This literally is the best view in the world. It’s the galactic core of our own Milky Way Galaxy, as seen from the Paranal Observatory. You are looking straight out into the cosmos and across the center of your own galaxy. And you thought the Blue Ridge Parkway was impressive? From there, you can see for miles. From here, you can see for light years.
“Never once in my life did I ask God for success or wisdom or power or fame. I asked for wonder, and he gave it to me.”
― Abraham Joshua Heschel
This week’s sermon from First Pres, Boonville. Part 3 in a series of 5.
Click here to listen to this sermon at fpcboonville.org.
Did you know that there’s a civil war going on in our country right now? I’m serious. There is. It’s been happening for over thirty years. Unlike the last Civil War, this one isn’t between the North and South. You might be thinking, “He means the war between the political Right and the political Left.” Nope. Black and White? Nope. Haves and Have-nots? Not even close. Right now, I’m talking about the bitter divide that exists between Star Trek fans and Star Wars fans. The geeks and nerds community is a house divided against itself. My fellow Americans, this cannot be!
I feel so torn in this conflict. The fight between Star Trek and Star Wars runs right through the center of my own heart. I dream of one day being beamed aboard the starship Enterprise so that I too can “boldly go where no one has gone before.” At the same time, I also fantasize about trained as a Jedi by Obi Wan Kenobi. How can they ask me to choose sides between these two epic artifacts of science fiction lore?
Fortunately, there is one person out there who has issued a call for “Star Peace” and it’s none other than George Takei, the original Mr. Sulu on Star Trek. He’s calling for a “Star Alliance” of fans from Star Trek and Star Wars who are willing to put aside their differences and fight the real threat to good science fiction: Twilight. You may have seen the Twilight books and films being advertised in recent years. For those who haven’t experienced it, Twilight, in George Takei’s own words, is all about “Vampires who sparkle and mope and go to high school.” In Twilight, according to Takei, there is no “sense of heroism, camaraderie, and epic battle… There are no great stories, characters, or profound life lessons to be had… In Twilight, the only message that rings through loud and clear is: ‘Does my boyfriend like me?’”
Now, I don’t actually care if people like Twilight. So why am I telling you this? Why am I taking time out of my sermon to drag you down this wormhole into the darkest depths of the nerd kingdom? Because I’m very intrigued by the way in which Mr. Takei has criticized Twilight. Let me give it to you again in his words:
Gone is any sense of heroism, camaraderie, or epic battle. In its place we have vampires that sparkle and mope and go to high school… there are no great stories, characters, or profound life lessons to be had in Twilight. No. In Twilight, the only message that rings through loud and clear is: ‘Does my boyfriend like me?’
What Mr. Takei is saying, in so many words, is that good stories are always bigger than the people in them.
As it is in science fiction, so it is in real life. Imagine those who live entirely selfish lives with no connection to anyone or anything other than that which maximizes their own personal profit. The thrill of financial stability lasts for a little while, but wears thin eventually. Who can’t think of tabloid headlines depicting any number of celebrity scandals brought on by conspicuous consumption and wanton indulgence? Despite its material benefits, I think most of us can agree that such a life does not sound ultimately appealing. Something deep within us longs to be part of a bigger story than that of our own little lives.
We’ve been talking about the Elements of Worship these past few weeks at our church. On the first week, we talked about the Word of God as an Element of Worship. Last week we talked about Prayer. If you missed either of those sermons, you can listen to them on our website at www.fpcboonville.org. In coming weeks, we will discuss Sacrament and Relationship as Elements of Worship. This week, we’re talking about Service as an Element of Worship.
“Service” is a word that we use a lot. If you go out to a restaurant where the staff is friendly and the refills keep coming, you’re probably going to say, “Wow! This place has really good service!” And what will you do next? You’ll probably leave a bigger tip. Isn’t that interesting? A waiter brings his whole self to work, welcomes customers with genuine personal warmth, and people just naturally respond with generosity. Remember that point because it will become important later. Here’s another example: When a person is a soldier or sailor in some branch of our country’s armed forces, we say that she is “in the service.” In other words, she dedicates her whole self to the cause of national defense by risking her life in a combat zone. We tend to respect that, don’t we? A lot of people wear yellow ribbons that say, “Support the Troops.”
