Warmer days with longer periods of sunlight have been distracting my kids from homework lately and I can’t really blame them. But, Spring weather hasn’t distracted my attention from the price of gasoline or how quickly it drains out of my Volvo wagon at a paltry 17 miles per gallon around town.
According to the business magazine Forbes (www.forbesautos.com), one burned gallon of gas translates to 20lbs of CO2, a greenhouse gas contributing to global warming. So, driving just the U.S. average of 15,000 miles in a year makes me personally responsible for over 17,647lbs of carbon dioxide. You can figure your particular carbon footprint at www.epa.gov/greenvehicles.
Let’s see: 15,000 miles divided by 22mpg (average fuel efficiency according to Department of Transportation statisticians based on 55% city and 45% highway miles) times 20lbs per gallon times 247 million U.S. passenger vehicles. Well, you do the math.
Of course, maybe you’re a global warming skeptic. Maybe you think that a single cold winter disproves long term, statistical data. Some would-be debunkers of human contributions to warming even cite, as primary causes, clinically immeasurable, naturally occurring events such as volcanoes and flatulence from bovine and teenage boys.
On the other side of the argument, practical observers in business have concluded otherwise.
John Hofmeister has taken a pro environment stand as President of Shell Oil’s North American operations. In a Charlie Rose interview (see the video at www.charlierose.com), Hofmeister affirmed his industry observation that human efforts do significantly impact on global warming based on the amount of carbon emitted each year and the scientifically calculable effect per ton of carbon in the atmosphere.
Ray Anderson, Chairman of flooring maker Interface, Inc., has been guiding his company toward a goal of zero negative environmental impact for decades. Disgusted by the sheer amount of waste and rate of extraction of carbon resources, Anderson has innovated to drastically reduce waste, use fewer raw materials and decrease emissions from manufacturing. Anderson’s personal commitment even includes the swapping of out his executive luxury vehicle for a compact hybrid.
Are these guys are just kooks? If so, they’re highly successful kooks. Interface gross sales in 2006 were just over $1 billion and Shell USA revenues topped $26 billion. These are not tie dye wearing granola munchers but savvy industrialists whose agendas are productivity, efficiency, return on equity, profit margins, and shareholder value.
That said, Anderson has a serious indictment of the religious community.
In his book, Mid-Course Correction (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2000), Anderson stated that he was turned off by the church specifically because, in his experience, its views did not support environmental reality. It’s true that the environment has been a divisive, hot potato issue for the religious community in the last decade but if you want to make value choices informed by faith, environmental concern need not be a dilemma.
Simply put, human beings have a mandate from God to be stewards of creation.
Creation’s problem isn’t the debate between evolution and the book of Genesis, but our dismissal of inconvenient Biblical truths like God’s absolute claim over all of it. However it got here, we think it’s our creation, not God’s. We’ve got the mineral rights, the surface rights, and the air rights too.
Well God has made us many promises, but has never given away the farm.
The famous line in the first chapter of Genesis: “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over… every living thing that moves upon the earth” is not a license to freely exploit natural resources for profit. It’s a gracious provision of sustenance. Moreover, we Christians should re-acquaint ourselves with Leviticus 25:23/24 which commands: “… the land is mine; with me you are but aliens and tenants. Throughout the land you hold, you shall provide for the redemption of the land.”
You don’t have to be a tie dye wearing, granola muncher or liberal theologian to make ethical value choices about the environment. Just read your Bible thoroughly. All of it.
Showing posts with label christianity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label christianity. Show all posts
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Sunday, August 19, 2007
Endurance In The Race Of Life
Hebrews 11:29-12:2
Presenting Engagement: The race as metaphor for life.
Every Fourth of July, the Atlanta Track Club hosts a ten kilometer footrace down Peachtree Road in the center of Atlanta. They’ve been putting on this race for over three decades and the 2007 race attracted 60,000 runners.
When you register for this race, you have to predict how long it will take you to run the race based on your record in other equally long races or in previous Peachtree races. Runners receive a placement number to pin on the front of their shirts and the first two digits of that number indicate which section you are eligible to start from. You can understand that if, based on your speed, you are runner 59,999 then you are going to be at the back of a very long group of participants!
I have personally never been in a group any closer to the front than halfway and it takes ages to even get up to the starting line. So there you stand, shaking loose the muscles in your calves and thighs and arms, stretching your back and stomach muscles for maybe twenty to forty minutes. It’s hard to stay loose and it’s even harder to stay focused. There are spectators on the curb and spectators peering out of hotel windows overhead. The loudspeaker up ahead announces the start of faster groups. The excitement climbs. You want to get going.
