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.
When you read the Bible, do you occasionally find yourself saying, "I'm not sure I believe that?" I know that I've upset people at times when I preached from today's gospel reading and highlighted the idea of God favoring criminals who feel bad about what they've done over good, diligent, religious people. And even Jesus' statement, "For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted" can be problematic. Do I really think being humble is a good strategy? Do you? I don't know. I'm not sure I believe that.
We Protestants, with our focus on the Bible, don't like to admit to doubting it, but think of all the passages that trouble us, that we either ignore or use elaborate interpretations to make them say something other than what they actually say. How many of us believe that wealth is one of the single biggest obstacles to following Jesus? How many of us believe in turning the other cheek? Much has been said about how few Christians regularly read the Bible, and I wonder if this isn't a strategy for avoiding those "I'm not sure I believe that" moments.
I've said this before, but I increasingly feel that the end of Christendom, our culture's unwillingness to continue propping up the Church, is a huge gift. When Christianity became wedded to the state, it had to become compatible with the state. It had to tone down those teachings of Jesus that made people in power uncomfortable. It had to ignore those teachings that undermined the national, military, colonial, economic, or other ambitions of the state. And while Christian faith often mitigated some of the state's worst tendencies, very often the state did more transforming of Christianity that the other way round. And the Church compromised on modeling the ways of the Kingdom to the world.
But the culture has realized that it no longer needs the blessings of the Church. It no longer is willing to send us members, shut down activity on Sunday morning, or augment Christian Education in the schools. And so we are free. Our contract with the state has been broken. We no longer need sell our souls for the culture's promise of preferential treatment. We can be the outposts of the Kingdom Jesus calls us to be.
And that brings me back to those "I'm not sure I believe that" moments. What if our discomfort with many biblical teachings is rooted in that deal Christianity made with culture all those centuries ago? And if so, don't we need to reexamine our discomfort to see if it's nothing but old cultural residue that seeks to distort the faith for the culture's benefit?
Today's reading from Malachi is probably not the best example, but it is one among many where God's relationship with Israel is described in terms of marriage. And looking at a number of such readings, what strikes me is how God goes through the whole gamut of emotions we might expect of someone who loves a spouse dearly but discovers that the spouse is unfaithful.
Faced with Israel's repeated unfaithfulness, God's anger can boil up and issue in promises to destroy. But then God can plead with Israel to come back, can speak of wooing Israel once again. God's relationship with Israel is depicted as the source of endless emotional turmoil for Yahweh. The decision to enter a covenant with them has complicated God's life in countless ways.
Christians - at least Western ones - often seem troubled by such a view of God. Our understandings of divinity are much more influenced by Greek, philosophical thinking. Parts of the New Testament itself have a bit more Greek, Western influence. But of course all of that comes after Jesus, who is quite at home in the world of the Old Testament prophets, the very folks who spoke of God's inner turmoil.
And besides, what is Jesus' prayer in Gethsemane if not a manifestation of inner turmoil, a poignant picture of how complicated God's life is because of us.
If you've ever raised children, or if you've ever been a child (hopefully that covers everyone), you likely realize that young children do not often appreciate the care and nurture they receive from parents. Providing food, shelter, clothing, and a variety and activities and entertainment is simply what parents are supposed to do, so overt displays of gratitude are rare. Adult relationships can fall into the same sort of pattern, taking partners or spouses for granted. But I think this is the norm with children. Parents are doing their job when they provide for their children.
A similar dynamic can occur in the life of faith. People of faith can easily perceive God in a manner similar to the way small children see their parents. It is God's job to care for and provide for them. After all, they are members of the faith family. God is Father, and that's what fathers do.
That seems to be what is going on in today's verses from Luke. The story is a bit sparse on details, but Jesus encounters 10 lepers who ask for healing. Jesus sends them to the priests, a command that assumes a healing. (The priests had to certify as clean those whose illnesses previously made them unclean. Then they could reenter community life.) When all 10 are healed along the way, one comes back to give thanks and praise, while the others precede on to the priest, and presumably back to their everyday lives.
As I said, the story is short on details, but it seems to imply that the other 9 are Jews while the one who returned is a Samaritan, a groups generally despised by the Jews. For some reason, only this outsider, "this foreigner," as Jesus calls him, is moved to come back. And this prompts Jesus to say to him, "Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well."
