Sermon video - Tradition, Boundaries, and Grace

Sermons also available on YouTube.

Sermons also available on YouTube.

Spiritual Hiccups - Jesus, the Troublemaker

Today's gospel reading of Jesus "cleansing the temple" is a famous event in his life.  In the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke), this event seems to galvanize plans to kill Jesus, although in John it happens at the beginning of his ministry.  (I never understood how biblical literalists accounted for this difference.)  But as well known as it is, I think there are some misconceptions.  Jesus' cleansing activity is not in the temple building jtself but within the larger temple complex, part of its courtyards and grounds.  And I'm not sure the people he drives out are very different from the volunteer that runs a little bookstore off the church lounge or the Presbyterian Women selling tickets to win a quilt.  In fact, the people Jesus goes after are more "necessary" than these modern folks.  They were helping out of town pilgrims acquire animals for sacrifice or exchange Roman coins for acceptable coins without idolatrous images of Caesar on them.

This story sometimes makes me wonder about the "business of the church."  Many congregations are significant little enterprises with endowments, investments, and fundraisers.  I get advertising all the time promising to help us increase giving from our members.  And a lot of this material is pure marketing.  I don't know that this is bad, per se, but it still gives me pause when I think of Jesus overturning the tables of folks who were engaged in activities that I probably would have voted for if I had been on the governing board at the temple.

Jesus was quite the troublemaker.  Makes me wonder what he might do if he showed up at our little church enterprise.

Click to learn more about the Daily Lectionary.

Sunday Sermon text - Tradition, Boundaries, and Grace

Matthew 15:10-28

Tradition, Boundaries, and Grace

James Sledge                                               August 14, 2011

Over the last few decades, many congregations have gone through intense struggles over worship styles, and especially over music in worship.  There is even a name for it: “The Worship Wars.”  I went to amazon.com and typed in the term “worship wars” and it immediately showed me seven books with “worship war” in the title, along with others that had something to say about these wars.

Our experience with the worship wars has been pretty low grade here at Boulevard.  For whatever reason, this congregation seems more open to a little experimentation in worship than some others.  But that’s not to say we’ve never had any skirmishes.  When I first arrived in Columbus, I occasionally heard disparaging remarks about “those people who worship in the basement.”  That they said “basement” rather than “Fellowship Hall” says a lot.

And on those summers when we’ve combined our two services, we have sometimes upset folks who want the organ and not the keyboard.  Others thought that using a screen to project words obscured the beauty of the sanctuary.  And some who were used to worshiping in the Fellowship Hall, now chapel, found sanctuary worship too rigid and stifling.

Regardless of worship style, no matter what sort of building or architecture, whatever the elements of a worship service, these quite necessarily become bearers of holiness for those who use them.  If in any way people draw near to God in worship, then of course the elements and appointments of that worship take on a sense of the sacred.

Congregations don’t have fights over carpet colors in the sanctuary or where to put the flowers or what songs to sing because they obsess over the trivial but because worship is important to them.  Every denomination’s, every congregation’s worship traditions, and other traditions as well, are connected to their faith.  And so it is hardly surprising that anything which messes with these traditions is highly suspect.

Tradition issues set the context for our gospel reading this morning. 

Before Jesus heads out to the district of Tyre and Sidon, some of the Pharisees and scribes come to him, bothered by his disciples’ cavalier attitude toward religious tradition, particularly ritual hand washing.  Now ritual washing is about as foreign to us as electric guitars or pipe organs to First Century Jews, but these rituals were an important part of how many Jews tried to maintain a spiritual purity before God.  For a variety of reasons, they had become a significant focus, and ignoring these traditions probably offended the Pharisees in much the same way some of us would be bothered if someone came to worship in ragged cut-offs and a tank top.  And so these religious leaders asked Jesus, “Why?”

Jesus’ response is to blast the Pharisees and scribes for thinking that honoring their particular traditions is the same as honoring God.  He calls them hypocrites and quotes Isaiah to them.  “This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.”

Jesus then turns to the crowds and tells them that neglecting purity rituals doesn’t make one impure.  Religious impurity comes from their words and their actions.

Then Jesus heads out to Tyre and Sidon where he encounters a Canaanite woman, and here the story gets a little strange.  Jesus has just spoken about how traditions can make us hypocrites, yet he proceeds to treat this Gentile woman according to the standard traditions and stereotypes of his day.  And what comes from his mouth seems beyond cruel.

Women were not supposed to approach men publicly, and Jews did not associate with Gentiles to begin with, and so a traditional Jew would not have been at all surprised by how Jesus reacts.  He does not even acknowledge the woman.  But the woman only increases her untraditional, anti-social behavior, following after Jesus and yelling.  The disciples are offended by her behavior and ask Jesus to shoo her away.

At which point, ignoring the woman becomes the nicest thing Jesus does.  Now he not only says that he is sent only to the lost sheep of Israel, but he calls the woman a dog, a typical Jewish slur for Canaanites.  Jesus seems as caught up in his culture’s traditions about women and outsiders as the Pharisees are caught up in theirs about ritual purity.

