Sunday sermon - Sharing What God Has Done

Mark 1:40-45

Sharing What God Has Done

James Sledge                                                   February 12, 2012

When our Discipleship Ministry Team began to discuss having a “Bring a Friend Sunday” at Boulevard, I shared what happened when we did one in my previous congregation.  Some may have heard this story before; if so, please bear with me. 

Bring a Friend Sundays were dreamed up many years ago as a way to help congregations that weren’t very good at evangelism.  The idea is to designate a special Sunday to invite friends in the hopes that the idea of an event will make it easier to invite people.  With that in mind, Bring a Friend Sundays often include something such as a lunch after worship.

That’s what we did at the congregation in Raleigh, NC.  We only had one worship service, and so it was easy to have a lunch in the Fellowship Hall when the service ended.  And this lunch also made it easier for folks to say to their friend, “Hey, we’re having special Sunday at our church where all the members invite friends, and we’re having a big lunch afterward.  Would you join us?”

When we did the first of these, the turnout was amazing.  We may have had some Easter and Christmas Eve services with more people, but beyond those, I’d never seen that many people in the sanctuary.  And our Fellowship Hall was overflowing with people at the lunch.  Everyone involved in planning the day was all smiles.  It had exceeded our wildest expectations.

But our excitement began to fade a bit when we started going through the friendship pads from the pews. 

Not that people hadn’t signed them; by and large they had.  But along with their names, most of those friends had included another bit of information: the name of the church where they were members.

It soon became apparent that almost every single friend who joined us that Sunday was an active member of some other church.  It was a bit bewildering.  We had made clear in publicizing the event that it was for the purpose of evangelism, so why had it become simply a fellowship Sunday with people from other churches?  I really don’t know for sure.  I suspect that our members wanted to support the event.  We had talked it up for a couple of months in advance, and they wanted it to be a success.  And so the felt that they had to invite people.

Now here’s where I a bit unsure about what happened.  Perhaps most of our members didn’t have any good friends who weren’t church folks.  I imagine that could have been true for some.  But perhaps some of them did have friends who weren’t church members, but they just didn’t quite know how to invite them.  And so they only invited church friends.  Perhaps there was something else at work; I don’t really know.

However, there was clearly something going on that made it difficult for our members to invite non-church friends, even with a free lunch.  And this became abundantly clear when we held a second Bring a Friend Sunday the next year.  Remembering our previous experience, we asked people not to invite members of other churches to the event, but friends who weren’t active in a congregation.  Our members got the message.  They didn’t invite any church friends, and attendance that Sunday didn’t look any different from a typical Sunday.

Now if we did in fact have members with no non-Christian friends, that would fit with a misperception that some Christians have.  A number of Christians seem to have gotten the idea that they should not associate with non-church folks.  But when you think about the sort of folks Jesus hung out with, and when you remember that he told his followers to reach out to all people and help them become disciples, it’s a bit hard to reconcile being the body of Christ while avoiding those outside the church.

But I’m not convinced that this was the main reason no one invited a friend to the second Bring a Friend Sunday in Raleigh.  I think they were simply terrified at the idea of evangelism.  It wasn’t scary to invite a church friend to join them one Sunday, but sharing their faith with someone who didn’t do the church thing, that was another matter.

As a rule Presbyterians struggle with evangelism.  We worry about starting a conversation and getting in over our heads.  Perhaps you’ve heard people say, or even said yourself, “What if they ask me something I don’t know the answer to?  I don’t really understand my faith well enough to share it.  I can’t explain the Trinity.”  

I’m not sure where the idea came from that evangelism requires a firm grasp of Christian doctrine.  That’s certainly not the case with the leper in our gospel reading today.  He doesn’t know any Christian doctrine.  He doesn’t even know about the cross or resurrection since neither has yet happened.  But when Jesus heals him he began to proclaim it freely. Proclaim; that’s the same thing John the Baptist and Jesus have done, and the same thing Jesus will shortly charge the twelve disciples to do.  And this former leper proclaims even though Jesus has expressly told him not to do so.

If someone asks him exactly how Jesus healed him, he won’t be able to tell them.  If someone wants to know if Jesus is the only way you can be healed of leprosy, he won’t know that either.   If someone asks him what Jesus thinks about abortion or higher taxes on the rich, this former leper will likely have no idea.  But what he knows for sure is that Jesus has touched him and made him new, made him well, made him whole, saved him.  And he can’t stop telling folks what God has done for him through Jesus.

