What I Love About the Church

I participated in a mediation training in my young 30’s, in which one of our exercises was to tell another person what we hated about the institution we worked for.  I surprised myself by my visceral reaction to all the flaws I so readily identified in the church, and the venom with which I expressed my disgust.  Obviously, even as a young pastor, I had witnessed enough of the dark side of the church to be disgusted.

However, that was not the end of the exercise.  Our leader then told us to share what we loved - what I loved about the church.  Again, I was surprised, and delighted, by the depth of warm feeling I was able to find for the institution I had excoriated only moments before: proof that hate is not the opposite of love, but rather an expression of disappointment or discouragement in that love.

So, while there is much that disappoints me about the church, there is also much that I love.  My critique of the institution comes mostly from my observation of how far the church falls short of what it could be.  But then, I also fall short of what I could be on a daily basis, so some grace and forgiveness is necessary.

What is there to love?

We can begin with hymnody and music.  From Bach to Fanny Crosby and everything in between.  As we look back over the last 2000 years of Western Civilization one can’t help but see that some of the greatest music has been inspired by devotion to God.  Handel’s “Messiah” to Rutter’s “Requiem.”  And lest we forget Methodism’s contribution to hymnody we have the genius of Charles Wesley to thank for many of the greatest hymns in Christianity.  “O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing,” will be sung by Christians for millennia to come.  How about the gospel spirituals coming out of the African-American tradition?  I can barely sing “Give Me Jesus,” without weeping.  Even some (definitely not all) of the more contemporary “praise music” may last beyond a few decades.  While much of it is rather insipid, with weak and often individualistic theology, once in a while there is a tune and lyric that strikes a true, and maybe, lasting chord.  Getty and Townend, while unfortunately too fixed on substitutionary atonement theology, have nonetheless written a host of contemporary hymns which will likely be around for generations.  And as simple a song as “Will the Circle Be Unbroken,” will always bind human hearts in need of consolation and belonging.

Then there is art.  Again, some of the greatest art is religious in nature, and likely spiritual in theme.  Michelangelo one the one hand, and eastern iconography on the other.  Stained glass, sculpture, architecture, all provide ample testimony to the all-encompassing nature of Christian devotion (and occasionally, hubris).  Admittedly, since the Age of Enlightenment, art has sought to break free of religion’s hold.  Nevertheless, the history of art is a story about divine inspiration, from wall drawings in the catacombs of the Roman Empire to Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia cathedral in Barcelona (still under construction after centuries).  Even when art is iconoclastic it often addresses spiritual themes even as the artist attempts to be secular.   

And then there are the saints:  quirky, idiosyncratic, eccentric, mystical, unique, (emotionally/mentally imbalanced?), but so many shining lights against the darkness of the world, and the improprieties/errors of the institution.  Early church ascetics could see the handwriting on the wall as the church became wedded to the empire under Constantine, so they went off into the desert and lived in caves seeking divine enlightenment.  Disciples came to glean wisdom from Saint Anthony who offered a different path than that of the institution, a necessary contrast to the lure of power.  The church became even more enthralled with power and riches entering into the Middle Ages, leading some, like the Benedictines, to renounce both, forming monastic communities devoted to prayer, poverty, simplicity, and service to the surrounding towns and villages.  And for all its faults, the institutional church came to bless the monastics, seeing in them not a threat but a needed alternative to what the “mother” church provided.

In modern times, Dietrich Bonhoeffer of the Confessing Movement offered a needed antidote to the obsequious, Nazi-blessing, institutional church in Germany.  Mother Teresa served the poor in India, inspiring the world with her compassion and humility.  And Martin Luther King, Jr., called the church to account for its racism, setting out a vision for justice that was even broader than the civil rights movement.

The church with all its flaws still produces such saints that show the world the Way.  Religious art can often reveal Truth in a way that words cannot.  Church music can still be magnificent, lifting us out of the ordinary into the realm of mystery.  These are but a few of the examples of transcendence we may still discover in association with the church.  There is much to criticize, but there is also much to love.  The love makes the rest easier to bear.  As Jesus said, “The light shines in darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”  

 

  

Church: Love It or Leave It?

 You are the Messiah . . . [said Peter]

. . . on this rock I will build my church [said Jesus]. (Matthew 16)

It should be evident that I have become a rather harsh critic of the church.  I have as a pastor and as a denominational administrator seen what is best  and worst in the institution and in these retirement years I seem to be having a hard time focusing on the church’s blessings.  During my salaried days I was if anything an apologist - a good soldier who saw myself as a servant and defender of the institution.  While I occasionally dabbled in experimental theologies and experienced bouts of doubt, I generally kept these to myself while preaching and teaching the basics, albeit with a liberal leaning bias.  But I sometimes wonder if the church hasn’t often been as much a contributor to the ills of society as it has a balm, or reformer, for those ills.

