Hunting Down Jesus

Today's gospel reading tells of Jesus getting up very early in the morning and going out to a deserted place to pray.  He must have slipped off before his disciples got up (there are only 4 at this point) because we next read, "And Simon and his companions hunted for him."

That sounds harmless enough, but I fear the Bible translators have let the disciples off easy here.  It sounds as though the disciples are simply looking for Jesus, but the Greek word Mark uses usually presumes hostile intent on the the part of those doing the looking.  This is a word used to speak of "pursuing" an enemy.  But why would these 4 disciples be chasing Jesus in such a manner?

I suspect that, like most of us, these guys have expectations of Jesus.  They've seen his charisma, seen his healing power, and they know they have winner on their hands.  But Jesus has up and disappeared on them.  They need to find him and bring him back.  Perhaps they can even set up a little center at Simon's house.  Jesus has already packed them in.  This has all the makings of a huge religious enterprise.

But Jesus is not going to cooperate.  Even when they find Jesus, he refuses to be captured.  The disciples plead, "Come on back, Jesus.  Everyone is searching for you."  But Jesus replies, "Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do."  Jesus has work, a mission, and it doesn't fit with his followers' religious ambitions.

An inherent problem with all religious endeavor is the desire to get God in a box so the divine becomes manageable.  We want God to assist us in our plans and schemes.  All too often, we want to capture Jesus and tell him, "Come with us."  But only a Jesus we imagine actually does.  God's Living Word will not follow us.  Instead he says, "Deny yourself, let go of your agenda, stop trying to drag me where you want to go, and take up the cross and follow me."

We resist.  We say, "No, Jesus, come with us.  We know the way."  But I'm not sure even we believe that.

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Spiritual Hiccups - Pelvic Issues and Immature Faith

Richard Rohr's meditation this morning opened with this observation.  "In recent elections one would have thought that homosexuality and abortion were the new litmus tests of Christianity."  I should add that Rohr is a Catholic priest who I presume does not like the idea of abortion.  But he also recognizes that focus on sexual purity and morality tends to distract us from the bulk of Jesus' teaching (Rohr says 95%).  Jesus is much less worried about personal purity and more concerned with "issues of pride, injustice, hypocrisy, blindness, and what I have often called 'The Three Ps' of power, prestige, and possessions,"  says Rohr.

I read today's lectionary texts after reading Rohr, and the absence of sexual morality or purity issues was striking.  I'm not suggesting that the Bible has no interest in such issues, but they are hardly primary, although  one might think they are after hearing political candidates talk about their faith-based stances.  But today's texts included more typical biblical concerns.  The psalm talked about the prisoner, the blind, the stranger, the widow, and the orphan.  And Jesus proclaims nearness of God's kingdom, which is then demonstrated by calling some fisherman to follow him, teaching, and restoring a tormented soul to wholeness. 

If you dropped open your Bible anywhere in one of the gospels, there's a very good chance Jesus would be healing, or talking about how greed and money causes us huge problems, or telling us to love enemies, or reaching out to those that religious folks found repulsive.  So how is that Christianity often ends up looking so little like Jesus?  How is it that a casual observer of American culture could easily conclude that Christian faith is obsessed with what happens in people's bedrooms?

I'm not sure why this is, but people's religious views often seem to get stuck in a very childish state.  In many traditional churches, religious education is almost entirely for children, and it seems that our faith often does not advance much beyond those rudimentary Sunday School lessons.  Much of Jesus' teaching does not translate easily into a third grade Sunday School class, and so all too often, Jesus' message gets distorted into, "Be good little boys and girls." 

I can't seem to stop mentioning Rohr today, but he has an interesting observation about immature faith.  Speaking of the aforementioned focus on sexual purity he says that "early-stage religion has never gotten much beyond these 'pelvic' issues."  I kind of like that one.  And I think it is a helpful measuring stick as well.  If your faith spends a great deal of time on "pelvic issues," that's a pretty sure bet that it is ignoring the core of faith, that it is rarely following Jesus where he calls us to go.

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Spiritual Hiccups - I Don't Understand

It's curious how a line of Scripture will sometimes strike me.  I only got one verse into this morning's psalm before I found myself wondering what understanding had to do with learning God's commandments.  The line in question, from Psalm 119:73 reads, "give me understanding that I may learn your commandments."

Learning the commandments seems more a matter of memorization than understanding, but the psalm doesn't ask for a better memory.  It asks for understanding.

