Acts for the Rest of Us: Underrated Accounts of ‘Ordinary’ Christianity

Note: This was an odd message from a construction point of veiw. It actually grew out of a blog post that I wrote a couple months ago. The post is more technical than the message, but tries to convey the same content. It can be found here.

Mp3 here

A few weeks ago, I posted a question on my facebook. I’m going to repeat it here, and I promise you this is going somewhere.

“Why is it that movies usually include kissing and seldom include pooping?”

You can always count on me for important philosophical questions. This led to a lively exchange. Some of my some of my friend’s felt is was important to remind me of famous pooping scenes from various films. But my favorite response was by a man of many talents. Ray, the guy who probably gave you your nametag, wrote:

Apparently, he is not just an accomplished grant writer and a Mexican wrestler…he’s also a poet.
It can be summarized in one word. “Selection.”[1] Story telling is by its very nature selective. Take, for example, the recent film 500 days of Summer. It was 95 minutes long. That means that they left out 719,905 minutes of the story. If you have to make those kinds of cuts, sleeping and bathroom time are the first to go. But you can bet they include the first kiss, because it is important to the story.[2]

On the whole, this is good and helpful. No one is clamoring for more bathroom scenes in films. But, you have to understand the nature of selective story telling when you read the narrative books of the Bible, like, say, the book of Acts. Think about it, the book of Acts took 30 years to happen and only takes a couple hours to read. This is, on the whole, a good thing because, let’s face it, the Bible is a relatively longish book with a fair number of nap inducing sections as it is. But the selective nature of Biblical narrative can also be problematic. We can be left with the idea that normative Christianity is a string of miracles, cataclysmic break throughs and harrowing adventures.

When we read the Book of Acts we remember the miracle at the pool, Peter’s great sermon, Paul’s conversion…the dramatic moments. And then, when we compare them to our relatively normal lives, we can feel diminished…disappointed in ourselves and underwhelmed by the acts of God in our generation. There appears to be an empirical disconnect between the dynamic works of God on the pages of Scripture and the repetitive monotony of our daily lives.

In two weeks we are going to start our ‘big questions’ series and I am going to lead off with the #1 vote getter by any metric. The Problem of Uninspiring Christianity. But one of the issues with looking out over contemporary Christianity and finding it uninspiring in comparison to the Biblical story, is that you are comparing real life, which is unfolding in real time with all of the proverbial ‘bathroom scenes’ to a highlight reel. Do you wish that your life was more exciting, that you heard from God more, that you saw more miracles like the people in the Bible…well, you know what, so did they.

What Biblical narrative necessarily omits is the tedium. So you have to read the ‘white space.’ You have to read it with your eyes open for the uneventful MONTHS that Paul spent on the road between Antioch and Ephesus. You have to feel the lonely hours of chasing elusive sleep on some cold bumpy surface as Paul and his companions shivered the night away on a creaky ship navigating uneven seas.[3]

Between Paul’s conversion in Acts 9 and the account of Barnabas seeking him out to help with the church in Antioch 18 unremarkable years pass where Paul presumably stays put and does nothing worth recording. But this is hardly surprising. Remember Moses spent 40 years tending’s sheep before God used him for a couple years to lead his people. Shoot, the God of the universe spent 30 years working as a carpenter before a 3 year ministry.

In a sense, the last three weeks (my talk on Acts 17 at the end of last quarter, Adam on Acts 19 two weeks ago and me again on Acts 20 last week) have been, in a sense, a mini-series within our larger series on the book of Acts. In each of these passages, Adam and I mined the methods and message of Paul to find some principles that could inform our attempts to serve Jesus in this place. But the truth is, for most of us Paul is hard to indentify with precisely for the same reason that he makes such a good story. His passion and discipleship are normative and worth modeling…but his life and calling were peculiar to him.

