Tag Archives: faith

Stopping Short of the Line

Posted on by

For the record, and regardless of your preferred method of information reception, I’m going to do what I do every Sunday morning. I’m going to start tapping away at the keyboard until I’m done. And when I’m finished, I’ll find an image that fits the eventual message, copy and paste the text into the media streams that normally deliver it for me, and then go about preparing for the rest of my day, which promises to be long.

Admittedly, I do have an agenda this morning. Perhaps the previous paragraph is already a noticeable wink toward it. But first, something I see more often than I prefer.

Every now and then, I pull up to a stoplight and find myself behind or beside someone who has stopped a car length from the line. For some reason, it happens a lot at the light at the end of the off-ramp from southbound US-23 onto M-59. People approach that light, sometimes stopping fifteen or twenty feet from where the front bumper belongs, leaving a stretch of perfectly usable pavement in front of them. A.J. Hurley was at my home on Friday evening. Over a whisky and cigar, I shared with him how frustrated I get when I see this, especially when every second matters at particular intersections—and that’s an intersection that matters, the light being relatively short. Twenty feet makes a difference there.

But no matter the light, the practice makes no sense to me.

That said, I assume there may be explanations for the behavior. What those explanations are, I don’t know. Perhaps those drivers have depth-perception issues. Or maybe they’re simply overly cautious, having been rear-ended and shoved into oncoming traffic at some point in the past.

Whatever the reason, it doesn’t change the fact that the whole point of the line is to tell you where to stop your car. It’s the appointed place. It’s where the law, the road, and everybody else’s expectations meet. And I would think it’s more dangerous when someone ignores that normal expectation. The person behind you might expect you to stop in the appointed place. If you stop a car and a half length before it, you’re more likely to get rear-ended.

I drive a two-door Jeep Wrangler, which is relatively short. Admittedly, I’ve sometimes been tempted to simply pull around (even going onto the median if necessary) to park in that unused space. I’ve confessed this sinful inclination to my wife. Rest assured, I’ve never done it. I’ve only imagined it. Plenty of sins have had long and satisfying lives in my imagination while being denied a body in the real world. I’m grateful when the Holy Spirit keeps them there.

Even so, the thought arrives because it feels like a ridiculous, almost rude, waste of space. It feels as though someone came all the way to the place where the decision needed to be made and then refused to complete the approach.

This is right about the time in my writing when the skimmers start getting irritated.

I know this because some people don’t like that I tell stories in my writing. They hear an opening about lines at traffic lights and immediately want to know why I have not already made the point. They would prefer the thesis statement in the first sentence, the conclusion in the second, and the whole thing finished before the coffee cools. They want the truth in a line. Even better, a meme.

I understand the instinct. We live in a skimming age. We skim headlines. We skim articles. We skim emails. We skim the terms and conditions when we buy a car. We do the same in our mobile phone contracts, pretending to accept responsibly. We skim because there is too much to read, too much to answer, too much to carry, and too much demanding our attention.

So, in other words, skimming has become sort of a survival skill.

Again, I get it. Still, skimming has a cost. A skimmer gets the icing. A reader gets the cake. A reader can savor the truth, having received it by patience, observation, memory, humor, discomfort, recognition, and whatever other tool the writer employs in his narrative. A reader is brought to and led through the ordinary world until the ordinary world gives up something worth seeing—and then a reader understands that worth.

That’s why I often begin with the everyday things. I begin with the odd driver at the stoplight because the odd driver at the stoplight might be relatable to you. It might even be you. I begin with the useless gap in traffic because the senseless gap in traffic might become a way of seeing the senseless gaps in your own life. I begin with something small because small things have a way of carrying larger truths.

And this is where I would expect Christians to be more tolerant of the method, because Jesus Himself taught this way.

The Lord certainly spoke plainly. He said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). He said, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 4:17). He said, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44). There were times when the truth came directly.

And yet, again and again, Jesus taught by making people listen and watch something happen. He told them about a man beaten and left half dead on the road, while religious men passed by and a Samaritan stopped to show mercy (Luke 10:25-37). He told them about a younger son who wasted his inheritance, a father who ran to welcome the lost boy home, and an older son who resented that father’s grace (Luke 15:11-32). He told them about a sower scattering seed on the path, the rocks, the thorns, and the good soil (Matthew 13:1-23). He told them about a Pharisee and a tax collector who went up to the temple to pray, and the one who went home justified was the one beating his breast and begging for mercy (Luke 18:9-14).

Jesus could have summarized each lesson in a sentence. He could have reduced the Prodigal Son to a doctrinal claim and the Pharisee and tax collector to a warning against spiritual pride. Instead, He made His hearers walk through the scene. He brought them into what today’s skimmers would call irrelevant details, making them stand on the road, in the field, at the house, near the temple, beside the wounded man, beside the angry brother, beside the seed that failed, beside the sinner who had nothing to offer except a quiet plea for mercy in darkness’s corner.

But here’s the thing. Like it or not, a story slows us down. Yes, it requires our time. But in the same way Jesus understood, a story is sometimes the only thing that gets past the gate we set up to protect ourselves from confronting something we might otherwise avoid. It gets past our efforts to avoid being corrected. A story lets us nod along until we suddenly realize we have been implicated. Nathan understood this when he came to David with the story of a rich man, a poor man, and a beloved little lamb. David burned with anger against the man in the story, and then Nathan said, “You are the man” (2 Samuel 12:1-7). The story is what Nathan used to help lead David across the distance he’d placed between himself and truth.

In that sense, here’s where the story of the stoplight can make each of us stop and think. The driver who stops a car length from the line has become, in my mind, a small parable of stopping short. He’s near the appointed place—the location he should be occupying. He can see the line. Everyone else can see the line. The whole intersection is arranged around the expectation that he will move to the line. And yet he sits back from it.

We all live this way on occasion in normal, everyday life.

We know we’ve done wrong, and yet, we stop short of saying it out loud. We come near to forgiving someone but stop short, preferring instead to continue rehearsing the details of the person’s offense. We see our talents and treasure and understand faithful stewardship, but we stop short of actually engaging in it. We confess God’s Word as the sole source for faith, life, and practice, but then stop short of letting that be true in our lives.

We leave gaps in so many places. For whatever reason or excuse, we sit back from the line. Meanwhile, the place of faithfulness sits in front of us, visible and empty.

Again, the skimmer, if still with us, is reading and thinking all of this could’ve been stated simply and plainly. The reader—who also happens to be the deeper thinker—knows why the stoplight story helped. And yes, this is absolutely true. Neuroscientists have long understood that readers are this world’s critical thinkers. That’s because genuine understanding that leads to betterment is a process that takes time. On the flip side, a skimmer’s chief tool is not his brain, but rather, his eyes. They use what some neuroscientists have labeled the “F” pattern of reading, which means a skimmer scans a line, then another, before scrolling down, hoping to find a word that attracts their attention. Then the process starts again. A line. Another line. Then scroll. The point is that, by default, skimmers look for things that already make sense to them. That inhibits a skimmer’s ability to grow beyond the self-protective boundaries I described earlier.

But again, readers are engaged in a longer, slower process that expands—and actually strengthens—their cognitive abilities. They’re the ones who can see the driver sitting back from the line and recognize themselves. I dare say, they’re the ones who, once they’ve felt my temptation to drive up and onto a median to pull my Jeep into the gap, can understand how the Holy Spirit fights the flesh in even the simplest moments.

That’s the benefit of storytelling. It does more than state the truth. It gives the truth room to approach. It lets the hearer live with the matter for a while. It gives the conscience time to wake up. It teaches without sounding like a scolding lecture, even when the teaching finally becomes sharp.

Jesus knew all of this before neuroscience was even a thing. That’s because He knows us. He knows that we can defend ourselves against a single sentence or meme. He knows that a story can lead us to the line before we realize where we’ve been going.

So, I will keep noticing the cars that stop too far back at red lights. I will probably keep wondering why they do it. By God’s grace, I hope to continue resisting the urge to drive my Jeep onto the median and dropping into the gap to make a point.

I’ll also keep writing this way, regardless of anyone’s criticism, if only because the world is full of little parables. Some are found in vineyards and fields. Some are found beside wounded men on roads between Jerusalem and Jericho. Some are even found at a traffic light, where someone has come toward the line and stopped short.

Again, a reader will understand. A skimmer will be irritated, and most likely, have already moved on. But if he stayed, perhaps the next time he sees that empty space at the light, he’ll think about the places where he has done the same. And for me, that’ll always be worth the extra paragraphs.

Duty Remains

Posted on by

For the past thirteen years, I’ve led a monthly worship service at a care facility in Brighton. This past Tuesday, when I arrived, the room we normally use was already occupied. Before frustration could get the best of me, if only because the activities manager is no stranger to leaving me off the schedule by mistake, I returned to the front desk to ask what was happening. The woman there had a flash of memory, recalling that the facility manager was leading orientation for a group of new hires—and it would last all day.

Well, okay. So, where do I go? And who will ensure that the regular attendees can find me?

Not to worry. We sorted it out. But just a quick word about something I noticed before moving into a new space.

The room where we normally gather is set up like a movie theater. It is by no means massive, but it is large enough that distance can make a difference. When I looked in, the manager was leading the session from a chair near the front of the room, almost in the corner. The new employees were all sitting in random chairs in the very back row.