In the same way, when we talk about service as an Element of Worship, we’re talking about more than this one-hour-per-week ritual that we do on Sunday mornings in this building. We’re talking about more than the cash we fork over in the collection plate. We’re even talking about more than the time and energy that so many of you tirelessly volunteer for our various church projects during the year. Just like that waiter or soldier, real service happens when you offer your whole self to something bigger than you. Service, as an Element of Worship, is a self-offering.
As Christians, we see our self-offering as connected to and growing out of the self-offering of Jesus. His life, death, and resurrection provide us with a lens through which we can come to understand what it means to give ourselves as an offering.
First, his life. Jesus gave himself as an offering in two ways. He offered himself to God and he offered himself to others. These two ideas cannot be separated. Jesus believed that God is Love, therefore you can’t love God with your whole heart, soul, mind, and strength without loving your neighbor as yourself. If you try to do one without the other, you’re going to end up very confused about what love is.
Jesus’ commitment to love (in this dual sense) got him into trouble on more than one occasion. He exposed the hypocrisy of the powers that be. He threatened the security of religious and political authorities in ways that no terrorist ever could. Leaders in the public and private sectors alike were so frightened by what Jesus stood for that they even temporarily put aside their mutual hatred for each other in a grand conspiracy to have him killed.
Under these circumstances, no one would have blamed Jesus for mounting a defensive strategy in order to ensure his own survival, but that’s not what he does. It says in today’s reading from the gospel according to Matthew: “Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.” Jesus walks straight into the belly of the beast, knowing full-well what the beast is about to do to him.
Jesus was not so caught up in his own ego that he wasn’t willing to offer himself. He knew that his personal story was part of the universe’s bigger story. Sure, he could pick up a sword and fight for his own survival, but he knew that survival isn’t everything. His fellow Jews were fighting for their survival every day and, ironically, it was killing them. “Those who live by the sword die by the sword,” he said.
So, instead of the path of survival, Jesus opted for the path of self-offering. He lived his life of love as an offering to God and others. When that love brought him into conflict with powerful forces that wanted to kill him, he walked the way of the cross and let them do their worst. But that’s not the end of the story.
What happens next is the best part. We celebrate it every year at Easter time. The offering turned into a miracle. Early in the morning, on the first day of the week, three women found an empty tomb. And an angel asked them, “Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here. He is risen!” This is where the big story really gets going. Death itself starts to unravel like an ugly old sweater. The powers that be were vanquished by the power of love. Christians remember this event annually as our most sacred holiday. We celebrate it weekly in order to remind ourselves of what we really believe in. As Christians, we don’t believe in survival; we believe in resurrection. That is the true meaning of service (self-offering) as an Element of Worship. Jesus taught us that.
What does this look like for us? That’s a great story about Jesus, but how can we live lives of self-offering and resurrection today? Jesus said to his disciples, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.” The way of the cross is a path, not just for Jesus, but for all of us as well. We who claim to follow him must decide whether we will choose survival (like the world) or resurrection (like Jesus).
When we choose to follow the way of the cross, we become part of a story that’s bigger than us. We say that we are willing to jeopardize our survival for something more important. It’s a dangerous move to make, but if we move in faith, we see miracles. I once heard someone say that, until you find something worth dying for, you’re not really living. Are we really living? Are you? What are you willing to die for? What is this church willing to die for? When we find an answer to that question, we’ll learn what resurrection is really all about. Like George Takei was saying: there we will find heroism, camaraderie, and epic battles. There there are great stories, characters, and profound life lessons to be had.
I heard a story this week from Rev. Marlin Lavanhar, the senior minister at All Souls’ Unitarian Church in Tulsa, OK. He said their church made a rather controversial decision several years ago. They decided to take all the money that came into the church through their collection plate (about $20,000 per year) and give it away. People were scared because that’s a lot of money. The church depended on that money for their operating costs. But they decided it was the right thing to do, so they amended their budget and went for it. In that first year, rather than the $20,000 that usually came in through the collection plate, they raised $150,000 and gave it all away. Now, you might say, “That’s great, but it’s too bad that they couldn’t meet their budget.” Actually, according to Marlin, they did meet their budget that year. They even took in about 10% more than they needed. “Generosity begets generosity,” Marlin said. Remember what I said about the waiter? When somebody serves from the heart and offers him/herself, aren’t you just naturally inclined to leave a bigger tip? Generosity begets generosity.