As part of the run-up to next week’s Bring a Friend Sunday, Discipleship Team members have been sharing experiences of when they were alone or afraid and someone reached out to connect with them.  A couple of weeks ago, Ginny Achtermann shared her story of how God’s love and care had touched her.  If you weren’t here, she spoke of a time when she had just come home from the hospital following surgery.  Her mother had come to help care for her, but shortly after arriving, her mother experienced such intense pain that she wanted to go to the hospital.  But Ginny was not feeling well enough to take her, and was not yet cleared to drive anyway. 

As Ginny wondered what she would do, the phone rang.  It was a woman from her church, someone Ginny barely knew.  The person said she had a feeling that Ginny could use some help, and this woman came to Ginny’s house, took her Mom to the ER, and waited several hours there as doctors attended to her.

Now certainly it doesn’t quite rise to the level of being cured of leprosy, but at that moment, the woman who called was a life-saver, a God-send.  And Ginny was able to share without hesitation this experience of God’s love that connected with her when she most needed it.  I don’t think Ginny mentioned any theological doctrines when she shared her story.  She did not weigh in on any hot button issues of the day.  She simply proclaimed what God had done for her through a disciple of Christ who ministered to her in a time of need.

Surely every one of us has a similar story to share, to proclaim.  Surely the love of God in Jesus has touched us in some way that has changed us, freed us for a better life, let us experience God’s love and compassion in some tangible way.  It seems to me that if we cannot proclaim a time that God’s love, care, or compassion touched us, then our Christianity is more philosophy than faith.  And if that is the case, no wonder the pews of America’s churches are less and less full.  Why would anyone want to come sing hymns to a philosophy?  Why would they want to offer prayers to an idea?

Has Jesus touched you in some way?  Has Jesus used you to share his touch with others?  Centuries ago, when a leper encountered Jesus’ healing touch, he couldn’t stop himself from letting others know.  Jesus says to him, “See that you say nothing to anyone…  But he went out and began to proclaim it freely, and to spread the word.

Spiritual Hiccups - (Not So) Practical Advice

After Paul has shared something of his theology with the Christians in Rome, he begins to speak of what it looks like to live as one who is "in Christ."  My Bible has a heading over today's lectionary reading that says, "Marks of the True Christian."  And if you've spent much time in church, you probably heard some of these. 

Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; ¹⁰love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor. ¹¹Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord. ¹²Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. ¹³Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers.

¹⁴Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. ¹⁵Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. ¹⁶Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are. ¹⁷Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. ¹⁸If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. ¹⁹Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord." ²⁰No, "if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads." ²¹Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. 

It strikes me that when taken as advice, a lot of these are not terribly practical.  Feed my hungry enemy?  Surely not.  Never avenge myself?  Where's the fun in that?  Bless those who persecute me?  I don't think so.

The US presidential campaign speaks of Christian faith often.  Barack Obama spoke of his at a prayer breakfast last week, and the Republican candidates spend a great deal of time cultivating a conservative Christian base.  And yet American politics is about as mean and nasty an enterprise as there is.  The name calling and accusations are sometimes enough to make a sailor blush.  I suppose all the candidates missed that line about mutual affection, the call to "outdo one another in showing honor."  Imagine that, a political campaign where the candidates couldn't stop saying nice things about each other.

We all know that won't happen because you can't get elected that way.  (If we really needed proof that America has never been a "Christian nation" in any deep sense of the term, here it is.)  There are a lot of Jesus' teaches that don't generally lead to the things our culture says are important.  Loving enemies, forgiving people repeatedly, and happily suffering and sacrificing for others' sakes do not often lead to success, comfort, or prestige.

I don't think I've ever known a Christian who didn't modify the life Jesus recommends for practical considerations( though I've known some who did very little such accommodating).  Theological doctrines have been developed to allow some of this - the notion of "just war" for example.  But I suspect that most of it goes on with little theological thought.  We simply presume that Jesus doesn't object to our normal way of doing things.  How else could Christian politicians treat opponents the way they do, and how else could I be so attracted to money and the things it can buy me?