I found it both strange and humorous. She wasn’t showing a video. The projector wasn’t on, so there was no screen they needed to see from that angle. There was no obvious reason to be that far away. They had simply chosen to sit as far from the person in charge as possible. And the manager hadn’t asked them to move closer, which means they remained at least thirty feet from her while she spoke. Not to mention, they were divided by multiple rows of empty chairs. I joked with the woman at the front desk that the new hires must all be Lutherans. An elderly woman beside me volleyed that they could just as well be Baptists.

I suppose I really can’t point my finger at the people in that room. Anyone who has led a meeting or something similar has seen some version of this before. In truth, I already understand it from the participant’s perspective. Whenever I attend any sort of gathering, whether it’s a class, a conference, or whatever, I always sit in the back—and I usually sit at the end of the row. I can tell you why I do it.

Although maybe I shouldn’t. Well, I guess it’s okay.

For starters, I never quite feel like I fit in. When that’s the case, I remain on the outskirts. Second, in such gatherings, I’m more inclined to listen and learn than contribute. I can accomplish that goal well enough from a distance. Third, I don’t like people sitting behind me. I want to see everyone and everything that’s happening, especially when the gathering is informational.

All of this is to say that I’m wired to prefer participation with an escape route. I’m present, but carefully so.

So, why tell you this? On the same day that I noticed the strangeness of the orientation meeting, primary elections were held. Some things that happened after certain races were called reminded me of what I saw in the orientation meeting.

One of the more notable results from Tuesday’s primaries was that Thomas Massie lost his seat. When the results came in, social media lit up with folks upset by this, and understandably so. Regardless of how Massie is often painted by his friends or foes (and I expect plenty to pounce when they read this), he has, on the one hand, been one of the few in Washington willing to speak plainly about government spending, foreign entanglements, and the bipartisan machinery that always seems to move in the same direction, no matter who claims to be driving it. And yet, he has taken up positions that made plenty of conservatives uneasy, especially when his instincts for restraint were too much like indifference toward very real evils in the world. Add to this that he received official endorsements from groups like Code Pink, not to mention regular applause from extreme corners of the left that spend most of their time opposing nearly everything a Christian guy like me believes. For me, that made the picture less tidy than the outrage suggested.

Part of the point was that for Massie, there was plenty to admire and plenty to question. But is that not true of most who step into public life?

The point here is neither to accept nor reject Massie. I liked some of his positions. I didn’t like others. What interested me was the response from some Christians after his loss. Their disappointment became immediate resignation. Some renounced engagement in the public square altogether. Their conclusion seemed to be that Massie’s loss proved the whole enterprise was pointless. These are often the same people who warn that Trump supporters behave like cultists, as though political loyalty has swallowed up all logic and common sense. And yet, the moment their preferred candidate/leader lost, their strict devotion led to a complete recantation of political engagement altogether. That, too, is a kind of cultish response. The justification, in their minds, was that the system is obviously too corrupt, so contending in the public square is nothing but a huge waste of time.

I get the frustration. Trust me when I say that I share it on occasion. For the record, I should add I’ve never held official membership in a political party. And I never will. I hold membership in the body of Christ, and as such, my life in the public square extends from that membership. This naturally means my vote goes to the people who most closely align with the will of God as He has revealed it in His Word.

That said, I’ve been participating in elections for 36 years and have never once voted for a Democrat. My vote is always Republican. That’s because the Republican platform, and therefore most of its candidates, is still the most palatable to Christianity. The Democrat platform and its candidates are the furthest thing from anything godly in our public life. And the thing is, they really don’t even hide it. They are openly opposed to nearly everything Christianity holds sacred. That is simply where things stand. The Democrat party supports and perpetuates abortion, sexual confusion, the mutilation of children, hostility toward the natural family, and a long list of things the Bible plainly condemns.

So, what does this mean? Well, for one, a Christian doesn’t need to pretend both parties are morally equivalent in order to sound thoughtful. They are not morally equivalent. I remember back in 2021, the efforts of the Satanic Church in Texas were touted by Democrats as the best hope for stopping the Heartbeat Bill. With that, to say that in a two-party system, the Democrat Party is the one Satan aligns with best, leaving only the Republican Party as the viable choice, is by no means to endorse the Republican Party as righteous. It’s simply being honest about the choices actually before us. In every election, we are dealing with sinners, platforms, priorities, and consequences. Sometimes the choices are deeply imperfect. Sometimes one side is plainly committed to evils Christians are duty-bound to resist. When that is the case, pretending the difference is negligible is not wisdom. At best, it’s an excuse to keep one’s hands clean. Or maybe something worse, a cultish tantrum dressed up as sophistication.

At the same time, I think Christians need to remember that political faithfulness is not the same thing as political triumph. We are called to confess the truth, to love our neighbor, to defend the weak, to restrain evil where we can, and to act according to God’s Word. We are not promised that every candidate we prefer most will win. We are not promised that every righteous cause will prevail in our lifetime. We are not even promised that our efforts will be, or even appear to be, effective.

That’s where the back row at the orientation comes to mind.

I’ll admit, it is tempting to move to the back row of the public square. It’s tempting to stay technically present while keeping as much distance as possible from the discomfort of engagement—even leaving an escape route. I won’t even begin to tell you how often I consider that approach. In the back row, we can watch. We can complain. We can mutter about how bad everything has become. We can say that politics is dirty, which is true enough. We can say that the system is broken, which is also true enough. And then, when things don’t go our way, we can congratulate ourselves for being above it all.

But that doesn’t change the fact that the people who despise God’s moral and natural law will continue using the machinery of government to erase all of it, all to the inevitable harm of our society.

I’m sorry to have to break it to you, but Christians are not permitted to retreat to the seat at the end of the last row. We are citizens of heaven (Philippians 3:20), and because of that, we are called to be the preeminent citizens on earth, and we do it from a seat in the center. We already know that Caesar is not Lord. But we also know that Caesar still has a sword. Here in America, we have a say in who the Caesar will be. That means we’re also responsible when the sword is used in ways that are opposite to its divine ordination—when it’s used to protect evil and punish good. No matter its use, a Christian cannot simply shrug and pretend politics has nothing to do with him.

Again, I get it. A lost primary is discouraging. It may even be clarifying. It may show us how deep certain loyalties run, how powerful certain interests are, and how easily voters can be moved by money, pressure, and personality. My point is that one election result does not release any of us from duty.

Faithfulness remains faithfulness when the results go the wrong way. Courage remains courage when our candidate loses. The unborn still need defenders. Children still need protection from predatory ideologies. Families still need advocates. Churches still need the freedom to speak, teach, gather, and serve.

Your neighbors, whether they realize it or not, still need Christians who understand that Godly citizenship does not disappear from public life the moment we experience a political setback.

I’ll always choose the back row in any physical gathering. But never in the public square. The back row in the public square may feel safer. It may even feel wiser and more virtuous for a while. But Christians have not been called to sit as far away as possible while the keynote speaker works to convince the room to hate God. We engage. We stay in the mix, letting our voices be heard and our efforts be seen.

In short, we endure.

We do so without illusions and without despair. As I already said, we may lose sometimes. We may actually lose more than we win. It was Jesus who asked His disciples rhetorically, “When the son of man returns, will he find faith on the earth?” (Luke 18:8). Of course, the answer to that question is yes. But the point is not lost on other categories beneath Christ’s rule, which is every category. The point is that things may get worse. But again, the results do not release us from responsibility. We are called to faithfulness. That’s it. No one in the divine spheres will ask any of us if we were applauded for our successes. But as the scriptures declare rather plainly, “it is required of stewards that they be found faithful” (1 Corinthians 4:2). That’s the measure. The Lord has placed us here, in this moment, with these neighbors, these duties, these votes, these voices, and these opportunities.

So, we refuse the back row and take the seats that belong to us. From right in the middle of all of it, we speak the truth. We defend what is good. We resist what is evil. We serve our neighbor. We pray. We vote. We endure, even when it seems pointless. We endure even when our guy loses.

Ashtray On An Airplane? Bypass My PIN?

Posted on by

The Thoma family is counting down the days until our annual Florida vacation. It’s a little over a month away. For the record: I. Can’t. Wait.

For me, it is a time of refreshment like none other, even though I’m no fan of traveling. If someone ever perfects teleportation, I’ll be first in line to invest. Step into a pod, hit a button, and step out beside a palm tree? Here, take my money.

On second thought, I just contradicted a formal Thoma decree. Florida’s distance is part of the point. Years ago, we decided as a family that vacations needed to happen somewhere far enough away that any return for a pastoral emergency would be impossible. Traverse City was too close. Florida isn’t. Once we’re in Florida, we’re there until the return flight.

Ah, the return flight. That’s the post-vacation moment God uses to help me brace for the real world. Indeed, the world shrinks around me. For example, I remember a brief conversation I had with Jen during the flight home last year. During the flight, I went to use the lavatory. I returned having noticed one of sin’s subtle fingerprints on the plane: the ashtray built into the lavatory’s folding door.

There it was in that tiny room behind the cockpit of our giant compression chamber with wings.

Before the flight even began, as the stewardess did her best to smile while demonstrating emergency instructions that no one cared to know, a voice came over the loudspeaker stating very plainly that Federal law prohibits smoking. Not to mention, there are a whole bunch of signs everywhere, most of them illuminated, telling you that smoking is prohibited. Then there are the smoke detectors above all our heads, alarms ready to scream.

