We think we know you

Posted on March 5, 2014 by jwfisch

th-3We think we know you.

We feel like we have a pretty good take on the average Catch reader. And since most of it is good (though not always recognized as good by other Christians) let me encourage you with this.

First and foremost, you are Christians who feel you have a right to what you believe (and you do). You are spiritual, but most interested in developing you own faith. This does not mean you make up things; it means you are seeking true truth even if it doesn’t go along with the more popularly held Christian values espoused by other Christians you know.

You want to decide for yourselves what belief looks like. Your Christianity has been over-structured and you want to find freedom in faith — what Os Guinness calls soul freedom. Though you may have had little encouragement in the right to choose your own path of belief, you are taking it anyway, and the Catch turns out to be a community that supports this independent thinking instead of discouraging it. Up until now, you have felt trapped in spiritual environments with limited choices. The Catch is freeing.

Most of you are most likely embarrassed by Christians behaving badly in the world. You are looking for something you can seek your teeth into — something with an edge to it — something you can share with non-Christian friends and say: “See, not all Christians are what you think they are.”

A few of you owe your continuing faith to the Catch.

Thus, many of you feel like you are getting away with something. You want to share the Catch, but you don’t. Marti says it’s like sneaking off with the girls to a male strip joint and finding out it’s really a lot of fun, but who can you tell?

You are loyal because we have shared something human— on a deeper level than  other Christians you know. You realize you have been playing a kind of game with church. You go along with it, but you know it only goes so far. Something like the Catch goes farther. It blows the whistle on the game. You like that but then again, you don’t,  because you’re on the fence. So the fact that you can access the Catch privately, and you don’t have to share it with your pastor of Bible study group makes you think you are getting away with something.

Because of the personal nature of the writing, you feel connected to us, as if you know us, so you want to get some personal encouragement (if we can do it; you can do it).
The Catch is not like a devotional that only brings you closer to the Lord; it brings you closer to yourself, because you see yourself and experience yourself vicariously through the writing. You are coming for your own growth and your own connection with your humanness that doesn’t get much attention normally in Christian circles.

You like to laugh. It draws you out. You like to share the Catch with a few selective close friends – husbands and wives reading together – permission to be human. You like being drawn in and not told what to believe and do. You also don’t buy everything. You don’t agree with everything. You like the fact that you aren’t expected to agree. This makes you fiercely loyal because you feel like you have found an oasis in the desert.

Now if we could just get you to share the Catch with others.

There are so many more people like you who would benefit from this. We need your help letting people know. We understand how you might like to keep it to yourself, but don’t. It’s too important. Give it away. We’re creating a rich resource here for believers worldwide. We are going somewhere. Come go with us and spread the word! We’re so glad you’re here!

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More like Doug

Posted on March 4, 2014 by jwfisch

th-2A friend of ours who is in heaven now, made the following observations in the latter stages of terminal cancer. She and Marti developed a deep relationship via email that sustained them both through a lot even though they never met in person. One thing she shared with Marti was her love and care for roses. We now have roses in our backyard because of Kay, and I know Marti talks to her often back there.

She also kept her dry sense of humor through most of her ordeal. “Okay, I have lung cancer,” she once wrote, “but I can deal with that. Oops, swollen lymph nodes… okay, can deal with that. Six spots on ribs – both sides – well that took several days, but I am dealing with it. Maybe I can live 15 years on chemo. I learned recently of a person with home chemo: You just hook up a fanny pack I.V. and do it yourself.”

This is where we learn to laugh and cry at the same time.

Kay was always a great one for hard questions and she never held anything back. She always spoke her mind. “Here’s a question for you today,” she once wrote: “How come there are so many darn good people out there who don’t know Jesus?” This question plays havoc with the popular notion that all Christians are good people and all non-Christians are bad.

“A friend drove three hours to pray with me wearing a Beatles ‘Let It Be’ T-shirt for my amusement. I have often questioned negative Christians; our joy should be full. I never want to be less than joyful; I want to be crazy and creative like my friend in the Beatles T-shirt.”