Finally you begin trudging forward with stunted steps. You are packed like a sardine with hundreds of other anxious sardines beside you, behind you, ahead of you. Two hundred yards to the starting line. One hundred yards. Fifty yards. Twenty five yards.
Finally you reach the line. The race officials call out. Radio stations broadcast live some kind of thumping, heart pumping, heavy jamming music. A starter pistol barks.
So off you go into the July sunshine. You’ll have stretches where the road descends and other points where you’ll encounter places with names like “heartbreak hill.” You’ll get leg weary. You’ll get thirsty but you won’t want to drink for fear of stomach cramps. You’ll get hot. And close to the finish you’ll slow back down to a stutter step as thousands of runners attempt to navigate two narrow chutes at the finish line. Finally, if you’ve made it all the way, you will flow out into the broad expanse of Piedmont park.
You did it. Or at least some of you did it. The reward, the big pay off? It’s a T shirt and a popsicle and the knowledge that you made it all the way.
How did you make it through to the end? What got you from the pre-start warm up and anticipation to finish line?
I can tell you from experience that the thing that keeps you going through it all is the support of spectators. It’s a far bigger reward than either the Tshirt or the popsicle! They cheer. They wave banners. You see people you know standing on the sidewalk and they call out your name. Even if they don’t know you they yell: “looking great!” or “you’re gonna make it!” or “way to go!”
All in all, this race, in fact any race, is a great metaphor for life itself. We all need the encouragement of others to make it from pre-start to finish. We all need those cheering hollers and smiling faces to bouy us up in times of distress and heartache and illness and grief and loneliness.
We need a community and if we have a faith community that is strong and loving, then perhaps we can live strong lives no matter what life throws at us.
Biblical Context: What's going on?
The scripture lesson today talks about just such a community of faith.
The reading is from a portion of the New Testament known as the Letter to the Hebrews. It was added to the cannon, which is the body of scripture that we speak of as the Bible, in the 4th century specifically because it was thought to have been written by the Apostle Paul. Scholars after that time, however, decided it wasn’t written by Paul. They also don’t think it was written to Jewish Christians as the title implies. And there’s no greeting at the beginning that would have been standard in an epistle so it probably isn’t even a letter either.
Now, with all that contradictory scholarship you might wonder why this “letter” stayed in the Biblical cannon and why it continued to be keep its title. But then, Hebrews is a difficult text to get to know. It’s one of those texts that defies any attempt to read it simplistically or literally because if you read it that way you will come away with some very dark considerations about the relationship between Christianity and Judaism that contrast very strongly with the teachings of the Gospels.
The basic theology of this “letter” is that Christianity is superior to and supercedes Judaism. It proclaims that the Old Testament is inadequate testimony to the powerful redemption of God. It claims that God’s covenant with Abraham is an inadequate revelation of God. It claims that the faithful patriarchs of the Old Testament could not achieve salvation without Christ no matter how faithful they were.
Hebrews was very likely a sermon written late in the first century and sent out to be read to various congregations. At that time persecution of Christians was widespread and there was a strong impulse among new converts to either abandon this persecuted religion or fly under the official radar of the Roman governors by claiming that they were Jewish instead of Christian. It’s the same God, after all. Isn’t it?
This sermon intends to dissuade these frightened congregations from leaving the faith by specifically demonstrating the superiority of Christianity.
This was an age when the apocalypse- the end of time- was expected to occur at any moment. So the writer of Hebrews wanted to show that being faithful to Christ was the only way to be certain of immortality. The writer says: “Look, if you convert to Judaism then you are abandoning true salvation in Christ for a mere foreshadowing of salvation through the law of Moses. If you accept life under the flawed covenant of Abraham then you are giving up on the true covenant in Christ which promises resurrection from death.”
It’s a powerfully written argument heard by a frightened and imperilled group of believers whose new found faith was tenuous and susceptible to threats from Roman authorities.
Explication of Text: What’s it all mean?
The section we read today tells of the mighty deeds that Old Testament heroes performed because of their faith in God. These are impressive accounts. Gideon, David, Samson, the prophet Samuel. Through their faith they were able to “conquer kingdoms, administer justice, obtain promises, quench raging fire.” The Jewish martyrs described in the Maccabean writings suffered mocking and torture, and even endured excruciating death at the hands of stone throwing mobs and sadistic Roman soldiers. The faith of these heroes was powerful and they were steadfast in their beliefs even in the face of torture and death.
