Failure, Real Life, and Terri

In the TOTALLY under-the-radar 2011 film Terri, John C. Reilly and Jacob Wysocki play a high school guidance counselor and a troubled teen, respectively. They form an unlikely bond (sounds like a indie movie, right?) as Reilly tries to help Wysocki pull himself together. In this scene, Wysocki has confronted Reilly about a lie he's told, and this is Reilly's response:

"Life's a mess, dude." Truer words were never spoken, until seconds later when Reilly says, "Maybe I will do better, or maybe I'll do even worse. I don't know. I screw up all the time, 'cause that's what people do."

The story Reilly tells about the secretary in his office and the temp who replaces her is a moving (in an "oh my gosh, I'm just like that" way) description of the brokenness of human life, and yet another reminder of the distinction between our insides and our outsides. We think, as Reilly's temp does, that the important thing is how we appear. We know when it's appropriate to be sad, and so we make our display. We know we're supposed to love our neighbor, so we act the part. But Reilly (and usually, the people in our lives, too) see right through us. We are significantly more transparent than we believe we are, and everyone knows, inherently, that what's most important is what's inside us.

And then Reilly admits that, ultimately, he's just like his temp. He messes up. He does his best (we all do), but he's likely to keep messing up. This is true of enlightened guidance counselor types and this is true of Christians. We screw up all the time, 'cause that's what people do (see: the Armstrong/Hamilton Conundrum). I have a good friend who once said, "People are bad, and Christians are people." Simple, yet profound.

As usual, the best news for us is the Good News, and the Good News is only good if it's true for Christians, too: "Jesus said to them, 'It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners'" (Mark 2:17).

The Truman Show and Fleeing a Good Deal

In Peter Weir's 1998 film The Truman Show, Jim Carrey plays Truman, a man who unwittingly lives inside a giant television studio, his life broadcast to the world in the highest rated show of all time. His family, friends, neighbors...everyone in his life is a paid actor. As the film opens, Truman begins to suspect that there is something false about his surroundings. In the film's climax, Truman sets off to leave the island on which he lives, finally getting to speak to the show's creator (Ed Harris' Cristof), at the climactic moment:

Note the perceptible pause when Cristof tells Truman that he "is the creator...of a television show." We are clearly meant to think of Cristof as God. Cristof tries to tell Truman that the world "out there" is no different than the world to which he's grown accustomed, but the audience knows the difference: inside the studio, Truman isn't "free" in any real sense. His psyche has been manipulated to make him fear water, his potential mate and best friend are chosen for him, even the advertisements he sees and the radio he listen to are designed to have a particular desired effect on him. He is steered.

Outside, the audience believes that, at least, he will be able to make his own decisions. This is why they cheer so raucously when he makes his courageous decision to leave the world that has been constructed for him and go it on his own.

We feel the same way as the audience, which is why we "leave" (i.e. disbelieve in) a God who is controlling (i.e. constraining our free will) and embrace a God who supposedly gives us our freedom. But look at what Truman is leaving!

"In my world, you have nothing to fear. I know you better than you know yourself. It's okay...I understand. I've been watching you your whole life. I was watching when you were born, I was watching when you took your first step. I watched you on your first day of school...when you lost your first tooth...you belong here. With me."

Throw away the specific details of the plot, and you begin to see: when we throw off the shackles of a "controlling" God, we are running away from a loving deity who has watched over and cared for us for our entire lives, who creates a place in which we belong, he calls us "okay" and understands us, and promises us a life without fear! And yet we still celebrate our striving for freedom! We are sure that we can do better, if only we are allowed to exercise our freedom!

But Cristof is right. The world out there (in freedomland) is just as controlling, just as enslaving, as our God, and yet not at all caring. Worse, outside of our "controlling" God, we are expected to save ourselves; to live lives worthy of eternal glory. Inside, we have been chosen -- a world has been created just for us -- to be part of God's life, and family, forever. 

The film ends soon after the above clip, but anyone who has lived here, outside the studio, for even a few minutes can easily imagine Truman running almost immediately back into Cristof's waiting arms and comforting embrace, like the prodigal son realizing that a controlling but loving father is infinitely preferable to the "freedoms" of a pigsty and bean pods. 

Barry Zito, a Broken Leg, and the Outer Christ

Barry Zito was once known as one of the most dominating pitchers in Major League baseball, winning the 2002 Cy Young award. Then, in 2007, he signed a huge free agent deal with the San Francisco Giants and became known as the worst signing in recent memory, a choke artist who never lived up to a tenth of his contract, much less the entire $126 million. As evidence, note that when the Giants made the playoffs in 2010, they left Zito off the roster completely, and went ahead and won the World Series without him.

Finally, during last year's playoffs (and eventual World Series victory), Zito began pitching well, in the face of all expectations. In the recent ESPN The Magazine "Interview Issue," he took a stab at explaining why:

I was raised so out of the box. From a spiritual side, my grandmother founded a religion [Teachings of the Inner Christ] and a teaching center in the '60s in San Diego, and I was raised on that. That's where a lot of the eccentric, Zen things [for which he is famous] come from. But I just needed more structure, and sometimes you have to go through difficulty and physical trials to really get broken down. In 2011, I got broken down physically as well as mentally. In August of that year, I committed my life to God. I realized I'd been relying on my own strength for so long, and man, I'd been wearing it. So this was about finding a strength outside of myself. The way I was raised, that's a concept I never would have given any credence.

I had this very odd injury in April of 2011 -- a lisfranc ligament tear. I came off the field after never being hurt in 11 years and said: "All right, something bigger is going on here. A message is being sent, and I've got to listen." A few months later, my best friend told me an old story I really love. A shepherd will be leading his sheep, and one of the sheep will be walking astray from the pack. The shepherd will take his rod and break the sheep's leg, and the sheep will have to rely on the shepherd to get better. But once that leg is completely healed, that sheep never leaves the side of the shepherd ever again. That's a really beautiful metaphor. A lot of things happen to us as people, and we realize we've been relying on our own strength for too long. I got a tattoo, and it's the only one I have, of a golden calf on the inside of my right biceps. I show people that, and it signifies idolatry and that I was putting things before God.

Doesn't the name of Zito's grandmother's religion just say it all? "Teachings of the Inner Christ," indeed. Zito needed a savior from without (the Outer Christ), since the one from within wasn't doing him any good. The illustration is instructive too, as it can only be seen as a good thing from the perspective of a healed sheep. In the moment? To the sheep which has just had its leg broken? God might not seem such a sympathetic figure. As Tullian Tchividjian says in his book Glorious Ruin, "God doesn't save you from suffering, he saves you in suffering." The potentially disturbing metaphor of a shepherd breaking the leg of his sheep takes on a much more compassionate tone when you understand that shepherd himself has suffered and died for the lives of each one of his sheep.

