text:
For about a century, week in and week out, the people of this congregation have sung the Doxology at some point in Sunday morning worship.
Praise God from whom all blessing flow.
Praise God all creatures here below.
Praise God above ye heavenly hosts. …
And here's where folks break into two or three different versions: Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; Creator, Son and Holy Ghost; or Creator, Christ and Holy Ghost. They're all fine. Thanks to our lovely church history, published to celebrate our centennial in 1997, we know that the Doxology has been part of the regular Sunday worship service since about 1913.[1]
The word "doxology" means praise. Louis Bourgeois, John Calvin's choirmaster in Geneva, composed the tune we use in 1551. In 1560, William Kethe, a Scot and friend of John Knox, wrote a paraphrase of Psalm 100 using Bourgeois' tune. That hymn is the oldest hymn in English still in use, and appears in our hymnal at number 220: "All People That on Earth Do Dwell." The tune became known as "Old Hundredth" because of its association with Psalm 100. In the late 1600's, Anglican hymn writer Thomas Ken borrowed "Old Hundredth" for another hymn, a hymn he called, "Morning Hymn." The words we sing as the Doxology – "Praise God from whom all blessings flow," and so on, were the 14th stanza of that hymn. I'll bet you're glad we just sing the one verse. But we sing it every week, and we sing it as grace at potlucks and retreats and sometimes meetings, and even allowing for the significant chunk of time I quit going to church as a young adult, and accounting for missing church several times a year, I've probably sung the Doxology well over 2000 times. For some of you it could be twice that.
Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Not exactly the same words but the same message as Psalm 100. Praise God. Praise God all people. The Bible is a persistent advocate of the act of praise. In fact, the Bible is almost pushy about it. Psalm 100 isn't an invitation to make a joyful noise. It's a command. Throughout the psalms, we're commanded to praise God, to fall down on our faces, to sing, shout, clap our hands, wave branches, blow trumpets, pluck strings, and bang cymbals together.[2] We are commanded to join our voices with the sounds of nature, with thunder and trees and the roaring sea.[3] I think most of us associate this kind of over the top behavior with Old Testament people – maybe that was normal several thousand years ago and perhaps it was a simpler people at a simpler time. And we tend to bristle at anything that smacks of a command. Praise God, even if I don't feel like it? It reminds me of a line from the old British comedy duo, Flanders and Swann: "We should always be sincere whether we mean it or not." Besides, why would God need our praise? Is God that narcissistic or needy?
Well, it turns out it is not God who needs it. We need it. C. S. Lewis wrote that what we need most as humans beings is doxology. "God is that object to admire which is to be awake," wrote Lewis. Interesting thought: To praise is to be awake. To praise is to be alert to what is going on. "Praise," he said, "is inner health made audible."
"Praise is inner health made audible." Current research affirms this. Praise and gratitude are closely connected; they are sisters if you will. Research shows that gratitude isn't an attitude but rather, a practice, and the people who actively practice gratitude are the people who experience more joy. This is important: They are not grateful because they are joyful; they are joyful because they are grateful.[4]
All of that is what is going on when we open our lives and spirits to doxology. And there is a sense in which praise is a countercultural act, it is subversive to the values of the materialistic, consumer-based culture that goes into overdrive this time of year. We live and move and have our being in a culture that evaluates us, places us in the social spectrum, defines and identifies us on the basis of what we earn, own, look like and consume. And over against that prevailing ethos, the simple radical act of doxology says we belong to God. Our most basic identity as human beings comes from the One who created us and who is the life and love behind all of creation.[5] As John Updike put it, "Ancient religion and science agree: we are here to give praise . . . to pay attention."
It is so, so easy to forget this, to lose track of this. To quit paying attention. Both my daughters were involved in theater in middle and high school, and decent actresses if I do say so myself, but also both very tall, especially for their ages. They quickly learned that the leading lady roles went to the petite girls, not because they were better actresses, necessarily, but because they were shorter than the boys who were cast as the leading men. So my daughters ended up being cast as mothers much of the time, including the time my daughter Allison played the mother in a summer drama camp production of one of my favorite plays, Thornton Wilder's "Our Town." "Our Town" is about everyday life in the fictional small American town of Grover's Corners in the first years of the twentieth century. Throughout the play, a character called the Stage Manager narrates and in some cases interacts with the characters. In the final act, one of the main characters, Emily, has died in childbirth. We see her funeral and we see her take her place among the other townspeople who have died and who are now largely indifferent to earthly events. But Emily is not, not yet, and against the advice of the other souls in the cemetery, she decides to go back and relive part of her life. With the aid of the Stage Manager, Emily steps into the morning of her twelfth birthday. Emily both participates as the birthday girl and watches the scene as an observer.
The petite 12-year-old playing Emily in the summer drama camp production rushed her lines; my tall daughter probably could have delivered them better; but it didn't matter. The power of Emily's farewell speech transcends acting skills. She says, "But, just for a moment now we're all together. Mama, just for a moment we're happy. Let's really look at one another! … I can't. I can't go on. It goes so fast. We don't have time to look at one another. I didn't realize. So all that was going on and we never noticed." She turns to the Stage Manager: "Take me back – up the hill – to my grave. But first: Wait! One more look. Good-bye. Good-bye world. Good-bye, Grover's Corners …. Mama and Papa. Good-bye to clocks ticking …. and Mama's sunflowers. And food and coffee. And new ironed dresses and hot baths …. and sleeping and waking up. Oh, earth, you are too wonderful for anybody to realize you. Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it – every, every minute?" And the Stage Manager replies, "No," and pauses. And then he says, "The saints and poets, maybe they do some."[6]
The saints, and poets. The saints and poets, who understand the practice of doxology. In the Ephesians passage, the writer, described as the apostle Paul but probably one of his followers, begins his letter at verse 1, "to the saints who are in Ephesus."[7] As I mentioned a few weeks ago on All Saints Sunday, the early church used the word "saints" to refer to the whole church, the church on earth, here and now. You are the saints. We are the saints. The writer of Ephesians thanks God for inspiring the Ephesians with hope, enlightenment, faith and love.[8] And then he bursts forth with praise, but not insubstantial praise; it is not mushy or sentimental praise. The writer praises God for lifting Christ far above all rule and authority.[9] It's easy to miss, today, that this was a political statement. If God has made Christ the King, then no other power on this earth is sovereign and deserves ultimate obedience: neither the United States nor the Democrats, the Republicans, or the Tea Party; neither K Street nor Wall Street nor Madison Avenue.[10]
Today we celebrate Christ the King or Reign of Christ Sunday. It's the last Sunday of the church calendar. Next week we start a new church year with the first Sunday in Advent. Biblical commentator Clifton Black writes, "On this of all Sundays, the impostors to whom we have pledged our allegiance are exposed. … On the Sunday of [Christ the King], Jesus Christ declares the church's independence from every fraudulent lord to whom his children have sold their souls."[11] So Reign of Christ Sunday, then, is like the church's Fourth of July. It is our Independence Day. Praise God from whom all blessings flow. And that is exactly what the writer of Ephesians has in mind.
"The saints and poets, maybe they do some." The saints and poets understand the power of doxology. There is power in praising God for every, every minute of life; there is power in praising God for our independence from the other powers who would define us by what we earn, own, and consume, rather than as sons and daughters of God, created in God's image and chips off the old divine block, as my New Testament professor[12] used to put it, worthy of God's love and justice regardless of any condition you can imagine or the world can manufacture.
The writer of Ephesians is specific about gratitude for the community of the faithful, because it is the community that lives into this truth, this alternative reality where love is king, not cash or military might or status or anything else. We, the church, still gather in community because it is hard, even for us saints, to realize life, every, every minute. It is countercultural to practice gratitude, expect joy, and live doxology. The cover of your bulletins this morning is a Norman Rockwell painting that graced the cover of The Saturday Evening Post in November 1951.[13] Rockwell shows us that even then, even in the fifties, living a life of doxology was not the norm; it was an aberration drawing curious stares. And so as Psalm 100 says, we come. We come into God's presence with singing. We enter God's gates with thanksgiving, and God's courts with praise. We come here, not because God lives at 72 Kensington Avenue in San Anselmo or even shows up here more than anywhere else. Psalm 100 is marvelously, radically inclusive: "Make a joyful noise, all the earth!"[14] God fashioned every single person, the entire earth is our venue for praise, and as the poet Rumi put it, "There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground." But here, we offer a time, a place, an opportunity, and songs. That isn't the only function of the church of course but it is a primary function: A time and place for praise; and the belief that praise is not only good but necessary in order for us to recall, as the psalm puts it, "that the Lord is God. It is God that made us, and we are God's; we are God's people." We offer a time and place where doxology is the norm.
We come because we can't will ourselves to be more grateful, to be more inclined to praise God, but we can learn, and practice, and we can be near people who believe praise is necessary, too, and maybe even do it well, or at least better than we do. On the Friday night of the retreat I co-led at Westminster Woods last weekend, a line- and square-dance caller taught us dances for an hour and a half or so. It was an exercise in being vulnerable with each other, not caught up with comparison but just willing to laugh and to give it a try. I was OK; I knew a few of the moves because we did folk dancing every week in P.E. when I was in elementary school. But there were plenty of things I'd never tried before and I had my share of missed steps. I figured out, however, that if I danced near Marjorie Hoyer-Smith, I was much better. Marjorie is a Presbyterian minister and spiritual director whom some of you may know, and she happens to be an excellent dancer. When I danced close enough to her to watch her, I was a better dancer, too.
And so it is when we gather for doxology with the church. Life unfolds like a game of Chutes and Ladders, ups and downs and not in any order; sometimes a down is followed by yet another down. It is in the community of the church that we learn to praise God in the most ordinary moments, because God is at work, and in the most elevating moments, because God is at work, and even in the most heart-wrenching moments, because God is still at work, and sometimes all of those are jumbled together and indistinguishable. Church is where you figure out by watching our brothers and sisters in faith, by dancing close to them, by praising next to them, that at times, as Anne Lamott writes, "even though what you want is clarity and resolution, what you get is stamina and poignancy and the strength to hang on." Praise God, from whom all blessings flow.
