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."

Incasts (sermon, February 12, 2012 - unedited version)

[SCRIPTURES for the Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany]

Listen to the audio of this sermon, by clicking here (*.mp3 file)!

Last week, our signboard created something of a sensation. I like to say that it "went a little bit viral."

In solidarity with the students at Clayton High School who were going to be picketed on Monday, February 6, by the Westboro Baptist Church, I posted a saying I had seen on a placard from a similar counter-protest of WBC, last summer at the University of Nevada - Las Vegas. The message on one side of each of our two signboards (on Elm and Lockwood Avenues), now reads:

As I went out to the parking lot to take that photo, I couldn't help but notice a passerby had pulled into the lot to take a picture of it too.

I don't know whether it was his photograph that made it onto the internet, but on Tuesday of last week, the office received a telephone call from an anonymous caller saying that a photo of the sign had been uploaded to imgur.com and was generating quite a favorable response on the Atheism section of reddit.com.

And it sure was! Altogether, those two websites report 530,583 views on imgur.com; 456 comments on reddit.com’s “atheism” page.  Since last Sunday, we have registered 11 new "likes" on our Facebook page, mostly from strangers.  A separate posting of the photo on the Facebook page (and if I offend anyone by the name of the page, please excuse me:) "We survived Bush. You will survive Obama." now registers over 2,600 "likes" and 747 "shares."

And all of this comes with thanks to the Westboro Baptist Church for showing up at Clayton High School, this past Monday. 

I wish Fred Phelps was around, so I could give him a proper thank you and a smooch.

OK, so I don't really want to smooch Fred Phelps. Furthermore, I'm sure he wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of a smooch from me.

Which reminds me of a story, about another couple of guys who had some difficulty liking each other...

The story of General Naaman and the Prophet Elisha, believe me, is sort of a negative example of the kind of thing I want to talk to you about, this morning.

To a certain extent, I’d like to offer some thoughts on how to build community, but the real emphasis is about the hazards of building a community of faith together.

And the Prophet Elisha here pretty clearly has no presumptions about building community.  He does not want to build community.  As a matter of fact, it’s pretty clear that he has no real interest even in healing a sick man, though that is what he is doing.

Naaman washes in the Jordan,
from ArtBible.com

Naaman was an enemy, after all, to Elisha and to anyone who might have been hearing or telling this story the first few times it went around.  When King Jehoram of Israel makes his complaint that Ben-Hadad King of Aram has requested his holy man to cleanse Ben-Hadad’s general, it is because Jehoram perceives an attempt at provocation to a war that he is not ready to fight.

Furthermore, neither Naaman nor Ben-Hadad desires to soften international relations.  Both of them just want for the general to be better, so that he does not lose face (literally) before his soldiers and thereby diminish the strength and fighting capacity of an army centered on him and his prowess as a warrior.

Basically, nobody here wants the annoyance of handling anything that’s in front of them to be done.

No compassion.

No real caring.

Just a lot of power being bandied about: Naaman and Ben-Hadad bandying military power, Jehoram political power, and Elisha (of course) the power of God.  And none of this power, power to be trifled with.

By contrast there is Jesus in the story related by the gospel according to Mark, today – the occasion in that gospel in which the Christ the healer cleanses a person of leprosy.

“If you choose, you can make me clean,” says the leper, which evokes some sort of passionate response in Jesus.  In some early copies of Mark, the Greek word for Jesus’ reaction means literally, moved with pity.  In others, the word implies  moved with anger.  Suffice it to say, Jesus was moved by the statement of the ritually unclean person.

Jesus heals a leper
Pen and ink drawing; 14.7 x 17.2 cm; c. 1655-60
Amsterdam, Rijksprentenkabinet

Next, Jesus does something truly, truly shocking.  He touches another human being, one with leprosy.

This is a big issue.  You have to understand: this is an ENORMOUS issue!  You don’t touch unclean people!  You just don’t!  If you touch someone unclean, you become unclean too – literally, guilty, and you have to report it to a priest and perform the appropriate sacrifices, and likely you’ll have to spend some time in isolation.  And who, but especially what prophet, can afford that!

