Sermon for July 5, 2009

The Pursuit of Happiness
Based on the sermon “The Pursuit of Happiness” by Ian Lawton

God blesses those who are poor and realize their need for him, for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs. God blesses those who mourn, for they will be comforted. God blesses those who are humble, for they will inherit the whole earth. God blesses those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they will be satisfied. God blesses those who are merciful, for they will be shown mercy. God blesses those whose hearts are pure, for they will see God. God blesses those who work for peace, for they will be called the children of God. God blesses those who are persecuted for doing right, for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs. Matthew 5:3-10

Lately I have been having some discussions with people that center around what kind of congregation we should be. There are some here who want members to adhere to one strict rule of faith and practice. At the extreme, these people believe that the church’s job is to colonize the life-space of others. They promote the idea that if you believe what you’re told to believe and if you live your life according to a prescribed rule based on a narrow interpretation of scripture, only then can you be one of us. I’m tired of that kind of church – the kind that wants you to check your mind at the door, along with your doubts and pains and struggles. I want something else: a church that celebrates independence – a place where there is no one elite group of leaders watching over you, telling you what to think or say -- a place of deep faith but no prescribed creeds to which you must adhere in order to participate in the life of this community – a place of discernment where our members and friends order their lives around a set of mutually agreed upon values and principles. My deep hope is that TCC is transforming into a place where you can be free to pursue happiness -- in your life, in your relationships, in your work, and in your play. With no guarantees that you are going to attain it, and without too closely defining what it will look like if you get it, my hope is that this community will be a place where we inspire each other to pursue happiness, and offer each other life and liberty as a gift.

Imagine this scenario: You have your choice. In one hand, you can pick a lottery ticket. In the other, a set of water-skis. Which of those options do you think you would take? If you took the lottery ticket and won, you could buy all the water-skis you would ever want. You could travel around the world and ski in every lake you find. On the other hand, if you didn’t win the lottery you would be left with nothing. So you may be better off taking the water-skis. If nothing else you will get to take one good ride on your new skis. Of course, as you are pulled through the water by a high speed boat, you run the risk of suffering a terrible accident and becoming a paraplegic, so maybe the lottery ticket would be the safer bet. However, research suggests that one year after winning the lottery, people are no happier than they were before they won. So maybe the lottery ticket is not the better choice. Then again, some researchers suggest that one year after becoming a paraplegic, people are no more or less happy than they were before the event.

So, one year later, people those who win the lottery or those whose mobility is tragically altered have the same level of happiness as they had before those events occurred. We’ve been deluded to think that events make us happy or unhappy. We think that if we get possessions and property that we will be happier. But, some studies have shown that when people move from living at a survival level, where only their basic needs are being met, to having a roof over their heads and a small income, the increase in happiness is huge. But beyond about $12,000 per year, happiness levels begin to plateau. The difference between earning $50,000 and 50 million dollars a year does not equate to greater happiness. Happiness does not come from great wealth or possessions. Money might make misery easier to live with, as Twain said, but it cant buy happiness.

Think about another scenario: Imagine being left at the wedding altar. Imagine standing where I stand now, on your wedding day, and having your partner flee from the church. Imagine how you’d feel if that happened to you. Would you not say that was the worst day of your life? Anyone who is honest would say this is the worst day of their life. And yet, some testimonies suggest that one year later, many people who’ve been dumped at the altar claim that it was the best thing that could have ever happened to them. We have a tendency to magnify the significance of events, when in reality they are unlikely to be giving us any more or less happiness than expected.

I’m reminded of a story about a farmer who was completely dependent upon one horse for his livelihood. The horse eventually died, and the farmer’s neighbors all said “you are so unfortunate.” The farmer said, “We’ll see.” Sure enough, a few days later, one of his neighbors had great compassion on the farmer, and bought him a new horse. The neighbors said, “You are so fortunate.” The farmer said, “We’ll see.” A few days later the horse ran away, and the neighbors said, “You unfortunate man.” The farmer said, “We’ll see.” Sure enough, two days later the horse came back with another horse. For the first time in his life the farmer owned two horses. All the neighbors said, “You fortunate man.” The farmer said, “We’ll see.” The next day, the farmer took his son riding for the very first time now that they two horses. The son fell off and broke his leg. All the neighbors said, “You unfortunate man.” The farmer said, “We’ll see.” Sure enough, two weeks later the military came to the town to gather all the young men for war. They ignored the farmer’s son because of his broken leg. The neighbors said, “You fortunate man.” The farmer said, “We’ll see.”

If only we could take more of a “we’ll see” approach to life, we might find ourselves in a lot less misery. No event is an end point. No incident is the last word on life. One of the ways we can pursue happiness is to allow life to ebb and flow all around us, and not grab onto it too tightly. Whatever you are going through right now is not the end of the story. There’s always more. There will be mysterious twists and turns that we cannot predict.

So what is happiness? The World Database of Happiness keeps track of how nations subjectively appreciate life. Their survey asks two questions. The first is, “Are you happy right now?” The second goes a little deeper and asks, “All things considered, are you satisfied in life? Are you content?” Right now, Iceland is the happiest nation in the world. Mexico is number 5. The United States ranks somewhere between 27 and 31. The countries with the lowest levels of happiness are Rwanda, Benin, Iraq, Ethiopia, Chad (four of those countries are in Africa).

All things considered, taking a broad view of life, are you satisfied? Are you content? I wonder if this is what Jesus was speaking about when he gave the beatitudes to his disciples. People gathered around Jesus and he began to teach them by using a poem. Most of you will recognize the traditional translation: “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” The word in Greek is makarios. Makarios is used in Greek literature to describe the bliss of the gods who were not affected by the changes of life. Another translation of this verse could be, “Oh the unending bliss of the poor in spirit.” Jesus says that the poor in spirit can be content, because they know what it is to come within an inch of having their hope taken away from them. Because they know how it feels to be on the edge of spiritual devastation, they hold on to things, and perspectives, and people loosely. Satisfied are those who know that what goes around comes around.

Jesus then says, “God blesses those who mourn.” Oh the bliss of those who mourn, because they go deep within themselves to embrace sadness. It’s because they’ve embraced sadness they know what it is to embrace gladness. Oh the bliss of those who mourn because they know that life is too short – that it ebbs and flows and cannot be taken for granted.

God blesses the meek. Oh, the bliss of knowing your minute place in this gigantic, unthinkably large cosmos that we’re part of. Oh, the bliss of knowing how microscopic you are and yet how significant you are all at the same time.

Blessed are those who have a vision for justice. Blessed are those who know that when someone else suffers they suffer too. Oh, the bliss of those with a sense of mission concerning God’s love-filled justice and who will not be stopped from their mission no matter what criticism comes their way. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Happy are those who have a strong sense of authentic calling in life. No amount of persecution can stop them from pursuing that vision. Righteousness means a thorough seeking of justice and peace for all people.

Our country was founded with a mighty vision: a vision of life and liberty for all. It has had many false starts over the last couple of hundred years. There have been many groups in this country that have not enjoyed life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. So, the words of the beatitudes have been ringing in my ears on this Independence Day Weekend: God blesses those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they will be satisfied. That sounds like the kind of country where I want to live. It also sounds like the kind of church at which I want to worship. The pursuit of happiness, whatever it looks like, and wherever it takes you, is about affirming life and humanity in its brokenness, affirming liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all people.

A spiritual teacher was once questioned by his students who asked, “Why are you so happy? You are surrounded by suffering and loss, so why are you so happy?” The teacher picked up a crystal glass and she said, “I love this glass. I love the way it sounds when I touch it. I love the way it glistens in the sun. And yet one day, no doubt, my elbow will knock it off of the table and it will break. I love this glass because I know that it’s already broken.”

