Spiritual Hiccups - Are You There, God?

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

from Psalm 116

If you are a person of faith, I assume that you have had moments where God's presence was very real to you, when it seemed that God's ear was inclined to you.  But I also assume that there surely are or have been times when it does not seem so, that God seems absent or uninterested in you.  And when such moments drag on, they can make for a profound faith crisis.

When people have a personal encounter with God, when they touch divine mystery in some way, it is an experience that produces a desire for more and deeper experiences of God.  In this it is not unlike meeting someone with whom we feel an intimate connection.  We want to spend time with them, to explore and go deeper in that relationship.  We experience a longing for this person.  And in a similar way, people who have felt God's presence often experience a longing for God.

Of course relationships can go awry.  If those difficulties in connecting last very long, they can intensify the longing for the other, but they can also begin to produce a widening gulf between two people.  And when that happens, very often the disciplines and rituals of the relationship began to break down.  At the moment the relationship most needs help and support, couples can abandon the simple, sometimes mundane regimens of togetherness that allow for a closeness where more intimate connection is possible.

In similar fashion, I sometimes find that when I am struggling to connect with God, I can begin to abandon the simple rituals of togetherness that help maintain a closeness where deeper connection is possible.  At the times I most need to draw near to God, I sometimes quit spiritual disciplines of prayer, silence, contemplation, and Sabbath.  At such times I must look a little like a husband hanging out late at the bar, night after night, complaining to those around him that his wife - who will be asleep by the time he gets home - won't talk to him.

Are you there, God?  My heart longs for you.  I am here, waiting and listening for you.  Draw near to me.  I am here.  I will be here.  Be here with me.

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Spiritual Hiccups - Worthy Is the Lamb: The Triumph of Love

I don't really recall ever delving into the book of Revelation during my church life prior to seminary.  Still, I somehow "learned" that Revelation was an exotic book about the end of the world.  I do remember an adult study on Revelation where my family worshiped, but I was still a teen at the time.  For me, Revelation was simply about weird images and Armageddon and not worth much attention.

But now it troubles me deeply that Revelation has been so ignored because in so doing, we have effectively ceded the book to those who irresponsibly misuse it.  Everyone "knows" that Revelation is about God destroying the world in some final, cataclysmic battle, even though no such battle is depicted in the book.  Nor is any rapture to be found there.  Revelation is a difficult book, but it is a book meant to give hope.

I have actually heard people say that the kind and forgiving Jesus of the gospels will be replaced by a warrior Jesus at his return, and they claim Revelation as their proof.  But just look at today's reading from the book.  We are well into John's vision, and he has become distraught that no one is worthy to open the scroll.  But he is told, “Do not weep. See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.”

The lion of Judah who has conquered - surely this suggests just the sort of warrior Jesus some Rapture folks anticipate.  But when this lion appears we read, "Then I saw between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders a Lamb standing as if it had been slaughtered."  If we had hoped for Jesus the lamb to be transformed into marauding lion, we are disappointed.  For instead, the lion has been transformed into slaughtered lamb.  And here is a recurring theme from Revelation, the idea that "conquer" means to patiently endure, even to die for the faith, just that the lamb has done and so conquered.

Some may say that this is all well and good but not terribly significant.  What difference does it make how one obscure book in the New Testament is understood.  But because Revelation is popularly understood (incorrectly, I would add) as describing the end of the world and how God brings that about, its picture of God can become the dominant one.  Yes, Jesus came all meek and mild, forgiving folks right and left, but you've had your chance.  That was only a temporary reprieve.  Forgiveness is over.  Time to settle scores.

But when we realize that the fierce lion we thought was in Revelation turns out to be a lamb who conquers through being slain, then a God of love and forgiveness can no longer be a temporary reprieve.  The God of love Jesus reveals in the gospels is the same God found in Revelation, a work of hope that insists, no matter how bad things may appear, the Lamb and Love will triumph.

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Spiritual Hiccups - Thorns and Other Distractions

Those who study religious trends say that some of the dissatisfaction with traditional churches has to do with issues of authenticity and integrity.  Many people long for a faith community where these are paramount, but they don't sense them in traditional, mainline congregations.

Perhaps this was on my mind when I read today's gospel where Jesus tells the parable of the sower.  Seed is scattered with varying results because it ends up on the path, in rocky soil, among thorns, or in good soil.  As I read, I was drawn to the picture of the seed springing up but then choked by thorns.  (Jesus will later explain to his disciples that the thorns are "the cares of the world and the lure of wealth.) 

As a pastor who to some extent functions as CEO of a religious organization, I have my share of cares and concerns, and many of them have to do with money. And I wonder how often these tend to choke out the word.  I may preach diligently about loving neighbor and helping the poor, about love and gratitude leading us to give ourselves extravagantly to God, but my own life may not show much evidence of this.  Other things have my attention.  I am no model of authenticity and integrity.

We live in an era of multitasking with a myriad of distractions.  Our culture is of little help if we would become the saints all Christians are called to be -- certainly not if we use Kierkegaard's definition of a saint, "Someone who can will the one thing." 

I wonder if traditional church looks to many as just one more thing to add to a life already filled with many other things.  And I wonder what distractions I need to let go of if faith is to be not just one more thing but the one thing.

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Sermon video - The Passion That Gives Life - Stewardship II

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Spiritual Hiccups - The Tie That Binds

I vaguely recall a debate in a seminary class that had something to do with parental rights and the welfare of a child.  I've forgotten the particulars, but what I remember vividly is the very different stances of classmates.  Some saw parental rights as almost sacrosanct, something that could not be violated without overwhelming cause.  Others saw the needs of the child in a similar light with those needs easily trumping any notion of parental rights.

What are the bonds that matter most?  When I was a boy, every time new members joined out church they would be recognized, and then the pastor would call us to sing a verse of "Blest Be the Tie That Binds."  The words were never printed.  People were just supposed to know it.  Though it does not say so explicitly, I imagine that this "tie that binds" speaks of our being one in Christ.

