University Presbyterian Church

After I got home last night from Matt Ryman's ordination service, I turned on the Oscars. I was happy that one of my favorite films of 2009, The Hurt Locker, took most of the big awards, including Best Picture and Best Director. I reviewed The Hurt Locker on my personal blog, if you want to read it. I was also happy that Jeff Bridges won the Oscar for Best Actor, in Crazy Heart. As Christians we should celebrate that Hollywood honors a man who has been married for 33 years to the same woman. I liked Bridges' performance in Seabiscuit, another of my favorite movies. He seems like a man with a broken heart. I hope he knows Jesus.

But it's worthwhile to note the contrast between the honor accorded Matt as our newest Assistant Pastor, and the honors doled out at the Academy Awards. Matt got no attention from pundits and paparazzi. There was no red carpet welcome for him and his wife Hana. No beautiful starlets in expensive evening gowns paraded up and down the aisle of the Worship Center. The only acceptance speech Matt gave, if you can call it that, was a teary-eyed, one-sentence thank you to those who came to the service before he pronounced his first benediction. Lots of camera clicks could be heard after the ordination service, but the pictures will only show up on Facebook, not Variety or the New York Times.

Yet Matt's ordination as a teaching elder in the Presbyterian Church in America will have far greater impact on eternity than all the Oscars combined. And the honor he can look forward to receiving in heaven - "the crown of righteousness" (2 Timothy 4:8) - is of far greater worth than gold statues. The recognition Hollywood actors receive is fleeting, and the movies they make are here one year and largely forgotten the next. It was interesting to me that Farrah Fawcett, enormously popular in her heyday, was not included in the "In Memoriam" montage at the Oscars. It may have been an oversight, but it illustrates the fact that earthly glory is short-lived.

God told the prophet Samuel, "The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart" (1 Samuel 16:7). Millions of people around the world may have been watching the Oscars last night, but there was a greater celebration taking place in heaven over our ordination and installation of Matt Ryman, a man with a big heart for God and his kingdom.