Spiritual Hiccups - You Want Me To Do What?

What are you supposed to do with your life?  What am I supposed to do with mine?  Those are pretty fundamental questions that get expressed in many ways.  We ask small children, "What do you want to do/be when you grow up.  When they get older the question may change to "What are you going to major in at college?"  People go to career centers for batteries of tests covering aptitude, inclination, interest, personality, and so on, all in an effort to understand what sort of career would be a good fit for them. 

As a Presbyterian, I am part of something known as the Reformed Tradition, a branch of the Protestant Reformation that traces itself back to Geneva and John Calvin.  This tradition has long spoken of all Christians having a "vocation" or a "calling."  The idea is that we are each fitted and suited for some work that is pleasing to God, that will be fulfilling for us, and will be beneficial for the larger community. 

Frederick Buechner, a Presbyterian pastor who is better known for his short stories, is often quoted as saying, "The place to which God calls you is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet."  I've used this quote myself on a number of occasions, but I sometimes wonder if it gets misapplied in a very individualistic age focused on immediate gratification.  Looking at some biblical example of call, can we speak of them producing "great gladness," at least in the sense that many people are likely to hear that phrase?

In today's reading from Acts, the Apostle Paul says, "And now, as a captive to the Spirit, I am on my way to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there, except that the Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city that imprisonment and persecutions are waiting for me. But I do not count my life of any value to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the good news of God’s grace."  I do think that Paul would have been able to use the phrase "great gladness" to describe the joy he had of serving Jesus and the new life he discovered in that service, but I wonder how many of us would.

When you think about what you are "supposed" to do with your life, what factors do you consider?  If you are considering careers or a job change, what elements do you weigh?  We all need money to live on so most of us consider the salary.  We don't want to be miserable, so most of us look for something we think we might like doing.  But is our own sense of what will make us happy a trustworthy guide?  Do Jesus' words, "For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it," perhaps suggest that our own inclinations are sometimes suspect?  Might the "deep gladness" Buechner speaks of be something quite different from what I like or what seems attractive to me?

If we listen for the "world's deep hunger" and for what God would have us do, do we perhaps find ourselves pulled toward something that might not, at first, seem appealing?  And how do we bring something other than self with its self-ish desires to figuring out what God wants us to do?

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Sunday Sermon audio - Lord, If It Is You...

Sunday Sermon text - Lord, If It Is You...

Matthew 14:22-33

Lord, If It Is You…

James Sledge                                                 August 7, 2011

Have you ever wondered what the other disciples thought when Peter made is little excursion out onto the Sea of Galilee, walking on the water toward Jesus?  The way Matthew tells us the story, these disciples are a nameless, faceless mass.  We never see any of them individually, besides Peter.  We know that they are terrified.  Matthew says they cry out, “It is a ghost!”  Did they shout in unison.  Did someone cue them saying, “Okay, all together now.  One, two, three, go!  It’s a ghost!”? 

So how did these nameless, faceless disciples react as one of their number heard Jesus saying, “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid,” and responded by saying, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.”  The story doesn’t tell us.  The disciples are have no role in the story after they think they see a ghost until after Peter and Jesus are back in the boat.  Only then do we hear from them again as they worship Jesus saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”

That Jesus is said to have walked on water is one of the better known reports from the gospels.  It is so well known that the idea of walking on water has become a metaphor symbolizing the impossible, the miraculous.  Certainly walking on water is impossible as far as I know, but I’m not sure that this fully appreciates what is going on in our story.

There are a number of places in the Bible where water functions as a kind of anti-creation force, a danger and even a foe to God’s life-giving, creative activity.  Many Christians are fond of saying that God created ex nihilo, that is “out of nothing.”  But in the Creation story that opens the book of Genesis, there is already a chaotic, formless deep over which God’s Spirit hovers and out of which God calls forth order and life.

And the Noah’s ark story is about whether or not God will give up on wayward creation and allow it to be swallowed back up in the anti-creation forces of water. 

At the end of the Noah story creation is still just as wayward, but there is the absolute promise that God will never allow the waters to overwhelm that creation.

Alongside the powerful, anti-creation, chaos metaphor of the stormy waters, the boat was adopted by the early Church as a symbol.  And so in this story we have a nameless, faceless group of followers in a boat, believers in the Church, buffeted by the forces of the storm, when Jesus comes to them.  But in their precarious situation, in their fear, they do not recognize him, and his appearance makes them even more terrified… Until he speaks. 