Let’s find another example, maybe one that’s a little closer to home. I’ve mentioned this already, but I can’t help bragging on you folks again. You remember this past Christmas Eve, right? We heard about a crisis in our community where the county government was cutting funding to daycare programs. Hundreds of kids were being affected and some of the most reputable and affordable daycare agencies were in danger of closing. And the elders of our church voted unanimously to take the collection from Christmas Eve, our single biggest worship service of the year, and send the whole thing to one of those struggling daycare agencies. Did you know that, with what came in that night, our little country church was able to cut a check for $1,000 to Thea Bowman House? We’ve never taken up a Christmas Eve collection that big! Generosity begets generosity. Did you know that there are people in the community who noticed what we did and decided to join our church because of it? That’s resurrection in action.
One more story about you folks. Last summer, controversy was in the air as New York state was making a decision about legalizing same-sex marriage. I drove down to Albany that week and stood in the halls of the state capitol building. I saw the crowds of people shouting and holding signs with Bible verses about hellfire and damnation. During that time, our little church took a stand. We stood up and said, “All God’s children are created equal: black or white, male or female, gay or straight.” At a church supper only two weeks before that happened, one of our own long-time church members came out of the closet to us at a church supper. He shared his story with us. And I remember the first thing that anybody said, after a long silence, was, “Well, God don’t make no junk!” Our church took a stand. We made a statement that this is a welcoming church. We told the world that this church is a place where the law of love trumps the letter of the law.
Sure, it was a controversial thing to do. It still is. Our survival instinct might tell us to keep quiet and not rock the boat, because we don’t want to lose church members to controversy. But you all chose resurrection instead of survival. Did you know that people in the community noticed what we did? On the very next Sunday after the legislation passed in Albany, a news crew surprised us during our morning worship. They had TV news cameras set up right here in the sanctuary. People heard about our little country church and said, “What? A church that accepts and welcomes gay and lesbian people? A church that believes that God loves everybody? We’ve got to check this out!” In the past few months, families have driven in from as far away as Utica to visit our church. We didn’t lose people by being controversial, we gained them! That’s resurrection in action!
And let me tell you what: we’re going to keep doing it. We’re going to open the doors of this church so wide that the whole world will know it’s welcome here. There are a lot of churches in Boonville, but there’s not very many where people can go and know they’ll be loved and accepted no matter who they are. But people know they’re welcome here. This sermon is being played on the radio, so even more people will know after this week. I know it’s controversial but I don’t care (and neither should you). Just like Jesus, we are offering ourselves to God and our neighbors. We are choosing resurrection over survival.
When we go downstairs after worship today, we’ll be hearing our annual reports from all our different church committees. We’ll be voting on this year’s budget and deciding our thoughts together for 2012. As you look at the paperwork and hear the reports, I want you to remember what service and self-offering are really all about. I want to invite you to look past your ego-driven instinct for survival and look to your God-given faith in resurrection. That, more than anything else, will make a difference for the future of our church. Like George Takei was saying: here we will find heroism, camaraderie, and epic battles. Here there are great stories, characters, and profound life lessons to be had.
Here is a video of George Takei’s call for Star Peace:
This is a re-post from Facebook. Just for fun.
This happened on TAM airlines.
A 50-something year old white woman arrived at her seat and saw that the passenger next to her was a black man.
Visibly furious, she called the air hostess.
“What’s the problem, ma?” the hostess asked her
“Can’t you see?” the lady said – “I was given a seat next to a black man. I can’t seat here next to him. You have to change my seat”
– “Please, calm down, ma” – said the hostess
“Unfortunately, all the seats are occupied, but I’m still going to check if we have any.”
The hostess left and returned some minutes later.
“Madam, as I told you, there isn’t any empty seat in this class- economy class.
But I spoke to the captain and he confirmed that there isn’t any empty seats in the economy class. We only have seats in the first class.”
And before the woman said anything, the hostess continued
“Look, it is unusual for our company to allow a passenger from the economy class change to the first class.
