Thinking about the future

I am still interested in knowing many of you who read the Methoblog are either basic or certified lay speakers.  And, no matter where you are laity or ordained, have you heard of and read ¶272 in the Book of Discipline?

I ask because I am wondering what direction the ministry of the church is taking and what the status of lay speaking will be after the next General Conference.

I have had a chance to read the Study of Ministry Report to 2008 General Conference.

It is an interesting document and its conclusions will have a great impact on the future of the denomination.  I am not exactly sure whether the impact will be good or bad.

First, almost the entire focus of the conversation is on the future of the ordained clergy in the church.  The Commission is seeking to delineate and define what it means to be both an elder and a deacon.  It is calling upon the General Conference to reorganize the process so that one’s calling to the ministry and one’s “status” or “standing” in the church are better in line with each other.  This is a continuation of the process that began in 1996 when the path to ordination as elder went through the path to ordination as a deacon.

The biggest change appears to be in the status of the local pastor.  I have not been privy to any discussions about the nature of the local pastorate and what it means in the nature of the church, except as to who I could turn to when it came to consecrating the elements.  There appears to be great concerns in the church, however, that there are too many local pastors or that too many of the local pastors are not completing the path towards ordination.  This is either because of the age of the local pastors, the cost of the process, or other factors.  It appears to me that the Commission felt that local pastors were hurting the denomination; perhaps in conjunction with discussion with other denominations about the process of ordination; perhaps in other ways within the denomination.

While the Commission does not exactly state it, they are suggesting that the denomination began a serious “pruning” of the branches of the churches.  It specifically mentions that there are many small churches that could possibly be better served if they were combined in some way with other local churches.  The local pastors serving these churches would then be replaced by an elder or a possible elder.

This doesn’t come as a surprise to me because I have been a part of several of those churches.  The problem is that many of those small churches do not see themselves in the same light as do the Annual Conferences and the General Conference and there is going to be great resistance to any discussion for closing such churches.  I get the feeling, though I don’t think it is in this report that many small churches are going to be left “to die on the vine.”  There are some churches that need to die; their membership is old and their interests lie in self-preservation, not growth. 

But there are other small churches that happen to be in the right place for growth and they need help in realizing this growth (the parable of the gardener asking the vineyard owner for one more year jumps to mind immediately).  Communication between the conference and these churches is going to determine the success of this process.

The Commission did not address the issue of lay speakers or the Certified Lay Minister process.  Its efforts were focused on the issue of ordination and the status of local pastors.  The Commission does make some recommendations but only as a start in regards to the ordination of elders.

For me, it gives some added sense to the changes that were made in communion (referring back to “This Holy Mystery”).  I have a better sense of the direction the denomination wishes to take and its ministry.  I just not sure if it is the direction that I want to go.

This Commission’s report, along with comments made from other sources, makes me wonder if the Certified Lay Minister process will remain in the Discipline after General Conference next year.  And with the Commission’s emphasis on ordination, it makes me wonder what the future of lay speaking will be.  Nothing in the report/conversation says that lay speaking will be eliminated but I cannot see how it cannot be affected.  The consolidation of churches and the push to reduce the number of local pastors will only reduce the number of opportunities that a lay speaker has.

Rocking the Boat

I am preaching again at Dover UMC in Dover Plains, NY.  Here are my thoughts for the 13th Sunday after Pentecost.

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I have probably told this story before but it is worth telling again. We can trace my family lineage through my grandmother back to Germany in the 16^th century. It is all together possible that my ancestors knew Martin Luther personally. I actually did not know this until a few years back and after I had begun my lay speaking career.

As I was beginning this path that I have walked, I discovered that one of my cousins was a minister in the Lutheran Church. As it turned out, his father and two of his brothers were also ministers. Through Paul’s efforts to plant the family tree, I discovered that I am the fourteenth member of our extended family to be in active ministry. It may be that being a minister is genetic in nature but I had made my decision and began my walk long before I even knew I had an extended family.

It is entirely possible that my call to the ministry today began like the prophet Jeremiah’s (1). I was twelve when I first heard the call and it has been a part of my life ever since, even though at times I ignored it. As I have worked on being a lay speaker, I have gained a clearer understanding of whom Christ is, who God is, and what their presence in my life means. This understanding is echoed in the passage from Jeremiah that says God knows us in the womb; it is echoed in the passage from the Psalms that we spoke today that it has been God who has been there and guided our lives when we have answered His call.

Faith is not something that you can easily quantify. There are those today who would like to do that, for then it becomes easier to justify it. Since faith cannot be quantified, they easily turn away from the church and seek solace elsewhere. They have the freedom to go anywhere they desire but they have no direction to guide them.

Others find faith quite easily but fear losing it. So they put their faith inside a rigid structure of laws and regulations. They have their faith but they are imprisoned in a cage of their own making and unable to move forward in life.

I can only suggest that there is a certainty in my life that can only come through having come to know Christ and to trust in Him.

And in this day, where God’s call continues to get louder and louder, there are many who hear the call but are unwilling to answer it. They quite easily say that they are too young or too old; they wouldn’t know what to write or what to say. And in a society that glorifies “following the crowd” and punishes the person “who colors outside the lines”, people are afraid to speak out. They are unwilling to speak out because they don’t trust the Lord in times when trust in the Lord is necessary.