But here’s the thing - the story of Jesus is the point.  Whatever baggage has been attached to that story, the story’s basic core is the answer to the human predicament.  There is the ring of truth to the Jesus narrative, and something so compelling about his personality and life that I believe it is salvific.  Jesus saves, indeed.

And the church, as the repository and conveyor of the Jesus story, is essential to God’s desire to redeem creation.  I struggle with this.  I have often wondered if there is any way to bypass the church.  Would the story of Jesus be transmitted from generation to generation were it not for the institution of the church?  Would a less formal oral tradition be enough for the gospel to have made it 2000 years later?  I doubt it.  

So the church, for good AND ill, is the means by which the story gets told.  “On this rock I will build my church,” Jesus said.  We can argue about what Jesus meant, whether he was intending to build the church on Peter (the Roman Catholic position), or whether his intent was to build the church on Peter’s confession (the Protestant position).  In either case, Jesus was obviously, purposefully, forming the church.  

But while the church was formed on purpose, in every generation the church has been in need of reform.  While Jesus (and sometimes, Paul) lifted up the place and role of women, the church early on demoted them once again.  While the scripture spoke about the priesthood of all believers - a profound democratizing principle - the church eventually elevated some as priests, constructing what would become a severe hierarchy.  While the ministry of Jesus was a direct critique of the world’s obsession with power, the church has too often been all too willing to use worldly power to elevate itself.  But always, thankfully, there have been Spirit-led movements to counteract these corruptions of the gospel and refocus on the intent of Jesus.  And these movements, too, are part of the church - the church that is in constant need of correction.  Like a ship at sea, ever adjusting its course to account for wind, waves, and currents, the church cannot be static, but always needs to be nudged in the right direction.  

So, the church is necessary.  You could say it is a part of God’s plan.  But as a human institution, it is in constant need of amendment.  This is why confession of sin is a frequent part of worship.  Vestiges of almost every form of corruption and heresy that the church has experienced historically can be found in portions of the church even today, so we must constantly be redirected to the story of Jesus to regain our course, to cast off the excess baggage, and rediscover the core truth of the gospel.  “The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners (1 Timothy 1:15).”  That includes the church.    

The Beautiful Struggle - Resurrection

He is the image of the invisible God,  

     the firstborn of all creation;    

     for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, 

    things visible and invisible, 

      whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers - 

        all things have been created through him and for him.   

He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.   

He is the head of the body, the church; 

    he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, 

    so that he might come to have first place in everything.   

For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell,   

    and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, 

        whether on earth or in heaven, 

    by making peace through the blood of his cross.  Colossians 1:15-20

Resurrection is not simply the assurance that my life will be preserved,

    but the promise that God's will for all creation will be realized -

"through him God was please to reconcile to himself all things."    

ALL THINGS

The result?

    Courageous living:

        Because . . . 

        No sin is so great that God will not forgive it.

        No shame is so terrible that God will not cover it.

        No fear so paralyzing that it cannot be overcome.

        No injustice so damning that it cannot be redeemed.

In him.  Through him.  For him.

Milk Versus Meat

I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for solid food. Even now you are still not ready. (1 Corinthians 3:2)

My recent tirade about atonement theory has left me musing on the gap between what I learned in seminary and what the average person in the pew understands about scriptural theology.  Generally, I would say the gap is wide.  

In preaching, I have characterized my approach as trying to sneak  enlightened theological concepts through the back door.  Perhaps I was too subtle.  Or, more likely, I was too risk-averse.  After all, when a preacher causes someone to question what they have assumed to be “the faith,” there is often conflict which arises and must be dealt with.  A steady diet of conflict is a great burden to bear.  

From my own experience I once preached a sermon in which I implied that God’s grace was expansive enough to include persons who were not nominally Christian.  I took as a launching point the passage in Romans where the apostle Paul says

For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but the doers of the law who will be justified. When Gentiles, who do not possess the law, do instinctively what the law requires, these, though not having the law, are a law to themselves. They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, to which their own conscience also bears witness; and their conflicting thoughts will accuse or perhaps excuse them on the day when, according to my gospel, God, through Jesus Christ, will judge the secret thoughts of all. (2:13-16)

I did not anticipate the firestorm that resulted in the congregation, leading to the exodus of several up-to-then faithful members - a conflict that became well-known in our community and from which it took a year or so for us to recover.  The reaction of my critics was so visceral that long-standing friendships collapsed almost overnight.  Emotions trumped reason.

