Wednesday, April 13, 2011

What are you passionate about?


As I've been preparing a sermon for Palm Sunday I've been thinking about the passion displayed by that ancient Jerusalem crowd.  On Sunday they were chanting, "Hosanna!"  By Friday they were chanting, "Crucify him!"  If they had had access to facebook and twitter, perhaps the turnaround would have been even more swift.

Yet there is no denying the passion of that ancient Middle Eastern crowd.  2011 has been a year for passionate crowds in the present-day Middle East.  The passion of the crowds toppled regimes in Tunisia and Egypt, and that passion has spilled over into Libya, and even into Jordan, Syria, and Yemen.  Passionate crowds are bringing about swift political change.

Do our Sunday morning crowds display anything like that degree of passion?  Not too long ago I saw a report which indicated that the churches that were growing tended to be either conservative churches that were passionate about their mission and vision OR liberal, progressive churches that were passionate about their mission and vision.

What does that say about moderate, middle-of-the-road Presbyterian churches that try to be all things to all people?  I actually remember a seminary professor who told us--perhaps only partly in jest--that our role as future Presbyterian ministers would be to exhort moderate congregations to be even more moderate!

Last year Methodist minister and youth ministry professor Kenda Creasy Dean published a book entitled Almost Christian which argued that many, mainline churches are failing to keep their youth because they are failing to give them anything that is worth being passionate about.  A community whose basic vision does not seem to be much deeper than "be nice to people" is a nice enough place to visit but you wouldn't want to live there permanently, so many youth who grew up in the church end up moving on.

I believe strongly--dare I say, passionately--that our churches can be welcoming communities to people of diverse views and backgrounds AND still be passionate about telling and living the Jesus story---the story about the Jesus who loved us enough to suffer for it and who inspires us to love others and God with that same kind of passionate love.

What do you think?  Where have our churches exemplified that kind of passion?  Where have they failed?  How can they maintain or rekindle that kind of passion?  What are you most passionate about?

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

How should we celebrate Easter this year?

As I was busying myself with Holy Week and Easter preparations, I came across a posting from Bruce Reyes-Chow, the former moderator of the Presbyterian Church (USA).  Bruce makes the suggestion that maybe the church should not do anything extra special for Easter this year.  He argues that our big Easter productions may actually reinforce the idea that there are special Sundays that are worth one's while to attend and then there are all those other Sundays that are nothing special.  What if every Sunday service were a celebration of resurrection and new life, and then we could say to visitors in all honesty that that is what they can expect to experience every Sunday?

What do you think?  How should the church celebrate Easter this year?

The link to Bruce's post is below:

http://www.reyes-chow.com/2011/04/why-easter-worship-service-should-be-nothing-special.html?utm_sourc

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Two Journeys: A Baptismal Meditation on John 9


            Swede Land is a character in Leif Enger’s novel Peace Like a River.  In the novel she offers this observation about miracles.  She says that people fear miracles because they fear being changed, though ignoring them will change you also.  She goes on to say that every miracle has to have a witness, someone to say, “This is what I saw.  This is how it went.  Make it of it what you will.”[i]

            In essence, that’s what happens in today’s story.  The healing takes about two verses to describe, but the controversy surrounding the healing takes over thirty verses.  People are trying to make sense of the miracle.  And true to Swede’s observation, how they respond to the miracle seems to have a lot to do with how they cope with their fear of change.  The man who had been born blind embraces the change in his life.  His journey is one of moving from spiritual blindness to spiritual sight.  The other characters in the story were changed by ignoring the miracle, and their journey is one of moving from spiritual sight to spiritual blindness.

            The man who had been born blind did not come to Jesus asking to be healed.  He didn’t even know who Jesus was.  Jesus came to him, made mud, put it on his eyes, told him to wash in the Pool of Siloam, and then the formerly blind man suddenly received his sight.  His restoration of physical sight is immediate; his gain of spiritual sight grows steadily in the course of this story.  At first he recognizes Jesus as the man who healed him.  Then he decides that Jesus must be a prophet, and later he confessed that Jesus is Lord.