In Meditations of a Hermit, Charles de Foucauld writes (2)

One thing we owe to Our Lord is never to be afraid. To be afraid is doubly an injury to Him. Firstly, it means that we forget him; we forget He is with us and is all powerful; secondly, it means that we are not conformed to his will; for since all that happens is willed or permitted by him, we ought to rejoice in all that happens to us and feel neither anxiety or fear. Let us then have the faith that banishes fear. Our Lord is at our side, with us, upholding us.

Charles MacDonald, in Creation in Christ, writes (2)

But let us note this, that the dwelling of Jesus in us is the power of the Spirit of God upon us; for “the Lord is the Spirit,” and “this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.” When we think Christ, Christ comes; when we receive his image into our spiritual mirror, he enters with it.

When our hearts turn to him, that is opening the door to him, that is holding up our mirror to him; then He comes in, not by our thought only, not in our idea only, but He comes Himself, and of His own will. Thus the Lord, the Spirit, becomes the soul of our souls, becomes spiritually what He always was creatively; and as our spirit informs, gives shape to our bodies, in like manner his soul informs, gives shape to our souls.

In this there is nothing unnatural, nothing at conflict with our being. It is but the deeper soul that willed and wills our souls, rises up, the infinite Life, into the Self and himself more and more ours; until at length the glory of our existence flashes upon us, we face full to the sun that enlightens what is sent forth, and know ourselves alive with an infinite life, even the life of the Father. Then indeed we are; then indeed we have life; the life of Jesus Has, through light, become life in us; the glory of god in the face of Jesus, mirrored in our hearts, has made us alive; we are one with God for ever and ever.

The words that we speak should not always be our words; our thoughts should not always be our thoughts; and our service should always be for God and not for ourselves.

When we do that, we might be surprised as to the outcome. One Sunday early in my lay speaking career, my cousin Paul came up to hear me preach at my home church. Afterwards, we had lunch and discussed what I had done this morning. Paul said that he felt that my message was just about the right length but he didn’t think that I should have identified Jesus Christ as a revolutionary.

To this day I do not remember how I came to say those words. They are not part of the sermon I wrote and I only said them because they were what I believed and felt. I doubt that I would have said them in a normal conversation because such radical words would not have been easily accepted in that community. I can only think that there was a greater force in my life that day pushing me to say what I felt and believed. I have used that comment many times since then and I will continue to do use it in the years to come because it is what I feel and believe.

And the next year, during the Sunday service that was part of the triennial family reunion, my cousin Paul in his sermon spoke of Jesus being a revolutionary. I could only smile and, afterwards, I kidded him about what he had said. He could only comment that as we learn, we change.

Perhaps it is not correct to think of Jesus as a revolutionary. The term, at least in our times, is more often than not associated with political and violent change. Even though the majority of His disciples were Galilean and probably identified as activists and potential trouble makers by the Roman authorities, it was clear that Jesus was not interested in political change and, more often than not, definitely violent in nature. While Jesus may have exhibited a temper and used violence to clean the temple (3), the message that He presented was a non-violent one. It should be noted that on the night when He was arrested and one of His disciples, probably Peter, cut off the ear of one of the Pharisee’s servants, Jesus stopped Peter and healed the servant (4).

In that context, Jesus was most definitely not a revolutionary. But if one considers social change and how we view life, then Jesus was a revolutionary. It is also because of his concern about the nature of the church in England during the 18^th century and how it related to the various parts of society that one could think of John Wesley as a revolutionary. It has been clearly demonstrated that because of the Wesleyan revival and the shift in the concern of the church to a more Gospel orientation that England was spared the violent revolution that occurred in France shortly after our own American Revolution. Perhaps we need to reconsider exactly what it is that Jesus did in His time and what John Wesley did in his time and how that applies to us today, in our time.

Jesus may not have been a revolutionary in the way that we think of that term but it was clear that He was rocking the boat and upsetting the ways of society. And that is the point that we need to consider.

The people of Jesus’ time had become locked into a singular way of life. Their faith was dictated by the laws derived from the Torah. The rigidity of the laws prevented them from adapting or being flexible in their thinking.

In today’s Gospel reading (5), Jesus heals a sick woman on the Sabbath. To the lawyers in the crowd, this is a clear violation of the law. But as Jesus points out, if it was permissible to take an animal to the vet on the Sabbath, why was it not permissible to heal a sick person? We see too many situations even today where adherence to the law is more important than adherence to the spirit of the law.

When I was growing up, much of my education was in segregated or recently integrated schools. The law of the land was that no child should be treated unequally. So laws were passed and school boards made rules to ensure that equality was insured. But it was equality at a price. Instead of the schools providing text books, parents had to buy them. Of course, if a family did not have sufficient funds for new books, then they had to buy used books. Instead of schools having sufficient funds for extra-curricular activities, school boards gave each group a small amount of money and had the groups rely on outside sources (again, most often parent groups) to provide the additional funds.

