Creative Stewardship

We just completed our annual church conference and one of the decisions was to change the fiscal year of the church from a “January to December” basis to a “July to June” basis.This is 1) more in line with the operations of the church and 2) moves fund raising to perhaps a better part of the year.  If we had kept our budget cycle in line with the calendar then our stewardship activities would be right now and perhaps that is not the best idea at that the moment.

I sometimes wonder about stewardship because it is often stated in terms of the operation of the church itself instead of the mission of the church.  It is almost as if the mission of the church is its operation and what the church does comes secondary.  I have seen two different churches make the pledge to tithe the weekly offering (that is, take 10% of the offering) and set it aside for the apportionments.  In both cases, the churches were struggling financially.

In both cases, the apportionments were paid in full by the end of the year (in the first case, this was after not having paid any apportionments for six months; in the second case, it resulted in being one month ahead on the apportionments) and with no adverse effects on the operations of the church.  To the best of my knowledge, both churches have prospered and grown.  In a third case, the church was also declining but they rejected the idea and sadly continued the slow and painful decline of the church; it may very well close after next year’s Annual Conference.

It cannot be categorically stated that such an idea was the significant reason for the churches nor was this a creative use of the prosperity gospel theme.  It was a simple statement that this is what we are about, everything else is secondary.  If everything else has to be met before the apportionments are paid, I think it is clear that the people are not focusing on what a church is but rather what they want the church to be.

I feel the same way about fund raisers as the means to financial solvency.  Fund raisers are nice and I am going to propose one in a paragraph or two.  But fund raisers should, in my opinion, never be used to meet budget shortfalls or long-term needs.  Fund raisers are not the way to fund a church but I see too many churches that utilize various forms for just those reasons.

Once upon a time a church I was involved with decided to have a hog roast.  It was intended to be an event that would let the people in the area know that the church was there.  That first year, it didn’t do too well but that was because we didn’t check the schedule and the hog roast conflicted with another community event.  The next year, there was a discussion about having another hog roast.

The issue was raised that the first one didn’t raise much money (which was never the reason in the first place).  I pointed out that it did in fact turn a profit and that the second one would as well.  It wasn’t the same as Joe Namath guaranteeing that the Jets would be the Colts but it was close.

The second hog roast was a success, both monetarily (though, again, that wasn’t the reason for the event) and from a mission standpoint.  For in organizing the second hog roast, I got someone involved with the church in a way that utilized skills that he had.  If the purpose of the hog roast had been to make money, we may not have had the second one and we would not have brought someone new into the church.  But because the hog roast was put on to bring people in, it was a success.

There was a hog roast the next year and there were new people involved with it so it could be deemed a success.

The business of the church is the people and the people should be put first.  If you put the building that is called the church, then you have problems.

Now, having said all that, here is my idea for a fund raiser that has a nice outcome. It will require that you have one or two musicians who can write music.

They write an original piece and you show the musical manuscript to everyone.  Then you say, “if you want to know how this sounds, quarter notes cost so much, rests are a $.25 a piece, and a chord is $10.00” or something like that.  Full orchestration will probably raise enough money to fund the operations of the church for a year or so.  And in the end, you have a nice little piece of music that reminds you that people put it together.

How Will It End?

Here are my thoughts for Christ the King Sunday, 22 November 2009. The scriptures for this Sunday are 2 Samuel 23: 1- 7, Revelation 1: 4 – 8, and John 18: 33 – 37.

On this day as we complete another cycle in the church calendar and prepare for the beginning of Advent and the church’s New Year, it is perhaps fitting that our scriptures today speak of a beginning and an end. But in light of the discussions taking place, some on the internet, some in churches, some in families and some in the minds of many, I want to put into words some of those thoughts and what I think they mean for the future of the church.

And God said to John the Seer, “I am the Alpha and the Omega.” I have heard this translated as “I am the Beginning and the End”. For many people these words offer a vision of a violent end to the world. It is part of a discussion that that began some two hundred years or so ago and continues today about how we began.

There are those who speak of the beginning only in terms of the Creation written in Genesis while there are those who see the beginning only in terms of the “Big Bang”. It is almost as if you must accept one or the other of these two views and are required to see the other as sheer foolishness.

This isn’t a discussion of Creation, Creationism, Intelligent Design, and/or evolution. It is, however, a discussion about the end of the church.

For me, the beginning comes in three stages:

1) The beginning of the universe,

2) The beginning of mankind, and finally

3) The beginning of one’s own consciousness and awareness.

The physical data tells me that this world is several million years old, not some six thousand years. The evidence is there and if it has somehow been tampered with so as to make a six thousand year old rock seem like it is several million years old, I want no part of any god that would do such a thing. And those who would argue that the evidence is only probable evidence need to examine how it is that such evidence is gathered and checked.

God created us in His image and He gave us the skills and ability to reach out and seek these things beyond our earthly limits. I cannot conceive of a god that would create beings in His image and then turn around and limit what humans can and cannot do.

It is humankind’s ability to think and envision that allows us to find a way to explain things. If we did not have that ability, we would not have ventured far away from our homes to find lands across the sea; we would not have looked at the stars and asked how we could get there. We looked at the moon from far away and wondered how to get there. We see things and asked why.

That is part of our own individual consciousness; in asking why, we created gods to create, explain, and seek answers. That is our identity. But our ability to explain only applies to the physical world; we are still at a loss to explain good and evil as a facet of the world around us.

Our existence comes not just from our physical presence on this planet but from our ability to think and reason, to know what can be explained because of the physical evidence and what must be understood through faith and belief. Our own existence has allowed us to understand that good and evil are not parts of our physical being but parts of our soul.

It is our ability to reason and think tells us that there is a something “out there” that we need to know more about. It has been a part of our being from the day we began to reason. It is the part of our being, our ability to reason and think that we ask “why?” Why did God give us the reason to think and reason? Why did He give us free will?

One day, some three thousand years ago, a young person had the audacity and the temerity to ask an elder to explain who we were and why we are here. It is a story that had been told many times in many places. One such story took place in what we have come to call Israel and it is the story of our being and our souls. Instead of rebuffing this young child, the elder gathered the young of the community together and began to explain those questions. And that is how we arrive at the third beginning.

I was raised in the church, though I would think that mine was a pragmatic upbringing. We went to the church that was closest to where we lived. But wherever we were, we went and it would have an impact on my life.

When I was twelve, I made a choice to seek a better understanding of who Christ was and where I fit into things by earning the God and Country award in Boy Scouts. This would thus lead to my membership in the 1^st Evangelical United Brethren Church (now the 1^st United Methodist Church) in Aurora, Colorado. There may be some who saw this as a culmination of a journey; perhaps even I saw it that way as well.

But over the years, I have found myself in many situations where my background and knowledge has not prepared me as some would say it should have. I have found myself questioning my beliefs, sometimes because of what has happened in my life, sometimes because of what others have said. I have seen others questioned their beliefs and leave their faith because they could not answer the questions or they did not like the answers.

I have seen others leave their faith because they were not allowed to question their beliefs. And by the same measure, I have seen others who will not allow their faith, their beliefs to be questioned. And unfortunately, I see too many people today who are in this latter category, not allowing others to question their beliefs and themselves refusing to question them as well.

But questioning is, to me, the hallmark of belief. For, if we do not question our beliefs, if we do not seek to find the answers, then we risk having a faith that is rigid, inflexible, and incapable of truly being alive.

