Image Problems and Christ-Shaped Lives

If Paul were alive today, I'm not sure his technique would work so well. As he tries to correct his Corinthian congregation, he draws this contrast between them and himself.

We are fools for the sake of Christ, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are held in honor, but we in disrepute. To the present hour we are hungry and thirsty, we are poorly clothed and beaten and homeless, and we grow weary from the work of our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we speak kindly. We have become like the rubbish of the world, the dregs of all things, to this very day.

The sarcasm is pretty thick here, but even so, I'm not sure Paul would gain many points with a modern audience by touting his weakness, disrepute, and suffering. We are a results and success oriented people, and Paul's points don't speak to either.

That Paul thinks this argument has force speaks to some picture or the Christian life that he assumes he and the Corinthians share. He expects they will pick up on the contrast he is making and see how they have gotten off track. But I wonder how many of us would.

When we picture it in our minds, what is the shape and form of the Christian life? What are the marks that one could reasonably expect to be exhibited by anyone seeking faithfully to follow Jesus? 

Considering the variety of Christian denominations and groups, a variety of answers to such questions is to be expected. Still, I think a great deal of the Church's current image problems come from such answers, and from the lack of them.That is because those with clear-cut, well-defined pictures of what the Christian life looks like more often define it in ways that are hostile toward those who aren't part of their group. Meanwhile, those Christian who are more open toward others and interested in relationship with those different from themselves often have only the vaguest picture of the Christian life. (Brian McLaren explains this much better than I do in his book Why Did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and Mohammed Cross the Road?: Christian Identity in a Multi-Faith World.)

Quite often, especially for more moderate and liberal sorts, "Christian" defines a very narrow slice of people's lives. It is private and personal, more about internal beliefs than daily living. Our day to day lives are shaped much more by cultural values and forces than they are by following Jesus. We are consumers focused on pursuing the American dream, or a number of other possible identities, with a dash of Christian faith sprinkled in.

That makes Paul's argument to the Corinthians far from compelling to us. It also means that the image of the Christian life, as far as outsiders are concerned, is shaped primarily by those who do have a strong notion of what that life is. Therefore many outside the Church see us as focused on personal salvation and a few social issues such as banning abortion and fighting against LGBT rights.

What does it mean to follow Jesus? How does that make you and your faith community a light to the world and a beacon of hope? How does it broadcast an alternate portrait of the Christian life to the prevailing one that drives so many away from church and from Jesus?

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Preaching Thoughts on What to Preach

A children's musical liberated me from the pulpit in our traditional worship service today, allowing me a bit more unstructured thoughts on the gospel for our early, informal service. One of those thoughts had to do with  what to preach on in the first place. In this congregation, we typically utilize texts from the Revised Common Lectionary, a three year cycle of readings that list an Old Testament, Psalm, Epistle, and Gospel reading for each Sunday. I like using the lectionary. It helps music folks do long range planning, and there are many resources for interpretation and worship that are tied to it. It is not a perfect resource, however.

There are quite few important passages that never appear in the lectionary. The editors of the lectionary also make choices that seem strange to me regarding where a particular reading begins and ends. Today's gospel is a good case in point. It is the account of Nicodemus visiting Jesus as night, a visit that leaves Nicodemus terribly befuddled, prompting Jesus' famous words about how "God so loved the world..." The lectionary passage ends with, "God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him." This ending comes mid-paragraph. Perhaps that is because the following verse contains this line. "But those who do not believe are condemned already."

It seems highly likely that the lectionary editors left the last three verses of Jesus' speech out because they didn't like the sound of them. Jesus had this nice thing going about love and not condemning but saving. Then comes this harsh stuff about condemning and people who are evil preferring darkness over light. Let's just leave that out.

In a way I understand such thinking. Jesus words do sound harsh. His words sound incongruent with our image of him, and so we, or in this case the lectionary editors, simply excise those words.(However, I'm not sure Jesus is speaking about ultimate categories of in or out, heaven or hell, and hearing him this way may cause us to miss what he's actually talking about).

In defense of those who set the lectionary, there are many times when it is a difficult editorial decision  to determine the precise place to begin or end, but this is not one of these times. This is simply taking the easy way out and avoiding verses that seem difficult to handle, and it's something we all do.