From a legal standpoint, these were acceptable ways of meeting the requirements of equal opportunity and treatment. But despite it being legal, it simply meant that schools in high income areas had better equipment, better instruments for the bands, and better books for the students. Schools in lower income areas had to make do with whatever they could get whenever they could afford the purchase. Equality under the law does not always insure equality.

Jesus constantly challenged the authorities to meet the spirit of the Law, not the letter of the law. And because these challenges threatened their power, authorities reacted and sought ways to nullify what Jesus was doing.

The challenge of the letter and spirit of the Law are still present today. We hear in the political arena a call for a return to “state’s rights” as a way of controlling the federal government and restoring power to the people. As one who grew up in an era and a place where “state’s rights” was a way to limit the power of the people, I shudder at its implications for today. Similarly, I shudder at those in the religious arena who argue for a return to Biblical law.

These individuals contend that the laws outlined in the Bible are the basis for the laws of this country. They also argue that the word of God, as outlined in the Bible, is always and ever the truth. But this leads to any number of questions. Which version of the Bible do we use? Which modern translation of the Bible do we use? Are we to use the King James Version, with its decidedly political kingdom overtones? In what language should we be reading the Scriptures each Sunday?

Whatever the answers to those questions might be, the central question must be “Are we to consider the Bible as a fixed, immutable document? Are we to consider the Spirit of the Law more than we consider the letter of the Law?” For no matter what version of the Bible we read or what language we read it in, if we view it as fixed and immutable, then we limit God and we limit ourselves.

To see the Bible as closed and only an answer book is a grave error on our part. It allows us to use scripture to attack others and thus perpetuate violence against one another and justify harm in God’s name. We must listen and read passages such as these very carefully and honor the questions and tensions that they raise in us. If we listen with “new ears” we always will hear something different from what we expect. But we cannot do so if our lives are restricted by fixed or unchangeable laws.

In today’s Epistle reading (6), the writer of Hebrews noted that the people were afraid to touch Mt. Sinai. The lightning, the thunder, the smoke, and the fire put fear into their hearts and they were afraid to come close to the mountain or even touch it because they would die. But the writer of Hebrews encouraged his readers to come to Mt. Zion, to touch and hear and envision Jesus Christ. Those who treat the Bible as fixed, unchanging, and immutable treat the Bible as if it were Mt. Sinai; the earth will shake, the skies will rumble and they will die if anything is done to the law. Those who hear the message of the Bible and how we are to treat people treat the Bible as Mt. Zion. The earth remains solid, heaven rejoices, and the people have life.

This, to me, is what Jesus was constantly doing. He understood what the law was; he also understood the limitations of the law. He sought to implement the spirit of the law. In doing so, he shook the foundations of power and authority.

This is the dilemma that we face today. How are we to “rock the boat?” In stating that we are Christians, we are openly stating that we shall seek justice for the oppressed; we shall seek and find ways to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and heal the sick. In a society where power is equated with wealth and where wealth is equated with righteousness, to speak out against either is surely to rock the boat. And that is something that we often do not want to do.

We can relate to Jeremiah. We have the luxury of knowing that Jeremiah is going to be rejected by his own people for his words and his actions. But, we also have the luxury of hearing God say to Jeremiah that He will empower Jeremiah; He will give Jeremiah the words to say; He will protect Jeremiah in times of danger.

The same is true for each one of us. By ourselves, we cannot say much that will change the world. By ourselves, we cannot do those things that will stop violence, end hunger and disease or clothe the naked. But, in our acceptance of Jesus Christ, we open the door for the Holy Spirit to come into our lives and bring that one thing that allows us to do what we have been asked to do.

When the Lord calls, will you hesitate? Will you be like those who find comfort and solace in an unchanging and unbending set of laws? If you do, you will find yourself locked in a prison of your own making, unable to escape and condemned to die. But if you are willing to rock the boat and create waves, you will find the Lord standing by your side, calming the waves and allowing you to proclaim the glory of God through Christ. We are called by God today? What will be your answer?

(1) Jeremiah 1: 4 – 10

(2) From A Guide to Prayer by Rueben P. Job and Norman Shawchuck (1983)

(3) See Matthew 21: 12 – 13, Mark 11: 15 – 17, Luke 19: 45 – 46, and John 2: 13 – 22

(4) See Matthew 26:47-56, Mark 14:43-52, Luke 22:47-53, and John 18:2-12

(5) Luke 13: 10 – 17

(6) Hebrews 12: 18 - 29

And What Will You Say?

Here are my thoughts for the 12th Sunday after Pentecost.  I am preaching at Stevens Memorial United Methodist Church (South Salem, NY).

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The weather last week and the news in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and in the Newburgh Times Herald-Record about lightning striking church steeples in the respective towns of St. Louis, MO and Newburgh, NY prompted me to look for other similar incidents. Doing a search on the Internet, I discovered close to 100,000 occasions when “lightning strikes a church steeple.”

If occurrences of natural disasters are a sign of God’s wrath, how are we to interpret these instances? Are the people of the churches that were involved doing something sinful? Or is it likely that church steeples are a likely target for lightning because they are often times the highest point in an area and thus easily the “targets” for God’s fireworks?