This is a strong testimony of what faith can do. When we read this, we’re set up to admire these heroes and count them as lion hearted role models. We understand that. We accept it and we’re ready to imitate those role models. But then the writer twists the narrative around and tells us something that is inteded to make us see that no matter how faithful these heroes were, their achievements were imperfect because they did not know Christ.
The writer says: “Yet all these… did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better so that they would not, apart from us, be made perfect.”
What in the world can that mean? Just when we get scripture figured out there’s something that throws us of course again.
The answer lies in the claim that our faith is different than the faith of these Old Testament heroes because we have the revelation of Christ and we have Christ’s death on the cross that gives us salvation. It’s a fine point of theology but it says that since Christ’s covenant is perfect and Christ’s revelation is perfect and since Christ’s saving death is perfect then our faith in Christ fulfills the imperfect faith of the patriarchs and martyrs who lived before Christ.
Our faith in Christ fulfills the faith of our Old Testament ancestors.
Our faith in the possibility of eternal life through Jesus Christ brings eternal life to our Old Testament ancestors.
And yet, this writer also calls all those Old Testament ancestors a “great cloud of witnesses.” It’s as if two things are happening at once.
On the one hand, our faith is making perfect the faith of those who came before us. On the other hand, those who came before us, the witnesses who surround us, were the pioneers in faith whose mighty acts of heroism made our own faith possible.
We fulfill them but we need to stand on their shoulders to claim that fulfillment for ourselves.
Listener Context: How does this relate to my life?
I think that as we go through life’s experiences, as we run the race of life, we tend to think of ourselves in that good old American way: we think of ourselves as lone pioneers forging our way through the challenges of the wilderness, combating the storms and floods and wild animals, climbing over the lofty mountain passes. And like those early pioneers we sometimes we think God is on our side because we stand for what is morally right and our successes prove how right we are. Conversely, we sometimes think God is against us when we meet catastrophic setbacks.
But actually, we’ve got that all wrong. That traditional folklore promotes a false reality.
First of all, God is on our side because God loves us and not just because of the moral talk that we talk. And more than that, God does not stop loving us just because we fail to walk our talk. That’s what divine forgiveness is all about as long as we are honest about our human nature and the human capacity for moral failure.
Second, if God loves us despite our human nature, then God can never be against us. God is never the cause of our setbacks.
Third, we are not the pioneers that we think we are. Behind every Horatio Alger story of a self made man there is some un-named and unacknowledged individual who gave that self made man a crucial opportunity. In every Peachtree Road Race, there are volunteers who hand out unlimited cups of water to hot and dry and thirsty participants. Every mile there is someone who shouts to thousands of anonymous runners: “Come on. You can do it. I have confidence in you!”
There is a great cloud of witnesses around us at all times urging us on. They have travelled the road we travel. They know the challenges we face. They have faced persecution. They have faced illness and loneliness and grief. They have fought cancer. They have lost loved ones and they have cried with joy over photographs of new babies. They have loved life.
You are not alone.
You stand on the shoulders of those witnesses to claim your triumphs and by boosting you up, they fulfill their own triumphant destinies. The joy is twofold. It is the joy of completing the race as well as the joy of helping others to complete their own race.
This is a joy that we can never find on our own. This shared triumph is far more glorious than any single handed achievment because it is the achievment of a whole community.
Conclusion: What’s the Point?
Whatever else the writer of this “letter” to the Hebrews is telling us, he is telling us that Christian believers have something unique that sustains us for the long race of life.
We have the community which is a great cloud of witnesses who have prepared the way for us and who urge us on to the finish line.
And we have faith in the enduring presence of Christ Jesus who is the true pioneer in faith and leader in this race of life. Christ Jesus, who faithfully suffered on the cross for our sake, gave us a salvation that is the ultimate encouragement for us. Christ Jesus is the ultimate proof of God’s love for us.
With God’s love, we are capable of any good thing. AMEN.
Presenting Engagement: The race as metaphor for life.
Every Fourth of July, the Atlanta Track Club hosts a ten kilometer footrace down Peachtree Road in the center of Atlanta. They’ve been putting on this race for over three decades and the 2007 race attracted 60,000 runners.
When you register for this race, you have to predict how long it will take you to run the race based on your record in other equally long races or in previous Peachtree races. Runners receive a placement number to pin on the front of their shirts and the first two digits of that number indicate which section you are eligible to start from. You can understand that if, based on your speed, you are runner 59,999 then you are going to be at the back of a very long group of participants!