Most people who read the Bible, as well as those who preach from it, tend to embrace certain sorts of passages over others. Often these choices vary along the conservative-liberal continuum. Stereotypically, those who are more liberal may accuse conservatives of ignoring passages where God or Jesus speak to social-justice issues, or to a special concern for the poor, oppressed, and marginalized. At the same time, conservatives may accuse liberals of ignoring those passages where God or Jesus speak of religious purity, right belief, and high moral standards. These are stereotypes, but there is a hint of truth on both sides. Both liberals and conservatives tend to ignore God/Jesus when it suits us. We just ignore different things and emphasize different things.

In all such instances, we end up creating God in our own image. We expect God to cohere to our notions of what God should be like or how God should act. We take our religious knowledge and certainty and demand that God abide by these. That, by the way, is precisely what gets Nicodemus so confused. He is a learned religious man who thinks he knows how God works. He says as much when he comes to Jesus. "Rabbi we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God." Nick knows about God, and so he already has Jesus slotted into his religious knowing. Unfortunately that leaves him little room maneuver, and he makes absolutely no progress in understanding Jesus during his visit.

(Actually, Nicodemus seems to disappear in the middle of today's reading. In verse 11, Jesus' shifts from saying "you" to saying "y'all," a shift not apparent in English but quite clear in the original  Greek. It's as though Jesus has given up trying to explain anything to this one who already knows, and so he shifts, speaking to some unseen audience, perhaps to us.)

If we don't want to be as befuddled as Nicodemus, we will do well to become a bit more humble about what we know. If God is going to speak to us, if Jesus is going to breathe new life into us, we need room to move and grow in the encounter with a God who almost always challenges what we think we know.

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God's Wish List for Me

I've long been intrigued by the way the story in today's gospel unfolds. When friends of a paralyzed man go to extraordinary lengths to get their friend close to Jesus' healing power, he is impressed with their faith. And so he says, "Son, your sins are forgiven."

We are told nothing about how these friends react. Presumably they were seeking a physical healing for their companion, and so they might well have initially been disappointed. Would Jesus have also healed the man if some of the scribes had not objected to his pronouncement of forgiveness? The story does  not tell us. It simply says that Jesus heals the man in order to confirm his authority to forgive sin. Perhaps I make too much of a dramatic literary device, but it appears that Jesus thought the man's primary need was forgiveness. The healing was simply a nice bonus.

I imagine that most folks who believe in God, and even those who merely suspect there might be a God, seek something from God on occasion . Perhaps it is a healing. Perhaps it is something less dramatic. But what if God thinks we most need is something else?

There is a perpetual temptation afflicting religious people that seeks to enlist God in doing what we want rather that letting God tell us what we need and what we should do. All too often, we view God as a resource we can draw on in fulfilling our plans and our desires. And it may never occur to us to consider whether or not our plans and desires cohere with God's.

When Jesus teaches his followers to pray, giving them that very Jewish prayer we call the Lord's Prayer, he does encourage us to ask for our basic needs, our sustenance for the day. But that comes after first asking that God's will be done. This is, of course, precisely the life Jesus models for us. He will pray to avoid the horror of the cross, but only if that is in keeping with God's will.

Like many people, I occasionally come to God with my wish list. I have plenty of things I would like God to give me, do for me, or explain to me. But very often, I think I get this praying thing backwards. What I most need is for God to show me what I should want, what I really need, and so what my deepest prayer should be.

O God, what is your wish list for me?

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A Ministry of Healing

Today's gospel is from the beginning of Jesus' public ministry. The passage features Jesus healing people of many different diseases and conditions. For those who know their Bible at all, these are familiar accounts, though I wonder if they don't sometimes become so much background noise. Jesus did healing miracles. We've heard all that before, and besides, we're a little nervous about miracles. They seem so... primitive.

And so it is easy for us to forget how much of Jesus' ministry was about offering people practical help. He healed people who were sick, cured people of mental illnesses, and fed people who were hungry. This was central to who he was.