Jesus said we see the signs of weather but we do not know what they mean. I can understand that. Some saw the floods that covered most of the Midwest in 1993 and said it was God’s punishment for the people’s behavior. Some saw Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and the devastation that wrecked New Orleans and the Gulf Coast and said it was God’s punishment for the people of New Orleans’ behavior and lifestyle. The tsunami that ravaged the Indian Ocean two years ago was because God was angry with the people of that region. Even the collapsed bridge in Minnesota was said to have been for the extreme behavior of the people of Minnesota.

I cannot speak to God’s wrath and what causes it. When we hear of floods destroying the Midwest and have some preacher say it is God’s wrath, I am reminded that God promised us, with the sign of the rainbow, that he would never again destroy the earth through floods (Genesis 9: 8 – 11). And while the people of New Orleans and the surrounding Gulf Coast may lead lifestyles that are not Christian in nature and they may do things that we personally do not like (one person in Alabama even argued that hurricane Katrina’s real target were the casinos on the Mississippi Gulf coast), the destruction of New Orleans was more a sign of how poorly we maintain the levies along the Mississippi River and the destruction of the wetlands south of New Orleans. The fact that we are still discussing New Orleans and Katrina some two years after it happened is a sign of how little we may care for people less fortunate than us. The collapse of the bridge in Minnesota is again another sign of how we take care of our public infrastructure. If Minnesotans are so sinful that their bridges collapse, how are we to read the sign of the steam pipe exploding in New York? Are New Yorkers not sinful enough to warrant God’s wrath?

To say that such acts of nature are a sign of God’s wrath is to show a lack of understanding of the natural world as well as a lack of understanding of our relationship with God. Treating acts of nature as acts of God is to put God on the same level as the gods of ancient Egypt, Greece, or Rome.

If we see the signs around us as a portent of things to come, then we also do not understand what a prophecy is or what a prophet does. A prophet (from the Greek word for “speaker”) does not necessarily predict the future bur rather speaks out on behalf of God. A prophet does not foretell the future but tells forth. This can mean that they will foretell what the future will be but the primary and distinguishing characteristic of a biblical prophet is to be sought in the divine vocation and mission of telling and speaking in the name and by the designated authority.(1)

I do not perceive myself as a prophet by any stretch of the imagination but I do see the need to speak out (2). In a world that literally cries out for care and compassion, in a world where violence is almost too commonplace, there is a need for the Gospel message. Yet, today the church seems totally oblivious to the world around it. It seems to be that the church today has turned a blind eye to where it should be and where it is at.

I see churches where pastors, ministers, and leaders call for war and proclaim that the one true God is the God that we worship; anyone who worships the same God but in another religion worships a false God. But I also see churches and pastors who preach against war and call for peace.

When I wrote “Study War No More” and “Perhaps We Should Study War More Often”, I received a number of comments in support of war and arguing that war was inevitable. I found it amazing that these comments came from clergy in the United Methodist church rather than from the laity of the church. When I wrote about the killings at Virginia Teach (“It Happened Again”), it was a minister who argued that if one student had carried a gun the killings would have not happened. How is it that we can say that we work for the Prince of Peace but then say that war and violence are the solutions to war and violence? This is quite a change from the Methodists of this country in the 1700’s who were very much pacifists and opposed to war. Those who opposed the war were treated as loyalists and supporters of the crown, even if they were in support of the concept of the American Revolution.

I see and hear preachers today who claim that our founding fathers were devout Christians and who used their beliefs in God and Christ to write the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Yet, these same preachers forget that many of those they lift up were in fact deists, believers in an omnipotent God but not necessarily Christian. They revise history to suit their needs just as they have tried to revise science in order to quell questions that would undermine their own power and authority.

I see and hear preachers and churches that proclaim the gospel of riches and ignore the poor, claiming that the poor are sinful and responsible for their lot in life. But there are other preachers and churches who work to end poverty in this country; who see to it that the hungry are fed and work to build homes for the homeless when others turn their back on their plight.

We see the violence in the world; yet all we do is continue the violence. We see the hungry starving, even in our own country; yet our concern is limited to the compassion we feel for these poor souls. The poor keep getting poorer while the rich keep getting richer. Instead of making sure that everyone has the means for success, we encourage the hoarding of wealth. How big is the gap between the pay of a CEO in even the smallest companies in this country and the salaries and wages of the workers who work for that company? We see the quality of health care in this country more related to the amount of money in one’s bank account than to the skills and capabilities of the doctors, nurses, and technicians.

Yes, our own John Wesley encouraged us to earn all that we could; he was one of the highest paid ministers of his time. But he also encouraged us to save as much as we could and to give as much as we could. Even though John Wesley earned as much as 1400 pounds a year (a rather nice sum in those days), he had determined that he and his family could live on 28 pounds a year; the other money was given back to the church and to the poor. John Wesley sought to embody the words of Christ in his faith and his actions. How many pastors today, with their multi-million dollar book deals and salaries, with their expensive houses and private airplanes, can say the same thing? How long will it be before we realize that what we do to the least of our society is what we do to Christ?

