Not Enough Like Me

"Love your neighbor as yourself."  If you're Christian, and even if you're not, you're likely familiar with this command.  Jesus says that loving God with our entire being and loving our neighbor as ourselves pretty much covers it all.  Do these, and everything else falls into place.  And so as a pastor, I encourage people to love their neighbors, to love one another. But at the very same time, I have to admit that I often struggle to love some folks.

It's all their fault of course.  They are mean, or troublesome, or hateful, or manipulative, or controlling, or strange, or stupid, or hold political views I find repugnant, or some other thing that bothers me.  I'd be happy to love them, but they make it very difficult.  I'm all ready to love them, but their behavior, demeanor, beliefs, or plain oddness prevents me.

In today's passage from Acts, the Ethiopian eunuch asks a simple question.  "What is to prevent me from being baptized?" But in the time these words were written, most everyone who read them would have known precisely what. And they were huge barriers.  The man was a Gentile to begin with, a big obstacle though not necessarily an insurmountable one.  But he was also a eunuch, and Scripture was clear that eunuchs weren't allowed.

I have to think that the very first time the story of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch was read in a church gathering, some members got upset, maybe even thought about leaving. It had been one thing to hear about Jesus telling them to love their neighbor and even to love their enemy.  But that was all a bit esoteric.  This was a concrete example of reaching out to embrace someone who didn't fit, who didn't belong.  But the normal thinking that should have prevented Philip from loving this fellow didn't work as it was supposed to. Philip loved him even though he shouldn't have.

The other day I was thinking about the people I follow on Twitter, and the huge majority of the them are either folks I find entertaining, or that I find it easy to like. I don't follow many folks who are significantly different from me, whose politics I don't like, or who say things that upset me.  Nothing strange about that, I suppose. But this little, virtual community is a lot like real ones, a lot like many church  congregations.  Churches are often filled with people who find it easy to like or love one another.  And so churches are often segregated along political, economic, social, and racial lines.  Our unity is not in Christ, but in other things that make is easy for us to get along.  Often we form faith communities with people whose looks, politics, tastes, etc. don't prevent us from loving them.

American individualism combined with consumerism helps produce a religious climate where people of faith "church shop," looking of a community that fits their tastes, needs, wants, and desires.  We're so used to this that we scarcely think about it. But it is a bit hard to reconcile with "There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male or female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus."

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Money Trouble

For those churches that conduct annual stewardship campaigns (this congregation among them) the season is fast approaching.  Falls Church Presbyterian is putting the final touches on our campaign for this year.  After all, running a church takes a good bit of money.  There are salaries to pay, utilities, and perhaps a mortgage.  There are music programs, educational programs, mission to the community and world, and these all cost money.

But the relationship of faith and money is often a troublesome one.  To disciples who assumed that great wealth was a sign of God's blessing, Jesus said, "How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!"  And today's reading from Acts raises another issue, thinking our money can buy us what we most want.

When a man named Simon saw the Holy Spirit enter people when Peter and John laid hands on them, he offered money that he might have the power to confer the Spirit as well.  But his request meets with harsh condemnation from Peter, who demands that Simon repent saying, "For I see that you are in the gall of bitterness and the chains of wickedness."

Most of us would never be so brazen as to ask to purchase power from God. For that matter, many of us realize that we cannot earn anything from God, that God loves us because that's how God is.  And yet when stewardship season rolls around, we often start sounding like one of those regular PBS fundraisers.  "If you enjoy the great programing on your PBS station, you need to support that station." "If you enjoy the great music program at Falls Church Presbyterian, you need to support that program." 

It's a considerably more nuanced approach that the one Simon employs, but there are similarities.  "If you enjoy the worship and like how it helps you experience God, you need to pay for it."

I do not think that churches need to make any apologies for needing money to pay salaries and operate facilities, programs, and mission.  But the relationship of faith any money creates real spiritual problems for both individuals and the church itself. 

Many are familiar with the statement that says, "Budgets are moral documents."  The way governments divide up the money they have speaks volumes about a people's moral priorities.  In the same way, church budgets and personal budgets are spiritual documents, speaking volumes about our faith priorities.  But when churches use the PBS approach - "If you like it, you ought to pay for it." - we reduce a spiritual issue to a practical one, and we fail to call members to the discipleship Jesus asks of us.  Jesus says we are to love God with all that we have and are, and to love our neighbor as ourself, and he insists that money is one of the biggest obstacle to faithful life with God.  But all too often, we undercut Jesus' call, instead saying, "If you like what we're doing here, please give us a tiny bit of your leftovers after you've made sure you and yours have all that you want and need."

I don't for a moment think that Jesus meant generosity toward God and neighbor is the same thing as giving to the local church.  I have absolutely no issues with those who have felt God calling them to give extravagantly to some cause that furthers the peace, justice, mercy, and hope of God's coming reign.  But in my experience, and in every study I've ever seen, people of faith who are extravagantly generous with causes and organizations that work to better community and world are equally generous with their place of worship.

In a way, I suppose it all comes back to how I view myself and thus my possessions.  Am I my own, or do I belong to God?  And if "I belong -- body and soul, in life and in death -- not to myself but to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ," then it stands to reason that in some way, all that I have belongs to him as well.  Now Jesus is a great guy, and he is more than happy for us to use some of it to live, to meet our basic needs, to enjoy life, and to have a good time now and then.  After all, Jesus liked a good party and a little wine.  But he also said we had to lose ourselves in order to discover true life.  And I'm pretty sure you can't lose much when you're busy keeping your wallet tightly closed.

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Opposing the Spirit

"You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you are forever opposing the Holy Spirit, just as your ancestors used to do. Which of the prophets did your ancestors not persecute?"  So says Stephen as his "trial" concludes in today's reading from Acts.  Hardly the way to talk to people who have power over you. No wonder Stephen gets executed.  But I suppose Stephen knows the whole thing is a foregone conclusion.  However, it was not Stephen's plight that caught my attention.  It was the content of his statement, and I found myself wondering if things have changed very much since Stephen spoke. 

I think we all tend to look back on colossal bad judgements of the past and assume we wouldn't have acted so foolishly. We like to think we would have always been on the right side of history, but the witness of history makes that seem unlikely.  Prophets are almost always a lot more popular after the fact.  Martin Luther King, Jr. is celebrated with regularity now, but that was not the case 50 years ago.  Even "progressive," white pastors asked King to tone it down and go slower, a request he rebuffed eloquently in his, Why We Can't Wait. 

Even those who were on the right side of history with regards to Civil Rights or other movements should likely not fee too smug. There's a good chance of finding yourself on the wrong side of another movement.  I've had a number of young, progressive reformers tell me that "old progressives" are sometimes their biggest obstacle because of how encrusted they have become.

All of this makes me wonder when and where I might be working counter to the Spirit.  As a pastor, it stands to reason that there are times when I am called to be prophetic. But if prophets are uniformly persecuted, as Stephen suggests, that's no fun.  Perhaps I could just be prophetic about things that are distant and far off, with no implications for my congregation or community.  Maybe that would insulate me.

