The Gospel in Seven Words

Christian Century's cover article a few issues ago was entitled "The Gospel in Seven Words." It's a great idea- state the message of the faith in seven words. Doing so forces us to not worry about doctrinal fights, frees us from having to write a thesis, and encourages us to deeply consider our faith and what the Good News is to us. I am reminded of the words of St. Peter "Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you" (1 Peter 3:15). I'll share a few of the responses from the article, add a few of my own, but I'd really like to hear from you, dear reader.

"In Christ, God's yes defeats our no." -Beverly Roberts Gaventa
"Love your neighbor as yourself." -Bill McKibben
"God gets the last word." -Martin Copenhaver
"God was born. We can be reborn." -Carol Howard Merritt

And a few of mine:

"The Kingdom of God is among you." -This is a quote of Luke 17:21 and really unpins my whole theology. The Kingdom isn't about the afterlife, God's graces aren't reserved for the death, but this life we live is the place to thrive and flourish in God's love and opportunity. It is also a reminder that we have work to do, namely building up that Kingdom so that it might come on Earth as it is in Heaven.

"The LORD is Risen! Alleluia!" -This is a familiar victory of Easter morning. YHWH (Yahweh, or God's personal name given to Moses in Exodus 3 is often translated as LORD, which is YHWH in Hebrew) was incarnate in the person of Jesus of Nazareth and overcame the oppression systems of the day, including death. The shout "alleluia" reminds us to "praise God" for this and all the blessings of life.

"God loves- so love God, neighbor, self." -The foundation of all is God's love, and we respond to that love by loving God through prayer, adoration, and service. That love extends to our neighbors, including all of Creation, and stems from our knowledge that we are the beloved of God.

"God is loving, creating, forgiving, building, present." -This is a sort of combination of the previous statements. God loves. God created, and continually creates new opportunities for grace. God forgives us in our shortcomings. God is building us and the Kingdom. And God is Emmanuel (God with us);ever present.

How would you put the Gospel into seven words? 

September 23, 2012 - Proper 20B

In the name of God- Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

            God only wins if we lose. That’s the take home message for this sermon- God only wins if we lose. Now I don’t mean that there is a contest between you and God, but rather that in the life of discipleship, God’s victory is more important than our own. And paradoxically, if we lose ourselves so that God wins, we too will share in the victory. The rest of the sermon will expand upon that phrase- God only wins if we lose.

            Along the way, we’ll explore the themes of servant leadership and true wisdom. There is a wonderful word that is often used in the gospels to talk about Jesus’ walking from place to place- peripateu. In means to walk about in a literal sense, but metaphorically means to conduct your life or take advantage of the opportunities that you have in front of you. So this morning, I’d like to peripateu through this reading from the Gospel according to St. Mark.

            Remember last week, Jesus and the disciples were at Caesarea Phillipi, and Jesus tells them that the Messiah must die and be raised up in three days. Peter then tells Jesus that isn’t how it’s supposed to work, and Jesus responds “get behind me Satan.” Then Jesus talks about taking up the cross. The lectionary then skips the first part of chapter 9, which includes the Transfiguration, and then Jesus healing a boy whom the disciples were unable to heal of the demons that plagued him. Our passage today begins with the second of three predictions of the Passion.

            The text then says that the disciples were ignorant of what Jesus was saying to them, and they were afraid to ask him about it. Why do you think the disciples were afraid to ask him what he meant?

            Perhaps they didn’t want to consider death. Peter had already tried to ask Jesus about this new understanding of the Messiah and he got put in his place. No one wanted to be chastised by the teacher for not getting it. And the disciples loved Jesus. In the same way that sometimes family members go into denial when their loved ones get a terminal diagnosis, maybe the disciples didn’t want to think about the death of Jesus, so they didn’t ask about it.

            Or maybe they agreed with Peter, that Jesus was wrong about the Messiah. They rather liked the idea of a strong Messiah who would lead them against Rome. They weren’t very interested in this servant leadership stuff that Jesus seemed to be talking about. They were unwilling to see the world in a new way; they didn’t want the discomfort of changing their worldview. If this was God winning, they didn’t want it.

            And this is something that we all struggle with today. Once our minds are made up, we don’t really like to have to change our minds, or consider the fact that we might be wrong in our assumptions. I have a feeling that we’re going to see this played out from both sides in the upcoming presidential debates. Ronald Heifetz is the co-founder of the Center for Public Leadership at the JFK School of Government at Harvard. He is widely considered to be an expert on leadership, and in one of his books he writes that people and institutions fail because they refuse to change.

            This can be said of churches, of political parties, of nations, of universities, of businesses, or of you and me. St. James addresses this very point in the portion of the epistle we read today. He begins “Who is wise and learned among you?” I’m sure a lot of us think that we’re smart, that we’re well informed, so we’re tempted to raise our hands and respond “I’m fairly smart.” But he pushes us further and says “for where jealousy and selfishness are, there will be disorder and all bad things. But the wisdom from above is first pure.” Essentially, if we think we have a monopoly on wisdom or truth, then evil is sure to follow. We put our emphasis on winning, instead of making sure God wins.

            So we’ve considered why the disciples were afraid to ask. And in not asking, they missed a great opportunity. We need the questions in our lives of faith. Many a teacher has said that the questions are more than the answers. By not asking the question “Jesus, can you explain this?” the disciples stayed with their assumptions. By not asking the question, they avoided what could have been a very rich dialogue about what the Messiah is, about what it means to be betrayed, to be a servant leader, to be raised after death. But these questions went unasked. There is a great value in communities, whether it’s the twelve disciples or this church, when they work together to ask the questions and wrestle with responding to them.

