Wednesday, November 25, 2015

Pondering the End of the World


"There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves" (Luke 21:25). 

Jesus is speaking about the "Apocalypse" -- a Greek word that means a revelation or uncovering. Revealed and uncovered is the completion of God's work in the world, and the coming of the Son of Man.
Have you noticed how often a movie looks toward a post-apocalyptic situation, sometime after a major war, or a dystopian future, where the future takes a very negative turn? The most recent example, I suppose, is Hunger Games. This movie looks backward to a time when a major war broke out that led to tyranny in government.

So is the Apocalypse going to happen now?

Craig C. Hill explores the notion in his article, “The End of the World – Again,” in Dallas Morning News, October 26, 2002.

As he sees it, some people thought so. A journalist named Lawrence Joseph has written Apocalypse 2012: A Scientific Investigation Into Civilization's End, a book which predicts widespread catastrophe beginning this month. He looks to the sky and sees "signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars," just as Jesus did. Specifically, he notices that on December 21 of this year, the sun will line up with the center of the Milky Way for the first time in roughly 26,000 years. Joseph says, "Whatever energy typically streams to Earth from the center of the Milky Way will indeed be disrupted on 12/21/12 at 11:11 p.m." Well, he pieces widely scattered facts, some maybe and probably, and draws a frightful conclusion.

Lawrence Joseph was not alone. According to USA Today (March 27, 2007), a number of people thought that the Apocalypse was coming because of something else that happens on December 21, 2012: The Maya's "Long Count" calendar comes to the end of an era that has been running for 5,126 years.

A spiritual healer named Andrew Smith predicts a restoration of a "true balance between Divine Feminine and Masculine." Author Daniel Pinchbeck looks forward to a "change in the nature of consciousness," which he connects to psychedelic drug use. The movie 2012 portrays a series of cataclysmic events taking place this year, tied to the MesoAmerican Long Count calendar.

Rumors of the demise of the world have been around for centuries. Consider the example of William Miller, a Baptist farmer from New York who was convinced that Christ would return to Earth in the early 1840s. With the assistance of Boston preacher Joshua Himes, Miller persuaded tens of thousands of Christians that the "day of the Lord" was at hand. Some followers even quit jobs and sold property in anticipation of the Second Coming. What came instead was the so-called Great Disappointment, and with it the discrediting of William Miller. Within a short time, however, other people reinterpreted the writings of Miller, re-worked the math, and issued new and equally assured predictions. With that, we have the beginning of the Seventh Day Adventist denomination.

In her post-apocalyptic novel, Jennifer Bosworth says in Struck (2012 )  

If you want to remain in control of a doomsday cult, do not give a date for the end of the world unless you are really, really sure it's going to happen. Being wrong tends to undermine your authority. 

The advice is well taken but not often heeded. Yet, on occasion, the failure leads to the growth of a movement.

Carlos Wilton has another way of examining this interest, focusing upon the idea of a rapture.

The first End Times best seller was not Volume 1 of Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins' Left Behind series; nor was it Hal Lindsey's 1970s' blockbuster The Late Great Planet Earth. That distinction belongs instead to William E. Blackstone's 1878 book Jesus Is Coming, which was published in three editions and 47 languages. Since that time, waves of Last Days enthusiasm have swept regularly over portions of American Christianity. The current peak in interest is attributable to several factors, not least the effective use of mass media on the part of a handful of self-described fundamentalist "prophecy scholars."

"The Rapture" is prominent in several twentieth- and twenty-first-century approaches to interpreting the Bible's apocalyptic passages. Most people who use this term are unaware that it was all but unknown in Christian theology prior to the late nineteenth Century.

The only place in the Bible where anything resembling a "Rapture" is mentioned is in 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17, describing how the risen Christ will one day descend from heaven. At that time, Paul teaches, the "dead in Christ" will be raised, and "We who are alive... will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air" (v. 17).

"Rapture" is another way of rendering into English the phrase, "caught up." The underlying Greek word is the uncommon arpagnesometha, which one can translate "snatched up" or "kidnapped." The word bears a strong sense of violent coercion. It is, in fact, related to the English word, "rape" – not in the sense of a sexual act, but rather the snatching up and carrying off the wives and daughters of a defeated enemy.