So, Jesus shouldn’t be touching him.

Let alone the fact that maybe it wasn’t pity or compassion, but anger, that was the motivation for him touching the guy in the first place… and all because the guy had said, “If you choose to…”

I mean, what kind of attitude is that!  “If you choose to…”  C’mon, buddy, what is with that!  No wonder it’s confusing, to try and figure out whether Jesus was motivated by pity or anger to cleanse you!  You seem to be dealing with a pretty serious dose of self-pity, here!

How disappointing.

In most cases, it always seems, Jesus performs some healing, and tells the person, “Your faith has made you well.”

Not this time, though: this guy is no paragon of faithfulness.  He’s like the psalmist in the middle of Psalm 30, wallowing in self-pity and seeming at least to accuse God of the miserable circumstances being dealt with:

to the holy ONE I made supplication:
“What profit is there in my death
      if I go down to the Pit?
Will the dust praise you?
     Will it tell of your faithfulness?” (Psalm 30:8b-9)

Something like, “You show me your faithfulness, and I’ll show you mine,” the guy is saying.

I would not have been inclined to help this guy out.  There’s just too much on the line.  (Don’t look at me like that.  You think you would want to help him out?  He’s not down on his luck; he’s down on his life!)

It’s Boy Scout Sunday, today, and that time in which we annually celebrate the giftedness of youth involved in scouting, especially the young men who meet with their troop here at the church.  “Be prepared,” is their motto.  Be prepared.

And there certainly is much to be prepared for, when you are part of a movement founded by a man who would touch ritually unclean people without any compunction whatsoever.  One of the biggest circumstances to be prepared for, in fact, is the reality that you will be coming into contact – regularly! – with some pretty unpleasant people… present company excepted, of course!

And when you come into contact with all those other people, which is pretty often, you’d best be ready.  They’ll be wanting your help out of the trouble that they’re in… likely as not, trouble that they deserve, or that they don’t deserve but won’t take the advice to avoid.

Everybody is going to want a piece of you, because you have managed either to steer your way clear, or to work your way out, of the trouble they’re in.  What they don’t know is how much insight you have accumulated or gleaned along the way, and heeded, so as to avoid or step clear of the trouble they’re in.  Because the most problematic part about being part of a religion the founding statement of which was, “Repent and believe in the good news,” (Mark 1:15) is the fact that so very few people are actually willing to change their ways that need changing!

Maybe they’re just not able to change.  I mean, it is not as though our society makes change easy.  We like our slots, our pigeon-holes, our categories, our prejudices; they’re so informative about other people!  So often, poor people aren’t poor because they have brought it upon themselves or because they deserve it, but because their expectations of themselves and what they can achieve are so low!  They know society isn’t going to respect them and their efforts, so why try!

On this Racial Justice Sunday in our denomination, it is on the one hand simple enough to look about and learn the achievements beyond expectations of the host of African American and Asian and Pacific Islander and Latino and Native American people in our country, but it is far more common for us – no matter our ethnic origin or the color of our skin – to presume what any other African, Asian, Islander, Latino, or Native American is going to be like.  And our presumptions are likely as not to be established strongly in our learned expectations.

But this is also Lincoln’s birthday, the natal anniversary of a man who lived by that grand old Republican understanding that the equal creation Jefferson wrote about implies that all should have equal opportunity to assume equal responsibility.  That alone ought to be sufficient motive for any society to heal itself.  Ours hasn’t, but not for lack of opportunity.

And this is Charles Darwin’s birthday, too, you may know – a man whose whole life was dedicated to the understanding that creatures will adapt themselves over time to the environment in which they find themselves, or else will be destroyed by it.

We are our environment.  We create the circumstances in which other find themselves.  We have an inherent obligation, when those others are either defenseless or disarmed, to assure that they may succeed if they desire to.

