Sturtz Stuff

There are a lot of things to protest in our culture at the moment. We have witnessed protests that desire to lament racism. We have seen protests that yearn for justice for the disenfranchised and poor. In the midst of all of this I have not witnessed a single protest suggesting that less listening needs to happen. “There is too much listening!” is not the cry of any protester. In fact there is a deep desire to be heard. Not just heard but listened to and understood in some manner.  In all my years of doing local church ministry, serving as a chaplain, being a Father or just doing life I have never had anyone complain about having been listened to well. Nobody has ever complained that they felt someone had truly listened to them. Most of us have experienced the opposite. Perhaps there are a few rare occasions that we might recall in our lives when we could say that someone truly listened to us.  More often we feel ignored. We feel like there was a lot of talking yet nobody was...

13 Later they sent some of the Pharisees and Herodians to Jesus to catch him in his words. 14 They came to him and said, “Teacher, we know that you are a man of integrity. You aren’t swayed by others, because you pay no attention to who they are; but you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. Is it right to pay the imperial tax to Caesar or not? 15 Should we pay or shouldn’t we?” But Jesus knew their hypocrisy. “Why are you trying to trap me?” he asked. “Bring me a denarius and let me look at it.” 16 They brought the coin, and he asked them, “Whose image is this? And whose inscription?” “Caesar’s,” they replied. 17 Then Jesus said to them, “Give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.” And they were amazed at him. (Mark 12:13-17)  What are your politics Jesus? That is what these questioners sent by the Pharisees and the Herodians want to know. They trot out a specific and highly contentious political issue in an attempt to trip Jesus up. The Pharisees...

I heard a story about a church minister that had put on a marriage seminar. One of the skills that the minister taught the couples in attendance was reflective listening. It is a method of listening to what someone is saying and then reflecting or repeating what you heard the speaker say back to them. It is a slow and methodical way for couples to communicate. Yet it can be highly effective, especially if things between the couple are tense emotionally. Once the minister explained the skill he then asked the couples to practice. After a few moments one of the guys spoke up and said “I don’t think this is going to work for my marriage.” The minister replied “Why not?” The gentleman explained, “This seems nice and all but when I fight I just want to have a fight.” That’s fair. There is some emotional release in fighting. A good fight can make us feel alive and vigorous. Sometimes a fight can remind us about the things that are meaningful and important to us. Anger isn’t always bad. It is...

Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Go south to the road—the desert road—that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” 27 So he started out, and on his way he met an Ethiopian[a] eunuch, an important official in charge of all the treasury of the Kandake (which means “queen of the Ethiopians”). This man had gone to Jerusalem to worship, 28 and on his way home was sitting in his chariot reading the Book of Isaiah the prophet. 29 The Spirit told Philip, “Go to that chariot and stay near it.” 30 Then Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. “Do you understand what you are reading?” Philip asked. 31 “How can I,” he said, “unless someone explains it to me?” So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. 32 This is the passage of Scripture the eunuch was reading: “He was led like a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before its shearer is silent, so he did not open his mouth. 33 In his humiliation he was deprived of justice. Who can speak of his descenda...

We were all born into a world that is in love with differences. The love language that we have all learned is that of enmity towards those who are different. By the time I was a teenager I had been to Sunday School long enough to learn that all other churches except for those from my tradition were suspect. Their doctrine was wrong. Their view of the Bible was wrong. The church I went to emphasized, almost every Sunday, that our community did things in the manner of the early church. That made us special. Because our doctrine and practices were better, my church was in some sense superior to say a Baptist church or a Methodist church. We knew who the real Christians were. In fact my church community could give you the book, chapter and verse, from the Bible, as to why we were better.  The central question of faith for me as a kid was who is in and who is out. Faith was a debate and faithfulness was about being both right and self-righteous about being right. This kind of posturing ...

When my youngest son Austin was in the third grade I received a notice from his school that the money in his lunch account had all been used. That really annoyed me. I had just put enough money in his account to last a long while. Yet, here is this notice that more money is needed. Is it just me or when your kids are in school you feel like an ATM machine as a parent. Anyway, here is this notice asking for yet more money. I wasn’t happy about that and I began to make up a story in my head based on a series of assumptions.  Obviously Austin had gone on some kind of a school lunch spending spree. He eats breakfast at home. Why would he eat breakfast again at school? How many cookies are the school lunch workers allowing him to purchase? I had questions that were all based on a bunch of assumptions. I decided that Austin’s foolishness needed to come to an end. I was going to get to the bottom of Austin’s lack of financial responsibility and teach him a lesson. When I asked Austin why ...

There are a lot of things that can totally creep us out. Certain foods. A dark hallway. Halloween night with a full moon. Watching a fast food worker cough into their hands and then use their hands to wrap up your burger. Clowns. People who have way too many cats. Lots of stuff creep us out.  For many the number 666 is creepy. The number is often connected to the Devil, evil happenings or viewed as a bad omen. A few years ago I was doing some visiting rounds as a hospital chaplain. I visited a man who was in room 6XX. The hospital knew that people were creeped out by the number 666 so they changed the room number to 6XX. As I visited with the man in the room he informed me that he was a good Baptist, had been going to church for years, and was mad. I mean he was really mad.  He expressed his great displeasure at being in “the Devil’s room.” He got loud, so loud that I am sure the people at the other end of the hallway could hear him. He had quickly figured out that 6XX was rea...