“All things considered, are you satisfied? Are you content?” Our lives are like broken glass. Our humanity glistens in the sun and chimes with the sound of shared love. Yet, Jesus suggests that we seek happiness in the broken places of our lives. When we understand our brokenness, we won’t grab life too tightly. We might stop striving to save it by putting it in a bottle or storing it on a shelf. We let life come and go around us without clutching it. We stand alongside each other and together we take one step toward greater life, greater liberty, and greater happiness. Can it happen? We’ll see.

Sermon For June 21, 2009

Be of Good Cheer
June 21, 2009

It’s been twenty-one years since my own High School Graduation. Twenty-one years ago, I (like most high school graduates) saw an unlimited future ahead of me. A new chapter was beginning. An old one was ending. I wasn’t completely sure of what was ahead of me but that really didn’t matter, for I had graduated. There were all sorts of opportunities ahead of me . . . too many, in fact, to imagine at the time.

Soon enough, our High School graduates will be off on their own adventure. And every adventure has anxiety. It wouldn’t be an adventure if you weren’t required you to get outside of your comfort zone. It would only be a vacation. Sot his morning, on the eve of this great adventure, I wanted to take some time to give you some survival tips – some proverbial advice -- some things I’ve learned along the way. This is not just for the grads. These are a few life lessons for all of us to ponder. My first piece of advice is to get a life.

Anna Quinlen, novelist and former NY Times writer, dishes out the some good advice in her book A Short Guide to a Happy Life. Anna writes:

“You cannot be really first-rate at your work if your work is all you are. So I suppose a piece of advice I could give anyone is pretty simple: get a life. A real life, not a manic pursuit of the next promotion, the bigger paycheck, the larger house. Do you think you’d care so very much about those things if you developed an aneurysm one afternoon, or found a lump in your breast while in the shower?

“Get a life in which you notice the smell of salt water pushing itself on a breeze over the dunes . . . Get a life in which you pay attention to the baby as she scowls with concentration when she tries to pick up a Cheerio with her thumb and first finger. Turn off your cell phone . . . Keep still. Be present. Get a life in which you are not alone. Find people you love, and who love you. And remember that love is not leisure, it is work. Each time I look at my diploma, I remember that I am still a student, still learning every day how to be human. Get a life in which you are generous. Look around at the azaleas making fuchsia star bursts in spring; look at a full moon hanging silver in a black sky on a cold night. And realize that life is glorious, and that you have no business taking it for granted. Care so deeply about its goodness that you want to spread it around.”

Here are a few things I’ve learned in the past 21 years since High School:
· I’ve learned that we are responsible for what we do, unless we are celebrities.
· I’ve learned that the people you care most about in life are taken from you too soon and all the less important ones just never go away.
· I’ve learned that the best classroom in the world is at the feet of an elderly person.
· I’ve learned that God does not propose to judge us until we die. So why should you?
· I’ve learned that time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
I’ve learned that that just one person saying to me, “You’ve made my day!” makes my day.
· I’ve learned that that being kind is more important than being right.
· I’ve learned that the only substitute for good manners is fast reflexes.
· I’ve learned that I can always pray for someone when I don’t have the strength to help him or her in some other way.
· I’ve learned that that no matter how serious your life requires you to be, everyone needs a friend to act goofy with.
· I’ve learned that sometimes all a person needs is a hand to hold and a heart to understand.
· I’ve learned that under everyone’s hard shell is someone who wants to be appreciated and loved.
· I’ve learned that the Lord didn’t do it all in one day. What makes me think I can?
· I’ve learned that when you plan to get even with someone, you are only letting that person continue to hurt you.
· Those who get too big for their britches will be exposed in the end.
· I’ve learned to quit griping about church. If it was perfect, we couldn’t belong.
· I’ve learned that brain cells come and brains cells go, but fat cells live forever.
· I’ve learned that you can’t have everything. Where would you put it?
· I’ve learned that 42.7 percent of all statistics are made up on the spot.
· I’ve learned that one careless match can start a forest fire, but it takes a whole box to start a campfire.
· I’ve learned that all generalizations are false, including this one.
· I’ve learned that life is tough, but I’m tougher.
· I’ve learned that opportunities are never lost; someone will take the ones you miss.
· I’ve learned that to never mess up an apology with an excuse.
· I’ve learned never to miss a good chance to shut up.
· I’ve learned that when you harbor bitterness, happiness will dock elsewhere.
· I’ve learned that I should keep my words both soft and tender, because tomorrow I may have to eat them.
· I’ve learned that that I can’t choose how I feel, but I can choose what I do about it.
· I’ve learned that everyone wants to live on top of the mountain, but all the happiness and growth occurs while climbing it.
· I’ve learned that to be nice to my kids. They’ll choose my nursing home.
· I’ve learned that a closed mouth gathers no foot.
· I’ve learned to borrow money from a pessimist. They don’t expect it back.
· I’ve learned that duct tape is like the force, it has a light side and a dark side and it holds the universe together.
· I’ve learned that the less time I have to work with, the more things I get done.
· I’ve learned that happiness is a journey, not a destination.
· I’ve learned that if you don’t pay your exorcist, you get repossessed.
· I’ve learned that he who laughs last thinks slowest.
· I’ve learned that money will buy a fine dog, but only kindness will make him wag his tail.
· I’ve learned that blessed are those who hunger and thirst, for they are sticking to their diets.
· I’ve learned that if you can remain calm, you just don’t have all the facts.
· I’ve learned that time may be a great healer, but it’s also a lousy beautician.
· I’ve learned that a clean desk is a sign of a cluttered desk drawer.
· I’ve learned never to do card tricks for the group you play poker with.
· I’ve learned that if you think nobody cares, try missing a couple of payments.
· I’ve learned that your worst humiliation will only be someone else’s momentary entertainment.
· I’ve learned that the noblest revenge is to forgive.
· I’ve learned that two people can look at the exact same thing and see something completely different.
· I’ve learned that God accepts you the way you are, but loves you too much to leave you that way.
· I’ve learned to be of good cheer

Do you ever wonder why people seem to take life so seriously? I once read an Associated Press story about how Americans are carrying more stress than ever, and we’re not carrying it very well. Some of the most common responses to stress are to work harder, sleep less, worry more, and deny ourselves the opportunities for recreation that would provide a measure of relief. The flip side of that is to mask our depression with a restless pursuit of entertainment and distraction. I recently heard this statistic: adults laugh, on average, 30 to 40 times a day, and children laugh 300 to 400 times a day.

I have met many people who believe it is their responsibility to be serious, when in fact what they are truly being called to be is careful or caring. Let me put it this way: in the dozens of funerals I have led or attended, I have never heard a eulogist say, “You know what I admired most about this person? His serious side!” I’ve never heard someone say, “If my mother was anything she was serious.” So my final advice is this: be of good cheer. Keep a smile on your face. Never lose your sense of humor.

Graduates- if you haven’t already figured it out- this church is proud of you! We love you and we want all the best for you. We give thanks for what God has already done in your life, and for all that God has planned for your future. We hope that you will always abide in the love of Christ, knowing that you are a beloved child of God. We, your church family, want you to know that you always have a home here always. But we also understand that it’s time to say, “Go, for we expect good things from you.” After you have experienced all the world has to offer, we know there will come a day when we will sit at your feet, listen to your advice, and learn about the ways of God.

Sermon for June 7, 2009

A Midnight Meeting
John 3:1-17

Today I want to ask us a question. Do we take the bible literally, or do we take the Bible seriously? You can do both, of course. But what about those who do not read the Bible as the literal, word-for-word voice of God. What about those who struggle to understand it – those who doubt and ask tough questions and seek to live faithful lives. Can we still take the Bible seriously?