Actually, we do not know how they reacted when Jesus spoke.  At that moment, the nameless, faceless disciples recede, and there is only Peter.  “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.”  For some reason this story cannot end simply with Jesus coming to them.  The  power of Jesus over the anti-creation, chaos forces demands something more.  It invites the disciples, the Church, or at least one disciple, one Church member to step from the safety of the boat.  “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.”

Perhaps this is simply Peter’s petulant bravado speaking.  But Jesus does not dismiss it as such.  No, Jesus honors Peter’s request.  He does just as Peter asks saying, “Come.”  And Peter climbs out of the boat, right out onto the anti-creation, chaos forces churning around it.  Peter steps onto the water and begins to walk toward Jesus.

But those nameless, faceless disciples, the “they” we last saw terrified, screaming about a ghost… what are they doing?  Are their mouths agape?  Did they urge Peter not to do something so foolish?  And when they see him actually walking on the water, what must they be thinking?  And when he falters and begins to sink, did that gasp and reach toward him?  Or do they shake their heads at how is own foolishness had gotten him in this mess?

I don’t know about you, but hearing this story growing up somehow left me with the impression that Peter failed.  I heard the story as a cautionary tale about a lack of faith.  Yet how many of us have ever walked on water for even a short distance?  This is no cautionary tale, rather it is an invitation to risky faith.  And I wonder if it is not an invitation the Church desperately needs to hear. 

I ran across a quote made some years ago by Earnest Campbell who died just last year.  Campbell was pastor of Riverside Church in NYC back in the 70s, and at some conference e was discussing the state of the Church and said, "the reason that we seem to lack faith in our time is that we are not doing anything that requires it."[1]  Or to phrase it in terms of today’s gospel, the Church seems not to have much faith in our day because no one is willing to climb over the side of the boat.

If this gospel story is meant as instruction in faith, as I am convinced that it is, then it seems to say that faith requires great risk.  It demands climbing over the side and onto the turbulent waters.  It even expects that we will falter on those waters.  We will become frightened and fall.  But Jesus will reach out to us and lift us up.  In fact, I suspect that slipping into the waters and being grabbed by Jesus is an absolutely essential lesson of faith.

In our day, the Church often finds itself facing great difficulties.  To perhaps press the metaphors of storm and boat too far, we have been battered by storms, and quite often the reaction is to draw in on ourselves, to batten the hatches if you will.  We become nameless, faceless, frightened disciples, huddled in out boats.  Is Jesus out there anywhere?  And if he is, who among us dares say, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.”

Perhaps water is not the best metaphor.  Water doesn’t carry the same sense of danger and threat to faith it did for First Century Jews.  So what is it that lies over the edge of the boat for us?  What is beyond our church walls that keeps us from boldly engaging the world around us, from carrying the good news of God’s new day out into the community.  What is it that keeps us huddled in our little boat, frightened and hoping for the storm to pass?

Do we think Jesus has abandoned us?  Are we truly alone in the storm with nothing but our own devices to rely on?  Or is Jesus moving on the storm, a power greater than all the anti-creation forces of chaos?  Can you see him?  Can you hear him calling?  And are there a few among us like Peter who will call to him?  “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you.”

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[1] Told by Clifton Kirkpatrick in the “Pastoral Perspective” comments for Proper 14, Matthew 14:22-33,  in Feasting on the Word: Year A, Volume 3, (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011) Kindle location 11968 of 14135.

Spiritual Hiccups - Doubts and Other Gifts

I love the LORD, because he has heard
   my voice and my supplications.
Because he inclined his ear to me,
   therefore I will call on him as long as I live.

So what happens when God doesn't hear my voice or incline an ear to me?  Should I perhaps write my own psalm?  "I don't love the LORD, who ignored me and turned away from my pleas."  I do of course understand that God may well hear me and not do what I want to my own best interests.  "No" is an answer.  But there are times when a clear "No" would be so much better than silence, nothing.

I sometimes think the Church does people of faith a disservice by not talking very much about doubt and the very real experience of God's absence.  In fact for many Christians, doubt and God's absence are so feared, so seen as a the opposite of faith, that they will do anything to ward them off.  Sometimes I even wonder if certain forms of zealous fundamentalism aren't simply poor strategies for dealing with doubt.  Believe certain things hard enough and vigorously enough and unquestioningly enough, and doubt won't be able to find a foothold.  (I need better labels.  "Fundamentalist" means adherence to certain fundamental tenants, and in this sense, I am a fundamentalist.  I have certain core beliefs that I think of as minimally required in order to be a Christian.)

