how nailed down the whole thing was, people would think and act like fools and continue to be ornery and stubborn and afraid. It seemed they had better things to do with their lives than to allow the ruler of the universe to love them. Paul knew it because he knew how much it had taken to get him to see and to know his lord.
So he shrugged and said, “I am what I am.” (There’s a ‘toot toot’ right after that in the real primitive manuscripts.)
When it comes down to it there’s no magic juice. There is only an acceptance, a willingness to stop fighting with God’s opinion of us and an acceptance of it. God did all that, went through all of that because God sees glory in us. The question is, do we agree with God’s judgement?
Trying to persuade someone that they are loved is impossible. Be there, demonstrate it, be faithful about it, then sometimes they cave. I guess that’s what God went through. Once in a while we cave. And then that simple statement, “I am what I am,” becomes a doxology, an affirmation of faith, a witness, a confession, and a proof, unafraid, real, and compassionate all at the same time. It’s called letting your light shine. Because we know, know, that we are the beloved of God. Go ahead, try not to shine when you remember that.
There are still Bluto’s in my life. Now they have to do with falling down and forgetting things and not being able to do what I used to. Nasty boogers. But when they go after Olive Oil, the most precious things in my life, I just sing, with gusto, “I’m Popeye the sailor man, I’m Popeye the sailor man, I’m good to the finish because I eat my spinach, I’m Popeye the sailor man,” and I remember that Christ has died, Christ has risen, and Christ will come again.
Don’t forget to add: “Toot, toot!” The nasty boogers hate it.
*****************************************
StoryShare, February 10, 2019 issue.
Copyright 2019 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
“Perspective” by C. David McKirachan
“I’m Popeye the Sailor Man – toot toot” by C. David McKirachan
Perspective
by C. David McKirachan
Luke 5:1-11
I was driving home the other day and heard a panel discussion about Hell. It did not originate from South Carolina or Alabama, so I knew it had nothing to do with the football game. It was an interesting mix of people. A philosopher, an Episcopal priest, an Evangelical pastor, and a pastor who founded a church using a rethinking of our constructs about punishment and redemption as a center piece of his ministry.
Lots of the listener emails were pretty predictable, but one caught my attention. The emailer wondered if sinners were redeemed, forgiven and not forced to suffer and if that was fair to the victims of the sinners’ acts? Where was the justice?
Throughout my ministry I have encountered horrific acts of abuse, crime, manipulation, arrogance, neglect, self-centered judgement, prejudice, gleeful destruction, and willful pollution. I have seen innocence and beauty destroyed by whim and for profit. My initial response has predictably been anger. But as I’ve considered the perpetrators, I’ve always had a hard time maintaining rage that would allow me to find satisfaction in hurting and punishing. I’ve seen them as victims of their own crimes and usually of the crimes of others in their journey to the horrors in question. Our lives are so tangled with each other — none of us are innocent of insults and neglects that may divert some poor soul into the Gehennas of sin.
The panel on the radio really wrestled with the issue of justice and punishment. I was inordinately proud of them. But no one brought up the idea that God’s perspective is different than ours. We humans have all kinds of constructs that we decorate ourselves with, like fairness, law, justice, rights. Each and all of them are noble attempts to help us get along with each other and to protect the weak from the strong. To help us live beyond the law of tooth and claw, Lex Taliones, where might makes right, and the one with the machine gun wins. Such constructs allow us to have civilization. But none of them are perfect. Because we aren’t perfect.
A governor, in a moment of self-reflection, had all the prisoners on death row go through DNA testing and used the results to look into the evidence of the crimes they’d been convicted of. The results revealed that almost none of these people who had been found guilty could have committed the crimes for which they were about to be executed. He commuted their sentences and made a public statement that while he was governor, no one would be executed. He realized our justice system had holes in it.
God’s perspective is beyond us. The best understanding we have is through the incarnation and the cross. God loves us. That’s God’s perspective. If we are to move forward with some sort of an agenda from that, we must form lifestyles proceeding from that source. And we must always remember that our perspective is limited.
If we try to use God’s perspective of love, our lives will be messy, and weird, and self-sacrificing, and out of step, and periodically confusing. But we will know the peace of Christ, peace that passes all understanding.
Peter was a good man, a strong man, a fisherman, a leader, a man of courage, a responsible man, a husband, and a father. He went to synagogue, he probably knew how to read the Torah. But when he came up against Jesus he stepped into a yawning gulf where none of his categories or capabilities worked. He saw that his life was small and petty and limited. From then on, all this strong, responsible man could do was reach out for Jesus’ hand. It was all he had.