Still, there’s the ridiculous ashtray tucked into the bathroom door.

There must be a practical reason for it. The only thing I can think of is that the airlines, perhaps without meaning to, have built a tiny doctrine of original sin into the lavatory door. They know people break rules. If someone is foolish enough to light up, the airline would rather the cigarette be put out in an ashtray than dropped into a trash bin full of paper towels. So, maybe the ashtray is proof of the Bible’s credibility. The airline, like the Bible, knows human beings are self-centered, addicted, defiant, and occasionally dangerous. An ashtray in an airplane makes no sense until you remember the doctrine of original sin. Then it makes perfect sense.

Come to think of it, I noticed something similar this past week while getting gas..

Essentially, no matter which gas station I use, when I pay with my debit card at the pump, there’s always an option to bypass my PIN. The same thing happens at most grocery stores. But the card has a PIN for a reason. It’s supposed to protect against unauthorized use. The whole point of the PIN is to prove that the person holding the card has knowledge only the cardholder would have. Still, if someone stole my card, he could pull into a gas station, swipe it at the pump, bypass the PIN, fill his tank, and drive away.

Unlike the ashtray, I can’t think of an explanation for this one. I only remember standing there with the nozzle in my hand, staring at the ridiculous GSTV commercial about giving the COVID vaccine to babies, and thinking, “The ‘Bypass PIN’ option sort of feels like having a deadbolt on my front door with a button beside it that says ‘Skip Deadbolt.’”

I guess what I’m saying is that some things just don’t make sense, and yet they exist anyway. I suppose one reason for this is that we’ve more than made peace with contradiction. As a pastor, I’ve met plenty of folks who insist on principles and then give wiggle room to the wants or personal preferences that negate them entirely. Truth be told, I’m guilty of such things myself. We all are.

That said, it was demonstrated in full bloom here at Our Savior last Sunday.

A woman came forward during the Lord’s Supper. Because I’d never seen her before in my life, and because the Lord’s Supper is much more than a religious snack shared among generally spiritual people, I discreetly asked at the altar, as I always do, the appropriate questions relative to participation, and when she openly admitted to being apart from what we believe, teach, and confess, I offered her a blessing and asked for a little bit of her time to chat after worship so we could talk in more detail.

I understand that many Christians come from churches where the Lord’s Supper is offered openly to anyone who comes forward. In those settings, withholding it from someone at the altar may seem unthinkable, and I understand why someone formed by that practice would be bothered. Not angry. Bothered. Still, 1 Corinthians 10 and 11 are especially important here. They teach us that Holy Communion is participation in Christ’s body and blood, and that those who commune together are also confessing something together. They also warn that eating and drinking without discernment is spiritually dangerous. That means the Lord’s Supper is never an open-ended religious gesture. It’s Christ’s gift, and because it’s Christ’s gift, pastors are called to steward it faithfully (1 Corinthians 4). That stewardship includes care for the person approaching the altar, care for the congregation gathered at the altar, and care for the confession being made at the altar.

So, again, before offering her a blessing, I asked to speak with her after worship. I did so gently. A conversation like that belongs somewhere better than a few whispered seconds at the rail. When she became angry, others nearby were gentle, too. No one tried to humiliate her. No one raised a voice at her. No one treated her with contempt. The goal was exactly what it should have been: kindness joined to faithfulness.

But she wasn’t having any of it. In her mind, she was owed the Sacrament, regardless of any reason we might give for instruction toward altar unity first.

The result? After a scene at the altar, rather than returning to her seat by way of the side aisles with the rest, she went down the center aisle alone, if only to display her anger to everyone. At her pew, she lifted her hands and called out that she had been refused communion with her God, continuing to disrupt the reverence around her.

There’s a lot wrapped up in all of this. Some of it was anger. Some of it was embarrassment. I don’t doubt for one second that she felt wronged. But why? Well, at least in part because much of American Christianity has trained people to think of the Lord’s Supper this way. If someone has been taught that the altar should receive anyone who comes forward, then a pastor’s hesitation will almost certainly feel like offense. I understand that. Still, taking offense does not mean offense was actually given. The reality is that she walked into a church whose altar she didn’t know, whose doctrine and practice she didn’t know, and whose confession she had not yet learned, and then expected the altar to operate according to assumptions carried in from the outside.

It was as though a stranger walked into someone’s house at dinnertime, sat down at the table, objected to the menu, rebuked the host, and then announced to everyone present that she had been denied what was rightly hers because they would not rewrite the order of their home to accommodate her.

That sounds absurd in ordinary life. And yet, in American Christianity, it seems to happen all the time.

Open or closed communion is not necessarily the point here. Although I should at least say that the churches practicing open communion usually recognize some boundary, even if they draw it differently. Suppose a pastor knew beforehand that someone intended to receive the bread and wine only to throw them on the floor and trample them. I doubt many would actually say, “Well, if he comes forward, I have to commune him.” At that point, the issue would be obvious. The pastor would guard the Lord’s Supper against open contempt. My point is not that every case is that blatant. Most are not. My point is simply that once we admit the Lord’s Supper can be profaned, the pastoral question is no longer whether reverent boundaries may exist. The question is where those boundaries belong, and whether the pastor is willing to bear the burden of applying them faithfully.

I suppose another point here is that, on the other end of the exchange, too many have been trained to believe that individual sincerity outranks truth, desire outranks doctrine, and personal offense outweighs pastoral responsibility. We have been trained to think that anything with the name “Jesus” on it is automatically boundaryless. And if it does have boundaries—things a worshipping community may have in place to prevent profaning Christ—then those boundaries are automatically loveless and offensive. We have been trained to imagine the Church as a spiritual convenience store, open to everyone on each person’s preferred terms.

That’s like a “Bypass PIN” option at the gas pump. It makes very little sense to me, and yet, it exists anyway. A person can say, “This is communion with God,” and then become furious when the pastor takes seriously what God has said about His meal. A person can say, “This matters deeply,” and then refuse the very care that proves the Church actually agrees with the statement. In other words, we say the thing is serious, and then we resent the safeguards that seriousness requires, acting as though doctrines are rude whenever they slow us to self-inspection and the possibility that we could be wrong.

One of the biggest itches in my craw is that so many say they want churches to stand for something, only to be shocked when we do. But the thing is, they’re really only shocked because the stance affected them personally.

You should know, she took me up on the offer to chat after worship.

Most people who are unhappy with our practice usually go through the greeting line, tell me what a rotten person I am, and then leave. She stood off to the side and waited. I did my best to speak calmly about what God’s Word says, and why what I did was an act of care rather than cruelty.

But again, she was having none of it, thereby demonstrating one more contradiction.

She stayed to chat. But like so many in our culture who claim to want discussion, when the time came for it, the “Skip Dialogue” button was pressed, and she talked over me, doing her best to lather me in condemnation and insults. I barely got a few sentences out. Instead, I was tongue-lashed by someone who wanted order, so long as it was her order. She wanted a church with an altar, but that altar could not be misaligned with what she already believed about altars.

So, why am I telling you these things? Well, for starters, you should know this isn’t necessarily an unfamiliar experience. It does happen more than people know, just not necessarily to this degree. I suppose I’m also sharing it because, at a minimum, it’s time, once again, to remind folks that the Church is not a restaurant where the customer is always right. The pastor is not a waiter taking custom orders. Above all—and recognizing that other Christians order this differently—my Synod, the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, believes the Lord’s Supper is sacred in a way that requires altar fellowship to be taken seriously. Sacred things require reverence, and reverence requires pastors and congregations to ground the Lord’s Supper in faithful practices born of God’s Word rather than in the increasingly common internet-assembled expectations of whoever happens to approach the altar.

This is where the theological lesson in all of this becomes unavoidable. We need to realize that sin does more than make people bad. It also makes us incoherent. It teaches us to demand gifts while rejecting the giver’s terms. It teaches us to call something holy while treating it like it isn’t. It teaches us to interpret pastoral care as hatred.

I think I just figured out why the PIN bypass option exists. Again, when you remember the nature of sin, these things make sense. The PIN bypass exists because the world wants what it wants. For businesses, in most cases, it’s profit. To get at your dollars, most businesses prefer convenience. Convenience often wins the argument before security even gets to speak. Scenes like the one that happened last Sunday prove the same thing. Any obstacle to personal preference is inconvenient. A person with this mindset will only ever see a pastor as hateful when he says, “I need to speak with you first, because what’s happening here is far too precious to be handled carelessly.”

Unfortunately, that’s the world we live in. It’s even more unfortunate that anger can rise so quickly when a pastor is trying to be pastoral. Still, the pastor’s task remains what it has always been. We preach Christ crucified. We call sinners to repentance. We give the gifts as Christ instituted them. We guard what He has entrusted to His Church. We speak gently when gentleness is possible, and we remain faithful even when gentleness is mistaken for hate. We do this because, in the end, we already know that the real contradiction at the heart of all this is, quite simply, us. Sinners want God near enough for comfort, but also far enough away to leave us in charge.

The thing is, the Christian Faith doesn’t actually allow that arrangement. Christ draws near on His terms. And because He is no divine pushover, letting anyone do whatever he or she wants with His things, He also doesn’t ordain undershepherds to accommodate terms other than what Christ has established. That’s not cruelty on Christ’s part. That’s not cruelty on the pastor’s part, either. That’s care. One would hope that even an atom-sized splinter of Christian humility would be enough to help any of us press “Pause” instead of “Bypass” before assuming that a church’s reverent boundary is an act of cruelty.

