The Religious US

The lesson was from Acts and it told the story of the Early church and how they lived together. They studied together and informed themselves on the words of Jesus and the stories from the Apostles. They had fellowship. They worshipped together. They had communion together daily and they shared everything they had with each other. It is pretty explicit that the money that one had was put in a big pot and you took out what you needed. I would have liked to be a part of a church that made that a standing part of the call to worship. Put in what you can; take out what you need. They talked about a community, a one body, one faith, one baptism, one fellowship.

One of the constant themes in my Old Testament studies was the "corporate identity" of the people of Israel. They were one. If anyone sinned, the whole group got punished. All for one and one for all. It was a reality in the minds of the Jewish people. They were to care for the stranger in their midst. They were to leave food in the fields for the poor. They were to care for the whole.

So it certainly feels like we have come a far way from the religious roots as we have moved more and more into a religious attitude that is personal salvation, private religion, and the resentment of any one telling us what to do. We seem to be emphasizing the individual personality and resenting any kind of community limitations or restrictions.

Jesus does not speak to me in a garden alone. That was my grandfather's favorite hymn, so it saddens me to find it so anti-faithful. Jesus speaks to me through the records of the Scripture as they are taught and shared with me by the community of believers called the church, as together we sit under the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus speaks to me in conversation with that tradition of Christian faith that is more than two thousand years old, and in conversation with the reality that we are living on a small planet with billions of other people. It is not all about me and mine. I suspect that lots of time God and the community is not really troubled because I don't feel good or like what has happened. The Corporate community of the People of God is bigger than me, and probably is bigger than just those who are known as Christians. In fact, when you listen to so much of the stuff coming out of places called churches and their individual salvation and their prosperity promises, one wonders whether they want to be part of the Whole body of faith.

Another Step?

Maybe it is another way to talk about life and death. Or another way to speak of crucifixion and resurrection. I am thinking about the words "inclusion" and "exclusion." The recent vote in the Presbyterian Church of the United States of America (PCUSA) to remove the constitutional language that prevented openly homosexual people from leadership, ordination, and public acceptance is but another small step along the way.

I have been reading the History of Great Britain and through out that history is the theme of the expansion of the people who could be in the government. The steady expansion of the vote, the steady inclusion of more and more classes of citizens into the power arrangement. The great desire to exclude people from positions so that the power could stay in the hands of a few and yet changes kept coming that forced the few to include more and more groups.

I think of our own constitution which began with the power only in the hands of white males who had property and worth. Black slaves were not even included as whole people. So we have had a series of Amendments to the Constitution to include in the voting process more and more people. The fight has been long and hard to include women, to include Blacks, to include people without property.

The same fights have been waged within the church as to who could be elected to offices, who could be ordained as Pastors, and who could be in leadership roles. First only men, then after civil war Blacks were included in their own churches, then Women got ordained, and now even some Blacks are welcomed in white churches. The vote this week which gave victory to the Amendment 10A is a vote to include homosexuals as pastors and elders and deacons.

Perhaps the push for inclusion is a push for life, a push for resurrections, because the larger the circle the more gifts and more blessings are possible. The push for exclusion is a push for death because it has a way of squeezing out the joy and the excitement of life. The forces that keep trying to exclude others is a force that brings death to hopes, death to opportunities, death to the opportunities to receive the gifts that others have to give. One can only imagine the kinds of wonderful things we might have had if many of the people who had been denied and excluded from opportunities had been included and invited to share their talents. There was only one tree in the Garden that God excluded from the list of the possibilities. We were invited to enjoy all the rest. A might big inclusion. The Circle not only need not be broken, it needs to keep expanding to the Glory of God.

Jesus: Pacifist or Non-Violent

He asked the question at the table with five other people. The other people were clergy. He asked in the wake of Osama bin Laden's death, "Was Jesus a pacifist?" There was a long silence as apparently none of us wanted to be the first. Then one of us said he did not think Jesus was a Pacifist but he did think Jesus was a believer in non-violence. That evoked an interesting debate and some agreement. Jesus was confrontational. He did go to Jerusalem where the power struggle would take place, but he did not call down the legions of angels. He told Peter to put away the sword and healed the bloody ear. He did not back away from confronting people when their behavior was less than what he thought was right. But he did say turn the other cheek. He did say give your shirt if they take your coat. He did say pray for your enemies and bless those who persecute you.