Jesus raises this issue of the bonds between us directly in today's gospel.  Jesus' family wants to speak with him but cannot seem to make their way through the crowds into the house where Jesus is.  But when Jesus is told that his mother and brothers are outside, wanting to talk to him, he replies, " 'Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?' And pointing to his disciples, he said, 'Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.' "  So much for family privilege.

All of us have bonds that shape us.  I'm a Southerner from Charlotte, North Carolina, and I have certain loyalties associated with that.  I'm a Presbyterian.  I'm a male.  I'm a UNC Tarheel.  I'm an American.  I'm a Christian.  I'm a transplanted Ohioan, and so on.  But which bonds and loyalties take precedence?

I wonder what Jesus' mother and siblings thought when he left them outside and said that his disciples were his family, that others who followed him also became his family.  Surely I would have been hurt and offended if I had been Jesus' younger brother.

I have occasionally heard people say, "We shouldn't be sending aid overseas when there are people in need right here in the US."  I don't know if they mean it the way I hear it, but it sounds like the needs of Americans count more than the needs of others.  But before I criticize that, I have to acknowledge that I act this way regarding the needs of my own family.  

So... what does it mean to be a Christian, to have been baptized and joined to Christ, made part of his family?  What are the real ties that bind for me?  And for you?

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Sermon text - The Passion That Gives Life - Stewardship II

Matthew 22:34-40

The Passion That Gives Life – Stewardship II

James Sledge                                              October 23, 2011

It’s a stock image in comic strips, editorial cartoons, and such; the solitary guru sitting cross legged on some mountain peak.  There people seek him out to discover the secrets of life that he has discerned, the special wisdom that only he can dispense.  “O great sage, what is the meaning of life?”  The question expects some profound piece of wisdom that might be put on a motivational poster or spoken at a college graduation.  But what if the sage simply said, “Follow the rules.”

Follow the rules?  How boring is that?  Special wisdom on the meaning of life should be more profound.  It should be a secret, something hard to figure out, not “Follow the rules.”

I suspect that rules are not well loved anywhere, but Americans seem to have a libertarian streak that makes them especially distasteful to us.  Perhaps it came from this country’s largely Protestant origins.  Protestants, after all, split with the Roman Catholics in part over the issue of rules.  It’s not following the rules that saves us, we said.  It’s the gift of grace that we experience by faith.  Faith, not works, we proclaimed.

Regardless of where it comes from, we Americans often regard laws and rules as a necessary evil.  And as such, we prefer as few rules and laws as we can get by with. 

But even though we Protestant Christians sometimes act like Jesus is our guru who shows us a secret wisdom that gets us around the rules, I’m not sure Jesus shares our reservations about laws and rules. 

I say this because in Jesus’ day, many saw him as a wise teacher and came to him wanting to know the meaning of life.  On one such occasion, Jesus says, “If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.” 

And Jesus makes very clear in the Sermon on the Mount that he is not providing an alternative to the rules.  “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.  For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter will pass from the law...”

In our gospel reading today, people again come to the wise sage, Jesus.  But it is Jesus’ opponents, and they hope to catch him in some mistake, to find some way of trapping him as they  pretend to seek his wisdom.  “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?”

It is a pretty straight forward question and Jesus gives them a straight forward answer.  Both he and his opponents agree that the law is a good thing, not a necessary evil but a blessing that shows the way to life.  And so Jesus does not need to employ any tricks or sleight of hand as he sometimes does with his opponents.  Here Jesus simply quotes from Scripture, from what we call the Old Testament.  “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. and a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ ”

I suppose Jesus’ opponents hoped that he would quote some commandment, saying “Do this,” and they could then say, “But what about that?”  But Jesus says that his commandments encompass all the law and the prophets.  He does have to quote two commandments, however.  Strict grammarians might object that there cannot be two greatests, but Jesus says otherwise.  In fact, I found a translation where Jesus introduces his second commandment this way, “And a second, just as great as this one…”

According to Jesus, these two greatest commandments, loving God with all your being and loving your neighbor as yourself, cover everything.  Nothing is left out.  But what exactly does it look like to love, to love with all your being?

What do you truly love?  Someone?  Something?  I know people who love their children, who love their spouse or significant other, who love chocolate, going to the beach, or reading a good book.  I know others who love sports or, often around here, love the Buckeyes.  And people who really love the Buckeyes don’t usually have to tell you.  It’s obvious.  They may have one of those OSU flags hooked to their car window, flapping the breeze.  They probably have more than one OSU sweatshirt and football jersey.  In fact they probably could go for days dressed in nothing but scarlet and gray without wearing the same thing twice. 

The local newspaper knows that lots of people love the Buckeyes.  That’s why they print special sections on game day.  A local TV station sometimes preempts network programs to air “Buckeye Blitz” on Friday nights because they know that those people who love the Buckeyes will watch.  And I imagine that a lot of travel agents are in deep depression over the state of OSU football this year because many of those who love the Buckeyes are willing to shell out big bucks to travel to bowl games.

Not being from Ohio, I don’t fully get the passion many people here have for the Buckeyes.  But I do think that this passion, this love for the school and the team, gives us a picture of what loving something with all your being looks like. 

We human beings were created in the image of God, a God the Bible tells us is love.  And so it makes sense that we are meant to love.  It is in our nature to love, to give ourselves passionately to other people and things.   We need to feel passion to be fully alive.  However, this need can get off track.  Our need to love and to feel passion can become distorted and misdirected.  It sometimes turns inward into a narcissism that demands the entire world be about me.  Gangs and cults take this need to give ourselves, to feel passion, and twist it into something frightening.  And sometimes love of community, school, or country gets twisted into a passion against the other, against my neighbor.

Being truly and fully alive requires loving passionately.  People who feel no passion or love toward anything or anyone seem lifeless and dead.  But all loves and passions are not equal, and some are even destructive. 

