Powerball, More, and God's Subversive Narrative

In case you missed it, the value of the winning Powerball ticket has now surpassed 400 million dollars. That prompted a Facebook "friend" to post this. "How would $400 million change your life?" The responses were fairly predictable and covered a wide gamut, from the money changing "everything" to "nothing," from the good a person would do with the money to all the goodies that money would buy."

I thought of that question when I read today's verses from 1 John. "Do not love the world or the things in the world. The love of the Father is not in those who love the world; for all that is in the world - the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eyes, the pride in riches - comes not from the Father but from the world." 1 John may not be the same person that wrote the gospel of John, but if not, they very much share the same point of view. And so 1 John surely knows of God as the one who "so loved the world." That means some nuance is required when understanding today's commands.

In John's gospel and 1 John, the world is less a place, the planet, than it is a term for that arena where God is resisted. (We can use the term in similar ways with the phrase "the ways of the world" or someone who is "worldly.") Such Bible passages speak of a "world" that  has an agenda that runs contrary to God's, and following Jesus is therefore about choosing God's agenda over that of this "world." Such a choice seems no easier today than it was in biblical times.

In yesterday's blog, I wrote of our culture's dominant narrative, an individualistic one marked by the belief that "more" is the answer. But Jesus presents a subversive, counter-narrative where God's special blessing is with the poor, those who mourn, the oppressed, those who work for peace, and those who ache and long for a world set right. This counter-narrative seeks to undo the dominant narrative, the ways of the world, but that requires people to embrace it.

To say that "The love of the Father is not in those who love the world," is not calling us to an otherworldly faith, one focused on getting from this world to heaven through believing the right things. Rather it is saying that to be filled with a love like God's is to see things differently, in a totally new way. The promises of the world that happiness will come when we get enough of everything are seen for what they truly are: a false narrative that enslaves us to endless striving and an insatiable addiction to "more." Over and over the world promises that all will be well when we get just a little "more," but as will all enslaving addictions, it is never enough.

I'm not suggesting that everyone needs to take a vow of poverty, but I am suggesting that many of us Christians have fundamentally misunderstood the faith. The blessings of Jesus, of faith, are not about getting more of what the world values. They are about discovering our true identities as children of God, an identity most fully demonstrated and lived out by Jesus.

Jesus could enjoy a good party, a nice meal, and good glass of wine. But the life he lived did not look much like the one the world recommends. He did not use power the way the world does. He did not respond to hurts or opposition the way the world does. He was not impressed with status the way the world is. He was not motivated by any of the "more" that motivates much of our lives, and he invites us to discover a wonderful joy and freedom in the sort of life he lived.

It's a hard sell, because the world makes a very good case, and its promises are very enticing. At least they are to me. But Jesus continues to invite. He does not demand or threaten. He invites, never giving up hope that we will finally see that he knows the way better than the "world" does.

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Commandments and Counter Narratives

Too often, I think of what I should have said long after the conversation is over. It happened again on Sunday. A church member spoke with me regarding the reading from the Sermon on the Mount. In it Jesus works his way from the commandment against murder to saying that being angry is equally problematic, and he says that calling someone a nasty name makes you liable to hell.

Diane, the other pastor here, had preached what I thought was a very well done sermon that was gentle yet also called people to embrace Jesus' call to live differently. But I don't think this person I spoke with was reacting to her sermon. Rather, he seemed to be focused on the scripture itself and on what seemed to him the near impossibility of its demand.

I took various approaches to helping him take Jesus' call seriously without being driven into some sort of despair, none of them very successful. Only later did it occur to me that Matthew's gospel also reports Jesus saying, "For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." Surely that means Jesus does not expect us to despair about his call not to be angry, to reconcile with any who have something against us, not to look with lust at women (I take that in part to mean not viewing women as objects.), etc. I don't think Jesus is simply heaping up demands on us. Rather he is describing what life looks like when it is motivated fundamentally be love.

That point is really hammered home in today's epistle reading. "I am writing you a new commandment that is true in him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining. Whoever says, 'I am in the light,' while hating a brother or sister, is still in the darkness. Whoever loves a brother or sister lives in the light, and in such a person there is no cause for stumbling."

Neither Jesus nor the writer of 1 John expects that we will never fail as we seek to be faithful. 1 John says as much at the opening of today's verses. But both expect that our lives will be transformed when a divine-like love motivates and undergirds our lives.

There has been an unfortunate tendency, especially in Protestant Christianity, to view God's commandments primarily as things that drive us to despair and into the arms of God's mercy. I don't want totally to discount this, but I do think we horribly overemphasize it. Jesus clearly thinks his commandments are in some way doable, and he expects that we will discover a new way of life as we seek to embody them.

In my own, Reformed Tradition, John Calvin spoke of something called the "third use of the law." He was adding to Luther's idea that the law first restrained evil and secondly caused us to despair and turn to God's grace. Calvin accepted both of these, but added that when we are brought into new relationship with God through Jesus, the commandments become for us a guide be becoming more holy. They are not things by which we are judged for doing or failing to do. Rather they are a road map for the life we long to live.

I've always been fond of this third use of the law, but I wonder if Calvin went far enough. Beyond simply being a map to get us somewhere we long to be, God's commands might also be seen as a way of living, or of trying to live, that have power to shape and form us into people who long for the same thing God longs for.

Compare this, for instance, to the way of living, the practices, that our society encourages. Above all, our culture calls us into practices of consumerism, practices that form us as people who think that happiness and fulfillment come from acquiring "more." Even much of the hunger for spirituality in our culture is understood out of this consumer model. And you don't need to be a perfect consumer to be powerfully shaped and formed by its teachings. It is enough that this striving for more becomes the dominant narrative of people's lives.

I his teachings, Jesus tries to instill in us a counter-narrative. He understands the law and commandments not as restraints on aberrant behaviors like murder, but as practices that shape us for life in God's new day, practices that embody God's mercy and love. It is not necessary for us to keep his commandments without fail for his narrative to shape and form us in powerful ways. Indeed, Jesus becomes transforming for us when his narrative becomes the dominant one of our lives, when we aspire, above all else, to the sort of life he envisions for us.

What is the dominant narrative that drives, motivates, and makes sense of life for you? And to what degree is that narrative compatible with what Jesus taught and the life he invites us to live?

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Preaching Thoughts on a Non-Preaching Sunday

If you've ever given much thought to the meaning of Christian faith, you've surely encountered the idea that you must accept Jesus as your Savior or you cannot make it to heaven. "Accept" is defined in various ways, but it usually has something to do with a faith statement or requirement to "believe in Jesus."

The notion that believing in Jesus equals faith, and that such faith gets you to heaven, has often led Protestants to act as though what we do is of little matter. There are certainly Bible passages that emphasize the need to "confess Jesus," but the Sermon on the Mount is not one of them. In the preaching lectionary, this "sermon" gets broken up over the course of many weeks, but none of the readings focus on what one believes. Instead Jesus hammers at what we must do. Today, speaking of the commandment against murder, Jesus says, "But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, ‘You fool,’ you will be liable to the hell of fire."

If we're going to quote Scripture about what gets a person into heaven, this is a most troubling verse, straight from the mouth of Jesus. If you call someone a "fool" (I'm assuming that other disparaging terms are included), no heaven for you. Ouch.