I have personally never been in a group any closer to the front than halfway and it takes ages to even get up to the starting line. So there you stand, shaking loose the muscles in your calves and thighs and arms, stretching your back and stomach muscles for maybe twenty to forty minutes. It’s hard to stay loose and it’s even harder to stay focused. There are spectators on the curb and spectators peering out of hotel windows overhead. The loudspeaker up ahead announces the start of faster groups. The excitement climbs. You want to get going.
Finally you begin trudging forward with stunted steps. You are packed like a sardine with hundreds of other anxious sardines beside you, behind you, ahead of you. Two hundred yards to the starting line. One hundred yards. Fifty yards. Twenty five yards.
Finally you reach the line. The race officials call out. Radio stations broadcast live some kind of thumping, heart pumping, heavy jamming music. A starter pistol barks.
So off you go into the July sunshine. You’ll have stretches where the road descends and other points where you’ll encounter places with names like “heartbreak hill.” You’ll get leg weary. You’ll get thirsty but you won’t want to drink for fear of stomach cramps. You’ll get hot. And close to the finish you’ll slow back down to a stutter step as thousands of runners attempt to navigate two narrow chutes at the finish line. Finally, if you’ve made it all the way, you will flow out into the broad expanse of Piedmont park.
You did it. Or at least some of you did it. The reward, the big pay off? It’s a T shirt and a popsicle and the knowledge that you made it all the way.
How did you make it through to the end? What got you from the pre-start warm up and anticipation to finish line?
I can tell you from experience that the thing that keeps you going through it all is the support of spectators. It’s a far bigger reward than either the Tshirt or the popsicle! They cheer. They wave banners. You see people you know standing on the sidewalk and they call out your name. Even if they don’t know you they yell: “looking great!” or “you’re gonna make it!” or “way to go!”
All in all, this race, in fact any race, is a great metaphor for life itself. We all need the encouragement of others to make it from pre-start to finish. We all need those cheering hollers and smiling faces to bouy us up in times of distress and heartache and illness and grief and loneliness.
We need a community and if we have a faith community that is strong and loving, then perhaps we can live strong lives no matter what life throws at us.
Biblical Context: What's going on?
The scripture lesson today talks about just such a community of faith.
The reading is from a portion of the New Testament known as the Letter to the Hebrews. It was added to the cannon, which is the body of scripture that we speak of as the Bible, in the 4th century specifically because it was thought to have been written by the Apostle Paul. Scholars after that time, however, decided it wasn’t written by Paul. They also don’t think it was written to Jewish Christians as the title implies. And there’s no greeting at the beginning that would have been standard in an epistle so it probably isn’t even a letter either.
Now, with all that contradictory scholarship you might wonder why this “letter” stayed in the Biblical cannon and why it continued to be keep its title. But then, Hebrews is a difficult text to get to know. It’s one of those texts that defies any attempt to read it simplistically or literally because if you read it that way you will come away with some very dark considerations about the relationship between Christianity and Judaism that contrast very strongly with the teachings of the Gospels.
The basic theology of this “letter” is that Christianity is superior to and supercedes Judaism. It proclaims that the Old Testament is inadequate testimony to the powerful redemption of God. It claims that God’s covenant with Abraham is an inadequate revelation of God. It claims that the faithful patriarchs of the Old Testament could not achieve salvation without Christ no matter how faithful they were.
Hebrews was very likely a sermon written late in the first century and sent out to be read to various congregations. At that time persecution of Christians was widespread and there was a strong impulse among new converts to either abandon this persecuted religion or fly under the official radar of the Roman governors by claiming that they were Jewish instead of Christian. It’s the same God, after all. Isn’t it?
This sermon intends to dissuade these frightened congregations from leaving the faith by specifically demonstrating the superiority of Christianity.
This was an age when the apocalypse- the end of time- was expected to occur at any moment. So the writer of Hebrews wanted to show that being faithful to Christ was the only way to be certain of immortality. The writer says: “Look, if you convert to Judaism then you are abandoning true salvation in Christ for a mere foreshadowing of salvation through the law of Moses. If you accept life under the flawed covenant of Abraham then you are giving up on the true covenant in Christ which promises resurrection from death.”
It’s a powerfully written argument heard by a frightened and imperilled group of believers whose new found faith was tenuous and susceptible to threats from Roman authorities.
Explication of Text: What’s it all mean?
The section we read today tells of the mighty deeds that Old Testament heroes performed because of their faith in God. These are impressive accounts. Gideon, David, Samson, the prophet Samuel. Through their faith they were able to “conquer kingdoms, administer justice, obtain promises, quench raging fire.” The Jewish martyrs described in the Maccabean writings suffered mocking and torture, and even endured excruciating death at the hands of stone throwing mobs and sadistic Roman soldiers. The faith of these heroes was powerful and they were steadfast in their beliefs even in the face of torture and death.