My point in telling of this incident is to illustrate how much resistance there is to even subtle challenges to people’s long-held beliefs, even if those beliefs are built on insubstantial scaffolding, or are but one way to understand a particular Biblical concept.  Indeed, I suspect that the more rickety the props of belief, the more resistance one will face when those beliefs are undermined.  But I love Hebrews 12:26-27 which attests to the necessity of building one’s faith on something solid.  “At that time his voice shook the earth; but now he has promised, ‘Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heaven.’This phrase, ‘Yet once more,’ indicates the removal of what is shaken—that is, created things—so that what cannot be shaken may remain.”  

“What cannot be shaken,” however, is a matter of opinion.  One person’s foundation is another’s house of cards.  My denomination, United Methodist, is at present facing schism because different parties are attaching ultimate significance to different interpretations of scripture.  Apparently, even seminary education doesn’t create like-thinkers.   

Of course, I don’t think the goal of preaching and teaching in the church is to turn everyone into seminarians.  Nevertheless, Christian education falls far short of what could be.  Yet, my own experience demonstrates how difficult the task is, especially since seminary does not guarantee that clergy will all have “the mind of Christ.”

There is another factor that contributes to the gap between modern theology and what most church-goers believe and that is the discrepancy between the little wisdom a preacher is able to impart on a Sunday morning or Wednesday night, versus the insurmountable tide of distorted, misinformed, and mistaken messages the average person encounters during the rest of the week.  No twenty minute sermon can compete with the endless flow of TV, radio, podcast, streaming media, etc., which often has very questionable theological content, often in stark opposition to what I understand as the good news of the kingdom which Jesus proclaimed.  I often feel like the little boy with his finger in the dike while fresh leaks are sprouting all over the place.  There is only so much one can do.

I wonder if there is a better way.  One recent effort is the sponsorship of the Neighborhood Seminary, hosted by different districts of the Western North Carolina Conference of the United Methodist Church.  These are in-depth classes providing laity with the best available scholarship on various subjects for the application of Christian principles to daily living.  Of course, these classes appeal to only a small minority of church-goers but they are an attempt to bridge the gap between the academy and the pew.  I am not sure there are any better solutions.  

When Jesus told the parable of the mustard seed the implication was that it only takes a little faith to be effective for the kingdom of God.  Maybe  I’m expecting too much.  While I would rather the church be filled with “meat eaters,” (see the opening scripture above), maybe a diet of spiritual milk is all that is necessary.  Jesus told the disciples to “go out into the deep,” to catch fish, but I believe he welcomes and loves even those who wade only in the shallows.  I suppose I should, too.

Several books have been written about stages of faith, understood not only as an individual’s journey toward spiritual maturity but also as a description of the church’s growth toward maturity.  Certainly a six-year-old has a very different spiritual life than a thirteen-year-old.  And one would hope that someone at seventy-five would have greater depth of belief, and acceptance of faith’s complexity beyond that of a thirteen-year-old. One would hope.  

So it is hoped that the church has matured through the centuries from childlike, to adolescent, to more complex faith.  God’s people no longer burn heretics at the stake, nor do we launch crusades to wage war against people who are not Christian.  We no longer bless slavery, and some of us accept the reality that women are called to ministry.  Even theologies of atonement have gone through changes through the ages.  Jesus once said, “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now (John 16:12).”  Perhaps in each age of history the Holy Spirit has revealed new truths little by little as the church became more ready to bear them.  That is not to say that acceptance of new theological insights has been without hard-fought resistance.  There are branches of Christianity that still will not bless the ministry of women and I suspect more than a few so-called Christians would be pleased to launch new crusades against their perceived enemies.  Still, I continue to hope that God’s people, as a whole, will continue to mature and be open to what the Spirit might be revealing today and in the future.  Perhaps someday all Christians will be ready to give up milk for the meat of the gospel.  One can hope.

 

I Don't Think Good Friday Was God's Idea

“I despise your feasts.” - God

My first and second sermons were delivered to the congregation that sent me off to seminary, Christ UMC in Venice, Florida.  My first sermon was preached just as I departed for my theological education.    My wife also spoke briefly on that first occasion and one of the members of the congregation said to us as he was headed out the door, “Are you sure it’s not her who’s been called to preach?”

