Category: Michael D
Paragraphs from Sunday’s Sermon
In Regional Ministry, I have the opportunity to preach a few times a year. Unlike the settled pulpit minister, I don’t know the stories of those sitting in the pews and how they practice Christianity. You might think being the guest preacher is easy. Say whatever you wish because you don’t live with these people. Well, not really. One must invite the hearer into your words in a way that the settled minister does not. Last Sunday I shared a few words, that’s what I call preaching, at Woodlands Christian Church in Ponca City, OK. Here are a few paragraphs from those words.
Text: John 3:14-21
I don’t know what brought you to worship today or what you carried into the sanctuary this morning on your heart or in your mind. What I do know is that all of us come to worship seeking to hear and experience the gospel, the good news that the Lord’s mercies never cease; that Lord’s mercy is new every morning; and the Lord’s faithfulness extends beyond our ability to see in a mirror dimly, and recognize the image of God in others as well as our own face. With good news on our minds and in our hearts I invite you to hear the gospel according to John.
Often, reading and studying the bible can feel like being in an episode of Dr. Who. Most often, this is how we come to the biblical text. We rely on others to help us translate ancient words, ancient ways of reasoning, and how to understand the world from ancient eyes. Few of us know Hebrew or Greek well enough to translate the original texts, and catch the nuance of their historical context or turn of phrase. So, translating and continued interpretation of this language, ways or reasoning, and understand the world invites us into a conversation with the text and today’s best biblical scholarship;
and our own experiences;
and our own faith;
and with other believers;
and with practitioners of the way of Jesus who may not believe like we do;
and with de-churched, the un-churched and the growing number of “nones” all around us.While sitting next to a stranger, friend, or new acquaintance, wherever we are, we all become our own press secretaries. We all have become adept at talking about issues that are important without talking at any depth; without saying anything, really. It is so much easier and safer to just stay on the surface and stereotype. Social media has enabled this, but it has been happening for a long, long time. Right now, more than any other time in my life, we are witnessing ratings driven ideological governing, and a profit driven presidential cycle. Right now, we live in a time when it is profitable to be unreasonable. What is a person who practices Christian faith, or any faith, to do when community and friendship and governing and religion and congregational life, “Church,” are treated like a commodity to be owned, bought and sold to the highest bidder, won or hoarded. We could be counter-cultural. We could listen more deeply, ask informed questions, and tune out the profit noise that affirms our silos of truth. The text today gives us several places where we could sit and visit, like Jesus did with Nicodemus and the others in the room. What topics could we discuss? Here are a few in no particular order that come to mind.
What does it mean to say that God so loved, past tense, the world? Can the good news of God, of which Jesus taught and often spoke of, mean something more than the creedal orthodoxy of John 3:16?
As our nation, and the world, continues to struggle with race and racism, violence for profit, poverty, and a revival of the idea of “separate, but equal,” is the language of darkness and light helpful imagery in understanding good, evil, and those who perpetuate both?
Is belief more important than practice? Paul later refers to this as “works v righteousness,” and Christianity has argued over what is the right amount of both for centuries. How much good works is enough? How much righteousness through belief in Christ is enough?
A millennia of theology based in scarcity and control has defined eternal life to only mean ‘life after death.’ But remember, the gospel of John is metaphorical language, and “eternal life” is meant as a metaphor for living now in the unending presence of God. When you follow the way of Jesus it can lead to discovering capital “T” Truth about yourself and about God; and that capital “T” Truth can give life meaning. That Truth it is life giving. That kindom, not the imperial kingdom, the kinship of God is all around us already, and it is also not yet fully revealed in my life nor in yours, nor in our world. Jesus recognized it in his life and his time. It is what he was certain of most. Are we who proclaim to be followers and believers recognizing it in our time?
Welcome as you have been welcomed and you will be a floodlight of the good news of God. Right now, that is counter-cultural. I cannot guarantee it, but I think when we risk that kind of depth, when we risk that kind of Truth, we might experience the unending presence of God. Why not?
