One of my all-time favorite quotes is the opening line from John Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion. It reads, "Nearly all the wisdom we possess, that is to say, true and sound wisdom, consists of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves." Calvin thinks the two sorts of wisdom deeply intertwined, as most religious folk likely do. Insomuch as this is so, our lives get distorted from what they should be whenever we misapprehend who we are or who God is.
Another quote I've used often comes from Mahatma Gandhi. "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ." But how could this be? If Christians are those who have been transformed by being joined to Christ, who have become a new sort of human because they have come to know both God and humanity in Jesus, then how can it be that Gandhi observed such a disconnect between what he saw in Christ and what he saw in Christians?
Today's gospel reading contains the famous story of Jesus stilling a storm on the Sea of Galilee. It ends with a question from the stunned disciples. “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” Mark's gospel is terribly interested in this question, one that cannot really be answered short of the cross. But despite Mark and other gospel writers addressing this question of who Jesus is, it seems we're still struggling to answer it. How else to explain the experience Gandhi has, not to mention all the different and contradictory images of Jesus that are presented by those who claim to be the "body of Christ."
Thinking of this problem from Calvin's perspective, I wonder if it arises more from faulty knowledge of God, faulty knowledge of self, or perhaps from a misunderstanding regarding how the two relate and where we get such knowledge.
On the question of where we get such knowledge, we run into a significant problem, one that seems particularly acute in 21st Century America. We are prone not to trust any source of knowledge that does not accord with what we already feel or think. Thus we are inclined not to accept knowledge about God that is contrary to our existing ideas about how a god should be and act. To an even greater degree we are inclined not to accept any outside critique that suggests we have misunderstood what it means to be human. And the more captive we are to such inclinations, the more we will know a god of our own construction and a self validated by this self-serving god.
I suspect that the reason Gandhi found the Christians he met so unlike the Christ he read of in the Bible was that so many of us, despite our professions of faith, refuse to let Jesus redefine our notions of God or our notions of self. Instead we try to shoe-horn Jesus into faulty images of God and self that we will not abandon, not even for Jesus.
And so it seems to me critically important that those of us who in some way claim the name "Christian" to continue wrestling with the question the disciples raise for us today, and that we be open to that redefining who we think God is, as well as who we think we are.
Click to learn more about the lectionary.
Sermons and thoughts on faith on Scripture from my time at Old Presbyterian Meeting House and Falls Church Presbyterian Church, plus sermons and postings from "Pastor James," my blog while pastor at Boulevard Presbyterian in Columbus, OH.
Wednesday, July 24, 2013
Monday, July 22, 2013
Getting Off Center
My wife and I recently bought a house that needed a bit of work. We've been fixing it up ourselves, including tearing out and redoing the kitchen. We got a good bit of work done before actually moving in, but we still don't have a kitchen. Things connected with the house have started to feel a little all-consuming. Every moment of spare time gets devoted to it, and both of us are looking forward to the day when it is not so much the focus of our lives.
Most all of us have times in life when something so dominates our routines that other things get squeezed out. When a child is born, life sometimes get turned upside down. A new job can do the same. Depending on the circumstances, these instances of our lives being reordered can be rewarding or frustrating, perhaps both. At times, we may even question our sanity in ever ending up in such a place.
Yesterday in my sermon, I asked the question (as much to myself as to anyone), "What is the one thing at the center or your life?" It came from Jesus' comment to Martha, "There is need of only one thing." And I thought of that question again as I read today's gospel parable where some seed produces abundantly while other does not.
A house does not really deserve the sort of attention and devotion that ours has been receiving of late. But at least that is something that will end in time (I hope). Other things need to be at the center for life to be what it should be, but we humans are very good at putting the wrong things there. As today's parable suggests, even when we put the right things at the center, we are easily distracted by "the cares of the world, and the lure of wealth, and the desire for other things," and our centers get all askew.
Our current focus on the house (however necessary for the moment) has left me feeling askew, and it is starting to wear on me. But other things that get us off center are more subtle and seductive. They play into the fact that more often than not, I make myself the very center of things. Never mind Jesus' insistence that God needs to be in that spot, with neighbor sharing a place with me.
I suspect that much like the strain I have felt from being so focused on a move and renovation, a great deal of the anxiety in our society today arises from an off centered focus on self that won't allow for a truly good and just society. After all, Jesus comes proclaiming a kingdom, a new social order, and it is built on lives that push self off to the side - Jesus says his followers are to "deny themselves" - and are recentered on love of God and neighbor.
Click to learn more about the lectionary.
Most all of us have times in life when something so dominates our routines that other things get squeezed out. When a child is born, life sometimes get turned upside down. A new job can do the same. Depending on the circumstances, these instances of our lives being reordered can be rewarding or frustrating, perhaps both. At times, we may even question our sanity in ever ending up in such a place.
Yesterday in my sermon, I asked the question (as much to myself as to anyone), "What is the one thing at the center or your life?" It came from Jesus' comment to Martha, "There is need of only one thing." And I thought of that question again as I read today's gospel parable where some seed produces abundantly while other does not.
A house does not really deserve the sort of attention and devotion that ours has been receiving of late. But at least that is something that will end in time (I hope). Other things need to be at the center for life to be what it should be, but we humans are very good at putting the wrong things there. As today's parable suggests, even when we put the right things at the center, we are easily distracted by "the cares of the world, and the lure of wealth, and the desire for other things," and our centers get all askew.
Our current focus on the house (however necessary for the moment) has left me feeling askew, and it is starting to wear on me. But other things that get us off center are more subtle and seductive. They play into the fact that more often than not, I make myself the very center of things. Never mind Jesus' insistence that God needs to be in that spot, with neighbor sharing a place with me.
I suspect that much like the strain I have felt from being so focused on a move and renovation, a great deal of the anxiety in our society today arises from an off centered focus on self that won't allow for a truly good and just society. After all, Jesus comes proclaiming a kingdom, a new social order, and it is built on lives that push self off to the side - Jesus says his followers are to "deny themselves" - and are recentered on love of God and neighbor.
Click to learn more about the lectionary.
Sunday, July 21, 2013
Sermon - Martha and Mary Problems
Luke 10:38-42
Martha and Mary Problems
James Sledge July
21, 2013
Here
at the church we have a staff meeting every Tuesday morning, and twice a month we
have what we call an extended staff meeting. In it, we spend a significant
period of time meditating on a scripture passage. Usually we do something called
lectio divina or divine reading, an
ancient practice that has been described as praying the scriptures. The passage is read with each of us simply
listening for a word or phrase that strikes us. Silence following the reading
allows us to simply be attentive to the passage touching us in some way.
Then
the passage is read a couple more times, each time with additional times of
silence to contemplate why that word or phrase touched us and how God might be
speaking to us through it. It’s quite different from the more typical practice
of reading the Bible and trying to understand what a passage or story means. Lectio divina is less Bible study and
more a form of prayer.
A
couple of weeks ago, as we finished our time of silent reflection and began to
share with one another what each of us had heard or experienced, I was struck
with what an odd practice this might seem to someone who walked in on it. Here
we were, a group of employees “on the clock” if you will, and other than
occasional breaks in the silence for the scripture to be read aloud, no one
appeared to be doing anything, at least not as doing tends to be thought of.
In
terms of the typical workplace, our times of lectio divina are indeed an odd practice. I cannot imagine such a
thing going on in many places of employment. For that matter, I don’t know that
it happens with that much regularity in churches. After all, churches are busy
places. There is a lot to do, and there is limited time to sit around being
“unproductive.”
Mary
is rather unproductive herself when Jesus drops by to visit with her and her
sister Martha. She also steps out of the normal role of women at that time.
Sitting at Jesus’ feet is the stereotypical pose of a disciple studying under a
rabbi, and that was only done by men.
Meanwhile, as Martha does all those things that need to be done when company comes, as she follows the biblical injunction to show hospitality, she gets more and more frustrated with Mary sitting there, not offering to help.
Meanwhile, as Martha does all those things that need to be done when company comes, as she follows the biblical injunction to show hospitality, she gets more and more frustrated with Mary sitting there, not offering to help.
This
is a simple little story, but it wrestles with some difficult issues. There’s
an unfortunate tendency to reduce the story to either/or, good or bad choices,
but as many have pointed out, “If no one gets dinner ready, what will Jesus and
Mary eat?” And I’m pretty sure there was no take out or fast food available.
Our
Bible translation doesn’t necessarily help on this as much as it might.
Speaking of Martha as distracted by her many tasks has
made it easy for some to portray her as a harried, Martha Stewart type, overly
obsessed with getting everything just so. But in fact her “tasks” are more
normally translated as “service” or even “ministry,” and the word is the root
of our word “deacon.” And our Bible translation misses a second chance to note
this by not translating Martha’s complaint to Jesus in what seems to me a more straightforward,
word for word fashion. “Lord, do you not care that my sister has
left me alone to serve?”
Tuesday, July 16, 2013
Uncertainty, Forgiveness, and Healing
Like a lot of pastors, I mentioned Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman in Sunday's sermon, although these were more asides than the focus. To be honest, I'm not sure I have a lot to add to all the other voices seeking to explain what it all means.
I'll freely admit which camp I inhabit. I'm one of the people who had a hard time understanding why it took so long for Zimmerman to become a suspect, and who believes that Martin's race made his death more "acceptable" to some. If I were African American, I'd likely have a hard time not concluding that the life of a young black male is less important than the life of others, and that gun rights matter a lot more than Trayvon Martin's right to grow up.
That said, a lot of comments on all sides are pretty predictable and often knee-jerk. The terrible and troubled legacy of racism in this country is very much alive, but it is also very complex, and every event connected to it cannot be reduced to simple, clear-cut motivations and causes.
I have little doubt that race played a role in this sad affair. If George Zimmerman had not regarded a young black male as both suspicious and threatening, things would surely have turned out differently. For that matter, if people's lives grew out of reflections on loving neighbor and the parable about a Samaritan Jesus told to address that issue (one of my sermon asides), our world would be a very different place, regardless of whether or not it wore the label "Christian."
And so, while I don't have much to add to the commentary on the Trayvon Martin case, I find myself wondering - with some prodding by today's gospel - about which it is that America needs more, forgiveness or healing. Many people get irritated when hearing of the sins of slavery or racism. "That was long ago," they say. It has nothing to do with me. But as William Faulkner once said, "The past is never dead. It's not even past."
The wounds and scars of the past are far from fully healed, and the fact that I never owned a slave doesn't change that at all. And the all too frequent desire to minimize those wounds and scars only rubs salt in them. There is something therapeutic about naming and claiming sins, but we are often loathe to do so. As a child of the South, I heard often the absurd claim that the Civil War wasn't caused by slavery, a denial of sin that is still popular no matter how often it is debunked.
