Doing Nothing

(If you're expecting something on Sabbath, my apologies.)

A seminary classmate and colleague, James Kim, tweeted this earlier today. " 'Apart from me you can do nothing' (Jn. 15:5). If you're interested in nothing, do it your way, do it without God." He was obviously referring to a portion of today's gospel reading. Here's the entire verse. "I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing."

When I was a kid, it was common practice for parents or other adults who suspected we children were up to something to ask, "What are you doing?" To which the stock reply was, "Nothing." Even as an adult, it still makes for a nice evasive answer. Of course most of us know that it's evasive. Whose suspicions are not aroused when they are told that someone is doing nothing?

It's really hard to do nothing. It's not impossible, but it's hard. I find it very difficult to keep from thinking, to stop the mental wheels from turning. So when I answer, "Nothing," I'm rarely being completely honest.

And Jesus said to his Church, "What are you doing?" Churches tend to be fairly busy places. Even very small churches often have lots of meetings and groups that use the building and choir practices and Sunday services and classes and so on. But I'm not sure how much of this is related to our abiding deeply in Jesus and him in us, to our bearing the fruit he would have us bear. If so, then perhaps there are multiple reasons for us to answer, "Nothing."

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Capitalist Heresies

If you follow the news, you likely know that the stock market is soaring and the housing market seems to be rebounding. But you probably also know some less encouraging bits. In recent days I've seen articles on how our Great Recession has and is hurting young people disproportionately and how the earnings gap between regular workers and top tier folks such as CEOs continues to grow at a tremendous pace. And just this morning, I read how unemployment has reached a record 12% in the Eurozone.

I'm no economist, and I have no idea whether the economic future for young people, regular wage earners, or the Eurozone unemployed will improve or continue to follow current trends. That said, it certainly seems that our economic system is working much more successfully for folks at the top than it is for folks at the bottom. That leads to the question of what to do about this situation.

Obviously there are wildly divergent ideas and suggestions. One thing is clear to me, however. Any real challenge to basic free market or capitalist principles will get you labeled a wild-eyed, lunatic revolutionary with no legitimate place in the discussion. 

Actually, lunatic and revolutionary might not be the best terms. Heretic might be more appropriate.

On this point, I'm reminded of the attacks that some folks fling at Barack Obama. With no thoughts as to how fringe or mainstream they are or to who believes them, it strikes me that the label of "socialist" is far more damning than the label "Muslim," even with the terrorist ties some folks read into the latter.

I raise the term "socialist" both because it is often hurled at the president and also because it seems to be featured in today's reading from Acts. "All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need." That sounds quite socialist. And if you're thinking I might suggest this as a current day model and already raising the objection that this behavior is restricted to "believers," well that would still include a majority of Americans, at least according to what they tell pollsters. And for those intent on this being a "Christian nation," then presumably the pattern in Acts might well become a model for everyone.

Prior to the Cold War, it was not all that uncommon for Christian thinkers to discuss "socialism" as having merits to consider. But no more. That is capitalist heresy. Which says something about what our true religion is in America.

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Sermon video: A Victory Parade

Better late than never, here's the Palm/Passion Sunday sermon. Other sermons available on YouTube. Audios of sermons and worship can be found on the church website.

Sermon video: While It Was Still Dark

Other sermon videos available on YouTube.

Sermon: While It Was Still Dark

John 20:1-18

While It Was Still Dark

James Sledge                                                               March 31, 2013 - Easter

Today is the pinnacle of the Christian calendar. Christmas may have surpassed Easter from a secular standpoint, but today is still the big day for Christians. It’s the Sunday service most of us would hate to miss.  Attendance swells at Easter because we all know, whether we’re deep theological thinkers or not, that everything depends on, “Christ is Risen!”

Given this, I suspect that most Christians have some sort of picture of the first Easter in their minds.  Even many who scarcely know the Bible still know the story of women going to the tomb on Easter morning, finding the stone rolled away, the tomb empty.

