Set Apart for a Reason

The word "holy" is a strange one. In popular speech it rarely refers to anything good.  It's used as a general exclamation. "Holy ____!" Or it's used to speak negatively of who think too highly of themselves regarding the morals or the like, as in "holier than thou." Only at church is it about something good, and here it has a more specialized use, often to speak of God. We talk about the Holy Spirit and some people begin prayers, "Holy God." 

So what to do with the opening line from today's Old Testament reading. "For you are a people holy to Yahweh your God." Given the common notion of the Church as the continuation of God's people Israel, presumably this could be read to say the Church is supposed to be "a people holy to Yahweh." (The notion of the Church as a continuation of Israel can be found in the New Testament book of Acts, and I have  no problem with the idea. However this has often been read to mean that the Church replaced Israel, which I do see as problematic.)

So what does it mean to say that we church folk are to be holy in some way? That might be an interesting thing to explore as a Lenten project. Just how is my or your congregation supposed to be holy?

It may help to realize that one meaning of the word is "set apart." Part of this set-apartness is about purity, but it is also about being set apart for a special purpose. Israel is called to be a holy people because the are set apart with a special calling.  That goes all the way back to Abraham who is called so that, through him, "all the families of the earth shall be blessed." In a similar way, the Church is set apart to be an instrument of blessing, to incarnate Jesus, the one who comes for the sake of the world.

Perhaps because for many centuries we labored under the delusion that we live in a Christian culture or nation, this notion of being set apart was hard to realize. If everyone is Christian, what does it mean to be set apart. I actually think it still means something significant, but it is easy to see how such a notion withers when we presume everyone else is Christian, too.

Unfortunately, the loss of any sense of our holiness (i.e. set-apartness) robbed congregations of a strong sense of mission and purpose. So we turned inward, and many congregations lost any significant identity around being set apart, called to bless the world, or existing for the sake of the other. But without such an identity, the Church loses much of its reason for being and much of its vitality.

How is God calling your congregation to bear divine blessing to the world? How have you been set apart as a special people who are to be a blessing to others and the world? For church people, those are absolutely critical questions.

Click to learn more about the lectionary.

And Also Many Animals

I have always loved the book of Jonah, and I especially enjoy its ending, and unanswered question. The final phrase, "and also many animals," has always struck me as memorable, a bit odd, funny, and a little ego-deflating.

If you don't know the story of Jonah, or if all you know is he was swallowed by a big fish, it is a remarkable tale. Unlike other biblical prophets, Jonah leaves us with no record of anguished pleas for Israel to mend its ways and turn back to God. In fact, the book is not really about any historical prophet. If anything, it is a satirical story told to make a point.

Jonah is an unwilling prophet who, when called by God to go to Nineveh (capital of Israel's hated enemy the Assyrians), immediately heads in the opposite direction. Following a series of mis-adventures, including that fish, Jonah is finally re-directed to Nineveh. There the reluctant prophet utters a single sentence. "Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!"

If Jonah were an actual prophet, he would be the most successful in all history. Hearing Jonah's brief oracle, all Nineveh repents, and then so does God. That's actually what is says in the Hebrew. After observing the Ninevites 180 turn from evil, "God repented of the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them."

This infuriates Jonah. He is so upset that Nineveh didn't get its just desserts that he wants to die. The rest of the story, like the beginning of it, is about Jonah's unhappiness with God. Following  his upset at the sparing of Nineveh, he is equally upset at the death of a bush that gave him some shade, again so upset he wants to die. This leads to that remarkable ending where God remarks about Jonah's upset over the death of a bush. “You are concerned about the bush, for which you did not labor and which you did not grow; it came into being in a night and perished in a night. And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals?”

I saw a post on Facebook this morning from a fellow Presbyterian pastor complaining that Lent was simply one more bit of Christian navel gazing. I don't share his total disdain for Lent, but I have to agree that it can become terribly self-absorbed, not unlike Jonah and his bush. But that is true of religion in general, a tendency that the book of Jonah skewers with masterful satire. We imagine the world is askew because it isn't sufficiently focused on our little troubles. Never mind the thousands upon thousands who don't know their right from their left, who don't have shelter or enough food, who live under constant threat of death or exploitation, "and also many animals." Never mind what God's concerns are.