            A great preacher I know often remarked that the reason why it’s so important to come to church is that in worshiping with others, we challenge our assumptions about God. But when we stay home or otherwise avoid conversation, all we’re doing is reaffirming our own suspicions about God. And it is exactly this wisdom that we need to reclaim as people. St. Francis, our nation, our community all need us to challenge our assumptions. In this divisive and toxic election climate, we need more listening, more candidates saying “you know, I learned something today and I’m going to have to rethink my stance on the issue of the day” instead of people digging their heels in and holding irrational and indefensible positions, simply because that’s where they started. They refuse to lose, and so they’ll do and say anything to win, even if that means preventing God’s winning.  But God only wins if we lose.

            One of the things that I love about the Episcopal Church is our diversity. A lot of churches tend to be rather homogenous in their views and makeup, but the Episcopal Church maintains that all are welcome and we struggle to remain a big tent. Doing so means we have some disagreements, but it’s worth the price. Martin Luther King once remarked that Sunday morning is the most segregated hour in America; that is a tragedy, because without people who are different than us being here, we lose something- we lose the ability to challenge our suspicions about God. I love the fact that many of you are not going to vote for the same candidate that I will. Because, to be honest, if I knew that you all agreed with me 100%, I’d probably feel free to make some comments about things from the campaign trail this week. And you’d all agree with me, we’d all feel good about ourselves, and we’d be smug. And as James notes, we’d be damned for it. I hope that I challenge your assumptions, because you all challenge mine. And I thank you for that.

            I was recently talking to a friend’s parents about his return to church. They commented that they were so glad that he was finally going back to church, even though he left the church he grew up in for a much more evangelical church that lined up with his similarly conservative social views. I agreed that the renewed interest in spirituality is a wonderful thing, but I wasn’t so sure that going to church that simply reinforces what he already thought about God and world was such a good thing. Worship is good, but unchallenged faith isn’t. It’s not good for violent people to worship where they hear radical sermons. It’s not helpful when bigoted people attend churches that preach hate.

When I have Sundays off, I really enjoy going to other churches; churches that I’d never join in a million years. But every time I go, I learn something new about my assumptions. I have to think through my own beliefs and challenge my assumptions.

This is also why interfaith dialogue is so important. In college, I did a lot of coursework in world religions, talking to people that had very different understandings of God. And I didn’t always agree with them in conversation, but was always enriched by them.

One of the most interesting parts of my trip to Israel earlier this year was being in the minority. Christianity is the assumption in America, and especially in south. But in Israel, Christians make up about 2% of the population. Hearing the Islamic call to prayer throughout the day was a new experience, but I learned something about my prayer life in that experience.

There was a professor in seminary that, on the first day of theology classes, said “my job is not to teach the right theology, because only God knows that.” We all fall into the trap of reaffirming our own suspicions instead of challenging them. Let these readings be  an invitation to changes sides of the fence, knowing that losing for God is victory. Because if we’ve never changed our minds about anything, then we probably haven’t done much thinking.

So as our story continues, the disciples and Jesus arrive at a house and Jesus begins to interrogate them. He says “as we were walking, what were you debating?” And there was a dead silence, because they had been debating about who was the greatest. Jesus probably knew this, because he speaks right to it, but he gave them the chance to come clean first. I can’t help but wonder what that debate sounded like. Did it go “okay, listen, if Jesus is going to die, this is why I should replace him as leader”? Perhaps because they didn’t understand Jesus’ comments, because they didn’t ask questions, they were arguing about what he meant. They probably all were fighting over their own assumptions, trying to win, instead of listening to what Jesus had told them. Either way, they fought.

And this is exactly what James expects. “Those conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from? Do they not come from your cravings that are at war within you? And you covet something and cannot obtain it; so you engage in disputes and conflicts.” We covet winning- whether it’s a game, an election, an argument, a lane change in traffic, we don’t like to lose. So we do whatever it takes to win; because we’re right, our assumptions are more correct than theirs. We’ll fight, we’ll sue, we’ll scratch and bite, we’ll lie, we’ll cheat, steal, murder. When we do these things to try to win, God loses, and our victory will seem rather shallow. God only wins if we lose.

Jesus then begins the object lesson with the disciples. He takes a child and places it among them and says “If anyone wishes to be first, they will be last of all and a servant of all. The one who receives or welcomes such a child in my name, I receive and welcome.” Or in other words, God only wins if we lose. And when we lose, God wins, and when God wins, we win. It’s simple logic, but not the sort of logic that governs our dog-eat-dog world.

In Jesus’ world, children were viewed differently than they are today. Children today are cute, sweet, and innocent, but 2,000 years ago they were seen as somewhat pitiful. Children were powerless, defenseless, and completely dependent on others. If someone was keeping score, children would lose. And it is exactly this sort of “loser” that Jesus calls us to welcome, or in Matthew’s version of this passage, to strive to be. Jesus realizes that these things are all illusion anyway. As much as we’d like to think we have power, we don’t. We can’t control the weather, we don’t control accidents, we don’t control stock market crashes. Power and security are illusions that become idols which prevent us from trusting in God. So Jesus says, receive the child- rejoice in not having to worry about everything.

Today, of course, children are viewed differently. We praise children for their questioning nature, for their lack of inhibitions in being themselves, for their innate sense of fairness, for their ability to play, for their sense of wonder. One of my favorite parts of my job is handing the Communion bread to children. I absolutely love the sheer joy and mystery on their faces. I am jealous of the way they grab for the bread like it’s their lifeline. I am inspired by the way they shout “I got God!” They don’t care much about winning, but they focus on living.

Jesus confronts the disciples with a very challenging lesson about betrayal and death. And the example that he gives on how to respond to death is to welcome and be like the child in their midst. In the face of death, be helpless, because that’s really all we can be. In the face of betrayal, be the servant.