Nevertheless, I’m the one who pursued Biblical studies, while she took care of me and our first child during that first year of graduate school.  When I went back to that Florida congregation the next summer I was perhaps a bit more polished in the pulpit and my message was essentially this - that what God did in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ told us nothing new about God.  To read the Old Testament rightly is to see that God has always been in the business of offering grace to the world - first, in creation, then through the formation of Israel (a people who were to be a “light to the nations”), then culminating in the Incarnation (Jesus) and Pentecost (the gift of the Holy Spirit).  John, the Gospel-writer, attests to this in his first chapter when he declares, “In the beginning was the Word . . .”  Jesus was in the beginning with God offering grace all along. 

Of course, the Bible is also the story of our/human rejection of grace in preference to following our own course (SIN!).  Sin is accompanied by guilt  which causes the people of God to think that something must be done about it.  After all, surely God must be angry at us for all our sinning.  Then we find God’s people creating a host of cleanliness laws and ritual sacrifices intended to appease the supposed wrath of God.  The temple in Jerusalem, and before it was built, the tabernacle in the wilderness, was the scene of the slaughter/sacrifice of untold numbers of animals to “pay the price” of guilt for sin.  I can only imagine the rivers of blood dripping from the altar, and the stains on the priests’ garments.

All of this is well-attested in scripture, as though the purity and justice of God required these sacrifices.  Even the death of Jesus is interpreted in this way in the New Testament.  For example, Romans 5:9, “[N]ow that we have been justified by [Jesus’] blood, [we will] be saved through him from the wrath of God.” 

But what if most of these passages of scripture have gotten it wrong?  [What?  Scripture is wrong?].  Hear me out.  I’m not discounting scripture.  For me the Bible has always been authoritative for my spiritual formation and for the formation of the church.  In fact, I’m building my argument on a classic bit of prophecy from Amos.  Let’s hear him as the voice of God:

I hate, I despise your festivals,

    and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. 

Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings,

    I will not accept them;
and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals

    I will not look upon. 

Take away from me the noise of your songs;

    I will not listen to the melody of your harps.

But let justice roll down like waters,

    and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. (Amos 5:21-24)

If I take Amos seriously, as scripture, then what he is saying is that all those ritual sacrifices making atonement for the guilt and sin of God’s people is not something that God ever desired.  What God, through Amos, is saying is that somehow Israel had gotten it all wrong.  What God wants is for us to be gracious in the world, the way God has been gracious to us.  How are we gracious in the world?  Amos says, by doing justice, by being righteous.  

Not convinced?  Well, how about the prophet Micah’s take on this subject:

With what shall I come before the Lord,

    and bow myself before God on high?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,

    with calves a year old?

Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,

    with ten thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,

    the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?” 

He has told you, O mortal, what is good;

    and what does the Lord require of you

but to do justice, and to love kindness,

    and to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6:6-8)

Okay, so if we did a quantitative study of all the passages on this subject I would be on the losing side of the argument.  There is ample scriptural attestation to substitutionary atonement.  But for me what hangs in the balance is not the number of verses on one side or the other, but which verses more clearly reveal the nature of God.  And if God is exactly as revealed in the person of Jesus, then grace trumps wrath every time.  You see, I don’t believe salvation was offered to us ONLY in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.  Salvation is the modus operandi of God from the very beginning of creation.  Again, John:  

He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. (John 1:2-5)

But wait a minute.  Wasn’t Jesus himself a ritual sacrifice?  Didn’t he have to die to atone for the sins of all humanity?  Wasn’t he the second Adam who had to atone for the sin of the first Adam (oh, let’s ignore Eve)?  Wasn’t that the whole point of Good Friday?  I admit there is a kind of logic to this argument, except that a god would have to be some kind of monster to require the death of his son before accepting all the rest of us into his arms.  

And yet that is the overwhelming historical argument.  The Suffering Servant in Isaiah cannot help but be interpreted as the precursive model for Jesus’ atonement.  And there is plenty of the New Testament that claims that God made Jesus to be sin that we might be made righteous (2 Cor. 5:21).  The apostle Paul seems to have bought into the theology of the sacrificial cultus to explain what God has done in Jesus Christ. But I don’t buy it.  I think the theology of Christ’s atonement is a misreading of the Biblical story in light of ancient Israel’s sacrificial cult rather than as a judgment on that sacrificial cult.   The God revealed in Jesus of Nazareth and mediated to us through the Holy Spirit is not a monster, even if the weight of scripture seems to suggest otherwise.  