It's interesting that while we live in a time when politics increasingly demands ideological purity and sees compromise as a dirty word, most of us practice a faith born of many compromises.  We have all sorts of practical reasons why we can't do this thing or that thing Jesus says to do, even as we latch on to a few litmus test issues where we will not budge, insisting that they are required by our faith.

Perhaps if we all thought a bit more about our own compromises with Jesus' teachings, we'd be more understanding and forgiving.  Perhaps we'd find it harder to "see the speck in (our) neighbor's eye but... not notice the log in (our) own eye."  

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Spiritual Hiccups - Calls I Have Known

I have just accepted a call to become the pastor at another church.  It is a wonderful congregation filled with wonderful people, located in an exciting place to live.  By most any measure, I should be euphoric, but at the moment I am not.  If anything, I am feeling rather subdued and lethargic.  This is in no way because of doubts or second thoughts regarding my new call.  Rather it is partly because that new call does not actually begin for two months. And it is because I am currently trying to perform the regular duties of a pastor in my present call, even as I work with the leadership here to bring that call to an end.

Interesting how when Jesus calls people to follow him in the gospel accounts, they typically drop everything and go with him.  In Luke 9:61-62, this pattern is demanded.  A would be follower of Jesus says, "I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home."  To which Jesus replies, "No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God." 

Jesus' remark is a clear reference to when the prophet Elijah called Elisha (see 1 Kings 19:19-21), and I'm hoping this is Luke's way of saying that following Jesus takes a commitment greater than that of Elisha rather than a literal description of how we should respond to any call from Jesus.

Further complicating things, my new call is hardly my original call to follow Jesus.  Jesus called me to the congregation I currently serve.  Jesus said, "Leave where you are and go to Boulevard Presbyterian." Here I have become part of a faith community also called by Christ.  But now Jesus says, "Leave them, and go." 

This new call certainly supersedes the former, but that doesn't mean it invalidates it.  And so for the moment I find myself with two calls.  This is hardly a unique experience.  Many of us are called to be partners in the covenant of marriage, also called to be parents, also called to some additional work in the world, and also called to serve in the ministry of a congregation as elders, deacons, teachers, mission volunteers, etc.  And these different calls do not always play well together.

And so, for the moment, I find myself living within a tension between calls.  It is a tension that will resolve in the near future as one call concludes and another begins in earnest, but for the moment it is a little difficult to focus.  Regardless, I am in no hurry to resolve this tension.  I have learned over the years that much creativity is born of living with a tension and not working too hard to resolve it.  One does not resolve the tension between calls as spouse and parent (at least not if one wishes to live both calls well), but grows and develops by living within that tension.

This strange place in which if currently find myself has me a bit off-balance, but I trust that this will provide openings for me to see something new, to become more deeply aware of God is at work, to grow in ways that better prepare me for my new call.  And I can only assume that a similar opportunity exist for both the congregations where I am called.  Somewhere in the tension between past and future, goodbyes and hellos, beginnings and ends, God seeks to create something new where both congregations can grow in faith and hear more clearly where Jesus is calling each of them.

Goodbye letter to Boulevard Presbyterian

February 6, 2012

Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ,

Yesterday at a congregational meeting, Falls Church Presbyterian Church in Falls Church, VA voted to call me as their next pastor.  I have accepted their call and will begin my ministry there April 10.  I am excited about this new opportunity, but deeply saddened at the thought of saying goodbye to all of you at Boulevard.  The excitement of a new call is accompanied by a deep sense of loss, but Shawn and I have spent a great deal of time in prayer and conversation trying to discern just what it is God has planned for us and for Boulevard.  And we both came to the conclusion that God is calling all of us to something new. 

It does not seem that long to me, but we came to Boulevard over 11 years ago, when Kendrick was in middle school and Emma in elementary.  That means that I have spent the vast majority of my 16 years as a pastor here at BPC.  My understanding of what it means to be a pastor has largely been forged through my relationship with you, and for that I am profoundly grateful.  We have been through our share of ups and downs, good and bad, and I have a great love and admiration for this remarkable faith community.  It will be very hard to leave.

But at the same time, I am convinced that my call to a new congregation is also a call for Boulevard.  God must have someone in mind who possesses different gifts and strengths, ones better suited to help lead this congregation into the future.  And so along with sadness, I also feel great confidence that God has plans for you.