And then she wrote, “I am most touched by my heathen friends. Here’s a question to chew on: ‘Where does their power to love come from? I mean, we Christians have trouble serving and we have a source! Twice this week my gay friend, Doug, an outspoken non-Christian, has pulled up in a heated SUV at 5:30 a.m. to drive me for tests (and that is but one story). Where does his power to serve come from?'”

I needed this lesson from Kay’s gay friend today because I have not been a giving person. (I almost typed “lately” right there and then stopped myself because “for as far back as I can remember” would be more like it). I want to be more like Doug.

The truth of the matter is: we are all good people, and we are all bad people, and that is precisely why we all need Jesus.

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Saved, but not excused

Posted on March 3, 2014 by jwfisch
Lupita Nyong'o

Lupita Nyong’o

Last night was Oscar night, an important event for popular culture in America and around the world, since American movies are international. We export more culture worldwide through movies than anything else, and unfortunately that includes the good, the bad and the ugly of pop culture. Many Christians shun Hollywood for this reason, but a more measured response would be more beneficial for the kingdom of God.

Hollywood merely mirrors the good and the bad of human existence, all of which has to be incorporated somehow in the gospel of welcome that we bring to the world. If Jesus Christ took on himself the sins of the whole world (and He did), then we don’t get to pick and choose what we want and don’t want to identify with about being human. Being a Christian does not mean we are sanitized human beings. It means we are saved – saved, but not excused.

We are not excused from the worst that man is capable of because of the cross; we are forgiven. To be forgiven is to be healed; to be excused is to be in denial. You don’t get to skip anything on your way to resurrection power. You have to know death to know life.

Too many Christians want to be excused from too much of life, when what is necessary instead is to be forgiven and healed. We want to present ourselves at our best, when the gospel of welcome is designed to accept us at our worst. Indeed, this is the true power of the gospel; it rides right into the deepest, darkest corner of human existence and meets us there. Without this we would be living sanitized lives full of denial instead of forgiven lives full of hope.

Two Oscar contenders together tell this story, and though I have not seen either one, I know enough about them to know that one is about man’s inhumanity to man (12 Years a Slave), and the other (Philomena) is about forgiveness. In fact, 12 Years, winner of Best Picture, is so hard to watch, that it is one of the smallest box office tickets to ever win such a big prize. But as Kenyan actress Lupita Nyong’o, and winner of Best Female Actor in a Supporting Role said, “It doesn’t escape me for one moment that so much joy in my life is thanks to so much pain in someone else’s.”

This is why stories like this are so important, because we are all connected – connected in our sin, and connected through Christ in our forgiveness, salvation and hope. This is an important part of our message, and why, as much as we might not like it, Hollywood is important.

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The blessing and the gift

Posted on February 28, 2014 by jwfisch

In the defense of the wealthy and the poor, I offer the following. Beyond the issue of who is intrinsically blessed is the true fact that all who give are blessed, be they rich or poor. This blessing is tied to the attitude and act of giving, not the amount of the gift, and contrary to my thinking, you do not have to be rich before you can give.

For some words on giving, I turn to my wife, who knows much more about this than I do. This is because she is a giver both in her natural and her spiritual giftings.

In 2 Corinthians 8 Paul provides two examples of giving from two ends of the scale – the poverty-stricken Macedonians who gave beyond their means, out of their deep, desperate poverty and the beyond-belief rich giving of Jesus, who gave everything up and became poor that we might be rendered incredibly rich.

There is a blessing which befalls the rich or the poor, and that would be the blessing of giving. God is not so interested in how much we give, but why we give. He reads the heart as he did the widow who cast two mites into the treasury – and that was all she had. Jesus, observing her, said, “She has given more than all the rest combined…” (Mark 12:42-44, Luke 21:2-4)

Understand the vast possibilities of giving, “Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously” (2 Corinthians 9:6). This is the law of the harvest. And not only is Paul encouraging generosity, in the next verse he asks that it be given voluntary, “Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.”