Diana Butler Bass posted this on her Facebook status today. "In the 19th century, Christians founded hospitals as way to embody Jesus' call to heal. Why, in the 21st century, isn't every denomination starting a health care exchange as the contemporary form of Jesus' healing mission?? As genuine non-profits, they could act as counter-cultural examples of providing for human health, and even offering alternative sorts of services involving the spiritual dimension of healing. Come on, smart mainliners (and you are really, really smart and well-educated people -- can't fool me!). You can do this."

Such a thought had never occurred to me, but it is an intriguing one. And it got me to thinking about that label we throw around so easily: "the body of Christ." 

Mainline denominations such as my own Presbyterian Church (USA) have struggled quite a bit in recent decades. Our membership is in steep decline, and the average age in our congregations is getting older and older as younger adults reject the church we have made. But even in such times, Mainline denominations have tremendous resources. Many have huge foundations and endowments, and the value of our church properties is astronomical. Some of these properties are scarcely used, their former congregations having died or being well on their way to death.

When I think of all those church assets, along with all the budgets of those congregations that are in good shape, I wonder to what degree they represent the body of Christ in terms of the Christ of Scripture.  

In the opening pages of my denomination's Book of Order is a section entitled, "The Church Is the Body of Christ," and its description of what this looks like begins, "The Church is to be a community of faith, entrusting itself to God alone, even at the risk of losing its life." That certainly fits with the biblical Jesus. Perhaps we could try to be a bit better at imitating him.

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God's Foolishness

"But we proclaim Christ crucified..." So says Paul in today's verses from his letter to the Corinthian congregation. Paul is not simply rattling off a faith statement. He is emphasizing what a seemingly ridiculous notion this is. He says that according to your worldview, it is either scandalous or absurd. "Stumbling block" and "foolishness" are the actual words he uses as he says that a crucified Christ is scandalous for those who come at things from a Jewish/religious point of view and absurd for those with a Greek/Gentile/logical view.

It is interesting that Paul speaks as he does. He does not "proclaim Christ risen," but rather proclaims the crucified Christ as the power and wisdom of God, something inconceivable from a human point of view, either religious or otherwise. Not that Paul doesn't insist on Jesus' resurrection. He does. But he does not view the cross as a little difficulty along the way. It is the very center of his message.

He needs to reiterate this to the Corinthians because they have gotten a little too exuberant and triumphalist in their faith. They are apparently speaking of already experiencing resurrection themselves, something Paul understands as a future event. Worse, because they do not understand the power of the cross, they do not seek to live cross shaped lives.

There is much that feels modern about these Corinthians. Modern American Christianity is filled with triumphalism and often devoid of the cross. It easily turns faith into another consumer item that will make me happier or more fulfilled. It becomes one more item in a long list of "mores" that I think I must have. But Paul insists that real faith reorients us away from typical human thinking, either the religious or the secular kind.

Because Paul sees the crucified Christ as God's fullest expression of power, Paul comes to a whole new understanding of what it means to be human. To be fully human is to be animated by love. This is not romantic love, but like that, it is a devotion to the other that will risk suffering and even death, even when that other is an enemy. It is a power few in the world understand, but we are drawn to those who do.

Martin Luther King, Jr. clearly understood what Paul was talking about. That is why he can say, "Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that." This sort of love is not sappy or easy. It is risky and costly. But for Jesus, for Paul, and for Dr. King, it is more powerful than all those powers that the world leans upon for hope and security.

I often marvel at how conventional, risk averse, and like the world that Church is. I suppose this was inevitable after Constantine made Christianity the official religion of the empire, and the faith came to occupy a central place in Western culture. But I'm pretty sure Paul would say that we got a bit "off message" as a result. We accommodated our faith to those worldviews that see a crucified Christ as either scandal or foolishness. In the process, we robbed the faith of some of its power.

But the power of love, of light, of a crucified Christ, is still there, waiting for us to entrust ourselves to it. "But we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God."

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Peace vs. Speaking the Truth in Love

Growing up in the Presbyterian Church, I encountered the letters of Paul mostly as snippets of scripture read from the pulpit. Paul was a favorite of us Protestants, and sermons from his letters were preached with great regularity. Unfortunately, this gave me the impression that Paul had written general religious treatises rather than letters directed at particular congregations dealing with particular issues.