What Else Is There To Say?

Posted on by

I did a quick calculation this morning. I’ve done the calculation before, if only to remember how long it’s been.

Essentially, I looked back into the folders where I keep all these Sunday morning eNews messages. The first folder is labeled “2015.” However, there really should be a 2014 folder, too, because there are five in there that belong to the previous year.

Doing the math, that means that this coming November, I’ll have maintained this weekly practice for twelve years straight, never once missing a Sunday, even during the Thoma family’s two-week vacation. Every year on vacation, I tell myself I’m not going to do it. But then I do, anyway.

Well, that changes this year. Yeah, right. But I mean it this time. Okay, let’s just wait and see.

This morning’s note is number 654. Again, looking at the date of the very first one, and then doing a little math, it seems I’ve written a good number more than a year allows. That’s because I’ve also been writing them for special days throughout the year. For example, I write something at Thanksgiving. I write one on Christmas Eve and then again on Christmas Day. Things like that. When there are national tragedies, I try to observe and then say something worthwhile—something that can nudge a reader toward Christ. We’ve had our fair share of those in the last twelve years.

The COVID years never seemed to run dry of one’s need to observe critically through the Gospel’s lens.

But whether or not anything I’ve ever scribbled has been worth anyone’s while, at some point along the way, these little jaunts became less an opportunity to communicate about a particular topic and more a habit. And by habit, I not only mean the nagging urge to type something, but also the urge to observe the world in a certain way and do what I can to bring others into that observation.

I’ve said it before. There’s always something going on. A person needs only to open his eyes and look around. We live in a world that is both wonderful and foolish all at the same time. How a person prefers to interpret what’s seen is another question altogether. I suppose in a sense, this weekly habit—my clinical need to lift the looking glass of God’s Word to my eyes, sweep the moment’s horizon, and then describe the details for public consumption—has been a way for my habit to shape the habits of others.

Habits—good ones—are necessary, especially when the world’s darker things impose. I suppose that’s one of the strange benefits of good habits. In a way, they carry us when we can’t carry ourselves. They’re there to help put things in order when chaos threatens the moment.

For example, here I am at 654. I’ve scanned the morning’s horizon. What did the world impose? What chaos loomed?

A seven-year-old girl, Athena Strand, was kidnapped and murdered in Texas by a FedEx driver, Tanner Horner, who came to her home with a delivery. He saw her, and when no one was looking, he took her.

The images from the delivery truck’s interior dash cam video are dreadful, even though the ones I’ve seen don’t show the murder itself. One in particular shows her on her knees behind him in the narrow space between the cab and the packages, small enough to be hidden there, looking over his shoulder with a face that still belonged to childhood. To me, she seems caught between confusion and trust, as though some part of her was still trying to understand whether this was strange or frightening, whether she had won an unexpected contest, and the prize was a ride in a FedEx truck, or she was actually being carried past the last safe moment of her life. Her hair, her posture, the helpless nearness to the man driving her away—it all makes the scene almost unbearable. He was taking her toward a dreadful end, and she was still too young to know how terrified she needed to be.

Horner was sentenced to death by lethal injection last week. This does not bother me. There will be time between the verdict and the needle for the kind of forgiveness that can preserve Horner through mortality and into immortality. Let’s hope that happens while understanding that such hope feels foreign to our human sense. And so, in the meantime, let the government’s sword be removed from its sheath and wielded as God has ordained (Romans 13:4), lest more monsters act on the urge to do what Horner has done.

Beyond these things, it’s stories like these that make commentary feel useless. What is there to say after all this? What sentence can bear the weight of a seven-year-old child taken while playing in her driveway? What moral observation can see clearly enough through the fog of a little girl being abducted, violated, strangled, and dumped like trash a few miles from the safety of her home? What polished paragraph can stand near her mother and father, people who’ve had to keep breathing in a world where their daughter no longer does?

Some people reach for words because silence feels a lot like surrender. Still, in certain circumstances, it feels as though human language fails us miserably because some evils are just too plain for explanation. Some things that happen don’t need analysis or interpretation. They need tears. They need the kind of groaning St. Paul says creation has been doing since the fall (Romans 8:22).

A little girl is dead. A family is shattered. A man has been condemned. And all the world’s surrounding talk feels tritely thin.

That said, I humbly suggest we let the habit carry us here. When we do—when the lens is lifted—we may not fully understand what happened, but we’ll at least see it clearly. If anything, we’ll get a sense of just how different the Christian faith is from the world’s sentiment. The Christian faith—established by the Holy Spirit through the Gospel—is incapable of pretending evil is smaller than it is. It certainly doesn’t try to convince the believer that every tragedy is secretly beautiful if we just look at it from the right angle. Personally, a little bit of crazy stirs in me when the best anyone can offer to moments like these is that everything happens for a reason.

Yeah, okay. That’s not helpful. But then again, the world is ridiculous that way.

The Word of God observes these things and calls them what they are. It sees death and calls it an enemy (1 Corinthians 15:26). It beholds murder and describes it as an act that screams to God from the ground (Genesis 4:10). It sees children and then warns against their harm, reminding ill-minded adults that their angels always see the face of the Father in heaven (Matthew 18:6 &10). It looks at dreadfulness and says God does not hold the guilty guiltless (Exodus 34:7 and Nahum 1:3).

And then, suddenly, right in the middle of all of it, it points us to a cross.

Why would it do this? Because the cross is where God shows us that He is serious about sin, death, and the devil’s awful and seemingly never-ending creativity (Hebrews 2:14-15 and 1 John 3:8). The cross doesn’t make evil less evil. It reveals how deep the evil goes. The Son of God is betrayed, mocked, beaten, condemned, and killed. Innocence is nailed to wood. The world does what the world does, and God takes all of it into Himself.

Then, on the third day, Jesus rises. That’s what matters most in situations like this. And only through the Gospel’s lens can this be seen. Only through Christ and His complete and perfect work, ultimately proven by His resurrection, can we take one more breath through moments that feel like all the earth’s oxygen suddenly dissipated into space. It has to matter in situations like this, or it doesn’t matter anywhere.

If Easter is only for clean grief and manageable sadness, it’s way too small. If the resurrection is as the world is minimally willing to consider it—a springtime metaphor—then it has nothing to say beside a child’s grave. Or, if Christ is raised merely to improve our mood, so that we can say things like, “Well, everything happens for a reason,” then He is useless in the face of real horrors.

But Christ is risen from the dead.

That means death doesn’t get the final word over Athena Strand. It doesn’t get the final word over the tears of her family. It doesn’t get the final word over the courtroom, the sentence, the headlines, or the long years of grief that remain after everyone else stops reading.

The final word belongs to the One who said, “Let the little children come to me” (Mark 10:14). It belongs to the One whose hands still bear the wounds of what human beings do to the innocent (John 20:27).

Admittedly, even those words don’t make the grief tidy. I can promise you that. I’ve never shared them at a funeral and seen all the tears suddenly dry up. But it doesn’t change the fact that they’re Gospel words, and only the Gospel truly soothes (whether or not we realize it) in moments of sadness and anger, and during times of rage. In fact, it’s the Gospel that gives  Christians permission to weep. The Lord sanctified our tears when He cried at Lazarus’s tomb (John 11:33-36). The Gospel reminds Christians that they are also allowed to want justice (Psalm 10:17-18 and Revelation 6:10). And while doing so, the Gospel calls for Christians to know they are more than permitted to cry out in the face of this world’s atrocities, “How long, O Lord?” (Psalm 13:1 and Revelation 6:10).

God gave us those words because He knew we’d need them. They’re meant to be spoken often. Indeed, they make for a good habit of words—the kind we need when it feels like there isn’t anything worth saying. Because often, there just isn’t.

And so, the Church’s habits emerge from God’s Word. We pray. We confess. We sing. We gather. We speak the Creed. We hear the Word. We eat and drink the body and blood of Christ. We bury our dead in hope. We say “Lord, have mercy” when there’s nothing left to say in the presence of grief.

Considering the story I shared, the only thing left worth saying is Lord, have mercy on Athena’s family. Lord, bring justice to the wicked. Lord, protect the little ones. Lord, grant us faith to hold fast to you, even as you hold fast to us. And Lord, please, come quickly (Revelation 22:20).

Jesus Is the Way Out

Posted on by

I’ll just warn you before I even get started this morning that my eyes are already tired and my brain is already fried. For those who may or may not care, I have started writing the sequel to Ashes to Ashes. I’ve been working on it off and on since October of last year. But by “working on it,” I mean tapping at it in between a thousand other things.

At this point, I have twenty-five good chapters of what already feels like it’ll be forty or more by the time I’m done. But as I already hinted, to do any of the work necessary to the story at any other time of the year than during summer’s only slightly accommodating pace is to invite a kind of mental collapse I am less and less equipped to survive as I get older.

I’m sure the other pastors out there reading my words know exactly what I mean. Seemingly, billions of big and small demands of ordinary vocation take up the better part of whatever strength many of us have to give in any particular day. And by the time morning comes around again, there’s usually enough left in me to do the work in front of me, though rarely enough to disappear into another world and bring back pages from it.

