Raising Teenagers

When I was a youth minister, I noticed a sort of melancholy that seemed to cling to the parents of teenagers. I never really understood it but, now I think I do. As a parent, you put up with the poop, the pee, the whining, the tears, the snot. You teach a child to use the toilet, tie the shoe laces, count, identify colors, read and do their homework. And about the time they develop a personality you want to be around, they want nothing to do with you.

John McCain

John McCain’s speech this evening before the Republican National Convention was a blessed change from the rhetoric of the previous evening and previous convention. He was vulnerable in ways that I didn’t imagine any politician could be. He was sincere. And at least for the evening, he was convincing.

Oops.

A former student from DBU posted a comment a couple of days ago. I accidentally misplaced it--durn. Just in case Kevin visits this blog again--hey, how's it going, thanks for the note.

Teaching Speech

I will be teaching speech this Fall on Saturday mornings at Brookhaven College. I haven't taught in six years. So, I'm trying to rethink what it was that I did and what I will do now. Brookhaven will be the sixth place where I have been on adjunct faculty. The first place was WT when I worked there as a graduate student. Then I taught for a year at Amarillo College. In seminary I taught at Weatherford College and Tarrant County College. Then after seminary I taught at Dallas Baptist University. Of those school, WT offered the most support in part because I was a graduate student and the professor in charge of the basic courses was and is a good mentor. I enjoyed Amarillo College where they offered some collegiality but not much in terms of formal support. At Weatherford College, I really appreciated the oversight of the department head, Anita Tate. She was good to work for. Tarrant County was OK. I appreciated the students. The departmental secretary was a great guy. But, the department seemed to revolve around the theater and those of us who just taught speech communication were somewhat irrelevant.

Thus far, Brookhaven seems to be a really good institution. They seem to work hard at (1) including the adjunct faculty as colleagues; (2) communicating regularly; (3) working toward improved teaching. I'm looking forward to it.

Sermon for Sunday, August 10th

God Amazed Through Gideon

Judges 6-8

August 10, 2008

One of the things I failed to mention when I introduced our seasonal series, “Saddle Up Your Horses” is this: If you’re gonna saddle up your horse, you have to stay in the saddle. Martin Luther is quoted as saying, “The world is like a drunken peasant; if you help him up on one side of the horse, he falls off on the other side.” I’ve never been able to find the quotation in context so I don’t know exactly what Luther meant—and honestly who really knows exactly what Luther meant. But I’ve always taken the quotation to mean that indeed people have difficulty staying in that place of righteousness. There seems to be mutations of almost any virtue that reside on either side of the virtue on something of a continuum. Take the virtue of patience—it’s absence of course is a short temper on one side but its also easy for patience to fall off on the other side and became passive lethargy. The virtue of joy—one side a humorless piety and the other side hedonism. We have all seen the absence of kindness in cruelty, mean-spiritedness, and arrogant rudeness. But there’s a syrupy, artificial kindness that leads to codependence on the other side of the horse. Indeed, we can be like a drunkard on a horse—God gets us upright in the saddle and we quickly fall off on the other side.

Take Gideon for instance. Gideon was a judge in Israel. He came from the tribe of Manasseh which is in the middle of the tribes of Israel—just south of the Sea of Galilee. Chapter six begins with the explanation that the people in Israel—after Deborah and Barak’s victory—had once again fallen into apostasy. They had forsaken God again and now they were being tormented by Midianites. Midianites were a desert people from Northwest Arabia. According to Genesis 25, they too were descendents from Abraham. Nonetheless, they had come against the Israelites, they were ruining their crops and extorting them for money. So the Lord came to Gideon and called him to bring reformation to the people within Israel—tearing down their pagan altars. And then God called Gideon to lead the army that would defeat the Midians.

It took a lot to actually get Gideon in the saddle. In fact, Judges chapter 6 could be considered a less in excuse making. When the Angel of the Lord arrives to call Gideon the first time, Gideon responds with accusation. He says, “If the Lord is with us, why has all thishappened to us? Where are all his wonders that our fathers told us about when they said, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up out of Egypt?’ But now the Lord has abandoned us and put us into the hands of Midian.” Excuse number one—blame God. It’s not my fault. If God wants this done, let God do it. Yes, Gideon, God does intend to deliver the people. But go back and look at those stories again, you’ll see that God always uses people to accomplish God’s plans for deliverance. God’s response to excuse number 1—Judges 6:14, “Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian’s hand. Am I not sending you?”

OK, excuse #1 didn’t work. If you look in Judges 6:11-13, the dialogue is taking place between Gideon and the Angel. And here Gideon is very bold and cocky. But then in verse 14 it is the Lord himself who arrives to speak. And Gideon changes his tune quickly. He pulls out excuse number 2—the inadequacy excuse. Lord, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family. And here the Lord reassures him and says, “I will be with you.” And here’s part of the reasoning that God gives a little later in chapter 7. If Gideon were a tried and true military leader whose capabilities could be seen by all then Gideon would receive the praise for the battle rather than God. God wanted to do something through Gideon so bold that the people would have to recognize that God was in it.

Finally, Gideon tries excuse #3. “How do I really know that this is God’s will?” And so there’s the famous fleecing of God episode. He places a fleece on the threshing floor and says to God, “If this is really your will let the fleece be wet and the floor be dry.” And indeed the next morning the fleece is soaking wet and the floor dry as a bone. But then Gideon says—OK, OK, OK, but one more thing. This time let the floor be wet and the ground dry--because it could be that the fleece simply soaked up all the water. But the next day indeed, Gideon receives his sign. Having been exhausted of his excuses, he saddles up and goes to defeat the Midian army.

Think about those excuses for a minute—they are mutations of virtues. “Where is God in this? I’ve heard the promises; I’ve heard the stories.” It’s a sort of mutation of righteousness called righteous indignation. This situation isn’t my fault—why should I do anything about it. The second excuse is a mutation of humility—I can’t, I’m not good enough. The final excuse is a mutation of spirituality—I’m going to delay a little longer until my spirit has fully discerned that I know exactly what God’s will is. Last week at the 5:00 Bible study time, we had a competition about the “best excuses.” We each submitted our best excuse—I’m too old, I’m too young, I’m too tired, I’m too busy. Surely there is someone more qualified. I’m not worthy, I’m too clean to do something like that. I have dirty hands, I have clean hands. We didn’t declare a winner but I think my favorite one was, “Well, the last time I did that, it didn’t work out so well. I encountered sand fleas.”

Here’s the thing about excuses though—they’re just excuses. I’ve never seen God convinced by an excuse. I mean—do you think God listens to us and sometimes says—“Oh really, your dog ate your homework. I didn’t know that—huh—cause you know I made the dog and you know I’m pretty familiar with their dietary habits and I don’t remember putting homework on their menu. And I certainly didn’t see that coming—you know being omniscient and all.” God having designed us and empowered through the gift of the Holy Spirit knows what we are capable of. God also knows our limitations. And that which God demands, God supplies. God grants the strength, wisdom, patience, and virtue necessary to fulfill the call for us. When God says, “Saddle Up Your Horses” we should remember that God made the horse and supplies the saddle.

And in some of the commentaries I read about this passage, that’s the knock against Gideon—that he has all these excuses. But, I don’t think that’s the knock against him—at least not the biggest one. God endures all that—the righteous indignation, the mock humility, the fake piety—because each of those in their own mutated sense are ways of relating to God and the whole point of calling us to saddle up our horses is to bring us into relation with God—that we would travel alongside God. And if God has to convince you that is going to act through you, God will enable you to act through God, and that God will be faithful to complete that good work begun in you, that’s what God will do.

And so Gideon goes into battle. And hopefully you’ll come tonight for the musical so, I don’t want to spoil the plot for you. But, God takes Gideon’s sizable army and weans it down to just three hundred men—not much more than a posse to go up against Midian’s army. The Lord said that He needed a smaller army because with a large Army, Gideon would get a big head and think he accomplished it on his own. But with an army this size, Gideon would have to rely on God every step of the way. And the battle plan is remarkable—here like the battle of Jericho—God wins the battle using the half-time show.

