It was 1995 at Good Shepherd yesterday. As our Worship Center undergoes some technology upgrades in preparation for the Zoar launch, we had no technology. So we wheeled in an overhead projector, used transparencies, and sung the new/old "classics" like Lord I Lift Your Name On High, Come, Now Is The Time To Worship, and, of course, Awesome God.     All in all it was great fun.  And it set the stage for the sermon you'll read below, Week Four of Mad People Disease.  Called "Wash. Rinse. Repeat.", it landed at this bottom line: We prefer fighting to fixing. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Of the four “biographies” of Jesus, my favorite is the one called “Mark” and that because of all that he discloses about the secondary heroes of the stories, the entourage of guys we know as the disciples. Jesus’ inner, inner circle. And I love the three little scenes we are going to look at today because of what they tell us about us, what they tell us about them, and what they tell us about Mad People Disease. The first scene starts at Mark 9:30-31. Here’s what’s going on: Jesus and the 12 are headed towards Jerusalem. Really, what’s taking place, I suspect, is that Jesus is taking sort of a solitary walk to his own execution – that’s what any trip to Jerusalem in the Gospels signifies – and the disciples are following behind, doing what disciples do. And on occasion Jesus stops to teach them about who he really is and what is really in front of them, like here in 9:30-31: ³⁰ They left that place and passed through Galilee. Jesus did not want anyone to know where they were, ³¹ because he was teaching his disciples. He said to them, “The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men. They will kill him, and after three days he will rise.” So after hearing THAT, these 12 guys should have been TOTALLY focused in on the betrayer – his activities and his identity. But they’re NOT!   Instead, look at what happens next in 9:33-34: ³³ They came to Capernaum. When he was in the house, he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the road?” ³⁴ But they kept quiet because on the way they had argued about who was the greatest. Doh! Embarrassed silence at being called out! And isn’t in interesting … Jesus talks about being betrayed in 9:31 and all of us who know the story immediately think of JUDAS but the truth is that the first betrayal is right here, right now: the case of MPD over which one of them is the greatest of all! I love the bible! I love how sly Mark is and how careful he is in arranging the material so that if you’re paying attention this stuff leaps off the page. And the argument? So much what happens when you get preachers together. “How many did YOU have on Sunday? (Begging they’ll return the favor!) “Oh, I ran into Billy the other day.” “Billy?” “Yeah, Billy Graham.” Name dropping, chart topping competition. They did it then & we do it now. Only the disciples were getting this incredible teaching from Jesus on revolutionary topics – the first will be last, the last first, etc – and it’s the proverbial in one ear and out the other. Who cares about HIS kingdom when I’m building my own and don’t get in my way! Scene 1 and I love it. Rather bear a grudge than bear the cross. Scene 2 is just one chapter over at Mark 10: 35-37: ³⁵ Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him. “Teacher,” they said, “we want you to do for us whatever we ask.” ³⁶ “What do you want me to do for you?” he asked. ³⁷ They replied, “Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory.” READ. The density of these guys is incredible. And purposeful. Think about it: Mark didn’t have to include this part of the story but he did anyway! J & J have been hearing about humility and sacrifice and death and all they can ask for is HONOR. And they don’t know, they really don’t know what they’re asking for; look how Mark portrays it in 15:27: ²⁷ They crucified two rebels with him, one on his right and one on his left. Whoa. Again, not accidental language; brilliant art. But back to this story. The best part? Look at the response of the other 10 in 10:41! ⁴¹ When the ten heard about this, they became indignant with James and John. Righteous indignation! Fighting! Arguing! MPD! And it’s all over prestige and position and power. They do it once in chapter 9 and then as their no doubt frustrated leader continues his increasingly solitary march to execution, they do it AGAIN. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.   And then, Scene 3 in 14:29, at the Last Supper (holiest meal ever?), and the subject of betrayal comes up (again!). This isn’t a fight, really, it’s just the continuation of the earlier one, because Peter is still clamoring and competing: ²⁹ Peter declared, “Even if all fall away, I will not.”   