Softening Jesus' Image

Maybe I'm just in a phase, or perhaps a rut, but I keep bumping into images of Jesus and God that run counter the benign, sweet and kind image that is more prevalent. These less benign pictures found their way into last Thursday's blog post and yesterday's sermon. Today I read the lectionary passage from Luke where Jesus "cleanses" the Temple. It's a little more of an angry picture of Jesus as well, but that's not what caught my eye. Instead it was where the chief priests and scribes begin to plot against Jesus, "for they were afraid of him."

They were afraid of him. How often does that get said about Jesus? I've known my share of "Christians" who were genuinely frightening, but I really don't think of Jesus as much of a threat.

There is gubernatorial race underway in Virginia right now, and that has prompted some articles about the different tactics and strategies employed to win primaries compared to general elections. The need to "play to the base" often requires more strident rhetoric, but when the general election comes around, a broader electorate comes into view. Then the political strategists advise softening the image from the primaries. Don't want to appear frightening to any of those undecided, middle-of-the-road voters.

As one who is often bothered by the extremes of both left and right, I'm happy to see candidates move toward the middle. But such moves sometimes make it hard to know where a candidate really stands. I don't think that was much of a problem with Jesus, at least not the one in the Bible. But the Church has done its share of softening Jesus' image over the years.

Jesus has some pretty uncomfortable things to say about wealth, about absolute loyalty to his cause, about loving your enemies, and about a willingness to suffer. But down through history, Jesus' image-makers in the Church have felt the need to make Jesus compatible with empire and war, slavery and oppression, colonialism and genocide, the American dream and suburbia, and on and on. In the end, about the only thing distinctive about Jesus is that you're suppose to believe he died for you in order to get a heavenly reward. Hardly something that sounds very frightening.

Considering the domesticated, nationalized, softened, etc. images of Jesus that the Church has peddled over the years, a lot of folks in a lot of church congregations might be downright terrified if the real Jesus ever showed up.

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Sermon video: Cardboard Jesus

Audios of sermons and worship available on FCPC website.

Sermon video: To Glorify God

Sermon from from August 11.
Audios of sermons and worship can be found on the FCPC website.

Sermon: Cardboard Jesus

Luke 12:49-56

Cardboard Jesus

James Sledge                                                    August 18, 2013

In your mind, what does Jesus look like and act like? What sort of mental image do you have of him. Diane commented to me a while back that we don’t really have many pictures of Jesus around FCPC. I’m not sure what, if anything, that means, but I doubt it means that no one has an image of Jesus. So what is yours?

Growing up, I suppose that my image of Jesus came from Sunday School artwork. Considering how long ago that was, that meant a very European looking Jesus. Maybe not blond haired and blued eyed, but close. As I grew older, I shifted away from that image, and mine continues to evolve.

I went online and looked at the depictions of Jesus I found there, from famous masterpieces to modern cartoons. This vast array of images looked very different, but they tended to have a common feature. Jesus looked kind and gentle in the vast majority. There were some pictures of a suffering of stoic Jesus. There were some of a laughing Jesus, but almost none of a frustrated or angry Jesus. I found one picture of Jesus arm-wrestling with the devil, but he still had a sweet, kindly expression on his face.

Perhaps your mental image is different, but prevailing images of a sweet and kindly Jesus make today’s gospel reading a little jarring. “You hypocrites!” Jesus yells at the crowd. Jesus isn’t talking to opponents, to people trying to trip him up or trap him. He’s talking to the people who have come out to hear him, the people who are attracted to him and want to know him. But he seems beyond frustrated with them. And his words about being a source of division rather than peace don’t make this picture of Jesus any more palatable.

A Little Frightened of God

The LORD is king! Let the earth rejoice;
     let the many coastlands be glad!  
Clouds and thick darkness are all around him;
     righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne. 
Fire goes before him,
     and consumes his adversaries on every side.
His lightnings light up the world;
    the earth sees and trembles.
The mountains melt like wax before the LORD,
     before the Lord of all the earth.               Psalm 97:1-5

Despite the mention of rejoicing and gladness in the opening verse, the God depicted here is a little frightening. Clouds and thick darkness, consuming fire, lightening that causes the earth itself to tremble, and mountains melting like wax... it all sounds a bit scary.

A scary God is not real popular these days. Many of us who are Christians are downright apologetic about passages in the Bible where God is frightening, and I can't begin to count how many times I've heard someone explain that "fear of the Lord" means awe rather than actual fear. Well... perhaps.