“O great sage, what is the meaning of life?  What is the secret that will let me be truly alive?”  And Jesus answers, “If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments…”  The greatest is, “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment, and a second, just as great as this one: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’  On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

As we gather for worship today, once more it is Autumn, and once more it is stewardship season.  Stewardship, where more often than not, the big questions are, “Will there be enough pledges to fund the budget?  Will there be enough volunteers to run the programs?”  But I think Jesus would ask very different questions.  What love animates your life?  What passion orients and makes sense of all the other parts of your life?  What do you give yourselves to with abandon and extravagance?  Do you want to be fully alive, the person you were created to be?

His answer: Fall in love with God, with every fiber of your being, with all that you are and all that you have.  And have the same care and concern for every other human being that you have for yourself.  Do this, and everything else will fall into place.  Do this, and you will be truly alive.

Spiritual Hiccups - Where's the Spirit?

I once got a church member very upset with me by preaching a sermon entitled "Not Quite a Christian."  It was based on today's reading from Acts where Paul encounters believers who have not been baptized into Jesus Christ and who do not know the Holy Spirit.  In the sermon, I wondered if we were fully Christian if we did not have the Holy Spirit at work in us helping us to do God's will.  This member, out of her understanding of that classic Protestant notion of "justification by grace through faith," insisted that if you believed in Jesus, nothing else mattered.

I discovered long ago that when people fuss about my sermons, sometimes their beef is genuinely with me, but other times they are upset with what the Bible says and direct that anger at me.  A think my "Not Quite a Christian" sermon was the latter sort.  This person had a personal theology (we all do) that was deeply ingrained in her, and it was so much a part of who she was that even the Bible, certainly not a single Bible episode, could override it.

But can we be Christian, in the biblical sense of disciples of Jesus, without the Spirit?  Might we be totally convinced that the Scriptures accurately point to Jesus as Messiah, but lacking the Spirit, still not fully appreciate what that means. 

The common refrain, "I'm spiritual but not religious," is often little more than a dodge that seems to have a very constricted understanding of what it means to be spiritual.  However, I think it also is a protest of sorts against a Church that all to often seems to be "not quite Christian" in the manner of those believers Paul encounters. 

If the Apostle Paul showed up in our congregations and asked us, "Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you became believers?" how would we answer him?  I know a lot of people who, at best, would answer, "We're not sure." 

Where is the Holy Spirit present and at work in your life and in the life of your congregation?

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Spiritual Hiccups - It's Hard, But It's Easy

A real faith liability for many modern Protestants is that we encounter the Bible in brief, little snippets.  Even thought the Protestant Reformation was, in part, about individual Christians having direct access to Scripture in their native tongue, many Protestants today hear the Bible primarily when it is read to them in worship.  This setting necessarily limits such readings to a few paragraphs at a time.  Thus the readings often have little or no context, and the individual pieces often don't come together into any sort of big picture.

Today's reading is a good case in point.  “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”  Taken by itself, the passage suggest that following Jesus is easy, nothing like the difficult burden it is to follow the Law as the Pharisees teach.  Trouble is, this same Jesus in the same gospel of Matthew also says, "Unless your righteousness exceeds that of scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven."  Jesus also says we must take up the cross and that believing in him won't get us right with God.  We must do God's will to enter the kingdom.

So is it hard, or is it easy?  American Christianity has generally decided on the easy version.  But if we are serious about following Jesus, what are we to do with these contradictory statements from him?  To be honest, I don't know if they can be fully reconciled, but I am certain that, finally, our faith must somehow incorporate both.

Are there things that are hard and easy at the same time?  Or perhaps better, are there things that are difficult but don't seem like burdens?  I suspect that most of us have had something in our lives that requires a great deal of effort and energy, but that we undertake as though it were nothing.  Think of the lengths some people go to participate in a hobby or sport.  For that matter, think of the effort that some parents expend on their children, effort that seems not hard at all to them.

Most humans have things that they long for, that they want badly, and the effort required to get them - effort that would quickly dissuade others who do not share the same wants - seems as nothing.  Often what we chalk up to greater effort or dedication on someone's part is really the result of greater desire.

St. Augustine wrote of our hearts being restless until they find their rest in God.  He also spoke of our wills becoming willing.  That is our conversion converts our will into something that wills what God wills.  I wonder if this doesn't fit in with the gentle, easy way Jesus describes.  When following Jesus becomes what we truly want, when it becomes our deepest desire, can anything that moves us in that direction feel like drudgery or burden?

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Sermon Video - The Things That Are God's

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Sermon text - The Things That Are God's - Stewardship I

Matthew 22:15-22

The Things That Are God’s – Stewardship 1

James Sledge                                            October 16, 2011

If you remember your Revolutionary War history –  Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and so on – you likely recall that one of the major complaints against British colonial rule was “taxation without representation.”  Many colonists insisted that because they had no seat in Parliament, taxes could not be duly levied on them.  A tax on tea sparked the famous Boston Tea Party, and eventually armed rebellion broke out.

Most of us have heard how fighting began at Lexington and Concord in the spring of 1775, leading to the Declaration of Independence the following year.  Most of us learned the highlights of the Revolution in school.  But that history generally didn’t say much about how divided the colonists were over the war. 

Best estimates suggest that the drive for independence was supported by less than half of American colonists.  Probably just under a quarter favored remaining part of Britain, while the rest mostly tried to remain neutral, hoping they would be able to get along with whichever side won.  Many loyalists actively fought alongside the British, and there were terrible atrocities committed by rebels against loyalist neighbors, and vice versa.

I mention this because there was a rough parallel in Jesus’ day.  Palestine was a colony under Roman rule. Rome did allow the locals a certain level of self-governance, but Rome retained ultimate power, and they levied taxes that were often quite onerous, especially on the poor.  Many Jews resented the Romans, their armies and taxes.  Open rebellion had broken out around the time of Jesus’ birth, and would break out again some 30 years after his death. 

But other Jews had found the relationship with Rome more to their liking. 