There are many leaders of deep faith in this congregation who will work hard and listen carefully for the Spirit’s guidance during this time.  Still, I’m sure there will be anxieties as you move into the unknown.  And I will work with Session and Presbytery prior to my departure sometime in mid-March to help things go as smoothly as possible, making arrangements to fill the pulpit, insure ongoing pastoral care, moderate the Session, and so on.  These temporary arrangements will give Boulevard’s leaders time to find the right interim pastor, after which you will begin the process of searching for and calling that new pastor God has in mind.

You will be in my prayers all that time.  Boulevard will always have a special place in my heart, and I am thankful that Shawn and I will have plenty of time for personal goodbyes.  Thank you again for the privilege of serving you.  I pray that God’s love and grace will wash over you and keep you secure in the knowledge that Jesus is with you every step of the way.

Love and peace in Christ,

James Sledge

Sermon preached for Falls Church Presbyterian, Falls Church, VA

On February 5th, I preached at Falls Church Presbyterian Church.  Following that worship service, the congregation voted to call me as their next pastor, and I will begin there on April 10, 2012.  Below is the text of the sermon.

Mark 1:29-39

Called To Serve

James Sledge                                                       February 5, 2012

Twenty years ago, I lived in Charlotte, NC, working as a corporate pilot.  Shawn and I had two young girls and had been thinking about selling our starter home and upgrading to something bigger and nicer.  But, at the same time, I had become more and more active at our church and had begun to experience the first stirrings of a call to become a pastor.

I flew to Atlanta a lot, and one day I took the opportunity to visit Columbia Seminary and discuss my developing sense call I with the folks there.  They suggested that I attend a weekend event that was coming up soon, an event tailor made for folks like me, an event designed to help people explore a call to attend seminary.

That sounded perfect; so I signed up.  Then it dawned on me that I should probably say something to Shawn before a big packet of materials emblazoned with the Columbia Theological Seminary’s logo arrived in the mail.  I had not yet mentioned anything to her about a call or seminary, and so I started to look for a good opportunity to bring it up. As luck would have it, we had planned a trip to the homecoming football game at Clemson, Shawn’s alma mater, and the two of us would be alone in the car for drive down.

Now you don’t just blindside your wife with, “Hey I’m thinking about going to seminary.”  So I decided to steer the conversation onto the general topic of religion and call. And I actually managed to pull it off.  We were headed down Interstate 85, having a nice conversation about call, and I was feeling quite proud of myself.

In the course of this conversation, Shawn shared a story of someone from her hometown of Gaffney, SC, a man widely admired for the work he had done as educator and head of the school system there.  Shawn told me how he had originally planned to become a pastor, but his fiancée had been so opposed to the idea—threatening not to marry him—that he ended up discovering a true calling in education as a teacher, a principal, and a school superintendent.

The conversation wasn’t going exactly as I had hoped, but it was still okay.  At least it was until Shawn finished her story by saying, “And I understand how his fiancée felt.  I know I could never be a minister’s wife.”

All that work, and that’s what I got.  At that point I saw no option other than to blurt it out.  “I’m thinking about going to seminary.”  Let’s just say it was a long weekend.

Now in fact, Shawn has been a wonderful partner in my work as a pastor, but it is easy to appreciate her not wanting to be a pastor’s wife.  Old notions of the pastor’s wife have changed a great deal thanks to the ordination of women and the large number of women in the workforce.  But many of us still remember those old role expectations, and they’ve not completely disappeared.  I had a seminary classmate who interviewed with a small congregation in western Virginia.  When the nominating committee showed him and his wife around the sanctuary, one of them pointed to the piano, looked straight at his wife and said, “And this is where you’ll play.”  She didn’t play the piano.

The persistence of stereotyped gender roles, such as  “the pastor’s wife,” bothers me.  I think that is why I cringed just a bit when I first read the gospel lesson for today.  Perhaps you heard it, too.  Jesus goes to Simon and Andrew’s house where Simon’s mother-in-law is sick in bed.  (Jesus) came and took her by the hand and lifted her up.  Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them.  So, the men show up, but Mom’s under the weather.  No worry.  Jesus cures her so she can wait on the guys. 