I think that acknowledging doubts, and especially acknowledging the experience of God's absence can actually open us to deeper faith.  The absence of God can generate a desire, a longing for God's presence, and presence is something entirely different from a doctrine or set of beliefs.  And many wise spiritual guides have said that a longing for God is truly a gift from God.  Such a longing can motivate a deeper search and a willingness to be reshaped and transformed in ways that better suit God's presence.

If you have never pleaded for God to come to you, if you've never felt a painful desire to connect or reconnect with God, I suspect you are missing out on an important part of growing in faith, of growing deeper into the presence of God.

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Spiritual Hiccups - Clarence the Cross-Eyed Bear

Most of us have heard children confusing the words of a song.  I've been told that I once sang, "If you're happy and you know then your wife will really show it."  And I've heard a tale about some child substituting "Clarence the cross-eyed bear," for "Gladly the cross I'd bear."  Certainly changes the meaning a bit, but then again, I've heard a lot of people who can get the song right speak of the cross in ways just as far off the mark as that child's version.

I have heard many a person say something such as, "This arthritis is my cross to bear."  But taking up the cross has nothing to do with stoic endurance.  Taking up the cross is voluntary.  Unlike arthritis, it is something that can be put back down and walked away from.  And it is paired with self-denial, the voluntary giving up of my prerogatives, my advantages, my rights, even my life, for the sake of God and the other. 

We Americans, with our focus on individualism, consumerism, and personal choice, have a hard time with self denial.  But we do recognize that it is sometimes necessary.  We may deny ourselves something we want because we need to save for a child's education.  And we may deny ourselves that tempting dessert because we know we must if we want to maintain or lose weight.  But America's obesity epidemic would seem to indicate that we're having more difficulty with self denial even when it is clearly advantageous to us.

Our Congress' recent dysfunctional behavior around the debt ceiling seems to me symptomatic of our problem with self denial.  The dysfunction in Washington is fed by a popular dysfunction that wants the world's top military, social security benefits that go up every year, safe roads and bridges, and Medicare for hip replacements and nursing home stays, yet doesn't want to pay taxes.  Everyone seems to think that someone else should pay the taxes, or perhaps that government can somehow magically do all the things we want it to do without money.

I see people driving $100,000 cars, living in $1,000,000 homes, and having a second home at the beach complaining about how how they simply cannot afford to pay any more taxes.  And I myself complain about all the taxes I pay, yet I know there are people the world over who would think they had died and gone to heaven if they lived the life I am able to live.

Generally speaking, the taxes I pay are not my cross to bear.  Now if I wrote a check for $1000 and sent it to the US government for debt reduction, that might be.  And if I called my Congressman and Senator and asked if they would please raise mine a bit to help out everyone else, that might be.

In recent years, there has been much discussion over whether or not America is a "Christian nation."  Deciding requires some sort of working definition of what it means to be Christian and how that applies to entities beyond individuals.  For example, if being Christian requires some sense of self denial, of losing one's life "for the sake of the gospel," how is that to be lived out on a national scale? 

I look at our current economy, where unemployment remains disturbingly high while American companies are reporting record profits.  Would not a Christian impulse for self denial require that those companies put some of those record profits into job creation?  Would not bearing the cross mean denying some of that profit to CEOs, executive bonuses, and so forth, and instead using it to hire some folks?  Can it be said that capitalism's drive for efficiency, usually understood as making the most money while using the least people possible, is really Christian in any sense of the word?

Now I know that issues of economics, employment, capitalism, and so on are very complex.  And I do not pretend to be an expert in any of them.  However, Jesus makes it abundantly clear that any who wish to follow him must practice self denial for the sake of his gospel, his proclamation that God's new day is drawing near.  And we can't very well claim follow Jesus, praying as he taught us for God's will to be done on earth, while at the same time insisting that God's will somehow doesn't apply to the business world, national defense, or tax policies.

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Spiritual Hiccups - I'll Take That Other Jesus

In case you've never noticed, there are a lot of Jesuses out there.  Google "Jesus" and check out the images.  Even discounting the ones that aren't serious, the variety is mind boggling.  There is warrior Jesus, meek and mild Jesus, wise sage Jesus, hippie Jesus, healer Jesus, buddy Jesus, angry and coming back to straighten things out Jesus.  And while not all these images are mutually exclusive, many are.