I don’t care how much you talk to us about sacrifice and humility, I AM THE MOST HUMBLE MAN ALIVE! And how long does Peter last? One day and three denials later, not very. Still fighting the same fight. Same old, same old at the holiest dinner ever. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. It’s funny: we just get these three scenes of arguing over whose most humble … imagine all the stories that Mark didn’t include! But do you remember how I said Mark is my favorite biographer of Jesus precisely because of how he portrays the disciples? Do you know why he goes to such lengths to show all their mess-up? Hint: it’s NOT so we can criticize them from a distance! It’s so we can see the ways in which their feeble, faltering attempts to comprehend and then follow Jesus are not so different from ours! Because are they the last collection of people who fight about the same things over and over and over? Are they the final ones to fall into these patterns of arguing that never accomplish anything than the painful venting of frustration? Has anyone else since them been through the MPD of washing, rinsing, REPEAT? Am I speaking to anyone?!?! Because I KNOW there are marriages in this room right now that may have been officiated by a Justice Of The Peace but what you have now needs the Sec’y Of War. You fight about clutter. You fight about the schedule. You fight about in laws. You fight about in laws. You fight about her drinking. You fight about his computer time. You fight about the kids. You fight about sex. You fight but you don’t resolve and every argument – just like the disciples – is simply a slow motion replay of the one that came before it.   And there are work places here where you repeat the same habits that lead to the same communication breakdowns and the same hurt feelings. Some of you have had these kind of work-related fights at three or four different jobs now and you are just today realizing that in all those anger cycles YOU are the common denominator. What do all those dysfunctional workplaces have in common? Oh yeah, YOU. Even with church, it’s so often the same. Either you get into to same rows with the same people about the same issues. Or get this: you get into the same kind of difficulty with different people at different churches. Again, the common denominator in all those church fights and all that spiritual immaturity & that Jesus-centered MPD is . . . you! Do you know what we discover along the way? Do you know what the disciples kept doing the Wash/Rinse/Repeat with their anger? Because they found losing their tempter to be more comfortable than changing their behavior. They protected themselves from the anxiety of legitimate, authentic Jesus-surrender & gospel living . . . by arguing! Yes! Arguing, temper-losing, MPD as a defense mechanism against genuine change! The patterns these disciples fell into and that we fall into are predictable, intractable, and seemingly unchangeable. As reliable as weather forecast in Baghdad in July: sunny and 120. Day after day. Because this is ultimately the deal for those disciples then and for many of us now: We prefer fighting to fixing. We’d rather fight than fix. Losing our temper, fighting about the same thing time after time is ultimately more familiar and more comfortable than changing the patterns of behavior in the one person we can control: ourselves.  We prefer fighting to fixing. This came home to me so vividly not long ago. And I’m not an argumentative person & thankfully our home isn’t characterized by fighting. But I realized that when it comes to work, I am so easily distracted into fights within the Methodist movement. I have colleagues and supervisors and famous people who are taking the denomination down what I think is a destructive path and I have opinions (no!) and I want to organize and publicize and yeah, even antagonize, and the next thing you know I’ve spent a day fighting. Meanwhile there’s stuff that needs fixing right here at GSUMC! Usually the stuff that needs fixing has to do with me! But it is much more comfortable, more familiar to engage in denominational warfare than congregational renaissance. We prefer fighting to fixing. Is that you? At work, in church, and most especially with regard to your most intimate relationships and the MPD you have, is that you? Are you like the guy who said I know every argument has two sides, I just wish ours would have an end as well? Maybe even more to the point, is this what you grew up in? Did a light just go one? Yeah, mom and dad always fought about his drinking or her shopping and every fight was a sequel to the one before it! And now I know they really