And that is what has happened to most denominations today. The elders of the church today say things that sound very similar to what the elders said when Jesus walked on this earth. Like the elders of the church then, they are bewildered and amazed when a child speaks words of wisdom and creativity. That is, of course, if there are any children in their church today and if they allow them to say anything.

The church today attempts to dominate the thought processes and daily lives of the people, some just in the local church, others nationally.

Instead of fostering thought about who Jesus was and what His message means to the people today, they hold onto old and often incorrect ideas, they argue points that don’t even exist in the Bible, and they make policy that has no relationship to the way Jesus worked with those who followed Him, both in Galilee and then throughout the Mediterranean after His death and resurrection.

It was evident in the amazement of the elders when the boy of twelve challenged them in the Temple during that Holy Week. It was evident in how the establishment condemned Jesus and his followers, calling them rebels and heretics, rebels against the policies of the lands and rebels against the leaders whose only interest was in their own self-preservation. It is the same today.

There are those who would stifle thought and creativity in order to make their story of civilization factual. There are those who would seek to impose religious law in ways that it was never intended.

I have been reading Robin Meyers’ new book, “Saving Jesus from the Church”. He offers some interesting thoughts about the state of the church today and I anticipate adding more comments over the next few months. But his comments and his thought reflect and echo some other things going on, some which are close to home, and some which are far away.

They are reflection of David’s last words and Jesus’ words to Pilate and what those words mean to each one of us. They are a reflection of reports of the people leaving the ministry because the denomination is more interested in the letter of the law to be the spirit of the law, because the denomination insists that typewriter is better than the word processor as the means to prepare sermons and reports and because the denomination doesn’t even see, let alone understand or use, what social networking is about.

And there are those in society today that say that the church is not only outmoded but the whole concept of religion is as well. It is a society that seems to place faith and reason into separate spheres of thought and which will not allow them to interact. And it is not just one side of the spectrum or the other that will not allow this to take place; it is both sides. Those whose life is faith and faith only seem to feel that there is no room for reason in their lives; and those whose life is reason and reason only have the same disdain for faith.

These are not the End Times that so many fundamentalists would have you believe but they very well could be the end of the church, in form and denomination. I don’t think that religion as a means of expressing faith will end but it will, if has not already, become a very difficult time to express one’s faith openly.

The problem at this point is that Jesus pointed out that His Kingdom was not of this world. To understand what Jesus is saying requires a new way of thinking, of thinking perhaps outside the box that the world and society seeks to place each one of us in. That is why it is so difficult for those who live lives in faith alone or reason alone have difficulty with the other concept; they have locked themselves into one box and they cannot escape.

The Gospel message hasn’t changed over the years; hope exists beyond the boundaries of time. It isn’t the translation that offers the message; when someone tells me that the King James Version of the Bible is the one true translation, I have to wonder how it was that Jesus, the disciples, Paul, and their contemporaries spoke in Elizabethan English while everyone else was speaking Aramaic. If the words that one says are true to the message, then the translation is trivial. And the words speak of a Christ that offers hope, not rejection. The works speak of a promise for all, not just a select few. The words speak of redemption and a release, not limits and imprisonment.

The one thing that I have discovered in my own personal journey with Christ, from those days in Montgomery, Alabama, when I made the choice to seek Jesus and God in my own mind and soul to these days is that the Jesus in the Bible is not the Jesus spoken of today. The God of today bears no resemblance to the God of the Bible. And the time has come to turn the church back, not in time, but to its roots and its original and true thoughts. We do not need to discover new writings; the ones that we have tell us what is going on. All we have to do is look at what we are saying and how that compares; then the change will take place.

There are going to be those who hear what I am saying and read what I have written here and they are going to call me a heretic and an unbeliever. But I know in my heart what I believe and I know in my heart that I have been called to say these words.

There are those who will hear these words and read these words and echo agreements, for these thoughts are their thoughts as well. The question for these individuals is “are you called to seek the new church, the church that John the Seer really envisioned?” How will the church end? The decision is not in the literature or the words of individuals, it is in your heart and your mind.

Brer Rabbit and the Briar Patch

The stories about Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox, at least as far as I am concerned, are an integral part of Southern folklore. Unfortunately, in this day of political correctness, telling such stories has fallen by the wayside.

But, like all folk stories, these stories give us an insight into the human character. And so, with no apologies for the lack of political correctness and with no intent of offending anyone, here is the story of Brer Rabbit and the Briar Patch.

Brer Rabbit and the Tar Baby!

Brer Rabbit and the Briar Patch by Uncle Remus

“For a mighty long time” Brer Fox had tried to catch Brer Rabbit and Brer Rabbit had outwitted him. The closest Brer Fox ever came was this:

He built a contraption of molasses and tar that he called a “Tar Baby” and put it where Brer Rabbit was sure to find it. When Brer Rabbit came across the Tar Baby he tried, fruitlessly, to converse with it. In anger, Brer Rabbit punched at the Tar Baby until he became completely stuck.

Brer Fox, overjoyed at finally capturing his nemesis, mused aloud over what to do with him. With every idea (barbecuing, hanging, etc.) Brer Rabbit pleaded, “Do what you want but please don’t throw me into the Briar Patch!” Brer Fox, wanting to hurt the rabbit as badly as possible, flung him into the briar patch. Brer Fox realized his mistake when, instead of crying in agony, Brer Rabbit smiled smugly at the fox and sang that he was “Born and bred in the briar patch!” and Brer Fox knew that Brer Rabbit had once again outwitted him.

Now, if Brer Rabbit had not been so full of himself, he never would have gotten entangled with the "tar baby". But he could not stand it that someone would ignore him and that is what got him into trouble. And the more he struggled with that sticky concoction, the worse the situation got.

But as much as Brer Rabbit’s struggle reminds us what happens when our pride prevents us from solving problems or how it can get us into a deeper mess, so too does Brer Fox’s reaction tell us something about ourselves. Like we might have, he saw the thorns of the briar patch as a problem and not as a solution.

We don’t like thorns. Thorns hurt. We want simple problems to solve in life, ones that will quickly go away. Problems that are hard to solve or take too long are often called "thorny". We don’t want them in our lives. NIMBY, or not in my backyard, has quickly become the acronym for those problems that we don’t want in our lives. Our solution to such "thorny" issues is to give them to someone else.

The reference to thorns is not new. Paul referred to "the thorn in his flesh." (2 Corinthians 12: 7)  It has never really been established just what this thorn was. It could have been a real ailment or the reference to some temptation in Paul’s life. Or it could have just have been a metaphorical statement that served as a reminder of what Paul should focus on.

The writer of Proverbs also referred to thorns as an indication of laziness. "I went by the field of the lazy man, and the vineyard of the man devoid of understanding, and there it was, all overgrown with thorns; its surface was covered with nettles; its stone wall was broken down. (Proverbs 24: 30 – 31)  If we are lazy, our work becomes harder because we have to overcome the thorns that grow in the place of good work.

