Pastor Dave is about to confess an embarrassing childhood secret – one of my favorite TV shows growing up was Gilligan’s Island. You know the setup – a small group on a pleasure boat for a 3 hour tour encounter a storm – “the weather started getting rough, the tiny ship was tossed, if not for the courage of the fearless crew the Minnow would be lost, the Minnow would be lost” – and get washed up on a remote island. It being a kid’s show, in watching it one often had to suspend disbelief – why exactly did the professor take his entire chemistry lab and Ginger and MaryAnn their entire wardrobes along for a 3-hour tour, and where did they put all that stuff – the pleasure boat would have had to have been the size of an aircraft carrier - but anyway the show was a relatively harmless way to pass the time between the end of school and my parents coming home from work.
I was reminded of this guilty pleasure from my childhood by today’s Gospel reading (Mark 4:35-41). Jesus had just concluded a long day’s teaching the crowds, speaking from inside a small boat on the sea of Galilee. He wanted to cross to the other side, and when indeed, when he got there, he was accosted by the demon possessed man from Gerasa, who lived among the tombs. But that’s not part of today’s Gospel – today’s Gospel is about how Jesus got from one side of the sea to the other. We’re told that while on the sea, a great windstorm arose. The tiny ship was tossed; if not for the courage of the fearless crew….sorry, wrong story. Actually, far from fearless, the crew was scared out of their wits, and the boat had taken on so much water that it was on the verge of going down. Jesus had missed all the drama to this point; tired out from teaching, he’d taken the opportunity to get some sleep. So in their panic the disciples woke Jesus up, saying, “Don’t you care that we’re about to die?” Jesus stilled the wind and waves, and chided the disciples for their lack of faith – “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?”
It is notable that accounts of this miracle appear in all four gospels. The early church considered this miracle so important that none of the Gospel writers could omit it. And it has been noted that perhaps this story of Jesus ministering to his disciples with a miracle is also the story of Jesus and the church throughout its history, from its fragile beginnings under Roman persecution to the present day, as the church periodically finds itself caught up in storms, nearly swamped by the waves, and wondering whether God notices their struggles, or whether maybe God has abandoned them. And yet, despite all, somehow Christ always arrives at just the right time to say, “Peace! Be Still!”
In Mark’s Gospel, this miracle comes at the end of an account of Jesus’ teaching, which included a series of parables in which the Kingdom of God is compared to a seed – something that looks small and unimpressive, but which has great life and vitality far beyond its size. So Jesus’ parables told his listeners that the Kingdom of God, while outwardly small and unimpressive, had great hidden power. And then today’s Gospel begins a series of miracle stories that demonstrate this hidden power of God in Jesus to tame the powers of nature, cast out demons, and overcome the power of disease.
At Emanuel UCC, we recently concluded a study of Mark’s Gospel during the church school hour. We saw that often, after his miracles, Jesus would tell those around him, “Don’t tell anyone.” Theologians call the “messianic secret,” and it’s a strong theme in Mark’s Gospel. We wonder why Jesus would have wanted to keep his miracles a secret. Maybe he was using reverse psychology – the surest way to get a message out is to tell someone to keep it a secret. But I think another reason for Jesus’ desire for secrecy was that his miracles could easily be misunderstood. If all we know about Jesus is the miracles, we can easily think of Jesus as a cosmic Dustbuster, waiting to vacuum all our troubles go away. And, indeed, this is exactly how many TV and radio evangelists preach about Jesus, telling their followers to “name and claim” God’s miraculous power to shower prosperity upon them, and to make all their problems vanish - Poof! - just like that!
But that was not Jesus’ message. Remember that when Peter confessed that Jesus was the Messiah, Jesus’ very next words were about suffering and death, about the cross. The cross is an inescapable part of the Gospel – the path to the Kingdom of God goes through the cross. So it is not God’s plan to remove all suffering from our lives, but rather to give us hidden power to bear up and overcome – like seeds who have to push up through the rocks and soil to bear fruit, like a small boat making its way through troubled waters. God surely did not remove all suffering from the lives of the early disciples – nearly all of them ended up as martyrs to the faith – and he doesn’t promise us calm waters either. There will be times when our lives, like small boats, nearly capsize amid the wind and waves. But he does promise that he will not abandon us, that even during those times when it seems as though God has fallen asleep, that when we’re nearly overwhelmed by our circumstances, God is still powerful and stands ready to say “Peace! Be Still!”
