What's It All About?

We live in a time when there are lot of questions about what church is going to look like in the future.  Terms like post-modern and emergent are now a regular part of church jargon. And while there is not much consensus on where things are headed, there is more general agreement that church models and forms and practices are in flux, that this is a time of great transition.

But I suspect that uncertainties and conflicts about methods and styles and forms also reflect uncertainties with regard to what it means to be Christian.  Some of the things I took for granted as a child in church are no longer givens.  My Southern Baptist and Methodist playmates might have looked and sounded a bit different from this Presbyterian, but deep down we all knew the Christianity was primarily about saving your soul, about getting your ticket punched for heaven.  There were also sides of morality and blessings from God on the menu, but the main course was heaven when you died.

This ticket to heaven revolved around Jesus, of course.  It seems that God would have had to punish us, but thanks to a magic formula with Jesus as central ingredient, we could get a pass, getting into heaven even though we didn't merit it.  Pity those poor folk who thought they could get in by being good.  Turns out that didn't work. You have to know the Jesus password.  Those folks who imagined they could make it without Jesus were only fooling themselves.  You can't be good enough for God. 

To the degree I ever thought of such things as a child, I assumed that those who rejected Jesus mistakenly thought they were good enough on their own and didn't realize what a terrible fix they were in because of this mistake. (I do recall once arguing with a Baptist friend that since it was only a mistake and not intentional evil on their part, surely God wouldn't send Jews to hell.)  I don't think it ever occurred to me that Jewish people knew all about God's grace long before Jesus showed up, as can be seen in today's reading, Psalm 143.

Hear my prayer, O LORD;
    give ear to my supplications in your faithfulness;
    answer me in your righteousness. Do not enter into judgment with your servant,
    for no one living is righteous before you.

There it is right there. "I'm not right before you, God.  Please don't judge me because like everyone else, I fall short."  And the psalmist doesn't say anything about going to heaven.  Judgment and salvation for him have nothing to do with heaven. They are much more present and concrete.

It comes as a surprise to many Christians to learn that Jesus didn't speak very much about heaven either, and when he did he wasn't talking about us going there.  On the other hand, Jesus did talk a lot about the Kingdom, about a coming reign of God that his followers were to get ready for.  And this kingdom was not off-world.  It was breaking out here and there, within Jesus' followers, and it would eventually involve all of creation which itself "waits with eager longing" for that day, according to the Apostle Paul.

But if it doesn't require Jesus to know about God's grace, and if Jesus didn't come to get us to heaven (something Brian McLaren calls a "gospel of evacuation"), what's it all about?  I think answering this question is the vital task of the church in our day. 

Certainly the promise of eternal life is key component of Christianity, but popular notions of immortal souls are extra-biblical ideas imported from Greek philosophy, entirely foreign to Jesus and Paul and other early Christians.  And eternal life is not the end to which Christian faith aspires.  That end is the kingdom, the new heaven and new earth, the day when God's will is done on earth as it is in heaven, when earth becomes heaven-like.

In the notions of Christianity I picked up as a child, God doesn't really come off all that well.  God is forever sending folks to hell and some day will get so fed up that the whole world gets fried.  But it turns out that much of this view is not inherently biblical, and we Protestant Christians have long made a big deal about being biblical.  The biblical God comes off much better than the popular one I met as a child, a God you only wanted to be around if Jesus was there to keep God from getting you.  The biblical God has no plans to destroy the world, rapture anyone, or leave anyone behind.  The biblical God desperately wants to move the world toward a better future and is relentless in trying to draw us into that work, to enlist us as people who can show the world what they new day looks like.

It seems to me that a hopeful, loving, faith-driven vision of the future is something the world desperately needs right now.  It doesn't need a gospel of evacuation.  It needs a gospel of hope for a redeemed future.  It needs more people who have learned to live by the ways of heaven, not because they're getting ready to go there, but because they're getting the world ready for it to come here.  The world needs a Christianity that proclaims God's love for the world, a love that will not simply let the world do itself in, but will, in ways that confound and surprise us, bring life out of death and hope and possibility in the midst of cynicism and despair.

Whew! I'm getting wound up.  Think I'll stop now.

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When Things Are Bad

My own little difficulties drew me into today's reading from Job, but the situation along the Gulf Coast gave it a much sharper focus.  If posts on Facebook and Twitter are any guide, prayers for people along the Gulf are legion, yet Hurricane Isaac now seems to have parked over the New Orleans area, threatening to pummel the region with rain and floods for days.  Is that anyway to respond to our prayers, God?

