Impractical Advice

If you check out Bibles online or in a bookstore, you are likely to run across something called a Life Application Study Bible. As the name suggests, this study Bible is less about traditional Bible study and more about how to apply the Bible's teaching in everyday life. I saw a plug for this Bible that touted it for providing excellent "practical application."

In a similar manner, pastors are often encouraged to make their sermons "more practical," usually meaning something akin to what the Life Application Study Bible advertizes. How I am to apply this teaching in my daily living?

This certainly seems a noble, sincere desire to live faithfully, but the project is sometimes made difficult by the very impractical advice that Jesus offers. "Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you... love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return." Really? This is practical advice?

I suppose there is practicality in that such behavior has a reward. "Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked." Of course just what this reward is remains unspoken. Perhaps it is being declared "children of the Most High," to become like God in being "kind to the ungrateful and the wicked."

If you've ever been involved in a mission or ministry that tries to help people, you've likely encountered some very people who are very grateful for such help. But no doubt you've also encountered those who have no gratitude, who instead are bitter and insulting, demanding to know why the help isn't more.

I'll admit that such times can test my desire to help. If people don't appreciate it, why offer it. But then there is that terribly impractical advice from Jesus. "Do good... expecting nothing in return," not even gratitude. After all, God is "kind to the ungrateful and the wicked." You sure that's a good idea, God? It's certainly not very practical.

We humans like to measure things on practical terms, and on some level, we express most everything along these lines. "Falling in love," may not be immediately thought of in practical terms, but the relationships that emerge from it are usually contractual on some level. I'll stay with you, keep loving you, stay married to you as long as it makes me happy, makes me feel good, provide for me, etc. Even seemingly altruistic things like environmentalism have a practical side. We're preserving the planet for our children. And it's a lot easier to engage people in saving tigers or pandas than it is snail darters. Most of us will never receive any joy or experience any awe from observing the latter.

I'm not entirely sure where I'm going with this train of thought, but faith, at some level, is surely about taking a certain path or living a certain way without be able to see obvious, practical advantages to such actions. I suppose a reward of being called "children of the Most High," of discovering our own godliness, has a kind of practical appeal. But I wonder if it can really be experienced through practical, contractual means. It seems to me that is only discovered or experienced in the act of total surrender to God that doesn't really seek any reward.

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Strange Sort of Blessing

There's little wonder that Matthew's more spiritualized version of the Beatitudes is more beloved than those found in Luke. Not only does Matthew's "Blessed are the poor in spirit" become "Blessed are you who are poor." But Luke also adds a corresponding list of woes or curses. “But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation." Not hard to see why no one ever labeled these verses from Luke the "Be Happy Attitudes."

What does it mean to speak of God's blessing or favor on those who are poor and God's curse on those who are rich? And especially for well-off, suburban, American Christians, what does it mean? How are we to reconcile our near obsession with possessions, our desire to acquire more and more, and our portfolios designed to "build wealth" with these words from Jesus? If wealth is such a curse and poverty a blessing, why do we so want to be rich and so fear being poor? And if they are indeed blessed, why do we denigrate the poor so in our society.

I don't have a nice, neat answer to such questions. I find them quite troubling, although I think that argues for spending more time with them rather than dismissing or ignoring them. I say that in part because the God I meet in the Bible quite regularly acts counter to convention, in surprising and baffling ways, and in ways that upend human plans and my expectations. As the prophet Isaiah says, "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the LORD."

We would prefer it otherwise. We are forever trying to create God in our image, but God seems intent on someday having us mirror the divine image. Perhaps that is why many of us are so drawn to Jesus and yet find it so difficult actually to follow him. We see in him our truest calling, what it is to be fully human. But we're comfortable where we are, and so we'd rather convert God.

I'm no different. I'm drawn to Jesus, even enamored by him. But I keep hoping he didn't mean a lot of what he said. I guess it's a good thing that God's seems to be infinitely patient and merciful.

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Sermon video: Hearing and Following

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Sermon: Hearing and Following

John 10:22-30; Psalm 23

Hearing and Following

James Sledge                                                                                       April 21, 2013

Harry was expecting a call so he picked up the phone without checking the caller ID and found himself talking with a pollster.  He thought about hanging up but he recognized the polling organization as a legitimate one, so if it didn’t take too long…

“I a few questions on political issues,” the voice said.  “But first, are you a person of faith? And if so, are you Jewish, Christian, Muslim, or some other?” 