Servant leadership is the way of discipleship. Instead of arguing about who the betrayer is and how to subdue them, instead of fighting with each other, instead of trying to win first place, Jesus says go to the back of the line and serve. CS Lewis, in a letter to a friend, wrote “we are not kings, we are not senators. Let us beware lest, while we torture ourselves in vain about the fate of Europe (and today you might change this to America or the economy), we neglect either Verona or Oxford (their hometowns and neighborhoods). In the poor man who knocks at my door, in my ailing mother, in the young man who seeks advice, the Lord himself is present: therefore let us wash his feet.” That is servant leadership, serving those in need instead of fighting over the answers about how to fix them.

We, of course, know the line from Isaiah, that in the Kingdom of God “The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them.” The child will lead them not because they speak eloquently, or because they have been properly trained. The child will lead because they are lost in the mystery of God, because they aren’t concerning with winning.

As we go forth from this place today out into the world, let it be with the mind and heart of a servant. Let us remember the lessons from Jesus and the disciples: that community is important because it challenges our assumptions. May God give us the strength and grace to confront our assumptions. Let us welcome and receive the child and the child-like: the poor, the oppressed, the powerless, the abused. Society might call them the “losers,” but in their losing, they are blessed to be free from the game of trying to win at the cost of our soul and sanity. Before we seek to claim truth, or power, or prestige, may we heed this call towards servant leadership, remembering that we are entrusted to build the Kingdom of God, not our own kingdoms. Our world needs more losers, people who are willing to get lost in the wonder and grace of God. God only wins if we lose.

If You Don't Have Anything Nice to Say...

Most of us attribute the old adage to our mothers- "if you don't have anything nice to say, then don't say anything at all." Sometimes our Sunday lectionary presents readings that fit current events perfectly, and this is one of those Sundays. I am not preaching this week, so this post will be a bit longer than normal to satiate that "preacherly" desire to respond to the events of this week. In our the Epistle from James we will read/hear on Sunday-

Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers and sisters, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. For all of us make many mistakes. Anyone who makes no mistakes in speaking is perfect, able to keep the whole body in check with a bridle. If we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we guide their whole bodies. Or look at ships: though they are so large that it takes strong winds to drive them, yet they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great exploits.            -James 3:1-5

In the wake tragic news coming of out the Middle East (and most especially, Libya), this reading calls us to explore our speech. James writes that we should bridle our speech, as it is an extremely powerful instrument. In fact, I think it can easily be argued that our speech is the most important tool that we have at our disposal. This is likely why the founders of this nation added the First Amendment to the Constitution, realizing that in order "to form a more perfect union" free speech would be a necessity. But with any great power, comes great responsibility.

And this responsibility has been abused too often in the decade since 9/11. Whether it is Qur'an burning, cartoons of Muhammad, or just plain bigotry towards Muslims, free speech has led to evil- both on the part of the speaker, and in the inciting of retaliatory violence.

This is a classic case of virtue ethics. There are goods in conflict: free speech, on the one hand, and safety on the other. People talk about the importance of free speech and our inalienable rights to do whatever we wish and say whatever we like. But this is a rather childish and selfish (not to mention idiotic) position to hold. Free speech should not trump common sense; nor should it trump morality. In the same way that is is not legal to say "bomb" on a plane, threaten the President by saying "I'm going to kill you," or shout "fire" in a movie theater, hate speech should not be allowed when it creates a clear and present danger in the form of an anticipated and reasonable backlash. We are responsible for the words, and their repercussions. James makes this clear. As does Jesus when he says "But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles." Or consider St. Paul's words in Ephesians-

But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knitted together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love.

We are responsible for loving at all times, and our words should be used for love and building up, not inciting violence. A particular wag of the finger must be directed at those who call themselves Christians and are guilty of this sort of speech and incitement to violence.

And for those who wish to instead argue this on a Constitutional basis, we do well to first consider the background to the First Amendment, which is a later addition to the document. First, in the Declaration of Independence, which will lay the groundwork for the Constitution we find the language that "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all...are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." This is a good in conflict with free speech. When the maker of this incendiary movie chose to exercise their right to free speech, they robbed the people in the Libyan Embassy of their right to life. To claim that the movie did not lead to the death of those in the Embassy is akin to arguing that the person who threw the grenade didn't cause the explosion, but rather that was simply an uncontrollable reaction on the part of the grenade. It doesn't make much sense.

Or consider the purpose of the Constitution, and all that follows (including the amendments). In the preamble it declares that the purpose of the document is "to promote general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity." Again, free speech can negate the very purpose of the Constitution when it robs people of liberty and posterity.

Perhaps you say -"Well, of course, the people behind this movie and other such hate speech are wrong." Perhaps you think they should be held accountable as well, and I'd agree wholeheartedly. But we shouldn't be too quick to pass the guilty verdict without considering ourselves first. I don't think any of you, dear readers, have done anything to spark a mass riot in the Middle East (at least, I hope not), but we have all said things that we shouldn't have.

People often like to say "you are the only person that can make yourself angry; it wasn't their fault for making you angry by insulting you," but the problem is that isn't true, nor should it be. As I preached a few weeks ago, anger is a good and proper response to things that are not just. And not everyone is able to control their anger, which sometimes turns to violence. Now I want to be clear, those who do violence are fully responsible for that violence and there is no excuse, justification, or condoning of such violence. But nor is there any condoning of, right to, or reason for speech that is meant to hurt and lead to violence. Intentionally causing someone to get angry is just as reprehensible of a sin as the manifestation of that anger in violence.

So whether we snap at a grocery clerk who is slow, a waiter who brings us the wrong food, a debate partner who says something to irk us, a supporter of the candidate whom you don't intend to vote for, or simply the person who delivers the straw that breaks the camel's back, our speech is a powerful tool. Our words do indeed guide our whole body, our speech does govern our relationships, we are what we say (and of course what we do too, but this is a post about speech).

With every sentence, every word, we have the opportunity to build the Kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven. The question is: will you use the brick to lay the foundation, or will you throw it through the windows? Maybe if we don't have anything nice (or loving, or true, or Jesus-like) to say, then we shouldn't say anything at all.