would rather fight than switch! In fighting, they were avoiding. And with a moment of rare clarity, are you now realizing that not only did you grow up in that kind of environment, you are repeating that kind of environment? The energy you should pour into solving you pour into fighting instead? We prefer fighting to fixing. So: what? How break these seemingly unbreakable cycles of Wash. Rinse. Repeat.? Well, when you see that much of your fighting is really avoiding, recall some of the things the disciples were avoiding: Jesus’ impending death. Their call to live upside down lives in which the greatest among them was not the one with the biggest house and the best car, but the one who is servant of all. Their invitation – because of the manner and purpose of Jesus’ death – to become agents of reconciliation (2 Cor 5:20-21). Wow. That was heavy news to bear and a heavy calling to embrace. So rather than finding their lives by losing them, they avoiding the issue altogether by fighting about the same things over & over. And seeing what they avoided clarifies what we want to embrace. Brings into focus where pattern breaking power comes from. It’s Jesus’ ministry of reconciliation, not ours. It’s Jesus’ pattern breaking power, not ours. It’s Jesus who will wrestle some fruitful fixing out of your unproductive fighting. My first calling today was to turn the light on, to raise your self-awareness as to what’s really going on . . . and then to turn that new self-awareness into desperate God-dependence. This is not a cliché. This is not a “pray about it” easy answer. This is a bringing your sick patterns to the throne of a holy God who IS THE RECONCILER and begging: turn my brokenness into beauty! When you do that, when we do that, all that energy you waste on fighting can be redirected to fixing. We prefer fighting to fixing. With that as foundation, a couple of very practical next steps for you: 1. Do the most unpleasant thing first. So pivotal. What a great work habit – do the thing you like least about your job first thing in the day. And relationally, if you know you’re a delayer and an avoider, resolve to have those most difficult conversations 1st. Number 2: Keep remembering the enormous difference between being assertive and being aggressive. Assertiveness is the simple declaration of I want more of or less of this in our relationship. Number 3: Remember that GS concept of Solutionists. You know what solutionists do? They remember, in marriage in particular, that it’s NOT me against you. It’s the THREE of us (you, me, and the Risen Christ) against the problem. What a help!  We prefer fighting to fixing but we’re learning to have Jesus wrestle fruitful fixing out of our unproductive fighting.   Because I want what happened in Lee Strobel’s life to happen in yours. He’s the author (AV) of The Case For Faith & The Case For Christ. But his story is compelling because well into adulthood – marriage, career, kids – he was an atheist. And then Jesus happened. Shortly after Jesus happened, his five year old told her mom: “I want what happened to daddy to happen to me.” “Well, why honey?” “Because he used to be mad all the time. And now he’s not. That’s what I want.” And that’s what I want for me and for you.

While these aren’t all the lessons I’ve learned in 25 years of full-time parish ministry, they are the ones freshest on my mind this week . . .

• People like it when you remember their names.
• The more digital our culture becomes, the more effective are hand-written notes.
• Breath mints and deodorant are under-rated tools in ministry.
• If you resent the success of other pastors, you probably won’t achieve your own.
• The more satisfied/righteous/vindicated you feel when you hit the “Send” button, the more likely you are to have made a serious mistake.
• Sometimes the people you think aren’t listening are being the most influenced by what you say.
• The Gospel has its own power and you need to resist every temptation to dilute it.
• A good novel will give you as many sermons as a collection of . . . sermons.
• The more people tell you how much better you are than their last pastor, the more likely you are to become their next former pastor.
• People who yell the loudest have the most to hide.
• Two-by-two door knocking ministry still works.
• When you notice that people have missed a few Sundays in church and you call them up, simply tell them that you miss them.  They’ll either offer an explanation or not.  Most people like being missed and don’t care for being interrogated.
• Ministry works so much better when you express daily thanks for the fact that Jesus died for your sins and rose from the dead as the first fruits of your own ultimate resurrection.

