God's Uncomfortable Reign

Acts 4.32-35 Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common. With great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold. They laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need (NRSV).

I think one of the most difficult lessons for us to learn, especially as children, is to share.  Much of preschool and even kindergarten is focused on the lesson of sharing.  Whether it is genetic or a product of our environment there is something deep within us that makes it hard for us to share.  It is counter intuitive.  I am no different.  As a child, I hated sharing my toys with my younger brother, and not just because things would come back in worse shape than when borrowed.  There was a fear that if he was playing with my toys, then I was missing out.  Never mind that I wasn’t using them at the time or even planning using them at the time.  There is something about our human nature that makes it hard for us to share.

Even as adults it is often hard for us to share.  That same fear we had of sharing as children still holds us.  But it doesn’t have to control us.  I can honestly say I have no problem sharing my things with my wife, Kim.  I trust her and I am more than willing to share my things with her openly and freely.  While my willingness to share with Kim, might make me sound (self) righteous, or look a little bit better than others, the reality is I know Kim wants nothing to do with most of my stuff.  It just doesn’t interest her, and she would have no need or desire to borrow my stuff.  It is incredibly easy to share your stuff with others, when you know they want nothing to do with it.  Whether as children or adults we just don’t like sharing.  It goes against our nature.  Even at a societal level we don’t like sharing. 

Maybe that is why this passage from Acts makes us more than just a little bit uncomfortable.  If it is of any consolation, we are not the only ones who are uncomfortable.  Many, throughout the history of Christianity, have tried to dismiss this passage from Acts; stating it is either an idealize fantasy that never happened or was tried early on but failed quickly.  As nice as it might be to dismiss this passage, neither of these options are valid.  We have recovered a number of early Christian texts from outside the Bible that show the Christian community continuing to share all possessions a century or more after Acts was written.  Which leaves us with the question of why. Why did the early Christian community think it necessary to share their possessions and distribute them according to need? 

The simple answer to this question is that those early Christians believed it was a part of their calling and identity as Christians.  They believed that Christians were called to follow Jesus, and, at least in part, the church is meant to be a reflection of God’s reign.  Central to God’s reign is that everyone has enough, so that there is “not a needy person among them.” (Acts appropriated this idea from Deuteronomy 15.4 and the Creations stories).  Unfortunately, when people look at the church they see an institution that looks less like a reflection, even dimly, of God’s reign and more like a reflection of the society around them.  We Christians, on the whole, are just as unwilling to share, just as unwilling to make sure none among us has need as the rest of society.  Now there is no difference between church and society.

So may be this text from Acts makes us uncomfortable, but that might be a good thing.  Being uncomfortable reminds us of what the church should be a reflection of God’s reign, even if only dimly.  Being uncomfortable also reminds us that God’s reign, often times, comes in very things that  makes us uncomfortable. 

Don't Worry...the Poor Have Refrigerators

“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another.  Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another” (John 13.34).   

“Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another” Jesus gives his followers this new commandment at the last supper. At first it sounds like a very safe commandment. But let’s face it, it is not always easy to love people, sometimes people make it difficult for us to love them.  I am sure we all know people, like that, who make themselves very difficult to love. Maybe it is the ‘black sheep’ of the family, the one who always manages to annoy the rest of the family during the holidays.  Or perhaps it is a boss or co-worker who is constantly trying to show everyone else up.  Or maybe it is someone we know, who for whatever reason is continuously getting under our skin.  As hard as it might be to love people like that, Jesus’ last commandment to his followers goes beyond just loving the annoying people in our lives. 

Jesus’ command isn’t just about liking or being nice to people, but about really and truly valuing them as human beings.  This is a much harder proposition, especially in our society.  How many times do we hear on TV, the Radio, or in a magazine or Newspaper, that we shouldn’t value or love someone?  We are constantly being told not to value or love the poor, after all they are just lazy, looking to take advantage of the system, or don’t know how to manage their funds.  One “news” channel even went so far as to argue the poor aren’t worth loving or valuing, because most of them have a refrigerator in their dwelling places.  Or how often are we told not to value or love immigrants, especially if undocumented, because they are coming to steal from us, or they might enhance our cultural and ethnic diversity.  Or told why we shouldn’t love or value liberals and progressives because they are only out to destroy the country.  I am sure we can all think of countless others who we are told not to value or love for whatever reason.  We are constantly being bombarded by messages telling us why we shouldn’t value and love others.  Unfortunately many of the people we are told not to value and love live on the margins of our society, people who are easy, for those of us in the majority, to devalue and not love. 

