Conversion and the Other

Perhaps because individualism is such a big part of the American ethos, American Christianity is often highly individualistic. Yes, people come together in church congregations for worship, fellowship, mission, and community. But faith and salvation are often understood in a very personal, even private sort of way. In the stereotyped version of this, I am saved because of my interior, personal disposition toward Jesus. No other person required.

This stands in rather stark contrast to the biblical witness. Certainly scripture shows a personal encounter with God in Christ, but it does so in a very corporate context. Some of the conversions reported in the book of Acts speak of a person's entire household being saved. This includes spouse, children, in-laws, servants, and slaves. Many of these people made no personal decision. They simply found themselves caught up in a corporate salvation event.

The gospel reading for today does not feature conversions, but it does speak of repentance, of turning toward God and being forgiven. But when John the Baptist speaks to those coming to him for baptism, he insists that their repentance doesn't count for much without a corporate element.

Every one of the "fruits worthy of repentance" that John describes is about others, about helping them or refusing to harm them. And this should hardly surprise us. Today's reading is part of Jesus' story, the same Jesus who cannot separate love of  God from love of neighbor. For John the Baptist and for Jesus, faith may be personal, but it is never individualist. It never exists apart from the Other.

I've recently been inspired by a colleague, Steve Lindsley, to preach a sermon series based, in part, on a book titled Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations. And just this moment it struck me that all but one of the practices are directed away from self. Passionate Worship is directed toward God. Extravagant Generosity is toward God and others, and Radical Hospitality and Risk-Taking Mission and Service are directed toward other people. Only Intentional Faith Development has a prominent inward focus.

Most all of us have heard people speak of "going to church." And indeed that describes the primary activity that sometimes marks individualistic, American Christianity. Much like going to the movies, people go to church and get something that they like, that makes them feel better, etc. But John and Jesus keep asking us, "What about the Other?"

Click to learn more about the lectionary.

Embracing Paradox

"The LORD is king; let the peoples tremble! He sits enthroned upon the cherubim; let the earth quake!"  So begins Psalm 99, speaking of God's grandeur, of God's otherness and transcendence.

In today's gospel, Jesus speaks quite differently when he prays for his disciples just prior to his arrest. "The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one... I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.” Here God is not distant, other, or transcendent but indwelling, imminent.

Transcendent and imminent pictures of God present us with a paradox. Is God distant, awe-inspiring, holy, other, unknowable, and even a bit frightening? Or is God close, knowable, intimate, lovable? Our human nature is inclined to choose, to answer "Yes" to only one of these questions and not both. We want to resolve paradoxes when we encounter them, or at least we modern, logical, Enlightenment types do.

(For a great discussion of this you might want to read Richard Rohr's meditations for the last few days. Here's a link to today's.)

One of the ways I'm prone to create God in my image is by requiring God to conform to my notions of what is possible, of what makes sense, etc. It's a remarkable arrogance on my part when you think about it. I want God to be understandable and comprehensible to me, yet I am aware of numerous everyday things far beyond my comprehension. Who fully comprehends love? Who can truly fathom the vastness of space? We struggle even to know ourselves, much less other people. Yet God should not baffle me? God should be as simple as 2 + 2 = 4?

And unfortunately, this desire to flatten God and make God comprehensible is more than my personal faith problem. It is a huge problem for institutional religion. Institutions desire clarity and order, and so religious ones inevitably tend to flatten God into some sort of reasonable, clear-cut, well-ordered construct. Paradox and ambiguity don't reside easily in institutions.

Perhaps that is why mystics have always lived on the margins of institutional religion, and why institutional religion has never quite trusted mystics. And perhaps some of the fascination with spirituality in our day is people longing for a God bigger than the ones we have confined in our institutions.

Click to learn more about the lectionary.

Is God To Be Trusted?

Is God to be trusted? And if so, to what extent? Those are pretty fundamental faith questions, even if you are not particularly religious. To the agnostic or atheist, the question might become more sensible if rephrased, In what do you trust, and to what extent do you trust it?

A likely reason that religion is so easily dismissed by some lies in the puniness of many of our gods. We may proclaim with the psalmist, "The LORD is king! Let the earth rejoice; let the many coastlands be glad!" But in reality, our God doesn't even rule over our little lives, much less the earth. We may "believe" in God, but it often has little impact on what we do. We don't love neighbors as much as we love self, not unless they are really good neighbors and we really like them a lot. Loving bad neighbors, neighbors in the next school district, or neighbors who view the world differently than we do is another story. We'll be decent to them if it doesn't cost us much, but we won't put their needs on par with ours. We don't trust Jesus enough to go by him on this one.

I've been teaching a weekly study on the book of Genesis this winter/spring. I've taught it before, and I find that some of the most educated Presbyterians struggle to take it seriously. Its stories seem primitive, quaint, and sometimes patently offensive. Our modern conceit sometimes imagines ourselves too sophisticated for such stories, and in our "sophistication," we often fail to notice the texts wrestling mightily with those fundamental questions. Is God to be trusted, and if so, to what extent?

Today's reading from Daniel begins setting up a story about someone who trusts God to a ridiculous degree. Surely it is just a story, a tale. Our gospel reading is setting up a very similar story. Jesus trusts God to a ridiculous degree, so much that he will face a brutal execution that he could have avoided. Surly it is just a story, a tale. And even those of us who insist it is true often make the story about something other than, Is God to be trusted? We make it a formula. Believe this happened and get a prize.