 If you sit down and read the Sermon on the Mount, it is difficult to walk away thinking Jesus doesn't care that much about what we do, only what we believe. (Not that I'm discounting belief. If I believe Jesus is God incarnate, presumably I would think him the ultimate authority and want to do whatever he says.) The Sermon on the Mount is full of what we are to do, and that doing seeks to form a very different sort of community, on that is shaped by God's will. As today's reading makes clear, this requires taking the commandments more seriously, not less. It means putting away the things that lead to conflict, not simply refraining from violence. It means going far beyond the bare requirements of the law and living in ways that bring reconciliation and work for peace.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus lays out a dream for a new and transformed world, and he calls his followers to begin showing the current world what that looks like. This is why the petty divisions and squabbles that so often mar congregational life are such a huge problem. They undermine our core calling as Christians, the call to walk the narrow and difficult way of Jesus, the call to aspire to and bear witness to God's new day. And I'm not sure that anything so undermines this calling as the idea that Christian faith is primarily about me getting my ticket punched for heaven.

When you look at your congregation, your community of faith, how does it show the hope of a new day? In what ways is it a community of peace and reconciliation where concern for the good of the other matters as much or more than one's personal good, wants, or desires? Do our churches and congregations offer real hope to the world, a better way that leads to something new? If not, then maybe we all need to sit down with the Sermon on the Mount for a bit.

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No Earthly Good

I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God — what is good and acceptable and perfect.  Romans 12:1-2

I've quoted this before. The late southern comedian and devout Southern Baptist, Jerry Clower, has a chapter in one of his books entitled "Some People are so Heavenly Minded, They Ain't No Earthly Good." In his folksy way, Clower identifies a common problem with religious life, at least some Christian versions in modern day America. Many Christians seem to think that faith's sole purpose is to get people into heaven when they die.

Viewed in this way, Christian faith becomes about checking off the right boxes so as to get on the heavenly guest list. Exactly what is required can vary from one group or denomination to the next. For some it's "accepting Christ as personal Savior." For others it is "having faith," which may or may not mean "believing the right things." For still others it is about living a good enough life. There are doubtless many variations on this, but they all proclaim some version of what Brian McLaren labels "a gospel of evacuation," meaning that Jesus came to get us from here to some place better.

Trouble is that the Jesus we find in the gospels almost never speaks this way. He much more routinely speaks about the kingdom that is drawing near, a day when God's will is done on earth, when earthly life conforms to God's design, as is already the case in the divine realm. Consider the Lord's Prayer if you think I'm making this up.

And so when the Apostle Paul calls us to offer ourselves to God, not being conformed to the world but transformed so we can do God's will, he has in mind something other than making it to heaven. This is, after all the same Paul who speaks earlier in Romans about creation waiting "with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God," and also how "the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now." (8:19-23) In Christ, God is not planning an evacuation but the redemption of the entire creation. In the meantime, the followers of that Christ are called to model that new day for the world.

But all too often, those in the Church appear more conformed to the world than transformed. Observed at work or play, they are indistinguishable from the rest of the culture. Some decades ago, when there was something of a general agreement that ours was a "Christian nation," this could be viewed as unimportant. If we claimed that our culture was in some way Christian, then there was no real need to worry about being conformed to it. But it has gotten more and more difficult to say our culture is Christian. Indeed I doubt that it ever was in any sort of deep and meaningful way, but to claim that today's prevailing culture of consumerism, narcissism, and greed somehow embodies Christ's commands borders on the absurd.

And so to follow Christ, to be transformed in the manner Paul recommends, is to be different and odd in ways that show the world around us a new possibility. To a world obsessed with looks and appearances, we are called to value all people as beloved children of God. In a world obsessed with money and wealth, we are called to measure worth in the manner of Jesus, who was so often found among the poor and the outcast. In a world obsessed with status and prestige, we are called to honor "the least of these" and to live as servants who offer ourselves for the sake of others. In a world obsessed with performance and efficiency and busyness, we are called to take time for prayer and worship, to keep sabbath, and to "Be still."

In short, we are called to live in ways that make us very "earthly good." We are called to a peculiar style of life so that others who might peek into one of our congregations would get a palpable sense that we know something about earthly life, relationships, and community that the world does not. They should see us living in ways that offer a clear model for a renewed and reborn society, something that only happens when we are not "conformed to this world" but instead transformed so that our lives conform to God's will.

As we seek to live such lives, we have a template provided for us, a clear model to emulate. Jesus has already shown us what it looks like to live according to God's will. But it seems that we are still not quite convinced that he got is right.

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Not What I Want To Hear

As readers of this blog might surmise, I have a (sometimes) regular discipline of reading the daily lectionary passages. In fact, this blog is an outgrowth of private reflections on those readings. It started as  journaling meant to encourage me in the regular reading of Scripture. Even in this more public forum, my posts are usually reflections and musings on these readings.

As with all practices and disciplines, I sometimes struggle with my daily readings. At times I let other things that I need or want to do take precedence, crowding them out. And sometimes I open up the readings but find them incredibly difficult. I will begin reading one of the passages and quickly find myself frustrated and eager to try the next one. Some days all of the readings have quite the opposite impact I hope for. They do not make me feel closer to God or show me what I should do. Instead they grate on me and make me want to turn away.

Sometimes the verses feel like empty platitudes that fly in the face of reality. Sometimes they describe a God and a life of faith that seems little like my current experience. Sometimes they make promises that seem terribly hollow in light of struggles in my life or those close to me, or in light of the horrors facing to many in our world.

What happens when the presumed or hoped for promises of faith don't materialize? What should one do when God does not come through as expected? I am prone to wax theological as such moments. It can be an interesting, even satisfying exercise at times. But working on a better, more nuanced theological construct of God doesn't always do much to address feelings of resentment or abandonment or anger that may be simmering.

I also have a suspicion that many efforts to "explain" those situations where God fails us or the world leave us without much of a God. The God who is encountered in many Mainline, progressive, or liberal congregations (a grouping of which I am a part) seems not to have much sway over things other than my interior life. Many such congregations are terrified at the prospect of doing some of the bold things Jesus calls us to do because we cannot imagine we have the resources to do them, and neither can we imagine that God will provide what we are missing. 

I'm critiquing myself as much or more than anyone else. I struggle to see myself as able to do anything more than what I already have the talent, personality, disposition, and inclination to do. Perhaps if I got some more training and developed some more expertise, I could do more, but I don't expect more or new to happen because of God.

And so when I open the morning psalm and hear once again about God's promises to protect and shield, when I read of assurances that the gift of the Spirit will transform believers' lives, I start to get irritated. I'm not entirely certain, however, if my irritation is with God or with myself for the fear that keeps me from testing such promises and assurances.

I've said this before, but it bears repeating (if only to remind me). Sometimes such moments can be openings and opportunities. They can create a kind of crisis that requires action. Granted, one such action could be to abandon faith altogether, but I have a hard time imagining myself going all in on that option. Another action might be to try on a deeper and fuller faith, one that actually takes the risk that God might come through when I do as Jesus says. I think maybe that's why they call it "a leap of faith."

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Preaching Thoughts on a (sort of) Non-Preaching Sunday

Today is "Youth Sunday," and in a little while the middle and high school youth in this congregation will lead all the elements of worship. It's a much anticipated service where everything from liturgy to music to sermon are prepared and done by the youth. I'll be sitting in the pews with the rest of the "adults."