In the words of an old hymn – “When peace, like a river, attendeth my way; when sorrows like sea billows roll; whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say, ‘It is well, it is well with my soul.’” So may it be well with our souls, in this congregation which for roughly 150 years has kept afloat in waters calm and stormy, and in our individual lives as believers. Amen.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
A Disturbing Trend
Today's blog entry could be considered a serious downer, and will not win me any popularity points. On Wednesday, June 10, a gunman in his late 80’s entered the US Holocaust Museum in Washington DC with a gun, killing a security guard. Three Sundays ago, on May 31, around 10 a.m., on Pentecost Sunday, just about the time I was standing up to go into the call to worship before our first hymn, at the Resurrection Lutheran Church in Wichita, Kansas, Dr. George Tiller was gunned down while handing out bulletins and greeting churchgoers as an usher. Scott Roeder, the suspect in his murder, has said that he saw Dr. Tiller – an ObGyn who performed abortions - as a murderer and felt justified in gunning him down. In April, a gunman who posted on the white supremacist site Stormfront gunned down 3 Pittsburgh police officers. In July of last year, at the Knoxville Unitarian in Tennessee, another church shooting; the gunman, Jim Adkisson, said that he’d have liked to gun down Democratic members of Congress, but they were far away, so the folks at nearby Knoxville Unitarian would have to do.
What I’m concerned about is that Roeder and Adkisson and the shooter at the Holocaust Museum and the shooter in Pittsburgh didn’t come to these decisions in a vacuum. Nationally prominent TV pundits, talk radio hosts, internet websites, political leaders and, yes, religious leaders maintain a constant drumbeat of hate that goes beyond disagreeing with opposing viewpoints, to dehumanizing the people who hold them – seeing Jews, muslims, racial minorities, immigrants, gays and others with whom they disagree as “not quite human” or at least not human on quite the same level they are.
One of the strengths – though it comes with many frustrations – in the United Church of Christ is that we don’t have to agree with each other to be in community with each other. As a former Association moderator, I can tell you that leading an association of 2 dozen or so Philadelphia-area UCC churches is like herding cats – our churches and our members are all over the place, but the covenant that binds us is stronger than our varied responses to the hot-button issues of our day.
When we think of terrorists, I think there’s a tendency for us to automatically think of Muslim terrorists – and, indeed, less than three weeks ago, a convert to Islam shot two soldiers at an Arkansas recruiting center. However, we’ve seen a string of “lone wolf” acts of terror by folks who are not Muslims, people who - at least until they opened fire - would not stand out in a crowd here in Bridesburg. Some of them consider themselves good Christians doing God’s work by killing evildoers. One of the dangers of fighting against people we may consider monsters is that we can in the process become monsters ourselves – as it has been said, when we gaze into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into us.
I would urge us, as strongly as I can, never to lose sight of our own humanity and the humanity of those who differ from us, even those with whom we vehemently disagree. Everytime we overhear a conversation in which someone goes on a rant, spewing hate and says they’d like to line all those ______ (fill in the blank) up against the wall and shoot them, everytime we get some rancid email dripping with hate toward this group or that group, imploring us to forward to as many friends and acquaintances as possible, I’d ask that we take a minute, catch our breath, and consider whether we really want to participate in this.
I’ll close with these words of Martin Neimoller, a Protestant pastor in Germany during Hitler’s Third Reich who ended up in the concentration camps….perhaps you’ve heard them before:
"First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out--because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out--because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out--because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out--because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me--and there was no one left to speak out for me."
What I’m concerned about is that Roeder and Adkisson and the shooter at the Holocaust Museum and the shooter in Pittsburgh didn’t come to these decisions in a vacuum. Nationally prominent TV pundits, talk radio hosts, internet websites, political leaders and, yes, religious leaders maintain a constant drumbeat of hate that goes beyond disagreeing with opposing viewpoints, to dehumanizing the people who hold them – seeing Jews, muslims, racial minorities, immigrants, gays and others with whom they disagree as “not quite human” or at least not human on quite the same level they are.