Even in Acts, we see that the strength of the church was not in a few all stars, but in many quiet individuals making unnoticed contributions, undocumented sacrifices and understated adventures. Paul’s life makes good story precisely because it is NOT normative Christianity. Some of you may be called to those kinds of crazy adventures, but most of you will be called to contentment in the midst of raising children for Jesus, being faithful in a marriage a job and a ministry, stinging together several dozen quiet but strong years of love and service.[4] Instead of enduring ship wrecks and snake attacks you will be called to open your home to your co-workers and mentor the youth in your community.

But the truth is, that careful reading of Biblical narrative, yields compelling stories of people living ‘normal’ Christian lives well. So I just want to spend the rest of my time to relate two stories that Luke tells about guys not named Peter or Paul…stories that mostly reside in the white space of your Bible. I like to call them two stories with high coolness to ink ratio.[5] Two underrated stories in Acts, compelling in their ordinariness. Acts for the rest of us, if you will.

Philip’s Second Adventure: The Daddy Years

But Philip is the most interesting human character in the book of Acts, as far as I am concerned. But his story hardly seems like it should count as one of the underrated stories of Acts. We have already had a whole talk about him. In the fall Kevin told us Philip’s story from Acts 8.

He was a multi-cultural pioneer.[6] He was young, adventurous, brash, spiritually sensitive, and slightly impetuous. Acts 8 describes him performing miracles, preaching and healing the sick in Samaria without regard to the bitter racial hatred that should have kept him far away from ‘those people.’ He baptized an African man chapters before the rest of the church realized that Christianity was more than just a Jewish sect. He lived exciting months as a gospel pioneer from city to city; going on adventures and living daily the power of God. But the last we hear from him in Acts 8:40 is in Caesarea.

Acts 8:40 “Philip, however, appeared at Azotus and traveled about, preaching the gospel in all the towns until he reached Caesarea.”

After that he simply disappears from the story. Most people extrapolate from his early adventures and figure he spent his life doing crazy stuff for God in lands so distant that the stories simply didn’t make it back to Luke, due to their shear remoteness.

But that is not what happened.

We meet up with Philip one more time 20 years after his adventures. Paul stops in Ceserea between Miletus (where he met the Ephesian Elders in last week’s passage) on his way to Jerusalem (Acts 21[7]). Verse 8:

Acts 21:8 "Leaving the next day, we reached Caesarea and stayed at the house of Philip the evangelist, one of the Seven.[8] 9He had four unmarried daughters who prophesied. "

Paul finds Philip just where we left him, in Ceserea. The English text says he had 4 unmarried daughters but the Greek word is woman of marriageable age, meaning that for the youngest to be of marriageable age, the oldest would have to have been 18 or 19…in other words, his oldest child was born shortly after his arrival in Caesarea 20 years ago in Acts 8. FF Bruce essentially says, ‘Do the math…Philip met a girl in Caesarea and it put an end to his missional gallivanting.’

The shockingly normal story told in the white space of the text is that the fiery young Philip almost certainly met a girl when he reached Caesarea and live 20 faithful years as a generous, committed, active servant to his local church and community…and as an exceptional father. Some of the earliest church historians describe these daughters as key figures in the second generation of Christianity. According to these accounts, one of them went on to become a physician tending almost exclusively to the poor and destitute. God had a second adventure for Philip…as a daddy.

Philip spent 18 years elapsed between his brief adventure (in Acts 6) and hosting Paul (in Acts 21) changing diapers, whipping spit up, getting out of bed every morning and going to work, dealing with the drama of drama teenage girls. Yet Luke still esteems him ‘Philip the evangelist’. These are good strong years for Philip…the kind of years that the kingdom of God is built out of…the kind of years he should be proud of…the kind of years we could be proud of…but not the kind of years that ‘make the Bible.’ And, this is what is so widely misunderstood. The fact that we don’t hear the story of these years is evidence that they are more, not less, normative

Some of you may go to Uganda or Italy this summer or any of a range of wild adventures. Like Barnabas or Paul, you might decide that long term cross cultural ministry is for you. You really should go totally open to the idea. God might call you to a different sort of adventure, of having a family and raising kids to serve God in our broken culture.[9]

There is a subtle warning of the story of Philip is that the desire for adventure and significance can be an idol.[10] It can be unspiritual pride. If you are doing the Jesus thing for the adventure or for feelings of significance and not for Jesus himself, something is wrong. God could ask you to a sacrificial itinerant life like Paul or, like Philip, after some early adventures he could ask you to the sacrifice of parenthood and contentment serving Jesus in a community and a local church.