However, given the circumstances, the commandant thinks that it would be a scandal to make a passenger travel sat next to an unpleasant person.”
And turning to the black man, the hostess said:
“Which means, Sir, if you would be so nice to pack your handbag, we have reserved you a seat in the first class…”
And all the passengers nearby, who were shocked to see the scene started applauding, some standing on their feet.”
I had a fascinating exchange with an old college pal this week. I mentioned in an email that I self-identify as a Liberal Christian.
My friend responded, “So, what is a ‘Liberal Christian’? When I hear that, it makes me think it’s a code word for ‘Christians who think they’ve figured out how to be pro-choice Democrats, and still be in-line with the Bible’… Seems like they all listened to U2 also…”
While I’m not a registered member of any political party and my views on abortion do not conform to either pro-life or pro-choice platforms, I had to laugh at myself over the U2 comment. They just so happen to be my favorite band… I guess some stereotypes are true!
After that, I proceeded to this gentle-but-long-winded long-breezed history lecture on 20th century Christians and biblical interpretation. Unwittingly, I fell right into the two habits that most annoy me about Liberal Christianity: Negativity and Elitism.
Negativity
Have you ever noticed that we Liberal Christians spend a lot of time talking about what we don’t believe? We don’t accept Young Earth Creationism. We don’t think the Bible is inerrant. We don’t believe eternal life depends on accepting Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior. We read books with titles like Why Christianity Must Change or Die and Taking the Bible Seriously but Not Literally (both of which happen to be good books, by the way).
Elitism
Along with our tendency to accentuate the negative, it’s also pretty obvious that our churches tend to be populated with college-educated, upper middle-class white folks. We Liberal Christians pride ourselves on being better educated, informed, and enlightened than our Evangelical counterparts. Just as some Evangelicals tend to hide behind walls of biblical literalism, Liberals tend to hide behind walls of intellectual superiority. Even though none of us would put it this way, we consider ourselves to be the “one true church” because we have risen above the naïve superstitions of Catholics and Evangelicals. Despite our claims to open-minded pluralism and tough-minded skepticism, we still claim to be the sole possessors of the “real truth” about Christianity. Despite our lip-service to diversity, our churches tend to be pretty monochromatic. Despite our passion for social justice, I once heard someone say about us, “They’ll bake a casserole for every cause but they won’t go to jail for any cause.” Is this really the legacy left by the Underground Railroad, the Suffragettes, and Martin Luther King?
In response to these tendencies toward Negativity and Elitism, I’d like to see us develop an Affirmative and Common Sense Liberalism.
Affirmative Liberalism
What do we believe as Liberal Christians?
First of all, we believe in freedom. That’s what the word liberal means, after all. We are free to make full use of our minds and hearts as we grow in our faith. We are free to disagree. There should be no litmus test of doctrine among us. Sadly, this is not always the case in practice. There are just as many mean-spirited Liberals as there are Bible-thumping Fundamentalists. I once witnessed an Evangelical ministry candidate in my own denomination being publicly mocked in front of her colleagues by a Liberal pastor who asked whether she thought the Second Coming might involve Jesus returning to Earth “in a rocket ship.” If I am free to question traditional doctrine, others should be free to accept it. We should rejoice with those whose lives are changed, for example, by a charismatic “born again” experience. We have every reason to believe that they have truly encountered the Spirit of the Living God. The difference is that we also believe the same for Gandhi, Buddha, and anyone who has ever scored free swag from the Oprah Winfrey Show. The mark of a truly Christian Liberalism is when we leave room for those who would not leave room for us. Personally, I’m still working on that.