To them the stability and commerce that Rome brought more than outweighed the problems with Roman power.  Besides, with only brief exceptions, Jerusalem had been under the control of some foreign power for centuries.

In our gospel reading this morning, a group of people come to Jesus hoping to trap him.  This group is made up of both those who despise Roman rule, and those who find it beneficial.  You wouldn’t expect Pharisees and Herodians to have anything to do with one another.  But they think Jesus a big enough threat to put aside their differences, to cooperate in dealing with this dangerous, would-be Messiah.  They hope to force him to side with one group or the other, and in the process, turn either the crowds or the Romans against him.  “Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?”

The question is more difficult and volatile than we may realize.  The Roman tax could only be paid with a Roman coin, a coin that not only had a likeness of the emperor on it, but on the reverse side had the Emperor Tiberius’ name with an inscription declaring him “divine son of Augustus.”  For Pharisees, who meticulously tried to keep the Commandments, the coin itself, with its divine pretensions, violated a couple of them.  Yet when Jesus asks to be shown such a coin, his opponents have one on them.  Maybe it was one of the Herodians, but curious that the Pharisees seem not to be bothered by this idolatrous coin. 

“Whose head is this, and whose title?” Jesus asks.  That is not in dispute.  It is the emperor’s.  “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”  Or as some of us learned from an earlier Bible translation, “Render therefore unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s…”

Speaking of Bible translations, I’m not sure what the NRSV scholars were thinking when they translated Jesus’ question, “Whose head is this?”  The NIV is no better, with “portrait” rather than head.  But the word Matthew writes in his gospel is the same word he reads in his version of the Old Testament where God says, “Let us create humankind in our image.”

When the Emperor Tiberius puts his image on coins, it is an explicit statement about whose coins they are.  It was not unlike the branding that is still practiced today.  Companies emblazon their names and logos on the buildings and equipment they own. 

“Whose image is this?...  Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” 

Of course Jesus does not say which things are the emperor’s and which are God’s.  Does Jesus agree that the emperor’s image on the coin makes it his?  And what about the image of God the Bible says is part of our created nature?  Does that mean that we, in some way, belong to God? 

The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it, the world and those who live in it.  So begins Psalm 24, a psalm that Jesus no doubt knew well.  “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” 

Not long after Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the church door and unintentionally sparked the Protestant Reformation, other Protestant movements sprang up in Europe.  Along with the Lutherans,  the Reformed tradition (of which we Presbyterians are a part) emerged around the teachings of John Calvin.  Reformed thought and Lutheran thought shared much in common, but they diverged significantly in their understandings of the Lord’s Supper.  As these two movements spread, they bumped into each other at the German town of Heidelberg.  Tensions between the two groups worried the ruler of that area, and so he asked two prominent Christians in Heidelberg to come up with a theological statement that would be acceptable to both sides.  The result was the Heidelberg Catechism, published in 1563 and now one of eleven statements in our Presbyterian Book of Confessions.

The very first question of that catechism reads, “What is your only comfort, in life and in death?”  The answer begins, “That I belong – body and soul, in life and in death – not to myself but to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ…”  This is echoed in opening of the most recent addition to our Book of Confessions, “A Brief Statement of Faith.”  We use a portion of it as our profession of faith today and it begins, “In life and in death we belong to God.”

I wonder if we realize what counter-cultural statements these are.  We are much more like to hear the opposite.  Someone chastises a wealthy person for his opulence and ostentation and he responds, “What right do you have to tell me what to do with my money?”  Back when a smoking ban for restaurants and bars was being debated, it was common to hear, “What right does anyone else have telling me what I can or can’t do with my body?”  And if someone suggests to a bright college student that her career choice should not simply be about income potential and what she enjoys, but also about what would benefit others, we would not be terribly surprised to hear her respond, “It’s my life, and I’ll decide what I want to do with it!”

The correctness of smoking bans or certain career choices aside, what all of these statements have in common is the notion that I am my own.  My life belongs to me, to do with as I choose.  And how dare anyone tell me otherwise.

It is not uncommon in our day to hear complaints about how secular society has become.  In just a few weeks someone will surely be yelling about the “War on Christmas” because Target or Wal-Mart  have signs that say “Happy Holidays” rather than “Merry Christmas.”  But if our culture is corrosive to Christian faith, and I would agree that it often is, I don’t think “Happy Holidays” is a significant part of the problem.  What certainly is, however, is the notion, shared by very many Christians, that I am my own, that I, and I alone, know what is best for me. 

Whose image is this?  On a coin, on me?

“What is your only comfort (your only hope, assurance, and joy), in life and in death?  That I belong – body and soul, in life and in death – not to myself but to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ…”  In gratitude and in love, let us give to God the things that are God’s.

Spiritual Hiccups - Afraid To Speak the Truth

Today's gospel is about bold proclamation.  Jesus commands his followers to shout from the rooftops the very sort of things that get him crucified.  Given this, you might think that Christian pastors would be some of the most feared truth-tellers in the world.  But alas...

I don't mean to say that Christian pastors are liars or that they don't do a lot of good and help a lot of people.  But pastors are very often also keepers of institutions, and their institutional roles often mitigate against bold, truth telling.  Pastors have to be politicians in a sense.  They have constituencies that they need to keep reasonably happy.  After all, they must convince members of these constituencies to volunteer and give money. 

I follow a lot of pastors on Twitter.  This may not be an accurate generalization, but I have noticed that those who sound the least like politicians are pastoring very small congregations or no congregation at all.  Some of them can be shrill, and a few might do well to develop a bit more political savy.  But by and large, they are refreshing.  Which is not to say that I feel compelled to emulate them.

The truth is that I'm frightened to be like them.  Regardless of how convinced I am of God's will, I worry what might people in my congregation think if I took an overly bold stand on some issue.  Perhaps I am short changing my congregation in the process, but my career worries, my fears, still constrain me.

Jesus said, "If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household! So have no fear of them; for nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known. What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops."

