Category: Sermon

It’s Time for Love to Get Loud

On By J. Barrett LeeIn SermonLeave a comment

This week’s sermon from First Pres, Boonville.  Blog fans will notice some similarity with my previous post, Get Loud.

There is considerable congregational participation toward the end, so it would be better to listen at fpcboonville.org

The text is Mark 1:1-8.

First impressions are funny things.  They have a way of setting the tone for what comes next.

This is true for stories:

Who doesn’t remember the opening scene of Star Wars, when Princess Leia’s starship races across the screen, relentlessly pursued by Darth Vader’s menacing Star Destroyer?  George Lucas had audience members on the edge of their seats from the beginning to the end of that film.  How about the first line of the novel, A Tale of Two Cities?  “It was the best of times.  It was the worst of times.”  I particularly like the opening line of my favorite novel: Neuromancer by William Gibson.  “The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.”

It’s also true in relationships:

My over-eager self-introduction to a professor on my first day of seminary effectively ended my career in academic theology before it started.  On a more positive note, my propensity for sharing too much information made an impact on my friend Matt, who works at a bagel shop in Utica.  At first, he was taken aback by my apparent lack of tact and subtlety, but those same qualities came to shape our future friendship as one characterized by intense honesty and trust.  He is one of my closest companions today.

This morning, we’re taking a look at the opening scene of Mark’s gospel.  Right off the bat, Mark sets the tone for what comes next in the story.  This gospel has a powerful opening line that often gets overlooked: “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”

That sounds pretty straightforward and innocuous, right?  Wrong.  There are three terms I need to unpack before we can come to a full understanding of what this verse is saying.  Those three terms are good news, Christ, and Son of God.

Good news.  The Greek word we’re looking at here is euangelion.  It’s a term that comes from the world of imperial politics.  An euangelion was a joyful announcement sent out by royal courier to the farthest reaches of the empire.  It usually announced big news, like the birth of a new heir to the throne or the victory of the emperor over his enemies.  Anyone else who proclaimed an euangelion that didn’t have to do with Caesar could be found guilty of treason.  Mark’s use of euangelion in the very first sentence of his gospel is an extremely radical and subversive move.  It’s the kind of thing that could get someone arrested by the Department of Homeland Security.  It says something important about the way Mark looks at the world and, more importantly, the way he looks at Jesus.

Christ.  Most people these days are used to thinking of this word as Jesus’ last name.  Well, it’s not.  Christ is a title.  It’s a Greek translation of the Hebrew word Messiah, which means “Anointed”.  When first century Jews talked about the Anointed, they imagined this Che Guevara kind of person who would rise up and liberate the Jewish people from Roman tyranny.  In short, the Anointed/Messiah/Christ was supposed to be a terrorist.

Son of God.  This is another title that was reserved for the emperor.  Caesar was worshiped as a god in ancient Rome.  People were required to make regular sacrifices to his statue as a sign of loyalty.  It was kind of like pledging allegiance to the flag, only more so.  When Mark proclaims Jesus as divine, he is implying that Caesar is not.  This is a bold statement to make in an occupied country.

With a fuller understanding of what these words mean, let’s hear them again: “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”  In American terms, we might say, “The inauguration of President Jesus, our real commander-in-chief.”  Anyone who walked around this country seriously talking like that would probably earn a one-way ticket to Guantanamo Bay.

Mark goes on from that opening sentence to paint a picture of the person who first ran through the countryside, shouting this euangelion at the top of his lungs.  His name was John.  He, like the message he preached, was a radical.  Later in the story, John is arrested and eventually executed for exposing the hypocrisy of Herod, the puppet king set up by the Roman government to maintain order.  Like the opening sentence of Mark’s gospel, John is subversive of the established status quo.  He looks instead to the way things ought to be, the way they will be, in God.  John is not satisfied with mere Roman order; he longs for the divine harmony that God intends for all creation.

John is not alone in his task.  He stands in the shadow of another outspoken reformer.  When John first shows up in Mark’s gospel, he is “clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist” and eating “locusts and wild honey”.  That might not mean much to us, but it would mean a lot to first century Jews.  Dressed in those clothes, they would immediately recognize him as the prophet Elijah, as surely as we would recognize a fat man in a red suit coming down the chimney on Christmas Eve as Santa Claus.

Elijah was another subversive radical from Israel’s history.  Like John, he exposed and confronted the powers that be.  He was constantly challenging the corrupt government of King Ahab and Queen Jezebel in his day.

Mark seems to be going out of his way to drive the opening point home: the gospel of Christ is a subversive message preached by radicals.  Those who want safe, predictable religion should stay away from Jesus at all costs.

What made John live his life as a “prisoner of hope” who never stopped questioning the way things are?  What is this radical message that turns the whole world upside down?  Mark spends the rest of the book answering that question.  It’s the story of Christ, a never-ending story that includes John, you, and me in its eternal plot.  There’s no way to fully capture its message in a single sermon, book, or library.  That being said, I’ll try to sum up one small part of it like this: God is with us, God is Love, Love wins.

This, in part, is the message of Christmas: God is with us, God is Love, Love wins.    Therefore, all that is not Love is destined to fade away like dust in the wind or a bad dream after you wake up.  There is hope in this.  And that hope gives us the strength to stand up and speak out loud and clear against all that would stand in Love’s way.

John believed in this Love (i.e. God’s Love, the God of Love, the God who is Love).  That’s why it bothered him to see so much un-Love in the world around him.  I call John a realist because he confronted the reality of the world as it is.  However, I also believe he trusted in a deeper reality that is more real than what he saw with his eyes.  I think John’s faith in that deeper reality is what gave him the strength to stand up and get loud.  His is not a voice of rage or hate.  There is no call to arms or partisan propaganda.  When John gets loud, it’s the voice of Love getting loud.

Here in this room today, we believe that God is with us, God is Love, and Love wins.  But, like John and Elijah, we live a world that is deaf to Love’s call because Love has been drowned out by the white noise of apathy and injustice.  What does that mean for us?  It means it’s time for Love to get loud.

What does that mean for us?

It’s time for Love to get loud.

God is with us, God is Love, and Love wins.  But somewhere this week a boy got his face slammed into a locker at school just because he likes other boys.  What does that mean for us?  It’s time for Love to get loud.

God is with us, God is Love, and Love wins.  But somewhere this morning a girl looks into a mirror and cries because what she sees there doesn’t look like what she sees on the cover of a magazine.  What does that mean for us?  It’s time for Love to get loud.

God is with us, God is Love, and Love wins.  But somewhere there’s a local shopkeeper who is fretting about how to keep the family business open for another generation.  What does that mean for us?  It’s time for Love to get loud.

God is with us, God is Love, and Love wins.  But somewhere today someone is mourning the death of a beloved parent, spouse, or sibling.  What does that mean for us?  It’s time for Love to get loud.

God is with us, God is Love, and Love wins.  But in 2011, there are still churches in this country where the Bible is used as a weapon and people can be denied membership just because of the color of their skin.  What does that mean for us?  It’s time for Love to get loud.

God is with us, God is Love, and Love wins.  But Oneida County is still eliminating daycare funding for children already living below the poverty line.  What does that mean for us?  It’s time for Love to get loud.

It is indeed time for Love to get loud.  How will Love get loud in you?

It’s time to raise your voice, like John the Baptist, in the name of Love.  It’s time to lift every voice and sing!

“Stay Thirsty, My Friends”

On By J. Barrett LeeIn Sermon1 Comment
The Most Interesting Man in the World

This week’s sermon from First Pres, Boonville.

The text is Mark 13:24-37 with reference to Daniel 7:9-14.

Click here to listen to this sermon at fpcboonville.org

It’s almost always a dangerous thing to mention presidential politics from the pulpit.  At no time in recent history has this been truer than it is right now, when sanity and civility are so conspicuously absent from all ends of the political spectrum in our country.  I sometimes fear that our centuries-old commitment to a democratic government “of the people, by the people, and for the people” is quickly degenerating into a spectator sport where each side cheers for their favorite team and boos at the other side whenever they score a goal.  Accordingly, I will choose my words carefully.  I begin with a disclaimer: this is not a sermon about presidential politics, nor is it a political speech that should be misconstrued as an endorsement or denouncement of any particular party or candidate.  I’ll be using some of the buzzwords that factored highly in the last presidential election, but I do so in order to draw attention to the words themselves, not to the people with whom those words were associated.

Now, with that awkward business aside, the buzzwords to which I want to draw your attention are hope and change.  We heard a lot about hope and change in 2008.  Some people got really excited about those words.  They liked the idea that things could somehow be different (i.e. better) than they already were in this country.  In the years since then, some of the people who were initially excited have begun to feel frustrated because things still seem to be pretty much the same as they were before.  We’re still living in the same country with the same old problems.  This frustration has led other public figures to ask (cynically), “Hey America, how’s all that hopey-changey stuff working out for you?”  The hard lesson that people are (re)learning is this: without real change there is no real hope.  And the change necessary to inspire hope is beyond that which any political candidate, party, or ideology can offer.

