“How Big is Our Tent?” Mark 9:38-50 Lawrence Jackman
When I was a kid, I was something of a geek. Oh, OK not something—a totally geeky little kid with interests that ranged from the esoteric to the just plain idiosyncratic and sometimes crossed the line to weird. ( I am much older now.) So, one of my kid interests was in raising and breeding Guppies. I wanted an easy task, that was the breeding part. But I also wanted color patterns and behavioral characteristics – that was the highly geeky part. So I got lots of observation time in with my silent little friends. And something that I discovered very quickly is a principle that I have never forgotten about animal behavior (including humans) is what I call the “Guppies in the fish bowl” lesson.
Essentially the population of Guppies in any container will expand to fill the capacity of the container. Then they will self limit. At a certain point the population will level out and no more expansion of population will happen unless there is contraction. If I took out a couple of dozen fish to give to a friend, they would be replaced rather quickly. If I did not take any out, no more would come along. This was a fascinating reality to a geeky little kid. And it fascinates me yet.
There is a lot of church organizational issues that parallel the issue of “Guppies in the fishbowl”. For instance, in some organizationally subconscious way we appear to develop as congregations a notion of appropriate size for our colony of faithful. We max out at that level and will exchange positions, but not really grow. If we loose a few families we will work to replace them, if not we will work to limit the population of our bowl. This is true of church congregations across the board. It is just something that churches do.
It is easier to see in others than it is in ourselves. I had a friend who was a Southern Baptist Lay Preacher before I helped him see the Presbyterian Light. David and I were observing a very successful Baptist group in our town. “Watch”, he said, “in another few months they will have a fight and then split into two groups. It is the way Baptists do it.” While one denomination may manage their bowls differently—every group seems to, again on a subconscious level, manage the size of their bowls.
Further, different congregations elect different sizes to “top out” at. Some of our congregations cap population at a couple of dozen worshiping persons. Some go to 100 as a top number; some cap things at higher numbers, etc.
Now all that is just a fact of life. It is no fault and if any of it fits this congregation, you need to know that it fits almost every congregation in every denomination. There ends up being a sort of a dynamic tension between inclusion and exclusion of others.
The passage from Mark discusses both the issue of inclusion and of exclusion of others. It is Jesus himself making some incredibly inclusive statements about who belongs in the tent or in the bowl as it were. But then, it turns 180 degrees and in the next sentence Mark sees Jesus saying some of the more powerfully exclusive statements of the New Testament. Which is true? Or are they both true in a sort of continuum or tension?
A couple of things about the passage. For more reasons than one the two parts do not seem to have originally been said together. The first part, the one that is so very inclusive seems more primitive and quite a bit more straightforward. The second part is one that is exclusive. It is symbolic in nature, more sophisticated in language, and implies a much more developed sense of the church than simply the disciples group with Jesus.
These two stories being made into one is an indication that as early as there was church history, there was a push and pull between being radically inclusive and being intentionally exclusive. It is almost like Mark spun these two stories together to explain and expand the first story itself.
The first one is pretty straight forward. The disciples have been out on a short mission and Jesus has stayed behind. They come back, find him and make a report that has little to do with their mission. “Teacher, we saw a man casting out demons in your name. We took care of that and told him not to do it.” “Aren’t you proud of us?”
“Oh, come on friends”, says Jesus, “if this man is not against us, he is for us. He is doing something good in my name. How bad can he be? And, even if he is bad and we have no evidence of that, how long can he stay that way doing good things and using my good name?” “Leave him alone.”
That is three of this baker’s dozen verses. Now the other nine seem to spin a different story. First this is symbolic talk according to most people. If the church is the body of Christ, then this talk of parts of the body become symbols for members of the church. This part of the passage becomes a discussion of excommunication at its earliest level in the church. A foot, a hand or an eye are individual members of a body. Causing the church to stumble is the sin of consequence, according to the passage. The lesson is this, if a member causes the whole system to go down—kick them out. Better to amputate a piece of the body than to have the whole thing go down.
That is exclusive!
(I have a felt obligation to say one more time: this is symbol language. It is not meant to suggest that people go around performing self amputations on their own bodies. It never was that and is not now. This is about the body of Christ—the church.)
That said, this is exclusive stuff. So how does the tension work out between radical inclusive and powerful exclusion?
It may not seem it, but this is quite practical stuff. Suppose that a group of people who come to worship here sometimes begins to sense some ownership in the ministry of this place. They open up a web site to host a “Friends of Fairlawn” page teaching some biblical content, offering prayers for others, and promoting service missions in the community. Remember that this group is using the church’s name but is completely outside of the church. The session has no control, not even on a theoretical level over what the group does or says. How would we respond to that issue, keeping in mind Jesus’ directive to, “Leave them alone!”
That, by the way, is an issue before our Presbytery in precisely parallel fashion about the Presbytery and not a congregation. What is the biblical way to respond ? No surprise to you, perhaps, my impression is that we should run with the biblical imperative, “If they ain’t agin us, they are for us.” Let them run without a leash.
Now my perspective is jaded with the benefit of things like being old. After all, how far are they going to run on my watch? I believe that the tent ought to be monstrous in size. Can a church have half a dozen adulterers, three or four shady business people, a gossip or two, and a partridge in a pear tree? I have seen churches with more of every group except the partridge in the pear tree. (I’ve never seen one of those anywhere.) The question is not are bad behaviors present, but rather are those behaviors ones that either lead the innocent astray or cause the body to stumble.
It isn’t that those defects aren’t present that is important. It is rather that those defects in some, do not lead others astray. That they do not cause others to stumble.
The trick becomes determination of what is truly against. The assumption being, if it is not against us, it must be for us. Secondly the evaluation that is necessary is discerning that which “makes the body stumble” or “leads a little one astray”.
If someone’s defect, or sin, or life leads innocent people astray, then it is a problem. If it causes other people to stumble it is a problem. If my bad behavior truly leads others to fail in coming into Christian life, that is a serious problem and someone needs to leave or straighten up immediately.
Back in 1983 Presbyterians were involved in a massive effort to reunite the northern and southern churches. Like we do everything else, this was great committee, commission and Assembly wide processing and debate. A powerful and persuasive leader in the southern branch of the church kept us focused on framing the constitution of the church in a way that served a particular political purpose. The two entire denominations were literally stumbling over themselves to accommodate this clergyman.
All Andy Jumper did in that whole process was keep us stumbling on the road to reunion. I kept feeling and saying, “He is not our friend. He is going to leave anyway. Why are we doing what he says?” “Let’s put our backs to the wall and tell him NO!”
Well we didn’t do that. We continued to frame who we were and would become based on trying to appease this man. He did leave anyway, shortly after we took our last stumbling steps toward reunion. We should have done better and recognized our stumbling. That is the stumbling side of the issue.
Based in risk, there is a valid position for exclusion.
If, on the other hand, my sins (or yours) cause the church to be embarrassed – big deal. It is time for the church to get over itself.
My belief is that our tent is supposed to be big—great big. It needs to include almost everyone and nearly every group. We need not artificially identify some conditions for correction and others for benign neglect UNLESS this is about stumbling or leading astray.
There is a story about Pope John XXXIII. He was the revolutionary old man who lead the way into Vatican II. John was elected because they could not find a successor who enough people would agree on. John was old and somewhat frail. The logic was he would be an interim pope for a year or so because he would not live long. He lived for five years and changed the world.
So when he was first feeling his oats as pope, he was in the Vatican and a Cardinal was trying to talk some sense into him. “Holy Father”, he intoned, “what are we doing to the church?” John went over to one of the windows—the stained glass kind that you can’t see through—opened it and declared, “We are letting in a little fresh air.”
Time for us to do the same. Let our tent be an open one and big enough for all.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Sunday, September 13, 2009
September 20, 2009 Sermon
Who Is This Jesus? Mark 8:27-38 Lawrence Jackman
Mark 8:27-38
27Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way he asked his disciples, "Who do people say that I am?" 28And they answered him, "John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets." 29He asked them, "But who do you say that I am?" Peter answered him, "You are the Messiah." 30And he sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him.
31Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. 32He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. 33But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, "Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things."
34He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 35For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. 36For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? 37Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? 38Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels."
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Seminary students are taught somewhere very early on about what is called the Messianic secret in the Gospel of Mark. The story is this. For the first half of the Gospel of Mark there is a consistent emphasis on Jesus being the “undercover” Savior. He is the Son of God as he sees it, and for that matter, as the devil sees it and the spirits of the world see it. Jesus just does not seem to want any people to know this secret.
Jesus admonishes spirits that he casts out to be silent. He charges those whom he has healed to be quiet about what has happened to them. Of course, these efforts meet with mixed success. Sometimes the persons who have been healed go out immediately and
tell the story to others. Some of the healings are actually potent enough that they point to the secret identity of Jesus.
All this secret stuff builds through the first half of the Gospel. You remember perhaps that the Gospel is only 16 chapters long. So, half way through, in Chapter 8 comes time for the secret to be revealed. From this point on the identity of Jesus is more and more revealed and clear. The mighty mission becomes the march to Jerusalem. So the first half the gospel is a secret being kept and the second half is a secret being revealed.
The initial opening up of the secret is this fascinating dialogue between Jesus and Simon Peter. They are walking along and Jesus turns to the close followers. “What are people saying about me? Who do they think I am?” The followers reply, “Well some folks are saying John the Baptist, others Elijah, maybe one of the other prophets.” That’s a pretty impressive array of identities, but Jesus isn’t quite satisfied.
“OK guys, who do you think I am?” Silence. Then it is Peter who makes the revealing statement, “You are the Christ.” It is on that three word confession that the entire story of salvation pivots. This Gospel is a teeter totter balanced across these three words of Peter. “You are the Christ”. From that watershed everything else flows toward the confrontation in Jerusalem.
Seminary students were taught that this was an editorial device. That a way to tell the story was to grab this secret/revelation theme and to spin the story about that single issue. Maybe so, but there is a deeper thing here. Why did Mark choose this theme? And the simple answer to that is; for the writer of the Gospel of Mark the single critical issue of spiritual life was in answering the question, “Who is this Jesus?”
Now I find that to be a fitting theme for the day when, in this church, we christen the educational efforts for a new program year. For it is in those efforts to provide Christian education that we, in this place, deal most fundamentally with the issue of “who is this Jesus?”
Several points in the total scriptural story of the day seem to me to mandate features for the base for real educational ministry. They are these: 1) scripturally the question is a real one and not an editorial device, 2) the answer to the question represents a kind of foundational base for a process, and 3) the answer immediately began to evolve and continues to evolve—it is not static.
I believe that the process of religious education (done rightly) follows that pattern.
1) Ask the question. 2) Formulate an answer. 3) Repeat steps one and two.
Step one, ask the question. I use to have a need to explain Presbyterianism to dozens of people every year. They were new employees in the programs of our church related social service/mental health agency. They pretty well always came from Christian backgrounds. So I would start by saying, “there are two kinds of Christian groups. In one you are told, this is what you think. In the other you are asked what do you think. Presbyterians are a ‘What do you think?’ religion.”