Today the daily lectionary begins to read through  Paul's first letter to his congregation in Corinth. There are a number of famous passages in this letter. Paul's words on love in chapter 13 get trotted out all the time at weddings even though  Paul isn't talking about romantic love. (The sort of love Paul does talk about is probably essential for a lasting marriage though.) And the so-called "words of institution" used during the Lord's Supper come from this letter as well. As with the love passage, it is usually divorced from the situation Paul addresses.

As Paul opens his letter, we find this. "I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus, for in every way you have been enriched in him, in speech and knowledge of every kind - just as the testimony of Christ has been strengthened among you - so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ." If you're unfamiliar with the overall letter, you may see nothing particularly significant here. But read a little farther and you'll learn that Paul is angry, upset, and exasperated with the Corinthian Christians, and I've often wondered if Paul means what he says here or if he is simply offering a polite greeting before he gets to what he has to say.

I suppose there is some small comfort in realizing that congregations almost 2000 years ago had problems with petty divisions and arguments. This isn't a problem peculiar to the divisive, highly-partisan culture that we live in. As with modern day church leaders, Paul has his supporters as well as his detractors. He has folks that trash him and talk about him in his absence, and that clearly bothers him. But Paul is even more upset at how badly the Corinthians have distorted what it means to be the church, the body of Christ.

Yet still he opens his letter with what seems like genuine warmth. In some ways I picture Paul not unlike a parent who is devastated by the bad behavior of his children. And so it is out of his love and concern for them than he works so hard to get them to understand how badly they have strayed and need to change their ways.

I have a colleague in pastoral ministry who recently made the difficult decision to leave the congregation he served without having any immediate prospects for employment as a pastor or otherwise. I'm not revealing any private or personal information here. I actually have multiple colleagues who have gone through this, and I've seen it happen because people thought the person too conservative, because people thought the person too liberal, and because people objected to the changes that the pastor brought. The common denominator was a small group of fearful people who were willing to resort to almost anything to rid themselves of a pastor they didn't like.

In the process, any semblance of Christian love got tossed out the window. Events were exaggerated or sensationalized, and outright lies were told. It was usually a fairly small minority that engaged in such activity, but rarely, if ever, did the members who weren't upset or angry say or do anything to help the situation. In fact, congregations regularly empower agitators and trouble makers with their almost absolute adherence to that commandment, "Be nice." This commandments seeks to deal with problems, even ones that are tearing apart a congregation, by smiling and acting as though all is well. To criticize those misbehaving wouldn't be nice. Never mind Jesus' command to correct those who stray. Never mind the harsh language Paul has for those damage the body of Christ.

I can't help recalling the words of Martin Luther King, Jr. who wrote in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail, "First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice." I think something similar can be said about those good members of congregations who stand by while the worst sort of members wreak havoc.

However, the pastor who does confront troublemakers in his or her congregation - never mind how lovingly - may not be there for much longer. The Apostle Paul has a real advantage here. He is not physically present in Corinth, nor is he dependent on the Corinthians for his livelihood. In my denomination, there is really no one who stands in such a position, and rarely do any troublemakers get taken to task until it is far too late, if ever.

In another of the Pauline letters is found the words, "speaking the truth in love." Even though Ephesians is likely not written by Paul, I suspect he would approve of this phrase. That seems to be what he does with the Corinthians. He speaks hard truth to them because his love for them demands it, and because his authority as an apostle and his lack of financial dependence on the Corinthians allows it.

By contrast, I know more than a few pastors who feel they cannot speak this way. Sometimes they have been so beaten down that it is no longer possible for them to love their congregations. More often, financial self-preservation is the culprit, and so they join with those other, non-trouble making members who smile and try to keep the peace. But speaking the truth in love is not about conflict avoidance.

One of the nice things about this blog is I can address issues beyond the congregation I serve. I'm free to write more like Paul does because I'm speaking to - or at least about - people on whom I am not financially dependent. Unfortunately, I speak with no real authority. Indeed, pastoral authority has all but disappeared in 21st century America. People aren't much swayed by "the pastor says so," or by "the Bible says so" for that matter. No doubt such authority has been misused and devolved into abuse, but when the only authority becomes one's own judgment or conscience, there is next to no chance of building a community that mirrors the kingdom of God.

Speaking the truth in love... I wonder if it might be possible to reclaim this in its fullness. At present the tendency is to sacrifice truth for the sake peace, with peace mistaken for love. The truth gets spoken, if ever, only at the point of detachment or anger, as parting shots over the bow.