This means that you can believe in Jesus, even believe fervently, without necessarily believing in the same Jesus as someone else.  The question of just who Jesus is, of his true identity, is a critical one.  And it is the topic of today's gospel, where Peter wins the quiz with his answer, "You are the Messiah."  (Matthew's gospel adds "Son of the living God," and Luke says "Messiah of God.")  But it soon becomes very clear that knowing Jesus is the Messiah (or Son of God) in no way means that you understand his true identity.  No sooner has Peter made his confession about Jesus being God's Anointed One than he starts trying to correct Jesus, explaining to him that Messiahs aren't allowed to die.

We who are Christians have our own versions of this.  We proclaim Jesus Messiah and Son of God but then insist that Messiahs don't get mixed up in politics and tell us how to vote.  Yes, Jesus said turn the other cheek, but Messiahs don't get to weigh in on national defense policy.  Messiahs are supposed to confine themselves to personal spirituality and morality.  They need to understand that the work world has its own rules.

My own Presbyterian tradition emerged from the Protestant Reformation that professed sola scriptura (Scripture alone), and it declared itself The Church Reformed, Always Being Reformed by the Word of God.  We claim that the singular witness to who Jesus is, to his true identity, is the Bible.  But then, of course, we do some very selective reading of that Bible and come up with a Jesus that suits us.

This has gone on from the beginning of our tradition, but in our day, we have put a new spin on it.  Since we rarely read our Bibles, we are free to construct whatever Jesus we want to cobble together from things we've heard or that we've picked up here and there.  And just like Peter, we correct Jesus and tell him that Messiahs behave and act such and such a way.  But unlike Peter, who is immediately and rather harshly corrected by Jesus, we go on our ways oblivious to the fact that our custom order Jesus, made just the way we want him, may be no Jesus at all.

Now I'll be the first to admit that I often wish Jesus would be a little more proactive about this.  Why doesn't Jesus speak to us as he does to Peter?  Why must he speak indirectly through Scripture?  I would say that my greatest source of spiritual frustration is wanting a bit more clarity and direct communication from God.  But... and it's a big but.  It's not as though Jesus isn't pretty clear about a lot of things, about how I am to live and act, how I am to love my neighbor and even my enemy, how if I have more than enough and someone doesn't have much of anything, I must share.  There are a lot of times when I know exactly what Jesus expects of me, but I say, "No thanks, I'll take that other Jesus."

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Sunday Sermon video - Assaulted by God

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Spiritual Hiccups - Partisans, Ideology, Faith, and God

As events surrounding the debt ceiling played out in Washington this weekend, it was difficult to feel a great deal of respect for anyone involved.  We Americans have long had a great deal of faith in the "genius" of our governmental system, from the idea of checks and balances to the right to elect our own leaders.  Yet this system has failed us before in times of great crisis.  The Civil War is a horrible reminder of our political system's inability to deal with a huge, partisan divide.  In that case it made little difference that the issue of slavery provided a clear moral high ground.  For those with an economy built on slavery, it did not matter.  The South was even able to muster the Church's support.  (For those think that the Civil War was not primarily about slavery, read the secessionists' own writings.  They certainly seemed to think that it was.)

Making fun of politicians is an ancient sport, and ridiculing those in Congress has been around for a long time.  But form much of our history, and despite failures such as the Civil War, there still seemed to be an underlying faith in the system.  Yes, it had its flaws, but it was the best system in the world; freedom, democracy, and so on.

I'm not sure this was ever a good idea, but there was a time when many Christians understood America and its system of governance to be an instrument in God's hands.  There was divine purpose in it somehow.  But such notions are long gone, and their demise perhaps mirrors a growing cynicism about government.  But people need something or someone where they can put their trust.

Ideologies are popular with many.  There are ideologies left, right, and everywhere in between, although the ones at the edges often produce the more fervent support.  But the problem with placing faith in an ideology is that competing ideologies are, by definition, the enemy.  When an ideology becomes an article of faith, opposing ideologies can easily be seen as the anti-christ.

The attempt to brand President Obama as a Muslim is an extreme example of this.  Denying that he is a Christian helps confirm that he is not "one of us."  He is a "them" and therefore an enemy.

