Spiritual Hiccups - Giving God a Bad Name

For much of modern Christianity, there has been a tendency to view the world along us-them lines.  We are Christians; they are heathen pagans.  We are right; they are wrong.  We are in; they are out.  We get it; they don't.  You get my drift.  And their only hope is to become like us.

For much of the modern Christian era, it was also difficult to separate Christianity from Western civilization.  Many of the assumptions about the West were shared with the Church (though to be honest, I'm not always sure who was sharing with whom).  Thus the colonial expansion of the West coincided with the missionary movement.  Just as many assumed an eventual Western dominance and hegemony over the entire world, so the Church also assumed the same for the faith.  And missionaries often engaged in a great deal of westernizing to go along with Christianizing.  One oft noted example was the requirement for African churches to adopt Western music and musical instruments. Pastors also needed to wear Western styled robes.  Somehow anything from their culture was problematic.

But while few people any longer hold onto dreams of Western world dominance (if anything we're worried it could go the other way), the old us-them lines of the missionary days often persist.  In matters of faith, we still tend to think of right and wrong, in and out, us and them.  And they need to become like us.

That makes Paul's words to the Roman congregation of interest to me.  Paul speaks of those Gentiles who instinctively abide by the law as being "a law unto themselves."  He speaks of the law being "written on their hearts," and Paul is not talking about Gentile Christians, but simply Gentiles.  Conversely, Paul warns his Jewish brothers and sisters about counting on their relationship with God to shield them when they live contrary to God's ways.  And he paraphrases the prophets saying, "The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you."

It seems to me that the us-them of Christian-heathen has essentially supplanted the old, biblical us-them of Jew-Gentile.  We're the special ones with the relationship with God.  And if you become one of us, you can be special, too.  Yet while happily claiming our special relationship with God via Jesus, we continue to create and support a society that is at odds with Jesus' teachings about peace, non-violence, wealth, sacrifice, loving our enemies, and so on.  And when we claim relationship with God through Jesus but don't live as Jesus taught us, don't we find ourselves under those harsh words of Paul?  "The name of God is blasphemed among the (non-Christians)/Gentiles because of you."

Fortunately, I see signs everywhere that this is changing.  While the good news Jesus calls us to share is still very often blemished by arrogant, us-them attitudes, increasingly a new breed of Christian is emerging. These folks are more interested in being faithful to Jesus' teachings than in labels and doctrines.  There is nothing wrong with doctrines per se, but they exist to help us in following Jesus.  They were never intended to be possessions that let us feel special or superior to "them." 

When we find ourselves falling into an us-them sort of thinking, it is helpful to recall that the people Jesus upset were not the pagans, heathens, or "them," but religious purists and leaders of the religious institution.  And then we should ask ourselves, do our actions in the name of Jesus cause non-Christians to curse God and Church, or to give thanks and praise?

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Spiritual Hiccups - Do You Want It?

I've always thought Jesus' first words to the ill man in today's gospel a bit odd.  We are told that the man has been ill for decades, and also that Jesus knew the man had been lying near a pool thought to have healing powers for a very long time.  And yet Jesus asks him, "Do you want to be made well?"

I've long wondered why Jesus would ask such a question.  A man sick for 38 years who has come to a place of healing; surely it's obvious.  Besides, why does Jesus need to know if he wants to be healed?  Why not just say, "I know you have been sick and hoping to be healed for a long time.  Stand up, take your mat, and walk?"

Perhaps I'm making a big deal out of nothing, but for some reason this man's desire for healing seems to matter.  Does that mean that God doesn't give us what we need, what God wants to give us, until we want it.  Is this like AA, where you have to want to get sober before you can get with the program?

There are certainly biblical examples to the contrary (take the Apostle Paul), but it does seem that in general, God's approach is gentle and quiet, not overwhelming.  God seems to want us to desire the healing and wholeness that God is literally dying to offer us.