I believe that is pretty much accurate. At our best, we are more about the questions than rigid answers. That is our strength. It makes everything else more complicated, but it makes everything else more real. Life, the faith, our tradition is about process much more than specific content. Asking the question is critical the specific answer is not.
The question in the case of the Gospel reading is asked in a interesting place. Jesus and his friends have traveled north outside of Galilee they have come to a region called Caesarea Philippi. What an incredible context for the original question. It was a pagan place. It was around the base of Mount Hermon one of the water sources for the river Jordan. This place had been a place of worship of many gods and spirits. The Roman and Greek gods were worshipped here. The lush green of the mountain sides had lent themselves to the worship of gods of nature.
So Jesus takes his friends to a pagan place to ask the most important question of life, “who am I?” The great question and the great answer are not from a safe and known place. They do not happen in the comfy context of padded pews or familiar chants—they occur in the middle of life and in the middle of all sorts of secular mix.
In our old neighborhood in Saint Louis there was a street that was pretty eclectic religiously. At the base of a hill there was a Masque. A few hundred yards away was a fairly large Catholic church. The street then became lined for quite a little way with both a county park where nature lovers frequented. Then there were McMansions, lots of them. Finally near the top of the hill there was the most beautiful Hindu Temple you could imagine. Over the top of the hill you stand nearly on the grounds of the most prestigious Christian Science academy and that was just down the street from a synagogue. Weidman Road was Caesarea Philippi. Picture the local Baptist pastor taking his flock over to that road to talk about religion. If you can do that you should have a picture of Jesus and the disciples that day. It was not the safe and predictable place.
Our questions are not developed or answered on familiar turf and safe places. That is a lesson for us as we teach. Go into the world—the real world—to ask the questions. The context of the faith for us is the middle of life. Out there where greed and avarice are the gods of the day; Out there where self help books and new age philosophy abound; out there where science and soul struggle to meet; that is the place of our real religious questioning.
Now about the answers to our questions—let them be bold. Peter’s confession is incredible when you stop to think of it. He has walked with Jesus. He has watched the teacher sweat, eat, sleep, become fatigued, get angry, maybe get the stomach flu and everything else that is human. It is in the middle of that when he makes his affirmation: you are the Christ. Think about how bold an affirmation that is.
And while the answer is, for a moment, perfect. This is the formulae of all Christianity that we confess Jesus as Lord. And in half a minute it is rebuked as satanic. Jesus begins to talk with the disciples about what the affirmation means—he begins to spell out the implications. Peter immediately takes him aside and says, “No way Jesus! That is not what being the Christ means.” And Jesus rebukes saying, “Get to my backside Satan”.
Now here is the point of that. The answers, no matter how great they may be, are in a state of evolution. They are always such or they are not real answers. This is taking the results of questioning and answering around the turn and having it become a new level of questioning and answering. We are never done with the process. There is no “faith once and for all delivered to the saints”. That is baloney. There is a way to put your hand in the hand of the man from Galilee, of continuing to walk through the very pluralistic world asking questions, answering questions and evolving our answers through a continuation of that process.
That is the business of the faith. It is the business of education within the church. It is our business and our responsibility to our own souls.
Who is this Jesus? I’ll tell you what the answer is today. And if he is alive to me, then I will not fear that the answer will grow throughout the day into a new one tomorrow.
Amen
Mark 8:27-38
27Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way he asked his disciples, "Who do people say that I am?" 28And they answered him, "John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets." 29He asked them, "But who do you say that I am?" Peter answered him, "You are the Messiah." 30And he sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him.
31Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. 32He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. 33But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, "Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things."
34He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 35For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. 36For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? 37Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? 38Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels."
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Seminary students are taught somewhere very early on about what is called the Messianic secret in the Gospel of Mark. The story is this. For the first half of the Gospel of Mark there is a consistent emphasis on Jesus being the “undercover” Savior. He is the Son of God as he sees it, and for that matter, as the devil sees it and the spirits of the world see it. Jesus just does not seem to want any people to know this secret.
Jesus admonishes spirits that he casts out to be silent. He charges those whom he has healed to be quiet about what has happened to them. Of course, these efforts meet with mixed success. Sometimes the persons who have been healed go out immediately and
tell the story to others. Some of the healings are actually potent enough that they point to the secret identity of Jesus.
All this secret stuff builds through the first half of the Gospel. You remember perhaps that the Gospel is only 16 chapters long. So, half way through, in Chapter 8 comes time for the secret to be revealed. From this point on the identity of Jesus is more and more revealed and clear. The mighty mission becomes the march to Jerusalem. So the first half the gospel is a secret being kept and the second half is a secret being revealed.
The initial opening up of the secret is this fascinating dialogue between Jesus and Simon Peter. They are walking along and Jesus turns to the close followers. “What are people saying about me? Who do they think I am?” The followers reply, “Well some folks are saying John the Baptist, others Elijah, maybe one of the other prophets.” That’s a pretty impressive array of identities, but Jesus isn’t quite satisfied.
“OK guys, who do you think I am?” Silence. Then it is Peter who makes the revealing statement, “You are the Christ.” It is on that three word confession that the entire story of salvation pivots. This Gospel is a teeter totter balanced across these three words of Peter. “You are the Christ”. From that watershed everything else flows toward the confrontation in Jerusalem.
Seminary students were taught that this was an editorial device. That a way to tell the story was to grab this secret/revelation theme and to spin the story about that single issue. Maybe so, but there is a deeper thing here. Why did Mark choose this theme? And the simple answer to that is; for the writer of the Gospel of Mark the single critical issue of spiritual life was in answering the question, “Who is this Jesus?”
Now I find that to be a fitting theme for the day when, in this church, we christen the educational efforts for a new program year. For it is in those efforts to provide Christian education that we, in this place, deal most fundamentally with the issue of “who is this Jesus?”
Several points in the total scriptural story of the day seem to me to mandate features for the base for real educational ministry. They are these: 1) scripturally the question is a real one and not an editorial device, 2) the answer to the question represents a kind of foundational base for a process, and 3) the answer immediately began to evolve and continues to evolve—it is not static.
I believe that the process of religious education (done rightly) follows that pattern.
1) Ask the question. 2) Formulate an answer. 3) Repeat steps one and two.
Step one, ask the question. I use to have a need to explain Presbyterianism to dozens of people every year. They were new employees in the programs of our church related social service/mental health agency. They pretty well always came from Christian backgrounds. So I would start by saying, “there are two kinds of Christian groups. In one you are told, this is what you think. In the other you are asked what do you think. Presbyterians are a ‘What do you think?’ religion.”
I believe that is pretty much accurate. At our best, we are more about the questions than rigid answers. That is our strength. It makes everything else more complicated, but it makes everything else more real. Life, the faith, our tradition is about process much more than specific content. Asking the question is critical the specific answer is not.
The question in the case of the Gospel reading is asked in a interesting place. Jesus and his friends have traveled north outside of Galilee they have come to a region called Caesarea Philippi. What an incredible context for the original question. It was a pagan place. It was around the base of Mount Hermon one of the water sources for the river Jordan. This place had been a place of worship of many gods and spirits. The Roman and Greek gods were worshipped here. The lush green of the mountain sides had lent themselves to the worship of gods of nature.
So Jesus takes his friends to a pagan place to ask the most important question of life, “who am I?” The great question and the great answer are not from a safe and known place. They do not happen in the comfy context of padded pews or familiar chants—they occur in the middle of life and in the middle of all sorts of secular mix.
In our old neighborhood in Saint Louis there was a street that was pretty eclectic religiously. At the base of a hill there was a Masque. A few hundred yards away was a fairly large Catholic church. The street then became lined for quite a little way with both a county park where nature lovers frequented. Then there were McMansions, lots of them. Finally near the top of the hill there was the most beautiful Hindu Temple you could imagine. Over the top of the hill you stand nearly on the grounds of the most prestigious Christian Science academy and that was just down the street from a synagogue. Weidman Road was Caesarea Philippi. Picture the local Baptist pastor taking his flock over to that road to talk about religion. If you can do that you should have a picture of Jesus and the disciples that day. It was not the safe and predictable place.
Our questions are not developed or answered on familiar turf and safe places. That is a lesson for us as we teach. Go into the world—the real world—to ask the questions. The context of the faith for us is the middle of life. Out there where greed and avarice are the gods of the day; Out there where self help books and new age philosophy abound; out there where science and soul struggle to meet; that is the place of our real religious questioning.
Now about the answers to our questions—let them be bold. Peter’s confession is incredible when you stop to think of it. He has walked with Jesus. He has watched the teacher sweat, eat, sleep, become fatigued, get angry, maybe get the stomach flu and everything else that is human. It is in the middle of that when he makes his affirmation: you are the Christ. Think about how bold an affirmation that is.
And while the answer is, for a moment, perfect. This is the formulae of all Christianity that we confess Jesus as Lord. And in half a minute it is rebuked as satanic. Jesus begins to talk with the disciples about what the affirmation means—he begins to spell out the implications. Peter immediately takes him aside and says, “No way Jesus! That is not what being the Christ means.” And Jesus rebukes saying, “Get to my backside Satan”.
Now here is the point of that. The answers, no matter how great they may be, are in a state of evolution. They are always such or they are not real answers. This is taking the results of questioning and answering around the turn and having it become a new level of questioning and answering. We are never done with the process. There is no “faith once and for all delivered to the saints”. That is baloney. There is a way to put your hand in the hand of the man from Galilee, of continuing to walk through the very pluralistic world asking questions, answering questions and evolving our answers through a continuation of that process.
That is the business of the faith. It is the business of education within the church. It is our business and our responsibility to our own souls.
Who is this Jesus? I’ll tell you what the answer is today. And if he is alive to me, then I will not fear that the answer will grow throughout the day into a new one tomorrow.
Amen
Sunday, September 6, 2009
September 6, 2009 Sermon
“Healing” Mark 7:24-37 Lawrence Jackman
From there he set out and went away to the region of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could not escape notice, but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet. Now the woman was a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. He said to her, "Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs." But she answered him, "Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs." Then he said to her, "For saying that, you may go-the demon has left your daughter." So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.
Then he returned from the region of Tyre, and went by way of Sidon towards the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis. They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they begged him to lay his hand on him. He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue. Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, "Ephphatha," that is, "Be opened." And immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. Then Jesus ordered them to tell no one; but the more he ordered them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. They were astounded beyond measure, saying, "He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak."
There is probably no concept in Christian life more complicated and more difficult to balance and rationalize that that of healing. The Gospels are filled with stories about Jesus working miracle healings of all sorts of people. The Gospel reading today is a strong example. In our daily lives, when something happens that was good and we did not expect it, we say, “Thank God” or proclaim “God healed in this situation”. Now we are all creatures of logic. The logical corollary to those statements is that when something terrible happens, then, at least, God has failed us in that situation.
Because we always give God praise for the good things, many of us are at severe odds with God when the bad happens. In crude terms, if God always gets the credit, who gets the blame?
