Sermon For July 28, 2013

Good News That Connects: Embracing

The community of believers was of one mind and one heart. None of them claimed anything  as their own; rather everything was held in common. The Apostles continued to testify with great power to the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and they were all given great respect’ nor was anyone needy among them, for those who owned property or houses would sell them and give the money to the apostles. It was then distributed to any members who might be in need. Acts 4:32-37

Acts 4:32-35 is good stuff. Or maybe it’s scary stuff -- all this talk about sharing resources and holding common property. For some, it is a call to serious Christianity. I know people who live in what they call intentional Christian communities. People of all ages buy a house, or a cluster of houses. They share an evening meal together each day. Each member is expected to share in household chores. They contribute to a common purse from which the community buys food and household supplies, and pays for utilities. Most of the people who go for this are idealists. They see it as a way to do justice and seek peace in a local neighborhood. For others, sharing property and co-mingling money is a dangerous call to a life of socialism.  So, which is it: Christianity at its most demanding or Karl Marx on steroids? Or neither? Or both?

Acts 4:34 offers the clearest reason why the early church found it necessary to hold everything in common. The leaders of the church were concerned that there was no one needy among them. No one who becomes part of this new Jesus movement should be deprived or disadvantaged. In the church, we take care of our people.

Six little verses from Acts hold up a high bar for us. I think what was true for the early church, in this case, is still true today. No one among us should be needy. I know it’s hard to imagine, because our systems work in ways that minimize or exclude the existence of those who have little or nothing. We tell ourselves that people who are deprived or disadvantaged are that way because it’s their own fault. They did not work hard enough or they have the wrong attitude. The practice of exclusion is not a rare event in our homes, our schools, our work places, our politics, and our international relations, and even our churches. We all exclude others. We see it in the headlines of our newspapers almost daily:

“Islamic Brotherhood: Exclusion breeds Radicalism
“Decorated Marine Captain Resigns Commission—Blames Anti- Gay Sentiment”
“Military Rape Survivor Says Decades of Failure to Improve Sexual Assault Policies Re-Victimizes Woman”  
“Local Groups Call On Company To End Racially Discriminatory Hiring Practices”

Exclusion of others is part of the legacy of the human race. In our time, exclusion and it’s twin cousin, violence, have grown into epidemics that threaten the lives of men, women and children both here and in every corner of our globe. I don’t think it well get better. In future decades, as the human race begins to feel the increasing pinch of economic distress, environmental degradation, resource depletion, and population expansion, exclusion and violence will probably get worse. That is, unless we can do something different – until we can transform exclusion into embrace!

And if we take the stories of our spiritual family tree seriously, then we might want to begin to reverse systems of exclusion by embracing those who are poor. Because there should be no one in need. A careful reading of the Bible reveals over 2,000 clear verses specifying that the people of God must care for the poor.  Most theologians will point out that God has a preference for the poor. And if God has a preference for those who are poor, then shouldn’t that preference also be at the heart of the church's mission and ministry?

The Talmud, the compendium of Jewish civil and ceremonial law, outlines a few ways to help the poor.  Out of all of them, the Talmud states that the least desirable way to help is the all-too-typical handout. People will take a handout when they are desperate, but they sometimes resent the givers. I see this with our Deacons Fund. We have a charitable fund in our church – those yellow envelopes in the pew. We use the money to help people in our church and community who need some immediate financial help.  We use it a lot. It is helpful. But it does not help alleviate need. If we are talking about embracing those in need, let’s call our Deacons Fund an entry-level hug – you know – the polite  hug where people act like they’re trying to hug you without touching you. It is usually accompanied by the ‘polite smile’

According to the Talmud, the first and best way to someone who is poor is to find or create  a real job. That way the person can escape poverty with one’s self-respect intact.  If we can’t create jobs, The Talmud says we should give the poor what they need. But there’s a catch. We should give, but see to it that they have no idea who it was that provided for them.  That’s the story behind the project called 52times52. A couple  resolved to give $52 a week to charitable causes for all 52 weeks of the year. The brilliance of 52times52 is captured in story in which they describe how they spontaneously decide that their gift for the week should be a $52 tip to the waitress who had been serving them in the restaurant. The post on the site says that after they wrote the tip on the credit card receipt, they decided to run away without watching their waitress's expression as she opened the leather folio. This couple have their critics.Their point is to learn how to give with the  intent of blessing others while seeking nothing in return -- no recognition, gratitude or praise. It’s a form of embrace.

I would add one thing. What’s most powerful, to me is embracing within relationships. If giving hand outs is the equivalent of a polite hug, now I’m talking about the Bear Hug. You know what I’m talking about. This the real thing; you wrap your arms around each other and hold on tight. What does this mean? We need each other. I adore you. I couldn’t wait to see you. It’s the essence of our Christian message. It’s good news that connects.

When people begin to embrace those who are poor in our communities, it can have disturbing results. I read about a group of students from a college in Pennsylvania who became deeply involved with the homeless population of Philadelphia. At first, they took food and clothing to those who lived in the streets in an all-too-typical middle-class way of helping the poor. They came with the handout. Soon they recognized that their new homeless friends were victimized by police who harassed them. Business owners wanted the homeless away from their shops. The students championed the cause of the homeless against the city's establishment. When the police tried to keep the homeless from sleeping in public places, these students slept out in the streets with them. They were arrested. Some of them dropped out of school so that they could give more time to helping their new friends. Some who were very talented graduates gave up professional careers to live their lives with these socially disinherited street folks. Together, these young people rented a house in one of the most derelict sections of the city, where they live in community and run a non-profit where the homeless can come for help.

Obviously, this kind of counter-cultural behavior stirs criticisms and concerns. I’m sure their parents weren’t thrilled. Religious leaders of the city became upset. Some churches kept their youth groups away from these radical Christians, lest their young people get what they consider to be the "wrong idea" of what Christianity is all about.

Here’s what I think: Deep down, we know Christianity is not about keeping a nice building, listening to a sermon, and going to a church board meeting. Don’t get me wrong, I like all those things (well, maybe not all the meetings), but the essence of Christianity is embrace – making sure that all are included and none are in need.

Francis of Assisi, the beloved 10th-century saint, embraced what he called Lady Poverty. He actually thought of the poor as sacramental, not just objects of pity.  What Francis meant by the term sacramental is that the eternal Christ somehow infuses those who are poor so that, as we meet face to face, we meet not only a poor person, but the very presence of Christ. It’s how, as Christians, we transforming exclusion to embrace.

Tony Campolo, the Evangelical social activist and sociologist tells a story about an embrace with poverty. He was walking down a street in Philadelphia when a homeless man approached him. Tony says he was a dirty, filthy guy, covered with soot from head to toe. You couldn’t believe what a mess he was. The man had a huge beard and there was rotted food stuck in his whiskers. As he approached Tony, he held out a cup of McDonald’s coffee and said, “Hey mister, want some of my coffee?” Tony looked at this dirty, filthy man and said, “Thanks, but that’s okay,” and he walked by him. The minute Tony passed him, he knew he was doing the wrong thing, so he turned around and said, “Excuse me. I would like some of your coffee.” He took some of the coffee and sipped it and gave it back to the man. Then Tony said, “You’re being generous. How come you’re being so generous today?”