But our early, informal service is new, and is not a part of the Youth Sunday tradition, meaning that I still have a sermon of sorts to do there. It is actually a wonderful opportunity to do a more conversational reflection on today's gospel reading, one for which there is no written text.

Today's gospel continues reading from Matthew's "Sermon on the Mount," a reading begun last Sunday. Today's teaching speaks of our need to keep God's law, to be salty salt and light that shines. Salt was essential to life in Jesus' day, absolutely necessary for preserving meat and other foods. Jesus might well have told us that we must be life and light.

It is something that the Church too often forgets, turning its attention inward. There a myriad ways to do so. Faith can become an exercise to get me and others like me into heaven. It can become an obsession with getting beliefs and doctrines worked out to a "T." It can be about a distorted spirituality focused almost entirely on stoking an inner warmth. Any faith tradition, conservative or liberal, Catholic or Protestant, can turn in on itself and forget that Jesus calls disciples and Church to bring God's love into the world, to help bring light and life.

I think that one of the things that is so captivating about the new pope, Francis, is that he seems to be more focused on the light and life part and than on the doctrinal and institutional maintenance part. Only time will tell if these words fully pan out, but it is heartening to see non-Catholics and even people of no faith drawn toward the pope's words. Seems like maybe Jesus was on to something with this light and life thing.

According to Jesus, regardless of our particular theologies, regardless of our particular ways of being church, if we aren't in some way providing light, if we aren't in some way life-giving, then we are about as useless as salt that isn't salty.

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Running the Race

If you are at all conversant in church-speak, you have probably heard some version of this. "Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses... let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us" It's part of a famous quote from "The Letter to the Hebrews," which is more of a sermon than a letter.

The writer has just finished rattling off a long list of impressive accomplishments that biblical heroes managed "through faith." But then the writer addresses the reader saying, "Yet all these, though they were commended for their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better so that they would not, apart from us, be made perfect." It seems God has an ongoing, long-term project that joins Jesus followers to the work of Abraham and Sarah, David and Solomon, Isaiah and Jeremiah, and so on. Presumably present day Jesus followers are also joined to this long line of the faithful, our work building on the faithful of the past and somehow pulling the whole, long line forward into God's wonderful future.

However, I'm not quite sure how to fit this idea into some notions of Christian faith. In some of the very individualized and personalized understandings of faith popular in America, the entire operation seems to be about getting my name on the right list: heaven or hell, salvation or damnation. But how does my being on the heavenly guest list help Abraham in any way? If faith is about whether or not I'm saved, what difference does that make to King David?

Jesus talked a lot about a kingdom that had drawn near, something tiny and nearly invisible that would, with our faithful participation, grow into something wonderful. That seems to fit well with what the writer of Hebrews is saying, but I'm not sure it does with some current versions of faith and church.

Some evangelical versions of personal salvation as escape from this rotten world to wonderful heaven are easy targets, but personal, immediate gratification versions of faith are everywhere. They're prominent in therapeutic versions of Christianity where faith and church are about making me feel better about myself, and they're sometimes featured in popular forms of Christian spirituality where faith and church are primarily about feeding my soul and warming my spirit.

I'll admit to being a rather impatient person. I'm very much a part of our immediate gratification culture. Still, one of my great frustrations with church in general is that it so seldom seems connected to God's big, long-term, grand project for all creation. It is too busy "meeting members' needs" to actually work on the kingdom project, the dream of God's new day.

Very often, church congregations are most heavily invested in maintenance, in "how we've always done it." And when churches do have bigger and grander visions of the future, these are often about bigger buildings and facilities, about grander futures for themselves.

Not that church congregations don't do a great deal of good in the world, but all too often, this is simply a slightly enlarged version of the charity practiced by many Americans regardless of faith. It is great that individuals volunteer at soup kitchens and homeless shelters, and it is wonderful that churches run food pantries and operate tutoring programs for needy children. But these things often aren't really central to the lives of individual volunteers or to the lives of congregations. They are a little something extra that we do, but not what we are primarily about. But if a church isn't primarily about God's big project, is it really the body of Christ it claims to be.

Figuring out exactly where the line is that divides those engaged in the call to be Christ to the world from those simply wanting to get into heaven, be made happy, or have their needs met, is no easy task. Transforming individuals so that they become new in Christ and follow where he leads requires inward work, both as an individual person of faith and as a congregation. Still, there must be some tipping point beyond which "serving the members" largely obscures a church's true call.

This problem has no doubt existed as long as the Church has existed. But I can't help wondering if our age of immediate gratification hasn't greatly magnified it. The simple fact is that Jesus' message does not fit well into an immediate gratification mindset. But that's actually true of a lot of things such as raising children, building a successful company, or running a marathon.

People don't train for marathons just to get the tee shirt, and according to today's reading from Hebrews, faith is more like a marathon than it is dropping into Starbucks for a quick caffeine fix. Sometimes I wonder if one of the big problems facing the church in our time isn't that we folks who are running churches are trying to be a Starbucks rather than a training club for marathoners.

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Lost in Praise

  O sing to the LORD a new song;
     sing to the LORD, all the earth.   Psalm 96:1


I admit it. I'm not overly good at praise. Not that I don't sing in worship or anything like that. I enjoy singing hymns on Sunday, but I'm not sure that's the sort of revelry that the psalms so often speak of. The "joyful noise" of Psalm 66 seems to suggest a bit more abandon than is typical of traditional Presbyterians. And today's morning psalm gets so carried away that it expects nature itself to join in.

  Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice;
     let the sea roar, and all that fills it;
     let the field exult, and everything in it.
  Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy
     before the LORD

 (Just as an aside, a lot of worshipers seem worse at praise than me, at least the sung kind. As a pastor, I look out at the congregation while we're singing, and I've always marveled at the number of people who never sing at all, who don't even mouth the words.)

When I think about praise and adulation that gets carried away and lost it the effort, sports fans come to mind. Joyful noise is an apt description of what comes from the stands when our team is winning. The other place I've seen and experienced this is at a political rally. Strange to think that it is easier for me to get all fired up about my team or my candidate than it is to get excited about God.

I'm not sure I would ever want to turn worship into a pep rally or a political one, but I still wonder about the difficulty of actually offering myself to God in worship. (There's a striking picture of King David totally losing himself in worship from 2 Samuel 6. He gets so carried way that he not only leaps and dances, but he strips down to only a little ceremonial apron.) I've mentioned before how God can sometimes seem more a concept than a real entity who is encountered. Perhaps that is why we tend to measure our worship by how well we like it. Strange that we would do worship to please ourselves rather than God if we really thought God was the audience for our worship.

The closing verse of the hymn, "Love Divine, All Loves Excelling" speaks of the final consummation of our lives, anticipating the day when "we cast our crowns before Thee, lost in wonder, love, and praise." It's an old Charles Wesley hymn, the sort I associate with the rather staid worship I grew up with. But it surely speaks of what worship should be, as well as what the psalmist describes.

Oh, to be lost in wonder, love and praise.

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Sermon video: Don't Worry, You Are Blessed

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

Offensive Jesus vs Cultural Christianity

Today's gospel reading is one of many places in the Bible where Jesus upsets and offends people. And it's not just his opponents. His own disciples were often taken aback by what Jesus said. In fact, if you read the entire episode which begins with today's gospel (the lectionary will do so over the next two days), you will see that many of Jesus' disciples abandon  him over today's difficult teaching.