Last week was a pivotal one in my life as Don Henley released his first album in 15 years, a country-flavored bit of Americana (or Texicana) called Cass County. For those of you who don't know, in an earlier life Henley was the leadest of the lead singers of the Eagles, providing the signature vocals for songs like "Hotel California," "One Of These Nights," and "Life In The Fast Lane." In a middle life, after the first demise of the Eagles, he went solo and produced what is frankly my favorite music of all time, including "The Boys Of Summer" and "The Heart Of The Matter." And now, as a 68-year-old in later life, he is returning to his roots.  Taking a break from the never-ending Eagles reunion, Henley named this solo work after the East Texas county where he grew up and stocked it with songs much like those he heard as a boy on his father's car radio. Here are five things you need to know after waiting a decade and a half for new music from Don Henley: 1.  There are no anthems . . . but the voice is still anthemic.  If you're looking for The Heart Of The Matter, Episode Two or even The Men Of Summer, you'll be disappointed.  No soaring, shimmering rock on Cass County.  Yet Henley's voice retains its spellbinding power.  My favorite vocal moment is the declaration that Some pray for health and happiness, for riches and renown / But none of that will matter if the waters don't come down in the tune "Praying For Rain." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S433z3UREqc   2.  Echoes Of His Earlier Work Abound.  The rueful "Younger Man" almost samples the melody from "Damn It Rose" off 2000's Inside Job; the storyboarding of "Waiting Tables" brings "Lyin' Eyes" to mind although with a more sympathetic lead character; and in "No Thank You" the singer gives the warning "don't tell me to take it easy."  Is that intended for Glenn Frey? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pte5EoRl5-Q   3.  The covers of vintage country tunes . . . must be for country fans.  When the "Sunset Grill" guy sings "The Brand New Tennessee Waltz"and "She Sang Hymns Out Of Tune," I struggle to connect with the song and the format.  Or I'm just grateful to have it on CD and not cassette.   4.  He's still got a poet's touch.  "It's the cost of living . . . and everyone pays" could have just as easily been penned by those other rock poets, Mr. Springsteen and Mr. Mellencamp.  Whoever wrote it, it's really good stuff. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaGKPULxPhI 5.  The guest list is spectacular.  Mick Jagger ("Bramble Rose"), Vince Gill ("No, Thank You"), Dolly Parton ("When I Stop Dreamin'"), Merle Haggard ("The Cost Of Living") and, best of all, Martina McBride in the album's first single, "That Old Flame," a song that merges rock & country into what is best called Nashville Pop. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tc9So3jwSUM   6.  Nobody does angry, defiant, and content all at the same time any better.  "Where I Am Now," the closing original song on the disc, is the one I'll most likely be adding to my "best of Don Henley" list. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foMl7ZQ_TNY    

Yesterday morning I prayed that the people of Good Shepherd would have a "painful enlightenment" through the sermon. I believe that prayer was answered. Here's what people needed to realize . . . The people you GET mad at are not the ones you ARE mad at. (Yes, I just finished a sentence with "at"; don't worry about it.  I know it's wrong.  You still know what I'm saying better than you would if I'd made it grammatically correct.) The target of your tantrum is not the same as the object of your anger. Bottom line:  When you feel powerless, you take it out on the defenseless. This message seemed to resonate with many, many people yesterday.  I hope it provokes you to some deep thinking today.   ----------------------------------------------------------------- Do you know what happens when something is deflected? When it is intended for one person and ends up with someone else? It happens all the time in sports – a tipped pass in football or basketball, a re-directed shot in soccer, an accidental goal in hockey. Like this:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMuUBZ_DAeM   (Immaculate Reception). It was meant for Frenchy Fuquay; it went to Franco Harris and the rest is four Super Bowls in six years history! It happens with packages. One time I ordered a shirt online and I got a dress instead. Which means, of course, that some lady somewhere is showing off her guns wearing my shirt! Meant for one, goes to another. It even makes me think of that country song from a generation ago where the singer is lamenting that he has lost his wife to another guy: “That's my kids and that's my wife Whose that man, runnin my life?” That’s how deflection does: things apparently meant for one person get re-directed towards someone else. Things get deflected all the time. And nowhere is that more true than with Mad People Disease. It is just so true that the target of most of your tantrums is not the real source of your anger. The people you get mad at are not the ones you’re really mad at. It’s like this: hold up BROKEN RACKET (or video?) Back in the day, I did this dozens of times. Hit a double fault, lose a point, BAM, racket obliterated. There’s really an art to it, if you want to know the truth. But