This is a strong testimony of what faith can do. When we read this, we’re set up to admire these heroes and count them as lion hearted role models. We understand that. We accept it and we’re ready to imitate those role models. But then the writer twists the narrative around and tells us something that is inteded to make us see that no matter how faithful these heroes were, their achievements were imperfect because they did not know Christ.
The writer says: “Yet all these… did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better so that they would not, apart from us, be made perfect.”
What in the world can that mean? Just when we get scripture figured out there’s something that throws us of course again.
The answer lies in the claim that our faith is different than the faith of these Old Testament heroes because we have the revelation of Christ and we have Christ’s death on the cross that gives us salvation. It’s a fine point of theology but it says that since Christ’s covenant is perfect and Christ’s revelation is perfect and since Christ’s saving death is perfect then our faith in Christ fulfills the imperfect faith of the patriarchs and martyrs who lived before Christ.
Our faith in Christ fulfills the faith of our Old Testament ancestors.
Our faith in the possibility of eternal life through Jesus Christ brings eternal life to our Old Testament ancestors.
And yet, this writer also calls all those Old Testament ancestors a “great cloud of witnesses.” It’s as if two things are happening at once.
On the one hand, our faith is making perfect the faith of those who came before us. On the other hand, those who came before us, the witnesses who surround us, were the pioneers in faith whose mighty acts of heroism made our own faith possible.
We fulfill them but we need to stand on their shoulders to claim that fulfillment for ourselves.
Listener Context: How does this relate to my life?
I think that as we go through life’s experiences, as we run the race of life, we tend to think of ourselves in that good old American way: we think of ourselves as lone pioneers forging our way through the challenges of the wilderness, combating the storms and floods and wild animals, climbing over the lofty mountain passes. And like those early pioneers we sometimes we think God is on our side because we stand for what is morally right and our successes prove how right we are. Conversely, we sometimes think God is against us when we meet catastrophic setbacks.
But actually, we’ve got that all wrong. That traditional folklore promotes a false reality.
First of all, God is on our side because God loves us and not just because of the moral talk that we talk. And more than that, God does not stop loving us just because we fail to walk our talk. That’s what divine forgiveness is all about as long as we are honest about our human nature and the human capacity for moral failure.
Second, if God loves us despite our human nature, then God can never be against us. God is never the cause of our setbacks.
Third, we are not the pioneers that we think we are. Behind every Horatio Alger story of a self made man there is some un-named and unacknowledged individual who gave that self made man a crucial opportunity. In every Peachtree Road Race, there are volunteers who hand out unlimited cups of water to hot and dry and thirsty participants. Every mile there is someone who shouts to thousands of anonymous runners: “Come on. You can do it. I have confidence in you!”
There is a great cloud of witnesses around us at all times urging us on. They have travelled the road we travel. They know the challenges we face. They have faced persecution. They have faced illness and loneliness and grief. They have fought cancer. They have lost loved ones and they have cried with joy over photographs of new babies. They have loved life.
You are not alone.
You stand on the shoulders of those witnesses to claim your triumphs and by boosting you up, they fulfill their own triumphant destinies. The joy is twofold. It is the joy of completing the race as well as the joy of helping others to complete their own race.
This is a joy that we can never find on our own. This shared triumph is far more glorious than any single handed achievment because it is the achievment of a whole community.
Conclusion: What’s the Point?
Whatever else the writer of this “letter” to the Hebrews is telling us, he is telling us that Christian believers have something unique that sustains us for the long race of life.
We have the community which is a great cloud of witnesses who have prepared the way for us and who urge us on to the finish line.
And we have faith in the enduring presence of Christ Jesus who is the true pioneer in faith and leader in this race of life. Christ Jesus, who faithfully suffered on the cross for our sake, gave us a salvation that is the ultimate encouragement for us. Christ Jesus is the ultimate proof of God’s love for us.
With God’s love, we are capable of any good thing. AMEN.
Friday, May 25, 2007
What'll It Be: Twinkies or Carrots?
Acts 5:12-32
We live in an era when the word of God has circumnavigated the globe.
What began as a branch from the root of Jesse and was preached to the Jerusalem masses under the Portico of Solomon on the east side of the Temple, came to be spread throughout the world on the wings of European empires and American foreign mission boards. And now, now as the world grows ever smaller and ever flatter, Christianity is finding its own way back to the west.
The word of God has always been on the move.