John Mark’s Second Chance: Failure is Never Final

The second story, shocking in its normalness, is the story of John Mark. In Acts 13 Mark accompanies his cousin Barnabas and Paul on their first trip. But, after they have a mildly terrifying encounter with a sorcerer at their first stop, Mark decides it is not for him. He goes home instead of continuing on with the team. Luke scarcely mentions it:

Acts13:13 “From Paphos, Paul and his companions sailed to Perga in Pamphylia, where John left them to return to Jerusalem.”

But this decision led to one of the ugliest stories in the book of Acts…starting in chapter 15 verse 36 (printed on your handout):

Acts 15:36“Some time later Paul said to Barnabas, "Let us go back and visit the brothers in all the towns where we preached the word of the Lord and see how they are doing." 37Barnabas wanted to take John, also called Mark, with them, 38but Paul did not think it wise to take him, because he had deserted them in Pamphylia and had not continued with them in the work. 39They had such a sharp disagreement that they parted company. Barnabas took Mark and sailed for Cyprus, 40but Paul chose Silas and left, commended by the brothers to the grace of the Lord.”

I’ve said this before in our series on Acts, but this is a really messy story. If Luke was simply interested in painting the best possible picture of the early days of Christianity he would have conveniently omitted stuff like this.[11]

But what we see again and again in the Scriptures that it is the grit and mess of life that is often the most fertile ground for redemption.[12]

The point of the story of John Mark is that, if you belong to Jesus, failure is never final.[13]

Years later, Paul writes a letter to the Church in Colosse and in the boring list of names at the end of that letter, we find this gem.

Colossians 4:10 “My fellow prisoner Aristarchus sends you his greetings, as does Mark, the cousin of Barnabas.[14] (just to make sure they are clear which Mark he is talking about) (You have received instructions about him; if he comes to you, welcome him.)[15]”

Colossians finds Mark, once again, in Paul’s small inner circle of trusted traveling companions. Paul tells the church, forget what you might have heard about me and Mark, we’re good. Mark gets another chance because, in Jesus, failure is never final.

Think for a minute about the implications of this principle: failure is never final. Think of how freeing that story is. The application is, try stuff, take risks…because even if it flops, in Jesus, failure is never final. If we were to take this seriously, the church could be the most innovative place on earth, full of daring new ideas, because it is the only place where failure is never final.

Rock Band and Relay for Life Illustration

At some point in your life, you will be John Mark. You will try something and it will go catastrophically poorly. Count on it. The question you need to ask yourself, is are you going to let it take you out, or will you recover, and try something else.

There is another side to this idea, however. At some other point in your life, someone you care about will let you down. They will disappoint you. Think about Paul in this story. It is easy to see how he could have harbored bitterness towards Mark. Mark not only disappointed him but was the catalyst of an ugly confrontation and a deep rift in his closest friendship. But if failure is never final in Jesus, the people who let you down, they get another chance.

So, what I wanted to do with my last talk in this great book was to try to demonstrate that it is not just a story about a few special people like Peter and Paul. It is a story about a lot of normal people like you and me. Don’t be intimidated by the Biblical highlight reel. Live for Jesus today. Live for Jesus tomorrow. And when you look back on your complete story, you will have a pretty remarkable highlight reel of your own…but more importantly, you will have many faithful days lived for him.