September 2, 2012 - Proper 17B

Lord of all power and might, the author and giver of all good things: Graft in our hearts the love of your Name; increase in us true religion; nourish us with all goodness; and bring forth in us the fruit of good works; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God for ever and ever. Amen.

             “But take care and watch yourselves closely, so as neither to forget the things that your eyes have seen nor to let them slip from your mind all the days of your life.” Moses says that to the Hebrew people in his farewell speech. And it sounds awfully important, “never forget these things.” But what things is he talking about?

            If you’ll think back to your studies of the Old Testament, recall that God first appears to Abram and calls him to move to a new land. From that time forward, through a name change to Abraham, through Isaac, through Jacob, and through Moses, God is revealing what we might call true religion. In the Epistle from James we find a discussion about living the true religion. And Jesus’ interaction with the Scribes and Pharisees centers on the intention of true religion. So I pose the question- what is true religion?

            In most circles, those are fighting words.  Christianity has a history of fights over true religion. Whether the debates are around the divinity of Jesus, the Virgin Birth, the Trinity, access to Communion, or translations of the Bible, we Christians know how to have a good fight. And it continues today. Would Jesus vote Obama or Romney? What would Jesus say about abortion? Gun control? War? Universal healthcare? Tax reform? The pundits like to talk about the importance of swing votes and how candidates will fight over them. But no one fights harder than they do for Jesus’ vote. We all want to be a stakeholder in the true religion.

            It’s a trap we all fall into. As a theologian, I know that it can be easy to fall into the trap of thinking I have defined true religion. There are some things that I know that I don’t know; but there are other topics where I’m convinced that I have as close to a picture of true religion as anyone else. And that’s not always a bad thing. As Louisa May Alcott once said “strong convictions precede great actions.” Having convictions about true religion isn’t bad, so long as we realize that our convictions can also be our darkest blinders to the larger Truth. I’ve been blinded by my convictions, and I’m sure that I’m not the only one here to have done so.

            In our reading from James, he uses a great phrase in the middle. He says “be quick to listen.” Listen for the Holy Spirit, listen for the truth that others know, listen for what you have missed, listen for grace, listen so that you might love. But instead of coming to Church to reaffirm our own suspicions about what true religion is, let’s be quick to listen to Jesus this morning.

            As we start, Jesus, rather forcefully, rips off the blinders from the Scribes and Pharisees. In short, Jesus is saying “whatever you think of true religion, you’re wrong.” And he says this because as Jesus is defining it, true religion has nothing to do with what you think. Let’s start by considering the context of this passage from chapter 7 of Mark.

            So it seems pretty simple to us today, you wash your hands to avoid contamination and the spread of germs. We tell children all the time to “wash your hands before you eat.” So Jesus seems to be a bit off when he says that washing your hands before eating isn’t necessary. In the mind of a 1^st century citizen, germs didn’t spread through dirty hands. No one thought it was necessary to wash your hands before grabbing a bite to eat. And here our translation really fails us. The text says that they disciples were charged with eating with “defiled” hands. But the word is literally translated as “common” or “profane.” The issue here is intention.

            Before eating a ritual meal, your hands needed to be clean, not because of hygiene, but because of the sacredness of the meal. So with this information, we can understand this interaction as Jesus and his follower did at the time. It’s a question about what following the law means.

            It’s worth pointing out that Mark notes that these Scribes and Pharisees came from Jerusalem- these are the big dogs. This isn’t the sheriff deputy coming to look in on them; it’s a special task force of the FBI. So Jesus knows he’s made the big leagues because the big time Pharisees have come to question him, and he’s ready for them. They come to him saying “who do you think you are? Do you think you’re above the law? You should know that you must wash your hands before eating a ritual meal. And yet your disciples don’t? What part of clean hands don’t you understand?” And Jesus responds by questioning the intent of having ritually clean hands when our hearts and minds are defiled. Jesus is talking about intentions; he is speaking about true religion. Religion not about what you think, but the religion of what you do.

            It should be pointed out that Jesus isn’t questioning the validity of the law, nor is he weakening it. If anything, he’s making a stronger case for it. Jesus says that it’s not enough to follow the letter of the law, anyone can do that. He is upholding the importance of the spirit of the law, suggesting that the intent of the law is more important than the law itself. As Moses notes in our first reading, the law will make us a great and discerning people, the law keeps us close in relationship to God; the law allows us to live in freedom. We should hear this as a question to the heart of the law. Does the law hold us back from building the Kingdom of God, or does it free us to do so?

Reinhold Niehbuhr once said that “it is humanity’s capacity for justice that makes law possible and humanity’s capacity for injustice that makes law necessary.” Jesus does not say that law and ritual do not matter, but rather Jesus is calling us towards true religion- a religion not of simply thinking that we’ve done what we should, but fully doing it with our heart, mind, and body.

            And this is challenging work. As St. James suggests, we ought to look in the mirror. What is it that you see? He suggests that those who claim to have true religion without living it are like those who look in the mirror and forget what they look like. That doesn’t make sense. If you look in the mirror, you know what you look like afterwards. James is saying that it makes about as much sense to hear the word but not do it. And in the same line of thinking as Moses and Jesus, James is offering us a definition of true religion, and it’s a definition of action, not of the mind.

            James says “if any think they are religious, and do not bridle their tongues but deceive their hearts, their religion is worthless.” Now those are harsh words, but why spare a telling blow if the telling blow will tell? James and Jesus are saying the same thing about true religion- faith without works doesn’t make sense. We can’t say that we’re Christian and think that’s enough. I can’t say that I was baptized and rest on those laurels. You can’t call yourself a person of faith if you don’t live faithfully. Don’t say that you’re welcoming, or loving, or forgiving, but be those things. As James exhorts us, be doers of the word. I know that our worship setup makes it look like you are the audience, but you’re not- you are the players. Christianity is not a spectator sport. Be doers of the word.