Biblical literalism goes something like this: “The Bible says x, therefore we must believe and/or do x." Today’s scripture is a perfect case in point. John 3:16 has provided motivation for some of the most destructive and unchristian impulses of those who take the name Christian. "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish, but have eternal life." Taken literally it suggests that those who do not believe in this Son will perish. It is difficult to overestimate the harm, hurt and abuse that has been encouraged by this literal rendering of John's Gospel. I think part of the problem is that we make these words a new creed – a test of faith and an absolute statement about whom God loves and whom God rejects, who is in and who is out.

The irony is that of the four Gospel writers, John was the least literal of them all. All of the Gospel writers take great liberty with the actual events of Jesus life and the things he said. They were not historians. They were seeking to communicate a faith. But, John takes the greatest freedom in retelling the story of Jesus. It is particularly ironic that in today's Gospel John's Jesus rejects the very literalism that has so often dominated the reading of this text. Jesus offers the metaphor of birth to speak about spiritual growth. Jesus says that followers must be born of the Spirit, born of the wind, born a second time. Nicodemus takes a literal approach to Jesus words. "How can one be born a second time from your mother's womb?" Amazed at Nicodemus' literal understanding of this evocative image, Jesus says, "You are a teacher of faith and yet you are unable to understand what I am saying?" Jesus would be equally amazed at how his invitation to deepen our encounter with God through a rebirth of the Spirit is still used today as a literal basis for exclusion, rejection, dominance, and judgment. If the life and example of Jesus gives us reason at all to be literal in our reading of Jesus words it would not be John 3:16, but rather John 3:17 "God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him."

I believe that Jesus was not interested in establishing a belief system to be the cornerstone for acceptance or rejection by God. He was, however, very interested in the question: how does one come to have faith? How can we take these words seriously? We need to struggle with the same questions. Do we have faith because someone tells us what to believe? Do we have faith because we are scared that if we don’t say the right words and show up at the right events, and live approved lifestyles, and associate with the best people, that God will punish us? Do we have faith that can tolerate doubt, faith that can grow and change – faith that relies on the work of the Spirit moving through the gathered people of God?

Congregationalists have always struggled with these questions. The United Church of Christ, in its original Constitution, asserted:

The United Church of Christ . . . claims as its own the faith of the historic Church expressed in the ancient creeds and reclaimed in the basic insights of the Protestant Reformers. It affirms the responsibility of the church in each generation to make this faith its own in reality of worship, in honesty of thought and expression, and in purity of heart before God.

This means that Congregationalists believe there is no centralized authority or hierarchy that can impose any doctrine or form of worship on its members. Christ alone is Head of the church. We seek a balance between freedom of conscience and accountability to the faith. We take the Bible seriously. We listen to the historic creeds and confessions of our ancestors as testimonies, but not tests of the faith. In other words, our faith is founded on the Bible, and informed by the Church of the past. But it can never stay frozen in the past. We must continue to grow and evolve: to receive new insights, and, when necessary, to reject past ideas when they have been disproved.

In general, Congregationalists are not a creedal people, in the sense that we point to a detailed statement of faith that we can say all Congregationalists believe. I’m always amazed when people want to take their personal values and interpretations of Scripture and make them tests of faith upon all. Their reasoning goes something like this: “If you believe what I believe, think like I think, and live as I tell you to live, you are acceptable.” This is not who we are. Our congregation affirms that all people are free to make choices regarding their own personal and spiritual journeys. I think people sometimes forget the diversity represented here. Today, Trumbull Congregational Church includes people from all walks of Christian faith and practice – Old-time New England Congregationalists, as well as those with Roman Catholic, Episcopalian, Lutheran, Presbyterian, and Evangelical backgrounds. Some people who worship here have Jewish backgrounds. Some are agnostics. We’re a diverse bunch. While we are all united in our common belief in the basic tenets of the Christian faith, there is diversity of opinion among us with regard to some issues. This has been the case in Congregationalism almost since the beginning.

So, as with our forebears, our church’s stress is not on creeds, but on a covenant. Most Congregational churches have written covenants as their foundations. The covenant expresses the church’s reason for being. Our church covenant is found in our by-laws. We are going to recite it later on in the service.

We do covenant with the Lord, and with one another, to walk together as followers of Jesus Christ, and to devote ourselves to the study, the practice, and the spread of Christianity. We do endeavor to be loyal to this fellowship and to help one another in the Christian life. According to our abilities and opportunities, we give support for the work, attend the meetings of this church, and share in the common worship of God, God being our helper. Amen.

We repeat this covenant together whenever we receive new members into our church family. It expresses what we are about as a church: our intent, as fellow-members of the body of Christ to walk together in the ways of the Lord as faithfully as we know how, led by the teachings of Scripture and particularly the teachings of Jesus Christ, as Spirit of God illumines them for us. Such intent transcends whatever theological differences may exist between us, and unites us in a common goal under the lordship of Christ.

Today we will confirm some young people who challenge us to grow and evolve. We will bring them into the full membership of the church and extend them the hand of fellowship. As we do, we need to remember that they have something to bring to us. I’m not talking about serving on boards or committees, or showing up for Trustee work days. That’s all fine, but their presence here is more than volunteer labor. They bring us a fresh perspective on what it means to follow God and be part of the church in this day and age.

We embrace them as part of this community. And like all of us, they will discover something: When you begin to scratch our surfaces, you'll find we are not solid gold. When you stand too close for us for too long, we begin to smell like human beings. You see, we are not all wonderful all the time. We're not all tidy, and caring, and charming and all the other things we like in people. Some of us are even a bit coarse. A couple of us have bad habits. Several of us take ourselves too seriously, and don't always tell the truth. And yet we are part of a community. We work together. We share common goals. We seek to live out our faith, and take the Bible seriously. That means today we can affirm John 3:16 in a new way. God so loved the world that He sent his one and only son, so that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. Rather than creating a belief system that saves some and rejects others, John expresses the depth of God's love. How do we grow in faith, how do we grow in our encounter with this God who so loved the world?

I don't know about you but it has been my experience that my faith is strongest, I feel most close to God when I participate in community, when I care about others, and when I let go of my certainties and remain open to the guiding of God's Spirit.

Sermon for Sunday, May 24

The Return of the Church
May 24, 2009

Even the wilderness and desert will be glad in those days. The wasteland will rejoice and blossom with spring crocuses. Yes, there will be an abundance of flowers and singing and joy! The deserts will become as green as the mountains of Lebanon, as lovely as Mount Carmel or the plain of Sharon. There the LORD will display his glory, the splendor of our God. With this news, strengthen those who have tired hands, and encourage those who have weak knees. Say to those with fearful hearts, “Be strong, and do not fear, for your God is coming to destroy your enemies. He is coming to save you.” And when he comes, he will open the eyes of the blind and unplug the ears of the deaf. The lame will leap like a deer, and those who cannot speak will sing for joy! Springs will gush forth in the wilderness, and streams will water the wasteland. The parched ground will become a pool, and springs of water will satisfy the thirsty land. Marsh grass and reeds and rushes will flourish where desert jackals once lived. And a great road will go through that once deserted land. It will be named the Highway of Holiness. Evil-minded people will never travel on it. It will be only for those who walk in God’s ways; fools will never walk there. Lions will not lurk along its course, nor any other ferocious beasts. There will be no other dangers. Only the redeemed will walk on it. Those who have been ransomed by the LORD will return. They will enter Jerusalem singing, crowned with everlasting joy. Sorrow and mourning will disappear, and they will be filled with joy and gladness. -- Isaiah 35:1-10

Isaiah says, when the Messiah comes, the deserts will bloom. I say, forget about the deserts. I need the Messiah to return and help my tomato plants bloom. I have the worst luck with tomatoes lately. I planted these from seed. I had visions of growing food, and feeding my family and sustaining the earth with my simple organic home agriculture. I bought reputable heirloom seeds. This one is called “Silvery Fir.” It is an heirloom from Siberia, bred to grow in cold climates with a short growing year. I figured, if they can grow them in Siberia, than I can grow it in Connecticut. I’ve tended to them, watered them, and transplanted them. I even sing to them (they like Russian opera). Look at these things. They are small, leggy, spindly, and wispy. But I have not lost hope.