On this Ash Wednesday, as we enter into the season of Lent, perhaps we should let Jonah serve as a cautionary tale. If Lent does not help us turn more fully toward God and neighbor (both human and animal?), then perhaps it is only Christian navel gazing.

Click to learn more about the lectionary.

All by Myself

It was hard to miss yesterday's announcement about the Pope "retiring." It was all over the internet, led network newscasts, and was the big headline in this morning's Washington Post.  Now admittedly, this is not as big a deal for me as it is for Catholic brothers and sisters, but I read with some interest the articles discussing how the tenure of the last two Popes had populated the College of Cardinals with thinkers similar to Benedict XVI. This of course virtually guarantees no real change because these Cardinals will elect a new pope committed to the same policies, at least according to these articles.

I'll leave to others questions of what needs or doesn't need to change in the Catholic Church. I'm more interested in questions of what allows or causes such change. If, for example, I accept the desire of some Catholics that the church modernize and shift views on celibacy, women priests, and so on as change that would be faithful to what Jesus wants, should I then simply despair that this can't possibly happen with the current College of Cardinals?

For me, this is not an academic question about another denomination. It is a more fundamental question about who the "players" are when a group of Jesus' followers think change is required in order to be faithful. Are decisions about change purely a matter of people's opinions on whether such change is good or bad, or does God ever weigh in and push things in a particular direction? Some of those articles I read yesterday quoted people who seemed to share two assumptions. Change would be a good and faithful thing. God certainly Isn't going to do anything to overcome the institutional resistance to such change.

I'm not making fun of Catholics on this. I see such assumptions all the time in the church, and I very often find myself captive to them as well. When I see changes that I believe are critical needs for the church, I can despair because I don't think there is any way I can rally and convince enough people to overcome the inertia of how things are. And very often such thinking betrays my assumption that God will do nothing to help, that the Holy Spirit will not inflame any hearts or inspire any action. (I'm also very impatient, but that's another issue.)

In today's first morning psalm, this line appears twice, "Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God." And the second morning psalm includes this. "Do not put your trust in princes, in mortals, in whom there is no help... Happy are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the LORD their God." Clearly the psalmist speaks out of different assumptions.

In his book, Becoming a Blessed Church, Graham Standish says that many mainline churches succumb to what he calls "rational functionalism" which precludes anything that isn't empirical and logical, that assumes that the Spirit does not act and miracles cannot happen. He also suggests that such assumptions have robbed the mainline church of much of its vitality.

I wonder how often my own assumptions cut me off from what God is doing? Do some people in a church need to be attentive and open to the Spirit for the Spirit to act, and if so, how many? Will the Spirit work through me or a congregation that won't cooperate, or will she move on to those who welcome the Spirit's help? Are we trapped in a logical, predictable functionality, or is something wonderful and new truly possible?

Click to learn more about the lectionary.

The Other & Where Are We Going?

"Hear, O Israel: The LORD is our God, the LORD alone. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might." These words from Deuteronomy are often referred to as the "Shema"from the Hebrew for "Hear."  (This is the only Old Testament verse I can actually recite from memory in Hebrew.) This command forms a centerpiece of Judaism, and many Jews affix them to their doorways, as Deuteronomy tells them to do.

Jesus reaches for this command when he is asked for the greatest commandment, linking it with another Old Testament command to love neighbor as self.  Linked together, these two speak of life animated by the Divine Other and by the human other. Quite a contrast to life organized around my wants and needs. But how on earth to move from the self-centered life to the other-centered life?

Today's meditation by Richard Rohr includes this. "The mystics’ overwhelming experience is this full-body blow of the Divine loving them, God radically accepting them. And they spend the rest of their life trying to verbalize that experience, and invariably finding ways to give that love back through forms of service, compassion and non-stop worship. But none of this is to earn God’s love; it’s always and only to return God’s love. Love is repaid by love alone."