            What is the word that we should do, you might ask? In the Christian lexicon, word can mean, Bible or it can mean Jesus, the second person of the Trinity. In either way, we can read “word” as the work of God. To do the word is to live out the great commandment to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and might; and to love your neighbor as yourself.” To do the word is to live the prayer of St. Francis, being an instrument of peace. To do the word is to love like Jesus did.

            This is true religion- doing the word instead of speaking about the word. Theology and academia pales in the face of action. I’ve done a lot of thinking about theology and death. But when my grandmother died earlier this year, being with family helped more than that books I’ve read. Being a doer of love and a doer of family was better than being a hearer of words on a page. True religion isn’t about the Trinity or the doctrine of Original Sin. True religion is love, mercy, grace, hospitality, outreach, compassion. Jesus never really talked much about theological or academic sort of true religion because that’s not what it’s about.

            As you might recall, the four gospels weren’t written for at least 35 years after Jesus’ life on earth. So people wonder why it took so long to write this stuff down. It’s because the followers of Jesus saw that true religion, as Jesus defines it, is about being doers of the word. So their first priority was to also be doers of the word. They didn’t have the time to stop and write down the gospel, they were too busy living the Gospel.

            So I wonder if in our debates around true religion, what would happen if we focused more on doing instead of thinking and debating? What if we considered our intentions more and our arguments less? What if we emphasized what is important to God instead of what is important to us? What if we fought less over how to define true religion and united more in doing it? The fights of dogma in the Church and politics in Washington are distracting us from doing true religion. Perhaps we are being offered another way of doing the business of true religion.

            We say that Church is about dressing in our “Sunday best,” this excludes the homeless who haven’t had a shower in days. But what if we welcomed them with hospitality?

We roll our eyes and whisper “should children be allowed in worship?” when we hear a baby cry. But what if we offered a helping hand instead?

We debate about social welfare programs and how to pay for them. But what if we made sure that no child went to bed hungry and no senior was left without the medicines they need?

We forget about people in prison, claiming that the world is safer without them. But what if we loved all of our neighbors as ourselves?

We cover our wallets when the word “stewardship” comes up. But what if we realized that it all belongs to God?

We claim that God is the most important thing in our lives. But what if we prayed daily as if it were?

We say that we want our children to have faith, as Moses urges us to do in Deuteronomy. But what if we showed them what faithful living was like with daily family prayer and Bible study? What if we were the example that we wanted our children to follow?

We seek to define what marriage is in the eyes of God. But what if we encouraged and supported loving relationships between people of any sexual orientation?

We tell immigrants that this is our land. But what if we recognized it was really God’s land?

Conservatives tell liberals that they’ve gone down the slippery slope. Liberals tell conservatives that they’ve lost the big picture. But what if we agreed to serve and respect the God in each other before worrying about our agendas? Or what if we dropped our agendas altogether and discerned God’s agenda together?

True religion doesn’t need us to defend it. True religion needs us to do it. It has often been said that “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.” And I couldn’t disagree more. The road to the Kingdom is paved with good intentions, the sort of intentions that Jesus talks about. Instead, I would suggest that the road to hell is paved with hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is derived from the Greek word for an actor, or one who pretends. We have enough people who masquerade around as the definers and defenders of true religion, but we need more people doing true religion. The vast majority of Americans self-identify as Christian, but when I look at the news, at politics, as our inner cities, our schools, our prisons, our television commercials, I don’t see much that looks Christian. We’ve got lots of pretenders out there, lots of people who hear the word and talk about it. But we need more doers.

Today is a fitting day to be talking about doing more, as its Labor Day weekend. We all need rest from our overly stressed lives, we do need more Sabbath, but that’s another sermon for another day. For today, there is much labor left to do. So I’ll leave you with two quick items for motivation in this seemingly endless task of doing the true religion. The first is to keep Moses’ words with you- “for what other people has a god so near to it as the Lord our God is whenever we call?” God is with us, God is working with us, God is the author and finisher of true religion. We are called to simply lend a helping hand. And secondly, as we look in the mirror as St. James mentions, know that the reflection you see is of the beloved child of God. God loves you, always and no matter what.

Jesus turns our expectations upside down when he encounters the Scribes and Pharisees and calls us to explore our intentions. It’s become too easy and commonplace to get distracted and drawn into fights over defining and owning true religion. But as Moses, James, and Jesus illustrate today, true religion is the religion of being doers; of taking care of the widow and the orphan; of loving kindness, doing justice, and walking humbly with our God. True religion isn’t about what we think, but it is about what we love. And our world needs a good bit more love, so let’s get to work.

Enough is Enough

At the gym this morning I looked up at the tv screen to see news out of DC that there was another shooting. The sad part is that I had to really scour CNN's website to find that link. It wasn't front page news, in fact it wasn't even easy to find on the US main news page. Have acts of gun violence become so commonplace that they're not really news worthy?

My immediate reaction to seeing this was outrage and I remarked to someone next me "I'm really getting tired of these shootings." Violence happens; I get that, but what is really getting me angry is the Christian response. And as I preached last Sunday, this is a sort of holy anger that alerts me to the fact that things are not right. The way to address this is to imitate Jesus.

In the past few weeks we've seen shootings in Aurora, Wisconsin, Texas A&M, DC, and Iraq. Enough is enough! Yesterday I was reading Martin Luther King's Letter from Birmingham Jail (full text) and was struck by his complaints against the Church-

"Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection...I must honestly reiterate that I have been disappointed with the church. I do not say this as one of those negative critics who can always find something wrong with the church. I say this as a minister of the gospel, who loves the church...In deep disappointment I have wept over the laxity of the church... there was a time when the church was very powerful in the time when the early Christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society...things are different now. So often the contemporary church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often it is an archdefender of the status quo."