For over a century, we have sung the Doxology. For 117 years, we have gathered to praise God. Praising God is power; it equips us for service; it is the foundation, the heart and soul of a powerful, prophetic, life-giving, life-changing ministry. God has blessed us with enormous resources: buildings, land, finances, people skills and life experience, faith and love, humor, commitment and courage. As a community of doxology, open to the never-ceasing possibilities of God, we have been and continue to be called to use our resources to join with God's work in the world. And yes, this part is a stewardship pitch. We conclude our stewardship campaign today and your response to God's gifts allows us to keep coming together to live and worship and learn and practice and serve together as people whose lives are shaped, and continue to be shaped, by praising God.
Praise God from whom all blessings flow. May it be so for you, and for me.
© Joanne Whitt 2014 all rights reserved.
[1] Our Past: A Window to the Future, Walt T. Davis, general editor (San Anselmo, CA: First Presbyterian Church, 1997), p. 159.
[2] Sing, clap hands and shout: e.g., Psalms 47, 66, 98 and 100. Wave branches: Psalm 118. Trumpets: Psalms 98 and 150. Strings: Psalms 92 and 150. Clashing cymbals: Psalm 150.
[3] E.g., Psalms 18, 29, 77, 93, 96, 98, 148.
[4] Brené Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection (Center City, MN: Hazelden, 2010), pp. 77-79; 90.
[5] John M. Buchanan, November 24, 2002, http://www.fourthchurch.org/sermons/2002/112402.html.
[6] Thornton Wilder, "Our Town," 1938. The full text of Emily's line: "Oh, Mama, look at me one minute as though you really saw me. Mama, fourteen years have gone by. I'm dead. You're a grandmother, Mama! Wally's dead, too. His appendix burst on a camping trip to North Conway. We felt just terrible about it – don't you remember? But, just for a moment now we're all together. Mama, just for a moment we're happy. Let's really look at one another!…I can't. I can't go on. It goes so fast. We don't have time to look at one another. I didn't realize. So all that was going on and we never noticed. Take me back — up the hill — to my grave. But first: Wait! One more look. Good-bye, Good-bye world. Good-bye, Grover's Corners….Mama and Papa. Good-bye to clocks ticking….and Mama's sunflowers. And food and coffee. And new ironed dresses and hot baths….and sleeping and waking up. Oh, earth, you are too wonderful for anybody to realize you. Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it–every, every minute?"
[7] Ephesians 1:1.
[8] Ephesians 1:16-19.
[9] Ephesians 1:20-22.
[10] C. Clifton Black, "Commentary on Ephesians 1:15-23," November 20, 2011, http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1056.
[11] Black, ibid.
[12] The Rev. Dr. Herman C. Waetjen.
[13] "Saying Grace" is a 1951 painting by Norman Rockwell, painted for the cover of The Saturday Evening Post's November 24, 1951, Thanksgiving issue. It depicts an older woman and small boy, presumably a grandmother and her grandson, saying grace with heads bowed over their meals in a diner, as other patrons of the diner watch them with curious looks. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saying_Grace_%28painting%29.
[14] Psalm 100:1.]]>
We call this morning Together We Serve Sunday. This coming Friday, November 14th, is this congregation's 117th anniversary, and "together we serve" is our congregation's motto, adopted by the whole church after one of our members, Johnny Holm, began using it a couple of decades ago to close church correspondence instead of "respectfully yours" or "regards." It just fit. In emails, many of us shorten it to TWS. For a number of years we have celebrated with an all-church dinner and talent show, as we will tonight. Among the acts tonight will be the Kensingtones, our girl group, and tonight we'll be singing, "One Fine Day."[1] I mention this not as a bald-faced commercial for the Kensingtones – led and choreographed by the talented former rock musician Beverly Rodgers, artistic director, and accompanied by the incomparable Patty Sempell – I mention it because it occurred to me that if you switch the word "God" for the word "girl" in "One Fine Day," which we do not, by the way, but if you switch the word "God" for the word "girl," you end up with, "One fine day, you're going to want me for your God." And instead of being a song about a somewhat pathetic teenager longing wistfully for her no good boyfriend to take her back, you have a song about the God who waits for us and even pursues us even when we are the kind who want to run around, as the song puts it. It describes the God we meet again and again in Scripture, the God whose love will not let us go.
And it also occurred to me that this is not at all the way Joshua describes God in this morning's passage. Joshua describes God as demanding loyalty with an almost now or never urgency and threatening – at least in Joshua's mind – dire consequences if the people do not comply. I like the "One Fine Day" God better. Where is that God in this story?
The setting is Shechem, where God first spoke to Abraham. The people Israel have come a long way, out of Egyptian captivity, through the Red Sea and into the wilderness, across the Jordan into Canaan where they battled against the inhabitants and divided the land among the tribes. A whole generation has passed. Moses has died and Joshua has taken over leadership. He reminds the people what God has done for them. God has decided to be their God. God delivered them from slavery and oppression and brought them through the wilderness. God has been and will continue to be faithful. Nothing they have done or ever will do will cause God to abandon them. But in light of what God has done for them, they must decide who they will be. "Choose this day whom you will serve." Choose this day who you will be. Choose this day to be God's people.
The people cheer: "Of course, we're for the Lord!" But Joshua doesn't accept their initial response. It makes you wonder: Are the people shuffling their feet, looking away, trying to avoid eye contact with him? Does he notice a few people have their fingers crossed? He reminds them not once but three times to put away the other gods, the foreign gods that are so distracting, so tempting, because they aren't as demanding as the God of Israel. Those other gods will settle for casual pledges, an occasional ritual, an animal sacrifice every once in a while, a few songs. A decision for the God of Israel isn't that easy. This is the God that commands "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength."[2] That's pretty much everything, isn't it? Love God with all you have. So what this God requires is a whole life-commitment that will impact every dimension of life … social, political, and economic; relationships, priorities, work. Unlike those other little "g" gods, the God of Israel is committed to neighborly justice and the care of the weak and vulnerable. A decision for God means a decision for loving our neighbors; for compassion, for mercy, for economic justice; for forgiveness, reconciliation, healing, shalom.
Choose this day whom you will serve. "Serve" implies action, acting to further something. Shortly after he converted to Christianity, Bob Dylan wrote and recorded a song, "Gotta Serve Somebody." He lists people of every walk of life, every position, every condition, and concludes, "You're gonna have to serve somebody." He sings, "It may be the devil or it may be the Lord, but you're gonna have to serve somebody." I don't happen to believe in the devil but I do believe that people choose all sorts of things to serve – to further – that do not make the world a better place for more people, that do not bring about peace, healing, reconciliation, social or economic justice – shalom. Joshua says, "You're gonna serve somebody. Choose who that's going to be."
Choose this day. Not "One Fine Day" but this day. Why the rush? Why the urgency? Because this day is the day that someone will come along and challenge your allegiance. This is the day someone will try to sell you the idea that you are only worth as much as the car you drive or the neighborhood you live in or the basketball shoes you wear. This is the day that someone will tell you that the world is divided into winners and losers and you'd better do whatever it takes to be a winner. This is the day that someone will tempt you to believe nothing can be done about global warming, the culture of violence, racism, the politics of blame or staggering economic inequality and so you might as well close your eyes and cover your ears and tell yourself it's not your problem. This is the day people will behave badly, cut you off in traffic or laugh at a mistake you made or refuse to forgive you or speak harshly to you and you will want to behave badly to get back at them. This is the day someone will snort that all organized religion is bankrupt on its own terms, and roll his eyes at anyone who claims the name, "Christian." The bedrock belief of our faith is that in life and in death we belong to God,[3] and this is the day that belief will be tested.
I think when Joshua says, "Choose this day," he means "Choose today, and when tomorrow becomes today, choose again," because isn't that how it works? When I counsel a couple planning to be married, I share the common wisdom that being married means choosing every day to be married, renewing that commitment every single day. And so it is with our relationship with God. John Buchanan writes, "Who we are as men and women is a product of the choices we make. It is, in fact, a lifelong process, not an event … choices made every day, in fact." And sometimes, depending on what's going on in our lives, choices made hour by hour, or minute by minute.
Joshua begins his speech by reminding the people what God has done for them. He recites their history and they recite it back to him, not for the sake of nostalgia or reminiscing but to point them toward the future. This was precisely the goal of the history edited by Walt Davis and others in celebration of our centennial seventeen years ago. The history is called Our Past: A Window to the Future, and in the preface the editors declare, "We offer this account of our historical legacy as an act of faith in the future and as a stimulus to live into that future."[4]
When I read this history, I was tickled to learn that we have been dealing with the fact that people in Marin County are more interested in recreation than church on Sunday morning since 1916, if not before that. In 1916, they called it "The Sunday Amusement problem."[5] Two of the most important insights in the book for me are that, "The mundane, ordinary events and activities of life are just as likely to offer signs of God's presence and purpose as are the momentous and spectacular occurrences," and "The sorrows may disclose God's presence just as much as the joys, the failures just as much as the successes."[6] This is fascinating to me because when I was trying to sort out the way we experience God's presence among us here at First Presbyterian Church, the way we would relate to the people standing at Shechem reciting the history of their deliverance to inspire them to renew their commitment to serve God, I kept coming back to "Together We Serve." We experience God's presence with us when we are serving, in big ways, in small ways. At the REST shelter – our once-a-week winter homeless shelter that begins meeting next week; in the Gulf Coast where we've been rebuilding homes since Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005; in the connection we've made with Ferguson, Missouri and the issues of race and privilege; through our efforts to care for our planet. There is a very long list of the ways we serve, my friends, and if there is anyone here this morning who doesn't know that list, see me later; and certainly not least of all, we serve in the way we walk with people, companion people through sorrow and loss, illness, kids who get in trouble – life. Loving each other, caring for each other is one of the most profound ways we experience the presence of God.
So it's something of a loop for us here at First Presbyterian Church: Our commitment to serving God, our willingness to say, "We will serve the Lord!" is inspired by the profound sense of God's presence we experience in serving God. When we remember our story, it is a story of serving.