The dirty, filthy-looking, coffee drinking man looked at Tony and he said, “Because the coffee was especially delicious today and I think that when God gives you something good, you ought to share it with people." Tony didn’t know how to handle that, so he said, "Can I give you anything?" He thought that the man would hit him up for five bucks.

The man said, “No.” Then, after a pause, the man said, “Actually, Yeah, yeah. I’ve changed my mind. There is something you can give me. You can give me a hug.”

When Tony tells the story he says, “I was hoping for the five dollars! He put his arms around me and I put my arms around him. And as I in my suit and tie and he in his filthy garb hugged each other on the street, I had the strange awareness that I wasn’t hugging a bum, I was hugging Jesus. I found Jesus in that suffering man.”

That’s the bear hug of Christian love. Good news that connects. Good news that embraces. Good news that heals. Good news that says, “The divine in me honors the divine in you. We need each other. I love you. Let there be no one in need among us.”

Sources:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/takeandread/2012/11/a-how-to-for-intentional-christian-community/
http://www.patheos.com/Progressive-Christian/Holding-All-Things-in-Common-John-Holbert-04-09-2012.html
http://www.evergreenuu.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=rlL1uQTrgSA%3D&tabid=198
http://www.ncccusa.org/poverty/sermon-campolo.html
http://www.sermoncentral.com/sermons/gods-heart-for-the-poor-ken-ritz-sermon-on-poverty-86838.asp?Page=6
http://www.52times52.com/

Sermon for July 21, 2013

Good News That Connects: Including

Peter and John went to the Temple one afternoon to take part in the three o’clock prayer service. As they approached the Temple, a man lame from birth was being carried in. Each day he was put beside the Temple gate, the one called the Beautiful Gate, so he could beg from the people going into the Temple. When he saw Peter and John about to enter, he asked them for some money. Peter and John looked at him intently, and Peter said, “Look at us!” The lame man looked at them eagerly, expecting some money. But Peter said, “I don’t have any silver or gold for you. But I’ll give you what I have. In the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, get up and walk!” Then Peter took the lame man by the right hand and helped him up. And as he did, the man’s feet and ankles were instantly healed and strengthened. He jumped up, stood on his feet, and began to walk! Then, walking, leaping, and praising God, he went into the Temple with them. Acts 3:1-8   

An impaired beggar sits outside the Temple courts in Jerusalem. He’s a regular feature at the Temple Gate called “Beautiful.” Don’t miss the irony. The beggar does not live a beautiful life. Because of his disability, he is forbidden to enter the Temple. His stark condition contrasts with the opulent setting where he is left to do the only thing he can: beg for money. I bet the worshippers going to the 3:00 prayer service view him as an eyesore to the site’s magnificence; a beautiful gate offset by an ugly beggar. Worshippers with their offerings for the Temple treasury hurry past him, or look the other way when he asks for handouts. The Apostle Peter may have been among those who turned away from the beggar. Peter had been in the Temple many times. Just a few months earlier he was at the Temple with Jesus. We have no record that Peter or Jesus did anything to help this man before. Peter arrives at the Temple and he’s about to pass by the beggar again. The panhandler asks for money. Any small amount will help buy food, or pay for shelter, or help him get from here to tomorrow. 

I’ve walked by the beggar a thousand times. He is with us today. He stands at the intersections in Silver Spring with a scrawled piece of cardboard that says homeless, please help.  He makes a bed on a bench on Pennsylvania Avenue in D.C. -- it’s one of the safer places to sleep because of all the security cameras, at least until 5 AM when the police rouse him to move on. Yes, I’ve seen this beggar. She looks me in the eyes and says, “Please help me feed my children” as she collects change in a used coffee cup on MLK drive in Baltimore. What do I do? Look away – don’t make eye contact? Lock my car door? Suddenly have the urge to check my Facebook newsfeed again? Give a buck? Give a sandwich? Start a conversation? There are a lot of possibilities. Each choice either humanizes or dehumanizes the other. And each decision either humanizes or dehumanizes me.

For whatever reason, Peter responds to this man who sits outside the religious and political system that is unwilling help him. Peter takes this beggar by the hand and makes him part of God’s good news story. Notice what Peter does not do. He does not give the man what he asks for. Peter does not give money. All Peter has to offer is Jesus. He says, “Stand up and walk.” The lame man gets up and moves around. He leaps and twirls his way right into the very Temple courts from which he was previously excluded.

The crowd is amazed. Some call it a miracle; a lame man hears the good news and gets healed. I think part of the miracle happens in Peter. Instead of turning away and yet again ignoring the pain around him, Peter stops to listen. He can finally hear the need beyond the words. Peter resonates with the need of this man and the wind of the Divine Spirit who seeks to breathe wholeness into creation. The miracle is a change in perspective – the ability to find out what God is doing in the lives of others. It’s about paying attention and making room for the ways God’s story plays out in the lives of others. Finally, the victim gets heard. Finally, the invisible drifter on the fringe of society is humanized because Peter listens and reaches out.

We know this doesn’t happen often. More often than not, our experience is defined not by empathy and outreach, but by rivalry and desire. At least that’s what a French literary critic and philosopher named René Girard says. Imagine three toddlers who play quietly. A grown-up introduces a new toy into the play room.  As one of the toddlers approaches the toy, suddenly all three toddlers want it.  Seeing the toy’s attraction and its uniqueness, each toddler becomes an instant rival for its possession. According to René Gerard, when the supply of desirable objects is limited, we get conflict. Rivalry and violence are visible at the beginning of all human culture. 

To overcome these twin problems, early societies turned to sacrificial violence.  An individual or group was deemed guilty of starting the rivalry. The larger group, the majority, united to sacrifice the ones supposedly guilty of stirring up the original conflict.  After the sacrifice, anxiety decreased for a while. Eventually, though, conflict arose again and the sacrifice needed to be repeated. Someone must be blamed. Atonement must be made. Society coheres around an individual or group it can despise and blame for all its problems. Girard called this figure “the scapegoat.”  Frightened people produce scapegoats -- people who fear rivals for limited resources; people who want things to stay as they are; people who want to hang onto their power.  An effective scapegoat has to be someone weaker, someone more vulnerable.

Here’s the important catch: The scapegoat is an outsider, but still lives inside the border of society. The victim belongs to the community but has traits that send her or him to the edges of the community. Those in the majority are brilliant at creating outsiders: the difficult person; the odd-one out; the member with the "wrong" skin color or sexual orientation; the incorrect gender or religion; too smart, or too rich or too poor. It's difficult to be the one who stops the scapegoating because through this courageous action he or she immediately becomes the next victim in a circular human activity of destroying those who symbolize challenge to the status quo.