What does the scene look like in your mind?  If you were painting a picture of it, how would you depict it?  In my mental picture the sun is still just below the horizon, and a gentle red glow colors the sky. The scene is pregnant with expectation.  Day is dawning. The brightness is about to spring forth and reveal the good news that the tomb is empty.

The synoptic gospels – Matthew, Mark, and Luke – picture it this way as well.  They speak of “early dawn” or “when the sun had risen.”  But John’s gospel says something very different in our reading this morning. Mary Magdalene goes alone to the tomb while it was still dark.

Leave it to John’s gospel, so different in style and tone, to picture Easter so differently. The Sabbath, which had prevented adequate attention to Jesus’ burial, actually ended at sundown on Saturday, but people, especially women, were wary of going out at night, in the dark. And night was a lot darker in Jesus’ day.  No street lights or glow from the city. Yet John depicts a lone woman going out in the dark of night.

Biblical literalists struggle to harmonize John’s gospel with the others, but that seems unnecessary. John isn’t correcting a time error by the other gospel writers.  He is saying that when Mary went to the tomb, all evidence pointed to victory by the forces that oppose God. 

Darkness is a theological category in John’s gospel.  Jesus is the light that has come into the world. But darkness has snuffed out the light, has crucified Jesus, and the world is plunged into darkness. For Mary, and for all Jesus’ disciples, darkness seems to have overwhelmed the light. And who among us hasn’t felt the same way. The world often seems to brim with darkness while the light flickers and seems so faint.

Agony and Despair... and Hope?

"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" So begins one of today's readings, Psalm 22 to be precise. However I suspect that more people know the words as those cried out by Jesus from the cross. "My God, my god, why have you forsaken me?"

Jesus is a man, and so his words should come as no surprise. Even though he has told his followers that a cross awaits him, how could he not have despaired at that moment? How could have not have felt the alienation and abandonment that most all of us have felt at times? Despite being completely faithful, despite being totally devoted to his call, he ends up here - alone, abandoned, and in despair. Even God has abandoned him it seems.

***********************************

We who claim to follow Jesus should know better, but it is remarkably difficult to shed the notion that faithfulness will make things better for us. If we do as we are supposed to do, if we go when and where God says, "Go," we expect to be rewarded. At the very least our life should be fulfilling. It should not lead to abandonment and despair... even if it did for Jesus.

I have long felt that while suffering on the cross, Jesus is most fully in solidarity with us, is most compellingly human. Here he knows and experiences what it is to live as we are meant to live, and to suffer on account of it. On some level, his is the lot of anyone who would meet hate with love, would respond to evil with goodness and mercy. No wonder so few of us can summon the courage actually to follow Jesus.

But despite our aversion to crosses, most of us will regardless find ourselves in a place a bit like that of Jesus. It will likely be much less dramatic and will certainly have much smaller import, but we will all arrive at that place where we become fully caught up in the tragedy of our broken world. We will at some point find ourselves in a  moment where we feel totally alone, completely abandoned, despairing and without hope. "My God, my God, where are you? Why have you let this happen? I thought you loved me."

That's why I'm glad Jesus did not simply cry out from the cross, but he cried out with the words of a psalm. He spoke only its opening line, but surely he knew the rest. He knew how it catalogs suffering, abandonment, despair and seeming hopelessness. And he knew as well that it sees a future beyond abandonment and despair. He knew that a psalm begun in despair still holds to hope when none can be seen or sensed.
   All the ends of the earth shall remember
          and turn to the LORD;
   and all the families of the nations
          shall worship before him.
   For dominion belongs to the LORD,
          and he rules over the nations.

  To him, indeed, shall all who sleep in the earth bow down;
          before him shall bow all who go down to the dust,
          and I shall live for him.
  Posterity will serve him;
          future generations will be told about the Lord,
  and proclaim his deliverance to a people yet unborn,
          saying that he has done it.