These little Siberian tomatoes have a lot of competition. There are bigger, sexier, tomatoes on the market that make mine look puny -- like the Burpee Best Boy. Best Boy was born to be a star in the garden. Best Boy’s maturity produces large, firm fruits on a compact plants, with excellent uniform coloring disease resistance. I had a landlord who used to buy these beautiful hybrid plants. We lived in a two-family house near Boston, Chris and I living above our landlord’s family. The landlord and I shared a garden patch in his yard. Every Memorial Weekend, I would plant my tender seedlings. He would come home from a garden center with a two-foot tall hybrid tomato, small green fruit already forming on thick vines. He was competitive like that – a vegetable bully. He had to have the biggest and best tomatoes in the garden. Both he and his tomatoes were show offs.

So, what would you rather have – a giant, fruitful, reliable, uniform, hybrid tomato, or this spindly little heirloom. Before you answer, let me give you some information. Hybrids are bred with an emphasis on yield at the expense of hardiness and resistance. New hybrids do not last long. They eventually succumb to pest attack after a few years and have to be replaced by another newly bred hybrid. New seeds displace the old. When once hundreds of old varieties were grown, now there’s only a couple of varieties that need constant replacing. Hybrid tomatoes are bred primarily for their appearance and their production abilities. Taste has always been secondary and has been largely neglected. The worse part is that Best Boy cannot reproduce. I know, it’s sad, but once Best Boy has ripened, his future is gone. You cannot save the seeds and grow it again next year. If you want to grow Best Boy, you need to buy the seeds from Burpee, who protects Best Boy’s lineage as a close-guarded company secret. This is the price you have to pay for a beautiful tomato.

When my leggy little heirloom grows, it will certainly have challenges to face. But it will have a well-documented history. It will bear fruit with unique shapes and colors. I will be able to save the seeds and grow the plant again next year. And the taste! Silvery Fir will grow into something wonderful – robust and fruitful tomato plants – the pride of my garden. You wouldn’t know it now, but these tomatoes are going to do great things!

So which one is for you – the heirloom or the hybrid. What if I told you that everything we need to know about church is found in my tomato plants? What if I told you that the survival of the church is like picking between an heirloom or a hybrid tomato? Which church would you want? Over the past few weeks, I have preached on the challenges the church faces as Christendom declines in the West. Where once the culture relied on the church as a moral compass and center of community life, American churches now find themselves pushed to the margins in the most religiously pluralistic country in the world. We struggle to find relevance in a culture than is less interested in organized religion.

We are not the first ones to experience a seismic shift in our religious practice. In the Bible, the people of Israel went through something called the Exile. God’s people were taken over by the armies of Babylon and deported from the Promised Land. Babylon’s armies killed the monarchy and smashed the temple in Jerusalem to the ground. Some Israelites remained in their devastated homeland, but most were forced to live as defeated prisoners in Babylon. Everything they relied on to define their spiritual existence was taken from them: the Temple, the religious establishment, the monarchy, their sense of entitlement, their self-assurance of God’s favored blessing.

I think that our churches face our own modern-day exile. We can’t imagine living without our church buildings, our denominational structure, our preeminent place in the culture, our belief God will favor us and our nation forever. But those things are changing. Our buildings are so expensive that they compromise our witness. Our denomination seems to be fading away. Christianity is no longer the unofficial state religion. Sometimes it feels like God has withdrawn favor toward us. In other words, we are being forced to live in a land and a church that is far different from what it was when most of us grew up.

Some churches respond by becoming hybrids. They try to become the religions Best Boys in the religious garden. They market themselves as a commodity in the religious marketplace. In fact, some churches try t brand themselves. They know that today’s consumers define their identity and construct meaning by the brands they buy. Think of the commercials that feature a trendy young man who introduces himself saying, “Hi, I am a Mac.” Standing to his right is a pudgy, bespectacled, middle-aged man in an outdated brown suit. He stiffly says, “I am a PC.” The message could not be clearer. Purchasing a Mac means you are young, hip, and friendly. Nothing in the commercials states that PC users are dullards, but the power of branding triggers the imagination. Apple is not selling computers,. Its selling an identity. Some content that this is also happening in some churches. Two generations ago, when loyalty to denominations was high, a church was chosen because of its doctrinal beliefs. Today some churches market image over substance. They have rock bands, high-tech lighting, multi-media projectors, coffee shops in the foyer, and a vibe that says, “We are hip. We are relevant. We look good.” They feel like this is what they need to do to capture the heart of the next generations. They value, appearance, production value, and external transformation. But can these Best Boys reproduce? Can they sustain their brand, or will they keep devising new pitches, new looks, and new branding to look good?

Facing the decline of the Western Church, some congregations will respond by becoming heirlooms. They will remain steady and reliable oddballs – variegated, diverse, slow-growing beauties. They will be able to reproduce. The results will be small but steady.

And then there are churches that will do nothing. Their life will become monotonous and routine. Locked into a faith is safe and predictable, they will only be able to express themselves within the established patterns of tradition. They will not look for new experiences and will not expect anything new or different to happen. So, of course, it nothing different will happen.

Which version of the church will survive? The hybrid? The heirloom? The inherited church? A combination of all, or none of them? Like the biblical exiles of old, we know that God has something planned for us, but we are not exactly sure what it will be. The biblical exiles believed God’s promises that they were not doomed to extinction. God would not leave them. God would not forsake them. The deserts would bloom as God carved a pathway through the wilderness and lead them home. In Isaiah’s prophetic vision, parched land springs to life, announcing the glory and majesty of God. Those who are weary, enfeebled or fearful can take heart because God comes to save. God gives sight for those who are blind, hearing for those who are deaf, speech for those who are mute. The lame now leap and those who are speechless now sing. Isaiah’s prophecy promises restoration to a people who have been pushed to the margins.

I think the church will survive, and we will survive by reclaiming our role as pilgrim people. Back in England in the 1600’s, when Christianity was the established religion of the kingdom, every citizen in England was a member of the Church. A group of Christians believed that God called them out of the national church. They dreamed of transforming the church from within. They were called Puritans. They thought that if they practiced their faith, they could reform the government. Some reformers were not content to wait. They were called Separatists. They were willing to separate themselves from the state church and establish congregations of their own where they could worship freely. Some of these separatists made their way to the new world. They were the Pilgrims who eventually landed at Plymouth Rock. A few years later, the flood tide of English Puritans flowed toward America and founded the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The Pilgrims and Puritans eventually united into what we now call congregational churches. Those Separatists knew the promises of Scripture, and they were ready to die to make their point. If Christ promised to be present to ordinary believers, then that was the kind of church they were determined to be.

Pilgrim people are those who understand that life is a journey, characterized by experience, learning, personal growth, opportunity, challenge, success and failure, joy and sadness. Pilgrim people appreciate the opportunity from time to time to rest and renew their energy and strength, but they always move on to embrace the next phase of their life, whatever it may bring. Pilgrim people dare to dream and to vision for the future! Pilgrim people trust God to equip all God’s people with the gifts of the Spirit!