Second, Liberal Christians believe in grace. We are all created, connected, redeemed, and sustained by the absolutely unconditional love of God. No one is exempt from this Good News, regardless of time, place, religion, or sexual orientation. We are all equally God’s children. Full stop. There is no moral standard upon which God’s ultimate approval is based. This does not mean, however, that there are no moral standards. We believe in the fair and equal establishment of liberty and justice for all. It is sometimes necessary to act decisively in correcting behaviors, protecting the innocent, or redressing grievances, but this does not involve a final condemnation or an ultimate devaluing of the whole person. Human parents must enact discipline in order to shape a child’s character, but eternal punishment is inconsistent with God’s purposes as a loving parent. What could make you subject your child to eternal torture without relief? No one is irredeemable. In short, everybody gets into heaven (if there is such a place). Alas, Liberal Christians have often failed on this front as well. One friend of a friend commented that, after leaving her rather Conservative Mennonite church for the United Church of Canada (a prominent Liberal denomination in the Great White North), she was disappointed to find just as much hard-nosed legalism among Liberal Christians. The difference, she noted, was that Liberal Christians made her feel guilty about recycling rather than masturbation. Whenever we are overwhelmed by either unfounded humanistic optimism or righteous indignation, we Liberal Christians should remember to keep this song in our hearts: “’Tis grace has brought me safe thus far, And grace will lead me home.”
Common Sense Liberalism
Watching certain candidates on the presidential campaign trail has reminded me how many people respond to folksy wisdom more than actual data. Conservatives seem to have cornered the market on common sense while Liberals cite academic facts and theories. I refuse to accept the necessity of this arrangement. We too can make pithy bumper stickers. We too can appeal to those beliefs and values that lie deep within the human heart and lead us toward a better world. We too can quote the Bible to support what we have to say. I’ll even do it in the good old King James Version:
Liberal Christians believe that God loves everyone. We believe that all people are created equal in one human family. We believe in fairness. We believe in freedom. We believe that God is a mystery so big that no one can fully understand. We believe in grace. We believe in justice. We believe that diversity makes us stronger.
The term Liberal has become a dirty word in recent years. It is used in the halls of Congress and churches to accuse, demean, and degrade. I want to reclaim the term Liberal, especially as it applies to Christian faith. There are no doubt others who will question my intellectual and moral integrity. That’s fine. They can do that. I’ll try not to argue back. This is just me trying to figure out what I believe and where I fit in the grand scheme of things. I am a Liberal Christian.
“Here I stand. I can do no other.” – Martin Luther at the Diet of Worms
Brilliant and hilarious!
All the best to folks running the gauntlet of ordination exams.
I have said just about all of these at some point:
This week’s sermon from First Pres, Boonville. 2nd of 5 in a series on the Elements of Worship.
Mahatma Gandhi, the great Indian social reformer, once said something quite profound when someone asked him what he thought of Christianity. He said, “I like your Christ but I don’t like your Christians. They are so unlike your Christ.” In a similar vein, the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche once said to a group of Christians (in his typically caustic fashion), “Yuck, you make me sick! Because you redeemed don’t look like you’re redeemed!”
While these comments are more than a little bit harsh, I think we Christians have to admit they are also more than a little bit true. For a long time, Christians have held onto a crazy idea that we are the guardians of infallible doctrine and impeccable morals. The end result of this idea is that the rest of the world has come to see Christians, not as messengers of good news and amazing grace, but as “sour-faced saints” with their halos screwed on just a little too tight. Under these circumstances, church becomes little more than a “holy club” for people with an answer for every question and a solution to every problem.
Is this who we’re meant to be? I think not. Consider Nietzsche and Gandhi’s words in reverse: how would you describe someone who “looks like” he or she is “redeemed”? Can you imagine what it would be like to live in moment-to-moment awareness of the truth that within, behind, and beyond the apparently random facts of life there is, at the very heart of the universe, a “Love that will not let me go”?
Christians (in their better moments) believe there has been at least one such life in the course of human history. By this, I am referring of course to the life of Jesus. Folks come out in droves to celebrate with us at Christmas and Easter the beginning and the end of Jesus’ thirty-something years on Earth (and we’re delighted to welcome them on those days). But there are, of course, fifty other Sundays of the year when we celebrate everything that happened in the middle! Jesus’ amazing life is something worth remembering, celebrating, and imitating all year long. There is something so wonderful about the life of Jesus that even Gandhi, a devout Hindu, sat up and took notice.
“I like your Christ, but I don’t like your Christians. They are so unlike your Christ.”