What does this tell us about our future? Because it is the future that concerns Joshua and the people at Shechem; it is the future that the writers of our church history had in mind; and it is the future that we are called to consider this week, our anniversary week. First, it tells me that a church that experiences God in service is not a church that is stuck in the past. We are not sentimentally attached to the demographic blip of the 1950's and 1960's as some churches still are – in fact with God's help we've created the kind of church people only dreamed existed back in the 1960's. The people who are here are here because they want to be, not because the culture expects it, because it doesn't. Being here this morning, seeking answers to our questions, treasuring each other, and being committed to working out our Christian discipleship shoulder to shoulder with the saints of San Anselmo – that is unexpected in today's world. It is countercultural, not just because of the Sunday Amusement problem, but because of all those other forces you will encounter this day that will deny that in life and in death, we belong to God.
A few years ago when we began the search that resulted in our calling Diana Bell as our associate pastor, we adopted a new vision statement. It says who we are but it also says who we strive to be – and why. It begins, "In response to the gift of Jesus Christ." I'm guessing that most of you don't pull it out and read it on a regular basis. I know I don't. Today, as we ponder whom we will serve and think about our future, it is worth revisiting:
In response to the gift of Jesus Christ, we seek to love and serve the world, expressing our faith through worship and service.
In our worship, we seek to feed and energize the people of God whose calling it is to love one another, express gratitude, ease suffering, and work for justice.
In our service, we seek to be instruments of God's justice and love for the human family, joining God's work in the world. Our hope is to sustain a dedicated, cohesive, and vibrant community that embraces the full diversity of our county and focuses our collective energies on the real needs of people.
In our fellowship, we strive to create an inclusive community where all are welcomed, valued, and known, and where our joys and sufferings are shared. We believe that each voice has its own beauty, and we seek an orchestration of our energies where each member is involved and integrated into the community's life.
In our interactions with the larger community, we invite others to join us on our journey. We intend to increase our role as a center of community activity and service for all ages. We believe that on the journey of faith we are constantly expected to learn, to grow, and to teach. We believe that constant learning, sharing of our personal and material resources and involvement in the church's life and ministries are expressions of the Christian life. We seek to provide a context for all ages to learn faithfulness.
"In response to the gift of Jesus Christ, we seek to love and serve the world." This is the future we move toward. We live into. Part of our history is that there would be no history and there will be no future without the generosity of the people who came before us, and our congregation's continued generosity in supporting the church with your time, your talent and your treasure. We are in the middle of our stewardship campaign and although many churches have jettisoned the word "stewardship" as old fashioned, and now use the phrase "congregational giving campaign," I cling to the word stewardship because it reminds us that in life and in death we belong to God. We are merely stewards of our earth, our belongings, and our church.
The cover of your bulletins shows a fork in a path. The photo intrigues me because a person on the path is faced with a choice, but the paths are not marked. There is no easily read sign that says, "This Way to Become a Vibrant, Healthy Congregation," or even "This Way to Faithful Discipleship." We have chosen to serve the Lord but this day, and every day, we stand at this fork. This day, and every day, we have choices to make. Together, we make those choices. Together, we figure out what it will mean in 2015 to say, "In response to the gift of Jesus Christ, we seek to love and serve the world." Together, we live into "One Fine Day," into the future that the God whose love will not let us go has in store for us. Together, we serve.
May it be so for you, and for me. Amen.
© Joanne Whitt 2014 all rights reserved.
[1] "One Fine Day," words and music by Gerry Goffin and Carole King, was a hit in 1963, performed by the Chiffons.
[2] Deuteronomy 6:5 (also Matthew 22:37, Mark 12:30, and Luke 10:27).
[3] Romans 14:8; A Brief Statement of Faith (PCUSA, 1983), http://www.presbyterianmission.org/ministries/101/brief-statement-faith/.
[4] Our Past: A Window to the Future, Walt T. Davis, general editor (San Anselmo, CA: First Presbyterian Church, 1997), vi.
[5] Noting that obstacle in 1916, some researchers from the denomination wrote this about our congregation: "This church is actually going somewhere, … it knows where that somewhere is and it knows the way." Our Past: A Window to the Future, p. 24.
[6] Our Past: A Window to the Future, p. vii.]]>
Lesson: Psalm 34:1-10, 22; Matthew 23:1-12
I lived in Texas for seven years, which was not long enough for country and western music to become "my" music, but it was long enough for it to grow on me. Country and western songs don't shy away from honest but messy emotions or less-than-tidy lives. While I lived in Texas, David Allan Coe released a song called, "You Never Even Called Me By My Name," in which he said the perfect country and western song has to say something about mama, trains, trucks, prison, and gettin' drunk.[1]
Believe it or not, this morning's Matthew passage is what started me thinking about country and western songs. Jesus takes on the Pharisees for praying publicly, ostentatiously, using their phylacteries and fringes. A phylactery is a small box with a long leather strap. The box contains words of scripture central to the Jewish faith. Orthodox Jewish men still use phylacteries in prayer today.[2] Fringes are the long fringes at the corners of prayer shawls, also still used by Jews all over the world.[3] There is nothing at all wrong with using these prayer aids, but these particular Pharisees apparently are doing it for show. They are trying to look all tidy when their real lives look more like a country and western song, and they judge others by a standard they are not willing to meet themselves. And when Jesus closes with, "All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted,"[4] it reminded me of another country and western song, perhaps the theme song of these Pharisees: "Oh Lord, it's hard to be humble when you're perfect in every way."[5]
Humility is a difficult topic because many people associate it with downcast eyes, a misty voice and noble stories of sacrifice. I think Americans in particular connect being humble with being a wimp and God knows we Americans don't want anyone to think of us as wimps. That colors the way we hear this passage and makes it harder to understand. What does Jesus mean? What does he want us to do or be in order to be humble? In addition, it sounds as though there might be some punishment at least hinted in this passage: Is Jesus saying if we think too much of ourselves, the punishment is humility? That is hardly good news.
I take my cue from the particular behavior Jesus is condemning. The Pharisees believe they are better than other people, more worthy than the lesser folks who don't have the time or leisure for regular prayer. In this belief, they fall into the trap into which all perfectionists fall, and I speak from experience as a recovering perfectionist, as an aspiring "good enough-er." They measure their perfection by the standard that they believe they have nailed: their prayer practice. But in their attempt to avoid shame by looking better than other people – avoiding shame is always the reason people try to look as though they're better than other people – in doing the perfectionism hustle for approval, they not only set themselves up to feel more shame, because nobody – nobody – is perfect, they also experience disengagement, disconnection from other people. The never-ending performance of perfectionism and "better than" pushes people apart.
Brené Brown tells a story that illustrates this. She attended a holiday music presentation put on by the kids at her son's preschool. "You know the scene" – twenty-five children singing with fifty-plus parents and grandparents in the audience wielding thirty-nine video cameras. The parents were holding up cameras and snapping pictures while they scrambled to make sure that their kids knew they were there and on time.
In addition to all the commotion in the audience, one three-year-old girl, who was new to the class, cried her way through the entire performance because she couldn't see her mom from the stage. As it turns out, her mother was stuck in traffic and missed the whole performance. By the time her mother arrived, Brown was kneeling by the classroom door telling her son good-bye. From this vantage point, she watched the little girl's mother burst through the door, and immediately start scanning the room to find her daughter. Just as Brown was getting ready to stand up and point her toward the back of the classroom where a teacher was comforting her weeping daughter, another mother walked by them, looked straight at this stressed mom, shook her head, and rolled her eyes.
Brown stood up, took a deep breath, and tried to reason with the part of herself that wanted to chase after the better-than-you eye-rolling mom and kick her perfectly punctual … behind. Just then two more moms walked up to this now tearful mother and smiled. One of the mothers put her hand on top of the woman's shoulder and said, "We've all been there. I missed the last one. I wasn't just late. I completely forgot." Brown watched as the woman's face softened, and she wiped away a tear. The second woman looked at her and said, "My son was the only one who wasn't wearing pajamas on PJ Day – he still tells me it was the most rotten day ever. It will be okay. We are all in the same boat."
By the time this mother made it to the back of the room where the teacher was still comforting her daughter, she looked calm. Something that probably came in handy when her daughter lunged for her from about six feet away.[6]
The eye-rolling mother judged the late mother on punctuality. The eye-rolling mother gets a perfect A+ in punctuality. But there are other qualities she's not even thinking about that just might be more important. Compassion, for instance. Courage. Vulnerability. And humility. The moms who stopped and shared their stories of imperfection were practicing all of these. They took the time to stop and say, "Here's my story. You're not alone." They didn't have to stop and share; they easily could have joined the perfect-parent parade and marched right past her.
Humility means, "We've all been there. You are not alone. We are all doing the best we can. No one is perfect." Humility and humble come from the same root as human and humus. Now, being humble doesn't mean treating yourself like dirt. It just means being human, being a human being, created by God and treasured by God no more and no less than any other human being. Humility means understanding and appreciating our common humanity. So when Jesus challenges the Pharisees, he is not threatening them with punishment. He's talking about logical consequences. The consequence of thinking you are perfect or better than others is disconnection and more shame. No matter how hard you try you will never be perfect and that brings more hustling, more shame, more disconnection; it's a vicious cycle and it is humbling. The consequence of compassion for our common humanity, the consequence of humility, is connection, love and belonging – what we all want and need; it is to be exalted.
November 1st is All Saints Day, and we celebrate All Saints on the first Sunday in November. In the Roman Catholic tradition, saints are people who lived an exceptionally good life and then died, who sometimes performed miracles, and whose memory has stood the test of time. Originally each saint had his or her own saint's day, but there are around forty thousand saints in the Roman Catholic tradition – so eventually most of them were celebrated on one day – All Saints' Day. But for Presbyterians, forty thousand is just a start. In his letters, the apostle Paul uses the word "saints" to refer to the church, the church on earth, here and now. In our tradition, all who are united in Christ, whether dead or living, are saints. In neither tradition are saints perfect people; not in the Catholic Church and not in the Presbyterian Church. James Martin writes, "… the history of sinful saints begins right at the start of Christianity. St. Peter, traditionally described as the 'first pope,' denied knowing Jesus three times before the Crucifixion. As the priest in the film 'Moonstruck' says, 'That's a pretty big sin.' Being a saint does not mean being flawless."
