Spiritual Hiccups - God's Heart

Even though I grew up in the Church, the product of a religious family, God often seemed something of an abstraction to me.  Perhaps this has less to do with my upbringing and is simply due to my own proclivities, but God always felt like a philosophical concept.  I was drawn to this concept, but still...

Many of my own spiritual challenges involve moving past this.  Drawing close to God, becoming aware of God's presence, resting in God, all require a God who is more than concept.  Relating to God in some way would seem to require a certain dynamism on the part of God, and expansiveness that drives God to engage, and even to risk, for the sake of relationship.  There has to be something going on in the heart of God.

I have sometimes been jealous of my more evangelical and fundamentalist brothers and sisters, especially of the way the seem to perceive of God so personally.  But at the same time I am repelled by the way some of them seem to know a God who seems so preoccupied with damnation and punishment of those who don't get the rules of the relationship figured out just so.

Maybe that is why I was so struck by a line in today's reading from Ezekiel.  While it is a section that talks about punishment and the death of the wicked, it also speaks of God's desire for the wicked (and to my mind wicked is a much worse condition than getting your theology wrong) to turn and be spared.  "Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, says the Lord GOD?"

It's obviously a rhetorical question that must be answered, "No," but the implications are huge.  I assume that if God takes no pleasure in punishing, if God much more desires reconciliation, then it must cost God something to punish.  Far from the image some Christians project of a God who cavalierly sends off countless souls to eternal punishment, such a possibility must be gut wrenching for God.

I've long been suspicious that one of my biggest spiritual liabilities is how deeply Greek, philosophical notions of God are embedded in my faith.  For those not up on your Greek philosophy, such a God cannot experience anything gut wrenching.  Such a God is by nature perfect and thus static and impassive. 

But if Jesus is really in some way the image of God, then I'm going to have to go with a God whose gut is churning.

Click to learn more about the Daily Lectionary.

Spiritual Hiccups - The Secret of Life

Last week an editorial by David Brooks entitled "It's Not about You" ran in The New York Times.  In it Brooks lamented how current graduates are sent out into the world with commencement speakers encouraging them to "find their passion" and "pursue their dreams." He notes, "Today’s grads enter a cultural climate that preaches the self as the center of a life. But, of course, as they age, they’ll discover that the tasks of a life are at the center."  He ends the piece with, "The purpose in life is not to find yourself. It’s to lose yourself."  Sounds familiar.

Brooks connects our current, cultural climate to "baby-boomer theology," and such baby-boomer self absorption often times works its way into to my generation's attempts to be "spiritual."  There is much fascination with going inward, deeper into the self.  And while I think this a vital component of the spiritual life, it is no end in itself.

One of today's morning psalms, Psalm 147, sings God's praises.  It does so by rattling off a long list of the things God does, and almost all of these are directed toward the care and nurture of others.  God heals the brokenhearted, lifts up the downtrodden, sends rain to the earth, and feeds the wild animals.  Even the negative activity of casting down the wicked is a way of caring for those who are oppressed and exploited.  In both Psalm 99 and 147, God's greatness is displayed in God's graciousness and God's love of justice.  Throughout the Old Testament, God is revered as one slow to anger, abounding in mercy and steadfast love. 

I had a seminary professor who used to speak of the difference between us and God being that we tend to be grasping and constricting.  (He would take his open arms and clutch them to his chest.)  But God, on the other hand, is always going out from Godself in expansive, self giving love.  (He would then spread his arms out as wide as they would go.) 

It seems to me that we become most fully human, that the image of God in us becomes most visible, when we discover this "secret" that my professor talked about and David Brooks writes about.  Only when life responds to the needs of others, only when it reaches out from self, only when we lose ourselves in our callings, do we find our deepest, truest humanity.

Click to learn more about the Daily Lectionary.

Laborers Needed

"The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few."  So says Jesus as he sends out followers to proclaim the nearness of God's coming reign.  When "The Seventy" are sent out, Jesus instructs them to tell both those who welcome them and those who don't that "The kingdom of God has come near."  And I wonder if the Church, in its preoccupation with salvation, hasn't badly neglected Jesus' command to proclaim the kingdom with the result being that laborers for this kingdom remain in woefully short supply.