I think we are ready for our own reformation. We get so busy funding programs and maintaining traditions. But, tradition serves no purpose unless we are also willing to step outside of that tradition to think about what kind of church we need to be. We are a vibrant family of faith that is beginning to dare to dream of new possibilities with God’s guidance.

Let’s be a church in which all who enter in know of God’s consuming love that will never let us go . . . a place where we can come and be reminded that God knows us each by name. Let’s be a church a church where the real presence of the Holy Spirit is renewing and refreshing us. Let’s be a church that doesn’t have all the answers but asks the right questions.

Let’s be a church a church where worship is joyful, exciting, and expectant, as well as reverent . . . a place where we can come as we are and know we will be accepted and wanted in this place. It’s a church that suffers when you are not here with us. It’s a church where people gather to encourage and be encouraged, to love and be loved, to forgive and be forgiven.

Let’s be a church that’s not afraid of change, but a church that is able to see where God is moving and knows how to join in. It’s a church that calls forth men and women, parents and grandparents, single people, youth, and children who are equipped and sent out to revitalize our families and our communities. Let’s be a church that gives people tools to raise their families in faith . . . a church where people are encouraged to reflect God’ s Spirit at school, work, and home. . .where we are all sent out to add value to the lives of other people.

Let’s be a church that is so vital to the community that it would be missed if it was no longer around . . . a church so blazing in its worship, its quality of caring, it’s eagerness to reach out to those in need, that it can be seen by all and not contained

This is the church of the future. It may be a leggy, pathetic home-grown heirloom. But with nurture and patience, with strategic plans and humble faith, the church will bear fruit. It will be unique, odd-shaped fruit with a distinct taste and the ability to reproduce. The church will return – not to it’s old glory days, but to a new resilient state where we enact the love of a God who embraces all.

Sources
· http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:1zjyyx8YfLkJ:www.ecumenical.ucaweb.com.au/data/WEBSITE%2520Sermon%2520Pitman%2520A%2520PILGRIM%2520PEOPLE.doc+pilgrim+people+sermon&cd=6&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a
· http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=2173
· The Divine Commodity by Skye Jethani

Sermon for May 17, 2009

Christians on the Margins
Matthew 28:18-20
May 17, 2009

Marybeth Hicks once wrote a great piece in the Washington Times. Listen to her description of a meal at her house:

The mashed potatoes sit in stiff, icy peaks on the plates, thin moats of beef gravy surrounding their starchy edges. A while ago, the combination of boiled potatoes, butter, sour cream and milk spun on the whirring whisks of the electric mixer, promising the tasty comfort of carbohydrates. But now, the steam long dissipated, dinner mostly consumed, there remain two lumpy mounds of glop — as appetizing as papier-mache, or perhaps wet lint from the dryer. After 15 years of parenting, the dinnertime battle rages on. Besides the mashed potatoes, tonight’s menu is pot roast and a medley of frozen peas and carrots -- a reliable meal, nothing fancy. Earlier, the lingering scent from the crockpot had everybody salivating like Pavlov’s dog, subliminally suggesting a tasty dinner — except that two of my children won’t eat mashed potatoes. This is simply ridiculous. Who doesn't eat mashed potatoes? . . . Tonight I decide to ignore both my pediatrician and conventional wisdom. Tonight I’m force-feeding. “Nobody gets up from this table until all the food on your plate is eaten. Period.” Two heads snap toward me in horror. “All of it?” they ask in unison. “Every bite,” I declare, drawing a line in the mashed potatoes. “But I'm allergic,” my daughter cries as she scratches her arms and fakes a sneeze. “I don't like potatoes,” my son protests, stating the obvious. “Too bad,” I reply in a tone of voice that conveys I’m serious. They pick up their forks and push the spuds around on the plate . . . My picky eaters reluctantly shovel some mashed potatoes onto their utensils and slowly bring the pasty food to their lips, their youthful faces contorting in anguish. Their eyes water. The color drains from their cheeks. They subdue the gag reflex — an obvious effort to gross me out.

Sometimes, we in the church treat the Bible like a great meal that’s spoiled by a cold glob of mashed potatoes. We read the Bible and listen to preachers, or family, or friends talk about their spiritual journeys and we pick and choose which teachings are appetizing and which ones are indigestible. For many people, faith is a little mix of this, and a dash of that. Throw in a little of God’s love, stir in a belief that all people are good to the core and will become angels when they go to heaven, fold in the belief that it doesn’t matter what religious faith you belong to because they all teach the same moral lessons. But leave out the stuff that doesn’t taste good. Don’t even allow thoughts about God’s judgment or human sin to enter the recipe. Maybe foreign missions leave a bad taste in your mouth. And tithing one’s income to God’s work is definitely out. It’s human nature to want pleasure without having to experience sacrifice.

For some, the most tasteless aspect of church life is that dirty little “E” word – evangelism. Evangelism isn’t only a dirty word, it’s confusing. We are not clear on why we should even share our faith with others. Some people ask, “What gives is the right to force our faith on others?” Others insist that all must believe the Christian message or risk eternal punishment without God.

We call the words of Matthew 28 the Great Commission. Christians over the centuries have interpreted these words to mean that God expects us to go out and make converts to Christianity. In 313 C.E., when the Roman Emperor Constantine legalized Christianity, our faith changed from an illegal minority to the established religion of the Roman Empire. Convinced that Christendom owned the right answers to the world’s problems, the Church and the Empire used the Great Commission as marching orders to expand their territory. Conversion of the masses justified any necessary means of persuasion to make it happen. Charlemagne typified the thinking at the time. Before he became the Holy Roman Emperor, he was warring with the Saxons. The goal was conversion of the pagan Saxons to the Christian faith. Because the goal was so worthwhile, Charlemagne approved of any means necessary to make them convert. In the year 755, the Saxons were defeated, and they submitted to mass baptisms over the next two years. Charlemagne wrote, “If there is anyone of the Saxon people lurking among them unbaptized, and if he scorns to come to baptism and he wishes to absent himself and stay a pagan, then let him die.”

This attitude is called triumphalism. Triumphalism refers to the tendency to present our faith as the full and complete account of reality, leaving little room for debate or difference of opinion. Triumphalism expects unflinching loyalty from its subjects. It says, “You can survive and even thrive if you become like us. You can keep your life by giving up your identity. Until you do that, we will call you inferior.” Triumphalism wants to keep one group at the center, single-handedly controlling who’s in and who’s out of the circle, even if it takes violence to keep that control. I'm reminded of a Peanuts cartoon in which Sally tells Linus, "I would have made a good evangelist." Linus asks, "Oh, yeah? How come?" Sally says, "You know that boy who sits behind me in the classroom? I convinced him that my religion was better than his." Linus asks, "How'd you do that?" And Sally says, "I hit him over the head with my lunchbox."

Haven’t we had enough clubbing each other in the name of religion? Can we avoid hitting each other over the head with our cultural, political and religious lunch boxes or calling judgment down on those who are different?

Triumphalism was effective when Christians were on top of the religious dog pile. But we find ourselves in different times. As I have shared over the past weeks, the era of Christendom is fading. In the USA, organized Christian religious practices are shrinking and Christianity has a decreasing social impact. Christian churches, once founded and established to make a difference in the lives of others, now face a time of change and confusion, a time of diminished purpose and vision. In this new religious context, we are becoming one religious tradition among many — a faith on the margins instead of the center.

When it comes to sharing our faith, we face new challenges. On one hand, our Scriptures tell us to go into the world and make disciples. We are called to speak about our faith in compelling and convincing ways. On the other hand, our models of evangelism don’t work for us anymore. Must we find ourselves "telling the old, old story of Jesus" by insisting that others must believe in Jesus as the only son of God and Savior, else they are surely going to hell? Must we thump others over the head with our lunch boxes? We aren't practiced in doing evangelism other than the way our ancestors did. For much of Christian history, believers affirmed that apart from Christ there is no salvation, and they understood this to mean that those who did not have faith in Christ were condemned to eternal torments. This provided powerful incentive to share the gospel with people all around the world. It also led to failure to appreciate the positive contributions of other religious communities.

