Yesterday was his 83rd birthday. In school, most of us read the edited half-version of this speech. If you have never seen the full 17 minute version, I recommend that you take some time to do so now. Pay special attention to what happens about 11 minutes into the speech: he stops looking at his notes.
He wasn’t martyred for being a nice guy and singing ‘Kumbaya’. He was an agitator for equality who shook the powers in their high places. He is still singing ‘We Shall Overcome’.
Via dustcastlebuilder, a regular reader/commenter.
Starting a new sermon series at First Pres, Boonville. This is part 1 of 5.
The text is II Timothy 3:10-17.
Click here to listen to the recording of this sermon at fpcboonville.org
Does anybody here remember the Periodic Table? I’m taking you back to 6th grade science class on this one. It’s an oddly shaped chart of letters and numbers that’s somehow supposed to explain everything that exists. Personally, I always thought it looked like somebody started writing the alphabet and then got really confused. I’m told that students used to have to memorize the whole thing, but they did away with that by the time I got to Middle School (mostly because scientists were coming up with all kinds of new additions like Einsteinium and Nobelium, so the Table was getting bigger every year). These days, I think we’re up 118 entries. The Periodic Table is divided into metals on the left and non-metals on the right. At the far right, there are the Noble Gases like Helium and Radon. On the far left are the Alkaline metals like Lithium. Each individual unit on the Periodic Table is called an element. Elements are the basic units of chemistry. An element represents the most basic level to which a compound or molecule can be broken down using chemical processes. To go any father (i.e. protons, neutrons, and electrons), you’ve got to use nuclear means. So, they are called elements because they are the basic components of the science of chemistry. In the olden days, that same term was applied to the basic forces of nature: earth, air, water, and fire. These were called the four elements. These days, when kids get old enough to go to school, they begin at a basic and introductory level in an elementary school. An element is a basic component of some larger system or process.
Starting today and continuing for the next four Sundays, we’re going to be talking about elements in church. Now, we won’t be talking about chemical elements on the Periodic Table. No, for these five Sundays, we’ll be talking about the Elements of Worship. We’ll be looking at a kind of Periodic Table for the Church, if you will. Each week, we’re going to look at a different element and see how each element fits into the big picture of what we do each week in church. There are five Elements of Worship that we’ll be looking at. The five elements are as follows: Word, Prayer, Service, Sacrament, and Relationship. Everything we do in church, from the Announcements to the Benediction, is made up of these five elements in some combination and configuration: Word, Prayer, Service, Sacrament, and Relationship. Even though we’re only focusing on one element per week, it will quickly become clear that none of these exists in isolation from the others. They are all connected and intertwined with each other like a great big spider web. We can’t really think about one without touching on the others. Nevertheless, you’ve got to start somewhere. So let’s get going…
This week, we’re focusing on the element of the Word. By that, we specifically mean the Word of God. Now, I know what you’re all thinking right now: “I know what that is. He means the Bible. The Word of God is the Bible.” My answer to that is: “Well, yes and no.” You see, the Bible never actually refers to itself as “the Word of God”. In the Hebrew Scriptures (what we call the Old Testament), “the Word of God” typically refers to a particular message that came to particular prophet at a particular place and time. Thus, it says in Genesis 15, “The word of the Lord came to Abram”. Later on, in the New Testament, “the Word” mostly refers to Christ himself. Jesus Christ is the living Word of God. Thus, the Word of God is a person, not a book.
What then can we say about the Bible? First of all, the Bible is more of a library than a book. It is a massive collection of stories, poems, and letters composed and compiled over a period of many centuries. Thus, I like to refer to them as “the scriptures” (plural) rather than “the Bible” (singular). These writings chronicle the ongoing relationship between God and God’s people. Opening the scriptures is kind of like finding your grandparents’ old love letters in a trunk in the attic. When you read them, you get these insightful little snapshots into a romance that has spanned the ages. We treasure these fragments but we would never mistake them for the relationship itself. That is something that can only be experienced firsthand. Thus, the scriptures point beyond themselves to the deeper reality of a relationship into which you and I are invited. Marcus Borg calls the scriptures “a finger pointing to the moon.” If you’re looking at the finger, you’re looking at the wrong thing. Look instead to where the finger is pointing. Then and only then will you “get the point”. Jesus himself said as much in John 5 as he was debating with the Pharisees, a group of religious people who had worked very hard to preserve the scriptures in their own tradition. Jesus said to the Pharisees, “You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that testify on my behalf.” The scriptures point beyond themselves. They are a means to an end, not an end in themselves.