In the absence of real hope, there are basically two responses that people can make.  First, they can jump on board the bandwagon with whatever big idea comes along next with flashy presentation and inspirational rhetoric.  Like bumblebees, they float from flower to flower, collecting whatever small grains of hope they can find to sustain their meager faith in the system.  Second, people can give up hope entirely.  They can sit back and cynically fold their arms saying, “Nothing ever changes.  Just give me what is rightfully mine and then leave me alone.”  I would argue that neither of these responses is wholly adequate to ease the pain we feel when our hopes are frustrated (in life as well as politics).  There has to be another way to preserve hope, even when our favorite human institutions have failed us.

The earliest Christians, just as much as (if not more so than) us, lived in a time of extreme political tension and unfulfilled hopes.  The land of Judea was occupied by the Roman Empire.  The people longed for some sign of hope that things might someday be different, but they were divided amongst themselves over what that hope should look like.  Some Jews, like the Zealots, picked up swords and sought to take back their homeland with divinely inspired military might.  Other Jews, like the Sadducees, worked with the Roman government to maintain order and preserve whatever religious and cultural freedoms they could.

Eventually, these tensions came to a head in the year 66 when war broke out between the Jewish people and the Roman Empire.  The government dedicated itself to crushing this rebellion and eventually did so with its might as a military superpower.  The ultimate symbol of Jewish defeat came in the year 70 when the Roman forces invaded Jerusalem and their sacred temple, the ultimate symbol of their national and religious life, was burned to the ground.

It was around this same time that Mark’s gospel was first written.  The Christian Church was just emerging as an independent movement within Judaism.  Christians wondered among themselves, “What should we do?  Should we fight the Romans or try to work with them?  Should we put our hope in each new self-proclaimed revolutionary leader that comes along or throw our hands up and admit that nothing (not even God) can defeat military juggernaut of the Roman Empire?”

The author of Mark’s gospel saw both of these options as deficient.  Neither the false hope of revolution nor the cynicism of collaboration embodied a faithful response to the very real hope that was made manifest by God in Christ.  So the author of Mark’s gospel made sure to include in chapter 13 of this book a particular story about Jesus that might provide some helpful guidance for the Christian Church in that day.

It begins as Jesus and his disciples were walking out of the great Jewish temple one day.  One of the disciples stopped to admire the architecture of the building.  Jesus responded in words that would ring eerily true to the Christians in Mark’s day, who would see this very thing happen in their own lifetime: “Do you see these great buildings?”  Jesus said, “Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.”

He was speaking of the temple of course, the cultural icon and center of religious devotion.  Jesus’ own ancestors had fought and died to preserve everything for which it stood.  How could he, a Jew, speak so glibly about its destruction?  He didn’t stop there either.  He went on to speak so insightfully about the coming crisis that some later regarded his words as a prophetic prediction.  Instead of glorious victory and freedom, he spoke of war, earthquake, famine, and persecution.  What’s even worse is that Jesus then told his followers to do the exact opposite thing that their brave and faithful ancestors had done when Israel was threatened.  “[W]hen you see the desolating sacrilege set up where it ought not to be,” he said, “then those in Judea must flee to the mountains.”  In other words, Jesus ordered them to run and hide rather than stand and fight to protect that which their nation held most dear.

How could Jesus be so offensive toward his patriotic Jewish audience?  The answer lies in verse 26 of the passage we read this morning.  He makes reference to “’the Son of Man coming in clouds’ with great power and glory.”  This would have been a familiar image to his educated Jewish audience.  This phrase is taken from the book of the prophet Daniel.  In 7:13, Daniel describes “one like a human being (i.e. ‘son of man’) coming with the clouds of heaven.”  According to the vision, God would one day take the corrupt and destructive empires of this world and place them under the authority of this human being (son of man).  The powers that be would be divinely transformed and made to serve real human interests rather than their own animal-like greed.  Real change was bound to happen in this world, not because of violent revolution or political cunning, but because God wills it.  God will establish true “liberty and justice for all” regardless of what goes on in the halls of power.  The temple could be destroyed and the battle lost and God would still see this vision through to its fulfillment.  This is the source of Jesus’ hope.  It is a prophetic vision embedded deep within his Jewish heritage.  It transcends ideology, victory, even history itself.  Prophets and visionaries in every age have held onto this inexorable and eternal vision.  Many have laid down their very lives because of its promise.  Dr. Martin Luther King reiterated its core principle when he said, “The arc of the universe is long but it bends toward justice.”  Archbishop Oscar Romero proclaimed, “If they kill me I shall rise again in the Salvadoran people.”  Jesus himself willing went to his cross while trusting in the final victory of God’s vision over the powers that be.

Change is coming, therefore there is hope.  Real change, lasting change, God’s change.  It won’t come through any particular candidate, party, or ideology.  It won’t come through military might or violent revolution.  It won’t come about through our diligent plans or valiant efforts.  God’s kingdom will come and God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven.  We pray for this and proclaim our faith in this vision every Sunday.  Jesus had faith in this vision.  He was willing to stake his life on it.  That’s why the thought of Jewish defeat or the temple’s destruction didn’t bother him that much.

The author of Mark’s gospel was impressed with Jesus’ faith in God’s ultimate vision.  The early Christians needed that faith as well.  The Church needed an anchor that would hold them steady while the storms of war and persecution blew over the deck of their boat.  If they cut the line, they would drift and drown with their neighbors.  So it was that the early Christians took these words to heart and refused to fight in defense of Jerusalem or the temple.  They ran for the hills when the invasion came.  This was an unforgivable sin to their Jewish neighbors.  Christians were branded as cowards and traitors within the Jewish community.  Relations had been strained up to that point, but from then on, Christianity was cut off from the rest of Judaism.

As we meditate on these events this morning, we find ourselves at the first Sunday of Advent.  Thanksgiving and Black Friday have passed and so we now begin our preparations for Christmas.  For most people, this takes on a decidedly nostalgic tone as Bing Crosby dominates the radio waves.  There is a lot of talk about “peace on earth”, “the light of the world”, and “hope”.  But we start this season on an intentionally apocalyptic note.  We know that hope cannot exist without change, yet we know that change is coming, therefore we have hope.  None of the powers that be in Washington or on Wall Street can claim to be the fulfillment of God’s vision, yet neither can they stop God’s vision from being fulfilled.

In the absence of real hope, people tend to embrace false hopes or else bitter cynicism.  I believe that Jesus offers us a third way.  We can hold onto hope that transcends the fleeting promises of ideology and history.  We can live as prophets of hope in a hopeless world.  Like Jesus, we can look deep into the heritage of our faith and cling to God’s vision of a world that can be changed… that will be changed.

There is currently a beer commercial on TV that features “the most interesting man in the world”.  At the end of the advert he looks into the camera and says, “Stay thirsty, my friends.”  As he said to them, so I say to you: Stay thirsty, my friends.  I can think of no better way to sum up the call to action that arises from Jesus’ vision of hope and change.  While other people are dying of their thirst for hope and cursing the sky in cynicism, I say to you, “Stay thirsty, my friends.”  While others around you are desperately trying to slake their thirst for hope with things that will only lead to more despair, I say to you, “Stay thirsty, my friends.”  Stay thirsty for hope.  Stay thirsty for change.  It’s coming.  God will not let us down.  “Stay thirsty, my friends.”

Children of Light

On By J. Barrett LeeIn SermonLeave a comment

Here is this week’s sermon from First Presbyterian, Boonville.

The text is I Thessalonians 5:1-11.

I preached from an outline instead of a manuscript this week, but you can click here to listen to the sermon or download the mp3 at fpcboonville.org:

http://fpcboonville.org/2011/11/13/33rd-sunday-in-ordinary-time/

Click here for a copy of my sermon notes in .docx format

In the sermon, I mention the old Civil Defense Drill Films that were shown to kids.  Here is one famous example:

To Boldly Go Where No One Has Gone Before…

On By J. Barrett LeeIn SermonLeave a comment
USS Enterprise NCC-1701-D

This week’s sermon from First Pres, Boonville.

Click here to listen to it at fpcboonville.org

The text is I Thessalonians 4:1-13.

“Space: the final frontier.  These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise.  Its continuing mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before.”

These words were a mantra to me during my childhood.  For those who might not recognize them, they come from the opening credits of the TV show Star Trek.  And every Saturday night at seven, I could be found in the living room with our family television set tuned to channel 12.  And for the next hour, I would be transported (“beamed up”, if you will) into the 24th century and onto the bridge of the USS Enterprise, where Captain Picard would be my guide as we faced crises of galactic importance (but none so complicated that they couldn’t be resolved by the end of the hour).  This weekly ritual was like a Sabbath to me.  Star Trek gave me comfort and it gave me hope.  It restored my faith in the power of the human spirit.