When I look back on the adults who I admired and who were most formative for me growing up, they did instill at least a bit of fear in me. That includes parents, and especially one coach in high school. I would have done absolutely anything for him, and I knew he cared deeply for me. But he still scared me more than a little.

I don't know that my experience is universal. I do know parents who do everything they can so as not to give their children any cause to fear them. Usually this takes the form of being friends with their children. I know that such efforts are done out of love, but very often, such children are not only horribly behaved but also miserable. I'm not speaking in favor of corporal punishment and such, but even the most gentle discipline will evoke respect and a small measure of fear in a small child.

I take it as a given that God is quite a bit more beyond my comprehension than a parent is to a two year old. And so any god that doesn't evoke respect, awe, and yes, some measure of fear, is likely no god at all, certainly not the God of the Bible.

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The One Thing That's Needed

The violence and bloodshed in Egypt today is horrific. The last report I saw spoke of chaos with nearly 300 deaths, a number that seems likely to climb. When the so-called "Arab Spring" began over two years ago, many had hopes for something new and better in the Middle East, but such hopes have gone largely unfulfilled.

What went wrong? I'm no expert on the Middle East or foreign affairs. There are clearly many others who can better explain the historical, cultural, sociological, and systemic roots behind the depressing situation in the news today. But I do feel qualified to say something about the one thing that is needed.

That one thing is at the root of many troubles and problems in everything from personal relationships to national and international events. Almost all individuals, and all institutions, organizations, movements, governments, nations, and so on have at least one thing, often many things, that they cannot even contemplate giving up. The very idea of losing it creates tremendous anxiety and fear.

I moved to the DC area a little over a year ago, and I've never lived in a more anxious place. There are a lot of powerful and influential people and institutions around here, and there are even more people who work with and for them. And like the wealth of the man whom Jesus speaks to in today's gospel, power and influence and importance are terribly difficult to give up. And wanting to hang on to them or to acquire them make people act in ways that are toxic to good relationships, to building community, to creating trust, or bringing hope and peace.

Diana Butler Bass, who lives in this area as well, once commented on her Facebook page about returning from conferences in other parts of the country where things seemed much more civil and genteel. Her status update spoke of returning from the land of "Aloha" to the land of "Get out of my way, I'm more important than you." And I think that about sums up the anxiety I see here.

As I've too often experienced through my own actions, anxious people behave badly. That's why neither political party can stop trying to maintain whatever power it has even if the country suffers as a result. It's why nations do ridiculous things that lead to wars when their sovereignty or "national interests" feel like they have been threatened in some way. And it's why the Egyptian military felt it had to clamp down on protestors so its power and control would not be jeopardized.

I wonder what Jesus would say to Egyptian generals or Democratic and Republican officials or CEOs of large corporations or feuding spouses if any of them were to ask him what it was they needed for eternal life, good life, a better world, peace.  I suspect he'd say that they needed to let go of the one thing they are most terrified of losing.

And so we just keep doing things our way. Never mind what Jesus said. Perhaps that's why Jesus, in another place in Mark's gospel, quotes the prophet Isaiah. "This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me."

What's the "one thing" Jesus would say that you need?

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Too Busy to Listen

When I first began writing this blog, it grew out of my own spiritual practices. Reflections that came to me as I read the Daily Lectionary and spent time in prayer formed the basis of most blog post, and, to a large degree, continue to do so. But "going public" with these reflections changed them on some level. Not only are there some personal things that I'd rather not share, but just knowing that others may read them changes the process.

Just as teaching and preaching are often the most beneficial to the one preparing to preach or teach, writing this blog often opens my eyes to something or provides me with a helpful spiritual insight. But the blog also intrudes on my time of reading scripture and praying. Too often, I find myself thinking about what I might say in the blog as I am reading the lectionary. I am formulating my post even as I read, as well as when I "pray," and as I imagine many of you have discovered, it is quite hard to listen when you are talking. That's just as true for the mental talking I find myself doing as I read.

When I read today's gospel about Jesus welcoming the children and saying, "Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it,” I found myself thinking about how I would need to explain that children were viewed very differently today than in Jesus' day. People might not hear Jesus anything like the people in the day of Mark's gospel without knowing that. But of course I had stopped listening at that point. I was so busy thinking about explaining what Jesus meant that I wasn't actually hearing him at all.

One of the great spiritual discoveries for me was learning the ancient practice of lectio divina, a prayerful reading of scripture that does not so much seek to understand it as to hear where and how it is speaking to me at that particular moment. It is so different from traditional Bible study or from methods of exegesis I learned in seminary to help me dig into a passage of scripture. Those have their place, but they also can sometimes encourage me to hurry to an understanding rather than simply to listen.

