Maundy Thursday Message

Maundy Thursday Sermon:
As given by Chato Hazelbaker 3/18/2009

It has been said that the true character of a person is revealed in their trials. The fire of life’s trials strips off everything that is on the outside and shows us the core of a person’s character. The Bible tells us that each of us will be held accountable not for how we started the race, but for how we finish. Jesus’ final hours must have been his darkest. It is clear for the scriptures that he knew exactly what was coming. The last reading in Matthew demonstrates this as he took his prayers to the Father, asking if he could take this cup of suffering. Tonight, I want us to gain a deeper appreciation for who Christ was in his darkest time.

Let’s look carefully at what Jesus was facing nearly two thousand years ago, a night much darker and later than this. His Earthly ministry was coming to an end, and he knew the same people that had waved palms and shouted his name only four days earlier would be calling “crucify him” in a matter of hours. He knew that his best friends would either abandon or betray him. He knew the physical torment would be beyond what any person should or could be asked to bear. Jesus knew all this before the last supper, before washing the disciple’s feet, and before heading to Gethsemane. By this time Jesus even clearly knew his betrayer. Most would say that Christ’s moment of brokenness came on the cross, but I would argue that Christ’s brokenness started here, because here we see that Christ’s heart was broken. We have all heard and probably given a lot of thought to the physical brokenness of the body, but for a moment think about the mental and emotional brokenness that Jesus must have felt just hours before he was going to the cross.

So in his time of brokeness what did Jesus do – he served and he prayed.

My God, my Jesus is never in a hurry and that is one of the things that I love him for. He was intentional and he taught up to the final moment when he was taken from the disciples, and he taught them by serving. By this time the disciples would have done almost anything for Jesus. Surely they would have washed his feet, fed him, and comforted him in his time of need. If anybody deserved a day off it was Jesus. For three years he had been traveling, meeting every demand, teaching, investing his life into all those he came into contact with. Yet in his final hours he washes the disciple’s feet and serves them dinner. Not only that, Jesus doesn’t do this grudgingly, but we hear in Luke 22:15 Jesus says, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.” To me that is a wonderful picture of the kind of service Jesus did. He not only served, but he did so eagerly, investing his very life into the disciples. Too often at our worst times we tend to turn inward. We focus on our needs, and what we think will satisfy the cravings of our flesh. Jesus shows us a much different way of thinking here. At his worst time he turned his attention to the disciples and ways he could serve them. In his final, darkest hours Jesus served.

Then Jesus prayed. Jesus goes to Gethsemane to meet with the Father. It is a model that we see again and again in the New Testament as Jesus took everything to prayer. Yet this prayer is one of the most profound and best described in the Bible. This prayer is a wrestling. As it says in Matthew 26:39 “Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, ‘My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.’” Can you imagine? It says in the verses earlier in 38 that Jesus told the disciples he was overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death, yet he turns to the Father in prayer. Again, I think of times when I have gotten depressed or down in my situation. My tendency is to turn inward, to turn my face from God, yet here in Matthew we get a very clear picture of Christ opening up to God in his brokenness and crying out. He does not hide that pain from the Father, but seems to take strength in sharing it with him, completely giving it over to God in his prayer in verse 42 with the words, “your will be done.”

Serve – Pray. So why does Jesus do it? He does it because his faith is in the Father. He does it because he has read the book and he knows who wins. He is not focused on the day ahead, but his focus is on eternity.

Tonight, where is our focus? Have we been challenged by this message, a reading from the “Purpose Driven Life,” “The Passion,” or something else - yet we remain among the frozen chosen. Let us do as Christ models so powerfully for us. There are 2 full days until Easter. Will we serve and will we pray? I know that in serving I can get tired. I know too often I’m focused on getting eight hours of sleep rather than doing what God has called me to do.

I really feel in my heart that I have not given enough time to this topic. There is so much that could be said about Jesus in his final hours. It is difficult to communicate what a low time this must have been in his life. It is difficult to communicate how miraculous it was that he took time when things were at their worst to serve and pray.

So, my challenge for us tonight would be this. Take the time in the next 2 days before Easter to read the 26th Chapter of Matthew. Pray about it. What is it telling you? There have been no shortages of challenges to us as a congregation lately – the question is will we answer the call.

A beautiful mess (Avatar)

I'm pretty sure no one reads this often, and it is a good thing because I'm about to step outside of my expertise into movie reviews.