It’s difficult to stop scapegoating, but not impossible. Peter does it. He listens to a beggar, an outsider, a victim. Peter offers the outcast what he really needs. And then, like a good apostle, Peter preaches a sermon.  We did not read his sermon in today’s scripture lesson, so here’s my paraphrase of what Peter preaches to the crowd: “Hey onlookers, why are you amazed? You are the ones who create victims and watch innocent people die. You did it to Jesus, and God raised him from the dead. So the healing of a lame beggar should be no surprise! Turn away from your wicked ways.”

So, here is where we are at. Evangelizing, sharing our good news, has to do with including everyone in God’s story. Inclusiveness begins with awareness and deep listening. And listening means not giving answers until we ask lots of questions. If I want to know someone, I need to tune in to the story he or she is living. And i I want to break the cycle of invisible victimhood, I need to recognize the divine in the scapegoats whom society puts on the periphery.

This past week has given us an opportunity to put this into practice. I’ve been trying to listen and listen hard to the voices around the Zimmerman verdict in the shooting of Trayvon Martin.  There is more to this story than any one of us can know. We need others to join in the conversation and show us what we are missing. One set of the voices I think we need to listen to attentively are those in the African American community.

I do not want to get into the legality of the verdict today. I don’t know whether the jury’s decision was racially biased or not. I don’t know Florida jurisprudence any more than the average media consumer has found out this past week. I never heard about Stand-Your-Ground Laws until this trial. Here’s what I do know: The African American community, by and large, hurts. And grieves. I’ve heard stories of African American children weeping themselves to sleep when the jury announced its verdict. Black parents are pulling their teenagers aside and having The Talk yet again. The Talk is the conversation that African-American parents have with their children—mainly their sons—about what to do when approached by an armed police officer or public official.  As a friend and colleague of mine writes, The Talk goes something like this:

Son, I’m about to tell you something that might keep you out of trouble and that might save your life.  It’s something that our sons have been told for generations.  If you are ever stopped by the police or a public official, make yourself as small and as non-threatening as possible.  Make sure they can see your hands, speak very clearly, and respond to them with yes sir or no sir.  Don’t make any sudden moves, speak with a cheerful voice and most of all smile if you can.

Black parents give The Talk because they know that African-Americans have been among the most convenient, the most hated, and most ill-treated of our scapegoats. Enslaved and abused for centuries, Black people who bear the image of the Divine were kept uneducated, powerless, and impoverished. And yet they were feared. They still are. Young African-American males have been among the most feared and despised. This is not political correctness talking. This is not race-baiting. This is not false victimhood. This is the daily reality with which African Americans live in our country, even in the most progressive of places.

Trayvon Martin has become the face of all these feared and often-nameless young men. Whatever the circumstances of his death, I think Trayvon became a victim of fear, paranoia and the will to power. He became a casualty of our death-dealing love of guns and our inability to think of a different way to confront our differences. I think Trayvon became the latest in a long line of young African Americans to die as a scapegoat. 

Before we proclaim good news to anyone, we need to start paying attention to what kind of good news they need. I think our African American sisters and brothers need to hear some good news from Whites. As a faith community, we can start some difficult conversations about race in order to uncover truths that can lead to powerful change. I know we want to think racism is behind us. My listening over the past week indicates to me that it isn’t. So it’s time for us to listen deeply. To reach out sincerely. To think of creative, non-violent strategies for reconciliation. My favorite non-violent response to the death of Trayvon Martin comes from Tom Crabtree, a football player for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He tweeted, “How cool would it be to live in a world where George Zimmerman offered Trayvon Martin a ride home to get him out of the rain that night.”

René Girard worried that without the scapegoat mechanism, our culture would fall once again into rivalry and violence. Vicious political rifts and intractable racial divisions seem to support his fear. There is only one hope of change and that’s the power of non-violent love. It’s the only way to confront our fears and end our dependence on blood and violence. It’s the only way to heal our scapegoating and defy our will to power. I don’t want to be naïve about this. I know humanity’s adolescent love of violence. I know our juvenile addiction to power, especially the power of the gun. But I also know the redeeming power of God. I know the possibility of repentance and reconciliation. I am not optimistic. But I have hope.

My hope begins with listening for brokenness. Can we offer good news to those who are broken, those who ache and grieve deeply? Speaking very personally – speaking just for me – I cannot until I do the difficult work of listening to my own brokenness in the events I wish to condemn. You see, I know something about myself. I know that when I see somebody else do something wrong, I self-righteously call on God for justice. But when I do something wrong, I self-righteously call on God for grace. How can I ask for justice and also be a grace-filled person? When it comes to awareness of discrimination, as a White person of privilege, the problem is not whether I love people who are different than me. The problem is whether I unknowingly participate in and benefit from systems of racism. I need to admit that I have an inner, self-righteous George Zimmerman who has inherited a whole bunch of stereotypes and fears. When I allow myself to take part in an “us versus them” system, if I insist on justice for wrongdoers and forgiveness for myself, then I run the risk of denying my participation in brokenness. There can be no reconciliation within myself, forget about with other people. If I simply denounce violence instead of using it as a mirror to see inside of myself, I’m just externalizing the problem onto a societal scapegoat.

Christ Congregational Church covenants to be an anti-racist congregation. But here’s the thing: Can I promise that our anti-racism covenant and a willingness to explore touchy conversations about race will solve anything? Not with confidence. But, I can pray for it, work for it, encourage it, and when opportunities come I can be part of a miracle. No matter what, I can at least listen to the grief and pain of our sisters and brothers in our family of faith and respond with humility and repentance.

I’m not just talking about dismantling racism. I’m talking about sharing the kind of good news that includes everyone – EVERYONE – in God’s story. Can I promise a physical cure to all who are ill?  Not with integrity.  But I can pray for it, work for it, encourage it, and when God sees fit to bestow it, I might be part of a miracle. No matter what, I can at least offer the hand of healing, the presence of the Spirit, and the kind of personal care that is only possible to those who see the image of God in the face of the other.

Can I offer good news to those who are spiritually impoverished – to those who want fulfillment without transformation? Not with any honesty.  But I can speak about Christ, and rebirth, forgiveness and radical welcome and the rich life of service to others. I might be surprised when God opens my own ears to hear. And, like the Apostle Peter in the book of Acts, I might be astonished at how the Divine Spirit chooses to transform us when I listen for the presence of God in the margins of life, not just the center.


Sources:
http://additionalmarkings.blogspot.com/2013/07/trayvon-martin-as-scapegoat.html
http://jbyas.com/2012/03/26/trayvon-zimmerman-our-hypocrisy/
http://trivialdevotion.blogspot.com/2012/07/beautiful-gate-acts-32.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arthur-d-colman/evil-and-the-scapegoat_b_2863029.html
http://www2.luthersem.edu/fgaiser/Sermons/acts3.htm
http://ubuntuhappenshere.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-talk.html
http://www.consumerhealthfdn.org/index.php/chf-blog/post/benefit_of_the_doubt/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/early-lead/wp/2013/07/14/george-zimmerman-verdict-draws-emotional-reaction-from-sports-world/
Evangelism in the Inventive Age by Doug Pagitt.