Lots of people seem to know Job only from his reputation for patience, and so they might not recognize today's reading as words addressed to God from Job's lips.  "I loathe my life; I would not live forever. Let me alone, for my days are a breath. What are human beings, that you make so much of them, that you set your mind on them, visit them every morning, test them every moment? Will you not look away from me for a while, let me alone until I swallow my spittle? If I sin, what do I do to you, you watcher of humanity? Why have you made me your target? Why have I become a burden to you? Why do you not pardon my transgression and take away my iniquity? For now I shall lie in the earth; you will seek me, but I shall not be." So much for patience.

Far too many people of faith seem unaware of these words or the fact that they are a faithful response to God.  The book of Job was written to address the Pat Robertsons of that day who argued that blessings came to good and faithful folks while curses came to those who did not walk in God's ways.  The book of Job is the strongest repudiation of neat and easy faith with all the answers.  There is no good reason for Job's horrible suffering, and even when God responds, there is no truly satisfactory answer.

I feel confident that those who claim to know why Hurricane Isaac is battering New Orleans on the very anniversary of Katrina know very little of genuine, biblical faith.  They are hucksters advertising an easy but ultimately false and worthless substitute.  Real faith must live with unanswerable questions and uncertainties.  Real faith will at times be confused, upset, or angry with God, yet still somehow rest in God.

I don't have much use for faith platitudes, but I do find that faith often deepens more in those moments of confusion, upset, doubt, and anger towards God.  "Be good and get rewarded;" that's not faith.  That's a formula or a contract.

I'm not real happy with God right now, and not just about New Orleans.  But Syria and homelessness are at least things we humans should be able to do something about.  And so I'll keep praying for those in the Gulf, and for Syria and the homeless.  I'll shake my head and maybe my fists in God's direction now and then. But I've experienced God's touch enough that I will still know that God is God, and even though I often cannot see it, God is indeed bending the flow of history toward the good. 

I do not think this is provable to anyone who has never felt God's touch, and I'll leave such proofs to the hucksters who peddle other trite items that pass for faith.  And despite things I cannot understand, despite very real suffering that is horrible and unjustified and tragic, despite ample evidence to the contrary, I will still somehow trust that creation is ultimately and finally in the good hands of a loving God.

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Sermon video - Armed and Ready

Sermon audio - Armed and Ready

Sermon and worship audios also available on church website.

Did I Offend You?

In today's reading from John, Jesus has been engaging in some provocative teachings about eating his flesh and drinking his blood that upset some of his followers, leading Jesus to ask, "Does this offend you?"  Some of the language in this episode is peculiar to John's gospel, and its exact meaning is subject to much interpretation, but Jesus could be equally offensive in the other three gospels. In fact, Jesus is forever saying things that must have caused potential followers turn away in droves.

Fast forward a couple thousand years to a time when many churches are dealing with declining membership and declining participation.  While some congregations are doing just fine, the overall percentage of people connected to church in some way has been in a slow, steady drop for decades. In such a climate, it is no surprise that discussions on how to retain and attract members have a certain sense of urgency. And surely the last thing we would want to do at such a moment is offend anyone.

In our stewardship campaign this Fall, we are trying to focus less on dollar amounts and more on the spiritual side of giving. One part of this is to talk about percentage giving and encouraging people to make a small step toward tithing. The idea is that this is a lot more manageable, a lot less offensive, than just saying, "You need to give 10% of your income to God."  That is so far from an average of near 2% given by the typical Presbyterian that likely no one would respond well to such a call.

But as someone on the Stewardship committee rightly pointed out, even a small step toward a tithe could be a good chunk of change for someone making the kind of salary common in the DC area.  Do we really want to ask people to step up like that?  Do we really want to ask people to do something they may feel unable to do?

I think such questions go well beyond issues of stewardship.  They are basic faith questions.  Jesus had no trouble issuing very difficult charges to his followers, right up to demanding that they be willing to lose their lives.  But Jesus lived in a very different time.  We don't dare use his language today. We might offend.  Worse, we might scare people away.

Think about the groups, organizations, and relationships that have had the most meaning and impact in your life.  In my own life, and in conversations with others, these are most often entities that place significant demands on us.  Sports teams, fraternities and sororities, military units, Peace Corps and Teach for America, marriage and families, etc. all demand a large piece of us.  Those who can't give the required commitment never experience the camaraderie of the team or squad. Those unable to fully invest themselves find enduring marriage difficult if not impossible.  Those unable ever to let their own needs become secondary to cause or family miss out on something that can never be fully explained to those who've never experienced it.