Harry was an active church goer, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to announce that to some stranger on the phone.  “If I say Christian do I get lumped in with Pat Robertson and Joel Osteen?” Harry asked, “because I’m not that kind of Christian.  Will you assume I’m a Republican, pro-life and pro-gun because I’m certainly not that kind of Christian.”

The pollster tried to assure Harry that he wouldn’t be lumped in with anyone, but Harry was rather enjoying the inversion, with him asking the pollster questions.  “If I say that I’m a Christian will you assume that I don’t want my kids being taught evolution in school?  If I say I’m a Christian will you think I’m one of those people who are sure we are in the end times, or that Obama is the anti-Christ?”

Harry was starting to get worked up, and the pollster was trying to calm him.  “Sir, I didn’t mean to upset you.  I’m not trying to link you to anyone or any group.”

Harry thought for a moment and said, “I have an idea.  Why don’t I just tell you a little about myself and how I live?  Then you can decide if I’m a Christian.  I’m against the death penalty.  I pray for my enemies.  I went on a mission trip to Haiti. I think the federal budget needs to prioritize the needs of the poor, the sick, and most vulnerable.”

“Sir, sir,” the pollster said, trying to get him to stop.  But Harry continued, and finally, in frustration, the pollster hung up.

Although a devout Christian, Harry knew that people mean a lot of different things by that label.  Jesus is in a similar situation in our gospel reading this morning, except for him the label is “Messiah.”  “If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly,” some people ask Jesus.  But Jesus doesn’t give them the straightest answer.  He is almost evasive, and I think that’s because the label Messiah, or Christ, was more problematic than helpful.

A Terrible Week... and a Dream

I've been leading a study of Genesis this winter and spring, and today we were looking at the story of Joseph. It's a complicated story, nothing like the one I remember from childhood Sunday School days where Joseph was a cardboard cut-out hero in a "coat of many colors."

In the actual events found in the Bible, the dream of God creates a great deal of tension, aggravating already difficult relationships between siblings. Joseph's brothers go so far as to attempt to kill him. They end up backing off that plan but still sell him as a slave, seemingly jeopardizing God's dream. But the story will eventually prove otherwise.

I find myself wondering about dreams in a week that has felt more like a nightmare to this point. The events of the week, the bombing at the Boston Marathon, fire and explosions in West, Texas, ricin laced letters mailed to the president and others, and the total inability of Congress to do anything meaningful against the scourge of gun violence in this country, all make a solid case for cynicism and for the foolishness of dreams. Worse, these events make it easy to dismiss those who march for peace, against guns, or for social programs rather than huge military budgets as naive idealists who just don't understand how the world really works.

Trouble is, followers of Jesus are called to be dreamers. We are bearers of a dream Jesus called the Kingdom, a new realm or dominion where wolves and lambs lie down together. Jesus says that the dream has drawn near in him, and when the Church is born at Pentecost by the gift of the Spirit, Peter says this is fulfillment of the prophet Joel's dream, a day when God's Spirit is poured out on all people, "and your sons and your daughters shall prophecy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams." O to dream some dreams.

I've always love the old John Lennon song "Imagine." Some people of faith dislike it because it asks us to imagine no heaven, no hell, no religion. Both those are the easy things to do. They are not the reasons Lennon embraces the label others use to dismiss him, "a dreamer." It is imagining no greed or hunger, all people living together as one, that makes him a true dreamer. And such dreams put him squarely in the company of prophets and a Messiah, people who speak ridiculous dreams and call us to share them with the world.

As a terrible week draws, hopefully, to a quiet close, there is much evidence that speaks of the foolishness of dreams. But if ever we need dreams, it is now. And if the church will not be the bearer of dreams it is called to be, then, no doubt, God will find others to carry the dream forward.

Pour out your Spirit, O God.

Believing in Jesus

I've told the story many times about Dr. Paul "Bud" Achtemeier leading a devotional during a faculty meeting at Union Theological Seminary (now Union Presbyterian Seminary) back in the mid-1990s. I attended these meetings as a student representative, and one of the professors typically offered a short devotion at the beginning.