Sermon for July 14, 2013

Good News That Connects: Inviting

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability. Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. Amazed and astonished, they asked, ‘Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? . . . Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles. All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved. Acts 2:1-6, 43-47

In my younger, zealous days, my friends and I used to go to the local mall to persuade shoppers to accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. We would approach unsuspecting bargain hunters with their Abercrombie and Macy’s Bags, hand out Gospel tracts, try to share our personal testimonies and begin faith conversations with a lot of talk about hellfire and judgment scattered in. Or we would find someone chowing down on Taco Bell in the food court, sit at an adjacent table, and after an earnest whispered prayer we’d casually ask, “Hi, um, if you were to die right now, are you sure you would spend eternity with God in heaven?” Let me tell you first hand that mall security does not approve of this.

Some people will insist God commands Christians to share their faith to save non-believers. For others, the most tasteless aspect of church life is that dirty little “E” word – evangelism. Evangelism isn’t only a foul word, it’s confusing. We lack clarity on what it means to share faith with others. Some might ask, “What gives someone the right to force faith on others?” Others insist that all must believe the Christian message or risk eternal punishment without God.

The E-word literally means “good news.” But for some reason, evangelism rarely feels like something good. In most of the episodes I’ve been involved with, faith sharing feels like an effort to make a person change. Now that I am in a different place in my faith journey, it turns out I am now the recipient of other’s evangelizing. I guess I’ve gone rogue in the eyes of some of my old friends in the faith. When other Christians evangelize me, they don’t look for common ground. They don’t usually tell me what they love about their faith. They tell me what’s wrong with mine. They don’t share something life-giving or hopeful about what they’ve found. They warn me about the dangers of continuing down my current path.

In one paradigm, evangelism is about conformity to a set of beliefs and practices. In nearly every conversation I have with someone who evangelizes me, there’s an external model of faith they want to impose on me. An approach like this rarely takes into account who I am or what I’m about – my hopes, my dreams, my fears, my passions. It seeks to get my life in line – to fit my behavior into a one-size-fits-all faith.

There has to be something else. There has to be a way to share life-giving, soul-altering, community-building, faith-nurturing, earth-shaking, inclusive-and-inviting news. I think people want it. I think people want to know that churches aren’t all made up of closed-minded, rule-bound, joyless homophobes. And I think churches like ours have something important to offer to the public discussions of the day. Outside of Christian churches few consider faith voices to be relevant to any discussions about the tough issues such as human rights for women, or climate change, or corporate malfeasance, or prison injustice, or poverty or war.  A church like CCC has something meaningful to say in these conversations, don’t we? My experience is that when I tell people who I am, what I do, what I stand for and the kind of church I minister at, many are genuinely surprised and joyful that such a place exists. Why would we ever want to hide who we are and what we stand for?

What would happen if our communities could see and hear alternatives to the feel-good-prosperity-based, exclusive, retribution-supported self-righteousness that passes for evangelism? Instead of demanding belief in a story about a resuscitated corpse who scares people into proper behavior, progressive Christians can witness to what many scholars are telling us was Jesus’ original message: not hellfire and damnation, but the realm of God where distributive justice and compassion rule.

Instead of evangelism as conformity, I’ve been challenged to think of evangelism as resonance. The idea comes from a minister named Doug Pagitt who pastors a postmodern Christian community called Solomon’s Porch. His idea of resonance is based on the idea that everything has a frequency. Everything emits vibrations of energy. Resonance occurs when the vibrations from one object meet up with other vibrations on the same frequency. When that happens, there’s a sharing of energy between the objects. The classic example involves a tuning fork. You hit it and it emits a musical pitch – a particular frequency or wave pattern. Scientists have found that if you take two identical tuning forks, mount each on a wooden box and then strike one fork to make it sing its note, the other un-struck tuning fork with start to sing as well. There’s a sharing of energy between the two forks. One resonates with the other. Everything in all creation is vibrating. Every particle. Every cell. Every flash of light. Every sound. The entire cosmos sings with vibration. What good news! As one poet says:

when two violins are placed in a room
if a chord on one violin is struck
the other violin will sound the note
if this is your definition of hope
this is for you
the ones who know how powerful we are
who know we can sound the music in the people around us
simply by playing our own strings
for the ones who sing life into broken wings

When an idea or an experience hits us deep in our center, we say it resonates with us. Something about what we have witnessed strikes the frequency of our lives just right. And when that happens, we vibrate with the same energy.  If we are going to be people who proclaim good news, we’d better make sure that message resonates. Evangelism is about finding out what God is doing in the lives of others. It’s about listening and commitment. It’s about paying attention and making room for the ways God’s story has been playing out in the lives of others. It’s about speaking faith in languages that other people will understand.

That’s what I love so much about the story in Acts 2. We read this dramatic story every Pentecost. It’s about wind, fire, smoke and heavenly voices. It’s about waiting, watching and wondering. The text also suggests that there’s something important about telling the story of God in every language. Notice that we are never given a transcript of what the disciples say in all these languages they begin to speak. It seems that the content of the words is not the most important part of the message. What’s significant is that each listener hears something that resonates in her own language -- in his own way of understanding. The listeners are surprised and bewildered. Their listening is multi-lingual. Not just the talking, but the listening -- the sharing of stories. When we can listen in the language of others, we have an opportunity to vibrate good news that resonates.

These times we live in surely need some good news. And we know we have some to contribute to the common good. So, for all the times you went through hell so someone else wouldn’t have to, you have some good news to offer.

When CCC opens our church doors to the LGBT community and say, “You don’t have to be alone. We will worship God and do justice together. We celebrate your marriage. We covenant with you to baptize and nurture your children. We receive you as members into our family of faith,” -- when we do that, we send out vibrations of hope and healing. That’s some good news.

How about that time you taught a 14 year old girl she was powerful and the time you taught a 14 year old boy he was beautiful? You resonated good news.

For saying I love you to people who will never say it to us . . .
For scraping away the rust and remembering how to shine . . .
For the dime you gave away when you didn’t have a penny . . .
For the many beautiful things you do . . .
For every song you’ve ever sung whose melodies send sensations of expectation . . .
For all those times and more, you have lived and breathed good news.

The world needs us right now  -- more than it ever has before.
This is our time for saying YES.
So strum all your strings.
Play every chord.
Beat your drum to the cadence of life.
Play loud. Never hush the percussion of your heart.
You have a beat in your chest that can save us.
You have a song like a breath that can raise us.
If you’re writing letter to the prisoners, start tearing down the bars.
If you’re handing our flashlights in the dark, start handing our stars.
Sing out like you know the clouds have left too many people cold and broken and you’re their last chance for sun.
Live like there’s no time for hoping brighter days will come.

