Sermons and thoughts on faith on Scripture from my time at Old Presbyterian Meeting House and Falls Church Presbyterian Church, plus sermons and postings from "Pastor James," my blog while pastor at Boulevard Presbyterian in Columbus, OH.
In today's reading from John, Jesus' arrest is drawing near. In the midst of these deteriorating conditions, we hear this, "Nevertheless many, even of the authorities, believed in him. But because of the Pharisees they did not confess it, for fear that they would be put out of the synagogue; for they loved human glory more than the glory that comes from God."
Pharisees tossing folks out of the synagogue was not really an issue during the lifetime of Jesus, but it was a very pressing issue at the time John's gospel is written. After Jerusalem and the Temple were destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE, Priestly Judaism basically disappeared. In the struggle to control Judaism that ensued, the followers of Jesus (who considered themselves Jews) found themselves in competition with the Pharisees. The Pharisees (forerunners of modern rabbinical Judaism) were the much larger group, and in the manner typical of internal religious disputes, they insisted the Jesus followers drop their messianic claims for Jesus or risk expulsion. Apparently many Christians decided to keep their faith private so they would not be kicked out. And John's gospel is written, in part, to address these Christians and call them to bold, public faith.
Fast forward to our day, and I'm not in any danger from Pharisees for being too public about my faith. Nevertheless, there are other sorts of pressures that encourage me not to be too obvious about following Jesus. I suspect that many pastors feel a significant amount of pressure not to emphasize teachings of Jesus that make people uncomfortable or that challenge the prevailing cultural norms. And we've somehow managed to make following Jesus fully compatible with acquiring wealth and possessions no matter the cost to the environment or to those who labor under horrible conditions to produce our inexpensive food and clothes.
As a pastor, I'm as captive as the next person to our culture of success and consumerism. We pastors almost always receive "calls" to bigger churches with larger salaries. And our salaries are often the biggest single items in our church's budgets, budgets that often struggle to dedicate significant percentages of our monies to mission.
Many have noted that serving as a pastor is a difficult job that enjoys little of the status it once did. And certainly it does not pay at the same levels of many other similarly educated professionals. Yet despite these real difficulties, it strikes me that I want to serve as a pastor without it being really costly, without it including a cross. And it is very easy to hear John's gospel speaking of me when it says, "for they loved human glory more than the glory that comes from God."
If you happen to be a member of my congregation, don't worry that something dramatic is going to happen on Sunday. To be honest, I'm not at all sure how to address this captivity of Church and pastors to the prevailing culture, this fear we have of faithfully articulating what Jesus says and, even more, actually doing what he says. But we surely need to have some serious conversations in our congregations about what it actually means to be a follower of Jesus.
In today's verses from Acts, Paul and Silas are in prison when a violent earthquake throws open the doors and frees them. The jailer presumes that everyone has escaped and so pulls his sword to kill himself. (Apparently this was preferable to what would happen to him for letting prisoners escape.) But Paul shouted for him not to kill himself, that none of them had fled. The jailer rushes in to Paul, falls on his face, and cries out, "What must I do to be saved?"
This passage was used by Brian McLaren at the Church Unbound Conference I recently attended. And as Brian pointed out, seeing that the jailer was just about to kill himself, it seems highly unlikely that his desire to be saved has anything to do with the disposition of his eternal soul. His life has just been spared - for the moment - and he would probably like to make that a long term proposition.
This jailer is a part of the Roman empire, a small cog in that massive kingdom. His allegiance is to the emperor, but Paul suggests that he will be saved if he switches allegiance to a different king, Jesus.
We are so used to thinking that "saved" has to do with our approved or disapproved status in God's little black book that we presume a Roman jailer who moments earlier was more than ready to kill himself has somehow suddenly become concerned about the fate of his soul. Surely "saved" has a much more concrete meaning for him. Of course if we hear "saved" in the manner the jailer likely meant it, then that may require us to rethink what save means for us.