What was it about the life of Jesus that caught Gandhi’s attention? What kind of moment-to-moment awareness of Love’s presence did Jesus live with? One phrase that he liked to use more than any other was “the kingdom of heaven.” For him, this wasn’t some far away realm where angels played harps on clouds, but a very present reality. For Jesus, the kingdom of heaven was very near, “at hand,” closer to every atom than its own nucleus, closer to every person than her own soul. If you asked him to describe it, he would start telling stories about the things he saw around him. Jesus saw heaven everywhere: a farmer sowing seed, a woman baking bread, a merchant buying pearls, a shepherd tending sheep, a woman sweeping her house out, birds that nest, seeds that grow, and flowers that bloom. For Jesus, the question isn’t “where is heaven?” For Jesus, the question is “where isn’t heaven?” This is the kind of life that Jesus lived: a moment-to-moment awareness of the truth that within, behind, and beyond the apparently random facts of life there is, at the very heart of the universe, a “Love that will not let me go.”
“Believe the good news,” he said, “the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
This week is the second in a five week series of sermons on the elements of worship. We’re looking at who, what, when, and where but also (most importantly) why we do what we do each week in church. Last week, we talked about the Word of God, found in (but not mistaken for) the words of the scriptures, which forms a kind of central fulcrum around which the rest of our liturgy revolves. This week, we’re talking about prayer. In the coming weeks, we’ll cover service, sacrament, and relationship.
I began this week’s discussion on prayer by describing the kind of life that Jesus lived: a life of moment-to-moment spiritual awareness. In doing this, I kind of started at the end. This is the point to which we will return. This moment-to-moment spiritual awareness, demonstrated and embodied in the life of Jesus, is the purpose of all prayer and the final destination of every praying person.
But before we get back to that central point: a few words about what prayer is not. First, prayer is not magic. There are many churches and organizations out there who teach that if you pray for something long enough, hard enough, or in a particular way, you will (or should) always get what you want. Many prominent televangelists and proponents of the so-called “Prosperity Gospel” have made use of this idea as a fund-raising strategy. The most corrupt among them have willingly and knowingly manipulated people into giving up their money as a “seed of faith” in exchange for some sort of miracle. A private investigation of one such organization during the 1990s found that the donations were being sent to a bank where the checks were deposited and prayer requests were simply thrown into the trash.
A further problem with the “prayer is magic” approach is how it deals with the inevitable question: “What happens when we don’t get what we pray for?” This is not so big a deal when we’re talking about some trivial thing that the heart desires, but it becomes a big deal when we’re praying about things that really do matter: What happens when the cancer doesn’t go into remission? What happens when the child isn’t found alive? These are big questions that make a big problem for those who subscribe to the idea that prayer is magic. Sadly, there are those in this group who answer this question by blaming the victim. “Oh well,” they say, “I guess you just didn’t have enough faith.” If you’ve ever had someone say that to you, let me be blunt and tell you that it’s nothing but a load of baloney. It’s a lie from the pit of hell. Don’t believe it. There are many stories in the gospels of Jesus working miracles for people, but never once does he look an individual person in the eye and say, “Go away. You don’t have enough faith.” Don’t take my word for it, go and look it up for yourself.
In response to this obviously destructive idea that prayer is magic, many other folks have adopted the very modern notion that prayer isn’t actually anything at all. They would say that prayer is a placebo. For those who might not be familiar with that term, the Placebo Effect is an event that doctors have noticed during clinical trials of experimental medications. When they’re testing a new drug, they run a test where half of the people are given the real medicine and the other half are given a sugar pill (i.e. placebo) that looks like the real thing but doesn’t actually do anything to your body. Nobody knows which pill they’re getting. What the doctors found is that the patients who received the placebo nevertheless showed signs of improvement. The mind was tricked into believing that it was receiving a new medical treatment that would make the body feel better. So strong was this mental expectation that the body responded by feeling better, even when there was no actual medicine involved. This is known as the Placebo Effect.
Those who view prayer as a placebo see it in the same way. They think that prayer is just a mental exercise that people undertake in order to make themselves feel better. It would be foolish, they say, to think that God would intervene to make a difference in human circumstances. Honestly, the idea that prayer is a placebo makes me just as uncomfortable as the idea that prayer is magic. I have a hard time believing that this universe is a closed and mechanical system with nothing beyond itself. I think that God is real, that God does care about our pain, and that God does make a difference in this world. I feel stuck between unfounded idealism on the one hand and hard-nosed cynicism on the other. I can’t claim to have the final answer to this conundrum, but I have a hunch that the reality of prayer is actually a mystery that somehow encompasses and yet transcends both of ends of the ideological spectrum.
