When No News Is Good News (February 17, 2019)

READINGS

Jeremiah 17:5-8

Luke 6:20-26

COMMENTARY: The prophet Jeremiah was convinced that the overthrow of his nation’s government by a foreign power was no accident: it was God’s judgment. His people, he announced as speaking for God, had chosen to ignore mercy and to favor wealth. Their greed got them into the political mess they faced and the historical exile they experienced, as the nation’s ruling and merchant classes were carted off to Babylon for discipline and servitude. Six centuries later, Jesus was able to draw parallels between Jeremiah’s humiliated government and Jewish leaders in his own time who cooperated with the power of Rome in occupied Galilee and Judea. Note in the Luke passage the intentional linking by Jesus between the successful of his own time with those who were the cause of Judah’s judgment in Jeremiah’s time. He does this by referring to the cooperators as if their ancestors were those who were sent into exile, six hundred years before. Indeed, the Beatitudes as spoken in the gospel according to Luke when laid side-by-side with Jeremiah’s preaching ring very familiar.

1 Corinthians 15:12-20

COMMENTARY: Written in or about the year 54 CE, what we call Paul’s first letter to the Church at Corinth is actually the third that Paul wrote to the Corinthians. The first two having been lost to the ages, this one offers correction to misperceptions or misconceptions those Christians had had about their new faith. In the letter Paul demonstrates their misapplication of what he had written before. In this passage the misapplication has to do with the central tenet of the Christian faith – Christ’s resurrection. Paul weaves an argument together out of Jewish thought and Greek thought. His argument is sublimely logical, like arguments of Plato or Aristotle, but his premise and his conclusion are like those of the ancient rabbis. He focuses on a predicted end-of-history event, the raising of the dead, when God will pass judgment on all people. This resurrection will provide for the righting of historic wrongs. It will reverse the fortunes of those who lived unjustly but without punishment and those who lived righteously but without mercy. Jesus’ own resurrection has been proof that the day is coming, Paul says, and the arrival of that day is the lynchpin of Christian faith and proclamation. This claim was as problematic for his Corinthian audience as it may be for us today. There is no physical evidence of Christ’s resurrection, no glorified Jesus who is visible anymore. There is only testimony and theological imagination. Paul counters those who claim to practice this faith without believing in a coming resurrection by suggesting that the dubious are calling him a liar.

A sound file of this sermon may be found at soundcloud.com/FirstChurchWG

Today is the Sunday of Presidents Day weekend. Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin were both born near this day. Darwin and Lincoln, those two voices which have had the most defining effect for America in our history, were born on exactly the same day – February 12, 1809.

It’s also African American History Month, and today is our special observance of Science and Technology Sunday. And even though it may seem as though we’re forcing an issue just because of the confluence of those coincidences, I still was inspired to consider that confluence. After all, all of life can seem sometimes as if it’s just a confluence of coincidences that we’re trying to make sense out of – as if the combination of circumstances in our environment are forming a vortex, and we are at the center of it, trying to imagine what all of the randomness means, like Alice in the Rabbit Hole.

Our scriptures for today seem like part of it. Jeremiah and Luke offer beatitudes and curses; Paul scolds the Corinthians (interestingly) not for not believing but for not believing enough! And, I’ll tell you, the Psalm of the day, which doesn’t appear at all in this worship service, is the first of the Psalms exalting the faithful for being like well-watered trees full with leaves. Four disjoint sayings, except that Jeremiah and the Psalm both share similar tree imagery, and Jeremiah and Luke share a similar motif of blessing and cursing.

So you can imagine, I find that reading scripture passages together can be kind of confusing and feel kind of random unless they can be considered with a certain topic. And with the timeliness of considering together both how some of our citizens have been historically mistreated (because of Black History Month and Lincoln’s birthday) and what we do with what we know (because of Science and Technology Sunday and Darwin’s birthday), I thought I might be seeing a glimmer of something meaningful shining through Paul’s remonstrance of Corinth and Jesus’ beatitudes in Luke.

Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Human One.

That’s what Jesus said.

If the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised. If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have died in Christ have perished. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.

That’s Paul.

Those two portions really stuck out to me with their emphases of suffering and death and breaking their strangle holds on our existence. I thought, That’s where I want to go with this.

So, on Facebook I asked how other people encounter Paul’s assertions in First Corinthians 15 about Jesus’ resurrection and the coming resurrection of the righteous. Where and how have you met (are you meeting) the Messiah? I asked. Another way to put this, I said, might be to ask, What is real for you about your faith?