I think that the Church desperately needs this sort of saving. I think that our society and culture desperately need this sort of saving. Like the jailer, we need to turn away from our loyalty to Caesar, to the Almighty dollar, to a particular political view or ideology, to status and power, even to Church institutions and transfer that loyalty to Jesus. Two traditional titles for Jesus make this clear, Lord and Master. Both were ways to address someone who has power over you, who can tell you what to do. Caesar was supreme Lord in the First Century, Mediterranean world, but those who followed Jesus defected from Caesar and became obedient to Jesus.
This sort of thinking sometimes gets labeled heretical, but I would go so far as to say that if someone did all that Jesus commanded, but didn't believe in him, she would be closer to the Kingdom than lots of people who profess Jesus as their Savior but seem to have forgotten the Lord part. And Jesus himself says as much in a number of places, notably in the parable of the Judgment of Gentiles in Matthew 25:31-46.
And when I think of it this way, I need saving as much as anyone. Lord, save me!
A number of my Facebook friends have said they like a page called, "Let's see if there are 5 million people on FB who believe in God! Press Like if you do!" If they need me to make it to 5 million, they're going to come up short. Not that I don't believe in God. But all sorts of people believe in God. In fact, the vast majority of people believe in God. But for many of those it just doesn't make a great deal of difference in how they live their lives. And for another sizable group, it makes a great deal of difference, but in ways that are harmful and destructive.
A couple of today's readings speak to this. Job's three friends believe in God. In fact, they haves spent much of the book defending God to Job, insisting that Job accept his fate as just punishment from God. But God says to Eliphaz, one of these friends, "My wrath is kindled against you and against your two friends; for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has." So according to God, Job, who has shaken his fist at God and demanded God give account for his unjust suffering, has spoken "what is right." But those who have spouted the conventional rhetoric of religious belief earn God's anger.
To my ear, a great many religious folks sound a lot like Job's friends. And so it seems their religious belief may not be all that pleasing to God.
In the gospel reading today Jesus says, "Those who love their life lose it." Nearly everyone we meet in the New Testament gospels believes in God, many of them fervently. But this matters little to Jesus. Jesus wants to know if their lives conform to God's ways, if they would choose to suffer and even die for God's cause.
I saw a bumper sticker on a car yesterday that said simply, "Trust Jesus." I have no idea what the driver meant by this. But I know a lot of people who mean, "I believe in Jesus so I get to go to heaven." But it seems to me that trusting Jesus should mean trusting in and doing what he tells us. That includes things such as loving your enemy, giving to all who ask from you, taking up the cross, teaching others to do everything Jesus commands, and a great many other things many of us like to ignore.
If you believe in God (and you probably wouldn't be reading this if you didn't), that's great. But if that's the extent of your "faith," I'm not sure it matters very much. The world doesn't need more believers. It needs more disciples, people who follow Jesus and do as he says. But I'm not sure you can really cover that with a Facebook page.
"As it is written" is a common phrase in the New Testament (along with several variations meaning the same thing). It's there in today's gospel reading about "Palm Sunday." This is an effort by the writers to make clear how Jesus is in perfect continuity with what God has been doing all along through the people of Israel. In fact, the first several generations of Christians were quite content to have what we call the Old Testament as their only Scripture. When 2 Timothy 3:16 says, "All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction and for training in righteousness..." the scripture being referred to is, of course, our Old Testament.
Given the great lengths the New Testament writers go to connect Jesus to Judaism, it is remarkable how disconnected Christianity has become from it. Many Christians seem to think Jesus rejected the faith of his childhood and started a new one. And this divorcing of Christian faith from its Jewish roots has made it much easier to distort Jesus into someone who came to punch our tickets to heaven, rather than someone who stood firmly in the prophetic tradition of a coming Messianic age when all creation would be drawn back into right relationship with God and each other. Even though the prayer Jesus gives us broadcasts this clearly, "Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." People still think of Jesus saving them from earth for heaven.
It is an obvious fact, but many seem not to know it. Jesus was never a Christian. For his entire life, he was a Jew. And most of his followers considered themselves Jews for generations afterward. There is no reversing history, so I won't advocate calling our churches synagogues and such. But we Christians would do well always to remember that we follow a Jewish Messiah.