With the constant bombardment, no wonder why it is difficult for us to value and love others, especially those who are most unlike us.  But what does this mean for those of us who call ourselves Christians?  Many of us sense there is something wrong, but are less sure of the answer.  Maybe that is why we gather together on Maundy Thursday, and why so many do not.  We realize and hope that there is something more to Jesus’ commandment than just sentimentality.  On that Maundy Thursday night 2,000 years ago Jesus upset the structures of the world that continue to devalue people for the sake of the few. 

He did so by redefining what it means to be a leader, by washing his disciples’ feet.  While much has been made of the place of foot washing, what is often overlooked is whose feet he was washing.  We might consider the disciples to be the founders of the Church, but in their day they were nobodies, they were unclean, lazy, and uncouth.  They were Jews living in Roman occupied territory, who had some of the worst jobs possible in the hopes of surviving.  They were, in essence, the very people our society tells us not to value and love.  Yet it was their feet that Jesus washed, in so doing Jesus redefines how we value and love people.  No longer will the criteria of our society or theirs determine a person’s worth.  Instead we are to see all as being created in God’s image.  It might not seem like much has changed in the 2,000 years since Jesus’ last supper, but on that night Jesus challenged and changed the world. 

Heights, Sandals, Belief, and Eternal Life

John 3.16-21  ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

¹⁷ ‘Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. ¹⁸Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. ¹⁹And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. ²⁰For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. ²¹But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.’ (NRSV)

I am not a big fan of heights.  It is not necessarily all heights, but some heights.  For example, I had no problem going to the top floor of the Sears Tower (or whatever it is called now) and looking out over the city and Lake Michigan.  On a clear day the view is almost limitless.  Or walking across the glass floor in the CN Tower in Toronto and where you can look straight down 1,100 ft. But take me to the Grand Canyon or Black Canyon and I will admire the view from hundreds of feet from the edge.  Heck I don’t even like to climb the ladder to get to the loft in the back of the church (10-15 ft off the ground).  And I have yet to figure out that TV credit card commercial where the woman is climbing on top of a tall rock spire, barely wide enough for her to walk on.  The inconsistency in my dislike of heights has led me to think that it is not so much a fear of heights, as it is a trust in gravity. 

I know enough physics to know how gravity works, and enough experience to know what happens when you fail to properly trust gravity.  My trust in gravity changes how I live.  I have never looked for a job that involved ascending to great heights, while on vacation I don’t go climbing or get close to the edge of a cliff, and I would probably pass on a call that required me to climb up a pulpit that stands 10 or 15 ft off the ground, the kind seen occasionally in old churches out East or in England.  My trust in gravity changes how I live my life.  It is this understanding of trust that underlies the Greek word commonly translated as belief. 

When we talk about belief or believing, we often think of doctrine or dogma.  I believe this or that about God.  Doctrine and dogma are the things the church has been fighting over for 2,000 years or so.  It is the reason we have so many denominations, with more popping up every day.  But this is not what John is talking about when he says “everyone who believes in [Jesus].”  For John, belief is more about trust than doctrine.  Whether you believe Jesus to be a tall, fair skinned, blue eyed man or a short, stout, dark skinned, brown eyed man doesn’t matter to John.  That is not what John means by belief, but trust is.  To trust in Jesus means to trust in the way that Jesus lived.  This trust changes how we live.  To trust that Jesus’ way is also the way for our lives as well means to change how we live.  Now I am not talking about taking Jesus’ life directly over into ours, as though 2,000 years haven’t passed between us and him.  It doesn’t mean to start wearing sandals, although sandals are a very comfortable footwear, winter or summer.  It does mean to begin to look at how Jesus lived in his time and place, how he healed the sick and lame, fed the hungry, clothed the naked, restored people to the fullness of their humanity and spoke out against injustice.  In living the way he did, he brought eternal life to all those whose life he touched. 