Growing up in Presbyterian congregations, I somehow missed the fact that Jesus could be troubling and offensive to those who encountered him. I saw Jesus along the same lines that a lot of people see the late PBS icon, Mr. Rogers. And while I happen to think of Mr. Rogers as an exemplary Christian, he didn't make those in power so angry that they wanted to kill him. Jesus clearly did, though the thoroughly domesticated and saccharine-sweet image of him often peddled in church makes that hard to comprehend.

Still, some Christians reach a point where those Sunday School portraits of Jesus no longer work for them, and they look for something a bit more realistic. The dissonance between the churchy Jesus and some of the stories of him in the Bible has long sent people on quests for "the historical Jesus." I think the quest itself is usually well intended but often misguided. That's because people may suspect - not without reason - that the Church is presenting a less that accurate picture of Jesus. Feeling misled by the Church, they look for non-churchy insights into Jesus. And because they think of the Bible as the Church's book, they look outside scripture.

Unfortunately, this effort immediately encounters a problem. Aside from the biblical texts, there is very little information about Jesus, and what there is often appears further removed from the historical Jesus than what is in the Bible. This means that most quests for "the historical Jesus" are efforts to distill from the biblical texts a historical kernel, a most inexact exercise, to say the least.

The current best seller, Zealot, by Reza Aslan, is the latest in a long line of such historical quests. Some of its scholarship is a bit suspect, but it does invite people to meet a very undomesticated Jesus. I'm all for that. I only wish that the Church would help people find the very undomesticated Jesus who is right there in the Bible and readily available without any need for wild speculation or intellectual flights of fancy.

Admittedly, this is a problem of the Church's own making. We sold our soul all those centuries ago when Constantine made us the official faith of the empire. When Christ gets enlisted in propping up empires and cultures, domestication is a must. Faith gets watered down, relegated to a private, spiritual sphere. The Jesus who came to bring good news to the poor and release to the captives still shows up here and there at Church, but rarely as the centerpiece. When God and Jesus are supposed to bless America, Jesus can be offensive only in very small doses. That doesn't mean Jesus actually gets wrapped in the American flag. That's a bit too unsubtle for most churches. But the same flag at the front of the sanctuary is fine, and any attempt to remove it may get labeled sacrilegious.

However, recent decades have seen the culture call off its cozy relationship with Christianity. It's not as though faith is persecuted (unless you consider "Happy Holidays"somehow to be akin to imprisonment), but it has lost some of the highly favored status previously granted it in exchange for religious sanctioning of the culture. I see this as a tremendous gift. It is a gift that may well be squandered, but it is a gift nonetheless.

The Church now finds itself in a position where it must stand on its own merits. Freed from the job of blessing prevailing culture, we have a very real opportunity to hear an undomesticated Jesus inviting us to new life in the act of following him. We may well decide that Jesus' call is more than we can manage, more than we're willing to do, but if that happens, at least we will have encountered something of that first century Jew whose presence demanded people make such hard choices.

The days when church pews filled on Sundays because the culture expected and coerced people to be there are fast fading away. (Good riddance, I say.) Not surprisingly, young adults are a rapidly shrinking part of congregational life in America. But who can  blame them. If the only Jesus they find at church is a benign, domesticated figure who only wants us to believe in him and be good little boys and girls, why bother? If they simply meet a religious sanction for prevailing cultural mores, prejudices, or hatreds, why bother?

But if they meet a Jesus who challenges them, even rattles them to their very core by calling them to follow him on a path that is not easy, that might be different. But of course that would seem to require church folk who were shaped and formed by the patterns of a dying cultural-Christianity to discover that Jesus themselves.

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Sermon: Don't Worry, You Are Blessed

Matthew 5:1-12

Don’t Worry, You Are Blessed

James Sledge                                                                                       February 2, 2014

Are you familiar with the catchphrase, “First world problems?’ It’s something added to a complaint, a light hearted acknowledgement that someone’s whining or fussing is not about anything all that significant. It’s popular as a “hashtag” on Twitter. Here are some actual examples. “Trying to find a way to make my snow boots look cute with every outfit is getting really old #firstworldproblems. I think every town in America should have free Wi-Fi all throughout. Would make my life so much easier. #firstworldproblems.” And I love this one. I’m pretty sure it’s a joke. “My phone died and I can't tell the time from my wrist watch because of all the diamonds. #firstworldproblems.”

Even if you’re not familiar with the hashtag, you’re likely familiar with something similar. Many of us have said something such as, “I locked my keys in my car and had to call AAA to unlock it. So I missed my doctor’s appointment and have to reschedule. But then I came and volunteered at Welcome Table and realized that my problems aren’t all that big.”

When we agonize over our cable service going out just before our favorite show comes on, we know such issues are relatively minor and trivial. But our problems are our problems. They’re the things impacting us, and so they’re important to us. Nothing surprising about that. But when we worry about such things, there’s a tendency to think they are the things God should worry about as well.

We live in a very individualized and personalized culture. That has led to some very individualistic and personal notions about God and faith. The phrase “Jesus is my personal Lord and Savior,” isn’t part of my faith heritage so I’ve never been exactly sure what it means. Still, I’m reasonably certain that no one in biblical times would have said such a thing. They did not live in an individualistic culture.

Insomuch as speaking of a personal Savior means to convey that God is concerned about each individual person, I think that’s dead on. But that is different from thinking that God is especially worried about whatever I or my culture happens to be worried about. Indeed, such a notion can lead to the trivializing of God and faith.

I’ve seen that happen with the Beatitudes, the opening portion of the Sermon on the Mount that we just heard. There is a book by Robert Schuller called The Be (Happy) Attitudes: 8 Positive Attitudes That Can Transform Your Life. It distills from Jesus’ words a handful of practices that will bring the happiness that many Americans chase after. Blessed are those who mourn becomes “I’m really hurting—but I’m going to bounce back, and Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake becomes, “I can choose to be happy—anyway!”[1]

But this not only trivializes Jesus’ teaching, it misses the point entirely. Jesus is not giving some program for self-improvement. He isn’t telling people how to be happy. He isn’t even giving a list of commands to live by. There are no commands in today’s verses. We may be able to infer some “shoulds” from these verses, but they are primarily a statement of how things are, wildly counter-intuitive statements Jesus makes to those who are drawn to him.

These folks are not the upper tier or elite of society. Instead they are fishermen and sinners, people with diseases and infirmities, people suffering with what we would call mental illness, and desperate family members and friends who have nowhere else to turn. They are Jews who find themselves subject to the might, power and often cruel authority of Rome. There is little about them to suggest that they are blessed or fortunate. But Jesus insists that they are.

Matthew also has Jesus address the author’s first century church community . That Jewish Christian community is most certainly struggling. Some of them have gotten kicked out of their synagogue, their home church, the place they grew up and learned about faith, because they followed Jesus. No doubt this has led some, perhaps many, to question the wisdom of following him. The hoped for new day that Jesus’ resurrection seemed to herald is terribly slow in coming, and it is hard to find much evidence that says they are blessed or favored or fortunate. But Jesus insists that they are.

Jesus isn’t suggesting a way for them to feel fortunate. Rather he is making a statement that despite appearances, even when they find themselves in terrible circumstances, longing for something better, hungering and thirsting for a day when the world is set right, they are recipients of God’s favor and blessing.