The full-body blow of Divine love; now that's a phrase. And it speaks of an experience not easily transmitted by the methods of "Christian Education" I encountered growing up in the church. That is not to dismiss those as meaningless, but for all the information they imparted, they were modeled on the schoolhouse. And they did not speak the language of relationship or love.

This strikes me as the big challenge facing the church and congregations.  How do we provide the necessary information about God that is needed to distinguish those experiences that are of God from those that are not? And how do we help people be open to the experience of God that gives real meaning to their information about God? And while traditions like my own Presbyterian Church have historically done a very good job on the informational side, we seem to struggle on both counts now. We struggle with "Christian Education" even as we make sporadic attempts to do "Spiritual Formation."

To be sure, I have no magic solutions to offer. We seem to be in a time when the old is breaking down, but the new that will replace it is as yet very unclear. It is an exciting time with much experimentation going on. And it is a frightening time of dislocation where many hunker down with what they already know. But both the experimentation and the hunkering down can be, and often are, very self serving, without the Other-centered focused called for by Deuteronomy and Jesus.

Perhaps a good lenten discipline for many congregations would be to spend time reflecting on our focus. What is it that gives us meaning and purpose as a congregation? What is the "North star" that guides all that we do, and is it about the Other. This moves us into the language of "call." Call is always about an other, and it always draws us away from ourselves toward something else. But that makes call inherently frightening. Many people correctly intuit that a call in one direction by necessity eliminates a number of other directions, and many of us are loathe to narrow our options.

Speaking of focus, I feel very much that I am wandering around in this post, with no clear idea where I am headed. In that sense, these words mirror some of my worries for the church. Can we encounter the love of The Other and hear the call of that Other that pulls us away from ourselves and sets us out on the path we are meant for? Can our congregations hear a call that guides us clearly so that we began to realize where we are going, and also where we are not?

Click to learn more about the lectionary.

Sermon audio: Listen to Him!

Sermon and worship audios on FCPC website.

Sermon video: Listen to Him!

More sermons available on YouTube.

Sermon: Listen to Him!

Luke 9:28-43a
Listen to Him!

James Sledge                     Transfiguration of the Lord         February 17, 2013

Some of you may be familiar with French writer and philosopher Albert Camus.  Perhaps you read The Stranger in a high school or college literature.  Camus was an agnostic and a pacifist, but after witnessing Nazi atrocities, he became part of the French Underground during World War II.  Though agnostic, he was asked once after the war to speak to a group of Christians.  Speaking out of the horrors of the war and the Holocaust he said this.

What the world expects of Christians is that Christians should speak out, loud and clear; and that they should voice their condemnation in such a way that never a doubt, never the slightest doubt, could arise in the heart of the simplest man.  That they should get away from abstraction and confront the blood-stained face history has taken on today.  The grouping we need is a grouping of men resolved to speak out clearly and to pay up personally…  Perhaps we cannot prevent this world from being a world in which children are tortured.  But we can reduce the number of tortured children.  And if you don’t help us, who else in the world can help us?…

It may be, I am well aware, that Christianity will answer negatively.  Oh, not by your mouths, I am convinced.  But it may be, and this is even more probable, that Christianity will insist on maintaining a compromise or else on giving its condemnations the obscure form of the encyclical.  Possibly it will lose all the virtue of revolt and indignation that belonged to it long ago.  In that case Christians will live and Christianity will die.[1]

I’m reading this from the book, Christian Doctrine, in a chapter entitled “Are You a Christian?  The Doctrine of Sanctification.”  Shirley Guthrie, the Presbyterian theologian who wrote this book, says that Camus, an unbeliever, challenges Christians to take seriously our own doctrine of sanctification.  Sanctification is about how we, who have been embraced, forgiven, and claimed by God as children, begin to live as such children, letting the Holy Spirit work within us to transform us so that we act more and more like true children of God.