Faith in the Public Square
Apparently, there is not enough overt preference for Christianity in our Nation, which if you forgot, our Government is designed to give no religion a preference in our secular society. But, of course there is plenty of Christian faith in the public square and little of it works to change the American system of capitalism that oppresses and profits from the culture wars; and from being unreasonable. It appears that some politicians and political candidates would be ok with a theocratic United States of America as long as it was compatible with their version of the deity. See the character, Will McAvoy, from the HBO show, The Newsroom, describe the fundamentalism he called, the American Taliban.
With respect for my companion, here is a reason for me to manage my life better: so I can live long enough to witness the first non-Christian and or ‘none’ to run for POTUS or Governor of a State. Ms Davis, the Rowan Co Clerk, like all Christians, is reading her bible selectively, and then in her position of power she applies her reading of the Christian bible to deny a civil contract of marriage between two consenting adults. Not too long ago it could have been an interracial couple that would have been denied. Today, it is a same-sex couple. That is an example of a government official giving a religious preference, rather than applying the marriage contract to adults before it is a spiritually blessed union, or not, through the religious institution of a couple’s choice.
It is the County Clerk’s job to issue a variety of licenses, no matter her or his religious beliefs, that help order and regulate our secular society. Just like the SCOTUS ruled on desegregation and civil rights as the law of the land, it also ruled on what the marriage contract is, and is not, as the law of the land. It is a mistake to give a religious accommodation to a government official carrying out her or his duties when the government official’s religious beliefs conflict with the ordering of our secular society that has been legislated and ruled upon, when necessary, by our Supreme Court. Religious liberty is about worship practices. It is not about accommodating an individual’s beliefs practiced in secular society especially when that person is a government official. The First Amendment does not mean that a Government official can practice his or her religious faith while doing their duty (job) when that religious faith requires him or her to be discriminatory against citizens. My guess is that Ms Davis is a good person experiencing a culture changing too quickly, and in her capacity as County Clerk, she can obstruct while asking for, and expecting from a Government that preferences Christianity, for an accommodation that she is not willing to give to the LGBT couples seeking marriage licenses at her office. Is that narcissism or separate, but equal inside Christendom?
Faith in the public square. It’s why I read Sightings by Martin Marty each week. Click here to read this week’s Sightings.
Enter former President Jimmy Carter. Faith in the public square. Leonard Pitts wrote about Jimmy Carter’s Faith, and it’s worth a few minutes of your day. It is especially worth the read because former President Carter expresses a depth of belief most wish to attain, but are unwilling to do the daily discipline to find the peace, “I’m perfectly at ease with whatever comes,” he said, in such a way that you believed him without question. And it was impossible to feel sorry for him.” I’ve known one other person who expressed a similar sentiment to me. I was sitting at Mary Beth’s kitchen table. She was dealing with Stage 4 ovarian cancer. After surgery and chemo, she was now taking chemo pills. Mary Beth loved ice tea. Mary Beth was a smoker. Somewhere in the conversation she smiled and with a chuckle said, “They told me these would kill me someday.” Mary Beth was a reluctant minister that had mastered pastoral care even when one was there offering her care. I didn’t ask about her spirituality, but while talking about the cancer journey she said, “Michael, I’ve lived this faith of mine. I’ve married and buried people, within my ability I’ve helped the poor, prayed with the dying, and baptized a few into this faith. I’ve got no reason to be afraid of dying nor abandoning this faith that has blessed me. I’m good with whatever happens and how it happens. I just don’t want to be a burden on anyone.” Faith in the public square.
Jimmy Carter’s Faith
Leonard Pitts | miamiherald.comFor all its loudness, all its exclusion, violence and ubiquity, the faith that is modeled in the public square is often not particularly affecting. It is hard to imagine someone looking on it from outside and musing to herself, “I’d like to have some of that.” What Carter showed the world, though, was different. Who would not want to be able to face the unknown with such perfect equanimity?