Jeremiah 18:1-11
A Death in the Family
James Sledge September
4, 2016
I’ve
recently been reading a new book that’s getting a lot of buzz, The End of White Christian America. It’s
a fascinating read, especially if you’re a bit on the wonkish side. It is
helpful in understanding a great deal of what is happening in American society
these days, everything from Black Lives Matter to the current, bizarre
political season. But before delving into all of this, the book opens with a
tongue-in-cheek obituary.
After a long life spanning nearly two hundred
and forty years, White Christian America— a prominent cultural force in the
nation’s history— has died. WCA first began to exhibit troubling symptoms in
the 1960s when white mainline Protestant denominations began to shrink, but
showed signs of rallying with the rise of the Christian Right in the 1980s.
Following the 2004 presidential election, however, it became clear that WCA’s
powers were failing. Although examiners have not been able to pinpoint the
exact time of death, the best evidence suggests that WCA finally succumbed in
the latter part of the first decade of the twenty-first century. The cause of
death was determined to be a combination of environmental and internal factors—
complications stemming from major demographic changes in the country, along
with religious disaffiliation as many of its younger members began to doubt
WCA’s continued relevance in a shifting cultural environment.[1]
The
obituary continues, as they typically do, with some of the notable moments from
the deceased’s life and then concludes,
WCA is survived
by two principal branches of descendants: a mainline Protestant family residing
primarily in the Northeast and upper Midwest and an evangelical Protestant
family living mostly in the South. Plans for a public memorial service have not
been announced.[2]
White Christian America has something of
mixed legacy. It gave us American democracy but also gave us racially based slavery,
the Civil War, and racial divides that persist to this day. As noted in the
obituary, Presbyterianism is one of its children, and we are just beginning to
process the death of our parent and figure out what it means for us.
If
you’ve ever been to funeral home visitation when someone dies, you’ve probably
joined in the reminiscing that typically goes on. People remember that time
when... and laugh, or cry, or shake their heads. Such reminiscing is an
important part of grieving, and doing it well helps people move forward with
their lives.
That doesn’t always happen though.
People sometimes can't manage to look forward. They can’t figure out how to
live in the present and get stuck. In institutions such as church
congregations, this often takes the form of nostalgia, a longing for the “good
‘ole days.” It’s even more debilitating for organizations than it is for
individuals. That’s especially so for churches who are called to proclaim and
live into God’s kingdom, God’s new day that is coming and never was in any
past, no matter how wonderful.
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I
once knew a healthy, vibrant women in her 70s who lost her husband to a
prolonged illness. Mary had children and grandchildren in the area, worked part
time, and was active in the church. But for some reason, she could not seem to
turn her gaze forward. She wasn’t sure who she was apart from her husband.
I’ll
never forget a call I got from another church member who had just been widowed.
Mary had called to help her with her grief and said, “It never gets any
better.” This new widow was pretty sure that wasn’t so, and wanted me to tell
Mary to stop calling her.
For Mary, all purpose lay in the past,
and I don’t know if she ever discovered something that allowed her to live
again. It was easy to feel sorry for her, but it was also hard sometimes not to
get upset with her. She was remarkably good at resisting efforts to help her.
________________________________________________________________________________
Longing
for the past probably happened a lot in Jeremiah’s day. There wasn’t much left of
the nation built by the great King David centuries earlier. The kingdom had split
after Solomon died. Israel was in the north, made up of all the tribes except Judah.
Judah, David’s tribe, kept Jerusalem as its capital, but it's days as a real
power were over.
By
the time of Jeremiah, Israel had been destroyed by the Assyrians. Judah had
reclaimed the name Israel because it was all that was left. But their problem
wasn’t just one of decline. Israel had also forgotten who they were, God’s
chosen people who were supposed to live in ways that bore witness to God. It
was a calling not so different from the Church’s call to live in ways that make
God’s love in Christ known to the world.
In
our reading today, Jeremiah calls Israel to task for this failing. He also makes
clear that Israel is not an end in itself. Israel has a special role in God’s
plan to draw all humanity into right relationship with God and one another. But
when Israel forgets that role, abandons that role, God will find other ways. Israel
is not indispensable.
The
same can perhaps be said of the Church. The cultural dominance that White
Christian America once knew was never part of our call to embody Christ for the
world. And when the children of WCA get stuck looking backward, longing for
those glory days of prestige, cultural hegemony, and influence, they cease to
be who God calls them to be. And presumably, at some point, God will be done
with such a church and create something new.
I
don’t see that happening here. Not that we can’t occasionally long for days
when it was easier to fill pews, when the culture sent us members who already
knew how to do church. It was easier being church back then. But we also
recognize that our WCA parent was a bit of a racist who often failed to bear
witness to the unity in Christ that overcomes divisions of race, ethnicity,
gender, economics, class, and more. So we’re not looking to go back.
In fact, our Session has begun a process
of listening for God, of trying to cooperate with the potter and not resist.
That can be a little scary, to say that we are ready to become something when
we’re not entirely sure what it looks like. But that is what faith is about,
about seeking God’s will, about becoming what Christ needs us to be, not what
we want to be. And so I’m proud of the Session for committing to this.
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The
hymn I chose to go with this sermon isn’t a great work of art, but it is only
one I could find that based on our scripture for today. Unfortunately, like
much in modern, American faith, it takes a corporate message and makes it an
individual one. I’d like us to correct that as we sing it. “Change our heart, O
God (the heart of our faith community); make it ever true. Change our heart, O
God; may we be like you. You are the Potter; we are the clay. Mold us and make
us; this is what we pray.”
May
this indeed be our prayer.
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