The question does make visible again the great difficulties of living as a citizen of the Kingdom of God and as a citizen of any nation. The events of the death of Bin Laden and the means by which he was killed place a follower of Jesus in a great bind. These decisions and these actions, it seems to me, demonstrate the great tension of being "in the world, but not of the world." Jesus told us we have to be wise as serpents and as innocent as doves.

There are rights, duties, obligations and privileges that come from being a part of a nation. St. Paul even acknowledged that such powers were established for the welfare and happiness of society. But those obligations and duties, those choices, those decisions often are obligations, decisions and duties that run counter to the ethics of the kingdom of God. The world is still the fallen creation that has not yet become the fully realized Kingdom of God. To fulfill the obligations of the Constitution of one country will bring each of us into conflicts with what we understand our obligations as citizens of the Kingdom of God are. It was for this reason, I think, that Martin Luther urged us a believers to sin boldly, and believe in forgiveness.

Would Jesus have approved the assault on Bin Laden? The torture, the invasion of another country (we seem to be getting pretty comfortable with doing that) the assassination? There is a big part of me that does not think that would have been his way, but the President has different choices, different obligations, different responsibilities and only God will be able to judge whether that was justice or not. That is why we depend so much on grace.

Good Friday People

Gordon Lightfoot had a song about "Rainy Day People." It was built on the premise that those who have lived through rainy days know how to endure the hard times better than those who have only had sunny days. Rainy day people always know when it is time to call. The rainy day people don't give advice, they just listen to the pain. Rainy day people just pass love along.

Garrison Keillor on his radio show had the same idea about Good Friday people. He suggested that those who stayed with the Holy Week services and showed up at the Good Friday services were the real deal. They were the ones who know their own sinfulness and did not try to hide it. They were the ones who were able to look death and suffering in the eye and not run away. The Good Friday people were the ones who did not turn away from the Cross. They were the hard core sinners who know what it means to be forgiven and accepted.

Keillor suggested that they ought to be the ones we seek out and make friends with because when life throws us a curve and we get knocked down, when we suddenly do something evil, we hit somebody with the car, or we yield to a temptation of the flesh, or we see an easy couple of hundred thousand dollars by walking on the wrong side of justice, and we get caught it will be the Good Friday people who will not abandon us.

Keillor was not kind. The Easter people are all nice and good people, but when they come close to scandal, sin, embarrassment, evil, they throw up their hands and refuse to have any part of it. Their concern is for themselves and their reputation. The Good people on Easter are nice and proper. The people you need to have as friends when we get down to dealing with real sin and real evil are the Good Friday people. They do not pretend to be better. They do not condemn the sinner. They do not run from the pain of broken dreams and twisted relationships. They have seen the worst that humanity can do to goodness. They understand what part they have had in that, and they know that it is not the end of the story.

The Easter People are not ready for the heavy load of the cross. They are only interested at the moment in the good and happy story. Ah, but Good Friday people know there is no Easter joy without the Good Friday darkness. Keillor said maybe it was too late for you to find them this year but make sure you introduce yourself to some of them next year. I think that is very good advice.

Holy Week

The poem says that there is something in nature that does not love a wall. Well, I know there is something in the human heart that cannot stand Holy Week in the Christian tradition. Almost every message I have heard for years during Holy Week service has always rushed to make sure it ended with the victory and the resurrection news. Even when I have heard people preaching on Good Friday, the ones I have heard, always have to make sure they mention that the story does not end with Friday.

There was one Good Friday service I went to and the message was a musical piece that had been composed especially for this church for Good Friday and the composer came to the traditional chord changes that usually signal an end and he stopped without finishing it. He just left the music hanging. The people almost could not stand it. Why did he do that? Why didn't he end with happy music of Easter. Why did he leave us hanging?

These are dramatic days. The play has all kinds of drama and emotions in it. It is a Passion Play. There is the bright cheerful greeting. The crowds are there. The band is playing. We got the balloons and pop corn on Sunday of Palm Sunday. But then Jesus does the Temple thing and the authorities begin to circle round him. They are not friendly. Maybe it is like a labor organizer talking with workers who sees the mid-level managers come out to ask him what he is doing and why he is there. It gets a little uncomfortable for the disciples. Maybe they start to wonder if it was such a good thing to make such a big entrance. Popular opinion can so easily be swayed. We need to keep an eye out for trouble. They don't sleep so well at night.