The same dynamics apply to faith, to relationship with God in Christ, which is why Jesus can say that those who lose their lives for his sake and the sake of the gospel will find them.  So why are we so afraid we might offend someone if we ask much of them?  Why are we so afraid to do as Jesus said?  "Go, and make disciples of all peoples, baptizing them... and teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you."

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Pray for Me

Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me,
    for in you my soul takes refuge; 
in the shadow of your wings I will take refuge,
    until the destroying storms pass by. I cry to God Most High,
    to God who fulfills his purpose for me.
He will send from heaven and save me.      from Ps. 57

 As a pastor, I frequently get "prayer requests."  People are going through some difficulty, or they know someone who is, and they ask me to pray for them.  I am more than happy to do so, and we also print people's names in our Sunday bulletin so that other church members can pray for them as well.  I do wonder, however, if our prayer patterns don't sometimes get a little off kilter.

We Presbyterians very intentionally do not have priests.  We believe in "the priesthood of all believers" and do not think pastors have any better access to God than other people. Because we pastors lead corporate worship, we often lead the congregation in prayer, often sharing prayer requests with the larger congregation in so doing, but that does not mean a prayer counts more when the pastor says it.

Another problem with our prayer patterns sometimes develops when it becomes primarily a divine request line.  Prayer should be a way that we draw close to God, the way we interact with God, engaging in kind of shared intimacy.  But sometimes it becomes little more than requests for favors, a formalized practice meant to get results. And this probably contributes to the idea that such requests are best left to the pros, the pastors.

But for me, the biggest issue with prayer is about trusting that it matters, that God is actually engaged in my life and the lives of others.  For me, prayer can become mostly inner soul searching.  All too often, I don't come to God with something concrete unless I'm at wits end and have no where else to turn.  Such prayers can have a "This probably won't help, but it can't hurt" sense about them, a little like buying a lottery ticket in the midst of a financial crisis.

I think I was so turned off by some Christians who seem to treat God as a genie in a bottle who always come through if you have enough faith, pray correctly, etc, that I avoid anything that sounds like them.  But when I cannot talk with God about what I feel that I need, what sort of relationship is that?  Perhaps God will have to help me realize that I don't need it after all, but such a conversation isn't likely to take place without my speaking up.

Perhaps this is where faith really comes in with regards to prayer.  It's not so much about God doing what we want if we have faith.  Rather it is about having enough faith truly to entrust our lives to God, to believe that God is intimately involved in them and impacts what happens in our lives.  Not that God is any sort of heavenly Santa Clause. Faith and prayer are about trusting that God acts to shape the trajectory of our lives and the events in them so that we begin to discover who we truly are and what our true purpose is.

And when I can trust that God acts in my life, then I can also trust that God acts in the lives of others, and so I will want to pray for them as well.  And so I'll pray for you, and I hope you'll pray for me.

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Update on sermon videos

Thanks to technical help from Bruce Gilbert and Christ Growney, the technical problems with recording sermon videos seem to have been overcome.  Last Sunday's video is now up on YouTube, and hopefully this week's will be available soon.

Sermon - Armed and Ready

Ephesians 6:10-20

Armed and Ready

James Sledge                                                                                       August 26, 2012

When I was a kid, a favorite hymn of many of the adults around me in church was “Onward, Christian Soldiers.”  And I don’t think the churches where I grew up were unusual in that regard.  As part of its Olympic coverage, NBC had a documentary on Great Britain during World War II, and in it they told of Winston Churchill’s attempts to woo President Roosevelt and get American support for Britain in that period when England was the last holdout against Hitler in Europe but American had not yet been drawn into the war.  During one of their meetings, Churchill had a military chorus sing several hymns, including “Onward, Christian Soldiers,” and it apparently had a profound and moving impact on FDR.

And so in 1989, when the committee charged with producing a new Presbyterian Hymnal finished its work, culminating in the Blue hymnal that sits in the pews of this sanctuary, it was not long before a cry went up about the old favorites that had gone missing, notable among them, “Onward, Christian Soldiers.”

I was a pretty marginal member of the church in the late 1980s, and I had little knowledge of church politics or the work of hymnal committees.  But from what I’ve heard, the hymn had a couple of strikes against it.  There were music folks who didn’t think the tune anything all that great, and then there was the militaristic sound and theme.  If you’re not familiar with the hymn, it felt as though it could have been a military march. 

Any new hymnal has to drop some old hymns if it is to add any new ones, and it’s hardly surprising this one lost out.  In the post-Vietnam era, the last thing the Presbyterian Church wanted to do was sound militaristic.  In my imagination I can just see some hymnal committee member saying, “Let the Southern Baptists sing ‘Onward, Christian Soldiers’ if they want to, but not us.”