Here are some of the answers I got:

If Jesus was not physically and spiritually resurrected he is not Jesus the Christ, the Messiah! I, because of the witness of those who where there, believe in the full resurrection of Jesus. And that the promise of eternal life in Christ is real because God’s promises are real. I have a faith that says that those who die in Christ shall live again and that this spiritual place is a communal gathering of those who have also lived and died in Christ. So to answer the question, it is important because I believe in a faithful God, who has never failed, lied or not come through. I believe that there are many metaphors in the Bible, but that the bodily and spiritual resurrection was testified to by the Apostles and to their followers whom I believe to this day.

A medical professional said, There is a major difference between resurrection and resuscitation. Resuscitations occur frequently in ambulances and hospitals around the world. Jesus’ resurrection is important because it set a precedent. He was the “first fruit” and because Jesus did we have the testimony of this happening in God’s Word, we have faith that we will rise again after death too new life (and not just be resuscitated to live the same old life).

[A Japanese pastor said that she asked] for help with [her] sermon on Twitter! She asked the question, “How do you believe in the resurrection of Jesus?” and got 73 responses to her multiple choice answers. Answer 1: I believe ultimately in the resuscitation of the Jesus body – 30%. Answer 2: I believe in only idea of the resurrection of Jesus – 15%. Answer 3: Not exactly sure what happened but believe in the meaning of the resurrection of Jesus – 55%.

One church member replied, I honestly don’t have a clue about whether there was a resurrection... Jesus presented to us a way of living.

I think the bedrock fact of the resurrection is that Jesus showed up and changed people... And the bedrock meaning is that God is ultimately on Christ’s side, evidence to the contrary sometimes notwithstanding.

To me, it doesn't matter if Jesus rose bodily or in Spirit. What matters is Christ made known that he conquered death itself and that there is life beyond what we know on Earth.

Quoting an Easter sermon I preached about five or six years ago, one church member said, I think of the resurrection as “Jesus loose in the world.” It had a big impact on me and how I think about the resurrection.

I find Christ’s presence in the often surprising evidences of guidance and providence in my and other's lives. A person can be clever and far-sighted in planning one’s own life, but the way things fall into place (or don’t) outside of one’s control does create story-arcs that, to me, are amazing examples of Christ's presence.

I think about the resurrection this way: I think that, as I’ve said at other times, If it could happen for Jesus, it can happen for us. Resurrection, whatever it is or means, indicates the possibility of new and glorified life in God.

We claim to have good news. We use the word gospel a lot, but it can sound mysterious. So, let me remind you that, when Paul or Jesus said the word we say when we say gospel, they said, “good news.” So, that’s what we have: good news bringing meaning and relief, salvation and life, despite the strangle holds of suffering and death. That is the meaning of resurrection.

Even so, even for all his concentration on our good news, Paul points out that it really is no news.

Because of the resurrection of Jesus, he says, and Christ’s glorification by God, we don’t have a Jesus with whom we can make physical contact anymore, the way the apostles once did. This can be a problem, he admits, because we may then believe in Jesus’ actual resurrection, but we may imagine that it was a one-off and that he would have been the only one who gets that treatment.

No, Paul insists, Jesus was only the first. A day is coming... and you can read about what he envisioned for the rest of us in my commentary. But people then weren’t believing it. They were coming up with rationalizations and explanations for their loved ones dying and not being raised. They were doing the things that we do: insisting that people live in our hearts long past their earthly lives, and that this is what lends them eternity. Or that their spirits are still among us, and that this is what proves their eternity.

Paul said, No, that isn’t enough.

And you and I know: Our sentiments are sweet, but they’re cold comfort.

When you think about what he saw in daily life – its cruelty, its futility, and itscrushing effects on some, while others either take for granted their affluence or didn’t take it for granted and insulated and isolated themselves from the suffering that is so often the expense of their luxury. Paul was not satisfied with some sort of “pie in the sky when you die by and by.” Paul insisted that, if there was going to be justice, it had to be real. If, therefore, resurrection happened for Jesus, it has to happen for us too.

Paul, not having lived through the Dark Ages or the Enlightenment, hadn’t come to any sort of notion about democracy or anti-slavery or workers outnumbering their masters and casting off their chains. He didn’t know about such things, except that invariably, when he saw the underclasses rebelling, they were subdued and subjugated again and again.

