Category: Michael D
The Meaning of Revival
As I was reading and working on the Gospel of Mark 10:17-31 for Sacred Steps: Children’s Sermon Journal, I ran across a sermon by Bishop Will Willimon on the text. A story in his sermon caught my attention.
Today’s gospel reminds us that there are good, understandable, reasonable reasons for notfollowing Jesus. Jesus is too often presented by us, from the best of motives, as the solution to all our problems, the way to fix everything that’s wrong in our lives. But this story reminds us that Jesus is sometimes the beginning of problems we would never have had if we had not been met by Jesus!
The story is told that Clarence Jordan, that great Southern, social prophet, visited an integrated church in the Deep South. Jordan was surprised to find a relatively large church so thoroughly integrated, not only black and white but also rich and poor; and this was in the early sixties, too. Jordan asked the old country preacher, “How did you get the church this way?”
“What way?” the preacher asked. Jordan went on to explain his surprise at finding a church so integrated, and in the South, too.
The preacher said, “Well, when our preacher left our small church, I went to the deacons and said, ‘I’ll be the preacher.’ The first Sunday as preacher, I opened the book and read, ‘As many of you as has been baptized into Jesus has put on Jesus and there is no longer any Jews or Greeks, slaves or free, males or females, because you all is one in Jesus.’
Then I closed the book and I said, ‘If you are one with Jesus, you are one with all kind of folks. And if you ain’t, well, you ain’t.'”
Jordan asked what happened after that. “Well,” the preacher said, “the deacons took me into the back room and they told me they didn’t want to hear that kind of preaching no more.” Jordan asked what he did then. “I fired them deacons,” the preacher roared. “Then what happened?” asked Jordan.
“Well,” said the old hillbilly preacher, “I preached that church down to four. Not long after that, it started growing. And it grew. And I found out that revival sometimes don’t mean bringin’ people in but gettin’ people out that don’t dare to love Jesus.” (As told in Hauerwas and Willimon, Where Resident Aliens Live, Nashville: Abingdon, 1996, p. 103). Click here to read the entire sermon.
What does revival mean? I’ve been asked to preach at exactly one revival. During that sermon I spoke about the meaning of revival and if we, as a denomination, needed it. For a few years now, since before our current GMP was elected, I’ve thought we were living through the third reformation of our denomination. Some want a revival and I think reformation is needed if we are to remain a relevant voice of the good news of God. We see it happening. The rewrite of the Order of Ministry, within our denomination, that allows for ordination without a Master’s degree from an accredited institution of higher education, is what I call revival. There is honor in serving as a commissioned / licensed minister. There is a great need for persons who want to serve in one Region and one, typically small and in a rural setting, congregation. But, relaxing the Order of Ministry to provide an alternative track to ordination that does not include accredited higher education is “revival” thinking within the church. It’s trading structure for charisma. It’s blending in rather than standing out. The Regions that are ceasing to discriminate against LGBT persons in considering them for ordination are involved in reformation. Now blur the lines. What will Regions do with an LGBT person that wants to take the alternative track to ordination though they do not meet the requirements as outlined in the Order of Ministry. The fact is that many Regions are already engaged in a similar situation with persons that could and should attend seminary and complete an MDiv degree. Turning away from an educated clergy in a time of exponential change and diversity is revival thinking. What we need is reformation thinking and leadership. Revival may lift the spirit, but reformation changes the system. We need some system thinking, some overt reformation in our denomination and in our society.
Paragraphs from SSCSJ
Brief paragraphs from Sacred Steps: Children’s Sermon Journal for Oct. 7. Visit www.sscsj.org to learn more about how you can subscribe to this service.
World Communion Sunday
No matter how your tradition “allows” young children to participate in the Lord’s Supper (Eucharist), World Communion Sunday is an opportunity to talk with the children about why your congregation celebrates (observes) communion as well as what you, the adult leader, find meaningful about receiving communion. Consider talking with the children about, “Why I take communion?” Is it a meal of remembrance, a commandment, the actual body and blood of Jesus, the consumption of antibiotics that fight sin, or an activity only for baptized persons? Think about the language you will use. How will children hear “broken body, shed blood, and sacrifice?” Reflect on the language that is used at the table and the symbolism of forgiveness. Does your congregation exclude children, even those baptized as infants, from this central act of worship until a specific age?