_________
[1] I planned to show a great clip here from Sports Night (season 1 episode 2) where Jeremy is in charge of making a 30 second highlight clip of a baseball clip and is unable to get it under 8 minutes.
[2] There is one exception to this…24…but even in 24 there are several stories going on at once and Keifer Southerland can somehow mysteriously make it across LA at rush hour in 15 minutes.
[3] I mean, it is highly likely, that Paul got sea sick and booted over the side of a boat often…but it doesn’t make the Bible.
[4]Here is what I find annoying about Acts. Believe it or not, I don’t particularly like Paul. I find him abrasive and a little annoying. I don’t think he and I would be close friends. As a side note, I think this augments rather than diminishes his qualifications to be used by the Holy Spirit to author Scripture. One of the outstanding things about the scriptures is that God used personalities as diverse as Paul and John to write it. Far from undermining its message, it shows that the Christian story is not only for a single temperament and that ministry is not pigeon holed by personality type. I don’t have to enjoy Paul to esteem him.
[5] Sometimes the best stories only get a few words, and are only yielded to the careful reader.
[6] He was the first to realize that the gospel was for the Gentiles. He baptized an African guy chapters before the rest of the church felt comfortable extending the faith outside of the Jewish community.
[7] on his way back from his meeting with the Ephesian Elders
[8] Luke adds this to assure us that this is, in fact, the same Philip from Acts 8.
[9] But you will notice, Philip jumps at the opportunity to host Paul, he never looses interest in the global mission of the gospel.
[10] If this idea is new or intriguing to you, I highly recommend my brother, Nic’s, excellent talk “Anatomy of a Sellout” – mp3 here
[11] I looked in vein for art illustrating this passage. Once again, it seems only the skeptics like this passage.
[12] Fruit grows best out of s***. Failure is the metaphorical Nitrogen of the Kingdom.
[13] We usually read this passage as Mark’s failure but as I already implied in an earlier note, I often wonder if it wasn’t extremely difficult to serve with Paul. For all his dedication and intellect and reckless passion, he may have overwhelmed more sensitive personalities. I wonder if the Collosians text isn’t a mea culpa.
[14] Notice, again, the care taken to make sure we know he is talking about the same Mark.
[15] Ancient traditions credit the young man with authorship of the second gospel.

Doing College Without Regrets: Paul’s Reunion with the Ephesians Elders (Acts 20)

Acts 20:13-38

MP3 here

In the opening scenes of Gladiator, Maximus Decimus Meridius of the Armies of the North, General of the Felix Legions is about to lead the Roman cavalry in a risky and courageous charge in the epic opening battle. He clasps forearms with his Quintus his first Lieutenant, looks him in the eye and says three words: ‘Strength and Honor’ – Quintus replies ‘strength and honor’ and the phrase ripples through the ranks of those closest to him: ‘strength and honor’ ‘strength and honor’ ‘strength and honor’. Now fast forward 90 minutes into the film, Maximus is a slave and a gladiator. He is trapped in a compound with surrounded by the Roman guard who want to kill him. There is a brief pause in the action while the soldiers break down the gate. Riddley Scott uses this pause in the action for a brief, quiet scene where Maximus looks around at a small unsavory group of gladiators who until now had fought out of motivations of self preservation. He says to them:

“I only need moments, so do not be careless with your lives.”
“If you don't want any part of this, go back to your cells.”

They do not flinch. They have obviously come to love him. To a man, they look back at him and reply in unison “Strength and honor.” This scene kills me. At this point in the film, the room invariably gets mysteriously dusty. But this is actually a conventional narrative device in action movies. I call it ‘the buddy scene.’ Near the end of many action films, there is a brief break in the action, where the characters who are about to face their death in the final scenes, have an opportunity to talk and communicate how much they have come to care for each other. There are great examples of this in Glory, Serenity[1] and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid[2] to name just a few.