Dr. Achtemeier was a preeminent New Testament and Pauline scholar, and on that particular day he was reading a passage from Paul's letter to the Roman church. Naturally he was reading from the Greek New Testament, translating to English as he read. I have no recollection of what the passage was or what he did in the devotion that followed. What I do recall is a rather lengthy pause when he finished reading, after which he said, "I'd never seen that before."

I've long cherished that moment and the idea that a brilliant man who spent his professional life teaching and writing about Paul could still discover something fresh and new when he looked at the Bible.

Someone on Twitter provided me an "I'd never seen that before" moment the other day. It had to do with an event often reported in the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke), one seen in today's gospel reading. The "demons" that Jesus encounters and "casts out" of people know who Jesus is. They regularly say, as they do in today's passage, "You are the Son of God."

Now I was well aware of demons and the devil knowing exactly who Jesus is the synoptic gospels. But what the that Twitter post made me notice for the first time was that these demons profess Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of God, without it changing them in the least. They are not "saved" or transformed one tiny bit by their knowing and acknowledging this truth.

What struck me about this was, in an "I'd never seen that before" kind of way, that these demons performed the very thing oft times cited as the core of Christian faith, believing that Jesus is the Messiah or Christ and the Son of God.

Out of this notion of faith, many Christians view atheists as the antithesis of faith and as threats to faith because they do not believe in God, because they refuse to profess what the demons do. But in these gospel stories, the enemies of God have no problem believing.

So then, what is it that moves someone from believing to real faith?

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Where Is God?

I've debated whether to write anything today. (It's depressing to recall that I've had this same debate on previous occasions.) What to say in the face of senseless violence? What to say following yet another act reminding us that things we want to take for granted cannot be? What to say in the face of questions with no easy or good answers?

Twitter and Facebook were awash yesterday in "pray for Boston," prayers that continue today. It's hardly surprising that people of faith would seek comfort from that faith. But the appeal to faith raises its own uncomfortable, difficult questions that the cheesy faith platitudes sometimes offered don't do justice. One more reason I debate writing anything today.

Still I know that some will expect it. And then one of today's lectionary passages seemed to encourage it. The reading from 1st John opens this way. "Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God." Is this part of an answer to the question of where God was yesterday?

Yesterday many people posted a quote from Fred Rogers of PBS's Mr. Rogers fame. (He was an ordained Presbyterian pastor by the way.) In it he recalls times when he would see scary things in the news and his mother would say to him, "Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping." Surely helping is a form of loving. Surely it is a way that God is experienced, is known, and is made known.

That does not answer the question of why God does not simply overpower evil and wipe it away. And Christians face that same question when we look at the cross and its "foolishness," as the Apostle Paul called it. Why does God confront the brokenness and terrors of this world with a cross? Why not a full frontal assault? And once again, cheesy platitudes about the cross and Jesus' "sacrifice" don't do such questions justice.

I don't have the best answers to why God acts as God does, but one thing seems clear. Despite our continued insistence that evil can be conquered and overcome by force, God meets evil with love. It makes no sense by our reckoning. But in the inscrutable ways of the divine,"God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength."

And according to today's epistle reading, we come to know this God when we love others. This is Mr. Rogers' "Look for the helpers," but it is more. It is a defiant act that says we will trust God's foolishness and weakness over the ways of power and violence. Even in the face of violence and evil that seem beyond comprehension, our response will be to help and to love. We will not let evil turn us from the promise and hope of love, for through love we were "born of God," and as we love, we draw near to and know God." And right now, I really need that.

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Spiritual Junk Food?

What is it that constitutes Christian faith? Is it believing certain things, or is it more than that? Today's reading from 1st John speaks of us abiding in Jesus and him in us. Then it adds this, "And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit that he has given us."

There is nothing particularly stunning about this statement. The early Christians understood the Spirit to be something given to all believers, not just a few at Pentecost. John's gospel especially focuses on the idea that Jesus' return to the Father allows him to become present to all via the Spirit. His presence is no longer limited by bodily constraints, but is now able to be with everyone. And today's epistle reading clearly understands that faith is confirmed by this experience of the Spirit.

But our reading today adds a caveat. If you have a spiritual experience, make sure it is the Spirit. "Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God."