What he knew was that there came now this good news from on high, a good news that he preached: that the Creator was redeeming the world and that, eventually, those same sufferers and their suffering children would be saved and justified, and their oppressors and all those who did nothing to ease their burdens made to suffer for the sins they committed in this life.

And even without Jesus in his former flesh restored to assert the authority and glory of God, that measure of no news, that He’s not here, still was good news for Paul and other Christians. Keep your eyes on the prize, Paul instructed the Corinthians. Accept no substitutes.

No news is good news.

This was a problematic assertion back then, and it is a problematic assertion in our own time. No news can be dangerous in a world that is growingly more disposed to evidence. The development of science in human history has led us to draw our most assured conclusions about the patterns around and among us. We do this through evidence and, in particular, measurable, quantifiable, repeatable evidence which reveals to us laws of nature and of physics which are only ever poetically referred to in scripture, if they are referred to at all.

Religion, meanwhile taking the sometimes-deadly combination of a lack of evidence (no news) and an abuse of the evidence we do have, has often faced contradiction (and continues often to face contradiction) either with force or with denial. Our refusal to submit to science’s superior knowledge has always led to exactly the suffering we are supposed to prevent.

And a share of that suffering is beginning to affect not only poor people but affluent people also. Up to now, we’ve been able to keep the world pretty well divided between the poor and the affluent (I’m not going to say rich, because most of us don’t think of ourselves as rich). We have been able to isolate ourselves from the kind of despair and misery that exists in two-thirds of the world, and maybe even more than that. We have been able, through our advances, technological and otherwise, to separate ourselves from the pain of existence that people suffer through starvation and famine, or through war and suffering, or through corruption. But now we’ve got global warming. There was a time when affluence could provide insulation from suffering, but no more. Now, we’ve really done it.

Poverty has always been accompanied by violence or destruction, but even what we might consider a small amount of affluence has provided protection from misery. Technology, even the simplest or most basic, has borne the evidence of this. The generation and widespread distribution of electricity, as well as the development of the internal combustion engine, of batteries, and the host of means of providing energy to masses of people have lifted humanity up, as far as our relative standards of living are concerned. But they have brought with them war and corruption and pollution. The advancements in medicine and hygiene, the purification of water, and the development of chemicals for use in everyday life have likewise made possible longer life expectancies. But what is the value of a longer life if violence continues and injustice persists?

Let me be clear. If you are poor, the best you can hope for in the face of violence and corruption and pollution is that you might be able just to live with it. But if you’re affluent, you have the choice of either fighting it or fleeing it. You can get away.

But the way things are today, fight or flight may not exist as an option much longer.

The rabbi Jesus and the apostle Paul call to us with the voice of the Holy Spirit, reminding us that no news is good news! We may not have physical evidence by which to prove our faith, but the truth of our faith is undergirded in a belief that the impossible for one is possible for all.

If it could happen for Jesus, it can happen for us. Resurrection, whatever it is or means, indicates the possibility of new and glorified life in God. And God did this, intervened, raised Jesus. And God will raise us too.

And whether that’s a day of justice at the end of time, or today when we presume to follow in Christ’s footsteps and seek new and glorified life in God: that’s our choice. Resurrection, whatever it is, whatever it means, indicates the possibility of new and glorified life in God.

I’ll tell you why I think this way. If there are so many who are suffering in this life, especially young lives being wasted as Pilate intended to waste Jesus’ young life as an example for others, then certainly in that way if it could happen for Jesus, it can happen for anyone.

So, it may be that our only hope is resurrection.

And here, we soar beyond the limits of what science can tell us. Here in Christianity, we soar beyond the limits of what science can tell us! From science you will only get facts and figures from which you can make premises and assumptions about future outcomes. From religion, and especially Christianity, you get promises of life and truth and beauty in love. Oh, so much love!

That’s when no news is good news, by the way... when you don’t have the slightest evidence in the world and its quantifiable, measurable results, but you have a promise, a promise you can trust. That’s when no news is good news.

And so, I don’t have the evidence to give you, to show you that Jesus was bodily resurrected and lives glorified at the right hand of God. God sort of prevented this, and yet we have that knowledge and understanding that, once it did happen. And it can happen again.

No, it will happen again.

AN OPEN LETTER TO ROBERT SPENCER OF JIHADWATCH.COM...