Thomas Merton writes, "For me a saint means to be myself. … God leaves us free to be whatever we like. We can be ourselves or not, as we please. We are at liberty to be real, or to be unreal. … We may wear now one mask and now another, and never, if we so desire, appear with our own true face. But we cannot make these choices with impunity. Causes have effects, and if we lie to ourselves and to others, then we cannot expect to find truth and reality whenever we happen to want them. … Our vocation is not simply to be, but to work together with God in the creation of our own life, our own identity, our own destiny."[7]
To be a saint means to be myself. To be a saint means to be your self. To be a saint means to be our selves. Our imperfect, human, earthy selves, connected by all we have in common: our humanity, our hard-wired need for love and belonging, even our struggles with shame and vulnerability and with faith itself. To be a saint is to be our selves, working together with God in the creation of our own lives; not some perfect or false life but a humble life, a servant life that is in fact an exalted life because of the connection to each other and to God that humility expressed in service makes possible.
In 1953, a man arrived at the railway station in Chicago to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. He stepped off the train, a tall man with bushy hair and a big mustache. As the cameras flashed and city officials approached with hands outstretched to meet him, he thanked them politely. Then he asked to be excused for a minute. He walked through the crowd to the side of an elderly black woman struggling with two large suitcases. He picked them up, smiled, escorted her to the bus, helped her get on, and wished her a safe journey. Then, Albert Schweitzer – theologian, organist, philosopher, physician, medical missionary in Africa, and Nobel Peace Prize winner – turned to the crowd and apologized for keeping them waiting. It is reported that one member of the reception committee told a reporter, "That's the first time I ever saw a sermon walking."
Funny, because I see walking sermons all the time, right here among you: the humble, human, earthy, imperfect, serving, exalted saints of San Anselmo. Thanks be to God. Amen.
© Joanne Whitt 2014 all rights reserved.
[1] David Allan Coe, "You Never Even Called Me By My Name," 1975, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkKn5HrKgHQ.
[2] For an article about phylacteries (tefillin) with images, go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tefillin.
[3] For an article about prayer shawls (tallit) and fringes (tzitzit) with images, go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tallit.
[4] Matthew 23:12.
[5] Mac Davis, "Oh Lord, It's Hard to Be Humble," 1980, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYKWch_MNY0.
[6] Brené Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection (Center City, MN: Hazelden, 2010), pp. 14-15.
[7] Thomas Merton, The New Seeds of Contemplation (New York: New Directions, 1962), pp. 31-32.]]>
If these two names for God sound a bit odd, here is some context. The "God of hosts" refers to lots of angels – hosts of them, scores of them, an army of them at God's disposal. (Nice.) If Jacob does not ring any bells for you, may I remind you of the stories of the brothers Jacob and Esau. Jacob is a scoundrel and cheats his brother out of his inheritance. Years later he is about to have a family reunion with Esau and Jacob wrestles with an angel all night. The angel blesses him with a new name. His new name is, "Israel." Yes, that Israel – the one from whom the people of Israel derived their name. He ends up being a nicer guy and is remembered fondly. So our Psalmist is truly dropping some big names for God. A contemporized translation, The Message, says the chorus like this: Jacob-wrestling God fights for us, God-of-Angel-Armies protects us. Now, that sounds a bit different, doesn't it! Sounds a bit more action-oriented and powerful. Sign me up.
The first stanza of our song discusses God's power over natural problems, disasters, and fear. The mountains move into the sea – sounds like an earthquake to me. The second stanza discusses the cities, or man-made concerns. God's holding it all together from raging nations that surround it. In the third stanza God breaks the instruments of war and declares Her place as the center of everything – a refuge in the midst of the chaos. Be still! Desist! Relax! Calm down. God's telling us that She has this under control. Breathe.
So, here again, is Psalm 46.
God is our refuge, a very present help in trouble.
These words ring out in the midst of hard times.
Be still…
Be still and know…
Be still and know that I am God.
This phrase is well known to most of us. It's been used and overused by the Christian culture. It can have a delightful, sometimes sentimental essence. It may pop into your head as you hear your favorite song and sigh with relief. Be still. [sigh.] Psalm 46 has been used to soothe our souls after national tragedies and is a favorite for memorial services. The imagery of God holding us together when we feel the entire planet – human nature and the natural world – are truly spinning out of control. In the midst of all the terror the world can throw our way, God declares that She is in the midst of the chaos and is our refuge, our safe haven-if only we will stop, desist from our worry and let God be God. It reminds me of a folk song whose chorus says, "hard times ain't gonna rule my mind, no more." The very line implies that hard times are here and very present, but the singer is determined to not let them get the best of her. It sounds like a faithful response to this Psalm.
Sometimes this passage, and this translation of the Hebrew to "be still," is taken quite literally. Sometimes the phrase "be still" is spoken as a direction for one's posture – stop moving – which leads to all sorts of preaching on spiritual disciplines and prayer practices. In this passage, I hear more of an exasperated parent asking us to calm down, rather than a meditation instructor chastising us for having the wiggles. Of course, frequently the best way to calm down IS to physically stop moving and take a few, deep breaths.
Be still.
It is not easy for many of us.
Stillness is not the American way.
Be still.
Desist from your worrying.
Don't let the hard times rule your mind.
Easier said than done.
I found a very heartfelt and excruciatingly honest account of one woman's struggle to "be still" with God. Her name is Alice Currah and her story is written in a brand new book called, Disquiet Time: Rants and Reflections on the Good Book by the Skeptical, the Faithful, and a Few Scoundrels. Spoiler, she's a bit anxious, but I hope you will appreciate her struggle. She tells her story like this:
"Believing in God is easier for me than trusting in his love for me.
"When I lay my head down each night, too often I allow the weight of my burdens to anchor me in a sea of my own self-pity. It is at that moment I hear God calling to me to relax and be still. With my eyes closed, I try to avoid his invitation. Ashamed by the way I've failed in the day that's gone before, I intentionally avoid having a conversation with my heavenly Father . Then guilt sets in.
"This plays out nightly, and I'm aware of how silly it is to avoid God when he knows everything I am feeling and thinking. Yet he allows me to ignore him. Others would judge me for this, but God doesn't. God knows my heart, and he sees a very wounded girl when he looks at me. He knows the reason I avoid him during my nightly meditation time is not because I don't want to converse with him but because I often cannot let myself come before him with flaws, bruises, and brokenness.
"Yet it is through the brokenness that I know he desires to reach me and free me from my own bondage of pride. Still… it is too difficult for me. What eats me up inside is knowing just how patient God is. He will wait for me. That much grace is too much to comprehend: I often cannot even allow much of it to penetrate the many walls I have built up over the years. Yet brick by brick, God dismantles my fortress of self-inflicted protection. "[1]
Brick by brick. That's the way of it, isn't it? Building walls up, tearing them down, or building a new path takes time. God will wait. God has time. God loves us this much.
Perhaps this story resonates with me because it is so similar to my life. My own short story is that I took a one-credit class in seminary on the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises. Saint Ignatius is a big deal in the world of spiritual prayer practices. All of my friends were taking this class and it seemed like something I should not miss. It was taught by a beloved Catholic theologian who is very soft spoken. Each week we met after lunch for a lecture and our homework was to read a very thick textbook and practice these prayer practices for ten minutes each and every day. At the end of the semester we wrote a two-page report on what we learned. Each week I struggled to open the book let alone read more than section headings before I dashed off to class. During class in the beautiful chapel where sound caries and bounces around, I inevitably struggled to stay awake as our professor whispered beautiful phrases that I could hardly hear. When it came time to write our paper, I told the truth. I created a prayer space in the corner of my apartment; I simply had not used it. Not once. Not at all that semester. I had not made it through a single prayer exercise. But, I had spent a great deal of time feeling anxious about what might or might not happen should I choose to go through with this prayer thing. I learned a lot about myself that semester and about my own resistance to quiet time. I learned about the value of prayer partners and meditation groups that help hold me accountable to actually praying. I have since, worked on some of the spiritual practices from Ignatius and I can highly recommend a few of them.
Prayer is not easy for most of us which is why spiritual practices are called practices or disciplines and we have conversations on their importance. I've not heard of a sermon or newsletter that asks people to stop praying because it's too much! Too much prayer – this congregation is praying just too much. Perhaps it happens, and I'm willing to be open to this phenomenon. Stepping away from our thoughts, even for ten minutes, can feel daunting. The irony of course, is that learning to be with God – developing a relationship, praying, meditating, spending time in the stories of scripture – it requires us to practice. We cannot learn everything by reading the Bible once nor can we become wise, spiritual leaders if we open our hearts to God once a semester. Learning to quiet our hearts and minds and simply allow God inside is not easy for everyone. Many of us resist. Hard. Until something causes us to need to step out of our routines and pay attention in a new way.
Our worship spiritual disciplines, and educational opportunities in this community seek to help us take time to feed our need to be known by God. At the officer's retreat a few weeks ago, we practiced by listening, journaling, and praying, in a variety of ways. Some practices asked for quiet stillness. Other invited us to fold paper, go on a walk, and string beads. We practiced. We did not change the world in one day, but judging by the discussions we had, I think it's safe to say that some of us were changed and affected in small ways. We were still-ish and we were trying our best to pay attention in new ways. It was a very good retreat to practice being with God.
Practice seems to be the faithful way – the way we are called to live. Practice being still. Practice trusting, God our refuge, with all that we are – all of our thoughts and emotions, dreams and fears. As a community, "we practice grief in a world of denial; practice sacrament in a world of technique; practice generosity in a world of scarcity;" practice compassion in a world of competition; "practice obedience in a world of indulgence; practice hope in a world of despair;" practice stillness in a world of frantic busyness.[2] It really is about how we practice letting go and letting God love us. We practice and God promises to show up and participate with us – to love and to lead us.
