A few paragraphs from Sacred Steps: Children’s Sermon Journal, for the Lectionary texts, Nov. 11 – Year B
Ruth 3:1-5; 4:13-17
In last week’s Lectionary selection, we read the introductory material for the Book of Ruth. When there was a famine in Bethlehem, Elimelech and Naomi moved to Moab to find food, along with their two sons, Chilion and Mahlon. This was a dangerous step because Israelites were not supposed to mix with Moabites, who were believed to have descended from an incestuous relationship between Lot and his eldest daughter (Gen 19:37). Once they settle in Moab, Elimelech dies, leaving Naomi with her two sons. They marry Moabite women, Orpah (Chilion) & Ruth (Mahlon). When her sons also die, leaving no children, Naomi is left with her two daughters-in-law and no future. Having heard that the famine is over in Bethlehem, she decides to go home. While Orpah and Ruth both initially begin the trip with her, Orpah decides to stay in Moab. Ruth pledges her loyalty and commitment to Naomi, and the two women journey to Bethlehem.
This marvelous short story about Ruth & Naomi was an important lesson to the post-exilic Jewish community about who could be part of God’s covenantal people. While Ezra wanted men to divorce their foreign wives, Ruth was a testimony to the blessings of a “foreign” wife. Ruth, the Moabite, is the example of covenant faithfulness, and she holds an important position in the lineage of Israel’s most revered king. Likewise, this story provides a counter-testimony to those in the 21st century who wish to limit God’s love to only certain people whom they deem “acceptable”. Ruth was a true “outsider”, yet she is embraced as part of the Israelite story and, for Christians, also in the lineage of Jesus (Matt 1). In what ways can the faithful in the 21st century continue to broaden our understanding of the expanses of God’s love and care? How can we follow Ruth’s example of covenant faithfulness? Is it possible that Ruth and Naomi, along with Obed, can now live out their lives without a husband?
Hebrews 9:24-28
There are times in congregational life when questions about identity, vision, and direction become the focus of proclaiming the good news of God. Sometimes this conflicts with “doing” the good news of God. These are necessary conversations and debates in the life of a system or institution, but few congregations are prepared for the intensity of these situations and the ensuing posturing, as people take sides. What is good news of God in the midst of congregational conflict? The minister is placed in a situation where she or he has to decide how to “minister” and how to “preach,” which often comes out in the content of “preaching.” The author of Hebrews chooses one path and leadership style. What are the characteristics of that style? How is he choosing to minister to people whom he most likely does not know, or with whom he does not have a relationship?
Returning to the text, one must again ask the question, “What image of God is the text portraying?” There is a misunderstanding about the sacrificial system, its purpose and function, of ancient Judaism among Christians. My hermeneutic, my way of reading and interpreting our holy book of stories, leads me to claim that sacrifices were not something that the LORD commanded, or required, of the people as a way of appeasing the LORD or manipulating the LORD.
Mark 12: 38-44
This passage is so familiar that allowing it to inform, challenge, and “work on us” can be difficult. Odds are you’ve heard sermons, preached sermons, or taught a Sunday school class/bible study on this text. With this in mind, a good first step might be asking yourself which character in the story resonates most with your experience and why? Can you read the text through a different set of eyes? How is your empathy for the scribes, for the disciples who are listening, for those “rich people” coming to the treasury, and for the widow? This is another parable about the kindom of God that draws out conversation on how our communities, religious and secular, are organized and what is valued. It’s more complex than “be like the widow” or finger-pointing judgment against the scribes.
I’ve often wondered if this is an appropriate text for commenting on a congregation’s budget. I wonder what people in the pews hear and ponder, when this story is read aloud. Who are the scribes, widows, rich, and disciples in their midst? Is this text encouraging or indicting, no matter your socioeconomic class? In this election cycle, this text also puts our politics under a microscope and opens a conversation about public policy. How is it that the communal nature of the good news of the kindom of God has become “me and my Jesus”?
I receive weekly emails from Sightings and some I repost here. This week I’m posting the entire email so you can find your way to this quality resource.
