Death & Dying

I am a huge Woody Allen fan. If you don’t know who he is, he looks like this. Scrawny, old, unabashedly unattractive, and super narcissistic.
 But he makes great films. In fact, one of my favorite films he has done is “Annie Hall”.
If you know Woody (apparently Im acting as if we are personally acquainted) you know that not only is he a Jewish atheist, but he is also both obsessed and terrified of death.
Morbidly so.
It shows up in all of his films.

There’s this scene inside Annie Hall where she is moving out of their apartment and they are trying to figure out how to separate their stuff. She says, “Now look, all the books on death and dying are yours and all the poetry books are mine.

Alas, the title was born.

I am no Jedi Ninja Knight when it comes to walking with the Lord.

In fact, most times...

I’m messy, I’m sloppy, and sometimes I picture myself like the Tazmanian Devil whirling around and knocking everything (that so rudely put itself on my path) down to the ground.

It is in our nature to be selfish.

And to not know how to love right.

There’s a passage that is heard over and over again. Believers and nonbelievers quote this. 1 cor 13.  Love And Galatians 5. Fruit of the spirit. 

A lot of my life I used to sigh when I had to hear it. Sigh.

Literally irritated.
And for awhile I didn’t know why. But I think I do now.

I need practical steps and 1 Corinthians 13 alone cannot get you there.

It is like having ingredients with no recipe for instructions.

Because this isn’t easy when played out in real life.

Its not like if I was to say to you you need an egg, mustard, salt, and mayonnaise.

You would just know how to whip up egg salad.

That’s like a biblical principal of sowing and reaping.

Put in  X to reap something of value.

-time

-money

-etc

To me, that’s not as difficult.

But when we’re dealing with our sin nature, that’s different.

Let me put it this way, say I was to give you a list of ingredients without any directions: (Pretend you don't see cream cheese and graham crackers :)

• 8oz cream cheese
• 14 oz condense milk
• 1 egg
• lemon juice
• raspberries
• cornstock
• graham crackers

What do you think it is?

If I didn’t have directions for this, I would be quickly whipping up the worlds fattiest and most calorically dense milkshake in our history.

It’s a cheesecake. And the most complicated cheese cake my friend Chrissy Baxter's mother has ever given me.

The truth is, I copied down the list of ingredients one day at their house and confidently assumed that with my experience as a baker & cook paired with my determination, I could do it without instructions. Mostly, I was lazy.

And first Corinthians 13 & Galatians 5 are only the ingredients. Sure, the rest of the bible has some more instructions, but this scripture can never tell us how to get there, only what we need.

1 Corinthians 13 says love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Galatians 5 says But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and self-control

Can I give you the key directions? DEATH.

I like things laid out for me with examples. And so I like looking at these ingredients and pairing with them some solid, shameful examples.

1-Patient: when we are running late to small group on a Friday night and William head takes 15 minuts to perfectly tie his shoe, then brush off the car (when I would just blast the heat immediantely, peel out of the driveway, and hope for the best----story about wiper fluids), then drive exactly the speed limit all the way there, never going through any yellow lights, looking both ways 7 times, letting people go in front of him, actually stopping at stop signs, and then safely arriving 30 minutes late only to then take another 5 parallel parking with a minimum of 6 adjustments so we can be 12 inches from the curb exactly.

Death means not saying something. Death means not thinking what you want to be thinking. Death means not trying to take control.

3-Envy: when everyone around me at the coffee shop job talks about their picture perfect engagement stories, subsequent and set in stone wedding dates, and all of their perfect pintrest plans. Behind my (not so convincing) smile my brain is frantically counting the number of days, even seconds, William and I have been dating longer. 
Goodness.
 

Paul paints a very violent picture of what death looks like in these times. 

Of  beating our bodies to make it a slave to Christ.

If you’re like me you’re gonna be thinking:

Too hard? Too tired to do it? Too hopeless?

It's not by might nor by power.

Let me take you to the alternative; The "Hot Mess in Galatians":

The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

If you're anything like me it is much easier to relate to some of these.

Selfishness.

Putting something before God.

Impure motives thoughts or actions.

Jealousy.

Anger.

But we do have a way to kill off and starve those things. And to sow and reap the others.
Death.

I think it’s important, since I began this little diddy with Woody Allen to end with him.

Woody Allen has made 40 movies as a Actor, 64 as a Writer, and 45 as a Director.

Many were good movies. 

Some were great. 

.......Most were terrible.

 

The reason he had so much success is because he kept trying.

When you are drowning and you are cuddle up next to your last moments…do you know what our bodies reaction is?

We breathe. 

They say that as a person realizes they are drowning, there’s often a large amount of panic. 

This leads to rapid movements and expending a lot of energy, which requires more oxygen.

How do we as completely capable, competent, problem-solving drowners solve this? We take a big gulp of water; knee-jerk-operation-stay-alive-reaction.

Here we are, clearly surrounded by water. Sometimes salt. Sometimes full of Nemo poo…and against all rational thought, in the aggressive fight for our self preservation on this earth… we will open up our lungs which have been made solely for oxygen…and breath in a huge gulp of water.

Why do I say this?

Two parts

1- You may set your heart to dying. You may know conceptually that this is right. You may even feel the Holy Spirit piercing every selfish and fleshly crevice of your being.

But as you die, it will hurt. And you may change your mind. Change it back.

2- If you don’t die on your own, you will end up dying anyway.

When you try and save yourself from the pain of dying, God will have His way in you eventually anyway. Try taking a gulp of water and see how effectively that saves you. It will just be more painful.

So like Woody Allen, some days you’ll make great movies.

Some days will just be OK movies.

But some days you will make terrible movies.

Get up every single time.

And try again.

Die again.

 try again.

xoxo,

mp