A lot of popular images of God don't seem to fit well with a God who won't barge in without an invitation.  But this gospel paints a remarkably gentle and patient picture of God.  "Do you want to be made well and whole?  Do you want to become the person you are meant to be?  Do you want to discover life of a quality you could never achieve on your own?" 

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Spiritual Hiccups - Never Content

We humans seem to have a contentment problem.  No matter what we have, no matter what we achieve, it is not quite enough.  As with some other human traits, this difficulty finding contentment is part blessing and part curse.  It can drive people to better themselves, to cure illnesses, or fight hunger and poverty.  But it also can drive people to cut corners in order to make a bit more profit, to accumulate more and more possessions, to cast off a spouse for someone "better."

In today's reading from Jeremiah, God is portrayed as perplexed at such behavior on the part of Israel. "What wrong did your ancestors find in me that they went far from me, and went after worthless things, and became worthless themselves?..  I brought you into a plentiful land to eat its fruits and its good things.  But when you entered you defiled my land,and made my heritage an abomination... for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and dug out cisterns for themselves, cracked cisterns that can hold no water."

I find that I engage in this sort of foolishness all too often.  Despite those times when my relationship with God has filled me to overflowing, leading me at various stages of my life to become more involved in my congregation, to serve in mission projects, and to uproot my family and go to seminary, it is still easy to become disenchanted with God, to go after other sources of fulfillment and meaning.  

I follow a Twitter account that goes by the name "Unvirtuous Abbey" and posts silly prayers.  I remember one from last Fall when the news came out that NBA star Tony Parker had cheated on his wife, Desperate Housewives actress Eva Longoria.  It read, "Lord, you who cured the blind, we pray for anyone who would cheat on Eva Longoria. Amen."  I chuckled, but Tony Parker's problem has nothing to do with his eyesight.  

But despite our foolishness, God is faithful.  Our inability to be content has its consequences, but one of them is not God abandoning us.  In fact, God's response to our foolishness is Jesus, what the Apostle Paul calls God's foolishness for us.  And I think that a big part of growing in faith, of a deepening spirituality, is allowing God's foolishness to transform ours.

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Sunday Sermon video - Christian Identity: What Really Matters

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Spiritual Hiccups - Success and Faithfulness

Our culture greatly values success and results.  In most any category - business, education, sports - we admire those who have worked hard and made something of themselves.  The desire to succeed can be a powerful force for good.  It motivates people to work hard, to become better at what they do.  It can encourage innovation, new and better ways of doing things.

But using success as a measure has its downside as well.  For starters, some things are hard to measure, and so we can be tempted to measure what is easy to gauge.  Some education reforms seem to require so much testing (an easy form of measuring) that teachers complain they have no time to teach anything other than test taking skills. 

From a spiritual standpoint, the focus on success sometimes forgets that faithfulness does not always lead to what the culture calls success.  By our culture's standards, Jesus' life is not a success.  He causes a stir, attracts a handful of followers who abandon him when things get tough.  And then he is executed.  Jesus' faithfulness to his call does not produce easily measurable evidence of success.

Congregations, pastors, and church members can easily gauge themselves "failures" based on not living up to some measure of success.  And indeed there are plenty of times when congregational decline is the result of failing to follow God's call.  But it is also possible to be faithful and that not lead to more people and increased pledges. 

Today's reading from Psalm 119 begins, "Your hands have made and fashioned me; give me understanding that I may learn your commandments."  We are God's; we belong to God.  In this lies our intrinsic worth, and we honor this when we become what God has made and fashioned us to do and be.  Such faithfulness may or may not produce signs our culture deems success.  Neither Jeremiah nor Paul - who provide our Old Testament and Epistle reading for today - would have measured up according to many popular gauges of success.  Yet God judges them good and faithful servants because they have faithfully carried out their calls.

O God, you have made and fashioned me.  Help me to understand my call.  Show me the work you have given me to do, that I may be your faithful servant.