Sermon video from Jan. 26: Transforming Love

Audios of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

When Life Gets Hectic, Whom Do You Serve?

Did you ever have one of those days or weeks that simply overwhelmed you? Of course you did. It's a near universal experience. So, when you have found yourself in a moment where life overwhelms you, what do you do? How do you respond when there is more to deal with than is possible, when the plate is too full and something has to fall off of it?

When life gets crazy, it often reveals something about the priorities that govern our lives. There's no easy and simple calculus here. Doing something in order to remain employed may require diminished time with loved ones who cannot be supported absent that employment. But success in one's career may simply be a higher priority than family, and it is remarkably easy to deceive oneself about such things.

A similar sort of self-deception often is at work in lives of faith. It is easy to fancy oneself faithful even when faith becomes one of those things that gets dropped when life is too busy or demanding. Pastors and other religious professionals have even more opportunities for self-deception because our "jobs" are connected to faith. However, that in no way means that doing our jobs is actually an act of faith or that serving God is even remotely connected to what we are busy doing.

Much of the Bible is about a covenant relationship between God and humans, a covenant relationship that is almost always understood to be communal or corporate in nature. This covenant relationship is there in the call to Abraham. It is there in Jesus' call to follow him. And it assumes significant responsibilities on both sides of the relationship. But as with human relationships, self-deception is often a problem.

Just as a career minded spouse may convince himself or herself that all that time at work is somehow about supporting a marriage relationship, people can delude themselves into thinking that their loyalties and passions are about their faith. How else to explain some people championing the right carry concealed weapons and "stand our ground" as Christian causes. This seems to me little more than projecting one's personal passions and causes onto one's God and faith. And the political right has no monopoly on such behavior. Liberal Christians often make liberalism their god.

That brings me back around to questions of what remains and what gets dropped when life gets too hectic to handle. Are the things remaining truly important things? Are they truly God's things? Or are they simply my things, things which may or may not really be faithful to the relationships and commitments I claim are priorities in my life?

There's an old Bob Dylan song with a line that says, "You gonna have to serve somebody. Well it may be the devil, or it may be the Lord, but you gonna have to serve somebody." When self-deception gets involved, I pretty sure it's usually the former.

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Sermon: Transforming Love

Matthew 4:12-23

Transforming Love

James Sledge                                                                                       January 26, 2014

How many of you think that everything in the world is just about as it should be, with no real problems to fix or issues to deal with? Everything is fine, right?

I suspect most anyone here could rattle off a long list of problems, troubles, horrors, and more that desperately need straightening out. Civil war continues unabated in Syria with an obscene death toll among civilians and refugees in the tens of thousands. Things are only slightly better in South Sudan, and Iraq seems to be descending into anarchy.

Brutal, gang rapes occur with staggering regularity in India, but the brutalization of women is hardly confined there. Sex trafficking and slavery, fed by crippling poverty, is a worldwide problem, including in our own country and in the DC area. Meanwhile income inequality continues to grow in this country. In a nation where everyone once claimed to be middle class, a smaller and smaller percentage of the population controls a larger and larger percentage of the wealth. And of course there was yet another shooting yesterday.

I’m sure we could add plenty of other examples of problems in our world, but let me shift the focus a bit. How many of you think that everything is fine, with no real problems to fix or issues to deal with in your own life?

Most of us have personal lists of things we’d like to change about ourselves. We want to exercise more or volunteer more. We need to lose weight or stop smoking. And many of us having bigger issues than self-improvement lists. We lead harried, hectic, and anxious lives that are good for neither our health nor our relationships. We hurt others, including those we love, far too often. We have been overly conformed to our culture’s narcissism and consumerism, and so we chase after stuff thinking it will make us happy, and we obsess about self and our need to be happy and fulfilled. It’s a stressed out environment that is toxic for us and for our children.

Of course there is much that is good about the world and about our lives. The world is God’s good creation, after all. But even the most Pollyanna among us know there is much that needs fixing and changing in our world and in our lives.

“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” Jesus begins his ministry with words every bit as appropriate today as they were nearly 2000 years ago. It is a message about change, change for the world and change for us personally.

God Remembers

On Sunday I preached a sermon entitled "Faithful Remembering." As the title perhaps suggests, it was about remembering who we are in our baptisms, about recalling the new identity we receive when we are joined to Christ and given the Holy Spirit.

Today's Old Testament reading also speaks of remembering, but this remembering is not ours. It is God's. The reading comes from the conclusion of the Noah story. The flood has ended. The very real threat that creation might return to the pre-creation chaos of Genesis 1:1-2 is over. The blessings of creation have been reissued with the call to be fruitful and multiply. And God covenants with all creation, with humans and animals, never again to bring a flood to destroy. Human creatures may have gone their own way, rejecting who God created and called them to be, but God is committed to them.

As a seal on that commitment, God places a bow in the clouds. The sign is the rainbow, but it is also God's bow, a weapon of war. God has hung up God's bow. It will not be drawn in anger again.

I've often heard reference to the rainbow as a reminder to us of God's covenant, but that is not what the story says. In the story it is a reminder to God. "When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh." For good measure, God repeats this assertion almost verbatim. "When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth." Everything, it seems, hangs on God's remembering.

This is not isolated to the story of Noah. Repeatedly the Bible speaks of the need for us to remember, and of God's remembering. Because God remembers, Israel is rescued from slavery in Egypt. And as Mary says in her "Magnificat," Jesus is born because God remembers, because God will not forget or give up on creation, including those troublesome human creatures.

In his letter to the church in Rome, the apostle Paul writes of Jesus "who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us." (Rom. 8:34) Perhaps one way to understand Paul is to think of Jesus saying to God, "Remember, remember." Or, to put it in more Trinitarian terms, withing the divine, loving relationship that is God, the call to remember echos always.

God remembers. In today's gospel that is expressed as "For God so loved the world..." Amidst all the difficulties understanding how God works, what God is up to, and how we are called to be a part of it, it is good to stop and remember a central core of our faith. God is committed to all creation, and to us. God will remember; God will not forget us.

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Sermon video: Faithful Remembering

Audios of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

Sermon: Faithful Remembering

1 Corinthians 1:1-9

Faithful Remembering

James Sledge                                                                                     January 19, 2014

As a pastor, I have lots of “friends” on Facebook who are also pastors. The same goes for people I follow on Twitter. Some of these folks are always posting effusive, over-the-top praise of the churches they pastor, the committees they serve, and so on. “First Presbyterian’s Christian Education Committee rocks!!!” “So and so presbytery’s Committee on Ministry Committee is the best committee ever!” “I’m so incredibly lucky and blessed to serve here!”

Maybe it’s just my age or where I grew up, or maybe I’m just weird, but such praise sometimes feels a little bit much to me. I like an “Atta boy” as much as the next person, but when it goes way beyond that or goes on and on, I get a tad uncomfortable.

Of course it could be that these Facebook friends are actually serving in the best church that ever existed, where every member tithes or more, and every member volunteers in some ministry activity at least once a week. Maybe they are serving on a committee that puts every other committee in every other presbytery to shame. Who knows?