Though not a Christian, Camus is knowledgeable enough about the faith to expect this of the church, and he is upset when he does not see it.  He is frustrated by our failure to live out our faith claims. Interestingly, Jesus seems to share some of Camus’ frustrations in our gospel today, saying to his followers, “You faithless and perverse generation, how much longer must I be with you and bear with you?”

Perhaps more than any other gospel, Luke seems to have the Church in view as it talks about Jesus.  By the time Luke is written, hopes for Jesus’ immediate return have begun to wane, and the Church has to focus more on what it meant to be faithful in an indeterminate, perhaps long lasting, meantime.  And in this story of Jesus’ glory and identity being revealed to the Church – here represented by three of his closest followers – Luke speaks both of how the Church is to live in the world, and of frustrations over our failure to do so, frustrations not unlike those Camus shares.

It Is Necessary

On the heels of Peter's profession of Jesus as the Messiah, Jesus "began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering..." I'm not certain this translation picks up the full force of the line. A different translation might say that Jesus "began to teach them. 'It is necessary for the Son of Man to experience great suffering...' "

It is necessary. Jesus is not simply predicting what will happen but is stating what must happen, what is required to happen. There is some compulsion that drives Jesus toward Jerusalem and the cross.

It is conventional to speak of this in terms of a formula. Jesus must die in order to pay a price that would otherwise have to be paid by us. (Given how frequently this formula is cited, it seems rather odd that the Jews could be "blamed" for Jesus' death. After all, it was necessary.) But often this formula sounds terribly mechanical, and it seems to imply that God is somehow as trapped by this formula as we are.

I find it much more helpful to speak of this in terms of what is necessary to restore any broken relationship. Generally this requires reaching across the divide of  hurt and pain to attempt a reconciliation. The deeper and more profound the break in a relationship, the more difficult this becomes.  At some point, it may become so difficult, so costly, that no one can bear such cost, and there is no healing to be had.

"It is necessary" feels to me like a statement of the costs involved if there is to be healing. The divine human relationship might seem to be beyond repair, but God is willing to do what it takes, to bear the cost required. It is no simple formula, but it is still necessary, a necessity God willingly chooses to bear.

In a Bible study earlier today, we were discussing the Noah's ark stories. We noted that the reasons given for God wanting to destroy all those on the earth (see Genesis 6:5) are virtually the same reasons given for why God will "never again destroy." (see 8:21) God's relationship with us human creatures seems to precipitate an internal crisis within God, one resolved in both the Noah story and with Jesus in favor of restoration, redemption, and hope rather than judgment and wrath. (See Hosea 11:1-9 for a poetic depiction of this.) But this is costly for God.

It is necessary, and God seems determined to do whatever is necessary to woo us back. And when you think of what colossal screw-ups we so often are, including how badly we screw up the church, that is truly good news.

Click to learn more about the lectionary.

Arguing with Jesus

The Pharisees came and began to argue with him, asking him for a sign from heaven, to test him. And he sighed deeply in his spirit and said, “Why does this generation ask for a sign? Truly I tell you, no sign will be given to this generation.” And he left them, and getting into the boat again, he went across to the other side.                          Mark 8:11-13

A lot of people seem not to realize this, but the Pharisees were not nasty bad guys plotting evil deeds while twirling their mustaches à la Snidely Whiplash. (For post-Baby Boomers, that refers to a 1960s Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoon character.) The Pharisees were an educated and dedicated reform movement in Judaism, the forerunners of what became rabbinical, synagogue Judaism. They struggled against what they thought a corrupt Jerusalem Temple complex run by the priests, a struggle with some real parallels to the Protestant Reformation.

The Pharisees are not always portrayed negatively in the gospels, and they would seem to have had some natural affinities with what Jesus was saying and doing, yet they mostly end up in conflict with him.

Today's verses, and especially Jesus' reaction, might seem to indicate that arguing with the Pharisees was a common occurrence, one that had begun to wear on Jesus.  Not that arguing implies fighting. It was common for rabbis to engage in long discussion and debates. Indeed a great deal of Jewish writings catalog such discussions in a kind of doctrinal discussion project. But for some reason, this does not go well with Jesus as one of the discussion partners.