In this day and age when the culture prizes knowledge that can be objectively verified and scientifically proved, people of faith often experience the temptation to find absolute certainty on historic and scientific facts documented in the scriptures. They believe that the authors of the scriptures were inspired by God in the same way that a secretary takes down a dictation. For them, the Bible (singular) is literally “the Word of God”. They see the Bible as a single book with a single author who can never be wrong.
Reading the scriptures in this way can provide a comforting level of certainty in these uncertain times, but it can also cause all sorts of problems. First of all, the words of the scriptures can be and have been used to justify all manner of brutality and injustice. Advocates for slavery, exploitation, genocide, racism, sexism, and homophobia have all used the texts of the scriptures to support their causes. A further (and bigger) problem that arises when we read the Bible as the literal Word of God is that our confidence in the book actually undermines our faith in God. We mistake that box of Grandma and Grandpa’s love letters for the relationship itself. We worship the Bible instead of God. It seems to me that the second of the Ten Commandments has something to say about that: “You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.” The way I like to read that sentence is: “You can’t put God in a box.” I think the same holds true whether that box is a statue, a building, or a book. Make no mistake: worshiping the Bible in God’s place is idolatry.
Presbyterians, on the whole, do not tend to view the scriptures as a single, inerrant document. We see them collectively as the “unique and authoritative witness” to Jesus Christ as the living Word of God. For us, the scriptures are that “finger pointing to the moon” and we want to look (and go to) where that finger is pointing us. We want to get closer to Jesus. We want to grow in our relationship with God. For us, the stories, poems, and letters contained in the scriptures are a record of our ancestors’ relationship with God, centering around this amazing person named Jesus. They remembered, reflected on, and wrestled with everything his life meant to them. Finally, they wrote it all down in the best way they knew how, using the words and ideas they had available to them at that time.
And so we listen: we listen to these words of our fellow human beings with the ears on our heads, but we also listen for the Word of God with the ears of our hearts. We believe the Word of God still speaks to us through these human words, limited and imperfect though they may be. To do this, we need help. In order to take us from these human words to God’s Word, we need something Presbyterians call “the inward illumination of the Holy Spirit”. That’s why we stop to say a short prayer right before we read from the scriptures each week during worship. Go ahead and check it out in your bulletin. Right before the scripture reading, there is something called the Prayer for Illumination. We’re asking God to turn the lights on inside of us so that we can see things more clearly. We’re asking the Holy Spirit to help us find God’s Word in these human words. This event is central to our worship as Christians. When we come together, we prepare ourselves to receive God’s Word by gathering together, praising God, confessing our shortcomings, and making peace with our neighbors. We listen for God’s Word in the reading of the scriptures and reflection on the sermon. We respond to God’s Word by affirming our faith, praying for our needs, giving thanks for God’s blessings, and offering our whole lives to God’s service in the world. Finally, we follow God’s Word back out into the world, trusting that the One who meets us in this place will continue to guide us out there during the other six days of the week. It’s all about God’s Word, not a book but a person, Jesus Christ: God’s living Word. As the lights come on inside of us and we begin to hear God’s Word through the human words of the scriptures, our lives will begin to look more like Jesus’ life: the life of a radical healer, teacher, revolutionary, and friend.
I can’t help but mention the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, whose 83rd birthday just so happens to be today. Dr. King knew what we’re talking about today. During his lifetime, people from all over the United States, even pastors, used the words of our scriptures to put him down and keep African American people under the thumb of segregation. But Dr. King didn’t listen to those words. He opened the scriptures and heard the Word of God saying to him (in the words of the prophet Amos), “Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” The Word of God showed Dr. King how to dream that his “four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” In spite of being ridiculed, beaten and arrested, Dr. King heard God’s Word in the book of Isaiah, dreaming of that day when “every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.” On that day, he said, all God’s children: black and white, Jew and Gentile, Protestant and Catholic, will join hands and sing together, “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!” Through the inward illumination of the Holy Spirit, these ancient scriptures became for Dr. King vessels for the Word of God. That same Spirit lives in you, illumines you. May the Word of God be a lamp unto your feet and a light unto your path. May you be able to say, along with Martin Luther King:
I’ve heard the lightning flashing, and heard the thunder roll.
I’ve felt sin’s breakers dashing, try’n to conquer my soul.
But I’ve heard the voice of Jesus telling me still to fight on.He promised never to leave me, no, never alone.