Have no fear of them.  Jesus is of course speaking of those who might arrest and put to death his followers, just as they will do to him.  My fears are pretty tame ones by contrast.  But still they have a power over me.

In the opening of the biblical book of Revelation, each of the seven churches to whom the letter is written are addressed invidually.  (Revelation is largely misunderstood as fortelling the future if you can somehow break its code.  But in truth it is meant to urge churches under great stress to remain faithful.  Its "predictions" are of a general nature, the promise that faithfulness will, in the end, be rewarded, that evil will fall and righteousness will prevail.)  The writer tells each congregation of problems it needs to correct, and he seems to save his greatest disappointment for the last congregation mentioned, the one at Laodicea.  "I know your works; you are neither cold nor hot. I wish that you were either cold or hot. So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold or hot, I am about to spit you out of my mouth."

That sounds to me like we would be better off being bold, even if we sometimes got it wrong.  And those poitically unsavy, sometimes shrill, very bold pastors I follow on Twitter will certainly never be accused of being "lukewarm."

Lord, help me find my voice.  Help me speak the truth.

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Spiritual Hiccups - Whose Side Is God on Anyhow?

Have mercy upon us, O LORD, 
have mercy upon us,
   for we have had more than enough 
   of contempt.
Our soul has had more than its fill
   of the scorn of those who are at ease, 
   of the contempt of the proud.  


When I read these final verses of Psalm 123, it struck me that they sound a bit like some of the voices in "Occupy Wall Street," a loosely organized and varied movement that is spreading beyond NYC.  And while the movement contains varied viewpoints and agendas, I suspect that many would agree with the final line about having all they can take "of the scorn of those who are at ease, of the contempt of the proud."

Regardless of how one feels about street protests and civil disobedience, the Wall Street protesters have raised serious questions about whether or not the powers that be in this country have the best interests of typical citizens at heart.  Have governments and corporations lost sight of a shared social contract in which we all are participants?

It is difficult to give easy "Yes" or "No" answers to such questions.  There are corporations, for instance, that do not lay off workers even when there is not enough work for them to do, that maintain a payroll larger than some business models say are efficient because they feel an obligation to their employees as well as their investors.  But of course there are corporations that view employees as little more than "resources," things to use when it is beneficial to the company and to discard when that benefit is ended.  And one can find a similar wide range of thinking regarding run of the mill citizens among politicians, political parties, government workers, and so on.

But what does God think of all this?  Is God more offended by what some label the disruptive, chaotic aspects of Occupy Wall Street?  Or is God more upset by growing numbers of the poor and children who are hungry, by the perceived need to cut social services to the most needy while corporations are enjoying record profits?  I think these questions much easier to answer than my previous question about the social contract.  There simply is no question whose side God is on when it comes to the poor, the needy, the oppressed, and the victims of injustice.  And for all our culture's worship of wealth, Jesus is equally clear that it is the single most likely thing to come between us and the new day God will bring.

One of the perennial problems with religion is that it inevitably is co-opted into helping maintain the status quo.  The notion that Jesus stood for the status quo is hard to entertain seriously, yet the history of the Church features a regular rhythm of the faith becoming captive to the powers that be followed by a movement of the Spirit that helps the faith break free.  The Protestant Reformation began as such a movement, and it produced radical changes, some within the Roman Catholic Church itself.  The Civil Rights Movement was largely a faith movement where the Spirit guided people such as Martin Luther King, Jr. to challenge the status quo.

Predicting where the Spirit will blow next is more than difficult.  But there is no doubt that the wind is blowing.  Even within evangelical Protestant movements, the idea that God is simply for personal morality or purity, and not about good news to the poor, is being seriously challenged. 

All religious people like to think that God is on their side.  I'm certainly no different on that.  And very often, we deal with this in terms of our theology and practice.  Do we understand the Bible correctly and do we live in ways that conform with this?  To a certain extent, this is unavoidable, but I wonder if we wouldn't often do better to think about this a bit differently.  What if we simply identified those Jesus says that God favors, and then aligned ourselves with them.  Jesus says that God favors the poor, the meek, those who long for a better world, the peacemakers, those who are persecuted because they try to create a better world, and so on.  God is on these folk's side, says Jesus.

What about us?

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Spiritual Hiccups - More Tolerable for Sodom and Gommorah

"Meek and mild" is one of the popular images of Jesus.  Certainly there is a gentleness to Jesus in many of  his dealings with people, especially people in trouble or in need.  But meek and mild doesn't adequately describe Jesus in full.  His cleansing of the Temple is one obvious example of Jesus behaving in anything but a meek and mild manner. And today's instructions to the disciples don't seem very mild either.

Jesus sends the Twelve out on a preaching, teaching, and healing mission, and he concludes his instructions with this note, "If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet as you leave that house or town. Truly I tell you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town.”

Sodom and Gomorrah was shorthand for terrible evil and depravity. The cities were destroyed by God in the book of Genesis.  (Although many people associate this depravity with homosexual behavior, that is not necessarily the case.  That the townspeople would demand to rape sojourners who should be extended hospitality is horribly depraved without any reference to sexual orientation.)  And for Jesus to compare those who do not welcome his representatives or listen to what they say with this legendary evil is remarkable.

Now perhaps it seems a rather academic exercise, my trying to figure out what score Jesus gets on the meek-and-mild meter.  But I'm wondering about this with regard to how we American Christians receive Jesus' representatives; whether we welcome them or listen to them.  But if we are Christians, how could this concern us?  I suspect that would have been nearly the same response of those people Jesus sent his disciples out to visit, the covenant people of Israel. 

It seems to me that we Christians often place ourselves in a role very much like the Jews of Jesus' day.  We are the established religion and presume our relationship with God to be reasonably secure based on our status as Christians.  By I have observed that those who speak the message of Jesus without being careful not to step on anyone's toes are often rejected.  Anyone who boldly proclaims Jesus' words about blessings for the poor and the curse of wealth is asking for trouble.  Many will neither welcome nor listen to them.  "If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet as you leave that house or town. Truly I tell you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town.”