That will mean, to a certain and very deep extent, that we are saddled with the responsibility to heal the environment in which we have found ourselves – the racial environment, the political environment, the economic environment, the cultural environment.  We are required to do as Jesus did, maybe out of compassion, maybe out of anger, but to do it because we are called to righteousness, justice, and peace.

We have been given a vision of what can be.  Jesus offered it.  He touched others with bold caring.  Those whom society either declared outcast, or rendered outcast, Jesus made (oh, let’s call them) incasts.  The blind, the deaf, the poor, the rich, the lame, the unclean, the stranger, the possessed, and the oppressed – Jesus liberated them all, by touching them.

He didn’t care what others thought.  He knew what God thought of these outcasts.  And he did something about it.

Now, I’m not here to disparage Elisha the man of God.  He was a good man, a fine prophet, a conduit of true power who lived according to that power.  You see, at many points, the Bible itself is not a book or a collection of books, about compassion.  In the case of Second Kings, it’s a book about nationalism and the greatness of the national deity, Yahweh, whose power is for the foreigner, even the enemy, as well as for us.

I’m just not satisfied, in retrospect, that – powerful or not – Elisha took no more initiative to set an example for others, of caring.  True, he did assure that the Aramean General Naaman was healed of his ailment and that Naaman would have no doubt that the God of Israel was the power behind the healing.  But the healing of the skin disease was where the healing ended.  Elisha did nothing to heal the rift between his country and its neighbor; he did nothing to calm the fears of his own king.  In fact, he may have exacerbated both!  Aram and Israel were at war, just a few short years later, according to Second Kings.

No, I much prefer the lesson lived by Jesus, that we need to be prepared to touch the very people we may feel least inclined to, either because of our environment, our history, or our prejudice.

Because the resistance to make contact, the temptation to preserve someone else’s outcast-ness, is entirely our own: “If you choose to,” they will say, “you can make me clean.” And for as much wrong as we may be able to see about them, and for as obvious to us what their right track will be, they at least have the wherewithal to recognize that we have power ready to emanate from us, if we will but make contact… dare to touch.

Water Wonders

This will be the first in a multi-part series of articles evoked by my consideration and study of the Sacraments, during the meeting described below, and since. It is not intended to provide definitive positions for me or my church (well, maybe for me) 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.

I am part of a group from my church, participating in the Creative Faith Project of the Missouri Mid-South Conference of the United Church of Christ.

Led by Associate Conference Minister Marc Wessels and Conference Artist-in-Residence Cliff Aerie, the CFP has convened three meetings of about a dozen churches with groups like my church's during the past six months or so. The third of those meetings took place on Saturday, January 28, at Columbia UCC in Columbia, Missouri.

The CFP has been funded through a grant from the Calvin Institute for Christian Worship. For the most part, we consider together enhancements to worship that might be practicable in our local settings, and to share what enhancements have "worked" in our own churches and which have met with some resistance. That makes for a lot of discussion!

The topic for consideration on Saturday, January 30, was The Sacraments, and conversation was invigorating, often provocative, and occasionally controversial.

It might be helpful at this point to explain that, in the United Church of Christ (as in just about every Protestant church), there are two sacraments - Baptism and Eucharist, the latter also known as Communion. In one of our faith traditions - Congregationalism - these two were historically referred to as ordinances, because they were ordained by Jesus himself (baptism in Matthew 28:19; eucharist in 1 Corinthians 11:24-26). And as far as most Protestants are concerned what makes a sacrament a sacrament is Christ's ordinance that practitioners of the faith ought to do these things.

In other Christian groups, but particularly the Roman Catholic Church, there are as many as seven sacraments: Baptism, Confession, Eucharist, Confirmation, Marriage, Holy Orders, and Sacrament of the Sick, which was once known as Last Rites. In each of these cases, they are sacraments because they are "an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace mediated by the Holy Spirit of God." In other words, they are occasions when God's presence is incontrovertible and action irreversible.

For most Protestants, especially those in the Reform tradition like the UCC, the sacraments are symbols of grace, though not so much the grace itself. God is present always and everywhere, and what God does cannot have anything added to it or taken away from it, thus making all of life sacramental. But sacraments are another type of thing.