Erudite criticism from William Stringfellow in An Ethic for Christians and Other Aliens in a Strange Land:
The preemption of truth with prefabricated, fictionalized versions of facts and events and the usurpation of truth by propaganda and official lies are stratagems of the demonic powers much facilitated by other language contortions or abuses that the principalities and authorities foster. These include heavy euphemism and coded phrases, the inversion of definitions, jargon, hyperbole, misnomer, slogan, argot, shibboleth, cliché. The powers enthrall, delude, and enslave human beings by stopping comprehension with doublespeak as Orwell named it…
Doublespeak has been solemnly pronounced to deceive citizens, not to mention the Congress, about every escalation, every corruption, every wasted appropriation, every casualty report, every abdication of command responsibility and every insubordination, every atrocity of the war. For example, the cliché “winding down the war” has concealed the most deadly acceleration of firepower and destructive capability in the entire history of warfare on this planet…
Sometimes doublespeak is overtalk, in which the media themselves so accentuate volume, speed, and redundance that communication is incapacitated (even where the data transmitted may not be false or deceptive). The auditor’s mind is so insulated, inundated, or transfixed by verbal and visual technology that it is crippled or immobilized.
Here is a link to an article in the Utica Phoenix, following up on recent events that I wrote about in a previous post entitled Setting A Higher Standard.
Here is the article:
This week’s sermon from First Pres, Boonville.
Back when I was a kid, we used to have a snarky way of telling people we didn’t want them to be part of a conversation. We’d say, “This is an A-B conversation, so C your way out of it!” In that same vein, we also used credit card names, saying, “This is a Visa-Mastercard conversation, so Discover your way out of it!” Neither of those is very nice. And today, I want to invite you to do the opposite. I would like for you to C your way into this particular A-B conversation. Even better, I would love for you to Discover yourself in this conversation.
We’re talking about baptism today. First of all, we’re remembering Jesus’ baptism by John in the Jordan River. Second, we’re welcoming a new family into our church, three of whom will be joining by baptism. Even though we’re talking about these two specific events, one that occurred two thousand years ago and another that will occur in a few minutes, I would like for all of us to see through them to the one great universal event that encompasses all of us in its grand embrace.
Let’s look first at Jesus’ baptism. We read that story this morning from the first chapter of Mark’s gospel, the second book in the New Testament canon. What’s interesting is that this is where Mark chooses to begin his retelling of the Jesus story. There is no Christmas story in Mark’s gospel: no angels, shepherds, magi, manger, or virgin birth. For whatever reason, Jesus felt compelled to join with John, the passionate preacher and activist, in his grassroots movement for spiritual revival and social change. Everyday people were inspired by and responding to John’s call to renewal but the religious and political authorities were suspicious.
John made use of an ancient Jewish ritual bath, called tevilah, as a sign of personal commitment to this movement. Tevilah washing was common for ancient Jews. Women did it monthly for sanitary reasons, all Jews did it at least once a year before Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement), and Gentiles did it when they converted to Judaism. Moreover, there were several smaller washings that took place daily for both sanitary and religious reasons.
This, by the way, is why many Jews were spared from the horrors of the Bubonic Plague in medieval Europe. Christians falsely accused them of causing the plague by poisoning the wells. The reality is that the Bubonic Plague was caused by fleas that arrived in Europe on the backs of shipboard rats. Jewish religion required regular bathing while Christian religion did not. Jewish people got sick less frequently simply because they were much cleaner than their Christian neighbors. Alas, this did not stop our forebears from concocting all sorts of slanderous conspiracy theories. But I digress.
John made use of this very familiar Jewish ritual as a symbol of hope and dedication. John had a hunch that he was getting people ready for something big that was about to happen, although he might not have been totally sure about exactly what that was. And then, here comes Jesus.
At first glance, there didn’t seem to be anything particularly unusual about Jesus. According to Mark’s gospel, there’s not even any indication that Jesus himself knew what was about to happen. He was just another person who felt drawn to this radical and passionate preacher. He decides that this is the place for him, his spiritual home, so he undergoes John’s symbolic cleansing ritual.
And then something happened that wasn’t part of the ritual. Jesus had a spiritual awakening. Compare it to Moses beholding the glory of God on top of the mountain or the Buddha attaining Enlightenment while meditating under a tree. The text of Mark’s gospel tells us, “just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him.”