For John, eternal life isn’t something that just begins after our current life is over, but is something that was begun with Jesus, himself.  People, through being healed, fed, clothed, and restored, experience eternal life.  Our trust in Jesus calls us to continue to live in the way of Jesus, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, restoring people to the fullness of their humanity, and speaking out against injustice.  We forget that eternal life is not just a gift for us alone, but is a gift for the entirety of creation. 

Rather than thinking of eternal life as the next life, think of it as God’s way (or desire) for the world, a way that means the eradication of hunger, illness, homelessness, and injustice.  It is a gift that is meant to be received in this life, as well as for eternity. 

Cleansing of the Temple... er Church?

John 2.13 The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. ¹⁴In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money-changers seated at their tables. ¹⁵Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. ¹⁶He told those who were selling the doves, ‘Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a market-place!’ (NRSV)

There is an old saying about love, a saying that forms the refrain of the Social Distortion song “Writing on the Wall.”  “They say if you love someone you gotta let them go….”   Whether or not you are completely convinced by this saying or not, I think it is fair to say there is some truth to it.  The truth of this saying goes beyond just human relationships, it can apply to anything that we love or like. While there is truth in the idea of letting go it is not easy to let go, as the writer of the song acknowledges with the line “but I can’t let go.”  But as hard as it is to let go that is often times exactly what we need to do.  As much for the person or thing we love as for ourselves.

It is not uncommon for us to want the people whom we fall in love with to remain the same as when we fell in love with them.  How many times has one spouse said to the other “You are a dork…you weren’t a dork when I married you” (please feel free change the wording to match your own context).  We fall in love with the person we were dating or engaged to, and that is the person we want to spend the rest of our lives with.  That is the person we want to hold onto. 

But by holding on and not letting go, we hold back the person’s ability to grow, change and become the person God is calling them to be.  Make no mistake it is not easy to let go and there is always risk involved.  It is conceivable that people may grow apart, but in some sense love insists on letting go, allowing the person we love to become something more than our own desire for that person. 

I think it is fair to say the same goes for the church.  There are a great many of us who have come to love the church, or at least the congregation to which we belong.  At some point in the past we came to love the church, and just like in human relationships, that is how we want the church to remain.  We want it to continue to exist as it did in the past.  We may even come to believe that this past vision is what is best for the church, we want others to experience the same church we fell in love with. 

Unfortunately by not letting go, by only wanting the church to remain the same, we make it nearly impossible for new people to come to love the church.  Their experiences are not ours.  They, as much as we do, want to find a church that is relevant for them and their lives.  We “gotta…let go” so that church can grow, change, become relevant again, and become something more than just our desire for it.  

It is easy to see Jesus’ purging of the temple in terms of his dislike for the temple, the Jews and their religion.  But the Gospel according to John is not meant to be denunciation of the Jewish faith or Jews in general.  The whip, the overturning of the tables, and the shouting weren’t the products of his dislike of the temple, but were the product of his love for his own people and his own faith.  Jesus knew just how hard it is to let go, and tried to force the issue.  Unfortunately, this prophetic action didn’t really change anything and instead helped to seal his fate on the cross.  At some point in time, the temple had become the ‘property’ of a select few, who used it to their own benefit and were unwilling to allow it to change, to become relevant for the majority of the people in Jesus’ day. 

Let’s face it we have done a similar thing in our congregations and churches.  We have turned them into temples that serve our own desire.  No amount of cleansing even if it includes a whip, overturned tables, and shouting will change this reality, until we are willing to let go.  There is still a place for the church in the world, but it is a place that has to be more than just our own desires.  I am firmly convinced that God still is calling the church so that it can become what it is meant to be, a blessing to all the people of the world.  “They say if you love something you gotta let it go.”

Stories of Destruction?

Stories of destruction seem to be all around us these days.  No sooner do we get past Harold Camping’s prognostication for end of the world last May and then again in October, before talk turns to the Mayan calendar and the end of the world on December 21, 2012.  If reading the Bible is any indication, stories about the destruction of the world are almost as old human civilization itself.  A few short chapters after the beginning of Genesis, we get the story of Noah and the Flood. There are several things to note, however, about these stories of destruction. 