I think one of my biggest fears as a pastor is finding out after the fact that I was working against the Spirit's moving to reform my own denomination.  As a group, we're on the progressive side, but we are also on the encrusted side.  I hear a lot of young pastors and other Presbyterians who are very frustrated with the church.  They have my sympathies, but as our denomination plods along toward the future, I wonder sometimes if I'm not a little like some members of the Jewish council who had misgivings about the proceedings against Stephen, but who didn't want to call too much attention to themselves by standing up.

I am fortunate to serve in a wonderful, vibrant congregation that that is considerably younger than the typical Presbyterian church.  But in a world where fewer and fewer people grow up in church, I wonder how well situated we are to translate faith to coming generations.  The worship here is well done, and the music program is unbelievably good.  Yet if you somehow time warped one of our services back to the sanctuary where I was seated in 1968 (a place that also had a stellar music program), I don't know that I would have noticed very much difference.

To any FCPC folks reading this, don't get nervous.  I'm not suggesting anything. I'm just wondering.  I wondering what it means to be a faithful church in the vastly different religious landscape of 2012. I wondering what the Spirit is up to, and whether I am spiritually astute enough to notice.  I'm wondering what words Stephen would have for me.

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Sermon audio - Letting Go and Falling into God

Sermon and worship audios also available at Falls Church Presbyterian website.

Sermon - Letting Go and Falling into God

1 Kings 2:10-12, 3:3-14

Letting Go and Falling into God

James Sledge                                                                                       August 19, 2012

Several decades ago, Mac Davis had something of a hit song entitled “It’s Hard to Be Humble.”  The opening verse, which also serves at the chorus, goes, “Oh Lord, it’s hard to be humble when you’re perfect in every way.  I can’t wait to look in the mirror ‘cause I get better looking each day.  To know me is to love me. I must be a hell of a man.  Oh Lord, it’s hard to be humble, but I’m doing the best that I can.”

You can find countless T-shirts, coffee cups, and bumper stickers that play on this hard to be humble theme.  It’s hard to be humble when you’re Scottish, Irish, Scandinavian, or from Texas.  It’s hard to be humble when you go to (insert your school name here).  It’s hard to be humble when you own a Border collie, ride a Harley, or – I actually found this one – crochet. 

Whatever the reason, seems it’s hard to be humble.  We may not like it if you go too far and act like Donald Trump, but our culture associates humility with weakness and timidity.  We’re more likely to pad our résumés than to leave stuff out.  Employment experts will tell you that you need to “sell yourself” when you apply for a job, and sell of course means to make yourself look as good as possible.  The pressure in our society to be impressive is tremendous, and we regularly see people get caught because they felt they needed to lie on their résumé.

Humility is no easier to come by among church professionals.  Pastors compare how big their congregations are, and rare is the pastor who feels God’s call to a smaller congregation.  I suspect a lot of us would have a hard time encouraging our congregations to do something we were certain God wanted if it would cause attendance or giving to go down.

To make matters worse in the pastoral humility department, we pastors are sometimes prone to confuse our own agendas with God’s. When we have ideas that we think are great, we expect everyone else to think they are great, too.  Most of the things I’d like to take back or undo as a pastor happened when I was overly impressed with my own ideas and got adamant or defensive when Session, some committee, or some other group didn’t want to go along.

Of course, while it may be hard to be humble, Christian faith is quite big on humility, as are most of the world’s religions.  The Old Testament wisdom from Proverbs says, When pride comes, then comes disgrace; but wisdom is with the humble.  Jesus describes himself as humble and he says on more than one occasion, “All those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”  And the letter of James quotes the Old Testament in reminding readers, “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”

King Solomon seems to have gotten the memo on humility.  When he encounters God in our reading today he says, “O Yahweh my God, you have made your servant king in place of my father David, although I am only a little child; I do not know how to go out or come in.”  Little child here does not refer to Solomon’s age but to his status before God.  The same is true with regards to saying he is God’s servant, or, more literally, God’s slave.

Finding Our Place in the Story

Stephen is on trial for his life, falsely accused of blaspheming God and the Jerusalem Temple. Once the charges against him are outlined, the chief priest asks him, "Are these things so?"  And Stephen answers by beginning to tell a story.  He goes all the way back to Abraham, and sketches out Israel's story from Abraham to Isaac to Joseph to Moses and Joshua to David and Solomon.  Finally, he locates Jesus in this story.

It's a rather odd way to answer the priest's question when you think about it.  But Jesus also tends to tell stories when asked questions.  Someone says, "Who is my neighbor?" and Jesus tells the story of the "Good Samaritan."  I suppose stories and parables helped people remember Jesus' teachings better than straight forward answers, but I also think that faith is more story based than we modern folks tend to be.

If you're in a business meeting or a committee meeting and someone says, "Let me tell you a story," there will likely be groans (unless the person is a very gifted story teller).  We don't have time to waste on stories.  We are about efficiency and getting things done.  But in our rush to be efficient and accomplish things, we often have little sense of context, of where we are in the story.

It's seems rather obvious that we are products of stories: family stories, community stories, school stories, national stories.  We are shaped and molded by the narrative in which we live, but for whatever reason, we tend to think of ourselves as free and independent agents who create our own stories.  Those born into privilege speak of creating their own success.  We talk easily of earning what we have, often oblivious to the fact that we might well have done nothing of the sort in another age or culture, without infrastructures and supports that others provided, without advantages provided by gender, race, academic or physical gifts, etc.

Our disconnection from our stories has a profound impact in the way we pursue and experience faith.  The notion of "going to church" rather than "being the church" is but one example.  In some congregations, there is no more sense of community on Sunday morning than there is in a movie theater.  People are there to get something they need, and they don't necessarily see that as connected to a larger story intertwined with those around them.

A big part of my Reformed/Presbyterian tradition is the idea of vocation or call.  A vocation is not what I happen to do for a living but what I am meant to do, an activity that benefits me and my community, as well as God's plans for Creation. Responding to God's call, discovering one's vocation, is about finding our place in a larger story, one that we do not write on our own.

It seems to me that at times America's worship of individualism rises to a level that is extremely hazardous to faith and relationship with God. If we presume that we are author, producer, and director of our own stories, then we have forgotten the lesson of that old catechism question.  "Q. What is your only comfort, in life and in death?  A. That I belong--body and soul, in life and in death--not to myself but to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ..."

I am not my own.  In Christ, I belong to God. And I am who I am meant to be, I am truly and fully alive, only when I discover my calling and take my place in the story of which God is author, designer, producer, and director.  I uncover my truest and deepest identity, my true self, as I take my small part in God's great narrative.  "A wandering Aramean was my father..."

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Welcome Table

I peeked in a little while ago to see how the Welcome Table was going.  That's a once-a-month meal hosted by this congregation where we also give out toiletries and gift cards for a local grocery store.  The numbers seem to get larger each month, and it was a huge crowd tonight.

The crowd is a very mixed group.  There are  different ethnic groups.  There are young and old.  There are individuals and families.  There are those who appear to be long term homeless, and there are those who may have just recently fallen on some hard times. 