While most Rapture theologians assume Jesus' arrival on the clouds of heaven is for the purpose of rescuing the faithful in the nick of time, just before he abandons the world to evil, there is no reason to conclude this is what Paul means. It is far more likely, based on the larger context of this letter, that the Apostle is depicting a movement in the opposite direction. In I Thessalonians 4, Jesus is not escaping the earth, but is, rather, on his way to redeem it and reign over it. The faithful are meeting him halfway: not so they may make their escape (as Rapture enthusiasts assume, based on scant biblical evidence), but rather so they may form ranks as the vanguard of his triumphant return.

To Paul's way of thinking, it is Jesus' downward, reconciling movement that brings hope, not his arranging for an upward, separating escape for a select group of his followers.

The question Rapture Theology must address -- but almost never does -- is how it reconciles the biblical proclamation of Jesus as loving redeemer with their own depiction of him as a spiritual commando who swoops in to rescue the members of his squad before allowing all hell to break loose.

Rapture Theology is particularly out of step with the verse with which Paul ends this section: "Comfort one another with these words." The reason Paul has raised this subject is so the Thessalonians' minds may be put at ease on the baffling question of "those who have died" prior to the Messiah's return (v. 13). First-century Christians would derive little comfort from the belief that, more than two millennia in the future, the Messiah would suddenly drop from the sky and snatch up the faithful, abandoning those who are "left behind" to their own devices. Rather, the "comfort" of which Paul speaks is the conviction that Christ will soon return to establish a reign of justice and of peace.

            Regardless of your approach to the rapture, Fred Craddock, a preacher and writer, has a challenging way of putting all of this into perspective. Christians might experience some temptation to set aside all talk of the end. He thinks they do so to their peril. 

For all that Christian faith means to each individual who embraces it, the church cannot continue to permit, much less endorse, a subjective captivity of the gospel. Not even the community of faith is adequate as the arena of Christ's saving work. The whole creation stands at the window eagerly awaiting the arrival of the day of redemption for the children of God. We like to think that we, modern as we are, have risen above primitive apocalyptic thought. What we have learned in recent years is that our negative assessment of apocalyptic texts has more to do with our social location that with our alleged modern minds. People in power, people on the top, are always more comfortable with the social, economic, and political status quo than with apocalyptic images of dismantling and revolution. God is coming. Is that good news or bad? 

            “The end” is not so much a matter of chronology but rather a debate over who, in the end, is in charge. Alternatively, as H. Richard Niebuhr put it, eschatology “does not lie in the time-factor so much as on the God-factor.” Eschatology, as John Howard Yoder says, is the peculiar way we Christians remind ourselves of the weird truth that “There is no significance to human effort and, strictly speaking, no history unless life can be seen in terms of ultimate goals.”

We Christians know that God is at work in the long march of history, and is moving us toward the day when the Son of Man will come with power and great glory. This may be a fearful time, but it will ultimately be a celebration, for God will replace all of the brokenness and injustice of this world by healing and righteousness.

In the meantime, I like the way William Barclay put it: “The only way to prepare to meet God is to live daily with God.”

Tuesday, November 24, 2015

Homiletics Contributions

The January 31, 2016 entry in the lectionary preaching resource Homiletics Magazine has some references that I submitted. They asked me to study their material and offer my reflections. It led to some interactions with the editor, Timothy Merrill. The following are the references they chose to include. Some of you who know of my interest in writing will also know what this means to me.

In the present time, faith, hope and love sustain the church, but the greatest is love. It is possible that it is greatest because it is lasting. Love is an ethic that will abide into the future, but one we can practice in the present as well. Love takes up the believer into the act of the nature and operation of God and participates in the movement of the love for the world. For this reason, Paul could call love the greatest among the gifts of the Spirit, for it not only mediates but also already constitutes the relationship with God.

--Wolfhart Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 3, 184.

Thanks to Rev. George Plasterer (Cross-Wind United Methodist Church, Logansport, Indiana), for sharing this with Homiletics.

One of my favorite books is by Erich Fromm, The Art of Loving. He speaks of our use of the phrases "falling in love" and "being in love." Both imply that nothing could be easier or more natural than love.

Yet, when we look at the way we express love in real life, there's hardly anything we human beings do that can begin with such a hope and expectation, and yet so often fails so regularly, as love. We have this deep-seated craving for love. Yet, we act as if almost everything else is more important than love. Success, prestige, money, power -- we use almost all of our energy to achieve these aims.

--Rev. George Plasterer, Cross-Wind United Methodist Church, Logansport, Indiana.