One of my favorite things about Star Trek is its constant theme of exploration.  The crew of the starship Enterprise spent a lot of time in distant and uncharted regions of the galaxy.  They existed on the growing edge of human experience that led to new discoveries and new insights.  Something about that spoke to me.  At ten years old, I knew that was how I wanted to live my life.

Initially, my hunger to explore was directed outward to the stars.  I wanted to travel into outer space.  To be honest, I still do.  Whenever humans get around to colonizing Mars, I figure they’ll eventually need pastors up there.  And you know what?  I’d put in for that call!  I’m just sayin’…

In the meantime, I’ve turned my attention to exploring the “inner space” of spirituality.  The territory is different, but that drive to explore is the same.  I still want to “boldly go where no one has gone before.”  That’s what motivates me to keep going and keep growing as a human being.  I can’t say that I’ve ever explored completely new ground for humanity, but I’m constantly discovering plenty of territory out there that’s new to me.  It’s exciting and I love it.

Some of us explore because we want to.  Others explore because they have to.  One of my hardest moments as a pastor came last year when my wife and I co-officiated at a funeral for a baby.  In that moment, every bit of conventional wisdom, biblical scholarship, and theological understanding went right out the window.  We were forced to explore completely new territory.  It wasn’t fun or exciting but we had to go there because the parents of that little girl were depending on us.  We had no answers for them.  There is no bumper sticker slogan in the world that will make that kind of pain easier to deal with.  So, we were forced to explore new territory.

As hard as it was for us, it was a million times harder for the parents.  They said it felt like they had been initiated into a club that no one wants to be a member of.  They would have given anything to be anywhere else in that moment.  That kind of exploration is nothing but torture.

That’s the kind of exploration the Thessalonian Christians were forced into in today’s scripture reading.  We’ve been learning a lot about the Thessalonian church during these past few weeks.  They were a dynamic, loving, and spiritually vibrant church.  When the apostle Paul came through town as a missionary, these folks were particularly and remarkably open to what he had to say.  Their reputation as people of faith had spread all over the region.  But they also had some hard questions that they were struggling with.

You see, a big part of Paul’s message had to do with the return of Christ.  When he preached, he made it sound like Jesus might be coming back as soon as next Thursday, certainly within the lifetimes of his audience members!  From what we can tell, it seems like Paul himself truly believed that was the case.  He wasn’t trying to pull the wool over anyone’s eyes.

The problem came as time went by.  Jesus was nowhere to be seen.  What happened?  Did they miss it?  Was Paul wrong?  The point when they got really REALLY nervous is when people in their community started dying.  What would happen to them?  If they weren’t here when Jesus got back, would they be lost forever?  The Christian church never had to ask these kinds of questions before.  They didn’t have any answers to fit the mold.  What were they supposed to do now?

It was a moment of necessary spiritual exploration.  They were asking questions that no one had thought to ask before.  What will happen to our deceased Christian friends?  What will happen to us if Jesus doesn’t return during our lifetime?

It must have been a difficult moment for Paul as a pastor.  He had taught his flock in the best way he knew how.  Had all of that ministry been in vain?  Was there any hope left?  Paul was forced into some pretty heavy-duty spiritual exploration.

He begins with the assumption that there is hope.  He may not know much else, but he believes that God in Christ can be trusted.  That’s number one.  Next, he thought about what he already knew he believed.  In verse 14, he talked about how they already believed that “Jesus died and rose again”.  To him, this meant that the dead are not beyond God’s care.  Inspired by further reflection and a powerful visionary experience, Paul presented the Thessalonian Christians with an image of “meet[ing] the Lord in the air.”  In other words, Paul was saying that there is a place (i.e. “in the air”) where heaven and earth come together.  In this place, we have communion with Christ, each other, and all of those who have died before us.  They are not gone.  We will be together again.

Paul gives the Thessalonians this inspirational exploration as a source of strength and encouragement.  It’s something to hold onto in dark and uncertain times so that they might also hold onto hope.  It’s a mental image that arises out of questions they’ve never had to ask before.  In one sense, it represented a shift away from what they had initially been taught.  Jesus might not physically return within their chronological lifetime.  On the other hand, it points to much deeper truths that do not change.  Hope does not change.  God’s faithfulness does not change.  God’s love, which is stronger than death itself, does not change.

In the same way, we who live in the 21st century are forced into constant exploration.  Society around us is changing on a scale and at a rate that is heretofore unknown in the history of our species.  We are asking questions that have never been asked before.  What are appropriate Christian responses to evolution, human cloning, or same-sex marriage?  There are many people of faith who claim to know the answers already, but the reality is that those are questions that Jesus and Paul never had to ask in the time and place in which they lived.  It is left to us to faithfully explore these questions and try to answer them in a way that affirms those things that don’t change: God is faithful.  There is hope.  God loves you.

We’re probably going to disagree with one another in the answers we come up with.  That’s okay.  It’s all part of the process of exploration.  It’s a lot of trial and error.  In fact, I think we’re more likely to get at the (capital T) Truth if we go ahead and assume that each of us is probably going to get the answers wrong somewhere along the line.  Remembering that will keep us humble.

There is a wonderful hymn that is not in our hymnal.  It was written in the 1850s by a man named George Rawson who based the words off of the last sermon preached to the Plymouth Rock pilgrims before they left Europe for the New World.  It goes like this:

“We limit not the truth of God to our poor reach of mind —
By notions of our day and sect — crude partial and confined
No, let a new and better hope within our hearts be stirred
For God hath yet more light and truth to break forth from the Word.”

So, go out from this place today and back into the final frontier.  Remember your continuing mission: to explore this strange new world, to seek out new light and new revelations, to boldly go where no one has gone before!  Remember, above all else, those truths that don’t change: God is faithful.  There is hope.  God loves you.

God’s Living Word

On By J. Barrett LeeIn SermonLeave a comment

This week’s sermon from First Presbyterian, Boonville.

The text is I Thessalonians 2:9-13.

Click here to listen at fpcboonville.org

This coming December, my wife Sarah and I will celebrate five wonderful years of marriage.  Five years of growing in commitment and trust for each other.  Five years of facing life’s challenges together.  Five years of blessing, closeness, and love.  Incidentally, it also happens to be our seventh wedding anniversary.  I’ll let you do the math.

Why the discrepancy?  Well, I’ll tell you.  A couple of years into our marriage, I learned the secret to wedded bliss and it’s three little words.  These are the three little words that everyone longs to hear.  The depth of their meaning transcends history, culture, and religion.  The power of these words has sustained people through the very darkest hours of life.  They should be spoken as often as possible.  Let them be the first words out of your mouth when you get up in the morning and the last words before you turn out the lamp at night.  Say them when you leave the house and when you get home.  Hold each others’ hands, gaze into each others’ eyes, and mean them when you say them.  These are the three most powerful words in the English language.  What do you think they are?

“I love you”?  No.

It’s “You’re right, dear.”

(Pause for laughter)

I’m only joking, really.  All of my nearly seven years with my wife have been fantastic.  And Sarah is a wonderfully generous person, with an open mind and an open heart, who does NOT need to be right all of the time.  However, most of us, at some point in our lives, have probably known someone who DOES need to be right (or at least feel like they’re in the right) all of the time.  These folks can be very difficult to live with or work with.

Any personal relationship involves some kind of give and take.  It also involves things like change, risk, and trust.  None of that can happen when one (or both) of the people in the relationship is bent on being (or feeling) absolutely right all of the time.  Nobody is that perfect.

Most of us already understand this truth when it comes to our interpersonal relationships.  We know how to say “I’m sorry” when we mess things up.  We know how to forgive other people when they mess things up.  We don’t expect ourselves or other people to be perfect (or right) all of the time.  We know this.  And because we know this, we’re able to stay committed to each other in healthy relationships and grow together into the kind of people we’re meant to be.

Now, it’s pretty common for people to talk about their spiritual lives as a relationship.  They talk about their “personal relationship with God”.  I know of several Christians who are keen to claim that Christianity itself is “a relationship, not a religion”.  But the funny thing is that, in this relationship, one party (God) is expected to be absolutely perfect all of the time while the other party (the person) is expected to simply acknowledge and appreciate the perfection of the first.

Now the expectation of perfection in this relationship, while based in God, is not usually restricted to God alone.  Absolute perfection usually gets projected onto something or someone else that somehow reveals God to people.  This can be some supposedly perfect person (like the Pope), a supposedly perfect institution (like the church), or a supposedly perfect book (like the Bible).

I think people tend to make these kinds of projections because they desperately long for a deep, personal relationship with God, the source of all goodness and love.  However, God is also mysterious and intangible.  This mysteriousness can cause some people a lot of anxiety, so they direct their devotion toward the Pope, the church, or the Bible as a stand-in for God.  It’s more comforting to have a relationship with something you can see, touch, and understand.  The problem is that projecting God onto someone or something that is not God is the very definition of idolatry.  It would be no different if they built a statue of a golden calf and bowed down to it.