After reading this, I almost preached on the Isaiah passage.  But I have discovered over the years that my first reaction often misleads me.  And while at first glance Simon’s mother-in-law may seem to have been slotted into menial women’s work, on closer examination I think she may just be the one person in the story who “gets it.”

Not counting the crowds that flock to Jesus for healing, the main characters in our reading are Jesus of course, then Simon, Andrew, James, and John, and finally Simon’s mother-in-law.  We’re told that she serves them.  But we also hear what the four disciples do.  When they realize that Jesus has gone off somewhere early the next morning, they hunted for him.  That may sound like they just went looking for him, but that’s not what the Greek word means.  It means to pursue, usually with hostile intent.  It’s what your army does to the opposing forces.  So it’s a bit strange that Mark describes the disciples pursuing Jesus in this manner.

It may help to remember that in Mark’s gospel, the disciples don’t come off all that well.  They are repeatedly described as having “no faith,” and their failure to comprehend will later be epitomized by James and John’s audacious request to sit at Jesus’ side in his glory, a request that prompts Jesus to say, “Whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant… For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”  To serve; like Simon’s mother-in-law did.  And when Jesus does give his life on the cross, Mark tells us that all the disciples flee.  But there are a few women there when he’s crucified, women who used to follow him and serve him when he was in Galilee.  Serve; there it is again.

I read a piece in Huffington Post the other day entitled, “Why Evangelicals Hate Jesus.”[1]  The author admitted that the title is more provocative than true.  In fact, he says, evangelicals love Jesus a great deal for what he does for them, namely saving them from hell.  But, he says, they aren’t very interested in the manner of life he recommends. 

Neither, it seems, are Jesus’ disciples.  They pursue Jesus when he isn’t at the store handing out miracles.  They want him to come back and set up shop.  They have a template they expect Jesus to fit into.  But Jesus moves on, headed to the next town.

On some level, I think many of us relate to Jesus in a manner similar to evangelicals who “hate” Jesus.  We like Jesus just fine, but we’re less thrilled about what he tells us to do: loving enemies, forgiving folks over and over and over, losing ourselves for the sake of the gospel, becoming a servant to all.  A lot of us had much rather be served than serve.

But when Jesus reaches out and touches Simon Peter’s mother-in-law, she begins to serve.  She seems to get it.  Now perhaps I’m making too much of something that looks pretty mundane, even menial.  But then again, serving is often mundane and menial.  Ministry is often mundane and menial.  By ministry, I’m not really talking about pastors.  I’m talking about the ministry of loving others, caring for others, doing small things that no one else may notice but that bring God’s love, acceptance, and touch to someone who needs it. 

Andrew, a University of Chicago Divinity School student, was spending a summer in Bosnia, studying religion and reconciliation in the Balkans.  While there he was invited by a Sarajevo based interfaith choir made up of Catholics, Orthodox, Muslims, and atheists to travel with them to the Serbian capital and witness firsthand the reconciling potential of religious music.  One of the places they sang was for Mass at a Catholic church.  The choir filled the sanctuary with beautiful harmonies, singing Orthodox chants and Catholic hymns.  But for Andrew, the unity from the music was quickly shattered as the singing stopped and the Eucharist began.  As people began to go forward for communion, the sanctuary was divided between Catholics, who could receive communion, and others.

Andrew twisted in the pew to let Catholic worshippers go forward as he bowed for what he called “a little prayer of Protestant protest.”  But, Andrew writes,  “When I lifted my eyes, I saw a portly man in a white robe scurrying down the side aisle.  His eyes sought me out with a quizzical look, like a little boy searching for his parents in a crowd.  His glasses bobbled down his short, round nose as he raced down the aisle – too quickly for a priest, too quickly for a 60-year-old man.

“The whole scene was awkward.  With 20 or so people still in line to receive the Eucharist, this Bosnian Franciscan took a handful of the host and sought me out of the crowd.  Nearly out of breath, he lifted the small plate toward me.  I stood up from my pew.”

“Will you have communion?” the priest asked.

“Yes I will,” muttered Andrew.

“Christ’s body, broken for you,” the priest said as he placed the bread in Andrew’s hand.[2]

Catholic priests generally don’t run down church aisles during Mass, and they certainly don’t do so to serve communion to non-Catholics.  But this one did, looking quite foolish, as well as breaking Catholic rules in the process.  I can only imagine that he had experienced Christ’s healing, transforming touch, and he felt compelled to serve, no matter how it looked.