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Sunday Sermon audio - Christian Identity: What Really Matters

Sunday Sermon text - Christian Identity: What Really Matters

Mark 12:28-34

Christian Identity: What Really Matters

James Sledge                                                     March 20, 2011

Most seminaries require their students to have some sort of internship in a church congregation.  Many of you will remember that Jennifer Eastman Hinkle and Renee Coffman-Chavez did such internships with us.  When I did my seminary internship, I served full-time for three months in a congregation in a small, eastern North Carolina town.  Because it was just for the summer, Shawn and our girls stayed at our home in Richmond,  and the congregation provided me with housing. 

I’m not quite sure how this came about, but I lived in an attached mother-in-law suite, with its own kitchen and such, at the home of Reba, a widowed Jewish grandmother.  Her family owned a small department store in town, and they may well have been the only Jewish family in that  community.  She was very kind and welcoming, and I had the run of her side of the house as well as my suite.  She was thrilled when Shawn and the girls would visit, and we even exchanged Christmas cards for a number of years afterwards. 

Sometimes in the evening we would sit and chat, and I remember one occasion where she offered that the differences between faiths didn’t much matter.  All that really mattered was that we believed in God and tried to be good.

Now I suspect that in part this was just her being hospitable.  It didn’t necessarily mean she saw no distinction between Judaism, Christianity, and other faiths.  But then again lots of people do feel this way.  It is a popular answer to the question of what really matters.  Believe in God, and try to be good.

Questions about what really matters are not new.  The scribe in our gospel this morning asks such a question.  He is Jewish, and Jesus is a Jewish rabbi, so he asks a question from a Jewish point of view.  “Which commandment is the first of all?”  In other words, “What really matters?”  If I’m going to be a good Jew, what do I absolutely have to do?  The book we are studying this Lent asks a similar question from a Christian viewpoint.  What’s the Least I Can Believe and Still Be a Christian?

For much of American history the answer to that question has been simple: Go to church and be a good citizen.  I suppose that’s only a slightly more focused version of  my Jewish host’s “Believe in God, and try to be good.”  

Imagine that someone walked up to you and asked, “What does it mean to be a Christian? What’s non-negotiable?  What really matters?”  What would your answer be?

When Jesus is asked about what is non-negotiable, he answers by quoting verses from the Old Testament.  He starts with something from Deuteronomy known as the Shema.  “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and will all your soul (or life), and with all your mind, and with all your strength.”  Jesus was asked for the commandment that is “first of all,” but he does not stop with one.  He adds, this time from Leviticus, “You shall love our neighbor as yourself.”

Now I don’t know about you, but to my ear, loving God with all your being and loving your neighbor as yourself has a very different ring to it than “Believe in God and try to be good.”  I believe the world is round, but there’s no love involved, no relationship.  I generally obey the law and think of myself as, in some ways, good, but again that’s not necessarily about love or relationship.

Belief is a private thing that I can keep to myself.  And being good is something anyone can do regardless of their religion.  And that means that when a person who doesn’t know a lot about Christianity walks into a church where faith has turned into “Believe in God and be good,” they may not see very much evidence of what Jesus says really matters.  The may not see much love.

Now certainly worship can be an act of love in the same way that a lover authors a poem, sings a song, and brings flowers to his beloved; the way that a young child creates a work of art for her parent.  But worship can also be little more than habit, a birthday card for a spouse grabbed at Target on the way home to a marriage that is mostly routines with not much love.

In fact, the example of a marriage may be instructive.  It is all too common for marriages to become lifeless over time and not because either spouse has done anything terrible or bad.  It’s simply a matter of other things getting in the way.  Pursuing a career, raising children, keeping up with friends, working for important causes, dealing with life’s crises, and so on can push the marital relationship to the side, leaving little time for love.

Sometimes I think that the increasing disenchantment with the church among younger people parallels those same young people’s increasing distrust of marriage.  They’ve seen too many marriages and too much religion that appear to them all habit, duty, belief, and routine, without much love, without much real relationship.

A time management guru was speaking to a class at a top tier business school.  In the middle of his presentation he pulled out a one-gallon Mason-jar and carefully filled it with fist sized rocks.  Then he asked the class, “Is this jar full?” and everyone said, “Yes.”