What type of thing are they? the planners of the CFP event asked.

Discussion about Baptism was considerably talk about the ritual, and how it is conducted.

Clergy in the UCC tend to be very, very liberal in their understanding of the person and substance of God and therefore in their use of Trinitarian language. We will often forgo the words "Father, Son, and Holy Spirit" in favor of words that are not gender-based. Thus, it is not unusual to find prayers and blessings spoken "in the name of the Creator, the Redeemer, and the Comforter" or of "God, Christ, and Spirit." I myself commonly substitute the word "Child" for "Son." Other clergy admitted to calling the Creator, "Father and Mother of us all," though I lean more toward the appellation, "heavenly Parent."

But the command at the end of the gospel according to Matthew is that new Christians should be baptized "in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" (again, 28:19). And, somewhat with the intention being to prevent "making wrongful use of the name of YHWH your God" (Exodus 20:7), some who are more conservative theologically have determined to use only that invocation as the proper acclamation of the authority by which they baptize. We UCC ministers have found ourselves constrained by tradition and history, also to perform baptisms "in the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit," if the baptisms are to be recognized across denominational lines.

Quite honestly, I'm not sure but that this is a good idea. Conformity is not altogether awful, and restrictions on creativity tend often to force greater work to flow. But a feminist and liberationist organization such as ours generally finds the reality simply distasteful, if not offensive.

We all were asked to consider the components of our rituals. Water, obviously I suppose, was the most common component for baptisms, but the location of the water was not necessarily common. I mentioned having performed five immersion baptisms during my career so far - one in the baptistry (pool) of a Baptist church, another in a recreational lake, and three in an Ozark stream. There was also an immersion remembrance of baptism I performed in that stream, but I would guess that the recipient is not referring to it as remembrance but rather as the actual event for him who was baptized as an infant - professional hazard, since you can only be baptized once.

But most baptisms I have done, and most of them that my colleagues talked about, that day, like the one in the photo far above have been performed in the sanctuary of the church I was serving, at its baptismal font, during a worship service. Infants, children, teens, and adults I have customarily sprinkled from a stoop after saying a blessing over water poured from a pitcher or ewer into the basin.

Having the baptisms conducted in a worship service is in keeping with the United Church of Christ emphasis on community. It is in the community that the sacred may most surely be encountered. It was as community that the church was founded. And it is in the community that we live and grow.

So, in the course of a baptismal ritual, the faith community is called upon to support those who say vows. The church responds as a body, "We promise our love, support, and care" of those who are baptized among them.

Though there had been a longstanding, informal practice of UCC clergy performing baptisms outside of Sunday services, the emphasis in recent decades has been toward the reappropriation of the sacrament being as much an element of worship as the sacrament of eucharist has always been.

Strangely, the theological assertion that the Holy Spirit is most assuredly present when the community is gathered, almost eradicates the possibility of performing baptisms elsewhere than in the sanctuary! I say this is strange, because "believers baptizers" will focus on an image of immersion that Paul presents in the letter to the Romans, chapter 6 (vv. 3-5), as the reason why only immersion baptisms should be valid - they emulate death:

Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. (emphasis mine)

Whenever I have performed an immersion baptism, the challenge has come from clergy colleagues, "But how shall the church be acknowledged?" I have always had to respond that I have to count on a broader definition of "church" than the gathering of the people in the sanctuary, and that under such circumstances my congregation - who simply cannot all be at an immersion baptism at once - will have to be represented rather than be in attendance.

Our community cannot trump scripture, not in this case. Lose the right to immerse because the location is inconvenient, and we lose a significant part of our heritage and a powerful symbol of the beginning of faith.

How to Start a Monday Well

I missed getting my daughter up and off to preschool, this morning, but had a pretty good time anyway.

Roger & Jan Barnes, Jane Porchey (at right in white cap), K Wentzien (just beyond Jane), and I headed for Clayton High School at 6:45 a.m. to be part of the counter-protest by that school's Gay/Straight Alliance of students and faculty against Westboro Baptist Church which had announced its intention to protest there, after having had the school on its "radar for quite some time."