If you've been following the daily readings, you've heard Job complaining about how he has suffered unjustly, demanding a response from God. You've heard Job's friends insist that Job must have done something to deserve all his misfortune, and he should repent of his misdeeds. Now finally, God has answered Job, though to my mind, the answer is not terribly satisfactory.
As today's reading begins, God has already pummeled Job with a barrage of questions. "Who is this that darkens counsel by words without wisdom?.. Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?" And it has gone on like this for two chapters when we get to today's reading. But God does not say that Job's friends were correct. In fact, God will condemn them and their advice shortly.
In short, God's answer to Job, even if it is a flight of fancy three chapters long, amounts to, "I am God, and you're not."
I wonder if most faith crises don't struggle right here. In the face of so much suffering in the world, of so much that surely is at odds with any hoped for Kingdom of God, can we trust that God is indeed God, much less that God is good? When we judge God's apparent willingness to tolerate evil and suffering, can we be satisfied with, "I am God and you're not," as Job was?
In the end, Job's acceptance rests on the fact that God does indeed show Godself. I think I could use a little of that about now.
In case you’ve missed it when I’ve said so before, I think the Pharisees get something of a bum rap.The Pharisees were a reform movement in Judaism, a group that worried about a faith too focused on rituals, festivals, and Temple sacrifices.They had read those verses by the prophet Amos where God says, “I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies…. But let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”And so the Pharisees were serious about doing more than professing their faith.They tried to walk the walk.And they encouraged other Jews to do the same.And their movement was a rather successful one.They were the forerunners of modern, rabbinical Judaism.
Of course when you start to focus on how people live it gets fairly easy to tell those who are serious about faith from those who aren’t.And the tax collectors and sinners we just heard about in our gospel reading certainly belong to the latter group.These tax collectors had nothing in common with our IRS or local tax office.They were Jews who secured, often bought, their position from the Romans.It was essentially a license to steal, and corruption was an integral part of the system.These tax collectors had a set amount to collect for the Romans, and everything they collected above that was theirs.And they could used Roman soldiers to bully and strong-arm folks.They were hated and regarded as traitors because they worked for a foreign power and grew wealthy by cheating their fellow Jews.
Similarly, the sinners in our gospel reading are not those who have had some small lapse and needed forgiveness.These were clearly distinguishable folks who did not keep the moral law or follow the purity rules.They lived outside the faith community, either by choice or because they engaged in unsavory occupations.To eat with these folks was to become unclean and impure yourself.Their status as sinners is not questioned, not even by Jesus.
And so the issue is not whether the Pharisees have judged these tax collectors and sinners too harshly.The issue is why Jesus feels so at home with them.To explain, Jesus tells a parable.Which of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it?”
Jesus begins his parable with this question, but it isn’t really a question.He presumes that every one of the scribes and Pharisees listening to him is nodding in agreement.“Oh yes, of course we would drop everything, leave the ninety-nine, and run look for the one lost sheep.”
But I don’t know if I would.It doesn’t seem to me a cost effective way to run a business.That one sheep is a paltry one percent of the sheep farmer’s total investment.It seems difficult to justify jeopardizing ninety-nine percent for the sake of one.Better to safeguard the ninety-nine percent, forget the one, and take the tax write off.
But I suppose shepherds in Jesus’ day viewed it differently.Their small flocks became like extensions of their family.They knew each sheep individually, and they couldn’t leave the one out there alone.
The Pharisees seemed to get Jesus’ parable with no problem, but it isn’t quite the same no-brainer for me.So what would be a no-brainer?What would make me immediately nod my head yes, would justify dropping everything?