I only recently moved to the DC area.  Homes right around this church are hard to find for less than $500,000.  I routinely get requests for rent assistance from people paying hundreds a month for a room in someone else's apartment.  As I watched some of these folks eating in our Fellowship Hall this evening, it struck me that many of them are our version of Samaritans.

Many of us think of Samaritans only in the context of the "good" one who now refers to someone doing a good deed.  But in Jesus' day, Samaritans were looked down on.  They were "inferior" in every way possible: ethnically, religiously, racially.  That Jesus lifts up a Samaritan as an example of how to be a neighbor to others is nothing short of scandalous.

But that happens in Luke's gospel.  In John's gospel we meet a more "typical" Samaritan.  She is surprised that Jesus speaks to her, worthless Samaritan that she is.  We learn that she had had five husbands and is now living with a man outside marriage. And even Jesus affirms that Samaritans are a bit wanting in the religious department.  And yet, she comes much closer to understanding Jesus than the religious teacher Nicodemus does few chapters earlier.

We Presbyterians are quite proud of being an educated denomination.  We make much of the fact that we require our pastors to study Greek and Hebrew so they can handle Scripture in its original languages.  And in my personal experience, we liberal/progressive Presbyterians are often even more taken with the idea of being educated, smart, and figuring things out.

I don't really have any grand conclusions from all this.  These are just thoughts bouncing around in my head right now.  The undesirables and sometimes despised of our day are eating just down the hall in a place led by a "religious expert," namely me.  And religious experts were befuddled by Jesus while an undesirable and despised of his day come face to face with God's great I AM and find new hope.

Sometimes it's hard not to hear Jesus speaking to me, as he did to religious experts of his day, saying, "Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you."

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Starving

As a deer longs for flowing streams,
    so my soul longs for you, O God.
My soul thirsts for God,
    for the living God.          (from Ps. 42)

During today's staff meeting, during a time of extended devotion and Bible study, we somehow got on the subject of why church people can be so unnerved by change, especially change in worship. (This seems to apply just as much, perhaps even more, to progressive/liberal Christians who one might expect to be most open to change.)

One wise staff member suggested something that had never occurred to me.  She said that some people may be spiritually hungry and thirsty, even starving, and worship is the single most important spiritual resource they have.  And so even a small change in worship can be perceived as a potential threat to their spiritual lifeline.

I don't know if this is the case, but I does make sense to me.  People who lead stressed out, hectic and harried lives may find it difficult to encounter much that feels spiritual on a day to day basis.  Under such circumstances, Sunday worship may be an oasis of sorts.

As I have become more familiar and more practiced in recent years with spiritual disciplines such as lectio divina, centering prayer, contemplative prayer, and spiritual direction, I have had to overcome my own prejudices of these disciplines being little more than esoteric, mysterious rituals with little to do with actual life.  They had often seemed to me little more that a nice diversion for folks who had too much time on their hands and thus could leave the everyday for extended periods.  And I also must confess that I was drawn to such practices because of a growing need to escape the burnout of the day to day.

But over time, I have come to recognize that spiritual practices are not about escape.  Nor are they about getting away to recharge one's spiritual batteries.  At their most radical and profound level, spiritual disciplines are about becoming more and more attentive to God's presence, grace, providence, and will at work in one's life and in the life of the world.  And this attentiveness is meant to go with you in the midst of day to day living. 

There is a lot of superficial spirituality being offered in the marketplace these days.  Much of it is well intended, but it often reinforces the stereotype of spirituality as something done away from daily life.  Such a spirituality may keep people from starving, but it fails at some fundamental level to form people for living every moment in the awareness of God's presence and will.

And that circles me back round to that observation about worship as an oasis, as a small morsel of food for the spiritually starving.  To the degree that worship is functioning this way for some, then it seems that we in the church may be failing at some fundamental level to form people for lives lived in the midst of God's vivid presence.  And if we are just barely giving people enough to keep them from starving, what do we need to do to help people become so filled with God's love and grace that it overflows to offer peace and life and hope to all whom they meet?

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Poor Nicodemus, Poor Me

Poor Nicodemus.  Why does faith have to be so hard? Nick seems genuine.  He is drawn to Jesus. Yes, I know he comes at night, in the dark, but don't we all?  I know that very often I publicly come to Jesus only in those ways that are "acceptable."  But if I get any hints that Jesus is asking something outside the norm of me, I explore that in secret.  I'll keep that between me and Jesus until I'm a bit clearer on things. 

But when Nicodemus comes to Jesus, Jesus talks in a manner that seems designed to confuse and confound.  Perhaps this is just a literary devise John uses to draw us into a deeper conversation about faith, but we can get caught up in the confusion ourselves.  Just witness the divides in modern Christianity around "born again" language drawn from this passage.

I have to admit that some days I'd like to grab Jesus by the collar, shake him vigorously and demand, "Talk straight to me, dammit! Tell me what you mean and what you want me to do. None of this spiritual riddle stuff."  Of course I'm a little scared that if he complied, I wouldn't like what he said, and I wouldn't want to do it.

And then there is the fact that Jesus is very clear about some things; love your enemies, for instance. But I tend to hold onto my anger with those who make my work difficult as a pastor.  These "enemies" of my ministry plans sometimes get under my skin in a way that I cannot bear.

Jesus also says that money and possessions are a huge barrier to right relationship with God and neighbor, but I love things.  I like to think that I'm afflicted with a less virulent strain of consumerism than most of those around me, but I'm afflicted nonetheless.  And I am quite certain that I would be a lot happier if I somehow ended up with a winning lottery ticket, never mind what Jesus says.

As I reflect on all this, I'm thinking that I may want to say something else when I grab Jesus by the collar and shake him.  I think I need to borrow one of Anne Lamott's primal prayers.  "Help me, help me, help me." And come to think of it, I'm pretty sure Jesus never said this would be easy.

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Sermon - Imitating God

Ephesians 4:25-5:2

Imitating God

James Sledge                                                                                       August 12, 2012

When I was a child, Disney movies were a staple of my movie going.  The Parent Trap, 101 Dalmations, Mary Poppins, The Jungle Book, and many others came out during my childhood.   A movie that I particularly liked, in part because my family had a dachshund, was one starring Dean Jones and Suzanne Pleshette entitled The Ugly Dachshund.

As I recall, Suzanne Pleshette’s prized and pampered dachshund is about to give birth to puppies, an event of such importance that she and her husband, played by Dean Jones, rush the dog to the veterinary hospital, enlisting a police escort from an officer who mistakenly believes this emergency involves a human birth.  Following the delivery, the vet convinces Dean Jones to place a Great Dane puppy who has been rejected by his mother into the litter of dachshund pups.  And so Brutus goes home as a member of this dachshund family, unbeknownst to Suzanne Pleshette.

As the title of the movie suggests, Brutus, raised by a dachshund mother with dachshund siblings, thinks he is a dachshund.  But of course as Brutus grows into a huge Great Dane who thinks he’s a tiny dachshund, all sorts of movie disasters and hilarity ensue.