I wonder if this might be because Jesus won't play by the normal rules. He refuses to be just one more rabbi adding a bit to the discussion stew. He insists he knows and has authority that the other rabbis don't. If so, no wonder these discussions ended badly, with the other rabbis demanding a sign, proof that Jesus had such authority.

I don't say any of this as a knock on those rabbis,  nor on Judaism past or present. In fact, I find this to be a very active pattern in many churches today. Jesus not being physically present, it is carried on via more indirect methods. We engage in arguments with Scripture, with doctrine, with tradition.  Much of this discussion is a good thing, helping us be in conversation with something living and dynamic, helping us hone our faith and understanding.  But sometimes this discussion ends poorly, like Jesus' with the Pharisees. 

Jesus starts to insist that we must follow him and seek God's will more than our own and we get testy. We're happy to listen to Jesus and consider what he has to say, but we'll be the judge of whether it is of any great merit. We're not any more ready than those Pharisees to grant Jesus that sort of authority over our lives.

As one who places myself well to the left side of the faith spectrum, I have to admit that this particular "arguing with Jesus" problem is a favorite of us liberals. (Conservatives have their own ways of misconstruing Jesus, ways we liberals are quick to point out even as we ignore our own.) We liberals are happy to enter into conversation and discussion with Jesus - and most anyone else for that matter - but we struggle actually to accept Jesus as more than a wise conversation partner.

The are probably many reasons for this. But whether we think ourselves too smart and educated, see things in too nuanced a fashion, or simply recoil from anything that reminds us of "God said, I believe it, that settles it," we end up participating in that good ole bugaboo, idolatry.

Idolatry is simply about placing our trust in things other than God. And while the word "idol" may conjure up thoughts of molten images, the most successful idols are much harder to spot. Family and country make passable idols. Church can be an even better one. Reason and intellect will do fine, too, and these have the added advantage of appealing to people regardless of what they think of church.

Now I will admit to engaging in a bit of hyperbole and generalization to make my point, but I do think it a most interesting question to ask, "Who or what can exercise some degree of authority over you life?" To some degree, that is your god.

Now don't get me wrong. I'm not suggesting blind obedience to any doctrine or any particular church stance. I think Jesus is more than happy to get in there and have a great discussion, even argument with us. I just hope those arguments don't end with Jesus shaking his head and  sighing deeply in his spirit.

Click to learn more about the lectionary.

Enough with the Worship

This morning I was reading from Paul's letter to the Galatians, and I was struck by this line.  "You are observing special days, and months, and seasons, and years."  Paul is chastising them for abandoning their new life in Christ and returning to something old. Perhaps this refers to Jewish festivals or perhaps pagan ones. Either way, we church folks have our special days, months, seasons, and years. (We're in "year C"by the way.)

I also came across this in today's meditation by Richard Rohr. "Most of us just keep worshiping Jesus and arguing over the right way to do it. The amazing thing is that Jesus never once says, 'Worship me!' whereas he frequently says, 'Follow me.'" And that reminded me of this passage from Amos. "I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies." That's God speaking by the way, who goes on to say, "Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps. But let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream."

It must be one of those days when I can stop making connections, because I found myself thinking back to Paul's words to the Corinthian church from Sunday's sermon, famous words that said without love (that's Christ-like, self-giving love) all else we do is meaningless.  "Noisy gong or a clanging cymbal" is one of Paul's illustrations.

Yet despite all this, church in American remains focused heavily on worship. As a pastor, I can mess up a great many things, but if most people are happy with the worship, I will get by. There's a reason we get referred to as "preachers," and people joke about us working one day a week.

I don't have anything against worship, and indeed my tradition thinks it of vital importance. But when people of faith define that faith by private belief and attendance at worship, we have moved into the territory of the quotes above.  

When it comes to this, the now largely finished Christendom role that traditional, mainline churches once played is a huge albatross around our necks. In that former time, we imagined ourselves partners with the culture in a Christian enterprise. We could concern ourselves largely with worship in the mistaken notion that the culture itself was somehow forming people to live as disciples and providing them with opportunities to serve. Being a "good citizen" was very nearly equal to "discipleship."