David Barrett identified 10,000 religions in the 2001 edition of the World Christianity Encyclopedia — 10,000 separate religions that humanity has turned to in its attempt to understand and get closer to the divine. Of those 10,000, 150 of them have one million members or more. Is it reasonable to believe that Jesus is the only way to the only God, and that the other 9,999 religions are false? How do we, as a faith of weakening majority, talk about Jesus Christ in a pluralistic world? How do we approach interfaith situations apart from triumphalism? Where do we draw those lines about some of those other 9,999 religions? What gives us the right to claim that our truth is truer than someone else’s? Who gives us the authority?

One of my majors in college was English. I ended up taking many classes with Dr. Peters — a pompous man who regularly intimidated students. He impressed fear into most of his students. His authority came from his title, his position, and his ability to scare us. In a literature course on the age of classicism, Dr. Peters bellowed, “Braddock! What, according to Alexander Pope, is the requirement for being a British magistrate?” He scowled at me as I sat in stunned silence. “Well, Braddock, what’s your answer?” I would finally stammer a made-up answer. “I think Pope says if a man wants to be a magistrate, he has to have a wife who sells Tupperware.” Dr. Peters shook his head and looked at me in disgust before moving on to the next victim.

I was also a teaching assistant for another English professor, Dr. Paul. One afternoon he handed me a stack of papers to grade. As I went though the pile of freshmen English journals, I was disgusted by how poor the work was. Each passing paper was worse than the one before it, and the marks I gave reflected my loathing for their pasty writing. I delivered the graded papers back to Dr. Paul, shaking my head in disdain. The next day I went to his office, and he had a stack of papers for me to look through. They were actually the journals I had corrected the day before. Dr. Paul had gone through and changed all of the grades to higher marks. When I asked him about it, he simply quoted an OT prophet: “Matt, in wrath, remember mercy.” That lesson has stayed with me. There is no doubt in my mind why Dr. Paul had a very devoted band of students on campus. Dr. Peter’s authority was fed by the fear of his students. Dr. Paul’s authority was rooted in mercy.

I think the same should be true with Christians. If we want to have the authority to speak about our faith, then our words and actions need to be rooted in how we show mercy, not in how we cause others to avoid us. Our message is not about scaring followers into obedience. We follow and believe because we’ve been marked by love. It’s time for the church to jettison ends-justifies-the-means evangelism. It’s time for us to embrace the kind of humility and suffering love that marked the ministry of Jesus.

About a dozen years ago, news outlets reported on an amendment to KY state law that allowed ministers to carry concealed weapons in church buildings. On the Today Show, Maria Shriver interviewed a pastor who played a pivotal role in the new law. The preacher reported that down-and-outers looking for money often visit churches and he suggested that having a gun might provide protection from those who might desire to steal church contributions or hurt employees. Bewildered, Maria Shriver asked the preacher if he understood that his reliance upon a handgun stood at odds with the Christian proclamation of peace and reconciliation. Imagine having the wife of Arnold Schwarzeneggar, the poster boy for violent entertainment, reminding the church that the gospel bids believers to resolve conflict with methods that are different from those that rely upon physical force.

The gun-toting preacher stands in stark contrast to another news account from the University of Southern California Medical School. In August of 1993, a young woman named Sophia White picked up a .38 handgun and went looking for a nurse named Elizabeth Staten. Staten was allegedly cheating with White’s husband. Firing six shots, White hit Staten in the stomach and wrist. When Staten ran into the emergency room, White followed her, firing again. In the ER, with blood on her clothes and a hit pistol in her hand, another nurse, Joan Black, met the attacker. Joan did the unthinkable. She walked calmly to the gun-toting woman – and hugged her. Joan spoke comforting words. The assailant said she didn’t have anything to live for, that Staten had stolen her family. Joan said, “You’re in pain. I’m sorry, but everybody has pain in their life . . . I understand and we can work it out.” As they talked, the hospital invader kept her finder on the trigger. Once she began to lift the gun as if she would shoot herself. Joan just pushed her arm down and continued to hold her. At last, White gave the gun to the nurse. She was disarmed by a hug, by understanding, by compassion. Joan later told an AP reporter, “I saw a sick person and had to take care of her.” Joan loved God by being courageous, friendly and gentle to a dangerous stranger.

Now let me ask, who has the greater authority, the emperor who forces baptisms on pain of death, the minister with the gun, or the nurse who hugs attackers? Before you answer, remember the cross. There hangs Jesus -- unjustly abused, tried and murdered. His dying words are a prayer of forgiveness for those who kill him. Imagine what might have happened if Jesus had lived in KY, and just before they nailed him to the cross he claimed his right as a citizen and pulled out a .38. Jesus Christ gained all authority by stretching out his arms, and disarming the world with the embrace of compassion.

So, how do we share our good news in a multi-faith, pluralistic world. Let me suggest three ways we can begin to do missions and evangelism from the margins:

1. Faith, not sight. Christians do not know, they only trust. We do not own the truth. We bear witness to the living Truth. We must be open to the possibility that another, any other human being, has something to bring to our meeting — the other is not just a mere receptacle for our message. In fact, the other might have positive or corrective insight to bring to me. Faith is about modesty. To have faith in Christ is to be open to wisdom and reality wherever they may be found. It does not involve the claim that we already know all that needs to be known.

2. Hope, not finality. Christians claim to have glimpsed something of the reality of God. We do not present ourselves as a community for which all is finished. We are not a community that has arrived, but one that is under way.

3. Love, not power. How might history have been altered if missions had been done in the spirit of love? Mission from the margins includes humility, contrition, repentance, and honest acknowledgement that the church has not consistently incarnated the gospel.

How can we tell the story of Jesus honestly and sensitively, respecting the spiritual wisdom of people outside the Christian faith? Some Christians say that we can't — we can't accept the possibility that anybody besides us has spiritual truth. But, I have found that if I think of Jesus as a person filled to the brim with God's spirit, then I can hold up Jesus as the hope of the world without disrespecting the faith of others who relate to God by another way. We must keep re-examining and re-expressing our belief that Jesus is alive through the Spirit. We must find ways to explain to modern, skeptical people that Jesus shows the nature of God better than anyone whom the world has ever known; and that following in his way is indeed the hope of the world.


Sources:
· http://www.marybethhicks.com/washtimes.potatoes.html
· Brent Walker, “American Pluralism and Lunchbox Evangelism” (July 9, 2006).
· http://chalicechristian.blogspot.com/2009/05/sermon-sunday-3-may-2009.html
· Douglass John Hall, The Cross in Our Context.
· Stuart Murray, Church After Christendom.
· John B. Cobb, Jr., “The Christian Mission in a Pluralistic World” http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=1487
· Edward H. Schroeder, “Pluralism’s Question to Christian Missions: Why Jesus at All? “http://www.crossings.org/archive/ed/Pluralism.pdf
· http://www.bible.ca/global-religion-statistics-world-christian-encyclopedia.htm

Sermon for May 10, 2009

The Watchers
May 10, 2009

“I will take my stand to watch, and station myself on the tower, and look forth to see what God will say to me.” Habbakuk 2:1

People watching is fun. It just is. At least I think it is. My wife gets embarrassed when I watch people, probably because I lack discretion. She was taught to watch people by giving quick, diplomatic glances that won’t embarrass others or draw attention to yourself. Not me. I full on stare at people, like I’m watching TV. Chris will say, “Matt, stop staring at those people.” I’ll say, “What?! I’m not staring. I’m just watching someone else without turning my head or blinking.” There is probably some kind of rule about how long you can look at someone before it becomes staring. I’m sure that I’m straddling the border of propriety, but I learn a lot.