The WBC spidey-sense may have been turned on when a son of Fred Phelps spoke at the school, last year, in support of the GSA.

WBC is a confusing organization for many people, protesting not only organizations that support equal rights for all citizens but also military funerals. Claiming homosexuality to be an abomination and an affront to God, they protest the funerals arguing that an American military defending the freedoms established by civil rights groups on behalf of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, and questioning people therefore deserve protest as well.

At Clayton High, our contingent was happy to meet two more church members - Kin & Peggy Lavender - and members of numerous other Open and Affirming churches. Kirkwood UCC's Pastor Betsy Happel (pictured at left, center) was being interviewed by local TV news when Evangelical (soon to be Peace) UCC's Pastor Katy HawkerSelf and I spotted her. Pastor Jeff Groene of Samuel UCC, Pastor Allen Grothe of Pilgrim Congregational - St. Louis, members of their churches, and members of First Congregational - St. Louis all were there in force (that last bunch identifiable below a sign that read, "First Congregational Supports Clayton HS Students!" I, of course, thanked the bearer of the sign for having represented First Congregational of Webster Groves as well.). Eden Seminary was also well represented by faculty and students in attendance.

The event included quite a range of demonstrators - from our humble selves to a student group silk-screening "Love Conquers Hate" t-shirts as the event went on, and with characters from a Wookie to a Pretty Pony to some fellow skipping in rainbow-striped socks and sneakers wearing a black hooded, full-length cape!

For the students there were commemorative "Love Conquers Hate" t-shirts sold in advance of the day and a "Phelps-A-Thon" website inviting people to make donations per minute based on the length of time the Westboro Baptist protesters either were scheduled to protest or on the length they actually stayed. Both of these efforts were designed to turn a day potentially fraught with hatred into a very positive event in the lives of all those who participated (in the counter-protest, that is).

At 8:04, the crowd of about 1,000 (by my estimate) observed a moment of silence, and the class bells rang to summon students at 8:05. The older members of the group then turned to the students. The young people walked off to their classes to the applause and admiring shouts of an appreciative admirers.

At 8:15, as the protesters departed, the remaining counter-protesters bade them a cheerful farewell with drumming.


God bless Monday.

We Will Be Changed

(sermon, January 22, 2012)

I am intrigued that this year’s expectation for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity has been identified as “change.”

“We will be changed” (1 Corinthians 15:51), the literature prepared for this year’s Week proclaims.  And it uses as its primary text the first letter of Paul to the church at Corinth, the fifteenth chapter (vv. 51-58).  Paul there describes his own experience in the faith, having put on for all practical purposes a new identity, having died, seen the end of his world, and engaged fully and completely a new beginning likened to Christ’s resurrection.

I suppose that the expectation ought to go without saying.  If you begin attending a church, either change has occurred to you – such as a move for work or to be closer to loved ones – or it’s been foisted upon you – as when crisis or disaster strikes, those sorts of things we have come to call an act of God, so that you need a new location in order to set things straight.

But sometimes, as in the classic sense, we will ourselves choose to connect with a faith community because we sense that there is something not quite right, or even entirely wrong, with ourselves, and we need to set ourselves on a new path to “get right with God” or our neighbor… or ourselves.

We will be changed.  Won’t we?

So, maybe the planners of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity are merely stating the obvious.  The planners, this year, were clergy from Poland, which is a country that has had more than its share of change, over the last decade and a half.

For they know, as few of us in America nowadays seem to, that unity will change us.

In the United States, perhaps ironically, unity has often been a fearsome prospect.  That was the great fear in the 1940s and 1950s of the Congregational churches across this country in anticipation of the formation of the United Church of Christ.  The hue and cry went forth, warnings of a loss of the Congregational Way in the face of the organic union forming this new denomination.  Try as we might to quiet our concerns with scripture by giving the new organization a motto from the gospel according to John – “That they all may be one.” (John 17:21) – the desirability of unity was problematic, because unity changes things.  We will be changed, sometimes whether we like it or not.