At least that's what my Bible translation says. But all 10 were made well. Surely Jesus means something more. And in fact, the word Jesus uses literally means "saved." And I am convinced that Jesus is saying that this outsider, this one who apparently is surprised enough by his healing that he must come back, has experienced something more profound than a healing.
In this story, the outsider seems to have the advantage, because the outsider doesn't presume as much. This outsider doesn't presume a special relationship with God by virtue of his religion. And so this outsider sees his healing as a wonderful gift.
Jesus speaks often of sinners and tax collectors going into the Kingdom ahead of the good, religious folk. And perhaps this is one reason why. Like children from nice homes who their care for granted, religious people are more prone to take God's love for granted, and so displays of gratitude are rare.
Often times when children grow up, they look back with regret on how little they appreciated their parents. But I'm not sure that happens nearly so often in the lives of people of faith. And I'm not really sure why.
In our world of screaming television pundits, I sometimes wonder if any of them have read the words from today's passage in James. "How great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire! And the tongue is a fire... For every species of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by the human species, but no one can tame the tongue - a restless evil, full of deadly poison."
In an internet world, I suppose we should include the computer keyboard in James' diatribe. The blogosphere is replete with wild statements picked up by others and passed on as fact. A great fire indeed.
This may seem a strange segue, but I have come more and more to believe that the label "Christian nation" produces much more mischief than it does good. The problem with such a moniker is that if this is a Christian nation, then what goes on in the nation must be, by definition, Christian behavior. And while there are undisputedly many ways in which Christianity has influenced this country for the better, there is a great deal of our culture that is not and never has been Christian.
Take political discourse. We all know how angry and shrill this has become of late, but in truth, yelling and screaming has been a part of our political process from the beginning. 200 years ago, politicians sometimes fought duels. But Jesus says, "If you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, 'You fool,' you will be liable to the hell of fire." Apparently we decided not to go with Jesus on this one.
And this is simply one example among many. The drive to acquire and accumulate wealth goes against many of Jesus' teachings. The treatment of Native Americans and African slaves goes against Jesus' teachings. Regarding any other person as a "them" rather than a neighbor goes against Jesus' teaching.
I presume that claiming the mantle of Christian nation is done with the best of intents. But if Christians want to follow Jesus and be the light to the world he calls us to be, then we must be willing to be different from the world, including our own country, wherever it is at odds with the ways of God.
I cannot imagine any other country in the world where I would rather live. But if someone who knew nothing about Jesus observed American culture carefully, do you think that the Great Commission, where Jesus calls us to make disciples by teaching them to obey everything he has commanded, would be enacted in their life. If not, then we're not a Christian nation.
I grew up in the Presbyterian tradition, which means I am a child of the Protestant Reformation. For me this meant unquestioned assumptions about faith/belief as the foundation of any relationship with God, and about the Bible as the single authority for this faith. These two are linchpins of Protestantism: justification by grace through faith and Sola scriptura (Latin for Scripture alone).
And so it is not all that startling to hear that Martin Luther supposedly wanted to exclude the book of James from the Bible. After all, it said, "You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone," and Luther was the one who started the focus on grace and faith as the key.
Personally, I'm glad Luther failed in his quest. While I do hold to the the notion of right relationship with God being a gift, I regularly see the perversion James abhors at work among people of faith. And so we need James to remind us that faith that bears no fruit is indeed dead.
Today's readings from Habakkuk, James, and Luke all point to a God who is extremely interested in the shape of society. It is impossible to read such passages and conclude that religion is somehow unconcerned with politics. God cares deeply about the plight of the poor, the sick, the homeless, the oppressed. Biblically speaking, a private morality that does not share such concerns is not morality at all. A faith that does not seek to redress systems that favor the rich over the poor is dead.
Looking at the Bible as a whole, there seem to be two big issues when it comes to humanity's relationship with God. One is concerned with purity and God's holiness. The other is concerned with a just society that cares for the most vulnerable. In the Old Testament, larges sections of the law deal with each. Purity laws address right worship, avoiding idolatry, sexual mores, and so on, while other laws require landowners to leave some of the harvest for the poor, mandate care for widows and orphans (the most vulnerable of the ancient world), and call for the regular cancellation of debts and return of land to original owners (the Jubilee year). Some of the prophets worry more about the people's failure to maintain purity while others condemn the failure to maintain a just, compassionate society.