Even Jesus used the idea of thorns to show the difficulty of life. In the parable of the sower, some of the seeds were thrown on rocky ground and did not grow because it was impossible to do so. Some were thrown into a patch of thorns but the thorns grew more rapidly and prevented the growth of the seeds. It was only the seeds that were sown in the fertile soil that had a chance to grow properly. (Matthew 13: 3 – 9)  Later, Jesus explained to the disciples that "he who received seed among the thorns is he who hears the word, and the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and he becomes untruthful." (Matthew 13: 22)

Just as the writer of Proverbs and Jesus both place the presence of thorns in one’s life in a negative sense, so too is David’s reference to thorns in today’s reading one of contempt. His use of the phrase "sons of rebellion" is one of contempt and scorn. It is the same phrase that was hurled at David as he had fled from Jerusalem and the rebellion incited by his son Absalom. David’s comments are in anticipation of God’s judgment on the ungodly, which like thorns are fit only to be burned.

But, in the case of Brer Rabbit, he knew what good come out of thorns. For him, they were the solution to the problem, not another problem. In today’s world, such thinking is often called "outside the box" or the result of a new paradigm.

Our reading from Revelations this morning gives us insight into such a new paradigm. For many, this passage is a description of the Second Coming. But I see it in an entirely different manner. The coming of Christ in one’s life is more likely to occur as it did for John Wesley, one of quiet assurance and comfort, than it is described in Revelation. But however it comes, it brings with it a sense of assurance and comfort.

Bringing Christ into our lives is the simplest and easiest way we have for empowerment. Contrary to what people may think, having Christ in one’s life does not insure that their problems will be solved. But there will be a confidence in their lives that will enable them to face the problem and solve it.

Pilate was faced with a dilemma that evening in Jerusalem. How should he resolve the problem with Jesus? The simplest solution was not the easiest by any means and that was the solution that Pilate wanted. Pilate could not find fault with Jesus but was forced by the desires of the crowd to take an action that he did not want to.

In the end, Jesus was given a crown of thorns. This crown of thorns was in mockery of a kingly crown and meant to embarrass or ridicule Jesus. But this crown of thorns is an expression of Christ’s suffering for us. And through Christ’s suffering, we find our freedom.

There will be times when we are trapped, struggling to find a solution. In such times we need to think in a new way, much as Brer Rabbit did when he was trapped with the tar baby. Brer Rabbit knew that the thorns of the briar patch were not a source of pain but rather a path to his freedom.

Today is Christ the King Sunday. It is a day when we are reminded that Christ is king, not of this earth but rather of heaven. He is our king and his crown is made of thorns. And in the pain and suffering that those thorns inflicted on Jesus, we find our freedom from sin and death, just as Brer Rabbit found his freedom in the briar patch.

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“Is This The Beginning or The End?”

This is a sermon that I presented at Walker Valley United Methodist Church, Walker Valley, NY, on Christ The King Sunday (26 November 2000).  The Scriptures for this Sunday were 2 Samuel: 23: 1 – 7, Revelation 1: 4 – 8, and John 18: 33 – 37.

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When I started teaching several years ago, I showed a movie about how we kept and marked time. The story of the movie was that a country was trying to determine what time it was. Since no one knew what a clock or calendars were, it was necessary to study the history of time keeping and calendar making.

The setting of time, both in terms of the clock and the calendar, has always been an arbitrary decision. Until railroads spanned the country and there was a need for a universal time system, every town and country in this country set its own time. While we can say for sure that it is 1030 a.m. on Sunday, November 26th, the telling of time has not always been so precise. In John Wesley’s time, clocks were bulky and highly unreliable. For the people of Jesus’ time, time was measured by the hourglass and by noting certain events. By noting the events around them and the passing of the seasons, calendars could be developed.

Certain events tend to dominate the calendar, both the yearly calendar of daily life and the church calendar. The reason we celebrate the beginning of the New Year on January 1^st is our celebration of Easter. When problems arose about the timing of Easter and the coming of spring, Pope Gregory changed the existing Julian Calendar. The resulting calendar, known as the Gregorian calendar, is essentially the calendar we used today. With the new calendar, several countries decided that it was better to celebrate the New Year on January 1^st rather than with the changing of the seasons around April 1^st as has been the custom under the Julian Calendar.

Even the schedule for Easter, perhaps the single most important celebration in history, is tied to guidelines that tend to confuse most people. Easter changes each year because it is dependent on the phases of the moon and the vernal equinox. As a result, the seasons of Lent and Easter, and the celebration of Pentecost Sunday change from year to year.

Fortunately, Christmas and Advent are a different situation. Because Christmas is fixed to December 25^th, the four Sundays of Advent are easy to anticipate and that makes the last Sunday before the beginning of Advent, today, very easy to determine.

Today, in the Christian year, is Christ the King Sunday. It is the last Sunday of the yearly cycle that begins with Advent and the celebration of Christmas. In a system of time keeping subject to mankind’s own whims and desires, it is nice to know that some things are fixed and certain.

That is what John wrote to the seven churches when he began the Book of Revelation. God is the Beginning and the End, the Alpha and Omega, one who was, is, and always will be. In a time when that which is made by man crumbles and disappears, God is always present.

Jesus expressed the same idea when He told Pilate that His kingdom was not of this world. In that way, Jesus was showing that His kingdom went beyond the time frame of any earthly kingdom.

But Jesus was put to trial because the Jewish leaders saw Him as a threat to their earthly kingdoms. Even Pilate may have first thought the same thing. That is the reason why Jesus asked Pilate if he was asking about the kingdom or if the Jewish leaders put the question to Pilate.

If Pilate was asking the question, then Jesus could be considered a threat to Pilate’s own rule; but if the question was given to Pilate by the Jewish leaders, then it could be considered a matter of theology and thus no threat to Roman power.

Pilate knew that Jesus had done no wrong and was more that willing to let him go. In the Greek text, when Pilate asked Jesus if he were the "King of the Jews?" the emphasis placed on the word "you" indicates that Pilate did not see Jesus as was the defiant rebel to the Roman throne that the Jewish leaders made Him out to be. Much as been done to make Pilate the villain in this trial but he was trapped between the need to keep the Emperor in Rome happy and the need to keep peace among the Jews and Romans in Israel. There is no doubt that Pilate could have chosen his own path but when you are tied to earthly rules and constraints, as he was, it is very difficult to do so. But because the Jewish leaders saw Jesus as a threat to their earthly power, Pilate’s hand was forced.

As he was dying, David expressed God’s expectations for rulers. Bringing blessing like the light dawn after the rain, like a clear morning, like tender grass — each of these similes spoke of new life, purity, and refreshment. The function of the king was not to impoverish a nation but rather to ennoble them as he presented them the refreshing will of the God.

We might contrast this with how the rulers of Israel reacted to Jesus. It is probable that those who had Jesus arrested and brought before Pilate knew exactly what the message of the Gospel that Jesus had been preaching meant. But, to them, it was not a promise of hope but a promise to end that which they had developed over the years. Jesus was not a threat to Pilate, as the Gospel reading points out, but he was a threat to those who were empowered to served as God’s servants and had sought to misuse that power.

David’s concern (as we read in the Old Testament reading today) was that God’s covenant with his people would continue. In Verse 5, David speaks of the covenant that God made with him and asks if it will not increase. This somewhat rhetorical question expresses David’s faith that God would carry out His promise, a covenant based on God’s sovereign, unchangeable will.

What makes God’s Kingdom special is that despite its timelessness, it is opened to us through Christ. No longer is our relationship with God one of a religious relationship to a Supreme Being, absolute in power and goodness, but rather one of new life for others, through participation in the Being of God.