I wonder... What might congregations look like if we became communities of loving accountability who were  clear about what we mean by the Christian life (See Paul's letter to the Corinthians here.), and, out of love, held each other to such standards?

Click to learn more about the lectionary.

Sermon video: Temptation, Trust, and Identity

Audio of sermons and worship can be found on the FCPC website.

Sermon video: To Whom Shall We Listen?

Audio of sermons and worship can be found on the FCPC website.

Sermon: Temptation, Trust, and Identity

Matthew 4:1-11 (Genesis 3:1-7)

Temptation, Trust, and Identity

James Sledge                                                                                       March 9, 2014

How many of you, on a regular and recurring basis, must resist the urge to commit murder or to rob a bank? I hope it’s not very many of you. I know that we can say things such as, “I’d like to strangle him.” But that’s just hyperbole, right?

If you watch the news or read the paper, you know that some people actually are tempted to such things, but they are a very small segment of society. So what are the things that actually tempt us? No doubt some of our temptations are relatively trivial: temptations to have another piece of cake or watch one more episode of “House of Cards.” But I’m interested in more serious temptations. What are the temptations that can actually deflect us from the life we should live? What are those things that might cause us, when we have grown old, to look back and wish we had done things differently?

I think that a lot of people picture Jesus tempted in the wilderness along the lines of me being tempted to murder someone. Jesus can brush off such temptations as easily as I reject robbing a bank as a reasonable solution for dealing with an unexpected expense. But that is not at all the picture Matthew paints for us.

Matthew tells us that the Spirit leads Jesus into the wilderness to be tested. This testing, these temptations, are necessary in some way. They serve some purpose and so they cannot be foregone conclusions. They must be actual temptations, not unlike the ones that tempt us to be something other than we are meant to be.

Theologian Douglas John Hall says that there are not really three temptations but three variations on a single theme. Echoing the story from Genesis, these temptations are about power. “You will be like God,” says the serpent. [1] Who wouldn’t want to be like God. No waiting for God to provide. You can take care of everything yourself. No need to entrust yourself to God.

What’s so bad about Jesus miraculously providing something to eat when he is starving? What’s so bad about putting on a display of divine power so overwhelming that no one could possibly deny Jesus is Lord? These temptations go to the heart of who Jesus is and what sort of Messiah he will be. Will he trust himself completely to God’s will, or will he be the sort of Messiah people want him to be, the sort many of us still wish him to be? Will he employ divine power on behalf of his people? Will he be willing to use force when necessary? Or will he remain true to God’s call and plan, even on the cross? Temptation will reappear there people taunt him. “If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross.” If many of us were scripting the story, that’s exactly what would happen.

Hunger and Gods of the Belly

"Their god is the belly." It's striking to read that line from Paul as we enter into the season of Lent, a time when so many give up chocolate or the like. I've never been one to give up things for Lent, but insomuch as our god is our desires, it may make sense to tame some of them. Of course most folks will renew their relationship with chocolate come Easter, if they make it that far.

My own Calvinist tradition has emphasized the problem of making gods out of things that aren't, and the belly (especially metaphorically) works quite well. Some folks literally seek fulfillment in food and eating. Many more chase after other sorts of hungers. Trouble is our hungers are not always the most reliable guides. America's struggle with obesity makes that point clear, and the same hold true for other sorts of hungers.

That's one reason I get a little nervous when people evaluate faith practices or worship based on whether or not it "feeds" them. As with actual food, we do have a need to be fed, but when we start to treat faith as a consumer item that we need more of to make our life better, there's a good chance we will misunderstand faith. If our faith practices are ultimately focused on feeding me or making me happy or some other  hunger, that hunger easily slips into God's place, becoming the thing I serve.

The first question in the catechism that Presbyterians used to learn says that the primary purpose of human beings "is to glorify God, and to enjoy (God) forever." The emphasis was on the former, and so there's a story/joke about prospective pastors being examined to see if they were of sufficient faith and orthodoxy to be ordained. The story relates an examination question that asked, "Would you be willing to be damned to hell for all eternity for the glory of God?" The question is admittedly absurd, but it does emphasize a willingness to go to almost any length to fulfill one's true purpose. (In the story the pastor candidate is willing. He is also willing for the entire assembly examining him to be so damned as well if that will help.)