Speaking of over the top praise, if all I knew about the church that the apostle Paul founded in Corinth came from the verses we heard this morning, I might think Paul is a bit like some of my Facebook “friends.”  He gives thanks to God always for these folks who are not lacking in any knowledge or spiritual gift. He speaks of them as being “sanctified,” in other words, “made holy,” and of how they are called as “saints.” Wow, this must be some congregation. Either that or Paul is getting a little over the top with his praise.

But as it turns out, I’ve read the rest of Paul’s letter, and I know he doesn’t think they are the best congregation out there. Quite the opposite. He is upset and angry with them. He will call them immature, unspiritual, and still caught up “in the flesh.” In short, the church we meet in Paul’s letter looks like a total disaster with all sorts of divisions, arguments, fights, and messed up theology. Paul warns them they had better straighten up before he returns to deal with them. And yet, Paul opens his letter with these words about being made holy, called to be saints, given every necessary spiritual gift and all wisdom.

Maybe Paul is just following social convention and opening his letter with the expected pleasantries, but I don’t think so. Not only do we have another letter of Paul where he dispenses with such pleasantries, but there is something more. All of those wonderful things about being made holy and called to be saints are not specific to the Corinthian Christians. Rather, they express Paul’s understanding of what it means to be “in Christ.” It is not praise for anything they have done. It is their identity, who they are, the new thing they become through the grace of God in Jesus and the gift of the Spirit, even if they are currently living in ways that obscure their true identity.

Sermon video: Endings, Beginnings, and Pilgrim Journeys

Audios of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

Able to Love

We humans struggle to entrust ourselves to others. Life teaches us to be wary. Most of us have walls that we can hide behind, and even those who know us most intimately may never see us fully exposed, all the walls and protections gone. "Will she still love me if she knows this about me?" "Will he still love me if he sees this ugliness that is part of me?"

We also struggle to entrust ourselves to others because we worry about their ugliness. "If I give my life over to him, will he abuse my love and trust?" "If I become totally vulnerable to her, will she take advantage of me and hurt me?" Many of us, perhaps most, overcome such trust issues; not entirely, but enough that we can participate in loving, intimate relationships.

Such trust issues carry over into relationship with God, with Jesus. No matter how much the Scriptures reassure us that God is our surest hope, a God who loves and protects us; no matter how much we read that Jesus is the one who can guide us to true life and love, we aren't quite sure. And so we need to protect ourselves. We dare not give ourselves entirely over to God.

For some reason, this trust issue, which causes enough trouble for our human relationships, is even more problematic in the human/divine relationship. God is unknown enough, distant enough, that we hesitate to go "all in." We keep guarding and protecting ourselves.

Insomuch as this is true, the fundamental faith problem is not about getting one's theology correct or about trying hard enough to believe in Jesus. The fundamental problem is not having experienced God's love sufficiently to trust it. "If I give my life over to God, will God abuse my love and trust?"

Religion often tries to turn faith into morality, keeping rules, and believing the right things. Nothing wrong with morality or getting our theology straight, but those are all best understood as attempts to love God back. They are responses to having been loved by God.

All this means that for many of us, our greatest need is not trying harder at faith. Rather it is becoming vulnerable and letting go. It is allowing ourselves to fall into God's love. I suppose this is that classic, leap of faith, something not unlike the letting go that must happen in order to fall in love with another person.

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Will God Give Up On Us?

The story of Cain and Abel is a familiar one to many, though I don't know that it is much appreciated. It is a very complicated story in which God precipitates a crisis between the two brothers by accepting one's offering and rejecting the other's. No reason is given. Both seem to have offered their best. But God does not act as one might expect, or even hope.

The crisis is of God's own making, but God offers Cain a way out. He can still do well. Sin may be lurking, but it can be mastered. As Walter Brueggemann has noted, God does not speak of Cain as under the curse of any "original sin." He still has the power to do well and master sin, but of course, he does not. And God's wonderful new creation seems to be spiraling out of control.

As had happened with his parents in the garden, Cain must now deal with God. He receives punishment for his crime, punishment he fears is too much to bear. His own life now seems in jeopardy.

At this point the story engages in a bit of absurdity. Cain fears others will kill him, but the story has told us the Cain and Abel are the first children born on earth. Exactly who is it that Cain fears? But the story uses this absurdity to speak beyond the issues of any primal humans, to wonder what happens when when we refuse to do the right, when we earn God's ire and threaten to engulf our world in conflict.

God puts a mark on Cain. The mark, no doubt, reminds him of his guilt, but it also serves to protect him. God will not allow Cain's crime to provide an excuse for others to do to him as he has done to his brother.

Will God give up on us? Will God finally leave us to sleep in the bed we have made and suffer the full consequences of living at odds with God's plans for us? The opening chapters of Genesis wrestle with such questions at some length. Cain receives a provisional answer, an answer that will become final following the Noah episode. God remains committed to Cain, to creation, and to the human creature.

That is something that needs recalling from time to time, perhaps most especially when we despair that things are spiraling out of control, that the world is going to hell in a hand basket. God is not done with us. God is not done with creation. God will bring this story to a good ending, even if we keep messing it up along the way.

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Distraught and Longing for God

I didn't attend seminary until I was 35 years old, and so I have a pretty good sense of how easy it is to feel disconnected for faith and from God in much of day to day life. Our culture encourages us to divide things up between the spiritual world and the real world, or as a theologian might say, between the sacred and the profane.

It's actually quite easy to maintain such a division while working in the church. A great deal of what pastors and other church professionals do can be understood as work without much of a spiritual connection. Even preparing a sermon can become simply an exercise that is part academic study and part creative writing. And should a pastor become so spiritually dry that even this becomes impossible, there are tons of sermons floating around on the internet, there for the taking. (I've always wondered how much of that happens with the sermons I post here. My blog site's statistics often show a small run on my three year old sermons just prior to their texts showing up again as a Sunday reading.)

One of those things they teach you in seminary is how Jesus sanctifies the mundane. In Jesus, God gets seen in the day to day, eating and drinking, walking along the road, talking to the people he meets, going to a dinner party. But we keep trying to put God back in select, special places and moments. Not that sanctuaries and retreats and special times of prayer aren't important. But when God is only at church or in set aside devotional times, very little of our lives are lived with God, or with much awareness of God.

Today's psalmist seems to have lost any sense of God's presence. The writer is nearly distraught, speaking of a cast down and disquieted soul..

   As a deer longs for flowing streams,
          so my soul longs for you, O God.
    My soul thirsts for God,
          for the living God.
    When shall I come and behold
          the face of God?
    My tears have been my food
          day and night,
    while people say to me continually,
          “Where is your God?”

Is it possible that our neat separating of spiritual life from the rest of life helps insulate us from what the psalmist feels? If God is only at church or in those times we may set aside for prayer and devotion, then there is no reason to expect God in the day to day, and no reason to be upset when God cannot be found there. Perhaps we protect ourselves from the pain the psalmist feels if we confine God to a few spiritual or sacred venues. But in the process we quite likely insure a relationship with God lacking in any real depth and substance.

Anyone who has ever been in love with another person and had that relationship go awry likely has felt something akin to what the psalmist feels. I've known a few people who "protected" themselves from such suffering by never getting too close to anyone. But even though they may indeed avoid some of the suffering that afflicts others, I think that most people pity them.

Have you ever been distraught like the psalmist over your relationship with God? As strange as it may sound, I really hope so.

Click to learn more about the lectionary.