Barry Zito needed the freedom that came from a reliance on the Outer Christ to pitch well. He never suggests that this is a path recommended for others, or that it will necessarily produce "results." Results become, if anything, a natural outgrowth. Note how much of all of this is natural, rather than chosen. It took a "very odd" injury for him to have his eyes opened. In the same way, though having our leg broken by the shepherd is never something that we would choose for ourselves, it is often the only way for God to open our eyes to our paralyzing need, and to the truth that there is a shepherd there to nurse us.

Grace, Weight Loss, and Dodge Ball

There was a time (perhaps we're still in it) when you could basically mad-lib a movie script and get it made: Loveable loser played by (insert comedian to taste, preferably Will Ferrell ) takes up or plays (insert sport) and is initially a failure, only to overcome the evil (insert either successful comedian or dramatic actor looking to have some fun), get the girl and save the (insert beloved gathering place or institution). Semi-Pro, Talladega Nights, Blades of Glory, Balls of Fury, Kicking and Screaming, Cool Runnings, and Major League all fit that formula in more than one way, and that's just the tip of the iceberg. Our subject for today is Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, starring Vince Vaughan and Ben Stiller (it's almost unfathomable that Ferrell doesn't have a cameo in this movie).

Vaughan and Stiller own competing gyms, and take very different approaches to weight loss. Anyone who has tried to lose weight will recognize these two methods (perhaps not in this exaggerated form, but still).  Here's Stiller, opening the movie in a commercial for his outfit, Globogym:

Stiller clearly thinks that self-hatred is the only way to overcome one's natural inertia.  In other words, you're not going to get off the couch and lose that weight unless you hate who you've become. If you can't recognize your hatefulness? He'll be happy to tell you about it. Now Vaughan, at end of the film, for Average Joe's Gym:

You can immediately see the difference.  "You're perfect just the way you are. But if you want to lose a little weight..." And the final shot of Stiller, back to his pre-Globogym self serves as the nail in the coffin of self-hatred's long term success as a diet plan.

Theologians might call these two gyms Law Gym (Globogym) and Grace Gym (Average Joe's). The law says "Be fit!" but doesn't have anything other the the commandment itself to get you there. So it keeps yelling, telling you that you're not good enough, that you're not skinny enough, that you should hate this you and move on to a better one. Grace, on the other hand, says that you are beloved, despite yourself. In Christianity, we understand that this beloved-ness is on account of Jesus Christ (in other words, it's not quite "you're perfect just the way you are"). This relationship between law and grace holds true no matter the law, whether it's "Be fit," or "Be successful," or "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength."

Surprisingly, belovedness despite perceived fault is the only true motivator. Vince Vaughan is right: when you feel loved and accepted in advance, you can begin to consider what you really want to do. There's no need for a personal trainer! People who live under the weight of the law will, over time, like Ben Stiller, self-destruct. It is only grace that leads to a healthy life, no matter what you weigh.

From "Jesus at the Movies" -- The Fight Club Gospel

There's a scene in Fight Club, starring Brad Pitt and Edward Norton, which finds Norton being taught by Pitt to make soap.

Pitt's character, Tyler Durden, embodies everything Norton's unnamed narrator aspires to be. It's Durden who makes speeches about "the things [we] own end up owning [us]" and when confronted with the ugly truth about America's consumer culture simply spouts invective: "[Expletive] Martha Stewart. She's polishing the brass on the Titanic...it's all going down."

Through a series of circumstances too intricate to go into here, Norton comes to live with Pitt, and begins to lose the trappings of Americana: his home, his job, his yin-and-yang coffee table. Pitt though, still thinks Norton is being a poseur, simply acting like he's ready to let it all go, while still being too afraid to really take the plunge.

This is a conversion experience of the first order. This is what we might call "the cross side" of Christianity. Jesus said that if any wanted to become his followers, they had to deny themselves, take up their cross and follow him (Matt 16:24). We think that this means discipleship is a hard road, with a heavy burden to bear. We forget that people who carry crosses always end up in the same place: on them. Brad Pitt says, "First you have to give up. You have to know...not fear...know, that someday, you're gonna die." This is the first step to freedom: To know that the road of the cross leads to Calvary. He goes on: "It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything."

We resist. "Lose everything? Deny myself?" we protest. "But that'll mean weakness...and death. That'll be the end of me!" The somethings that we hold on to, the things we imagine are keeping us alive, are the very things that are killing us, and killing us for good. The things we own end up owning us. Ed Norton puts our greatest fear into words: "You don't know how this feels!" We cry so to God, "You rip my desires, my hopes, my dreams...my life!...away from me. You don't know how this feels!" Brad Pitt holds up his hand, showing his scar, proving to the faithless that he's been here before.

Like Thomas, converted by the wounds of the risen Christ, Norton is converted by Brad Pitt's wounds. He has passed this test. He has carried this cross. Jesus Christ has borne his cross so that death can be a beginning, rather than an end, for us. He died so that we might live. He died, and we died with him (Gal 2:20), so that now we can be free. We have to know...not suspect...know, the reality of the cross. It is only then that we can really be.

Bad Preacher: Controlling God in There Will Be Blood

In Paul Thomas Anderson's 2007 oil epic There Will Be Blood, no character can stand in the way of Daniel Day-Lewis' Daniel Plainview. Several try, but they are mowed down by his titanic force of personality and will. Plainview literally seethes in every single scene in the film, even when sitting quietly by the campfire or going for a dip in the ocean. Day-Lewis' performance is so assured and immersive, his Oscar was a foregone conclusion.

Because of Plainview's (and Day-Lewis') dominance of the screen and the film, almost none of the other performances register, including Paul Dano's strange turn as both Paul and Eli Sunday. Paul shows up in an early scene, selling information that his father's ranch has oil on it, and is then never heard from again. Eli, however, is Plainview's main antagonist (although Plainview himself can only honestly be called an antagonist), a fire-and-brimstone-style preacher who wants to make sure that the church gets a piece of Plainview's oil profits.

Unfortunately for Eli, he is not the landowner, and Plainview is able to swindle the naive elder Sunday out of his ranch.  Here's Eli confronting his father about his stupidity:

In another scene, Plainview refuses to let Eli bless the new derrick, which leads (according to Eli) to the death of a worker and an accident involving Plainview's own son.

These two scenes go together to illustrate Eli Sunday's view of God: basically, Eli thinks that we can control God. First of all, he thinks that his blessing can compel God's protective action. No blessing, no protection. Either way, it's Eli who's in control. Secondly, he tells his father that God won't save stupid people. Again, it's people who control their salvation, not God. Smart, saved. Stupid, lost.