Dear Mr. Spencer,

Having read your weblog’s "About" page, I am now acquainted with your clear and admirable opposition to jihad theology, though not to the religion of Islam, itself. Previously, I was unacquainted with your voice or cause. But in the last 48 hours, my church’s office administrator and I have received a series of protest messages from readers of your blog, based on your July 21 post which features a photo of our church signboard with a seasonal greeting in it. We are now, of course, more than well-acquainted with you… and some of your apparent devotees.

Please be assured, Mr. Spencer, that not only I but my friends across the religious landscape agree with you in your opposition to jihad theology. In particular, I venture to say that my Muslim friends agree with you strongly in this regard. They and I have had numerous conversations about the blasphemy practiced by militants who pervert the meaning of jihad, that great spiritual struggle which is so common to our religions. I tell you nothing new when I identify jihad as the wrestling of the faithful person with doubt, despair, and the discipline required to maintain a life of faith. It is never holy war with others but only with oneself.

Christianity, as you know, has many examples of the misapplication of our principles and beliefs which resulted in violence toward innocents and some death as well. My own religious tradition within Christianity offers numerous illustrations of this sinful application of religion as a defense for intolerance and cruelty. So, it is reassuring for me to discover your stated, common purpose with our own, of encouraging dialogue and cooperation.

In keeping with our common purpose, let me assure you, the greeting is not one way, as you presume. Our church’s most recent signboard message was composed, preliminary to the announcement of an iftar we would host with a nearby Muslim faith community. Unfortunately, this traditional breaking of the daily fast could not be scheduled during Ramadan as needed and will be replaced by another time together in the near future. Your “fine” support of our attempt to increase interfaith conversation is much appreciated, even if you do seem a bit doubtful about our potential for success.

For example, although you begin with saying, “This is just fine,” you mitigate your congratulations, with your conclusion:

Since Muslims consider the Christian confession of the divinity of Christ to be an unacceptable association of a partner with God, this verse is saying that the “common word” that Muslims and the People of the Book should agree on is that Christians should discard one of the central tenets of their faith and essentially become Muslims. Not a promising basis for an honest and mutually respectful dialogue of equals.

These are very cautious words on your part. I appreciate your concern. 

Since you do not know us yet, and we are only just becoming acquainted with you, please allow me to say that I do hope that you do not by your conclusion indicate any genuine disrespect for the “common word” between Christians and Muslims which we are attempting to engage.

Surely you know, the purpose of interfaith discussion cannot be to reach an agreement on every point discussed, nor to convert the infidel, but to conduct that “honest and mutually respectful dialogue” you clearly crave.

For if we are to live together, and we must learn to live together, it will be necessary as well for us to find new ground on which to live, the renewing ground of respect and cooperation. Religious absolutism cannot be an option.

Thank you again for your endorsement of our work, albeit an endorsement with qualifiers. Please be assured that we do not approach our interfaith partnerships naively or without appropriate discernment. We are intelligent people and realistic ones, and we respect the intelligence and realism of our partners.

Please receive my encouragement for your efforts with my church’s own toward changing perspectives and affecting lives and hearts of enemy, stranger, neighbor, and friend.

Very sincerely,

Rev. David Denoon, Pastor

First Congregational Church of Webster Groves

What We Say (sermon, September 16, 2012)

[Our seminarian, Reina Ueno, a native of Sendai, Japan, was the reader of scripture for the morning's service. To hear her reading Isaiah 50:4-9 and James 3:1-12, please listen to the audio version of this sermon.]

The scriptures we have heard today I think are unusually apropos of our particular moment in history.

Furthermore, for a church in a denomination which asserts that “God is still speaking,” these readings are pointedly significant.  And to have them spoken among us by one whose first language is not English I think may add light to just how important what we say can be.  Then to be aware that the language in which the letter of James was written was not English but Greek, and that even though translated from Greek into English, the letter (by evidence of some untranslated Hebrew or Aramaic words in it, such as Gehenna) probably was collected from sermons preached in Aramaic by James full of the Holy Spirit, it is entirely fitting to our purposes today that a non-native English speaker should be working so diligently to make James's message understood.

As to this moment in history...

Of course what I am referring to is, when an anti-Islam radical in Hollywood made a scandalous motion picture about the Muslim prophet – of whom their holy book and tradition insists that no image (graven or otherwise) shall be made. Muslims with perspectives similarly limited as the radical producer’s reacted violently.

I have heard speculation that the producer of the film is probably a Coptic Christian with an agenda to humiliate Muslims as he remembered having been humiliated for his Christianity growing up in Egypt.  But he ought to have resisted the temptation to do what he did.  “Not many of you should become teachers,” the apostle James once said, “for you are judged more severely.”  What that producer expressed in fourteen minutes... what he said incited violence to the extent that innocent and genuinely good-hearted, helpful people got killed.