One of the strengths – though it comes with many frustrations – in the United Church of Christ is that we don’t have to agree with each other to be in community with each other. As a former Association moderator, I can tell you that leading an association of 2 dozen or so Philadelphia-area UCC churches is like herding cats – our churches and our members are all over the place, but the covenant that binds us is stronger than our varied responses to the hot-button issues of our day.
When we think of terrorists, I think there’s a tendency for us to automatically think of Muslim terrorists – and, indeed, less than three weeks ago, a convert to Islam shot two soldiers at an Arkansas recruiting center. However, we’ve seen a string of “lone wolf” acts of terror by folks who are not Muslims, people who - at least until they opened fire - would not stand out in a crowd here in Bridesburg. Some of them consider themselves good Christians doing God’s work by killing evildoers. One of the dangers of fighting against people we may consider monsters is that we can in the process become monsters ourselves – as it has been said, when we gaze into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into us.
I would urge us, as strongly as I can, never to lose sight of our own humanity and the humanity of those who differ from us, even those with whom we vehemently disagree. Everytime we overhear a conversation in which someone goes on a rant, spewing hate and says they’d like to line all those ______ (fill in the blank) up against the wall and shoot them, everytime we get some rancid email dripping with hate toward this group or that group, imploring us to forward to as many friends and acquaintances as possible, I’d ask that we take a minute, catch our breath, and consider whether we really want to participate in this.
I’ll close with these words of Martin Neimoller, a Protestant pastor in Germany during Hitler’s Third Reich who ended up in the concentration camps….perhaps you’ve heard them before:
"First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out--because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out--because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out--because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out--because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me--and there was no one left to speak out for me."
Thursday, May 28, 2009
A Blessing for Pentecost
At our 10 a.m. worship service this Sunday, the Rev. Wanda Craner, the Pennsylvania Southeast Conference's Minister for Spiritual Nurture, will be preaching on the topic "Confused, and About to Give Birth." At our 11 a.m. church school hour, she will be leading a session on spiritual devotional practices. This is a unique opportunity to experience new ways to strengthen our connection to God. Come and be blessed!
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Fruitful
Today’s reading from John’s Gospel (John 15:1-8) is one of those great “I am” statements that are such a prominent and distinctive part of John’s Gospel. Matthew, Mark, and Luke are called the synoptic gospels – from a Greek word meaning “seeing together” – because their accounts of the life of Jesus are very similar. In Matthew, Mark, and Luke we have Jesus telling parables about the Kingdom of Heaven. These begin with the familiar words, “the kingdom of heaven is like….” In these three Gospels, some variation of the phrase “Kingdom of God” or “Kingdom of Heaven” or just “kingdom” appears over 100 times. By contrast, in John’s gospel there are no parables, and the word Kingdom appears only 3 times. Instead of Jesus saying, “The kingdom of heaven is like such and thus” we have the “I am” sayings of Jesus – last week’s “I am the good shepherd”, this week’s “I am the vine”, in other places “I am the bread of life”, and “I am the resurrection and the life”. But whether Jesus is telling parables about the Kingdom, or comparing himself to bread, and vine, he is telling us about God’s activity in the world – not only activity that happened 2,000 years ago, but God’s activity right now, in our midst.
The timing of Jesus’ words is crucial to our understanding of the text. It is part of Jesus’ farewell discourse, after he had shared bread and wine with his disciples, after Judas had gone out to betray him. During those fleeting minutes and hours before the betrayal, Jesus had to prepare his disciples for the horrors that would lie ahead. How would they stand in the time of trial? What word could Jesus give them to sustain them? Jesus’ word for the disciples – and for us – is “abide”. Abide. Abide in me as I abide in you. What does it mean to abide?