You and I both know these are not theoretical or entirely philosophical in nature. This THE theological discussion of everyday life. I had an email yesterday morning. It was about beloved friends in Saint Louis. Like Deb and me, they are grandparents. The two grandsons in the family are both victims of a terribly rare blood disease which is genetic in nature. Andrew was two years and two months old exactly yesterday morning when he died. Our friends are so Christian. They have been praying for miracles for two years of this child’s life. They have elicited the prayers of a wonderful, caring and loving Church. They had my buddy Carol praying for them. On a personal level Carol is someone I call when I want. It doesn’t sound real clergy like, but I believe that if God listens to anyone it is Carol.
None of that seemed to matter yesterday morning. Cindy and Vince, the grandparents, Justin and Kristin, the parents, are left in the very non theoretical place of contradiction between how we respond to bad and how we react to that which is good.
Complicate that one more level with the fact that, since we do not understand at all, we Christians and especially our clergy make up stuff. Period. We make it up. And the inventions of our little logical brains are even more insulting than the horrific binds we find ourselves in trying to figure out life.
I remember a speaker in the basement of First Pres, Alton, Illinois. This was way back and he was a chaplain in the Air Force stationed at Scott AFB. He had become somewhat charismatic and was completely sold on the idea of divine healing. He stood talking and pontificating about how it was assured for people who had enough faith—they would get divine healing. If it didn’t happen, in this speaker’s mind, it was a failure on the part of the person asking.
As this “holy person” spoke, I looked across the back rows to see a wonderful elderly woman with tears streaming down her face. She had lost her husband a month earlier from disease. Mildred was a completely righteous person and I know that she prayed for Eldon every day of their life together whether he was sick or well. And now this clergy was telling her that she just didn’t believe enough of it would have been fixed. I resisted the impulse to slap the snot out of him. As I think back on it, I am not sure that was a good choice. Someone did need to help him understand how insulting to the faith he was being.
Focus on the Gospel reading. The story of the Syrophonecian woman is, according to most scholars, one of the single earliest tales told of Jesus. Very early, before much of anything was written down there began to be both stories that were told and repeated from on listener to another. And just as the news about Jesus was being written in the very first formats there were stories like this one and also there were “sayings”. They sort of amounted to “The Sayings of Chairman Jesus”.
Just like the experiences of life that I cited, here is an unvarnished account. It has no polish or sanding to make it more smooth. This is about a close to the actual words that one first century person told another as you can get. Here is a raw story or two about Jesus and healing.
First, I want you to consider that there is no mention of anything like a miracle in either of these stories. Both stories assume power and strength in Jesus, but neither story actually calls what happened a supernatural miracle. There are really two points to the stories. One is that Jesus’ compassion does not stop at human boundaries. The second is that the healing capacity is an indicator of goodness and strength, but does not prove anything else.
The Syrophoenician woman was Greek. That was her ethnic identity and her place of origin was Syria occupied Phoenicia. She was a citizen of the world in a way that no one in Jesus’ company could even be expected to appreciate. Definitely she was not a Hoosier Presbyterian—or even a Jew. So this sophisticant comes begging an intervention from the Jewish shaman. The story says he blew her off. “The children eat first. Why would I do a favor for a non Jew? That would be like feeding the dogs before your own children.” Well the lady is not going to be discouraged with the slap and she argues back in his own words. “The dogs get to eat whatever is dropped from the table.” “OK”, says Jesus, “let it be done”. The daughter is healed of demon possession. There is no faith issue in the story, no if you believe enough question, and no if you think the right thing issue. It is simply an exercise of real power but not necessarily seen as Godly power.
Then comes the next healing right on the heels of this one. Walking down through some border country between Galilee and Samaria he comes to the area called “Ten Towns”. This is El Paso, Texas or Tijuana, Mexico in our world. This is border country in every sense of the words. Identity of an individual in this area as to specific race, religion, or faith is impossible. These folks are the “mutts” of the world. And a man is brought out to Jesus who is hearing impaired and has a speech impediment. Again there is some very physical talk here. Jesus spits on his fingers and places them physically in the man’s ears. It sounds more like a medicine man behavior than our general picture of Jesus. But, hey it works. The man speaks and hears. And the people are impressed. Again, not because it is a miracle, but rather because it is effective display of power. They say, “he has done very well”, not, “Surely he is God”.
So maybe all that is one clue. The healings of the New Testament are seen in historical context as being somewhat within the norms. They are not from some other world, but rather consistent with the order we experience here. They were as comfortable watching and appreciating these events as we are watching a hospital staff helping someone through an illness. Healing? “Yes” both cases. Grateful to God? “Of course” both cases.
But not on our part or on first century mindset do we see this as a change in the order of things. It is consistent with the way things happen. There is still one death per customer in this world. That is not a happy reality, but a reality nonetheless. Anyone in the room who can tell me the two times that was not true in the biblical record will get extra credit at the end of the semester. Faith, belief, trust has nothing to do with the ultimate outcome or our exit from this plane of existence. Sad but true.
The simple lesson of these two healing stories in the Gospel today has only incidentally to do with healing. The lesson is that boundaries do not matter. The Greek woman born in Syria was not worthy of much to any Jewish person in the first century. Doing her a favor seemed like an insult to the faithful Jewish people. Yet, since for God boundaries are not so terribly important, the intervention happens through the natural strength that belongs to the good man, Jesus. He may be more than that, we acknowledge that he is, but that is not about the healing part.
Likewise the whole story of the deaf man. The boundary and the border nature of his life did not matter. Power was there to be accessed. Again, only the acknowledgement that this was “Well done” nothing about a miracle. And if this power is within the norms, let me suggest to you a new place to focus our energy and attention.
You and I are “normal people”. Well at least I understand that you are—not so sure about me. If we are normal and healing is a normal thing. Are we not called to be healers? I think we are.
You got to step over boundaries and you have to be willing to risk touching the unfortunate citizens of this planet. When looking at news footage of the troubles of the world; when reading the painful stories of children, women and men; when considering the violence, illness and despair; don’t you hear the call. God is saying, “Who will we send and who will go for us?”
And the biblical answer to that question is pretty clear, “I am over here God. Send me. Let me be a healer in a broken world”. Maybe the world’s craziness would make more sense if we were able not just to pray for healing, but also to pray to be healers.
A few years ago Deb, a friend and I were traveling through Italy and Greece. Along the roadsides in Italy (where we went first) were these thousands of little shrine memorials. They were much more ornate and complex than the crosses we see beside the road where someone died in an auto accident, but they were the same sort of thing.
In Greece there were even more of them. Up in the mountains in a little town I was talking to a shopkeeper. Between us we shared enough bad Greek, poor English and pathetic German to handle a conversation. She told me the difference between Italy and Greece on the issue of the shrines. “Here it is not just the place where something bad happened. It is also places where something didn’t happen: or maybe where a good thing happened.”
The Greek people are still building their little shrines. In the middle of bad events, in the context of risk when threat was escaped, and in the middle of good things: they are building little shrines which say “God was with me here”.
That more holistic celebration of God’s presence is what we need also.
We need to refuse to see boundaries.
We need to pray for healing while we pray to be healers.
We need to celebrate God’s presence in all of life.
Amen.
From there he set out and went away to the region of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could not escape notice, but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet. Now the woman was a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. He said to her, "Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs." But she answered him, "Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs." Then he said to her, "For saying that, you may go-the demon has left your daughter." So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.
Then he returned from the region of Tyre, and went by way of Sidon towards the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis. They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they begged him to lay his hand on him. He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue. Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, "Ephphatha," that is, "Be opened." And immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. Then Jesus ordered them to tell no one; but the more he ordered them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. They were astounded beyond measure, saying, "He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak."
There is probably no concept in Christian life more complicated and more difficult to balance and rationalize that that of healing. The Gospels are filled with stories about Jesus working miracle healings of all sorts of people. The Gospel reading today is a strong example. In our daily lives, when something happens that was good and we did not expect it, we say, “Thank God” or proclaim “God healed in this situation”. Now we are all creatures of logic. The logical corollary to those statements is that when something terrible happens, then, at least, God has failed us in that situation.
Because we always give God praise for the good things, many of us are at severe odds with God when the bad happens. In crude terms, if God always gets the credit, who gets the blame?
You and I both know these are not theoretical or entirely philosophical in nature. This THE theological discussion of everyday life. I had an email yesterday morning. It was about beloved friends in Saint Louis. Like Deb and me, they are grandparents. The two grandsons in the family are both victims of a terribly rare blood disease which is genetic in nature. Andrew was two years and two months old exactly yesterday morning when he died. Our friends are so Christian. They have been praying for miracles for two years of this child’s life. They have elicited the prayers of a wonderful, caring and loving Church. They had my buddy Carol praying for them. On a personal level Carol is someone I call when I want. It doesn’t sound real clergy like, but I believe that if God listens to anyone it is Carol.
None of that seemed to matter yesterday morning. Cindy and Vince, the grandparents, Justin and Kristin, the parents, are left in the very non theoretical place of contradiction between how we respond to bad and how we react to that which is good.
Complicate that one more level with the fact that, since we do not understand at all, we Christians and especially our clergy make up stuff. Period. We make it up. And the inventions of our little logical brains are even more insulting than the horrific binds we find ourselves in trying to figure out life.
I remember a speaker in the basement of First Pres, Alton, Illinois. This was way back and he was a chaplain in the Air Force stationed at Scott AFB. He had become somewhat charismatic and was completely sold on the idea of divine healing. He stood talking and pontificating about how it was assured for people who had enough faith—they would get divine healing. If it didn’t happen, in this speaker’s mind, it was a failure on the part of the person asking.
As this “holy person” spoke, I looked across the back rows to see a wonderful elderly woman with tears streaming down her face. She had lost her husband a month earlier from disease. Mildred was a completely righteous person and I know that she prayed for Eldon every day of their life together whether he was sick or well. And now this clergy was telling her that she just didn’t believe enough of it would have been fixed. I resisted the impulse to slap the snot out of him. As I think back on it, I am not sure that was a good choice. Someone did need to help him understand how insulting to the faith he was being.
Focus on the Gospel reading. The story of the Syrophonecian woman is, according to most scholars, one of the single earliest tales told of Jesus. Very early, before much of anything was written down there began to be both stories that were told and repeated from on listener to another. And just as the news about Jesus was being written in the very first formats there were stories like this one and also there were “sayings”. They sort of amounted to “The Sayings of Chairman Jesus”.
Just like the experiences of life that I cited, here is an unvarnished account. It has no polish or sanding to make it more smooth. This is about a close to the actual words that one first century person told another as you can get. Here is a raw story or two about Jesus and healing.
First, I want you to consider that there is no mention of anything like a miracle in either of these stories. Both stories assume power and strength in Jesus, but neither story actually calls what happened a supernatural miracle. There are really two points to the stories. One is that Jesus’ compassion does not stop at human boundaries. The second is that the healing capacity is an indicator of goodness and strength, but does not prove anything else.
The Syrophoenician woman was Greek. That was her ethnic identity and her place of origin was Syria occupied Phoenicia. She was a citizen of the world in a way that no one in Jesus’ company could even be expected to appreciate. Definitely she was not a Hoosier Presbyterian—or even a Jew. So this sophisticant comes begging an intervention from the Jewish shaman. The story says he blew her off. “The children eat first. Why would I do a favor for a non Jew? That would be like feeding the dogs before your own children.” Well the lady is not going to be discouraged with the slap and she argues back in his own words. “The dogs get to eat whatever is dropped from the table.” “OK”, says Jesus, “let it be done”. The daughter is healed of demon possession. There is no faith issue in the story, no if you believe enough question, and no if you think the right thing issue. It is simply an exercise of real power but not necessarily seen as Godly power.