We Presbyterians have tended to be uncomfortable with the Holy Spirit and spiritual experiences. We're about as rational, studied, and reasonable sorts of Christians as you will find. But even we have needed to learn some spiritual language of late. Spirituality is such a hot topic that it is now quite common to find classes on contemplative prayer and discernment in Presbyterian churches. And there is a growing desire on the part of many for worship that is less informational and more experiential (although few churches have done much to satisfy this longing).

However, I wonder if many of us, from those who long for more spirituality to those who are suspicious of or even frightened of more it, aren't a bit ill-equipped to "test the spirits." How are we to tell what is "from God" and what is something else altogether?

I have met spiritual junkies who seem to relish spiritual experiences for their own sake. They long to be touched deep inside, but such touches do not necessarily lead them to anything beyond wanting more such touches. At the same time I know many traditional church folks who resist the spiritual currents in the church today by insisting they are spiritually fed by traditional church practices. But when pressed, some of them sound a bit like the aforementioned spiritual junkies. They find a particular style of hymns or music touches them deeply, and so they want more of that.

But what if we were to test these spirits? Perhaps the better question is, how are we to test these spiritual experiences? I don't know that there is one right answer to this question, but one simple test seems very helpful to me. If my spiritual experience does not equip, propel, lead, entice, inspire, etc. me to follow Jesus, to continue his ministry on this earth, then there is a problem. Not that spiritual experiences shouldn't warm my heart, fill me with a deep serenity, or any other number of such things. But if that is all my experience provides, then I have not discovered the bread of life, I have found spiritual junk food.

I hasten to add that I know many people with vastly different spiritual practices whose varied spiritualities nurture them in equally committed discipleship. I do not begin to presume that there is a correct way to be spiritual or a spirituality that works for all. But I also know that there are many things that touch me or move me which are not of God. And so whatever sort of experiences or practices I identify as feeding me spiritually, I need to make sure they are the sort of food that leads to true life.

So how do you "test the spirits" that touch or move you?

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Sermon video: Do You Love Me?

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Audios of sermons and worship available on church website.

Sermon: Do You Love Me?

John 21:1-23

Do You Love Me?

James Sledge                                                                           April 14, 2013

“Do you love me?” Has anyone ever asked you that question? They don’t come much more freighted than this. If you hear this question from a spouse, partner, lover, friend, child, or parent, what thoughts go through your mind as you consider your answer? “Do you love me?” is rarely an innocent question. It is more than a simple query for information.

The question could be manipulative. I could arise from a place of hurt and doubt. It could arise from hope that another will say, “Yes.” But regardless of its origins, almost all such questions assume that love has a shape to it, that it is lived out in some way. Sometimes this subtext is even spoken. “If you loved me, you would…” or “If you loved me you would not…”

“Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” There is plenty of subtext to Jesus’ question. Peter had earlier spoken of his great love, presumably greater than the other disciples, when he professed his willingness to die for Jesus. But in the face of danger, he had folded, had even denied knowing Jesus. Surely “Do you love me?” was a terrible question for Simon Peter.

But this passage is about more than Peter and his restoration. Jesus’ threefold questioning does seem to undo Peter’s threefold denial. But on a larger level, this passage is about the Church and its ministry, about how the Church will live in the world now that Jesus has died and has been raised. In that sense, Jesus’ question to Peter is a question to every follower. “James, Diane, Bill, Mary, Sam, Dawn, do you love me?”

There is a problem here, though. I’m afraid we hear Jesus’ question very differently than Simon Peter does. For Simon, there is really no question that he does love Jesus. Just look at his buffoonish behavior when he realizes who the man on the beach is.

Faith is such a serious, somber business, we often miss the humor of Peter unable to wait for the boat to get to shore, plunging into the water. But not before he takes a moment to make himself presentable by putting some clothes on. I’m sure he looked most presentable, dragging himself out of the water, clothes dripping wet.

We rarely look so foolish as Peter. We don’t plunge headlong into the water. We form committees. We study all options.  Not that Peter’s impulsiveness is always a good thing, but it comes from a different place than much of our religious behavior. Simon is so enamored, so in love with Jesus, that he acts in ways that are ridiculous, and so Jesus’ questions to him are less about whether he loves and more about what shape that love needs to take.

But Jesus isn’t so viscerally real and present to me as he was to Simon Peter. Very often, Jesus is a collection of teachings, a way of living, a call to action, but not someone I can fall in love with, not someone I would make a fool of myself for. And so that question, “Do you love me?” doesn’t touch me as it does Peter. Do I love you? Well I’m not exactly sure. I love your ideas. You’ve got some great points. But love you? I don’t know.