The three hundred men carry torches, clay pots and horns and surround the Midian army at night. At the appointed time, they throw down the clay pots, they raise the torches, they blow the horns and the Midians flee in terror. I’m certain that the crashing pots sounded like lockers closing, the loud noises sounded like voices in cinder block halls, and the dissonant horns sounded like an out of tune marching band, the Midians probably awoke and thought they were back in Jr. High—it would make me flee in terror as well.

But after the battle is won, Gideon falls off the other side of the horse. They come to make him King and Gideon knows the right answer and gives it. No, I don’t want to be your king, The LORD, YHWH is to be our King. Indeed, that is the goal with all work that amazes people—to point people toward God. God asks people from time to time to use the gifts entrusted to them to amaze people. Artistic abilities to create amazing beauty, writing ability to provide insight, an amazing experience of faith to provide testimony, the ability to sing. And with each of those expressions of faith, staying in the center of the saddle means ensuring that people understand the motivating and animating force behind the amazing things we do. Jesus said, “Let your light so shine before others that they may see your good works and glorify your father in heaven.” In XXX of Christian Century, If you look in Judges 6:11-13, the dialogue is taking place between Gideon and the Angel. And here Gideon is very bold and cocky. If you look in Judges 6:11-13, the dialogue is taking place between Gideon and the Angel. And here Gideon is very bold and cocky. VVVVV writes about the “handshake ritual” it’s what occurs out here in the back as people are leaving the sanctuary. In an excellently written essay, he talks about the actual ministry that can be done in those brief seconds. But, he also says, it’s one of those moments when preachers have to watch that they don’t fall off the horse. Sometimes, people help you stay humble. xxxxx He quoted one seminary professor who said, “We have too many preachers who desire to hear parishoners say, ‘what a Great preacher we have’ and not enough who long to hear them say, ‘What a great God we have.’” This tendency doesn’t just apply to preachers. We must be careful that we do not crave too desperately to hear—what a great choir we have, what a great Sunday school class we have, what a great outreach program we have, what a great church we are, what a nice person she is, what a good guy he is. Ultimately the longing is to hear people say, “What a great God we have.” And that’s the words Gideon mouths but, as Mother Mangum would say, “His actions were speaking so loudly I couldn’t hear what he was saying.”

Gideon refused that title of King but then started acting like one. First, he acquired a gold earring from each of those who had been in battle with him. And with the gold he made a monument that took on the characteristics of an idol. As judges 8:27 explains, “All Israel worshiped it and it became a snare to Gideon and his family.” The whole resistance to a king meant that one judge did not appoint his or her successor. When the need arose, God called forth the leader of God’s own choosing. But Gideon tried to convey the power from himself to his son Abimelech. The detail in the storytelling that emphasizes this shift occurs in the presence and absence of the Lord in the story. If you have your Bibles open and can look at the way the word “LORD” is written in a verse like 6:14—its written in all capital letters. When our English translations of the Bible use all a caps for Lord like that it means that the Hebrew word being used there is YHWH or the proper name for God. And throughout chapters 6 and 7, YHWH—The LORD—is an active and dynamic character who communicates directly with Gideon as friends and who causes the Midian army to flee. But as Gideon tips to the other side, The LORD ceases to be an active character in the story. Gideon begins to do what God didn’t want anyone to do—he begins to act like a king, convinced that he has won the battle and that his agenda matters most. The people God has to bolster are not nearly as difficult as the ones who think they can do it all by themselves. The timid, the shy, the ones with low self-esteem recognize they have to rely the need God to put them upright in the saddle. The arrogant, over-confident, people convinced of their own trick riding capabilities generally don’t realize they’re riding sideways in the saddle. They can’t be told that they need God’s help. Be careful my Gideon-like friends when God chooses to amaze others through you. The euphoria can be intoxicating. And the arrogance and pride on the other side of the horse seems so easy to embrace. Stay upright that others may be amazed and say, “What a Great God We Have.”

Pineapple Express

I just saw Pineapple Express. The movie is violent. It has hugely inappropriate language, sexual content, glamorization of drug use. I'm glad I was seeing it down in Cedar Hill. I thought it was hilarious but wouldn't recommend it to anyone of impressionable age. On second thought, I just wouldn't recommend it anyone who doesn't have a really sick sense of humor.

I think I went because I knew it was a movie I could see as an adult and needed to distance myself a little from the kids and teenagers I've been dealing with this summer. Lovely children really, it's just that you need to distance yourself from them at times.

Response to The Shack #3

This is my third and final objection to The Shack. As I have said before, I really appreciate the book. I find it helpful and moving. But, being who I am I can't seem to just unequivocally praise a book. So, I decided to get my objections out initially so that I can say what I appreciate in the book without that luggage. In a conversation between Mack and Jesus, Jesus dismisses the value of institutions like the church--or at least the church in the organizational and administrative sense. Admittedly, my objection probably is rooted in the fact that I receive a paycheck from such an institution.

It may or may not be historically accurate to say that the historic Jesus was not about creating an institution. However, he was a Jew and functioned within his contemporary experience of Judaism. It is wrong to construct a picture of the historic Jesus as someone who threw all the organizational and institutional aspects of Judaism out the window. That's frequently how we portray Jesus but it simply isn't accurate. In the December 26, 2006 issue of Christian Century, Jewish scholar (of the New Testament!) wrote about the unfortunate divorce of Jesus from his Jewish background by the church (Amy-Jill Levine, Misusing Jesus: How the Church Divorces Jesus from Judaism, Christian Century, 12/26/2006, pp. 20-25). She points out several moments from the biblical account of Jesus's life that reveal his attention to Jewish practice.

In terms of the institutions created after Jesus's life, the book of Acts shows that after the Ascension of Jesus, the people committed themselves to formal practice of religious community. The development of the Epistles from Pauline to Deutero-Pauline to General Epistles also shows this growing awareness of the Christian life as rooted in institution. The earliest epistles of Paul were addressed to particular churches--in Thessalonica, in Corinth, in Galatia. But the Deutero-Pauline epistles of Ephesians and Colossians reveal a growing sense of connectedness between churches. Finally, with the general epistles (Hebrews-Jude), the epistle form is being used but the letters no longer address particular congregations but at the very least groups of congregations and ultimately the church as a whole. While there's no requirement to believe that the earliest followers got it right, it is nonetheless a misreading of the New Testament witness about normative Christianity to claim that Christians can or should neglect the institution of the church. New Testament Christianity is overwhelmingly concerned with the church as both a mystical community and as an institution. To preach a Christian faith that disdains or denies the importance of the church is to preach against the New Testament witness. This is not to say that you cannot be a Christian unless you go to church. Certainly you can. However, the agency that God has used over two thousand years to bring the message of the gospel to the world has been the church. God could have certainly chosen some other means, but God chose the church.

Having the character say he didn't intend to start an institution feels good to people who have been burned by the church. And God knows the church has burned far too many people--literally and figuratively. It separates Jesus from the failures of the institutions which have developed around his message, life, death, burial and resurrection. And those failures have varied from the ludicrous to the tragic. But for all our failures, God has not chosen to wash away the church in flood but has preserved us through the storm. Such is the grace of God.

Response to the Shack--Part 2

I want to emphasize that I like The Shack very much. I have been recommending it whenever possible and have started the process within the church of thinking through how we get the book into the hands of people who have otherwise felt pushed aside by God and by God's people. My quandary in all of this has been--How do I name my few problems with the book without tainting the value of the book. So, I've decided to give it a shot in this blog--since no one reads my blog--in the hopes that getting it off my chest I can move in more faithful ways.

My second objection to The Shack is that the book is dismissive of the role Jesus plays as our exemplar. In a conversation with Jesus, Mack asks "You mean that I can't just ask, 'What Would Jesus Do'?" To which Jesus responds, "Good intentions, bad idea. Let me know how it works for you, if that's the way you choose to go. Seriously, my life was not meant to be an example to copy. Being my follower is not trying to 'be like Jesus,' it means for your independence to be killed. I came to give you life, real life, my life. We will come and live our life inside of you, so that you begin to see with our eyes, and hear with our ears, and touch with our hands, and think like we do. But, we will never force that union on you. If you want to do your thing, have at it. Time is on our side" (p. 149).