Then comes the next healing right on the heels of this one. Walking down through some border country between Galilee and Samaria he comes to the area called “Ten Towns”. This is El Paso, Texas or Tijuana, Mexico in our world. This is border country in every sense of the words. Identity of an individual in this area as to specific race, religion, or faith is impossible. These folks are the “mutts” of the world. And a man is brought out to Jesus who is hearing impaired and has a speech impediment. Again there is some very physical talk here. Jesus spits on his fingers and places them physically in the man’s ears. It sounds more like a medicine man behavior than our general picture of Jesus. But, hey it works. The man speaks and hears. And the people are impressed. Again, not because it is a miracle, but rather because it is effective display of power. They say, “he has done very well”, not, “Surely he is God”.
So maybe all that is one clue. The healings of the New Testament are seen in historical context as being somewhat within the norms. They are not from some other world, but rather consistent with the order we experience here. They were as comfortable watching and appreciating these events as we are watching a hospital staff helping someone through an illness. Healing? “Yes” both cases. Grateful to God? “Of course” both cases.
But not on our part or on first century mindset do we see this as a change in the order of things. It is consistent with the way things happen. There is still one death per customer in this world. That is not a happy reality, but a reality nonetheless. Anyone in the room who can tell me the two times that was not true in the biblical record will get extra credit at the end of the semester. Faith, belief, trust has nothing to do with the ultimate outcome or our exit from this plane of existence. Sad but true.
The simple lesson of these two healing stories in the Gospel today has only incidentally to do with healing. The lesson is that boundaries do not matter. The Greek woman born in Syria was not worthy of much to any Jewish person in the first century. Doing her a favor seemed like an insult to the faithful Jewish people. Yet, since for God boundaries are not so terribly important, the intervention happens through the natural strength that belongs to the good man, Jesus. He may be more than that, we acknowledge that he is, but that is not about the healing part.
Likewise the whole story of the deaf man. The boundary and the border nature of his life did not matter. Power was there to be accessed. Again, only the acknowledgement that this was “Well done” nothing about a miracle. And if this power is within the norms, let me suggest to you a new place to focus our energy and attention.
You and I are “normal people”. Well at least I understand that you are—not so sure about me. If we are normal and healing is a normal thing. Are we not called to be healers? I think we are.
You got to step over boundaries and you have to be willing to risk touching the unfortunate citizens of this planet. When looking at news footage of the troubles of the world; when reading the painful stories of children, women and men; when considering the violence, illness and despair; don’t you hear the call. God is saying, “Who will we send and who will go for us?”
And the biblical answer to that question is pretty clear, “I am over here God. Send me. Let me be a healer in a broken world”. Maybe the world’s craziness would make more sense if we were able not just to pray for healing, but also to pray to be healers.
A few years ago Deb, a friend and I were traveling through Italy and Greece. Along the roadsides in Italy (where we went first) were these thousands of little shrine memorials. They were much more ornate and complex than the crosses we see beside the road where someone died in an auto accident, but they were the same sort of thing.
In Greece there were even more of them. Up in the mountains in a little town I was talking to a shopkeeper. Between us we shared enough bad Greek, poor English and pathetic German to handle a conversation. She told me the difference between Italy and Greece on the issue of the shrines. “Here it is not just the place where something bad happened. It is also places where something didn’t happen: or maybe where a good thing happened.”
The Greek people are still building their little shrines. In the middle of bad events, in the context of risk when threat was escaped, and in the middle of good things: they are building little shrines which say “God was with me here”.
That more holistic celebration of God’s presence is what we need also.
We need to refuse to see boundaries.
We need to pray for healing while we pray to be healers.
We need to celebrate God’s presence in all of life.
Amen.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
August 30, 2009 Sermon
Cardinal Sins and Not so Big Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23 Lawrence Jackman
There is a memorable exchange between Anne Sullivan (The Miracle Worker) and her boss (Helen Keller’s dad, Captain Keller). Anne is about to be sent along and is asking for another week or so with Helen to accomplish the next task:
Captain Keller: What would another week accomplish? We are more than satisfied. You taught her things to do, how to behave. She's more manageable, cleaner. Annie Sullivan: Cleaner? Captain Keller: Well, we say cleanliness is next to godliness. Annie Sullivan: Cleanliness is next to nothing!
Jesus and his followers were verbally confronted by the scribes and Pharisees. At issue, and it was a critical issue, was the question of cleanliness. The disciples casually ate without washing. They were not washing hands, food from the field, and food from the market. They were just willing to eat.
The Pharisees, on the other hand, practiced a heavy ritual of washing and cleansing. They ceremonially washed hands, food products, and utensils. (Now I need to tell you that either washing or not washing had much to do with sanitation. The water wasn’t clean, the methods were not sanitary and there wasn’t any soap.) It was about being ritually clean.
So the Pharisees come with the complaint about not washing. “Look Jesus”, they say, “Don’t you get it? Cleanliness is right up there with Godliness”. And Jesus replies back to them, “Cleanliness is right up there with nothing.” “It is what is inside of a human that makes that person either clean or not—it is not the outside stuff or the surface. It is what is deep down inside.”
The Christians of the early centuries began to attempt to categorize what Jesus had to say here about what was inside and could “defile” humanity. They came up with a differentiation of two types of sin. One was the garden variety and the other was this internal list that Jesus spoke of—the Cardinal sins/ deadly sins/ mortal sins call them what you will. The Scholastics of the middle ages crystallized thinking about all this. They identified Pride, Envy, Anger, Gluttony, Lust, Greed and Laziness as the 7 sins that kill. Now I don’t know where or why we got away from that concept, but it pretty well got lost in the Protestant movement. We got to the point where we focused much more on the surface sins and lost track of the core lesson that Jesus was teaching. “It is what is inside that really matters”.
Now you’ all know that I generally believe that Sin is an overworked term and almost a pointless one in the way Christians talk and think. I am not sure, at all, that it is meaningful. One proof of that I might offer is the fact that we work this into the worship service every week. We say a group prayer of confession and then we dedicate time for us to think about our personal and private needs for forgiveness. I counted the seconds today and we dedicated ……14 seconds to the private prayer time. Now, if we really believed this stuff wouldn’t we need to dedicate more than that?
We talk about this stuff and think about it so much because, if we didn’t spend our time and spiritual energy here, we might be forced to spend it where it would matter.
And we fend off core reality of Jesus’ lesson. You know the mechanism. It is the same one that assures me that my child is assertive while someone else’s kid is a bully. The one that makes us believe that we take care with our physical presentation and another person is vain. It is the mechanism that makes a welfare recipient greedy and someone of my middle class background a person of shrewd business acumen.
We invest energy in the 10 Commandments and even convince ourselves that this is the best expression of obedience to God and also of failure to obey. Fact is, the Commandments are, at least 9 out of 10 times, external. They are not about the really big issue of what is inside. They describe external behaviors. They are terribly important not because they describe morality, but rather because they describe a social code. If they are broken you also break community. The violation of this code assures a ripping apart of the very core fabric or a society. But none of that is about morality or of having a soul that is fit for an intimate relationship with God.
In short, we worry about the exhaust of a dirty engine and ignore the issues inside of the engine itself.
These issues (the ones traditionally called the deadly sins) are deadly for a single reason. They are building blocks in a wall that prevents our souls from being accessible to other souls; including the Ultimate Soul. How that works is incredibly simple. Everyone can understand the mechanism.
Let’s take pride. Jesus names it not as sin, but rather as an “evil”. Further, the word for evil is more like error than it is anything else. Dirty or unsanitary comes to mind as a way to get to the precise meaning. So, back to pride. If I have it I want the world and even God (if I think I can get away with it) to think very well of me. I want that so badly that I will create an image that is better than I am. I will show only my best side and I will polish and varnish that best side till it is just perfect. Then, my sisters and brothers in this life (and maybe even God) will love me.
Of course the problem is pretty clear. They didn’t love me. They loved the painting of myself that I showed to them. That even exacerbates the underlying belief in me that I am indeed not lovable or worthy or cherished. I dig for my own salvation an even deeper hole from which escape seems impossible.
So here is what confession is really all about. It is about taking away, even if only for a moment, the blocks we use to build our walls. If I can but remove pride from my own insides, then someone on the outside can get a better glimpse of the real me. If I am loved at that point, it is the real me that finds comfort in that love. If, at that point, I am a mess that only God can love then at least I will be able to claim God’s love. And it will be me making that claim, not an image I present.
Billy Joel sang about the person behind the wall of evils we call the cardinal sins. That person was “The Stranger”. The contention being that deep inside we are actually fascinated by and in love with the stranger within. Billy provoked us with this lyric line:
You may never understandHow the stranger is inspiredBut he isn't always evilAnd he is not always wrongThough you drown in good intentionsYou will never quench the fireYou'll give in to your desireWhen the stranger comes along.
The deadly sins (if they are sins) are deadly for precisely this reason. They keep the stranger inside and the stranger is my soul. I don’t want that to be locked away or out of view or in a closet. I want it to be right there on the table for you and for God and for anyone else in this world to see.
All I have to do is have courage and remove the blocks. Helen Keller in some sense is a powerful metaphor along with being heroine. For we too are isolated by blindness, by the inability to hear. Just like for Helen the deficits are acquired and not essential reality.
So if we remove the blocks—the stuff from within that defiles—we can claim life, but not until we do that removal.
One last word from Anne Sullivan. When she got through the blocks of blindness and muteness she made this promise to Helen: “there is one more word I need to teach you—EVERYTHING.”
That is the promise beyond the wall for each of us, EVERYTHING. Drop the pretense and claim the prize for the prize is everything.
There is a memorable exchange between Anne Sullivan (The Miracle Worker) and her boss (Helen Keller’s dad, Captain Keller). Anne is about to be sent along and is asking for another week or so with Helen to accomplish the next task:
Captain Keller: What would another week accomplish? We are more than satisfied. You taught her things to do, how to behave. She's more manageable, cleaner. Annie Sullivan: Cleaner? Captain Keller: Well, we say cleanliness is next to godliness. Annie Sullivan: Cleanliness is next to nothing!
Jesus and his followers were verbally confronted by the scribes and Pharisees. At issue, and it was a critical issue, was the question of cleanliness. The disciples casually ate without washing. They were not washing hands, food from the field, and food from the market. They were just willing to eat.
The Pharisees, on the other hand, practiced a heavy ritual of washing and cleansing. They ceremonially washed hands, food products, and utensils. (Now I need to tell you that either washing or not washing had much to do with sanitation. The water wasn’t clean, the methods were not sanitary and there wasn’t any soap.) It was about being ritually clean.
So the Pharisees come with the complaint about not washing. “Look Jesus”, they say, “Don’t you get it? Cleanliness is right up there with Godliness”. And Jesus replies back to them, “Cleanliness is right up there with nothing.” “It is what is inside of a human that makes that person either clean or not—it is not the outside stuff or the surface. It is what is deep down inside.”