The Presbyterian Book of Order defines prayer as “a conscious opening of the self to God.” I really like that. It reminds me of the first verse from our beloved hymn: “Joyful, joyful, we adore Thee, God of glory, Lord of love; Hearts unfold like flowers before Thee, Opening to the sun above.” While I do believe that prayer can and does make a tangible difference in this life and this world, I don’t see that as the reason why we pray.
Even though it’s become kind of a dirty word (even in church), I have to admit that I like the term religion. It comes from a Latin word that means “to reconnect”. Thanks to online tools like Facebook, people all over the world today are enjoying that feeling of reconnecting with old friends from days gone by. It’s the same way with religious practices. Through them, we find ways to reconnect with God, ourselves, our neighbors, and the universe as a whole.
Now, I should qualify that statement by saying that I don’t believe we are ever completely disconnected from God in an absolute sense. The scriptures tell us that it is in God that we “live, move, and have our being,” that God is “above all, through all, and in all,” and that “from God, through God, and to God are all things.” When we reconnect with God, we are reconnecting with that which is already nearer to every atom than its own nucleus and closer to every person than her own soul. It would be more proper to say that through prayer and other religious practices, we are nurturing our conscious connection with God. Prayer brings us to an awareness of the Reality in which we already live, move, and have our being.
There are many ways that we seek to nurture this conscious reconnection in our public worship. First of all, there are those parts of our service that are explicitly referred to as prayer. In our Call to Worship, we acknowledge God’s presence and invite God to work in us whatever needs to happen in order for us to become the kind of loving and compassionate people that God wants us to be. In our prayer of Confession, we acknowledge our shortcomings and celebrate God’s undying and redeeming love. Confession is not about guilt and fear. Confession is about honesty and trust that God never gives ever up on us. In the prayer for Illumination, as we talked about last week, we ask the Spirit of God to enlighten our hearts and minds so that we can hear, believe, and follow God’s Word. In the prayers of the People, we lift up to God our specific needs and concerns, trusting that God is working in us and in the world to bring peace and wholeness to all. In the prayer of Thanksgiving, we raise a voice of gratitude for all the goodness we see in the world around us and we dedicate our lives to cooperating with God’s work in the world. Finally, we gather all our various prayers into one great prayer that Jesus taught his disciples: the Lord’s Prayer. There is so much to be said here, but time grows short and the hour grows late. I will leave most of that for another sermon on another day. For now, I’ll simply say that this one prayer encompasses all the other forms of prayer that I have already mentioned. We say it by rote week after week, but I encourage you, as an extended meditation exercise, to stop sometime and really think about what you are saying: “Our Father, who art in heaven: hallowed be thy name…”
Not all prayer involves words or speech. Music itself is a form of prayer, even when it is purely instrumental. The preludes, hymns, anthems, offertories, and postludes of our worship service are not provided for your entertainment. They are prayers in themselves. The beautiful arrangement of sound into organized tones called music is meant to guide you and me into and through the present moment to the eternal mystery in which it rests. Can you resonate with the music of the spheres? Can you imagine, during an organ solo, the life-giving harmonies of our delicately balanced solar system? Music, as a form of prayer, leads us beyond ourselves to participate in a larger reality. A theologian once said, “The one who sings prays twice.”
Prayer can also be undertaken in total silence. No words are necessary. Sitting quietly for an extended period of time and focusing on the unconscious rhythm of each God-given breath is a form of prayer. This kind of prayer, called contemplative prayer, lets go of all doing in favor of just being with God in the present moment.
“Prayer is a conscious opening of the self to God.” In its various forms, we reconnect with that which is deepest in us and the universe. We move beyond just “knowing about God” through dogma and theology. We come to “know God” in a direct and mystical sense. Through the regular practice of prayer, our lives begin to look more like Jesus’ life: living in that moment-to-moment spiritual awareness of the Love in which we live, move, and have our being.
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.
Hopping Hadrian's Wall 