But then the woman responds to Jesus’ slight about being a dog, turning it on its ear to claim that even dogs should get a little something from the master’s table.  It is a stunning exchange.  No one ever matches wits with Jesus and comes out on top.  Priests and Pharisees and scribes and all sorts of learned religious figures try and always lose.  But now a Gentile, Canaanite woman with an unclean, demon possessed daughter goes toe to toe with Jesus, and Jesus can only say, “Woman, great is your faith!  Let it be done for you as you wish.” 

To be honest, I’ve always been a bit uncomfortable with this piece of Scripture.  How can it be that Jesus, the Son of God, needs to be instructed on God’s grace, needs to have his boundaries expanded?  How can he speak to her as he does after just teaching about impurity that comes out of the mouth?  Indeed some commentators suggest that this an enacted parable by Jesus.  If so, I guess that lets Jesus seem nicer, but it all still seems strange to me. 

And it’s even more curious that Matthew places this story in the context of Jesus blasting the Pharisees over how their traditions created boundaries to God’s grace, how impurity came from one’s words.  But then again these were issues for Matthew’s own congregation.  His Jewish church was increasingly adding Gentile members, and not without some real clashes over traditions and purity.

But I keep coming back to this unnamed, unclean, Canaanite woman whom Jesus calls a dog.  She has broken propriety and tradition to get to Jesus.  She has acted in ways that simply were not done, and when Jesus insults her and tells her, in no uncertain terms, that he has other priorities and is not going to help her, she dares to argue with him, to challenge him.  And Jesus’ assessment of her behavior?  “Woman, great is your faith!” 

And I can’t help but wonder what that says to those of us for whom faith is conventional, tried and true, connected to the habits and practices we grew up with.  Many of us who grew up in the church have picked up lots of assumptions of what worship looks like, what faith looks like, and even assumptions about how God should and would act.  But what happens when God’s grace is bigger than we ever imagined?

If you have a lot invested in a particular faith tradition, in a particular way of doing things, then I suppose it might seem a little threatening to hear that God’s love and grace are bigger than you had imagined, that the boundaries are not where you thought they were.  But if you have ever wondered whether or not you are important enough to matter to God, if you have ever wondered whether God is concerned about you or longs to connect with you, then the idea that God’s tender love and grace has so little respect for boundaries that even Jesus seems surprised, sounds like absolutely wonderful news to me.

Sunday Sermon audio - Tradition, Boundaries, and Grace

Spiritual Hiccups - Defending the Faith

It doesn't take much reading between the lines in this week's verses from Acts to realize that the "Jews" who attack Paul and cause his arrest are actually Jewish Christians.  This is all a part of the fights that roiled the faith as the early Church struggled with how to include Gentiles into the fold.  For a long time the majority opinion was that Gentiles had to first become Jewish in order to be followers of Jesus.  Paul is clearly not in this camp, and it causes him much grief. 

It helps to remember that the early Christians did not think of themselves as a different religion from Judaism.  Jesus was a Jewish Messiah.  And so when Paul welcomes Gentiles into the faith without circumcising them or having them follow Jewish dietary law, he is seen by many Christians as undermining the core of their faith.  And so it seems almost certain that Christians are responsible for the arrest and eventual execution of the the New Testament's most prolific author.

That is truly something to stop and ponder for a moment.  Christians, out of their strong desire to defend the faith, attacked Paul as an enemy of that faith.  The man whose writings would be used by Martin Luther and John Calvin to form the theological underpinnings of the Protestant Reformation was himself killed because other Christians objected to his novel take on Jesus.

Of course there is little reason for us to be surprised.  Faith seems capable of producing both incredible acts of self-giving and sacrifice for the sake of others, as well as heinous acts of hatred and violence in an effort to uphold the integrity, teachings, or purity of that faith.  A person who knew nothing of history and read the story of Jesus might be stunned to learn about Crusades, the Inquisition, forced conversions, and pogroms against Jews.  But we know all too well that religion, even the faith based on one who called his followers to pray for their enemies, can easily be channeled into hate.

I have become increasingly convinced that anytime faith produces hatred, it has gotten off track.  Regardless of whether or not I agree with the stance of those involved, when the voices become shrill and start to spew vitriol, a dangerous line is being crossed.  I do not mean to say that there are not evils and wickedness that need to be challenged and thwarted, but the ends cannot justify the means for those whose faith is rooted in love. 

When you are sure that you are correct about some important element of your faith, how do you view those who hold a view very different from yours?  Are they still your kindred and neighbor, or have they become your enemy?  (Americans might do well to ask similar questions about political views.)

Perhaps there are times when we must label someone an enemy.  But it is a dangerous and often tragic move, as Paul can tell you.

Click to learn more about the Daily Lectionary.

Spiritual Hiccups - The Trouble with Wealth

A lot of people are familiar with the story of Jesus telling a rich man to give all he had to the poor and then follow Jesus.  This wealthy fellow is sometimes referred to as the "rich young ruler," although no such person appears in Scripture.  In Mark he is simply rich.  In Matthew he is young and rich.  And in Luke he is a rich ruler.  But regardless of how he is identified, many of us can stand at some distance from the story.  Jesus didn't say all rich people had to sell all they had, just this fellow.  Jesus didn't say I needed to sell anything.