Sermon: Endings, Beginnings, and Pilgrim Journeys

Matthew 3:13-17

Endings, Beginnings, and Pilgrim Journeys

James Sledge                                                   January 12, 2014 – Baptism of the Lord

Roger Nishioka, professor of Christian Education at Columbia Theological Seminary and former director of youth and young adult ministries for our denomination tells a story that I assume comes from his time as a youth worker in a congregation.

Kyle was nowhere to be found, and I missed him. In the weeks following his baptism and confirmation on Pentecost Sunday, he was noticeably missing. Several other members of the confirmation class asked about him too, as did his confirmation mentor. Kyle and his family had come to the congregation when he was in the fifth grade. They attended sporadically, so I was more than a little surprised when I asked him and his parents if he was interested in joining the confirmation class and they responded positively. In this congregation, the confirmation class happened during the ninth-grade school year (as if God calls all ninth-graders simultaneously to be confirmed, just because they are in the ninth grade). Kyle and his parents came for the orientation meeting and agreed to the covenant to participate in two retreats, a mission activity, work with a mentor, and weekly classes for study and exploration. Kyle was serious in attending and missed a class or event rarely. He quickly became a significant part of the group and developed some wonderful friendships with other ninth-graders who had barely known him. Since Kyle had not yet been baptized, he was not only confirmed but also baptized on Pentecost Sunday. It was a marvelous celebration for all the confirmands, their families, and their mentors.

That is pretty much where it ended. That is when I knew we had done something wrong. When I checked in with Kyle and his folks, they all seemed a little surprised that I was calling and checking up on them. I distinctly remember his mother saying, “Oh, well, I guess I thought Kyle was all done. I mean, he was baptized and confirmed and everything. Isn’t he done?”[1]

Kyle’s situation is far from unique. It’s so common there’s even a joke about it. Several pastors are having lunch together when one of them shares that they have an infestation of bats in their steeple. The other pastors suggest a variety of things that might rid them of this problem, but it seems they’ve all been tried without success. Finally the Presbyterian pastors says, “We had that problem and solved it. We enrolled all the bats in our confirmation class, and once it finished, we never saw them again.”

For some reason, church folks are often good at mixing up beginnings and endings. It happens with confirmation. It happens with Christian education/formation where people “graduate” from Sunday School when they graduate high school. And more than a few parents come to have their children baptized – I’ve heard them refer to it as “having the baby done” – then disappear entirely, another beginning that got changed into an ending.

Our Refuge and Strength Is...

God is our refuge and strength,
     a very present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change,
     though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea;
 though its waters roar and foam,
     though the mountains tremble with its tumult.  Psalm 46:1-3

We will not fear even if the very foundations of the earth are shaken. So says the psalmist. Rarely do I live as though it were true. I wonder how many people do. I wonder if the psalmist did. Was that poet a person of rare faith? Or did she write these words in one of those rare moments when faith feels sure and certain? Or did he simply churn out a hymn that said the right words without really believing them himself? (Perhaps you've seen those articles about atheist pastors who continue to serve congregations and preach sermons calling people to faith.)

I'm no atheist, but I have a long list of fears and anxieties. In many Presbyterian and other Mainline congregations, fear and anxiety are pervasive: fear of not meeting the budget, fear of losing members and wasting away, fear that conflicts within congregation or denomination could rip things apart. The list goes on, and as the surrounding culture seems to be fleeing traditional churches in ever increasing numbers, the anxiety increases.

God is our refuge and strength,
     a very present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear...

The institutional church faces real threats. Attending seminary is a much more risky proposition than it was when I enrolled some 20 years ago. Small churches are closing and larger churches are calling fewer pastors. There are many more people looking for church positions that there are positions. Of course many people who work outside the church, in the "real world," have dealt with this for decades. But at least in the church, shouldn't we be less afraid, less anxious?

God is our refuge and strength,
     a very present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear...

We will not fear because of God. God... I wonder if some of our fear and anxiety, especially in the church, comes from getting this mixed up. Speaking of us pastors, we have often counted on the church or the denomination to provide for us, to have good positions with good health care and pensions. But the church isn't God, and if the church is our refuge and strength, no wonder we are caught up in fear and anxiety. We've put our trust in an idol.

We pastors sometimes trust in our own abilities, in those seminary educations we received and our (presumed) stellar preaching skills. When things don't go well we attend seminars and conferences to improve our skill set. Then if things still don't get better, we may be filled with self-doubt, we may blame the congregation, or we may do some of both.

Congregations often do something similar. They have many gifted and skilled lay leaders and volunteers who know how to be successful. But when things don't go well they may bring in an expert consultant or hire a new pastor. Then if things still don't get better, they may be filled with self-doubt, they may blame the pastor, or they make do some of both.

But neither the pastor's nor the congregation's gifts and intelligence and abilities are God, and so when we put our trust in such things, when they become our refuge and strength, no wonder we end up in fear and anxiety. We have put our trust in idols.

Perhaps this pattern becomes more inevitable the more institutional faith becomes. When church becomes more about buildings and worship styles than following Jesus, we are bound to stumble. Maybe the travails facing many congregations these days are wake-up calls from God, invitations to refocus our trust on something other than institutional things or human skills.

God is our refuge and strength,
     a very present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear...

God... Dare we let God/Christ become the very center, the very core? Dare we trust in the way Jesus calls us to walk over the ways of the world, over our own logic or intelligence, over our own skills and abilities, over the images of God we create for ourselves that have all the same opinions and biases we have?


God is our refuge and strength,
     a very present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear...

God... Not us, not the church, but God. I wonder if I can do that.

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Certain We're Not Certain

I've long been fascinated with how what we "know" can be in impediment and stumbling block to us. It happens in all fields and walks of life. People "know" that someone is no-good because of their appearance, race, nationality, etc. A record executive once refused to sign the Beatles to a contract because he "knew" their sort of music was a passing fad. All learned people once "knew" that the sun revolves around the earth.

The realm of faith is perhaps especially prone to problems rooted in what we "know," in our certainties and assumptions. Religion has given its approval and blessing to all sorts of evil as a result, from crusades to child abuse to slavery. Many people still "know" that a female pastor or a gay pastor is abhorrent to God. And the religious leaders in today's gospel reading "know" that the Messiah cannot possibly come from Galilee. They even have scriptural proofs. (The gospel of John makes no mention of Jesus' birth and seems totally uninterested in his human origins. He is the word made flesh, and he comes from God.)

Religious certainties - I include many atheist certainties in this category - are often some of the most unattractive forms of things people "know." Some of the most ardent Christians and atheists are the worst possible advertisements for what they "know" because their certainties are so arrogant and divisive. Most people reading this probably don't fall into such extremes, but we still are often better at skewering others' problematic certainties than we are at recognizing our own.

In my own faith tradition, and especially in the more "progressive" wings of it, we have a kind of certainty about uncertainty. We are, understandably, suspicious of people who sound very certain about religious and faith things. We are rightly troubled by all those bad advertisements for our faith from Christians who would happily send everyone who disagrees with them to hell. And so we become certain that we can't say anything for certain.

A certain level of skepticism about our own certainties, an awareness of the limits of knowing, along with some healthy self-examination, are good things, but this can go too far. At some point, being certain that certainties are impossible makes it as hard for us to see Jesus for who he is as it was for those who were certain he couldn't come from Galilee.