I think in these days, recognition is often over played, almost causing us to forget what our desire was when giving to meet a need. Jesus said, “But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you” (Matthew 6:3-5).

I am probably the worse offender when wanting to recognize an act of kindness as illustrated in what a family recently told us, “We do not feel comfortable having our name recognized for our gift. If there is a way you want to announce the gift that you feel will benefit the Catch members that is fine, but we don’t see that disclosing our names is appropriate.”

I forgot – but they remembered – that everything comes from the Lord and, therefore they gave expectantly.

Blessing is based on a “readiness” to give – a built-in heart’s desire: “For if the willingness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has, not according to what one does not have” (2 Corinthians 8:12).

In the early days of the Catch, we were completely funded by one man, whom we love dearly, and who loves us. He did not give because he was wealthy or because he believed John or I were touched by some divine light. Rather, he was placing his hope through his investment into the vastness that the Internet offered to provide unlimited opportunities to equip men and women to offer the Gospel of Welcome to everyone, everywhere.  We have grown over the years and continue to look to this man of wealth, who now has encouraged others to give to further our ability to serve more people, more effectively.

From our first investor, we have come to know many givers – and they tell us that giving stimulates prayer from the giver to the benefactor. “And in their prayers for you their hearts will go out to you, because of the surpassing grace God has given you” (2 Corinthians 9:14).

Not only does giving awaken gratitude in people’s hearts, it stimulates people to pray, and when people pray, many become the beneficiary of the blessing of God in ways that  perhaps we will never fully know.

And finally, giving glorifies God with the thanksgiving of many. God delights in seeing his people generously respond to needs, “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” (James 1:27)

Paul concludes his thinking on giving in one brief sentence: intent on knowing the Giver. “Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!” (2 Corinthians 9:15).

When we are intent on knowing the Giver of such a radical gift, we all become Grace-givers and thus miracles that mirror God’s character.  We recognize we have received much at his hand. We know we do not deserve it, but it is given to each of us in Jesus Christ. His giving freely stimulates us to meet needs around us; opens our eyes and hands to see where to give, knowing that it increases our joy and delights the heart of God.

Thanks be to the one that gives and thanks be to God that all, as a result are blessed. I do not think God cares about alms as much as cares about action.

From the widow’s mite to the millionaire’s might, “It is [always] more blessed to give than to receive.”

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An artist who is a Christian

Posted on February 27, 2014 by jwfisch

Ah please draw near would You bathe and caress
These equal parts faith and hopelessness
Equal parts joy and gloom
All wrapped up inside this empty tomb
from “All the Mercy We have Found,” by Bill Mallonee

We had an entertaining and thought-provoking guest on our BlogTalkRadio show Tuesday night, who originally played under the name Vigilantes of Love, an Americana, alternative-country, Rock band from Athens, Georgia, and now calls himself a troubadour traveling with his wife, Muriah Rose, a singer/songwriter in her own right, performing primarily in house concerts in the back yards and living rooms of loyal fans across America (and coming soon to yours if you want). Bill Mallonee is happy to be putting out his own records now after being stifled by record companies that only wanted at best one album a year, when he is prolific enough to turn out 3 or 4.

Our chat with Bill was refreshingly human. It pointed out, once again, why artists who are Christians are uniquely not what you might label “Christian artists.” Christian artists carry certain expectations about what is covered and what is not covered in their music as well as an expectation of something that identifies every song as “Christian” and not “secular.” Bill used the term “propaganda” to describe this kind of”Christian art” which he admits is a little harsh, but it carries the right implication about art which is used to convey a particular message (even if it’s a good one) being no longer art, but something else. Art that is a means to an end is at best, a tool to teach with, and at worst, more propaganda than art.

What’s refreshing about Bill’s work is that it is, by his own admission, “equal parts faith and hopelessness; equal parts joy and gloom.” What business does a Christian have writing about hopelessness and gloom except that hopelessness and gloom are human and human is Christian. It’s a shame that the Christian faith is not presented this way more often. I have a feeling more people would be Christians if it were.

Bill defines grace as that divine beauty that meets him in his own skin.