You and I have experienced Christ’s touch, too, haven’t we?  So where are you called to serve?  Where are we called to serve together?

---

[1] Phil Zuckerman, The Huffington Post, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/phil-zuckerman/why-evangelicals-hate-jes_b_830237.html

[2] Andrew Packman, “Table Manners,” The Christian Century Vol. 129, No. 1 (January 11, 2012) p. 10

Spiritual Hiccups - Fast-Fowarding the Bible

All deacons, ruling elders, and teaching elders (our term for pastors) in the Presbyterian Church (USA) answer a number of questions as part of their ordination.  The second of those questions asks, "Do you accept the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be, by the Holy Spirit, the unique and authoritative witness to Jesus Christ in the Church universal, and God’s Word to you?"

There is some wonderfully nuanced theology in that question, but it still speaks to the "unique and authoritative witness" of the Bible.  It is where we go to discover who God is and what God wishes for us.  Yet for all this status we accord Scripture, we find it easy to live in ways that undermine our claim that it is "unique and authoritative."  For that matter even biblical literalists, with much less nuanced theology, still find it easy to skirt the authority of Scripture.

The first paragraph of today's reading from Hebrews is an easy case in point.  When I read these words I am tempted to fling some of them at those who seem to hate immigrants or condone the torture of other human beings in order to protect us.  "See, it says right there in the Bible to show hospitality to strangers and to remember those being tortured as though you yourselves were being tortured."

But many like myself with  more "progressive" leanings hit the fast-forward button when we get to words about adultery and fornication, in a hurry to get past them.  A lot of us on the left and the right find money very enticing, and we rarely are content with what we have.  So we rush past these words but linger with those that challenge us less.

Now I'm not suggesting that we could solve this problem if we all just took every single Bible verse literally.  The Bible is a remarkably complex work that resists most simplistic attempts to embrace or apply it.  But it seems to me that all Christians, regardless of the theological or political camps we inhabit, need to ask ourselves whether or not the Bible can change how we view things.  Does the Bible have any capacity to transform us, or do we hear it in such a way that it always agrees with our current stances on everything?  I'm reasonably certain that if we think all our beliefs, priorities, political positions, social norms, measures of good or bad, etc. are in line with God and the Bible, we've fallen into John Calvin's grand-prize-winner in the hit parade of sins, idolatry.

Author Anne Lamott says much the same thing in oft repeated quote.  “You can safely assume you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.”

Most all of us enjoy those passages of Scripture that resonate with who we are and what's important to us.  But even the most faithful of Christians surely need occasionally to slow down and spend some quality time with those passages we prefer to fast-forward.

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Spiritual Hiccups - We're All in This Together

Today's verses from Hebrews contain some of my favorite lines in Scripture. The writer has been speaking at length about faith, how a long litany of Old Testament heroes and heroines did what they did by faith.  But then the writer shifts gears.

Yet all these, though they were commended for their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better so that they would not, apart from us, be made perfect. Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us...

The writer here insists on something that sounds very odd to the modern ear.  Our faith and our "salvation" is connected to the faithful of the past.  In fact, our faith reaches back and includes them in God's saving activity.  Salvation history has an arc, a movement that requires our faith to be joined to the faith of others, even to those long dead.

This is largely at odds with many current notions of faith.  In American Christianity, faith tends to be a private thing.  I believe and so I get saved.  But the Apostle Paul speaks of the body of Christ with each person having their distinct and essential role, and the ancient creed speaks of a "communion of saints."

When I grew up in the Presbyterian Church, I heard the Lord's Supper referred to almost exclusively as "communion."  But what I saw didn't seem to have much communing.  Perhaps there was communing with God that I couldn't see, but there surely wasn't much communing between worshipers.

We did communion by passing trays containing cubes of bread and little cups of juice down the pews from person to person.  But there was very little feel of  family or friends gathered at a meal together.  This was a solemn event, and people often avoided eye contact as they passed the elements.  They didn't even serve one another as you might expect.  Instead they handed the tray off, that person held the plate and took a piece of bread, then passed it to the next person who did the same.