When I speak of a preoccupation with salvation, I don't mean that Jesus doesn't offer such.  But too often salvation has been understood to mean nothing more that a status with regard to life after death.  And I have no doubt that this is a gross distortion of the biblical notion of salvation.  Salvation is more than a promise of something in the future.  It is a present quality of life.  As the Apostle Paul writes, we become "a new creation" in Christ.  Salvation is something lived out now.

I have become increasingly convinced in recent years that much of the Church's malaise is related to its neglecting Jesus' core message of the kingdom.  Faith became divorced from much of life, concerned with little but status.  In the worst forms of this, life on earth and creation itself become of no importance at all.  All that matters is "the life to come."

Fortunately, this is changing.  Increasingly churches are recovering the good news that the kingdom has come near, and that we are called to show this approaching new day to the world.  But many more need to hear Jesus anew on this.  As in Jesus' day, laborers for the kingdom are still hard to come by.

Click to learn more about the Daily Lectionary.

Sunday Sermon video - On Being Martyrs

Spiritual Hiccups - Urgency and Focus

Like very many people in our culture, my life sometimes seems overly hectic.  I'm not talking about any special pressures that come from being a pastor, but rather about a lifestyle of busyness that seems to afflict many of us.  This busyness can sometimes be draining, but at other times it is a source of pride.  Look how hard working and diligent I am, how consume I am by my busyness.  But just what is my particular busyness about?

Jesus' words to those who would follow him got me thinking about this.  He tells one would-be disciple not to go back and bury his dead father, and he tells another not to go back and say goodbye to his family.  The urgency Jesus demands contains an echo of an Old Testament story.  When the prophet Elijah calls Elisha to become his disciple, he permits Elisha to return and say farewells to his mother and father.  But Jesus seems to say that proclaiming the Kingdom that is drawing near demands a greater commitment and urgency than that required of the great prophet Elisha.

The Kingdom is the focus of Jesus' sense of urgency.  As for me, I'm not sure that my busyness has much connection to the Kingdom.  Very often, my busyness, indeed much church busyness, is about institutional maintenance that has little bearing on the Kingdom.  In fact, the Church sometimes seems to have forgotten about the Kingdom altogether.

What is it that produces the urgency and focus in my life?  Is it God's presence, Jesus' call?  Or do other things get in the way so that I hurry along, blissfully unaware of God's presence, unaware of what Jesus asks of me?  Where is the work of the Kingdom that calls me forward?  What is it that is more important than anything else?

Click to learn more about the Daily Lectionary.

Sunday Sermon text - On Being Martyrs

Acts 1:6-14; 1 Peter 4:12-14, 5:6-11

On Being Martyrs

James Sledge                                                               June 5, 2011

How many of you have heard of Harold Camping?  Raise your hands if you have.  Some of you.  For those of you who don’t know, Camping is a conservative Christian radio broadcaster and president of something called “Family Radio,” a California based network with more than a hundred stations.  Now to be honest, I’ve never heard Mr. Camping on the radio and don’t even know if he is available around here.  But I heard all about his prediction that the Rapture would occur on May 21^st, with the end of the world to follow six months later.  It’s worth noting that Camping also predicted the Rapture’s arrival in 1994, but then, a now, the Rapture was a no-show.

I asked for a show of hands of those who knew of Camping, and a good many of you did, but let me try someone else.  How many of you have heard of Jesus?  Raise your hands.   Well, we did a lot better this time.  I think all of you raised your hands.  I guess that means that I don’t have to explain to you who Jesus is, how he came proclaiming that the reign of God had drawn near, how he was executed but rose again, and how he commissioned his followers to continue his work after his resurrection.

So we’ve established without much doubt that more of you know who Jesus is than Harold Camping, but let me ask another question regarding them.  How many of you would trust Harold Camping over Jesus?  Raise your hands.  Okay, how many of you would trust Jesus over Harold Camping?  Raise your hands.  And we have a winner… Jesus!

I have another question to ask, but I don’t want you to raise your hands on this one. 

How many of you paid any attention to the possibility of Judgment Day arriving a couple of weeks ago?  How many of you have worried about this or about some folks’ saying that the Mayan calendar ends in 2012, and the world will too?  I ask because quite a few Christians do seem to worry about such things. 