I see and hear people in this country calling for a religious government, one that would emulate God’s Kingdom here on earth. Never mind that Christ never called for such a Kingdom but constantly urged us to prepare for the Kingdom in Heaven. I see and hear people who want nuclear war in the Middle East because it will start Armageddon and they will get to heaven. Never mind that the judgment as to who gets into heaven is made there and not here; that those who seek war and ignore peace, those who argue against helping the poor, the sick , and the needy will be the ones left out. I see and hear people in this country who put the country before God and claim that God will do the will of the people. Are we not supposed to do God’s will?

I see a parallel between what is happening in this country today and what happened in Germany in the 1930’s. When Adolph Hitler came to power, one of the groups that supported him was the Lutheran Church in Germany. For many in the church, his nationalistic rhetoric overshadowed his racism and bigotry.

It is hard to think that so many people died because the church turned a blind eye to the plight of the people. John Conway wrote,

It was the tragedy of the German churches that they were so inadequately prepared to oppose such strident heresies. They lacked safety valves against the challenge of the ‘radical right’ that offered a vision of church and state working hand in hand to renew the nation’s strength. The more perceptive churchmen realized too late the dangers of Nazi ambitions. The heresy of a nationalist pseudo-religion had gained too many adherents for effective defenses to be built or successful alternatives to be preached. Cut off from potential allies in the ecumenical movement abroad, only a handful of staunchly orthodox members of the Protestant Confessing Church were ready to take up arms to uphold Christian truths and to suffer for their faith. The lessons to be drawn from the churches’ behavior before and after the rise of National Socialism remain (3).

I cringe at the thought that was written about Germany in the 1930’s is again happening in this country at this time. How long shall Christians allow people to kill other people in the name of their country because they believe it is the correct action? We walk a fine line indeed when we say that our actions are acceptable because they are in the best interests of the country but which go against the moral teachings we supposedly learned in Sunday School and church. These are days which challenge the very soul of the church; these are days which cry out for each church to speak out and think of their responsibilities to mankind, no matter how they pray to God.

I see divisions in the church today. These divisions exist in local churches, denominations, and the church in general. And Jesus said that He had come not to bring peace, but division. Brother will turn against brother, parent against child, friend against friend (4). This is a rather brutal statement from our Lord, especially in light of what He consistently said and did. But when you consider what He said and did, then it is easy to see how families can be divided, children will turn against their parents, and friends will split with friends. The message that Christ brought was a message that ran counter to the thoughts and actions of much of society. Those who followed Him would find themselves at odds with many people in society.

We see the signs but do we understand what they mean. How long will it take before we realize that some have too much money and many do not have enough? How long will it take before we realize that the continued oppression of a minority in any country can only incur hatred and violent rage? How long will it take before we realize that ignorance of the basic tenets of the Gospel will only yield terrorism, hatred, and continued violence?

So what are we to do in this time of struggle and strife? Are we to stand idly by and let the world self-destruct? Or are we to act so that the destruction of the world is a mute point?

Not all of the Lutheran ministers in Germany during the 1930’s went along with their church. There were many who openly opposed the transformation of the Lutheran Church into the spiritual advisor of the Nazi regime.

There were people like Paul Schneider and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Reverend Schneider was a Lutheran minister who consistently and openly spoke out against the Nazi regime and its attempt to subvert the Lutheran church. He was imprisoned in Buchenwald and died from a lethal injection in 1939 (5).

I also wonder what Dietrich Bonhoeffer might say to the churches of today who ignore the poor and whose leaders tow the party line. What would either of these two say to those whose view of the future does not keep the Cross in plain sight?

I first encountered Dietrich Bonhoeffer when I was in college. His name kept coming up in situations related to the anti-war movement of the sixties. But I didn’t know who he was or why his thoughts were so important to that moment in time.

When he was in his mid-twenties, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was recognized as one of the brightest theological minds of all times. Yet, with his great understanding of the Bible and theology, he wrestled with the idea of what being a Christian was all about. In part, this dissonance between his mental life and his daily life came because of what was happening in Germany at that time, the early 1930’s. He saw a church where many leaders welcomed with open arms Adolf Hitler and many others simply acquiesced to the rise of Nazism, hoping that it would all go away.

Bonhoeffer was living in America and could have stayed here, safe from the troubles in Germany. But God called him to go home. In Germany, he worked to overthrow the Third Reich and help smuggle Jews out of Germany. He was arrested and imprisoned for two years. He was executed for his part in the attempted assassination of Hitler four days before Allied troops liberated the prison camp where he was imprisoned.

During those two years he thought and wrote about faith, God, life, and the church. He already knew that grace without discipleship was meaningless. In prison, I think that he began to see why. He wrote of missing worship services though he could not explain why. He wrote of a deeper sense of God’s involvement in our lives. He began to see how we are able to bring good out of evil, much in the manner that Joseph saw through the injustices of his brothers and the plans of a vindictive and rejected wife to the uniqueness of God’s own plan (6).

Most importantly, Bonhoeffer saw that crisis becomes that edge where change is possible. But such change requires something greater than human nature. That something is our faith in God.