Hyperbole was and is very much a regular feature of Middle Eastern speech, and Jesus likely employs it here.  Still, I wonder if the traditional American church, so much a part of the fiber and texture of American society, culture, and economics, hasn't at times lost its soul in the bargain.  What if the not-so-meek-and-mild Jesus is talking about and to us? 

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Sermon audio - Tossing Out Our Idols

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Sermon text - Tossing Out Our Idols

Exodus 32:1-14

Tossing Out Our Idols

James Sledge                                                          October 9, 2011

Just prior to graduating from seminary, I attended a kind of pastor’s job fair called “Face-to-Face.”  This two day event brought together scores of search committees from congregations seeking a pastor and matched them up with well over a hundred pastors and seminary students who were seeking calls.  It was a hectic enterprise where you interviewed with a different church every hour.  There was some sort of matching criteria that was supposed to put compatible churches and pastor candidates together.  Seminary students like me didn’t get matched with big churches looking for experienced pastors, and so on.

But no matching system is perfect, especially in an event like this one where there were so many search committees and pastors.  And so I had my share of interviews with congregations where I knew 60 seconds into a 50 minute interview that this was never going to happen.  But being new to this searching for a call business, interviews were good practice.

In one of those interviews that clearly would not lead anywhere, the conversation somehow turned to the topic of biblical literalism.  My memory is a little fuzzy, but I recall that they were a conservative, rural congregation.  And when my answer to their question about the authority of scripture included a few comments about the Bible sometimes becoming an idol, perhaps one of the more popular idols in some Christian circles, I could see a look of horror on some of their faces.  I had clearly committed a terrible act of sacrilege, and the interview turned decidedly colder.  The idea that I would compare the Bible to something such as the golden calf was clearly disturbing to them.

I’ve heard about the golden calf since I was a small child.  There was a picture of it in the Bible Story book my father used to read to us.  And like other idols I heard about from the Bible, it was clearly something people chose rather than God.  Idols are competitors with God, which helps explain the reaction of the members on that nominating committee.

Now some idols are alternatives to God, competing gods if you will.  But Aaron, the person who conceives, designs, and builds the golden calf, does not seem to understand this idol in that manner. 

After building the calf he proclaimed, “Tomorrow shall be a festival to Yahweh.”  To Yahweh, not to some other Near Eastern god such as Baal, but a festival to Yahweh, the God who had brought them out of Egypt, the God who worked though Moses. But Moses had disappeared and had been missing for over a month.  Clearly the Israelites needed a more reliable way of invoking God’s presence, of insuring that God was there for them when they needed help.  Moses had skipped out on them, and so they turned to his brother Aaron, the priest, to provide a stand-in.

True, Aaron is breaking the Commandments spoken by Yahweh only weeks earlier.  “You shall not make for yourself an idol (the word can also means an image), whether it is in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is is on the earth beneath, or that in the water under the earth.”  I’m pretty sure that a calf is in the image of something on the earth.  But these were desperate times.  Moses was missing.  God was nowhere to be found either.  The Israelites had to have something that would guarantee God’s presence.  I’m not sure of the symbolism of the calf, but apparently it fit the bill.

Most all of us have been there with the Israelites.  We may not have been worrying about dying in the wilderness, but we’ve felt the need to keep God close, to have God on call and available.  Golden calves are a bit out of our repertoire, but we still know how to make God both manageable and accessible.  As I told that church nominating committee, some folks carry a Bible around with them, God at the ready, a quick answer for every situation.

However I do not think this the typical Presbyterian idol.  I think that most of us are more prone to come up with a synopsis of God that we carry with us.  This is less tangible than a Bible or a golden calf, but it is very functional.  Whether our synopsis of God is a no-nonsense deity who judges folks with clear, black and white standards –  “Believe this, do that, and you’re in; don’t and you’re damned.” – or if our God is a kindly and benevolent deity who wouldn’t hurt a fly, either way we know just what to expect from our god.  Either god is a cafeteria style idol, a god selected from those attributes that appeal to us.  Either sort of god can be found in the Bible.  But either sort of god is constructed by us, to suit us.

When Israel and Aaron construct a god to suit them, Yahweh, the real deal God, is not pleased.  God is ready to disown them saying to Moses, “Your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have acted perversely… Now let me alone, so that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them; and of you I will make a great nation.”  Yahweh wants nothing more to do with them.  They are Moses’ people now, not Yahweh’s.  And God proposes to transfer the promises made to Abraham all those centuries ago to Moses.  God will start over.

If we take this story seriously at all, we must wrestle with some real difficulties.  The God we see here is all set to wipe out Israel.  But Moses is in the way.  Even before Moses intervenes on Israel’s behalf, begging God to remember Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Yahweh says, “Now let me alone…” 

Moses seems to function as a Christ-like figure, standing in the breech between humanity and God’s wrath.  But do we really think God is all set to destroy Israel when Moses somehow convinces God otherwise?  And the same problem exists with mechanical formulas for salvation where Jesus stands in the breech.  God is all set to nail us, but somehow Jesus comes in between.  Is this the true picture of God, a God itching to destroy but somehow dissuaded by Moses or Jesus?

Let me suggest that what we witness in the story of the golden calf, and in the story of the cross, is a profound tension within the heart of God, at least insomuch as we can know God.  The God of the Bible does not finally let us settle on a god of mercy or a god of judgment.  Walter Brueggemann writes, “This tension of mercy that forgives and sovereignty that will not be mocked is an endless adjudication for the God of the Bible, who permits no final or systematic resolve.  It is a tension that we all know in our most intimate and treasured relations.  In Exodus, the crisis is kept raw, alive, and unresolved.  It must be kept so for Moses and for Israel, as it is even for God’s own life.”[1]

This God Brueggemann speaks of is a little unsettling, a little hard to pin down, and problematic for those of us who want a god who is predictable, dependable, and logically consistent.  But this God we find in Exodus and at the cross is a living, dynamic God with an exciting vitality missing from our idols, whether they be golden calves or well-crafted theological constructs that conform to our particular inclinations.