It gets so chaotic that Suzanne Pleshette wants Brutus gone, but Dean Jones pleads with her and sets out to prove that Brutus can actually live up to his Great Dane DNA, entering Brutus in the same dog show as his wife’s prized dachshunds.   The plan almost goes terribly awry when Brutus spots a dachshund from the show ring, immediately reverting to thinking he’s a dachshund, crawling on his belly to appear small.  But the situation is salvaged when Brutus spots a lovely Great Dane and begins to adopt the regal, imposing figure of the Great Dane he actually is, winning the blue ribbon.

 The Ugly Dachshund is far from a great movie, but it does touch on a significant topic, that of identity and where it comes from.  Brutus the Great Dane has acquired an identity that does not fit him, and trying to live out his mistaken identity has been the source of countless mishaps and disasters.  But when Brutus encounters a Great Dane who knows she’s a Great Dane and begins to imitate her, he discovers his own, true identity.

__________________________________________________________________________

Who am I?  That’s a huge existential question, along with associated questions about how I become who I am.  Nature or nurture or some combination, and then in what proportions?  What is the interplay of genetics and environment?  None of us like to think we are programed or fated to turn out a particular way, but we also know that children who are abused often grow up to be abusers, that there are cycles of poverty and violence which seem intractable.

Coincidences and Providences

I love the LORD, because he has heard
    my voice and my supplications. 
Because he inclined his ear to me,
    therefore I will call on him as long as I live.   (from Ps. 116)

In his book, Humble Leadership, Graham Standish reports something a former archbishop of Canterbury, William Temple, is supposed to have said.  "I find that when I pray coincidences happen. When I cease to pray, coincidences stop happening."  Temple is, of course, speaking of providences rather than coincidences.  When through prayer he is more attuned and aligned with God, he sees and experiences God at work in his life and in the world around him.

Now I don't mean that every good turn of events can or should be attributed to God. (I have a memory seared into my brain of a boxer thanking God for his victory, saying how he felt Jesus empowering his fists as he pummeled his opponent into submission.)  But without some meaningful connection to and experience of God and God's providence, faith is nothing more than a philosophy or ideology.

The psalmist loves YHWH because God has heard him, has responded to him in some way.  I think this is often a weak point in Mainline Christianity.  We're big on knowledge, but not so much on experience.  In fact, we're suspicious of it.  I was once at a retreat that featured Brian McLaren.  He made an offhand comment about being able to learn something from Pentecostals, and most of the pastors over 50 practically came out of their seats to challenge him.

We certainly need to "test the spirits" to see which are from God, and a solid, biblically based knowledge of God and God's ways can help us to do this.  But if we cannot encounter God at work in our lives and in the world, along with being able to identify that work as providence, then we might as well be Deists.  I'm not knocking Deists, but we Presbyterians insist we don't believe in a great, cosmic clock-maker who is now removed from Creation. We say God IS at work in history, so surely  with the help of the Spirit, we should be able to say, "See, there is God's providence."

Of course if we became perceptive enough to sense God at work on a regular basis, it stands to reason that we would also become more sensitive to God's call in our lives.  We would also hear God's command.  And maybe that's a pretty good reason to keep God at arm's length.

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Something Old in Something New

When I read the daily lectionary passages, I admit to sometimes hurrying past the morning psalms.  Some of the same psalms occur with great frequency, and I think to myself, "Just saw that one the other day," as I begin to skim.

This morning I read, "O sing to the LORD a new song; sing to the LORD, all the earth."  It is one of those frequent psalms, and I began to speed up.  But before I could accelerate to full skim mode, I caught enough of the next few lines that something grabbed me.  The psalmist had commanded something old and something new.  We are to remember and declare God's saving acts and marvelous works, but apparently it requires a "new song" to do so.

I don't know why this contrast never struck me before.  I've commented before on this command for a "new song" alongside congregational "worship wars" where people fight to hang on to the old songs.  But I'm not sure I've ever thought about this idea that declaring what God has done requires a "new song."

Being the Church requires a fair amount of remembering and retelling.  We are rooted in a salvation story, a long story of God's countless, gracious acts to pull humanity back and repair a broken relationship.  Along with songs, laws, and wise saying, the Bible is a book of stories, stories we need to know to know who we are.  But, at least according to this psalm, sharing this knowledge requires new songs, repackaging if you will.

An inherent problem for all faith communities, whether Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, etc. is a tendency to confuse our core purposes and our packaging.  We decide that our way of worshiping or singing, our style of liturgy or music, is somehow essential to the faith.  Worshiping God with music and song may well be essential to the exercise of biblical faith, but our particular music and song are not.  This is not an argument for or against any particular music style, but it is a reminder that getting confused about essential and packaging may make it difficult for us to tell of God's saving acts and marvelous works.

When we remember and tell, we do so in  order to be joined to a story that is moving toward a yet-to-come future.  Jesus calls us to proclaim the kingdom, the reign of God that is now only partially seen.  And our methods of telling can never be so rooted in the past that the past seems to be our desired destination.

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Insignificant

Praise the LORD!
  Praise the LORD, O my soul! 
I will praise the LORD as long as I live;
  I will sing praises to my God all my life long.
Do not put your trust in princes,
  in mortals, in whom there is no help. When their breath departs, they return to the earth;
  on that very day their plans perish.
Happy are those whose help is the God of Jacob,   whose hope is in the LORD their God, 
who made heaven and earth,
  the sea, and all that is in them; 
who keeps faith forever; who executes justice for the oppressed;
  who gives food to the hungry.             (from Ps. 146)


Most of us take some note of what other people think of us.  It bothers us if they think poorly of us and heartens us if they think us impressive in some way.  If I stumble and nearly fall, I quickly look around to see if anyone was watching.  Strange that I give others so much power over me, worrying constantly about how they see me.

Most of us tend to be very ego driven.  We are very focused on self, on staking out and defending an identity.  We do this almost completely in comparison to others.  We are forever building our

résumé, trying to portray ourselves in the best light compared to others.  And most of us want to be better, more powerful, richer, prettier, better dressed, and so on than those around us. The last thing we want to be is unimportant and insignificant.  We know that we can't always be first, but we can't stand the idea that we might be last.

I think this is why we so value being independent. Becoming dependent on others is a huge blow to our egos, to those résumés we work so hard to build.  To move from independent to dependent is a move toward insignificance in many people's minds, and some of us will go to absurd lengths to guard our independence and supposed significance. 

In ancient times, royalty was about as significant as they come, but this morning's psalm insists on their insignificance.  And the psalm calls for a radical dependence, a call echoed over and over in the Bible.  "Happy are those whose help is the God of Jacob, who hope is in Yahweh their God."  

Richard Rohr's meditations this week have been on "Healing Our Violence."  (They were not a response to the shooting at the Sikh temple but are certainly fitting.)  In today's piece he speaks of how our résumé-building egos are inherently insecure, "grasping for significance."  And this striving for significance, importance, and power is at the root of much of the conflict in our world.  But when our selves find their true identity in God, in radical dependence on God, we discover that we have "very little to defend, fight about, compete with, overcome, hate, or fear."

My own Protestant roots are about dependence on God's gratuitous love and tender care.  Not by works but by grace, we say.  But in practice we have worked very hard at explaining just how this grace works and insisting that our explanation is better than yours and that those with wrong explanations are in trouble.  And we end up being very impressed with how well and systematically we figured all this out, and we don't look the least bit dependent or insignificant. 