People often want faith to be a simple matter, and I regularly hear people say that things would be much better if we just did what it says in the Bible, if were returned to being a Christian nation, if we "got right with God."  It couldn't be more simple, at least not until you get into the details.  What's that saying about the devil being in the details?

I've always felt that if faith were a simple thing, if living as God's people were a simple thing, the Bible would be a pamphlet or brochure.  As it is, the Bible sitting on my desk is over 2000 pages long.  (The Catholic Bible is even lengthier than mine.)  But even when you consider only a brief section of Scripture, the simple versus complex and nuanced issue can arise.

There have been a number of court cases in recent years regarding public display of the 10 Commandments.  Those who support such displays argue that they are the basis for our civil laws and that we are a "Christian nation."  But such arguments quickly founder when we actually examine the commandments.  How does Sabbath keeping fit into a 24/7 culture, and what does idolatry have to do with civil law?  Wrongful use of God's name is particularly problematic, and perhaps that is why people often trivialize this one into a prohibition against swearing.  But if God is serious about us not invoking the Divine to further our own agendas, a lot of Christian political candidates are in deep trouble. 

Even the second half of the commandments, those that correspond more easily to civil law, can create problems.  The support of Newt Gingrich by some Christian Right pastors comes to mind here.  And the one about not coveting anything that belongs to your neighbor would seem to undermine a basic motivation for the American consumerist culture. 

But I don't mean to speak only against simplistic, conservative takes on faith.  In my experience, most all of us tend to think that the articles of faith we hold dear are simple.  Liberal, progressive, social justice Christians sometimes act as though there is nothing in the Bible but social justice.  The disturbing fact is that Christians of all stripes like to simplify what being faithful means so that it fits neatly within the issues that motivate us.

Life is complicated.  Relationships are complicated.  Anyone who tells you they have life and relationships all figured out is likely delusional.  Surely living in relationship with God is no different.  Understand?

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Sermon - A Glimpse of God's Heart

Genesis 9:8-17

A Glimpse of God’s Heart

James Sledge                                 Lent 1 - February 26, 2012

I saw in the paper the other day where the friendly folks from Westboro Baptist Church planned to protest at Whitney Houston’s funeral.  These are the same people who protest at the funerals of American soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, who parade around with signs that read “God Hates Fags.”  They reason that since “God hates fags” and American tolerates them, then God hates America, too.  Hence the protests at military funerals.

Now to be honest, I’m not sure why the news media even cover these folks anymore.  There are a tiny group, with less the 50 members, and the attention they garner is way out of proportion to any influence or following that they have.  But even though they are a tiny, fringe group, they do share something in common with quite few people of faith.  They believe that God hates some folks and that God has it out for these folk.

When Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans a few years back, it wasn’t just the Westboro whackos who were talking about whom God hates.  Quite a few Christian preachers suggested that New Orleans was a particularly appropriate target for God’s wrath.  With its drunkenness and revelry, no wonder God decided to punish them.

And even Christians who have a hard time imagining that God singled out New Orleans sometimes shake their heads at the state of the world and wonder how long God will tolerate it all.  “Surely someday God will say, ‘That’s enough.’ ”

The Noah epic, despite is popularity as children’s story and nursery decoration motif, is a story about a someday when God has had enough. 

Spiritual Hiccups - Giving Up the Bible for Lent

A line in today's epistle reading says, "But our citizenship is in heaven..."  I can't say for sure, but I suspect that large numbers of Christians think this refers to our going to heaven when we die.  To be honest, I'm not really sure where this idea comes from.  There is very little in the Bible that speaks of us going to heaven.  There's a lot in the New Testament about resurrection, but that is something altogether different.  Yet somehow we have made resurrection a synonym for "going to heaven when we die."

Brian McLaren and others have pointed out that many Christians, especially Protestant and Evangelical Christians, have preached a "gospel of evacuation."  In other words, have faith and believe the right things, and you will get evacuated to a better place when you die.  (For those who believe in a Rapture, evacuation might come even earlier.)  But Jesus proclaims the "kingdom of God" or the reign of God.  And as his very popular prayer points out, this kingdom is when God's will is done here on earth as it currently is in heaven.  In other words, the kingdom is when earth becomes like heaven.  No evacuation required.