Now it finds us here in North America in the beginning of the 21st century - even right here in our Presbyterian pews where we thought we had already heard the word of God and where we thought Jesus was already among us. Right here amid the familiar and the reliable and the comfortable.
But this returning word of God stirs us out of those comfort zones with an Asian hallelujah or hymns with Caribbean or African rhythms. This rebounding word of God makes us anxious and confused because it isn’t our European tradition. We feel like the first apostles alone in a sea of competing theologies and spiritualities.
More than anything, we feel as though we’re being left behind but we can’t quite understand why. Why?
We’re educated. We’re faithful. We’re giving and we’re loving. But the culture that embraces the multitude of spiritual voices, the culture in which our footsteps fall every single day, doesn’t care. No it doesn’t. What our culture wants is only a simplistic maxim to live by. Something easy to digest, easy to remember, not too taxing for the brain or the soul. Too often, what we offer is the full 14 volumes of Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics.
So, in the face of this swirling ocean of voices we’ve found ourselves in a crisis of relevance as a people loyal to the one gospel yet surrounded by a society whose values are the reverse of gospel values.
A society which reveres competition over compassion.
A society which seeks revenge rather than justice.
A society which promotes individual empowerment over connectedness and fellowship.
A society which finds in its soul absolutely no need for forgiveness.
A society which, as the archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, puts it: feels no need for “adoption into God’s initmate presence.”
The well known and admired Barbara Brown Taylor has chronicled that she entered ministry with a strong desire for in depth religious dialogue. But she notes that her first parish required more of her attention in the arena of sustaining the congregation than challenging her congregation. It had more to do with questions of functional immediacy than questions of eternal meaning.
Well, maybe that’s as it should be - to some degree. Maybe faith within the parish is all about strengthening and sustaining, nourishing and nurturing. After all, if you want to teach your congregation about the theological undergirding of belief you’ve got to do a good job of pastoral care first. You’ve got to deal with real life before you can deal with theological structure.
But as important as feeding and caring for the parish is, it’s not the totality of Christian discipleship. More than that, those basic life issues are fundamentally connected to that theological structure. If we’re not careful, the parish can become isolated and insulated. It can live for years there inside the Temple and never breathe the vibrant air of openness.
But God calls Peter and the Apostles, indeed God calls each of us in every pew, in every parish to take our faith outside the Temple and be with the crowds beneath the columns of the Portico. We ‘ve got to out into the public square.
My country cousins might have said: “You can’t stay in the kitchen. You’ve got to get out on the porch.” While I may be too much of a city slicker to make that sound authentic, the sentiment is entirely accurate.
Suffice it to say that Peter and his pals make good role models for us. They got out of the kitchen and went out on the porch and when people began to listen and believe, Peter and the others got arrested. That’s the cost of discipleship. But we’re told that the Holy Spirit was with them and they were freed from captivity and directed to go back to the public square and teach some more.
Again the Apostles were arrested and made to appear before the Sanhedrin, the council of Temple authorities, arbiters of religious custom, validators of socio-religious practice.
And the council chastised these Christ followers and said: “Look! We told you people not to teach and preach anymore to that clamoring crowd out there. You’re just stirring them up telling them all manner of things that contradict what we know is best for the Hebrew people. We make the rules here and you can’t upset the established order of our society by talking about that false prophet, that crucified phony.”
Peter could have said: “We’re sorry. Okay, you’re right. From now on we’ll just teach about the prophets of old. We’ll talk about the glory days of David and the importance of adhering to the accepted laws of religious authority. Oh yes, and we’ll give the people some simplistic maxims that are easy to follow.”
But Peter did not say that. He didn’t say that at all. The Holy Spirit had commanded the Apostles to teach something far more meaningful than conventional ritual that would appear holy but would in truth offer no real sustenance to humanity nor honor to God.
Peter wasn’t willing to go along with the pronouncements of these human authorities when the Creator wanted so much more for the world.
Peter understood that societies built on the policies of human authority always fall short of the Kingdom of God.
A report just this spring connected obesity among the poor to that disfunctional bastion of American policy- the Farm Bill. In its contemporary form this familiar lesigslation supports farmers by subsidizing certain cash crops. Some $25 billion worth of subsidy goes to three products: corn, soybeans, and wheat – the very commodities that yield the fats and carbohydrates essential to the commercial manufacture of processed foods like, well like Twinkies.
By contrast, the Farm Bill does extremely little to encourage the production of healthy, fresh produce such as carrots. Every processed food, every sports drink, every quick snack, every corn-syrup enriched food product on your grocer’s shelf is Federally subsidized so that the most filling yet fattening and artery choking foods bear an artificially low price while unsubsidized, healthy, fresh foods don’t.