from the perspective of age & time, hello!, it wasn’t the racket’s fault. My anger was directed at me. Meant for ME; delivered to the racket. Or even that guy in Bellevue WA a few years ago who got his car stuck in 6 inches of snow and in response smashed all the windows with his tire iron and then pulled out a pistol to shoot all four tires. He sure showed that car! The police chief out there in WA called it a case of “autocide.” But you see the deflection, right? Meant for self, delivered to the now dead car. It’s deflection and it’s the way most of our anger gets expressed. And most of the time, the victims of our deflected anger are more significant & vulnerable than inanimate objects like tennis rackets and cars. Look at Ephesians 6:4:  Fathers,^[a] do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord. Fathers – though as you’re going to see, there’s plenty of room here for moms as well – do not exasperate. Do not provoke towards anger. Do you know how revolutionary these words were in the ancient world? In the Roman world in which Ephesians was written, there was a custom with new born children. They’d bring the newborn to the father & lay it at his feet. And if he stooped down to pick the baby up, he acknowledged the child had a right to live. If he turned and walked away, the child would be thrown away. Good God. We have an ancient letter from a soldier husband to his pregnant wife w/ these words: “When I get wages, I will send them to you. If you have a child and it is a boy, let it live; if it is a girl, throw it out.” Post-birth abortions! So in that setting, the idea that Paul & the NT regarded children as valuable & vulnerable is unprecedented. But note again the instruction: don’t exasperate. Don’t make them angry. And how does that happen? How do you raise children who are angry? With our own anger! When you have anger in excess towards your kids, you raise children who have anger in returned but it must be REPRESSED. Because they have to. You’re big; they’re little. You’re strong; they’re weak. You have $ and they don’t. But mark my words: when they grow up, catch up, and can finally return what they’d long been repressing, whew! Watch out. You exasperated them then and now they’re returning the favor. Some of you have lived it, others are living it now, and still others are headed that way. And that’s what I want to prevent.   And I believe that the key to that is understanding what I spoke of a minute ago. Deflection. I think the heart of most anger that parents vent towards children – and even that spouses vent to each other – is deflected anger. It is meant for one person but it lands somewhere else. Because here is why Paul locates so much of his anger conversation around children, doing so in a world where it was expected that children would receive anger, disdain, and, as you could see, disposal. The inspired writer seems to be hinting at a different kind of diagnosis, one augmented by verses like Proverbs 14:28 & 15:1: READ. Here’s what I believe is true, based on Scripture and on observation: most of the anger you express (excess!) to your kids is misdirected. It’s really intended for someone else, vented at them. It was about ten yrs ago, right before we moved into this bldg, and I just had the worst week at week. Poorly executed decision at just the wrong time, big mess, dogs & cats living together. Anyway, early one morning that week I was taking my kids to catch a ride to school. In Steeleberry Acres subdivision. One of them said exactly the wrong thing and I stopped the car, put it in Park (that’s how you KNOW this is serious!) and just laid into them. I was ticked at my kids and I suspect it was loud enough the whole subdivision knew about. But you know what I realized? I wasn’t really mad at them; I was mad at church, at the situation, at my own dumb timing. I felt powerless to fix a situation here and as I took it out on my suddenly shivering kids they must have wondered, “Who took our dad and replaced him with an axe murderer?!” I was powerless to attack the source, so I assaulted the weakest ones available. See, a lot of you feel powerless towards your boss. Towards your parents. Towards your past. Towards the hand life has dealt. But, really, people almost never lose their temper with their boss. You don’t get mad in a job interview. You don’t become angry on a first date w/ someone you want to impress. You don’t vent freely when you meet your prospective in-laws. When you meet famous people. All those folks have leverage over you. They are in a position of power. So even if you feel anger, it’s almost always much too dangerous to express it. So what happens in the wake of the powerlessness you feel? That night – or, in my case, that morning – you take it out on your kids. Your mate. Your elderly parents. The server at the restaurant. You substitute the defenseless for the powerful. Here’s the deal: When you feel powerless you take it on the defenseless. It’s deflected anger. And it is likely ruining your marriage, compromising your friendship, killing your kids. Because be very sure of this: this kind of anger is generational. There is a cycle of excess – repress – excess. How many angry people do you know who, as it turns out, were raised in angry homes!  