Practicing reminds me of a beautiful children's book called, if you want to see a whale by Julie Fogliano with stunning illustrations by Erin E Stead. I will put the book on the table during coffee hour so you can appreciate it for yourself and read it in its entirety. The images capture a young boy, his hound dog, and a small bird who want to see a whale. The story goes something like this:[3]
if you want to see a whale
you will need a window
and an ocean
and time for waiting
and time for looking
and time for wondering "is that a whale?"
and time for realizing "no, it's just a bird"
if you want to see a whale
you will need a not-so-comfy chair
and a not-too-cozy blanket
because sleeping eyes can't watch for whales
and whales won't wait for watching
if you want to see a whale
you'll have to just ignore the roses
and all their pink
and all their sweet
and all their wild and their waving
because roses don't want you watching whales
or waiting for
or wondering about
things that are not pink
and things that are not sweet
and things that are not roses
if you want to see a whale…
(do not be distracted by ships or pelicans, or bugs, or clouds)…
if you want to see a whale
keep both eyes on the sea
and wait… and wait… and wait…
The ending to this book is told with an image, so do take a look. The truth the story brings out is the difficulty inherent in a world as beautiful as ours, in lives as rich as ours, to keep ourselves focused on the goal. Want to see a whale? Want to see a whale routinely? It takes mindfulness. It takes practice. When we are scared it's easy to pass up the roses and comforts as we grasp for something to hold on to. When nothing will satisfy except the whale… it is easier to wait… and wait… and wait… May we wait. May we practice. May we find time, regularly, to dwell in the presence of our God – the Jacob-wrestling God fights for us, God-of-Angel-Armies protects us. May we be still-enough that the love and peace of God be known in our hearts this morning and always. Amen.
© Diana C. Bell, 2014
[1] (2014-10-21). Disquiet Time: Rants and Reflections on the Good Book by the Skeptical, the Faithful, and a Few Scoundrels (Kindle Locations 2267-2277). FaithWords. Kindle Edition.
[2] Walter Bruggemann quoted in Feasting on the Word, Year A, volume 4, p172, Quoted and expanded by D.Bell.
[3] Fogliano, Julie. illustrated by Erin E. Stead. If you want to see a whale. Roaring Brook Press, 2013.]]>
Note: Today's sermon was preached by Rev. Kate Taber, Presbyterian Mission Agency point person in Jerusalem.
I arrived home one night in July to find a voicemail from an old friend. "Thinking of you," she said earnestly, "and praying that you are safe." I felt immediately sheepish, thinking of the beautiful garden patio I had just left, where I was having drinks with friends and making plans for brunch over the weekend. I was reminded again of the insane and surreal nature of our lives in Jerusalem over the summer. Fifty miles away, Israel was bombing and invading the Gaza Strip and militants there were sending out rockets. Yet, contrary to the perception of my friends and family, we were incredibly safe. Only a few rockets managed to reach as far as Jerusalem, and they were easily intercepted.
In a way, life could go on as normal. We worked, we met up with friends, we shopped for groceries and gassed up the car. We were safe. But the entire time, we were imagining what was happening an hour and a half away. All day our phones would beep with news alerts, updating us on the body count and levels of destruction and misery. We woke every morning to the photos– neighborhoods reduced to rubble, strangers carrying the body of someone else's child, medical staff red-eyed from grief and exhaustion.
Three times a day, my husband spoke on the phone with his colleague and other friends in Gaza. One told him that he was getting no sleep overnight when the bombs hit most frequently, so during the day he'd fall asleep every time he sat down. Another fled his home in eastern Gaza with his family and was sleeping on the street outside a relative's home, so the women and children would have enough space inside. We knew when their power went out completely, when they ran out of bottled water, when they heard reports of their homes being destroyed.
There is something inhuman about being able to live in such safety when people nearby are picking up the body parts of their loved ones off the street. There is something insidious about being able to move so freely when people nearby are not even allowed to be refugees—being trapped in Gaza while the bombs fall and tanks invade.
It was easy to make the decision to visit Gaza. There was a ceasefire and it appeared stable. There were mission partners of the PC(USA) in Gaza asking for me. There was the hope that sitting with them, seeing their surroundings, looking into their faces, and hearing their stories might feel more like doing something.
I went to visit Al Ahli Hospital, a long-time partner of the PC(USA). It is the oldest hospital in Gaza, the result of missionaries from England in the 1880s. It is the only Christian healthcare institution in Gaza, where there are a mere 1500 Christians. Many staff and friends of World Mission had visited the hospital in the past, and over the years it received funds from the denomination.
I was put in touch with the hospital director of many years, Suhaila Tarazi. She was incredibly welcoming. She led me on a tour of the burn unit, the outpatient clinic, and the inpatient wards.
I met children covered in burn wrappings who cried at the sight of anyone in a white coat, having learned to fear the pain that came with being treated by a doctor. I met women with broken limbs who were the only survivors of bomb blasts that destroyed their homes and killed their families. I met large extended families that lived packed into their loved one's hospital room because they had nowhere else to go. I met doctors who spent 24 hour shifts treating the never-ending line of patients walking in off the streets. I met nurses who risked death coming into work every day. I heard the moans of those in pain, and also the laughter of brothers playing together on their hospital bed. I saw Suhaila look every patient in the eye and give every child her hand.
Every person I met mentioned the ways in which this attack was different from every one before. This was due in large part to the catastrophic level of damage to Gaza's infrastructure-factories, homes, power plants, water sources, hospitals, schools, entire neighborhoods. This war destroyed the very fabric of life for every person in Gaza.
The prophet Jeremiah lived through a catastrophic time as well, maybe the most catastrophic time in Israelite history. He saw the end of the Judean kingdom, the fall and destruction of Jerusalem, and the deportation of the Judean population into captivity. It was the end of life as they knew it.
Desperate questions emerged for the people. What did their military and national collapse mean? Had God forgotten them? Was God powerless to help them? How could the community survive? Did the survivors even have a future?
These concerns shape the book of Jeremiah as he seeks to make sense of what has happened. The problem is not God, Jeremiah responds, but God's people. They are faithless; they ignore the needy and the orphan; they dismiss the words of the prophets. God remains good, powerful, and worthy of trust. It was the people's decision to stop trusting solely in God that resulted in the rupture of that relationship. While this blame game does not work the same way for the people of Israel and Palestine, the context and content of today's passage from Jeremiah does feel relevant. In it, the prophet uses the metaphor of a drought to describe how difficult times reveal whether we are putting our trust in God or ourselves.
Jeremiah describes two kinds of people. One kind is the people who trust in themselves. They are like a shrub in the desert, weak and thirsty, planted in barren ground that cannot support its life. In contrast, Jeremiah describes the other group as a green tree that is planted by a stream, whose roots go deep enough to find water and bear fruit even in times of parching heat. These are the people whose trust is in God. The difference is not the drought itself- both experience it- but whether their life can be sustained by the ground in which each are rooted.
I understand you have been experiencing a drought in California the past few years- the hills are brown and the crops are thirsty. In Israel-Palestine, we've been having a drought this summer too, but one like Jeremiah describes. We have all been affected. People are thirsty for justice. People have run dry of compassion and mercy. People are barren of hope.
It is easy for me to tell you who the shrubs and the trees were this summer in Israel-Palestine. We were certainly not lacking in shrubs. I'd point to all the combatants, putting their faith in violence. I'd point to all those who supported the war and silenced dissent. I'd point to all who felt too helpless or too much in despair to act or speak. I'd even go farther and point to all those who rely on a military occupation to feel safe.
Yet, I saw green, deeply rooted trees as well, bearing fruit. I would lift up my Jewish Israeli friend Sahar as an example, who marched with other Israelis in more than a dozen protests against the war. Together they chanted, "Money for jobs and education, not for wars and occupation." She was one of many who were physically attacked by right-wing nationalists at every protest.
I'd lift up Suhaila and her hospital staff, resolute in their purpose to relieve suffering. She told me, "We are here as an instrument in the hands of God to show the love of Jesus Christ for all people. We are proud that in all conflicts, this hospital was there to eliminate the suffering of the injured, the poor, and to help those in need of a compassionate heart. This will continue to be a place of reconciliation, of love. The history of this hospital tells the story that we are all children of one God — whether we are Christian, Muslim or Jewish."
I'd lift up my congregation in Bethlehem, Christmas Lutheran Church, who showed up every Sunday for worship, to read psalms, to pray, to hope. I remember how profound it was sing with them these words from the hymn 'O God of Every Nation' while the attack on Gaza raged on: "From search for wealth and power and scorn of truth and right; From trust in bombs that shower destruction through the night; From pride of race and station and blindness to your way; Deliver every nation, eternal God we pray."
All of these are people who chose not to believe only in what they could see- military might, endless suffering, political cowardice, their own apparent powerlessness. Instead, they dug deeper, to a reservoir of faith in the unseen- the promise of God's presence, God's goodness, and God's power to overcome evil. When we move from trusting ourselves to trusting in God, we are set free from our own limits and the limits of the world as we see it. We gain God's vision of the future. We are fed and we flourish. We have hope. We bear fruit. As Jeremiah said, this faith does not protect us from experiencing the drought, but it helps us live fully even in its midst.
Israel-Palestine is not the only place that could be described recently by Jeremiah's drought. The news all over the world speaks of suffering—the unaccompanied minors, the Ebola outbreak, ISIS, Ferguson, Ukraine, and more.
Perhaps there has also been a drought in your own life- the loss of a job or your health or a relationship that was precious to you. Or a drought in your community- green space destroyed, the loss of a young person, news of increased violence or poverty.
It is too easy to convince ourselves in these times of drought that we are those withering shrubs, that we are all we have, that what we see is how it will always be. Yet, our faith tells us of a radically different reality–one in which we have access to new life, in which evil and suffering are not the victors, in which we are nourished by God to bear fruit in defiance of the powers of death.
We bear such fruit when we show up here, declaring God's mercy in our hymns and creeds despite the messages from the headlines. We do so when we plant gardens, when we teach a child something, when we write our editor one more time. We do so when we respond to anger with calm, when we take joy in anything
God made, when we offer someone something we know they need.
In all these acts, we declare that we and the future belong to God, and that God is stronger than death. This faith will keep us alive when the drought comes. We will be like a tree planted by water, sending out its roots by the stream. We shall not fear when heat comes, and our leaves will stay green; in the year of drought we will not be anxious, and we will not cease to bear fruit. Thanks be to God.