Now, the fact that good people got killed indicates that what you say may not be the only concern we ought to have as we seek to restore the whole, which of course is the focus of our new Sunday School curriculum.  No, also, what you do is significant, and next week’s sermon is titled, “What You Do,” so I’ll get to the murderous mobs next week (I imagine that will still be timely.).  What we say is enough of a topic, for now.

Over time, we have always acknowledged that things we say carry weight, even power.

Christianity includes a very important clause, in the law on which our practice of faith is based, namely the commandment, “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.”

That law is in our holy canon, because we know deeply – having as one of our myths of creation a story in which what God says causes things to be – words have power.

That law (“You shall not bear false witness.” (Exodus 20:16)) is there, because we affirm in that creation story, that words have power.

That law (“You shall not bear false witness.”) is there, because the power that words have originates with the speaker.

That law is there, because we who speak claim to be people of an invisible Creator whom we give substance!  We are God’s physically existing representatives, and when we misrepresent God by saying something as scandalous as to disrespect someone else’s religion, someone else’s prophet, we invite God’s judgment upon us and the world’s judgment upon God.

Even if some members of that religion deserve to have God’s judgment brought against them because they once persecuted you simply for being a follower of another faith tradition, our law says that it does not give you the right to bear false witness against them.  The things one knows to be untrue, and the things one only speculates are true, and the things that one just really, really wishes would be true – all of which appear to have been contained in the testimony made against Islam in the fourteen minutes of video available about that crazy movie on the internet – are false witness, once you say them.

“Brothers and sisters,” James said, “not all of you should be teachers.”

What we say as people of God – and by virtue of our baptism, there is never a time in our lives when we are not the people of God – what we say has potential for a profound effect, to do what God’s words can do – to bless or to destroy.

What we say may not only have a profound effect on others; it can affect us, too.  Words are powerful, and at their best our words give sound and substance to a silent Spirit waiting to be revealed.

But church people over the past many decades have begun to stay away in droves.  Christian communities have seemed more interested in delivering a good message than in allowing that message to activate with power.  We struggle as faithful people to demonstrate the power we have experienced God’s word to have in our lives.  I witness daily the perseverance with which you all endeavor to make your lives resonant with the power you have found in the word you have received.

It’s the word of life, and it has restorative potential.  What choice do we have but to respond, thus demonstrating that not all church people are hypocrites!

To the end of presenting a new and vitalized word for others to speak, theologians will revise concepts of the divine, or propose new interpretations and patterns of those concepts, in order to get to the heart of God’s pure message.

The Rev. Dr. Charles McCollough at work

Our friend Charles McCollough is here, this morning, with the express purpose of visualizing God’s word anew, through his sculpture.

Our friend Libby Reimers is encouraging us to invite others to re-envision their search for faith in a Wednesday morning series, starting October 10.  In that study, some very creative writers and illustrators and videographers invite us to consider our beliefs in new or innovative ways.

Because what we say about God and ourselves in relationship with one another gives the rest of the world a pretty strong impression about who we are and what ends we are seeking to accomplish.  And it says profound things about how we think of ourselves.

What we say as people of faith (and there is no time in our lives, once we have joined the church by baptism that we are NOT people of faith) will provide a centerpoint of focus for those who do not somehow know God.  It will further provide a centerpoint of concentration for those who are seeking to know God more fully and are trusting us to be accurate representatives... people like our children and others with formative minds and hearts.

What we say is important.  “Not all of you should be teachers,” said James.  “You bring greater judgment on yourself.”

But what choice do we have?  What choice is there?  Words have power, even if we don’t want to use them as if we were teachers.  We serve the word of God – Christ the word – spoken from the start of creation and still being spoken today.

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks

Chief Rabbi of Great Britain Jonathan Sacks has said,

The greatest single antidote to violence is conversation, speaking our fears, listening to the fears of others, and in that sharing of vulnerabilities, discovering a genesis of hope.  

He has used as evidence the parents in Israel and the Palestinian territories whose children have been killed in violent conflicts there, seeking reconciliation for the sake of future generations of children and for the continuation of their homeland in peace.  When they have been able to be vulnerable with one another, they have found new ground and invited others to it.