Isaiah speaks of the vineyard and the walls that surrounded it (7). Isaiah is speaking out against the people of Judah because of their lack of faith. The vineyard that he speaks of in today’s Old Testament reading is the people and God’s is the vineyard owner. The wild grapes that overgrow the cultured grapes are the product of the people’s sins. This are just sins of the lifestyle but also sins of greed, arrogance, and self-centeredness. The people of Judah had destroyed their own lives with their own self-centeredness. Their own self-centeredness overcame their faith.

If we are not willing to speak out against violence in all forms, when will violence end? If we are not willing to call for positive ways of resolving the violence, both domestic and foreign, that exists in this world today, how can we ever expect violence to end?

I will reiterate what I have said in the past and which no one else, that I am aware of, has said. If we do nothing to eliminate the causes of terror; if we do not work to eliminate world-wide hunger, world-wide poverty, and world-wide oppression, then terrorism will always be a part of our lives and we can expect violence to continue. If we respond to violence with violence with violence, how can we ever expect to achieve peace?

We must seek another way, a way that reflects who we are and what we believe. What would have happened if the German pastors, instead of supporting the Nazis, had spoken out against the wrongs that the Nazi government was doing in the 1930’s. Would we have had World War II if these men of God had spoken out against war, violence, and evil then? Unfortunately, these men of God were more interested in their own well-being and establishing that they were just as nationalistic as everyone else in Germany.

We are not asked to be martyrs to the faith; rather we are asked to be representatives of the faith. We are asked to go to Biloxi or Red Bird or Bolivia. We are asked to aid when disaster calls. We asked to invite our friends and neighbors to be here with us on Sunday morning. We are simply asked to show the presence of Christ in this world.

Yes, what we are often asked to do is very difficult. It is so much easier to walk by a homeless person than offer help. It is much easier to say that someone’s plight of homelessness or poverty is because they are sinful in nature. It is much easier to go to war than to work for peace. It is much easier to turn a blind eye to oppression than it is to speak out.

It is not an easy task; ask the writer of Hebrews (8). The writer lists what many of the early members of the church endured to insure that safety and the future of the church. The road, the path that they walked was clearly not an easy one. Yes, there are those who died in battle or led the nation in times of conflict but there were conflicts imposed upon them, not incited by them. We have those who went before us, that great cloud of faith to remind us that we are asked to do much for God and to do it with only the hope of a reward later. That is what our faith gives us in these times.

I do not have the answers. I am still struggling with the questions myself. But I know that I must speak out. I can no longer simply stand by and let others destroy the work of those who came before us. I will seek to do what God asks me to do; I will say “here I am” when God asks who will serve Him.

Each day we are asked one of two questions:

“Will you follow Jesus, no matter where it leads you in life?”

“And when you follow Jesus, will you carry out the tasks of the Gospel?”

What will you say when God asks you?

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(1) Adapted from “Whose Bible Is It?” by Jaroslav Pelikan

(2) http://heartontheleft.wordpress.com/2007/01/14/no-i-cant-and-neither-should-you/

(3) http://www.bonhoeffer.com/bak2.htm

(4) Luke 12: 49 – 56

(5) This was adapted from comments about Paul Schneider in Servants, Misfits, and Martyrs by James C. Howell

(6) This was adapted from comments about Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Servants, Misfits, and Martyrs by James C. Howell

(7) Isaiah 5: 1- 7

( Hebrews 11: 29 - 12: 2

Listening Carefully

Here are my thoughts for the 11th Sunday after Pentecost.  For those that are interested, I will be at Steven Memorial UMC (South Salem, NY) next week (August 19th), Dover Plains UMC (Dover, NY) on August 26th, and First UMC (Newburgh, NY) on September 2nd.

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It seems to me that there has been a marked increased in the prophets of old lately. It isn’t just the prophets of the Bible but such secular prophets as Edgar Cayce and Nostradamus as well. And the interest in what the prophets have said seems to focus on the impending end of the world. Some prophets think that the end of the world will come with Armageddon in the Middle East. Others think that the end of the world will come on December 21, 2012 because that is the end of the Mayan calendar.

But there are problems when you listen to these endless claims of gloom and doom. Remember all those who proclaimed that the transition from December 31, 1999 to January 1, 2000 would bring about numerous instances of ruin? Remember those who proclaimed that this transition would mark the new millennium and the coming of the Lord? The prophets did not get it right then (they also missed it when we transitioned from 1000 to 1001 and the beginning of the second millennium). Prophets speak words and we hear what we want those words to mean.

No matter if the prophet is secular or sectarian; I cannot help but wonder if their words are truly harbingers of things to come. Are not the things that they say merely a description of what is happening at the time the words were recorded? Can anyone, let alone a prophet, actually foretell the future and describe technology that has not been invented? How is it that nuclear weapons and nuclear war in the Middle East can be predicted, as at least one preacher constantly reminds us with presentations that put PowerPoint to shame, when they didn’t even know what an atom was or what truly caused the Sun to shine? They may proclaim disaster but only in terms that they understood and knew.

If the words spoken some two thousand years ago are the way the future will be and there is nothing that we can do about changing the future, then all that we have done and all that we do is meaningless. But we are constantly reminded that we have the ability and the wherewithal to make the future be better than what the present is. We have the ability and the power but the ability and power are meaningless if we listen to others tell us what the future will be.