Maybe the most famous ‘buddy scene’ of all pre-dates these other examples by about four centuries. In Shakespeare’s Henry the fifth, just before the young king is about to lead his army into a battle where he is outnumbered 5 to 1[3] he gathers his troops and says:

This story shall the good man teach his son…
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember'd;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother

So, why do I go into all this? Because I am convinced that this is precisely what Luke, the author of Acts, is doing in chapter 20. The later chapters of Acts read like an action film. Extended speeches that characterize the early chapters are replaced with riots and shipwrecks and snake attacks in the later chapters. And the opening verses of today’s passage fit the frantic pace of an action film. In fact, v 16, actually sets the pace by explicitly stating ‘they were in a hurry.’ Then they hit 5 islands in 2 verses. If this was a film, verses 14 and 15 would be a sea faring montage.

And this is how the final chapters of Acts go, Luke takes us from city to city, from danger to danger, from jail cell to ship wreck. It is a high pace action film…with one major exception…the rest of Acts 20. Acts 20 is Luke’s ‘buddy scene.’ Before they face their respective deaths in the final chapters of Acts, Paul gathers the Christian leaders he served with during his years in Ephesus one last time and it becomes clear how much they all mean to each other. NT Wright describes Acts 20 like this:

“Here we see Paul in a different mode, vulnerable, meditative…It is as though we have finally found him, no longer running around in a blur, but sitting for long enough to have his portrait painted.”

You almost expect the passage to end with the Ephesians elders saying ‘strength and honor.’

Acts 20 is a totally different kind of story.[4] This is the only speech in Acts addressed to Christians.[5] In it Paul reflects on the three years he spent in Ephesus with the people he came to love there.[6] And it becomes clear has no regrets. It is not a coincidence that the first time this passage really came alive to me was in my last semester of undergrad. I remember the day. I had found a quiet corner of the music building one morning and was just casually reading through Acts. I had read this story several times before. But, but this particular time, with my college years mostly in the rear view mirror, as I looked back over my own three years in that place, I resonated with Paul’s reflective, tone. A lot of people get to that point, where they look back on their college years, and say: “They were supposed to be the best years of my life…and they weren’t that great.”[7]

But as Paul looked back at his three years in Ephesus, Paul gives us at least three keys to doing college without regrets.[8]

1. He Finished the Race

Well, when Paul looked back on his three years in Ephesus, he used an athletic metaphor to describe that season of his life. He described it as a race. He said:

24However, I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me.”

He ran the race. Having been a runner, I find this metaphor an extremely vivid way to describe the college experience and I just want to highlight two things about it. The first thing you need to know about doing these years without regret, is that you need to do them with and for Jesus. You need to run the right race.

Almost ten years ago I was had a business trip to Denver and after the meeting I took a couple days off, rented a car, and climbed a couple mountains.[9] The first day I noticed that there was a major race through the town that I was staying near. The second day I climbed Mount Massive.

When I got to the summit I hung out there a while and several other climbers eventually came along including an attractive young woman who had climbed the mountain alone. There was also a dude that had climbed the mountain alone and I watched as made his way over and started to hit on her. I felt bad for the guy because it was pretty clear that she had just climbed the second tallest mountain in Colorado and wasn’t really interested in being chatted up.[10] But pretty soon it came out that they had both been in the race the previous day. Then they discovered that they had both placed second in their class. And she was totally beginning to warm up to him. I have to say that at that point, I thought his chances of getting a phone number were in the range of , say, 40%...until…he admitted that the reason he came in second was that he had missed a turn and cut several miles off the race...and even with that, someone beat him. Let’s just say, he went down that mountain alone. I think about this guy from time to time, though. He worked really hard. I’m sure he had a great race. But it was the wrong race. And he was left with regret…and no shot at the cute hiker.

The key to doing college without regret is to run the right race. You could work really hard in college. You could run a great race for your parents or for your future or for some cause or for some girl or some guy…but it’s the wrong race. Paul says that the key to looking back on his three years in Ephesus without regret was that he ran the race that Jesus Christ had given him. He ran with and for Jesus.