M. Scott Peck, in The Road Less Traveled, writes that self-discipline is love translated into action. If we love one another, we will obviously order our behavior in such a way as to contribute the most to the spiritual growth of one another. Then he writes: "The more I love, the longer I love, the larger I become. Genuine love is self-replenishing. The more I nurture the spiritual growth of others, the more my own spiritual growth is nurtured. I never do something for somebody else but that I do it for myself. And as I grow through love, so grows my joy."

--Thanks again to Rev. George Plasterer (Cross-Wind United Methodist Church, Logansport, Indiana), for sharing this with Homiletics.

Monday, November 23, 2015

On Signs


At the age of 55 years, I had a “first” in my life. Johnny Booth took me deer hunting. We even got a picture of me looking very much like a hunter, even though I do not hunt. In fact, if you looked at that picture and thought of it as a sign that I was a hunter, you would be wrong. We did not see any deer. At the end of the morning, we took a walk around the area. Johnny pointed to bark that deer had recently rubbed off by rubbing against it. He showed another area that suggested a buck marking his territory, and giving a sign to any female deer that he was there. We saw no deer; we did see signs of their presence.

Where would we be without signs? You probably do not think about them that much, but you use them every day. They tell which streets are one-way, how fast you should drive, where to find a restroom, which gender the restroom is, when your favorite store is open, where to buy a meal, what dangerous areas to avoid, where to find a sale, and a zillion other things that are part of daily life. Without signs, we would be confused, unsure where we were, have no idea where to find our daily necessities and, a good bit of the time, be actually lost.

 Doug Lansky, author, columnist and occasional show host on the Discovery Channel, released a book containing photos of signs he and others have taken on travels around America and a number of other countries. Titled Signspotting, the book shows some signs that are unintentionally comical because people for whom English was not their first language composed them. Other signs shown in the book are from English-speaking countries and composed, we assume, by people who have spoken English all their lives, but the postings are laughable. Underneath a sign that says, “Not a through street,” is another sign, “evacuation route.” Another sign has “Promised Land,” with another sign across it, “closed.” I think he is up to Part 4 of his series of books, along with many other travel guides.

Preparation – Signs in Bible and our text

The Bible has a concern with a different type of sign. These are signs of what God is doing in our world and in our lives. Such signs can help us know where we are and just importantly know where we need to go. Sometimes, people miss the sign.  

(Isaiah 7:10-14).

Again the Lord spoke to Ahaz, saying, Ask a sign of the Lord your God; let it be deep as Sheol or high as heaven. But Ahaz said, I will not ask, and I will not put the Lord to the test. Then Isaiah said: ‘Hear then, O house of David! Is it too little for you to weary mortals, that you weary my God also? Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel.”  

(Luke 2:12)

This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.” 

If we do not read this sign properly, we will indeed not know where we are, or where we are going.

Sunday, November 22, 2015

Mortgage Burning and Dedication of the Church Building


Order of Worship— November 22, 2015

Cross~Wind UMC - 10:00 AM 

Gathering, Fellowship, Greeting – 9:30AM – 10:00AM 

Praise/Worship  (To begin at 10:00AM – NO GREETING) 

·       Mighty Is Our God/Great and Mighty Is He (medley)

·       We Have Come Into His House

·       Our God

·       Celebrate Jesus

Offering/Offertory  -  (Ushers bring plates forward during song)

·       Holy Ground/We Are Standing on Holy Ground

 Lay Witnesses

Jim Austen, Chair of Building Committee 1998

Wayne Thomas, Chair of Finance Committee 2015 

 Prayer – Pastor George

Eternal God, let this building, which we dedicate to your name, be a house of salvation and grace where Christians gathered together may worship you in spirit and truth, may learn of you, and may grow together in love. Grant this through Christ our Lord. Amen.
 

Think Orange (Song and/or Prayer)

 

Scripture Reading by Pastor George                             I Corinthians 3:5-11

5 What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you came to believe, as the Lord assigned to each. 6 I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. 7 So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. 8 The one who plants and the one who waters have a common purpose, and each will receive wages according to the labor of each. 9 For we are God’s servants, working together; you are God’s field, God’s building.
 

10 According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building on it. Each builder must choose with care how to build on it. 11 For no one can lay any foundation other than the one that has been laid; that foundation is Jesus Christ.
 

We are grateful for the pastors that had formative influence upon the merger and building the new church
 

Letter from District Superintendent

Dear Cross Wind United Methodists, 
Glory to God!   