The words of the prophets spoke to the human condition then. If they apply to the human condition today, it is not because they are prophets foretelling the future but rather because the human condition is no different today than it was two thousand years ago. In the Old Testament reading for today (1), Isaiah is speaking against the worship practices of the people. Worship had become more “self-centered” and less “God-centered.” If anything, the same thing is happening today.

We claim that we are all God’s children, yet much of the discussion in our churches today seems to center on which of God’s children can come into the church. Instead of focusing on God, the new music and the new worship styles of today take away the very reason why we even have worship. Should not Isaiah’s prophetic words of two thousand years ago be heard again today?

Isaiah speaks out against the focus of the church. Instead of a focus on God and God’s tasks, the people of Israel were focusing on things that would best benefit them. Isaiah’s call to the people to refocus their thoughts in worship back to the cares and needs of the people ring very much true today. Instead of trying to decide which of God’s children are worthy of entry into our churches, our churches should be going out and taking care of the hungry, the sick, the homeless, the needy and the oppressed.

Instead of building walls to put God inside where we can display Him at our leisure, we should be tearing down the walls so that others can see Him and know who He is.

We have already been told what the outcome of our failure to note the words of the prophets will be. Isaiah and other prophets told us that obedience to God results in reward; failure to obey results in destruction. Destruction will come to all, not just those who do not listen. Destruction will come to those who know that it is coming and do nothing because they think they will receive great rewards, either on earth or in heaven.

Any prophet, be they secular or sectarian, who tells you they know the exact time for the end of the world is not in communication with those who have the power and the ability to make it so. Jesus tells us that we cannot know the day or time of His Second Coming (2). All He says is that we can and should be prepared because He can come at any time.

Our concerns should not be on the end of the world. Rather, they should be on doing what it is we are supposed to be doing. As Isaiah said, we need to think about feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, healing the sick, and helping those in need. When the time does come, we are going to be questioned about how we related to those around us. And many of those who so eagerly wait for this day and time will find that because they were more concerned about the end of time and not those around them that they will be the ones left behind.

It would be nice if we knew where this path that we walk goes or where it will take us. But that is not what this life is about. We should, without fear, know where this path ends and that is more important. And while it would be nice if the prophets who speak so knowingly of the future would tell us what will happen tomorrow, we know that they cannot do so. Without any clear guidance as to what the future will bring, we are in a quandary as to what to do.

But if we do as those who walked this path before us did, then we can walk the path without fear. Notice in the Epistle reading for today (3) how the writer of Hebrews emphasized the faith of the people. It was the faith that determined what happened, not what they did or who they were. That is the point in Isaiah’s warnings and what we have to think about. If we put the focus of our worship and our lives on ourselves, then we will not gain anything. If we put the focus on God through Christ, then we focus on our faith and through our faith we will find our rewards. The key thing, at least to me, is something that was pointed out to me a long time ago – our faith is the key to our salvation; our works do not buy us a ticket into heaven.

If we hear Isaiah’s warning and think that by doing good, we have heeded the warnings, we missed the point. If we think in those terms, we are still thinking about ourselves and the focus is not where it should be. On the other hand, if in our faith, we do what is expected of us, then our rewards are there.

Too many people hear the prophets of today and think that things are coming to an end. Their focus is on the prophet and not on God; their focus is on themselves and not on Christ. You are not listening to God but man.

If you do not fear the end times and are prepared for them, then your focus is where it should be. If you do what is expected of you in faith, then you are listening to God.

There comes a time in everyone’s life where they hear the call from God. It is a quiet and soft call, easily lost in the noise of the prophets. Are you listening carefully?

(1) Isaiah 1: 1, 10 – 20

(2) Luke 12: 32 – 40

(3) Hebrews 11: 1 – 3, 8 - 16

Are We In the Wrong Business?

A couple of weeks ago, I posted What We Are Supposed To Do as my thoughts for that weekend.

The part about opening an Internet church was done in jest as I don’t believe that a church can exist in virtual reality.  

The recent article “The Deadly Virus of Celebrity Christianity” suggests that maybe I really need to reconsider my decision not to do so.  Clearly some pastors or so-called pastors find their rewards and riches here on earth through their ministries.

Finding The Truth

Here are my thoughts for the 10th Sunday after Pentecost.

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After reading the Gospel for today (1), there is part of me that wants to scream. It is a scream of anguish or frustration more than anything else and it comes from knowing that the words that Luke recorded come from Christ, yet they seem to be words that people ignore.

Jesus is speaking about our relationship with others, especially those of our family and how we must guard against being greedy. In the parable of the rich man, we read of a man whose wealth has increased beyond measure and he has begun making plans to store and keep his extra riches. Yet, on the night that he begins making those plans, he finds out that God has other plans for him and he is called to his eternal home. It brings the question framed in Mark, “what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul?”(2)

My scream comes from the fact that there are those in today’s society who claim to be messengers or prophets or ministers of God’s word who proclaim that it is perfectly alright to seek wealth and prosperity without fear of loss. There are those in today’s society who proclaim that God is our servant and whatever we ask, He will give to us. This so-called “prosperity gospel” is nowhere near what the Gospel says or even hinted at in the Bible. So I want to scream and cry out in anguish.