After all, there are the voices of Amos and Micah.  Minor prophets, yes.  But with something major to say.  I might add Luke’s Gospel to the mix as well.  When Luke records the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, Jesus is preaching at his hometown synagogue and he quotes the prophet Isaiah to outline the purpose of his mission.  Here is what it says:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

    because he has anointed me
        to bring good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives

    and recovery of sight to the blind, 

        to let the oppressed go free, 

to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

Not a word about being the sacrificial lamb that takes away the sins of the world.  And while John the Baptist in John’s Gospel points to Jesus as just such a Lamb, Jesus, himself, in his “I am,” statements makes no allusions to atonement.  

I am the bread of life.

I am the light of the world.

I am the door.

I am the good shepherd (not the sheep!).

I am the resurrection and the life.

I am the way, the truth, and the life.

I am the true vine.

Sounds like grace to me.  

You don’t have to agree with me.  My thoughts are not orthodoxy though I don’t think I am a heretic.  I am, admittedly, dispensing with a vast trove of Biblical theology.  But my thoughts are also based on scripture, and I believe they are more congruent with the portrait of Jesus we find in the Gospels.

You see, I don’t think Jesus was predestined to die for the sins of the world.  What I think is that any one who lives like Jesus did is going to raise an alarm with the powers and principalities.  The authorities of the status quo are going to be threatened by a person like Jesus, and it is no surprise that Jesus was killed.  His death may not have been predetermined, but it was inevitable.  There is profundity in Jesus’ words from the cross, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”   Perhaps God took the death of Jesus as an opportunity to say, “Okay, let’s stop all this nonsense!”  Good Friday was not part of God’s plan, but the resurrection turned the tables on God’s opponents, so to speak. And yet, the nonsense of the sacrificial cult continued as the church through the ages required mental gymnastics to support a theology that proclaims God is love at the same time that God acts like a monster.  

I have had enough of the nonsense.  I cringe when I remember the tortured theology of some of my early sermons trying to make sense of a God who demands expiation propitiation, payment, etc.  I think Jesus died because the authorities saw his life as a threat.  When we choose to live a similar life, the very life Jesus invites us into, then we should not be surprised when the powers are threatened by us, and then in turn threaten us, even unto death.  Jesus often says to his disciples, “Take up your cross and follow me.”  Christlike living is not the avoidance of sacrifice, but such sacrifice is not what God requires of us, but what the world will demand of us when we love like Jesus loves.  When we do unto others as we would have them do unto us, there will be sacrifice.  When we love God and neighbor, there will be sacrifice - not to appease the wrath of God, but because the life of righteousness is inimical to the powers and principalities.       

Still, “the light shines in darkness, and the darkness did not over come it.”  Let us then shine our lights before others that they may see our good works and give glory to God until the day the kingdom comes and the world demands no more sacrifices of anyone.  Good Friday was not God's doing, but Easter Sunday was . . . is.

 

 

The Beautiful Struggle - the Way

Follow Me. . .

I know  

the Way

“I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.”  Jesus

In the early days disciples of Jesus were called people of the Way.

They might as well have been people “on” the Way.

Followers of Jesus are going somewhere.

What’s our destination?  Heaven?  The kingdom of God?  

Yes, I suppose . . . but is that it?

Some of my bitterest conflicts have arisen from my suggestion 

that what we’re doing “along” the Way 

may be more important than the destination.

The means justify the ends.  Not the other way around.

If we’re so focused on the kingdom of heaven “in the sweet bye and bye,”

I fear we miss it right here.

Jesus said, “the kingdom is among you.”  

“Those who have eyes to see . . . and ears to hear.”

Pay attention.

Be mobile, on the move.  The word “church” should be a verb.

Not a noun.

We are following.  We are on the Way.

Jesus had a cousin whose name was John.  

John had followers, too.  

John sent them to Jesus and they asked, 

“Are you the One who is to come, or should we look for another?”

Jesus said to them,
“Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.”

Now, what do you think we ought to be doing along the Way?

The Beautiful Struggle - the journey

For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.  Philippians 1:21

The end doesn’t matter, so much - 

at least if you’re talking about heaven.

Paul is right about the first part,

but I disagree about the second.

I’m not concerned about heaven,

tho’ some make it the center of their faith.

Maybe we can trust God with the after-life

and just get on with this one.

(As my father said, “If the streets are paved with gold,

I’ll be disappointed.”)

So, it’s about the journey more than the destination,

you’ve heard that before.

But what’s the journey about?

Paying attention.

Smelling the roses.

Kindness.

Faith, hope, and love.

The journey is a test, as someone said,

and the answer to every life test that you’ll ever face 

            is the same - 

                                      Christlikeness.

 

For me, to live is Christ.

 

Joe E. Lewis said,

“You only live once, but if you work it right, 

    once is enough.”

 

                                                        Cape Canaveral National Seashore Road