The writer of Ecclesiastes wrote that there was a time for every season. Seasons come and things change but the timelessness of God remains. Because God never changes, because there is no beginning or end, the message of hope and salvation remains the same. The Gospel and its message of hope go beyond all that we know and can ever hope for. The Gospel is a road beyond, a path that transcends all cultures, all human constructs, all civilizations and conventions. When we accept Christ as our Savior, it changes our relationship from one of time that ends to one that never ends.

As this day ends and we complete another year in the life of the church, we have to realize that it is not the end. Rather another year, one of hope and promise, begins.

What Is Truth?

This is a sermon that I presented at Alexander Chapel United Methodist Church, Mason, TN, on Christ The King Sunday (23 November 1997).  The Scriptures for this Sunday were 2 Samuel: 23: 1 – 7, Revelation 1: 4 – 8, and John 18: 33 – 37.

Alexander Chapel was part of a two-point charge (with Pleasant Grove UMC the other church) that I and three others helped cover.  When Robert Clark, the assigned pastor, was at one of the churches, one of the four of us was at the other church.  This Sunday it was my turn to be at Alexander Chapel.

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At the entrance to CIA Headquarters in Washington, D. C., there is a sign with a quote "Seek the truth and the truth will set you free." Now, considering the object of the CIA is to gather intelligence and determine the truth from those facts, I find this to be a very appropriate quote for them to having, even if it seems a little unreal for a spy agency to quote from the Bible.

The gathering of knowledge so that we may better understand who we are has always been the nature of mankind. But the truth that is determined from this study and knowledge is of this world and often does little to help us to understand who we are. There will come a time though when, even with all the information at our disposal and with all the modern methods of information gathering, we will be faced with the question that Pilate could not answer.

In the next verse after the Gospel reading, John 18: 38, Pilate asks "What is the truth?" Sooner or later, we must answer this question. For even as we gather more information about the world around us, we find that we cannot use that information to help us understand our place in this world or what our relationship with God is or could be.

David, as he lay dying, spoke of his relationship with God. In 2 Samuel 23, verse 2, he said "The Spirit of the Lord spoke through me, his word was on my tongue." Later, in verse 5, "Is not my house right with God? Has he not made with me an everlasting covenant arranged and secured in every part?" As he lay dying, David understood what it had been that guided his life. Yes, David had strayed from the path that God wished he would have followed, but he always came back. To some extent, it is that way for us. As we gather more knowledge and power in whatever we do and seek, will we remember from which we came?

Consider Francis of Assisi.

When I, Francis, heard the call of the Gospel, I did not set about organizing a political pressure-group in Assisi. What I did, I remember very well, I did for love, without expecting anything in return; I did it for the Gospel, without placing myself at odds with the rich, without squabbling with those who preferred to remain rich. And I certainly did it without any class hatred.

I did not challenge the poor people who came with me to fight for their rights, or win salary increases. I only told them that we would be blessed — if also battered, persecuted, or killed. The Gospel taught me to place the emphasis on the mystery of the human being more than on the duty of the human being.

I did not understand duty very well. But how well I understood — precisely because I had come from a life of pleasure — that when a poor person, a suffering person, a sick person, could smile, that was the perfect sign that God existed, and that he was helping the poor person in his or her difficulties.

The social struggle in my day was very lively and intense, almost, I should say, as much so as in your own times. Everywhere there arose groups of men and women professing poverty and preaching poverty in the Church and the renewal of society. But nothing changed, because these people did not change hearts. . .

No, brothers and sisters, it is not enough to change laws. You have to change hearts. Otherwise, when you have completed the journey of your social labors you shall yourselves right back at the beginning – only this time it is you who will be the arrogant, the rich, and the exploiters of the poor.

This is why I took the Gospel path. For me the Gospel was the sign of liberation, yes, but of true liberation, the liberation of hearts. This was the thrust that lifted me out of the middle-class spirit, which is present to every age, and is known as selfishness, arrogance, pride, sensuality, idolatry, and slavery.

I knew something about all this.

I knew what it meant be rich, I knew the danger flowing from a life of easy pleasure, and when I heard the text in Luke, "Alas for you, who are rich" my flesh crept. I understood, I had run a mortal risk, by according a value to the idols that filled my house, for they would have cast me in irons had I not fled.

It is not that I did not understand the importance of the various tasks that keep a city running. I understood but I sought to go beyond.

You can reproach me, go ahead. But I saw, in the Gospel, a road beyond, a path that beyond, a path that transcended all cultures, all human constructs, all civilization and conventions.

I felt the Gospel to be eternal. I felt politics and culture, including Christian culture, to be in time.

I was made always to go beyond time.

Are we not like that? Has the accumulation of power, knowledge, and other worldly goods taken us away from God? And yet, isn’t it the Gospel that provides the means for us to come back.

In Revelation, John saw Christ coming again, saying "I am the Alpha and the Omega, that who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty." Go back to Pilate question to Jesus in the Gospel reading for today, "Are you the king of the Jews?" This question had two meanings. Pilate could have been asking Jesus if he was a rebel, intent on establishing an earthly kingdom and overthrowing Pilate.

If this was the case, Pilate knew what he could and would have to do.

But, as Jesus noted, his kingdom was not of this world. The difficult thing for us is that we must understand this answer;’ that we must go beyond a worldly kingdom and see God’s kingdom and Jesus’ ministry as it really is.

On this day that we call Christ the King Sunday, when we celebrate Christ’s presence in this Kingdom, we must also consider Pilate’s question, "What is truth?"

In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul wrote

But if is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is utile; you are still in yours sins.

To Paul, the truth was very simple. Christ died and was resurrected, all to save us from our sins. To St. Francis, the Gospel had no meaning until it was in his heart. To John Wesley, the power of the Gospel was useless until he accepted Christ wholly and unconditionally.

For us today, the same is true. Christ is and will be King forever as long as our hearts are open. Christ told his followers to seek the truth; Christ told Pilate what the truth was.

When we know and understand this truth, we will be free from the shackles of sin. If we cannot accept this, if we are not willing to accept this, then the only kingdom we can have is an earthly one and we will have no freedom.

But if we accept Christ, if we understand the truth of Christ’s kingdom, than freedom is truly ours. Today He asks you "What is the truth in your hearts?"

“Changes in Latitude, Changes in Attitude”

Here are my thoughts for the 24th Sunday after Pentecost. The Scriptures for this Sunday are 1 Samuel 1: 4 – 20; Hebrews 10: 11 – 14 (15 – 18) 19 – 25; and Mark 13: 1- 8.

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I had several things cross my desk this week as I was preparing these thoughts. First, my wife sent me some pictures of a church that had been converted into a personal home. (http://forwardon.com/view.php?e=Id12473ba76d0865e8&type=latest&time=all)

Then I read the report that the Connectional table of the United Methodist Church is going forward with a plan to study the national and regional agencies of the denomination in order to reinvigorate the denomination. (http://www.umc.org/site/apps/nlnet/content3.aspx?c=lwL4KnN1LtH&b=2789393&ct=7658283)

Finally, I read Donald Haynes column about ways to think about the small membership church. (http://www.umportal.org/main/article.asp?id=6081),

The first of these “notes” was somewhat humorous in that it reminded me of the setting for “Alice’s Restaurant” by Arlo Guthrie. But it also struck a chord about how we see God’s House, our church.

There is no doubt that the United Methodist Church is dying physically, if not spiritually. Dr. Haynes notes that the United Methodist Church is 19 years older than the general population. The other numbers that he mentions don’t bode well for the church as well.