"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" I have no doubt that these words were precisely what Jesus felt at that moment. And still, despite this... there was yet hope.

Perhaps that is the true task of faith in the face of genuine despair, in the face of hopelessly intractable problems in our lives and in the world - broken relationships, hatred and bigotry, poverty, war, children sold as sex slaves, exploitation, genocide, and more - where the only possible response is despair. "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why have you forsaken us?" And still, despite all this... there is yet hope.

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Remember - Backward and Forward

Perhaps more than any other time of year, Christians engage in practices of remembering during this week.  We remember Jesus' entry into Jerusalem. We remember a last meal with his followers. We remember a foot-washing, an act of servant-hood we are called to emulate. We remember betrayal, arrest, trial, and execution.  And, of course, come Sunday we will remember the triumph of resurrection.

Today, on Maundy Thursday, we remember Jesus' last moments with his followers, his friends. Many of us will engage in foot-washings and reenact the Last Supper as we remember and rehearse the events of a Thursday long ago.  As well we should. No doubt the gospel writers expect that we will give special significance to the last words Jesus speaks with his followers, his last commands to them.

In my own congregation, we will gather tonight for a fellowship meal. While at tables we will break bread and share the cup, recalling that Last Supper. And when Sunday comes, we will break bread and share the cup again. And, I fear, for some worshipers it will be Thursday all over again.

When I grew up in the church, the Lord's Supper, no matter what time of year it was celebrated, was a somber, ritualized recollection of Maundy Thursday. It remembered back to what Jesus had done long ago. No wonder many members found the move to more frequent observance of the Supper troublesome. (Four time a year was the norm in my Presbyterian childhood.) Who would want to do Maundy Thursday all the time?

But while we rightly remember back nearly 2000 years tonight, this Sunday is a different matter. No longer is our host the memory of one about to die. Our host on Sunday is the Risen One. Echos of Maundy Thursday remain, but the new pattern is the Easter evening meal with disciples on the Emmaus road. Sunday's meal knows the past, but it remembers forward, to the great banquet to come at the full arrival of God's reign.

While we do well to remember backward tonight, such remembering is not enough. Christian faith is rooted in God's saving acts in history, but it is focused on the future. In Jesus' life, death, and resurrection, God's future, God's reign, God's new realm, begins to invade our present. And we are called, by our words, deeds, choices, and priorities, to remember forward, proclaiming God coming kingdom that we already participate in through the Spirit.

Tonight we gather. We eat and drink "in remembrance" of Jesus. But don't forget to remember forward.

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Not Enough

In the DC suburbs where I currently reside, the cost of housing is astronomical. 1000 square foot ranches sell for over half a million dollars. And I regularly receive phone calls at the church from people seeking assistance paying their rent. Their hours have been cut back and work and they can't meet the $1000 per month rent for their small apartment.  I have no idea how working class people of modest incomes manage to live around here.

This situation may be more extreme than in other areas, but most of us have learned all about scarcity, about there not being enough. It is the world we live in. Budgets, whether the family sort or the church sort are about how to allocate scarce resources because there is not enough. Indeed, capitalism and the free market system are predicated on the idea of scarcity, of not enough. That is how to get rich, to have something of which there is not enough to go around. If you have a lot of a scarce commodity, you will be well off.

This is the way of the world, but it is not the way of God. The God of the Bible is a God of abundance and provision, who promises to provide enough, daily bread. According to the book of Acts, the early church lived within this provision and abundance. "There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold." (Acts 4:34) Freed from their fears of not enough, there was plenty for all.

That early church was living out its experience of Jesus, whose self-giving extended even to life itself. Jesus trusted so fully in God's provision and abundance, that he had no need to guard his possessions, even his own life. And Jesus called his followers to discover this radical freedom to love others without worrying about the cost, this freedom to respond even to evil with love.