Earlier this week, I was listening to a biblical scholar named Marcus Borg talk about a similar series of experiences that once happened to him. He describes these mystical experiences in language that will sound less poetic and more familiar to our modern ears:
[These mystical experiences] began to occur in my early thirties. They changed my understanding of the meaning of the word “God”-of what that word points to-and gave me an unshakable conviction that God (or “the sacred”) is real and can be experienced…
I saw the same visual “landscape” – a forest, a room, the inside of an airliner – that I normally see…
For a minute or two (and once for the better part of an hour), what I was seeing looked very different. Light became different – as if there were a radiance shining through everything. The biblical phrase for this is “the glory of God” – as the book of Isaiah puts it, “the earth is filled with the glory – the radiance – of God. The world was transfigured, even as it remained “the same.” And I experienced a falling away of the subject-object distinction that marks our ordinary everyday experience – that sense of being a separate self, “in here,” while the world is “out there.”
They were… experiences in which I felt that I was seeing more clearly than I ever had before – that what I was experiencing was “the way things are.” And they were also experiences of complete peacefulness, marked by a sense that I would love to stay in this mental state forever. Anxiety and distraction utterly disappeared. Everything looked beautiful.
I imagine that when Mark’s gospel tells us that Jesus “saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove” it is describing the kind of experience that Marcus Borg was speaking about.
Next, Jesus hears a voice speaking to him. We aren’t exactly told whose voice is speaking, but it makes sense to infer that it must be the voice of God. The voice says to Jesus, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” Let’s narrow it down: “Love.” The voice from heaven is the voice of Love.
Jesus listened to this voice and it changed his life. That was the point in the story where Jesus’ ministry began. The Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus and the voice of Love empowered him to go out into the world and heal the sick, feed the hungry, welcome the outcast, and enlighten lost souls. His great miraculous mission started right here, in a cold and muddy river, where a voice from heaven called him “Beloved”. He spent the rest of his life trusting in that Love and sharing it with other people.
The word baptism comes from a Greek word that means “to soak or immerse.” On one level, it obviously refers to the way that a person is literally and physically soaked in water during the ritual. On a deeper level, we are all surrounded by and soaked in the infinite Love of God throughout our whole lives and beyond. It is part of the air we breathe. We need it more than oxygen. Baptism is a ritual, we call it a “sacrament” (Latin for “mystery”), that makes this Love real to us. God’s Love washes over us like a refreshing bath. Day in and day out, we are floating on an ocean of Love.
The response of faith has ironically little to do with our religion. Real faith means saying “Yes” to Love. When you say that Yes, Love empowers you to live the kind of life that Jesus lived: healing the sick, feeding the hungry, welcoming the outcast, and enlightening the lost.
This is exactly what our church tries to do in its various denominational and grassroots organizations that work together for peacemaking, disaster assistance, hunger relief, health education, environmental preservation, social justice, and human equality. This is the Presbyterian Church at its best. And we’re not the only ones doing it. Other churches, faith communities, and non-profit groups are working for these same goals. Each one is saying Yes to Love in its own way. That’s what real faith is.
Each of us is called to say Yes to Love in our personal lives as well. This is harder than it looks. We have to contend with the powers-that-be in this world that would try to choke the life of the Spirit and the voice of Love out of us forever. We have to actively resist the pull toward cynicism. We have to live like nonviolent radicals and revolutionaries, practicing random acts of kindness and senseless acts of beauty. Saying Yes to Love is a lifelong task that involves every part of life: church, work, school, and home. All life is ministry and baptism is your ordination. Say Yes to Love.
I pray that, as we think about and celebrate the sacrament of baptism this morning, it would be more than just a religious ritual to you. I pray that it will be to you a sacred mystery. I pray that the eyes of your heart will be opened so that the infinite ocean of Love in which we are all soaked might be made more real to you. I pray that you will say Yes to this Love and go out from this place today to live the kind of life that Jesus lived: a life of Faith, a life of Hope, and a life of Love.
They got us in Y2K. Harold Camping tried on May 21. Now it’s supposed to happen again this year. Here’s my take on all of this ‘end of the world’ business (be it digital malfunction, Mayan calendar, walking undead, or ‘biblical’ prophecy).
Good job by a kid in the UK, regardless of the fact that he looks like the love child of Harry Potter and Justin Bieber.
Worth watching, if only for the last line:
We trying out a new call to worship tonight at St. James Mission.
It’s called Spirit of Life and was written by Carolyn McDade.
Our music director, Annie Wadsworth-Grove, first heard it at All Souls’ Unitarian Church in Washington, DC. It can be found as #123 in Singing the Living Tradition, the official hymnal of the Unitarian Universalist Association.
Spirit of Life, come unto me
Sing in my heart, all the stirrings of compassion
Blow in the wind, rise in the sea
Move in the hand, giving life the shape of justice
Roots hold me close, wings set me free
Spirit of Life come to me, come to me
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 6,900 times in 2011. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 6 trips to carry that many people.
Hopping Hadrian's Wall 