Politics has always been a contact sport, and partisan nastiness is nothing new.  But when there was a shared faith in the system, to some degree we were all on the same side.  Our differences were akin to Christian denominations where very different practices of the faith were still understood to be within the same family. (Although it's worth noting that when I grew up in the South, some conservative Christian camps sought to marginalize Catholics by insisting they were not really Christians.)  When there was an acknowledgement, however begrudging, that we were all on the same side, we could  be befuddled by the strange ideas of those who thought differently than us yet still assume that we shared many hopes and goals.

Curious that as a nation we seem to have become much more tolerant of religious diversity while becoming more strident politically.  And I fear that much of our religious tolerance is largely the result of faith becoming less important in our lives.  If the National Study of Youth and Religion is to be believed, faith has become a private, spiritual thing that does not have much impact on day to day living.  The study labeled the faith of American teenagers -- a faith transmitted to them by their parents and congregations -- Moralistic Therapeutic Deism, a vague, benign notion of God who is all for general goodness and fairness, who welcomes good folk into heaven when they die, but has little to do with the day to day.

My ramblings today are genuinely a "spiritual hiccup."  I started out reflecting on this morning's Psalm 62, on God as rock and salvation, a God who executes justice, who repays "all according to their work."  I was wondering where God was amidst the high level dysfunction on display in Congress, and somehow I ended up here.

I'm inclined to see the rise of faith in ideologies as a symptom of a Christian faith crisis.  We do not see God as an active player in the life of the world.  We may trust in principles that we understand to have come from God in some way, but God is not our rock.  A strong military, a pension plan, a good career and salary; now those are things that can secure us.

Neither do we really expect that God will in some way repay us for all that we do.  We're convinced that God is not too concerned about issues of daily justice.  The only real question is personal salvation.  Are you in our out?  Did you get an invite to the great, heavenly dinner party?  We don't seriously believe that God is going to intervene on behalf of the poor, oppressed, vulnerable, and outcast, never mind what the Bible says.

What is your rock, salvation, and fortress?  (And remember, in the Bible salvation is not about going to heaven when you die. It is about God rescuing you, healing you, restoring you.)  What are the things that you trust, that you believe in?  And are we in danger of our ideologies becoming our gods?

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Sunday Sermon audio - Assaulted by God

Sunday Sermon text - Assaulted by God

Genesis 32:22-31

Assaulted by God

James Sledge                                                   July 31, 2011

When I was a child, my father would often read Bible stories to me prior to bedtime.  I can still see the big Bible Story book that he used.  Certainly there were many stories about Jesus, but I think that as a child, the Old Testament stories stood out more.  There were a lot of “hero” type stories in the Old Testament’ David fighting the giant Goliath with only his sling, Samson, the Hebrew version of Hercules.  And then there were all those stories about Abraham and Sarah, and their offspring; Isaac, Esau and Jacob, and then all of Jacob’s sons, including Joseph.

The characters in those Bible stories didn’t seem much like real people to me.  Perhaps that was just how far removed from me they were historically and culturally.  Or perhaps it was because the Bible stories themselves had a kind of comic book mentality to them.  These were larger than life heroes, not people much like me or other members of my family.

Whatever the reasons, I was well into adulthood before it dawned on me what a messed up, dysfunctional family the Abraham and Sarah clan was.  It starts with the half-brothers Ishmael and Isaac, and only gets worse from there.

Rebekah and Isaac have twin boys, Esau and Jacob.  Esau is the first born by a few seconds, and the sibling rivalry is off and running.  Jacob is born holding onto Esau’s heel, their struggle already begun.

Not that the parents do much to help matters.  Daddy likes Esau, and Momma likes Jacob.   Esau is an outdoorsy, hunting and fishing sort of fellow.  He’s the first born, a man of action, a manly man, and Dad plans to pass on the family business to Esau.  Jacob, by contrast, is a Momma’s boy who likes hanging out in the tent.  He’s also sneaky and manipulative, a cheat and a scoundrel who takes advantage of Esau’s tendency to act first and think later.  And his mother is happy to assist.

Jacob and Esau are born when Isaac is quite old.  By the time his boys are full grown, he is getting feeble and has become blind.  Sensing that his time is short, Isaac calls in Esau and asks him to go out hunting and bring back some savory game they can enjoy together.  And after the meal, Isaac will formally sign over the family business.  In the language of the Bible, he will bless Esau.

But Momma overhears.  She goes to Jacob and they, literally, cook up a scheme to deceive the old, blind father.  She prepares a meal and helps Jacob disguise himself as Esau.  He puts on some of Esau’s clothing, and Momma uses some goat skins to make arm hair wigs so the smooth-skinned Jacob has the hairy arms of his brother.