This is especially true of dads -- boys who are beaten grow up to become men who are to be feared. Does that sound familiar? Is there a parent or past you are powerless to change? Is there a figure in your life you are powerless to confront? Does it well up inside you and you’re realizing now that the anger you’re inflicting on vulnerable people is misdirected from a more deserving source. So much like Jenny in Forrest Gump who comes upon the house she grew up. The house where her dad abused her: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anz91PPMPw8   Sometimes you need more rocks. You? Better a house than a kid. REFRAIN. Someone here is powerless over your own compulsions. Whether towards gambling or drink or porn or shopping. And so you take it out by ranting on FB, venting at your family, alienating your friends. And you’re one of those people who is not so much angry at your boss or your parents but you’re angry at YOU. Yet instead of a tennis racket or a car you give to people you should love the most. Am I getting too close to home yet? When you feel powerless you take it on the defenseless. And then someone else here is . . . angry at God. The prayers that went unanswered, the sickness that went unhealed, the marriage that went unrestored, the ministry that went unattended! But you’ve been fed the lie that you can’t question God or you can’t get angry at God and so you HAVEN’T. You’ve just deflected the frustration you feel at God – who could handle it – and directed towards your kids, that server, that call center worker – ppl who can’t. Do you know what God does with people who get mad at him? He puts them in the bible! Check out the book of Psalms! Full of people furious with God and yet trusting enough of God that they could vent freely and honestly. We need some modern day Psalm writers in this place. When you feel powerless you take it on the defenseless. My prayer in all of this has been that lights would go on all across the room. Ah, this is what I do! Now I understand what’s going on when I lose it with the people I should love! So I’ve got some very practical things that I want to encourage all of you who have had that light go on to do. Moms and dads: if your kids are in the home and you now know they’ve been subjected to deflected anger, they need to hear from you. In person. Not a note, not a call, in person. Acknowledge, repent, and begin restoring. In Christ, you can break the cycle of generational anger. That won’t happen by replacing SOMETHING with NOTHING. Instead, look at the end of Ephesians 6:4: READ. Wow. The best CM and YM in Charlotte needs to be in your living room before it’s ever in our Living Room! How much do our homes, our child rearing practices, need to be saturated with God’s truth and love! So that you teach your children to view all of life through the lens of the Gospel. Because if you don’t do that, the world will jump right in and pretty soon your kids will mimic the values of the Bachelorette & Naked Dating! When you vow to replace deflected anger with protected truth, then God will give you grace to saturate your kids lives with him. And if you’re older, your kids are gone, and you, in a moment of clarity see what you did in years gone by, you may not be able to recover lost time, but you can begin to restore a broken relationship. NOT DIGITALLY. It’s the call, it’s the visit, it’s the gospel grace & courage to say, “I was mad at _________ and I inflicted it on you because you were available. I’m sorry.” You can’t believe how helpful that language is. If you were a victim of what I’m talking about, receive it well. And then, regarding the one who is the honest object of your ire – boss, parent, God, past – so many of those you can’t REALLY vent. I don’t want a whole slew of suddenly unemployed ppl at GS because of this sermon! But I do want to invite you to understand and live into the difference between being assertive & aggressive. Enormous differences. In those leveraged relationships where you don’t have the power, you can still be assertive. In pre-marital counseling, we have something called a Wish List. All you do: what are three things you’d like more of and less of in your relationship. Not threatening, not accusatory, not conditional, not aggressive. Just assertive. Calm, measured, productive. Instead of deflecting the anger you feel on the easiest target, how about harnessing your rage into the wisdom of a Wish List. Assertion without aggression. Wouldn’t it be great, wouldn’t it be marvelous if the generations to come at GSUMC were free of people carrying the scar tissue of deflected anger?

This rather improbable picture was taken at the United Methodist Publishing House in Nashville.     As I mentioned in Tuesday's post, I spent several days last week in Middle Tennessee at the New Room Conference.  While there, I wanted to visit with the people who have been the impetus behind Head Scratchers, The Shadow Of A Doubt, and The Storm Before The Calm. So I was able to meet some people in person whom I had previously only known through email, Twitter, and telephone.   The staffs of Abingdon & Cokesbury arranged a reception, asked me to talk about the different sermon series that have become books (and how it was that Abingdon heard about them in the first place), gave me a tour of their new digs, talked about future projects (wha-what?), and as you can see took the traditional "guest-with-a-John-Wesley" photograph for posterity. Looking forward to a return visit.