When I first became a pastor, I tried to get the congregation to say "The bread of life," to their neighbor as they passed the plate, but most people wouldn't do it.  It broke the very private moment.  Funny how we can be in worship with a crowd of people and remain by ourselves.  Worship sometimes looks less like community and more like going to the movies.

Perhaps this is the dark/shadow side of American individualism.  While individualism has encouraged people to do great things and allowed people to break free rigid class distinctions, without something to bind us all together, it becomes "everyone for his or herself chaos."  Certainly American politics seems to have lost some of its sense of a covenant community whose fates are intertwined.  We have become less a communion of citizens and more a collection of like thinking interest groups.

In his first letter to the church at Corinth, the Apostle Paul chastises the Corinthians for pursuing their own spiritual gratification without thought of their fellow believers.  And the writer of Hebrews goes further, saying that our faith binds us to saints past, present, and future.  Our perseverance in the race set before us draws others along.  It seems we're all in this together.

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Spiritual Hiccups - Something to Eat

So we need something more than bread.  Even manna won't do, at least according to Jesus in the gospel of John.  One thing I've learned about reading John's gospel is that taking him literally usually leads you astray.  That's what happens with Nicodemus in the famous "born again" passage.  Nick hears "born again," the literal meaning of Jesus' words, which is why he asks about getting back in the womb.  But Jesus is talking about a spiritual rebirth, a birth "from above."  (Bible translators have to decide whether to put "born again" or "born from above" in this passage, but either call makes the conversation somewhat difficult to understand.)

And so when Jesus speaks of "eating his flesh and drinking his blood," it's a good bet that hearing him literally will lead us astray.  That his opponents do understand him literally is also a clear sign that we should not.  Allusions to the Lord's Supper are surely intended here, even though John's gospel does not include Jesus establishing this sacrament.  The fact that Jesus is "the Word made flesh" may also play into this.  God's wisdom, God's creative Word, is available to us in Jesus, who will "abide" in us.  And abiding is the same language Jesus uses to speak of the gift of the Spirit.

His flesh may also refer to the life he gives up on the cross, his saving death.  Here John Calvin makes the interesting observation that flesh, which is normally destined to die and decay, becomes, in Jesus, the source of eternal life. Jesus' fleshy human body, the very body that eventually fails each of us, becomes the way in which God becomes present to and in us.

I don't think I've begun to exhaust the many ways to hear Jesus' words on eating his flesh, words that are rather jarring at first glance.  And perhaps there is a good lesson here on sitting with Jesus' words a while rather than rushing to decide what they mean or what they report.  Literalist readings of Scripture fail us here just as Jesus Seminar type attempts to recover what the historical Jesus actually said.  New life in Jesus will not come from believing the Bible word for word or from distilling an accurate historical picture.  It will come from an encounter with the Word, the vital, living, creative, logos of God.  And this Word will never quite fit in the boxes we create for it.

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Spiritual Hiccups - No Heaven When We Die?

It is interesting how Christian thought on life after death gradually diverged from the thinking of biblical writers.  Many, if not most, Christians think in terms of going to heaven when they die.  In fact, this has become the normative understanding of resurrection for many.  But that is not the thinking of the Apostle Paul, nor does it fit well with what Jesus speaks in today's gospel when he says that "the hour is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and will come out — those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation."

Jesus here follows typical Jewish thinking on the resurrection.  It was something that happened at the end of the age when all the dead would be raised.  Paul speaks in the same manner when he talks about what happens at "the coming of the Lord."  When that day arrives Christ will come from heaven "and the dead in Christ will rise first."  Presumably they have simply been dead until this point.

Jesus' own resurrection was understood as a sign that the new age was arriving.  What had happened to him was a foreshadowing of what would happen to those who had died.  His was the pattern: dead and in the grave, then resurrection.  Jesus' soul did not float off to heaven when he died.  (A wonderful discussion on resurrection and heaven can be found in N. T. Wright's book, Surprised by Hope.)

But as I think about the gospel lesson this morning, I'm less concerned at the moment with getting a doctrine of resurrection correctly formulated and more interested in how beliefs with scant biblical evidence can become so central, so beloved, and so impervious to any challenge.  Indeed suggesting that people don't go to heaven when they die will get you labeled a heretic by many.