Now I can’t say that there have been many occasions when I wished the hymn was available to go with one of my sermons.  If I had been on that hymnal committee, I likely would have been happy to see it get kicked out.  But something Kathleen Norris wrote in her book, The Cloister Walk, made me wonder about how easily I disliked the hymn for its military imagery.  Norris was lamenting modern America’s literalism and difficulty with metaphor, and she writes, “Poets believe in metaphor, and that alone sets them apart from many Christians, particularly people educated to be pastors and church workers.  As one pastor of Spencer Memorial – by no means a conservative on theological or social issues – once said in a sermon, many Christians can no longer recognize that the most significant part of the first line of ‘Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to war,’ is the word ‘as.’  (The hymn has been censored out of our new hymnal by the literal-minded, but we sing it anyway.) ”[1]  

Not Enough Like Me

"Love your neighbor as yourself."  If you're Christian, and even if you're not, you're likely familiar with this command.  Jesus says that loving God with our entire being and loving our neighbor as ourselves pretty much covers it all.  Do these, and everything else falls into place.  And so as a pastor, I encourage people to love their neighbors, to love one another. But at the very same time, I have to admit that I often struggle to love some folks.

It's all their fault of course.  They are mean, or troublesome, or hateful, or manipulative, or controlling, or strange, or stupid, or hold political views I find repugnant, or some other thing that bothers me.  I'd be happy to love them, but they make it very difficult.  I'm all ready to love them, but their behavior, demeanor, beliefs, or plain oddness prevents me.

In today's passage from Acts, the Ethiopian eunuch asks a simple question.  "What is to prevent me from being baptized?" But in the time these words were written, most everyone who read them would have known precisely what. And they were huge barriers.  The man was a Gentile to begin with, a big obstacle though not necessarily an insurmountable one.  But he was also a eunuch, and Scripture was clear that eunuchs weren't allowed.

I have to think that the very first time the story of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch was read in a church gathering, some members got upset, maybe even thought about leaving. It had been one thing to hear about Jesus telling them to love their neighbor and even to love their enemy.  But that was all a bit esoteric.  This was a concrete example of reaching out to embrace someone who didn't fit, who didn't belong.  But the normal thinking that should have prevented Philip from loving this fellow didn't work as it was supposed to. Philip loved him even though he shouldn't have.

The other day I was thinking about the people I follow on Twitter, and the huge majority of the them are either folks I find entertaining, or that I find it easy to like. I don't follow many folks who are significantly different from me, whose politics I don't like, or who say things that upset me.  Nothing strange about that, I suppose. But this little, virtual community is a lot like real ones, a lot like many church  congregations.  Churches are often filled with people who find it easy to like or love one another.  And so churches are often segregated along political, economic, social, and racial lines.  Our unity is not in Christ, but in other things that make is easy for us to get along.  Often we form faith communities with people whose looks, politics, tastes, etc. don't prevent us from loving them.

American individualism combined with consumerism helps produce a religious climate where people of faith "church shop," looking of a community that fits their tastes, needs, wants, and desires.  We're so used to this that we scarcely think about it. But it is a bit hard to reconcile with "There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male or female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus."

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Money Trouble

For those churches that conduct annual stewardship campaigns (this congregation among them) the season is fast approaching.  Falls Church Presbyterian is putting the final touches on our campaign for this year.  After all, running a church takes a good bit of money.  There are salaries to pay, utilities, and perhaps a mortgage.  There are music programs, educational programs, mission to the community and world, and these all cost money.

But the relationship of faith and money is often a troublesome one.  To disciples who assumed that great wealth was a sign of God's blessing, Jesus said, "How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!"  And today's reading from Acts raises another issue, thinking our money can buy us what we most want.

When a man named Simon saw the Holy Spirit enter people when Peter and John laid hands on them, he offered money that he might have the power to confer the Spirit as well.  But his request meets with harsh condemnation from Peter, who demands that Simon repent saying, "For I see that you are in the gall of bitterness and the chains of wickedness."

Most of us would never be so brazen as to ask to purchase power from God. For that matter, many of us realize that we cannot earn anything from God, that God loves us because that's how God is.  And yet when stewardship season rolls around, we often start sounding like one of those regular PBS fundraisers.  "If you enjoy the great programing on your PBS station, you need to support that station." "If you enjoy the great music program at Falls Church Presbyterian, you need to support that program." 

It's a considerably more nuanced approach that the one Simon employs, but there are similarities.  "If you enjoy the worship and like how it helps you experience God, you need to pay for it."

I do not think that churches need to make any apologies for needing money to pay salaries and operate facilities, programs, and mission.  But the relationship of faith any money creates real spiritual problems for both individuals and the church itself. 