The question, "What Would Jesus Do?" comes--ironically--from a bestselling Christian Novel of the last century, Charles Sheldon's In His Steps. It almost feels like a shot at the last century's equivalent to The Shack. The phrase has been over-commercialized in WWJD Bracelets, T-shirts, coffee mugs, and boxer shorts. But that doesn't invalidate the idea. I'm not exactly sure where to pinpoint the origins of his thought that Jesus was not to be followed as an example. Much of Philippians discusses the importance of being imitators both of Paul and of Christ. In John 13, Jesus washes his disciples feet and clearly points to their role in following his example. 1 Peter 2:21--the origin of Sheldon's book's title--also points to following Christ's example.

There seems to be something of a mysticism in what Young proposes to put in place of a conscious imitation of Christ. We surrender to the presence of God in our lives and in an almost organic way God lives through us. That sort of approach to God works for some people. However, others have faithfully lived Christian lives consciously seeking to live by the example Jesus set. A seminary professor I studied with once said, "People are generally right in what they affirm and wrong in what they deny." I think Young is right in what he affirms in the above quotation. There is a mystical connection between God and believer that we can yield ourselves to. I think Young is wrong in what he denies. It is possible to authentically live in relationship with God through Christ by consciously seeking to follow Christ's example.

I tried to address these issues recently in a sermon taken from Philippians. I've posted it here.

Christ's Example Our Imitation

This sermon is published in the Summer 2008 edition of Biblical Preaching Journal. Though I wrote it, I may very well be violating copyright law publishing it here. However, I refer to it in a later blog and wanted it present.

My apologies to BPJ. thankfully no one reads my blog.

Christ’s Example; Our Imitation

Sermon on Philippians 2:5-11

Interpretive Question: Focus on the myth or model? Scholarly consensus has identified this text as a hymn which predated Paul and which was likely to be familiar to congregation in Philippi. Paul incorporated the hymn into an ethical exhortation. To have the “same mind” (2:5) as Christ is connected to the objective of having the “same mind” (2:2) within the church. On the other hand, the hymn itself does not inherently serve as an ethical example. Rather, it narrates the journey of Christ into the world, through humble service, obedient death on the cross, and exaltation by the work of God to the glory of God. A preacher must decide where to place the emphasis. I emphasize the exemplary role this hymn plays because the letter as a whole emphasizes the relationship between the narrative of Christ and the life of the believer (1:27-30; 3:10-14, 17-21; 4:5).

What is exemplary? As the sermon tries to convey what we are meant to follow changes depending on our context. Following Christ’s example through martyrdom, interior qualities of humility and humble service are just three answers that have been given over time.

I would encourage people to look at Joseph Marchal’s helpful survey in the July 2007 Interpretation. Marchal, Joseph A. "Expecting a Hymn, Encountering an Argument: Introducing the Rhetoric of Philippians and Pauline Interpretation." Interpretation 61.3 (2007): 245-56.

Context

This sermon was preached at First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) on April 20, 2008. It was part of an eight-week sermon series on Philippians. The next sermon in the series was “Christ’s Passion; Our Participation.” Since that sermon focused on Christ’s crucifixion, I did not emphasize that part of the Christ hymn in the sermon.

Sermon

When I was in High School, I thought I might have a future as a poet--I know, I know, most high school kids dream of being rock stars or pro athletes, I imagined being a poet. I wrote a lot of poems then, really bad ones. A poet whose poems I had encountered through The Atlantic Monthly, Andrew Hudgins, came to Hardin-Simmons University and gave a poetry reading. I went to hear Hudgins, purchased a book, and developed an appreciation that lasts to this day. He remains my favorite poet. I got up the nerve to type up some of my best poems (uh-hum) and mailed them to Andrew Hudgins for review. In April of 1989 I got a response. It was not the response I thought I would get. It was blunt and critical but not mean. He said the poetry was “Abstract, self-conscious (plus they often slide off into humor, as if to say ‘Aw shucks, I didn’t really mean what I said’), occasionally clunky, and evasive (because they don’t know how to take on the subject at hand). As a result the poems often hid behind a cloud of words, instead of presenting a clear, graspable situation.” Twenty years later--I am afraid to say--that still describes my writing. However, it was Hudgins’s advice not his critique that surprised me. I grew up at a time when adults were telling young people to express themselves, dare to be different, and be original. Ironically, non-conformity was the norm and alternative music was popular. I truly expected him to say, “Express yourself! Find your own voice! Develop your own style.” Instead, he wrote, “You should read more widely and try to imitate (for the sake of learning, not as a life goal) the poets and poems you admire the most.” Try to imitate the poets and poems you admire most. It was the first time I ever heard that imitation could be the path toward authenticity.

The Philippians also had a poem. Not that bad poem of a teenage boy but the grand poem of the Christian faith. It’s called the “Christ Hymn” in most academic literature. It starts in Philippians 2:6 and stretches to 2:11. It describes Christ’s pre-existence, his humility and obedience as a man, his death on the cross and his exaltation by the hand of God. Most scholars believe that this section of the book of Philippians was an early Christian hymn that predated Paul and that Paul was quoting this bit of poetry. Yet, Paul prefaces it with a perplexing statement—let this mind be in you.

How exactly did Paul imagine we might have the mind of Christ? For Paul, the the mind of Christ was the one mind that could unify the whole church. Paul mean it as a call to for unity. There was apparently an argument between at least Euodia and Syntyche. There were external opponents who threatened to fracture them. And other places in the letter suggest a need for unity. The means for that unity would be found in the example of Christ. If everyone sought to live according to the example Jesus set, they would be like-minded and achieve unity.

Over the years, this notion of following the example of Christ has taken different forms. Church Historian Margaret R. Miles, “Perhaps the most frequently developed traditional metaphor is Christian life as imitation of Christ” (p. 21). The name Christian indeed implies that a person is one who seeks to reflect the character of Christ in his or her own life. But what imitating Christ has meant over the centuries changes depending on time and context.

Three historic examples illustrate the changing nature of following Christ’s example. In the first three centuries of Christianity, when our faith was periodically oppressed by the Roman government the imitation of Christ was often understood as reaching its ultimate fulfillment in being executed—martyred—for the faith. A classic example is seen in one of the earliest Christian texts we have outside the New Testament entitled, The Martyrdom of Polycarp. Polycarp--the 86 year old bishop of Smyrna--was captured by the proconsul’s police squad, brought before a Roman proconsul and compelled to recant his declaration that Jesus is Lord. If he would say, “Caesar is Lord,” he could be saved. In response, Polycarp’s somewhat famous reply was, “For eighty-six years I have been his servant, and he has done me no wrong. How can I blaspheme my King who saved me?” (Lightfoot and Harmer, p. 139). So, as the account unfolds, Polycarp was first burned and then stabbed until he died. The writer gave this interpretation of the martyr’s death, “The son of God, we worship, but the martyrs we love as disciples and imitators of the Lord. . . . May we also become their partners and fellow disciples!” (p. 142). Imitation of Christ meant experiencing the “obedience unto death even death on the cross.”

Move forward a millennium and a half. Thomas á Kempis wrote one of the most popular devotional books of all time entitled, The Imitation of Christ. For Thomas the imitation of Christ was conforming one’s interior life to Christ’s interior life not an imitation of Christ’s external deeds. And so, the chief virtue in The Imitation of Christ was humility. This required an excruciating and unflinching self-examination, moral purity, and a refusal to judge other but rather to examine one’s self. For the 15^th Century lay movement fed by Kempis’s writing, the imitation of Christ focused on that part of the hymn which speaks to an interior characteristic: “he humbled himself.”