Add to the calculus that I’m relatively new to the fiction genre. It certainly doesn’t come about as easily as stuff like this. With this, I don’t have to plan. I just have to type. And with that, I can do a lot in a short period of time. I can’t do that with a story. Well, I suppose I could. But I can assure you it wouldn’t be any good.

I’ve learned a thing or two along the way. For starters, I’m assuming most fiction writers know that no matter what their original ideas might be before starting, they’ll almost certainly change as the work unfolds. I’ve learned that a story has a way of revealing itself. I heard Joe Rogan talk about his best creativity occurring in an almost disconnected way, describing it as something that happens apart from his intentions, steered more so by a “muse.”

That may or may not be true. Well, whatever.

In my world, it just seems like the characters press forward, themes deepen, certain scenes, once their details start forming, they arrive carrying more weight than I actually anticipated. Some come to mind while driving or eating lunch. Some arrived while I was mowing the yard this weekend. Sometimes the ideas translate into more pages. Sometimes it means I wrote way too much and, even though I might like it, I have to delete it.

That’s where I am right now—when I have the time.

Again, for those who may or may not care, much like the first installment, this one is being built in part from a playlist of songs. I’ll likely include that playlist somewhere near the beginning in a preface. I’ve already included some quotations from a few at the beginning of a few chapters. I may or may not keep them there. Just like Ashes to Ashes, the songs I’m listening to now do more than provide background noise while I write. They help form the register of the story. This time around, most of them are rock songs, and they fit this particular novel because they capture the lead character’s inner turmoil while, in some cases, also giving a sense of the force and movement behind what he does. You don’t need me to tell you that a song—a combination of music and lyrics—can sometimes say in three or four minutes what it takes fifteen pages to tell. It can carry anger, grief, memory, longing, and self-destruction all at once.

One song in particular attached itself to the work early on. In fact, it landed on me a month or two after I finished Ashes to Ashes. It’s “Rise” by The Cult.

I love rock music. But in all honesty, I was never a fan of that band. Also, I didn’t necessarily intend to write a sequel. But then other things started happening—and then I happened upon that song—and Daniel Michaels’ return almost felt inevitable. If you listen to the song, especially its chorus, I think you’ll get a sense for the book’s faster pulse.

Imagine a man surrounded in an alley. He’s been tricked into the space by some very bad people. Still, he’s the only one who makes it out. The song will give you such a character in motion.

If you’re listening to the song while a familiarity with Reverend Daniel Michaels is wandering around in your brain, you’ll hear a terrible kind of resolve gathering into purpose. You’ll see that dark alley, and you’ll sense that he’s coming, and he can’t be stopped. Again, it’s the chorus that does it for me.

“It’s the way that you feel. It’s the truth in your eye. ’Cuz you’re up against the world, and still you rise.”

By themselves, the words don’t quite fill in the gaps. You need the music, too. When you get a chance, listen to the song, especially if you know the character. It’ll be a foretaste of the energy driving the action you can expect.

But there’s also something more than action in what you’re hearing. There’s a sense of determination. Listen for it. I suppose the determination part is what matters most to me. Where is a person’s determination aimed?

When a question like that is asked, the Christian understanding of humanity doesn’t permit shallow explanations. That’s because we know better than to divide sin from its potential. We know we’re not dealing with minor flaws and manageable wounds. We’re dealing with a diseased heart capable of the worst kinds of destruction. Once that truth is understood, a story moving through darkness cannot be treated as merely a tale of heroes and villains. The man at the center of the story may hate evil for the right reasons and still become entangled in evil by the way he deals with it.

Among other things, I’m interested in that. But not only that. I’m also interested in the possibility of a trajectory toward something better. I say “trajectory” because stories like this are rarely about clean transformations. While I’m not necessarily new to reading stories like this, again, I’m fairly new to creating them, and I’ve learned they’re about collision, pressure, realization, and maybe even mercy arriving where mercy seemed all but impossible. They’re about humanity falling far enough into the habitual nature of darkness that we wonder if there are any real roads back from it all.

As a person who also writes sermons for a living, it’s nearly impossible for me to do any of this without noticing God’s Word standing somewhere in the background. God’s Word names things truthfully. It exposes and accuses and strips away all excuses. It tells the truth about evil in the world and the truth about evil within the “self.” That’s God’s Law doing its thing. But that’s not all there is to God’s Word. The Gospel is there, too, and it does something the Law cannot do. It shows us Christ. And as it does, it forgives and restores. It raises those who are dead in their trespasses and sins to new life—no matter who they are or what they’ve done.

The Gospel gives us Jesus. He’s the road out.

I don’t mean to sound vain, but I think what makes what I’ve written a little better than the Hallmark Channel type Christian fiction stuff that’s out there is that I’m willing to let the Law do its work. I’m more willing to let sin appear in its fuller ugliness than the folks at Angel Studios. I’m not saying they’re necessarily wrong for what they’re doing. I’m just saying I don’t want to rush past the damage people do to one another and to themselves without the reader sensing humanity’s genuine need for rescue. At the same time, I want to tease out how the Gospel might address those scenarios in real time. Because that’s where we live—in real dreadfulness in real time.

That, to me, is where the real weight of the better stories lives. Human struggle means more when sin is treated seriously, and redemption means more when mercy reaches someone who has no clean way of rescuing himself.

As you can imagine, I’ve re-read Ashes to Ashes several times while working on all this, if only to maintain the world and its style. Admittedly, the first book already carried these tensions in seed form. This sequel pushes them further. The darkness is deeper here. The wounds have been around a lot longer. Plenty of other things have happened, giving Daniel’s condition more time to harden. He carries grief and guilt, and I suppose also a grim sense of obligation, and all of it presses him forward in ways that are destructive even though he’s convinced himself they are necessary. He’s trying to answer evil. He’s trying to set things right. He’s trying, in his own damaged way, to act against what should never have been allowed to flourish in the first place. And yet, there it is, in all its ugliness. And when Daniel sees it, sometimes it’s more like looking in a mirror than observing through a window.

But that’s not at all where I want this story to end. With that, I’ll use the word “trajectory” again. Daniel’s trajectory must be one of hope. People should sense hope’s presence.

What I mean is that the strength of any good character (if the character is being written within genuine humanity’s honest boundaries in mind) won’t rest in his ability to think his way back into decency through sheer force of will. If that’s where the character’s hope is located, there’d be very little reason for hope at all, whether fiction or nonfiction.

I suppose that’s where the author, who is also a pastor, can benefit the story most. I can keep these things in mind, remembering that real hope rests where it has always rested: in the mercy of God in Christ, who still speaks into dead places and calls them back to life.

In other words, if there is any road out for a man like Daniel Michaels, it’ll have to be given to him. It will have to come from outside of him. It will have to arrive as mercy does, undeserved and unearned, but real all the same. And it’ll be located firmly in Jesus.

And so, wherever any of this finally goes, and however dark some of its roads may become along the way, I hope it’ll be hard to miss that even for someone as wounded and lost as Daniel, redemption is never out of reach, not with Christ.

That’s enough rambling for today.

Easter 2026

Posted on by

Last night’s Easter Vigil service here at Our Savior was, as always, extraordinary. For one, most of the service occurs in the dark. No lights. Only candles. Until a particular moment. Then, there’s nothing quite like having gone nearly nine weeks without speaking the word “Alleluia,” as is the tradition for the churches embracing the better traditions, when suddenly, after the Gospel Proclamation “Christ is risen!”, all of the lights come on in a blaring flash as the congregation shouts, “He is risen, indeed! Alleluia!”

It’s a splendid moment, to be sure, adorned with Christian hymnody, as the congregation continues directly—powerfully—into the Hymn of Praise, singing, “This is the feast of victory for our God!”

And yet, what is it that makes the moment so arresting? I think part of it is located in the Church’s historic wisdom, in the sense that worshippers are meant to experience the very real contrast between darkness and light. And maybe even mourning silence and jubilant song. It’s so startling that it’s hard to ignore.

Although I suppose it isn’t just these contrasts. I think, in the Church’s wisdom, she grew to understand, through the centuries, the weight of what was carried during the days before the Resurrection vigil. That first Alleluia, after weeks of somber reflection, doesn’t return cheaply. It’s not like it’s merely added back into the service. We certainly don’t just stumble upon it. It has literally been buried—intentionally silenced—because the Church has spent her time walking in solemnity with Christ to the cross. In that moment when the lights come on, and the Christians shout “Alleluia,” we understand that the absence has done its work. It has trained the heart to actually sense the cost of our redemption.

In other words, even during the Easter celebration, we don’t lose sight of what sits at the heart of our confession. Good Friday lingers behind every note. The echo of the hammer, the finality of “It is finished,” the stillness of a tomb sealed and guarded—all of it locks arms with the Easter proclamation. Which, again, I’m guessing, is precisely why the joy is not thin, nor is it merely sentimental. It’s a sense, maybe even a microscopic taste, of joy that has passed through death and come out the other side carrying something indestructible. When the lights blaze on, and the Alleluias return, they do so as defiance to sin, death, and all of hell’s battalions.

Jesus won. They lost. There’s the proof—a living, breathing Jesus. My Jesus. Alleluia!