Regardless, there has been much progress in the area of racial reconciliation. Events from my childhood seem almost ancient when I see them in news footage. Maybe we simply need to focus on getting past race. Let's forget about sin and move on with the healing.
I've often been troubled by today's gospel reading which seems to imply that Jesus only healed a paralytic to prove he had authority to forgive the man. But today I am appreciative of the passage's unwillingness to completely separate the two things. Not that sin caused the man to be paralyzed, but sin is a fundamental problem for human beings, and any healing that deals with physical healing without dealing with sin is at best a partial healing. And our difficulty with sin in matters of race makes full healing difficult.
And this is not simply a call for all those racists out there to confess their sins. I hope they will, but confessing other people's sin is part of the problem. I tend to imagine my lingering tinges of racism as benign. Only other, more virulent forms are a problem. Of course that's not so different from someone who looks like a racist to me talking about how he never owned slaves or barred people from his establishment on account of race.
And so in my uncertainty about just what to say about George Zimmerman or the meanings to be drawn from the verdict in his trial, I'll simply pray for forgiveness and healing. We still need both.
Click to learn more about the lectionary.
I'll freely admit which camp I inhabit. I'm one of the people who had a hard time understanding why it took so long for Zimmerman to become a suspect, and who believes that Martin's race made his death more "acceptable" to some. If I were African American, I'd likely have a hard time not concluding that the life of a young black male is less important than the life of others, and that gun rights matter a lot more than Trayvon Martin's right to grow up.
That said, a lot of comments on all sides are pretty predictable and often knee-jerk. The terrible and troubled legacy of racism in this country is very much alive, but it is also very complex, and every event connected to it cannot be reduced to simple, clear-cut motivations and causes.
I have little doubt that race played a role in this sad affair. If George Zimmerman had not regarded a young black male as both suspicious and threatening, things would surely have turned out differently. For that matter, if people's lives grew out of reflections on loving neighbor and the parable about a Samaritan Jesus told to address that issue (one of my sermon asides), our world would be a very different place, regardless of whether or not it wore the label "Christian."
And so, while I don't have much to add to the commentary on the Trayvon Martin case, I find myself wondering - with some prodding by today's gospel - about which it is that America needs more, forgiveness or healing. Many people get irritated when hearing of the sins of slavery or racism. "That was long ago," they say. It has nothing to do with me. But as William Faulkner once said, "The past is never dead. It's not even past."
The wounds and scars of the past are far from fully healed, and the fact that I never owned a slave doesn't change that at all. And the all too frequent desire to minimize those wounds and scars only rubs salt in them. There is something therapeutic about naming and claiming sins, but we are often loathe to do so. As a child of the South, I heard often the absurd claim that the Civil War wasn't caused by slavery, a denial of sin that is still popular no matter how often it is debunked.
Regardless, there has been much progress in the area of racial reconciliation. Events from my childhood seem almost ancient when I see them in news footage. Maybe we simply need to focus on getting past race. Let's forget about sin and move on with the healing.
I've often been troubled by today's gospel reading which seems to imply that Jesus only healed a paralytic to prove he had authority to forgive the man. But today I am appreciative of the passage's unwillingness to completely separate the two things. Not that sin caused the man to be paralyzed, but sin is a fundamental problem for human beings, and any healing that deals with physical healing without dealing with sin is at best a partial healing. And our difficulty with sin in matters of race makes full healing difficult.
And this is not simply a call for all those racists out there to confess their sins. I hope they will, but confessing other people's sin is part of the problem. I tend to imagine my lingering tinges of racism as benign. Only other, more virulent forms are a problem. Of course that's not so different from someone who looks like a racist to me talking about how he never owned slaves or barred people from his establishment on account of race.
And so in my uncertainty about just what to say about George Zimmerman or the meanings to be drawn from the verdict in his trial, I'll simply pray for forgiveness and healing. We still need both.
Click to learn more about the lectionary.
Sunday, July 14, 2013
Sermon: Getting Straightened Out
Amos 7:7-17 (8:4-8b)
Getting Straightened Out
James Sledge July
14, 2013
When
I was a kid, my family often took camping trips in the North Carolina
Mountains. We mostly did the Blue Ridge Parkway and National Parks sort of
thing. We went to Tweetsie Railroad on occasions, but my parents weren’t so big
on the touristy spots, much to the chagrin of my brother and me.
We
lived in Spartanburg, SC at the time, which is quite close to the mountains. One
of our “local” TV station was in Asheville, NC, and so we often saw commercials
for mountain attractions. And beside TV ads, the drive into the mountains was
peppered with billboards advertising all sorts of tourist traps. One that fascinated
me as a small child was a place called Mystery Hill. The billboards spoke of
defying gravity and showed people standing normally but at odd angles to the
walls. It looked magic to me, but we never convinced our parents to go there.
I
did once go to a place called Gravity Hill. There are actually a lot of places
by that name around the country, places where things seem to roll uphill. When
I went, we rode in the car down to the “bottom” of a hill, put the car in
neutral, released the brake, and lo and behold, the car began to back up the
hill on its own.
Places
called Gravity Hill are optical illusions created by some confluence of terrain
features that tricks your mind as to what is truly vertical and horizontal.
Mystery Hill was apparently as even more elaborate optical illusion created by
disorienting you as you were taken into a room where walls and furniture and
everything else actually leaned to one side.
Under
the right conditions, optical illusions can be so convincing that you can’t
help but see them, even when you know they are not true. Our eyes cannot always
be trusted, and so there are times when it is very helpful to have some outside
reference by which to test what you think you see. And so when carpenters are
building a wall, “Does that look straight to you?” isn’t going to cut it.
Something more reliable than eyesight is needed.
And
so all decent carpenters and builders have a level, probably several of them, to
show for certain if that wall is really running straight up and down. An older
and simpler device, one that is still very useful in situations where a level
won’t work very well, is a plumb line. All it takes is a string with a weight
tied on the end of it. Hold the string, wait for the weight to stop swinging,
and you have straight up and down clearly shown. If I had had one with me when
I went to Gravity Hill, it would have clearly exposed the optical illusion. And
in those rooms at Mystery Hill, it would confirm that the walls that are off,
not gravity.
In
our Old Testament reading today, the prophet Amos seems to say that God holds
up a plumb line to Israel, and finds them horribly askew, not at all what they
are meant to be. Amos spoke in the time after Israel has split in two. The
smaller kingdom of Judah, with its capital in Jerusalem was to the south, and
the much larger, wealthier, and more successful kingdom of Israel was in the
north, with its capital in Samaria.
This
was a time of relative peace and prosperity for Israel. Things were going very
well, at least for wealthy. These seem to have been heady times for the rich
who were building fine homes and expanding their estates. The poor were not
doing so well, however, when Amos arrives to confront both the religious and
political leaders of Israel.
Thursday, July 11, 2013
Inner Change - Outer Change
Here is the opening paragraph of Richard Rohr's meditation for today. "Bernard McGinn says that mysticism is 'a consciousness of
the presence of God that by definition exceeds description and . . . deeply
transforms the subject who has experienced it.' If it does not deeply change
the lifestyle of the person—their worldview, their economics, their politics,
their ability to form community—you have no reason to believe it is genuine
mystical experience. It is often just people with an addiction to religion
itself, which is not that uncommon."
Not only have I learned much from Rohr over the years, but I love the name of his organization, the Center for Action and Contemplation. That name, along with today's devotion, speaks to a false dichotomy between the inner and outer life, between contemplative spirituality and lives of active service. And I think today's gospel lesson chimes in on this as well.
As the gospel of Luke nears its end, the risen Jesus appears to his disciples, and he speaks of the mission they will soon undertake, proclaiming the message of Jesus "to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem." But this mission, all those things they will do that are recorded in the book of Acts, must await "power from on high." And so this great mission to all the world begins with,"So stay here in the city." It begins with waiting, a waiting that Acts tells us is spent in time devoted to prayer.
In Presbyterian circles, there are many who seem a bit suspicion of "spiritual types" with their candles and silences and focus contemplation. The reasons for this are many, but some of it is rooted in examples spirituality that look nothing like the mysticism Rohr recommends. It is more of an addiction to religious experience itself, with little evidence that this experience makes a great deal of difference in how a person lives.
But their is a counterpart in some Presbyterian churches where social activism is highly valued but without much sense of a spiritual basis to it. Outside of Sunday worship, such activism may be so indistinguishable from similar, secular activism that volunteers may be unaware of any Christian underpinnings.
The false dichotomy I mentioned earlier may well arise from these two distorted examples of spirituality and activism, and both of them help to project a false picture of what following Jesus really is. Religious or spiritual experience that does not transform people's outer lives, "their worldview, their economics, their politics,
their ability to form community," as Rohr puts it, is not the sort of new life Jesus calls us to. But social activism that is rooted merely in our own innate political or social tendencies, without being profoundly shaped by the Spirit's presence, is little better. Even when it does some of the very things Jesus asks us to do, it has no power beyond that of those involved. As such it struggles to maintain energy. The disparaging term, "a tired '60s radical," speaks directly to this energy problem that arises when we are dependent solely on the energy of the cause itself or our own personal stores, and we receive no "power from on high."
The Christian life must have significant inner and outer components. However, I suspect that most all of us have a tendency to get overly focused on one or the other. When we do, our faith gets distorted. To make matters worse, we tend to notice the distortion of those whose focus is opposite ours while tending to miss our own.
Are you more inclined toward the inner or outer aspects of faith? Which sort of distortion are you more prone to experience? Where do you need to grow in order to experience a fuller and more balanced life of faith?
Click to learn more about the lectionary.
The Christian life must have significant inner and outer components. However, I suspect that most all of us have a tendency to get overly focused on one or the other. When we do, our faith gets distorted. To make matters worse, we tend to notice the distortion of those whose focus is opposite ours while tending to miss our own.
Are you more inclined toward the inner or outer aspects of faith? Which sort of distortion are you more prone to experience? Where do you need to grow in order to experience a fuller and more balanced life of faith?
Click to learn more about the lectionary.
Tuesday, July 9, 2013
Idle Tales
While reading today's gospel using the practice of lectio divina - divine reading or praying the scriptures - I found that the phrase "idle tale" seemed to smack me upside the head. The phrase occurs in Luke's story of Easter morning as the women return to tell the eleven about the empty tomb. But the story is too outlandish for the disciples. They can't bring themselves to believe such an "idle tale."
Interesting that the very people who had been with Jesus during his ministry, who had heard him speak of being crucified and then rising on the third day, seemed so unreceptive the this tale from the women. If they didn't believe it, who would?