No one would ask such a question today. Not only is it highly likely that the pastor candidate would know the story and so the story's tongue in cheek response, but neither are we inclined to think of ourselves as created for God and God's purposes. We are much more inclined to think - or at least act as though we think - that God was created for us and our happiness. This is a god that the Apostle Paul clearly knew well.

In the gospel reading for yesterday's Ash Wednesday services, Jesus labels as hypocrites those who give alms, say prayers, or fast so as to be noticed and praised. And he tells his followers to practice their piety in secret. I'm not sure Jesus is so much creating more religious rules as he is pointing out how easily our religious practice serves us rather than God. If I engage in faith activities because I think others will be impressed or that it will provide something beneficial to me, am I serving God or simply looking out for myself? But if I do such things in secret, it is perhaps more likely that I am doing them for God rather than some ulterior motive.

Even the best religious rules easily become trivialized, and trying to turn Jesus' words about private piety into a rigid rule of some sort will surely result in such trivial foolishness. One of the reasons I've tended not to give up things for Lent is because the practice often, though by no means always, smacks of such triviality. No doubt there is some benefit to learning any sort of discipline in our lives, but I'm not sure losing a few pounds during Lent really serves God in any significant way.

However, if I were able to find a Lenten discipline that helped me identify those god's of the belly that I serve, that would be another matter entirely. Perhaps it would be helpful to think of those things that I know I could never give up, for Lent or any other reason, and consider whether or not they might be gods of the belly that I actually serve rather than the God I am called to serve.

Click to learn more about the lectionary.

What the Bible Says, or Doesn't

When I preach a sermon, I've usually spent a good deal of time preparing it. I have thought carefully about what it is I want to say and how best to say it. Some sermons are a lot better or worse than others. What I'm trying to say may be well thought out and faithful, or it may be wrongheaded, but generally, I think I communicate what I mean to communicate. However, I have learned over the years that this is not so.

It is not unusual for people to comment on sermons, thanking me for something I've said that was helpful to them. But often I can't figure out, for the life of me, what I might have said that caused them to feel this way. Sometimes we've discussed my "helpfulness" sufficiently for me to realize that they heard something I had  no intention of saying. Usually I chalk this up to the Spirit using my efforts to accomplish something more than I intended.

As I read today's verses from Philippians, I found myself wondering about how it is we hear the things we do. I was prompted by this phrase, "...as to righteousness under the law, blameless." Paul is describing the reasons he has to be confident "in the flesh." He is a good Jew from a good family who was raised with care under the law of Moses and has followed that Mosaic tradition faithfully. And, as he says quite clearly, he is "blameless" in terms of following the law. "Righteousness" here refers to being right in the eyes of God according to the law.

I was raised as a good Protestant, and so I knew well that being righteous, that is right before God, is a matter of God's grace and not my good efforts. Trying to make it via the law, through good works, would inevitably leave me in despair at the impossibility of such a task. Fortunately, the Apostle Paul had helped us understand about righteousness "that comes through faith in Christ," otherwise we'd know how far we were from God but have no way to close the gap.

Martin Luther got us started down this path. He was a man who was acutely aware of his failings. There are stories of him driving his confessor crazy trying to remember and confess every single sin and misstep. And Luther was mortified that he had forgotten some and so might not be forgiven them. Then he found Paul's words about being justified by grace through faith, and he was freed from his despair. And ever since, we have read the letters of Paul assuming that Paul shared Luther's despair at not being able to keep the law perfectly.

So what are we to do with today's words from Paul saying, "...as to righteousness under the law, blameless." Paul clearly didn't share Luther's despair about failing under the law. He was "blameless." (In all likelihood what he didn't mean by this that he never failed to keep the law. Rather, he tried to keep the law and sought forgiveness for those times when he did fail.) Paul's rejection of the law isn't because keeping it is an impossible or onerous task, and it is not because Jesus has relieved him of this terrible burden.

In other letters, Paul speaks much more about his issues with the law. There he seems to describe a problem of putting one's faith in the law rather than in God and God's grace. But in today's letter, Paul simply says that everything he once valued has been superseded by "the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord." He has experienced God's love and grace so powerfully in Jesus that all the things he once thought important have receded.