I know one thing that it isn’t, not for me or apparently for many others.It isn’t the loss of scores of mainline church members.Mainline, Protestant congregations have lost millions of members since 1960.Some of those have joined non-denominational mega-churches, but most have simply left active church life.Presbyterians alone have lost around 2 million members.We’re about half the size we were 50 years ago.We’re not talking about any one percent here.Surely this would cause us to take notice, to drop everything.But in fact we have mostly shrugged.We wonder where they all went, but we’ve pretty much kept doing exactly what we’ve always done.We’d love it if they all came back, but…
What sort of thing would cause you to drop everything you were doing?What would cause you to set aside everything else and focus all your energy on that problem?How about if you heard that someone you love dearly had just had a terrible accident and was on the way to the hospital?I know that would do it for me.If I learned right this moment that one of my daughters was in an ambulance headed to the hospital, I would not be staying with you for the rest of this worship service.And if I found out she was going to be okay, I would be calling everyone to tell them the good news, to share my joy.
And Jesus says God feels that way about all those who are lost, about the tax collectors and sinners of that day, about the drug dealers and gang members of our day.Jesus hangs out with such folks and God is ready to rejoice and throw a party when they repent.
So where do we fit into all this?How do we become a part of this thing that God is so passionate about?How do we become a part of something that God wants to celebrate?I think that we often have difficulties with this because we misunderstand what Jesus is talking about in today’s parables.We misunderstand what it means to be lost, to be found, to repent.
You can see this when people talk about evangelism.Anytime I’ve been part of such a discussion, invariably someone says, “I don’t know enough to share my faith with someone.”In this view of things, evangelism is about transmitting enough convincing information that someone decides to believe in Jesus.Lost equals not believing in Jesus, found is what happens when that changes, and repenting is the move from lost to found.Trouble is, the Jesus we meet in Luke’s gospel doesn’t talk this way.
Jesus spends most of his time teaching about God’s kingdom, God’s new community, something Jesus insists has come near.It is a new day that will lift up the poor and oppressed, that will bring justice to those who have been mistreated.When Jesus sends out his followers he tells them to proclaim this kingdom and to cure the sick.In the beginning, being a part of the Jesus movement was less about believing the right things and more about living in ways that conformed to the kingdom, that cared for neighbor even when it was costly, that reached out to those others found unclean and undesirable.And I suspect that those tax collectors and sinners came to listen to Jesus because it sounded like they were welcome there, that God wanted them to be part of that new day every bit as much as the go-to-church-every-Sunday folks.
And that means that getting involved in what God is passionate about, getting involved in what makes God want to celebrate, doesn’t require an encyclopedic knowledge of the Bible or a seminary understanding of Christian doctrine.It merely requires a willingness to welcome and love people wherever you find them, just like God does.It merely requires sharing the amazing love Jesus give us with others.
On most days, every single one of us encounters someone who is hurting, who is suffering, who has been made to feel inferior, who has been told she isn’t wanted or needed, who is lonely, who is frightened, who feels there is something wrong with him that makes him unacceptable, who has been shunned by others.Almost every single day, we meet people who need us to drop what we’re doing and move toward them, to reach out to them, to help them, to let them know that they are not alone and not outside God’s embrace.
And so, almost every single day, in ways large and small, each one of us has an opportunity to become a part of what God is passionate about, to become a part of what God is excited about and wants to celebrate.Every day, we all have the chance to be the living body of Christ to others.We don’t need to know more.We just need to do it.
Very often when I lead a funeral service, I begin with these words. "I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die." These words are from the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead, and a portion of that story is today's gospel reading. They are a staple at funerals, but I wonder if they should be.
Jesus says these words in response to Martha, Lazarus' sister, who has just said that she knows Lazarus will be raised "in the resurrection on the last day." Martha already believes in the resurrection. And is doesn't seem to be some sort of faulty view of resurrection. It is pretty much the same thing the Apostle Paul says many times. On the last day, when the trumpet sounds, the dead will be raised.
So Jesus is apparently not correcting her view of resurrection. Rather he seems to be correcting her view of the time. If Jesus is the resurrection, then the last days have broken into the present.
But we Christians have had 2000 years to lose the urgency Jesus' words require. We've lost a sense of the new age dawning, and have perverted resurrection to mean "going to heaven when we die." For that matter, I'm not so sure I want this age to end and the new age to arrive. I've got this age pretty well figured out, and I happen to be reasonably secure and comfortable. Let's leave resurrection and the age to come to some future date. That way I don't have to change the ways I live. I just have to believe the right stuff.