Fast forward to our day, and there are many who still think the story an "idle tale." Devout Christians have not always been very charitable to such folks, which is odd when you think about it. If Jesus' own disciples could not believe such a story, even when told them by eyewitnesses, why would modern Christians think poorly of people who, without the aid of any eyewitnesses, judge a story from the book known as the Bible an "idle tale."
As for me, I grew up with this tale. I have heard it so many times, that the outlandish nature of such a tale has perhaps been obscured. All those folks around me seemed to believe it and repeat it. It must not be an "idle tale," even if those first disciples thought so.
So why did the phrase "idle tale" grab me so this morning? As I reflected on that, it occurred to me that my faith is often constrained by what seems reasonable, logical, or possible. The Easter story may have had its audacity wiped away by its familiarity, but its not like I really expect to see Jesus walking around. And I often leave the Holy Spirit to more pentecostal types. And so very often, my faith seems to be more in a memory of Jesus, in his teachings and sayings and wisdom rather than in any living being who may call me or send me somewhere I don't want to go. Come to think of it, sometimes I worship a very dead Jesus, so maybe the women's tale is more idle than I've realized.
Sometimes I think that the biggest obstacle in my life of faith is a difficulty being open to what I cannot understand, explain, or control. It is not trusting that God can do things through me and through a church congregation that I or we cannot logically do on our own. Because that means trusting that a living Jesus is truly present in the transforming power of the Spirit, and not simply as a memorial of long ago events.
God really present, and the Spirit really whirling around in the church, pushing and moving things. Now that really is an idle tale.
Click to learn more about the lectionary.
Interesting that the very people who had been with Jesus during his ministry, who had heard him speak of being crucified and then rising on the third day, seemed so unreceptive the this tale from the women. If they didn't believe it, who would?
Fast forward to our day, and there are many who still think the story an "idle tale." Devout Christians have not always been very charitable to such folks, which is odd when you think about it. If Jesus' own disciples could not believe such a story, even when told them by eyewitnesses, why would modern Christians think poorly of people who, without the aid of any eyewitnesses, judge a story from the book known as the Bible an "idle tale."
As for me, I grew up with this tale. I have heard it so many times, that the outlandish nature of such a tale has perhaps been obscured. All those folks around me seemed to believe it and repeat it. It must not be an "idle tale," even if those first disciples thought so.
So why did the phrase "idle tale" grab me so this morning? As I reflected on that, it occurred to me that my faith is often constrained by what seems reasonable, logical, or possible. The Easter story may have had its audacity wiped away by its familiarity, but its not like I really expect to see Jesus walking around. And I often leave the Holy Spirit to more pentecostal types. And so very often, my faith seems to be more in a memory of Jesus, in his teachings and sayings and wisdom rather than in any living being who may call me or send me somewhere I don't want to go. Come to think of it, sometimes I worship a very dead Jesus, so maybe the women's tale is more idle than I've realized.
Sometimes I think that the biggest obstacle in my life of faith is a difficulty being open to what I cannot understand, explain, or control. It is not trusting that God can do things through me and through a church congregation that I or we cannot logically do on our own. Because that means trusting that a living Jesus is truly present in the transforming power of the Spirit, and not simply as a memorial of long ago events.
God really present, and the Spirit really whirling around in the church, pushing and moving things. Now that really is an idle tale.
Click to learn more about the lectionary.
Monday, July 8, 2013
How to Love God
Many
church people would likely nod in assent if someone spoke of faith as
"loving God and loving neighbor." Loving one's neighbor may be difficult
at times, but it's fairly easy to come up with a long list of things
that fit into that category. I'm not sure the same can be said for
loving God.
What exactly does it look like to love God? What things count for and against it? Those who speak of Christians as hypocrites suggest we think attending worship and believing in Jesus suffice. Churches certainly have their share of hypocrisy, but many people diligently seek to live their faith. Even so, they may struggle with what it looks like to love God.
Thoughts on what loving God looks like arose for me after reading Fr. Richard Rohr's daily devotion. He tells of a sidewalk frequented by the homeless of Albuquerque, NM, where he once observed something written in chalk. “I watch how foolishly man guards his nothing—thereby keeping us out. Truly God is hated here.”I thought of all the church congregations in this country, many of them segregated by income level as well as race, and pondered that phrase, "thereby keeping us out."
But Rohr's quote wasn't nearly so troubling as the lectionary verses from 1 Samuel. There the newly anointed King Saul is rejected by God. Here loving God is equated with obedience, and Saul's failure is not bringing total destruction on the Amalekites. He was supposed to commit genocide as well as kill every animal, but Saul spares their king and keeps the good animals and other booty. (He later claims he is bringing them as a offering for God.) Issues of compassion are not raised here. Saul kills all the women and children. The only issue is his absolute devotion to God, or the lack of it.
This is not the only time genocide is commanded by God in the Old Testament. Historically speaking, this was a violent time and it was not uncommon for conquorers to wipe out entire towns, but I don't know that context makes God come off much better.
Strangely enough this story may be, in part, Israel wrestling with questions about what it looks like to love God. When Jerusalem was destroyed and its leaders and intelligentsia taken into exile, much soul searching took place about how Israel had failed to be the covenant community God had called them to be. They had loved God when it was easy and convenient and ignored God when it suited them. One way they had been "unfaithful" was in hedging their bets by dabbling in the religious practices of their non-Israelite neighbors. The local Canaanite gods and goddesses were of the fertility variety, and fertility is a big issue in agriculture. So a sacrifice here and there to Baal was a bit of crop insurance.
But in light of defeat and exile, Israel contemplated her failure to love God with total devotion. One obvious problem: they had not been pure enough. They had not totally wiped out those Canaanites whose religious practices had tempted them. The Old Testament is hardly of one mind on this. There are regular commands to care for the sojourner and alien, and the book of Ruth celebrates the devotion of a non-Israelite. But clearly there was a school of thought in Israel that equated loving God with a purity requiring genocide.
This school of thought still has its adherents. They don't generally favor genocide these days, but their love of God does come with a fair amount of hatred for the impure, the heretic, the pagan, etc. Such folks usually refuse to acknowledge the varied witness of scripture on this and other issues. The Bible is in full agreement that total devotion to God is required, but just what that looks like is debated within scripture itself. Some of the prophets point to Israel's failure to do justice and care for the poor as the real failure of love. And those who demand covenant purity sometimes seem to forget that the original covenant with Abraham and Sarah promised that through them, "all the families of the earth shall be blessed."
This bedrock covenant of Israel is cosmic in scope, but Israel, just like religious folks today, were prone to narrow its focus and constrict it to their purposes. And the resulting biases find their way into sacred scripture. It is all too easy to spot, both in Old and New Testaments.
Fortunately for Christians, we have a remarkable example of what loving God looks like, namely Jesus. And while this example sets a very high bar, it is amazingly devoid of any zealotry aimed against outsiders (though later followers of Jesus would add that). Jesus' take on devotion and love for God demands much of us, but in service to others and not at their expense. Jesus seems totally to reject the school of thought that would connect devotion and purity to genocide, not that this has always restrained his adherents.
And so I find myself back at that indictment in the quote from Rohr. "Truly God is hated here." I know people who are very angry with God. I know people who don't believe in God, some whose disbelief is so intense they despise people who do believe in God. But I've rarely met anyone who claimed to hate God other than in a fit of pique. So how should we describe ourselves when we deliberately live in ways we know are at odds with what God wants and expects?
This post is a lot longer, and probably more rambling, than most. That's a sure sign of my own internal wrestling on this for my own life of faith, including its many failures and refusals to trust that God/Jesus' way is the right one. Do I love God? Do I hate God? Or am I so lukewarm that neither really applies?
Click to learn more about the lectionary.
What exactly does it look like to love God? What things count for and against it? Those who speak of Christians as hypocrites suggest we think attending worship and believing in Jesus suffice. Churches certainly have their share of hypocrisy, but many people diligently seek to live their faith. Even so, they may struggle with what it looks like to love God.
Thoughts on what loving God looks like arose for me after reading Fr. Richard Rohr's daily devotion. He tells of a sidewalk frequented by the homeless of Albuquerque, NM, where he once observed something written in chalk. “I watch how foolishly man guards his nothing—thereby keeping us out. Truly God is hated here.”I thought of all the church congregations in this country, many of them segregated by income level as well as race, and pondered that phrase, "thereby keeping us out."
But Rohr's quote wasn't nearly so troubling as the lectionary verses from 1 Samuel. There the newly anointed King Saul is rejected by God. Here loving God is equated with obedience, and Saul's failure is not bringing total destruction on the Amalekites. He was supposed to commit genocide as well as kill every animal, but Saul spares their king and keeps the good animals and other booty. (He later claims he is bringing them as a offering for God.) Issues of compassion are not raised here. Saul kills all the women and children. The only issue is his absolute devotion to God, or the lack of it.
This is not the only time genocide is commanded by God in the Old Testament. Historically speaking, this was a violent time and it was not uncommon for conquorers to wipe out entire towns, but I don't know that context makes God come off much better.
Strangely enough this story may be, in part, Israel wrestling with questions about what it looks like to love God. When Jerusalem was destroyed and its leaders and intelligentsia taken into exile, much soul searching took place about how Israel had failed to be the covenant community God had called them to be. They had loved God when it was easy and convenient and ignored God when it suited them. One way they had been "unfaithful" was in hedging their bets by dabbling in the religious practices of their non-Israelite neighbors. The local Canaanite gods and goddesses were of the fertility variety, and fertility is a big issue in agriculture. So a sacrifice here and there to Baal was a bit of crop insurance.
But in light of defeat and exile, Israel contemplated her failure to love God with total devotion. One obvious problem: they had not been pure enough. They had not totally wiped out those Canaanites whose religious practices had tempted them. The Old Testament is hardly of one mind on this. There are regular commands to care for the sojourner and alien, and the book of Ruth celebrates the devotion of a non-Israelite. But clearly there was a school of thought in Israel that equated loving God with a purity requiring genocide.
This school of thought still has its adherents. They don't generally favor genocide these days, but their love of God does come with a fair amount of hatred for the impure, the heretic, the pagan, etc. Such folks usually refuse to acknowledge the varied witness of scripture on this and other issues. The Bible is in full agreement that total devotion to God is required, but just what that looks like is debated within scripture itself. Some of the prophets point to Israel's failure to do justice and care for the poor as the real failure of love. And those who demand covenant purity sometimes seem to forget that the original covenant with Abraham and Sarah promised that through them, "all the families of the earth shall be blessed."