Many are familiar with the statement that says, "Budgets are moral documents."  The way governments divide up the money they have speaks volumes about a people's moral priorities.  In the same way, church budgets and personal budgets are spiritual documents, speaking volumes about our faith priorities.  But when churches use the PBS approach - "If you like it, you ought to pay for it." - we reduce a spiritual issue to a practical one, and we fail to call members to the discipleship Jesus asks of us.  Jesus says we are to love God with all that we have and are, and to love our neighbor as ourself, and he insists that money is one of the biggest obstacle to faithful life with God.  But all too often, we undercut Jesus' call, instead saying, "If you like what we're doing here, please give us a tiny bit of your leftovers after you've made sure you and yours have all that you want and need."

I don't for a moment think that Jesus meant generosity toward God and neighbor is the same thing as giving to the local church.  I have absolutely no issues with those who have felt God calling them to give extravagantly to some cause that furthers the peace, justice, mercy, and hope of God's coming reign.  But in my experience, and in every study I've ever seen, people of faith who are extravagantly generous with causes and organizations that work to better community and world are equally generous with their place of worship.

In a way, I suppose it all comes back to how I view myself and thus my possessions.  Am I my own, or do I belong to God?  And if "I belong -- body and soul, in life and in death -- not to myself but to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ," then it stands to reason that in some way, all that I have belongs to him as well.  Now Jesus is a great guy, and he is more than happy for us to use some of it to live, to meet our basic needs, to enjoy life, and to have a good time now and then.  After all, Jesus liked a good party and a little wine.  But he also said we had to lose ourselves in order to discover true life.  And I'm pretty sure you can't lose much when you're busy keeping your wallet tightly closed.

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Opposing the Spirit

"You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you are forever opposing the Holy Spirit, just as your ancestors used to do. Which of the prophets did your ancestors not persecute?"  So says Stephen as his "trial" concludes in today's reading from Acts.  Hardly the way to talk to people who have power over you. No wonder Stephen gets executed.  But I suppose Stephen knows the whole thing is a foregone conclusion.  However, it was not Stephen's plight that caught my attention.  It was the content of his statement, and I found myself wondering if things have changed very much since Stephen spoke. 

I think we all tend to look back on colossal bad judgements of the past and assume we wouldn't have acted so foolishly. We like to think we would have always been on the right side of history, but the witness of history makes that seem unlikely.  Prophets are almost always a lot more popular after the fact.  Martin Luther King, Jr. is celebrated with regularity now, but that was not the case 50 years ago.  Even "progressive," white pastors asked King to tone it down and go slower, a request he rebuffed eloquently in his, Why We Can't Wait. 

Even those who were on the right side of history with regards to Civil Rights or other movements should likely not fee too smug. There's a good chance of finding yourself on the wrong side of another movement.  I've had a number of young, progressive reformers tell me that "old progressives" are sometimes their biggest obstacle because of how encrusted they have become.

All of this makes me wonder when and where I might be working counter to the Spirit.  As a pastor, it stands to reason that there are times when I am called to be prophetic. But if prophets are uniformly persecuted, as Stephen suggests, that's no fun.  Perhaps I could just be prophetic about things that are distant and far off, with no implications for my congregation or community.  Maybe that would insulate me.

I think one of my biggest fears as a pastor is finding out after the fact that I was working against the Spirit's moving to reform my own denomination.  As a group, we're on the progressive side, but we are also on the encrusted side.  I hear a lot of young pastors and other Presbyterians who are very frustrated with the church.  They have my sympathies, but as our denomination plods along toward the future, I wonder sometimes if I'm not a little like some members of the Jewish council who had misgivings about the proceedings against Stephen, but who didn't want to call too much attention to themselves by standing up.

I am fortunate to serve in a wonderful, vibrant congregation that that is considerably younger than the typical Presbyterian church.  But in a world where fewer and fewer people grow up in church, I wonder how well situated we are to translate faith to coming generations.  The worship here is well done, and the music program is unbelievably good.  Yet if you somehow time warped one of our services back to the sanctuary where I was seated in 1968 (a place that also had a stellar music program), I don't know that I would have noticed very much difference.

To any FCPC folks reading this, don't get nervous.  I'm not suggesting anything. I'm just wondering.  I wondering what it means to be a faithful church in the vastly different religious landscape of 2012. I wondering what the Spirit is up to, and whether I am spiritually astute enough to notice.  I'm wondering what words Stephen would have for me.

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Sermon audio - Letting Go and Falling into God

Sermon and worship audios also available at Falls Church Presbyterian website.