I think this is exactly what happened about a hundred years ago in the Presbyterian Church when a group of scholars at Princeton Theological Seminary felt their faith being threatened by developments in modern science and philosophy that called into question certain traditional Christian beliefs.  They took it upon themselves to defend what they considered to be the fundamentals of the Christian faith.  Referring to themselves as “Fundamentalists”, they developed the doctrine of biblical inerrancy.  The Bible, according to the doctrine of biblical inerrancy, was to be read and interpreted as a spiritually, theologically, morally, historically, and scientifically accurate book.  Every single word of the Bible was absolutely true and came directly from the mouth of God.  Questioning a single word in the text of the Bible was tantamount to rejecting the perfect authority of God.  The absolute goodness and perfection of God was projected onto the text of the Bible.  Thus, according to the Fundamentalists, we imperfect people can relate to the perfect God through this perfect book.  But, as we’ve already noticed, worshiping the Bible in place of God is idolatry.  Also, it’s really hard to have an honest, personal relationship with someone who has to be absolutely right all of the time.

In case you couldn’t tell already, this is a big pet peeve of mine.  It really irks me.  So, I have to admit that I really struggled with I Thessalonians 2:13 in preparation for this week’s sermon.  It reads, “We also constantly give thanks to God for this, that when you received the word of God that you heard from us, you accepted it not as a human word but as what it really is, God’s word, which is also at work in you believers.”

At first glance, it seems like the Apostle Paul is setting himself up as an inerrant or infallible source of revelation, saying that his words are God’s word.  So I read over it, I thought about it, I struggled with it, and eventually I just sat with it.

What struck me after sitting with it for a while is that Paul hardly seems to be the type to set himself up as a perfect and absolute authority.  Paul is referred to elsewhere in the New Testament as the “chief of sinners”.  He calls himself, “least of the apostles”.  This strikes me as the voice of a humble person who knows he has been saved by grace.  If Paul is drawing any kind of connection between his voice and God’s, I doubt he is doing so in the spirit of an indisputable expert.

What struck me next is the language around this verse in I Thessalonians 2.  In this section, Paul is simply recounting the story of his ministry with the Thessalonians.  Paul does a lot of storytelling.  The story of his dramatic conversion on the road to Damascus is told no less than three times in the book of Acts.  Paul is also a first-rate scholar who knows the stories of his Jewish heritage.  When Paul talks about delivering the “word of God” to the Thessalonian Christians in verse 13, I bet there was a lot of storytelling involved.  I bet he told them about his first encounter with Jesus in a vision (and how he walked around blind as a bat for days afterward).  I bet he told them about those early Christians, who were suspicious of him at first but eventually welcomed him with open arms.  I bet he told them how his newfound faith in Christ and assurance of God’s unconditional love changed his life forever.

If there is a word from God to be heard here, it seems that it must be found between the lines of the story of Paul’s life.  Furthermore, this word of God is not only to be heard in the lives of famous heroes like Paul, but, as Paul tells the Thessalonian Christians in verse 13, God’s word is also “at work in you believers.”  Paul is adamant in declaring that his story is not unique.  The word of God can be heard in their stories as well.

God’s word is not some dead text written on a page or carved into tablets of stone.  God’s word is a living word that sings and dances through the lives of all people.  Unlike an infallible text, the living word can lead us into an honest, personal relationship with the living God.  It can handle questions, doubt, and differing interpretations.  It allows our faith the freedom to trust, change, and grow into new forms of believing.  If we listen for it, we can hear God’s living word in the wind that blows through the trees and the river that rolls over the rocks.  We can hear it echoing between the stars and pulsing between the atoms.  Reading between the lines of the poet’s verse and the physicist’s equation we listen for God’s living word.

God’s living word can be heard in your life as well, if you know where to listen for it.  This can be tricky because life isn’t always pleasant.  I won’t go so far as to say that everything that happens to us in life is God’s will, but I will go so far as to say that there is no person and no situation that is beyond healing and redemption.  God’s living word is always present, even in the dark and chaotic times, growing us toward peace and proclaiming, “Let there be light!”

I believe God’s living word is even present in this message.  If you’re hearing this today, it’s not by accident.  Not that I am claiming to be perfect or infallible.  In fact, God’s word might not be speaking to you through me but in spite of me this morning.  Listen for whatever is going on in your mind and heart right now.  Listen for any thought or feeling of blessed assurance that inspires you to keep exploring the height, depth, length, and breadth of love in this world.  That’s the living word of God at work in you!

Finally, last but not least, lest you think I’m leading you to abandon the Bible entirely, we can and should listen for the living word of God in its pages as well.  The Bible is a sacred book.  For us Christians, it is our sacred book.  I believe it is blessed and inspired.  It holds an honored and central place in our tradition.  It can serve as a helpful guide on the spiritual journey.  We would do well to keep reading and studying it as best we can.  But it’s not a perfect book.  Everything God has to say is not contained within its pages.  Jesus himself said in John 16:12, “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.  When the Spirit of truth comes, [the Spirit] will guide you into all the truth”.  Personally, I like the way that comedian Gracie Allen says it, “Never put a period where God puts a comma.”  God is still speaking (as our friends in the United Church of Christ like to say).  Do we have ears to hear?

Jesus Makes Things Complicated

On By J. Barrett LeeIn Sermon1 Comment
One of my favorite pictures of the Rev. Sarah E. Schmidt-Lee

I’m about to take a huge risk by sharing one of my wife’s sermons with my friends in the blogosphere.  When it comes to preaching, Rev. Sarah Schmidt-Lee blows me out of the water.  This is the woman who made me want to be a preacher.  During our dating and newlywed years, her sermons shaped my spirituality at a very deep level.  So I’m excited to share one of them with you today.  This was preached yesterday (10/23/2011) at Westernville Presbyterian Church.  The text is Matthew 22:34-46.

Have you heard the story about the pastor who asks a group of kids a question during the kids’ conversation: “what has a furry tail, lives in trees and eats nuts.” One of the kids raises his hand and says, “It sounds like a squirrel, but I know the answer is Jesus.” It’s a joke that always makes me cringe a little bit, because it feels a little too close to home—I can’t count the number of times I’ve been in a Sunday School class, either as a child or as a teacher, when I know the answer is supposed to be Jesus, or God, or maybe church or the Bible. It is so tempting to reduce our faith into a series of right answers.

 

The Pharisees and Sadducees who are interacting with Jesus throughout this section of Matthew seem to approach their faith in a way that assumes there are right answers. Faith or religion seems to be a puzzle and if they have all the right pieces, they can generate the right answers and teach those to people to make them into right—or righteous people.

 

Or, in the case of these interactions with Jesus, test him to find out if he has the right answers, and hopefully expose that he is wrong.

But Jesus refuses to play the game. He doesn’t see faith and tradition as a puzzle with one right answer. He sees it as open to interpretation—complex and mysterious and hard to pin-down. Instead of giving the “right” answer or “the wrong” answer, Jesus punches holes in all those boxes and challenges these religious leaders to ask better questions.

 

Last week we read how the Pharisees confronted Jesus with a question about taxes designed to force him into one political camp or another—to test him. After that, the Sadducees confront him with a question about resurrection—a kind of rhetorical question meant to show how illogical it is to believe in the resurrection, but Jesus pokes holes in their logic, leaving them dumbfounded. That’s when the Pharisees come in with their lawyer—the pull out the big guns.

 

Now, Jesus probably gave them exactly the answer they were hoping he would—it would have been fairly common for people in those days to consider the she’ma—Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and strength—the greatest commandment. And if there were any controversy, loving your neighbor as yourself would be the next contender. At first, it may have seemed that Jesus fell straight into their trap—giving a simple answer that they considered the wrong answer. See, it’s likely that this was a trick question to begin with—no law should be more important, or greater than any of the others, because they all come from God—that would be the right answer.

 

But Jesus seems to anticipate the trick, because after naming the two greatest commandments, he explains why they are the greatest—on these hang all the law and the prophets. Jesus refuses to fall into their trap—none of the other laws are less important, but they depend on these two—these two form the base or the trunk of the tree on which all the other laws hang like fruit. Not the right answer, but not the wrong answer, either, Jesus succeeds again and again at complicating the questions, reframing them.

 

And now, after this series of interrogations, Jesus turns the table, and he initiates a question: Whose descendant is the Messiah? The Pharisees probably rolled their eyes. Really? Everyone knows that—he is David’s descendant. But Jesus isn’t done. Okaaaay, he continues, if so, why does David refer to the Messiah as Lord—a title reserved for fathers and elders? Shouldn’t it be the other way around? If David is the Messiah’s ancestor, then shouldn’t the Messiah call David, Lord and not the other way around?

 

Hmmm. The Pharisees don’t have an answer for that. They leave in an embarrassed silence, and never muster up the guts to confront Jesus with questions again. Instead, we know, they plot to have him killed, because Jesus makes things complicated and mysterious, when the Pharisees want clear cut answers.