All too often, we think about God in the terms that Eli does. We imagine that he is beholden to us, either to our prayer life, to our faithfulness, or to our bidding. In fact (and this is good news), God operates outside of us, and despite us, saving us in our stupidity, and saving the world despite our attempts to destroy it.

Amar'e Stoudemire, The Ewing Theory, and Addition by Subtraction

Bill Simmons, author, editor-in-chief of Grantland, and owner of the sports corner of the internet, has popularized an idea that he calls "The Ewing Theory."  From Simmons' Wikipedia page: "The Ewing Theory claims that when a longtime superstar who has never won a championship leaves the team via injury, trade, or free agency, and the media writes the team off, the team will play better."

The theory takes its name from Patrick Ewing, the all-star center and franchise player for the 1990s New York Knicks, due to the fact that the Knicks always seemed to play better when Ewing was either injured or had to be benched due to foul trouble.  In the theory's most classic example, during the 1998-99 playoffs, Ewing sustained an Achilles' tendon injury, and it was widely assumed that the Knicks' season was over.  However, they promptly defeated the Pacers, even without an answer for Indiana's giant center Rik Smits. They did lose in the Finals, to the David Robinson/Tim Duncan Spurs.

There are Ewing Theory claims being heard now about this year's Knicks.  Amar'e Stoudemire, a perennial All-Star, began the season injured, and pundits immediately stopped talking about the Knick's chances.  But the Knicks have begun the season undefeated, prompting some to wonder whether or not the Knicks might actually be better without their consensus second-best player. The thinking, by the way, is that with Stoudemire off the floor, Carmelo Anthony has more room to operate and doesn't need to even consider giving the ball to someone else (For the sake of clarity, it should be noted that Carmelo never gives the ball to other players, but with Stoudemire on the floor, he has to at least consider it).

So one of the questions facing NBA pundits this season is this: Have the Knicks gotten better by losing a great player?  Has addition by subtraction occurred?

Of course, the addition by subtraction model is as familiar to Christians as a Thomas Kinkade print.  A common prayer is to ask that "we might decrease so that [Christ] might increase."  We know that we are only capable of anything because of Christ who strengthens us (Phil 4:13).  What is less familiar to Christians is the underlying truth of the addition by subtraction formulation: no one subtracts on purpose.

The Patrick Ewing Knicks discovered by accident that playing without Ewing made them better.  The current iteration of the team would never have sidelined Stoudemire intentionally.  And in the same way, we never consciously decrease so that Christ might increase. This is something that God does to us, for our benefit, not something that we do for ourselves. We think too highly of our own abilities to ever think to add by subtraction. So, much like a torn Achilles' tendon or the ruptured cyst in a knee (Stoudemire's ailment), God must break us down against our will in order to resurrect us. It is the only way. I've heard it said that God's job (at least one of them) is to destroy the idols in our lives. Unfortunately for us, our main idol is ourselves.  We must be destroyed in order to be remade.  Fortunately, God promises to do just that.

An Inspirational Speech: Chuck Pagano and the Power of the Word

Here's Colts head coach Chuck Pagano in the locker room after his team won on Sunday. Pagano has been unable to coach the team this season, having been diagnosed with leukemia and undergoing chemotherapy:

My first response to this video was, "Really?  People are really inspired by the 'Rah rah I'm gonna beat this and we're gonna win' stuff?" I was all prepared to compose a post about that old sports saying that Father Time is undefeated. In the sports world, it's used to call attention to the inevitability of players aging and declining in ability. It happens even to the greatest athletes. There comes a point when they just can't do it anymore. Father Time is undefeated.

We might say the same thing of ourselves: Father Time is undefeated. We can never escape our ultimate fate; not even the best among us, including Chuck Pagano. We might extend our time horizon longer than anyone expected us to, but Father Time is, and will remain, undefeated.

So that's what I was going to write.

But then I watched SportsCenter. And Around the Horn. And Pardon the Interruption. And I listed to the B.S. Report. And people would not stop talking about Pagano's inspirational speech. Sal Iacono (of Jimmy Kimmel Live) told Bill Simmons on the B.S. Report that gamblers should be notified when a sick coach is going to give a speech before a game, because there's no way that team's losing. That's when I remembered that some words have power.

I'm still dubious about coaching speeches having measurable effect on the outcome of games, even speeches like this one:

 

But some words do have power. Words that proclaim forgiveness can be freeing. Words that proclaim freedom can be enlivening. Words that proclaim love can make life worth living. For Christians, these words are all sourced in one place: the risen Christ, the Son of God. When God speaks, his Word creates. Light. Love. Freedom. Life.

Perhaps Chuck Pagano's moving speech is but a pale echo of the true Powerful Words, but I think we can all be glad for an echo that reminds us of the real thing.

The Armstrong/Hamilton Conundrum

Despite the title, this is not a post about a Big Bang Theory episode. This week, we're interacting (again) with humanity's seeming inability to grasp the moral complexity of the rest of humanity. As Lance Armstrong gets dumped by Nike, a major sponsor, is stripped of his Tour de France titles for doping, and steps down from the chairmanship of his Livestrong Foundation, talking heads (on TV and otherwise) wonder what to make of the man. After all, he has, almost through force of personal will, raised tens of millions of dollars for the fight against cancer. On the other hand, he has been cheating the system and self-righteously lying about it for more than 10 years. Bomani Jones, being interviewed on Dan LeBatard's Highly Questionable program, actually suggested that these two sides of Lance Armstrong were "mutually exclusive."

These Armstrong discussions come in the wake of Josh Hamilton's season as slugger and recidivist for the Texas Rangers. As this article illustrates, people are confused about what to make of Hamilton, too. Tellingly titled "The Prisoner of Redemption," the piece (by Grantland's Bryan Curtis) details the expectations that have been placed on Hamilton since he "cleaned up his act:"

The problem with The Story [of Hamilton's recovery from drug and alcohol addiction and development into one of baseball's best players] wasn't that Hamilton was telling it too much. The problem was that The Story was too perfect. Its happy ending left no room for a fourth act. Which is to say, the improbable, occasionally strange life that Hamilton was continuing to live and the odd turns of fate that would occur over the course of a baseball season. Here, we come to the 2012 Texas Rangers.

In February, Hamilton went out in Dallas and started drinking. At some point during the night, he called Ian Kinsler. Hamilton committed no crime, and a relapse is about the most predictable thing that can happen to an addict. But drinking didn't jibe with The Story. For if faith had helped Josh ward off Satan's stench, why was Satan back?