I read somewhere that the typical attention span of American adults is less than 30 seconds. That probably explains the way my mind can wander even in the midst of reading a passage from the Bible. But how are we to hear God speak to us if we cannot listen for more than 30 seconds without beginning to formulate our opinions and responses, or just letting our attention wander off somewhere else?

Sometimes the greatest spiritual gift I can receive is the ability to listen. That is why both lectio divina and contemplative prayer have been so helpful to me. (They were also something of a revelation to me in that I was unfamiliar with either a decade ago.) And my own spiritual life never gets so askew as when I am "too busy" for such practices, "too busy" to listen.

What is it that helps you to listen? What is it that keeps you from listening? Lord, help us to listen.

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Libertarianism, Freedom, and Servanthood

On today's Renovaré Facebook page, a status update included this quote from Martin Luther. "A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none. A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all." I suspect that this statement is befuddling to many, but it probably feels totally true to those who've experienced what Luther was talking about.

Unfortunately, American Christianity has often been marked by an embrace of the "perfectly free" but not the "servant of all" side of faith. Thus it is not unusual to hear Christians in America insist that no one can tell them how to live out their faith. Only those habits that feel right to them are valid. Indeed some Christians sound as if Jesus' message was primary message was one of personal freedom and libertarianism.

Today's gospel reading surely sits uneasily with such notions. Jesus makes perfectly clear that following him is a narrow path, one the from which the world frequently tries to deflect us. That is why Jesus uses graphic imagery to demand that we be careful about those things that would trip us up, as well as things that might trip up "little ones," presumably referring to people who are new to faith. What Jesus describes here is the absolute antithesis of unbounded personal freedom. Rather it is a path of great discipline for the sake of others and for ourselves.

In The Presbyterian Hymnal on my desk there's an old hymn entitled "Make Me a Captive, Lord." The verses are by George Matheson, and here are a couple of them.

Make me a captive, Lord,
And then I shall be free;
Force me to render up my sword,
And I will conqueror be.

My will is not my own
Till Thou hast made it Thine;
If it would reach a monarch's throne,
It must its crown resign.

I don't know that anyone can be convinced of the truth of such words. It is a gift of God's grace, an experiencing of the new creation we become in Christ. But it does not help create a climate open to such transformation when religion in America is so often hyper-personalized and individualized, when it celebrates personal freedom for the sake of personal freedom. I've even heard people proclaim that their right to bear arms and defend themselves is a part of their Christian freedom.

One way to talk about being "free" is to speak of being able to do whatever it is I want to do. Such freedom is only problematic when what I want to do is problematic. A classic understanding of God's grace, going all the way back to Augustine, is that God transforms our wills so that we want to do what God wants. This is pure freedom, but it looks totally different from freedom where our will has not been made God's own.

"A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none. A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all." I think Luther really knew what he was talking about.

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Sermon: To Glorify God

Isaiah 1:1, 10-20 (Luke 12:32-40)

To Glorify God

James Sledge                                                                                       August 11, 2013

Being a pastor, it should come as no big surprise that I have lots of books on worship. One of them opens with this little anecdote.

One Sunday morning, a mother went upstairs to her son’s room to wake him for church.  Slowly opening the door, as it softly squealed in protest, she said, “Dear, it’s time to get up.  It’s time to go to church.”  The son grumbled and rolled over.  Ten minutes later his mother again went up, opened the door, and said, “Dear, get up.  It’s time to go to church.”  He moaned and curled up tighter under the blankets, warding off the morning chill.  Five minutes later she yelled, “Son! Get up!”  His voice muffled by the blankets, he yelled back, “I don’t want to go to church!”  “You have to go to church!” she replied.  “Why?  Why do I have to go to church?” he protested.

The mother stepped back, paused, and said, “Three reasons.  First, it’s Sunday morning, and on Sunday mornings we go to church.  Second, you’re forty years old, and you’re too old be having this conversation with your mother.  Third, you’re the pastor of the church.”[1]

The author, a Presbyterian pastor, shared the story to speak of the ambivalence many pastors feel about worship. I’ve noticed over the years that even those pastors who love preaching can still have very mixed feelings about worship. And I read somewhere that many pastors derive a kind of perverse pleasure from reading today’s scripture in worship. That’s rather odd when you think about it, what with pastors leading worship and all. But I suppose that most pastors worry at times about being complicit in worship that God doesn’t particularly appreciate; or worse,  complicit in worship that God hates.