Where do our most cherished articles of faith come from?  How did we acquire them and what is it that confirms them for us?  If we somehow experience Jesus in our life, does that mean everything we think about Jesus and faith is true?  In 1 John it says, "We know that (Jesus) abides in us by the spirit that he has given us."  But the letter immediately adds, "Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see which are from God."  It seems that experiencing a spiritual presence is no guarantee.

One need only look at the incredible number of Christian denominations, most of them the product of disagreements over belief and practice, to recognize that people of deep faith can't seem to agree on lots of important issues.  How to use the Bible, how salvation works, the role of women, when and how to baptize, who gets "saved," works versus faith, and what happens during the Lord's Supper; these are but a fraction of the issues that divide us.  And either one of the many denominations has gotten it figured out just right (meaning the rest of us are all wrong), or all of us are wrong about some things.

I want to suggest two seemingly contradictory things.  What we believe is important, and we should work very hard to understand and refine our beliefs and theology.  This is our guard against beliefs and practices that are little more than habits that suit us and feel comfortable.  I'm not sure there is any such thing as a generic Christian, at least not one of much substance.  But at the same time, we must recognize that our very best efforts at theology and practice fall short.  Any arrogance that too quickly dismisses others because they don't agree with us has forgotten how we see "dimly" and "know only in part," to borrow from Paul.

Are you planning on heaven when you die?  Is that a primary concern of Christian faith, or a secondary one?  Where did you get your answers to such questions?  And would you consider rethinking such answers if doing so drew you deeper into life with Christ? 

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Spiritual Hiccups - Don't Worry, Be Happy

Happy are those whose help 
    is the God of Jacob,
  whose hope is in the LORD their God,
who made heaven and earth,
  the sea, and all that is in them; 
who keeps faith forever;  
    who executes justice for the oppressed;
  who gives food to the hungry.

Psalm 146:5-7

If I'm not as happy as I'd wish, I may have just found the problem.  I like to think that I'm in good with God, that I'm attuned to Jesus' call, but the fact is that my help and my hope are often elsewhere.  I may not put my "trust in princes" as Psalm 146 warns against, but I have a laundry list of things that get in line ahead of God.

I have to admit that I've bought into the consumerist gospel and think I'll be happy if I have a few more nice things.  But "enough" is always just a bit beyond my reach which leads to typical "If only..." statements about winning the lottery or experiencing some other sort of financial windfall.

And like a lot of Americans, I long for political leadership that will fix things and make them better. Maybe this is our version of "trust in princes."  We imagine there is someone who will do the trick.  But things rarely work out as well as we hope, and so the political pendulum can swing quickly.  We're often ready to fire our princes in the manner of football coaches who don't turn a losing team around fast enough.

Speaking of football coaches, Urban Meyer, the new coach here in Columbus, has sparked a few letters to the editor around his plans to offer optional Bible studies and chapel services for his players.  I'm not really interested in the actual debate over this.  I'm more interested in an understanding of Christian faith that I saw in one of those letters to the editor.  The writer defended Myer's classes by saying, in part, "What's wrong with teaching young men not to steal, covet or lie, and to treat others as you would want to be treated?... Again, I ask, what is the progressives' problem with a dynamic role model, a coach, teaching moral principles based on the Bible?"

I know nothing about this fellow's religious beliefs, but I feel comfortable saying that many "Christians"understand faith along the lines of his letter.  Faith means believing in God/Jesus and being more or less moral.  And it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with totally trusting your life to God/Jesus.  Believing and being good is not at all what the psalm says leads to happiness or what Jesus says it means to follow him (self denial and taking up the cross for instance).

But while I go in for a little more serious version of faith than "believe and be good," we're talking a matter of degrees here.  And when I find myself worrying about happiness, or success, or why a new initiative at the church hasn't turned out like we hoped, Jesus often isn't really involved in the conversation.  It's all a matter of plans, strategy, abilities, technique, leadership, etc.  Things work when such things are good, but fail when they are poor.  And God doesn't seem to have a big role one way or another.

Jesus calls us to the difficult work of discipleship.  He commands us to teach people to do all that he has commanded, so obviously it matters what we do.  But he also promises to be with us, and to send the Spirit to strengthen and guide us.  So why are a great many of us working and trying so hard yet feeling so anxious?

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