Poor, blind, & dead: Jeff Dunn’s “purpose-driven life”

On the same day that Jon Acuff wrote a self-affirmation about his success as a Christian celebrity, Jeff Dunn at Internet Monk posted his own version of the “purpose-driven life” based on three of Jesus’ commonly preached themes: becoming poor, blind, and dead. It was such a fresh contrast from the kind of self-help drivel that Christians have come to accept as Biblical provided it has a few verses from Proverbs slapped on top. The purpose that we are given by the real gospel isn’t good news to the success-oriented bourgeois American ethos that many so-called “conservative” evangelicals have modified their Christianity to fit. The real gospel is good news to the poor, the blind, and the dead and to those of us who accept the utter foolishness that we’d do better to join them.

Why I hate success and love the Beatitudes

Success is the American virtue. Its pursuit is what drives just about every aspect of our society, whether it’s success in school, success in sports, success in dating, success on the career ladder, success in parenting, success in retiring comfortably. I would argue that the American worship of success is what causes American Christians to minimize the importance of Jesus’ most prominent body of teaching, the Sermon on the Mount which has a lot of problematic things to say to people whose number one priority is to be successful. The most problematic section of the Sermon on the Mount to the American ethos is probably the Beatitudes with which Jesus opens the sermon in Matthew 5. There are a wide range of interpretations for the Beatitudes, but one thing that cannot be said about them is that they celebrate success. And that is their most comforting aspect to me. Generally when people are accused of “hating success,” the assumption is that they’re envious of others’ success. The reason I hate success is because I’m a slave to it.

The risk of dreaming with God

Sermon preached 11/5-6/2011 at Burke United Methodist Church
Texts: Psalm 126, Matthew 25:14-30

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore– And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over– like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?

How worship makes us welcome others

Sermon preached at Burke UMC LifeSign service 10/8/2011
Text: Deuteronomy 10:12-22

Many of you know that I have been coaching my son’s soccer team this fall. Not only do I not know what I’m doing, but my son is often uninterested in kicking the ball or even staying on the field. Our game last Saturday was cold and rainy. The other team’s coach and I decided to play anyway since we’ve had so many games rescheduled because of weather. One kid on my team is a beast who attacks the ball no matter where it is and keeps running the entire 8 minute quarter. I’m often reluctant to pull him out of the game. Well in the third quarter, he was starting to run out of steam, so the next time the ball went out of bounds, I took out our star player and put in my son.