It takes an average attendance of 150 to support a church in today’s economy. He doesn’t go into the details but one can see that what he is saying is that many of the churches in the denomination do not have these kinds of numbers. From my own experience as a lay speaker in this district, I know of no church, including my own, that has that type of attendance. With the costs of health insurance and pensions rising, the crisis of the dying church is also fiscal.

He does offer a variety of options that, in part, match some of my thoughts about what we can and cannot do. My thoughts came from the experiences as a lay speaker in a variety of places and settings; Dr. Haynes pointed out that many of the models for smaller churches have been studied in the past.

But these models have been cast aside because the current leadership of the denomination is not familiar with small churches. How could they? To get to a point of leadership, pastors have to rise through the ranks. Though they may have started at a small church once a long time ago, they moved up to medium-sized and larger churches in order to take on the administrative roles they now have. Second, most pastors probably don’t like the small church. It is hard working at a church far away from the excitement of the ministry, dealing with personalities and situations that are never covered in the academic world. The only hope that many small church pastors have is that they can do a reasonably decent job and then get moved up to a bigger church so that they can get a pay raise.

Finally, the parishioners of the small churches don’t like the models because the models require that they share their pastor with another church, a church with whom the members haven’t spoken civilly with the members from the other church in years. Besides, there is glamour to having one’s own pastor. He or she is “our” pastor and he or she will do what we want them to do; yea, right!

This makes the announcement of a new study to reinvigorate the denomination, in my mind, questionable. We have studied the problem from a variety of angles and multiple solutions have been offered. The denomination has made an honest effort to let society know that it is alive when the “Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors” advertisements were first run, they ran at 2 in the morning. How many people watched those ads? How many people would have responded to an ad about open doors at a time when the doors were really shut?

I think that the Gospel reading for today, a reading in which Mark has recorded Jesus predicting the destruction of the temple, is highly appropriate in light of the Council report and Dr. Haynes comments. Now, we know that Mark wrote this Gospel after the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans in 70 A. D. but we cannot be certain whether Mark recorded Jesus’ words or if he simply modified the story to fit the situation. Actually, I don’t think it matters.

The destruction of the Temple, prophesized or not, changed the nature of Judaism. The Jews could no longer see the Temple as God’s House/Home and it must have devastated them. It forced a radical rethinking of the nature of the religion. The same can be said for the early Christian church.

I am not enough of a theologian or a historian to understand how the destruction of the Temple affected the early Christian church. I do know that they had a hard beginning. Jewish authorities didn’t like them; Roman authorities didn’t like them. There were even arguments between Christians as to whether one had to be a Jew before they could be a follower of Christ or whether anyone could follow Christ. And there was the argument developing, if I understand the chronology of the writings of the New Testament, about which was more important, faith or good works.

But when we hear about the pending demise of the church and the denomination, for which we do not need some expensive survey to tell us as we see it every Sunday in our church, we are hearing the words of Jesus to his disciples along the road to Jerusalem, prophesying our own doom.

When we hear discussions about big churches and small churches, of churches that can carry the load and churches that are too weak to do so, we are hearing the Old Testament reading for today. Elkanah had two wives, Penninah and Hannah. Penninah was the “good” wife, able to give Elkanah the sons that society demanded; Hannah was barren and, in society’s eyes, a “bad” wife.

The good churches are those which can give the conference the resources needed to survive; the bad churches don’t have the resources or perhaps the capability to provide the resources. But there the story changes; in today’s story, the denomination elders seem to want to get rid of the unproductive churches. In the Old Testament, Elkanah gave Hannah a double portion of his love. And Hannah prayed to God that she would be able to return the blessing. And from this story came Samuel and a new ministry in Israel.

We do not need another study. First, it is a waste of money; second, it won’t tell us anything that we don’t already know. We don’t need to change our worship services by offering new music or having preachers who are “hip”. Those are superficial changes. The message of the Gospel is a powerful message of hope and renewal; amidst the ruin of the Temple, people heard a message of hope. But it required a new thinking.

When I started thinking about this piece, I had a different title in mind. But, as many things go, the title didn’t seem to fit. And as I was writing, I was reminded of a phrase from a Jimmy Buffet song, “changes in attitude, changes in latitude.” I don’t know if we need a change in latitude as much as we need a change in attitude.

So hear the words of the writer of Hebrews telling us that the sacrifices of the priests were of no value and that what was needed was faith offered by the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross. The writer of Hebrews speaks to me of a new way of thinking.

We will not find this new way of thinking in a message that threatens people with doom and destruction for they already know that. We will not find this new way of thinking in a message that excludes and casts out people; we seem to think that we are the only ones who can read the Gospel message. Those whom we cast aside and exclude from the church can read the Gospel and they see the hypocrisy in our message. That’s why they are leaving the church; that’s why they aren’t coming to church.

We don’t need new forms of music that will show the youth of this country how modern the church is. If the music doesn’t move you, it doesn’t matter how it is played. And the music won’t move you unless it echoes the message of hope and promise.

What is needed in today’s church is not marketing skills but story-telling skills. We need to tell the story, the true story. We need to put the story out there for the people. And if that means supporting the small church because that is where the people are, so be it. The bottom line for any church will always be the souls that are saved and come to Christ and that is a number that can never be determined in the present time. When you look at a financial bottom line as a measure of success, you miss the point.

We need a change in attitude. I have seen it occur. I have seen churches that were down and about to die change their attitude and put the work of the church before the finances of the church. And guess what, those churches grew. I have seen churches put the finances of the church before the work of the church and those churches died. It is and will always be about the attitude of the people.

We need a change in latitude, a change in attitude. And it is possible. It is that change that occurs when you come to the altar rail and kneel there and open your heart to the Grace offered to you by Christ. It is that change that occurs when you say to God that you will accept the empowerment of the Holy Spirit and you will work to see that God is present in this world, even when you leave God’s House.

Changes in latitude, changes in attitude should be more than a phrase in a song; it should be the mantra of a church, be it local or denominational, that plans on living into the next century.

What Should We Be Doing Today?

I begin this piece by asking what you plan to do at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. Will you stop to pause and remember the significance of that time some ninety years ago? Will you stop to pause and perhaps hear the bells of the church tolling in remembrance of those who have fallen in wars long ago and perhaps even recently? Or perhaps you will stop to pause and wonder why the bells are not ringing or why the people are more interested in the sales taking place and what they can get at low prices for Christmas this year.

How many people will recognize that the reason for this day has nothing do to with the economy but with a promise that we, as a nation, would remember those whose service insured our freedom today? Some will say that is what Memorial Day is about but when Memorial Day comes about, all we will probably hear about is the start of summer sales that come with Memorial Day. How is it that we have become so cavalier in our attitudes about military service and war?

I am the grandson of an Army officer who served in World War I and up until 1944. Had medical reasons not forced his retirement, my grandfather was scheduled to command a regiment that landed on Omaha Beach in Normandy on 6 June 1944.

I do not know what my grandfather thought about war, even as I read and reread the diary he kept from his embarkation to France and his service in France and Belgium and during the period between the two World Wars.

There was a somewhat casual comment made in one entry that his outfit had been attacked with poison gas – “We’ve been gassed. “ And while he had pictures that showed the horrors of war, he very seldom mentioned such horrors in what he wrote in this diary.