There are several shades of meaning. Abide can mean “to dwell” or “to live in a particular place.” When we invite someone into our home, we might say, “welcome to my humble abode” – the humble abode where I abide, or live. The word “abide” also involves a sense of the passage of a significant length of time, a condition that lasts over the long haul – the abiding love that marks healthy relationship is a contrast to the here-today, gone tomorrow infatuation of someone not ready for an abiding relationship. And the word “abide” can also be used in the sense of “to put up with” or “to tolerate.” And it can also mean “to wait for” or “to endure for a long period.” So to “abide” with someone is to live with them over the long haul, warts and all.
So how does Jesus prepare his followers for the difficulty to come? He tells them to abide in him, and he in them – to let his life enter their lives, and to let their lives be part of his life. He tells them to abide – to continue, to endure, to live in Jesus, and to allow Jesus to live in them. And to put up with the hardship that would come with the decision to abide. And Jesus would do the same, would hang in there with them, warts and all.
In John’s Gospel, Jesus’ metaphor for abiding is the metaphor of the vine – Jesus says “I am the vine, you are the branches.” The branches abide in the vine – draw their sustenance from it – and the vine lives in the branches – the branches fulfill the purpose of the vine by bringing forth fruit. There’s a mutual, indeed, inseparable relationship – how do you tell where the vine stops and the branches start. And this is Jesus’ metaphor for his followers – those with him them, and for us as well. Mutual, inseparable relationship – in our lives, not being able to tell where Jesus leaves off and we pick up, because we and Jesus are so bound up in each other. The “vine and branches” metaphor is familiar, because even if we don’t have a vineyard in our backyard – or even if we don’t have a backyard, for that matter, we know what happens to a branch that’s cut out of a tree, or to lawn clippings that are left on a lawn. They wither. They dry up. You don’t cut a branch off an apple tree and expect it to go on sprouting new apples. You don’t cut the grass and expect the clippings to start growing. Separated from the main plant, an individual branch literally can do nothing. And it’s like that for us. Without being fed by the Word, without drawing strength from worshipping together, without allowing time and space in our lives for the Spirit to speak in us and move in us, our spiritual life eventually dries up, and all our efforts for good come to nothing. But if we allow ourselves to be fed spiritually, there’s no stopping us in our efforts to bear fruit – as Jesus says, fruit that will last.
When we face difficulties, God’s word for us is – abide. Abide. Hang in there. Keep on keeping on. Most of all, keep on keeping on abiding in Christ, so that we don’t become overwhelmed with bitterness and cynicism – don’t find our spirits dried up – but find ourselves sustained by God’s grace even through the worst of bad times.
The timing of Jesus’ words is crucial to our understanding of the text. It is part of Jesus’ farewell discourse, after he had shared bread and wine with his disciples, after Judas had gone out to betray him. During those fleeting minutes and hours before the betrayal, Jesus had to prepare his disciples for the horrors that would lie ahead. How would they stand in the time of trial? What word could Jesus give them to sustain them? Jesus’ word for the disciples – and for us – is “abide”. Abide. Abide in me as I abide in you. What does it mean to abide?
There are several shades of meaning. Abide can mean “to dwell” or “to live in a particular place.” When we invite someone into our home, we might say, “welcome to my humble abode” – the humble abode where I abide, or live. The word “abide” also involves a sense of the passage of a significant length of time, a condition that lasts over the long haul – the abiding love that marks healthy relationship is a contrast to the here-today, gone tomorrow infatuation of someone not ready for an abiding relationship. And the word “abide” can also be used in the sense of “to put up with” or “to tolerate.” And it can also mean “to wait for” or “to endure for a long period.” So to “abide” with someone is to live with them over the long haul, warts and all.
So how does Jesus prepare his followers for the difficulty to come? He tells them to abide in him, and he in them – to let his life enter their lives, and to let their lives be part of his life. He tells them to abide – to continue, to endure, to live in Jesus, and to allow Jesus to live in them. And to put up with the hardship that would come with the decision to abide. And Jesus would do the same, would hang in there with them, warts and all.