Sources: 
http://progressivechristianity.org/resources/call-for-progressive-christian-evangelism/
Doug Pagitt, Evangelism in the Inventive Age
http://progressivechristianity.org/resources/say-yes/

Sermon for June 16, 2013

agape

One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to have dinner with him, so Jesus went to his home and sat down to eat. When a certain immoral woman from that city heard he was eating there, she brought a beautiful alabaster jar filled with expensive perfume. Then she knelt behind him at his feet, weeping. Her tears fell on his feet, and she wiped them off with her hair. Then she kept kissing his feet and putting perfume on them.

When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know what kind of woman is touching him. She’s a sinner!” Then Jesus answered his thoughts. “Simon,” he said to the Pharisee, “I have something to say to you.”

“Go ahead, Teacher,” Simon replied.

Then Jesus told him this story: “A man loaned money to two people—500 pieces of silver to one and 50 pieces to the other. But neither of them could repay him, so he kindly forgave them both, canceling their debts. Who do you suppose loved him more after that?”

Simon answered, “I suppose the one for whom he canceled the larger debt.”

“That’s right,” Jesus said. Then he turned to the woman and said to Simon, “Look at this woman kneeling here. When I entered your home, you didn’t offer me water to wash the dust from my feet, but she has washed them with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You didn’t greet me with a kiss, but from the time I first came in, she has not stopped kissing my feet. You neglected the courtesy of olive oil to anoint my head, but she has anointed my feet with rare perfume. I tell you, her sins—and they are many—have been forgiven, so she has shown me much love. But a person who is forgiven little shows only little love.” Then Jesus said to the woman, “Your sins are forgiven.”

The men at the table said among themselves, “Who is this man, that he goes around forgiving sins?”  And Jesus said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.” Luke 7:36-50

How many times have we heard it? All you need is love! Love makes the world go ‘round! Love is a wonderful thing! Love will find a way! If we just have love enough, everything will be OK! Really? SUPER! Now on to reality. I’ve met people who live their lives believing no one loves them. They think, “Nobody understands me. Nobody cares about my pain. No one cares if I live or die.” Even in marriages and partnerships, we can feel like the one we love no longer understands us. I think of a couple I once knew, let’s call them “Mark and Beth.” Mark and Beth fell in love after college. Their eyes sparkled for each other. Their steps were light. They felt that unique, special attraction for each other. They got married, believing they would forever supply each other with a permanent sense of self-worth. As time went on, Mark expected Beth to be as accepting and forgiving as she was when they were dating. Beth expected the same from Mark. The sparkle dimmed. They began to feel disillusioned, even betrayed by one another. They replaced affirmation with sarcasm and ridicule. They each expected unconditional love and selflessness from the other, and each failure to do so was another brick in the growing wall between them. Mark and Beth recently celebrated their 15th wedding anniversary. Although they have shared many years together, they experience very little real love.

In some ways we are all frustrated lovers, wanting to be understood but feeling alone. We want to love and be loved, but we can feel incompetent, inadequate and insecure. Some will say, “If I can only do something to make myself more likeable or desirable . . . if only I can be successful . . . if only I can make myself more beautiful . . . if only I can be more self-sacrificing to serve another, THEN all our relationship problems will be solved.”

We know all about imperfect love. We have examples all around us. Today, we are going to look at an example of different kind of love in the story we just heard from Luke’s gospel.

Jesus reclines at a table. He’s at dinner with some of the movers and shakers in the neighborhood – the important people. Suddenly an uninvited guest comes in -- a woman with (ahem) a reputation. She follows a common practice of the lower servant class, not only washing Jesus’ feet which are dusty from walking with sandals on dirt roads, but washing them with her perfume and drying them with her hair. The important people object. But Jesus says this woman has more right to be there than many others. He says, “This woman had more sins forgiven than others so she is being extravagant with her love.” The writers of the Greek New Testament have a word for his kind of love: agape.

Some of us have heard this word before; agape. We are told it means unconditional love, or selfless love, like the love God has for us. I have a problem with this definition. The idea of selfless love perpetuates a dangerous idea. Is the woman who washes the feet of Jesus showing selfless love? At first glance, we see a woman subordinate herself to Jesus, as if being a woman is of secondary value to the community. We see a system in which women and men must remain divided by sexism, racism, economic injustices and imperialism.

We still live in that system. We expect women, especially mothers, to be selfless saints who give up their dreams in order to fulfill the needs of others. Some men and dads are expected to do it, too, but it’s preached strongly to women. Often these goodly "saints" are revered by those whom they serve because of their caring ways.  What better way to promote this useful servitude than by continually commending self-sacrificers as "moral," "saintly," "devoted," and "virtuous"?

It turns out, people who act out of selfless love may in be in danger of losing the very Self they ought to be developing. And, they may end up hurting the people for whom they care. Think about it. If a moral saint is spending all her time feeding the hungry, healing the sick and raising money for OXFAM, and packing peanut butter sandwiches for the homeless, then she’s not taking time to read a good book, go for a brisk walk, or enjoy the smell of warm wet earth after a passing Summer thunderstorm. If a moral saint is giving all of himself to save the world, he has no time to be an artist, or a good parent, or a skilled listener. There’s no chance for a truly selfless person to have the time or moral permission to develop the skills, talents and personalities that makes us interesting, well-rounded people.

Selfless behavior is immoral when it prevents you from knowing your own intrinsic and equal value as a human being. What kind of love asks you to discount your Self for the sake of the other? What kind of love asks you to deny your needs? Where’s the mutuality? Where’s the trust? Is that what Jesus wants from the woman who washes his feet? Is this the kind of love God wants from us? That God has for us? Selfless love?  No! There is no such thing. Everyone wants to be desired. Everyone wants to feel needed. Selfless love may seem ideal, but it eventually denies partners what they need—to be desired and needed as equals.

I know plenty of people who give selflessly of themselves and feel rejected by those they love. What kind of love is that? As long as we feel rejected, we cannot love fully.

I know people who have been manipulated by others in the name of serving God. If God appears to us as an unhappy recipient of selfless love who gives according pleasure and condemns according to wrath, we cannot love perfectly.

If we can be in touch with the true spirit of agape, our imperfect relationships can change. Like the woman who washes the feet of Jesus, we can share in extravagant kindness and complete forgiveness – a love so true that once we feel it, we can’t stop sharing it.

I’ve been thinking about agape in terms of another word: Namaste. Even though it is commonly used as a greeting, Namaste also expresses spiritual meaning. Namaste means “the divine in me blesses and honors the divine in you.” It’s agape – love in action. Imagine a despised, deprived, seemingly subservient woman of ill-repute washing the feet of Jesus as a servant. Imagine the scandal. Imagine the shame. Imagine the system that perpetuates and her posture. And imagine Jesus saying, “She has done nothing wrong. This nameless woman has shown agape. The divine in her just blessed and honored the divine in me.” Imagine if WE could do this. Instead of discounting ourselves to bolster another, we could say, “Love is known when we give and take as equals. The divine in me blesses and honors the divine in you.”