In part I know that his diary served more as a draft of the reports that he would file as the company adjutant for I see essentially the same phrases in his diary that appear in the official history of the regiment. So, I don’t know how he really felt. Even his entry for this day some ninety years ago doesn’t speak of peace, joy, or relief (see My Grandfather’s Diary Entry for this day, 11 November 1918) but the comment that if the armistice had not been signed, they would have completed the planned attack for that day.

And while I cannot speak to his thoughts on the nature of war and what he saw and what he experienced, I do know that we don’t want to be exposed to the horrors of war today. We have sanitized war so much that civilians killed are listed as nothing more than collateral damage. We have no idea, only estimates, of how many civilians have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan these past eight years. We want our wars to be like a video game, where points are scored for the damage done and the number of people killed; where there is no blood and no pain. We do not want to know that war is, in essence, a real-life horror film with real blood and real deaths, with pain that is real and which is inflicted on many, not just one.

I am also the son of an Air Force officer who served in the Pacific theater during World War II and throughout the 50s and 60s. I do not know what he thought about the things he saw in the Pacific in the 40s or his thoughts on the wars fought in Korea or Viet Nam. The only time he spoke of the deaths in World War II was a passing comment about the number of casualties that we would have incurred had we invaded the Japanese home islands instead of dropping the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. What I remember about that singular comment was the relief in his voice that we did not invade the islands.

I grew up on many Air Force Bases where B-52 bombers and Titan II missiles were based. Their presence was an almost constant reminder that our country lived under a blanket of fear from nuclear attack and that vigilance was necessary for peace. The one thing that we did not perhaps know or perhaps did not care to know was that any nuclear attack and the almost certain retaliatory attack would leave not only this country but this globe totally ruined and uninhabitable for thousands of years to come. Perhaps it was fortunate that the only thing that kept this country and the former Soviet Union from attacking each directly during those contentious days was the knowledge that an attack by one country on the other would lead to mutually assured destruction of both countries and the world. This constraint against nuclear war in the 1950s and 1960s was known as MAD and there never has been a more aptly coined acronym.

Those who have read this blog know that I am opposed to war and that I cannot see the problems of the world being solved through war or violence. (And, for those who offer bumper-sticker responses please use something other than “War hasn’t solved anything except …”)

The problem is that we have become comfortable using war as a tool to solve problems and we think that we can live in a world where war is a dominant part of the culture. We just make sure that we are not reminded of its financial costs or its costs in human terms, the dead and wounded, those with broken minds and spirits.

And too often, those who speak out against war, who call for non-violent solutions to the problems that we face, who call for responses other than to send our youth off to foreign lands and perhaps die for a cause that they do not understand are apt to be called unpatriotic and opposed to this country.

I would have continued the tradition of my father and my grandfather and joined the Air Force when I graduated from college in 1971. I understood what a life in the military was and what you were called to do first. But I also saw a military constrained by political forces far more than any other time in this country’s history.

Let’s face it – there has never been a war that wasn’t driven by political forces. Mao Zedong is quoted as saying “Politics is war without bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed.”

From the days of the Korean War, it has been politics that has controlled this country’s thoughts about war. It has transformed military service from an honorable expression of service for one’s country into simply being a mercenary force designed to serve the purposes for short-sighted and self-serving politicians. Our military is sent to fight without a clear-cut mission or an understanding of the people with whom they will interact. Our lack of knowledge about the lands and people where we send our troops makes the “The Ugly American” more and more a truth than fiction.

When the time came, I chose not to go, not to follow in the footsteps of my father and grandfather. My argument wasn’t against the Air Force, the Army, the Navy, or the Marines; my argument was against the draft and a political policy that clearly limited what our service personnel could and could not do. But, as far as the draft was concerned, I was lucky. I had medical problems that precluded my being drafted into the Army and I was able to avoid service in Viet Nam. One of the great unanswered questions in my life is what I would have done if I had received an induction notice. Would I have gone to Canada; would I have enlisted in the Air Force and tried for OCS? What would my parents have said and done? Those are questions that I did not have to answer.

I was lucky; I had options available to me. Others were not so lucky and we now know that the draft policies of this country during the Viet Nam war were designed to supply the large number of bodies that the generals said were needed to win the war. They are the same words we hear today from our generals with respect to Afghanistan.

Our youth do not have to worry about the draft today. Personally, I think that is a good thing. If the military is to be what it is supposed to be, it must be a volunteer army; that is the heritage of this country and, if you will, an embodiment of what this country stands for.

There was a period of time when I counseled students to seek a life in the military. I recognized that, for some, it would provide the discipline they needed for life. For some, it would provide opportunities that they may not see otherwise. And for many, it would provide the funding for college that would enable them to get a college degree. And for some who were interested in becoming a physician, such options were important because it cut the cost that they, the student, would have to pay.

But I was counseling for service in peace time, not war, and in retrospect, that was probably a mistake. The military has and should always be focused on war and the prevention of war. The military has never done well in peace time. I saw such comments in my grandfather’s diary when he was serving during the period between the two World Wars.

Following the two World Wars, we down-sized our military and told our veterans that they were on their own. We promised the veterans of World War I bonuses but when the time came to pay them, we reneged on the deal. Fortunately for the veterans of World War II, we gave them the G. I. Bill and enabled them to get the skills necessary to resume a civilian life. But since then, we have cast aside our veterans, shunting them to side and into the darkness where no one can see them.

Yet, we continue to tell our youth that military life will give them what they need, the training and the funding for life after they have given their country the early part of their youth. For the lucky ones, this may be true. But for too many, it is only a hoped for reality and not what they find when they come home.

The issue, the problem is that we expect our soldiers, sailors, and marines to prepare for two mutually exclusive situations, a peace-time situation and a war-time situation. We do not prepare those who serve for this dichotomy nor do we help with the transition afterwards. The violence that destroyed Fort Hood last week will erupt on another post or another base or on a ship somewhere in the middle of the ocean because of this conflict.

There will always be a conflict between the duties of a soldier and the desires of someone who enlists for the future because those two futures are many, many times exclusive. The exclusiveness of this is even more today because it is complicated by an age-old axiom and the by-product of societal thought.

Even with the lessons handed down from generation to generation, we still fight our current wars using the previous wars’ tactics. Our casualty rates in the Civil War were high because both armies used tactics that assumed that rifles being used were as inaccurate as the ones used in the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812. But the technology of 1860 was far ahead of the technology of 1810 and it showed in the increased number of casualties. There were those who saw the carnage and wondered if there was some sort of manageable peace solution possible. But, by then, it was too late for any sort of negotiated settlement and Grant recognized that the only way to win was to eliminate the Confederate armies.

Ironically, it was after one of the bloodier battles that Robert E. Lee offered his quote that it was fortunate that war was so terrible or we would grow very fond of it. But it seems that in today’s world we have grown very fond of it, as we have sanitized and hidden the blood of war.

But now we are faced with an entirely different type of war, no matter what it is called. And, even with the lessons of Viet Nam, we still haven’t learned that you cannot defeat a population with huge armies, especially when those huge armies are viewed as conquerors and not liberators. You would have thought that that we would have finally understood another quote from Chairman Mao, “the guerilla must move amongst the people as a fish swims in the sea.” But we haven’t and we are now paying the price for our ignorance.

If our military is to succeed, it must understand its mission and its goals. The military can not be an instrument for the implementation of an unclear vision or poorly stated mission statement. And it must have the resources to fulfill the vision as well. But such a statement, such a vision, and those resources must come from the politicians and the people.