Psalm 8
Psalm 8 is a bold statement about the inherent worth and value of human beings. It proclaims that Gods care about us amid all the marvelous things God has to consider. Even more, it declares that human beings are indeed created in the image of God and given special responsibility to care for the rest of God’s creation. Psalm 8 is a celebration of the goodness present in every human being, and it serves as a wonderful counterweight for the Christian Tradition’s focus on “original sin”, an idea not found in the First Testament.
Genesis 2:18-24
Yes, this selection from Gen 2 does seem to describe what we may think of as marriage; however, we should not read into the ancient text what are modern ideas and customs. First, it is important to remember that in Hebrew there are no words for “husband” and “wife”; there are only words for man (‘ish) and woman (‘ishah). In addition, Hebrew does not have a word for “marriage”. The closest construction is when a man “takes” a woman for himself, using the same verb as what might be used to describe taking someone’s cattle. In fact, in the 1st Testament the idea of “marriage” was much more about men obtaining property and not about the romantic notions we have today of falling in love and joining our life with someone else. In Ancient Israel, women were considered the “property” of men. A girl is the property of her father (and brothers) until she is married. Then, she becomes the property of her husband. We see a clear example of this mindset in texts that deal with adultery; a man could have sex with any woman who was not betrothed or married to another man (i.e., another man’s property), regardless of his own marital status. A woman could not have sex with anyone other than her husband, or she committed adultery. In essence, adultery was about a man “trespassing” on another man’s “land”.
While the tendency is to read Jesus’ views on marriage and divorce as less harsh on women than those of the FT, especially by his seeming to not allow “divorce”, the real truth is that there were plenty of reasons a woman might want a divorce or need one (e.g., abusive husband, to have permission to remarry, etc.). In the commandments of the FT, there were accommodations set-up to keep women from being left as either a helpless widow or a perpetual wife, even though her husband had abandoned her. The statement made in Gen 2:24 is more about establishing a way for the first man and the first woman to reproduce, so the story of life can continue, than it is a statement about modern marriage or divorce. In all honesty, people living in the 21st century should not turn to the bible (neither the FT nor the NT) for examples of “family values”, especially not about marriage, because what we find there will be examples of behaviors and customs that will (and should) offend our sense of morality.
Hebrews 1:1-4; 2:5-12
The opening words of Hebrews set a similar Christo-centric view of the world and God’s activity, as the opening of the Gospel of John, and like John, Hebrews has a tone of a theological treatise or “reader” for people who are already believers in Christ. It stresses elements of early Christianity’s explanation of Jesus’ life and mission on behalf of God. For some Christians, Hebrews provides a foundation for a “supersessionist” reading of all the biblical witness. It is important to note that this idea, like that of the Trinity or Trinitarianism, is based in ancient Christian tradition’s worldview and interpretation of the bible, even though these are not consistent images or ideas in the whole biblical witness. There is a fine line between midrash and eisegesis.
This text is an opportunity to explore the idea that “salvation is perfect (perfected) through sufferings.” Is that your experience? You probably have heard or used the phrase, “The Lord does not give us more than we can handle or take.” Or “What does not kill us makes us stronger.” Is that how you interpret your suffering or the suffering of others? Another place to linger is v.9b, “now crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.” Is death a punishment, an enemy, or a natural part of creation? When you read the creation stories in Genesis, nowhere does it claim that humans were immortal creatures nor that death is a punishment for becoming aware of good and evil.
Mark 10:2-16
Like New Testament scholars, those who claim Christian faith must ask: Do I read portions of the text that show me the Jesus I like, one who is congenial to me and my way of life or belief in God? The first portion of the gospel text is one of those that makes modern believers squirm. It is often said that, when two people divorce and there are children in the marriage, it is the children that suffer and struggle most. Even in our “child-centric” society, children are the most vulnerable because no person has to apply for a license or take a test to become a parent, unless you are adopting a child or serving as a foster parent. The Lectionary pairs a familiar hard saying of Jesus about divorce, authentic or not, alongside another familiar saying about children and citizenship in the “kingdom of God.” The choice for a children’s sermon is obvious, but that does not give us permission to ignore the words about divorce. When you take the saying about citizenship in the kindom seriously, it too becomes a hard teaching to embrace as a practice, or a way of life, or a way of ordering culture. This is why it is often dealt with as a belief.