I will be the first to admit, I am not skilled at showing this kind of love. I feel it all the time, but I have a hard time expressing it. Some of you here at CCC have picked up on that. To be honest, for me, having a persona of selflessness can be an easy way to deflect agape. If I can serve you, then I can hide my own discomfort with receiving love. So I want to tell you all about my learning and my commitment about love in action.

Just like you, life has brought me pain. There are times when I l’veet down my guard and then felt like others took advantage of my vulnerability. I came to CCC hurt by other churches, feeling disillusioned and betrayed. I told myself there was no way I was going to allow that to happen again. Those experiences reinforced a guarded exterior that does not show how I am really feeling inside. It has become such an automatic response, I don’t always know I’m doing it.

Here’s what I’m learning: I have trained myself to be so emotionally non-responsive, I can forget that others need to experience a wider range of emotions from me.  I have something to receive from others as well as something to give.

Here’s what else I’m learning: I am learning to trust again. I’m learning to allow what I honor as the divine in you here at CCC to uncover and honor that which is divine in me. I am learning what it means to be mutually giving and receiving as a pastor and a congregation. You have helped me to do some of this, and today I want you to know I’m ready to take the next step.

When Pastor Amy was here with us, she served as an emotional buffer for me in many ways. Amy is such an emotionally generous and warm person, I could let her field many of the emotional issues that felt challenging to me. We do not have that anymore. I am your pastor. And we need to learn together how to do agape. I’m willing if you are. You know what I need from you? I need straightforward information about your needs. I need to know how you are feeling, and how you perceive my response when you express it. And I need to learn how to receive what you have started to give me after two years together: appreciation, support, friendship, and trust.

It’s the beginning of agape. In the words of Fulton Sheen, love is a mutual self-giving which ends in self-recovery. It’s what God wants for all of our relationships. Agape means that each and every one of us is created in the image of God, co-workers with God in struggling for the liberation of humanity and for a world order that respects each one’s dignity. God loves us so powerfully, and God wants to love another person or creature through us. That’s what I yearn for in my own life. It’s what I want for each of you. Healing power stirs us. We can affirm God. We can affirm our own being. We can affirm others from whom we are estranged. To love this love is to love God. And if you can love God, then you may also be able to accept Life and love it. Because Life accepts you; life loves you; and life wants to reunite you with itself.

Sources
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/nadiabolzweber/2012/05/330/#sthash.k4k1Wg2v.dpuf
http://www.religion-online.org/showchapter.asp?title=375&C=14
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/maybe-its-just-me/201008/self-loathing-and-the-paradox-selfless-loveq
http://philosophyfaculty.ucsd.edu/FACULTY/RARNESON/Courses/HAMPTONselflessness.pdf

Sermon for June 2, 2013

pistis

I was working as a chaplain in a Boston hospital, visiting various patients on my roster. One woman’s face sticks with all these years later. I don’t remember her name anymore, but I remember her face. She was a senior, sitting in a gloomy hospital room with the curtains drawn -- staring at the floor through thick goggle-like eyeglasses that made her eyes look comically large. There were no lights on. No music. There were no get well cards in the room, no flowers, no indication that there was anyone who cared she was there. When I talked to her, she said that her only child, a son, did not talk to her anymore. Her body had failed. As existence deteriorated slowly, she was convinced it was because she did something wrong and was being forsaken by her family and her God. She had a question for me: "Why doesn't God heal me? I’ve asked for forgiveness. I’ve tried to do the right thing. I have faith. I pray and pray, but I don't get better.  I once heard a minister say if I had enough faith, God would answer my prayer. What more can I do?" And she began to sob in the dark corner of her hospital room.

I have met many more people her since that encounter in the hospital; people who suffer in sorrow because they believe something about God's miraculous power that just does not square with their experience. A convincing clergy person, an earnest friend or a bestselling book has proclaimed, “If you only have enough faith, you will have complete physical healing. If you only have enough faith you will experience financial recovery. If you only have enough faith, your relationships will flourish.” Those statements put the responsibility squarely on the shoulders of the sufferer. It’s YOUR fault God does not grant your heart’s desire. If you are not living a healthy, prosperous life, then YOU are doing something wrong.

Listen closely in certain circles and you will hear it.  It’s called prosperity theology. We used to call it the name-it-and claim-it gospel, or the blab-it-and grab-it gospel. As one preacher in this movement says, “If you need a healing, you can’t sit back and wait for God to drop it down on you. You have to do what it takes so you can rise up in faith and take what rightfully belongs to you . . . But if you read the Word with traditional eyes, not believing the promises are for you, you disqualify yourself from receiving those promises. It takes faith—believing in God . . . to transform your situation.” That we can quantify faith as “enough” or “not enough” doesn’t make sense. We are asked just to take it on faith.

What is this faith, though? For some, the definition of faith goes something like this: Faith is believing the unseen as the truth. Faith is hoping for, expecting and seizing something for which there is no proof.

Here is my problem with this definition. It sets up a system of haves and have-nots, insiders and outsiders, those who get something from God and those who don’t.  The underlying assumption is that those who have enough belief in God’s unseen power and miraculous promises get blessed. If God is not blessing you, then you don’t believe correctly.  Faith becomes a matter of pursuing personal happiness, almost as if it’s an inalienable right. It justifies the disease of unchecked individualism, which sees faith as a matter of personal belief rather than community action.

Is that what the church is for, to ensure individual happiness? To ensure prosperity for the believer? Because I thought Christ set up the church to help mend the torn fabric of humanity. I thought our job is to reestablish created goodness. I thought Jesus teaches us to take care of relationships that are most in need of healing and people who are most in need of care.

I want to offer a different definition of faith.  Let’s listen to the Gospel of Luke and think about what faith might look like if it brought freedom instead of guilt.

After Jesus had finished all his sayings in the hearing of the people, he entered Capernaum. A centurion there had a slave whom he valued highly, and who was ill and close to death. When he heard about Jesus, he sent some Jewish elders to him, asking him to come and heal his slave. When they came to Jesus, they appealed to him earnestly, saying, “He is worthy of having you do this for him, for he loves our people, and it is he who built our synagogue for us.” And Jesus went with them, but when he was not far from the house, the centurion sent friends to say to him, “Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; therefore I did not presume to come to you. But only speak the word, and let my servant be healed. For I also am a man set under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes, and to my slave, ‘Do this,’ and the slave does it.” When Jesus heard this he was amazed at him, and turning to the crowd that followed him, he said, “I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.” When those who had been sent returned to the house, they found the slave in good health. Luke 7:1-10

The Gospel of Luke often puts Jesus in encounters with outcasts to make a point. For instance, in Luke’s very next story in chapter 7, Jesus visits a widow and raises her dead son to life with a touch. The widow is a social outcast.  Touching dead people is defiling. That doesn’t stop Jesus. He raises them both to new life. He eats with sinners and tax collectors! He cures people with diseases and plagues and evil spirits! In Luke’s gospel, detested Samaritans become good Samaritans! In today’s reading, the outsider is a Roman Centurion. He’s a warrior. He represents the worst of what Roman Empire has occupation has to offer. He hurls spears and javelins skillfully and strongly. He has expert knowledge in how to fight with the sword and shield. The popular perception of many centurions was that they were brawny, not too brainy, and often abusive. Here we have a Roman soldier, the backbone of the Roman army, displaying faith in Jesus. Jesus says he’s never seen anything like it. But what is it, really? Is the Centurion’s faith courageous hope in a reality with no proof, or is something else going on here?