This bedrock covenant of Israel is cosmic in scope, but Israel, just like religious folks today, were prone to narrow its focus and constrict it to their purposes. And the resulting biases find their way into sacred scripture. It is all too easy to spot, both in Old and New Testaments.
Fortunately for Christians, we have a remarkable example of what loving God looks like, namely Jesus. And while this example sets a very high bar, it is amazingly devoid of any zealotry aimed against outsiders (though later followers of Jesus would add that). Jesus' take on devotion and love for God demands much of us, but in service to others and not at their expense. Jesus seems totally to reject the school of thought that would connect devotion and purity to genocide, not that this has always restrained his adherents.
And so I find myself back at that indictment in the quote from Rohr. "Truly God is hated here." I know people who are very angry with God. I know people who don't believe in God, some whose disbelief is so intense they despise people who do believe in God. But I've rarely met anyone who claimed to hate God other than in a fit of pique. So how should we describe ourselves when we deliberately live in ways we know are at odds with what God wants and expects?
This post is a lot longer, and probably more rambling, than most. That's a sure sign of my own internal wrestling on this for my own life of faith, including its many failures and refusals to trust that God/Jesus' way is the right one. Do I love God? Do I hate God? Or am I so lukewarm that neither really applies?
Click to learn more about the lectionary.
Sunday, July 7, 2013
Sermon: Learning to See God
2 Kings 5:1-14
Learning To See God
James Sledge July
7, 2013
My
family used to have a dog, a Cardigan Welsh Corgi named Fred. Cardigans are the
ones that have a tail. They’re a bit larger and heavier than the better known
Pembroke variety, but still, Fred wasn’t even a foot high at the shoulder.
Fred
had the best disposition of any dog I’ve ever known. He was always happy, loved
everyone, and he didn’t have a mean bone in his body. Nonetheless, at some
point he decided that one of his jobs was to make like a fierce guard dog when
the mail arrived at the front door. He sounded like a much bigger dog, and if
you didn’t know him or couldn’t see him, you might have concluded that he was a
real threat. But to us, and to the postal carrier who did know him, it was quite
comical. And if the front door was open, leaving only the glass storm door
between Fred and the letter carrier, she might say, “Hi Fred,” and he would wag
his tail.
As
ridiculous as the whole thing was, there was no stopping it. It’s not like you
can reason with a dog and explain to him how silly he looks. It was instinct,
after all. He was trying to protect his home, going into full aggression mode,
hair standing up on his back, making him 11 inches tall rather than 10½. He was
simply wired to act that way.
We
humans are not nearly so instinctive as Fred. We can look at our behavior and
change it when it seems to be unhelpful. But that is not to say that we don’t have
some deeply ingrained ways of responding to things around us, and these are
more instinctive when we feel threatened or angry.
At
such moments we are prone to fight or flight responses, and if we do not flee,
the fight response means employing some sort of power or force. It may be
physical, verbal, military. It may involve threats and intimidation, like Fred with
the mail carrier. But whatever the form, most of us have deeply ingrained assumptions
about how power and force work.
You
can see such assumptions at work in our reading about Naaman, the Syrian
commander with leprosy. When he hears that there is someone in Israel who can
heal him, he assumes it must be connected to people with power. It must belong
to those with influence and might, and so he goes to his king who provides him
with a letter of introduction as well as fine gifts that he can take to
Israel’s king in order to get this powerful ability to heal.
Of
course the king of Israel knows nothing about healing leprosy, but he does
understand power and threat and intimidation. He’s beside himself. He tears his
clothes and screams at his advisors that Naaman is seeking to provoke an
international incident. Clearly he is going to use this as a pretense for Aram
attacking Israel, and only Elisha’s intervention prevents the king from going into
full fight or flight mode.
Wednesday, July 3, 2013
"God Bless America" and Other July 4th Conundrums
Today's gospel covers the portion of Jesus' trial where he is transferred from Pilate, to Herod, and back again to Pilate. It concludes with this postscript. "That same day Herod and Pilate became friends with each other; before this they had been enemies." Likely Luke is simply making an allusion to Psalm 2, but I immediately thought of the phrase, "Politics makes strange bedfellows."
That is perhaps even more so when politics gets mixed with religion, which is has as long as both have existed. A perpetual human project is the attempt to manage God for our own purposes. "God bless America" is a fairly innocuous version of this (made less innocuous when in includes the expectation that blessing America means cursing our enemies). Enlisting God in the national cause often seems a good thing for the nation, not always so good a thing for God.
Speaking of alliances between God and country, I'm glad the Old Testament passage I'm preaching on next Sunday didn't arrive on the July 4th weekend. As a preacher, I tend to stay a week or so ahead on sermon preparation, and as I worked on the sermon from Amos 7, I said a little thank you that the text gave me a bit of distance from "God Bless America" sung to accompanying fireworks.
In the passage, Amos, who comes from the southern kingdom of Judah, travels to the northern kingdom of Israel to condemn their king. You can imagine how well that goes over. And so the priest of the sanctuary at Bethel, a sort of northern equivalent of the Jerusalem Temple, tells Amos to get out of town. But as he does so, the strange bedfellows things pops up. He refers to the temple as "the king's sanctuary." Not God's sanctuary but the king's. It's not quite the same as saying the king has commanded God to bless Israel, but the effect is pretty much the same.
When people sing "God Bless America," or when they invoke the phrase in speeches, I don't know what is in their hearts. But sometimes it doesn't sound much like a request or petition. It sound like a demand or an expectation.
I certainly would prefer that God bless America. I also love fireworks and John Philip Sousa marches. But I think it beyond arrogant to imagine that God has to be a loyal member of our team, a notion that worked out rather poorly for the king of Israel and his head priest at Bethel.
A number of years ago my wife stuck a quote from U2 band member Bono on our refrigerator. Bono said a wise man once told him something that changed his life. "Stop asking God to bless what you're doing. Get involved in what God is doing, because it's already blessed."
I'm pretty sure that applies to countries, too.
Click to learn more about the lectionary.
That is perhaps even more so when politics gets mixed with religion, which is has as long as both have existed. A perpetual human project is the attempt to manage God for our own purposes. "God bless America" is a fairly innocuous version of this (made less innocuous when in includes the expectation that blessing America means cursing our enemies). Enlisting God in the national cause often seems a good thing for the nation, not always so good a thing for God.
Speaking of alliances between God and country, I'm glad the Old Testament passage I'm preaching on next Sunday didn't arrive on the July 4th weekend. As a preacher, I tend to stay a week or so ahead on sermon preparation, and as I worked on the sermon from Amos 7, I said a little thank you that the text gave me a bit of distance from "God Bless America" sung to accompanying fireworks.
In the passage, Amos, who comes from the southern kingdom of Judah, travels to the northern kingdom of Israel to condemn their king. You can imagine how well that goes over. And so the priest of the sanctuary at Bethel, a sort of northern equivalent of the Jerusalem Temple, tells Amos to get out of town. But as he does so, the strange bedfellows things pops up. He refers to the temple as "the king's sanctuary." Not God's sanctuary but the king's. It's not quite the same as saying the king has commanded God to bless Israel, but the effect is pretty much the same.
When people sing "God Bless America," or when they invoke the phrase in speeches, I don't know what is in their hearts. But sometimes it doesn't sound much like a request or petition. It sound like a demand or an expectation.
I certainly would prefer that God bless America. I also love fireworks and John Philip Sousa marches. But I think it beyond arrogant to imagine that God has to be a loyal member of our team, a notion that worked out rather poorly for the king of Israel and his head priest at Bethel.
A number of years ago my wife stuck a quote from U2 band member Bono on our refrigerator. Bono said a wise man once told him something that changed his life. "Stop asking God to bless what you're doing. Get involved in what God is doing, because it's already blessed."
I'm pretty sure that applies to countries, too.
Click to learn more about the lectionary.
Monday, July 1, 2013
Competing Images of God
The Lord is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
The Lord is good to all,
and his compassion is over all that he has made.
If I were going to start a religion from scratch, I think I would devise a sacred text considerably shorter than the Christian Bible. The Hebrew texts alone are far too long, and the New Testament has a great deal of duplication. Why not hone it down to one gospel?
Another issue I would address in my sacred text is a consistent portrait of my divinity, a problem not unrelated to the Bible's lack of brevity. That some people use terms such as "the God of the Old Testament" or "the God of the New" point to this problem. In fact, the uneven pictures of God that lead to such phrases can be found in both Testaments. Many might hear the above verses from one of the morning psalms as sounding more like a New Testament God. Then again, there is something about destroying the wicked near the psalm's end.
Perhaps a short pamphlet or booklet that laid out the attributes of God, the rules God expects people to live by, and how God reacts to those who don't, would suffice. People in the church are always complaining about the problem of biblical literacy. If we cut the sacred text down to 20 or 30 pages, surely that would help with this problem.
We Protestants are heavily invested in the Bible. We say things like sola scripture or "scripture alone." We insist that the Bible is the witness par excellence, trumping all else whether it be church doctrine or human logic. But all too often, we have read it as a source of information, sometimes even as dispassionate history or reporting of events. And read this way, we are often can't handle conflicting pictures of God and so are reduced to cherry picking scripture, lifting up those passages that support our own notions of God. At times this can lead to different groups of Christians whose images of God cannot be reconciled.
I believe the Bible is divinely inspired, but that is a far cry from saying it simply contains accurate and true information. Rather it contains the work of deeply faithful and Spirit filled people who are trying to make sense of God who is beyond full human comprehension. Not surprisingly, their assumptions and biases of what God is like and how a god should act make there way into these reflections, though inspiration often breaks through such assumptions and biases. And story or narrative is often the only way to convey what is too big a task for theology, logic, or doctrine.
As a preacher, I can go back and look at the Bible passages I use for the sermon on any given Sunday. On top of that, I tend to preach from the lectionary, a collection of readings for each Sunday. And both the lectionary and I have a tendency to gravitate toward some texts and shy away from others. This of course means that anyone who depends in part on my sermons to help them picture God gets a certain slant. (If they attended some other church they might get a quite different slant.)
This suggests to me that most of us would do well to engage those texts we tend to avoid. If we won't go near a passage that speaks of divine judgment, or if we avoid those that demand self sacrificial giving to those in need, we probably need to wrestle with the picture those texts paint. This God of ours is far too big and too incomprehensible to be contained in any sacred text I would devise, or in any distilled image that fits my preferences. And so the very passage that most frightens, unnerves, or repels me is likely the very passage I most need to expand the constricted view of God I devise for myself from my own personal preferences.
Click to learn more about the lectionary.
slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
The Lord is good to all,
and his compassion is over all that he has made.