I know it’s a crazy story, but that’s what is says in the Bible.  Jacob goes to his father, pretending to be Esau.  Isaac recognizes Jacob’s voice, but the smell of Esau’s clothes, those arm hair wigs, (and maybe a little dementia?) are enough to fool the old man. 

And so Isaac blesses Jacob moments before Esau returns to discover that he has been robbed of his blessing.  I don’t know why there is no undoing this contract signed under false pretenses, but it seems that the blessing cannot be taken back. It is Jacob’s now, and Esau, its rightful owner, is left out, cheated out of his inheritance by his own brother.

No wonder Esau begins thinking about killing his brother.  Jacob flees for his life, going back to Momma’s homeland to live with her family.  By the time he gets the nerve to come back, he has a couple of wives, eleven sons, a twelfth on the way, and one daughter.  He is still a con-man and a trickster, and he will repeat the mistakes of his own parents by favoring one of his children over the others.  That child, Joseph, will become a spoiled brat whose own brothers plot to kill him, but that is another story.  In our story today, Jacob heads back to his birthplace, not knowing if Esau still wants to kill him? 

Now I have known my share of dysfunctional families, but I’m not sure I’ve ever met any so thoroughly messed up as this one.  And perhaps that would not matter much except that for some inexplicable reason, God has hitched the hopes of blessing and restoration for all humanity to this dysfunctional family.  What was God thinking?

I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed, but church congregations can be dysfunctional families themselves.  There are manipulative folk who to get their way by complaining or threatening to leave and people who rarely lift a finger to help out yet perpetually think they deserve more from the church.  There are parking lot meetings that circumvent the official meeting.  There is gossiping and anonymous criticism where “lots of people” without names are upset or angry.  Yet for some inexplicable reason, God has hitched the hopes of humanity’s blessing and restoration to this dysfunctional family.  What was God thinking?

For much of Jacob’s dysfunctional story, God has seemed uninvolved   But as Jacob returns to his birthplace, God makes an unexpected, uninvited entrance.  A man wrestled with (Jacob) until daybreak.  I wonder if Jacob first thought it was Esau. It’s a strange story with no reason is given for the attack.  It is a story with religious sensibilities quite different from our own, depicting the encounter with God in earthy, dramatic fashion.  This is not about belief.  This is about struggle and blessing.  Jacob seeks to deal with God as he does with everything else, to grab what he wants.  But the attempt does not work out quite like he plans.  God does not best him, and he gets a blessing.  But in the process he is renamed, and he goes away limping.   God’s blessing is still hitched to Jacob, now Israel, and his dysfunctional family, but Jacob, and those who follow him, will be changed and marked by this blessing, and bound in an ongoing struggle with God.

I’ve spoken with you before about the mammoth, three-year-ong National Study of Youth and Religion that examined the beliefs and faith practices of teenage Americans.  They looked at a huge spectrum of religious tradition, and it turns out that most young people don’t dislike religion or church.  They have a mostly positive view of them, however, their religious notions are so benign and inconsequential that they have almost no bearing on how these young people live their lives.  The study named their faith, “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism,” and its hallmarks are: believing God created the world, God wants people to be good and nice, the central goal of life is to be happy and feel good about oneself, God is not really involved in life except in moments of crisis, and good folks go to heaven. 

There’s nothing terribly offensive about any of this, but neither is there anything terribly substantive either.  Professor and Christian Educator Kenda Dean uses terms like “Christian-ish” and “cult of nice” to describe it.  It bears little resemblance to the faith the Church has proclaimed for centuries, but this is not, according to the study, because young people misunderstood the faith or perverted it.  Rather it is the faith that was transmitted to them by their parents and their congregations.[1]

Now Jacob lived a long way from 21^st Century America and “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism,” yet I can see some points of connection, at least prior to Jacob’s wrestling match.  Aside from a few moments of crisis, God seems uninvolved in Jacob’s life.  Jacob is all about using his own wits and cunning, grasping for all that he can, so that he can be happy.  But then God, for all practical purposes, assaults him.  Strangely, the encounter is something of a draw.  God’s blesses Jacob, but he is permanently changed and marked.  He has a new identity, and a limp. 