But then he took out a bucket of gravel and began pouring it into the jar, shaking it so that the gravel worked its way in between the rocks.  Again he asked, “Is the jar full?” 

“Probably not,” a single student answered.

Next he brought out a bucket of sand and proceeded to pour sand in the jar, filling those spaces between the rocks and the gravel.  Once again he asked, “Is the jar full?” and the class shouted, “No!”

Then he took out a pitcher of water and poured it into the jar, filling it to the top.  Then he asked the class if they understood the point of this illustration.  One student offered, “No matter how full your schedule, if you try really hard, you can always fit more into it.”

“No,” the speaker replied, “that’s not the point.  The point is—if you don’t put the big rocks in first, you’ll never get them in at all.”[1]

All too often, our lives and our faith are filled with gravel and sand and water.  Rarely are these really bad things, but they leave no room for the big rocks, for the really important things.  And if our lives and faith have gotten filled with sand and gravel and water, the only way to get any big rocks in, the only way to give the things that really matter their proper place, is to dump out some of that other stuff.

 If we want to restore a relationship so that it is founded on love, we have to make room for the big rocks.  We have to create the space and the time to be together, to talk to one another, to enjoy each other’s presence, to listen to each other.  We have to be willing to set aside some of the small stuff that crowds out the big rocks to do what matters to the other.  This is true for marriages and other human relationships, and it is just true for relationship with God. 

You know, congregations and denominations often seem to worry an awful lot about the sand and gravel and water.  Christians argue over the style of music in worship, whether gays can be elders and deacons and pastors, and all manner of small stuff.  I’ve heard it said that some of the nastiest church fights are over what color the carpet should be in the sanctuary.  Sand and gravel.   And to outsiders, it must look even worse.

But this is not the new life Jesus offers us, the good news that he embodies.  He calls us to new life that is about love.  It is about transformed life rooted in relationships, relationships of love with both God and neighbor.  Jesus simply will not separate the two.

When Jesus answered that question about what was most important, what really mattered, the scribe was impressed and said, “You are right, Teacher… ‘To love (God) with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength,’ and ‘to love one’s neighbor as oneself’ – this is much more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.”  In our day he might add, than believing and going to church, than all sorts of sand and gravel.

And Jesus said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.”

---

[1] From the Leader’s Guide to What’s the Least I Can Believe and Still Be a Christian, which can be found online at http://www.thethoughtfulchristian.com/Content/Site115/FilesSamples/44533ThielenLea_00000006628.pdf

Spiritual Hiccups - What's Really Important

I occasionally stay up too late watching old movies on TCM.  Last night I watched one I'd never heard of, the 1966 film Seconds starring Rock Hudson.  It's a rather dark and disturbing movie about a well-to-do, middle-aged businessman whose life had lost its purpose.  Through a friend he finds out about the "Company," a secretive organization that give those who can afford it a new life.  Extensive surgery is used to change people's appearance and make them more youthful.  A similar looking cadaver is used to fake clients' deaths so they can start over.

Hudson plays the former Aurthur Hamilton (played by John Randolph), now reborn as artist Tony Wilson, living in a Malibu beach house.  At first Tony seems to be adjusting to his new life, developing a relationship with the beautiful Nora Marcus.  But he soon becomes disenchanted and discovers that all his new friends are actually other "reborns" like himself.  In violation of "Company" edicts he visits his old wife, pretending to be an old friend of her "deceased" husband.  He discovers that his marriage failed because of his focus on success and material possessions, the very things others told him were important.  And he begins to realize that the "Company" is simply trying to sell he a new version of this.  He's chasing after what they tell him is important, and once again his life seems to lack any real meaning or purpose.

In case you'd like to watch the movie, I won't spoil the ending for you.  But it is a dark film that explores where our wants and desires take us, and whether those wants and desires are reliable guides.  And as I watched it, I could not help being drawn into the profound, religious/philosophical issues being explored.  Where do our pursuits lead us?  Where have we gotten our notions of what is important, of what should motivate and guide our lives?  Would a fresh start let us discover better and more meaningful lives, or would we still be captive to what the culture has taught us is important?