We are guilty as charged. Enough is enough! As Christians, we are called to work for the Kingdom of God  and all that stands against it. This would include gun violence, and therefore against guns. Now I understand the arguments of those in favor of gun rights, but I'm also familiar with the Gospel of Jesus, who proclaimed living in such a way that the Kingdom of God might come on earth as it is in heaven. And I am convinced that gun ownership is not a hallmark of the Kingdom of God.

Jesus was clear when he said "put your sword back into its place; for all who take the sword will perish by the sword." Of course, you can also find violent images in the Bible as well. But it seems clear to me that the most effective way to exegete the Bible is to use canonical criticism, looking at the whole of Scripture instead of just picking verses to make a point (eisegesis). And overall, we see the arc of the Bible as bending towards peace, love, harmony, justice, redemption, and Resurrection- not violence.

I'm not advocating taking away anyone's Second Amendment rights, but I'm saying that Christians might consider surrendering that right. It is time that we put down our guns and teach our children and our world that we will not die by the sword. It is time that our actions proclaim what our faith does- that death is not the worst thing that can happen to us. We do not need guns to protect our property (didn't Jesus say something like "store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal"?). Plus, if we were truly concerned about protecting our family's safety, we'd be more concerned about texting drivers, drunk drivers, and red-light running drivers. It is time to trust Jesus more and the false sense of security that alarms, guns, and armies give less.

I'm not going to get into statistics here because that's not what this is about. I can cite sources that say that most gun injuries are confined to the homes that have guns, I can point out that if everyone in that Aurora theater had a gun that many more people would have died, I can suggest that other nations with stricter gun-control laws see less violence. But if you disagree with me, you'll have your own statistics. I'm not trying to win an argument in this blog post, I'm trying to proclaim the prophetic call to turn back to God.

You might also say that people kill people, and if it wasn't guns, it would be something else. Recently my brother posted a photo of an assault rifle on Facebook and said something like "can't wait to play with my new toy." I challenged him on calling it a "toy." His rebuttal was that the golf clubs that I use to play golf could be used to kill someone, just like his gun. But the point that we are missing is that guns are killing machines. That is why they exist. And our lax attitudes towards them in video games, movies, and shooting ranges has poisoned what should be our disgust and terror of such killing machines. One thing that really affected me when I was in Israel earlier this year was seeing so many guns. When we see a gun, our stomachs should churn and the hairs of our neck should stand. Guns should not be normal as they have become in our culture; as they would not be normative if God's peace broke out all over the earth.

Hunters might protest and say that those guns are different, and I'll cede that point. But even so, we don't need to hunt with sniper rifles or automatic weapons. And there is a message sent to those in a household where guns are present. The message may be subtle and unstated, but it is there. It says "guns are normal." Hunting can be done humanely (though it isn't always) and it is a fact of life that we see throughout the animal kingdom. But killing, even for food, should never be a sport or done for fun. It is a dangerous message and a slippery slope.

It is time for Christians to, as King encourages, actually do something about this problem in our nation. It is time to realize that those who are disciples of Jesus (and by that I don't mean those that show up on Sundays and say they love Jesus but don't want to sacrifice anything to make the Kingdom come, but I mean people who get what it means to follow the crucified and resurrected One) to put down the guns and work for peace. We might encourage others to do so, and stand up for laws that encourage better restrictions on gun (and all kinds of) violence. It is time for us to realize that the Way of Jesus is not easily reconcilable with groups such as the National Rifle Association. It is time for Christians to take seriously the prayer that we use most often and live it out- "thy Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven." Because enough is enough!

Time for Boot Camp

So last week I decided that my workout routine needed something new and dynamic; I needed to challenge myself and my body. I began attending Boot Camp (shameless plug- Absolute Fitness is a great place to work out) for some heart-pumping, muscle-testing exercise at 6 am. The first day, while I was sweating profusely and trying not to pass out, I thought "this is what we need at church."

Now I realize that Episcopal liturgy has been called "Pew Aerobics" for some our routines of changing stances from standing, to sitting, to kneeling throughout the service, but I have something else in mind. There are a few great things about this Boot Camp that the Church would do well to learn from-

1) Community- If I were doing an hour of intense cardio in my house, I'd be much more likely to sleep in some days because there is no accountability. I'd also be more likely to not push as hard or take longer breaks between repetitions. But in working out with others, we push each other to work harder and we know when someone isn't there. For one, we learn about what's going on in people's lives by asking "hey, didn't see you yesterday. Everything okay?," but we also build relationships with them.

2) Dedication- It takes a certain level of commitment to be at a gym by 6 am, but it is intentionally carved out time. To participate, you have to give something up- namely, sleep.

3) Results- The workouts have a purpose, getting you into shape and making you healthier. Whether our goal is to have a toned body or to loose some weight, this sort of regimented workout will help you on your way towards the goal.

I hope the direct parallels to the Christian life and worship are evident here. It's a truth that is known in most churches- small groups are what make the community. At St. Francis, we have some wonderful small groups and ministry teams, but I wonder how we might better opens these often closed groups to new members.

A renewed sense of dedication, or even change of pace, in our prayer lives can be refreshing and invigorating. I love praying the Daily Office in the context of Morning Prayer each day, but sometimes new words and techniques can take us to new places in our relationship with God. I'm reminded of a phrase I picked up at the Bollettieri Tennis Academy last year- "itensify your preparation, and increase your follow through." They were talking about training for tennis, but I think the same can be said of our prayer lives- "work hard and make sure your finish what you start." But I wonder, what things do we work harder at than prayer? Do we read more often? Spend more time watching tv? Put more energy and focus into exercise? 

Spiritual directors have often helped me to remember that all of our life is prayer. If prayer is relationship with God, then when are we not in relationship with God? Dedicating ourselves to a "spiritual boot camp" might help us to intensify our preparations throughout the day, not just when we're on our knees in prayer or reading a Bible.