Again, move forward a couple of centuries. In 1896 Charles Sheldon wrote one of the best known books in Western Christianity—In His Steps. In His Steps describes the transformation of the members of a fictitious church—First Church of Raymond—after they commit to living by one simple axiom of imitating Christ. In their efforts to live according to Jesus’ example, they begin working with the poor, they make a sacrificial commitment to face society’s problems head on. While you may not have read the book In His Steps you are surely familiar with its most often repeated phrase and sub-title. In every situation, the exemplary characters would ask: What Would Jesus Do? If only we could require of every wearer of WWJD bracelets, ball caps and boxer shorts to actually read In His Steps. . . . For In His Steps, the imitation of Christ is embodied in this—“he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant.”

What I hope these three examples reveal is that in each generation of Christianity, sincere Christians have asked the question—what does it mean to imitate Christ’s example. And in each generation of Christianity, sincere Christians have come to different conclusions—righteous martyrdom, pure humility, faithful service to others. And now we ask—what does it mean to imitate Christ in the 21^st Century?

One thing that needs to be said in this day and age is that the question cannot be answered for everyone at the same time. The answer needs to be different on the South side of Chicago vis-a-vis the middle of the DFW Metroplex. It’s going to look and feel different when you standing in the shadow of a bombed out city compared to standing in the shadow of the Cowboy’s new stadium. The North American answers will different than the South American answers. Our setting defines both our needs and the growing edge of our discipleship.

We have to take our context as a predominantly middle-class, pre-dominantly white congregation seriously. I suspect that if we asked the question in almost one of our Sunday School classes you’d get answers fairly consistent answers about service to others and attitudes of humility. The kind of answers we inherited from the times that gave us In His Steps and the Imitation of Christ. We would concur that external service and internal humility are the characteristics we’re meant to emulate. That’s all good. Yet, we can affirm the virtues of volunteering and canned food drives, clean living and self-discipline without confronting the idolatry of the self that dominates our culture.

The hymn’s opening words say, “Though he was in the form of God, he did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited.” It is this part of the Christ hymn that matters most, I believe, in our 21^st Century Christian context. This is not imply that we had a divine pre-existence in the manner that Christ did. We are not God. But, we habitually make gods out of our culture, our experiences and indeed ourselves. Driving along the highways that bi-sect our city we witness sign after sign of a “me-first” generation—that has been with us so long it’s not rightly called a generation anymore. Though gas prices continue to climb—reminding us of the our infinite dependence on finite resources—the highways are still packed by SUV’s many of which were purchased not because the owners needed that much power but merely because we wanted that much space. On a larger scale, we can be guilty of making a god out of our economy. We America got started we needed work-ethic that enabled people to be self-sustaining. What developed is our form of capitalism which offers blessings and mobility. But it can lead to overly competitive cruelty—a dog eat dog ethic. Globally, we’re left alone on the hill after the Cold War; we are the “last remaining super-power.” We often idolatrously assume that our might makes us always right. The pulpit is not the place to be overly definitive about these issues. They need to be discussed in a context that allows give and take. And besides, I am not a gifted enough annalist of society and economy to provide specific assessments—my poetry still struggles to locate “graspable situations.” Yet, I am convicted to ask the question: What is the implication of following the one who did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited given our status in the world, our consumption of resources, and business practices? Expanding our vision and following Christ in the here and now means learning to imitate a part of the song we have for too long overlooked.

We are able to do this if we commit ourselves to renewing the question—what does it meant to imitate Christ today? That Christians ahead of us have consistently asked this question is more important than any of the answers they have given. We have inherited both the answers and the question itself. Might I suggest that rather than holding the answers at arms length and embracing the question itself, too often we have relinquished the question and deified the answers. Christ-the example we are called to imitate--did not regard equality with God God’s self as something to be held tightly. For the needs of humanity, he emptied himself, entered at a particular time and place and was humbly obedient to God. Why then should we be unwilling to relax our grip on the inferior gods we have generated?

Works Cited

Lightfoot, Joseph Barber, J. R. Harmer, and Michael William Holmes. The Apostolic Fathers. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Book House, 1989.

Miles, Margaret Ruth. Practicing Christianity : Critical Perspectives for an Embodied Spirituality. New York: Crossroad, 1988.

Sheldon, Charles Monroe. In His Steps. Uhrichsville: Barbour and Company, 1985.

Thomas á Kempis. The Imitation of Christ. Trans. George Stanhope. London: George Routledge and Sons, 1886.

My Response to The Shack--Part 1

A few weeks ago, my wife picked up William P. Young's novel The Shack at the Christian bookstore. She read it over a long stay in Canyon and raved about it. So, I read it. I sense some real hope in this book. I'm not sure what reaches people who have stepped away from religion but it seems like this book might. I don't know. Here's my question: How do I affirm what I perceive to be good about this book and still critique what I view as problematic?

The difficulty that I have seen in the local church is that people don't catch the nuance of saying--here are the things I like and here are the things I'd disagree with. They either want a clear "amen" or an unequivocal "no way." "Yes, but" doesn't do it for most people.

Here's my attempt to say, "Here are some of the things I really liked and here are some things I have a problem with. " I'll start with a concern:

This is really more of a caveat than a critique. In the book, the members of the Trinity are characters--Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer are characters. These characters talk. Hence the author has written a book in which God speaks. I have a certain resistance to works of art in which God speaks. We have a couple of hymns like that. In "Here I am Lord," the verses are ostensibly "God's" call--I the Lord of sea and sky, I have heard my people cry . . . . Depending on how you read, "I was there to hear your borning cry" the voice could be that of God. I've always taken it to be the church rather than God but that's just how I sing th song. The problem here is that of how close it comes to idolatry. Crafting a voice and words for God is very similar to crafting an image and the problems are the same in either situation--we form an image of God that we control. Clearly, that's not Young's purpose in this book. Indeed, he unsettles some metaphoric images for God that we have turned into idols. But still, my knee-jerk suspicions are raised anytime any book but the Bible portends to give voice to the words of God.

Thing I'd Like to Say But Can't #2

There are certain moments in pastoral ministry that you have to consciously suppress the comments that pass through your mind. As Disciples we prize each one's right (responsibility) to think for themselves which means that we must be tolerant of some of the boneheaded things people blurt out--I at least do so mindful of the fact that people have tolerated (and continue to tolerate) the boneheaded things that come out of my mouth. That being said, "Thing I'd like to say but can't #2" is:

"How do I tell you that your theology is totally whack without making you feel worthless in the eyes of God?"

Desmond Tutu--God Has a Dream

Tutu, Desmond, and Douglas Abrams. God Has a Dream : A Vision of Hope for Our Time. 1st ed. New York: Doubleday, 2004.

Themes and Images from the Book

Transfiguration

Transfiguration Image
Transfiguration, or transmuting, is a central image for Tutu. He explains the centrality of this image on pages 2-3. He tells the story of sitting in the priory garden after having looked at a "Calvary" ("a large wooden cross without corpus, but with protruding nails and a crown of thorns"). He began to realize that the God he served could transfiguration even the ugliness of the cross into a symbol of redemption.

Transfiguration Principle
"The principle of transfiguration says nothing, no on and no situation is, 'untransfigurable,' that the whole of creation, nature, waits expectantly for its transfiguration, when it will be released from its bondage and share in the glorious liberty of the children of God, when it will not be just dry inert matter but will be translucent with divine glory" (p. 3).

Our role in Transfiguration
"If God is transfiguring the world, you may ask, why does He need our help? The answer is quite simple: we are the agents of transformation that God uses to transfigure His world" (p. 15).

Transfiguration Question--What transfigurations do you most long for?

Justice Frees Everyone--Tutu expresses a common theme in social justice discussions: that injustice diminishes the oppressor as much as it diminishes the oppressed--both loose their humanity. Justice creates freedom, restoration and wholeness for everyone. `Freedom grounded in God"Our freedom does not come from any human being--our freedom comes from God." (p. 14)

Hope--Tutu frequently relates the importance of transfigured attitudes and transfiguration of the mind. Hope is not a pie-in-the-sky in the by-and-by. Hope is rooted in a knowledge of what God has done, what God can do and what God intends to do.