 

We may not identify with the questions that are getting tossed around in these confrontations—questions about resurrection, Romans taxes, and Messianic lineage are not particularly hot-button issues in 21st century North America, but the dynamic of the interaction is all too familiar. Just like the Pharisees and Sadducees, 21st century Christians still like clear cut answers, don’t we? We still want faith to boil down to right answers—clear, simple truths that we can teach to our children and use as a litmus test to determine who is right and who is wrong—or at least, who is with us and who is against us.

 

One of the supposedly clear-cut questions that is used to draw dividing lines in churches and denominations all over the country is the question: What does the Bible teach about same-sex relationships?

 

I’ll admit that I grew up thinking this question had a clear answer, but then Jesus threw a wrench in things. Through relationships with people God brought into my life, and through watching the ministry of people I grew up thinking shouldn’t be pastors, I began to read the Bible with different questions in mind. I started confronting questions like—why is the church fighting over this issue, and hurting lots of people who are already hurting, when Jesus never talks about it at all? Why aren’t we talking about the things Jesus really did spend most of his time talking about, like how we use our money—how we share our resources—how we treat the poor, outcast, and misunderstood?

 

And speaking of the outcast and misunderstood—didn’t Jesus spent his time hanging out with people who were kicked out of the religious life of his community—welcoming people who were considered unclean or immoral, because scripture said so? And didn’t Jesus treat those people with dignity and compassion and love?

 

One of the big eye-openers for me came as Barrett started a mid-week Bible study and communion service in Utica. His goal was to make it a welcoming place for people who did not feel comfortable going to a typical church on Sunday morning. He was really expecting to attract homeless people. We knew from work in Vancouver that a lot of homeless and near-homeless people are intimidated to walk into a church on a Sunday morning because they don’t feel like they can dress appropriately, or they know that they smell bad, or because when they ask for help they are usually asked to leave. And sure enough, we have had some homeless folks involved in the community over the three years we’ve been meeting.

 

But what neither of us could anticipate was the number of gay and lesbian folks who started showing up—every single one of them with a story of being wounded by a church—stories of being told implicitly, and sometimes explicitly that they didn’t belong at church. And every single one of them has come, longing to be a part of a community of faith—to find a place to belong—a place where they could talk about their experience of God, their love for Jesus, their search for spiritual truth. If Jesus welcomed the outcasts, the people kicked out of the synagogues, then shouldn’t our churches figure out how to do the same? And what does that look like?

 

These are uncomfortable questions, aren’t they? Jesus makes things more complicated—when we want to boil faith down to clear-cut answers, universal truths and straight-forward moral imperatives, Jesus throws a wrench in the well-oiled machine of our religious institutions and reminds us that faith is about knowing and loving and trusting God, and God is a mystery. We don’t trust in our answers, we trust in the mystery—the huge, complex, unfathomable, frightening mystery of God. Being a Christian is not about having the right answers—it is about loving God and loving neighbor. When we learn to do that, we might even learn to love the mystery—to delight in asking better and better questions—questions that lead us deeper into the mystery of God’s love, rather than simply settling for easy answers.

 

 

 

 

The Messenger is the Message

On By J. Barrett LeeIn SermonLeave a comment
Jay Bakker

The text for this week’s sermon is I Thessalonians 2:1-8.

Click here to listen at fpcboonville.org

Back when I was in high school and college, the churches I went to made a particularly big deal about certain little things that weren’t such a big deal to other people.  These churches were really concerned about what Christians were wearing, what they were drinking, the places where they would hang out, the people they were friends with, the TV shows and movies they were watching, and the music they were listening to.  They spent a lot of time thinking and talking about this stuff because they figured that if Christians participated in any of these so-called “forbidden” activities, then people who saw them and weren’t Christians might somehow think less of Jesus (and therefore not want to become Christians themselves, thus condemning their souls to hell for all eternity… or so the argument goes).  They called this process “protecting your witness.”

“Good Christians shouldn’t go out dancing,” they’d say, “because it might ruin your witness!”

Now, to their credit, there’s certain logic to this idea.  Our actions, as Christians, certainly do reflect upon the God we claim to believe in.  However, I think these churches focus on the wrong kinds of actions.  When I talk to people who aren’t Christians and ask them why they’re not interested in Christianity, I’ve never once heard someone say, “Because I once saw a Christian dancing in a nightclub.”  However, I’ve heard lots of people say, “I don’t want to be a Christian because most Christians I know are judgmental hypocrites and I don’t want to be like them.”

Sometimes, these folks will point to the headline-making scandals involving high-profile Christians.  One favorite example that people mention is the infamous PTL scandal from the mid-1980s involving Jim and Tammy-Faye Bakker.  For those who might not remember the story, Jim and Tammy-Faye built a huge faith-based media empire that combined evangelism with entertainment.  They loudly proclaimed the power of the so-called “prosperity gospel”: that God would bless people with material wealth so long as they “planted seeds of faith” (which typically meant donating a certain sum of money to the organization in question).

After years of successful growth, the bottom fell out of Jim and Tammy-Faye’s empire when severe allegations of marital infidelity and financial malfeasance began rising to the surface.  Jim Bakker went to prison for a number of years and the PTL organization went bankrupt.  It’s stories like this that tend to put people off of Christianity in the long-term.

The Apostle Paul was aware of this kind of danger in his own day.  In fact, people accused him of doing something very similar to Jim and Tammy-Faye Bakker.  Paul’s apostolic ministry kept him on the road a lot, which was a bigger deal in those days than it is now.  He came through the city of Thessalonica at one point and started some very meaningful relationships there.  As we heard in last week’s reading, the Thessalonian Christians became known for their deep and open-hearted spirituality.  But the Spirit moved and needs were pressing in other churches, so Paul eventually had to say goodbye.

After his departure, things continued to go (mostly) well for the new Thessalonian church.  Their faith was strong, but doubts eventually began to arise about Paul himself.  Was he just some fly-by-night preacher?  Did he just blow out of town as soon as he had their money in the collection plate?

Word of these rumors reached Paul himself and he decided it was important enough to respond with this letter.  He wasn’t just concerned about defending his own reputation.  Paul knew that the life he lived would reflect upon the faith he preached.  So he wanted to make darn sure that people were left with the right impression.

Paul wrote to the Thessalonians saying, “you know what kind of persons we proved to be among you for your sake.”  The others he mentioned were Silvanus (a.k.a. Silas) and Timothy, his associates in the mission field.  Paul drew the Thessalonians’ attention, not just to the content of the message, but to the character of the messengers.  He goes into detail, saying “our appeal does not spring from deceit or impure motives or trickery”.  He continues, “As you know and as God is our witness, we never came with words of flattery or with a pretext for greed”.  We’ll have to forgive Paul for tooting his own horn here, but he seems that he had a pretty clear sense of what he was trying to do in his ministry.  He appeals to the collective conscience of those who knew him personally and saw him in action.  We know from other parts of the New Testament that Paul had a side-job making tents.  He used this trade to support himself while he traveled and preached.  This, by the way, is why some pastors (like me) who support themselves with jobs outside the church are called “tentmakers” to this day.  My “tent” just happens to be my classroom at Utica College.  It’s not always easy, but it helps to know that I’m following in the footsteps of those who have gone before me.  In our case, tentmaking allows this church to have a regular pastor.  In Paul’s case, tentmaking protected his credibility as a minister of the gospel.  In fact, the only time we have any record of Paul taking up a collection anywhere is for the relief of famine victims in Judea.

As we already said, Paul knew that the life he lived would reflect upon the faith he preached.  So, what kind of message about God did Paul’s lifestyle send?  Paul writes, “we were gentle among you, like a nurse tenderly caring for her own children. 8So deeply do we care for you that we are determined to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you have become very dear to us.”  The message that Paul was trying to send through his life was that God is gentle with us, “like a nurse tenderly caring for her own children.”  God gives life, love, care, affection, nourishment, guidance, and protection.  Isn’t that what a nursing mother does?  That’s the message about God that Paul wanted the Thessalonians to absorb.

More than that, Paul said, “So deeply do we care for you that we are determined to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves”.  Isn’t that also a statement about God?  God shared God’s own self with us in the person of Jesus Christ.  The Incarnation, which we celebrate each Christmas, is the remembrance of the time when “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”  To paraphrase the same idea in Paul’s words, “So deeply does God care for us that God is determined to share with us… God’s own self, because we are very dear to God.”  Paul meant for his actions to be a reflection of God’s love for all people.

There can be no doubt that the lives we live reflect upon the faith we profess.  Regardless of the words we use, we should pay attention to the messages our actions send to others about God.  Churches like the ones I used to go to send the message that God is demanding, uptight, and watching your every move to make sure you don’t have any fun.  People like Jim and Tammy-Faye Bakker reinforced the idea that God is judgmental and hypocritical.  Isn’t there a better message for Christians to send about God?  I think there is.