I like to make up stories about people Io watch and then categorize them. For instance, there was the elderly woman I saw who carried a shopping bad of white gloves, riding the T in Boston. Every time she touched something, she removed a glove from her hand, put it in a dirty glove bag, and then put on a clean glove. At the time, I worked at a boat propeller repair shop, and I was the dirtiest man in Boston. And I was smushed right next to this woman at rush hour. This falls into the category I call, “Better than a sitcom.” There are actually a bunch of handwear stories, like the one about a woman pushing a stroller. Instead of a cherubic child, she was pushing a stroller full of mittens through Central Park. Was she practicing for an impending birth? Doing a social experiment? Delivering mittens to her knitting group?

My favorite people to watch are the ones who have those “parent of the year” moments. We’ve all had them: those times when the kids are screaming in public and you hear words coming out of your mouth that sound just like the words your parents said to you and you promised you would never say them to your own kids. Here are some of my favorites, in honor of Mother’s Day:

From the “It must be hard to raise the Buddha” category: A crazed mother slapped her five-year old child and screamed, “Don’t you ever do that again!” The child looked serenely at the mother and said, “Well, are you happy with yourself?”

The “Mommy Dearest” award goes to a mother who pushed her small child in stroller in New York. The child said, “Mommy, why did you wake me up? Don’t wake me up when I’m sleeping!” The Mom answered back, “Fine. I’ll leave you on the train and you can miss your stop and then the rats will get you.”

Airports are great places to watch people. I once heard a kid say “Mom, am I fat?” The mother said, “Yes. Now get in the airplane.” The kid said, “Dad says I’m husky.” Pushing the child along, the mom replied, “ That means fat.”

To be fair, it’s not always the Moms who are mean. Like the mom at a diner who begged her son, “Please eat your dinner.” Her bratty child replied, “Mommy, you’re meaner than God.”

We know about people watchers. But how about culture watchers. Who looks for trends and movements around us and helps us navigate these new times? The church has not always done a good job at this. Over the past few weeks, I’ve been preaching about how churches find themselves in a strange new time. I’m comparing this to the experience of the biblical exile, when the Israelites were taken to Babylon.

• Like the biblical exiles we are being forced to live in a land and a culture that is quite foreign to what we knew years ago. You could call this land post-modern, post-Christian, secular, consumerist, or profane. But it is generally hostile to our faith and our spiritual community. It can be uncomfortable to be a devoted Christian.
• One of our primary feelings is loss. Church memberships are down, worship attendance is down. Churches have lost influence. We have less unity. We just aren’t what we used to be.
• As the biblical exiles were scattered and divided over the ancient Near East, so are we becoming divided and separated from one another. Our theologies, our politics, our language, our worship music … all seem to drive wedges between us.
• Like it was for the exiles this experience is long, and hard, and discouraging. It feels like God has abandoned the church. But, God is not done with us, and as it was in the Bible, we are returning to God and God is returning us to vitality by bringing us to something new a little here and a little there. Signs of growth and the new church are emerging.
  

Today I want us to think about what it means to be watchers during the exile, like Habbakuk. The people of Habakkuk’s time lived in an age of political uncertainty. The power and prestige of Southern Israel wanes, and in a short time the nation will disappear altogether. Injustice is rampant, the righteous are surrounded by the wicked, the law is powerless, and God doesn’t seem to care about the plight of the chosen people. A prophet named Habakkuk speaks to this situation. Listen again to what he says: “I will take my stand to watch, and station myself on the tower, and look forth to see what God will say to me.”

The church needs watchers. During exile, we must look for what God is doing, and how God is using this experience to do something new.

There is another word we use to describe watchers. The word is martyr. It’s not a popular word anymore. When I hear the word martyr, I think of three things. First, I think of prayers to the Holy Martyrs, those Christian women and men who died because of their faith in Christ. You might see a Roman Catholic Church called Holy Martyr. Today, we also hear the word martyr connected to terrorism and religious fundamentalism. I also heard the word when I was growing up. In those moments of teen-aged self-righteousness, when I knew I was right and the whole world was persecuting me for my knowledge of the truth, I would rant about how cosmically unfair I was being treated. My mother would just smile and say, “Life is tough. You’re such a good martyr.” I wasn’t sure what she meant, but I knew she was being sarcastic.

The English word martyr comes from a Greek word that word means, “witness” — a person who testifies about the faith. A witness does two things. First, a witness looks for God. I witness the fact that God is everywhere and in every situation and so my life has nothing to do with my ego, my individual efforts, and my melodramas. Watchers, witnesses, are people watchers, culture watchers, and God watchers.

This is a difficult task today. A few decades ago, when Christianity was the unofficial religion of North America, and when half a dozen mainline denominations were the religious establishment of the country, our faith might have been described as “civic faith.” Churches provided a religious ethos for American culture and society. Supported by the culture, churches returned the favor by playing a useful role in society. Churches were the conscience of the community, standing on the forefront of change and calling the culture to accountability. Churches were the primary instruments of aid to the least fortunate in society. Churches were also the center for community life. This is no longer the case. In our secular and pluralistic society, there are many voices claiming to be the exclusive voice of God. Many organizations are into charity work: banks, schools, sports teams, non-profits. Families and communities no longer have one center. Life is now multi-centered, and the church fits in with people’s multiple loyalties. The church is one center, malls and shopping areas are another, the coffee shop or bookstore another, the sports field yet another. People now reject churches that claim godly character but seldom embody it. Petty squabbles among members, conflicts between clergy and laity, sexual and financial scandals convey that the church is no different than other human institutions

The point is, the church, once founded and established to make a difference in the lives of others, faces a time of change and confusion. It is a time of exile — a time of diminished purpose and vision. Our earlier roles — conscience of the community, instrument of aid, and center of the community — no longer define us. We lost track of where God is and what God wants us to do. No longer sure of our purpose, buffeted by social change, we have circled the wagons and tried to exist just for the sake of survival. Who will be the watchers? Who will be the witnesses? Who will be the new martyrs?

Watchers have a second job. The first is to observe. The second is to let our actions display what we see. With all my gloom and doom talk, it’s actually a great time to be part of the church. When we realize our new context, we realize that our purpose is not to support the state. Our purpose is not to teach good citizenship. Our purpose is not to form a social club or humanitarian aid group. Our purpose is to change lives. In the era of civic faith, people came to church because that’s what one was supposed to do. Today, I find that people come to church because they have questions. “How can I live a spiritual life? How can I get God in my life? How can I be different?” People long for depth, for meaning, for worship and spiritual practices that put them in touch with the sacred. A new kind of living is demanded of exiles. Today is our opportunity to live out our purpose and show others how God transforms us.

Here’s something I’ve noticed about people watching. Every once in a while, you get caught. Or, you realize that someone has been watching you. It’s true about us as well. In fact, we want to get to a place where we are caught. We actually invite people to watch us — to come and see. Come and see if faith can make a difference in your life. Come and see a church family who loves and cares. Come and see people who are committed to the work of change and healing. Come and see a congregation where worship is alive. Come and see people who don’t have all the answers but who search together for God.

The church needs watchers. So be ready to see the world in a new way, and get ready to live your faith in a way that shows others that God changes lives.

Sermon for May 3, 2009

Singing in a Strange Land
May 3, 2009

Psalm 137
By the rivers of Babylon—
there we sat down and there we wept
when we remembered Zion.
On the willows there
we hung up our harps.
For there our captors
asked us for songs,
and our tormentors asked for mirth, saying,
‘Sing us one of the songs of Zion!’
How could we sing the Lord’s song
in a strange land?
If I forget you, O Jerusalem,
let my right hand wither!
Let my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth,
if I do not remember you,
if I do not set Jerusalem
above my highest joy.