© 2014 Kate Taber. All rights reserved.]]>
More on the question of how we do church/the future of the church: A challenging set of questions raised by David Lose, one of my favorite writers and the president of Lutheran Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. He calls this, "A Terrifying Thought," posted today:
"So what if all the decline our congregations and denominations have experienced in recent decades has little to do with a failure of leadership (what congregational leaders fear) or changes in theological or political stances (what more conservative church leaders assert) or a degenerate or disinterested generation of believers (what people in the pew too often feel) or with any of the other things we usually attribute it to. What if the decline is simply the result of a massive cultural shift? That is, what if we now live in a world where the emerging generation a) has tons of options for ways to think about and make sense of their lives, b) has way less time for things that don't feel purposeful or worthwhile, and c) (and as a result of a and b) just don't do things because their parents did but instead only commit to things that make a tangible difference in the world, both theirs and the world around them?
I guess another way of putting this is, what if our congregations are set up – in terms of things like "membership" and "pledges" and "new member classes" and "friendship pads" and scripted worship services filled with sixteenth-century music – to respond to the needs of those who came of age in the fifties, sixties, and seventies but have little to offer millennials? In other words, what if the way we do church just doesn't make much sense to the youngest third of our population? What then?
I find this to be a terrifying thought. Mostly because I think it might be true."
You can read David Lose's posts at http://www.davidlose.net/2014/10/a-terrifying-thought/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+davidlose%2FIsqE+%28…In+the+Meantime%29.
Here's the thing: It doesn't mean what we're doing is "wrong." It also doesn't mean that if we switched to drums and guitars we'd "attract" a bunch of young people. I am pretty convinced we would not. What I've garnered is that what Lose is saying applies to all "church" offered as something people do on Sunday mornings, Sunday evenings, Saturday evenings or any other time, in a building on a corner with a "sanctuary" and classrooms and a budget and all the rest of it.
I do NOT think the Church of Jesus Christ is "dying." I suspect, however, that it will look very different in 25 or 30 years.
In the meantime, we have to be agile, creative, responsive, vulnerable, and above all, faithful to Christ in a way that dares greatly, as we strive to "make a tangible difference in the world, both [ours] and the world around [us]."
The photo accompanying this blog is one I took earlier this year in Sonora, California, in the Gold Country. It was in the window of a small coffee shop. You have to click on it to read the sign. I invite you to do so.
Together we serve,
Joanne Whitt]]>
The choir just sang, "Joyful, Joyful," from "Sister Act." Joyful times two. And in this morning's passage, the Apostle Paul tells the Christians in Philippi, "Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice."[1] Rejoice not once, but twice.
It's a double shot of joy, and it's fair to say that this kind of joy set the early Christians apart. Observers at the time say it was uncanny the way they seemed to be infused with joy. Outsiders were baffled: Christians were a small minority, scattered across the Mediterranean world. They were not wealthy or powerful for the most part, and they were in constant danger of being killed. Yet they had laid hold of an inner peace that found expression in a joy that was uncontainable. Huston Smith writes, "Perhaps radiance would be a better word. Radiance is hardly the word used to characterize the average religious life, but no other word fits as well the life of these early Christians."[2]
Paul offers a vivid example. Here was a man who had been ridiculed, driven from town to town, shipwrecked, imprisoned, and flogged. Yet here was a life in which joy was the constant refrain. He wrote today's passage about rejoicing from a prison cell in Rome. At our Horizons Bible study last week we shared our impressions of the apostle Paul. People noted that sometimes Paul is hard to understand; we wish he'd never written some of the things he wrote because of how the church has interpreted them; and sometimes he's inconsistent. The one thing that never waivers is Paul's irrepressible joy. When I was a kid, we used to sing a camp song that went, "I've got that joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart." That's joy times four, and that was Paul, all the way. That was what it meant to Paul to be a Christian.
What is going on here? And where can we buy a bottle of this stuff?
Well, it turns out it isn't bottled, of course. I don't think there's a better recipe for it, though, than these few verses in Paul's letter to the Philippians: "Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you."[3]
What they have learned and received is that God loves them beyond their wildest imagination, that they are forgiven for whatever makes them feel ashamed or afraid, and that nothing in life or in death can separate them from God's love. They trust God. They hope in God. So, in its simplest terms, this is the recipe, the equation for joy: A quiet, peaceful mind plus a hopeful heart equals joy. Except this equation leaves out the essential ingredient: "in the Lord." The early Christians lived "in the Lord."
This weekend, the elders and deacons of our congregation explored what it means to add this essential ingredient to our lives. Elders serve on the governing board of a Presbyterian Church, and deacons serve in a ministry of caring. Every year we meet together for planning, visioning, and bonding, but this year we did something a little different. We spent the weekend at the Point Bonita YMCA retreat center "in the Lord." We spent the weekend hanging out with God. We practiced a buffet, a smorgasbord of spiritual practices that Christians have used for centuries, for millennia, in order to experience that peace which passes understanding, and that joy that runs like a subterranean river through the hearts of believers.[4] We tried centering prayer, dialoguing with God, journaling, lectio divina, chanting, contemplative walking and a handful more.
We also spent some time remembering what it was like to be a teenager. I asked each officer to bring a photo of him- or herself as a teenager, and to answer these questions:
How did you dress?
What music did you listen to?
How did you relate to adults?
What did you think about yourself?
The photos were priceless, the stories were rich and we discovered many similar threads in our lives. Trying to fit in, not sure whether we belonged, or even whether we wanted to; peer pressure; thinking our parents didn't know anything; different ways of expressing rebellion and idealism. And as Elder Dave Jones said, "The one word in the English language that no one feels neutral about is 'prom.'"
What's the connection – spiritual practices, teenagers and joy? There are two connections. The first is that we are coming to understand that children and youth are on the same journey, the same adventure of faith as adults. They might be at a different place on the path, but there is so much to learn and discover about what God is doing in the world and calling us to be that we are all beginners. As he was approaching his 80th birthday, Frederick Buechner wrote, "My technical adolescence is many decades behind me … [but] … to call me an adult or grown-up is an oversimplification at best and a downright misnomer at worst. … I am not a having-grown-up one but a growing-up one, a groping up one, not even sure much of the time where my growing and groping are taking me or where they are supposed to be taking me. … We are all of us adolescents," he writes, "painfully growing and groping our way toward something like true adulthood, and maybe the greatest value we have both to teach and to learn as we go is the value of … amazement – the capacity to be amazed by the unending power that can be generated by the meeting and trading of lives, which is a power to heal and bless us and in the end maybe to transform us into truly human beings at last."[5]
Buechner points to the second connection that spiritual practices have with teenagers and joy. Amazement, like joy, like delight, is only possible if you're open to the thought that, "Maybe I don't know everything. Maybe there is something new that I can learn. Maybe I could be surprised. Maybe there is a new way I can grow, feel blessed, heal. Maybe I could try this. Maybe I could risk this. Maybe I could play with this."
The quotation on the cover of your bulletins comes from a book entitled, Contemplative Youth Ministry, by Mark Yaconelli. He notices that most adults these days are so busy, moving from activity to activity, that we don't know how to be with our kids, we don't know how to be with ourselves, and we don't know how to be with God. He poses anthropologist Angeles Arrien's diagnostic questions for a person who is disconnected or dis-spirited:
When did you stop singing?
When did you stop dancing?
Where in your life did you stop telling stories?
Where in your life did you stop listening to silence?"[6]
I think the apostle Paul would have put it this way: "When did you stop rejoicing?"
As I left for lunch on Thursday, I ran into a class of kids from our preschool, on the lawn just up the steps from the church office. One little girl stood with one of the teachers, a woman named Terry. The other 7 or 8 children were sitting in a line against the building. The little girl near Terry was calling the others to come forward; she called them by name, one at a time. When they came forward, they each put a Mento – that's a kind of mint – into a tube contraption that was attached to the top of a large plastic bottle of Coke. The kids stacked the Mentos, one at a time, in the tube. They took their turns, and rushed back to their spots where they waited and watched with bright and eager faces. Then Terry and the little girl backed away, the girl holding onto the end of a red string attached to the tube holding the Mentos. On Terry's signal, the little girl pulled the red string. This dropped the Mentos into the Coke and a twenty-foot geyser of Coke blew straight up into the air. The kids and Terry squealed with delight. I applauded.
I thought: "This is what a church youth ministry should be like. No, wait – this is what the life of faith should be like for everybody, of every age." There was curiosity, there was learning, there was play. There was amazement. There was experimentation and discovery and joy. The children did much of it themselves, guided or mentored by someone with more experience, but no less curiosity, no less delight, no less wonder. Not every attempt to connect with God will have the drama of an exploding Coke bottle but there should always be the possibility of surprise, because it is an adventure, an adventure we pursue together, for no other reason than that God has called our names and invited us.
At the retreat, we watched a video called, "Joy Ride." [7] It's under 2 minutes and I'll put a link to it in the sermon on the website. [http://skitguys.com/videos/item/joy-ride.] It begins with a quotation from the author of The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint Exupéry: "All grownups were once children, but only a few of us remember it." And then it asks a series of questions, all beginning with, "When did you last …" "When did you last play with your food?" for example. And we see a man in his seventies blowing bubbles in his milk.
I've invited the officers, the deacons and elders, to share with you this morning something that speaks to them, as individuals, of that recovery of spirit, that reconnection with joy that is life in the Lord. Not because you should feel guilty if you aren't doing these things. These are personal; individual. Someone yesterday said, "When was the last time you went water skiing?" I have never been water skiing, I never plan to, and I don't regret it. But each of us has something that tugs at our souls, whispering, "You've lost your center." So I will go first: "When was the last time you went dancing?"
[The elders and deacons shared their questions… including: "When was the last time you had a chocolate malt?" "When was the last time you swam in a cool mountain lake?" "When was the last time you laughed until you cried?" "When was the last time you picked up a fall leaf from the sidewalk, took it home and put it in a window, to look at the light shining through it?" "When was the last time you ran out of gas?" and more.]