Psalm 145:8-9
If I were going to start a religion from scratch, I think I would devise a sacred text considerably shorter than the Christian Bible. The Hebrew texts alone are far too long, and the New Testament has a great deal of duplication. Why not hone it down to one gospel?
Another issue I would address in my sacred text is a consistent portrait of my divinity, a problem not unrelated to the Bible's lack of brevity. That some people use terms such as "the God of the Old Testament" or "the God of the New" point to this problem. In fact, the uneven pictures of God that lead to such phrases can be found in both Testaments. Many might hear the above verses from one of the morning psalms as sounding more like a New Testament God. Then again, there is something about destroying the wicked near the psalm's end.
We Protestants are heavily invested in the Bible. We say things like sola scripture or "scripture alone." We insist that the Bible is the witness par excellence, trumping all else whether it be church doctrine or human logic. But all too often, we have read it as a source of information, sometimes even as dispassionate history or reporting of events. And read this way, we are often can't handle conflicting pictures of God and so are reduced to cherry picking scripture, lifting up those passages that support our own notions of God. At times this can lead to different groups of Christians whose images of God cannot be reconciled.
I believe the Bible is divinely inspired, but that is a far cry from saying it simply contains accurate and true information. Rather it contains the work of deeply faithful and Spirit filled people who are trying to make sense of God who is beyond full human comprehension. Not surprisingly, their assumptions and biases of what God is like and how a god should act make there way into these reflections, though inspiration often breaks through such assumptions and biases. And story or narrative is often the only way to convey what is too big a task for theology, logic, or doctrine.
As a preacher, I can go back and look at the Bible passages I use for the sermon on any given Sunday. On top of that, I tend to preach from the lectionary, a collection of readings for each Sunday. And both the lectionary and I have a tendency to gravitate toward some texts and shy away from others. This of course means that anyone who depends in part on my sermons to help them picture God gets a certain slant. (If they attended some other church they might get a quite different slant.)
This suggests to me that most of us would do well to engage those texts we tend to avoid. If we won't go near a passage that speaks of divine judgment, or if we avoid those that demand self sacrificial giving to those in need, we probably need to wrestle with the picture those texts paint. This God of ours is far too big and too incomprehensible to be contained in any sacred text I would devise, or in any distilled image that fits my preferences. And so the very passage that most frightens, unnerves, or repels me is likely the very passage I most need to expand the constricted view of God I devise for myself from my own personal preferences.
Click to learn more about the lectionary.
Sunday, June 30, 2013
Sermon: Succession Issues
2 Kings 2:1-14
Succession Issues
James Sledge June
30, 2013
Even
if you are not a techie and care little about computers or the latest
smartphone, you probably still have heard of Apple. From iPods to iTunes to
iPads to iPhones, plus computers and other products, Apple is everywhere. They
have a well-deserved reputation for innovation and for developing the latest
and greatest cutting edge technology, and much of that reputation is connected
to one individual, Steve Jobs, the inventor and entrepreneur who founded Apple,
left it, then later returned to rescue it from near bankruptcy.
Jobs
died in 2011 from complications connected to cancer, but there had been a great
deal of speculation about his health for many years prior. I suspect that
Apple’s employees and investors did a lot of worrying about what would happen
after Steve Jobs. And now, in the post-Jobs era, many worry that his absence is
being keenly felt, that the company is losing its edge in innovation and
technology.
When
companies, organizations, movements, sports teams, and so on lose a powerful,
charismatic, visionary leader, it is not at all unusual for things to founder.
Indeed some never fully recover. And so succession issues can make people very
nervous.
You
can see that in our scripture reading this morning. We’re not told how it is
everyone seems to know that Elijah is about to be taken away, but they do. Elisha silences the
prophets who speak of the impending departure. Why is not clear. Is he in
denial? Does he think his repeated refusals to let Elijah go on alone will
somehow forestall a future that frightens him. After all, Elijah is his mentor
and like father to him. Surely the thought of what it will be like without
Elijah was frightening to Elisha and many who were followers of Yahweh.
At
times, Elijah had single-handedly seemed to keep the faith alive. He has stood
against corrupt rulers who not only exploited the people but gravely damaged
the faith. He had been willing to stand for Yahweh when almost no one else
would, and he had revived faith in Israel when he bested the 450 prophets of
Baal in a huge contest on Mt. Carmel. What would happen when he was gone? No
wonder Elisha sticks with Elijah, following him as he seems to wander aimlessly
around the countryside, repeatedly trying to ditch his younger protégé.
When
the big event finally arrives and Elijah is scooped off the earth by God, not
dying but transported away by fiery chariot, Elisha watches in amazement, not
averting his eyes until there was no longer the faintest glimpse of the great
prophet. And then, realizing that Elijah is gone, he tears his clothes in mourning
and sadness. What will he do now?
Thursday, June 27, 2013
Someone to Fight Our Battles
In today's Old Testament reading, the people of Israel demand that Samuel give them a king. Samuel is getting old and his sons have not proven fit to succeed him as priests and judges over Israel, and so the people ask to be like all the nations around them and have a king.
Samuel warns them of the ways of kings and how it will lead eventually to their enslavement, a prophecy fulfilled in the time of Solomon. But the people are insistent. “No! but we are determined to have a king over us, so that we also may be like other nations, and that our king may govern us and go out before us and fight our battles.”
For some reason I have always zeroed in on their desire to be like other nations, but today I was struck by the last of the people's three reasons for wanting a king, that he would "go out before us and fight our battles."
I am part of the baby boomer generation, but I came late enough in it that I was too young for Vietnam, and I never was eligible to be drafted. I am part of an America that is increasingly the norm, people who had others to go out before us and fight our battles. Fewer and fewer leaders in our communities and our nation have ever served in the military. It is now the exception for members of Congress to have done so. It was once not unusual at all.
Never having served in the military myself, I am not pointing any fingers at anyone. I'm simply reflecting on the implications of having others who will go out before us and fight our battles. I think some of these implications were particularly troubling during the Iraq war. Not only did we have others to fight, but we were not even asked to sacrifice at all with them, to give up something to support them, not even to pay extra taxes to pay for the war. It was as though the war had no connection to us unless we knew someone involved.
I don't know if it's connected at all, but many have noted and written about the loss of community and a sense of unity in our culture. Much mitigates against such unity from a highly mobile culture to strident individualism to sharp partisan divides. But surely the lack of a shared calling to something bigger than ourselves, something that asks us to give and even to sacrifice for it, makes unity even more difficult. And it isn't just national unity that's difficult. Unity among Christian denominations and even in congregations is often difficult.
Again this is a complex sociological phenomenon, but I suspect it has some connections to our Old Testament readings. The people of Israel insisted on a king to do their fighting for them because, as God says, "They have rejected me from being king over them." They want what they want, not what God wants.
The world is full of idols, not little statues, but things good and bad that we give stature, influence, and import that should only be given to God. And my own wishes and desires, my own certainties about what is right, or my own group or cause, all make splendid little idols. And they never ask me to give of myself for sake of the whole community or for those others who have different idols.
The question today's Old Testament reading asks, and indeed much of the Bible asks, is, "Who or what will we serve?" There is a pervasive human tendency to choose something smaller than we should, to put our own interests over the good of the community, and even over the call of God. Fortunately, God seems infinitely patient with us, and keeps calling us back, keeps inviting us to find our true purpose. As Jesus says to those who would follow him, "Let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me."
Now that's giving and sacrificing for something bigger than self.
Click to learn more about the lectionary.
Samuel warns them of the ways of kings and how it will lead eventually to their enslavement, a prophecy fulfilled in the time of Solomon. But the people are insistent. “No! but we are determined to have a king over us, so that we also may be like other nations, and that our king may govern us and go out before us and fight our battles.”
For some reason I have always zeroed in on their desire to be like other nations, but today I was struck by the last of the people's three reasons for wanting a king, that he would "go out before us and fight our battles."
I am part of the baby boomer generation, but I came late enough in it that I was too young for Vietnam, and I never was eligible to be drafted. I am part of an America that is increasingly the norm, people who had others to go out before us and fight our battles. Fewer and fewer leaders in our communities and our nation have ever served in the military. It is now the exception for members of Congress to have done so. It was once not unusual at all.
Never having served in the military myself, I am not pointing any fingers at anyone. I'm simply reflecting on the implications of having others who will go out before us and fight our battles. I think some of these implications were particularly troubling during the Iraq war. Not only did we have others to fight, but we were not even asked to sacrifice at all with them, to give up something to support them, not even to pay extra taxes to pay for the war. It was as though the war had no connection to us unless we knew someone involved.
I don't know if it's connected at all, but many have noted and written about the loss of community and a sense of unity in our culture. Much mitigates against such unity from a highly mobile culture to strident individualism to sharp partisan divides. But surely the lack of a shared calling to something bigger than ourselves, something that asks us to give and even to sacrifice for it, makes unity even more difficult. And it isn't just national unity that's difficult. Unity among Christian denominations and even in congregations is often difficult.
Again this is a complex sociological phenomenon, but I suspect it has some connections to our Old Testament readings. The people of Israel insisted on a king to do their fighting for them because, as God says, "They have rejected me from being king over them." They want what they want, not what God wants.
The world is full of idols, not little statues, but things good and bad that we give stature, influence, and import that should only be given to God. And my own wishes and desires, my own certainties about what is right, or my own group or cause, all make splendid little idols. And they never ask me to give of myself for sake of the whole community or for those others who have different idols.
The question today's Old Testament reading asks, and indeed much of the Bible asks, is, "Who or what will we serve?" There is a pervasive human tendency to choose something smaller than we should, to put our own interests over the good of the community, and even over the call of God. Fortunately, God seems infinitely patient with us, and keeps calling us back, keeps inviting us to find our true purpose. As Jesus says to those who would follow him, "Let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me."
Now that's giving and sacrificing for something bigger than self.
Click to learn more about the lectionary.
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
DOMA, Love, and Getting Right with God
O LORD, who may abide in your tent?
Who may dwell on your holy hill? Psalm 15:1
In poetic form the psalmist asks, and then answers, who is welcome in the Temple. Such a question is not primarily concerned with the Temple. Its chief concern is what God expects of us, how we are to live, what puts us right with God. The psalmist's answer is surely not meant to be exhaustive, and it includes things hard for modern folk to comprehend; not lending money at interest for instance.
As a Presbyterian, a Protestant out of the Reformed tradition, I tend to think of this question in what might seem reverse order. My motivation for living as God desires is not so God will admit me, but my gratitude that God has admitted me. In this understanding, seeking to please God is more a matter of loving God back than it is fear of what God might do to me if I'm bad.
But regardless of one's approach to the psalmist's question, answering the question poses some problems. It seems that people of faith can't agree on what's included in the list. No one argues much about "Love God and love neighbor," but we can get pretty bogged down in the details.