Church Affiliation Colonial and Now
— Martin E. Marty | November 5, 2012
Suddenly it has dawned on pundits and publics that decline in religious affiliation and participation demands notice. Editorials on the subject abound. Some of these celebrated the liberation of society from religion, though descriptions of what is replacing it are seldom seen as satisfying (spiritually, philosophically, politically). We’ll talk about that some other day. Others use the statistics of decline to scold those whom the editorialists blame: liberals, secularists, compromisers, sell-outs. Still others use the data to inspire counteraction: a search for new strategies, fresh theological statements, understanding the alienation of so many of the young from religious and other institutions. You will even find some of the Catholic and other churches who argue that statistical decline might leave the nation and its churches with leaner, purer memberships and affiliations.
Comparing church membership and participatory decline with data from the past calls for the question: which past? Saturday’s Wall Street Journal features an op-ed by David Aikman, author of the new Baker book, One Nation Without God: The Battle for Christianity in an Age of Unbelief. Despite an occasional sneer, for example about “a secular orthodoxy clank[ing] its way peevishly through academe, the media and popular culture,” Aikman’s tone is that of a sincere and sincerely worried believer. One might suggest, however, that the past he chooses is more complex than he recalls. Colonial America was not as church-bound and church-moved as he suggests. He does better with the nineteenth century, when religious practice did take hold not only among Catholic newcomers but also revived Protestants.
So how were things in the good old days? A consensus questioned by a few serious scholars—Patricia Bonomi among them—is that fewer than 20 percent of the colonial citizens were active in churches. Change came after 1776, so that, in one common estimate, church participation jumped from 17 percent to 34 percent between 1776 and 1850. A better past, more illuminating for comparison in present concerns, is between the early 1960s, when participation crested, and today.
Problems abound: Aikman and all other observers reckon that religious vitality is not simply tied to church and other-institutional membership. Thus, for example, Douglas and Rhona Hustedt Jacobsen, in an important new book No Longer Invisible: Religion in University Education (Oxford), see religion not simply confined by the “peevish” but is all over the place in many sectors of academe. Religion, for better and for worse—often for worse—gets more space and time in media than at any time in memory.
Usually, stories of decline focus on “Mainline Protestantism,” which has taken many hits even as it scores some others. But the demographers reveal that decline is also measured in many large evangelical Protestant churches, which are no longer exempt from the trends. Also, if one takes out the Mexican American population membership, almost everything one can say about Protestant decline is matched by losses in Catholic participation in worship and activity. Aikman, though his work is tinged by nostalgia for a nation that was never as faithful or godly or “together” as he suggests, does a favor by connecting decline with faltering in or rejection of “belief.” “Being spiritual” is hardly an address to that, if spirituality lacks ties to communities of faith and services provided by often derided “institutional religion” whenever it was healthier, as the Aikmans of today measure it. Now, for the future?. . .
References
David Aikman, “America’s Religious Past Fades in a Secular Age,” Wall Street Journal, October 26, 2012.
Readers of Sightings will find much useful statistical and historical information in this article from Gale Encyclopedia of US History: “Religion and Religious Affiliation.”
Martin E. Marty’s biography, publications, and contact information can be found at www.memarty.com. Sightings comes from the Martin Marty Center for the Advanced Study of Religion at the University of Chicago Divinity School.
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This month’s Religion & Culture Web Forum is entitled “Pussy Riot, the Media and Church-State Relations in Russia Today” by Katja Richters (University of Erfurt). What role was played by the Russian Orthodox Church in the arrest and sentencing of the band Pussy Riot earlier this year? And what are the implications of this case for church-state relations in Russia today? In this month’s web forum, Katja Richters argues that the “reluctance on behalf of the Moscow Patriarchate to become more actively involved in the [Pussy Riot] lawsuit combined with the disunity its leadership displayed in its approach to the punk prayer gave rise to a vacuum that could be filled in many possible ways by both the media and the state. The latter took advantage of this situation by presenting the [Church] as a victim which it needed to protect.” At the same time, Richters stresses, “the relationship between the [Church] and the Kremlin is much more complex than the recent developments would suggest.” Read Pussy Riot, the Media and Church-State Relations in Russia Today