Inaugural Song of the Week

I decided to take a page from others around the blogosphere and start doing a Song of the Week. I figure it will keep me active, and there are a lot of great songs out there. I'm kicking it off this week with a lyric off the great Charlie Peacock's next-most-recent album, Kingdom Come (his most recent, Love Press Ex-Curio, is instrumental jazz)--it's an uneven album, imho, but with a few great moments, of which this is perhaps the best.

Wouldn't It Be Strange?

I’ve got a question for your consideration;
I’ll make you privy to my contemplation.
Let me say in my defense, I know it goes against all common sense . . .
It’s not our nature, nothing we’ve been taught,
Flies in the face of every line we’ve bought.
It’s hard to see it, harder to explain;
I know it cuts against the grain:

Wouldn’t it be strange if riches made you poor,
If everything you earned left you wanting more;
Wouldn’t it be strange to question what it’s for?
Wouldn’t it be strange?

I know we’ve got some interests to protect,
A set of dots we’re committed to connect.
It makes us nervous in light of how it’s been
To play a little game of pretend:

Wouldn’t it be strange if power made you weak,
Victory came to those who turned the other cheek;
Wouldn’t it be strange to welcome your defeat?
Wouldn’t it be strange?

Wouldn’t it be strange to find out in the end
The first will be the last and all the losers win?
Wouldn’t it be strange if Jesus came again?
Wouldn’t it be strange?

Words and music: Charlie Peacock and Douglas Kaine McKelvey
©1999 Sparrow Song/Andi Beat Goes On Music/Songs Only Dogs Can Hear
From the album Kingdom Come, by Charlie Peacock

The parable of the three little pigs

The day of the Lord is like three little pigs who went out into the world to make their fortunes. Knowing the stories, they traveled until they found a place where no wolf had been seen for hundreds of years; then they settled down to build homes and earn their living.

The first pig just wanted to enjoy life, so he wasn’t interested in spending too much time building his house. “What’s the fastest way to get my house built?” he asked himself, and quickly settled on a straw house with no real foundation. In a short time, his house was finished; it was a little flimsy, but that didn’t bother him—he was rarely there, except to sleep.

The second pig sniffed with disapproval when he saw the first pig’s house of straw. “That’s simply not appropriate,” he said to himself. “Granted, there’s no need to go overboard—you shouldn’t take your house too seriously—but it’s important to have a nice, solid, respectable house, as befits a nice, solid, respectable member of society.” So the second pig built himself a house of wood, with which he was very pleased. “It’s no flimsy, disreputable shack like the first pig built, nor is it overbuilt like the third pig’s house; it’s just a good, practical house, enough and not too much.”

The third pig, meanwhile, wanted to build the best house he possibly could; he made sure he had the best possible foundation, then built his house of solid stone—top-quality granite, in fact—doing everything he could to ensure that his house would stand no matter what happened. He knew the other two pigs thought he was taking this whole house-building thing much too seriously, but he didn’t care; he wanted a house worthy of honor.

The three little pigs lived for some years in contentment, each pleased with the choices he had made, until one day a great wildfire swept unexpectedly through the area. The first little pig ran to his house of straw to save his valuables; but while he was in the house, the fire swept over it and it immediately burned to the ground, killing the little pig. The second little pig ran to his house of wood to save his valuables; but while he was in the house, the fire swept over it and it began to burn. The little pig dropped everything and ran; he escaped alive, but with everything he owned lost in the fire. He ran to the house of stone, where the third little pig let him in; while they were in the house, the fire swept over it—and passed on by. The house was scorched by the flames and smelled of fire and smoke, but was otherwise undamaged, because stone doesn’t burn.

For those who have ears to hear, let them hear.