This question hovers over Lance Armstrong's head, too, though he doesn't have the added Christian dimension: How, if these are indeed good men (having raised so much money for charity and having played baseball so well), can they have acted so duplicitously (having cheated the sports world, lying about it for a decade, and going out for a night of drinking)?

How can Christians be such bad people sometimes?

We've spoken on many previous occasions of Martin Luther's famous formulation simul justus et peccator ("at the same time justified and sinner"), and it will serve us well to discuss it here. St. Paul (a...duh...saint, and author of two-thirds of the New Testament) asked God to remove a thorn of perpetual sin and struggle from him (2 Cor 12:7) and called out for rescue from his "body of death" (Rom 7:24). He described the Christian life (or more accurately, the human life) perfectly with those astoundingly apt words in Romans 7:

I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do...For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do -- this I keep on doing (vv 15, 18-19).

Of course Josh Hamilton and Lance Armstrong have led lives that seem to belie all the good they've done: they're human (peccator). In a funny way, Bomani Jones was right: our two states are mutually exclusive, but that doesn't keep them both from being true at every moment, all the time. How sweet, then, is the news that our savior came to save (justus) those who consistently slip back into sin, who know what they ought to do but cannot carry it out, and who consistently fail. Christianity is not a religion to help bad people get better, but a religion to get bad people saved.

The Fosbury Flop (and the High Bar of the Law)

It’s autumn now, which means that everyone can begin dreading stewardship season at church again. Preachers dread preaching it, congregants dread hearing about it, and everyone dreads being told how it all turned out. We’d all much rather think happier thoughts, like, perhaps, thoughts about the Fosbury Flop.

Dick Fosbury invented his “flop” (or at least brought it to the world’s attention) in the 1968 Summer Olympics.  It involves jumping over the high jump bar backwards, and landing on your back. It revolutionized the sport immediately, initiating an extended season of new world records. It was long entrenched as the only legitimate method of clearing a high jump bar by the time I began high jumping, in 1996.

I was a good high school high jumper, which is to say that I had no prayer of high jumping on the college level. I qualified for the regional meet, and could jump my height (a traditional benchmark). This meant that, in the main, I won or placed in most of the district and one-on-one meets in which we participated. Being among the best came with some perks. A good high jumper can use strategy to jump higher in meets or to psych out opponents…but sometimes, this strategy comes back to bite you.

Since the final standings of a high jump competition are determined simply by ranking the highest height cleared, jumpers can choose to pass on attempting lower heights, saving their legs and energy for higher jumps. This can also intimidate other jumpers, as in, “I’m nearing my personal best and that guy hasn’t even started yet!” I would often smugly pass lower heights, hoping my rattled opponents would fault out of the competition.

This is the mindset that a rich young man had when Jesus told him that, to be saved, he needed to obey the law: “all these [laws] I have kept since I was a boy” (Mark 10:20). “That’s child’s play!” he might as well have been saying, “I don’t even need to try!” In other words, he’s saving himself for the tougher jumps, the higher heights, the more challenging feats of obedience.

Then Jesus raises the bar.

At one district meet, I passed height after height, drunk on the scared looks I was getting from my inferior competitors. When I finally deigned to take off my sweats, a funny thing happened: I couldn’t clear the bar. Well, it was funny to everyone but me. There’s nothing quite so mockable as a high jumper who finishes a competition with no height cleared and in last place; especially one who has been so visibly unconcerned about lower heights.

When the rich young man comes face to face with the high bar of Jesus’ law, that to be saved he must sell all he has, give the proceeds to the poor, and follow Jesus, he goes away sad, “for he had many possessions” (Mark 10:22). He’s come face to face with a bar that he can’t clear.

As “stewardship” becomes a topic of conversation in our churches, let’s remember how high the bar is: everything you own. We consistently believe that the bar is low enough to clear: 10%. So we wave dismissively: give us a challenge. We tithe, and think ourselves righteous. But when Jesus raises the bar, we realize that the standard is too high for us, that the bar has been placed far above our heads. The standard is not 10%, 20%, or even 50%…it’s everything.

Jesus raises the bar for a specific purpose: We need to be brought into touch with our failures in order to recognize our need for a savior. The rich young man is confident in his high jumping ability. He could jump that high as a child! So he must be shown his need. Jesus knows that the first word of God (the law) must be understood in all its destructive power before the second word of God (the Gospel) can be accepted.

When the disciples see how this interaction ends, they ask, “who then can be saved?”  Jesus answers with God’s two words: First, he destroys: “with man it is impossible.” Second, he comforts: “But not with God. With God all things are possible.”

Who can be a good steward? No one. With man it is impossible. But not with God. With God, we have been called good stewards, in Christ, no matter how egregiously we fail and crash once more into the high jump bar. Where the rich young man went away sad, crushed by the law, we can stay, acknowledge our failure, and be saved.

Slugger, Redeem Thyself

The Yankees are going down in flames, and they're doing it in a way that no one expected: the Bronx Bombers can't hit!  Long known for using their high-priced murderer's row offense to make up for shaky starting pitching, the 2012 Yankees and losing close, low-scoring games because they can't score any runs.  Alex Rodriguez takes most of the blame because of his overwhelming contract and suspicious, mirror-self kissing, ways, but he doesn't even have the lowest postseason batting average on the team.  Robinson Cano, a perennial MVP candidate and fan favorite, does not have a hit yet this Fall, setting an all-time (in a sport that's been around and keeping stats since the 19th century!) record for postseason futility. 

Yankees fans, used to cheering the long ball, are growing frustrated.  A few days ago, a fan took the time to paint the sign at left and bring it to The House That Ruth Built (Yankee Stadium).  Big thanks to Dan Siedell over at LIBERATE for this picture, and be sure to check out his amazing thoughts on the intersection between the Gospel and art HERE. How do you think A-Rod feels, looking up into the stands and seeing this sign?  I know how I would feel!  I'd want to jump over the wall, clamber up to that fan's row, and scream in his face, "Look, I'm TRYING to get hits! Don't you think I'd be playing better if it was up to me? Don't you think I'd redeem myself if I could?"

Self-redemption is every human being's fondest hope, but it's also our impossible dream. In sports, people always talk about the disaster that can come from trying to make up for failures on the next play. Coaches always chide athletes to have a short memory; if you go into the next play, the next match, or the next game trying to make up for the mistakes of the previous one, you'll usually only compound them. The assertion is simple: we can't redeem ourselves.

The parallel to Christianity here is so obvious that it probably doesn't even need to be drawn. Humans refuse to believe that we are beyond helping ourselves; in fact we often protest that God only helps those who do!  We dearly wish that we could, ourselves, atone for the mistakes of the past, and say "Thanks but no thanks" to the offered atoning death of another.  We're uncomfortable owing someone so much.