Paul couldn't be more clear about this, but for hundreds of years, we Protestants have insisted that Paul said something quite different. Luther heard something that was immensely helpful and liberating for him, even if it wasn't quite what Paul actually said. And we've been mishearing Paul with Luther ever since.

I wonder how many other places we mishear or misunderstand the Bible and the basics of our faith because we are hear and see through some inherited point of view, distortion, or bias. I've become increasingly aware of one in recent years. Both Protestants and Catholics have often acted as though the whole Christian faith was about getting folks to heaven when they die even though Jesus spoke much more often about God's reign coming to earth. Jesus was trying to transform creation, but the Church often seemed preoccupied with helping us escape it.

I'm thinking that a good Lenten project for me would be reading the lectionary passages while trying hard to let go of any assumptions that I already know what they are about. I have no illusions that I am completely capable of tuning out my own biases and assumptions, but still I suspect this might be beneficial. Who knows? I might hear a word from God I've never heard before because I have been mishearing something God never said.

Click to learn more about the lectionary.

Sermon: To Whom Shall We Listen?

Matthew 17:1-9

To Whom Shall We Listen?

James Sledge                                                                                       March 2, 2014

Because Lent arrives later than usual this year, we’ve had the chance to hear to a great deal more of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount than is often the case. We’ve gotten to hear him tell us to love our enemies and put anger in the same camp as murder. We’ve heard him tell us to be salt and light to the world, life givers who we show the world a new way. We’ve heard Jesus say that those who mourn, who are meek, who long for a better world, who work for peace, and who are looked down on for doing as he says are those who are closest to God.

Because Lent arrives later than usual this year, we’ve had the chance to hear much of Jesus’ core teachings between Epiphany and Lent, but it’s not as though they are big secrets. Many of us have heard them before. Some of us are also familiar with the events leading up to Jesus transfigured on the mountain. We know that Peter confessed Jesus was “the Messiah, the Son of the living God,” and that Jesus then began to teach his followers that he would go to Jerusalem and be killed. That got Peter so upset he confronted Jesus, and Jesus in turn called him Satan. And Jesus then taught his disciples that any who wanted to follow him must deny themselves, take up the cross, and be willing to lose their lives for Jesus’ sake.

And of course we know that Jesus does go to Jerusalem where he is arrested, tortured, and executed. If we’ve been long in the church and paid attention at all, we know much of Jesus’ story and we’ve heard many of his teachings. But as many parents have said to children, there’s often a difference between hearing and listening.

I’ve been reading Brian McLaren’s latest book, Why Did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and Mohammed Cross the Road?: Christian Identity in a Multi-Faith World. It’s a book about the need for Christians to develop a strong Christian identity that is also benevolent, welcoming, and respectful to outsiders. In it, McLaren describes having lunch with a Muslim friend who is an imam. In the course of their conversation, he asked his friend to tell him about how he became and imam and what he loved most about Islam. In turn, his friend asked him about how he became a pastor and what he loved most about Christianity.

McLaren began by telling him what he loved about Jesus. The imam confessed that all he knew about Christianity was what he’d heard from other Muslims, and he was thrilled to hear McLaren speak about Jesus. “When you say that you love Jesus, it fills my heart with joy,” he said. “We Muslims love Jesus, too. We believe Jesus is a great prophet and we love him dearly. So you and I— we have this in common. We both love Jesus.”

McLaren noted that he could, at that point, have engaged in an argument over the need to believe that Jesus was more than a prophet, but instead, he asked his friend what it meant for a Muslim to think Jesus was a great prophet. His friend said that Jesus’ teachings and example must be followed and God would judge us by that measure. As his friend spoke, McLaren was struck by an irony, and he writes,

We Christians believe that Jesus was more than a prophet, but that means, all too often for all too many of us, that his life and teaching can be largely ignored. As long as we believe certain things about his divinity, death, and resurrection, maybe with some auxiliary beliefs about (depending on our denomination) Mary, Peter, or the Bible, we’re Christians in good standing, no questions asked. Then I thought of Jesus’ own words, “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ but do not do the things I say?”[1]