When was the last time you rejoiced? I saw a New Yorker cartoon with a father and son in a car, and the father, who is driving, says to the son, "If you bring joy and enthusiasm to everything you do, people will think you're crazy."[8]
No. They will think you're Christian. May it be so for you, and for me. Amen.
© Joanne Whitt 2014 all rights reserved.
[1] Philippians 4:4.
[2] Huston Smith, "The Soul of Christianity," in The Christian Century, October 4, 2005, p. 10ff; http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=3297.
[3] Philippians 4:5-9.
[4] James Forbes.
[5] Frederick Buechner, "Adolescence and the Stewardship of Pain," in Secrets in the Dark (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2006), pp. 206, 220; emphasis in the original.
[6] Mark Yaconelli, Contemplative Youth Ministry: Practicing the Presence of Jesus (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2006), pp. 19-20.
[7] "Joy Ride," by Journey Box Media, http://skitguys.com/videos/item/joy-ride.
[8] William Haefeli, The New Yorker, May 9, 2011.]]>
There was a time when the only thing parents had to worry about with regard to what we now call "screen time" was whether your child was watching too much TV. You didn't even have to think much about what he was watching because everything was appropriate. Well, that was then; this is now. Cable has brought R and even X-rated programs to the small screen, but besides, screens have multiplied like rabbits: laptops, tablets, smart phones, video games, texting. Screens are not bad; they serve many good purposes; but they are ubiquitous and tantalizing, and time on a screen means time you are not doing something else. So most parents I know try to limit "screen time," both in terms of content and actual time. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that kids' entertainment screen time be limited "to less than one or two hours per day." And for kids under 2: none at all.[1] This is a major source of friction – if not World War III – in many homes. The child is likely to say something like, "You're ruining my life!" while the parent is thinking, "No, in fact I'm trying to keep you from ruining your life."
The question of whether and how limits and rules might keep us from ruining our lives is placed before us this morning in the form of the Ten Commandments. Our passage this morning is the first of three versions of the Ten Commandments in the Old Testament,[2] so they must be pretty important, but there's always been significant ambiguity about the role of the Ten Commandments in our modern lives. By one count there are 4,000 public displays of the Ten Commandments. Zeal for the commandments runs high, but so does ignorance. A 2004 Barna poll showed that 79% of Americans oppose the idea of removing displays of the Ten Commandments from government buildings, even though another survey revealed that fewer than 10% of Americans can identify more than four of the commandments.[3] Garrison Keillor quips that the real reason you can't have the Ten Commandments in a Courthouse is that you cannot post "Thou Shalt Not Steal," "Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery" and "Thou Shall Not Lie" in a building full of politicians… It creates a hostile work environment.
The first four commandments talk about our relationship with God and the last six talk about our relationships with each other but there is a bigger pattern and purpose here than a list of do's and don'ts. The Ten Commandments do not begin with a command, but with a claim. "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery."[4] From that central claim flow all the other commandments. The God we worship is a God who first and foremost majors in freedom, all sorts of freedom. In whatever ways God's people seem intent on falling back into multiple kinds of slavery, this God is always in the business of searching for ways to grant these would-be slaves a perfect freedom.[5] God is and always will be on the side of freedom.
Now, for folks like us living in a culture of extreme individualism, in might seem counterintuitive that a list of restrictions and commands has anything to do with freedom. Just ask your kid who wants more screen time. The way most of us encounter the Ten Commandments, it makes sense we'd see it this way. Amy Merrill Willis describes a typical use of the Ten Commandments as a moral guide. She writes, "As a relatively earnest … kid in a Catholic … school, … [T]eachers regularly gave us lengthy reflection guides based on the commandments. Some of the questions were completely inappropriate for us as fifth and sixth grade kids, asking, for instance, if we had committed adultery. … The question was delicately worded, running something like this, 'Have you done anything to violate the sanctity of another person's marriage?' Uhhh, what?! … At that time, [the Ten Commandments] were only about personal conduct, a checklist for good behavior… . The goal of the commandments was about being good, staying right with God – and scary Sister Beatrice – and, most of all, avoiding Catholic guilt. This is the reality of simple moralism: it tends to be utterly self-centered."[6]
I suspect this is the way most people see the Ten Commandments: in legal terms, rules intended to govern personal conduct, also serving to measure our personal virtue by means of a moral and all-too-often self-justifying checklist: No murder today; check! No adultery; check!
But that opening claim points to an entirely different purpose. "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery." The Ten Commandments are meant to show us how a liberated people live a new life. Real freedom doesn't mean doing anything you want whenever you want to whomever you want. Think about it. That might mean freedom for a few but it ends up being tyranny for everyone else. Freedom is not when the powerful take whatever they want, but when we respect the property of others. Freedom is not when the strong dominate the weak, but when the lives of all – the impoverished, those with disabilities, the vulnerable, the elderly, the young, the marginalized – all are protected and their rights are respected. Freedom is not the endless satisfaction of every impulse regardless of commitment or relationship or our neighbors.
As Jesus makes very clear, the commandments can be boiled down to "love God without holding anything back, and love your neighbor as yourself."[7] The Ten Commandments give us the most basic description of what that looks like: God says, "OK, let me be a little more explicit here. Make sure everyone gets one day off each week, take care of the elderly, don't kill, don't steal, don't mess around with someone else's spouse, don't hurt your neighbor with your words, don't be jealous of your neighbor's stuff. That's how you love your neighbor." As Rolf Jacobson writes, "Because the law isn't about you. It's about your neighbor. And God loves your neighbor so much that God gives you the law. And God loves you so much, that God gives your neighbor the exact same law."[8]
That's why Jesus intensifies the law in the Sermon on the Mount – to push us to imagine what it would be like to live in a world where we honor our neighbor as persons who are truly blessed and beloved of God. It's not enough, Jesus says, to avoid murder; you also have to treat each other with respect, not letting yourself fly off the handle in anger because that, too, demeans and diminishes God's children.[9] Jesus wants us to regard each other as God regards us and thereby to treat each other accordingly. He calls us to look beyond the law to see its goal: the life and health and freedom of our neighbor, as well as ourselves. Jesus invites us to envision life in God's kingdom as a glorious freedom shaped not by obeying laws but rather by holding the welfare of our neighbors close to our hearts, while trusting that they are doing the same for us.[10] The people had lost track of that purpose, the purpose for which they were set free, when they turned the law into an opportunity to win over God by proving how law-abiding they were.
"I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery." The God who loves us that much does not need to be won over.
Brian McLaren writes, "The truth is that we're all on a wilderness journey out of some form of slavery. On a personal level, we know what it is to be enslaved to fear, alcohol, food, rage, worry, lust, shame, inferiority, or control. On a social level, in today's version of Pharaoh's economy, millions at the bottom of the pyramid work like slaves … and still never get ahead. And even those at the top of the pyramid … feel the lash of their own inner slave drivers: greed, debt, competition, expectation, and a desperate, addictive craving for more, more, more. … Exiting from today's personal and social slavery won't be easy. It will require something like a wilderness journey into the unknown."[11]
The Ten Commandments is a map for that journey toward loving our neighbors, where real freedom lies. But it isn't simple, is it? The path to freedom is through a wilderness of uncertainty and hard choices, and it takes a community of encouragement and discernment to help us figure out exactly how to love God and our neighbors, which is the only sure way we all will be free.
It's complicated. Take screen time, for example. Last week there was a story on NPR about a UCLA study that actually makes a connection between screen time and loving our neighbors. Researchers studied two groups of sixth-graders. One group was sent to an outdoor education camp for 5 days, and during that time, they had no access to electronic devices. No screens. No games, no texting, no Facebook. For the other group, it was life as usual. At the beginning and end of the 5 days, both groups of kids were shown images of nearly 50 faces and asked to identify the feelings being modeled. Researchers found that the students who went to camp scored significantly higher when it came to reading facial emotions or other nonverbal cues than the students who continued to have access to their media devices. In just 5 days. Instead of texting or gaming, the students were working together, face-to-face, constantly decoding each other's expressions, tone of voice and body language. The take-home is that screen use may be inhibiting kids' ability to relate to people. Relating to people takes practice.[12] So the next time your child tells you you're ruining his life by limiting his screen time, tell him it's one way we as parents can help him not ruin his neighbor's life. I'm reminded of Albert Einstein's words: "Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening the circle of compassion."
The night before he was arrested, Jesus gathered his companions for a meal, the Passover meal. They remembered their liberation from slavery and celebrated their freedom. At his invitation, we gather around this table this morning, at this meal of liberation and reconciliation with Christians all over the world, people on this same journey of freedom, a freedom described so beautifully in Jan Richardson's communion blessing:
And the table
will be wide.
And the welcome
will be wide.
And the arms
will open wide
to gather us in.
And our hearts
will open wide
to receive.
And we will come
as children who trust
there is enough.
And we will come
unhindered and free.
And our aching
will be met
with bread.
And our sorrow
will be met
with wine.
And we will open our hands
to the feast
without shame.
And we will turn
toward each other
without fear.
And we will give up
our appetite
for despair.
And we will taste
and know
of delight.
And we will become bread
for a hungering world.
And we will become drink
for those who thirst.
And the blessed
will become the blessing.
And everywhere
will be the feast.[13]
That is freedom. May it be so for you and for me. Amen.
© Joanne Whitt 2014 all rights reserved.
The featured image is "The Best Supper," also by Jan Richardson, used with permission.
[1] http://www.aap.org/en-us/about-the-aap/aap-press-room/pages/managing-media-we-need-a-plan.aspx.
[2] The other versions are at Deuteronomy 5 and Exodus 34.
[3] Dan Clendenin, "Ancient Words for Modern Life: The Ten Commandments," September 29, 2014, http://www.journeywithjesus.net/Essays/20140929JJ.shtml.
[4] Exodus 20:2.
[5] John C. Holbert, "It's About Freedom: Reflections on the Ten Commandments," March 7, 2012, http://www.patheos.com/Resources/Additional-Resources/Its-about-Freedom-John-Holbert-03-08-2012?offset=1&max=1.
[6] Amy Merrill Willis, "Between Moralism and Moral Vision: Rediscovering the Decalogue—Exodus 20:12-16," June 23, 2014,
[7] Mark 12:29-31 and parallels.