When Moses addresses the Israelites just prior to their entering the Land of Promise, he warns them about not wasting their fresh start.  The previous generation has done just that.  After being rescued from slavery in Egypt, they have been quick to fall back into old patterns and abandon the ways of Yahweh.  And of course the Israelites who cross the Jordan into the Land will regularly copy the ways of the local Canaanites, falling away from the peculiar way of God, the way of life.

Christians often follow this same pattern.  We "believe," but we live by the ways of the world, and trust the world's wisdom on what is important, what will make for meaningful life.  I think this is why Jesus' call, "Follow me," is so important to the life of faith. Jesus shows the way, walks the path of true life, and he invites us to join him and discover our own true life along the way.  Now if only we can trust that he knows what he is doing.

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Spiritual Hiccups - Love, Judgment, and Scripture

Who has not seen, during a sporting event broadcast on TV, a crowd shot that shows someone holding up a sign with "John 3:16" written on it? Even if people don't know that it means, it has become a part of the American cultural landscape. Of course the verse referred to is a seminal one for many Christians. "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life."

It is a beautiful verse in the middle of a critical section of John's gospel. But I confess that I have always struggled a bit with this passage. "For God so loved the world" is wonderful sounding, but it is followed by words of condemnation and judgment. Those who don't embrace God's love are "condemned already," and God's love coming into the world produces judgment because "people loved darkness rather than light." But what sort of love is it that shows up and condemns any who aren't immediately drawn to that love? What sort of loving parent would offer love with a sales pitch that says, "Call now! Offer expires soon?"

I suppose it helps a little to know that John writes to a Jewish-Christian community in crisis, encouraging them to hold onto their faith despite being ostracized at the local synagogue that has long been their religious home. Perhaps they need to hear that their rejection by friends and neighbors is the reverse of how things are with God. But if God truly loves the world (in John "world" is not so much a place as it is the arena that does not know God and resists God's ways), a world that God surely knows is inclined to flee the light, wouldn't God do something to get around the world's resistance to that love?

If nothing else, my questions are a warning about developing a theology from a few verses of Scripture. We simply cannot fit a meaningful faith on a bumper sticker or in a Tweet. And neither can a bumper sticker or 140 characters quote enough of the Bible event to begin speaking of God and God's work in the world. Indeed, one can't fully speak of God's work in Jesus drawing only on a single gospel. The picture of Jesus John gives us is incomplete without the other gospels and vice versa.

But still there is this issue of the light of God's love coming to the world, but people preferring darkness. Certainly love implies relationship, and relationship requires love to be both accepted and returned. To step away from love's advance has its consequences. But Jesus says something else in John's gospel just prior to his arrest and death. "And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself." That sounds to me like Jesus is sure that God's love will eventually triumph.

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Spiritual Hiccups - How Can This Be?

A new book came out this week by Rob Bell, mega-church pastor who has produced the very popular and quite good NOOMA video series.  Love Wins has generated a lot of interest, earned a great deal of praise, and also produced some angry attacks on Bell's "heretical" views.  What seems to be causing all the fuss is Bell's questioning whether or not there actually is a hell, along with questioning the traditional Church view that the opportunity to respond to God's love expires at the moment of death.

I have not had the chance to read the book yet (I have ordered it), but I have heard Bell speak about the book, and I know that I agree with one of his challenges to traditional Christian beliefs.  A lot of Christian thinking proclaims a "gospel of evacuation."  In essence this states, "If you believe in Jesus, you will get rescued from this earth when you die and go somewhere a lot better.  Don't fret if your life stinks now, because it will be grand then."  As accepted as such ideas are, Bell and many others point out that Jesus never talks about us going to heaven.  Instead he speaks of the Kingdom, of God's reign coming to earth.  Jesus even teaches us to pray for this day saying, "Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven."  In other words, heaven isn't a place we're suppose to escape to, earth is supposed to become like heaven.  But many in the Church find such an idea startling.