Perhaps on what you would consider a more mundane level, but which affects me greatly as a minister, if divorcing couples can talk together, maybe with a moderator present, and take the time really to speak from the heart and to listen from the heart, respecting and not insisting on one’s own way, the parting can be peaceful.  Thus, Rabbi Sacks has further observed, "It’s when you can feel your opponents’ pain that you're beginning the path to reconciliation."

We can underestimate sometimes just how crucial it can be to actually listen to somebody and to make yourself heard.  The premarital course of study that I share with couples includes a section that I emphasize probably more than they care to perform.  It’s called Assertiveness and Active Listening, and through it what I try to do is to strengthen the couples’ understanding of the importance of stating their hopes and dreams and feelings, and the equal importance of paying attention to what the other says.  It is the discipline of echoing what the other has said and checking in with the speaker that one has understood, and only then offering back one’s own feelings and thoughts, constantly checking in with the other about the vicissitudes of the human conscience and heart and spirit, until new ground is reached or familiar ground affirmed.  If we lose that, if we fail to allow the other to say what they need to say, if we fail to allow their words to have the power that they can have with our own, then we weaken and disrespect the other.

This way of speaking and hearing affirms what we all insist is true about the power of words, and as a fellow person of faith I think Rabbi Sacks is right.  If we can simply learn to practice respectful patterns of speaking and listening, affirming our own and others’ power of words, the world will be a better place.  "The greatest single antidote to violence is conversation."

Maybe the best we can do is to try not to forget how much power our words may have... and how important it can be to say them rightly, properly...  Maybe the best we can do is to live our speaking as Reina was having to live it a while ago: endeavoring to say the English words that represent the Greek words that represent the Aramaic speaker who sought to represent the heart of God.

We will not necessarily say our words with the same kind of precision that a foreign-born reader might be seeking, but we will be endeavoring to represent faithfully to our world One who speaks beyond words and, perhaps through us, with words, in Christ’s name.

Not a Snack

This the second in a multi-part series of articles evoked by my consideration and study of the Sacraments, prompted by a meeting of the Missouri Mid-South Conference Creative Faith Project (see also the previous article, "Water Wonders"). It is not intended to provide a definitive position for me or my church about what the Sacraments mean or ought to mean for Christians today. Nor is it intended to delimit the administration of the Sacraments. I encourage readers to respond with comments and questions for further discussion and consideration.

Here's something I thought might be of interest to my friends on the Creative Faith Project.

I plan to use this piece as a part of the ritual for tomorrow night's Sunday Night Light worship service at my church (6pm in the William E. Sample chapel, following dinner at 5 provided by Goodstock Soup in the Inglis Room).

I'd love to know your thoughts upon viewing it, in light of our conversation concerning the sacraments, a few weeks ago.  The song played in the background hasn't my favorite theology residing in it, so please turn down the sound if you find ransom christology objectionable.

I'd taken quite a stand in the meeting about the idea that the Eucharist could be administered as anything other than bread and wine (or, perhaps, a gluten-free alternative and grape juice, as we serve it at First - Webster Groves). Others had suggested that Twinkies and orange drink, or cookies and milk might be substituted for children.

"This is a meal we're talking about here," I insisted, "not a snack!" Later, initiating the ritual for communion, I said, "This is the meal by which all other meals are judged."

The Point of Giving, a sermon

(This sermon is available in audio format - Click here.)

A number of you in my first year here have sat down with me and gone over your funeral plans.  I know that someone other than myself was the one to prompt you to do so, but I appreciate that you are taking the initiative.  It shows you care about how you will be remembered, and you are providing a role model to others.  Far too many people leave such things to their grieving loved ones.  What sort of decisions are they going to make on our behalf, at a time when they are so full of stress and pain!

I was listening recently to the NPR program, Marketplace Money with Tess Vigeland, who was interviewing Linda Stern, a financial correspondent for Reuters who recently penned an article entitled, “Lessons from my mother’s money.”  Vigeland and Stern offered the advice to listeners to get one’s affairs in order, make sure that papers are ready, providing details to others for what to do in case you have a devastating illness or die, and bank accounts that someone you trust might use in order for your needs to be met while you are incapacitated.

Another portion of the show included Tess and economic editor Chris Farrell were offering advice to a listener who was mired in credit card debt... eighty-five thousand dollars worth.  The listener did not begin by announcing the hole he was in.  He simply admitted that he and his wife were in a hole, paying more than their monthly minimum on their cards, but that the credit card companies had bumped their annual percentage rates to nineteen percent and above, and now they were challenged to pay even the minimum anymore.