How dependent on God are you?  I sometimes think this issue is the single biggest obstacle to my work as a pastor. I so want to be a good pastor, a successful pastor, that my insecurities make it nearly impossible to simply trust God.  Change my heart, O God.

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Sermon audio - Mystical Presence

Audios of sermons and worship also on FCPC website.

Not Again

"Not again."  A Twitter post that begin with those words first alerted me to yesterday's shooting at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin.  I'm sure others' thoughts echoed this tweet.  It does feel like this sort of thing happens too often.  I know that many more people die in car accidents and  "run of the mill" murders, but still...

Close on the heels of the Colorado shooting, I'm sure there will be more talk about gun control.  I certainly support reasonable limits on owning certain types of guns and ammunition, background checks, and so on.  And while gun control might well help, I do not think it would solve the problem. In fact, I am suspicious that a more fundamental issue underlies both our culture's resistance to reasonable gun control and its apparent tendency toward violence.

As I read today's lectionary passages, I saw this verse from Acts which describes the first Christian converts and the beginning of the Church at Pentecost. "They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers." This begins a section of Acts that describes an ideal (some would say idealized) community that looks nothing like US society. It is very communal. No one wants for anything because everyone shares all they have.  Even non-believers are impressed.

I suspect that if you showed people on the street some verses from Acts without telling them the origins, many would label them socialist.  And they certainly don't fit well with individualistic American notions that are so quick to protect my rights, protect my property, etc.  The stereotypical hero in American culture looks nothing like Jesus. It's hard to imagine Hollywood ever casting John Wayne, Sylvester Stallone, of Bruce Willis as Jesus, but they are the epitome of the quick-with-a-punch, quick-with-a-gun, American hero.  (If you want an authentically Christian sort of movie heroism, try Gregory Peck's Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird.)

"They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers."  I wonder which of these teachings we have devoted ourselves to in America. Many like to speak of us as a Christian nation, but it is a strange brand of Christianity, one that somehow mixes faith with a love of violence, guns, and the expectation that people should fight for their rights.  Never mind that Jesus said, "Turn the other cheek... Love your enemy... Become a servant to all... Deny yourself."

And the dark side of American individualism in not a problem for just one side of the political spectrum.  Our bitterly partisan, win at all costs, political landscape also seems contrary to basic, Christian notions.  Both political parties often seem more intent on winning than on doing what is best.  No doubt this is sometimes motivated by genuine belief in a viewpoint, but when Jesus says, "Love your enemy," he doesn't add, "if they agree with you."

Don't get me wrong.  America is a wonderful place, but it is far from a perfect place.  The verse from 1 John is as applicable to nations and cultures (maybe even more so) as it is to individuals.  "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." But if we are to do the soul searching and confession that John goes on to suggest, I think we need to dig a little deeper than we tend to do.  We need to think about just what fundamental notions, values, beliefs, etc. under-gird who we are, and shape us for good and for ill.  And for those who are Christian, I think we would also to well to emulate those first Christians who "devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers."

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Sermon - Mystical Presence

John 6:24-35

Mystical Presence

James Sledge                                                                                                   August 5, 2012

As a group, we Presbyterians have never been terribly good at evangelism, a trait we share with Episcopalians, Lutherans, and a few others.  There are a lot of reasons for this. We tend to be big on knowledge and understanding, and so people are often worried about not knowing enough to share faith with anyone.  Many of us have also been turned off by the overly aggressive, sometimes manipulative evangelism methods of other Christian groups, and so we defer, not wanting to look like them.

In recent decades however, interest in evangelism has seen an uptick in our denomination.  We have regular evangelism initiatives at the national level, and many Presbyterian churches have offered classes on evangelism. I’ve taught them  myself, although I think Presbyterian interest in evangelism is more often about institutional survival than anything else.

That probably helps explain the content of the typical Presbyterian evangelism pitch. It goes something like this.  “We have a great pre-school and children’s program.  I bet your kids would love it here.”  Or if it’s a different target audience it might go, “We have this amazing young adult group.  We do all kinds of fun things together, and it’s a great place to meet new people.”  Not that we completely avoid religion.  People may pitch the quality of the worship.  They may talk about social causes or community ministry the church does. They may even mention some fashionable, spiritual options like a contemplative prayer group, meditation, or spiritual retreats.  But what rarely gets mentioned is faith, or connecting to Jesus.

Perhaps that’s presumed, but I wonder if our evangelism pitches don’t in some way parallel the sort of things the crowds in our gospel reading were saying.  “You gotta come check this guy out. He gave us all we could eat.  We were out in the middle of nowhere, with no supplies, and we ate like I’ve never eaten before.  Let’s go see what he might give out today.”  The crowds were fascinated by the tricks Jesus did, and they flock to him, but Jesus is unimpressed.  “Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves,” because I’ve got something you want, a little moral training for your kids, a little something to go with your hectic, consumer lifestyle.

When you think about it, it’s a little surprising that so many people still come to churches looking for Jesus. We live in an age when most of life is disconnected from God.

Reasonable Doubt

If you read a Bible commentary on today's gospel reading, you will likely find some mention of an accusation that early Christians had to answer.  People were saying that Jesus had not risen from the dead. Rather his disciples had swiped his body and then perpetuated a hoax about his resurrection.  Many scholars will note that Matthew's gospel, written many decades after the actual events, seems tailor made to address such charges.  Similarly, some scholars argue that claims of a "virgin birth" for Jesus (found only in Matthew and Luke) are an attempt to refute charges that Jesus' birth was actually "illegitimate."

(Presbyterians have an interesting history with the whole virgin birth thing. At one point it was an article of faith required for ordination.  It was later dropped as an absolute requirement, but I was asked in 1995 by a pastor nominating committee what my beliefs on the virgin birth were.)

But whatever Matthew's reasons for supplying that little detail about stealing Jesus' body, I found my thoughts drifting to questions of faith and doubt.  Am I more likely to believe because Matthew refutes claims that disciples pilfered Jesus' body?  Is faith the product of getting the story straight?  And if I'm suspicious that Matthew is creating details to deal with charges against the faith, might that not actually make me more inclined to doubt the biblical storyline? Throw in the fact that the different gospels give slightly different versions of the story, and such issues are amplified.

It seems to me that there are plenty of places where reasonable doubt can emerge. (I once had a Muslim acquaintance tell me that he thought we Christians had a huge problem because our Bible had so many authors with so many different takes, unlike Islam, based solely on the the writings of the Prophet.)  If Christian faith must exist on the basis of the empirical evidence alone, we run into problems right away. It is no wonder that many people assume science to be the enemy of faith (a view I do not share). Science is all about empirical data, but the empirical data build a pretty shaky case for faith.

Like love, one must experience faith.  Like love, it can wax and wane, and even disappear entirely.  For people of faith, the prospect of its waning or, worse, disappearing can be terrifying.  But fear rarely leads to the best human responses, and fear related to faith is no exception.  I've know my share of Christians who practiced denial with regards to faith, who insisted they had never felt a the slightest twinge of doubt. I suppose that's possible, but I think it much more likely they're terrified at what happens if they admit such doubts.  And so they work very hard to fool themselves and God.