Most of the stories of the end of the world often serve a personal agenda.  Harold Camping made his fortune, and it is a substantial fortune, through his radio broadcasts.  While not wanting to question the sincerity of his Christianity, one has to wonder what has the greater influence in his broadcast money or faith.  When he began to predict the end of the world how many listeners began to send him even more money? 

When talk turns to the Mayan calendar the agenda becomes even more evident.  According to respectable Mayan Scholars the Mayan calendar doesn’t actually predict the end of the world.  Instead the Mayan Long calendar has a cycle 5,126 years.  If archaeologists have correctly identified the starting date of that cycle (there is at least some disagreement over the starting date) then the end of the cycle will be December 12, 2012.  But the calendar does not actually predict the end of the world on that day, but the beginning of a new cycle.  To finish a cycle and to begin a new cycle was actually seen as a day to be celebrated.  Unfortunately days of celebration seldom sell many books or result in block buster movies.  Stories of destruction, however, sell lots of books and generate attendance at movie theaters. 

Unlike these other stories of destruction, the story of the flood ends in remarkably different way.  After the waters recede, God shows remorse for what has happened.  God realizes that s/he has made a mistake.  And so God makes a covenant with Noah to never again to destroy the world.  As a reminder of this covenant both for Noah and God the bow is set in the clouds (Gen 9.12ff).  We may be able to explain scientifically why we see rainbows, but that does change the fact that for the writers of Genesis they came to symbolize God’s promise to Noah, and through him, all humanity to never again destroy the world.  It is symbol that is often forgotten because stories of destruction or much more profitable than stories of new creation. God’s promise is never one of destruction, but of renewed life for humanity and all of creation.   

"Say Nothing to Anyone"

Mark 1.42-45 Immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean. ⁴³After sternly warning him he sent him away at once, ⁴⁴saying to him, ‘See that you say nothing to anyone; but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.’ ⁴⁵But he went out and began to proclaim it freely, and to spread the word, so that Jesus could no longer go into a town openly, but stayed out in the country; and people came to him from every quarter. (NRSV)

Back when I was in seminary there was an old joke, which popped up when discussing texts like this one from Mark’s Gospel, about how Lutherans have really only taken one commandment out of the hundreds in the Bible seriously and that is Jesus’ command to those who have just been healed to “say nothing to anyone.” What is interesting about this, is that the person being told to “say nothing” seldom does.  The first thing they do after experiencing health and well-being for the first time in a long time (if not ever) is to tell everyone.  In many ways it is a somewhat surprising command.  After all Christianity has been and continues to be a mission or evangelistic oriented faith.  How many times throughout our lives or in how many church mission statements have we been told to tell others about our faith, our church, and to invite people to our worship services?  Which leads us to wonder why Jesus would give such a commandment? 

It is a question over which much ink has been spilled over the centuries, and there are probably as many answers to this question as there are years between Jesus’ day and ours.  So I don’t think it is a question we will be able to answer definitively this morning.  Now I know we live in a society that consistently wants answers (hopefully simple answers) and wants those answers to be definitive, but that doesn’t mean we should shy away from exploring the question more fully.  Often times what is important is to simply ask the question. 

What might such a command by Jesus mean for a religious tradition that has always had a strong impulse for evangelism and mission?  What might such a command mean for a church living at a time when religious, culture, and social diversity has never been as great as it is now?  Does Jesus' command change how we engage the world and how we shape our mission? 

Some might want to answer the question of why Jesus didn’t want people to say anything by pointing out that Jesus was no longer able to enter a town openly for fear of being mobbed by a large number of admirers.  Others might want to say that Jesus did not want to be known as a miracle worker, because that wasn’t really who he was.  If Jesus’ command was only an attempt at crowd control, not only did it not work, but people continued to flock to him in the wilderness in great numbers.  If it was all about not being known as a miracle worker, one has to wonder why he would continue to perform the miraculous, especially in front of large crowds (feeding of 5,000 and 4,000 for example).