And finally, what is the point of our prayer lives? What are the results we seek? Is it adoration? Is it peace? Loyalty? Something else? If you don't know why you train, then it's awfully hard to know if you're doing it. 

What does your spiritual workout look like? Where does it work? Where do you need some new routines? 

August 12 - Proper 14B

Almighty God, may you guide us to seek the truth- come whence it will, lead where it might, cost what it will. Amen.

            Are you serious? You’ve got to be kidding me! Another Sunday where the Gospel passage is from chapter 6 of John. In fact, we have five Sundays in a row of this whole “bread of life” saga. What do these lectionary composers expect preachers to do with five Sundays in a row of the same passage? How many times do they want us to explain the same thing? Are they testing our patience to see how long before we get bored? It’s ridiculous.

            You might wonder why I’m so angry about this. Well, this is a sermon about the place of anger in our lives and in our faith. And while preaching for five weeks in a row from the same passage in John can be a challenge, I’m not really that upset about it. We all know anger, but we’re not really sure what to do with it. My thesis for this morning is that anger is a forgotten Christian virtue. But it is one of the more misunderstood and dangerous virtues.           

Let’s start by looking at the dark side of anger. Often, anger is seen as a sin. In fact, anger is one of the 7 deadly sins. Sometimes it’s referred to as “wrath,” but that is also an acceptable translation of the words for anger we find in today’s readings. Wrath is a rejection of God’s grace, it is to abandon hope of restoration, it is full of pride and impatience. Anger in the Bible is related to the word for “puff up” or “swell,” so it has to do with an inflated sense of ego.

            And what we do with this sort of anger is even worse. We either hold it in and let it grow into a monster until it finally bursts forth and wreaks havoc, or we let it out too easily and are constantly bickering and snapping at others. Neither is helpful, and neither is virtuous. Anger also causes us to judge others too quickly and we start playing the blame game. This is what we see happening in our reading from John today. Jesus says that he is the bread of life and as our text notes, “they began to complain about him.” They got angry, and they got combative. They say “is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know?” Essentially, they’re insulting him and saying “where does he get off saying that?” They do evil in their anger- they discredit him, they launch personal attacks, they dishonor the God in him. Sound like any political commercials you’ve seen lately?

            When we get angry, too often we attack. And when this anger spews out in this way, we distort the subject of our anger, dehumanizing them. This is what allows people to justify their acts of violence towards others. When anger allows us to dehumanize and invalidate the grace and love of God in each person, and in all of Creation for that matter, then that anger is indeed a sin. This sort of anger distracts us from seeing people as the beloved children of God.

The other way that anger affects us is by distorting us. Mary Gordon once wrote an essay about anger. She tells the story of hosting a family gathering. She was the only one in the kitchen, doing all the preparing and all the washing of dishes. And you all know how that is, you get angry when you hear everyone laughing and see them sipping their wine without them offering any help. Earlier that day, she promised her mother and children that she would take them the pool to relax after the meal. So once the guests leave, the children and mother get in the car with their bathing suits on. They wait a few seconds and they started leaning on the horn, “beep beep beep”. She flew out the kitchen, and jumped on the hood of the car and started banging on windshield. She screamed “I’m not taking you the pool, I’m never taking you to the pool, and I won’t let you in my house again until the day you die.”

Have you ever feel like that? I’ve never jumped on a car, but I’ve wanted to punch through a windshield before. When she calmed down, one of her children came to her and said “mom, you really scared me.” She asked “what was scary about me?” And the child responded “I was scared because I couldn’t recognize you.” Anger makes us something that we are not. It can destroy us and make us unrecognizable even to our closest loved ones. Anger can define us when left unchecked. But instead, anger should drive us to love the good. So with that in mind, we turn to looking at the virtue of anger.

When anger appears virtuous it grows out of love. When we love someone or something, we are invested in. CS Lewis once wrote that “there is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken.” Anger is the proper and healthy response to having your heart wrung and broken. Being angry is natural when you are disappointed in the loss or failure of the object of your love. We hold those whom we love to high standards, we trust them, we believe in them- and so when expectations are not met, we get angry. We get angry that goals are not achieved and purposes are not lived into. Anger is our sign that things didn’t go the way we expected. If we can’t be angry about things that are important to us, we should take a hard look at our devotions and commitments.

This sort of anger is similar to the burn you get on your hand when touching a hot stove. It says to us “danger ahead.” Or you might compare anger to a flashing yellow traffic light, alerting us to be cautious because things aren’t going as planned. William Sloane Coffin famously remarked that “anger is what keeps us from tolerating the intolerable.”

This is a sort of righteous anger, the kind of anger that we find in God, Jesus, and the prophets. We see it in the interactions between God and Moses, Abraham, David, and Job. Anger can very much be a Christian virtue if it is a part of true love. Jesus, in anger, overturns the moneychanger’s tables in the Temple and had many a heated and angry debate with Pharisees. Prophets such as Micah, Jeremiah, and Obadiah are filled with righteous anger at people who pervert justice and abuse the widow and the orphan. Their anger keeps them from tolerating the intolerable, and thereby their anger allows them to call people back to the Kingdom of God.

If we take a closer look at the story from 2 Samuel this morning we can see a great illustration of both anger as a sin and anger as a virtue. I don’t often like to say things such as “if you think your life is bad, just look at this story from the Bible” because sometimes people truly are living in the valley of the shadow of death and things are that bad. You know the saying “it was a flood of Biblical proportions;” well, David’s family is a dysfunctional family of Biblical proportions. So we’ve been reading about David’s affair with Bathsheba and murder of her husband. That’s pretty bad. But then one of David’s daughters is raped by her half-brother, Amnon, who then is killed by his half-brother, Absalom, who was Tamar’s full brother. There’s a nephew, Joab, in the family as well who had bad blood with Absalom, David’s son. Absalom is killed in today’s reading by Joab and then Joab is later killed under Solomon because David ordered it. Like I said, dysfunction on the Biblical scale.