Last week, I presented the case that the Christian church is entering exile. Many of us grew up in this world of American Christendom, a world where church and culture were interwoven in ways that we were mostly unaware of. For example, many of you can remember times when stores were closed on Sunday. No youth sports, no college sports, no shopping at the Mall. Public schools opened each day with the pledge of allegiance and a prayer – sometimes even a reading from the Bible. These were central ways in which the culture supported the church. These days, the Christian story is much less known and Christians find themselves on the margins of society and competing for the public square. Here is an example of our new America’s relationship with Christianity: According to Professor Stephen Prothero, about 75 percent of adults mistakenly believe the Bible teaches that “God helps those who help themselves.” More than 10 percent think that Noah’s wife was Joan of Arc. Only half can name even one of the four Gospels. The American public knows even less about Islam, Buddhism, Confucianism and Hinduism than it does about Christianity and Judaism.

Like the psalmist of old, we find ourselves asking, “How shall we sing the Lord’s song in this strange land?”

A new survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life reports that Americans are changing religious affiliations at a rising rate. We Protestants are no longer the majority religion in the country, and the Roman Catholic Church has experienced the greatest net losses due to affiliation changes. CT ranks fourth in Catholic Church losses, with a 12% decline in 18 years. The Pew survey indicates that the group with the greatest net gain was “unaffiliated.” More than 16 % of American adults say they are not part of any organized faith, which makes the unaffiliated the country’s fourth largest “religious group.”

While traditional churches hemorrhage, we see other faiths growing. CT is the number one state in growth of non-Christian religions. The Islamic Society of North America claims there are between 6 and 8 million Muslims in the United States today. The New York Times placed the number between 2 and 4 million. The Pluralism Project at Harvard University, believes the correct figure is somewhere in between. Islam is one of the country’s top ten largest religious groups, not to mention the second largest religion in the world. And guess who the fastest growing faith group is, in terms of percentage of growth? Wicca, a Neopagan religion sometimes referred to as Witchcraft. Wicca adherents went from 8,000 in 1990 to 134,000 in 2001. Their numbers of believers are doubling about every 30 months.

Like it or not, it is well documented that the United States is the most religiously pluralistic country in the world. In this new ecology of faith, dealing with religious pluralism is not just a politically correct nicety. Religious diversity is now a fact of our existence, whether we fully recognize it or not. And as Christians, we will have to deal with it. Our compelling task is to figure out how we can sing the Lord’s song in this new land. We need to think about what it means to follow the Living God in a culture shares less and less of our religious language and metaphors.

Christendom made the church lazy. When we were on top of the religious dog pile, we did not have to offer compelling reasons for our existence. We did not have to convince the world that we were relevant. We were taught that our citizenship as Americans and as Christians were one in the same. But this has never been the message of the gospel. If you are among those who follow Jesus, your citizenship is in the realm of God. We lost that perspective along the way, and now find ourselves surprised by the reminder that we were always meant to be foreigners and aliens as well as residents of our world.

Psalm 137 was written by foreigners. They were prisoners — Jewish exiles now living and working in Babylon. They remembered how it felt to be masters of their own destinies. they lived far away from the familiarity of home. The warmth of community had all but disappeared. Their harps, probably Levite harps used in the worship of God, were set aside. In their sorrow, they could no longer sing. In their loss, they did not know how to worship God away from the familiar surroundings of the Temple in Jerusalem. Their harps, so useful and so right, their music so well thought out and so fitting in the Temple, could not be sung this foreign environment. And so they asked a serious question of themselves? “How can we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?”

In effect, this is the question today’s churches need to ask itself: “How can we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?” Because, as far as the church is concerned, we do live in a strange land. The religious, cultural, political, economical, sociological landscape has changed. What do we do? Let’s listen some more to the Psalmist.

1. Grieve

The Psalm opens with these words:
By the rivers of Babylon—
there we sat down and there we wept
when we remembered Zion.
We can’t just embrace the new world without grieving the loss of the old. Real grief is part of a process of transformation. Grief is hard. It takes us by surprise. In grief, we learn to let go and to move on and be changed. We grieve for the good old days, and those days weren’t so long ago. Only a generation ago, it was unusual for people not to go to church. Churches were built in neighborhoods for people in the neighborhood. Our church was built with that understanding. We grieve because aligning oneself with Christianity is no longer a popular stance. And if we do not grieve, we will not ask ourselves the tough questions that we need to ask. Maybe when we ask the right questions we will discover that the good old days weren’t very good after all. Maybe from God’s perspective, Christendom wasn’t so Christ-like as we thought it was.

2. Remember

The Psalmist also offers these words:
If I forget you, O Jerusalem,
let my right hand wither!
Let my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth,
if I do not remember you,
if I do not set Jerusalem
above my highest joy.

As a church, we not only grieve. We remember. This last portion of this psalm speaks defiantly into the darkness that has enveloped the exiles. Taunted by enemies on all sides, seemingly helpless and hopeless, powerless to change their fate, laughed at, ridiculed, rejected, their country devastated, their temple in ruins, the exiles express a passionate, stubborn and resistant faith. Our celebration of communion reminds us to relive and remember our story: that forgiveness and new life is open to all who would embrace it. The simple elements remind us of what kind of life we are called to live: lives of generosity and sacrifice, lives of love and grace, lives of faith and hope, not of power, not of self-centeredness, not of popularity.

3. Engage

What will it mean to practice our faith in a country of religious diversity? I think it means that we will have to learn humility, and invite open dialogue with other faiths, and those who are “unaffiliated.” We will have to resist the temptation to make absolute faith claims. We will have to stand firm against the enticement to make negative judgments on other faith practices. We need to make the effort to get to know others — to learn what they think, what they believe, and what is at the heart of their understanding and commitment to God. Let’s call this stance “pluralism literacy” — becoming knowledgeable about other faiths. The culture is beginning to taking care of this for us. For example, Modesto is known as the Bible belt of California. It has deep conservative roots in farmland and a vocal Evangelical community. Modesto is becoming more religiously diverse. But unlike any other place, religion is a required course in high school here. Modesto is the only public school district in America where students have to study all major religions to graduate. The goal is to create one community where everyone is accepted. It will be essential for us to know how other types of believers and nonbelievers feel and think — the kind of knowledge that requires imagination, empathy or, what college often provides, real encounters.

As Christians, we do not know. We only trust. We do not own the truth, but we bear witness to the living Truth. We engage ourselves with those who belong to other faith traditions with the expectation that the other — another human being — has something vital to bring to our meeting. We want to know what God is doing in the lives of people within other faiths. Christian witness in a pluralistic world means opening our lives to others so that they may understand how we attend to our ultimate concerns, and so that we might listen to how God helps others address their ultimate concerns.

When we can do that, we might be surprised at what we learn. We might be shocked to hear God speaking to us. We might learn to talk intelligently about our own faith instead of assuming that people already know about Christianity. As we share and listen, as we do God’s work, hand-in-hand with people of faith who seek to make the world a better place, we might just become the church God intended us to be in the first place.

Sources:
W. Eugene March, God’s Tapestry (Philadelphia: WMJK, 2008).
http://www.bbchurch.ca/Sermons/272/2006-01-08%20-%20What%20happened%20to%20my%20comfortable%20life.pdf
http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2009-03-09-ARIS-faith-survey_N.htm
http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_prac2.htm
http://religions.pewforum.org/
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/06/24/eveningnews/main4206426.shtml
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/01/AR2007030102073.html