I am reminded of the words God gave my son Chandler at my ordination service: blood and skin. Blood being the wounded part necessary to know God, and skin being what is wrapped around this human experience. When the skin breaks, blood comes out. It’s the human experience. When we do it, we die. When Jesus did it, He saved us. “Here is my body, broken for you.” Thank God it was.

I urge you to listen to the recorded version of Tuesday night’s show found by clicking here. And then, as a special treat, Bill is offering a free download of his song “Every Father Knows” to our Catch community for a limited time. It’s a Christmas song, but I would call it a Christmas song good for any day of the year, especially this one.

And finally, if you discover you like Bill’s music, you may want to look into scheduling a house concert for your neighbors and friends. It’s a wonderful way to experience the music, first hand, and introduce others to a marketplace artist who happens to be a Christian. You won’t have to coax the gospel out of that evening; it will be there all over the place, hidden to some, but out in plain sight to those who are looking.

Isn’t that the way it always is?

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Americans in heaven

Posted on February 26, 2014 by jwfisch

There is a very common notion among Christians and churches in America that wealth is a blessing from God. I would be more inclined to say that wealth is much more of a responsibility than it is a blessing.

Looking at his disciples, [Jesus] said:

“Blessed are you who are poor,
    for yours is the kingdom of God.
Blessed are you who hunger now,
    for you will be satisfied.
Blessed are you who weep now,
    for you will laugh.
Blessed are you when people hate you,
    when they exclude you and insult you
    and reject your name as evil,
        because of the Son of Man.
“Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven. For that is how their ancestors treated the prophets.

“But woe to you who are rich,
    for you have already received your comfort.
Woe to you who are well fed now,
    for you will go hungry.
Woe to you who laugh now,
    for you will mourn and weep.
Woe to you when everyone speaks well of you,
    for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets. (Luke 6:20-26)

In all the sermons I have heard and books I have read on the Sermon on the Mount, or what is commonly called the Beatitudes, all of them have come from the Gospel of Matthew. Indeed, it was some time even as a student of the Bible, before I discovered there was another version of the Beatitudes in the Gospel of Luke that is noticeably different. The difference is most clearly seen in its lack of spiritual application. In Matthew, it is the poor in spirit and those who hunger and thirst for righteousness who are blessed. In Luke it is just the poor and the hungry who are blessed. Period. And not only that, there are curses placed on the rich and the well-fed. Is it any wonder that growing up in America I would hear the spiritualized version only. It’s as if Jesus never said the Luke version, or Luke forgot to put the spiritual part in because the Matthew version is what He really meant.

Find me one pastor in America with the guts to teach “woe to the rich” in his/her congregation and you’ll find someone out of a job.

I’m a pastor in America, and of course I’m going to choose the Matthew version. After all, I’ve got two to choose from; might as well choose the easier one. Except that if this is the word of God, then both of these accounts are true, and there is something we need to learn from both of them. Luke didn’t just slip up. The Spirit of God compelled him to write this, which should compel us to figure out why. Most likely, Jesus gave it both ways at different times or we wouldn’t have two versions.

The Luke version goes over well in third world countries, but not here in America. Why? Because here in America, we believe the opposite, that wealth is a blessing from God. Unfortunately you would have a big argument about that from Jesus. Jesus said it was harder for the rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven than anybody. Something about passing through the eye of a needle… That doesn’t sound like a blessing to me. And what about the rich young ruler whose possessions were too much to part with in order to follow Jesus? Jesus let him go. We would have probably adjusted the requirements a bit just to get this guy on the discipleship board. He could have funded the whole thing.

These are hard words to swallow, but they are not condemnatory; I would hold that they are simply fact. Jesus is not condemning the rich; He’s only being honest about how hard it is going to be for them to keep the right perspective. Jesus said these things not because he hates rich people, but because He knows that it is through our need and our poverty of soul that we find God. A rich man is deluded by his wealth into not realizing his real need.