Conversion and the Other

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Embracing Paradox

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Is God To Be Trusted?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Preaching Thoughts on a Non-Preaching Sunday

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Wasting Time

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Click to learn more about the lectionary.

Doing Nothing

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

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

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

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

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

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Capitalist Heresies

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Sermon video: A Victory Parade

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

Sermon video: While It Was Still Dark

Other sermon videos available on YouTube.

Sermon: While It Was Still Dark

John 20:1-18

While It Was Still Dark

James Sledge                                                               March 31, 2013 - Easter

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Agony and Despair... and Hope?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Click to learn more about the lectionary.

Remember - Backward and Forward

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Click to learn more about the lectionary.

Not Enough

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why the Cross? Why Christianity?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Click to learn more about the lectionary.

Transformed by and for Love

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Sermon: A Victory Parade

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

A Victory Parade

James Sledge                                    March 24, 2013 – Palm/Passion Sunday

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Confession, Bad Dogs, and Liturgy

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

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

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

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

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

Click to learn more about the lectionary.

Shepherd and Other Metaphors

Given the culture of ancient Israel, it is hardly surprising that shepherd became a popular metaphor to speak not only of God but also of Israel's kings. Shepherds were everywhere in the ancient Near East, and so people hand a real familiarity with the work. Shepherds led their flocks to places where they could graze. They fought off predators. They cared for the injured. They spent a great deal of their time and energy caring for the flock and insuring its safety.

And so Israel could say, "Yahweh is my shepherd," and Jeremiah, as well as other prophets, could foretell doom of the the kings of Israel who had misled and abused the sheep, who exploited the flock so that they could enjoy a life of ease.

Jesus takes up this metaphor as well, calling himself "the good shepherd" who "lays down his life for the sheep." Jesus speaks of himself as one who cares for the sheep no matter the cost to himself.

I'm trying to think of what metaphors we use for our leaders today. Shepherd still is used in the church for pastors and such, but I'm thinking more about political leaders. We don't have kings, but what metaphors do we employ for presidents or governors or mayors?

I'm having trouble coming up with any. That could be because I write these blogs off-the-cuff, more stream of consciousness than anything else. Perhaps further thought would call some to mind, but I'm struggling at the moment, and nothing along the line of shepherd suggests itself.

Presidents get called "Commander-in-Chief." That's more title than metaphor, although there may be a warrior metaphor in that title.

This is the 10-year anniversary of the war in Iraq. If we attempt to use a shepherd metaphor for the president, how does the decision to invade stack up? Was there sufficient reason to justify all those sheep who were slaughtered or left horrible wounded? And such questions could be extended to the current president with regards to escalating the war in Afghanistan.

For that matter, the shepherd metaphor, and especially Jesus' employment of it, can provide a harsh critique of all sorts of activities by presidents and other leaders. Is concern for the flock primary, or is it only considered after other goals are met?

Many in the political arena like to trumpet that America is a "Christian nation founded on Christian principles." What could be more Christian that a shepherd who cares for the flock no matter the cost. But present-day, American politics is mostly about winning no matter the cost. And the cost of winning very often entails forging relationships and loyalties with donors and organizations that puch the flock further and further down the priority list. There are good reasons that political "saviors" are never quite so good as promised, regardless of party or ideology.

"Yahweh is my shepherd," begins the 23rd Psalm. This shepherd has no other loyalties to divert the shepherd's attention, no large donors who cause this shepherd to ignore the regular sheep. In fact, the Good Shepherd upsets the powerful and the large donors so much that they want to kill him. But he is not dissuaded, and this shepherd goes to the cross for all the flock, for the regular sheep and even for the most scruffy, wayward, and seemingly worthless ones.

Thanks be to God!

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"I See," Said the Blind Man

Sight and blindness make literal and metaphorical appearances in today's gospel, the conclusion of a story begun yesterday. A blind man's sight has been restored by Jesus, spurring an inquiry because this healing was done on the Sabbath.  The formerly blind man points out the obvious to Jesus' opponents, sending them into something of a frenzy. What business does this uneducated, recent beggar have trying to teach the trained, religious teachers? And so they throw the man out.