Jesus calls those who would be his disciples to deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow him. In other words, he says to trust that the path he walks is the right one. That's asking a lot, as Jesus well knows. We peddlers of religion know it, too, and so we try to make faith easier, simpler. We're frightened to raise big questions of trust. What if people just want a little religion? We might scare them off.

Sometimes it seems to me that those primitive, ancient folks who wrote the Scriptures had a lot more religious sophistication than we do. At least they understood what the real, fundamental religious questions are.

Click to learn more about the lectionary.

Preaching Thoughts on a Non-Preaching Sunday

During worship today, members of our confirmation class will make their public professions of faith.  And the gospel reading will include a story about "doubting Thomas." Sounds about right.

Now I don't begin to know the minds of our confirmands, and I am very impressed with the confirmation process this congregation has developed. (It runs from beginning of the school year to now, includes adult "companions," and so on.) But I have to assume that there are more than a few doubts floating around. And there will likely be more. They are, after all, only in their early teens.

To some degree, confirmation has long been an expectation in Presbyterian churches. When children reach a certain age (that age varies from congregation to congregation), there is some sort of programed experience which leads to young people making professions of faith and so becoming full-fledged, adult members of the congregation. Some young people feel a great deal of pressure to take part. And after all, once complete, there are no other requirements. And indeed, quite a few graduates of confirmation class graduate from church altogether before long.

(There is an old joke about a group of pastors meeting for lunch, each of them offering helpful suggestions to the pastor whose church attic has become infested with bats. Seems that all the suggestions have already been tried without success. But then the Presbyterian pastor says that she had all the bats graduate from confirmation class, and she hasn't seen them since.)

The disciple Thomas has been through a lot more than a confirmation class. He has been taught by Jesus, been there for it all, including seeing him hauled off by the authorities and then executed.  But now he hears that others have seen the risen Jesus. First Mary had seen  him. Now some of the other disciples have, and they tell Thomas about it. But Thomas needs more. "Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe."

It's a bit of hyperbole. When Thomas does actually see Jesus, he passes on Jesus' offer to touch his wounds. But it raises the very legitimate question of what is needed for faith. Based on the number of confirmation class graduates who leave the church by early adulthood, I'd say that going through confirmation class isn't enough. Regardless of how sincere those young people are today when they promise to follow where Jesus leads and to fulfill their "calling to be a disciple of Jesus Christ," if something does not make it real for them, there are far too many cultural forces pulling them in other directions.

The term "doubting Thomas" is often used pejoratively, but Thomas' statement upon seeing the risen Christ, "My Lord and my God!" is one of the faith highlights of John's gospel. And I suspect that a great deal of the church's malaise in our day is the result of too few Thomases in our ranks, not too many. Without wrestling with the issue Thomas raises, church easily becomes a social convention without much solidly behind it. Church as social convention only works when the society actively encourages it. But as that societal encouragement has disappeared, often replaced with societal pulls away from church, the habit of church is slowly disappearing.

What does it take for someone to say to Jesus, "My Lord and my God!" my master and the center of my life? It certainly would seem to require more than good information. Surely there has to be some sort of encounter, maybe not as impressive as the one Thomas had, but an encounter nonetheless.

Click to learn more about the lectionary.

Wasting Time

Earlier today, I had a wonderful visit with an older church member who is not able to attend worship very often. We had the most delightful conversation, such that an hour passed in what seemed the blink of an eye. This person knew I had another appointment, and upon realizing that our allotted time was over and then some, apologized profusely for "wasting my time."

Church congregations are supposed to be and do many things. We are to proclaim the gospel, nurture people in the faith, worship God, and more. And in today's gospel, we are commanded by Jesus to "love one another," to be a community of love. Earlier in John's gospel Jesus says this love for one another is what will make us known as his followers. As the song says, "They'll know we are Christians by our love."

I'm not sure that world knows us Christians primarily by our love. Congregations are often better known for their buildings, their children or youth programs, music program, or a special ministry or mission. At times, sadly, we are known for our fighting and bickering. Now some of our programs and ministries are about love, but it is easy to get caught up in our culture's focus on productivity and efficiency. And so today was far from the first time I've had a church member apologize for wasting my valuable time, time that I could surely being using more productively than just sitting and talking with them.

I told that church member today what I have told others. Moments like the time we shared are the very best part of this job. I could have added that in addition, they are an absolutely essential part of this job, time that can't be evaluated by typical measures of efficiency or productivity. That time, time without agenda or goal to be completed, time simply to be with someone, seems to me essential to being a community known for and rooted in love.

But there is often so little of this sort of time. So much conspires to prevent it. Sunday mornings, the time when I see the most members of the community, is least conducive to spending time with anyone. Sometimes I get so focused on getting the sermon right, on preaching and leading the worship service, I scarcely notice the people around me until they are shaking my hand on the way out.

Perhaps this is why large congregations, who are able to do some things much better than smaller ones, must work very diligently if they are to be communities of love. It is difficult to scale up the sort of loving that can happen in a smaller and more intimate community.

Meanwhile - and I say this as an introvert - I just wish a few more people would "waste my time."

Click to learn more about the lectionary.

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."

Click to learn more about the lectionary.

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.

Click to learn more about the lectionary.

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.

Click to learn more about the lectionary.

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.

Click to learn more about the lectionary.