But what if Jesus tells the man to “say nothing to anyone” because he knows in the world in which he lives that he himself has now become one of the unclean, and knows full well that he would no longer be welcomed in the towns.  While the leprous man has been made clean, by touching him Jesus has made himself unclean.  He has gone from being one of the privileged to being an outcast.  The people continue to come to him because they, too, are among the outcast, but yet find life in this person who has identified with and in fact has become one of them.  Rather than forcing everyone to become like him, Jesus became one of them. 

In a world where the church is often hard at work trying to make others more like us, what might it mean to become more like others?  We don’t just want anyone to come to church, we want people like us to come to our church, or at least people willing to become like us.  We cling desperately to the hope that Christianity, in the sea of diversity that is our society, will always remain the dominate religion.  But imagine what mission, evangelism, and the church would look like if we stopped trying to maintain our own place of privilege and dominance. 

“Say nothing to anyone” isn’t some accidental statement by Jesus but a challenge to all who claim to follow him.  A challenge to worry less about our own places of privilege and begin to identify with those who are still considered to be outcasts whether it is a result of skin color, culture, language, or economics.  A challenge that opens us up to see God’s image in people different from us, rather than trying to make them into an image of us.  It is a challenge, but one that leads us, and the church, to become more truly human, so that all can have eternal life.   

Do Miracles Lead to Crucifixion?

Mark 1.29-34 As soon as they left the synagogue, they entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. Now Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told him about her at once. He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them.

 That evening, at sunset, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons. And the whole city was gathered around the door. And he cured many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons; and he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him.(NRSV)

Miracles what do you think of when you hear the word “miracles?”  I don’t know about you, but for me it depends a lot on the context.  There are medical or surgical miracles, when a patient is fatally ill but modern medicine pulls the patient through.  There are death defying miracles, a horrendous accident but somehow the people are able to walk away.  Fantastic sport finishes, the 1980 Winter Olympics Miracle on Ice, or Doug Flutie’s last second Hail Mary.  Or less dramatically but no less miraculous is Tim Tebow actually completing several passes in a row.

Bottom line is when we think of miracles we think of something that challenges or bends the laws of nature and/or science.  Miracles are extraordinary.  In today’s reading from Mark, an episode that picks up right where we left off last Sunday, people begin to show up outside Jesus’ door immediately after sun down.  They show up knowing they will be miraculously healed or to have their unclean spirits cast out.  It is a story that leaves us with no questions as to why people would flock to Jesus’ door or why they would be amazed at his abilities.  But it does leave us with a greater question.  Why would anyone actively oppose such healings and miracles, especially to the point of crucifixion?

Trained by the enlightenment to view the world scientifically maybe we see miracles differently than they did in the ancient world.  What if miracles weren’t so much about challenging the laws of science and nature, but where about challenging the structures of society?  It was common for people in the ancient world to view being ill (especially chronic illness), lame, blind, or deaf with being sinful.  “Who sinned this man or his parents?” the disciples ask Jesus in John after passing a blind man on the street.  To be ill, blind, lame, or deaf meant being less than whole.  It meant being left on the outsides of community.  There were rules in place to prevent people who were ill etc, to fully participate in society to experience real human community.  They were dehumanized.  To the benefit of some in that society, who used their power and influence to keep those structures in place.  But along comes Jesus healing people, casting out unclean spirits and all of a sudden those who were on outside moments before are now no longer.  Jesus’ miracles challenged the barriers that were keeping people separate, barriers that dehumanized some for the benefit of the few. 

If we look at miracles less as things that challenge the laws of nature and science and more as things that challenge the structures of society then the church can still be a place of miracles.  There is a certain amount of danger to becoming a place of miracles, maybe less here in the US than in other places in the world, but still there is a danger.  Many of our social structures want us to remain separate, want us to see people of differing skin color, culture, language, sexual orientation, or religion as being the other; as being on the outside of our communities, as somehow being a threat to our way of being.  But the church is constantly being reminded that we have all, no matter the color of our skin, the language we speak, our sexual orientation, or our religion, been created in the image of God.  And we have been called as the church to challenge all those structures that work so hard to keep us separate.  Miracles are by definition rare, but they do happen and when they do we experience, however briefly or darkly, true community.   Jesus’ miracles are creating a new society, a just and loving society, where all people are whole in mind, body, and spirit.