I won’t speak for the folks who attend our Easter Vigil service, but for me, it’s not some sort of reenactment or merely a highly liturgical remembrance. It’s more of a participation. I’m not even a spectator to what I’m seeing. I’m a direct recipient of the Resurrection’s ongoing reality. Because of Christ’s Easter victory, sin not only lost, but it can never have the last word. Death and hell not only lost, but they no longer have a final claim on me—on any believer! The grave was not the end of the story for Christ, and therefore it isn’t for those who are in Him.

I suppose that’s why the joy feels almost too large for the room where it all happened last night. And if you’ve ever been to Our Savior in Hartland, it’s a big, wonderful space. Still, no matter how many are in attendance at the Vigil, the joy spills over into the kind of thunderous song I’m willing to bet leaves the devil without question. When the Vigil bunch starts singing, the old evil foe knows for certain that his house has been ransacked, that what was lost has been found, and more than found—redeemed and restored.

Admittedly, when it comes to the emotion of it all, there’s no earthly Good Friday or Easter service that will match the scale of what Christ accomplished. And after looking back at everything I just wrote, I should be careful to mention one more thing—something I already made a point of clarifying during the Good Friday Tre Ore service.

Keep in mind, no matter the century, the goal of genuine Christian worship has never been about making you feel something. At least, not worship born from a biblical understanding. That’s partly because genuine Christian worship doesn’t begin with you—with what you do for God. It approaches God with empty hands extended, knowing there’s nothing we can bring into worship that He needs, but instead, we need everything He can give.

I like how Rev. Dr. Norman Nagel explained it in the Introduction to Lutheran Worship, the LCMS’s hymnal prior to Lutheran Service Book. He wrote so crisply: “Our Lord speaks, and we listen. His Word bestows what it says. Faith that is born from what is heard acknowledges the gifts received with eager thankfulness and praise. … Saying back to Him what He has said to us, we repeat what is most true and sure. … The rhythm of our worship is from Him to us, and then from us back to Him. He gives His gifts, and together we receive and extol them” (LW, p. 6).

Unfortunately, many churches have it the other way around, inevitably falling into a trap. And when they do, they lose sight of something important. The goal of worship is always to deliver something: Christ for you, crucified and risen! This happens through a Law and Gospel message that establishes the need and then delivers the means to overcome it! They’re means that are placed into ears by the preached Word, and into our mouths by the Lord’s very body and blood, given and shed for the forgiveness of sins.

When this is our understanding of worship, that it’s about God serving us, rather than the other way around—not from the moment’s emotion, but from the divine means; not from what we bring into the space, but from what He gives objectively, concretely, outside of us—when this is the understanding, Christian joy holds. It holds even when the lights go out again, we get into our cars and drive home, and the alleluias fade into the ordinary days that follow Easter’s exceptional festivities.

And so, with that, I pray the Lord’s blessings upon you and yours as you celebrate this wonderful day. May it be for you a day of days, one that fills you to the brim with Christ’s merciful love. It was a hard-fought fight. But it wasn’t hopeless. Again, there He is. He is risen! He is risen, indeed! Alleluia!

Good Friday 2026

Posted on by

Here at Our Savior in Hartland, we spend Holy Monday, Holy Tuesday, and Holy Wednesday making our way through John 12:20-50. The context of the reading is Palm Sunday. It’s the Lord’s immediate beginnings in the temple after He entered the city to fast-fleeting fanfare. He’s there teaching.

We handle the reading in sections. Monday considers verses 20-36. Tuesday, we hear 37-43. On Wednesday, we digest 44-50. I’ve been doing it this way for a while. It works, if only because the Lord’s words here are wonderfully bottomless. And their point? His truest glory. His death on the cross for sinners.

Right now, I’m thinking about Tuesday’s reading. It ended with John telling us, almost in passing, that “many even of the authorities believed in Him, but for fear of the Pharisees they did not confess it, so that they would not be put out of the synagogue; for they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God” (vv. 42-43).

As a pastor, those words are familiar. I’m not trying to be negative. However, the plain truth is that there is a kind of belief that teeters dangerously at the edge of unbelief. John more or less describes it as the kind that never quite finds its voice, but instead, stays hidden. His words are a passing indictment of something that’s far more dangerous than we may realize.

Most often, we might assume things like open hostility to God’s Word or flat-out rebellion against this or that are the real dangers leading to unbelief. Maybe they’re the worst of the bunch. But they’re not the only pavers on the path to destruction. Some are much subtler. Here, John references the deadly nature of self-preserving hesitation. He describes the kind of faith that remains hidden because it’ll cost too much if it’s seen.

Today is Good Friday. Good Friday presses directly into that space. That’s because, regardless of those in the churches who’d prefer to keep the crucifixes hidden because they seem offensive, the fact is, the cross doesn’t allow for a private allegiance. It doesn’t leave room for a faith that exists only in the interior life, safely insulated from consequence. The crucifixion of Jesus was public. It was out in the open and very public.

That’s right where it belonged, making it, in every sense of the word, costly.

I think that’s the real reason some churches, even some here in my neighborhood, shrink from displaying crosses in their buildings—and why they jump from Palm Sunday straight to Easter, without even the slightest glance toward Good Friday. It’s not that they don’t believe. I won’t go that far. John was clear. They did believe. Something in them knew and recognized the Savior. Something in them was drawn to Him. But belief—the kind refusing to confess the glory Jesus had been describing all along—it began to bend. It began to accommodate. It learned how to survive without ever having to embrace Christ entirely. It might not be unbelief, but it’s really darn close.

“They loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God.”

That’s the fault line right there. And it should sound familiar. It describes competing loves, and we all know that sensation. Jesus warned against this in the Sermon on the Mount. He preached, “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other” (Matthew 6:24).

But what does this look like in a practical sense? I already mentioned the churches near me that have openly expressed disdain for displaying crosses, one in particular having been quoted in a local newspaper a few years back. For the rest of us, the reasons are not far removed. Christ takes a back seat to the desire to be thought well of. He’s pushed aside by the instinct to remain inside the popular circle. We do quiet calculations that weigh what faithfulness might cost against what acceptance provides. And when those scales tip—even just a little—keeping quiet about our faith in Jesus begins to feel reasonable, or in certain circumstances, maybe even necessary.

“If they know, I’ll never get the promotion.”

Good Friday weeps over this reasoning even as it refuses to let it stand. Because on this day, the One in whom they believed is no longer teaching in parables or confounding His critics in the temple courts. He’s lifted up in the open. He’s stripped of all dignity before the crowds. He’s nailed to wood while the masses mock Him. He’s cast entirely from everyone and everything. He’s openly and publicly rejected by every man-made structure this world uses to define belonging. Indeed, it is as Isaiah foretold: “He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not” (Isaiah 53:3).

I know it couldn’t have been an easy scene. Of course some people hid their eyes from it. But that doesn’t change the fact that the crucifixion of Jesus was the “hour for the Son of Man to be glorified” (John 12:23), and that according to that hour, as Jesus continued, “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself” (v. 32). John explains, “He said this to show by what kind of death He was going to die” (v. 33).

The Christian Church has no more important day than today. Yes, the Resurrection is crucial. But in a sense, it’s proof of today’s significance. The crucifixion of Jesus is the moment of moments for the Christian faith. It’s where the Son of God exacted what was necessary for your salvation. And in that moment, every believer, open or hidden, is forced to reckon with something the world will never embrace. Behold what the Christian faith finds so beautiful! The death of God’s Son for me!

The devil hates everything about the crucifixion, most importantly, what it earned for us. He’d love for it to become something we avoid, interpreting it as little more than jewelry-worthy while, at the same time, convincing us to prefer a version of faith that never disrupts our place in the world.

As is often the case, the Bible provides real-life examples so we know better. John 12 is just such an example. Some of the Jewish authorities believed, but they stopped short of faith’s confession. And in stopping short, they forfeited something essential. Because faith that never speaks or moves or risks anything—it almost always conforms to the very pressures it fears. It becomes quiet enough to coexist. It remains safe enough to go unnoticed and, as a result, steps away from Christ’s insistence that believers have been recreated by faith as salt of the earth and lights in the world. Christ would have us as recognizable conduits—a means for the unbelieving world to see and meet Him and, ultimately, give glory to the Father in heaven (Matthew 5:13-16).

Good Friday stands entirely against the kind of belief John described—the kind that’s weak enough to disappear in every crowd. Again, John doesn’t scold it in his account. He simply presents it as a dangerous reality that we shouldn’t ignore, if only because the One preaching in the temple at that moment didn’t remain hidden to preserve His standing. He didn’t adjust His mission to avoid trouble. He embraced the hour of true glory—His death for sinners. And lest you doubt what I’ve said about the hour of His glorification being His death, read our Lord’s passionate announcement in verse 27: “Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose I have come to this hour.”

I suppose part of my point this morning is to invite you to step a little closer to the Lord’s hour. Go to church today. Make time—not as a formality, or as an obligation squeezed into an already crowded day—but as a deliberate act of open alignment. Ask your boss. Invite a friend. Make time and go to the place where so many others in your church family are going, a place where the cross is not background noise, but the central reality of the faith we are to live before others each and every day.

Today—especially today—go! Refuse to remain at a distance from what stands at the center of history. The intense Gospel rendering of this day strips away the lesser things you’re prone to holding onto, even the ridiculously simple things like the need for approval, the fear of exclusion, or the quiet compromises you’ve made to keep everything around you safely intact.