I think that fanatical fundamentalism is an extreme form of such denial.  It refuses to allow doubt or any variation from truth on anyone's part, and woe to those who don't stay in step.

By contrast, my tradition is rather open to doubt.  I'm quite happy about that as I don't think I would fit in otherwise, but our friendliness with doubt sometimes raises other problems.  It makes us very suspicious of religious certitude, and we become so unsure of anything that cannot be confirmed by empirical evidence or logic that we struggle actually to act on our faith.  We may do good things because we are convinced they are reasonable and the right thing to do, but that does not really require much in the way of faith or discerning what God calls us to do.

It seems to me that faith is quite often about doing things that seem unreasonable even in the face of doubt.  Being non-violent in the face of violence often seems a foolish tactic. Seeking the good of your enemy even more so.  Being abused, chastised, or attacked for doing such things only seems to confirm the foolishness of those tactics.  I suppose that is why so few of us ever experience the truly transforming power of faith.  That is why there are so few Gandhis or Martin Luther Kings who can act on faith and transform the world.

O Lord, I'm no fanatic, and I know well how to doubt.  Help me to have faith, faith that actually hears and does what Jesus calls me to do.

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A Time to Wait

I've been doing a lot of spiritual wrestling of late. A few months into a new position, I feel like I should be "doing" more, helping the church take bold, new steps, that sort of thing.  But I don't have much clarity about what steps to take or in what direction.

The one thing I've felt convinced of from the beginning has to do with helping us become a more spiritual place.  I don't say this because of some serious spiritual deficiency I witnessed on my arrival.  Rather, this was a strong component of my original sensing a call to ordained ministry.  Twenty years ago, I felt that the work and ministry of the church needed to be more deeply grounded in God, needed to flow from God.

In my own struggles to keep my ministry grounded in and flowing from God, I have discovered a number of spiritual practices that were not part of my upbringing and do not come naturally to me.  I have gained a deep appreciation for centering and contemplative prayer, lectio divina, spiritual direction, and other practices. And I have tried to let my experience with these seep into my "work" as a pastor.

However, I sometimes worry that I have done so badly. In trying to encourage committees and governing boards and congregations to think more about what God wants us to do, I fear that I have inadvertently stereotyped spirituality as a style.  I may have given the impression that spirituality is about candles and meditation, about a "smells and bells" approach rather than an integral part of our Christian life.

And so it seemed providential to me to find the opening of Acts as a lectionary reading this morning.  The disciples in the passage must have been struggling with some of my questions about what they were going to do and how they were going to do it.  The risen Jesus had told them that they were going to be his witnesses throughout the world. He had promised they would be empowered by the Spirit, but none of them knew quite what that meant.  And so they waited, and they prayed.

I don't know if they used incense or centering prayer, chant or lectio divina. I do not know if they sat cross-legged, stood, had eyes open, or had them closed.  Perhaps some did one thing and another something completely different. We don't know because the Bible seems unconcerned with the spiritual style they employed. It is clear, however, that they waited and prayed. They prayed together, and surely the prayed alone. And they continued to wait until God showed them the way.

I am not terribly good at waiting.  I tend to be impatient by nature, and I am the product of a culture that values getting things done.  But before I convince the leadership here to embrace some bold new thing that I want to do, how do we wait and listen to be sure (at least as sure as we can be) that it is what God wants?  And before I or anyone else tosses aside some new or strange sounding idea that seems to make no sense, how do we stop and wait to determine if it is from God?

It seems to me that to hear God's call, we need to know how to wait.  We cannot be too quick to say "Yes" nor too quick to say "No," because our quick "Yes" and "No" are probably more apt to come from our own biases, preferences, habits, and expectations than they are from God. So perhaps right now is not a time for Yes or No, but a time to wait.

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You Just Wait!

The cross and the Crucified Christ are central elements of Christianity. But despite this, the faith has never come to a complete consensus on exactly what the cross means or how it "works." Scholars and writers are still offering their takes on the meaning of Jesus' crucifixion.

But at the moment, I'm not thinking about whether I prefer ransom, satisfaction, penal substitution, or some other atonement theory.  As I read today's gospel - Matthew's account of the crucifixion - I found myself fixated on the taunts hurled Jesus' way.  "Save yourself... He saved others; he cannot save himself. He is the King of Israel; let him come down from the cross now, and we will believe in him." Even the two criminals beside him get in on the act. (You have to go to Luke to find the one criminal who is sympathetic to Jesus.)

Much as happened during his trial, Jesus remains silent.  He suffer the abuses and taunts without a reply. There is no comeback, no "Just wait; you'll see."  Not that we don't sometimes provide that for Jesus after the fact.

It strikes me that we sometimes minimize the cross into a difficulty on the way to something great.  Jesus still turns the tables on those who taunt him, only later.  They still get theirs and Jesus gets his vindication.  In the gaudier versions of this, King Jesus comes back with a sword and settles old scores, and the cross was simply a cosmic version of "no pain, no gain."

The cross still perplexes and confounds us.  And so we try to fit it into models of victory that we do understand, where the bad guys still get their due, and Jesus wasn't a wimp after all.  He just knew that holding his tongue would make the victory sweeter when the time came.

Yet presumably Jesus dies for the very folks who taunt him.  And the biblical picture of Jesus doesn't speak much of an avenging warrior who returns saying, "You had your chance, but now you're really gonna be sorry."  Instead Paul speaks of God's power being made perfect in weakness.  And, in what I think one of the more remarkable images in the Bible, we meet King Jesus in John's Revelation. 

The typical expectations of a great king are there in Revelation 5.  He is "the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David," and he has "conquered."  But then John sees him, a "Lamb standing as if he had been slaughtered." We may want the Lamb on the cross to transform into a Lion, like a 98 pound weakling who bulks up and turns the tables on the bullies, but the Lion remains a Lamb that has been slaughtered.  And "conquer" takes on a whole new meaning.

I wonder what Christianity would look like if we really took the cross seriously, and if we took seriously Jesus' call to take up our own crosses, to embrace our own willingness to suffer for the sake of the other, even if that other hates us.

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Settling for Scarcity

The Lord upholds all who are falling,
    and raises up all who are bowed down. 
The eyes of all look to you,
    and you give them their food in due season.  
You open your hand,
    satisfying the desire of every living thing. (from Ps. 145)

Today's meditation from Richard Rohr begins, "It is good to remember that a part of you has always loved God. There is a part of you that has always said yes. There is a part of you that is Love itself, and that is what we must fall into. It is already there. Once you move your identity to that level of deep inner contentment, you will realize you are drawing upon a Life that is much larger than your own and from a deeper abundance. Once you learn this, why would you ever again settle for scarcity in your life?"

Strange that Rohr would describe the lifestyle of out consumerist culture that acquires things at an astounding rate as "scarcity."  But I think him correct when he says that our culture trains us well in a kind of "learned helplessness."  Most of us have known people who were overly dependent on someone.  They needed their wife or husband or parent so deeply that they could do nothing on their own, and they lived out of a subservience that was crippling. 