Jesus literally means the poor are blessed because they get it faster than anyone. Just like the passage above from Luke, it is the poor and hungry who are blessed, and conversely, the rich who are not. They don’t get it because their stomachs are full. It’s not the “spiritual merit” of the poor that’s being talked about, but their ability to see and understand the real truth about their situation.

Way before wealth is anything close to a blessing, biblically speaking, it is a responsibility. If it’s a blessing, then we can Praise God and use it up on ourselves. If it is a responsibility, then we have an obligation to go before God and find out how to use our wealth for His kingdom. If America is the wealthiest nation in the world, then we must conclude that it is harder for Americans to enter the kingdom of heaven than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle.

But right after Jesus made that comment, the disciples immediately said, well then, it’s going to be impossible for anyone (especially those from the wealthiest nation in the world) to get into heaven. To which Jesus thankfully replied that with God all things are possible.

Yes, even Americans can get into heaven.

Give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread. Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you and say, ‘Who is the Lord?’ Or I may become poor and steal, and so dishonor the name of my God. (Proverbs 30:8-9)

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Meet Malley

Posted on February 25, 2014 by jwfisch

IMG_2938Malley is my daughter’s new puppy. I am told her name comes from medial malleoli, which is the medical name for the bones on the inner side of our ankles, which is where Malley spent her first few days after being rescued by my daughter from a dumpster in Puerto Rico – in and around Annie’s malleoli. (I always think Annie is talking about a small island in Hawaii when she tells this story, as in some place off the coast of Malleoli.)

Annie didn’t intend to come home from a two-week vacation in Puerto Rico with a puppy named after an island in Hawaii, but they found each other. She heard a faint whimper while walking by a dumpster, and lo and behold, there was Malley, not too very much alive, with a gash on her neck that Annie, happy to have brought her medical bag, promptly cleaned and sutured. (Annie is a physician’s assistant [P.A.], which would explain naming a puppy after the Latin term for the inner part of an ankle.)

This, after having come close to purchasing a puppy here a few weeks before her trip. Somehow that just wasn’t right, and somehow this was. How can you leave behind a puppy this cute that you rescued, who can’t seem to leave the vicinity of your medial malleoli?

Right now, Malley is in and around my malleoli, and it is cute, but rather annoying because she woke up with me and now wants to play when I have work to do. (We are puppy grandparents this weekend, due to Annie’s long working hours and I’m beginning to understand a little about being a grandparent, as in: Great to have the kids over! Great to have them go!)

So Malley was up with me this morning, romping about, ears flopping and grabbing anything close to her mouth. I was in the garage changing over laundry when she found a bungee cord close to her mouth hanging out of a five-foot stack of metal crates full of snorkeling and skateboard gear. The crash of all five crates hitting the ground scared me to death, and I looked up just in time to see Malley racing away across our bridge and disappearing in the front door. Wasn’t me, honest! I’ve been over here the whole time!

Mischievous Malley, looking every bit like Clifford the Big Red Dog around my tiny thChihuahuas who don’t have a clue what to do with her. (It would be like you and me around a baby Grizzly bear who wanted to romp around and play. I don’t blame them for keeping their distance.)

IMG_5691I think Malley should be the Catch mascot. There’s something right about this. After all, isn’t this where God found all of us – near death and abandoned in the dumpster of life? And what did He do? Everything necessary to save us and bring us legally home.

Malley is us, desperate, near death, with no one to claim us and no name, suddenly found, treated, named, fed and loved until the next thing we know, we are romping in and around the ankles of God – a nuisance to Him, for sure, but don’t you know, He loves it.

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There you are

Posted on February 24, 2014 by jwfisch

th-3kfd&p writes: “Some of us from our church are going downtown tomorrow morning to care for the homeless. It’s so easy to get into that ‘us and them’ comparison. And it sure makes a difference if you arrive without ‘us and them’ in your vocabulary!!”

How true.

I’m not sure who said it first, but there is a popular “Christian” statement when encountering someone in a worse state than you are: “There, but for the grace of God go I.” A search for the source of the saying comes up inconclusive. Some say it was a sixteenth century British evangelist, John Bradford, but the actual quote can’t be backed up in his writings. One search concluded it was a “twentieth century coinage,” in other words, it’s one of those sayings that everyone seems to know for some reason.