I was reading Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation this morning, and he wrote than in the Lenten season of conversion and repentance, both Catholics and Protestants might want to think about their relationship to Scripture.  He said that Catholics need to be converted in order to give Scripture some actual authority in their lives.  And he said that Protestants need to repent of how our "sola Scriptura" (Scripture alone) has often ignored the ways we read the Bible from our own biases, prejudices and preconceived notions, how we have insisted on scriptural authority for "slavery, racism, sexism, xenophobia, and homophobia" (not to mention going to heaven when we die).

As a Protestant, I think this critique from a Franciscan priest is particularly helpful.  And I wonder if we Protestants wouldn't do well to follow Rohr's advice and give up something more than chocolate for Lent.  What if we gave up the conceit that our faith, our practices, our theology, our church rules, and so on, really come from Scripture, much less Scripture alone.

What if we gave up the Bible for Lent?  I don't really mean that we should toss out our Bibles, but what if we gave up our certainties about what it says?  What if we confessed that we have more often used the Bible to support what we want than we've allowed it to transform us and make us more Christ-like?  What if we gave up the notion that our faith is biblically based because we own a Bible and know a few verses from it?  I wonder what might happen if we gave up our Bibles for Lent.

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Spiritual Hiccups - Hi, My Name Is James, and I'm a Sinner

If you've ever seen an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, you likely know that people who speak will often introduce themselves by saying, "Hi, my name is ____, and I'm an alcoholic."  To outsiders this may seem a bit odd, but for alcoholics, it is a big part of their recovery.  It is a core acknowledgement of who they are, an acknowledgement that keeps them in recovery.  The entire 12 step program of AA is predicated on this claiming this identity as an alcoholic, a person who cannot remain sober and lead a full life without help in dealing with their alcoholism.

Christians have a parallel acknowledgement, an admission that our core identity is a problem for us.  In this case the issue is not a tendency to drink, but a tendency to act in ways contrary to God's will and contrary to who we are meant to be as humans.  There is a selfishness and self-centeredness about us that leads us to act in ways that hurt others, undo community, and cut us off from God.  Christians call this basic problem sin.  Hi, my name is James, and I'm a sinner."

But curiously, Christians are often much more resistant to such acknowledgments than alcoholics are.  I long ago lost count of the times people have said to me, "Why do we do a prayer of confession every Sunday?  It's such a downer." 

Today's parable in Luke would seem to be a warning to us religious folks who sometimes think our religiousness means we aren't sinners.  In fact, you sometimes hear church people use the term "sinners" to speak of people outside the church.  Sinners are those folks, not me.  But in today's parable, Jesus speaks of two men, one a good, religious person who keeps all the rules, and the other a tax collector.  (It's worth remembering that in Jesus' day, tax collectors were not civil service employees but people who colluded with the occupying Romans in order to make lots of money.  They collected what ever they could.  Anything beyond what was owed to the Romans, they got to keep for themselves.)  This tax collector simply cries out, "God, be merciful to me, a sinner!" and Jesus says that he rather than the religious fellow went home justified before God.

Hi, my name is James, and I'm a sinner.  I battle against it constantly, and at times I feel captive to it.  I do things that I wish I hadn't, things that hurt others and end up hurting me, too.  But it is wonderful to know that not only does God not hold this against me, but the Spirit is with me, helping me.  The community of faith is with me too, helping me and each other as we struggle to be fully human, to love as Jesus loved.  Hi, my name is James, and I'm a sinner.  Thank God Jesus came to help folks like me.

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Spiritual Hiccups - Becoming God-bearers

There is a striking line in today's reading from Philippians. "Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus..."  It's from a popular bit of the Bible, and so I've seen it many times.  But today I must have been looking from a different angle.  I can have the same mind as Jesus?

Of course this question raises another.  What does it mean to have the same mind as Jesus?  Being "of the same mind" is sometimes synonymous for agreeing with someone, but I don't thing this verse calls us to agree with Jesus.  I speaks of something much deeper, more along the lines of Christ dwelling in us.  And this seems to be confirmed at the end of today's reading where we are told to "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you..."

The same mind as Jesus; God at work in us.  Both of these seem to speak of something more than belief, something more than agreeing with certain faith statements.  They speak of a God who not only desires a close and intimate relationship with us, but who literally becomes a part of us, present within us so that we become true reflections of Jesus.  If God is at work in us, if we have the same mind in us that was in Jesus, then in a very real sense we become God bearers.  We become part of the Incarnation, God in the flesh.  

This isn't something we accomplish.  It is something we open ourselves to when we "let" the mind of Jesus dwell in us, when we "let" God be present in us.   O God, be at work in me, and let me show you to the world.

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