And now, 55 years later, we must admit it’s true.  Things have indeed changed.  We’ve kept a lot of our former trappings, but many have changed.  I’m wearing an alb, not preaching robes.  We’ve got new liturgies in our official worship books and hymnal, seeming more Episcopalian or Lutheran sometimes than historically Congregational... worrisome for a branch of Christianity founded by Pilgrims who referred to themselves as Separatists.

But we Separatists have at least given lip-service for centuries to ameliorating the differences between ourselves and others, for the sake of doing the most good wherever possible.

We were ecumenists from the start.  About a hundred years ago among the Protestant denominations that have come to be known as “the Mainline” — Congregationalists yes, but also Methodists, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Episcopalians, and Reform and Evangelical Christians of German and Dutch ancestry — there arose a movement that came to be called ecumenism.  The word comes from the Greek word for “to inhabit,” oikoumene, but includes an understanding of ordering a household.  The word “economy” is derived from it also.

We seek common ground, within our diversity and separateness, and sometimes in spite of it, for the purpose of expanding the realm of God. 

So, within the movement, there have been groups concerned with “faith and order,” or developing a visible unity across Christian boundaries.  A “life and work” movement also arose, promoting a combination of efforts for relief and care in trouble-stricken areas of the world.  Similar groups that instead promoted religious education and evangelism across denominational lines also formed.



Logo of the
National Council of Churches of Christ
in the United States



Eventually, in 1908, the Federal Council of Churches was formed in the United States, from churches favoring the Faith and Order and Life and Work movements.  In 1950, the Federal Council became the National Council of Churches.  The founding religious bodies of the United Church of Christ were constituent organizations of the National Council, and UCC members to this day hold positions of high standing in the organization.

Catholics joined the movement in 1966 as a result of Vatican II, but refuse to join either the U.S. National Council or the World Council on the principle that reunion needs to be a return of the Protestants and Orthodox to Catholicism.

Ecumenists were the ones most identifiable in leadership against slavery, alcohol consumption and the liquor trade, women’s rights, child labor, and unjust wars... and for the 40-hour work week (claiming, “8 hours of work, 8 hours of play, 8 hours of rest, for every day”) and minimum wage.  Recently, the Christian right has often identified ecumenists as socialists or even communists.  But how many of them would trade the strides we have taken, ecumenically?

The ecumenical movement has softened its emphases over time.  Faith and Order now finds little expression except in community Thanksgiving worship services, or in the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, January 18 – 25 each year.  Individually, our local churches celebrate World Communion Sunday on the first Sunday in October.

But the Consultation on Church Union, which now continues as Churches Uniting in Christ, was an outgrowth in 1960 of the ecumenical movement which had been seeking the goal of bringing under a single structure or banner the nine denominations that have participated in it, but now simply seeks to retain much of the same sort of dialogue to be found in the Faith and Order discussions of the National and World Council of Churches. 

Imagine! A reunion of Community Churches, various brands of Methodists, the Disciples of Christ, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, and the UCC.  We never quite made it, but we did develop a Common Lectionary, used by many of the constituent denominations and even our local church occasionally.

The New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, which we use in our worship services for readings, was translated by leading ecumenical scholars from various Christian traditions and is published by the National Council of Churches, as was the Revised Standard Version before it; and the American Standard Version prior to that by the International Council for Religious Education, which was related to the Federal Council of Churches.

We will be changed.  Won’t we!

In the year 2000 there were also concordats signed between the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the American Episcopal Church, affirming that their celebrations of the sacraments are virtually the same and that their clergy may lift the chalice and paten together or interchangeably at the front of their separate constituencies.  Similarly, the same Lutheran body maintains a dialogue with the Reformed tradition churches in the U.S., including the UCC.  And a world alliance of Lutherans are advancing a program of talks with the Roman Catholic Church about commonality of purpose and practice.