While being a good member of one's community can indeed by a way of living out faith in Jesus, there is plenty Jesus calls us to that our communities often prefer that we wouldn't do. While this would seemingly be obvious to anyone who as actually read the gospels, the fact that some faithful church people endorsed racially based slavery as God-ordained, fought against civil rights, and think defending the right to bear arms is a Christian duty points to how easily the obvious gets overlooked.

Still, we in the dwindling mainline church keep focusing on worship, often to the point of everything else being tokens. We keep expecting that if we do good worship people will keep coming because that was what we did in Christendom. But if anyone asks us how to experience the Spirit's help and guidance or what it actually means to follow Jesus, we stammer, suggest they talk to someone else, or tell them about the new, informal worship service we are planning.  And then we wonder why things are going so poorly for our brand.

Since I'm making so many connections today, here's another one, from a piece by Jack Haberer of the Presbyterian Outlook which begins, "The bad news is that the older generations have wrecked the church. The good news is that newer generations are poised to resurrect it — that is, to support Jesus’ resurrection program." (If you're curious you can read the editorial here.) 

I wonder if this realization by Haberer isn't critical to traditional churches.  We have to quit thinking of ourselves as wonderful, sacred bearers of God's timeless, heavenly truths, and admit that we need resurrecting. While there is plenty in our tradition that does have value and worth, that is a faithful expression of what it means to follow Jesus (By the way, some of these new generations of resurrection folks are much more keenly aware of our traditions' merits than we in them are.), there is much that is nothing but old, tired habit that we have made idols.  And increasingly, younger people who are looking for a living faith with a living God are rejecting our human-made idols that have proven as inert as the ones Old Testament prophets railed against.

There's an old adage about the church being a hospital for sinners rather than a club for saints. Even though I'm not sure we really believe that, perhaps we need to take it one step further and recognize that it is not only we individuals who need healing. The institutional church that we create could use some critical care.  Now where are those defibrillator paddles?

Click to learn more about the lectionary.

Sermon video: The Greatest Gift

More videos available on YouTube.

Sermon: The Greatest Gift

1 Corinthians 13:1-13

The Greatest Gift

James Sledge                                                               February 3, 2013

I’m guessing that many of you have heard this passage from 1 Corinthians before.  Maybe my experience is skewed by being a pastor , but I’ve heard it a lot, mostly at weddings. I don’t keep good enough records to say this with any certainty, but I would be surprised if I haven’t used this passage in at least half the weddings I’ve done.  And in a number of weddings that didn’t use these words on love, the couple was making a conscious decision to do something different from what they’d seen at all their friends’ weddings.

Paul is not talking about marriage or romance, but his words can speak to the sort of love required to sustain a marriage.  But I doubt that many couples who choose this passage realize its real meaning, though that may be as much the church’s fault as anyone’s.

____________________________________________________________________________

If you were having some significant difficulties with someone who was very important to you, and this person wrote you a long, heartfelt letter trying to resolve the situation, what would you do?  That may seem a rather odd question.  Most of us would read the letter.  And it would have to be incredibly long not to do so at one sitting. Certainly we wouldn’t read it a few paragraphs per day, sometimes skipping around rather than going from beginning to end.

Yet this is precisely what we do with the letters in the Bible, which is why so many people have heard Paul speak on love without having the foggiest notion of why he felt the need to do so.  This lack of context leads to all sorts of interpretive mischief. Shortly before our passage, Paul writes this about the Lord’s Supper.  For all who eat and drink without discerning the body, eat and drink judgment against themselves.  People routinely suggest that this is about mystical presence in the elements, but when you read what comes before and after, Paul makes quite clear the “body” he is talking about is the church, the community of faith.

So too, the words we heard this morning address concerns outside the reading itself.  Paul is concerned about divisions within the community of faith. In particular, he is worried about divisions that arise from some members thinking they are better than others, and in the Corinthian church, this seems to have happened around spiritual gifts.