            The early church found in this story a symbol of Christian baptism and the new life that it brings.  In the frescoes in the Roman catacombs this story was used to illustrate the meaning of baptism.[ii]  He is healed, after all, as he washes in water, and then after his washing his understanding of who Jesus is steadily grows.  When we baptized Luke and Molly a few moments ago, they were told that it was for them that Jesus Christ came into the world and showed God’s love, though they do not know it yet.  And so we pray that as they grow up their understanding will grow, and that one day they will embrace the faith that they have been taught as their own.

            If the first journey in this story is one from spiritual blindness to spiritual sight, then the second journey is made by those who move in the opposite direction.  Many of the townspeople who ought to have recognized the man who had been healed did not.  Some of the townspeople did recognize him, but others kept saying that the new man in town must be someone like him.  It reminds me of the story about the real Charlie Chaplin entering a Charlie Chaplin look-alike contest.  He came in third!

            The townspeople who failed to recognize the man fell into the trap that many of us fall into when we encounter people with different abilities than our own.  If all that certain townspeople ever saw was a blind beggar, then it is no wonder that they failed to recognize him once he was no longer blind.  But those who had seen him as a whole person before were still able to recognize him after.

            The Pharisees also embark on a journey from spiritual sight to spiritual blindness.  Near the beginning of the story, some of the Pharisees seem to be more open-minded.  Some of them were saying that no one who dishonored the Sabbath could be from God, while others were saying that surely no one who was a sinner could perform such signs.  We wonder if Nicodemus was there.  Remember Nicodemus?  The one who came secretly to Jesus at night, back in chapter three.  Is he still a secret believer?  Is he on the verge of faith?  Or, is he still hedging his bets?  Was he the one who interjected, “How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?” before apparently growing silent as the debate got heated.  We don’t know.  But what we do know is that the Pharisees seem absolutely entrenched in their view that anyone who performed any kind of work on the Sabbath could not be from God.

            The Pharisees had many good reasons for being strict about Sabbath observance.  When the Israelites were slaves in Egypt, they were forced to make mud bricks for Pharaoh.  But now that they were free, they could observe the Sabbath and refrain from mixing mud together.  It wasn’t a bad rule.  It provided for rest from labor, and it served as a reminder of how God had rescued them from slavery and the constant drudgery of making mud bricks.[iii] 

            But the Pharisees focus so narrowly on the rule against mixing mud on the Sabbath that they cannot make an allowance for Jesus to mix just a small amount of mud to make a healing salve.  It’s what happens whenever a rule or a custom or a tradition that had once been a life-giving practice is wrongly applied to a new situation in such a way that it is no longer life-giving.  At the very end of the story the Pharisees ask, “Are you saying that we are now blind also?”

            It’s a good question for the church as well.  It’s even a loving question.  How is our own spiritual sight?  Which of our traditions, habits, and practices are still truly life-giving, and which ones have we wrongly applied? 

            The season of Lent is an apt time for such examination.  How are we bringing life to each other?  How are we bringing life to our neighbors who desperately want to experience life?  Are we seeing Jesus for who he is and where he wants us to follow?    

           

End Notes:

[i] Lief Enger, Peace Like a River (New York:  Grove Press, 2001), 3.
[ii] Frances Taylor Gench, Encounters with Jesus:  Studies in the Gospel of John (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2007), 80.
[iii] Frances Taylor Gench, 73-74.

Saturday, April 2, 2011

Confessions of an Infrequent Blogger

As you know, a few months ago I began a blog entitled, "Pray All the Time."  Unfortunately, I have not been writing all the time.  It has been many, many weeks now since I've posted anything at all.  However, as a Lenten discipline, I would now like to begin updating the blog each Wednesday.  I am hoping that the blog can be a vehicle for pastor and congregation and neighbors to discuss questions that are important to all of us, including issues and questions that may go beyond the usual parameters of the Sunday sermon or Church School.  So please start checking as of this coming Wednesday, April 6th.  And please offer comments so that we can get the conversation started!