The Christians of the early centuries began to attempt to categorize what Jesus had to say here about what was inside and could “defile” humanity. They came up with a differentiation of two types of sin. One was the garden variety and the other was this internal list that Jesus spoke of—the Cardinal sins/ deadly sins/ mortal sins call them what you will. The Scholastics of the middle ages crystallized thinking about all this. They identified Pride, Envy, Anger, Gluttony, Lust, Greed and Laziness as the 7 sins that kill. Now I don’t know where or why we got away from that concept, but it pretty well got lost in the Protestant movement. We got to the point where we focused much more on the surface sins and lost track of the core lesson that Jesus was teaching. “It is what is inside that really matters”.
Now you’ all know that I generally believe that Sin is an overworked term and almost a pointless one in the way Christians talk and think. I am not sure, at all, that it is meaningful. One proof of that I might offer is the fact that we work this into the worship service every week. We say a group prayer of confession and then we dedicate time for us to think about our personal and private needs for forgiveness. I counted the seconds today and we dedicated ……14 seconds to the private prayer time. Now, if we really believed this stuff wouldn’t we need to dedicate more than that?
We talk about this stuff and think about it so much because, if we didn’t spend our time and spiritual energy here, we might be forced to spend it where it would matter.
And we fend off core reality of Jesus’ lesson. You know the mechanism. It is the same one that assures me that my child is assertive while someone else’s kid is a bully. The one that makes us believe that we take care with our physical presentation and another person is vain. It is the mechanism that makes a welfare recipient greedy and someone of my middle class background a person of shrewd business acumen.
We invest energy in the 10 Commandments and even convince ourselves that this is the best expression of obedience to God and also of failure to obey. Fact is, the Commandments are, at least 9 out of 10 times, external. They are not about the really big issue of what is inside. They describe external behaviors. They are terribly important not because they describe morality, but rather because they describe a social code. If they are broken you also break community. The violation of this code assures a ripping apart of the very core fabric or a society. But none of that is about morality or of having a soul that is fit for an intimate relationship with God.
In short, we worry about the exhaust of a dirty engine and ignore the issues inside of the engine itself.
These issues (the ones traditionally called the deadly sins) are deadly for a single reason. They are building blocks in a wall that prevents our souls from being accessible to other souls; including the Ultimate Soul. How that works is incredibly simple. Everyone can understand the mechanism.
Let’s take pride. Jesus names it not as sin, but rather as an “evil”. Further, the word for evil is more like error than it is anything else. Dirty or unsanitary comes to mind as a way to get to the precise meaning. So, back to pride. If I have it I want the world and even God (if I think I can get away with it) to think very well of me. I want that so badly that I will create an image that is better than I am. I will show only my best side and I will polish and varnish that best side till it is just perfect. Then, my sisters and brothers in this life (and maybe even God) will love me.
Of course the problem is pretty clear. They didn’t love me. They loved the painting of myself that I showed to them. That even exacerbates the underlying belief in me that I am indeed not lovable or worthy or cherished. I dig for my own salvation an even deeper hole from which escape seems impossible.
So here is what confession is really all about. It is about taking away, even if only for a moment, the blocks we use to build our walls. If I can but remove pride from my own insides, then someone on the outside can get a better glimpse of the real me. If I am loved at that point, it is the real me that finds comfort in that love. If, at that point, I am a mess that only God can love then at least I will be able to claim God’s love. And it will be me making that claim, not an image I present.
Billy Joel sang about the person behind the wall of evils we call the cardinal sins. That person was “The Stranger”. The contention being that deep inside we are actually fascinated by and in love with the stranger within. Billy provoked us with this lyric line:
You may never understandHow the stranger is inspiredBut he isn't always evilAnd he is not always wrongThough you drown in good intentionsYou will never quench the fireYou'll give in to your desireWhen the stranger comes along.
The deadly sins (if they are sins) are deadly for precisely this reason. They keep the stranger inside and the stranger is my soul. I don’t want that to be locked away or out of view or in a closet. I want it to be right there on the table for you and for God and for anyone else in this world to see.
All I have to do is have courage and remove the blocks. Helen Keller in some sense is a powerful metaphor along with being heroine. For we too are isolated by blindness, by the inability to hear. Just like for Helen the deficits are acquired and not essential reality.
So if we remove the blocks—the stuff from within that defiles—we can claim life, but not until we do that removal.
One last word from Anne Sullivan. When she got through the blocks of blindness and muteness she made this promise to Helen: “there is one more word I need to teach you—EVERYTHING.”
That is the promise beyond the wall for each of us, EVERYTHING. Drop the pretense and claim the prize for the prize is everything.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
The Thinkable and the Unthinkable John 6:56-69 Lawrence Jackman
John Kocur told me the other day that, given my appearance and my tone sometimes he thought maybe I could be channeling George Carlin. I found that flattering pretty much because George was skinny. Inside a robe you just can’t tell huh? One of Carlin’s bits was a list of words you couldn’t say on TV. It was a pretty obnoxious bit actually. For a long time, though, I have thought seriously about the things that you can’t say in church. (at least not very well).
One thing you aren’t really able to say is the truth about biblical people.
We make up some pretty interesting stories about biblical times. Even the characters in the Bible itself made up some pretty interesting stories about things they should have known about. Ah…lets face it, they put a spin on things that had very little to do with reality. Solomon probably didn’t want to speak ill of his father, David. Was he really asking us to believe that God wanted to use David as a model for future generations? The king David was as crooked as a dog’s hind leg. He was an awful moral mess. Of all people Solomon had to have known that. Yet for Solomon that wasn’t a speakable truth. And the more that the truth could not be spoken, the more you could not really even think this through.
Jesus thought the unthinkable. He said the unspeakable. And he was not universally accepted because he did just these things. The passage from John is pretty interesting because it includes a fact that we just do not ever think about. Men and women were walking with Jesus. They were listening to his words, hanging on his every word, watching miracles happen. They were believing. They were close enough to God on earth to reach out and touch him.
When Jesus then began to explain some of his most profound thoughts, what happened? It looks like from the record that a majority of his followers simply left him. They walked away. It looks like maybe only the twelve are left. Maybe it is more, but it doesn’t sound much like very many more. And even they sounded more like resignation than commitment. Jesus says, “So, you guys going to leave too?” They answer, “There is nobody else to go to. You have the words about eternal life.”
In a day, maybe an hour or two, Jesus lost the majority of the flock. If he had been a minister in a church, he would have been fired.
So, in order to honor a Savior who thought the unthinkable and spoke the unspeakable, what do you say we spend a little time this morning getting use to the idea that we are called precisely to the unthinkable. Those folk who left Jesus were the ones who could not tolerate a new idea. The people who stayed were perhaps not too impressed with or enthusiastic about the brand new ideas, but were impressed with the fact that no one else had answers and Jesus did.
The fact of the matter is that the “faith” /Christianity is not a settled place or a settling in place. It is more of a way that we travel. It is not the destination—it is the sandals we wear as we move along a journey. And those sandals are just like you would imagine they ought to be. They are dirty, damp with human sweat, scuffed by the surface of the road, smelly and altogether very human tools. That is the faith—our sandals. They take us on this journey through unthinkable and unspeakable realities that need to become both thinkable and speakable.
Can we talk about new forms for church in the church? Generally the answer is no. We need to. Let me spin you a bit of a personal yarn about new forms. We have in the Presbytery both a church transformation group and a church planting group. It costs money to start a church or to redevelop one—a lot of money. I am guessing that in this environment and time it would cost something over a million dollars to actually found a church and get it off the ground. Would it be worth it? Of course it would, if that church nurtured members and strengthened the kingdom. But, it would take all that money and maybe 5 years for the group to become self supporting.
There might also be a way to start a church for one percent of that much money and three percent of the time and have it be self supporting in a couple of months. All we would have to do is give up everything that we think about when we think “church”. Bricks, mortar, pews, rooms, and whatever else.
There was a church fire in one of our places in Florida last week. The members of that church stood around the ashes and declared what every congregation facing that situation that I have ever seen declared. They said, “That was the building. We are the church.” When push comes to shove we do know that the church is such a greater thing than any room we sit in. Who says that there isn’t a First Church of Starbucks, of the Web, or of the public meeting room or the living room?
All we have to do is think the unthinkable. And when we do, we can foster the Kingdom of God in ways we have not dreamed of.
Can we mentally go where the people are? The world is hungry for the spiritual value that Christianity offers. All we have to do is go where the world is. But we have answers and they have doubts. Can we tolerate the doubts of the world? They doubt our sincerity. They doubt that we believe as completely as we say we do. They doubt that we have our “act all together” like we want the world to think.
Can we have the courage to go where the world is? God did in sending Jesus. Jesus did in walking the highways and byways. The disciples did who packed up and followed on the roads. God, Jesus and those people led with their weakness instead of their strength. It was vulnerability, displayed weakness, and open lives that converted the world the first time. It will be those qualities again. We will be like the disciples who stayed on board—not flinching from the challenges of being weak. We will look at our brothers and sisters in this world and say quite honestly, “We don’t know either. But we do have an extra pair of scruffy sandals. Take them and let us walk together.”
We do not have answers, but we do have relationships founded in love. However tenuous that fact may be it is the one reality that we need to learn to serve like no other. Jimi Hindrix said, (and you know I am out on a limb when I quote a musician of any stripe) “When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace.” Love is the single transformational principle of individual or corporate life.
Think about that and the Church. I believe all the way to the bottom of my heart that we can become the Kingdom if we but latch onto that single principle. We are here for a lot of reasons. Sense of duty; I made a promise; it is a good habit I just can’t seem to break; I want to learn more; I am hoping that I can find meaning, purpose or belonging; I want to meet God. We are all different and sometimes we have to work pretty hard to tolerate each other. We do that tolerating because we have an institution to maintain, programs to promote, and a structure to support.
What a different world it might be if we were gathered for a single purpose. What if we all said, “I am here because I love you”. What if we believed that so deeply that we would say it to God and to each other individually? Even just trying that on as an idea or a fantasy is truly transformative. Ah. lets do that. Lets become a new thing.
Once a long time ago in my life, I had a period of trial. It pales in comparison to many people’s experiences and I am deeply aware of that. I was working 6 days a week and commuting 90 miles each way to work. I was trying very hard to be a person and a half at work and a single parent at home. I was trying to survive divorce and a redefinition of my professional life simultaneously. Poor me. Here was an epiphany I had one night late when I got home and collapsed in my bed. I was both too tired and too depressed to even figure out how to pray. I lay in the dark and said perhaps the most authentic prayer of my entire life. I said, “I love you God”. And I went to sleep. That was a pivotal moment in my life. That was all there was. And that was all there needed to be.
Love for each other individually and love for God individually that is the transformational principle on which our faith is founded. “For God so loved…..” If we move nothing else in this world, let us move the concept of love from the unspeakable and unthinkable to the speakable, thinkable and doable skills of the church.
We can’t say the church should have new forms. Lets change that. We can and we will either by leading the way into the future or by being dragged kicking and screaming into the night. The church can be a new and transformed reality.