Our culture works hard to put us in exactly such a position with regards to needing more.  We are rendered helpless by accepting the cultural lesson that "I'm not enough!  This is not enough! I do not have enough!" to quote Rohr once more.

Fear is a powerful, if evolutionarily primitive, emotion. There are perhaps still times when a fight or flight response may aid us, but such instincts do not lend themselves well to the sort of life Jesus says we are meant for; a life freed from fear, a life motivated instead by love.  

Jesus says, "You are a beloved child of God. You do not need to be more impressive or have more accomplishments. Open yourself to the powerfully transforming presence of God's love in your life.  Discover an abundance that truly satisfies and empowers you for a bold, new life."

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Preaching Thoughts on a Non-Preaching Sunday

Today's worship looks a bit different at Falls Church Presbyterian.  It is organized around our just completed Vacation Bible School and is led by the VBS participants.  This is apparently a traditions here, one that I have not yet experienced.  Not having seen this or knowing quite what happens, I asked for some assurances that it would still "worship" and not simply a VBS slide show.

As a pastor, I tend to obsess about worship.  It's been drilled into me.  I took classes on worship in seminary, and our denomination not only puts out Book of Common Worship, but our constitution includes a lengthy section entitled the "Directory for Worship."  It speaks at length about what worship is, how worship is to be ordered, and what elements might be in it, should be in it, or must be in it.  All this attention to worship is not really surprising.  When you are a religious institution whose most visible product is a worship service, it is going to receive a lot of energy, thought, scrutiny, etc.

I also tend to worry about worship out of the criticism of it from the 19th Century philosopher, theologian, and existentialist, Soren Kierkegaard.  He spoke of worship as drama, but he said it too often got misconstrued as an event where preacher, choir, and liturgists were actors for the audience/congregation.  Rather, Kierkegaard said, God should be the audience with the congregants being actors.

I'm writing this prior to today's worship, but I won't be surprised if today's drama comes closer to what Kierkegaard suggests than many other Sundays.  Oh, there will be some parents or grandparents who are there for the performance rather than worship, but, as Kierkegaard complained, there are people there every Sunday in that mode.  But there will also be dozens of children leading worship, singing, praying, moving, dancing.  By that alone, today's worship will have more of what Kierkegaard wanted. 

No doubt there will also be a number of adult and teen VBS volunteers helping to keep all this going, and so even more people who otherwise might be sitting and watching worship will instead be "onstage," to use Kierkegaard's language.  And presumably God will find the whole thing every bit as pleasing and enjoyable as what happens on other Sundays, perhaps a lot more so.

The whole thing will no doubt be less polished than some other Sundays.  There will likely be times when it looks a little chaotic.  But there may well be times when it has more heart, life, and vitality than some meticulously planned and executed worship services.

At this point I'm not really sure where I'm going with all this.  But as one who sometimes obsesses about getting worship well planned and executed, it's likely worth recalling that today's worship may feel more like worship to God than some of those I'm responsible for.

P.S. My expectations were not far off.  The service was louder, more animated, and at times more chaotic that the typical Sunday.  But it was also more energetic, lively, and full of heart.  The children and leaders did a great job, and I'm pretty sure that God was pleased.

Holding on to Bitter Memories

Rare is the person who does not carry with him or her the memory of some great failing.  Most of us have at some point betrayed our principles, our convictions, our notions of who we truly are.  The motivations for such acts are many. To save face, to be successful, to get something we really want, to preserve our safety or security, we act contrary to who we say we are. Out of anger, fear, or zealotry, we go against what we say we hold dear.

Following 9-11, the swiftness with which we did away with freedoms and rights we had long celebrated illustrates how easily we change direction under certain motivations.  It is probably too early to say if we will someday look back in anguished regret, but history gives us other examples where the judgment is clear. The internment of Japanese Americans accompanied by their loss of property, homes, and businesses, is one of those failings many would just as soon forget. And there are many others, slavery, segregation, the treatment of Native Americans.  These cast a dark shadow on American claims of greatness, godliness, and goodness, so much so that some people would rather they be glossed over in teaching US history.

I've always thought it a bit odd that this did not happen with Peter's denial reported in today's gospel. Peter became a leader in the early Church.  He must have had his ardent supporters, those who viewed him like George Washington was viewed by many 18th century Americans.  Strange then that the gospels show so little hesitation in telling of Peter's moment of awful failure, a moment so personally devastating that the gospel says he left the scene and "wept bitterly."

I wonder what Peter thought about this episode as he grew older. Did it always haunt him in someway?  Did he try to put it out of his mind?  Or was it something he wanted to touch from time to time, a reminder of how easily we betray what we say we love?

I don't know if this is in any way peculiar to our age, but we do not seem to have much interest in lingering over things that remind us of our failings.  I've lost count of the times people have suggested eliminating prayers of confession in worship.  "Such a downer," they sometimes say.  The refusal of the IOC to do anything during Olympic opening ceremonies to recall the murder of Israeli athletes at the 1972 games is supposedly because that might put a damper on the celebratory nature of the event.  No bitter memories please.

But the Church clung to the bitter memory of Peter's great failing, making his denial of Jesus one of the better known stories from the Bible. The same Peter who is celebrated as a founder of churches and remembered (in tradition at least) as the first pope, is perhaps best know for his colossal failure of nerve following Jesus' arrest.

I like to think that Peter himself cherished this memory in some way. It reminded him that, despite all his boldness and bravado, he could not be who he wanted to be, could not be who God wanted him to be, on his own. Only the presence of God within, the Holy Spirit working through him, permitted that.  I like to think that this bitter memory constantly reminded Peter of where his true strength lay, that it kept him humble and dependent on God so that he could say, like Paul does in his letter to the Philippians, "I can do all things through him who strengthens me."

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Freed from Ourselves

In America, with all our focus on freedom and personal liberties, discussions often center on where reasonable limits to such liberties should be placed.  The old example speaks of us having freedom of speech yet not permitted to yell, "Fire!" in a crowded theater.  And since 9-11, there have been frequent discussions about whether to give up freedoms in order to gain security.  But regardless of where people come down in such discussions, there is a basic agreement that we should be as free as possible.

The Apostle Paul speaks of Jesus freeing us from the Law, and so he might seem to be our kindred spirit with regards to personal liberty. But Paul never worships freedom for freedom's sake.  In fact he speaks of becoming a slave to righteousness, and he insists that we cannot exercise our freedom if it causes the slightest difficulty for someone else in regards to her faith.

The same Paul who trashes Peter for bowing to Jewish pressure regarding dietary laws, says in today's passage from Romans that freedom from dietary restrictions cannot be exercised if they cause a fellow believer to stumble. For Paul, freedom takes a back seat to community, for living in ways that " pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding."  And when Paul writes to his congregation at Corinth, a group that seems particularly enamored by their new freedom in Christ, he chastises them for not considering their brothers and sisters.

A key issue is the eating of meat because meat had generally been offered as a sacrifice before ending up at the butcher shop.  Paul is very clear that Jesus has freed him from the Law and that because idols are really only human-made objects, eating such meat is no problem.  And yet he tells the Corinthians, "If food is a cause of a brother or sisters falling, I will never eat meat, so that I may not cause one of them to fall."