Well I think it’s time for it to die. As good as it may sound at first, it’s really a statement right out of the book of us and them. There’s me here and there’s that poor fellow over there, and I’m sure glad I’m not him.

Actually, we could probably say Jesus was the author of this quote when he put words in the mouth of a Pharisee seeing a poor sinner on his knees begging for mercy, “I’m sure glad I’m not like that guy over there.” It’s the same thing.

Based on where we ended our “us and them” discussion last week, the statement should probably be more like: “There, because of the grace of God, go I.” If there is no us and them, then we are the homeless, and we need to find out why.

Because of the grace of God, I am on the same level as everyone else in the world. There is no hierarchy of worth here. There may be social, political and economic hierarchy, but it is not a hierarchy of worth. Indeed, in many cases it can be shown that the poor are better off than the rich. Jesus backed this up by saying that the poor are blessed. In other words, they are in a favored position. He didn’t say this about anyone else. There’s something special about being poor.

So kfd&p, when you go to visit the homeless, realize they have one up on you. They are blessed in ways you aren’t. Go with the intention of being taught and encouraged by them. Go with the attitude of being in the presence of royalty. Bow before them in your spirit. Serve them. Receive from them.

This is what Marti taught me about the women without homes at the Isaiah House. Time and time again I would go thinking I was going to bless them, only to find out I was the one in need of the blessing.

There, because of God’s grace, are you. Find out the you that’s been hidden from you for so long. Find out who you are in the eyes of the homeless. For according to Jesus, you will not only find yourself there, you will find Christ.

“Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine,” Jesus said, “you did for me” (Matthew 25:40). That means when you visit what appear to be “the least” you are actually in the presence of God. Jesus beat you there. Meet Him. Greet Him. Find out what He wants you to know.

Because of God’s grace, there you are.

bm567For those new to Bill Mallonee click here for an excellent interview, and then don’t miss ours tomorrow night!

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They “R” us

Posted on February 21, 2014 by jwfisch

th-2If I knew how to make a backwards “R” with my computer I would. Anything to help us remember this.

Today, inspired by U2’s lyric “There is no them; there is only us,” Deanne reminds us of the line that made the cartoon Pogo famous: “We have met the enemy and he is us.”

It does bring another twist to this thinking, which I think is so important primarily because it is not what we naturally think (which means it must be true!). If there is only us, then “us” becomes all-encompassing. The enemy is us, the sinner is us, the invalid is us, the mentally ill is us, the hungry is us, the poor is us, the rich is us, the criminal is us, the famous is us, the successful is us, the homosexual is us, the transgender is us, the terrorist is us, the soldier is us, the priest is us … I could finish out this Catch with more types and descriptions, but I am sure you get the point now.

This is why Jesus made it clear to not judge anyone, because when you judge someone you are judging yourself. That would make sense since they are us. There is no them. In this context, “them” is a judgment, and the reason we can’t judge is that there isn’t anything that sets us apart from anyone else.

That’s why we embrace everyone. Forgive everyone. Have mercy on everyone. Do you want any part of this for yourself? Then you must give all of it to everyone. What? You get forgiven and the next guy doesn’t? How is that possible? It’s not.

If everyone is us, then I need to love everyone, extend God’s grace to everyone, and see everyone as equally valuable in God’s eyes. Is your sin not so bad that God would forgive you and not someone else with a worse sin than you? How absurd is that? Is there a sin gauge? Everyone below the “really bad sin” line is forgiven, but above that … forget it?

This is where I believe God would have us innocent to other people’s errors — so grateful for our own mercy that we can’t possibly even think of not extending that same mercy to everyone else, no questions asked.

This is what Paul means when he writes over and over again, “Grace and mercy to you.” No discrimination. Everybody gets it.