We can’t say in the church that we need to be where the world is. Lets change that. We can sanctify the world with our presence. We can transform the world like leaven. Lets not be afraid of that.
We can’t say in the church, “I love you”. Oh for heaven’s sake, (literally) lets change that. We have been given the power of love lets make it work like the power it is for all women, men and even the little ones. Amen
John Kocur told me the other day that, given my appearance and my tone sometimes he thought maybe I could be channeling George Carlin. I found that flattering pretty much because George was skinny. Inside a robe you just can’t tell huh? One of Carlin’s bits was a list of words you couldn’t say on TV. It was a pretty obnoxious bit actually. For a long time, though, I have thought seriously about the things that you can’t say in church. (at least not very well).
One thing you aren’t really able to say is the truth about biblical people.
We make up some pretty interesting stories about biblical times. Even the characters in the Bible itself made up some pretty interesting stories about things they should have known about. Ah…lets face it, they put a spin on things that had very little to do with reality. Solomon probably didn’t want to speak ill of his father, David. Was he really asking us to believe that God wanted to use David as a model for future generations? The king David was as crooked as a dog’s hind leg. He was an awful moral mess. Of all people Solomon had to have known that. Yet for Solomon that wasn’t a speakable truth. And the more that the truth could not be spoken, the more you could not really even think this through.
Jesus thought the unthinkable. He said the unspeakable. And he was not universally accepted because he did just these things. The passage from John is pretty interesting because it includes a fact that we just do not ever think about. Men and women were walking with Jesus. They were listening to his words, hanging on his every word, watching miracles happen. They were believing. They were close enough to God on earth to reach out and touch him.
When Jesus then began to explain some of his most profound thoughts, what happened? It looks like from the record that a majority of his followers simply left him. They walked away. It looks like maybe only the twelve are left. Maybe it is more, but it doesn’t sound much like very many more. And even they sounded more like resignation than commitment. Jesus says, “So, you guys going to leave too?” They answer, “There is nobody else to go to. You have the words about eternal life.”
In a day, maybe an hour or two, Jesus lost the majority of the flock. If he had been a minister in a church, he would have been fired.
So, in order to honor a Savior who thought the unthinkable and spoke the unspeakable, what do you say we spend a little time this morning getting use to the idea that we are called precisely to the unthinkable. Those folk who left Jesus were the ones who could not tolerate a new idea. The people who stayed were perhaps not too impressed with or enthusiastic about the brand new ideas, but were impressed with the fact that no one else had answers and Jesus did.
The fact of the matter is that the “faith” /Christianity is not a settled place or a settling in place. It is more of a way that we travel. It is not the destination—it is the sandals we wear as we move along a journey. And those sandals are just like you would imagine they ought to be. They are dirty, damp with human sweat, scuffed by the surface of the road, smelly and altogether very human tools. That is the faith—our sandals. They take us on this journey through unthinkable and unspeakable realities that need to become both thinkable and speakable.
Can we talk about new forms for church in the church? Generally the answer is no. We need to. Let me spin you a bit of a personal yarn about new forms. We have in the Presbytery both a church transformation group and a church planting group. It costs money to start a church or to redevelop one—a lot of money. I am guessing that in this environment and time it would cost something over a million dollars to actually found a church and get it off the ground. Would it be worth it? Of course it would, if that church nurtured members and strengthened the kingdom. But, it would take all that money and maybe 5 years for the group to become self supporting.
There might also be a way to start a church for one percent of that much money and three percent of the time and have it be self supporting in a couple of months. All we would have to do is give up everything that we think about when we think “church”. Bricks, mortar, pews, rooms, and whatever else.
There was a church fire in one of our places in Florida last week. The members of that church stood around the ashes and declared what every congregation facing that situation that I have ever seen declared. They said, “That was the building. We are the church.” When push comes to shove we do know that the church is such a greater thing than any room we sit in. Who says that there isn’t a First Church of Starbucks, of the Web, or of the public meeting room or the living room?
All we have to do is think the unthinkable. And when we do, we can foster the Kingdom of God in ways we have not dreamed of.
Can we mentally go where the people are? The world is hungry for the spiritual value that Christianity offers. All we have to do is go where the world is. But we have answers and they have doubts. Can we tolerate the doubts of the world? They doubt our sincerity. They doubt that we believe as completely as we say we do. They doubt that we have our “act all together” like we want the world to think.
Can we have the courage to go where the world is? God did in sending Jesus. Jesus did in walking the highways and byways. The disciples did who packed up and followed on the roads. God, Jesus and those people led with their weakness instead of their strength. It was vulnerability, displayed weakness, and open lives that converted the world the first time. It will be those qualities again. We will be like the disciples who stayed on board—not flinching from the challenges of being weak. We will look at our brothers and sisters in this world and say quite honestly, “We don’t know either. But we do have an extra pair of scruffy sandals. Take them and let us walk together.”
We do not have answers, but we do have relationships founded in love. However tenuous that fact may be it is the one reality that we need to learn to serve like no other. Jimi Hindrix said, (and you know I am out on a limb when I quote a musician of any stripe) “When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace.” Love is the single transformational principle of individual or corporate life.
Think about that and the Church. I believe all the way to the bottom of my heart that we can become the Kingdom if we but latch onto that single principle. We are here for a lot of reasons. Sense of duty; I made a promise; it is a good habit I just can’t seem to break; I want to learn more; I am hoping that I can find meaning, purpose or belonging; I want to meet God. We are all different and sometimes we have to work pretty hard to tolerate each other. We do that tolerating because we have an institution to maintain, programs to promote, and a structure to support.
What a different world it might be if we were gathered for a single purpose. What if we all said, “I am here because I love you”. What if we believed that so deeply that we would say it to God and to each other individually? Even just trying that on as an idea or a fantasy is truly transformative. Ah. lets do that. Lets become a new thing.
Once a long time ago in my life, I had a period of trial. It pales in comparison to many people’s experiences and I am deeply aware of that. I was working 6 days a week and commuting 90 miles each way to work. I was trying very hard to be a person and a half at work and a single parent at home. I was trying to survive divorce and a redefinition of my professional life simultaneously. Poor me. Here was an epiphany I had one night late when I got home and collapsed in my bed. I was both too tired and too depressed to even figure out how to pray. I lay in the dark and said perhaps the most authentic prayer of my entire life. I said, “I love you God”. And I went to sleep. That was a pivotal moment in my life. That was all there was. And that was all there needed to be.
Love for each other individually and love for God individually that is the transformational principle on which our faith is founded. “For God so loved…..” If we move nothing else in this world, let us move the concept of love from the unspeakable and unthinkable to the speakable, thinkable and doable skills of the church.
We can’t say the church should have new forms. Lets change that. We can and we will either by leading the way into the future or by being dragged kicking and screaming into the night. The church can be a new and transformed reality.
We can’t say in the church that we need to be where the world is. Lets change that. We can sanctify the world with our presence. We can transform the world like leaven. Lets not be afraid of that.
We can’t say in the church, “I love you”. Oh for heaven’s sake, (literally) lets change that. We have been given the power of love lets make it work like the power it is for all women, men and even the little ones. Amen
Sunday, August 16, 2009
August 16, 2009 Sermon
Participation Needed John 6:51-58 Lawrence Jackman
It is clear to some of you, but probably not to all. There is this thing called a lectionary in many churches. Today, for instance, the readings we just read from the bible were read and are being discussed in Catholic churches, United Church of Christ, Disciples, Methodists, Episcopals, and a variety of other places. No one has to follow this set of suggestions, but I choose to. I choose that for two reasons—over the period of a year it makes me deal with a broad area of scripture. It becomes a sort of discipline rather than a focus on my pet issues. Secondly, I am forced to try to make sense of some things that just do not make much sense to me on the surface.
So it is today, I am forced to try to deal with some concepts that might be left out in my choices.
There is something absolutely primal here in the Gospel passage for the day. Anybody who says that the passage is easy to understand and accept is kidding themselves. This is “over the top” and on a literal level is a discussion of cannibalism.
That word and thought – eating human flesh – was as foreign and as totally repugnant to the first century Jew as it is to you and me. It is unthinkable. It was unthinkable. So Jesus’ statements are almost beyond heresy. It is no wonder that those listening to him were repelled and disgusted with this very literal discussion.
And yet, yet there is a level at which we may be able to at least consider something that is normative here. My daughter, my son, my grand girls all went through an interesting time of development. I am trying to remember how old they all were and I can’t. My best guess is it was about the time they were say eight months to one year of age. In that pre-critical state, without very many negative judgments, they totally adored me.
They got to a place where what appeared to be a kissing ritual was norm when they were held. Rear back, open the mouth, fall forward against your face and slobber all over creation. They would stand supported on your lap and continue that again and again till they ran out of slobber or something. That developmental behavior would go on for several months and then gradually wear out. Here is what I think really goes on in a nine month old brain. They totally adore the object of their love. The message is one of love, but it has a twist—the twist is, “I am going to devour you”. All that “kissing” is really an attempt to take in the person they love—to just eat them up.
Adults sometimes respond to the child with exactly the same verbal message. You hear people playing with a child and state, “I’m just going to eat you up.” OK so it isn’t quite the same as the “flesh eating” conversation in John, but the words themselves are pretty much the same sounding. Why do we use those words? Why do we talk that way?
We do it because the whole business points toward a primal expression that is deeper than any words. It is a reality that certainly is way past being Christian only. It is probably a reality that dates to human experience about the time we came down from the trees and began to walk upright. Now I don’t want to press this Sigmund Freud/ Desmond Morris/ primitive anthropology thing too far. I do want to call it all to mind. You can fill in the blanks and extend the logics on your own.
Bottom line is this. Belonging is the ultimate human drive. It is what the baby means when they give those massive messy kisses—I am going to take you in, you will be a part of me and I will be a part of you.
We do not often think out loud about this drive. This drive to belong. If we are being religious we talk about the prime search being for meaning or perhaps for God. If we are being very secular we may talk about the primal human quest being for reproduction or life itself. If we are talking biology we think in terms of the survival of the species. Somehow that all makes more sense to us.
But underneath any of those quests – secular or sacred – is the single real drive and primary need of humankind. That is the absolute need to belong.
This is the factor for which people will willingly die if need be. It is the element that nations bank on when they are creating wars—cause that is the only way to get men to make the ultimate sacrifice—to convince them it is about belonging. It is the component of life that drives family, and holds together institutions, even those of risky viability. It is so deep and so profound that we are not even aware of what it is all about—it is like the atmosphere that humans walk in.
Here is what I believe to be the most dramatic example. Marriage. Women and men will like up by the millions every year to pledge each other their “lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor.” We bet it all on an institution that makes no statistical sense. Half the time first marriages will end in divorce. If folks end up on the loosing side of that, they will go out and bet it all again. Second marriages will end in divorce two times out of three. Loose again and the same people will line up for the “third place” window where the odds are one in four. That is just not logical; BUT, we need to belong and we will do anything to achieve that. This is way deeper than logic.
This is not a negative comment about marriage—it is just the opposite. It is a statement that the institution addresses a need that is written so deeply into our fibers that it probably shows in our DNA.