Tess and Chris expressed her concern and offered the twofold suggestion that the debtor – any debtor – should examine whether or not they could pay off their debt in about five years or less, and that if not, they might want to consider bankruptcy.

No matter what, they strongly suggested, the couple should look into credit counseling and see whether their counselor might work out a deal with the credit-issuing banks in order to expedite the payoff of the debt.

The point of Marketplace Money that day was the point of that program every time it airs, and the point of so many other, competent, personal finance radio and TV programs:

• Do not render yourself a victim.  
• Or, if either someone else or you yourself have managed to make a victim out of you, then work to turn the tables.

Now, I know I say "work to turn the tables" at the risk of sounding like someone pitching the plot of the next Bruce Willis movie.  When I say, “turn the tables,” I don’t mean revenge.  I mean self-improvement. 

And – tough as it may be for many of us to hear – self-improvement, self-reliance, is the point of just about the entire platforms, of the Republican Party, the Libertarian Party, and many populist movements.  With political rhetoric sounding the way it is in the country, lately, we can sometimes forget the fundamental and genuinely good, affirmative bases on which certain groups were built.

That anti-victimhood message is also, incidentally, the same point of every twelve-step program in existence – to recognize that you’ve fallen BUT THAT YOU CAN GET UP!  It’s the reason for counseling and spiritual direction and psychoanalysis – to discover the patterns that we have inherited or come to practice, and to DEVELOP NEW, HEALTHY PATTERNS.  It’s why it’s so important for us to learn to eat healthily, to exercise regularly.

We cannot afford to be victims.  No one can afford to be a victim. 

I don’t even refer to people with cancer or HIV or any other debilitating illness they’re trying to shake as victims, if I can avoid it.  You see, victims are eventually overwhelmed by their circumstances.  Victims suffer or die at the hands of others who are out to get them.  And to say that cancer or HIV or any other debilitating illness should create a victim implies that the disease has a personality, the way ancient people used to speak of demons.

Granted, our circumstances may seem overwhelming at times, but it is absurd ever to speak of Christians as defeated.  It is contradictory to speak of Christians as victims.  To a person, in the case of every disciple, we may have been knocked down, but we’re getting up.

This is the point of the gospel... the good news.  Is.  That one whom we had assumed to be a victim was actually the victor.  And so it is for us.

So, the point of giving, for Jesus, is that the ability to give implies agency; it implies power.  The point of giving is to demonstrate that we are not poor, no matter how bleak our situation may appear. 

By giving, the oppressed person can assert that he or she is no longer beset by circumstances.  By giving, the outcast may announce that she or he cannot be marginalized.  By giving and giving and giving again, with full knowledge that what they do may not budge those who seek to ignore them, the weak become strong; the broken attain wholeness; the empty are filled by the abundance of God.

We can do as we do, because we can afford to.  Nothing shall be impossible for God, and therefore everything shall be affordable for us.

Somebody might take that wrong, and think that I am saying we should all live opulent lifestyles.  I’m not.  In fact, the argument is for a simpler lifestyle whose basis is generosity.  Look at all Christ says we can afford:

(From Luke 6) 27 Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.  29 If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt.  30 Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again.  31 Do to others as you would have them do to you.
      34 But love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return.  36 Be merciful, just as your Abba is merciful.
      37/38 Do not judge, do not condemn; forgive, and give; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back.

This is the reason why, this time of year, the Stewardship Committee and I remind us of what may be possible – the step up, the approach to, or the achievement of, the tithe.

The point of giving is to liberate the disciple from the captivity of victimhood.  You cannot believe in Jesus Christ, you cannot find healing in his name, you cannot believe the testimony of the empty tomb, and still imagine yourself a victim!

This is the point of giving, says Jesus.  This giving is the action that makes the good news authentic.  This is the way we turn the tables on our victimhood.  This is the way we turn things around.

The world economy is pathetic right now.  Worse than that, it’s scary.  Millions of people are in debt; the governments of many countries are on the brink of default; this is the worst economic slump since the Great Depression.  It’s making victims of a lot of people.
 
But that economy is not our economy.  That economy is market-based.  Our economy is God-based.  And God has enabled us to step out from the tombs which once held us captive.  We can step up, as our Stewardship Committee representative here has encouraged, and let our giving be a measure of our faith. 

Maybe it’s not yet the measure we would have it be.  We may have spent differently, invested differently, because of choices we made based on that market economy.  That will monetarily effect how we participate in God’s economy.