In John’s Gospel, Jesus’ metaphor for abiding is the metaphor of the vine – Jesus says “I am the vine, you are the branches.” The branches abide in the vine – draw their sustenance from it – and the vine lives in the branches – the branches fulfill the purpose of the vine by bringing forth fruit. There’s a mutual, indeed, inseparable relationship – how do you tell where the vine stops and the branches start. And this is Jesus’ metaphor for his followers – those with him them, and for us as well. Mutual, inseparable relationship – in our lives, not being able to tell where Jesus leaves off and we pick up, because we and Jesus are so bound up in each other. The “vine and branches” metaphor is familiar, because even if we don’t have a vineyard in our backyard – or even if we don’t have a backyard, for that matter, we know what happens to a branch that’s cut out of a tree, or to lawn clippings that are left on a lawn. They wither. They dry up. You don’t cut a branch off an apple tree and expect it to go on sprouting new apples. You don’t cut the grass and expect the clippings to start growing. Separated from the main plant, an individual branch literally can do nothing. And it’s like that for us. Without being fed by the Word, without drawing strength from worshipping together, without allowing time and space in our lives for the Spirit to speak in us and move in us, our spiritual life eventually dries up, and all our efforts for good come to nothing. But if we allow ourselves to be fed spiritually, there’s no stopping us in our efforts to bear fruit – as Jesus says, fruit that will last.
When we face difficulties, God’s word for us is – abide. Abide. Hang in there. Keep on keeping on. Most of all, keep on keeping on abiding in Christ, so that we don’t become overwhelmed with bitterness and cynicism – don’t find our spirits dried up – but find ourselves sustained by God’s grace even through the worst of bad times.
One Flock
As a new pastor, I haven’t been doing this long enough to have learned the various “in-jokes” common among pastors, but pastors definitely have their own culture of jokes and funnies, which leads to wall-hangings and knick-knacks that appeal primarily to pastors while leaving others scratching their heads. I particularly remember one I saw in the office of a former pastor. It had a picture of a sheep on it, with the words, “Get your sheep together.” I sometimes had the feeling that perhaps this was the church-approved version of what people tell me to do when I’m being more disorganized and scatterbrained than usual. Regardless of what that knick-knack may have meant, in the Gospel reading for May 3 (John 10:11-18) we see Jesus in the process of getting his sheep together. Here Jesus compares himself to a shepherd willing to lay down his life for the sheep entrusted to his care, as compared to the hireling who will run away at the first sign of trouble in order to live to fight another day.
If Jesus is comparing himself to a shepherd, then He is comparing we who follow Christ to sheep. And that’s a metaphor that does not play well in our culture. Our culture prizes individuality, strength, speed, charismatic leadership – and sheep have none of that. I did a quick internet search to see if I could find any sports team using the sheep as their mascot. While there are some teams with rams as mascots, I was almost ready to say I found none with a sheep mascot – even internationally – but I did find one - a children’s rugby team in the UK whose mascot is “Shaggy the Sheep”. The word “sheep” is used for both singular and plural – there isn’t even a separate singular form for the word sheep; when we hear the word, we automatically think of the plural – a flock of sheep. Sheep are prey animals, not predators – their instinct when threatened is to run, not fight. You likely won’t see a show on the Animal Planet channel titled “When Sheep Attack.” They also tend to herd together for safety They have very keen senses and can see or hear predators that are far away. And they have a high tolerance for pain.
Using the metaphor of sheep for the Christian community points to the fact that Christians are most healthy spiritually in community. John Wesley and Karl Barth are both quoted as saying that there’s no such thing as a solitary Christian. In the life of the early church, it was group activities – listening in community to the teaching of the apostles, fellowship, breaking of bread, prayers – that sustained a group that was frequently beset by persecution. Jesus calls himself the “good shepherd”, who knows his sheep and whose sheep know him. So while to those outside the flock, the sheep all look alike, the good shepherd knows each of his sheep, will protect his flock from harm, knows when one is missing, and indeed will go in search of the stray sheep until it is found. Of course, we frequently read these days about present-day pastors or shepherds who are not so good, about pastors who harm their flock. Some of these “bad shepherds” are like the hireling in Jesus’ comparison, only out to fleece their flocks, to take financial advantage of their gullibility – as in the case of some of the exposes of televangelists years back, when the prayer requests of the faithful were carelessly tossed into the dumpsters in back of the offices, while the checks were diligently cashed. And then there are the wolves in shepherds’ clothing, those who abuse or take advantage of their parishioners – or their children, those who through emotional abuse create division and disharmony in their congregations, even those who lead their flock to destruction, as Jim Jones did back in the ‘70’s.