Among modern religious folks, there is a tendency for us to focus on one or the other of these. Some see religion as primarily a matter of purity while others see it primarily about social justice. And I wonder if this doesn't sometimes mirror the faith vs. works divide.
I think we are always better off when we integrate both of these biblical concerns rather than choose one over the other. Although it is worth noting that when Jesus finds himself in a situation where purity seems to conflict with social concern, he routinely ignores the purity rules. He heals on the Sabbath, touches those who are unclean, or eats with sinners, never mind what the rules say.
On a fairly regular basis I hear people comment on the beauty of our sanctuary. They may be first time worshipers or someone who has business at the church during the week or someone looking for a place to hold a wedding, but routinely people remark to me about how impressed they are with its Gothic style architecture. And occasionally, members of box-style mega-churches want to know if they can have their wedding here in a “real sanctuary.”
The first time I saw the church property some ten years ago, the sanctuary grabbed me, both the inside and outside of the building. But I suspect that our sanctuary would have looked quite unimpressive alongside the Temple in Jerusalem. The Temple in today’s gospel replaced King Solomon’s which was destroyed by the Babylonians some 600 years before the time of Jesus. It was a huge, grand structure described as one of the wonders of the ancient world and was constructed by Herod the Great about 20 years before Jesus’ birth.
This marvelous piece of architecture is known today only by ancient descriptions of it. It was destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE, the only thing left a part of the retaining wall around the raised area on which the Temple itself stood. We know this as “the Wailing Wall.”
Even this Wailing Wall is impressive. So I can only imagine what it must to have been like for a Jew from the distant countryside, who had never been to Jerusalem, to visit for the first time during some festival and see that huge, towering Temple. No doubt it left many awed in the same way some feel awed when they visit St. Peter’s in Rome.
And so it is hardly surprising that those with Jesus couldn’t help oohing and ahhing about how wonderful it was, about what an incredible religious experience it was. Which must have made what Jesus said all the more stunning. “Not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down.”
Imagine how people today would react if some sort of horrific event completely destroyed St. Peter’s. Or on a secular level, imagine that something destroyed the White House, the Capital, the Washington Monument and just about everything else on the National Mall in Washington, DC. What would people think? What would they say?
Certainly some folks would be talking about the end times. And that is precisely what comes to mind for those disciples who hear Jesus say the Temple will be torn down. And so they want to know when this is going to happen. “Teacher, when will this be, and what will be the sign that this is about to take place?”
But Jesus does not answer their question. In fact Jesus always tries to deflect his followers from worrying about end times. He assures them that when it happens no one will be able to miss it. But in the meantime, his followers are not to waste time speculating on when that day will be.
How we act, how we live is not supposed to be influenced by whether or not we think the end is near. Our lives are supposed to show the world the hope of God’s coming kingdom. And Jesus tells his followers that when they face troubles, persecutions, and even death, these are not signs of the End, but opportunities. “This will give you an opportunity to testify.”
Actually, that’s not exactly what Jesus says. Bible translators like to clean up idiomatic phrases from the Greek or Hebrew, and I suppose that’s what they did here. But what Jesus actually says about all this trouble is, “It will lead you into testimony.” I kind of like the sound of that. Their suffering is not just something to be endured. It leads to something.
Our nation and many of its churches are going through some tough times of late. The bad economy has left many without jobs, and it has left many churches, not to mention many organizations that try to do good in the world, hurting for money. In the midst of all this, there is a temptation to view our troubles as ultimate troubles. Still, I’m amazed at the number of Christians who think that the global economic crisis is a sign of the end times. Christians, of all people, should know better.
We should also remember what Jesus said about Christians facing great difficulties. “They are opportunities; they lead to something.” At least they do for those who are willing to let the Spirit guide them.
When things are going badly, when money is short, when it’s hard to find much to be excited and hopeful about, the natural tendency is to hunker down, to hold on until things get better. But I wonder if that doesn’t miss the sort of opportunity Jesus mentions. Hunkering down probably doesn’t lead to much of anything.
But seeing hard times as an opportunity could lead to something. For individuals struggling to get by with less money, it could lead to a reassessing of what is important, of what really matters. It could lead to lives that are not so driven by success and things.