We only acknowledge our need for a savior when the idol of self-salvation is unceremoniously ripped from our grasp. Alex Rodriguez, and the rest of Yankees, are almost there. One suspects that Justin Verlander will serve as the Hammer of God, finally convincing the Yankees, and their fans, that a savior from within is not enough.

I Would Never Do That: Denial and Cheering a Downed Quarterback

On Sunday, the crowd at Kansas City's Arrowhead Stadium was getting tired of quarterback Matt Cassel's poor play, so they began to chant backup quarterback Brady Quinn's name. As the saying goes, the most popular player on the team is the backup quarterback. For this to be true of a player like Brady Quinn can only stand either as a testament to the putridity of Cassel's performance or a case of collective amnesia afflicting the stadium. Chanting the name of the backup quarterback, of course, isn't rare (see: Tebow, Tim), but what is rare is what happened next.

In the fourth quarter, Cassel had to leave the game with a head injury. As Cassel lay on the turf after the hit that injured him, his home crowd seemed to cheer in relief. "Finally! No more Cassel!" the cheer seemed to say. The stadium certainly cheered as Quinn entered the game. Here is Chief's lineman Eric Winston reacting strongly after the game:

   

Whoa.

On yesterday's Pardon the Interruption, Tony Kornheiser suggested that if this happened (there's some disagreement about whether the cheering started when Cassel went down or if it began as he made his way off the field; it is common to cheer injured players leaving the field, as a way to let them know that the fans are behind them) it was illustrative of the "darkest part of human nature." Interestingly, both Kornheiser and his co-host Michael Wilbon expressed surprise that this kind of thing could happen in Kansas City, traditionally believed to be home to one of the nicest and most loyal fanbases in the NFL.

As they expressed their surprise, I couldn't help but think of the similar surprise that Christians express when their heroes falter. Ted Haggard comes immediately to mind. "Really?" we exclaim. "Him? How could someone who seemed so faithful fall so far?" I've heard the Christian life illustrated as the climbing of a ladder, and I'm willing to accept this image if we can agree that the ladder is infinitely tall and that each rung we've climbed immediately disappears beneath us. In other words, we're always on the last rung, hanging on for dear life.

The impulse that led Kornheiser and Wilbon to assume that the denizens of Kansas City were above cheering a quarterback's injury is the same impulse that allows us to convince ourselves that we (and other, similarly advanced, Christians) would be above that kind of thing, too. It only takes the right situation, however, to show us that our hold on that ladder was tenuous at best and that our falls can be as spectacular as anyone else's.

The tragic irony of the ladder illustration is, of course, Jesus' stated intention to save those lying in a crumpled heap at the bottom of it while having nothing to do with those proficiently climbing. The longer we continue to convince ourselves (falsely) that we are in good standing and out of trouble, the further we remove ourselves from the outreached hand of our savior.

"Earn This" and the Law of Saving Private Ryan

James Ryan walks through the American Cemetery in Normandy, an old man. He stops at a headstone, and falls to his knees, tears in his eyes. The headstone reads: John Miller. As Ryan’s wife comes to his side, he says through his tears, “Have I been a good man? Tell me I’ve lived a good life.” Moved, his wife assures Ryan that he has. Yet the tears don’t abate. James Ryan can’t be sure if he’s been good enough.

In Saving Private Ryan, Steven Spielberg marshals a wonderful ensemble cast to tell a wonderfully scripted, beautifully shot, movingly acted, and soul-crushingly judgmental story. John Miller is tasked with taking a squad of 8 men to find just one. Private James Ryan is the fourth son of a woman who has lost the other three in World War II. It has been decided that she will not lose a fourth. Miller’s squad eventually loses every man in the effort to save Private Ryan.

Miller meets his own end defending a bridge by Ryan’s side. With his last breath, he looks at Private Ryan and whispers, “Earn this.” With these words, he dies. We flash sixty years into the future, and the octogenarian Ryan has clearly lived his entire life with this great weight on his shoulders. Has he indeed earned the salvation that Miller’s squad gave their lives for? Miller himself, earlier in the film, muses, “He better be worth it. He’d better go home and cure a disease, or invent a longer-lasting light bulb.” Has he discovered a cure for malaria? Has he invented cold fusion? That awesome upside-down ketchup bottle? As viewers, we aren’t given to know. What we do know, however, is that he’s worried. Why else does he beseech his wife to comfort him? We see that he has a beautiful family. His wife tells him he has been a good man. Clearly, leading a good life has not freed him from the judgment of Miller’s words.

Christians too often hear these words, “Earn this,” coming from Jesus’ lips as he dies on the cross. We hear sermons to this effect: “Is the life you’re living worth the death he died?” We live our lives trying to earn it, to become someone for whom such a sacrifice isn’t so radically inappropriate. We turn into old James Ryans, worried that it hasn’t been quite enough. The most shocking revelation of the film is that Ryan’s wife has no idea who John Miller is! Miller’s judgment has been so heavy that Ryan has not been able to share his name or story with his beloved for his whole life!

But Jesus doesn’t say, “Earn this” from the cross. He says, “It is finished.” Even more radically, he says, “I tell the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.” The message of the Gospel is diametrically opposed to John Miller’s “Earn this.” Miller applies the law to Ryan’s future in a way that Ryan can never escape. No matter how profound an altruist Ryan may become, the profundity of Miller’s sacrifice will never allow Ryan to feel satisfied, or safe from Miller’s judgment-from-beyond-the-grave. One word of law destroys the grace Miller shows in sacrificing his life for Ryan. But it is not so with Christ.

No word of law escapes Christ’s lips from the cross. Incredibly, the word of law is applied to Christ (“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”). We are freed, and safe. We don’t feel compelled to hide what Jesus has done for us, as Ryan hid what Miller did for him, because Jesus expects nothing of us. Our Savior doesn’t say, “Earn this.” He says, “It is finished…you will be with me in paradise.”

The Law and Death of Replacement Referees

The internet exploded yesterday. At least, the sports corner of it did. For those not in the know, the NFL has been operating this season with replacement referees, having locked out the unionized regular refs in a contract dispute. The replacements have performed, depending on whom you ask, anywhere from "predictably shaky" to "seismically catastrophic."  Monday Night's performance, though, was one for the ages.  Calls were missed or made incorrectly all game long, but the coup de grace was a time-expired Hail Mary pass that seemed, in replay, to be awarded to the wrong team, completely altering the outcome of the game. For the first time, it seemed inarguable that the replacement refs had cost a team a game.