Does anyone remember that Jim and Tammy-Faye Bakker had a son named Jamie?  He was still very young when scandal brought the PTL organization down.  Whatever happened to him?  Well, you probably wouldn’t recognize him today.  He goes by “Jay” now.  He looks nothing like the clean-cut little boy in a sweater-vest on his parents’ TV show.  These days, he’s completely covered in tattoos and piercings.  As it turns out, Jay has followed in his father’s footsteps as a minister, but of a very different kind than his dad.  Jay Bakker is the pastor of an unconventional church in New York City called ‘Revolution’.  It meets in a bar and attracts all kinds of misfits who would never feel comfortable in a more conventional church.  The Sundance Channel did a documentary on Jay’s life in 2006 called One Punk, Under God.  It’s worth watching, if you get the chance.

What kind of message do you think people absorb about God from Jay Bakker’s life?  I imagine they see God as unconventional, creative, and inclusive.  I think they see God as someone who will travel outside the bounds of traditional religion in order to bring good news to outcasts and misfits.  Doesn’t that sound like a God worth believing in?

When people look at your life, what kinds of conclusions do they draw about God?  How does the life you live reflect upon the faith you profess?  Through your actions, do people see God as uptight and hypocritical?  Or do they see God as creative and nurturing?  What do you think people see?  What do you want them to see?

May God bless us all and continually guide our lives to be more and more like Jesus, whose life perfectly reflected the love of God in every way.

This Magic Moment

On By J. Barrett LeeIn SermonLeave a comment
Dolores Umbridge

The text is I Thessalonians 1:1-10.

Click here to listen at fpcboonville.org

Has anyone here read or seen the Harry Potter books or movies?  I imagine that many of you have.  Personally, I’ve seen the movies but not read the books.  If you’ve not experienced them yourself, I’m sure you’re at least aware of their existence.  Just about everybody in our culture has.

Certain groups of Christians have made quite a name for themselves by claiming that the Harry Potter phenomenon is part of a satanic conspiracy to promote the practice of witchcraft among children.  Here’s one juicy tidbit taken from the website exposingsatanism.org (a very serious title):

Many think it is just harmless fantasy. True it is fantasy, but it is laced with witchcraft and demonology as are most books like it…

There are many books out about Witchcraft but none so cleverly packaged like the latest. Satan is up to his old tricks again and the main focus is the children of the world. The latestcraze is a series of books by author J. K. Rowling, known as Harry Potter…

The whole purpose of these books is to desensitize readers and introduce them to the occult. What a better way to introduce tolerance and acceptance of what God calls an abomination, then in children’s books? If you can get them when they are young, then you have them for life. It’s the oldest marketing scheme there is…

Keep these books and their teachings from your child… Some teachers are reading these books to their classes. They are pagans using the school system to spread their agenda. Your tax dollars are being used to promote Witchcraft and no one is coming against it.

Even the current Pope has got in on the fun.  Back when he was still a cardinal and head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (formerly known as the Inquisition), he said that the Harry Potter books’ “subtle seductions, which act unnoticed … deeply distort Christianity in the soul before it can grow properly.”

Wow.  Pardon the pun, but this sure sounds like a witch-hunt to me!

So, what’s the real story?  Well, as it turns out the author of the Harry Potter series (J.K. Rowling), far from being a practitioner of the dark arts, is actually a Christian.  And, while I’m not one to toot our church’s horn too loudly, it also turns out that this famous author is one of our own: she’s a Presbyterian and an active member in the Church of Scotland.  She says of herself, “yes, I believe. And yes, I go to the church.”  But she also says, “I don’t take any responsibility for the lunatic fringes of my own religion.”  Nor should she.

For those who may be unfamiliar with the plot of the Harry Potter novels, it follows the story of the title character and his friends as they pursue their magical education at the prestigious Hogwart’s School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.  Along the way, their lives are continually threatened by the evil Lord Voldemort, who will stop at nothing to cheat death for himself.

Besides Harry and Voldemort, there are several other heroes and villains who come and go throughout the books.  There’s one of these minor characters who everybody just loves to hate.  Her name is Dolores Umbridge.  Ms. Umbridge is a person who thrives on order.  She likes neatness, punctuality, and good manners above all else.  But underneath the surface, she is sadistic and evil.  She takes a wicked delight in doling out cruel and unusual punishments on the students of Hogwart’s.

The thing about Dolores Umbridge that makes her so scary (scarier than Voldemort himself, if you ask me) is how she maintains her perfectly pressed image while being so horrible.  That image of neatness, order, and propriety is nothing more than an empty shell with no substance.  She reminds me of a poem by the ancient Chinese philosopher Lao-Tzu:

When the Way is lost there is virtue

When virtue is lost there is humaneness

When humaneness is lost there is rightness

And when rightness is lost there is propriety.

The “Way” that Lao-Tzu mentions is more than just a path that one follows.  For him, the “Way” is the supreme mystery that exists at the very heart of reality, from which all things are born.  For us in the Christian tradition, we could easily say, “God”.  In this poem, Lao-Tzu is describing the movement from depth to shallowness, from that which is meaningful to that which is meaningless.  In the Harry Potter novels, Dolores Umbridge is a person who has completed that journey in its entirety.

Have you ever felt that way: like you’re going through the motions, being all pleasant and polite, but you wonder if there’s anything deeper than that?  Do you ever wonder if there might be more to life than that?  Do you ever hunger for real relationship and connection with yourself, with other people, or maybe even with something more?  Do you ever wish you could find that “Way” again, as Lao-Tzu was saying, that supreme mystery at the heart of reality?

The apostle Paul, in today’s scripture reading, seems to think there is a way.  If we look at it closely, we can see the drift from deep to shallow working in reverse.  Paul begins with the polite and then takes it deep.  The reading is taken from the very beginning of Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians, which is probably the oldest Christian document that we have on record.  In it, Paul follows the typical format that one would find in a polite letter from the first century.  When writing an important letter in that time, you wouldn’t just start right in with what you have to say.  There were certain proprieties that had to be observed.  First, the authors identify themselves, “Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy”.  Then they address their audience, “To the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ”.  Then the author offers a greeting.  Paul’s greeting, “Grace to you and peace” draws from Greek tradition, “Grace”, combined with a traditional Jewish greeting, “Peace”.  So the opening of the letter goes like this: “Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, To the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace.”

Already, Paul is taking polite custom and transcending it in order to make a theological point.  He’s trying to get his readers to look deeper into his words, past the niceties and into the truth.  He identifies his addressees with God and Jesus and then uses his typical greeting to remind them of what God is doing in their lives through Christ.  “Grace” is the unmerited favor (or unconditional love) of God and “peace” (harmony, wholeness, well-being) comes as a result of having grace in your life.  So, on one level, Paul is simply and politely saying, “Hi there!”  But on a deeper level he’s making a statement about who God is and how God works in peoples’ lives.  God is the one who brings harmony and well-being through unconditional love.

The next item you usually find in any nicely written letter from the first century is some kind of thanksgiving.  This isn’t usually offered to the letter’s recipients, but to the gods on behalf of the recipients.  For example, it might be something as simple as, “I give thanks to the gods for your good health.”  Most of the time, it was just that short.  But one unique characteristic of Paul’s letters is that he takes these thanksgivings quite seriously and spends time on them in order to make a point.  Once again, Paul is taking one of those little moments that people hardly notice in life and slowing it down in order to force them to pay attention to it and see the deeper spiritual meaning hidden within it.

Paul gives thanks to God for the Thessalonians themselves and recounts the story of how he brought his message to them “not in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit”.  In, with, and under his human words, Paul tells them, there was a divine voice, the voice of the Holy Spirit, which was also speaking to them.  In the same way, Paul continues, that same Spirit was also present in them as they listened.  Paul reminds them of how they “received the word with joy in the Holy Spirit”.  So there they were, in the midst of a human conversation, but it wasn’t just a religious sales pitch.  It was also a moment of divine encounter as the Spirit of God was present and working in those who spoke and those who listened.  Once again the ordinary became extraordinary as it was infused with spiritual depth and meaning.

What was the result of this divine encounter?  Paul points to the Thessalonians’ transformed lives.  He talks about their “work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope”.  He says they “became imitators of us and of the Lord”, they “became an example to all the believers”, and they welcomed traveling strangers as they came through town.  Here too, the Spirit of God was present and speaking through them.  Paul observes how “the word of the Lord has sounded forth” so powerfully in the silent message of their lives that there is “no need to speak about it”.  The Holy Spirit transforming peoples’ lives toward greater harmony and wholeness through the unconditional love of God is a powerful sermon unto itself, without a single word ever being spoken.  This reminds me of that catchphrase which is often attributed to St. Francis of Assisi: “Preach the gospel always, use words when necessary.”  Eugene Peterson says it well in his paraphrase of this passage: “The word has gotten around. Your lives are echoing the Master’s Word, not only in the provinces but all over the place. The news of your faith in God is out. We don’t even have to say anything anymore—you’re the message!”  Leonard Peltier says the same thing in today’s second reading: “Let who you are ring out & resonate in every word & every deed… You are the message.”