Even aside from those within the church who mislead, we are drowning in voices from the wider culture trying to lead us in any number of directions. Buy this! Wear that! Vote for him! Support her charity! Our culture calls us in all sorts of directions, tries to get us to base our identity on all sorts of things – our possessions, our careers, our politics. Part of a faithful follower of Jesus then, is being able to sort through all the cultural noise to listen to the voice of the good shepherd, to gain our deepest, most basic sense of identity, not from possessions that’ll wear out or careers that will end some day or political parties that will disappoint, not even from our positions on controversial issues that some day will be resolved and personalities within the church who will someday go to be with their Lord, but from our relationship to Jesus, the Good Shepherd – our identity as part of the flock.
There’s that intriguing line in verse 16 – “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.” Here Jesus, in the words of my former pastor’s knick-knack, is getting his sheep together. In the context of John’s Gospel, this line would have been speaking of the Gentiles, those non-Jews who responded to Jesus, and indeed were responding to the teaching of the early church at the time John’s Gospel was written. For us today, the specific question that tied the early church up in knots – can Gentiles become Christians without first becoming Jews - is long-since resolved, but the broader issue of inclusion is very much with us, as it is with every generation. Who is welcome with us in church? Who is welcome with us at the Communion table? Do those who are different from us have to give themselves a sort of “extreme makeover” in order to look or act just like us before they can worship with us? We can read the reference to “other sheep” as a reference to any of the out-groups that are on the margins of our society, those who are beat like piñatas and blamed for America’s problems during every election cycle. Jesus has called and continues to call these “other sheep” to be part of the one flock, calls us to be hospitable to those who may not look like us, dress like us, talk like us, even worship like us, but nonetheless are beloved of God.
So our sense of who we are as Christians – our baptismal identity – child of God, disciple of Christ, member of Christ’s church – must be firm enough that we won’t forsake it for the other identities with which the culture will try to saddle us, and yet expansive enough to recognize those who are very different from us as fellow Christians – as children of God, disciples of Christ, members of Christ’s church – as members of the one flock that Jesus continues to form. Whom Jesus calls into the flock, may we welcome, and where Jesus leads, may we follow.
If Jesus is comparing himself to a shepherd, then He is comparing we who follow Christ to sheep. And that’s a metaphor that does not play well in our culture. Our culture prizes individuality, strength, speed, charismatic leadership – and sheep have none of that. I did a quick internet search to see if I could find any sports team using the sheep as their mascot. While there are some teams with rams as mascots, I was almost ready to say I found none with a sheep mascot – even internationally – but I did find one - a children’s rugby team in the UK whose mascot is “Shaggy the Sheep”. The word “sheep” is used for both singular and plural – there isn’t even a separate singular form for the word sheep; when we hear the word, we automatically think of the plural – a flock of sheep. Sheep are prey animals, not predators – their instinct when threatened is to run, not fight. You likely won’t see a show on the Animal Planet channel titled “When Sheep Attack.” They also tend to herd together for safety They have very keen senses and can see or hear predators that are far away. And they have a high tolerance for pain.
Using the metaphor of sheep for the Christian community points to the fact that Christians are most healthy spiritually in community. John Wesley and Karl Barth are both quoted as saying that there’s no such thing as a solitary Christian. In the life of the early church, it was group activities – listening in community to the teaching of the apostles, fellowship, breaking of bread, prayers – that sustained a group that was frequently beset by persecution. Jesus calls himself the “good shepherd”, who knows his sheep and whose sheep know him. So while to those outside the flock, the sheep all look alike, the good shepherd knows each of his sheep, will protect his flock from harm, knows when one is missing, and indeed will go in search of the stray sheep until it is found. Of course, we frequently read these days about present-day pastors or shepherds who are not so good, about pastors who harm their flock. Some of these “bad shepherds” are like the hireling in Jesus’ comparison, only out to fleece their flocks, to take financial advantage of their gullibility – as in the case of some of the exposes of televangelists years back, when the prayer requests of the faithful were carelessly tossed into the dumpsters in back of the offices, while the checks were diligently cashed. And then there are the wolves in shepherds’ clothing, those who abuse or take advantage of their parishioners – or their children, those who through emotional abuse create division and disharmony in their congregations, even those who lead their flock to destruction, as Jim Jones did back in the ‘70’s.