Unfortunately, as the church became an accepted part of the world, it began to conform to the world. It even began to transform Jesus' message of abundance and provision into one of scarcity. The church possessed a scarce commodity: salvation. And it would provide it for you, at the right price. And in the process, Jesus' ministry of bringing the reign of God and the ways of heaven to the world got displaced. The body of Christ, free to give itself to and for the world, was diminished, often to the point of near invisibility.

But a strange thing has happened in recent decades. The scarce commodity that the church has peddled all these centuries has lost much of its luster. For a myriad of reasons, people are not coming to the church to get some salvation. Perhaps they feel no need of it, at least not the kind the church is selling. Perhaps they feel they have found it elsewhere. Whatever the reasons, we have fewer and fewer customers.

These are anxious times for many churches in America, but they are also times that invite us to recall and rediscover the good news that has been entrusted to us. This good news presents us with a choice, just as it did thousands of years ago. Will we live by the ways of the world, focused on protecting what we have and serving our own? Or will we live into the ways of Jesus, into the promise of abundance and provision, giving ourselves freely to others?

I've mentioned this line from my denomination's Book of Order before, but I think it is a perfect statement of what it means to trust in God's provision, to live in the manner of Jesus and as the body of Christ. "The Church is to be a community of faith, entrusting itself to God alone, even at the risk of losing its life." (F-1.0301)

The promise of Easter is that such entrusting ourselves to God is not foolish, as the world supposes. Indeed it is the way to full and abundant life. Dare we believe that? Dare we live that?

Why the Cross? Why Christianity?

Sometimes the day provides surprise ingredients for the recipes behind these spiritual hiccups. My normal pattern is to read Richard Rohr's daily devotional along with the readings from the daily lectionary. Then I allow those to simmer for a while as I attempt to do (often badly) a bit of contemplative prayer. But today other things inserted themselves, notably Charles Hefling's article, "Why the Cross?" in The Christian Century and a blog post by Brian McLaren, "Q & R: Are You a Universalist? Or Are You a Whig?" The latter wrestled with the question, "What is Christianity for?"

McLaren suggested that Universalism is simply one of several responses to the question of how "to get as many souls as possible out of hell and into heaven after death." But if Christianity is not primarily a solution to the problem of eternal damnation, then the answer of Universalism along with its Exclusivist counterpart are different answers to a question neither pertinent nor relevant. And McLaren's suggestions dovetail nicely into Hefling's questions about the cross and "atonement."

In today's reading from John, Jesus speaks of his impending death, not as a sacrifice or punishment, but as a glorification and also a model for Jesus' followers. “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life." (It's worth noting that "eternal life" in John's gospel is less about what happens after you die and more about a transformed quality of life that believers experience already.)

Now it seems obvious to me that Jesus is not arguing in favor of dying for the sake of dying. The willingness to give up one's life - to hate it if you will - is not a calculated act seeking a reward. It is a reconciling act of love. It cannot easily be reduced to a formula for rescuing us from hell. It is a relational act of self-giving that responds to evil with good, with a refusal to return evil for evil. And it calls those who would follow Jesus to join in this work.

As N. T. Wright has said, "Jesus' resurrection is the beginning of God's new project not to snatch people away from earth to heaven but to colonize earth with the life of heaven. That, after all, is what the Lord's Prayer is all about."

As we move into Holy Week and as we celebrate the resurrection this coming Sunday, we will sing many old favorite hymns that seem unaware of anything resembling N. T. Wright's remark. We will remember the cross and the resurrection as though both were about rescuing us from hell. (That we focus on the heavenly side of "salvation" does not change this.) But is this what the cross is about? Is this what Christianity is about? 

My own congregation probably leans more to the Universalist side when salvation is understood as going to heaven instead of hell. But when Christianity is understood in this way, it is not always clear what "good news" we have to share that will impact anyone's daily living. But if Christianity and the cross are about heaven breaking into life on earth, that may well be the most wonderful news anyone can imagine.