Beneath the surface of our polite, boring, and everyday lives there runs a deep current of spiritual meaning.  In the midst of this ordinary day a mysterious and divine presence is working extraordinary miracles of transformation.  The unconditional love of God is present in your life and guiding you toward greater harmony and wholeness.  It’s there and it’s free for all whether we choose to acknowledge it as such or not.

The question I have for you today is this: Are you content to be someone like Dolores Umbridge from Harry Potter, who lives life on the surface, breezing by each moment with a polite perfection that is really nothing more than an empty shell?  Or are you open to the kind of deep and meaningful reality that Paul and Lao-Tzu were talking about?  Are you willing to be mindful of the moment that you’re in, no matter how mundane, and recognize it as the dwelling place and workshop of the Holy Spirit?  If any part of you can answer “Yes” to that last question (or even wants to say “Yes”), then you’ve already begun the journey.  All that’s left to do is continually come back to that momentary awareness as often as possible during the rest of your day.  Keep coming back to it, as often as you think of it, every day for the rest of your life.  If you forget, don’t worry, just take that instant in which you remember that you are forgetting and momentarily bring your attention back to the moment itself.  Look deeper.  Pay attention.  The 17th century monk Brother Lawrence called this “Practicing the Presence of God”.  Jean-Pierre de Caussade called it “the Sacrament of the Present Moment”.  Whatever you choose to call this exercise, however you undertake it, it’s the means to reconnecting with ourselves, with our neighbors, and with that deep, mysterious presence at the heart of all existence that we call God.

A Wedding in a War Zone

On By J. Barrett LeeIn SermonLeave a comment
"Love Among the Ruins". An image captured during the 2011 Stanley Cup riots in Vancouver.

This week’s sermon from First Presbyterian, Boonville.

The text is Matthew 22:1-14.

Click here to listen to the sermon at fpcboonville.org

You can also tune in to hear us on the radio at 7:30 Sunday mornings on 99.3 and 101.3 FM “The Moose”.

Did anybody here happen to catch the royal wedding on TV earlier this year?  Pretty impressive, wasn’t it?  Of course, there’s the dress.  Everybody wanted to know what Princess Kate would be wearing that day (designed by Sarah Burton of Alexander McQueen’s fashion house, in case anyone was still wondering).  There was all the dazzling royal regalia and decoration.  I, for one, was particularly impressed with how they managed to get so many full grown trees inside to line the center aisle of Westminster Abbey!  Being the theology nerd that I am, I’m probably the only person who tuned in primarily to hear the Bishop of London’s sermon.  What does one write for such an occasion?  As it turns out, he did a pretty good job.  I especially liked his quote from St. Catherine of Siena, “Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire.”

However, there was one thing about the whole affair that I found disconcerting: my invitation seems to have gotten lost in the mail!  Did this happen to anyone else?  We were invited, right?  I mean, why wouldn’t we be invited?  We’re basically nice people, aren’t we?  I’m sure we’d behave ourselves.  No one would put a whoopee cushion underneath Prince Charles’ seat (at least not during the service).  Who knows?  We could have really shown those royal types a good time!

Alas, the reality is that regular folks like us don’t usually get invited to royal weddings.  Those invitations only go out to those who possess this-worldly qualities of nobility and celebrity.  The Prime Minister of England was there.  Elton John was there.  One of the Spice Girls was there.  You know, important people, the rich and famous, the elite.  Yes, it was quite a spectacle.  The couple kissed, cameras flashed, and everyone had a wonderful time.

Now imagine with me, if you will, what would happen if people from London’s “elite” had started turning down their invitations.  The excuses might seem innocuous at first: Elton John is busy recording his new album, Parliament is passing important legislation, the Spice Girls are getting back together.  Important people have important things to do, right?  But then imagine that the royal couriers start coming back with horrible stories.  One by one, they burst through door of Buckingham Palace, panting and wounded.  “Something’s happening,” they say, “They’re turning on us out there!”  Queen Elizabeth quickly turns on the TV, just in time to see Prime Minister David Cameron on the screen, tearing up his wedding invitation and publicly executing the royal courier on live TV!  With the gun still smoking in his hand, he loudly proclaims, “We’ll do the same thing to every single member of the royal family!”

Anyone who saw that bloody broadcast would have to agree that it looked an awful lot like the beginnings of a civil war in the UK and the insurgents picked the day of the royal wedding to make their move!  Guards, police, and military would be immediately deployed to deal with the insurrection.  Instead of riding to the wedding in a Rolls Royce, Kate pulls up in an armored jeep.  Instead of elegantly striding into the church, she ducks and runs inside as soldiers lay down cover fire over her head.  Machine gun fire drowns out most of the Bishop’s sermon.  Explosions outside cause Westminster Abbey to rumble and shake.  This would not have been the wedding day that William and Kate had hoped for.  Most of us would probably feel quite sorry for them in that situation.

On the other hand, there would be something brave and admirable in the couple’s decision to continue with their wedding in a war zone.  Like Bruce Cockburn said, they would be “lovers in a dangerous time”.  It would be a powerful symbolic gesture, as though William and Kate were celebrating the power of love in defiance of the power of death.  Fortunately though, William and Kate didn’t have to make that call on their special day together.

In our scripture reading this morning, Jesus tells us a story about a wedding where such a tragedy did happen.  A king sends out wedding invitations to his noble subjects and receives rejections in return.  What’s even worse is that people start beating up and killing the royal messengers as acts of rebellion against the king.  The National Guard gets called and it’s an all out civil war.  But the royal wedding goes ahead as planned, in spite of opposition from without and within.  In fact, the king takes advantage of this crisis in order to fling wide the doors of his palace and invite all the everyday people on the street.  He says, “Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.”  Matthew’s gospel tells us that all kinds of people, “both good and bad”, came to the wedding.  Luke’s gospel goes into even more detail, telling us specifically that “the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame” were all welcome at this celebration of love.

Jesus tells this story in order to show us how the kingdom of heaven is like a wedding in a war zone.  Now, it’s important to remember here that “the kingdom of heaven” that Jesus mentions has little or nothing to do with the afterlife.  Jesus isn’t talking about “going to heaven when you die.”  He’s talking about a present-day reality in this world.  “Heaven” is just a Jewish euphemism for the word “God”.  “Kingdom” can also mean “reign”, “dominion”, or “territory”.  It’s a spiritual state of being, rather than a geographical location.  The “kingdom of heaven” or “reign of God” exists wherever God’s way of love is followed rather than the ways of the world.  Jesus is saying that the life of faith is an all-inclusive celebration of life and love that goes on in spite of the all-pervasive destruction that’s going on around us.  Theologian William Stringfellow referred to this as “living humanly in the midst of death.”

Each one of us is cordially invited by God to live a life of faith in the present reality of the kingdom of heaven.  When I say “faith” I’m not just talking about subscription to a set of doctrines, adherence to a set of morals, or participation in certain rituals.  “Faith” in this sense of the word is a heart-felt response to God’s loving invitation that rises up from the very core of your being.  It’s that part of you that says “Yes” inside to the all-inclusive celebration of love.  It’s a radical act of defiance against the power of this world where “might makes right”, “the ends justify the means”, and “history is written by the winners”.  Whenever someone chooses reconciliation over retribution, that’s the kingdom of heaven breaking through.  Whenever someone chooses trust over cynicism, that’s the kingdom of heaven breaking through.  Whenever the rigid armor of this world system cracks in some small way, even for just a moment, and let’s a little bit of light and humanity in, that’s the kingdom of heaven breaking through.  We pray for this to happen every time we pray the Lord’s Prayer: “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

I’d like to illustrate this point with a true story taken from a book by Philip Yancey called What’s So Amazing About Grace?

Accompanied by her fiancé, a woman went to the Hyatt Hotel in downtown Boston and ordered the meal. The two of them pored over the menu, made selections of china and silver, and pointed to pictures of the flower arrangements they liked. They both had expensive taste, and the bill came to thirteen thousand dollars. After leaving a check for half that amount as down payment, the couple went home to flip through books of wedding announcements.

The day the announcements were supposed to hit the mailbox, the potential groom got cold feet. “I’m just not sure,” he said. “It’s a big commitment. Let’s think about this a little longer.”

When his angry fiancée returned to the Hyatt to cancel the banquet, the Events Manager could not have been more understanding. “The same thing happened to me, Honey,” she said, and told the story of her own broken engagement. But about the refund, she had bad news. “The contract is binding. You’re only entitled to thirteen hundred dollars back. You have two options: to forfeit the rest of the down payment, or go ahead with the banquet. I’m sorry. Really, I am.”

It seemed crazy, but the more the jilted bride thought about it, the more she liked the idea of going ahead with the party—–not a wedding banquet, mind you, but a big blowout. Ten years before, this same woman had been living in a homeless shelter. She had got back on her feet, found a good job, and set aside a sizable nest egg. Now she had the wild notion of using her savings to treat the down-and-outs of Boston to a night on the town.

