Monk [and Ted Haggard]

Lately my family is keeping Netflix in business, their stock is soaring, because we are sending away for all the DVD epidoses of Monk [from the USA network], the series about the obsessive, compulsive detective. What we like about Monk:

*the guy is messed up
*the guy is brilliant
*in spite and through his apparent weaknesses he solves crimes
*his friends and partners love and hate him
*he is a wounded man [his wife was murdered by a car bomb]
*and, most of all, he is funny!

As a pastor I know that all of us are broken. The character Adrian Monk demonstrates this in an entertaining fashion. From the oldest (me at 47) to our youngest (Jeremy at 10), we delight in his struggling, hilarious, yet heroic antics. Yet among Christians and in congregations we can't be like the Adrian Monks of the world. We are expected to have our act together. And, since we don't, we have to fake it. Lots of masks. Plenty of pretending. A fair amount of hypocrisy, and know that I use that word for everyone, even, and especially for myself.

That brings me to Pastor Ted Haggard, the recently resigned president of the National Evangelical Association, accused this past week of sexual sins, purchasing drugs, and using illegal substances. I can't imagine the shame, pain, and humiliation Pastor Haggard and his loved ones are going through right now. He preached family and moral values. Now this. While we don't know all the details, it seems that he did not live up to what he expected from others, what he felt God desired from his people.

Here's the deal. I am saddened that folks in churches can't be real. No Adrian Monks allowed. No Ted Haggards above ground, out in the open. Better to hide your secret sins. Hope and pray that no one finds out. Tragically, you see what happens. The world acts like sharks near blood, going in for the kill- at the very moment when the sinner is most wounded and vulnerable.

That's not how it was with Jesus. Sat in the diner on the stool next to Zaccheaus the tax collector, notorious collaborator with evil. Just sat there when a sinful woman washed his feet, drenched them with perfume. Fed the traitor, Judas, who would turn him into the feds on a bogus charge. Among the accusations against Jesus: he parties and stuffs himself with the rejects, low lifes, and sinners. I long for the church to be accused of such a thing! Instead of joining the sharks in the feeding frenzy, I pray that we might tend the wounded and the hurting. I'm desperate for a church that looks like Jesus.

I know what you're thinking. For what it's worth, I don't approve of what Pastor Haggard is accused of. Yet I pray for the healing of Pastor Haggard, his family, his church, his accuser, the media, our current political process, and our nation.

I believe that the path towards healing is through the authentic, wild, radical, dangerous, kind, compassionate, religion critiquing, big shot smashing, hypocrite challenging Jesus. Where there is bleeding, you can count on Jesus being there. Where there is a feeding frenzy, you can count on Jesus not feeding upon the wounded, but, ironically being fed upon by us sinner-sharks, so that we might have abundant, eternal life.

Enough for now.

If you read this, don't forget to comment, even if just to say "hi, I stopped by."

Kindness to all,

Duh-sciple Tim