I've recently started reading Brian McLaren's Why Did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and Mohammed Cross the Road?: Christian Identity in a Multi-Faith World. The book is in large part a challenge to the church to develop a "strong-benevolent Christian identity," and McLaren's categories of "strong/hostile" versus "weak/benign" Christian identities line up well with my division between arrogant and divisive certainties versus fear of any certainties. And if I were to restate his project in the terms of this post I might say, "How are we to claim Christian certainties that are neither arrogant nor divisive?"

If our answer is, "We can't," then I fear that this certainty is every bit as harmful to Christian faith as those folks who are certain about who is in hell.

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Tourists, Pilgrims, and 40 Year Journeys

Frederick Buechner once said something about coincidences being a way God gets our attention. In the coincidences, or perhaps providences, of this day, I found myself thinking about faithful, life-long obedience, which then spurred me to look for a quote in a book by Eugene Peterson's A Long Obedience in the Same Direction. Then, when I looked at today's lectionary passages and read from Moses' words to the Israelites as they prepare to cross the Jordan River and enter the land of promise, I found myself again thinking of long obedience.

Deuteronomy is as "second" hearing of the Law, a reminder to Israel of who they are and what their calling is. Moses instructs them one last time before his death, and in today's passage he says, "Remember the long way that the LORD your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, in order to humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commandments." A long, forty years way to an unseen and unknown destination, a destination of great hope and promise, if you could trust what God had said.

Peterson's book speaks of our world's aversion to such long journeys. He writes, "Religion in our time has been captured by the tourist mindset. Religion is understood as a visit to an attractive site when when have adequate leisure. For some it is a weekly jaunt to church. For others, occasional visits to special services. Some, with a bent for religious entertainment and sacred diversion, plan their lives around special events like retreats, rallies and conferences."

Speaking of the people he has pastored, Peterson continues, "They have adopted the lifestyle of a tourist and only want the high points. But a pastor is not a tour guide... The Christian life cannot mature under such conditions and in such ways." Finally, as a setup to developing images of disciple and pilgrim as preferable alternatives to tourist, he draws on Friedrich Nietzsche. " 'The essential thing in heaven and earth is... that there should be a long obedience in the same direction; there thereby results, and has always resulted in the long run, something which made life worth living.' It is this 'long obedience in the same direction' which the mood of the world does so much to discourage."

I recently had a conversation with a Christian who is a recent immigrant from Africa. He was talking about the similarities between worship in this congregation and what he knew back home. It was all quite familiar, he said. The order of worship and such was much the same. "Except it is much shorter here," he added. He went on to talk about how people often walked for hours to attend worship, and how such an effort demanded more than a brief interlude of worship. "People are always in a hurry here," he said. They don't have time, and so they squeeze in a bit of worship. And in a turnabout that had never occurred to me, he spoke of how, prior to getting a car, it took a very long time for him to make his way to our church site, and how it didn't seem worth the effort required to get here for our brief, "touristy" worship.

He didn't use that word. I'm thinking of Peterson's term, but I think it fits perfectly with what this young, African man was describing when he spoke of people in his home country having "the gift of time," something we have lost, leading to the tourist forms of religion and faith necessary for people with no time.

Many pastors and writers have been working for decades to help people in churches think of themselves as "disciples" rather than as "members." I include myself in that number and long for the day when congregations speak of "disciples" and no longer use the language of "members" and "membership." But today I'm thinking we may need to claim "pilgrim" as well. Both as individuals and as congregations, we need to think of ourselves as people who are headed somewhere, on a journey toward what Jesus called "the kingdom," a journey that will not be done in our lifetimes, a journey that cannot be taken during our leisure time or vacations.

We Americans are in an awful hurry. Living inside the beltway of Washington, DC, this hurry appears even more awful. But it is not at all clear to me where the hurry leads. Sometimes it reminds me of the prophet Amos' famine of hearing the words of the LORD. "They shall wander from sea to sea, and from north to east; they shall run to and fro, seeking the word of the LORD, but they shall not find it." (Amos 8:12)

Do you ever wonder where you're headed? Are we headed anywhere, or are we, as the saying goes, simply going nowhere fast? Sometimes all of us who so easily wear the label "Christian" would do well to recall that before that easy label arose, a more descriptive term was used: "The Way." Sounds like people who were headed somewhere.

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An Epiphany "So What?"

In the Christian calendar, today is Epiphany, a feast day celebrating the arrival of the Magi or Wise Men who come to see the new king who has been born. This calendar puts Epiphany twelve days after Christmas although, according to Matthew's gospel, the actual arrival of the Magi may have been as much as two years after Jesus' birth. (Speaking of biblical accuracy, Matthew makes no mention of how many Magi there are. The three comes from the gifts of frankincense, gold, and myrrh.)

The Christian calendar has two distinct feast days of Christmas and Epiphany, but for all practical purposes we have collapsed it all into Christmas. I once served in a church that had an evening Epiphany service on January 6. I'm not sure why we bothered. Some years the choir outnumbered those in the pews. How different from Christmas Eve when we had to drag out folding chairs for additional seating.

I have no desire for Epiphany to get the same star-treatment as Christmas. If anything, I'd like to see Christmas get toned down a bit. In the same way that Hanukkah grew into a bigger Jewish celebration than its religious significance would suggest because of the proximity to Christmas, so too the church's celebration of Christmas has intensified alongside the growth of the secular Christmas celebration. Christmas can sometimes become little more than an orgy of joy, nostalgia, and good feelings without much connection to the significance of Jesus' birth.

Epiphany at least begins to deal with the impact of that birth. As Jesus symbolically is revealed to the world via the visit of foreign, Gentile Magi, the loyalty problems created by Jesus quickly become apparent. King Herod and "all Jerusalem with him" are frightened at the news of a king's birth. As well they should be. If Jesus is king then Herod has a competitor for allegiance and loyalty. If God has come in Jesus to reign, then all those accommodations people in Jerusalem have made in order to live in a world often at odds with God's hopes and dreams suddenly become problematic.

The same can be said for us in today's world, which is a big reason we like to celebrate Jesus' birth and then ignore much that the adult Jesus says. But Epiphany reminds us that the birth of a king is a crisis moment, one where we must decide if we are loyal subjects to this king or not. Too often, our celebration of Christmas raises no such issues. It celebrates and basks in the warmth of the moment, oblivious to this king's call to follow him, to take up the cross, to love enemies, to deny self and be willing to lose our lives for the sake of his kingdom.

When we pull the Magi into our Christmas extravaganza, we simply add the star and camels to our manger scenes, and the Wise Men become little more than additional revelers at the party. We certainly don't include the part of their story where Herod kills all the children under two and Jesus and his family become refugees in Egypt.

But Epiphany begins to raise "So what?" questions regarding Jesus' birth, questions that we'd often like to avoid. And so we ignore Epiphany, folding a redacted version of it into Christmas. But the questions of Epiphany remain. Christ is born; so what? A new king has arrived and has begun to assemble his new dominion; so what? God has taken flesh in Jesus and called us to join him on his way; so what?

In my most recent sermon, I included this quote from C.S. Lewis. "Christianity is the story of how the rightful King has landed and is calling us to His great campaign of sabotage." Called to join the new king's sabotage campaign; now that strikes me as a fitting answer to Epiphany's "So what?"

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