And so it was that in June of 1990 the Hyatt Hotel in downtown Boston hosted a party such as it had never seen before. The hostess changed the menu to boneless chicken—–“in honor of the groom,” she said—and sent invitations to rescue missions and homeless shelters. That warm summer night, people who were used to peeling half-gnawed pizza off the cardboard dined instead on chicken cordon bleu. Hyatt waiters in tuxedos served hors d’oeuvres to senior citizens propped up by crutches and aluminum walkers. Bag ladies, vagrants and addicts took one night off from the hard life on the sidewalks outside and instead sipped champagne, ate chocolate wedding cake, and danced to big-band melodies late into the night.

That’s the kingdom of heaven on earth!

When I ask you about your faith, I honestly couldn’t care less about your religious affiliation or observance.  What I want to know (and what God wants to know) is whether you are the kind of person who would go to a wedding in a war zone.  Will you join in the celebration of God’s all-inclusive love in the midst of this violent and broken world?

What do you say?  Are you with me in this?

If anything deep inside of you is answering “Yes” to that question right now, listen to it!  That’s the power of faith, hope, and love rising up inside of you.  That’s the kind of faith that has the power to sustain us through the ups and downs of life.  That’s the kind of faith that has the power to renew our church.  That’s the kind of faith that has the power to change the world.

Practical Atheism

On By J. Barrett LeeIn Sermon7 Comments

Sermon for the 27th week in Ordinary Time at First Presbyterian, Boonville.

The text is Matthew 21:33-46.

Click here to listen to the audio at fpcboonville.org!

As many of you already know, being the pastor of First Presbyterian Church is only one of my jobs.  I also teach philosophy at Utica College.  Let me tell you: it’s a fun job.  I love the friendly banter I get to have with my students.  I love challenging them to think outside the box and grow as human beings.  One of my favorite memories came on the first day of class a few semesters ago.  I was sitting at the front of the room, stapling papers, when my first student arrived early and sat down.  The first words out of his mouth were, “My name is Josh and I am an atheist!”  Now, it’s important for you to know that the vast majority of my students don’t know that I’m a pastor.  I try to keep that piece of information to myself in order to maintain an open and unbiased atmosphere in the classroom.  So Josh had no idea who he was talking to.  He told me about his favorite atheist authors and I recommended a few others he might like.  At the end of the conversation, he told me he was glad that his philosophy class was being taught by me and not “some Christian moron”.  I just smiled and kept on stapling my papers.

Over the next few weeks, Josh and I continued to develop a healthy teacher-student rapport.  Then one day, he came into my office and was making small-talk.  And he asked me if I was an atheist like him.

“Actually no,” I said.  He looked surprised.

“Really,” he said, “What are you then?”  And without saying a word, I just reached into my pocket and put my clerical collar on.  For the next few seconds, he was speechless.  He just sat there with his mouth hanging open.  The look on his face was priceless.  I’m happy to say that my newly-discovered clerical status didn’t damage my professional relationship with Josh.  To this day, he and I maintain a lively connection based on mutual respect.

There are those who might say, “Barrett, how is that possible?  He’s an atheist and you’re a Christian!  Aren’t you afraid that this might somehow compromise the integrity of your faith?”

And my answer is no.  I’m not afraid of that at all.

Honest skepticism poses no threat to Christianity whatsoever.  God can handle doubt.

That being said, I do think there is a particular kind of atheism that does pose a threat to authentic faith, but it’s not the kind of atheism that you’re likely to find in the halls of the ivory tower, the ranks of the Communist Party, or the meetings of the Secular Humanist Association.  The kind of atheism that poses a real threat to Christianity is the kind you find in church.  I’m not talking about atheism by philosophy or belief.  I’m talking about practical atheism, where otherwise religious people, even Christians, live their everyday lives as if God didn’t exist.  Practical atheists read the Bible, receive the sacraments, say their prayers, and recite the creed with sincerity and devotion.

Right now, it would be easy for me to offer some example of a publicly religious personality who was caught in some major scandal or hypocrisy.  Those stories certainly are tragic, but saddest of all are those who never fall prey to such public humiliation.  They’re upstanding citizens and model Christians.  They go through the motions so well that even they don’t realize that they are actually practical atheists.

Jesus knew people like this.  He reached out to them, connected with them, and invited them into a deeper experience of who God really is.  He told them this story:

Once upon a time there was an entrepreneur who started up an elaborate winery and leased it out to tenants for management.  Already, in this first sentence, we have an insight about the nature of God versus the nature of practical atheism.  Practical atheists are quick to use the word “my”: my church, my tradition, my house, my family, etc.  But, if we take the entrepreneur to be a symbol for God, we see that God is the one who started all this.  This is God’s church.  Two hundred years ago, God began to do something in Boonville through the people of this church.  Today, their mission has been passed to us, but we don’t own it.  We are tenants here who have been given stewardship for the moment.  Each of us plays a part, but God is the one with the master plan.  This is a simple and obvious truth that is too easily forgotten in the fog of maintenance and administration.  We need to remember that nothing in this church exists for its own sake.  Everything is a tool for participating in God’s mission project here in Boonville.  Just like the landowner in Jesus’ story built the vineyard for a purpose, God built this church for a purpose.

Back to the story itself, these tenants forget just whose vineyard it is anyway.  The absentee landlord sends multiple employees in succession to the vineyard for a progress update and the tenants treat each one worse than the one before.  When the landlord sends his own son at last, they say, “This is the heir; come, let us kill him and get his inheritance.”  The only way this logic makes any sense is if the tenants assume that the landlord has died.  Only then would they have a shot at “get[ting] his inheritance”.  In the same vein, Jesus’ audience of practical atheists must have (at some level) assumed that God is dead (or unreal), in spite of their outward religious fervency.  They mistook themselves for the owners of God’s vineyard and forgot that they were merely tenants.

Any remnant of God that remains in their minds becomes shrunken and twisted so that their idea of God looks very much like their idea of themselves.  When Jesus asks them what the vineyard owner (God) will do to the wicked tenants (them), they reply in no uncertain terms, “He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time.”  Let’s listen to that again: this is what God looks like to them: they assume that God is the one who “will put those wretches to a miserable death”.  This deity, while technically just and powerful, is small-minded and unsympathetic (not unlike the Pharisees themselves).

Jesus confronts this faulty image of God with all the care and compassion in his heart.  If you look closely at the text, he never affirms the Pharisees’ idea of a God who “will put those wretches to a miserable death”.  Instead, the first words out of his mouth are, “Have you never read in the scriptures: ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is amazing in our eyes’?”  Jesus quotes from the sacred text of their own religious tradition and presents the living God as one who accepts unacceptable people and honors outcasts and rejects.  The God of Jesus does not seem to show much interest in putting “wretches to a miserable death”.  Jesus’ God would rather go looking for that tossed-aside piece of broken cement so that it can be treated with special care and honor.  This is what the living God is really like, according to Jesus.

The one part of the Pharisees’ response that Jesus agrees with is the part about “leas[ing] the vineyard to other tenants”.  Jesus tells them, “[T]he kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom.”  This sounds like punishment at first, but isn’t it liberating in the end?  Isn’t Jesus setting them free from bondage to the leased vineyard that has now become a spiritual burden?  Without that albatross around their necks, they will be free to see God more clearly.  Perhaps this is what they need in order to stop seeing God as the one who “[puts] wretches to a miserable death” and start seeing God as the one who receives outcasts and honors rejects.  By taking way their religious power, Jesus is curing the chief priests and Pharisees of their practical atheism.  I think God is doing the same thing for all of us.

Honestly, I think we’re all practical atheists at some level or another.  We like to trick ourselves into thinking that we’re self-made individuals who can pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps.  We like to cast ourselves as the hero in our own story.  We are apt to forget that we are merely tenants in God’s vineyard and think of ourselves instead as the owners.  In short, we’re trying to play God.  Into this fog of delusion comes the real and living God.  We’re terrified because we assume that God is coming in order to put us “wretches to a miserable death”, but instead this seeker of rejected cornerstones is coming to liberate us, not punish us.

So, how do we apply this cure for practical atheism in our own lives?  How do we embrace the liberation that God has in store for us?  How do we get in touch with this living God?

As it turns out, there’s not much to it at all.  We don’t have to go far to find the living God because God is already here.  The apostle Paul tells us Romans 11 that God is the source, guide, and goal of all things.  It is in God that we all “live, move, and have our being.”  As long as there is air in your lungs, the living God is present and active in your life.

We don’t need to do much of anything to get God’s attention either.  Just as God is not intimidated by honest skepticism in the classroom, God is also not impressed by pious posturing in church.  Jesus taught people that there’s no need to “heap up empty phrases” when they pray because God “knows what you need before you ask”.

So, in the end, the cure for practical atheism is as simple as what Jesus taught his followers in Luke 11:

Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. 10For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. 11Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish? 12Or if the child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion? 13If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!

So, if you feel like that’s you today: the practical atheist who is just going through the motions of spirituality, why not take some time this week for a little open-minded asking, searching, and knocking?  You might just be surprised at the gifts you receive, the treasures you find, and the doors that open up for you.