The narrative after the game has only gotten more strident: these replacement refs are doing a job that they're not qualified to do.  Most of them are lower-division college or semi-pro refs; one of them even has the Lingerie Football League on his resume.  They're simply incapable of doing the job (controlling and administering the rules for the best, meanest, and most out-of-control athletes on the planet) that they've been given. Don't you feel for them?

St. Paul says that "sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death" (Romans 7:11).  When Moses came down the mountain with those commandments, and then Jesus clarified and sharpened them in the Sermon on the Mount, we were given a job that we're not qualified to do, a task that is beyond us. We look as hopeless in our trying as the replacement refs looked on Monday night. But, as Paul also says, "I would not have known what sin was had it not been for the law" (Romans 7:7).  We wouldn't know how hard it is to referee an NFL game if the replacement refs hadn't failed so spectacularly. We wouldn't know how far from the righteousness of God we are if the commandments hadn't been brought down from the mountaintop to show us.

Failure, though, is the only thing that leads to an openness to salvation.  As NFL fans cry out (caution, naughty words) for the salvation of the real refs, they might as well be quoting Paul: "Who will rescue me from this body of death?" (Romans 7:24) It is to a dying man that a savior comes.  Jesus promises to be that savior for his creation (Paul rejoices, "Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!")...we can only hope that the real refs come back before He does.

Aristotle is of Two Minds about Jay Cutler

In sports journalism, athletes are constantly being referred to as "embattled." Perhaps quarterbacks are given this label more than any other athlete. It's safe to say then, that embattled Chicago Bears quarterback Jay Cutler is one of the more embattled people in the world. Sort of like how The Dude is the laziest man in Los Angeles county, which puts him near the front in the running for title of laziest, worldwide.  Cutler is a highly talented thrower with a knack for juxtaposing every breath-catching feat with a jaw-dropping interception. It doesn't help that his default facial expression is "I am sorely annoyed that I must be in your presence right now; I'd much rather be yelling at my pool cleaner. Oh, and I just ate something sour and am considering spitting it out."  It seems, though, that that's just the face God has given him.

A couple of years ago, Cutler had to leave the NFC Championship game with a strained ACL, and caught hell for it across the league, in real time, on Twitter. Last year, Cutler had the Bears playing really well, and on the road to the playoffs again, when he broke his thumb making a tackle, ending his season and the Bears' hopes. This season, he has played one great game, leading the Bears to 41 points in a week 1 defeat of the Indianapolis Colts, and one terrible one, throwing four interceptions during a week 2 drubbing at the hands of the Green Bay Packers.  Grantland's Bill Barnwell wrote this week about the Cutler phenomenon:

The problem is that we've somehow convinced ourselves that quarterbacks mill around at one level until they have a notably impressive game or season and establish a permanent new level of play, like they were characters in an RPG. That's nonsense, but we've spent the majority of Jay Cutler's career trying to pinpoint the moment in time when he took that big leap forward. We were sure Cutler had emerged as a franchise quarterback when he won that epic 39-38 game over the division rival Chargers in 2008. We were positive Cutler had taken the leap when he pushed a team whose most notable receiver was Devin Hester to an 11-win season and the NFC Championship Game in 2010. And we were definitely 100 percent onboard with the new Jay Cutler who led his team to a five-game winning streak last year just as he suffered a season-ending thumb injury. We keep telling ourselves that we've found the real Cutler, a guy who has eliminated his old faults and won't go back up the pipe to World 1-1.

The reality is that Cutler has followed up each of those big moments with disappointments, and we've used them as proof that Cutler's really a fraud and that those triumphs weren't actually meaningful after all. That shouldn't be a referendum on Cutler. It should be a referendum on us, the fans who are reading good and bad games as unassailable proof of Cutler's ultimate value as a player when they're really just peaks and valleys.

In his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle argued that you could tell what kind of a person someone was by evaluating their actions.  Does good things? Good man.  Does bad things? Bad man.  This is what Barnwell argues we do with Jay Cutler: throws touchdown? Good quarterback. Throws interception? Bad quarterback. Since Cutler does both of these things (though, as Barnwell notes, Cutler's "peaks and valleys tend to be more extreme...than they are for other players") we constantly flip back and forth between regarding him as a quarterback who has "finally figured it out" and one who won't ever "figure it out." We never attempt to get down to the root of the man because we are blinded by Aristotle (slightly more specific than being blinded by science itself). It is as hard for us to accept a person doing both good and bad things as it us for us to accept a quarterback who throws both touchdowns and interceptions...but of course this is the way things are. Quarterbacks (even Tom Brady and Peyton Manning...see Monday Night's game) throw both touchdowns and interceptions. People do both good and bad things. We must be considered more thoughtfully.

God tells Samuel that he "does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart" (1 Sam 16:7), and unfortunately (as Jeremiah put it) "the heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?" (17:9) Perhaps a more properly ethical way for us to judge our quarterbacks is to see them as incurable interception machines who are miraculously given to throwing touchdown passes from time to time. From that vantage point, Jay Cutler looks more blessed than most. Perhaps, then, with that kind of eye, we can even turn a more merciful glance to our own interception/touchdown rate.

Drowning Swimmer or Swimming Drowner? Human Nature in the YMCA Pool

This post will be an embarrassing one.

I've started swimming at the YMCA in an effort to keep in shape.  I think my choice of activities is partly due to residual Olympic-watching  excitement, and partly due to my longstanding hatred of running without a goal to score or basket to make.  Swimming, I'm also told, is among the best total-body workouts. So I hitched up the OP board shorts, grabbed a beach towel, ordered a pair of goggles from Amazon, and made my way to that chlorinated paradise. After 50 meters, I hauled myself out of the water, (practically) crawled into the bleachers, and dry-heaved until I could see straight.

You see, it turns out that there is a difference between the swimming you see in the Olympics, wherein Sun Yang looks mildly under-rested after the 1,500 meter freestyle, and the swimming at the Y, wherein drowning and death are real possibilities after comically short distances.  Knowing this difference didn't stop me from thinking myself exempt.

First of all, let me be clear: no matter what I write in the following paragraphs (during which I will no doubt succumb to the temptation to write in such a way that you'll think I'm a good swimmer), at no point have I yet swum more than 50 meters without stopping for a rest. Really, though, it's not that I'm a bad swimmer (see? There I go...), I'm just not in "swimming shape." My stroke is good, and I'm tall, so I cut through the water fairly well. It's just that my lungs and every muscle in my body scream in unison after seven or eight strokes. The result of this is that, for the first 25 meters (one length of my non-Olympic sized pool) after I rest, I feel like Michael Phelps.  For the second 25? I'm Homer Simpson finishing that package of expired ham.