Miracles--Taking note of miracles: "Just because there is more to be done, we should not forget the miracles that have taken place in our lifetime" (p. 8).

Hope in the Face of Evil--"If we are capable of such acts [acts of cruelty and brutality], how can there be any hope for us, how can we have faith in goodness? There very well may be times when God has regretted creating us, but I am convinced that there are many more times that God feels vindicated by our kindness, our magnanimity, our nobility of spirit. I have also seen incredible forgiveness and compassion, like the man who after being beaten and spending more than a hundred days in solitary confinement said to me we must not become bitter, or the American couple who established a foundation in South Africa to help the children of a black township where their daughter had been brutally murdered" (p. 12)

Anthropology of Hope--"It is only because we believe that people should be good that we despair when they are not" (p. 13).

Hope in this world--"The religion I believe in is not what Marx castigated as the opiate of the people. A church that tries to pacify us, telling us not to concentrate on the things of this world but of the other, the next world, needs to be treated with withering scorn and contempt as being not only wholly irrelevant but actually blasphemous. It deals with pie in the sky when you die--and I am not interested, nobody is interested, in postmortem pies. People around the world want their pies here and now" p. 65.

Longing for more--On page 117, Tutu tells a story of students who rebelled against the educational system that consigned them to an education that focused only on their labor capabilities. "There is something incredible in us that knows we are made for more, something in us that thirsts for knowledge and for discovering the truth. even these students who had never knowing it, in the depths of their soul yearned for it."

God's Presence in Suffering

"A story from the Holocaust makes a similar point. A Nazi guard was taunting his Jewish prisoner, who had been given the filthiest job, cleaning the toilets. The guard was standing above him looking down at him and said: 'Where is your God now?' The prisoner replied: 'Right here with me in the muck.' And the tremendous thing that has come to me more and more is this recognition of God as Emmanuel, God with us, who does not give good advice from the sidelines. The God who is there with us in the muck.

God does not take our suffering away but he bears it with us and strengthens us to bear it" (p. 17).

Embitter or ennoble--"It seems to be part and parcel of the human condition, but suffering can either embitter or ennoble" (p. 71). Love is what determines whether suffering embitters or ennobles. Tutu names several things we can do to create this: we can learn to celebrate other's giftedness, act first and allow forgiveness to follow (behavioralist approach), seen yourself as a potential for blessing (p. 79), and asking for forgiveness (81).

Partnership--Another image that Tutu uses continually through the book (beginning at page 19) is that of partnership. We are God's partners in the work God does in the world.
Partnership with God is Partnership with one another

"Only together, hand in hand, as God's family and not as one another's enemy, can we ever hope to end the vicious cycle of revenge and retribution. This is the only hope for us and for making God's dream a reality. Because God truly only has us" (p. 58).

Andy's thought: Joining in God's partnership requires some of us to radically transform our understanding of faith. I observe that many of us live with an understanding of faith as a transfer of goods: We meet God's expectations (either of morality/purity or service or both) and in response God rewards us with the promises of the Gospel: heaven, happiness, freedom from guilty and shame. We cannot disdain this notion as it is the reason many of us came to faith to begin with. It is an embedded theology to which we return and it is not without biblical warrant. At the same time, it is one that gets in the way in the partnership with God. As ultimately we keep asking what children often ask when doing 'chores'--haven't I done enough yet? As we mature in our faith, we need to release our grip on the faith as exchange of good model and embrace more and more faith as love of God. When love of God becomes our modus operandi we engage in partnership with God for the sheer joy of being with God and not with the hopes of any reward.

Genuflecting one another--"We should really genuflect before one another. Buddhist are more correct, since they bow profoundly as they greet one another, saying the God in me acknowledges the God in you." (p. 63). How do we find a way to convey this?

Partnership with God--"Our partnership with God comes from the fact that we are made in God's image. Each and every human being is created in this divine image. That is an incredible, a staggering assertion about human beings. It might seem to be an innocuous religious truth, until you say it in a situation of injustice and oppression and exploitation. When I was rector of a small parish in Soweto, I would tell and old lady whose white employer called her 'Annie' because here name was too difficult: 'Mama, as you walk the dust streets of Soweto and they ask you who you are, you can say, 'I am God's partner, God's representative, God's viceroy--that's who I am--because I am created in God's image'" (p. 62)

Family--Tutu uses the image of family to describe the relationship we have with one another throughout the world. Two characteristics of family are: (1) our ability to disagree and remain in unity and love; (2) a willingness to share.

Ubuntu--"A person with ubuntu is welcoming, hospitable, warm and generous, willing to share. Such people are open and available to others, willing to be vulnerable, affirming of others, do not feel threatened that others are able and good, for they have a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that they belong in a greater whole. They know that they are diminished when others are humiliated, diminished when others are oppressed, diminished when others are treated as if they were less than they are. The quality of ubuntu gives people resilience, enabling them to survive and emerge still human despite all efforts to dehumanize them" (p. 26).

Importance of Self Love—

Tutu concludes chapter 2 and devotes chapter 3 to the line of reasoning that understanding God's love for me enables me to love myself. The ability to love myself enables me to love others. Michael Card has a line from a song in which he sings, "He cannot love more and will not love less."

Accepting Frailty--"The West has paid a high price for its disdain for human frailty. I have seen a great deal of poverty and squalor in my time, having traveled to a few places on the globe. I have seen people, rags of humanity, scavenging on rubbish dumps in Calcutta. And yet I was never more shocked by poverty as when I saw someone searching for food in an overflowing dustbin in New York" (p. 37).

Disdain for weakness heart of Nazism--Tutu gives a lengthy quotation on pp. 38-39 from "Our Contempt for Weakness" by Harald Ofstad. The argument of the book is that that the primary difference between Nazis and the rest of us is the lengths to which they were willing to go to enact their ideology. This ideology regarded weakness as needing to be destroyed.

Loving the Enemy--"But if you are to be true partners with God in the transfiguration of his world and help bring this triumph of love over hatred, of good over evil, you must begin by understanding that as much as God love you, God equally loves your enemies." (p. 41).

Love of enemies does not excuse evil deeds--"True reconciliation is based on forgiveness, and forgiveness is based on true confession, and confession is based on penitence, on contrition, on sorrow for what you have done" (p. 53).

Not turning a blind eye
"Forgiving and being reconciled to our enemies or our loved ones is not about pretending that things are other than they are. It is not about patting one another on the back and turning a blind eye to the wrong. True reconciliation exposes the awfulness, the abuse, the pain, the hurt, the truth. It could even sometimes make things worse. It is a risky undertaking but in the end it is worthwhile, because in the end dealing with the real situation helps to bring real healing. Superficial reconciliation can bring only superficial healing." (p. 56)
From Tim's Sermon

From Tim Schomp's sermon July 27, 2008 at First Christian Church, Big Sandy, Texas.--Three years ago this month, four young men - one a teacher, another an athlete, the third a father of a small child with another on the way, and the fourth a teenager - left their homes in the suburbs and traveled to the city where they blew themselves up in London's subway system and on a tourist bus - killing more than 50 people - wounding hundreds of others.

This past week, an English Imam - a Muslim cleric - looking back on that horrible event, asked a reasonable question, "Why would four children of God do something like this to other children of God?" Then he asked another question, how can injured children ever forgive their attackers?

Among the seriously injured were Katie and Emily Benton - two young tourists from Tennessee. In an interview - immediately after the incident - Katie, from her hospital bed, said she was praying for the victims - and - for the bombers. That second statement surprised me, so I turned up the volume on the truck radio and listened carefully to her reasoning.

Katie and Emily, even in the wake of such a horrible act, can't feel anything but pity for these four young men - faithful people - so mislead they came to believe they would actually accomplish some kind of justice for themselves and their cause by doing such a terrible deed.

Remarkable insight from remarkable young women - violence, even when inspired by a perceived injustice - only begets more violence, more injustice and ultimately - hopelessness.