And something similar could happen in many congregations. Budget shortfalls could be an opportunity. They could lead to a new clarity about who we are and what God is calling us to do. They could lead to a new identity that better showed Christ to the world. They could, if we are willing to let the Spirit guide us.
For this congregation, today is the day when we ordain and install new elders and deacons to lead us in our worship and ministry in the world. As they take office they will make promises to God and to us that they will follow Jesus as they lead us. I made exactly the same promises when I became pastor. I was very serious about those promises and I suspect that they will be today as well. But just as Jesus warns his followers that they must rely on the wisdom that he will give them, so we also must rely on the Spirit, on the wisdom that comes to us.
But I know from experience, from watching elders and deacons at work, and from my own work, that we will be tempted to rely on our own wisdom. God does give us gifts and talents, and we are to use them. But if we do not rely on the wisdom Jesus sends us, we may well figure out creative ways to hang on and even to be “successful” but without the Spirit guiding us, it won’t lead to much. But when we allow God to work through us, Jesus insists it will lead us to the new life God desires for us.
The God I came to know growing up was constructed from two primary sources. There was Jesus, although he always seemed to me distinct from God in some way. And then there was a very Western, philosophical, conceptual notion of divinity. It was taught the Bible in church and probably knew it better than many people do today. But somehow God always seemed more idea, more concept than some One. And in my admittedly hazy recollection of worship as a child, the typical sermon was a reflection on some Pauline letter, a philosophical, theological treatise with an illustration or two.
I learned many Old Testament stories growing up, but for some reasons the God the Hebrews knew didn't impact my picture of God very much. The Hebrews had a complicated relationship with a complicated God. And I sometimes wonder if Christians' tendency to avoid the Old Testament is because we prefer to avoid these complications.
Israel understood that they had been "chosen" by God, but also that they have a covenant relationship with God that was contingent on their keeping their covenant obligations. But they also spoke of a God who commitment to Israel caused God all sorts of trouble. At times God seems to vacillate between punishing Israel for her covenant failures and continuing to be faithful to Israel despite her unfaithfulness. God can come across as a spouse in a bad marriage who can't decide whether to get a divorce or reconcile.
A small glimpse of this complicated relationship is in one of today's psalms.
You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in your bottle.
Are they not in your record?
Then my enemies will retreat in the day when I call.
This I know, that God is for me.
To say that God is moved by Israel's sufferings is remarkable when you think about it. God's emotional life is somehow invested in Israel, whose tears are collected and tossings are remembered. This is no conceptual divinity. This is a God who has for some reason chosen to have the divine life complicated by these human creatures, creatures who often turn out to make terrible covenant partners.
Some Christians consider these Hebrew images of God as primitive and not binding on them. The problem with such a view is that Jesus is the example par excellence of God's complicated life. God's commitment to Israel, and to humanity in general, draws God directly into the complexities and dysfunctions of human life. In Jesus, basic Western concepts of God-as-perfection are violated. God suffers. God dies.
When I think about it, my image of my parents as a small child had some similarities with my picture of God. It was a flat, uncomplicated picture. Parents were undisputed rulers of their small universe. There was nothing complicated about them. Of course such views gave way to more mature notions of parents as complicated individuals whose commitment to their children complicated their lives in countless ways.
Perhaps Israel's messy, complicated picture of God is not the primitive one, but the more mature view.
I've been blogging my thoughts and musings on the Daily Lectionary texts for some time now, and it has become an integral part of my day. Often it is a rewarding process for me as I struggle with the Scripture's claim on my life. But when I am looking at the various readings for a particular day, I often find myself saying "Nope, not that one." Sometimes a text is too complicated to handle in a few paragraphs, but sometimes it says something I just don't won't to address or that I simply don't like.
Today's reading from Joel speaks of God paying back Tyre and Sidon and Philistia because they have hurt Judah. Many passages in the Bible speak of God punishing, of God judging, and some of these passages present a picture of God that sounds almost petulant.
I think that most of us want a nice, clear, coherent picture of God, so most of us selectively read the Bible, finding those texts that fit the picture we have settled on. And considering the high levels of biblical illiteracy among Christians, many people's picture of God is cobbled together from a tiny number of texts and from popular notions of what God or Jesus is like.
Earlier this week I heard Walter Brueggemann speak of how rabbis treat the Hebrew Scriptures as something "thick, layered, and conflicted." Such a notion necessarily means that Scripture doesn't always have a clear, obvious meaning, that its meaning emerges as one wrestles with the layers and conflicts within it.