Paul could look back on his three years in Ephesus without regret because though, as we shall see, he had a lot going on while he was there, including a full time job, his time there belonged to Jesus from beginning to end.

Some of you may be running the wrong race. Maybe you are part way through your college years and are just realizing, ‘there has to be more than this.’ There is. You can finish the race for Jesus. Doing college with and for Jesus is the road to looking back at these years without regret and the great thing about Christianity in general and this community in particular, is that it is never too late to start running the right race.

A few months ago, Zach put this clip up on his facebook.



I love that clip, but my favorite part is the contrast between how the guard and the tackle respond to the broken play. The tackle realized that the game is going on without him and just lets it go. He is refused to join the play late. But the guard, once he realizes that the game is going on without him, he jumps out of his stance and makes a play. And a disaster turns into a respectable gain.

But some of you have been faithful in your first few years, and are thinking about coasting into the home stretch. To you, I think Paul would say, you want to leave this place without regret, leave it on the field…finish the race….complete the task.[11]

I have a close friend in who leads a college ministry comparable to CL at the University of Buffalo. We spent some time together this summer and he told me, ‘you can’t build a college ministry on seniors. They are done. They’re already looking to the next thing.’ I want to challenge you[12] to buck this trend. When I look at the kind of Senior Years that (just for example) Casie Wilson and Michelle Balaz are turning it, I think it is clear that you can build a college ministry on seniors running hard to the end. They are leaving it on the field.[13] (Of course, I also get the feeling they enjoyed their college experience). So Paul says the key to doing his three years in Ephesus without regret was to run the right race, the one Jesus set before him, and to complete it.

The second thing we notice about Paul’s look regret free retrospective is that:

2. He Worked Hard[14]

34You yourselves know that these hands of mine have supplied my own needs and the needs of my companions. 35In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: 'It is more blessed to give than to receive.' "

Paul’s time in Ephesus had something in common with your time at Davis. Christian community and ministry happened on his own time despite substantial competing commitments of a ‘secular vocation’. He was what we call ‘bivocational’ just like many of you who are trying to balance Christian community and ministry and enormous academic and even work commitments. The flat reality is that if you are going to make time for God at college, you are going to have to work hard.

But here is the interesting thing about Paul’s approach: did not separate his life into ‘secular’ and ‘spiritual’. Both his ministry and his work were done for God. Whatever he was doing, he was throwing himself into it. But he also worked hard so that he would have something left over to give.

Don’t write your studies off as unspiritual. Whatever you do, do it fully. Work hard at your studies because they are a great privilege and the vocation that God has called you to in this season. But if you are going to make time for Jesus, his people and his purposes in college, you are also going to have to work hard at your studies to produce the margins your life needs to ‘run the race’.

But here is the thing about Kingdom hard work done with and for Jesus. There is a lightness to it. There is a sweetness to it. There is a joy in it. And, Paul teaches elsewhere, that it is because in a non-trivial way, God himself gets involved with it.[15] Check out these two other places where Paul talks about hard work:

1Cor 15:10 “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.”

Col 1:29 “To this end I labor, struggling with all his energy, which so powerfully works in me.”

But here is the catch. You only get to claim his power if you are after his purposes.

Finally, the third thing we see about why Paul looked back at his three years in Ephesus without regret is:


3. He Developed Intimate Jesus Focused Friendships[16]

36When he had said this, he knelt down with all of them and prayed. 37They all wept as they embraced him and kissed him. 38What grieved them most was his statement that they would never see his face again. Then they accompanied him to the ship.