       When two United Methodist congregations in Logansport, Indiana began a journey with a vision to create a new United Methodist Church on the north side of town, they could only imagine the fulfillment of this day…the accomplishment of paying off the mortgage!  But, through the gifts of faithful, generous members and friends of Cross Wind UMC, you have reached that day!  You have every right to feel proud of the work you have done together.  Thank you to each of you who have given to the “Building Program” so that this chapter might come to its fulfillment. 

         But today isn’t just about paying off a mortgage.  It’s about ministry.  This congregation has taken on new challenges to reach out to the community in innovative ways.   Because the original congregations realized the need and value of green space, you have a beautiful area to touch the lives of young people through your Upward Soccer Program.   I have driven by here occasionally on Saturday mornings and the parking lot is packed!   Children are enjoying time with one another learning how to play soccer and learning about Jesus.  Lives are being changed from the youngest participants to the parents or grandparents who are sitting on the sidelines cheering for their children.  You are making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.   

           You have also developed an amazing “Orange” ministry for children in this beautiful facility that has allowed them to grow in faith, learn how to pray and dance in the name of the Lord.  They have brought joy to your worship and power to the prayers of your congregation.  They will never forget the ministries they enjoyed through Cross Wind UMC.  Thanks be to God! 

So, for today…congratulations and THANK YOU!  But, this is also the beginning of a new thing.  You have opportunities to use resources in new ways.    I know that you will continue to care for those who have faithfully participated in the life of this church for many years.  Now you also have the privilege to find new creative ways to reach out into a community that still needs to know the love of God in Jesus Christ.  There are others waiting out there to be loved and welcomed into a community of faith like Cross Wind.  There are others who are lonely and seeking to find a place where they can belong.  There are those who need to know that God has a greater plan for their life and that Christ offers new and abundant life.   

           Continue to go out from these beautiful walls and even these beautiful grounds to touch the lives of others so that your congregation, community, and ultimately the world might be changed. 

God has been faithful.  Thank you for being faithful through your gifts and in sharing God’s message of love in Jesus Christ. 

Grace and Peace, 

Chris Newman-Jacobs Northwest District Superintendent 

Mick Schoenradt said he was so excited for the church
 

Note from youth pastor Andrew Suite
Hello, CrossWind! Congratulations on your mortgage pay off! Thank you also for taking me under your wing nearly ten years ago and allowing me to stretch my wings as a Youth Minister. In large part to great people like you, I am now on my way as a certified candidate for ordination as and elder in the United Methodist Church. God bless you in the years to come! In Him, Andrew Suite

 

Michael Heath
He appreciated the invitation but he will be on vacation. He said that his time here was a highlight of his ministry.
 

Gary Lewis:
Praise be to God the mortgage has been paid off! Unfortunately, we will be unable to attend. That Sunday is scheduled to be our stewardship Sunday with a meal afterward. Thanks so much for the invite and extend to Cross~Wind our sincere congratulations.

 Pastors

Dan Motto 

Chip Gast,

Matthew 16:21-28

21 From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.

22 Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to you!”

23 Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”

24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 25 For whoever wants to save their life[a] will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.26 What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? 27 For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what they have done.

28 “Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”

Message: "May All Who Come Behind Us Find Us Faithful." 

Pastor George

Isaiah 43:19: Watch for the new thing I am going to do. It is happening already – you can see it now! I will make a road through the beanfield and give you streams of water there. – Good News Bible
    

Message: Watch for the New Thing! 

Think of it this way.

Our entire life depends on it. People fear and work to avoid it. Most political elections promise it. Bookstores are crammed with guides on how to create it personally and manage it professionally. Sometimes it is the only constant in life, and other times people desperately want it but cannot seem to muster it.

Change.

The longer we live, the more of it we see. Consider a few childhood classics that have left nostalgia behind while looking to change with the times.

The board game Monopoly was built on obscure geographic locales from Atlantic City. Without Monopoly, nobody outside of Jersey would know Marvin Gardens and Oriental Avenue. But because 750 million people around the world have played the game, Parker Brothers has now released a globalized World Edition. City streets have been replaced by actual cities, which were determined by Web site voters.

Boardwalk is replaced by Montreal, Illinois Avenue by London, and Water Works and Electric Co. by Solar and Wind Farms. Instead of Dollars, players spend Monos, a fictional currency based on the Euro. And they no longer buy, sell and collect rent with cash; they do it by registering electronic transactions on their calculator-like personal banking units.