Of course Jesus has more to say after the rich man goes away shocked and grieving.  He turns to his disciples and says, "'How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!' And the disciples were perplexed at these words."

I'm not sure why we aren't any more perplexed than we are.  Like those first disciples, we are prone to think of wealth as a blessing.  People pray to win the lottery or to get a better paying job.  We spend much of our lives trying to acquire wealth.  So shouldn't we be a bit befuddled to hear Jesus say that this wealth is a huge impediment to our being a part of God's new day, to being a part of God's redemption of all creation?

The standard American dodge on this one has been to say that we aren't really wealthy.  Only in America do people making hundreds of thousands of dollars claim they are "middle class," just as only in America would someone build the palatial mansion constructed by George Vanderbilt in Asheville, NC and call it Biltmore House.  Or as Vanderbilt sometimes referred to is, his "little mountain escape."

But in recent years, while we still like the label "middle class" we have lost much of our aversion to being wealthy.  TV commercials sell us financial planning products to help us "build wealth."  So as we seek to build wealth, or as we fret when our wealth disappears in the latest stock market decline, what are we to think when Jesus says to us, "How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!"?  What is so bad about wealth?  Why is it so problematic for being part of what God is doing to remake the world?

One thing that strikes me immediately is how wealth separates us from the very people God is so concerned about, the poor and the vulnerable.  I've noted in this blog before how even Christian churches tend to segregate themselves by income levels.  But having wealth separates us from those without it in many other ways.  They live in different neighborhoods from us.  They shop at different stores from us.  Often they attend different schools from us.  Worse, we often presume these divisions are "their fault" just as we presume that our wealth is our doing.  And so when Jesus speaks of bringing good news to the poor, we tune it out.  Talk to us about personal salvation Jesus, not about the poor.

For many years, part of the genius of the American experience was that it tended to blur the differences between rich and poor.  One could have a small farm or get a job at the factory and make a decent living.  Of course the owner of that factory made a much better living, but the salaries were in the same universe.  But in recent decades, salaries for those at the top have soared while those at the bottom of declined.  And, as a group, those at the top seem absolutely intent on preserving the advantages that separate them from those at the bottom.  In essence, they seem hellbent on maintaining a situation that Jesus seems to deplore. 

One hundred years ago it was popular for Americans to think of our country as shining light on the hill, an embodiment of the new Jerusalem.  Clearly there was always a bit of hubris in such thinking, but just as clearly, we are moving further and further from any notion that the ordering of our society somehow embodies God's new day.  And making bellwether issues out of gay marriage or prayer in the schools only distracts us from Jesus' teachings on the kingdom, on God's new day. 

"How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!"  Jesus doesn't say it's impossible, just very, very, hard.  And as our nation seems headed down the road of cutting programs to the most vulnerable in order to solve our national debt, we appear to be proving him correct.

Click to learn more about the Daily Lectionary.

Spiritual Hiccups - That's Not What the Rules Say

The other day I ran across this quote in Richard Rohr's daily meditation.  "When you lose the mystical level, you always become moralistic as a cheap substitute."  (You can sign up to receive Rohr's meditations here.)  Religion is often associated with morality, and not without reason.  Certainly God created the world and us to live in certain ways, and practices of fairness and basic morality are a part of living a life that is pleasing to God.  But while morality is a part of one's faith life, no one should ever confuse morality for faith.  Abiding by the rules is a poor substitute for a life lived "in Christ." 

It is curious how some folks who are so insistent that being Christian requires a "personal relationship with Christ" will then speak of Christian faith in terms of doing what the rules in the Bible say.  While relationships may require certain sorts of patterns and ordering behavior to support them, no relationship can be reduced to keeping the rules.  Jesus himself makes that clear in today's gospel.

The Old Testament laws on marriage, divorce, and sexuality are still brought up with some regularity in modern debates about sexuality.  But Jesus characterizes some of these commandments as little more than accommodations to our "hardness of heart."  And as Jesus speaks on marital relationships, he makes a rather startling claim.  He says that divorcing one's wife is to commit adultery against her.  But if you look at the Old Testament commandments in question, adultery is a crime that can only be committed against a man.  Old Testament adultery is essentially a property crime in that it damages goods that belong to some man.  But Jesus completely redefines the marital relationship here, changing it from a contractual agreement governed by laws and rules, to a mystical union.  And that brings me back to Richard Rohr's comment.  "When you lose the mystical level, you always become moralistic as a cheap substitute."  

I don't know many people who would dismiss the need for rules and morality in human affairs.  But just as no marriage can be what is should be simply on the basis of following the rules, so life with God can never be what it should be simply on the basis of rules.  Or as the Apostle Paul writes to the Galatians as he speaks on our freedom in Christ, "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.  There is no law against such things."  And I might add, there is no law or rule that can produce such things.

Click to learn more about the Daily Lectionary.

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

Sermons also available on YouTube.

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?

Click to learn more about the Daily Lectionary.

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.”

---

[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.