This binary action in my swimming has shone a glaring light on my human nature: the fact that I am both sinner and saved, loved and human, justified and condemned.  As I swim up the pool after my rest, I literally find myself wondering if one of the swimmers in the other lanes will stop their own workout to tell me what a nice stroke I have, how powerful I look in the water, and have I ever considered swimming on the Y's adult team? I am not making this up...I had these thoughts this morning.  As I swim back toward the shallow end, in the second 25 meters, I catch glimpses of the lifeguard on the deck, and I worry that he's going to walk up to me during my rest and say something like, "Son, are you all right? You were flailing around a bit toward the end there...you might want to think about stopping." Then I rest, watching warily for the guard...and then the process repeats itself. 

I literally have those self-congratulatory thoughts every single time up the pool.  "I bet I look pretty good right now."  Even though I wondered, not three minutes earlier, whether I would meet the crew of the Andrea Gail as I drifted into Poseidon's oblivion.  This is what Luther called simul justus et peccator. We are two things at once: justified and a sinner. I am, at once, perfectly content in my ability to uphold the law: "I bet I look pretty good right now," and totally in need of a savior: "George Clooney at your grizzled handsomest...reach out your hand and save me!"

As we come to grips with our dual natures, we might reach out for a savior more readily, accept another's righteousness more freely, and actually make it to the end of the pool.

Note: This morning (after having written this last night) I swam my first 100 meters without stopping. What's the record for gold medals in the Olympics again? Asking for a friend.

The Scaled Law of Oscar Pistorius

The inspirational story of Oscar Pistorius has taken an interesting turn. For years, it seemed that "inspirational" was a legal part of Pistorius' name, included as a required element of every sentence in which he was mentioned. Pistorius is a double-amputee sprinter who runs on carbon-fiber "blades" that replace the lower half of both of his legs. For the first time, last month, such a competitor was allowed to compete at the Olympic Games. This didn't occur with no fuss; there was at least some question about whether or not the blades gave Pistorius a competitive advantage over runners forced to use their own, God-given, legs.

Pistorius acquitted himself well at the games, but didn't make the final in his only individual event, the 400 meter dash.  He seemed to say all the right things during each of his (seemingly several hundred) interviews, always remarking that he "happy just to be" there, and honored and humbled by the attention he was getting. For Pistorius, it seemed that it wasn't about winning.

Now it is.

Every four years, a month after the Olympics, the Paralympics takes place in all the same stadia. To same extent that he was an inspirational story at the able-bodied Olympics, Pistorius has been a dominating force at the Parlympics, winning the 100, 200, and 400 at the Beijing Games in 2008. The same was expected this time around, no doubt due to the fact that Pistorius had qualified (well, sort of) to compete against able-bodied athletes. On Sunday, Pistorius was beaten by Brazil's Alan Oliveira in the 200 meter dash, ending an almost unparalleled dominance. Check out this excerpt from the Associate Press story reposted on ESPN.com:

The "Blade Runner" had never been beaten over 200 meters until Brazilian sprinter Alan Oliveira came storming down the home straight to win by 0.07 seconds and dethrone the icon of the Paralympics.

Pistorius later accused Oliveira of bending the rules

Having won his own legal battle to compete wearing carbon-fiber blades alongside able-bodied rivals, Pistorius suggested that Oliveira ran with longer prosthetics than should be allowed.

Oliveira won in 21.45 seconds after overtaking Pistorius at the line at Olympic Stadium in front of a capacity 80,000-strong crowd.

"Not taking away from Alan's performance -- he's a great athlete -- but these guys are a lot taller and you can't compete (with the) stride length," Pistorius said in a broadcast interview. "You saw how far he came back. We aren't racing a fair race. I gave it my best. The IPC (International Paralympic Committee) have their regulations. The regulations (allow) that athletes can make themselves unbelievably high.

"We've tried to address the issue with them in the weeks up to this and it's just been falling on deaf ears."

For Pistorius, it is "ridiculous" that Oliveira could win after being eight meters adrift at the 100-meter mark.

"He's never run a 21-second race and I don't think he's a 21-second athlete," Pistorius said. "I've never lost a 200-meter race in my career."

Pistorius has since apologized for the timing of his comments, though not for their content.

I, for one, am glad that Oscar Pistorius has revealed himself to be a human being, rather than an humanoid "inspirational story." He's done what we all do: apply a scaled law to ourselves, and the full law to others.  A common human refrain is, "I'm not perfect, but..." It sounds awful put into words in the way that Pistorius did, but we all do it, all the time. Our struggle to self-justify finds its most habitual form (we know of course, that we cannot completely justify ourselves) in the desire to at least be better than one other person. This is the theological version of running from the bear: you only have to be faster than one of the other people trying to get away.

Until we can start seeing the law as applying fully in all cases, and doing so to us, we'll always find ways to exempt ourselves (after all, don't we deserve it?) and to thereby put a band-aid on the gaping wound of our human need.

Summer Film Series: The Adjustment Bureau

The preview for The Adjustment Bureau was a provacative one.  Or, it was a provacative preview if you are suspicious about the existence of "free will."  The trailer simply assumes that everyone believes in free will and that an organization (like, say, an Adjustment Bureau) that would try to curtail it would be the embodiment of evil.  After all, isn't our free will what makes us...well, us?

In the film, Matt Damon plays a congressman who accidentally sees "behind the curtain," and is made aware of a team of agents whose job it is to keep human beings "on plan."  A plan has been written by "The Chairman" and is unquestioned by his minions in fedoras.  Well, except by enlightened Anthony Mackie, who eventually helps Damon get the better of the whole Bureau and forces The Chairman to change his/her plan.

In the below scene, the always wonderful Terence Stamp responds to Damon's question about "free will:"

Now, don't get too bogged down in Stamp's historical games here.  I'm only really interested in his last sentence, because it strikes me as profoundly true.  "You don't have free will.  You have the illusion of free will."  In fact, just after this clip, Damon protests that he makes thousands of decisions every day, about clothes, coffee, etc.  Stamp suggests that he has free will in the unimportant things but lacks it in the vital things of life.  This sentiment is echoed by Martin Luther, who suggested that we have free will in "things below us" (e.g. what to eat for lunch, who to ask to the prom) but lack it in "things above us" (e.g. being in a right relationship with God).  The movie, though giving Stamp its best speech, comes down on the side of free will. the Bureau can only attempt to keep people "on plan."  They have some limited supernatural powers, but are ultimately hamstrung by the will of their charges.

Funnily enough, though, the most persuasive argument in the film is in an early scene, and it argues against the film's point, and even against Stamp's.  If Luther (and Stamp) said that we have free will in the things below us but not in the things above us, what are we to make of this?