It strikes me that many of us try to project a picture of ourselves that is clear and coherent is the same way we do with God. We like to keep hidden certain facets of our selves. Most of us have a fair amount of messiness sloshing around inside of us. But we often admit it to no one, sometimes not even ourselves. Of course others sometimes know a person who is quite different from the image we have of ourselves.
I'm not saying that God necessarily has the same sort of internal messiness that we do, but I wonder if our aversion to such things doesn't make it difficult for us to wrestle with the messy picture of God that the Bible presents. Conversely, how much richer might our faith become if we would actually wrestle with the thick, layered, conflicted picture that the Bible gives us, and see what blessings might emerge.
I was the oldest of four children. We came in pairs. My brother and I were a year apart, and then after a several year gap, came another brother and sister, also a year apart. From my perspective as the oldest, I was absolutely convinced that those younger than me got off easy. To my mind this imbalance also grew worse as you moved down the line.
And so I can commiserate with the elder brother in Jesus' parable. He had worked hard all those years, always being "the good son." But now his spoiled, rotten, no-good brother had returned home after becoming destitute, and Dad rolled out the red carpet.
Often when people hear the "Parable of the Prodigal Son," they focus on the love of the Father who welcomes home this undeserving son who has realized the error of his ways. But I find myself drawn to the very poignant end of the parable. It concludes without resolution, the elder son standing outside the celebration as his father pleads with him. Did the elder acquiesce and go in? Did he storm off? Jesus doesn't say.
I grew up in a nice middle class home where I really never wanted for much. I may have thought I had to do more work around the house than some friends (and some younger siblings), but my life was pretty good. I played sports, had a horse, was taught to water ski by my father, fished in a local pond, took my turn hand-cranking the ice cream churn on birthdays, and so on. Still, it seemed to me that my younger siblings had it better and got off lighter. I worked harder and got less for my efforts. It wasn't fair.
"That's not fair," is a favorite lament of little children, which almost always arises from feeling they've been shortchanged in some way. We humans seem acutely sensitive to others getting more or getting the same with less effort. And I wonder if this doesn't grow out of a view of the world and life that is profoundly different from God's. We operate out of the view that there isn't enough to go around. And if that is true, then we need to be careful about getting our share.
But if that view is entirely false, if God is a God of abundance, then such worries are foolish, like toddlers squabbling over who has the bigger piece of cake when both have been told they can have seconds, and even thirds.
I grew up with a very static picture of God. By static I mean things such as unchanging, immutable, immovable, and so on. And while there is some warrant for this picture in the Bible, it comes mostly from Western, philosophical notions of God as the embodiment of perfection. And perfection, by its very nature, cannot change. To change, to become different, would be a move away from perfection.
Interestingly, the ancient Hebrews did not view God this way at all. In the Hebrew Bible, God is incredibly dynamic, even emotional. God gets angry, God is pleased, God makes plans, God changes plans, God brings punishment, and God relents from punishing. In some places God is even said to "repent" of plans to punish.
In today's reading from Joel, the prophet calls the people to change their ways, to come before God with weeping and mourning and fasting. "Who knows whether (God) will not turn and relent?"
In the gospel reading, Jesus tells his parable of the lost sheep in response to questions about his hanging out with sinners, ending with this. "Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance." Perhaps it is not obvious, but if God experiences joy, then it seems that God can become happier than God was, which presumably means God can become unhappy. And all of this describes a dynamic rather than static God, a God whose relationship with creation and humanity costs God something, cost God what scholar Walter Brueggeman calls "a disturbed interior life."
I wonder if this isn't a much more helpful way to speak of the cross. Rather than some sort of sacrifice that God had to offer in order to placate Godself (When I say it that way I like the idea even less.), the cross is the embodiment of God disturbed interior life, the tremendous cost God endures in extending grace to us.
When we think of "costly grace" rather than "cheap grace," we are usually talking about our accepting God's favor without it requiring anything of us in return, without it changing us. But it seems that grace costs God quite a bit as well.
Letting go of a static picture of God challenges my Western notions of God as the very embodiment of the concept of perfection. But not only does a dynamic God appear to be a lot more biblical, the hope of a relationship with a dynamic God seems a lot more plausible.