(1 Corinthians 3:10-20, 6:19-20)

The butterfly effect and the providence of God

You've probably heard of the butterfly effect—the idea that a butterfly flapping its wings in Asia can cause a hurricane in the Caribbean—which is an illustration of one of the key elements in chaos theory, that of sensitive dependence on initial conditions. The idea is that a small change, such as a butterfly's wingbeat, can produce large results. This sort of sensitivity to initial conditions is one of the things which makes a chaotic system chaotic. (Chaos is not in fact disordered or random, merely highly complex and unpredictable.)

Now, I don't know much about chaos theory, not being the mathematical type—I leave that to my brother-in-law the chemical engineer. Theology is more my line; and in that line, what I do know is that God works his will through chaotic systems as well as through obvious order, using small events at one point to bring about significant results at another point.

I was reminded of this, in a small way, over the course of the last several days. Last week, as I was sitting in my office planning the Sunday service, I wanted to doublecheck the lyrics to Charlie Peacock's song "The Harvest Is the End of the World" (from which I had pulled the title for that week's sermon). I didn't feel like going home to grab the album (strangelanguage), so I figured I'd look it up on the Internet. I found it, in the archives of two blogs I'd never heard of before, one called Mysterium Tremendum (scroll down to November 12, 2003), and its parent blog (for lack of a better word), The Thinklings. You'll notice the latter blog heading the links list over on the left; it's a great blog, and was a completely unexpected and equally welcome discovery.

In the course of exploring The Thinklings, I noticed a post headed "Pachelbel Is Haunting Me," with the YouTube video of an incredibly funny rant on Pachelbel's Canon in D, courtesy of a comedian/musician named Rob Paravonian. (If you check the January 2007 archives, it was posted on January 5.) I finally got around to watching it today, laughed hysterically, and played it for my wife, who did the same. She also suggested sending the link to a friend of ours. Said friend called us maybe 20 minutes later, declaring that it was the funniest thing she'd ever seen, that she'd had a terrible day which was now "a zillion times better." She's been having a rough couple of weeks, of which today was worse than average, and needed a boost; clearly, this was God's provision for her to lift her spirits. And it all began last week when I didn't feel like walking back to the house to grab a tape.

OK, so maybe this doesn't seem like a big deal—but it was to my friend, and it was to me; and it's an illustration of how God weaves everything together to bring about the good of those who love him and are called according to his purposes, even in the little things. To Him be the glory.

Umm, what was that about grace?

I just got the latest Covenant Network newsletter yesterday, which included the note that they will no longer be sending their publication to every pastor in the PC(USA), but only to those who pay for it. (For those not familiar with the Presbyterian Church (USA) and its internecine strife, the Covenant Network is one of the affinity groups working for the ordination of self-affirmed practicing homosexuals.) I can't say as I'll miss it all that much; maybe I should, for a number of reasons, but I won't. The smug "we're on the right side of history" tone annoys me no end, especially when married to the low-quality theology and exegesis I so often find in their work.

Now, some might read that and think I fault them primarily because of their advocacy of homosexuality, but that's really not the case. There are much deeper issues here, a point signaled by the slogan printed across the front of every CovNet publication: Toward a Church as Generous and Just as God's Grace. Anyone see a problem with that? For my part, I see two. The first is minor: while we want the church to look as much like God as possible, it is simply beyond human capacity for the church to be as generous as God's grace. Aim high, sure, but the fact that they so blithely take aim at an impossibility suggests to me that they don't realize it's impossible. That in turn suggests that their doctrine of God isn't high enough by a long shot.

The greater problem is that word "just." Who in the world ever said, or thought, that God's grace is just? The very idea is ludicrous. Justice is all about what we earn; God's grace is all about what he gives us that we have not earned and could never even begin to hope to earn. Confusing the two, as CovNet evidently does, is a major theological error, a fundamental misunderstanding of who God is and who we are (and pretty much everything in between). Attempts to set aside the Scriptural witness on homosexuality are symptoms; this kind of thinking is the true disease. Christianity isn't about our rights, or what we deserve; it's about the fact that all we deserve is Hell, and God gives us his kingdom anyway. Maranatha--come, Lord Jesus!