Katie and Emily - you and I - folks of all stripes - live in a world with a prevailing mindset: justice is usually achieved by inflicting greater injury on the perpetrator- lasting peace can be won by waging temporary wars - happiness is attained through public insult, litigation or vigilante justice - communities are strengthened by ostracizing and demonizing those who scare us - the best way to get back what you've lost is by getting even with the one you believe took it from you.

Guilt--"So often when people hear about the suffering in our world, they feel guilty, but rarely does guilt actually motivate action like empathy or compassion. Guilt paralyzes and causes us to deny and avoid what is making us feel guilty. The goal is to replace our guilt with generosity. We all have a natural desire to help and to care, and we simply need to allow ourselves to give from our love without self-reproach. We each must do what we can. This is all God asks of us

Peace--"Peace is not a goal to be reached but a way of life to be lived" (p. 120).

Sermon, Sunday, July 20, 2008

Wheat and Weeds
Matthew 13:24-30
July 20, 2008

In 1975, Elton Trueblood wrote a small book entitled The Humor of Christ. In that little work, he observed that people don’t often get the humor Jesus used. We are, of course, separated from Christ by time, culture and language. And that gets in the way. But, we also fail to grasp the humor because many of us don’t have an image of Jesus as someone who could tell a joke. If we did, we might discover that Jesus had a sense of humor which we often mask by our lack of one. Jesus describes the sowing of yet more seed in yet another field. This time all the good seed fell in good soil, and things were going along quite nicely until, “While everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and then went away. The wheat sprouted, the weeds sprouted.”

Two things that might surprise us in this story about the wheat and the weeds are the stupidity of the enemy and the response of the farmer. And the enemy really is stupid. “What kind of moron goes through all this trouble?” First of all, you don’t really ask “how did these weeds get here?” They’re weeds after all they just show up. So, the enemy does something that was going to happen anyway. Second, what kind of dweeb takes time to gather weed seed for the simple purpose of using it in a surprise weed attack? I have harvested all the ryegrass seed and with it I shall rule the world! . . no . . . Finally, he goes out into the field and sows them in the dark. I don’t know about you but, I don’t dislike anyone badly enough to loose a night’s sleep over it. Much less do unnecessary yard work. These weeds do not kill the wheat. They just coexist there creating an extra step in the harvesting process where the wheat and weeds are separated out. What kind of enemy is this? In truth, aggressors in the ancient world like enemies today often attack their enemies’ food supplies. Cut off an entities basic means of support and you will conqueror them. If that was the enemies intent, then he would have burned the field or uprooted the plants.

What is being portrayed here in Jesus parable is the contrast between two systems, two approaches to life and indeed two kingdoms—on the one hand you have a system that creates evil, destruction, noxious behaviors and on the other you have the kingdom of God that produces life. Jesus told the parable to draw a contrast between these two systems, these two kingdoms. He also told the parable as a way of encouraging the disciples then as today that the kingdom which sows destruction will not ultimately prevail. Our faith is in the God who will one day collect all that produces evil and throw it into the fire. Notice that the destruction is not simply for evildoers but primarily for all causes of sin. We are not inextricably bound to assume that at the end of time, countless numbers of human souls will be sent to hell. Rather, what is destroyed in the end are the causes of sin and those entities which are dedicated to perpetuation of evil. A few comments though about the nature of the enemy.

The enemy is more about sowing confusion than in destroying crops. I have heard about “tares” all my life. I always associated tares with what we used to call “stickers.” Some weeds produce grass burs, little thorny balls that will lodge in your foot if you walk across them barefooted. They will also get tangled up in your shoelaces, if your not careful. And, they will get into your dogs feet and fur. That’s what I always thought of when I thought of tares. Painful, useless, obviously evil weeds. It gave me a great deal of pleasure to think that one day God would create a world free of stickers. But that’s not the type of weed Jesus’s audience probably imagined. What they probably imagined was Persian ryegrass or darnel—a weed the looks a lot like wheat.

The most effective tool for evil is not the obvious evils but the evil that can mimic the appearance of good. In ways that mimic the patterns of the kingdom of God. God desires that people would know wholeness and peace. Yet, people are often deceived, sometimes by well-intentioned people who are themselves deceived, into quick-fixes to their problems. The weapons people accrue to protect themselves become deadly instruments at the wrong time and in the wrong place. We see this in the religious setting all the time. Prosperity gospel preachers baptize get-rich-quick schemes profiting on the vulnerability and credulity of the poor. People desperate to relieve physical illness or pain often succumb to the temptations of pseudo-scientific plans. And in an election year, we need to be reminded that the governments we have created—have always promised to be the savior of all humanity. This year, millions of first-time voters will cast their votes for one candidate or another naively believing that indeed the person for whom they vote will truly live up to all the hype. We must remember that the Kingdom God isn’t that which looks like it will produce grain sufficient to sustain life. It truly is that which has the capacity to sustain life. Those who search for the kingdom of God will find an uncountable number of fakes to sift through and burn away.

But that’s not the only surprise that comes our way. The other surprise is the farmer’s response. How should we—those who work in the field of the Lord—respond to the presence of the weeds. “Shouldn’t we pull up the weeds? They are ugly, nasty, unproductive. They use resources that ought to be used for the plants that will produce crops. They have thorns that hurt us while we work in the garden. Look at them. They’re poser plants. They look like wheat but they’re not. There’s nothing in a weed you can use. Shouldn’t we just pull them up one at a time.” “No” said the master. “No, just tend to the plants I’ve planted. Let the weeds alone. Make sure the wheat grows.”

It would be false to assume that with all the evils in the world, the God revealed in Christ expects passive acquiescence. No we are called as people of God to speak out for justice. Whenever the weeds restrict the poor from receiving adequate resources, whenever the weeds deceive people into perpetuating cycles of prejudice and bigotry, whenever the weeds harm little children or other vulnerable people, we as people must respond. This is not a call to passivity. But rather, it is teaches us about the primary way to respond to weeds. Our primary response to the weeds is not to invest a lot of energy in uprooting them. When the church has assumed the role of uprooting evil, it has unleashed its own versions of evil onto the world. We have tried from time to time. Think about the McCarthy hearings, the witch hunts and witch trials, riots between Protestants and Catholics, the Spanish Inquisition, whenever the workers in the field have not heeded the instructions to let the weeds be, we have far too often dislodged the growing wheat and created our own sort of evil.

The response to those weeds suggested in this text is hopefulness and helpfulness. The hopefulness comes in the recognition that a day will come when God will gather all that which produces evil and will incinerate them. We will not have weeds in heaven. The helpfulness is in our emphasis on finding creative responses of good works to do in response to the evil that we see. Nurture the good seeds into life, make sure there’s wheat to be harvested when the growing season is done. Here’s a simple truth, people are generally better at offering help than they are at preventing hurt. Christ’s primary strategy for responding to evil is for Christ’s followers to amass enough good in the world so that the balance tips in favor of the good. You see this reflected in various teachings in the New Testament—Jesus said, “Let your light shine so shine before others that they may see your good works and glorify your father in heaven.” Don’t go hunting for the source of darkness. Darkness doesn’t have a source. It’s just emerges from the absence of light. So, you respond to darkness by producing light—producing good works. Paul said it this way, “Do not be overcome with evil; but overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:21). Don’t let the weeds overgrow the garden, outgrow the weeds with wheat.

What weeds cause you the greatest stress and anxiety? I would point at just one possibilities as a way of thinking about how we cultivate wheat in response to weeds. One of the weeds that will cause people the greatest distress are weeds that hurt children. Children are vulnerable. They are vulnerable in an economic climate that makes it difficult for their parents to supply all the necessary resources for them and for their education. They are vulnerable in school where despite the most committed educators there still too few adults for kids to interact with and engage. They are vulnerable to cruelty—from peers, from adult pathologies, and from the challenges of life. How can you respond to those weeds? Make yourself available to children—we have a partnership with Blanton elementary. You could get your volunteer screen form filled out so that when we participate with them in evening activities you can also. The Mission and Outreach section has already started to publish the list of necessary items for the fall. I caught one of our key leaders last week on his cell phone. He and his wife—whose children are out of school—were at Walmart buying school supplies. In a few weeks, we’ll bring those collected supplies and we’ll bless them and we’ll send them on to our partners. What are we saying when we do this? Look at how good we are, look at how wonderful we are? NO! We’re acknowledging that this is the portion of God’s field that has been entrusted to us and we’re going to make sure the wheat outweighs the weeds.