Let Good Friday interrupt you and give you something better. Let it press on you. Let it ask more of you than is comfortable. Let it show you more than what you’re willing to see.

If you don’t have a church home, or your church does not offer Good Friday services, I’m sorry. Rest assured, you’re welcome to join us here at Our Savior in Hartland. Our first Good Friday service, Tre Ore, is at 1:00 PM. The next, Tenebrae, is at 6:30 PM. I’m preaching at the 1:00 service. Our headmaster, Pastor Scheer, so graciously offered to help by preaching at the 6:30 PM service. Attending either or both, I promise you’ll be blessed with all that’s necessary for a faith that can stretch its legs beyond the borders of anything this world might call belonging.

But Then I Actually Thought About It…

Posted on by

Saint Paul is the one who wrote, “The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost” (1 Timothy 1:15). The “foremost” of this saying applies to all, if only we’re willing to admit it. I can certainly share how easily it applied to me recently. I’m not afraid to tell you. I just preached a few weeks ago that repentance without confession is still sin in hiding.

This is my repentance coming out into the open.

Essentially, I was scrolling through Facebook. I noticed a photo, someone’s selfie with a friend. It was just a simple photo. Both in its frame were smiling widely, clearly enjoying the moment together. But the one taking the photo had something in his teeth. It wasn’t overwhelmingly obvious. However, it was noticeable enough to me. And so, now, my confession.

My first instinct was to chuckle and say to myself, “You might want to check your teeth before posting selfies.” And that, friends, is how easy it was for me to fall short.

I suppose the only upside to the response is that I restrained the urge to post what I was thinking. I could’ve done it. I could’ve justified it, too, believing I’d be preserving them from further ridicule, maybe giving them a chance to swap the photo with something else. It would have been easy enough to wiggle into that perspective.

But then, I actually thought about it. I didn’t just react. I thought. And the more I did, the more I looked at the image. And the more I looked at the image, the more obvious something else became. These two people weren’t posting a dental advertisement. They were sharing a moment of joy between them. They captured an image of friendship. And while I was busy capturing the flaw, they were busy demonstrating something so much better.

This is my sin. Not yours. Still, the overarching realization that occurred sheds light on the times in which we live. We live in a culture that has nudged us toward noticing the wrong thing first. Social media rewards it. News cycles feed off of it. Someone makes a mistake, says a clumsy word, posts an imperfect photo, and instantly, the comments fill with negative criticism. Everyone becomes a certified inspector of someone else’s flaws or understanding. Everyone becomes an expert in pointing out what someone didn’t get right or should have done better.

I’ve said it a thousand times that this is one of the worst parts about writing for public consumption. There’s always someone waiting in the wings to take what was meant for good and convert it into something dreadful. They’re lurking there, not to correct or improve what I’ve said, but to tear it down—to tear me down. It is almost reflexive now. People see before they think. They condemn before they understand. They correct before considering whether the correction is actually even necessary.

And sometimes the thing they miss is the very thing that mattered most in the first place.

I think that’s just one more reason why the season of Lent is so necessary. It’s not only about penitent postures relative to sin and, ultimately, the grace of our Savior who took those sins into and upon Himself, to free us from their decaying bondage. It’s also about the promised recalibration born from that wonderful Gospel. Lent, compared to all other Church seasons, is one where the Lord gently exposes the habits of the heart we barely notice anymore. Unfortunately, it seems far too many seem disinterested in Lent, even as it’s perfect for a social media world. It reveals the small reflexes of pride, the quiet hunger to appear clever, the subtle impulse to correct others rather than rejoice with them.

Lent slows us down long enough to actually see through the lens of the Gospel in some incredibly practical ways. Relative to the photo I mentioned, and as I hinted at before, social media prompts us to be clever when maybe we should be quiet and think. It prompts us for praise when what would better suit us is humble and thoughtful restraint. The good in the photo was obvious when I did that—when I stopped looking for the flaw and remembered my own failings. Now, through that lens, it was better seen as two friends enjoying life together. It was a small, happy moment, entirely undeserving of the conflict and criticism and outrage that social media demands we iterate over every ridiculous little thing.

And the thing is, I left that moment feeling better. That’s because faith’s choice is always so much better. Faith knew the better response in that situation was not to point out the speck in the guy’s teeth. The better response was simply to smile and be glad that joy still exists. Indeed, that’s one of the quiet disciplines of Lent. It’s a season for learning to see again. It helps us to see our own hearts honestly. It helps us to look upon our neighbors with charity. It absolutely helps us to see the good gifts of God that we too easily overlook when we are busy inspecting imperfections.

That said, you and I both know that the world already has enough critics. What it needs more are people who can bring the joy of Christ’s wonderful love into the darkness. And so, we do. We do it strengthened by faith’s humble repentance. We recognize that we, like Saint Paul, are the foremost of sinners in need of grace. Through that penitent lens, the landscape of God’s grace—all the undeserving joys He provides day in and day out—becomes far more visible through this world’s fog than the things that might bring sorrow. That’s because the grace of God has a way of reordering our sight.

When the Gospel steadies the heart, the flaws that once seemed so urgent lose their power to dominate the moment. That’s what repentance does. It doesn’t simply make us feel sorry for sin. It teaches us to see rightly again. It reminds us that the greatest flaw in the picture was never the thing in the guy’s teeth. The greatest flaw was the pride in my own heart that was so ready to point out what was really no big deal at all.

And that is exactly why Saint Paul’s words remain so trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance. Christ came into the world to save sinners. Not just the most scandalous among us. But sinners like me. Sinners like you, too. It’s far too easy for any and all of us to drift toward small cruelties we might otherwise excuse as harmless. Yet, Christ came for those, too. Even better, He came to bear the sins we barely notice and the sins we cannot forget.

Let my failure, no matter how insignificant it might seem, be today’s reminder.

Not Recording… But Recording

Posted on by

The following has been on my mind for some time. I’ve only just now felt the urge to parse my thoughts. Essentially, Jennifer and I were sitting together and watching a news report on the Nancy Guthrie case a few weeks ago when something relatively small (but actually not very small at all) slipped into the host’s conversation.

Nancy Guthrie’s Ring Doorbell footage was playing on the screen. The suspect was visible, moving about the Guthrie porch area, doing what he could to cover the camera’s lens and then break into the home. At one point, Dan Bongino joined the broadcast. Bongino is the former Deputy Director of the FBI. The host and Bongino both commented on the FBI’s impressive technological capacity, how the Bureau likely had the tools to use the video’s contents to identify and track down the suspect, even though his face was covered by a ski mask.

But then came the statement that bothered me.

The show’s host mentioned that, even though the Ring Doorbell camera was turned off and not recording, the FBI was able to obtain the footage we were watching at that very moment, which was, in fact, stored at Google. Nothing was added to the comment. There was no explanation. No clarification. The conversation simply moved on.

I immediately turned to Jennifer and said, “Did you hear that? The camera wasn’t recording, but somehow the FBI was able to acquire recorded footage from Google’s servers.”

That detail, while it seemed to matter very little to the host or Bongino, has not left me. We are told our devices are dormant until activated. We have a Google Home device that sits quietly on a cabinet near our dining area. It’s not supposed to listen unless prompted with what’s called a “wake word,” and it’s not supposed to record until that wake word is used and the command to record is given. It’s certainly not supposed to store audio without our consent. Still, notice the logic. To hear a “wake word,” it has to be listening—always.

And so, the FBI obtained uninterrupted video footage from a Google device that wasn’t awake.

How many times has the Thoma family joked about this sort of thing? More than I can count. It’s become something of a running gag in our house. For example, if the kids are horsing around, poking fun at each other, mock-threatening in that exaggerated, theatrical way siblings do, someone might laugh and say, “I’m gonna murder you.” They all laugh. And yet, almost instantly, one of them will add, “In Minecraft.”

It’s reflexive now. The joke, of course, is that our Google device is always listening. So, if an algorithm somewhere flags the word murder, we quickly clarify that no actual murder is about to take place, but rather someone is going to get revenge in the blocky video game universe of Minecraft. The kids laugh, but they also qualify. They tease, but they also amend the record. And that’s the curious part for me. Again, we’ve been assured the device isn’t listening. And yet, here we are, instinctively adding digital disclaimers at dinner, as though an invisible guest might be taking notes.

But we have good reason to believe it’s happening. Maybe you’ve had the same experiences we’ve had. There’ve been times when we were discussing something obscure during dinner or while sitting around the corner on the couch—talking about something oddly specific—and moments later, we discovered advertisements or suggested articles or videos related to that very topic appearing in our feeds. No one looked anything up on the internet during the original discussion. No one shared a video link by text. We simply spoke. Then, suddenly, strangely, there was the topic of our discussion in digital form on all our phones.

We laugh and say, “Big Brother’s listening.” Maybe he is.

This also has me wondering out loud that if a Ring camera can be “not recording” and yet still have retrievable footage stored somewhere, what exactly does “not recording” mean? Technology companies use careful language. My guess is that “recording” may not mean what ordinary people think it means. In other words, maybe it means something other than the typical layman’s understanding of “on” and “off.” Whatever the definition might be, the former Deputy Director of the FBI just told me that federal investigators can, in fact, access recordings from a device that’s not recording. And they can use it against you.