The Greek word for faith used here is pistis. For you philosophers out there, it’s where we get the word epistemology. The original Pistis was one of the good spirits who escaped Pandora's box and fled back to heaven abandoning humankind. In the ancient Greek myth, Pistis, Restraint and Charity abandon the earth, leaving humanity to be overrun by their evil hungers. The original meaning of pistis meant “trust in others.” Pistis doesn’t mean belief, it means trust! "Faith" implies a relationship of trust and allegiance and not just acceptable beliefs.

The Roman Centurion knows all about trust and allegiance. His training and religious oaths prepared him for a life of obedience to orders. The Centurion knows about authority.  He speaks and people obey.  He recognizes authority in Jesus, too. But there is a difference in the power of Jesus. Military might can’t heal the sick or raise the dead. An army can't heal a faithful servant. Imperial power can’t gain the affections of a people. It can only control with fear. Jesus' power is not like the power wielded by Rome or any other empire. Jesus' power heals people and communities. It brings the powerful down from their thrones and lifts up the lowly. It turns the world upside down and inside out. The fact that a Centurion — a violent, brutish, instrument of military occupation—can trust in Jesus’ empire destabilizing power is the very essence of faith. Trust sees the world with God's eyes. Trust opens us to the possibility of a world renewed by God's love.

The miracle of this story is not just the healing of a sick slave. What’s miraculous to me is an outsider, moved by compassion, yields trust to a restorative power. And Jesus says “Yes!” Jesus offers healing as if to say, “You trust me? Well you know what, Centurion, I trust you, too! I have faith in you. Change is going to come just like this. God will not be restrained by the boundaries we draw around one another. God will surprise us. God's love extends even to those whom society deems unworthy of such a gift. This has happened before, and it will happen again.”

We can leverage our power to control others through fear and domination, or we can leverage our power to repair the word. Here is where I put my trusting faith: Jesus has faith in you and me. Jesus trusts us to be those who mend.

In a world of indifference to those on the margins, Jesus trusts us to pay attention.
When people in power turn to violence and anger to solve problems, Jesus trusts us to be peacemakers.
When our loved-ones struggle with invisible pain, Jesus trusts us to be a community of embrace.
When beauty is hidden, Jesus trusts us to marvel at the treasures God has created each of us to be.
When equality is compromised, when fear threatens to separate us, when it looks like faith, restraint and charity have flown into the heavens and left humanity to suffer at its own hands, Jesus trusts us, as communities of love and hope, to make a difference, to help restore the fractures of the world, a day at a time, an act at a time, for as long as it takes to make it a place of justice and compassion
where the lonely are not alone;
the poor not without help;
where the cry of the vulnerable is heeded
and those who are wronged are heard

Jesus trusts us. And we trust God. We trust that in our worst moments a wave of Light will break into our darkness. We will sense a voice saying, “You are loved. You are accepted. Now rise.” I trust that when my name is called to come forward, I will have the kind of trust to say yes and to the holy work that the Divine Spirit invites me to do.

Sources:
http://www.chestnuthillpres.org/sermons/2003/may18_sermon.html
http://lectionarytales.org/2013/04/21/june-2-2013-luke-71-10/
http://day1.org/4886-an_unexpected_faith
http://biteintheapple.com/42/
http://www.ntwords.com/trust.htm
http://www.kcm.org/real-help/article/take-your-healing-faith

Sermon for April 28, 2013

Revelation and Liberation: Hunger No More

After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. They cried out in a loud voice, saying, "Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!" And all the angels stood around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, singing, "Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen." Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, "Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?" I said to him, "Sir, you are the one that knows." Then he said to me, "These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. For this reason they are before the throne of God, and worship him day and night within his temple, and the one who is seated on the throne will shelter them. They will hunger no more, and thirst no more; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat; for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes." Revelation 7:9-17

The book was called 88 Reasons Why the Rapture is Coming in 1988, and it literally scared me like no tomorrow. I was 18 years old, in my first week at a small Christian college. Students were talking about this book, and the evidence seemed clear: Based on the prophecies of the books of Revelation and Daniel, Jesus would return in October of 1988. We weren’t the only ones who thought so. The book sold 300,000 copies when it came out. The Trinity Broadcast Network took the author so seriously, the cable channel interrupted its regular programming to give viewers instructions on how to survive the coming tribulations. For whatever reason, I knew I wasn’t going to make it through the end times. If the book was correct, I only had a month to get my act together before the return of Jesus. And even if I was faithful enough, I was so upset about friends and family whom I thought were not following God and would spend a fiery eternity treading lava in the lake of fire mentioned in the Bible. Of course, 1988 came and went with no end times. Another Doomsday of Yesteryear for the history books. All these years later, I still get cold sweats when someone predicts a new deadline for the return of Christ.

And I don’t even believe that stuff anymore. The book of Revelation was never intended to be an end-times check list, helping us count down the days to the end of the world. The author of Revelation, a political exile living on the craggy island of Patmos off the coast of Greece, had something more immediate in mind. As best we can tell, as John writes his visions down, the Roman Emperor Domitian sits on the throne. Emperor Domitian has just put the finishing touches on a new temple in the city of Ephesus and dedicated it to his family, the Flavian dynasty. As a strong-willed monarch, Domitian tolerates no disagreement with his policies. The new imperial temple provides a way for citizens to show their loyalty and honor to the emperor. It is supposed to have a unifying effect. But a growing group of Christians, otherwise known as Followers of the Way, have a crisis. As citizens of the Realm of Caesar, they have this offer they can’t refuse -- to attend Domitian’s imperial religious festivals. As citizens of the Realm of God they ask. “Do we worship Christ or Caesar? How can we, who call ourselves Jews and Christians, pay honor to the imperial family that killed Jesus and destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem? Are we willing to face punishment and death to protest Domitian’s Temple?” In John’s vision, those who hold firm and stay true to Christ lose their lives, but gain the reward. Bathed in light, they worship God day and night before the throne of God, not the throne of Caesar. 

We can only wonder if the Followers of the Way begin to lose heart as decades roll by without the promised return of Jesus.  Doubts seep in, like dirty water in a flooded basement. Will Christ ever come back and save the faithful? Do they dare hope for an end to injustice borne of violence? Will there ever be a renewed earth where everyone has enough, where children survive, where the oppressed are set free, and the grip of evil is finally defeated? When will the poor and needy have enough in a rich society? When will those on the margins of society be cared for with dignity and respect? When will aliens and immigrants be welcomed?