Following all this, Jesus reveals himself to this once blind fellow.  He then lets loose this pearl. “I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.”

Considering what the Pharisees have just said about Jesus, why his opinion would bother them is not at all clear to me. Yet still they seem worried that Jesus may be referring to them and they seek assurance he is not.  But Jesus responds, “If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.”

So let's see. If you are blind - metaphorically I presume - then you do not have sin. But if you are one of those who sees, or perhaps claims to see, then you are in sin. Sounds a little like an argument in favor of not knowing.

Are those who are in the dark about religious and faith matters somehow at an advantage? That's a little troubling for folks like me, and probably for lots of others who take their Bible study, faith, and beliefs very seriously. But this is not the only place Jesus talks like this. In the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke), Jesus is more often found among "sinners," and in Matthew 21:31 he says to the religious authorities, "Truly I tell  you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you."

I think the Apostle Paul is on much the same topic when he argues for faith rather than the law. It has been conventional to think Paul is talking about keeping the law precisely, an impossible burden relieved by turning to God's grace via faith. But it seems more likely Paul is talking about Israel trusting in their possession of and knowledge of the law. In this scenario, knowing exactly what to do or not do - this includes asking for and receiving forgiveness when you fail - becomes what Israel trusts rather than God Godself. And that seems to me the temptation for all learned folks, to trust their learnings over simply trusting in God.

(Interesting that the quest for knowledge is central to the first humans breaking covenant with God in the Garden of Eden story.) 

Of course Paul is a fairly learned guy, as are some of the gospel writers. I don't know that they are, in fact, arguing in favor of ignorance. I certainly hope not. But I do think they want us to consider where our faith, our trust, actually lies. Is it in the knowledge we've acquired and the ways of being Christian that we've learned? Or is it more fundamentally in the God we meet in Jesus?

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At the Risk of Our Own Life

Today's gospel is a rather messy episode with all sorts of uncomfortable questions and answers. Why would someone be born blind? That was much more of a tragedy in Jesus' day than ours, with few employment options beyond begging. Surely there must be some way to explain the situation, prompting the disciples' question.

Jesus' answer at least refuses to assign blame, but it isn't entirely satisfactory either. He was born this way "so that God’s works might be revealed in him?" Really? This man suffered all his life just so he could be a prop for Jesus? Based on everything I know about Jesus, I'm going to say that Jesus didn't mean it that way. Here merely shifts the emphasis from one of blame to one of opportunity to minister and share God's love.

Yet when Jesus does just that, it stirs up more problems. Jesus had done "work" on the Sabbath when he made a little mud. Granted, this obsession with exacting requirements of Sabbath keeping is baffling to us, but if a homeless person shows up at our churches on Sunday morning, we generally tell him that we deal with such problems at other times. As I said, this is a messy gospel passage.

I wonder how many people in America today view the church in much the same way church congregations tend to view the Pharisees in today's gospel. Does the church look as baffling to outsiders as the Pharisees' behavior sometimes seems to look to us insiders?

Given that most of the opposition to Jesus seems to have come from religious circles, it would seem incumbent on church denominations and congregations to examine themselves carefully, to ascertain the ways in which we model Jesus' behaviors and the ways in which we model those of his religious, and no doubt well-intended, opponents. And surely we would want to guard against acting like Jesus' religious opponents, people of faith who seemed to think that their religious traditions and practices were so sacrosanct as to need defending and preserving at all costs.

One of the fundamental claims of the church is that we are called to be the body of Christ in the world. I won't for a moment minimize the difficulty of figuring out exactly what this call looks like, what particular ministries it calls us to undertake. However, it seems highly likely that any such calling will create tension and even conflict with our institutional, religious sensibilities.

The Presbyterian (USA) Book of Order, in its opening pages, says this about the church. "The Church is the body of Christ. Christ gives to the Church all the gifts necessary to be his body. The Church strives to demonstrate these gifts in its life as a community in the world: The Church is to be a community of faith, entrusting itself to God alone, even at the the risk of losing its life." (F-1.0301)

I wonder if the tension I am talking about doesn't reside within this line about faith and risking our own life. Jesus was willing to risk ridicule, suffering, and death for the sake of others, for the sake of the world. As Christ's body in the world, we are called to do the same. So what does that look like for the congregations where you and I are?

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