If you've not yet heard, the US Supreme Court today struck down DOMA, the Defense of Marriage Act that denied federal benefits to married, same-sex couples. It was a much anticipated decision, one that brought joy and delight to some but deep sadness to others.
My Facebook timeline is filled with celebratory comments from pastors I know and from groups I am a part of. For them, and for me, this is a joyous day, another step in relegating the scant biblical condemnation of same-sex relationships to the same category as the much more widely attested biblical ban on lending money at interest. (John Calvin made the definitive argument for ignoring the interest ban. He concluded that the ban no longer served its original purpose of keeping the poor from being subjugated. With the right guidelines in place, lending money could allow businesses to be built that would employ the poor, not something the Old Testament writers ever contemplated.)
But as I and some of my colleagues celebrate today's decision, I know many others who do not. Reading today's decision on the NY Times website, I saw a picture of a priest walking away dejectedly from the Supreme Court building. I don't know that it was really needed, but the caption noted that he was an opponent of same-sex marriage.
I think the reason my joy today feels a bit muted is that today's decision reminds me how much the church is defined in our time by struggles over issues of sexuality and reproduction. I suppose it's no surprise that we get caught up in the same issues our culture does, but it is a sad commentary on the church that we cannot handle our disagreements over such issues any better than we do.
I'm not claiming any moral high ground here. I'm simply lamenting how often the witness we offer the world falls so short of the love Jesus says is to define us.
I do not think Jesus' command to love in any way cancels out the psalmist's question about how God expects us to live. We should seek to know God's standards and God's expectations. We need to answer the psalmist's question, and it can't simply be that everyone gets his or her own answer. (Too often such attempts become the religious analogue of families where parents won't discipline their children in any way.) Yet we are called to seek such answers without ever abandoning Christ's standard that we love one another.
I celebrate the court's decision today. I see it as a victory for civil rights, in keeping with the witness of scripture, and I look forward to a day when this is no longer a topic of debate. Still, I worry about how to stay in loving relationship with those brothers and sisters in Christ who do not agree with me.After all, Jesus calls me to love, not just my brothers and sisters, but even my enemies.
Click to learn more about the lectionary.
Who may dwell on your holy hill? Psalm 15:1
In poetic form the psalmist asks, and then answers, who is welcome in the Temple. Such a question is not primarily concerned with the Temple. Its chief concern is what God expects of us, how we are to live, what puts us right with God. The psalmist's answer is surely not meant to be exhaustive, and it includes things hard for modern folk to comprehend; not lending money at interest for instance.
As a Presbyterian, a Protestant out of the Reformed tradition, I tend to think of this question in what might seem reverse order. My motivation for living as God desires is not so God will admit me, but my gratitude that God has admitted me. In this understanding, seeking to please God is more a matter of loving God back than it is fear of what God might do to me if I'm bad.
But regardless of one's approach to the psalmist's question, answering the question poses some problems. It seems that people of faith can't agree on what's included in the list. No one argues much about "Love God and love neighbor," but we can get pretty bogged down in the details.
If you've not yet heard, the US Supreme Court today struck down DOMA, the Defense of Marriage Act that denied federal benefits to married, same-sex couples. It was a much anticipated decision, one that brought joy and delight to some but deep sadness to others.
My Facebook timeline is filled with celebratory comments from pastors I know and from groups I am a part of. For them, and for me, this is a joyous day, another step in relegating the scant biblical condemnation of same-sex relationships to the same category as the much more widely attested biblical ban on lending money at interest. (John Calvin made the definitive argument for ignoring the interest ban. He concluded that the ban no longer served its original purpose of keeping the poor from being subjugated. With the right guidelines in place, lending money could allow businesses to be built that would employ the poor, not something the Old Testament writers ever contemplated.)
But as I and some of my colleagues celebrate today's decision, I know many others who do not. Reading today's decision on the NY Times website, I saw a picture of a priest walking away dejectedly from the Supreme Court building. I don't know that it was really needed, but the caption noted that he was an opponent of same-sex marriage.
I think the reason my joy today feels a bit muted is that today's decision reminds me how much the church is defined in our time by struggles over issues of sexuality and reproduction. I suppose it's no surprise that we get caught up in the same issues our culture does, but it is a sad commentary on the church that we cannot handle our disagreements over such issues any better than we do.
I'm not claiming any moral high ground here. I'm simply lamenting how often the witness we offer the world falls so short of the love Jesus says is to define us.
I do not think Jesus' command to love in any way cancels out the psalmist's question about how God expects us to live. We should seek to know God's standards and God's expectations. We need to answer the psalmist's question, and it can't simply be that everyone gets his or her own answer. (Too often such attempts become the religious analogue of families where parents won't discipline their children in any way.) Yet we are called to seek such answers without ever abandoning Christ's standard that we love one another.
I celebrate the court's decision today. I see it as a victory for civil rights, in keeping with the witness of scripture, and I look forward to a day when this is no longer a topic of debate. Still, I worry about how to stay in loving relationship with those brothers and sisters in Christ who do not agree with me.After all, Jesus calls me to love, not just my brothers and sisters, but even my enemies.
Click to learn more about the lectionary.
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
Church, Incarnation, and Politics
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. Psalm 146:5-7
I've been thinking a lot lately about call, not so much in terms of individuals' calls, but rather the corporate calling God gives the church. One of the concepts I've been mulling over as a part of this is incarnation. The incarnation is mostly used to speak of Jesus enfleshing God, the Word that became flesh. But I've been prodded by Fr. Richard Rohr to see another side of the incarnation, that of the church incarnating God.
Most church people are familiar with the biblical idea of the church as the body of Christ. It's a very popular idea with a number of songs and hymns that celebrate it. But I've never really understood this as anything more than metaphor, and I've not heard others suggest something beyond metaphor, at least not until I read Rohr's words. And if Jesus could make God fleshy, and the church is given the gift of the Holy Spirit, can we not then incarnate God as well?
I take the answer to be yes, which is not to say that we always do enflesh God to and for the world. In fact, it is not something we can do on our own, it can only happen as the Spirit works in and through us. Still, we can probably devise some measures that help us recognize when God present in us, moving and empowering us. Surely we would start to look more God-like that we otherwise would.
Which raises the question of what it means to look God-like. All of us are quite capable of imagining a god who generally agrees with us on most issues and who disagrees with those we disagree with. So one measure of becoming more God-like would be that such a move would challenge our own conceits and assumptions, of whatever their stripe. But beyond that, there must be particular characteristics of God that we could point to and say, "We would become more like that."
That brings me to the phrase that jumped out at me when I was reading Psalm 146 as lectio divina or spiritual reading, listening for a word or phrase that might touch my heart. I heard "executes justice," a phrase connected to God's deep concern for the hungry, the poor, the vulnerable, and the oppressed.
It strikes me that the church is often reasonably good at doing some things to help the poor and hungry. Congregations often run or support food pantries, clothing drives, homeless shelters and such. We are adept and comfortable doing good for those in need. But the phrase "execute justice" speaks of something more, something that is more challenging for many of us.
Executing or bringing about justice for the oppressed is bigger than assistance. It is about creating a more just society. In our country, that is the arena of politics, and entering that arena makes a lot of Christians and a lot of churches very nervous.
Faith has been very much personalized in America, often focused primarily on one's personal standing with God, not the stuff of politics. Interestingly, when Jesus begins his earthly ministry, he announces it with the political term, kingdom. Perhaps he would have used a different term had he first come in our day, the government of God or the dominion of God. Regardless, Jesus shows up proclaiming an alternate ordering of things on earth, one that has very different ramifications for the poor and oppressed and for the rich and powerful.
And if God in the flesh unnerves the rich and the powerful, then it would seem that any current incarnation embodied in the church, would have similar effects. Which brings me back around to the question of the church's calling, any congregation's calling. If we are to embody and enflesh a God who "executes justice for the oppressed," what does that look like?
Click to learn more about the lectionary.
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. Psalm 146:5-7
I've been thinking a lot lately about call, not so much in terms of individuals' calls, but rather the corporate calling God gives the church. One of the concepts I've been mulling over as a part of this is incarnation. The incarnation is mostly used to speak of Jesus enfleshing God, the Word that became flesh. But I've been prodded by Fr. Richard Rohr to see another side of the incarnation, that of the church incarnating God.
Most church people are familiar with the biblical idea of the church as the body of Christ. It's a very popular idea with a number of songs and hymns that celebrate it. But I've never really understood this as anything more than metaphor, and I've not heard others suggest something beyond metaphor, at least not until I read Rohr's words. And if Jesus could make God fleshy, and the church is given the gift of the Holy Spirit, can we not then incarnate God as well?
I take the answer to be yes, which is not to say that we always do enflesh God to and for the world. In fact, it is not something we can do on our own, it can only happen as the Spirit works in and through us. Still, we can probably devise some measures that help us recognize when God present in us, moving and empowering us. Surely we would start to look more God-like that we otherwise would.
Which raises the question of what it means to look God-like. All of us are quite capable of imagining a god who generally agrees with us on most issues and who disagrees with those we disagree with. So one measure of becoming more God-like would be that such a move would challenge our own conceits and assumptions, of whatever their stripe. But beyond that, there must be particular characteristics of God that we could point to and say, "We would become more like that."
That brings me to the phrase that jumped out at me when I was reading Psalm 146 as lectio divina or spiritual reading, listening for a word or phrase that might touch my heart. I heard "executes justice," a phrase connected to God's deep concern for the hungry, the poor, the vulnerable, and the oppressed.
It strikes me that the church is often reasonably good at doing some things to help the poor and hungry. Congregations often run or support food pantries, clothing drives, homeless shelters and such. We are adept and comfortable doing good for those in need. But the phrase "execute justice" speaks of something more, something that is more challenging for many of us.
Executing or bringing about justice for the oppressed is bigger than assistance. It is about creating a more just society. In our country, that is the arena of politics, and entering that arena makes a lot of Christians and a lot of churches very nervous.
Faith has been very much personalized in America, often focused primarily on one's personal standing with God, not the stuff of politics. Interestingly, when Jesus begins his earthly ministry, he announces it with the political term, kingdom. Perhaps he would have used a different term had he first come in our day, the government of God or the dominion of God. Regardless, Jesus shows up proclaiming an alternate ordering of things on earth, one that has very different ramifications for the poor and oppressed and for the rich and powerful.
And if God in the flesh unnerves the rich and the powerful, then it would seem that any current incarnation embodied in the church, would have similar effects. Which brings me back around to the question of the church's calling, any congregation's calling. If we are to embody and enflesh a God who "executes justice for the oppressed," what does that look like?