Meanwhile, the strongest and clearest expression of the Life and Work movement here in the Saint Louis area is the CROP Walk for Church World Service, which is a hunger relief arm of the National Council of Churches and which we participated in during October.  But another, subtler version of that same fundraiser is the springtime One Great Hour of Sharing offering, collected by mainline churches for Church World Service on the third Sunday of March, each year.

So, dare we hope for a reunion of the Church to stand together again undivided?  Need we hope for it?  Is that what we want?  More importantly, is that what God wants?

Or, is it even something reasonable to hope for?

Well, the more that we look into the distant Christian past, back to the First Century shortly after the wonders of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection took place, the more we are able to see that the union which came in the Fourth Century under the Roman Emperor Constantine was the exception rather than the rule of the Church up to that time.  Christianity was in those first three hundred years pretty much as it is now, with communities that shared expressions of faith separated from Christian communities that had differing expressions or understandings of it.

Some were united by national interests, some by charitable ones, some by persecutions they were suffering, but all by the love of God they discovered through the Messiah.

So, maybe the variety is OK.  And it’s really up to us not to permit our lack of a monolithic, over-arching, all-encompassing organization to mean that we do harm to each other.  I mean, yes, theology is important; seeking to practice our faith rightly is important; endeavoring to correct the deceptions others have accepted may even be essential.  But not if we’re going to kill each other over it, or excommunicate or even exclude.  People are people, and though we may celebrate "one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Parent of us all" (Ephesians 4:5), we sin against one another and against God, but most especially against our neighbor, if we make war or pitched battle with each other.  Let us open the eyes of our hearts to accept the diversity and wide-ranging understanding of who Christ’s people are, so that we can enjoy the reunion when it comes, or comes available!

I’m reminded of the story in John, chapter 2, of the jars of water at the wedding at Cana, which Jesus changes into jars of wine.  Once Jesus interacted with them, they changed from still, simple, unassuming water into water with such potency that the guests remarked that the host had saved the best for last!

Something you may know is that in the creation of churches, if they are to grow, one of the first things we have to do is to form small groups – interest groups, age-based groups, affinity groups, groups focusing on spiritual growth and social interaction.  We intentionally divide our congregations for the sake of growing them, demanding that group members invite newcomers to be part of their groups.  We use the groups, separated though they may be, for the sake of greater unity.

And maybe the Church in the world is the same way.  We started out as many different traditions – North African, Palestinian, Asian, European.  Then, with our acceptance by the Roman Empire, we made an effort at being one, giant, monolithic, over-arching group, and endured the painful reality of empire, how human power will be imposed and exercised by the few or the one so that commonness may be the order of the day.

We would eventually learn, despite the powerful… with the Great Schism of the 1100s and the Reformation of the 1500s: Separate jars contain the same wine.  Many gifts can emerge from the same Spirit.  Many denominations can make up the same church.  Many names can nevertheless assemble the same family of God.  Uniqueness actually can promote unity.  And, everywhere in that, we will be changed!

How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,

Is laid for his truth in his excellent Word.

What more can he say than to you he hath said,

To you who for refuge to Jesus have fled.

Fear not, I am with thee, O be not afraid!

For I am thy God and will e’er give the aid:

I’ll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause the to stand

Upheld by my righteous, omnipotent hand.

The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose,

I will not, I will not, desert to its foes;

That soul though all hell should endeavor to shake,

I will never, no never, no never forsake.
("How Firm a Foundation," from K. Rippon's A Selection of Hymns, 1787)

We will be changed.

We will be changed, but we need not be afraid.

Whether that change is imposed by our environment, by our God, or by ourselves, we will be changed.

If there is one certainty in living, it is that.  If there is one requirement of unity, it is that we allow others to change us, and God to change us.  And if there is any hope for us, it is the very change we will engage.  For with that change we will require unity, maybe not of mindset, maybe not of ideology, maybe not of theology, maybe even not of worldview, but of spirit.  Of spirit.  Of Holy Spirit.

We do this, willingly, in Christ’s name.

Amen.

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.