If a non-Christian who had never visited a church decided to take in congregations covering a fairly wide theological spectrum, she could be forgiven if she concluded that we worshipped different gods.  We don’t of course, but we do have different idols, different pictures of God that we have constructed from various elements borrowed from Bible and other sources.  But what might happen if we considered tossing out our idols?

I sometimes wonder if the lack of vitality in many American congregations in recent decades isn’t because too many people have seen that our idols have no life.  The images of God we have constructed for ourselves have proved inadequate for people’s spiritual longings, and so they have gone looking elsewhere.  But what if we tossed our idols and settled images, and embraced the dynamic and somewhat unsettling God of the Exodus and the cross? 

All praise and glory to the God who rescues Israel from slavery, who commands faithful covenant obedience, and who comes to us in Jesus on a cross.

---

[1] Walter Brueggemann in The New Interpreter’s Bible: A Commentary in Twelve Volumes, Vol. I (Nashville, Abingdon Press, 1994) p. 935.

Spiritual Hiccups - Moving the Boundaries

This morning's gospel reading offers a stark contrast.  Jesus is asked by the leader of the synagogue to come and save his daughter who has just died.  Though the request seems impossible, likely no one was surprised that Jesus would try to help this important, religious leader. 

But on the way, a woman who was not allowed inside the synagogue approaches Jesus on the sly, wanting only to touch him in hopes of being healed.  Her 12 year hemorrhage meant that she had been religiously unclean all that time.  Perhaps she hopes that she can receive healing from Jesus without embarrassing him, without letting anyone know that by her touch she has just made him unclean as well.

But Jesus does not permit her healing to be a private one.  He turns and says to her, “Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.”  He heals her, but he also calls her daughter, a clear statement that she is one of the family, part of the community even though her illness has caused her to be ostracized.  And the phrase "made you well" translates a word often rendered "saved."  It can mean either, but perhaps more happens here than simply being made well.

Reading this story, I can't help wondering about who the people are in our day who have felt ostracized by the church, but whom Jesus embraces.  Sometimes I hear Christians speak disparagingly of outsiders, confident that their outsider status is their own fault.  No doubt people in Jesus day thought the same of this woman Jesus calls "daughter." 

In today's gospel, Jesus grace and healing are extended to the religious leader and the woman deemed unfit by the theology and practice of that leader.  I wonder who it is we in the church have written off or labeled "unclean" that Jesus would have us embrace and say to them, "Brother, sister, child of God."

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Spiritual Hiccups - The Social Contract

When we train church officers here so they can take communion to our members who are unable to attend worship, I almost always tell a story I heard many years ago.  A pastor and church elder had taken the Lord's Supper to an elderly woman who had been very active in her congregation for years but whose failing health now prevented her. As the pastor repeated the words of institution (found in today's epistle reading) and handed her the bread, she closed her eyes and began to describe people sitting in the sanctuary.  "I see Mabel sitting in the choir loft, and I see..." 

Even though this was "private communion," the woman correctly sensed that it was a communal event and not a private devotional experience.  As she took communion, she saw the body of Christ.  That is, she saw the gathered individuals who made up her congregation, the living body of Christ of which she was a part.

I have often heard people understand the Apostle Paul's words, "For all who eat and drink without discerning the body, eat and drink judgment against themselves," as referring to the presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper itself.  And while my tradition does speak of a genuine, spiritual presence in the meal, the body Paul speaks of is not the bread.  He is addressing divisions in the Corinthian congregation, and he sees those particularly present in the way they hold the Lord's Supper, with those who arrive early not waiting for those who cannot, for those with plenty not sharing with those who have little.  And just a bit later in his letter, Paul makes explicit his understanding of the congregation as the body, insisting that each of them is an integral and essential part of that body.

We Americans have long had a strong individualistic streak in us, but for much of our history this was tempered by a strong sense of community, by the notion of a "social contract" of which all were a part.  But this social contract seems to have faded in recent decades, and our the dark side of our individualism has run rampant.  The causes of this are likely many, but I have to think that the privatization of faith has played a role. 

The standard practice for serving the Lord's Supper in the congregations where I grew up was to pass plates of bread and trays of cups down the pews in a manner similar to passing offering plates.  Theologically speaking, we could speak of a communal act of members serving one another.  In practice, however, it became a very private event.  When I first became a pastor, I watched this with some care, and I noticed that people generally served themselves.  They took the plate or tray from the person next to them, took bread or cup for themselves, and then handed to the next person.  And rarely did anyone look at anyone else.

At that church, I tried to institute a practice of each person speaking to the person they handed the plate saying, "The bread of life," or the tray saying, "The cup of salvation."  But I found that people were very resistant.  They did not want to look at or speak to one another.  Sometimes I could not even get the church elders, the ones who took the plates and trays from the table to the pews, to start things off with "The bread of life."  Even though I had talked about it with them in meetings; even though they were given written instructions explaining the process, many would not speak when they started the plate down a pew.

The notion that faith can be mostly about personal belief and piety is a strange one.  Jesus was clear that the core of being God's people was an absolute love of God paired with love of neighbor.  The two are inseparable.  Yet in modern Christian practice, we have often separated them.

This surely has had a negative impact on our society at large, this loss of faith as a force that binds us together and encourages us to sacrifice for the good of the other.  When religious people lament faith's diminishing role in our culture, they usually talk about prayer in school and so forth.  But I see those as minor issues compared to a loss that was not imposed on the Church from the outside.  No one told us we had to turn faith into a private affair.  We did that on our own. 