I suppose for me, the question in that moment became something more like, “What’s the price I’m willing to pay for convenience—or personal safety?” I like the fact that we have cameras around the outside of our home. Writing for public consumption has proven the cameras necessary. But I also like the convenience of seeing that a package was delivered while I’m away. I like being able to adjust the thermostat from an app. I like calling out into the thin air, “Hey, Google, what’s the weather going to be like today?” even though I live in Michigan and I can pretty much guarantee it’s going to be cold.

But for all the things I might appreciate about technology, convenience and personal safety are rarely free, especially in the modern home. The modern home hums with interactive devices. I was at Home Depot a week or so ago and passed by a refrigerator with an interactive screen bigger than my desktop computer’s two monitors combined. And so, I suppose the question changes a little. I should probably be asking whether we understand the scope of what we’ve invited into our homes.

Having said all this, I’m not sure where to go next. Although I suppose Lent is an appropriate season for asking these kinds of questions, especially that last one.

Lent is a season of examination. The examination most certainly could reach into our digital habits. But in the end, its reach isn’t technological. It’s spiritual. Lent is in place to help us slow down. We quiet the world’s noise. We take inventory. We ask what has quietly crept into the house of our hearts and what’s humming in the background of our souls.

Sure, we worry about devices that are always listening. We joke about invisible listeners, and we clarify our ribbing jokes with “in Minecraft,” just in case. But God’s Word reminds us that there is, in fact, One who truly hears every word and knows everything about us. Read Psalm 139 if you don’t believe me. The first twelve verses will tell you everything you need to know:

“O Lord, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether. You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it. Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me. If I say, ‘Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night,’ even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you” (vv. 1-12).

What the Psalmist declared could be either terrifying or comforting. It’s terrifying if God is merely a cosmic surveillance system waiting to use our words against us—to capture us in wrongdoing and bring swift judgment. On the other hand, the Psalmist’s words are comforting if the One who hears and sees is also the One who went to the cross for every intentional or unintentional crime of thought, word, and deed we’ve ever committed (Matthew 12:36). In other words, the difference is the cross.

And that’s where Lent is taking us—to Good Friday’s holy massacre.

This world is an uneasy one. The assumption is that we’re being watched, not only by corporations and governments, but by sin, death, and the devil, forces far more formidable than the FBI. And yet, in the midst of these things, the Holy Spirit calls us by the Gospel to remember that we are seen fully by God—and loved and cared for still. The Lord who knows what is whispered in our dining rooms is the same Lord who bore our sin in His body on the cross. He does not need devices or algorithms to track us down. He certainly didn’t look upon His world with His first inclination being that it would only end in eternal imprisonment. His first response was love. His first response was rescue. His first response was to act. And so, He reached into this world personally. Through the person and work of Jesus Christ, God came down Himself.

Perhaps that’s the best direction to go with all of this. We fear unseen listeners in plastic devices sitting on shelves in our living spaces. And yet, the One who truly sees and hears us—the One who knows the worst that we are—was already there all along. Even better, He took upon Himself human flesh and joined us at the table. He wasn’t invisible. He was seen. He showed us just how much He cares. And now, through faith in His sacrifice—inevitably demonstrated through repentance, faith, and the amending of the sinful life—the verdict is declared to those who believe: Whatever you’ve done, it isn’t enough to condemn you. You are forgiven. And this happened in reality, not in Minecraft.

Shining Truth’s Light is Never a Bad Idea

Posted on by

Have you seen the image circulating online that attributes a shocking confession to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi? I have. When I saw it, I had to start searching. I wanted to know whether she really said it and, if so, what the context was.

The quotation was, “If we prosecute everyone in the Epstein files, the whole system collapses.” Again, I searched. There is absolutely no evidence that she ever said this. That matters, and it’s important to say so plainly. Things like this corrode trust, whether it comes from liberal or conservative sources.

That said, the idea embedded in the statement certainly does raise questions worth examining on their own terms. Suppose, purely hypothetically, everyone connected to wrongdoing in the Epstein files was teed up for prosecution. That most certainly would include a large number of people within powerful networks of influence. Personally, I say, get the tees and let’s get this party started. But what about the supposed system collapse? Is this spirit of concern similar to the government’s refusal to let General Motors go under back in 2008, insisting it was too big to fail, lest countless lives be destroyed? What would collapse actually look like or mean, and would it be a good or bad thing?

The point here is that the statement really does dig into a strata that’s deeper than any one person. The assumption is that it intersects with the very nature of institutions themselves. In other words, when people speak about the “system,” they rarely mean a single organization, like GM alone. They mean a web of relationships. They mean the Big Three and all the downstream suppliers. Relative to Epstein, they mean political structures, legal frameworks, media institutions, financial networks, and all the unseen relationships, good or bad, that link them all together.

In its purest sense, when acting according to its divine ordination, the “system” is in place to serve the citizenry (Romans 13:3-4). It preserves order and maintains justice. It makes sure that the courts function as they should. It ensures that laws are enforced. It keeps everyone, even the most powerful, within the same boundaries that encircle the rest of us.

But it’s pretty obvious that systems can drift. I’ve seen it firsthand, even as recently as yesterday. Over time, incentives change the nature of friendships. Goals become more valuable than truth. Narratives become more important than integrity. In some cases, the preservation of the system itself begins to take priority over the principles that justified its existence in the first place.

When that happens, the system is no longer doing what it was designed to do. It becomes less about society’s well-being and more of a self-protective, leapfrogging competition for individuals to reach the top of the food chain. In that type of system, it becomes necessary to shield wrongdoing, and the logic behind the shielding almost always becomes something like, “If we expose the wrongdoing, the damage will be too great, and the system will come undone.”

But this reasoning has hidden assumptions. In one sense, it assumes that the system, if only because it’s the best system the world has ever known, deserves to be maintained. In another sense, it assumes that if the system is allowed to continue, some wrongdoing is tolerable among those at the helm, so long as the machinery keeps running and the outward forms of stability remain intact.

I’m a huge fan of liberty, which means the first sense is immediately rejected. Indeed, the framework of our constitutional republic is the best system this world has ever seen, and it deserves to be maintained. It’s the second assumption that troubles me. It’s the one that quietly shifts the definition of justice from something principled to something negotiated. It suggests that not only are there thresholds of wrongdoing we are willing to overlook, but also categories of people who operate under softer rules, and that their preservation is somehow a higher good than truth (Deuteronomy 1:17 and James 2:1,9).

I mentioned a few weeks back that the reason my Ashes To Ashes book has resonated with so many is that, in a way, it understands the frustration among the citizenry when this becomes the accepted standard. This feeling absolutely meets with the Epstein files. Young girls were trafficked and abused by the seemingly untouchable among us. We’ve known this for years now. And still, not one person, other than Ghislaine Maxwell, has been brought to justice. There are names behind those redaction marks. Law enforcement knows who they are. But here we sit. Of course, some would say Prince Andrew was brought to justice. But it wasn’t for anything I just mentioned. He was charged with sharing government information with Epstein, even though all of it happened within the darker context of sexual deviancy with underage girls.

I’m not so sure a free society can long survive this obvious discrepancy. Liberty depends on trust that the law applies equally, that wrongdoing is answerable, and that justice is more than a slogan carved in stone above a courthouse door. The moment people begin to suspect that some are shielded while others are exposed, the real damage has already begun. The machinery may still run, the institutions may still stand, but the confidence that gives them legitimacy is starting to turn to ash. And once that foundation gives way, no system, no matter how carefully constructed, can stand for long.

As Americans, we’ve all learned the principle that justice must be impartial. If we didn’t learn it in school, then there’s a good chance we learned it in real time, or at a minimum, by watching a cop show. Either way, the point is that justice does not bend for the powerful while remaining hard and fast against the rest of us. When it does work that way, the plain truth is that justice ceases to be justice at all.

So, Pastor Thoma, what are you recommending?

Well, essentially, I guess what I’m saying is that I wonder how shining the light of truth on anything could ever be a bad idea. I don’t believe for one second that the system would collapse if all the redactions were removed. I’ve never known truth to collapse what’s good—and America’s system is just that. Instead, truth exposes what’s broken, making repair a possibility (Ephesians 5:13). That’s always a good thing. And so, my point. Whatever is broken in the system, if it’s truly worth preserving, the truth will find and make it possible to refine it, not destroy it. If parts of it cannot survive truth’s light, then perhaps those are the very parts that should not survive at all.

No matter who they are, bring the people in the Epstein files to justice. Period. America will be fine. In fact, America will be the better for it. Nothing good comes from protecting anyone from accountability. That should already make perfect sense to Christians. We know what God’s Law does. We know it’s an expression of His love (Hebrews 12:6 and Proverbs 3:11-12). He’s loving us when He says, “Don’t do that! It’s bad for you!” With God’s loving warning, the perpetrator is given the opportunity to repent and amend—to steer away from destruction’s cliff.

But what if God didn’t care enough to do this? In a practical sense, we all know that parent whose kid can do no wrong. No matter what the kid does, the parent always excuses the crime. That’s a kid who only ever gets worse. That’s a kid who’s destined to go over the cliff eventually.

I suppose societies aren’t so different. A society that excuses wrongdoing in the name of preserving itself is not preserving anything, except maybe its decay. A homeowner who kills all the cockroaches but turns a blind eye to the carpenter ants will eventually learn what that means. Decay, no matter how carefully managed, always ends in collapse.