Click to learn more about the lectionary.
Monday, June 24, 2013
Tension with the World
The other day I received a gag gift from a colleague. It's a print of a rather cheesy painting entitled "The Rapture." (You can still order prints of it online.) The painting was commissioned by a group called the Bible Believers' Evangelistic Association. This group offers tracts and eight foot long "Bible Maps" depicting the the various "dispensations" or periods of history that have happened and will happened. The rapture, the return of Christ, and the earth's destruction happen in three of those yet to come dispensations, the rapture being next on the calendar.
I've not heard much conversation on the rapture in this or any other congregation I've served. The notion of dispensationalism and the rapture were invented in the late 1800s, and after a brief period of respectability, have been a fringe theology for many decades. Not something we Mainline types mess with.
I share my painting and my very limited understanding of dispensationalism (premillennial or otherwise) because the minute you start talking about the end times or anything "apocalyptic," you enter into a territory that Mainline Christians have generally seeded to rapture types. Just mention the book of Revelation, and many Mainline folks get nervous.
In truth, Revelation is not a book of strange predictions but a word of promise to early Christians who were in great distress. And our fear of talking about end times and Jesus' return has too often spiritualized Jesus' gospel, removing the promise of a new day with a new social order.
In today's gospel, Jesus is talking about the coming of that day, and he warns us, “Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day does not catch you unexpectedly, like a trap." Jesus clearly thinks that the patterns of this world do not fit into the new society he anticipates, and he calls his followers to conform now to the new ways.
One place the rapture sorts are more faithful to Jesus than Mainline folks regards Jesus' unease with the ways of the world. They get off track when they start thinking God hates creation or is going to destroy things, but they are right that Jesus sees a fundamental problem with how the world operates. That's why he talks about the poor being lifted up and the rich and powerful being pulled down. But many of us Mainliners are quite happy with the world. Ours works well enough for us, so we'd like to keep Jesus focused on recharging spiritual batteries and filling the void that seems to remain no matter how many wonderful consumer goods we acquire.
But Jesus keeps talking about the Kingdom, that new day when things get remade. And he calls us to start living by Kingdom ways now. That doesn't mean believing in a rapture, but it does require a bit of tension with the ways of the world.
Click to learn more about the lectionary.
I've not heard much conversation on the rapture in this or any other congregation I've served. The notion of dispensationalism and the rapture were invented in the late 1800s, and after a brief period of respectability, have been a fringe theology for many decades. Not something we Mainline types mess with.
I share my painting and my very limited understanding of dispensationalism (premillennial or otherwise) because the minute you start talking about the end times or anything "apocalyptic," you enter into a territory that Mainline Christians have generally seeded to rapture types. Just mention the book of Revelation, and many Mainline folks get nervous.
In truth, Revelation is not a book of strange predictions but a word of promise to early Christians who were in great distress. And our fear of talking about end times and Jesus' return has too often spiritualized Jesus' gospel, removing the promise of a new day with a new social order.
In today's gospel, Jesus is talking about the coming of that day, and he warns us, “Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day does not catch you unexpectedly, like a trap." Jesus clearly thinks that the patterns of this world do not fit into the new society he anticipates, and he calls his followers to conform now to the new ways.
One place the rapture sorts are more faithful to Jesus than Mainline folks regards Jesus' unease with the ways of the world. They get off track when they start thinking God hates creation or is going to destroy things, but they are right that Jesus sees a fundamental problem with how the world operates. That's why he talks about the poor being lifted up and the rich and powerful being pulled down. But many of us Mainliners are quite happy with the world. Ours works well enough for us, so we'd like to keep Jesus focused on recharging spiritual batteries and filling the void that seems to remain no matter how many wonderful consumer goods we acquire.
But Jesus keeps talking about the Kingdom, that new day when things get remade. And he calls us to start living by Kingdom ways now. That doesn't mean believing in a rapture, but it does require a bit of tension with the ways of the world.
Click to learn more about the lectionary.
Sunday, June 23, 2013
Sermon: Depressed Prophets and God's Call
1 Kings 19:1-16
Depressed Prophets and God’s Call
James Sledge June
23, 2013
It
isn’t that unusual for people who feel a strong sense of call in the work they
do to become cynical, burned out, jaded, or depressed over time. Teachers,
social workers, community organizers, and others who begin careers filled with
a passion and zeal to make the world a better place, sometimes get worn down by
the difficulties of the work. If you feel called to your work but start to
think your work isn’t making the difference you hoped it would, it is easy to
become disenchanted and depressed.
Clearly
the same sort of thing happens with prophets. The Elijah we meet in today’s scripture
is thoroughly depressed, and not without reason. After all that he has done for Yahweh, after many impressive,
even miraculous, accomplishments, the same corrupt regime is in power, and is seeking
to kill him. It’s more than Elijah can take. “It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life.”
If
you’ve ever talked with someone who has become disillusioned and depressed
about the work she is doing, you likely know that it can be hard to break through
that depression. The teacher who has made a difference in the lives of
countless students may still think he is doing little good, and the person who
reminds him of all his successes often makes little headway. When people who
are passionate about their call get burned out and depressed, the failures seem
monumental, that the successes minimal.
Elijah
is no different. Firmly in the grip of depression, he’s sees nothing good. All
Israel has abandoned God. No one lives in the ways Yahweh commanded. No one is
faithful. Everyone has embraced the corrupt rule of Ahab and Jezebel. All the
true prophets besides Elijah are dead. What’s the point. It’s all useless.
Of
course none of this is totally true. All the prophets are not dead. Everyone
has not abandoned Yahweh. There are faithful people who long for an end to the
rule of Ahab and Jezebel. But in his depressed, burned out state, Elijah cannot
see this.
Remarkably,
even God cannot break through Elijah’s depression. Divine messengers speak to
him. Food is miraculously provided for him. God is vividly present to him. But
none of that matters. Elijah can see no sign of hope, nothing but gloom.
Thursday, June 20, 2013
Seeing as Jesus Sees
Walk around any college campus, big hospital, or even many church campuses, and you are likely to see signs and plaques with people's names on them. These sometimes belong to greatly admired people who served there in the past, but more often they belong to people who made big monetary contributions allowing new buildings to be built, teaching positions to be endowed, or new programs to be started. But though there are many reasons for someone's name to make it onto a plaque, it seems quite certain that no one like the poor widow in today's gospel has her name so inscribed.
That's hardly surprising. How would a college or hospital or church even know that someone's very small gift was almost all she had? And I have no real issues with wealthy donors being recognized when their generosity helps things that could not have happened otherwise take place. (Even Jesus doesn't disparage the wealthy givers in this story.) But as I read this story, I found myself wondering how Jesus sees, and how that is different from how I and the world sees.
I wonder about this precisely because of how unnoticeable the giving Jesus points out is to me. And while Jesus doesn't disparage the sort of giving that makes me take notice, neither does he praise it, saving that for the widow's gift. Jesus seems to see things through a very different lens that many of us tend to do. Yet I assume that to be "in Christ" is to begin seeing the world more as he does.
There's an old adage about perception being reality which suggests that when my perception changes my reality will begin to change as well. But can I see as Jesus sees? The classic theological answer is that I cannot. At least I cannot on my own. But a new me, born in the power of the Spirit, where "in Christ there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!" that is something altogether different.
God who makes all things new in Christ, help me to see as Jesus sees.
Click to learn more about the lectionary.
That's hardly surprising. How would a college or hospital or church even know that someone's very small gift was almost all she had? And I have no real issues with wealthy donors being recognized when their generosity helps things that could not have happened otherwise take place. (Even Jesus doesn't disparage the wealthy givers in this story.) But as I read this story, I found myself wondering how Jesus sees, and how that is different from how I and the world sees.
I wonder about this precisely because of how unnoticeable the giving Jesus points out is to me. And while Jesus doesn't disparage the sort of giving that makes me take notice, neither does he praise it, saving that for the widow's gift. Jesus seems to see things through a very different lens that many of us tend to do. Yet I assume that to be "in Christ" is to begin seeing the world more as he does.
There's an old adage about perception being reality which suggests that when my perception changes my reality will begin to change as well. But can I see as Jesus sees? The classic theological answer is that I cannot. At least I cannot on my own. But a new me, born in the power of the Spirit, where "in Christ there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!" that is something altogether different.
God who makes all things new in Christ, help me to see as Jesus sees.
Click to learn more about the lectionary.
Tuesday, June 18, 2013
Restlessness and Longing
As a deer longs for flowing streams,
so my soul longs for you, O God. Psalm 42:1
Some years ago, a spiritual director recommended a book she thought would resonate with me. It was The Holy Longing, by Ronald Rolheiser. Its first chapter begins, "It is no easy task to walk this earth and find peace. Inside of us, it would seem, something is at odds with the very rhythm of things and we are forever restless, dissatisfied, frustrated, and aching. We are so overcharged with desire that it is hard to come to simple rest. Desire is always stronger than satisfaction... We are driven persons, forever obsessed, continually dis-eased, living lives, as Thoreau once suggested, of quiet desperation, only occasionally experiencing peace."
Rolheiser goes on to say that the much misunderstood term "spirituality" is about what we do with this burning desire. In that sense, everyone has a spirituality, which is not to say that everyone pursues their desires in ways that are helpful. Indeed many spiritualities may be destructive and pathological, but they are the way in which people's souls attempt to quench their desire.
My own restlessness is often quite close to the surface. At times this longing has been, to use Rolheiser's language, holy. It has drawn me toward God and toward God's will for me, a longing like that named by today's psalmist. But at other times, my longing and restlessness seeks an outlet in other places and is far from holy. This can be particularly problematic for a pastor because my longings for success or affirmation or accomplishment can easily be dressed in religious garb.
I suspect that the spectacular moral failings and scandals that too often plague religious leaders have to do with this easy confusing of a personal desire with a holy one. I suspect a number of such folks fooled themselves long before they ever fooled others. That surely happens in the non-religious arena as well, any time people decide their desires and longings are valid and legitimate, if not actually holy.
In the aforementioned opening chapter, Rolheiser also uses a famous quote from Augustine. "You have made us for yourself, Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you." Success and accomplishments are fine, up to a point, but they never completely fill our emptiness, although our frenzied, anxious, rat-race of a world indicates we're still hoping they may. At the same time, the current fascination with the topic of spirituality suggests that many have their doubts.
What is the object of your deepest longings? And as Sarah Palin might say, "How's that working out for you?" I know that for me, it's easy to get off track, and every so often, I need to make sure my deepest longings are actually about God.