We do not seem to search for our souls, for God, for meaning, truth or beauty near as much as we quest for belonging. Look at the sensational success of “My Space” and “Facebook”. I signed up for “Facebook” a few weeks ago. People from 50 years ago and some from 50 days ago began to find me. In a couple of weeks I began to have “my people” in a defined virtual space. It is real belonging, just virtually enabled across time and geography. The kid in Guam, the octogenarian in Illinois and he high school fellow misfit in Virginia all are herded together into my connection list. They are “my people” and I am theirs. It is about belonging.
I always contended when working with kids that gangs were all about belonging. The campaigns to eliminate them were always doomed to failure unless a substitute form and format for belonging was part of the plan.
Normal teens who need to stretch beyond family and family defined institutions are successful only when offered other ways to belong. Fail to enable the good choices and the bad ones will express themselves. The need is so strong and so valid.
Well, as Yul Brynner said in the “King and I”, “etcetera, etcetera, etcetera”.
It is the whole point of the John passage where Jesus says, “we are going to have such a close belonging relationship with each other; that ‘you are going to eat me up’. “I will become a part of you and you will become a part of me”.
There is a lot of Old and New Testament testimony to God and from God. It says, “I will be your God and you will be my people”. Even God seems to want to belong. We are not servants, not subjects. We are instead God’s people. We are not little half finished works of art on some shelf, not players in a drama. We are instead God’s people.
That calls out all sorts of active participation in the salvation drama. Belonging is a two way process or more than two ways.
So what does this all mean in the here and now for the church? It is pretty clear that it means everything out there in the world. What about inside the “stained glass curtain”?
I see two profound messages for us at the moment.
One is that we practice, work on and evolve the most profound belonging experiences that we know how. That has implications for everything that we do and say. We need to raise with each other questions about , “How does this enhance our belonging?” and “Can we do it anyway that would make belonging more profound?” “What gets in the way of belonging in this place and how can we change that?”
Does that sound too obtuse to you? OK, how does this room filled with fixed pews that only face one way (and even the choir is over there) – how does that enhance belonging? Can we do it any better? Where in this congregation’s life is enhanced belonging to each other most profound? In what experiences of our life do we best belong to each other?
Two. It is time for us to discover what it is we can offer……. It is belonging in the most profound way and manner. That, boys and girls is what I believe our real product can be in this world. We are long on this product and the world is hungry for it. What do you say we figure out how to feed them?
Amen
It is clear to some of you, but probably not to all. There is this thing called a lectionary in many churches. Today, for instance, the readings we just read from the bible were read and are being discussed in Catholic churches, United Church of Christ, Disciples, Methodists, Episcopals, and a variety of other places. No one has to follow this set of suggestions, but I choose to. I choose that for two reasons—over the period of a year it makes me deal with a broad area of scripture. It becomes a sort of discipline rather than a focus on my pet issues. Secondly, I am forced to try to make sense of some things that just do not make much sense to me on the surface.
So it is today, I am forced to try to deal with some concepts that might be left out in my choices.
There is something absolutely primal here in the Gospel passage for the day. Anybody who says that the passage is easy to understand and accept is kidding themselves. This is “over the top” and on a literal level is a discussion of cannibalism.
That word and thought – eating human flesh – was as foreign and as totally repugnant to the first century Jew as it is to you and me. It is unthinkable. It was unthinkable. So Jesus’ statements are almost beyond heresy. It is no wonder that those listening to him were repelled and disgusted with this very literal discussion.
And yet, yet there is a level at which we may be able to at least consider something that is normative here. My daughter, my son, my grand girls all went through an interesting time of development. I am trying to remember how old they all were and I can’t. My best guess is it was about the time they were say eight months to one year of age. In that pre-critical state, without very many negative judgments, they totally adored me.
They got to a place where what appeared to be a kissing ritual was norm when they were held. Rear back, open the mouth, fall forward against your face and slobber all over creation. They would stand supported on your lap and continue that again and again till they ran out of slobber or something. That developmental behavior would go on for several months and then gradually wear out. Here is what I think really goes on in a nine month old brain. They totally adore the object of their love. The message is one of love, but it has a twist—the twist is, “I am going to devour you”. All that “kissing” is really an attempt to take in the person they love—to just eat them up.
Adults sometimes respond to the child with exactly the same verbal message. You hear people playing with a child and state, “I’m just going to eat you up.” OK so it isn’t quite the same as the “flesh eating” conversation in John, but the words themselves are pretty much the same sounding. Why do we use those words? Why do we talk that way?
We do it because the whole business points toward a primal expression that is deeper than any words. It is a reality that certainly is way past being Christian only. It is probably a reality that dates to human experience about the time we came down from the trees and began to walk upright. Now I don’t want to press this Sigmund Freud/ Desmond Morris/ primitive anthropology thing too far. I do want to call it all to mind. You can fill in the blanks and extend the logics on your own.
Bottom line is this. Belonging is the ultimate human drive. It is what the baby means when they give those massive messy kisses—I am going to take you in, you will be a part of me and I will be a part of you.
We do not often think out loud about this drive. This drive to belong. If we are being religious we talk about the prime search being for meaning or perhaps for God. If we are being very secular we may talk about the primal human quest being for reproduction or life itself. If we are talking biology we think in terms of the survival of the species. Somehow that all makes more sense to us.
But underneath any of those quests – secular or sacred – is the single real drive and primary need of humankind. That is the absolute need to belong.
This is the factor for which people will willingly die if need be. It is the element that nations bank on when they are creating wars—cause that is the only way to get men to make the ultimate sacrifice—to convince them it is about belonging. It is the component of life that drives family, and holds together institutions, even those of risky viability. It is so deep and so profound that we are not even aware of what it is all about—it is like the atmosphere that humans walk in.
Here is what I believe to be the most dramatic example. Marriage. Women and men will like up by the millions every year to pledge each other their “lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor.” We bet it all on an institution that makes no statistical sense. Half the time first marriages will end in divorce. If folks end up on the loosing side of that, they will go out and bet it all again. Second marriages will end in divorce two times out of three. Loose again and the same people will line up for the “third place” window where the odds are one in four. That is just not logical; BUT, we need to belong and we will do anything to achieve that. This is way deeper than logic.
This is not a negative comment about marriage—it is just the opposite. It is a statement that the institution addresses a need that is written so deeply into our fibers that it probably shows in our DNA.
We do not seem to search for our souls, for God, for meaning, truth or beauty near as much as we quest for belonging. Look at the sensational success of “My Space” and “Facebook”. I signed up for “Facebook” a few weeks ago. People from 50 years ago and some from 50 days ago began to find me. In a couple of weeks I began to have “my people” in a defined virtual space. It is real belonging, just virtually enabled across time and geography. The kid in Guam, the octogenarian in Illinois and he high school fellow misfit in Virginia all are herded together into my connection list. They are “my people” and I am theirs. It is about belonging.
I always contended when working with kids that gangs were all about belonging. The campaigns to eliminate them were always doomed to failure unless a substitute form and format for belonging was part of the plan.
Normal teens who need to stretch beyond family and family defined institutions are successful only when offered other ways to belong. Fail to enable the good choices and the bad ones will express themselves. The need is so strong and so valid.
Well, as Yul Brynner said in the “King and I”, “etcetera, etcetera, etcetera”.
It is the whole point of the John passage where Jesus says, “we are going to have such a close belonging relationship with each other; that ‘you are going to eat me up’. “I will become a part of you and you will become a part of me”.
There is a lot of Old and New Testament testimony to God and from God. It says, “I will be your God and you will be my people”. Even God seems to want to belong. We are not servants, not subjects. We are instead God’s people. We are not little half finished works of art on some shelf, not players in a drama. We are instead God’s people.
That calls out all sorts of active participation in the salvation drama. Belonging is a two way process or more than two ways.
So what does this all mean in the here and now for the church? It is pretty clear that it means everything out there in the world. What about inside the “stained glass curtain”?
I see two profound messages for us at the moment.
One is that we practice, work on and evolve the most profound belonging experiences that we know how. That has implications for everything that we do and say. We need to raise with each other questions about , “How does this enhance our belonging?” and “Can we do it anyway that would make belonging more profound?” “What gets in the way of belonging in this place and how can we change that?”
Does that sound too obtuse to you? OK, how does this room filled with fixed pews that only face one way (and even the choir is over there) – how does that enhance belonging? Can we do it any better? Where in this congregation’s life is enhanced belonging to each other most profound? In what experiences of our life do we best belong to each other?
Two. It is time for us to discover what it is we can offer……. It is belonging in the most profound way and manner. That, boys and girls is what I believe our real product can be in this world. We are long on this product and the world is hungry for it. What do you say we figure out how to feed them?
Amen
Sunday, August 9, 2009
August 9, 2009 Sermon
About another World John 6:35,41-51 Lawrence Jackman
A week ago last Wednesday was July 29. It is a date remarkable to me, but probably not to many others. It would have been my brother’s birthday. You may know he died a year ago next month. Butch passed from a cerebral trauma following a fall. He was younger than me by enough years for me to have had a sort of almost parental role in his life. Lots of long stories are there for the telling, but the real content is that the anniversary of Butch’s birthday causes me to think about all this ultimate stuff that we refer to as “life and death”.
Then comes along today’s lectionary passage. It is filled with more of this “life and death” discussion and content. So I tell you the personal part of this in order to let you know this is a very personal piece of thinking that I am trying to do.
John’s Gospel portrays Jesus in a very different way than the others. The other Gospels are similar in pattern and content though each has a differing emphasis. Mark tells a quick impact tale that perhaps took less than a year to complete the entire ministry. Matthew tells a story of a Jesus who was totally consumed with teaching about the Kingdom of God. Luke’s special emphasis is a Jesus who burns with compassion for the outcasts and the damaged members of society.
John, on the other hand, has not a single parable in it. The discourses are long teachings about this world and another world. There is a profound interest in knowledge and in what is almost a route from this veil of wrath and tears to another and higher plane of existence. Knowing is saving for John. John is mystical, in a broad sense Gnostic, and filled with content fixed for something other than our normal Christian thought. Parts of it are more like Star Trek than they are like biography.
Take this passage from the sixth Chapter that we read today. It is clear in the thought process that there are two levels of reality being discussed. Bread starts as a physical and tangible reality and quickly moves. First it becomes some sort of special or ultra-substance and then goes even further to be an almost metaphysical reality. Jesus himself is first discussed as an ordinary human being. “Is this not the son of Joseph? Are those people over there not his family? We know his people, how can he make these exaggerated claims?”
Step two, Jesus is claiming a unique role and proximity to God. “God alone directs and draws people to me”, Jesus says. And again the quantum move onward toward the truly metaphysical, Jesus says, “I am the living bread from heaven come down. Anyone who eats will never die.”