This is unfortunately something this country has not done or is doing now. This country, which so willingly cheers its military personnel as they go off to war, quite easily ignores those soldiers, sailors, and marines while they serve and when they come home. Many of our enlisted personnel have families, yet because of the current pay structure are eligible for food stamps and similar benefits. (It is interesting to note that those who argue for a strong military also call for a reduction of these same benefits. Perhaps if their efforts were directed towards the men and women of the Armed Services and the people of this country instead of the contractors back home, we could have strong military, one in which people would be glad to join.) We ask our military to serve without question but then to disappear quietly into the background so that they can be forgotten when they come home.

On this day, we must first resolve that we will not see war as the first but only the last option in resolving problems. On this day, we must resolve that we will understand who our enemy is and what they fight for. Let us also resolve to remove the causes of war — poverty, hunger, homelessness, lack of medical care – before fighting other people. And let us resolve that when the fighting is done and our military come home, they truly can come home, that this country will honor our commitment to their service and not cast them aside to be quickly forgotten.

George Clemenceau once said, in effect, that war was too important to leave to soldiers. (There are many who say he meant generals but there are several variants.) But if we forget the soldiers, then we make it easy to not think about the cost of war.

War is perhaps at times unavoidable. I cannot help but think of Patrick Henry’s comment during his “give me liberty” speech that war was already on the doorsteps of our fledging nation and that it was inevitable that we would fight. If we must fight, so be it. But let us fight for reasons that are clear and just, not ideological and self-centered. And if we must fight, let it because there were no other options available; war should never be the first option in any conflict.

We should be doing two things today. We should not be spending time and money on ourselves. Rather, we should be spending time remembering those who served. And then, we should be spending time and effort to work inside and outside the military to develop answers that do not require violence to solve problems; we should be spending time and effort finding ways to build up people and nations, not destroying them.

So I ask, “What will you be doing today?”

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Cross-posted to RedBlueChristian

Welcome to the neighborhood

I recently conducted a workshop entitled “Technology in the Pulpit”.  It was designed to explore many of the ways that computers and its attending technology can be used not only in the pulpit but in other ways to facilitate evangelism and the work of the church.  This include exploring how to become a blogger.

For me, it was an interesting time because it allowed me to do what I am supposed to be doing, teaching, and in an area that I have explored since it became part of the educational and religious landscapes some twenty years ago.

More importantly, the two “graduates” of the workshop are now bloggers in their own right and a part of the Methodist Blogging community.  They are

1. The Odd Thought, and
2. Living Water

Please visit their sites and help welcome them to the neighborhood.

Basic Needs

Here are my thoughts for the 23rd Sunday after Pentecost. The Scriptures for this Sunday are Ruth 3: 1 – 5, 4: 13 – 17; Hebrews 9: 24 – 28; and Mark 12: 38 – 44.

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There was an interesting article in Christian Century this past week about biblical literacy (see http://www.christiancentury.org/article.lasso?id=7927). It does repeat some information that I have used in the past from a 1997 Barna Survey (such as 12 percent of adults think Noah’s wife was Joan of Ark and about ½ of those surveyed don’t know that the Book of Isaiah is in the Old Testament) or a 2004 Gallup survey that showed that nearly one in ten teens think that Moses was one of the 12 apostles.

This article looks at the impact of scriptural illiteracy and ways of overcoming it. It is important to consider this because there are too many ideas about religion in general and Christianity in particular that come from a lack of knowledge about the one document that is the primary source of information.

Now, I am only mentioning that because of what I see in the readings for today and what they mean for us in this day and age. And, for me, this is an important distinction. If you do not know the basic facts about the Bible it is very difficult to understand what the words mean. And it is entirely possible that you will find a different message in the Scripture readings for today than the one I found. And there is nothing wrong with that because, if nothing else, it means that you are thinking about what you have read. The Bible should never be viewed as fixed in time because to do so is to remove the meaning from the words.

And so it is that I have to wonder why the Book of Ruth is part of the Old Testament. Now, one answer is found in the concluding part of the verses today. Ruth and Boaz had a son who is named Obed. And Obed will become the father of Jesse and Jesse will be the father of David. And, as the hymn goes, from the branch of Jesse’s tree shall come the Messiah.

But, there is more to the story than just the establishment of the royal line that will lead to Jesus. Or at least that is the way it seems to me. The story of Ruth is a recounting of tribal and societal policies, of making sure that everyone has the basic needs. It is in Ruth that we learn that farmers were told not to take the entire crop from the field but leave some on the edges so that the poor would be able to have some grain. This is also a tale about the nature of society where widows were often left outside the care of society.

Naomi, Ruth’s mother-in-law, is a widow whose two sons have also died. To be a widow without children, especially sons, in that time was to be put outside the safety net of society. There was no security for Naomi and even less for Ruth. If Naomi is to have any sort of future, she must return to her homeland (having moved to Moab early in the story) and hope that her family will take her in. Ruth, being a Moabite, does not have that security and Naomi has suggested that she return to her family as well. But unlike her sister-in-law, Orpah, Ruth says that she will follow Naomi, even though there is no guarantee of security for her.

Now, the Gospel reading for today also speaks of a widow and most of the time we speak of the generosity of the widow (who gave everything) as compared to those who gave a portion of their abundance. But while we remember that part of the Gospel reading, we often forget the first part where Jesus said that those who “devour widows’ homes and say long prayers for appearance only” will be the ones who are condemned.

I think that we spend so much time in today’s society trying to make the Bible fit our view of the world that we forget what it is that the Bible is trying to tell us. And even if we did at one time know what was in the Bible, we have cast it aside in favor of whatever information we might think is in the Bible because it enables us to have our own view.

The Bible’s main message is that we must care for each other first. The poor get a better treatment in the Bible than they do in real life today, even though there are so many people today who say they are Christians. We may argue that capitalism is or isn’t the best economic system available; we may argue that there are other systems that are better for today’s economy. I am not much of a Bible scholar and I am not much of an economist. But I do recall what John Wesley said about earnings.

John Wesley had no problems with people earning as much as they could; in fact, he encouraged people “to earn as much as they could.” But such earnings came with the condition that you didn’t do it at the expense or “on the backs” of others. In other words, if your employment required the exploitation of others, you were in the wrong business. Your gain should not be at the expense of others.

Unfortunately, when you look at the disparity in incomes today between the various economic levels, it would be hard to say that the very, very rich are not exploiting the poor and under-classes. And the reports that I hear that tell me that local food closets are being pushed to the limit each week with more and more families seeking assistance in putting food on the table says that we have forgotten the Biblical imperative to leave some of the abundance for others.

And I would be remiss if I didn’t finish the John Wesley trilogy on finances. Not only did he say that one could earn all that they could, he said that one should save as much as they could and then give all that they could. It has long been noted that Wesley was one of the highest paid clergy in England but that the British tax collectors could not find his wealth.

They never could understand how someone earning as much as John Wesley was earning could not have anything. But John Wesley had figured out what it would take for his family to live and everything above that amount was given away.

Early Methodists followed his example, living simple lives and saving their money. But they saved their money not to hoard it but to give it away. It has long been noted that most people today do not save enough and our own society seems directed towards getting as much as one can for one’s own benefit as possible with little concern for others.