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Transformed by and for Love

Not by works but by faith has been a dividing line among Christians since the Reformation. And very often this divide is understood - at least by Protestants - as a choice between impossible demands no one could ever live up to versus a free gift that is merely accepted. Protestants are heirs of Martin Luther on this, and he got it from his understanding of the Apostle Paul. 

Luther read Paul out of his own sense of guilt. While still Catholic, Luther used to drive his confessor crazy by continually returning to confess every little fault or misstep he had recalled. And he was terrified that he had failed to confess something. Luther apparently assumed that Paul's discussion of works and the Law had a similar experience behind them. Paul must have despaired at never being able to keep the Law fully, but then he had found freedom from the Law through Jesus. What a relief that the impossible was no longer required.

Scholarship into Judaism in Jesus' and Paul's day began to undermine such thinking some time ago, and it seems likely that Paul had not thought the Law an impossible burden prior to his "Damascus road experience." But you needn't be up on the latest biblical scholarship to share such views. Simply listen to what Paul himself says in today's reading from Philippians.

Paul is rattling off a bit of personal history as he argues against being circumcised, that is, against becoming Jewish first in order to become a Christian. "If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless..."

Notice that last phrase; "as to righteousness under the law, blameless." That does not sound like someone who was terrified that he couldn't keep the law well enough. Quite the opposite.

Clearly Paul's problem with the Law is not that one cannot keep it. (Likely Paul understood keeping the Law to mean doing your best to abide by it at all times, but being forgiven when you repented of your failings to keep it.) Rather the problem lies in where one places his or her trust. Paul seems to think that the Law has become the object of Israel's hope and trust, rather than God Godself. But in Jesus, Paul has encountered God's love and grace directly, and he now trusts that over the Law, no matter how good that Law may be.

As Paul considers his former faith in the Law and Israel's religious traditions he writes, "Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish." ("Rubbish" is probably too tame a translation. The word more often refers to "excrement.")

It strikes me that Paul's language here is the language of love. It sounds like the sort of talk you hear from those who have fallen in love, who suddenly find everything else meaningless by comparison. Having come to "know" Jesus, having experienced God's love dwelling in him, things that once had supreme meaning now seem like nothing, like crap to Paul. And just like a lover who would do anything for the sake of his beloved, Paul will gladly deal with sufferings and punishments and hardships to be part of that love.

This is why Paul can go on and on, trash talking the Law, and then turn right around and demand the highest ethical standards for Christians. Paul cannot imagine living in ways contrary to God. What lover would want to do that. Lovers want only to please their beloved.

Unfortunately, institutions don't do love or passion terribly well, and as the church became more and more institutionalized, it became more and more a set of rules and beliefs one needed to abide by in order to be on God's good side. From time to time in history, the Church manages to recover some of that passion. Martin Luther's movement, even if he did misunderstand Paul somewhat, was largely a movement back toward passion. And I think much of the activity around Emergent Church in our day is a move toward passion, toward love.

My own faith tradition has its fears about emotional, experiential faith. Some of these fears are well founded. Just think of the dumb things people sometimes do when they are head-over-heels in love. But all too often, this fear has led Presbyterians (and other Mainline folks) to be too focused on institution and doctrine. I suspect that much of the Mainline's decline is rooted in its lack of passion for anything besides "how we've always done it" or our tastes in music and worship styles.

What if instead of being raised an Israelite, a Hebrew, and a Pharisee, Paul had been raised a Christian, a Presbyterian, and a pastor or elder? And what if he then encountered Jesus in the manner Paul speaks of in today's reading? In his passion for "knowing Christ Jesus," what institutional pieces of the church might he come to regard as rubbish, as crap?