One of the big hazards for religious institutions is that we very easily presume that our religious assumptions are gospel truth.  Because we've always heard that Jesus came and died so that we could go to heaven when we die, then it has to be so, and anyone who says otherwise is obviously a troublemaker, a heretic, or worse.  And we don't even need to check the Bible on this.  We feel comfortable going with our gut.  Hey, we've always "known" this, so it must be true.

That seems to be Nicodemus' problem when he slips out in the dark of night to visit Jesus.  He's clearly enthralled by Jesus, can see that there is something special about him that cannot be explained without God at work in him in some way.  But Nicodemus cannot fit Jesus into his religious boxes and containers.   Even when Jesus tries to explain, Nicodemus can only say, "How can these things be?"  (There is a word play going here that cannot be rendered in English.  Jesus speaks a word that can mean either "again" or "from above."  Nicodemus hears Jesus say "born again" while Jesus means "born from above," i.e. by the Spirit, but we have no comparable word and so our translations remove the source of Nicodemus' confusion.)

But give Nicodemus credit. At least he goes to Jesus and tries to figure things out. Most of us prefer to hold onto our assumptions. And we have the advantage of having Jesus locked up in our largely unopened Bibles. We're free to construct an image of Jesus and of God that fits perfectly with our religious assumptions, and if someone like Rob Bell challenges them, we can always dismiss him as a heretic, a religious nut, etc.

Yesterday's daily devotion from Richard Rohr ended with this line. "Most Christians seem to have experienced just enough Christianity to forever inoculate themselves from the real power of the real thing."  I don't know if Rohr is talking about the same thing that I am, but I do think we often settle for just a little Christianity, just a little faith, enough that it solves some problem, makes us feel better, gives us hope, but not so much that it calls us to become something radically new in Jesus.

But God seems remarkably patient with us.  God keeps coming to us in Jesus.  After all, as Rob Bell says, in the end Love Wins.

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Spiritual Hiccups - Business as Usual

The story of Jesus "cleansing" the Temple, where he chased out the money changers and those selling animals, is well known to many Christians (though only in John's gospel does it happen at the beginning of Jesus' ministry).  But because the Temple operations were so different from anything modern people know, it can be difficult for us fully to understand what was going on.

The money changers were a necessity because people were not allowed to give offerings to God in Roman coins which bore the likeness of Caesar.  Pilgrims who journeyed to Jerusalem from far off needed a way to convert their coins into something acceptable.  Similarly, pilgrims who had journeyed long distances couldn't bring acceptable animals for sacrifice with them, and they needed to purchase these if they were to make the offerings prescribed by Scripture.  These "business people" in the Temple courtyard were matters of convenience/necessity, perhaps not all that different from allowing people to pay their pledges by credit card or bank draft.

But Jesus seems unimpressed by such issues.  His "zeal" for God's house demands that the focus be totally on God, that nothing distract or detract from offering worship, praise, and prayer to God.

How often do I enter into the sanctuary with almost no awareness of God's presence?  Though I am leading the people in worship and offering up prayers and a sermon, it is surprising how easy it is to do so as a matter of performance and routine, reciting my lines like an actor on the stage.

The same sort of problem can afflict worshipers.  People come into the sanctuary to see the show.  I certainly don't know what is on the hearts of individual worshipers, but I've been doing this long enough that I feel confident saying that significant number don't think much about God being there.

It is easy for religion to slip into business as usual (even if there are no money changers or animal sellers to be found).  We may even mention the need to up the pledges if we are going to keep all our current programing funded.  But where is God?

It is probably a good thing if Jesus occasionally turns over some of our tables and rattles our routines a bit.  Sometimes we need to be jostled out of business as usual if we are to turn fully to God.  It is so easy to become preoccupied with our little religious operation.  But as well intended as such operations usually are, they are not God.  Sometimes they even get in the way of God.

But God is there, just waiting for us to push aside some of the clutter.  In Jesus, God awaits us with open arms, longing for us to fall into the divine embrace.

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