Even though the Bible makes no mention of a Rapture, and the very idea of a Rapture was only dreamed up in the 1800s, lots of Christians ears prick up when someone says they know when it is.  Even though Jesus says on more than one occasion that he doesn’t know when the new age will arrive, and that when it does it will not take any special knowledge or figuring to detect it – it will be as obvious as the arrival of Spring or Summer – still Christians persist in speculating about such things.  Over and over Christians act like they trust the teachings of the latest end-of-the-world-crackpot over the clear teachings of Jesus.

Now certainly natural human curiosity contributes to this, as well as the hope of the faithful that God will one day redeem and restore all creation.  After all, Jesus teaches us to pray for that day when God’s will is done here on earth just as it is now in heaven.  And so it makes sense that Christians would keep an eye on the horizon of the future.

I actually have some sympathy for those who had placed their hope in a Rapture on May 21.  They were wanting God to do something dramatic, to take decisive action.  In a world filled with hurt, suffering, and brokenness, what person of faith hasn’t occasionally hoped for God to do something grand, in one fell swoop to change everything.

The disciples in our reading from Acts have been witnesses to such a thing, to the resurrection.  They have been spending time with the risen Jesus, and they are wondering what the next big thing will be.  “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?”  Not quite the Rapture, but still the hope that God will decisively change the shape of life on earth.

But the decisive change Jesus tells them to get ready for is something that will transform and empower the community of believers.  “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”  When asked about what comes next, Jesus doesn’t give any formula or timetable.  His focus is here, on what we do on this earth, serving as his witnesses.

I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating.  Far too many Christians have embraced a gospel of evacuation.  This gospel promises to rescue believers from earth, to whisk us off to heaven, either when we die or come the Rapture.  This gospel calls us to endure life’s struggles and difficulties in exchange for this promise to take us to some better place where there is no pain or suffering.

But the gospel Jesus proclaims is not one of evacuation.  Jesus proclaims the Kingdom that has come near, a coming day when God’s will is done here on earth, as it is now in heaven. Our reading today from 1 Peter today calls us to be willing to suffer, to be reviled by others, not in the hope of some future evacuation, but in the certainty that God will restore.  And the Bible itself ends with a picture of that restoration, with a new heaven and new earth.  The very images that so many people associate with heaven, pearly gates and streets paved with gold, are not images of heaven, but of the new Jerusalem here on earth.  And in the meantime, Jesus calls us to be his witnesses, to let the world know about the new day that is surely coming.

The word translated “witnesses” is the basis of our English word, “martyr.”  This association of martyr and witness came about as the result of early Christians holding fast to their faith even in the face of death.  They were so sure of God’s power to renew, restore, and bring life out of death, that they would not waver in their faith.  They willingly embraced the same sort of suffering Jesus had faced, trusting that the power of resurrection had been set loose in the world, not a power to evacuate them, but to restore all things.

We too are called to be witnesses, to live in ways that demonstrate our trust in God’s power to restore and make new, to live in ways that show the world our hope that God’s will shall yet be done on earth, that all creation shall be redeemed.  Jesus calls us to live now by the ways of that coming day just as he did, to love and forgive, to be willing to lose ourselves for the sake of others, to do God’s will over our own, knowing that nothing, not even death, can stop God’s plans.

Of course it is likely that very few of us will ever be faced with life and death decisions about being witnesses.  Most of our calls to be martyrs will be much more mundane in nature, but still we are called to witness regularly, daily.  Every time some of our friends are making fun of someone or some group because they are different, we are called to be witnesses of God’s love for all.  Every time we discuss politics, we are called to witness to God’s special concern for the most vulnerable, to witness to Jesus’ call to love neighbor and enemy, to be willing to lose ourselves – our privileges and advantages – for the sake of the kingdom. 

When we cast our vote we are called to witness by putting our desires second to God’s will and to the needs of the weak and vulnerable.  When we decide how much of our money we will dedicate to our own needs and pleasures, and how much to the needs of others, we witness.  When we decide not to lash out at someone who has hurt us, we witness.  When we work for peace and justice, we witness.  When we care for God’s creation, we witness.  When we refuse to use distortions or half-truths or to stretch the truth in order to win the argument, we witness.  And especially when we swim against the currents of popular opinion, challenging the consumerist, me-first attitudes that dominate our culture, we are Christ’s witnesses, declaring by our daily acts that we have glimpsed a new day, a day of peace and forgiveness and healing and hope and possibility for all.