The promise is eternal life. The promise is, however, really not so clear. The Bible does not spell out the particulars of eternal life very clearly at all. Instead it settles for this promise. Our images of the afterlife are all born of strange times and images that are no longer part of our lives. Many are born of mythology and of the fantasy of medieval poets like Dante who have about as much authority as you or me. One of the problems is, I believe, the fact that we have evolved our understanding of the total context of Christianity without, at least sometimes, evolving our appreciation of the faith itself. For instance, once a long while back Elizabeth Ross was just starting to become known. I had some dealings with her and was convinced that we could bring her to our Presbytery in the Saint Louis area to help us understand this great mystery. My colleagues puffed their pipes and pontificated about how Doctor Kubler-Ross had unusual theological concepts. Well yes she did, and so we kept our middle ages theology in tact rather than try to work with a new thought.
The new thought may actually be not so new. I want to focus you on several words and thoughts this passage from John 6. The words are life, death, belief and world. Each one of those words enlightens for me an understanding of the promise—though the promise itself is still far from clear. I find for myself that the more I understand even the words of the promise, the more I can actually live like a person who claims the promise.
Taking those words backwards from how I just said them and the first word to lift up is the word “world”, in Greek “Kosmos”. It is the word from which we get terms like cosmic. For the Gospel of John the target consumer for all this saving activity is “the world”. All by itself and even in English that is a massively inclusive thought. The promise says “the world” and not nice folks, people who go to church, people who pray, people who are pious, or people who don’t swear, or people who are conventional in their lifestyle. None of that is the Godly target, the “world” is.
And when you go to the Greek the word has an even more inclusive meaning. “Kosmos” in New Testament meant the “worldly world”. It referenced the underbelly of life and of society. It referenced the things we would rather not be associated with. That means my Unitarian brother, it means my non religious Grandfather, it means all people of any stripe or conviction. It also means all the people I do not like and anyone I might actually happen to like. God loves them all—the goal is to save them all. Now can God accomplish the goal? I am betting yes.
I find comfort in the notion of universal salvation. I also know in every fiber of my being that the core issue of life is that of “trust” which brings me to the second word. I need to go and count the actual times that the Greek word “pistis” or some form of it is changed from its core meaning in the New Testament. The word means “trust” and we always change that to “belief”. And we make belief into an intellectual work. If I believe something that is hard to believe, then I have accomplished my part of the saving drama. So ideas become more important than anything else. Well baloney!
Jesus actually addressed this misunderstanding. You remember when he said, “You believe? Big deal ! The devils believe and tremble”. Now here is the issue – that we trust. Indiana Jones (in the movie The Last Crusade) must make his way across a chasm armed with only a clue about what to do. In desperate action he steps out to walk an invisible bridge across a perilous drop. It works.
Now you could say that the person who sat down and read the clue and agreed that it was true as a statement “had faith”. But the person who steps out and places their foot where there may or may not be support—that person has trust. It doesn’t matter a lick what is going on in the head—it is the feet that express trust. I find great comfort in that notion that I do not need to bend my brain to live in the promise. I need instead to move my feet.
The passage also includes the terms death and life. Here is a fundamental fact of New Testament study. There are a couple of words for life that point to a basic thought contrast and even point of misunderstanding. One word is the one we normally think about when it comes to the concept of dead and alive. The word is “bios” from which we get things like Biology. This means basically, “having vital signs”—a pulse, breathing, brain activity etc. That word is used I think, three times in the New Testament.
The other word in the New Testament and used most often used (and used here in John 6) is the word, “zoe”. It means life but life with spirit, quality, gusto, meaning. It is ironic that in the church we so often focus on “bios” and so little focus on “zoe”. There are parallel concepts about death. One could be said to be “clinically dead” and the other “spiritually dead”. The New Testament is most concerned with the spiritual—both life and death.
The more I focus there, on qualitative life, the more I can live like a person of the promise. And the less I worry about the physical realities.
There are, at least, two levels of reality. There is the tangible and the spiritual. Beneath every tangible reality are spiritual realities. This is not about wispy and sentimental. It is all so very practical.
There is a man in Taylorsville who use to work sometimes on my mower for me. I forget how old he told me he was, but it starts with an 8. He has pretty well given up working on mowers for the time being because his wife had a stroke and needs more constant care. I saw him the other day and stopped to ask how his family was. He explained the very tangible problems and issues. He explained those with clear love and devotion toward his ailing wife.
He points me toward the dual level of reality. You know he has a mate. That is tangible and it means very little. The way he explains and talks tells me he has a “soul mate” for all time. That means everything.
The promise is spiritual and lies in all things spiritual. Life and death are incredibly complex and beyond understanding. There is a promise out there that life does not end when we can no longer see. Understanding that promise is impossible.
Claiming life in that promise, living as a person of the promise, that is fully achievable.
A week ago last Wednesday was July 29. It is a date remarkable to me, but probably not to many others. It would have been my brother’s birthday. You may know he died a year ago next month. Butch passed from a cerebral trauma following a fall. He was younger than me by enough years for me to have had a sort of almost parental role in his life. Lots of long stories are there for the telling, but the real content is that the anniversary of Butch’s birthday causes me to think about all this ultimate stuff that we refer to as “life and death”.
Then comes along today’s lectionary passage. It is filled with more of this “life and death” discussion and content. So I tell you the personal part of this in order to let you know this is a very personal piece of thinking that I am trying to do.
John’s Gospel portrays Jesus in a very different way than the others. The other Gospels are similar in pattern and content though each has a differing emphasis. Mark tells a quick impact tale that perhaps took less than a year to complete the entire ministry. Matthew tells a story of a Jesus who was totally consumed with teaching about the Kingdom of God. Luke’s special emphasis is a Jesus who burns with compassion for the outcasts and the damaged members of society.
John, on the other hand, has not a single parable in it. The discourses are long teachings about this world and another world. There is a profound interest in knowledge and in what is almost a route from this veil of wrath and tears to another and higher plane of existence. Knowing is saving for John. John is mystical, in a broad sense Gnostic, and filled with content fixed for something other than our normal Christian thought. Parts of it are more like Star Trek than they are like biography.
Take this passage from the sixth Chapter that we read today. It is clear in the thought process that there are two levels of reality being discussed. Bread starts as a physical and tangible reality and quickly moves. First it becomes some sort of special or ultra-substance and then goes even further to be an almost metaphysical reality. Jesus himself is first discussed as an ordinary human being. “Is this not the son of Joseph? Are those people over there not his family? We know his people, how can he make these exaggerated claims?”
Step two, Jesus is claiming a unique role and proximity to God. “God alone directs and draws people to me”, Jesus says. And again the quantum move onward toward the truly metaphysical, Jesus says, “I am the living bread from heaven come down. Anyone who eats will never die.”
The promise is eternal life. The promise is, however, really not so clear. The Bible does not spell out the particulars of eternal life very clearly at all. Instead it settles for this promise. Our images of the afterlife are all born of strange times and images that are no longer part of our lives. Many are born of mythology and of the fantasy of medieval poets like Dante who have about as much authority as you or me. One of the problems is, I believe, the fact that we have evolved our understanding of the total context of Christianity without, at least sometimes, evolving our appreciation of the faith itself. For instance, once a long while back Elizabeth Ross was just starting to become known. I had some dealings with her and was convinced that we could bring her to our Presbytery in the Saint Louis area to help us understand this great mystery. My colleagues puffed their pipes and pontificated about how Doctor Kubler-Ross had unusual theological concepts. Well yes she did, and so we kept our middle ages theology in tact rather than try to work with a new thought.
The new thought may actually be not so new. I want to focus you on several words and thoughts this passage from John 6. The words are life, death, belief and world. Each one of those words enlightens for me an understanding of the promise—though the promise itself is still far from clear. I find for myself that the more I understand even the words of the promise, the more I can actually live like a person who claims the promise.
Taking those words backwards from how I just said them and the first word to lift up is the word “world”, in Greek “Kosmos”. It is the word from which we get terms like cosmic. For the Gospel of John the target consumer for all this saving activity is “the world”. All by itself and even in English that is a massively inclusive thought. The promise says “the world” and not nice folks, people who go to church, people who pray, people who are pious, or people who don’t swear, or people who are conventional in their lifestyle. None of that is the Godly target, the “world” is.
And when you go to the Greek the word has an even more inclusive meaning. “Kosmos” in New Testament meant the “worldly world”. It referenced the underbelly of life and of society. It referenced the things we would rather not be associated with. That means my Unitarian brother, it means my non religious Grandfather, it means all people of any stripe or conviction. It also means all the people I do not like and anyone I might actually happen to like. God loves them all—the goal is to save them all. Now can God accomplish the goal? I am betting yes.
I find comfort in the notion of universal salvation. I also know in every fiber of my being that the core issue of life is that of “trust” which brings me to the second word. I need to go and count the actual times that the Greek word “pistis” or some form of it is changed from its core meaning in the New Testament. The word means “trust” and we always change that to “belief”. And we make belief into an intellectual work. If I believe something that is hard to believe, then I have accomplished my part of the saving drama. So ideas become more important than anything else. Well baloney!
Jesus actually addressed this misunderstanding. You remember when he said, “You believe? Big deal ! The devils believe and tremble”. Now here is the issue – that we trust. Indiana Jones (in the movie The Last Crusade) must make his way across a chasm armed with only a clue about what to do. In desperate action he steps out to walk an invisible bridge across a perilous drop. It works.
Now you could say that the person who sat down and read the clue and agreed that it was true as a statement “had faith”. But the person who steps out and places their foot where there may or may not be support—that person has trust. It doesn’t matter a lick what is going on in the head—it is the feet that express trust. I find great comfort in that notion that I do not need to bend my brain to live in the promise. I need instead to move my feet.
The passage also includes the terms death and life. Here is a fundamental fact of New Testament study. There are a couple of words for life that point to a basic thought contrast and even point of misunderstanding. One word is the one we normally think about when it comes to the concept of dead and alive. The word is “bios” from which we get things like Biology. This means basically, “having vital signs”—a pulse, breathing, brain activity etc. That word is used I think, three times in the New Testament.
The other word in the New Testament and used most often used (and used here in John 6) is the word, “zoe”. It means life but life with spirit, quality, gusto, meaning. It is ironic that in the church we so often focus on “bios” and so little focus on “zoe”. There are parallel concepts about death. One could be said to be “clinically dead” and the other “spiritually dead”. The New Testament is most concerned with the spiritual—both life and death.
The more I focus there, on qualitative life, the more I can live like a person of the promise. And the less I worry about the physical realities.
There are, at least, two levels of reality. There is the tangible and the spiritual. Beneath every tangible reality are spiritual realities. This is not about wispy and sentimental. It is all so very practical.
There is a man in Taylorsville who use to work sometimes on my mower for me. I forget how old he told me he was, but it starts with an 8. He has pretty well given up working on mowers for the time being because his wife had a stroke and needs more constant care. I saw him the other day and stopped to ask how his family was. He explained the very tangible problems and issues. He explained those with clear love and devotion toward his ailing wife.
He points me toward the dual level of reality. You know he has a mate. That is tangible and it means very little. The way he explains and talks tells me he has a “soul mate” for all time. That means everything.
The promise is spiritual and lies in all things spiritual. Life and death are incredibly complex and beyond understanding. There is a promise out there that life does not end when we can no longer see. Understanding that promise is impossible.
Claiming life in that promise, living as a person of the promise, that is fully achievable.
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