Lately I‘ve been working four days a week in a local library. Once a week, at least a half a dozen young men come in and take over the computers. They all have dark pants, white shirts and black ties and they all have a permanent name tag that say “Missionary Elder, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.” If there’s anyone I have a tendency to judge, it’s these guys. “Why don’t they get their own computers? Doesn’t the church have enough money for that?” But in doing so, I am judging myself. I’m pitting my self-righteousness against theirs and saying mine isn’t as bad. But what’s to say they aren’t self-righteous at all — just a bunch of really good kids trying to do the right thing. Hats off to them. May they find the grace of Jesus. If we were going to compare virtue for virtue (and we are not, because it is useless) they are probably more virtuous than me, anyway, so I don’t even want to go there. I want to extend them mercy as God has done for me.

See what happened here? I met the Mormons and the Mormons are us.

bm567

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Tonight Show sermon

Posted on February 20, 2014 by jwfisch

There is no them
There is no them
There is only us
There is only us
– from “Invisible” by U2

No one could preach a better sermon than the one U2 preached Monday night on Jimmy Fallon’s big night as the host of the new Tonight show.

The Tonight Show, since 1954, has been a cultural icon, bathing bedrooms across America in the blue glow of late-night television. After Johnny Carson’s 30-year signature, followed by 22 years of Jay Leno, with a brief 6-month intermission with Conan O’Brien, Fallon’s show had the look of a new dynasty being born. With its new location (New York), new set, new host, and U2 performing their new hit “Invisible” 70 stories up on the roof of the Rockefeller Center in front of a stunning sunset over New York, it was an auspicious beginning.

The rooftop song, “Invisible,” has a bridge where Bono sings, over and over, There is no them/There is no them/There is only us/There is only us. It’s a message I have articulated numerous times here from the Catch, as I am particularly sensitive to using the terms “us” and “them” from my familiarity with an evangelical fundamentalism that fostered this kind of thinking. To hear it showcased in such a setting showed me that it is more than a Christian cultural phenomenon, it is something embedded in our human nature. And it is not good.

Certainly “us” and “them” are pronouns necessary for communication, but something sinister happens whenever they are used together. Whenever “us” and “them” are used as a dividing line within humanity, you are putting yourself in the inside and kicking somebody else out. Whenever “them” is sinners, or the poor, or an ethnic group, or nationality, or religious group, or race, or sex, or sexual orientation, something ugly happens. There is a human separation. There is a category created where there shouldn’t be one. There is a wall created – a fence, a barrier – that can create anything from hostility to major wars.

Here is the crux of the matter: “Us” includes me; “Them” does not. Any use of the word “them” that leaves me out leads to arrogance, bigotry, and all the flaws of the Pharisees. When you think about or encounter anyone who is a sinner, or poor, or from another ethnic group, or nationality, or religious group, or race, or sex, or sexual orientation other than yours … that’s your group. “They” are “us.”

Yes, the more you meet “them” and get to know “them” and love “them” you will discover that “they” are “us” – that indeed, the song is right: There is no them/There is no them/There is only us/There is only us.

Though the rooftop performance by U2 was stellar, the real “moment” in the show came when Jimmy Fallon got his wish and invited U2 to sing a song on the set of the Tonight Show from the couch. Producing two acoustic guitars and a tambourine, U2 performed an “impromptu” version of their Academy Award nominated song “Ordinary Love” from the movie, “Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom.”

In a musical and emotional crescendo that culminated in a standing ovation, Bono rang out the words:

We can’t fall any further
If we can’t feel ordinary love.
And we can’t reach any higher
If we can’t deal with ordinary love.

Ordinary love breaks down the thickest walls (there are no thicker walls than the walls of apartheid in South Africa) and turns all of “them” into “us.”

We should all have a little “them” meter going off in our brain whenever we start to use the word, just to check ourselves on how we are doing. If you can’t put “us” there instead, don’t even say it.

Like I said, no one could preach a better sermon than the one U2 preached Monday night on the Tonight Show. Jimmy Fallon even asked Bono to sermonize over a coffee mug … and he did.

Click here
for a YouTube video of the complete performance including
Bono’s coffee mug sermon.

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