And yes, this is about health care. I am not going to make a plea for one form of health care or another. But it strikes me that too many people on both sides of the debate are offering plans that are “me-first” in nature and what is it going to cost me instead of trying to determine what is the best for all people. Yes, it is going to cost some people some money but is that a reason to say that others should not get some sort of decent health care? I am not interested in the argument that one plan is going to create some sort of gigantic bureaucracy when the private plans have already created a gigantic bureaucracy devoted more to making a profit than to insuring that people are healthy. Everything in the health care debate and the debate/discussion about the economy seems to be directed towards insuring the well being of the one individual who already has and not providing for the well being of those who have nothing. This is in direct contrast to what the basis for the Old Testament and Gospel readings for today.

The futility of these arguments can be said in what the writer of Hebrew tells us about the futility of the priests who offer sacrifices time and time again. The only true sacrifice is the one that Christ made for us. As long as our attempts to resolve societal issues focus on ourselves long before we worry about what others need, we will never find the answer. On the other hand, if we, like Christ, focus on others before ourselves, the answers will come quickly and easily.

The basic needs of people need to be answered before we even think about the superfluous needs of individuals. Let us pause and think about that as we enter the last days of the Pentecost season and prepare for Advent and the coming of Christ.

“Are You Now or Have You Ever Been?”

This was a piece that I had written a couple of weeks ago but haven’t posted yet. But I am prompted to post it because this month’s issue of Connections, a monthly newsletter by Barbara Wendland.

She prefaced this month’s issue by a note indicating that

It’s a statement I’ve thought about and worked on for several months. Throughout those months I’ve kept wavering about whether to use it or not, because I know it expresses beliefs that some readers will find unacceptable.

However, I also know that many churchgoers and “church alumni/ae” have had many of the thoughts I’m expressing here but have assumed they were alone, because they didn’t hear anyone expressing such thoughts. I think it’s important to remind these readers not only that they’re far from alone but also that many Christians are thinking such thoughts and believe they need to be openly addressed in the church. So I’ve decided to send this issue.

I suspect that at a later time, some of the beliefs I’ve expressed in this Connections will have changed. And I’m not claiming that they’re the truth—they’re merely how these subjects look to me at this point in my life.  I offer them in the hope that they may help readers re-think their own beliefs. Thanks for considering them.

I find myself in agreement with much of what Barbara had to write in the newsletter this month. But I also disagree with her on some of the points. Before you read my thoughts, I want to encourage you to read this month’s issue of Connections. (And if you are not a subscriber, you really need to think about becoming one; she puts a lot of time and thought into each issue and she is addressing questions that many of the laity and clergy of the United Methodist Church today are asking.)

I have posted some of my own thoughts on this topic in the piece “Why?”

I found out after I started this piece that the title of this piece is also the title of play written by Eric Bentley in 1999. And while my thoughts about the title are related to the content of the play, the search and hunt for communists in 1950’s, I want to take the implications of the question just a bit further.

Of course, for those who are of my generation and the previous one, the question that was asked was “Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?” For some, refusal to answer the question left them effectively blacklisted in terms of employment; others willingly answered the question and named names. It was a period of time when the fear of communism ran rampant through society and life, beginning when Joseph McCarthy, the Republican Senator from Wisconsin, held up a piece of paper and said that it contained the names of communists employed in the United States State Department. It most likely ended when Edward R. Murrow produced a documentary film that questioned the veracity of Senator McCarthy and those who supported him in his efforts. It is interesting to note that the actual number that was supposed to be on the page was never consistent nor were the names divulged and those who were proclaimed communist were often done so by innuendo and hearsay, with no ability to face those who made the accusations.

Now, you will tell me that such rampant witch-hunts could not occur today; we are a much more enlightened society. But we just went through an eight-year period where one’s patriotism was questioned if you opposed or questioned the Bush Administration’s war plans.

We have become a nation of labels, quick to be affixed and affixed with super glue so that they cannot be removed.

We are called technological luddites if we even suggest that computer-based education is overrated or that on-line education will be the path to the future. Yet, we ignore the fact that every new technological innovation has been applied to education and found wanting as those involved have simply transposed what is being done in one method to the “new and better” way. We are told we are socialists if we even suggest that there be some sort of single-payer option for health care and that such options would be unwieldy and cumbersome bureaucracy; yet we ignore the fact that we are dealing with such bureaucracies already. As Dom Helder Câmara, late archbishop of the Brazilian diocese of Olinda and Recife (Wednesday, Oct. 13 was the 10th anniversary of his death – Source: Guardian) once said, “When I feed the poor they call me a saint. When I ask why so many people are poor they call me a communist.”

But such exchanges are only the tip of the iceberg, as it were. Name-calling has replaced thoughtful dialogue; hate and invective are the basis upon which our public speech is based. No longer are we interested in the resolution in the problem but affixing blame and avoiding responsibility. This can be seen in how we view Christianity.

Somewhere along the line, somewhere in the past twenty years or so, we have also lost the definition of what it is to be a Christian. To say that you are a Christian today is to invite invective and disdain, ridicule and derision. For too many people, to state that you are a Christian and especially an evangelical Christian is to state that you are a “bigot”, “homophobic”, “chauvinistic”, and “reactionary.” But in the same breath, individuals will describe Jesus as “caring, understanding, forgiving, kind, and empathetic.” How can the description of Christ be so different from those who have been asked to tell the story? (From Speaking My Mind by Tony Campolo)

But even amongst many Christians, there is some disagreement as to what a Christian is. As Tony Campolo also noted,

… the last place where I can really quote Jesus these days is in American churches. They don’t want to hear ‘overcome evil with good.’ They don’t want to hear ‘those who live by the sword die by the sword.’ They don’t want to hear ‘if your enemy hurts you, do good, feed, clothe, minister to him.’ They don’t want to hear ‘blessed are the merciful.’ They don’t want to hear ‘love your enemies.’ (Tony Campolo as quoted in Christian Week magazine and reported in SojoMail for 9/10/03)

It appears that Christianity in America is a different sort of religion from what it was meant to be. It is one in which people can live their own lives, not one in which they seek the one given to us by Christ.

We have Americanized Christianity so that it fits our concept of society and our culture. It’s an adaptation of the true truth to fit our materialistic and consumer-driven world.

To say that you are a Christian is to also say that somehow you cannot think independently and freely. To say that you are a scientist is to say that you deny the existence of God and Jesus Christ. And each side of this faith/science divide looks upon those on the other side with a questionable eye. I cannot say for certain but I do know that some schools to which I have applied for a position feel that my openness about my beliefs are a detriment to my ability to present science in a non-judgmental, scientific and logical manner.

We have created a society in which we ignore the role Christianity (and in fact, all faiths) have played in history. We may speak of the atrocities that many religions have committed in the name of faith yet we ignore the role those same religions have played in the maintenance of society and culture.

Where would we be today if monasteries during the Dark Ages had not kept copies of the books from being destroyed? Where would we be today if the Arab countries of that same time period had not developed chemistry, algebra, or the idea of the zero? Where would Starbucks and all other coffee houses be if the Arabs had not created coffee?

The time has come for us to consider what Christianity is, what faith is, and why each one of us has chosen the path upon which we have walked. The discussions that have taken place and are taking place in this land speak to a situation in which many of us proclaim to all that would hear that we are Christians if it is Sunday morning at 10 am but whose words, thoughts, and deeds pronounce a different faith or belief.

Are you now a Christian? Have you ever been a Christian? Now may very well be the time for you to respond because tomorrow could be too late.