Things change, though.  That’s why we’re here in the church, isn't it.  Because things change.  Even for the better, things change.  Things have changed for us, and we know we can count on things to keep right on changing.

The point of giving and giving and giving endlessly, the way our Abba does it, is so that we may count ourselves blessed – not victims but victors – and know that we will give as we will, because we can afford to. 

God has made giving affordable for us.  Indeed, we have nothing to lose, based in God’s system.  Nothing shall be impossible for God, and therefore everything shall be affordable for us.
Thanks be to God.  Amen.

Remembering "Peace Be Upon You!' - September 11, 2011

Our Peace Be Upon You! event on September 11 may not have been profoundly noticed in the press, but its impact on the wider interfaith community has been recognized in a number of settings. 

Publicity and posters were distributed throughout the St. Louis area, to churches and other faith-based groups and organizations, and leaders of numerous communities have expressed their regret that they were unable to attend.  However, there were a lot of activities scheduled for the day by a number of different institutions, organizations, and faith communities.  In addition to our own event on the tenth annual observance, there were two major sports events occurring, a community remembrance service sponsored by Gerber Chapel, and, scheduled at the same time, concerts at Webster University and Sheldon Auditorium and a United Way day of service attended by numerous members of the St. Louis Muslim community.

So, attendance at afternoon workshops stood at about 40, including presenters and the participants in their opportunities for children, youth, young adults, and adults. 

Children explored the ideas of kindness, cooperation, and peace with First Congregational Director of Religious Education Tracey Harris.  Youth heard from representatives of Cultural Leadership, a program for African American and Jewish students in our area to unite them on the common ground of Civil Rights.  Young adults and I considered the commonalities and differences of Christianity and Islam.  And keynote speaker Dr. Khaled Abdel-Hamid, a popular Islamic lay leader in the St. Louis area who is well-versed in Qur’anic studies, shared with adults his insights on current events and Islam.

For the keynote address, entitled “Peace Be Upon You!” and attended by about twice as many people as the afternoon’s workshops, Dr. Hamid walked listeners through passages from the Qur’an which encourage cooperation and understanding especially between the Abrahamic “people of the Book” who practice the faiths of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.  He sought to offer hope for a more enlightened culture, like that of 10th to 14th Century Spain, for which so many moderate and liberal Muslims are nostalgic.  During that period in history, the Moors – a North African Islamic people – ruled Spain and permitted religious freedom and citizenship for Jews and Christians.

The time for questions included an objector of Egyptian origin, like Dr. Hamid, who challenged the speaker’s interpretation of the Qur’an, which in its second chapter allows destruction of nonbelievers and is used often by oppressive Islamic governments to practice cruelty against non-Muslims.  The objector, who may have been a Coptic Christian remembering persecutions in the land of his birth, refused to assent to Dr. Hamid’s sympathies that attacks on Christians and Jews by Muslims are criminal even according to the Qur’an.  But he also raised the awareness of the group about just how polarizing the malpractice of religion can make the oppressed as well as their oppressors.

In a more relaxed conversation after the conclusion of the event, Dr. Hamid noted that, if the objector was in fact a Coptic Christian refugee from Egypt, then the two of them had much more in common than they had separating them.  “I came to America,” he said, “because of the way I saw my religion being misinterpreted and misused in my homeland.  I prefer to be the citizen of a country where religious freedom may be practiced by all, rather than religious tyranny practiced by a some.”  (Some participants believed that they had heard the man say he was a convert from Islam to Christianity, which, if his conversion happened while he lived in Egypt, would have made him even more likely a victim of persecution than had he been born into a Christian family.)

Concluding the event, I observed that I am disinclined to continue Peace Be Upon You! as a September 11 observance.  I then referred to a community service event sponsored by the United Way on September 11, and populated strongly that day by supporters of the St. Louis chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR).  I suggested that September 11 might more suitably become a day of service similar to the Martin Luther King, Jr., holiday in January, and urged First Congregational and other Christian communities to partner with CAIR and Jewish community service groups on both those days, for the sake of bridging interreligious divides.

Peace Be Upon You! as an annual discussion about interfaith concerns for peace and justice may continue, hosted by our church, but maybe we can find a less potent day.

The text of Dr. Hamid’s keynote address is available from the media table in the Narthex or by clicking here.  A copy of his English and Arabic parallels of the second chapter of the Qur’an, are also available for download here.