The game Clue also got a face-lift. The murder-mansion game board now has a spa and home theater. Professor Plum is Victor Plum, a billionaire video-game designer. Colonel Mustard is now former football star Jack Mustard.

          Nostalgic food favorites have changed as well. Recently, M&M’s have gone “Premium,” with new flavors including almond, raspberry almond, mocha, mint and triple chocolate. The Premiums, which lack their predecessors’ hard shell, come in an upscale, trendy box instead of that tired brown-paper wrapper.

And most of us remember the nation-gripping taste-drama that surrounded Coca-Cola becoming New Coke, reprising Classic Coke, then reverting back to just plain old Coke.

Another changing classic is the Bible. Think about the medium by which we read the Bible.

In the ancient world of Judaism, people memorized and passed on Scripture orally. Hebrews took papyrus technology from the Egyptians and wrote on scrolls. Later, they wrote on sturdier parchment — dried animal skins. These were combined into exorbitantly expensive booklike codices. In the 15th century, the printing press revolutionized the world by getting Bibles into the hands of nonclergy for the first time. Today we beam texts onto PowerPoint slides, and people bring Bibles to church on the iPhone.

          Think about all the ways technology has altered age-old interactions between people. We used to talk face to face. Then we created the telegraph and eventually saw a phone in every home. Now we carry our phones, ditch our land lines and drop text messages to avoid those pesky, lengthy human interactions.

Previous generations wrote letters and posted them through couriers. Then MIT nerds in the ’60s created an intranet, which led to e-mail, which spawned a worldwide Internet. One-to-one communiqués became SPAM, Facebook wall postings and Tweets about what cereal we ate for breakfast.

Change is the air we breathe.

People often criticize the church and the Bible because of resistance to anything new. However, let me suggest that the prophet in these words summarizes the ways God with the world. “Watch for the new thing I am going to do!”

Watch for the new thing, when God called Abraham, the head of a clan, to move from modern Iraq to modern Israel and to start forming a people.

Watch for the new thing, when this same called God Moses to help bring liberation for these people from Egypt, lead them into a new land, and establish a new covenant.

Watch for the new thing, as the loose confederation of tribes broke covenant with each other and with God, and therefore, God called forth a king.

Watch for the new thing, when kings and people alike broke covenant again, God judged the people by sending them into exile, and yet, God was not finished with them. God called them to faithfulness to their heritage, but also challenged them. God would do a new thing in bringing them home, yes, but God would make them a light to the nations.

Watch for the new thing, as these people withdrew behind fences and kept the rest of the world out. God wanted the divine light to spread throughout the world, so the Father sent the Son into the world, because God loved the world that much. God had in mind a people who were on a mission. Yes, the missionary situation would change, and therefore what churches looked like would change, how clergy looked would change, music would change, the way the church interacted with its culture would change.

Yes, the missionary situation changes, and therefore, the church changes. God is always doing a new thing, simply because one thing we know about history – it means change.

Yet, watch for the new thing. 

First, trust the Unchanging 

“I am the Alpha and the Omega,’ says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty. (Revelation 1: 8) 

We can thank God for all the works of God, but especially in the gift of Jesus, the Son of God, for the love of God Christ reflects and for the love God sows within us.

It is difficult to trust anyone or anything that changes. Because God is the same yesterday and tomorrow, God can serve as an anchor point to a chaotic life. His words and the lifestyle he commands are a constant.

Following God means we have a true foundation for the whole of our lives to be built on. We can trust that God knows best. We know God will not change the rules of the game on us later on. 

Second, trust the unchanging mission.

Follow me and I will make you fishers of men. (Matthew 4:19)

We state the mission clearly on the front of our bulletin every Sunday: To make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.

When the disciples follow Jesus, we learn that they are to be with him, abide with Him, and accompany Him on His ways wherever they may lead. In every case, following means simply to be there, to be with Jesus.

If you are with Jesus, he will sow seeds of love and kindness. In that sense, the living Christ is more like a gardener, and you are the garden that he seeks to make fruitful. 

Third, engage the changing missionary situation.

Watch for the new thing I am going to do. It is happening already – you can see it now! - Isaiah 43:19

Frankly, here is where the church often gets itself into trouble. It is the reason so many local United Methodist congregations close their doors after many decades of service. Things changed all around them, but somehow, they could not muster the courage and vision to address the changes.

God is already doing the new thing! All too often, however, the church closes its eyes and its ears. It does not hear. It does not see. The church does not watch for the new thing.