So, Avatar has come up in Oscar talks and is on a course to sink Titantic in terms or revenue. Really? I'm not a Titanic fan, but the beautiful mess that is Avatar is a good example of what is wrong with mass media.

If the role of art, or in this case entertainment posing as art, is to engage us and to illumniate the human condition in some way, Avatar is a pretty poor example. I will absolutely admit that it probably deserves some kind of Oscar for technical brilliance, but once the awards ceremony moves into prime time it should be an afterthought.

The storytelling in Avatar just isn't very good. There is never a moment of suspense when one thinks Sully might not get the alien or defeat the evil hoards. Every character is a broad stroke caricature from the tough as nails heartless commander to the spineless and annoying corporate middle manager. Even in the short scenes with Nala's father we get the complete stereotypical picture of what we have typically been given in tribal leaders.

To me a great film is one that stands up over time, and this one won't. Whereas a move like Star Wars was technically ahead of its time, there were some interesting characters. The story worked and was compelling and that is why the original has held the test of time. Sure the effects look questionable now, but it's still an interesting film. The most interesting character in Avatar . . . (I started to write this sentence several times and I couldn't finish it - there are no interesting characters)

Defense comes to Montana

My family has a long connection with the Big Hole Valley of Montana. Though my connections is as much folk lore and shared family memory as experience, by grandfather and grandmother both knew the valley well. There is a family story from the valley of my dad having to drive his grandfather back to the house when he was very young because of an accident with a piece of machinery. Proof that the clans that make me up left blood and sweat on the land.

So, it was interesting to read that Donald Rumsfeld has purchased a ranch in the Big Hole. What was more interesting and a nice little Christmas present was the reaction his neighbor.
It makes me miss my native land at this time of year, because on one hand Montana is still small enough that people notice when people move in. However, it's still independent enough to believe that getting along with your neighbors doesn't depend on agreeing on every topic. It's a place where there is room enough for ideas and debate, and a healthy accceptance of the reality that most of the things we argue and fuss over aren't that big of a deal.

The mosquitoes will likely terrorize Rumsfeld for a few weeks, and don?t expect to be able to reach him well on his cell phone. The winter wind will be brutal, and there will be times when it just doesn?t seem like it?s safe to go out. There will also be late summer days when the wheat is golden, and some rancher is still employing a 100 year old "beaver slide". Those will be the things that matter, and for that reason I'm a little jealous and a little homesick this Christmas.

An Open Letter to Tim Pawlenty

Almost everyone that reads David Brooks column today will disagree with it. Those on the left will read it and believe in their heart of hearts that all Republicans are really tiny minded ideologues who couldn’t care less about their neighbors. Those on the right will think that Brooks (as all big media does) fails to see the real Americans that talk radio, tea parties, and town hall meetings represent.

However, in the center of this great disagreement is great truth, and the bottom line on Brooks’ column is that he is right when he states, “The party is leaderless right now because nobody has the guts to step outside the rigid parameters enforced by the radio jocks and create a new party identity.”

There are a lot of conservatives that look at the cast of characters in media and as a good friend of mine says, “I wish they would get off my side.” I’m not wishing Glen Beck or Rush off of the air. They have a place and they can put pressure and raise stories that don’t get raised other places. But picking candidates isn’t their strong point. In order for them to be effective and to break through the media clutter they have to be out at the edges. They have to take risks and they have to fill time.

So, Gov. Pawlenty, I’m imploring not to take the media stuff too seriously on either side. Brooks is right in that getting out and talking to people will be the key. Health care has to be discussed, wars have to be evaluated, not all taxes are bad. The majority understands a president has to govern in that world, not the world that can cling to ideologies and sound bites. I think most of us also realize that we won’t always like your decisions. I don’t agree with you on a couple of big things, but I realize that knowing what specifically I disagree with you about is better than having you promise the moon and not deliver.

There is room for a conservative that tries to make sense somewhere besides the edges. It won’t always be comfortable, but to become that party that embraces disagreements and handles them well would be the real revolution.

Back from vacation

I had a lot of great ideas to blog about when I was on vacation. Yes, for three weeks I drove around, saw fascinating stuff, had interesting conversations, ate good food and in general lived a life worth blogging about, and I didn’t blog once. A day and half into a hard transition back to life in the real world and most of those great ideas are now gone, or at least fuzzy enough that they sound far less brilliant, but maybe that is the point.