Click to learn more about the lectionary.
so my soul longs for you, O God. Psalm 42:1
Some years ago, a spiritual director recommended a book she thought would resonate with me. It was The Holy Longing, by Ronald Rolheiser. Its first chapter begins, "It is no easy task to walk this earth and find peace. Inside of us, it would seem, something is at odds with the very rhythm of things and we are forever restless, dissatisfied, frustrated, and aching. We are so overcharged with desire that it is hard to come to simple rest. Desire is always stronger than satisfaction... We are driven persons, forever obsessed, continually dis-eased, living lives, as Thoreau once suggested, of quiet desperation, only occasionally experiencing peace."
Rolheiser goes on to say that the much misunderstood term "spirituality" is about what we do with this burning desire. In that sense, everyone has a spirituality, which is not to say that everyone pursues their desires in ways that are helpful. Indeed many spiritualities may be destructive and pathological, but they are the way in which people's souls attempt to quench their desire.
My own restlessness is often quite close to the surface. At times this longing has been, to use Rolheiser's language, holy. It has drawn me toward God and toward God's will for me, a longing like that named by today's psalmist. But at other times, my longing and restlessness seeks an outlet in other places and is far from holy. This can be particularly problematic for a pastor because my longings for success or affirmation or accomplishment can easily be dressed in religious garb.
I suspect that the spectacular moral failings and scandals that too often plague religious leaders have to do with this easy confusing of a personal desire with a holy one. I suspect a number of such folks fooled themselves long before they ever fooled others. That surely happens in the non-religious arena as well, any time people decide their desires and longings are valid and legitimate, if not actually holy.
In the aforementioned opening chapter, Rolheiser also uses a famous quote from Augustine. "You have made us for yourself, Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you." Success and accomplishments are fine, up to a point, but they never completely fill our emptiness, although our frenzied, anxious, rat-race of a world indicates we're still hoping they may. At the same time, the current fascination with the topic of spirituality suggests that many have their doubts.
What is the object of your deepest longings? And as Sarah Palin might say, "How's that working out for you?" I know that for me, it's easy to get off track, and every so often, I need to make sure my deepest longings are actually about God.
Click to learn more about the lectionary.
Monday, June 17, 2013
Not Much Action
Today the lectionary takes up the book of Acts. Acts is short for "The Acts of the Apostles," though some have suggested a better name would be The Acts of the Holy Spirit. Regardless, the apostles are a little short on action as the book opens. The disciples watch Jesus ascend, they wait, and they "were constantly devoting themselves to prayer."
Not that waiting and devoting themselves to prayer are the sames as doing nothing, but they are not the sort of action that will mark much of the book following the events of Pentecost. And they are certainly not the sort of thing that counts for action in our world.
I'll confess that waiting and devotion to prayer are not things that come easily to me. I want to feel like I'm "doing something," and even wasting time on Facebook feels like busyness, even if it is totally unproductive busyness. But waiting and prayer...
There's a famous quote from the great reformer, Martin Luther, that says, "I have so much to do today that I'm going to need to spend three hours in prayer in order to be able to get it all done." But that is pretty much the opposite of my natural tendency. The busier I am the less time it seems I have to pray. And I don't think I'm all alone on this.
In my own life, one of the real problems with "not having time to pray" is that my actions and busyness become more about me than about God. I'm busy doing things, but that's not necessarily the same as God at work in and through me.
One of the crazy claims of Christian faith is that through the power of the Holy Spirit, followers of Jesus incarnate him in and to the world. That's a whole lot bigger than helping others and doing good things. It is about becoming the living body of Christ. The book of Acts is pretty clear that such a thing requires something from outside of us, the power and gifts of the Spirit. And apparently, that requires waiting and devotion to prayer.
Click to learn more about the lectionary.
Not that waiting and devoting themselves to prayer are the sames as doing nothing, but they are not the sort of action that will mark much of the book following the events of Pentecost. And they are certainly not the sort of thing that counts for action in our world.
I'll confess that waiting and devotion to prayer are not things that come easily to me. I want to feel like I'm "doing something," and even wasting time on Facebook feels like busyness, even if it is totally unproductive busyness. But waiting and prayer...
There's a famous quote from the great reformer, Martin Luther, that says, "I have so much to do today that I'm going to need to spend three hours in prayer in order to be able to get it all done." But that is pretty much the opposite of my natural tendency. The busier I am the less time it seems I have to pray. And I don't think I'm all alone on this.
In my own life, one of the real problems with "not having time to pray" is that my actions and busyness become more about me than about God. I'm busy doing things, but that's not necessarily the same as God at work in and through me.
One of the crazy claims of Christian faith is that through the power of the Holy Spirit, followers of Jesus incarnate him in and to the world. That's a whole lot bigger than helping others and doing good things. It is about becoming the living body of Christ. The book of Acts is pretty clear that such a thing requires something from outside of us, the power and gifts of the Spirit. And apparently, that requires waiting and devotion to prayer.
Click to learn more about the lectionary.
Sermon video: Bad Shepherds and Mr. Rogers
Sorry about the voice; had a bit of a cold.
Audios of sermons and worship can be found at FCPC website.
Sunday, June 16, 2013
Sermon: Bad Shepherds and Mr. Rogers
1 Kings 21:1-10, 15-21a
Bad Shepherds and Mr. Rogers
James Sledge June
16, 2013
The Lord
is my shepherd, I shall not want, says Psalm 23. God says to King David, “It is
you who shall be shepherd of my people Israel.” Jesus says, “I am
the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” Not
surprisingly in a culture where sheep herding was common, the metaphor of
shepherd was applied to God, to kings, and to Jesus as Messiah, an image drawn
from shepherds protecting their flocks from predators, and guiding them to good
pasture and water to drink.
Few
of us have much familiarity with shepherding, but we still use the metaphor, at
least in the church. In the service where John Ohmer was officially installed
as rector at The Falls Church Episcopal, the bishop carried a shepherd’s crook
, a symbol that he is called to shepherd the diocese.
In
the Old Testament, the kings that follow after King David are also supposed the
shepherd Israel, to watch over God’s flock. Some of them do, but a lot of them
don’t. Prophets lament the lost sheep of Israel burdened by their bad
shepherds. The prophet Ezekiel says, “Ah you shepherds of Israel who have been
feeding yourselves! Should not shepherds feed the sheep? You eat the fat, you
clothe yourselves with wool, you slaughter the fatlings; but you do not feed
the sheep. You have not strengthened the weak, you have not healed the sick,
you have not bound up the injured, you have not brought back the strayed, you
have not sought the lost, but with force and harshness you have ruled them.”
In
much the same way that Jesus speaks centuries later, the prophets judge kings
by how they care for the sheep, especially the most vulnerable. And God’s
judgment is especially on these “false shepherds” who enrich themselves at the
expense of the flock.
King
Ahab and Queen Jezebel certainly fall into the category of false shepherds. Their
story opens with this ominous note. Ahab, son of Omri did evil in the sight of
the Lord more than all who were
before him. And in our reading this morning, Ahab and Jezebel engage in
a textbook case of bad shepherding, murdering Naboth in order to get what they
want.
Thursday, June 13, 2013
When I Am Weak
The Apostle Paul is an intriguing character. His writings are the basis of much of Protestant Christianity's particular emphases, but we know him primarily from his occasional letters. (The book of Acts also contains a great deal of material about Paul, although it is sometimes difficult to reconcile with what Paul himself says.) Reading Paul's letters if often a bit like listening in on one half of a phone conversation. It is not always clear what's on the other side of the discussion.
For the most part, Paul's letters address issues and concerns in congregations he has founded. Often, Paul is quite exasperated with the situation and is attempting to correct it. That seems to be the case in the readings from the last couple of days. For some reason, Paul feels compelled to argue for his authority, and it is in that effort that he gives one of his famous lines, a response from God to his prayers to remove a "thorn" that was given him. "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness."
Paul says this thorn keeps him from being too elated because of the spectacular revelations he has received. It forces him to rely on God's grace alone, giving him a remarkable outlook on things. "So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong."
I don't know many people who boast in their weaknesses. As I mentioned on Monday, many of us aspire to self-sufficiency and abhor the notion of being dependent on anything. But Paul says that it is when he is weak that he discovers strength.
I think that one of the most difficult things for me is to be confident is something other than my own strengths and abilities. If I'm facing something difficult and I do not feel competent or well-equipped to handle it, I may despair of not having what it takes to do the job. But Paul seems to take the exact opposite view.
Over the years, people have often spoken of Presbyterians as the "frozen chosen," referring both to our belief that God reaches out to us in a freely offered gift, and also to our staid nature. We often work so hard to get everything neatly and well ordered that the whole thing can feel a bit dry. And I wonder if we don't have a tendency to trust too much in our own strength of intellect, leaving scant room for the sort of strength and power Paul speaks of.
One of the growing edges I'm trying to work on is viewing my own weaknesses differently. Rather than as failings or deficiencies that make me feel anxious and not up to the task, I'm trying to envision them as openings for the power that comes only from God. How wonderful it would be to proclaim with Paul, "Whenever I am weak, then I am strong."
Click to learn more about the lectionary.
For the most part, Paul's letters address issues and concerns in congregations he has founded. Often, Paul is quite exasperated with the situation and is attempting to correct it. That seems to be the case in the readings from the last couple of days. For some reason, Paul feels compelled to argue for his authority, and it is in that effort that he gives one of his famous lines, a response from God to his prayers to remove a "thorn" that was given him. "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness."
Paul says this thorn keeps him from being too elated because of the spectacular revelations he has received. It forces him to rely on God's grace alone, giving him a remarkable outlook on things. "So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong."
I don't know many people who boast in their weaknesses. As I mentioned on Monday, many of us aspire to self-sufficiency and abhor the notion of being dependent on anything. But Paul says that it is when he is weak that he discovers strength.
I think that one of the most difficult things for me is to be confident is something other than my own strengths and abilities. If I'm facing something difficult and I do not feel competent or well-equipped to handle it, I may despair of not having what it takes to do the job. But Paul seems to take the exact opposite view.
Over the years, people have often spoken of Presbyterians as the "frozen chosen," referring both to our belief that God reaches out to us in a freely offered gift, and also to our staid nature. We often work so hard to get everything neatly and well ordered that the whole thing can feel a bit dry. And I wonder if we don't have a tendency to trust too much in our own strength of intellect, leaving scant room for the sort of strength and power Paul speaks of.
One of the growing edges I'm trying to work on is viewing my own weaknesses differently. Rather than as failings or deficiencies that make me feel anxious and not up to the task, I'm trying to envision them as openings for the power that comes only from God. How wonderful it would be to proclaim with Paul, "Whenever I am weak, then I am strong."
Click to learn more about the lectionary.
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