Fortunately there are signs that a shift is underway.  More and more of us are recognizing that faith cannot be practiced in private.  It must be lived out in communities of practice that help form us into the body of Christ we are called to be.  And just as we cannot celebrate the Lord's Supper without discerning the body - the larger faith community - neither can we fully experience salvation in private.  The healing, wholeness, and newness that Jesus means by salvation always involves the other.  And I can't help but think that if those in the Church truly experienced this salvation, it would have profound impacts on recovering a renewed sense of a social contract in our nation as a whole.

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Spiritual Hiccups - Longing

As a deer longs for flowing streams,
   so my soul longs for you, O God.    
My soul thirsts for God,
   for the living God. 

I'm reading an interesting book called The Holy Longing: The Search for a Christian Spirituality.  The author speaks of all people having a spirituality, though he does not mean what some people mean by that term.  He says our spirituality is what we do with and how we channel the fire inside us.  All of us are driven by some sort of passion, desire, restlessness or fire.  Our spirituality is how we understand, channel, tap into, squelch, or navigate this energy.

Fire and energy were not much a part of my early faith experience.  "Decently and in order" is a favorite Presbyterian axiom, and the church I knew growing up was big on order, logic, and rationality, with little evidence of passion or fire.  And I suspect that this sort of experience has something to do with the many folk who profess to be "spiritual but not religious."  They presume (incorrectly, I believe) that religion is stifling to the passion they associate spirituality.

Certainly there are many examples of faith communities that do seem stifling to passion and fire.  Yet when I think of the many people who have died for the faith over the centuries, surely they were animated by remarkable passion that enabled such sacrifice. 

I wonder sometimes about the passions and fires that animate our society these days.  They are many and varied.  People have all sorts of causes and passions: the environment, ending poverty, stopping abortion, political ideologies, personal pleasure, making money, looking out for number one, patriotic fervor, and so on.  And I suspect that some of the partisan division in our day comes from the deficient spiritualities channeling such passions. Sometimes these passions sweep us up and lead us to foolish excesses that damage community and ignore civility.  But many of us have gone the other way and buried our passions so deep inside ourselves that we are more prone to depression than excess.  And we contribute to our society's dysfunction by our numbness, by defecting in place.

We Mainline Christians, who have sometimes shunted fire and passion aside in our religious communities, would do well to acknowledge our need for passion and longing, to recognize that any true Christian spirituality has to do with the powerful, dangerous, yet life giving power of the Holy Spirit.  We cannot simply do things decently and in order.  We must also be on fire for God.  We must thirst for the living God.

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Spiritual Hiccups - Who Am I, and Why Am I Here?

I have a lot of thoughts bouncing around in my head this morning, and when that happens, I always wonder if God is connected to any of them.  An elder in my church, in the context of a discussion on declining church attendance, wondered if congregations weren't asking the wrong question.  Rather than, "Why aren't people coming here on Sunday?" perhaps we should ask, "Why would anyone want to be a Christian these days?"

At the same time, I heard someone from another church complaining that the reason for decline in our Presbyterian denomination is that we have no real message, that we are afraid to call our members to the hard work of discipleship.

I wonder if there isn't a common thread to the comments from these two folks.  Do we Christians have a distinct enough identity that it has any real meaning in our world?  And if we don't have an identity, can we have a message?

In today's epistle, Paul writes to the church in Corinth, "'All things are lawful,' but not all things are beneficial. 'All things are lawful,' but not all things build up. Do not seek your own advantage, but that of the other."  The Corinthian congregation was apparently one with great energy but also great excesses, and some of them embraced their freedom in Christ to the extreme.  The particular issue here is eating meat sacrificed to idols.  (Much meat sold in Paul's day had been.)  Some Corinthians argued that since there was only one true God, what difference did it make where the meat came from.  Paul would grant them the logic of their argument, but he was more concerned about how these actions might impact others.  If their freedom had a negative impact on other believers or on the image of the community of faith, one should not exercise that freedom, says Paul.

Our culture is enamored with freedom and "my rights."  And even though the public is disgusted with the partisan gridlock in Washington, we keep it going by electing those we think will "protect my interests."  We rarely follow Paul's advice to seek the advantage of the other over our own.  Our individualism has grown so dominant, that we seemingly cannot.

Christianity in America has very often adopted the same individualistic mindset and in the process become a primarily private thing.  And the more private it becomes, the less possibility is has to give us a distinct identity.  We look no different from the world around us, and so our lives bear no witness to the possibility of a new life in Christ.

The Church did not set out to lose its identity.  But over the centuries, thinking of American as a "Christian nation" led to thinking that being a good citizen was perfectly compatible with faith and, further, that living as a good citizen in America would shape a person as a Christian.  All the Church need do was have worship and fill in a few of the finer doctrinal points.  Of course the problem with such a setup is that it depends on the culture keeping up its side of the bargain.  But our culture decided decades ago that it was just fine without us.  It stopped doing things to prop up the Church, and in the old, mainline denominations (those most tied to the culture), the decline has been steady ever since.

To be sure, the culture has lost out as well.  Faith once served as a restraint on the worst tendencies of individualism, tempering it with a commitment to community, to the neighbor.  Most certainly the decline of faith communities has contributed to a weakening of the social bonds that had helped balance my freedoms with the other's needs and well being.

But there is no going back to the 1950s, however appealing that might be to some.  Rather, people of faith must do the work of defining who we are in this time and place.  We have actually been given huge opportunity to consider afresh what it means to be a follower of Jesus, to think about what it means to be faithful in this age.  And then we will need to be able to transmit this identity to others.

I am more and more convinced that this will have two parts. The first is a deepening spirituality taught and practiced in our congregations.  We need to learn or relearn how to draw close to God, to listen for the Spirit, and discover our true humanity made in God's image.  And this will necessarily be paired with becoming communities of love who work for the good of the other.  People will not simply go to this church on Sunday.  Instead they will be the body of Christ together.

This work will be harder for older, established congregations than it might be for those less bound to old patterns forged during our old alliance with the culture.  But easy or hard, this is the work that is before us.  And in Christ, we are more than capable of the task.

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