Maybe one of the weeds that bothers you most is the weed or corporate greed. Corporate greed isn’t such a bad problem if its just about the rich getting richer but, it is the consequence of the poor getting poorer that troubles most Christians. The acts of embezzlement that caused the deterioration of corporate pension funds in the late nineties were most distressing because people who had done exactly what we ask good, hard-working people to do, were suddenly left vulnerable in the face of the future. We understand that we live in a tumultuous economic climate. Yet, we also sense that there are some people who can take the same resources and because of things they understand that the rest of us do not, they can convert those resources into sustainable livelihoods. Perhaps that’s a gift you have. Maybe one way for you to share wheat is by helping to organize financial management workshops or small group ministry. We have support groups for all kinds of purposes in this world—addictions, grief recovery, parenting children with special needs. Some of you have learned how to sow wheat in a financial field. Maybe you could organize a support group for people dealing with financial stress—part sounding board, part survival skills. You ask, “who would come to a support group like that?” . . . me.

That’s just two suggestions there are more. And friends, each time I gather with you I am reminded that you do so much to sow wheat. You are generous with your time, your talents and your money. So if you hear nothing else hear this—that is precisely the way the master intends for you to respond to the weeds of evil that seem to prop up everywhere. You are neither hopeless nor helpless in the face of the weeds. You have been given a promise and given a mission. Thanks be to God.

A random thought

Anti-bacterial soap says that it kills 99.9% of disease carrying bacteria. Anybody else really freaked out by the killer germs that survive?

Things I wish I could say #1

There are certain things that as a pastor cross my mind. Things that I wish I could say but know somehow wouldn't go as well in actual conversation as they do in my own mind. We've dealt with a higher than usual number of people walking in asking for assistance. What I wanted to say in the midst of one of the more recent conversations was, "I realize you have problems; I'm just not convinced that I have solutions."

Sermon Drop In

If you were to outline Sunday's sermon the outline would be: Introduction--12 most effective preachers, what about the twelve most effective listeners; the role of the sermon-listener is not to listen to the preacher but to listen for the word of God which the preacher may or may not assist the listener in doing. I. Sometimes the word of God does come through the sermon but this rarely happens A. It happened once in my life--8th grade; B. Churches that assume it happens regularly are vulnerable to manipulation and coercion.
II. Sometimes the sermon comes alongside the word of God. A. If the word of God is the rain; preachers are like weathercasters. They predict the weather, can tell where they think the rain is; but they cannot generate it nor can they force you to experience it; B. Scripture mediates the word of God so, going back to the analogy, study of scripture is standing in the rain. C. Personal and congregational transformation requires study of scripture.
III. Sometimes God's word comes against the sermon.

On Sunday morning, dropped in the following thoughts around point IIC.
I was a 25 year old youth ministry when the Baylor study was published in 1996. That's why I didn't make the list. I feel confident that if the study were done today, now that I have preached for over a decade . . . I still wouldn't make the list. But someone who did make the list is a Disciples of Christ preacher named Fred Craddock. If you've never heard Fred preach, you should. Fred is known as a winsome, folksy preacher who tells stories. In the homiletics world (that's the study of preaching) he's known as the catalyst of the New Homiletic movement. But, I think when it's all said and done, Fred's legacy will not be that he told folksy stories. I do not believe that it will be that he launched the New Homiletics. I do not really believe either of those was Fred's really big idea. Fred's really big ideas was this: to get congregations to read scripture; to get Christians to read scripture. His really big idea is that we learn to read scripture using the best tools we have available to us--tools of social and historical research, tools of language study, tools of literary analysis. But he has also encouraged us to read expected to hear a word from God--the word of God. In the end, that's Fred Craddock's legacy and why he really is not merely a model preacher for those of us who preach but a model participant in the church's mission of listening for God's Word.

Listening to a Sermon--additional commentary 1

Sunday's upcoming sermon is entitled, "How to Listen to a Sermon."  The basic thesis of the sermon is that sermons are not products of a preacher.  They are products of a congregation.  The best sermons come when the whole congregation participates in listening for God to speak to us.  When we use the phrase "Word of God" many people I know, including myself, think of scripture.  The Bible is the Word of God.  I have been more recently persuaded to say that the Bible becomes the Word of God.  It has the potential of being revelatory but that potential is not realized unless the reader enters into the text with openness.  

 

Alexander Campbell, one of the earliest leaders for the Disciples of Christ, said in his Christian System, that there is a "Understanding Distance."  That is, around any source of sound or voice there is a circumference outside of which the voice cannot be understood intelligbly and within which the voice can be understood.  Campbell said that the center of the understanding distance with regard to scripture is God.  The circumference is humility. 

 

I would contend that if the preacher is the only one striving to come within the understanding distance, then preaching isn't occuring.  The preacher is engaged in an individualistic spiritual discipline, helpful for him perhaps, but the Word of God is not being proclaimed.  Similarly, and this probably happens with greater frequency, a preacher can avoid coming within the understanding distance.  Members of the congregation can actually be there without their preacher and receive the Word of God despite the preachers effort to draw all the attention to himself.  But in the best case scenario, the preacher and congregation hold one another mutually accountable for entering into the understanding distance and listening for God to speak.   

Sermon, Sunday, July 13, 2008

“How to Listen to a Sermon”
Matthew 13:1-9; Isaiah 55:1-3; 8-13
July 13, 2008

In 1996, a Baylor University study identified the 12 most effective preachers according to 341 professors, religious editors and preachers. The list received national attention when Newsweek reported the results. I have heard every one of the 12 preachers--not all of them in person but some over media. I would have to agree, these are truly effective preachers. But I wonder how instructive the list is. What do we really accomplish in naming effective preachers? The announcement from Baylor said that the study reflects their commitment to "preparing ministry students." So, naming effective preachers was meant to be exemplary for those who preach. However, effective communication depends as much on the receiver of communication as it does on the sender of communication. Put any one of these twelve preachers alone in a sanctuary reciting their sermon, and I’d say they are practicing not preaching. Sermons are delivered in the context of a worshipping community of faith. At our highest density, there are 34 sermons listeners to every preacher—there are probably more. But since there are overwhelmingly more sermon-listeners than sermon preachers, it makes more sense to name the 12 most effective sermon listeners and offer their habits as examples for the rest of us. Since it’s not really logical to do that, we might content ourselves in considering “How to Listen to a Sermon.”

The primary task of a sermon listener is to listen for the Word of God. I want to exchange meanings with you. If I were to ask “what is the sermon” the definition I think a number of us would give is that the sermon is a message delivered by a preacher during worship. A sermon entitled, “How to Listen to a Sermon” would be arrogant and self-serving if the preacher preaching it believed that people needed to listen to him or her. I’d like to replace that definition of sermon with this one: the sermon is the time dedicated in worship for the whole church to listen for the word of God. What then is the preacher doing? If it is the time dedicated in striving to hear God speak, why doesn’t the congregation just sit in silent anticipation of a word to come from God? Good question—there are actually some traditions that do just that--no preacher just a congregation sitting silently waiting for a word from God. That’s good and we ought to respect that tradition. We have a lot to learn from Quakers. But we’re not like that because we believe that the preacher can assist the congregation in hearing God’s word. We’re also a tradition that has fiercely resisted the notion that the preacher is going to get it exactly right on any consistent basis. We have said it is each believer’s responsibility to strive after God’s word. The best sermon listeners are not the people who can leave the sanctuary and recite the sermon word for word. That would be freakish actually. The most effective sermon listeners are those who can listen past the words that are spoken to the Word that is spoken which belongs not to the preacher but to God.