Even aside from those within the church who mislead, we are drowning in voices from the wider culture trying to lead us in any number of directions. Buy this! Wear that! Vote for him! Support her charity! Our culture calls us in all sorts of directions, tries to get us to base our identity on all sorts of things – our possessions, our careers, our politics. Part of a faithful follower of Jesus then, is being able to sort through all the cultural noise to listen to the voice of the good shepherd, to gain our deepest, most basic sense of identity, not from possessions that’ll wear out or careers that will end some day or political parties that will disappoint, not even from our positions on controversial issues that some day will be resolved and personalities within the church who will someday go to be with their Lord, but from our relationship to Jesus, the Good Shepherd – our identity as part of the flock.
There’s that intriguing line in verse 16 – “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.” Here Jesus, in the words of my former pastor’s knick-knack, is getting his sheep together. In the context of John’s Gospel, this line would have been speaking of the Gentiles, those non-Jews who responded to Jesus, and indeed were responding to the teaching of the early church at the time John’s Gospel was written. For us today, the specific question that tied the early church up in knots – can Gentiles become Christians without first becoming Jews - is long-since resolved, but the broader issue of inclusion is very much with us, as it is with every generation. Who is welcome with us in church? Who is welcome with us at the Communion table? Do those who are different from us have to give themselves a sort of “extreme makeover” in order to look or act just like us before they can worship with us? We can read the reference to “other sheep” as a reference to any of the out-groups that are on the margins of our society, those who are beat like piñatas and blamed for America’s problems during every election cycle. Jesus has called and continues to call these “other sheep” to be part of the one flock, calls us to be hospitable to those who may not look like us, dress like us, talk like us, even worship like us, but nonetheless are beloved of God.
So our sense of who we are as Christians – our baptismal identity – child of God, disciple of Christ, member of Christ’s church – must be firm enough that we won’t forsake it for the other identities with which the culture will try to saddle us, and yet expansive enough to recognize those who are very different from us as fellow Christians – as children of God, disciples of Christ, members of Christ’s church – as members of the one flock that Jesus continues to form. Whom Jesus calls into the flock, may we welcome, and where Jesus leads, may we follow.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
After Easter
“After [Jesus’] suffering he presented himself alive to them by many convincing proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God. While staying with them, he ordered them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for the promise of the Father. (Acts 1:3-4a, NRSV)
We find ourselves in that “in-between” time of waiting between Christ’s resurrection and ascension. During the 40 days between the resurrection and ascension, Scripture records a number of appearances of Christ to his followers; among them are his appearances to the women at the tomb, to the two travelers on the Emmaus road (Luke 24:13-35), to his disciples huddled behind locked doors for fear of the religious authorities, and to Peter, Thomas, James, John, Nathanael, and other disciples by the Sea of Tiberias (John 20:19-30; John 21:1-23). These appearances are fleeting, and the Scriptures describing them convey a sense of transience, a sense that time is growing short, and that Jesus must use this limited time to prepare his followers to carry on the work of the Kingdom after Christ’s ascension. It’s a transitional period, during which the work of Jesus becomes the work of the early church. Jesus tells his followers to remain in Jerusalem. They would soon receive the Holy Spirit, and with the spirit would come the power to turn the world upside down with the power of the Gospel – but the Spirit had not yet come, and so they were to wait.