This is almost a romantic passage. This passage practically drips with tenderness and intimacy. These guys have so much genuine affection for each other that they are sneaking around despite the non-trivial risk of death, just to see each other one last time.[17] The Ephesians had to make at least a day’s journey to Militus and Paul must have paused at least three days for this meeting…each day increasing the probability that he would hit rough winter seas on the way to Jerusalem. You cannot read this passage carefully without coming away with the realization that it documents a serious ‘bromance.’ And this made me think of a song:[18]



From: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lL4L4Uv5rf0

Slide: “Can’t one heterosexual guy tell another heterosexual guy he thinks his booty’s fly”[19]

Platonic guy love is considered weird in our culture…but it thrives in the church. And particularly, here in this community. And there is a reason that bromance (as well as substantial, intimate relationships between women that is more socially expected and, thus, does not have a cool moniker) is a mark of Christian community.


It is because the strongest most intimate friendships are about something bigger than the friendship.[20] The great irony of friendship is the same irony we found when we talked about marriage. Relational intimacy is undermined by the quest for relational intimacy in and of itself. It emerges from a shared external passion.

Friendships based on the emotional goods and services that the friend provides are fragile because as soon as they don’t offer that service, the friendship is disposable. My favorite line in mewithoutYou’s new album gets at this idea: “when they say my love is real, they mean I like the way you make me feel”

But friendships based on a shared passion or mission tend to sustain. The emotional benefits are a substantial side effect of a relationship that is based on bigger things but they are not the thing in itself. The paradox is that because the friendship is focused on something other than the friendship, it is more durable and more fulfilling. [21]

CS Lewis tackles this idea in his book: The Four Loves “That is why those pathetic people who simply “want friends” can never make any. The very condition of having Friends is that we should want something else besides Friends…[22]There would be nothing for the Friendship to be about; and Friendship must be about something, even if it were only an enthusiasm for dominoes or white mice. Those who have nothing can share nothing; those who are going nowhere can have no fellow-travellers.”

Friendships that are based on something bigger than how the person makes you feel are more substantive, more intimate and last longer. Friendships base on a joint passion for Jesus have the added benefit of outlasting death itself. If you throw yourself into a Jesus centered life during your college years and are intentional about doing it in community, there are people in this room who will be at your wedding…because you cannot be involved in something as real and as transformative as serving Jesus without developing sustained and genuine affection for those who are doing it with you.

And here is one of the truly original things about friends in the Church. It often looks weird because of its intimacy but also because of the pairings. You find some of the most unlikely friendships in the church because the intimacy does not emerge from sameness of personality but sameness of passion.

Let me wrap up with a story. Near the end of my college experience I was in the science building studying for my last final. The lab started out full of well meaning students but as it wore on, one by one, they opted for either their beds or the bars (and more for the latter than the former). Finally, it was just me and a geologist named Lauren. Then, three guys from the campus ministry I served with showed up. These are guys who, for three years, I had prayed with, worked with, grown with and faced disappointment with. They convinced me to take an hour study break to toilet paper our college pastor’s van. And so I did. I made it back to the lab around 2 just as Lauren was leaving, so I offered to walk her home before I got back to my studying. On the way to her place she asked where I disappeared to suggesting ‘I don’t exactly have you pegged as a bar guy.’ I told her what had happened and wrapped up the little story by saying, without really thinking about it, ‘It was totally worth it. I really love those guys.’ She was quiet. Then she looked at me and said, “You know Stan, you’re really lucky. I am about to leave this place, and can’t say that about anyone I have met here.”

You want to do college without regrets? Do you want to look back on your three to five years here and feel that they were well spent? Get connected to a Christian community if you aren’t. If you are…leave it on the field. Run the race to the end. Work hard, in your studies and in ministry. And throw yourself into friendships that are about something bigger than the friendship.