Sound familiar? Sound familiar you dreamers among us, you who can see a beautiful, renewed world in your mind’s eye – a word where beauty is restored, tears wiped away,  thirst satisfied at the waters of life? Sound familiar you prophets among us, you who call us to build societies based on fairness and equality where people hunger no more? Sound familiar you fearless champions for peace among us, you who renounce violence with the embrace of love? Sound familiar you servants among us, you who put hands and feet to work to soothe and heal the pain of injustice? Sound familiar, you who are tired and weary and worn – you who are sucked down in a quicksand-world where the rich get richer, the middle class gets poorer and the poorest among us are forgotten? We may have more in common with the book of Revelation than we care to think.

We have this book of Revelation, with its terrifying images, cruel upheavals and unbridled praise of God. As much as I don’t get it, I also wonder if Christian churches need more visions like the book of Revelation – something that helps us see the horrors of the world for what they are . . . something that can confronts the injustices of the world with a dream of hope and renewal.  I wonder if we need to welcome poets and mystics back into our conversations about the future of the church. The way I see it, over the centuries, church leaders began to teach that the best way to protect people was to replace mystics and poets with creeds and statements of faith. Then they demanded that people in the pew recite them as vows. Creeds became swords drawn to defend turf. Statements of faith became tests of faith. The earliest Christians never equated dogma with devotion. They simply stopped worshipping Caesar. They refused to go to the Emperor’s party. Instead, they threw open the doors of their underground assemblies, redistributed wealth, and made a simple, dangerous claim: “Jesus is Lord. We worship at the throne of God, not the throne of Caesar.”

As Christianity grew, Christians began to come up with complex theories like original sin and substitutionary atonement, along with the claim that the church alone could not only make the diagnosis, but also claim to have the only cure for the sins of humankind. The earliest Christians did not see the death of the Lamb of God as a mandatory event to pay the price for sin. For them, the Lamb’s death was the final death in a cosmic battle between peace and violence. For our early Christian ancestors, the Lamb of God was a symbol of their refusal to participate in scapegoating. Early Christians actually stopped performing animal sacrifices. And it was an amazing and courageous thing to do. Rome encouraged the practice of animal sacrifice among the various religions. Roman leaders knew that sacrifice was a safety valve that shifted attention away from the brutality of the realm by giving comfort to the masses. Rome perfected the technique of using violence to accomplish peace. Violence is redemptive, the citizens were told. Violence saves. The earliest church refused to participate. Christian theology did not get on the violent atonement bandwagon for a thousand years. 

In many ways, we are like the early church – like those Followers of the Way who need to decide whether we participate in the unjust structures of empire – whether we can risk losing ourselves for the sake of love. For too long, Christian churches have claimed divine sanction to undergird a violent status quo when all along, we were supposed to create redemptive communities who renew the earth. We are a non-violent community who stands against the unchallenged assumptions of violent empires, wherever and whenever they arise. Anytime we use our rituals and theologies to align ourselves with any other message, we preach and practice corrupted grace.

Rich was diagnosed with cancer when he was a student in college. Rich was not that religious, but he in his physically wasted state, he remembered a teaching from his boyhood church. He had not been baptized, which meant he was not saved and would go to hell. What he needed to hear was a message of grace – a reminder that he arms of God were around him day and night. Instead he was terrified by the thought of eternal punishment.

What caused Rich’s terror? What brought back this memory of his childhood church? Well, a much-publicized evangelist had come into town for a gospel meeting. He heard of Rich’s condition and decided to pay him a visit. The family had not asked for the visit, but their decency made them vulnerable, so when he knocked on the door, they opened it. The evangelist asked to meet with Rich privately, and they granted the request. The evangelist asked Rich if he had been baptized, making it clear to all that the entire state of his soul hung on the answer.

Rich whispered in pain, “No sir.”

The evangelist told him, in a deep somber tone, totally devoid of feeling, that if Rich was unbaptized he would go to hell. If he was baptized, he would not have to be afraid of meeting God when he died. He prayed for Rich to make the right decision and then he left for good.

Rich spent his days not only physically wracked in pain but also deeply conflicted. One morning, after a fit of coughing and with death’s yellow face staring back at him in a mirror, he asked his mother to call her pastor. She requested that the pastor come to the hospital and baptize Rich by immersion, the only method acceptable to their tradition. The pastor was also deeply conflicted about this, but he agreed.

Rich had no idea what baptism meant, but he feared the consequences of not going through with it. The logistics were complicated. The hospital staff secured a large tank, loaned from the physical therapy department. Lowering Rich into the tank would be painful, as would be his trip from his room to the basement where the tank was located and filled with warm water. Lifting him off the bed caused excruciating pain, and as he cried out, those assisting him lost both their will and their strength – starting and stopping several times, wishing they could abandon this task altogether.

The ride on the elevator was painful, as was the task of putting Rich in the sling that would  swing him over the tank and lower him into the water. Even some of the most experienced therapists winced at Rich’s screaming and stood back to watch as Rich prepared to receive his sign of God’s acceptance.

There was Rich, alone in a sling, dangling over a tub of water. The pastor knew he was supposed to say something – something about rebirth and hope into the ear of a dying young man whose pain was serenaded by the beeping and grinding of hospital machinery. When Rich was lowered into the water, he was too weak to keep the fluid out of his mouth. He came up out of the water strangled and close to drowning. Some of the technicians left the room. The pastor helped dry Rich off, and then the tortured trip back to his room began. Rich died three days later.

This is mortal mistrust. This is anti-grace. This is the final insult to the idea of a God of unconditional love and grace. And it’s not the kind of religion I want to be part of.

Did you know the word religion comes from the same word as ligament? Both religion and ligament come from a Latin word that means to connect. At its unhealthiest, religion ruptures and tears apart. At its best, religion is something that connects us to God and one another. That’s the kind of religion I want to be part of.

I want to be part of a connecting religion that is born of love and unites instead of division.

I want to be part of an inviting religion that gives special attention to the weak and forgotten, a church that finds those who have been marked as enemies and makes room for them at the table.

I want to be part of a fair religion where women are equal to men; where gays and straight, black, white, brown and tan celebrate diversity together; where children are cherished and elders are respected.

I want to be part of a mission-focused religion where our worship service is not just about coming in the doors, but also going out from here to actually serve.

I want to be part of an honest religion where fear is not used as a technique to manipulate others into obedience – a church where our love for one another becomes an irrevocable claim on one another.

I want to be part of a humble religion where it’s more important to love than to be right and where we hear more singing than arguing.

I want to be part of a religion that empowers the human spirit – a religion that can sit by the bedside of people like Rich and say, no matter who you are, what you’ve done, where you come from or where you’re going – no matter what, you belong to God who formed you in the divine image and will never leave you or forsake you.

We stand together, blessed and broken, working hard and partnering with God to be shepherds of peace. You dreamers and prophets, you servants and peacemakers, you wounded healers, go now, dry the tears and nourish the bodies of those who live in this beautiful, terrible, wonderful world. Go with the Lamb on the throne, the Shepherd, who has the waters of life.

Sources:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/apocalypse/revelation/white.html

Robin Meyers, The Underground Church.