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Sermon: A Victory Parade

Luke 19:28-40; Philippians 2:5-11

A Victory Parade

James Sledge                                    March 24, 2013 – Palm/Passion Sunday

Did you ever wonder who held the very first parade? We know they’ve existed since ancient times. They are in the Old Testament and other ancient writings, but where did they start? Perhaps it was a spontaneous thing. The hunting party is coming home after a successful hunt, carrying the game they have caught. As they get close, children run out and join the procession, excitedly celebrating that there will be ample food for a while.

Or perhaps the group was a war party, returning home in the wake of a successful raid.  They bring with them captured, spoils, perhaps even captured prisoners.  And here too, people from the camp run out to greet the procession, creating an impromptu victory parade.

Victors still have parades. The Baltimore Ravens had one after winning the Super Bowl, and Barack Obama had an inauguration parade. Mitt Romney didn’t get a parade. The losers rarely get parades.

Parades are almost always upbeat, celebratory affairs. Maybe that’s why Palm Sunday became a favorite over the years. We get to have a parade! Children march in waving their palms, and the adults join them, although sometimes a bit half-heartedly.

I’ve noticed over the years that while children will wave, even thrash their palms with gusto, adults are usually more subdued. My previous church handed out palms for everyone, but some adult worshipers would refuse them. And some who took them barely raised them to shoulder height, moving them almost imperceptibly.

Maybe this is simply the inhibition we gain as we grow older and leave the freedom of childhood behind. Or maybe it is because we aren’t quite sure what this parade is for. What are we celebrating? This is the start of Holy Week, when Jesus comes to Jerusalem to die. He’s been telling his followers and us that for a long time now. No one should be surprised when Jesus gets arrested and executed. So why the parade?

Luke’s gospel leaves little doubt that this is a royal procession. It’s a bit like President Obama coming down Pennsylvania Avenue as supporters wave and shout. Jesus’ supporters yell, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!” But it is doubtful that they understand the sort of king Jesus is. Very often, neither do I. I’m ready to run from this parade to the Easter one, not fully comprehending what happens in between.

Confession, Bad Dogs, and Liturgy

I think I've mentioned this cartoon here before. It features a congregation of dogs, dalmatians to be specific. The preacher dalmatian is letting the worshipers have it. "And he said unto them, 'Bad dogs! No, No!' " Not unlike the treatment the people of Judah get from Jeremiah in today's Old Testament reading. The prophet and God hope that the threat of punishment, of hellfire, may prompt the people of Judah to change their ways, though that seems unlikely.

My own Presbyterian tradition has long featured the turn away from sin as part of its worship. Corporate prayers of confession figure prominently in thy typical worship bulletin. This is different from Catholic confession to a priest. It is more of a claiming our brokenness along with God's grace that forgives and heals our brokenness. I sometimes liken confession in worship to the statement recovering alcoholics make at AA meetings. "Hi, my name is Joe, and I'm an alcoholic." Claiming that identity is not viewed as a "downer" (as I often hear people speak of confession in worship). Rather it is the opening through which people step into new life.

However, a colleague (Thanks, Jeff.) pointed out to me how much attention gets paid to confession in the typical Presbyterian liturgy. Not only is there a confession prayer that we all read together, but there is often a time for silent confession, plus a sung Kyrie or other response, and so on. And as my colleague pointed out, this is often the only place where we ask worshipers to spend time in silent prayer. What message are we sending by such a practice? Why do we not ask worshipers to spend time in silent prayers of thanksgiving or intercession, to name only a couple of other possibilities?

I do think that we modern Christ-followers need to claim our brokenness. We need to resist that temptation to think Jesus needs to save some folks but not me. I'm not really bad enough to need saving, just a little helpful direction perhaps. But at the moment, I'm wondering whether our liturgy asks much more than simple acknowledgement of our identity in an AA like, "Hi, my name is James, and I'm a sinner." Does it focus too much on this, minimizing other components of the Christian life?

I'm wondering what worship might look like if we acknowledged we are sinners in the manner of an AA meeting, but we didn't make it such the highlight of the congregation's participation in the service. What do you think?

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