Now, in the film, this scene is used to illustrate Matt Damon's decision not to be bound by market research anymore, i.e. to make use of his free will.  But aren't we all bound by the sort of forces he mentions in his speech?  We want to be perceived in a certain way, and so dress accordingly.  Even those among us (hippies, punks, goths, etc) who claim to be rebelling against "society's rules" find themselves constrained to think, act, and dress a certain way.  I submit that the evidence of our lives suggests that we don't even have free will in those things "below" us.  We imagine that our choices of clothing, coffee, and career are free.  But think about all the sources (parents, society, friends, goals, etc) of pressure that push us one way or another.  Suddenly, our "freedom" begins to reveal what it actually is: an illusion.

The final nail in The Adjustment Bureau's coffin is an ironic one.  It is his love for Emily Blunt that compels Damon to continue bucking the Bureau and attempting to make his own way.  The Bureau keeps trying to bump him back on plan, and the reason he's so resistant is that he wants to be with Blunt.  But he hasn't made a rational free will decision to desire Blunt!  No one does!  We call it "falling" in love for a reason!  It happens to us; it's not chosen by us.  And thank goodness it does.  As Terrence Stamp's speech illustrates, our track record of rational decision-making isn't great.  Perhaps the illusion of free will is preferable to the real thing after all.

Summer Film Series: Some Kind of Wonderful

John Hughes was the muse of the 80s high schooler. His writing credits include such giants of the genre as Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Weird Science, Pretty in Pink, and Ferris Bueller's Day Off. In 1987, he finished his run of high school smash hits with Some Kind of Wonderful, the story of a guy (Eric Stoltz) who falls in love with a girl (Lea Thompson) who is completely out of his league. He recruits his best friend (Mary Stuart Masterson) to help him win Thompson's heart, never knowing the obvious truth: Masterson is desperately in love with him.

In true rom-com form, Thompson proves not the vision of perfection she seemed to be from afar, and Stoltz realizes that the girl he really wanted, Masterson, was right there all along. This is not a unique trope, but it might be the clearest distillation of the Christian life, both misguided and proper, that we could ever hope to find.

Christians begin their life (we'll say after conversion, for the sake of the comparison) desperately seeking to know more about God. We sing songs like "In the Secret," which include the lines:

I want to know you

I want to see your face

I want to know you more

I am reaching for the highest goal

That I might receive the prize

Pressing onward

Pushing every hindrance aside

Out of my way

'Cause I want to know you more

At first blush, there is nothing wrong with this goal. Theologian Gerhard Forde would, however, have referred to this as a "tightly woven theology of glory" (On Being a Theologian of the Cross, 6). Luther himself said that the quest to know God was folly, and that the only reason we seek to know God was to domesticate and control him. It is Jesus who we draft into service as our guide to "become more like God" or to "get to know Him more." I think Hughes agrees, but I don't think Hughes thinks it works. John Hughes is with Martin Luther and Gerhard Forde!

Eric Stoltz thinks that he can turn himself into someone that Leah Thompson will love. This is the Christian quest to "know God." To know him, to become like him, so that he will love us more. We call this quest innocuous things like "deepening our relationship" and the goal seems laudable. But it doesn't work. Lea Thompson is inscrutable. Hard to understand. Counterintuitive. Like God, she can't be "gotten to." It just doesn't work.

It is Mary Stuart Masterson, in the Christ role, who is there for us. Stoltz sees her as a means to an end...and yet, she is the end. She is the love of his life. We too often see Christ as a means to get us closer to God, but it is Christ who is there to pick us up when our quest for God ends as it must: in bitter defeat and failure.

John Hughes puts in our common language what Luther and Forde, and before them John the Evangelist (John 1:17-18), said in theological language: We cannot know God. To try is to waste our time, at best, and to struggle for independence from him, at worst. God, though, has made himself known, in God the Son, Jesus Christ. The one we try to use as a means to an end is, in fact, the end in himself. He is the Savior.

Michael Jordan is (Metaphorically) Killing His Sons

One of the lessons assigned in my church this past Sunday was a selection from Ephesians 4 and 5, wherein the writer implores the Ephesians to live a holy life, ultimately calling them to "be imitators of God" (Eph 5:1).  This is, no doubt, a heavy burden, laid crushingly bare by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount: "Therefore you must be perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect" (Matthew 5:48). This is The Law, in its most capitalized form. It brings about the death of the one who tries to live up to it.

A similar thing is happening to Jeffrey and Marcus Jordan.

In his "The Fix" column for ESPN the Magazine, Chris Jones notes the pressure that Michael Jordan's sons live under:

Most of us probably last gave thought to Michael Jordan's kids during his sometimes vicious Hall of Fame induction speech back in 2009. Interrupting his blistering of former coaches, employers and teammates, Jordan turned to his three children (he also shares a daughter with his ex-wife, Juanita) and said: "You guys have a heavy burden. I wouldn't want to be you guys if I had to."

In his tactless way, Jordan couldn't have been more right about that burden, borne especially by his sons. We might have forgotten about them -- Jeffrey's now out of basketball, and Marcus is likely about to play his last meaningful season, even if he puts Omaha behind him -- but they have never been able to forget what they always will be. Our sons should be better than we are; as fathers, that should be all of our dreams -- that they will be taller, richer, healthier, happier. Jeffrey and Marcus Jordan have no chance of eclipsing their dad. It's their destiny to remain his satellites.

This "no chance" that Jones refers to for the Jordan heirs is the same "no chance" that we have at being passable "imitators of God." So, what recourse do Jeffrey and Marcus Jordan have? They've taken a shot at individuality (sort of) with Heir-Jordan.com, but that site, intended as a way to "leave their own legacy," at this point "contains nothing more than dead links." This sort of father/son pressure is certainly nothing new, and not really anything profound. What is at least a little bit profound is Jones' solution to the problem: Fathers need to leave their sons. He opens his column with these words:

There are no faultless fathers. Some are better than others, but it's just not a job that allows any of us to be perfect. It's too hard, too ever-changing. It requires too many different skills, from tenderness to absolute resolve. And even if there were such a thing as a perfect father, our children would still slip out of our careful reach, because that's the natural order of things: One day we won't be their fathers anymore. Even if by some miracle our lives go exactly as planned, one day we will leave them.

He closes with these:

It's not all bad for the junior Jordans, of course. Our children will probably never have their millions or their high-end legal representation. But at least we can give our kids all of us. And no matter what mistakes we've made, we still have the chance to give our own children, our own sons, something that even Michael Jordan could not give his: One day we won't be their fathers anymore. We will leave them.

God the Father must leave his children in order for them to be saved. In other words, allow God the Son's atonement (tenderness) to satisfy his justice (absolute resolve). As Jones says, this isn't an option for the Jordan children. It is something, though, thank God, that has already been afforded us.