But what I want to point out is how David treats Absalom. Absalom had rebelled against his father, David. He had taken David’s concubines for himself and was wanting to overthrow his father as king. David was full of anger, but that anger did not overcome the love he had for his son. His anger remained virtuous- it signaled to him that there were problems in the family, but he did not resort to revenge. So he says “deal gently with Absalom.” He would not let his anger destroy the relationship or define him. Joab, on the other hand, was full of sinful anger. He disobeys orders, abuses his power, and murders his defenseless cousin. His was an anger of retribution, of taking justice into his own hands, of hatred.

We all experience both kinds of anger from time to time. However, it is our decision to control our anger like David, or to let our anger control us, like Joab. I’m angry. I’m really angry at times. I’m angry about followers of Jesus who in the gun-control debate put the Second Amendment above the peace of Jesus. I try to avoid fast food, but when I eat it, my favorite meal was a spicy chicken sandwich with waffle fries. But now I can’t make that order without getting a side of prejudice- that makes me angry. I’m angry that Christianity has become a cultural assumption in America instead of a decision for sacramental and sacrificial living. I’m angry at politicians who seem to lie constantly and only care about their own agenda instead of the good of people who they represent. But you and I both know that this sort of anger is only going to fester until it destroys me, or those around me when the anger bursts out. So what are we to do with this anger? How do we let anger be a virtue instead of a sin?

Anger tells us that something isn’t right, and imitating Jesus is the way to address that. We heard St. Paul discuss the place of sinful anger and imitation of Christ in his letter to Ephesus this morning. Theologian Richard Niebuhr talks about the “ethic of response.” This is different from people who wear bracelets that say “WWJD?” and ask themselves “what would Jesus do?” That’s a dangerous question because you’re allowed to answer for yourself. I don’t know about you, but I’m not comfortable speaking as if I were Jesus. Instead, the ethic of response is about responding to God’s nature and activity.

So God loves us, therefore we should love others. God created the world, so we should give thanks and protect the earth. God redeems us, so we should accept forgiveness. God is judge, so we should commit ourselves to good instead of evil. As Ephesians 5:2 notes, “Christ loved us and gave himself up for us.” So our task is not to try to figure out how Jesus would act in a different situations, but instead is to respond to what Jesus has already done. He has already loved us, already showed us that death is not final, already proclaimed the good of the Kingdom of God over and against the kingdoms of greed, power, oppression. Not WWJD?, but instead “how do we keep the ministry that Jesus begun going?”

As a quick aside, I know many of us perhaps have some issue with the line in John that reads “no one can come to me unless the Father draws them.” It sounds very exclusive and unloving. Instead though, Jesus is simply talking about this very point- the ethic of response. We cannot come to God on our own, but only as a response to God’s drawing us in.

St. Paul encourages us to imitate God and be a fragrant offering. That’s wonderful imagery. Be a fragrant offering. Think for a moment about fragrances. Perfume or cologne on the one you love or the smell of freshly brewed coffee in the morning. To be fragrant is to be a visible and perceptible vehicle of love, of hope, of grace. If we are fragrant, that smell will overpower the sin of anger and allow us to stay on the path of virtue.

Fragrances are also pleasing. I’m pretty sure that you can’t buy any perfume with the name “sewer,” “rotten food,” or “used diaper.” Fragrances should smell like Jesus. And what did Jesus smell like? Well, he was earthy, in the sense that he wasn’t afraid to do some dirty work, but he also smelled like the lilies of the field. His body was anointed with oils and perfumes for death, reminding us that there will be sacrifice in imitating him. But overall, the message of the Gospel is one of liberation, of love, of justice, and that indeed is a sweet smell to our souls.

Good fragrances are also attractive, meaning that they draw us in. If you’re in a crowded room and someone walks in with a nice perfume on, your attention turns to them. In imitating God, we strive to do so in an attractive and constructive way. We don’t need to cram our beliefs down the throats of others. We don’t need to fight over a truth that is not fully knowable on this side of life, but instead we should fight for the Kingdom of God to come on earth as it is in heaven. We don’t need to focus on judgment or other extensions of sinful anger. That isn’t very attractive, and I think that it’s pretty clear that the Church is guilty of being unattractive. There is a reason that so many young adults are staying away from the Church, we’re not really doing much by our actions to appear attractive or genuine.

In imitating God, we are able to better control our anger and let virtue reign instead of wrath. This passage from John about the bread of life offers a final consideration in living with anger. It’s something that we all know- when you’re hungry, you get irritable and angry. Empty stomachs have probably led to many bad decisions throughout history. Skip a meal and you end up cranky. And here I’m shifting to metaphorical meals. Jesus is the bread of life, whoever comes to Jesus will never be hungry and whoever believes in him will never be thirsty. Imitating Jesus will satisfy our needs. Not our needs for a job, not our needs for a new car, not our needs for a cure to our illnesses, but instead our needs for spiritual hunger. And once our soul is filled, then we can attend to our bodily needs. If our souls are hungry, anger will likely lead to sin; but if we are content in our soul, we can use anger as a virtue. Feed on Jesus, he is the true bread come down from heaven that will nourish us.

Though it often gets a bad name, anger is indeed a virtue with a place in the Christian life. Anger can destroy us, or it can save us. Anger is a warning that tells us that something isn’t right, and imitating Jesus is the way to address that. Anger indeed is a virtue, but one which we must be responsible and response-able to. Anger must be kept within the bounds of love and kept on a leash, and anger should make us able to respond to injustice and apathy when we encounter it.

May almighty God grant us the virtue of holy anger that awakens us to evil and keeps us from being consumed by sinful anger. May God gift us with the strength and fortitude to imitate Jesus Christ our Lord in being a fragrant offering, responding to the grace, love, and justice of God. And may we be nourished this and everyday by Jesus, the bread of life. Amen.