In our culture, the other is often seen as a potential barrier to our freedoms and liberties and something we must guard against. Paul sees the other as a barrier to personal freedom and liberty as well, but in a completely different sense. They are opportunities for us to exercise what we have truly been freed to do in Christ: to love.

Most all of us are bound to some degree by fears: fear that we won't have enough, fear that we aren't safe, fear that others won't like us, fear that we will fail, fear that we won't find love, etc.  But "in Christ," we are freed from such fears and therefore freed to live more fully in the image of God, in the manner of Jesus, giving ourselves to others in love.  And for Jesus, loving freed him even from the need to save his own life.

At the beginning of the American experiment, our freedoms were always understood to exist within a "social contract." Our freedoms and liberties were for the good of society, not simply for our own use.  That's not quite Paul, but it is a bit closer to him than the increasingly individualistic notions of personal liberty in our day.

It strikes me that conversations on "gun control," which have flared up again in light of the Colorado theater shooting, are often argued almost entirely along individualist notions of freedom.  I'm not suggesting any particular stance with regards to gun ownership.  But I do not think I have ever heard anyone speak along the lines of Paul and say, "I believe in the right bear arms, but if it would make for a safer world, I would happily refuse to exercise that right." 

The same critique could surely be leveled at stances of all political persuasions. And that raises the question.  What rights, freedoms, or liberties that I cherish have become something from which I need to be freed in order to fully love my neighbor?

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Letting Go of Self

I've been thinking a lot about self and identity the last few days, spurred by Daily Devotions from Richard Rohr, comments on my blogs, and re-reading Graham Standish's Humble Leadership. I supposes this all started when a church member commented that my predecessor here once said there were only two Republicans who belonged to this church.  I must confess, I was stunned by that.

"All of you are one in Christ Jesus" is a fundamental Christian affirmation. The divisions of the world are obliterated when we our identity is reformed in the image of Jesus.  As Paul says in today's reading, "We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves. If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's."

In the teachings of Jesus and the writings of Paul, new life emerges as the self is denied or dies.  But our culture worships the individual self.  It says that happiness comes from satisfying all the desires of the self rather than subjugating the self to some larger good.  Western individualism has always had tendencies in this direction, but they seem to have grown more pronounced in recent decades. There have always been conservative and liberal congregations, wealthy and working class congregations, but I think there was some recognition that this was a regrettable result of human frailty. It was certainly nothing to be proud about.

As one who is fairly liberal, I confess that there is a certain comfort in moving to a congregation that is closer to my liberal leanings than my previous one.  But at the same time, the idea that our liberalism could form a sufficiently large part of our identity that a Republican would not want to join is disconcerting.  We are all one in Christ Jesus, as long as you are a Democrat?

(Let me quickly add that I'm responding to a statement and not necessarily to reality. I hope my predecessor's observation some years ago was an exaggeration, a misread, or is no longer true.  And I've not experienced any in-your-face, strident politicizing that one might expect if we were managing to run off all non-liberals.)

If required to label myself, I will say I am a liberal or progressive Christian. But I hope it is the Christian part of that label that is primary, not the liberal or progressive. In Paul's letter to the Romans, he mentions some issues that divided Christians in his time: refusing to eat meat because almost all the items at the butcher shop had started out as sacrifices at some temple or worshiping on the Sabbath (Saturday) versus worshiping on the Lord's Day (Sunday). In different letters he mentions other dividing lines: Jew or Gentile, male or female, slave or free.  In our day perhaps he would have added liberal or conservative, Republican or Democrat, black or white, etc.  But he certainly would have said that none of these divisions matter because all are made one in Christ Jesus.  But such a notion seems difficult, even impossible, unless the self recedes and "in Christ" comes to the fore. 

Who am I?  That is a basic human question.  Many of us spend a great deal of energy trying to hone and stake a claim to a particular identity.  And the idea that our true identity requires letting go of self goes against the cultural grain.  Not me, but Christ; not my will but God's will; not what I want but what God wants; saying such things are difficult for many of us.  But Jesus, Paul, and the lives of countless Christians over the centuries all insist that we discover who we truly are, find a joyful new life and sense of being reborn, when we let go of self and become a new self in Christ.

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Sermon audio - Quiet Desperation

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Becoming Better Lovers

In seminary, my favorite subjects were theology and Bible exegesis (the careful study of Scripture in order to understand, explain, and interpret a passage).  I really enjoy the rational thought processes involved in such study.  I love trying to figure things out, trying to understand what something means, and there were times when I thought about further academic pursuit, about trying to become a theology professor perhaps.

I still love theology and exegesis. After all, it is not possible to be a Christian without doing both. All people of faith have some way of deciding what God is like, how to use the Bible, etc.  But sometimes I have tendency, as does my denomination, to make such things an end in themselves. That's likely one of the reasons Presbyterians tend to be a bit on the stuffy side.  A great deal of the time, faith operates only in our brains.

I am overstating things a bit, but there is some truth to Presbyterian stereotypes.  And as one somewhat comfortable in those stereotypes, I find Paul's words today a tad unsettling.  "The one who loves another has fulfilled the law.... Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law." 

Paul is referring to law in the sense of Torah, so we're not necessarily talking about speed limits here.  But neither did Paul divide things into religious and secular spheres.  The religious permeated all things for Paul and most ancient people, and so he might well has seen speed limits as religious.  Speeding or running a red light does increase the chance of me injuring a neighbor.

But the bigger issue for me is this idea that loving the other fulfills all the law, rules, and regulations.  Can it really be so simple?  If we just all loved one another, would everything else take care of itself?

In my denomination, pastors, along with elders and deacons (who might be called "lay leaders" in other traditions), are ordained.  One of my favorite questions asked to those being ordained is also probably the most difficult promise to keep. "Do you promise the further the peace, unity, and purity of the church?" The problem is that some folks tend to emphasize one component while other folks have a different favorite. Some will happily sacrifice peace for the sake of purity while others will happily toss out any notion of purity to maintain peace. 

(One of the reasons there are liberal Presbyterian Churches and conservative Presbyterian Churches is because we can't figure out how to do all three.  And so we divide up, allowing individual congregations to live more or less peacefully in unity as they practice the particular purity of their position.  This moves the purity fights that reveal our lack of peace and unity, [and love?] mostly to a regional and national level.)

But if we take Paul seriously, and if we draw some parallels between purity and the law, then loving one another would seem to take care of purity.  And certainly loving one another would seem to build peace and unity.  Of course it must be said that Paul had opponents, and he wasn't always shy about saying nasty things about them.  Was this a matter of Paul having trouble practicing what he preached, or was he simply dealing with people who were hurting others because they weren't loving their neighbors?  I'm not sure there are easy answers to such questions, but I do think that embodying the idea that love fulfills the law in doing no wrong to the neighbor would makes things better.

There's an old line that says, "I'm a lover, not a fighter." In my experience, we Presbyterians (and plenty of other groups) are sometimes better fighters than lovers.  We are very good at rational exercises of theology and exegesis that allow us to marshal compelling  arguments to help our side win.  But how might it look if we focused more on loving?

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