That is where we are on the second day of Holy Week. There is a fight brewing. The tension is mounting. Why spoil the drama by telling us what is in the last act? Oh, sure we may know the end already, but why can't we trust the story and tell it one day at a time. Dorothy Sayers, who was a great mystery writer, was a fine theologian and she said one of the great sins is for preacher to make the Christian story dull and boring. Well, it has always struck me that by telling the whole story every day during Holy Week takes the drama out of the story and makes the story dull. It happens everywhere. On Palm Sunday we sang the hymn where I was "Go to Dark Gethsemane" It is all about the prayer in the garden, the trial, and cross. Recommended to be sung during Holy Week. The last stanza is about the resurrection.

Could we not hold off on the resurrection until we have gone through the fear, the pain, the court system, and spent some time in those emotions?

"Not a Matter of Salvation"

We were in the middle of a swamp in western Florida and were talking about the things that had happen in his life over the last couple of years. He had had some business difficulties. He and his wife were having problems. A child of his was not doing well in school. We talked for a while and I ask him how he was handling it all. And he replied rather casually, "Oh, it's not a matter of salvation." I must admit I was taken back a little. I admitted to myself that he was right, of course. These were not matters of eternal determination. The future of his eternal soul did not depend on how he handled these problems. At least, not according to the theology out of which he was working. But I did wonder what it would take to get him a bit more invested and riled up about the affairs of his life. If the issues before him now were not of great importance, when would there be an issue important enough for him to care.

That memory came back to me as I finished Sebastian Junger's WAR. Mr. Junger was an embedded journalist in the most exposed outpost of the Afghan war for two years. He writes brilliantly about why soldiers find combat so exciting and addictive. That there is no greater adrenaline rush for the human body than being ambushed on patrol. He thinks there is no great bonds of affection than the members of a platoon. Mr. Junger particularly writes about the fact that it is great distant between my friend's nonchalant attitude towards life and the passionate focus on life in a platoon that makes it so hard for soldiers to come home.

As Mr. Junger describes life in the forward combat area, everything is a matter of life and death. The failure of one soldier to secure his canteen properly might make a noise that would give away the patrol and get the unit attacked. Everybody checked on everybody because every body's life depends upon everybody caring enough to make sure they did it right. Everything matters. It may not be a matter of salvation in the eyes of God. In fact, Mr. Junger suggest that God does not seem very near or important to the soldiers where he was. But everything sure as hell is a matter of life and death. That makes everybody know how important they are. They matter immensely. Every body's life depends on everybody else and so they value every body's every move and action.

Mr. Junger says when you have had that kind of validation and significance for two years it is incredibly tough to come home to a life where "it is no big deal. It is not a matter of salvation." To come home to a society that seems to care very little about anything. AA meetings, Narcotics anonymous, combat. What an amazing irony that the places that look the most like what a church is supposed to look like actually look like hell.

Good Intentions?

What is it that really matters as a human being? That you accomplished things or that you attempted and worked for good things? "By their fruits Ye shall know them" is one of the criteria often given. The good deeds are given as the criteria when Jesus separates the sheep from the goats. It does not seem to matter why or what was the reason you gave a drink to a thirsty person, but rather that you did. I have told a joke often about a preacher who got to heaven and was given junk and the Muslim Cab driver in Brooklyn who was given treasures and wonderful things. When the preacher asks why, St. Peter said when you preached people went to sleep. When Abdul drove his cab people prayed like crazy. By the fruits ye shall know them.


But what about all those people who labored, worked, sacrificed, taught, and pushed for improving education in this country. Every governor in North Carolina since Reconstruction has pushed the improvement in Education and the educational level of North Carolina is almost exactly where it was then. A lot of effort but few fruits. What about all the protesters and anti-war people who marched, clubbed, arrested against war, who went to jail for the cause of Peace? When you look at us now in two wars and one military action and nobody protesting, you have to think that those who marched and shouted for Peace did not produce many fruits. There are so many people who have worked so long and so hard for good causes and noble purposes and have failed to achieve much. Mothers Against Drunk Driving work incredibly hard and yet there continues to be confused attitude in the public about drinking and driving. There is the texts that talk about God judges by the heart and not by outward appearances. So maybe that is thinking that our good intentions, our noble efforts may be taken into account.


In the end all I can say is that it is a blessed relief to know it is not going to be my job to be the one to make the call. And it is an even more blessed relief to know, if Jesus teaches us anything, that the one who makes the call has a lover's heart for all creation.