I also want to scream and cry out at those who listen to these words of misdirection and deceit. So many people today claim to be Christian and claim to follow the teachings of Jesus but they hold onto views that are in direct contradiction to what Jesus said and did. They are the type of people who say that “God helps those who help themselves” is found in the Bible without realizing that is a statement of Ben Franklin.

These contradictions are a result of what people think is in the Bible and what is actually in the Bible. It goes beyond the prosperity gospel and its get rich quick and without effort message. It extends into our knowledge of American history and real theology.

You hear so many so-called ministers proclaim that this country was founded on principles that come from the Bible. You hear so many so-called prophets of God claim that our founding fathers were God-fearing Christians. But you often do not hear that our founding fathers were in fact more deists than Christian; you often do not hear that being a member of a church and being identified with a particular congregation and/or denomination was done more out of political necessity and political requirements. You do not hear that Thomas Jefferson was so disenchanted with the Bible that he sought to write his own. You do not hear how Thomas Jefferson felt that the true church, true Christianity had been hijacked by the church. He thought that the teachings of Christ had been so distorted by organized churches that it made one half of the world fools and the other half hypocrites(3). I would hope that the percentages are a little bit different today.

I scream, not because the church has been hijacked by those with their own selfish and personal interests but because it seems that because so many others have allowed it to occur. I began to understand the pain and anguish that Hosea writes about in the Old Testament reading for today (4).

The passage of Hosea is God’s cry that the people that he cared for and that he brought out of slavery and bondage in Egypt have turned away. It is God’s cry that His people are lost again in the wilderness without his protection. God does not exact vengeance against a select few in a nation; He exacts it against all people. Those who say that such-and-such a disaster was God’s judgment against a select few fail to realize that this judgment is against all. And God’s mercy is for all, not just for a select few.

If we want God’s mercy, we must seek it; it will not come to us. If we do not want God’s judgment to be against us, then we must work to do God’s will. In part, this is what Hosea writes today. God has not abandoned His people; His people have abandoned Him.

Evil is unjust but if we stand by and allow evil to persist, then our inaction is also unjust. If we allow ministers or preachers to preach a message that is not found in the Gospel, be it about prosperity or Armageddon, then we deserve the outcome that will come. The only reason that such individuals can preach these false words is because people allow them to be preached. We cannot stand on the brink of disaster and say that we will be saved when we had the opportunity to prevent the disaster.

God calls us to seek the truth. God calls us to listen to His son and respond in kind. The call comes in our repentance. It means not seeing wealth as an individual right but as something to be shared. It means insuring that everyone has sufficient resources. It means not violating the integrity of another nation solely because you seek vengeance.

Paul points out his letter to the Colossians (5) that we must give up our personal ways. He writes that we are to put to death all those things that identify you with the earth and take up those things that identify you with Christ. We are to find a new life in Christ.

The task before us is a great one. There are so many people out there who profess to know the truth and to speak the truth that it has become almost impossible to discern “the wheat from the chaff”. But God gave us the ability to seek the truth; He sent His son so that the truth would be known. We are reminded that it will be the truth, the truth found in Christ that will set us free.

How will we know what is the truth? Look at those who claim to speak the truth but prevent you from questioning what they say. How can that be the truth? Listen to those who speak of and then deny access to the church for people because of their race, their caste, their lifestyle. How can that be the truth? Is there not a resistance in the church today to those who call for a change in the way that the church relates to the world around it?

There are those today who would forsake the world around them, claiming it to be evil and doomed. But the very same powers that might lead to that claim also allow us to make great and positive changes. The ability of man to master the world around him makes it possible for all to share in a creative life in this world. We are empowered by the Holy Spirit to seek the truth in this new creative life. Is not the breaking of the chains of oppression a sign that we are growing in the unity that Paul wrote about in Colossians (6)?

Does this new creative life not allow us to seek Christ in new ways, to see Christ in the world around us? Does this new creative life found in Christ allow us to become free to know God in the immediacy of human life? Are we, through Christ, now free to serve God? Can we not see the possibility of witnessing that Christ is revealed to mankind as the one who came to set people free and not through some strange and mysterious theology only known to a select few?

Are we not at that same point as the disciples of John were when they came to Jesus and asked for a sign that He was the Messiah? Do we not see that the lame walk, the deaf hear, the blind see, and the poor have the Good News preached to them (7)?

We have a choice. We can allow others to tell us their version of the truth; we can let them go on and on misleading them. Or we can allow the Holy Spirit to come into our lives and open both our minds and hearts so that we can truly discern the truth. We can go on and allow others to tell us what to think and what to say and what to do. Or we can repent of our sins and our worldly ways, cast off that which ties us to this world and take up the mantle of Christ. And when we do this, when we accept Christ into our hearts and truly become His disciples, then we will know what the truth is and we will be truly free.

(1) Luke 12: 13 – 21

(2) Mark 8: 36

(3) http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2005/Jesus-Without-Miracles1dec05.htm

(4) Hosea 11: 1 – 11

(5) Colossians 3: 1- 11

(6) Colossians 3: 11

(7) Taken from Luke 7: 22