For the past three weeks I was pretty disconnected. I didn’t worry about the checkbook (anybody know how I can make a quick $500, legal is preferred), how many emails were waiting for me, what was for dinner on that given night or many of the hundreds of things that make up my day to day existence.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my life. Part of what was really great about the vacation was spending all day everyday with my wife and kids. What I finally did on this vacation that I’m not sure I have done in the past decade or so is relax and in that relaxation, I think my brain worked better.

So, I’m back from vacation with a few lessons learned. The key one is that everybody should take a vacation. For me, I think I have learned that means a vacation from a schedule as well. One of the best things about vacation is that we had very few demands on our time, and we didn’t place any on ourselves either.

I’m sure there are other lessons, and I may get around to writing about them. But for now, I needed to get back on schedule and post a blog.

One more nutty Yellowstone Club story

On Sunday, the New York Times ran the first extensive interview with Edna Blixseth. While I would recommend that anyone interested read the story, I will sum it up here: the story of the Yellowstone Club really is bizarre on a number of levels.

One of the things that did occur to me after reading it was I may have been unduly harsh on members in the piece I wrote for the Montana Standard. Bill Gates may need a place to ski with his kids that doesn’t require security. That says something really sad about the world we live in, but I do see why some individuals may need the privacy. And if the club is as family-friendly as the article states, then maybe the ultra-rich have some problems I glossed over.

Still some things in the story really jumped out at me. Someone out there should really pay me to write a book about this because it has all the makings of a great one:

- The portrait of Edna Blixseth is really interesting. This is essentially a woman scorned story made no less bizarre by the fact that the author points out her current boyfriend is an ex-underwear model who had to sell his Bentley to keep things a float.

- Edna considers gardening a Zen practice, which sounds pretty normal until she adds she does it one hole at a time on her private golf course.

- I really wished I would have had this quote to work with in my piece on the club from a member who wanted to remain unnamed. He said in defending Tim Blixseth, “It’s that aggressiveness that got this thing off the ground, that got the lifts built, that got the forest land away from the government, that got the water rights. As long as it was working in our benefit, everybody thought it was great.” That quote kind of makes my Yellowstone Club as an extractive industry point in a lot fewer words than I used in the Montana Standard.

- The story ends with a description of Edna’s prayer ritual. It is kind of a typical tactic where someone far at the fringe of religious practice is held up as if to say, “See, people that believe in God are the nutty ones.”

Currently there is a song on country music radio that may have one of the great choruses in country music though it is a mediocre song overall. It may be the title of my eventual book about the Yellowstone club, “God is great, beer is good, and people are crazy.”

Velleity

Nerd alert: when I was in Mr. Mellang’s fourth grade class I used a thesaurus to help me write a short paper. I’m pretty sure I got some of the words horribly wrong, and sometime around college I swore off the thesaurus, but I still take great joy in finding the perfect word whose meaning matches the reality.

At a staff retreat I helped plan last week one of the participants introduced me to the word “velleity.” As defined by the free web dictionary it is “a mere fancy that does not lead to action.” The way it was presented during the meeting is less elegant buy equaling meaningful, “a problem you don’t care enough to do anything about.”

The retreat actually went pretty well. We spoke candidly about what needed to be changed, and challenged (maybe even too much) the status quo and spoke about what could be changed to make the place better. What was particularly good was that it seemed like making the place better wasn’t just to make our lives easier, but was centered more or less around the idea of accomplishing of a mission. So, if the retreat went so well why am I still haunted by the word velleity.

I think I’m haunted because trying to define the velleity is a humbling task. Andy Stanley in his book Visioneering brings forth the idea that every great vision begins as a moral imperative. It is the deep feeling within in us that a particular situation or problem is so unjust that it must be changed and we must be the person to do it.

It’s an important, but humbling question to ask, “What do I care about enough that I’m willing to do something about it?” Part of that question makes a person face up to what they are not willing to do anything part. I have joked for years that I don’t care enough about getting in shape to give up donuts. The unhealthy eating might be a problem, and I may complain, but it’s a clear velleity, because I don’t quit eating donuts.

I have a colleague about my age who was recently diagnosed with cancer. I wonder if I suddenly had to face my mortality in a real way that I would feel the moral imperative to better care of myself in order to be around to care for my family.

There is an organizational application as well, because I think it is clear that the things we don’t care enough about to act on that kill us. It’s the organization that talks about tighter cost controls but never puts them in place that ends up in real trouble. It’s the organization that waits for someday to invest in people that realizes at some point it has lost its best and brightest.

If a person doesn’t care enough to act on a problem, then that fact needs to be acknowledged. People and organizations that are honest enough to ask these tough questions seem to be a few steps ahead.