_________________
[1] I think this is the clearest example of what I am trying to get at. But I am sensitive to my own Joss bias, so I did not feature it.
[2] Amanda and I had a long discussion if this actually ‘counts’ as a buddy scene by my definition because it is, in some senses, a comedic deconstruction of the genere (despite being the oldest example). But I think that in the passive aggressive banter between Cassidy and Sundance (culminating in the epic line ‘for a minute there, I thought we were in trouble’) is the evidence of deep, mutual affection.
[3] Note: I was scanning the web for Henry V images and I found this film version rated NC 17 for “violence, action, bad hygiene”.
[4] And the detail. You get the sense that you are actually there. The passage starts with ‘we’ suggesting that Luke joined the party at this point and that this is an eye witness account.
[5] Several commentators agree that this is why the content of this speech, more than any other, correlates with the content of Paul’s letters – which essentially serve the same purpose but by a remote communication rather than a meeting.
[6] The longest he spent in any one place.
[7] I think I owe this observation to Cory Randolph
[8] Why is March Madness so popular? Why do people LOVE college football, even prefer it to the NFL, when the skill level of the athletes does not really compare. It is because it college sports are devastatingly final. Labron, Wade, Linscome, Manning, Brady, they will all have another shot at it next year. But college athletes, many of them will never again experience that sort of perceived significance. You can bet that they don’t wish those years away. Their stories are public. We get to experience their joy and heartbreak with them. We get to watch their regret. But their stories parallel the short window of potential significance and potential regret that typify the college years.
[9] Which, after sex and preaching, is my favorite thing to do…hold on, did I say that out loud. Actually, I didn’t – I cut it. This is just one reason why I write a manuscript and try to minimize extemporaneous banter.
[10] My wife wasn’t even there and I could hear her say, ‘get a clue dude, bad time’ as she has said about so many ill fated attempts to hit on her at the gym.
[11] Way too many sports illustrations in this point, but I had this one here:
I used to run track in HS to keep in shape for soccer. I ran the two mile. We had a distance coach that would run with us sometimes. I remember times that I felt like my body was about to shut down, he would tell me, “just run to the next telephone pole.” Then at that pole he would say ‘How about one more?’ and that went on until I had run through the pain and found the pace again.
“Run to the next pole.”
[12] I want to call out the Junior class here. We all know that you are one of the epic CL classes of all time. There is a tendency to fade out in campus ministry.
[13] For my fifth sports illustration in this point (interesting, since I don’t think I’ve used even one before in 1.66 years preaching at college life) I wanted to tell the story of the final soccer game of my High School year…but I will refrain.
[14] This point got cut in the final talk
[15] Rejected sports illustration #4 – this reminds me of the Olympics a few years ago when the Dad came out of the stage to help his injured son cross the finish line.
[16] This point may appear as indebted, as usual, to Keller. The truth is, in this case, the similarity is convergent (independently developed and later recognized as similar) rather than genitive (due to me stealing). I would be lying if I said that this did not thrill me.
[17] I didn’t have a good place to put this, but really liked it: “to need and to want deep friendships is not a sign of spiritual immaturity but a sign of maturity. It is not a sign of weakness but of health. If you are lonely, you are not dysfunctional, you are fine. You are lonely because you are not a tree.” -Keller
[19] Flight of the Conchord’s reference:
[20] It is only weird if the foundation of the intimacy is soley the emotional connection.
[21] Amanda and I have talked about this and realized that many of the friendships that we maintain from college have moved beyond the point where the friendship is based on the performance of the friend. They have become grace based. We are unconditionally for them.
[22] ellipsis: “Where the truthful answer to the question Do you see the same truth? would be “I see nothing and I don’t care about the truth; I only want a Friend,” no Friendship can arise—though Affection of course may.”
Here are two more Four Loves quotes: "It is therefore easy to see why Authority frowns on Friendship. Every real Friendship is a sort of secession, even a rebellion. It may be a rebellion of serious thinkers against accepted clap-trap or of faddists against accepted good sense; of real artists against popular ugliness or of charlatans against civilized taste; of good men against the badness of society or of bad men against its goodness. Whichever it is, it will be unwelcome to Top People.”
“The Friendship is not a reward for our discrimination and good taste in finding one another out. It is the instrument by which God reveals to each the beauties of all the others.”