Those of you who’ve been around the Presbyterian Church for long enough may recall the catechism that used to be taught to children and youth. The Shorter Catechism, which I received in a little pink booklet as a fourth grader, begins with a question about “the chief end of man.”  Written in the mid-1600s, the language is a bit dated, so I’ll paraphrase. Q. 1. What is the primary purpose of human beings? A. Humanity’s primary purpose is to glorify God and to enjoy God forever.

From a Presbyterian perspective, I think it’s kind of hard to argue with that. It makes perfect sense that Christians who have experienced God’s love in Jesus would want to live in ways that glorified God. But just what does it mean for us to glorify God? What does that entail?

No doubt worship is a part of this. The very term “worship service” speaks of our worship as serving God in some way. Which is not to say that God necessarily appreciates such attempts, not if today’s scripture is any guide.

Talking about Hunger to Hungry People

Today's gospel reading is Mark's account of the Transfiguration, where Jesus' appearance is transformed and Moses and Elijah join him for a little conversation, all in front of an awestruck Peter, James, and John. The three disciples are terrified and unsure what they should do. That must be why Peter grasps for something from the religious playbook. “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”

These "dwellings" or booths would have likely been some sort of religious memorial to commemorate the event. Had Peter actually constructed them, they undoubtedly would have become shrines at some later date, and people would have come to worship there.

There is a religious tendency that wants to mark things and label them as significant. Then we can venerate them, meditate on them, talk about them, explain their significance, and so on. Sometimes this sort of tendency gets in the way of simply experiencing the thing. That seems to be the case for Peter. His desire to do something religious interrupts and gets in the way of the actual event. Fortunately Jesus, Moses, Elijah, and God all seem to ignore him.

I thought about the way our religious stuff sometimes gets in the way when I read Richard Rohr's meditation today. (I hate for this blog to sound like an ad for Fr. Rohr, but he has become a real spiritual guide for me.) He speaks of about the Lord's Supper or Eucharist and how we spend so much time trying "to 'understand' and explain presence. As if we could." He goes on to add, "Despite all our attempts to define who is worthy and who is not worthy to receive communion, our only ticket or prerequisite for coming to Eucharist is hunger. And most often sinners are much hungrier than the so-called saints."

The world is full of hungry people, both literally as well as figuratively or spiritually. And sometimes we religious sorts are more practiced at talking about  hunger than actually doing anything about it. I wonder if those who say they are "spiritual but not religious" are saying something about being hungry but not interested in talking about it.

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So When Did You Receive the Holy Spirit?

Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you first joined the church? That's a question no one has ever asked me, nor have I ever heard it asked of anyone else. But Paul asks such a question in today's reading from Acts.

I'm not sure what prompts Paul to ask. The persons in question are called both "disciples" and "believers." We are told nothing about them that would indicate any sort of deficiency. Did Paul ask this a lot, or was there something about these particular believers that gave Paul concerns?

If you went around and asked this of everyone in a church congregation, what sort of response would you expect? In my own church experience, I can't imagine people saying they had never heard of the Holy Spirit, as those believers tell Paul. The congregations I've been a part of used the Apostles' Creed with some regularity, and so people hear about the Spirit frequently. But I would not be at all surprised if quite a few people answered with the same "No" that Paul heard.

I have heard the Spirit mentioned in Trinitarian formulas all my life. I've heard the story of the Spirit coming at Pentecost countless times. But as I was growing up in the church, I heard very little about the Spirit connected to the personal experience of anyone I knew. In the brand of Presbyterianism I grew up with, we pretty much left the Spirit to Pentecostals and other more "enthusiastic" sorts.

I'm not sure that the Enlightenment and the Holy Spirit play very well together. The Enlightenment is all about logic and reason, and Enlightenment forms of Christianity tend to explain and make sense of Christian faith. It isn't clear what to do with the unpredictable wind of the Spirit, swirling around where it may, stirring things up and prodding people to do things that don't always seem very reasonable or logical.

I think one of the inherent problems with liberal Christianity, a child of the Enlightenment if there ever was one, is a tendency to proclaim a belief system that is sometimes more philosophy than faith. It is a well thought out and helpful philosophy in many ways, but it may not really be alive. It may not be inhabited by the breath of God.

Did you receive the living breath of God when you became part of the church? If not, when did you? And if you didn't receive the Spirit, or if you just aren't sure, what does that mean?

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Sermon video: Trembling Home

Audios of worship and sermon available on FCPC website.