Harold Camping has already revised his predictions of the Rapture.  It is now rescheduled for October 21.  Is that right Jesus?  Is it the one?  But Jesus says, “It is not for you to know the times or the periods that the Father has set by his own authority.  But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses.  That’s you, and you, and me, and you, and you, and every one of us here.  Jesus promises to come to us, to empower us by the Spirit, in order that our lives, our daily living, might show the world the hope of something better.

Thanks be to God.

Sunday Sermon audio - On Being Martyrs

Sunday Sermon audio - On Being Martyrs

Spiritual Hiccups - But They Doubted

The first big paper I had to write as a seminary student was on today's gospel reading.  All of us in the imaginatively titled "New Testament I" had to write an exegetical paper on The Great Commission in Matthew.  I recall that my translation of the text was slightly different from the NRSV.  Mine read, "When they saw him the worshiped him; but they doubted," rather than the "some doubted" in my Bible.  My knowledge of Greek was certainly no match for the NRSV translators, but my professor, Jack Kingsbury, apparently had no issues with my version.

I confess that while I think my translation a more natural reading of the Greek, I also like it for other reasons.  It seems truer to my own faith.  I worship and I doubt. 

As a pastor, I can't begin to recall how often I've heard people turn down a nomination to be an officer, say "No" to a request to teach a class, or explain why they've never shared their faith with a neighbor, because their faith wasn't strong enough.  Very often, it seems, people believe their faith hasn't reach a sufficient threshold for them to be called into Christ's service.  Yet the very last thing we hear about the disciples before Jesus sends them out is, "But they doubted." 

Jesus doesn't wait until we are fully qualified before calling and commissioning us.  In fact, if he did there would be no Church.  Jesus calls struggling, doubting, imperfect sinners to represent him in the world.  And he promises to be with us and equip us so that we can do all he asks of us... even when we doubt that.

Click to learn more about the Daily Lectionary.

Spiritual Hiccups - Anxious Striving

My wife and I just returned from an 8 day trip to New Mexico where we took in some of the sights near Santa Fe, Albuquerque, and the very small hamlet of Thoreau, where our daughter works with Teach for America.  It was a wonderful visit that we both enjoyed very much.  And to my mind, one of the best parts of it was that we did very little planning, instead doing whatever appealed to us that day.  We went with the flow, ate when we were hungry, hiked until we were tired, slept late when we felt like it, and enjoyed the magnificent splendor of northwest New Mexico.

Such rhythms are quite different from the ones most of us know and practice on a regular basis.  We tend to be an over scheduled people.  Not only are our work lives busy with long to-do lists and calendar reminders popping up on our computers and PDAs, but our children's lives are heavily scheduled as well.  Many parents shuttle children from one "enrichment" activity to another.  And many of us maintain a hectic pace even on vacation.  I often hear people say, "I need a vacation to recover from my vacation," which makes me think that they didn't do a lot of relaxing on their vacation, but scurried about from venue to venue, theme park to theme park, activity to activity. 

Where did we get this idea that if we don't hurry, we'll miss something?  How did we become so anxious?  Why do we so willingly join the "rat race," furiously spinning the little wheel that is supposed to bring us fulfillment and accomplishment and stature, only to become exhausted without actually going anywhere?

Many of us are familiar with Jesus' words about the lilies of the field that neither toil nor spin where he calls us to stop worrying and striving for things.  Jesus says to strive only for the Kingdom that is coming, and let God take care of the rest, but we can't quite bring ourselves to believe him, to trust that what he says is true.  And so we strive very rarely for the Kingdom, for that promised day when God's will is done on earth.  But we strive and worry all the time about other things.

Jesus invites us to get off our little wheels that go nowhere, to opt out of the rat race, and to find real meaning and worth in striving for the Kingdom, in trying to make the world more like God's vision for it.  This is no call to a dull life of drudgery, but a gracious invitation to life that is as it should be, life whose rhythms are in sync with our deepest, truest nature.  It is an invitation to freedom from endless, anxious striving.  If only we can trust that Jesus knows what he's talking about.

Click to learn more about the Daily Lectionary.

Sunday Sermon video - What Binds Us Together

Sermons also on Youtube in higher resolution format.

Sunday Sermon audio - What Binds Us Together