I once had a Jewish friend ask me an old question. "If Jesus is the Messiah, where is the Messianic age?" Too bad we Christians have gotten so disconnected from our Jewish roots that we've forgotten the two go together.
I'm not sure there is much need for me to jump into the fray over a the planned Qur'an burning by a few lunatics who call themselves Christians. They have been repudiated by religious leaders of every stripe, and even by General Petraeus. And while they have their supporters, the vast majority of Americans find these folks foolish, if not offensive.
However, I wonder if such folks are not engaged in a lunatic fringe version of behavior we all practice. We all seem to need enemies, and the more frightened we are the greater this need. Having an enemy is a great builder of unity and common purpose. Many remember the unity America briefly experienced following the 9-11 attacks. We were all one because we all had a common enemy.
But that common enemy has proved illusive and hard to define. So we find substitutes and stand-ins. Saddam Hussein worked nicely for a while. "Islamic Fascism" has a nice ring to it, even if no one knows exactly what that means. If we can't agree on an external enemy, internal ones will do. The bitterness of current partisan politics is a prime example of this.
Because enemies are so helpful in building unity, people who are seen as "different" make great enemies. If they don't fit into a particular vision of unity and oneness, then perhaps they are in league with the enemy. Many Americans, who wouldn't think of burning a Qur'an, are nonetheless deeply suspicious of Muslims. Their otherness makes them, if not an actual enemy, a group that bears watching. But this is only a slightly subtler version of Terry Jones and his Burn a Qur'an day.
The need for enemies seems to be a part of our human nature, and so labeling Muslims the enemy is hardly surprising. But, as many have pointed out, it is behavior that seems terribly at odds with the teachings of Jesus. He says we are to love our enemies and pray for them. Paul writes that if our enemy is hungry, we are to feed them. In other words, even if someone really is an enemy, the Christian response is to love them, to treat them as one of us and not as enemies. And if this is how we are to treat genuine enemies, such as Osama bin Laden, how can declaring any group our enemy justify anything other than our love?
The Apostle Paul writes, "Do not be conformed to the world..." But the fact is we want to believe in Jesus while still living by the ways of the world. We want to call him Lord, Lord, without actually doing as he says. We want to react to our fears even though "perfect love casts out fear."
And so Terry Jones, the Florida pastor so much in the news of late, is a window into a darkness that lives in all of us. And as such, he is a reminder of what a radically different way of living Jesus modeled and calls us to follow.
To my mind, one of the real problems of Christianity is the tendency of its adherents to see the world in terms of us and them. There are those who believe in Jesus, who have affirmed him with the correct formula, and then there is everyone else. This strikes me as not so very different from some Pharisees and other Jewish leaders who insisted on people vigorously keeping the Law. This included the purity codes that made it impossible for Jews to share a meal with non-Jews, and it also included concerns about not using God's name in incorrect ways or ways that dishonored it. This concern gets Jesus in trouble in today's reading from the Gospel of John.
When Jesus answers the charges of blasphemy leveled against him, his primary defense is rooted in the works that he does. Even if you don't believe in me, Jesus asks, can't you see the works of God being done by me?
Over the centuries, it seems to me that the Church has gotten less concerned with the works of God, and more focused on believing the right things about Jesus. Evangelism is generally considered convincing people to believe those right things about Jesus. And not believing the right things about Jesus puts you in the "them" camp, period. It matters not one whit whether such folks are doing the works of the Father.
I wonder what would happen if we understood Christianity to be primarily about helping people to live in ways that revealed God's hopes and dreams for humanity and creation. What if we worried less about whether or not people espoused the right creeds, and worried more about loving God and neighbor. After all, Jesus, in Matthew 25:31-46, speaks of Gentiles, of others, of them being welcomed into the Kingdom because the lived Kingdom shaped lives, even though they didn't realize they were serving Jesus in the process.
Is your faith mostly about what you believe, or how you live?