If you want to get the most for your food dollar buy those Twinkies. They’ll fill you up and you’ll feel that pleasing rush of corn derived sugars and soy derived fats. If you want something life sustaining, well then, you’ve got to pay full price for the carrots.
Societies built on the policies of human authority always fall short of the Kingdom of God.
But we’ve got to remember that the word of God is always on the move. And we've got to get going or else get left behind. We’ve got to get ourselves out on the porch.
You see, we can’t retreat inside the insular sanctuary of the parish because the Holy Spirit commands us to live our faith among the crowd of the Portico in that a mixed up world where the economic values of agricultural subsidy dominate the moral values of public health.
We’ve got to get out on the porch and talk about it.
But then when we get out there, out in that broken and fearful world, what will we say? Whose voice will we use? Which set of values will we say is truth? What will you and I say to the world?
Will we subsidize processed truth rich in social carbohydrates and cultural sugars so that we won’t get chastised? Will we say that mercy is an un-necessary social ingredient in civilization as long as our group can be powerful? Will we say that God just wants us to fulfill our independent, individualistic, personal goals and ignore others living obese lives on a thin economic margin?
Or will we witness some truth that supercedes sanctified cultural folklore and the disfunctional accumulation of social norms? Let us be witnesses to Christological values and divine truth.
let us witness that the last shall be first.
Let us witness that the meek shall inherit the earth.
Let us witness that the peacemakers, yes the peacemakers, are the children of God.
Let us boldly claim that adoption into the intimate presence of God, the need for self-awareness and forgiveness of sin are critical ingredients for healthy human life and spiritual well being.
I’m asking you these things today just as I’m asking myself. I’m asking us both to make a choice that will define our relationship with the world, a choice that will define our relationship with creation itself.
Will we give the crowd some cheap liturgy of popular cultural values?
Or will we live costly yet truthful discipleship to the God of our ancestors. The one true God, who on an Easter morning long ago raised up Christ Jesus, the one true hope for all people?
Glory be to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
AMEN.
We live in an era when the word of God has circumnavigated the globe.
What began as a branch from the root of Jesse and was preached to the Jerusalem masses under the Portico of Solomon on the east side of the Temple, came to be spread throughout the world on the wings of European empires and American foreign mission boards. And now, now as the world grows ever smaller and ever flatter, Christianity is finding its own way back to the west.
The word of God has always been on the move.
Now it finds us here in North America in the beginning of the 21st century - even right here in our Presbyterian pews where we thought we had already heard the word of God and where we thought Jesus was already among us. Right here amid the familiar and the reliable and the comfortable.
But this returning word of God stirs us out of those comfort zones with an Asian hallelujah or hymns with Caribbean or African rhythms. This rebounding word of God makes us anxious and confused because it isn’t our European tradition. We feel like the first apostles alone in a sea of competing theologies and spiritualities.
More than anything, we feel as though we’re being left behind but we can’t quite understand why. Why?
We’re educated. We’re faithful. We’re giving and we’re loving. But the culture that embraces the multitude of spiritual voices, the culture in which our footsteps fall every single day, doesn’t care. No it doesn’t. What our culture wants is only a simplistic maxim to live by. Something easy to digest, easy to remember, not too taxing for the brain or the soul. Too often, what we offer is the full 14 volumes of Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics.
So, in the face of this swirling ocean of voices we’ve found ourselves in a crisis of relevance as a people loyal to the one gospel yet surrounded by a society whose values are the reverse of gospel values.
A society which reveres competition over compassion.
A society which seeks revenge rather than justice.
A society which promotes individual empowerment over connectedness and fellowship.
A society which finds in its soul absolutely no need for forgiveness.
A society which, as the archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, puts it: feels no need for “adoption into God’s initmate presence.”
The well known and admired Barbara Brown Taylor has chronicled that she entered ministry with a strong desire for in depth religious dialogue. But she notes that her first parish required more of her attention in the arena of sustaining the congregation than challenging her congregation. It had more to do with questions of functional immediacy than questions of eternal meaning.
Well, maybe that’s as it should be - to some degree. Maybe faith within the parish is all about strengthening and sustaining, nourishing and nurturing. After all, if you want to teach your congregation about the theological undergirding of belief you’ve got to do a good job of pastoral care first. You’ve got to deal with real life before you can deal with theological structure.
But as important as feeding and caring for the parish is, it’s not the totality of Christian discipleship. More than that, those basic life issues are fundamentally connected to that theological structure. If we’re not careful, the parish can become isolated and insulated. It can live for years there inside the Temple and never breathe the vibrant air of openness.