[8] Jacobson, Commentary on Exodus 19:1-6, 20:1-17, http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=2113.
[9] Matthew 5:21-26.
[10] David Lose, http://www.davidlose.net/2012/05/mark-2-23-28/.
[11] Brian McLaren, We Make the Road by Walking (New York: Jericho Books, 2014), p. 41.
[12] http://www.npr.org/blogs/ed/2014/08/28/343735856/kids-and-screen-time-what-does-the-research-say.
[13] Jan Richardson, "And the Table Will Be Wide: A World Communion Sunday Blessing," http://paintedprayerbook.com/2012/09/30/and-the-table-will-be-wide/#.VDFXrOevyjI.]]>
Sunday Seminar, October 5, 2014, 11:30 a.m. following worship.
Discussion Questions:
1) What is a "confession" of faith?
2) What is the Belhar Confession?
3) Why talk about it now?
4) What are the arguments for and against including the Belhar Confession in Part I of the Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (USA) (our Book of Confessions)?
I. What is a "confession"?
What does "confession" mean in this context? To "confess" in this sense means to affirm, declare, acknowledge or take a stand for what one believes to be true.
Why does the church confess? Part I of the Presbyterian Church (USA) Constitution (The Book of Confessions) contains eleven confessional statements adopted by the Presbyterian Church as significant and instructive in both our individual and corporate Christian lives. Each one arose out of a perceived need for the church to define itself, both for itself and for the world, in response to:
1) a perceived threat to its integrity or identity;
2) a political or cultural movement that attacks the church or seeks to compromise its commitment to the gospel;
3) new insights into the promises of the gospel desperately needed by the church and the world;
4) or all three.
The eleven confessions are:
• The Nicene Creed (A.D. 381)
• The Apostles' Creed (A.D. 180 – 8th Century)
• The Scots' Confession (1560)
• The Heidelberg Catechism (1562)
• The Second Helvetic Confession (1561)
• The Westminster Confession of Faith (1647)
• The Larger Catechism of the Westminster Confession of Faith (1647)
• The Theological Declaration of Barmen (1934)
• The Confession of 1967
• A Brief Statement of Faith – Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) (1983)
Chart: For the historical context and crisis that inspired these confessions, see the attached chart from Jack Rogers, Presbyterian Creeds: A Guide to the Book of Confessions (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1991). *The chart does not include A Brief Statement of Faith, adopted in 1983. The crises facing the church and world when A Brief Statement of Faith was adopted were the reunion of the northern and southern wings of the Presbyterian Church after over 100 years of separation over slavery, and the threat of nuclear annihilation.
What do these confessions mean to us? (In other words, do you have to believe everything in them to be a Presbyterian?)
II. What is the Belhar Confession?
The Crisis: The Belhar Confession has its roots in the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. It does not, however, mention apartheid, but rather seeks to address a far wider context.
Date/origin: the Dutch Reformed Mission Church first drafted this "outcry of faith" and "call for faithfulness and repentance" in 1982, taking a lead in declaring that apartheid threatened the truth of the gospel. That church formally adopted it in 1986.
Issues addressed:
(a) Unity of the church and the unity among all people
(b) Reconciliation within the church
(c) God's justice
A look at the Belhar Confession itself (see the attached).
Churches that have adopted the Belhar Confession:
• Dutch Reformed Mission Church (1982)
• The Uniting Reformed Church in South Africa (1994)
• The Evangelical Reformed Church in Africa in Namibia (ERCA) (997)
• United Protestant Church in Belgium (1998)
• The Reformed Church in America (RCA) (2010)
• The Christian Reformed Church of North America (CRCNA) created a new, less-binding category for the Belhar, and adopted it as an "Ecumenical Faith Declaration" (2012)
III. Why talk about the Belhar Confession now?
This past June (2014), the 221st General Assembly of the PC(USA) approved the committee's recommendation to refer adoption of the Belhar Confession to a vote by the Presbyteries.
History: The PC(USA) first considered adopting the Belhar Confession in 2008. A committee from the 218th General Assembly requested that a committee begin the formal process of including the Belhar in its Book of Confessions. That committee recommended adoption of the Belhar Confession to the 219th General Assembly in 2010. The General Assembly approved the recommendation and referred adoption to a vote of the Presbyteries. The Belhar Confession fell 8 votes short of the 116 necessary for adoption. In 2012, the 220th General Assembly began this process anew, and in 2014, the 221st General Assembly approved the new committee's recommendation to refer adoption to a new vote by the Presbyteries.
IV. What are the arguments for and against including the Belhar Confession in Part I of the Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (USA) (our Book of Confessions)?
Arguments for adoption:
1) Belhar powerfully interprets the gospel around three central biblical and confessional terms of our Reformed tradition: unity, reconciliation, and justice.
2) Belhar is a powerful advocate of God's salvation at work in and through the church for the sake of the world and the healing of the cosmos.
3) The church has a special need to be instructed on the continuing dangers of violence and warfare, of the division between the rich and the poor, and between those of differing races, tribes, and peoples.
4) The unity of the church is our common calling in Christ. The church's unity is its mission.
5) Adopting Belhar would be a declaration of solidarity with our brothers and sisters in the Reformed tradition.
6) Adopting Belhar would announce to the Church in the world our commitment as Presbyterians to unity, reconciliation and justice, not just in our own nation, but also in the world.
Arguments against adoption:
1) Not timely: The apartheid it addressed in South Africa no longer exists.
2) Redundancy: The PCUSA has spoken clearly on racism in the Confession of 1967, which is already included in the Book of Confessions. The Belhar Confession is redundant.
3) A waste of resources to "talk" rather than "do": The church today desires to bring reconciliation through Christ to the world by doing the work of releasing the captives, bringing sight to the blind and binding up the wounded. Spending the church's time and resources to debate an outdated, 20 year old document – written to address apartheid in Africa – is wasteful of her time, energy and resources.
4) Liberation Theology: The concern is that there are phrases in the Confession of Belhar, written from a Liberation Theology perspective, that could be used by other groups [read: LGBT] that consider themselves oppressed, to bolster their agendas in the church.
5) Failure to focus the Confession on the Lordship of Christ: The Belhar Confession emphasizes the unity of the Church, which is not a confession that Jesus Christ is Lord, but a confession about what the Church is or must do. Unity is not necessarily tied to Christ's Lordship, since unity may be achieved by other means.
6) The issue of homosexuality: The argument is that because unity is the main point of the Belhar Confession others have insisted on using it for issues that are "unbiblical." One of the contributors to Belhar, Allan Boesak, has sought to use it as a means to gain ordination for practicing homosexuals in the Uniting Reformed Church in South Africa.
7) The Israeli and Palestinian conflict: Speakers for the Reformed Church in America have suggested using the Confession as a solution for what they perceive as racism on the part of Israel. As one South African put it "If there is one situation in this world that contextually fits the antiapartheid struggle and its dynamics, for which the Belhar Confession was written, it must be the Palestinian situation, currently."
8) The issue of pluralism: At several places in the confession the word "church" is replaced by another category called "the People of God." The Belhar Confession uses this term to describe the church. The question has been posed: "Is it possible to expand this "People of God" terminology to encompass the 'peoples of God,' including in this Jews and Muslims? And by this to provide a monotheistic platform for unity?"
(Resources for arguments against Belhar: Advisory prepared by Sue Cyre, Theology Matters, May 2008 http://newchurchrising.org/lessons-from-south-africa/the-belhar-confession/joint-renewal-ga-teams-argument-against-belhar/; http://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevindeyoung/2009/05/11/belhar-confession-yea-or-nay/)
Response to Arguments Against:
1) Redundant? By that standard most of our current confessions would have to be excluded.
2) Waste of time – to whom? This is a complete insult to anyone who has experienced racial discrimination, and only demonstrates the ignorance and insensitivity of the Joint Renewal General Assembly Team.
3) Liberation Theology is problematic? Is the book of Exodus not liberation theology? What about Jesus' ministry "to proclaim release to the captives…to let the oppressed go free?" Black South Africans, most of whom were Christian, desperately needed liberation from a white supremacist so-called "Christian" regime. Nelson Mandela was labeled a "communist" by the Reagan administration.
4) With regard to "the Lordship of Jesus Christ" as a central focus: In reading the Book of Confessions one does not read any one part of it as if it were the whole. Belhar will stand along beside the other witnesses made over the past two thousand years.
Ferguson is about 67% African American, and the other 33% is mixed. Many of the non-black people there are there because they have made a commitment to diversity, while many of the white residents of Ferguson fled north and west decades ago. Rev. Trautman said that it is a town with some serious divisions, but there is also a wonderful grassroots movement among the people of Ferguson that the national news doesn't cover.
This grassroots movement is paying attention to policing policies, including the fact that the many small municipal police departments in suburban St. Louis support themselves with speed traps and traffic fines – it is their major source of revenue. This turns into a regressive tax which impacts people of color disproportionately because of the economic disparities that follow color lines. When people can't pay fines, a warrant is issued for their arrest, they are jailed, they lose jobs, and the bad feelings between white police and people of color intensify. It raised for me, again, one of those things I never have to think about: Will a traffic violation cause me to go to jail and lose my job?
The big concern looming on the horizon for Ferguson is the grand jury decision about whether to press charges against the officer who shot Michael Brown. Rev. Trautman says the general fear and suspicion is that he will not be indicted. It will cause problems – protests and perhaps rioting. I promised we would hold the community and the grand jury process in prayer.
Rev. Trautman said the community, black and white, is worn out by protests, by news people, by cameras, by national attention.
I said we would like NOT just to dump the cranes and run, but stay in touch. We will keep him up to date with our evolving plans for learning about and discussing white privilege, leading up to the celebration commemorating the 50th anniversary of our involvement in the Selma-to-Montgomery March which is coming this spring. He will keep us posted about the grand jury and other ways they need prayer. We will keep this conversation going.
In that vein, I would like "News from Ferguson MO" added to the regular session agenda for the time being.
Those of us who are planning Sunday Seminars about race and privilege have lots to talk about. I look forward to a creative and energetic meeting soon – we need to figure out when to do that.
In the meantime, when our cranes are all folded, they have a place to land.
Together we serve,