Now here we are, the dysfunctional descendants of Jacob, still seeking God’s blessing.  One of our current dysfunctions is to imagine a safe, benign God who is not much involved in our lives, who wants only to give us a spiritual lift.  We can scarcely imagine a God who assaults us, grapples with us in a strange encounter that does not defeat us yet transforms and marks us, sends us out with new identities, carrying God’s blessing with us limping as we go.  Such a thing seems preposterous… until the wrestling starts.

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[1] See Kenda Creasy Dean, Almost Christian: What the Faith of Our Teenagers Is Telling the American Church (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010)

Spiritual Hiccups - I Assume I'm Right

In the current partisan bickering in Washington over raising America's debt ceiling, there seem to be different sets of assumptions at work.  One side assumes, with near certainty, than any new tax or even eliminating any tax break is anathema.  The other side assumes that we have a debt problem only because we cut taxes during George W. Bush's presidency, and if we put those revenues back, there would be no problem.  And both side assume, with absolute certainty, that the other side is not only wrong, but delusional.  In such a climate, compromise is virtually impossible because it involves caving in on your "principles."

All of us walk around with a significant number of assumptions.  It would be hard to live normal lives if we didn't, if every day was a completely blank slate and we had no template to work from, no notions of how we should respond, no framework with which to categorize and make sense of what was going on around us.  Trouble is, as necessary as assumptions and templates for living are, they are always provisional, often need adjusting, and are sometimes totally wrong.  Yet in today's political climate, my assumptions often take on the aura of religious convictions.  And with the total triumph of individualism in our culture, my own tastes and personal assumptions often take on this same aura.

In today's gospel reading, Jesus calls Philip to follow him.  Philip in turn tells Nathaniel about Jesus, but Nathaniel's response is, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”  Everyone "knew" that the Messiah wouldn't come from there. 

And in Paul's words to the Roman Christians, he warns them about passing judgment on their fellow believers.  That seems to me another way of saying that our assumptions, including our religious ones, are provisional, that they are never The Truth.  And Paul writes in another famous letter that "We know only in part."  Our truths are always incomplete, and in the meantime, we are to rely on faith, hope and love, with love trumping all else.  (And the love Paul speaks of is not romantic love but the love most clearly modeled in the self-giving life of Jesus.)

Huge numbers of those doing the bickering over the debt ceiling want to claim the label "Christian," and even to apply that label to our nation.  Yet surely no one would characterize their bickering as marked primarily by faith, hope, and love, with love being the greatest. 

I wonder what our life together would look like in church congregations, in communities, in business, and in politics if the only assumption we were certain of was love?

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Spiritual Hiccups - More Miracles!

Yesterday Jesus was feeding thousands from a handful of bread and fish, a miracle sometimes "explained" as an episode of mass sharing.  But if you like your miracles to come with natural explanations, today's gospel poses more of a challenge.  Jesus comes to the disciples as they struggled in their boat against an adverse wind, walking on the sea.  And for good measure, when he gets in the boat the wind stops.  This one is a little harder to "explain."

There is also a grammatical construction in the passage that can't really be carried over into the English.  When Jesus says "It is I," the actual Greek reads, "I am."  That would be the Greek way of saying, "It is I," but it is also a way Greek speaking Jews of the First Century spoke of God.  (Think of the "I AM" speech of God to Moses at the burning bush in Exodus.)  But regardless of whether or not we are supposed to hear an echo of "I AM" in Jesus' words to his disciples, the gospel writer clearly wants us to recognize that all the power of God is present here in Jesus.  His ability to provide food in the wilderness (think manna) and now to walk on the water and cause the wind to cease clearly speak of God's presence, even if the "hardened hearts" of the disciples don't yet perceive it.

Now this may all sound like Christianity 101, but in fact the notion of God fully present in Jesus does not fit all that well with way lots of Christians practice their faith.  If what Jesus says and does carries the full weight of God, then his teachings are not some philosophy to consider, to evaluate and adopt whatever parts sound reasonable to us.  And if God is really present in Jesus, getting mixed up in all the messiness of human life, illness and meals and money and relationships, then faith cannot be only about what I believe, or how I'm feeling spiritually. 

You know, Christian faith would be a whole lot easier if we just used the Thomas Jefferson Bible, Jefferson's attempt to distill the ethics and morals of Jesus' teachings while removing all the supernatural elements that caused so much trouble.  But many of us treasure the Bible too much to actually edit it the way Jefferson did.  Besides, it's even easier just to ignore most of it.

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