As followers of Jesus we frequently find ourselves steering a course between two false choices. One of these is to act in a spirit of religious triumphalism, to be so confident in the power of our own righteousness that we find no need to rely on the power that comes from God. That path leads to religious bigotry and persecution. The other false choice is to deny that God has given us any power at all, and therefore to be too timid to risk stepping outside the doors of the church to minister in God’s name to our neighbors. That path leads us to hide the light God has given us under a bushel, and to bury our God-given talents. We must avoid both these false choices, and follow the path of humble reliance on the strength God provides us each day. When we follow this path, we approach our neighbors, not as religious bullies using our presumed righteousness to beat them over the head, but as humble servants ministering to them in God’s name. For the light we bear comes not from us, but from God; it shines through us like bright sunlight shining through a stained glass window, creating beauty to inspire anyone with eyes to see it.
‘This,’ [Jesus] said, ‘is what you have heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.’” (Acts 1:4b-5, NRSV)
We find ourselves in that “in-between” time of waiting between Christ’s resurrection and ascension. During the 40 days between the resurrection and ascension, Scripture records a number of appearances of Christ to his followers; among them are his appearances to the women at the tomb, to the two travelers on the Emmaus road (Luke 24:13-35), to his disciples huddled behind locked doors for fear of the religious authorities, and to Peter, Thomas, James, John, Nathanael, and other disciples by the Sea of Tiberias (John 20:19-30; John 21:1-23). These appearances are fleeting, and the Scriptures describing them convey a sense of transience, a sense that time is growing short, and that Jesus must use this limited time to prepare his followers to carry on the work of the Kingdom after Christ’s ascension. It’s a transitional period, during which the work of Jesus becomes the work of the early church. Jesus tells his followers to remain in Jerusalem. They would soon receive the Holy Spirit, and with the spirit would come the power to turn the world upside down with the power of the Gospel – but the Spirit had not yet come, and so they were to wait.
As followers of Jesus we frequently find ourselves steering a course between two false choices. One of these is to act in a spirit of religious triumphalism, to be so confident in the power of our own righteousness that we find no need to rely on the power that comes from God. That path leads to religious bigotry and persecution. The other false choice is to deny that God has given us any power at all, and therefore to be too timid to risk stepping outside the doors of the church to minister in God’s name to our neighbors. That path leads us to hide the light God has given us under a bushel, and to bury our God-given talents. We must avoid both these false choices, and follow the path of humble reliance on the strength God provides us each day. When we follow this path, we approach our neighbors, not as religious bullies using our presumed righteousness to beat them over the head, but as humble servants ministering to them in God’s name. For the light we bear comes not from us, but from God; it shines through us like bright sunlight shining through a stained glass window, creating beauty to inspire anyone with eyes to see it.
‘This,’ [Jesus] said, ‘is what you have heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.’” (Acts 1:4b-5, NRSV)
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Peace Be With You!
Passion week has come and gone. We've read of the cheering crowds on Palm Sunday, that one last supper with our Saviour, the betrayal and desertion of Good Friday, and the Alleluias of Easter Sunday.
Now what? Where do we go from here?
In the weeks following the resurrection, the disciples - all of whom in their varied ways had deserted Jesus - asked the same question. Jesus lives! But what did that mean for the disciples? Would Jesus be angry? Would he hold their failure against them?
Jesus offered, not chastisement, but reconciliation. Christ's words, "Peace be with you" and "receive the Holy Spirit", his commissioning them and sending them out as messengers, were the very last words they deserved to hear, and the very words they most needed to hear.
Those words are not only for those disciples, but for us. Despite our own failings and evasions, Jesus never gives up on us. May we have ears to hear Christ's words of reconciliation and hands and feet to respond.
Now what? Where do we go from here?
In the weeks following the resurrection, the disciples - all of whom in their varied ways had deserted Jesus - asked the same question. Jesus lives! But what did that mean for the disciples? Would Jesus be angry? Would he hold their failure against them?
Jesus offered, not chastisement, but reconciliation. Christ's words, "Peace be with you" and "receive the Holy Spirit", his commissioning them and sending them out as messengers, were the very last words they deserved to hear, and the very words they most needed to hear.
Those words are not only for those disciples, but for us. Despite our own failings and evasions, Jesus never gives up on us. May we have ears to hear Christ's words of reconciliation and hands and feet to respond.
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