But God calls Peter and the Apostles, indeed God calls each of us in every pew, in every parish to take our faith outside the Temple and be with the crowds beneath the columns of the Portico. We ‘ve got to out into the public square.
My country cousins might have said: “You can’t stay in the kitchen. You’ve got to get out on the porch.” While I may be too much of a city slicker to make that sound authentic, the sentiment is entirely accurate.
Suffice it to say that Peter and his pals make good role models for us. They got out of the kitchen and went out on the porch and when people began to listen and believe, Peter and the others got arrested. That’s the cost of discipleship. But we’re told that the Holy Spirit was with them and they were freed from captivity and directed to go back to the public square and teach some more.
Again the Apostles were arrested and made to appear before the Sanhedrin, the council of Temple authorities, arbiters of religious custom, validators of socio-religious practice.
And the council chastised these Christ followers and said: “Look! We told you people not to teach and preach anymore to that clamoring crowd out there. You’re just stirring them up telling them all manner of things that contradict what we know is best for the Hebrew people. We make the rules here and you can’t upset the established order of our society by talking about that false prophet, that crucified phony.”
Peter could have said: “We’re sorry. Okay, you’re right. From now on we’ll just teach about the prophets of old. We’ll talk about the glory days of David and the importance of adhering to the accepted laws of religious authority. Oh yes, and we’ll give the people some simplistic maxims that are easy to follow.”
But Peter did not say that. He didn’t say that at all. The Holy Spirit had commanded the Apostles to teach something far more meaningful than conventional ritual that would appear holy but would in truth offer no real sustenance to humanity nor honor to God.
Peter wasn’t willing to go along with the pronouncements of these human authorities when the Creator wanted so much more for the world.
Peter understood that societies built on the policies of human authority always fall short of the Kingdom of God.
A report just this spring connected obesity among the poor to that disfunctional bastion of American policy- the Farm Bill. In its contemporary form this familiar lesigslation supports farmers by subsidizing certain cash crops. Some $25 billion worth of subsidy goes to three products: corn, soybeans, and wheat – the very commodities that yield the fats and carbohydrates essential to the commercial manufacture of processed foods like, well like Twinkies.
By contrast, the Farm Bill does extremely little to encourage the production of healthy, fresh produce such as carrots. Every processed food, every sports drink, every quick snack, every corn-syrup enriched food product on your grocer’s shelf is Federally subsidized so that the most filling yet fattening and artery choking foods bear an artificially low price while unsubsidized, healthy, fresh foods don’t.
If you want to get the most for your food dollar buy those Twinkies. They’ll fill you up and you’ll feel that pleasing rush of corn derived sugars and soy derived fats. If you want something life sustaining, well then, you’ve got to pay full price for the carrots.
Societies built on the policies of human authority always fall short of the Kingdom of God.
But we’ve got to remember that the word of God is always on the move. And we've got to get going or else get left behind. We’ve got to get ourselves out on the porch.
You see, we can’t retreat inside the insular sanctuary of the parish because the Holy Spirit commands us to live our faith among the crowd of the Portico in that a mixed up world where the economic values of agricultural subsidy dominate the moral values of public health.
We’ve got to get out on the porch and talk about it.
But then when we get out there, out in that broken and fearful world, what will we say? Whose voice will we use? Which set of values will we say is truth? What will you and I say to the world?
Will we subsidize processed truth rich in social carbohydrates and cultural sugars so that we won’t get chastised? Will we say that mercy is an un-necessary social ingredient in civilization as long as our group can be powerful? Will we say that God just wants us to fulfill our independent, individualistic, personal goals and ignore others living obese lives on a thin economic margin?
Or will we witness some truth that supercedes sanctified cultural folklore and the disfunctional accumulation of social norms? Let us be witnesses to Christological values and divine truth.
let us witness that the last shall be first.
Let us witness that the meek shall inherit the earth.
Let us witness that the peacemakers, yes the peacemakers, are the children of God.
Let us boldly claim that adoption into the intimate presence of God, the need for self-awareness and forgiveness of sin are critical ingredients for healthy human life and spiritual well being.
I’m asking you these things today just as I’m asking myself. I’m asking us both to make a choice that will define our relationship with the world, a choice that will define our relationship with creation itself.
Will we give the crowd some cheap liturgy of popular cultural values?
Or will we live costly yet truthful discipleship to the God of our ancestors. The one true God, who on an Easter morning long ago raised up Christ Jesus, the one true hope for all people?
Glory be to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
AMEN.
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