Sometimes, though very rarely, the word of God comes directly through the sermon. This has happened one time in my life. You’ve probably heard me say that Ephesians 2:10 got me through the 8th grade alive. Let me tell you the story behind that comment. In eighth grade, my church was in transition. We had been dealing with a serious moral failure at church. I and my peers wrestled with our disappointment and sense of betrayal. On top of that, my seventh grade year was filled with the normal amount of adolescent trauma—nothing serious but nothing really pleasant either. Our church had a Jr. High retreat—it was cold. I had to go late. I didn’t really want to be there. I had a bad attitude. And the speaker began talking about Ephesians 2:10. “We are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus, to do good works which God has prepared in advance for us to do.” And the preacher said that the word for workmanship in Greek is poema—from which we get the word poem. Then he said, “You are God’s poem, God’s work of art, God’s masterpiece.” And when he said, “You are God’s masterpiece” he looked directly at me. I sensed in that moment that he was speaking God’s word directly for me. But that is the only time where I felt that the sermon was the word of God for me directly—and I may have been the only one in the room who felt that. It doesn’t happen often. A church who believes that their preacher regularly and directly speaks God’s word is bound to fall victim to manipulation, coercion and the sort of evil that has dogged the church since our earliest days.

The best we can normally hope for is that the word of God will come alongside the sermon--Or more truthfully that the sermon comes alongside the word of God. The sermon can assist the congregation in hearing God speak but does not convey the message directly. The analogy that I’ve been playing with this week is that of rain. It’s a risky analogy right now because we have friends and family members living in flooded areas where more rain is not welcomed. But in this part of the world, rain is almost always welcomed. In fact, in this part of the world, the rain could rain out a visit from the President, Billy Graham and Nolan Ryan all on the same day and people around here would shrug it off saying, “Well we needed the rain.” Jesus used the analogy of the word of God as seeds that must fall on good soil. In my analogy, I want to suggest that the word of God is the rain—actually that’s not my analogy its Isaiah’s “As the rain and snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth . . . so is my word that goes out from my mouth: it will not return to me empty.” (Isaiah 55:10).

Let’s imagine that our souls need to be rained on by the word of God in order to survive. Now, let me suggest that the preacher’s role in this little analogy is that of the weathercaster. The weathercaster comes on and says, “To the best of my knowledge, using the tools I have available to me, here’s where I think the rain is.” The weathercaster doesn’t generate the weather any more than the preacher generates the word of God. And the weathercaster can’t cause the rain to fall on you any more than the preacher can cause the word of God to land in your life. If your response is to sit there and passively listen to the weather report you will not get rained on. Not even if the weathercaster tells you that there’s rain right over your house. Unless you make the minimum effort to get up off the pew (I mean couch) and go out into rain, you will be protected from the word of God (I mean rain) by the structure you’ve built around you.

Let’s stick with this analogy a little longer. Let’s say that you recognize that your soul desperately needs the rain/word of God. And the weathercaster/preacher says, “I believe the word of God/rain is there.” What do you do? You get in your car, turn on the radio to the weathercaster and start moving in the direction he said the rain would be. And something happens, you begin to watch the horizon and you look at where the clouds are and you say, “You know, the weathercaster said there was going to be rain over here but, I think the rain may be over there.” And so you make a few turns and you go to that place where you sense the rain might be and you discover that you were right. That’s the discernment that takes place when we participate together in seeking God’s word rather than assuming that the preacher is either always right or hardly every right. The preacher is a member of the community of faith neither privileged with the complete sense of God’s word nor completely incapable of assisting the congregation in finding it. But, it takes a congregation working as a congregation—people taking the risk to move toward the rain--to receive the word of God.

Every now and then people say to me, “I’m sorry but my mind wandered during your sermon.” I want to say, “it’s not my sermon it’s our sermon. But more to the point, where did your mind wander?” Because it’s possible that your mind wanders because you’re having a Walter Mitty moment and just daydreaming about what you could have been and would have been. If that’s where your mind wanders, then—fine—consider yourself chastised. But, I believe in God’s Spirit and believe that your mind could wander to that place where God’s can actually pour out rain on you. Maybe your mind wanders to a need that you read about in the newspaper or saw on TV and your wondering why the preacher doesn’t talk about our response to that need. Maybe that’s not the failure of the preacher but the success of the God’s spirit revealing to you the call that God has on your life. Maybe your mind wanders to a relationship that has been ruptured and needs to be repaired. Maybe your mind wanders to a decision that you need to submit to God’s guidance. Maybe your mind wanders because as you gaze at the horizon you see that the rain you are meant to receive is actually falling somewhere else. I’m like anyone else. I love people to say that they liked the sermon when the sermon is done. But what really excites me are those rare moments when people come to me and say, “Andy, I know this isn’t what you said but what the message made me think of was . . . .” When I hear that, I get the feeling that the word of God might be falling on good soil and the rain may be watering the earth and producing the food of life.

But the analogy begins to break down doesn’t it. How does one get into the car of the soul and drive toward the rain. What can we do to put ourselves in the position to hear God’s word? It begins, I believe by making a decision, about how God communicates to us. Both of our texts speak about “God’s Word”--God’s word as a water, God’s word as a bag a seeds that fall into different contexts. Those are metaphors for the content of God’s revelation to us. But what does that mean in our lived experience? Some say that God communicates through creation—through nature. I agree. Some say that God communicates through relationships—particularly the relationships we have in church. I think that’s important also. But, our faith as a church consistently says that God most fully communicated to us through God’s Son—Jesus Christ. His incarnation, teachings, actions, death, burial, resurrection, commissioning of the church and ascension are the fullest disclosure of God we have. It is the disclosure we claim as Christians. Further, we believe that God revealed God’s self to us in the covenant relationship God had with Israel. The principal witness we have to these acts of revelation is scripture—which we sometimes refer to as the Word of God. I do not believe that scripture is so much the word of God as it becomes the word of God whenever we allow it to be reflected and absorbed in our lives. Mark Powell said it best, I think, when he said, “There is something almost blasphemous about calling a book that lies unopened on a coffee table, ‘the Word of God.’ According to scripture itself, God’s Word is an active, dynamic force that never returns void but accomplishes that for which it is sent (Isa. 55:11). The Word of God cleanses, heals, creates, judges, and saves but it does not sit on coffee tables. A better formulation than saying, The Bible is the Word of God, would be to say, The Bible becomes the Word of God in those who receive it” (What is Narrative Criticism, p. 98).

Sermons then ought to consist of scripture interpretation. It’s what makes this sermon ironic because typically a sermon examines a particular text and I’ve not said much about the texts we’ve chosen this morning. If the sermon is the time for the church as a congregation to listen for God’s word then the whole congregation ought to be involved in the interpretation of scripture. I encourage you therefore to examine the texts that serve as the basis for the sermon. You can attend adult Bible study on Sunday nights where generally we study the sermon reading for the next week. You can do that at home whenever you get your newsletter and see the text that has been identified. Generally speaking, the second reading on any given Sunday is our focus text. At minimum, you can come into the sanctuary and before the service begins you can read and reflect on the text. By actively engaging our own study and reflection on scripture we travel past the beaten road, pull the weeds, and deepen the soil so that God’s word can land and receive water, take root and give life.

Sometimes the word of God comes directly through the sermon. But that doesn’t happen often and I would warn you against ever believing that any preacher ever delivers God’s Word directly on any consistent basis. Sometimes, hopefully this occurs with greater frequency, the sermon comes alongside the Word of God and is an aid in the congregation’s appropriation of God’s word. But finally, and this must be said--Sometimes the word of God comes against the sermon. Sometimes what the preacher is saying is so antithetical to what God desires us to appropriate that the word of God actually negates what the preacher says. This is not to say that we get to deny the holiness, godliness of every sermon that we disagree with. But every sermon gets something wrong and some sermons get everything wrong. In those moments keep in mind that the most effective sermon listeners are not those who critique the sermon or criticize the preacher but those who listen for God. Listen, therefore, for what God might want to communicate to us in the time we allocate to sermon. It feels like rain.