It occurred to me some years ago — what if somehow it was proven that all we believe in, the cross and the resurrection, my loving lord, was not real, that there was no spirit, that reality was limited to what we can see and touch? If all that was proven, I would keep believing, keep praying, keep reading scripture, keep sharing my faith, keep singing hymns, keep being a Christian. Two reasons support that. First, I think it’s the best and highest way to be. My faith is the best part of me, it leads and guides and helps me to be a better human being. It offers me a perspective on life and the world that is full of hope and courage. It helps me see and know that which is beyond sight and understanding. The second is less high and mighty and perhaps a bit selfish. In short: It’s a gas. It’s a joy. It’s a blast.
Besides, according to scripture, you can catch bigger fish.
* * *
I’m Popeye the Sailor Man – toot toot
by C. David McKirachan
1 Corinthians 15:1-11
Popeye was never my favorite cartoon character. With his strange arms, his insistence on knocking Bluto around, and his dependency on canned spinach (any vegetable that didn’t come out of my mother’s garden, fresh or canned, in her kitchen, was anathema), he disturbed my tender sensibilities. But…
There was one thing about him I liked. “I am what I am.” No one else said such a thing. There were a few Bluto’s in my life, any of which I would have loved to knock around (though I knew that was worse than canned spinach). But being able to say that simple phrase, “I am what I am. Toot toot,” would be a liberating experience. I did say it under my breath when I felt my back to the wall. Even though I couldn’t make it stick, it felt liberating.
Popeye was an average guy, weird, but average, until he saw the need for his magic juice, canned spinach. Wouldn’t it be nice to have something that worked like that? Then we could be who and what we were even in the face of injustice and brutality and cynicism.
By the time I ran into Paul’s proclamation, I was quite a bit older, but I was still beset by all the monsters that plague us. They were, in my more sophisticated form, more sophisticated and they knew new ways of torturing me because they rose out of my nearly adult sensibilities and sophistications. Instead of being about the fifth grader on the playground, they were about acceptance, loneliness, and acne.
I grew out of the acne but my boogie folk came with me. They developed with my growing sophistication, torturing me with anxiety about jobs, money, family troubles, turmoil in the world. They attacked me when people challenged me about the priorities I set for my ministry, about why I didn’t choose more good ol’ fashioned hymns, and why I didn’t know they were in the hospital (they figured ministers should know these things). The funny thing was my dreams were still full of Bluto’s, taking away what I treasured the most, making me powerless.
Paul faced monsters, just like we all do. I don’t know if he had dreams of Bluto. But people being people, he’d probably faced a bully or two. These Corinthian Christians were a challenge. They knew better than he did, and they weren’t afraid to tell him. They couldn’t get along with each other, him, or God, but why should that get in the way? They knew best. Sound familiar?
It’s called human.
Paul didn’t have canned spinach. But he did have the simple story of this guy named Jesus, whose life, death, and resurrection had drawn a line in history, shattered all the categories of sophisticated thinking and well thought out excuses for being idiots. Witnessed. It happened. Get over it.
But he knew that no matter how nailed down the whole thing was, people would think and act like fools and continue to be ornery and stubborn and afraid. It seemed they had better things to do with their lives than to allow the ruler of the universe to love them. Paul knew it because he knew how much it had taken to get him to see and to know his lord.
So he shrugged and said, “I am what I am.” (There’s a ‘toot toot’ right after that in the real primitive manuscripts.)
When it comes down to it there’s no magic juice. There is only an acceptance, a willingness to stop fighting with God’s opinion of us and an acceptance of it. God did all that, went through all of that because God sees glory in us. The question is, do we agree with God’s judgement?
Trying to persuade someone that they are loved is impossible. Be there, demonstrate it, be faithful about it, then sometimes they cave. I guess that’s what God went through. Once in a while we cave. And then that simple statement, “I am what I am,” becomes a doxology, an affirmation of faith, a witness, a confession, and a proof, unafraid, real, and compassionate all at the same time. It’s called letting your light shine. Because we know, know, that we are the beloved of God. Go ahead, try not to shine when you remember that.
There are still Bluto’s in my life. Now they have to do with falling down and forgetting things and not being able to do what I used to. Nasty boogers. But when they go after Olive Oil, the most precious things in my life, I just sing, with gusto, “I’m Popeye the sailor man, I’m Popeye the sailor man, I’m good to the finish because I eat my spinach, I’m Popeye the sailor man,” and I remember that Christ has died, Christ has risen, and Christ will come again.
Don’t forget to add: “Toot, toot!” The nasty boogers hate it.
*****************************************
StoryShare, February 10, 2019 issue.
Copyright 2019 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