We are so fortunate here. We as a people have shown that we can watch for the new thing. We have already heard from pastors and laity who have shown readiness to do a new thing. Cross~Wind exists today because were faithful to the vision God had given them. Some of the people instrumental in the formation of Cross~Wind have died. I think they are encouraging us onward to the new thing toward which God is calling us. The best way to remember them and honor them is to keep being open to the new thing God wants us to do. In fact, God is already starting the new path. We have shown that we are not simply going to sit there at the beginning of the path. Far from it! You see, in another 15-20 years, people will be looking upon us who had the courage and vision to follow wherever God would lead. 

Burning of the Mortgage

[Copy of the mortgage needed] 

Dear friends, now that we have completed building and paid all indebtedness on it, let us dedicate this building and rejoice in its holy use. 

To the glory of God, who has called us by grace; to the honor of Jesus Christ, who loved us and gave himself for us; to the praise of the Holy Spirit who illumines and sanctifies us;

We dedicate this house. 

For the worship of God in prayer and praise; for the preaching of the everlasting gospel; for the celebration of the Holy Sacraments:

We dedicate this house. 

For the comfort of all who mourn; for strength to those who are tempted; for light to those who seek the way;

We dedicate this house. 

For the hallowing of family life; for teaching and guiding the young; for the perfecting of the saints;

We dedicate this house. 

For the conversion of sinners; for the promotion of righteousness; for the extension of God’s reign;

We dedicate this house. 

For making disciples of Jesus Christ to transform the world; for inviting people to believe in Jesus Christ, grow in their faith, go forth to witness in the world;

We dedicate this house. 

In the unity of the faith; in the bond of brotherhood and sisterhood; in love and goodwill to all;

We dedicate this house. 

In gratitude for the labors of all who love and serve this church; in loving remembrance of those who have finished their course; in the hope of eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord;

We dedicate this house. 

Brief Prayer of Great Thanksgiving

Communion (Invite servers then choir members to come. We will serve the choir first, and they will go the stage. When they gather, they will sing, “A Thanksgiving Garden” during serving of communion. Then, as closing song, “Find Us Faithful.”)  

Closing Prayer

We now, the people of this congregation, surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, grateful of our heritage, aware of the sacrifices of our mothers and fathers in the faith, and confessing that apart from us their work cannot be made perfect, dedicate ourselves anew to the worship and service of almighty God; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
 
 
 
 
 

 


 

Prayer for the Meal

 

 

Thursday, November 19, 2015

Pondering Change


A 2009 article in Homiletics magazine has led to this reflection.

Our entire life depends on it. People fear and work to avoid it. We elected President Obama, who promised it. Bookstores are crammed with guides on how to create it personally and manage it professionally. Sometimes it is the only constant in life, and other times people desperately want it but cannot seem to muster it.

Change.

The longer we live, the more of it we see. Consider a few childhood classics that have left nostalgia behind while looking to change with the times.

The board game Monopoly was built on obscure geographic locales from Atlantic City. Without Monopoly, nobody outside of Jersey would know Marvin Gardens and Oriental Avenue. But because 750 million people around the world have played the game, Parker Brothers has now released a globalized World Edition. City streets have been replaced by actual cities, which were determined by Web site voters.

Boardwalk is replaced by Montreal, Illinois Avenue by London, and Water Works and Electric Co. by Solar and Wind Farms. Instead of Dollars, players spend Monos, a fictional currency based on the Euro. And they no longer buy, sell and collect rent with cash; they do it by registering electronic transactions on their calculator-like personal banking units.

The game Clue also got a face-lift. The murder-mansion game board now has a spa and home theater. Professor Plum is Victor Plum, a billionaire video-game designer. Colonel Mustard is now former football star Jack Mustard.

            Nostalgic food favorites have changed as well. Recently, M&M’s have gone “Premium,” with new flavors including almond, raspberry almond, mocha, mint and triple chocolate. The Premiums, which lack their predecessors’ hard shell, come in an upscale, trendy box instead of that tired brown-paper wrapper.

And most of us remember the nation-gripping taste-drama that surrounded Coca-Cola becoming New Coke, reprising Classic Coke, then reverting back to just plain old Coke.

Another changing classic is the Bible. Think about the medium by which we read the Bible.

In the ancient world of Judaism, people memorized and passed on Scripture orally. Hebrews took papyrus technology from the Egyptians and wrote on scrolls. Later, they wrote on sturdier parchment — dried animal skins. These were combined into exorbitantly expensive booklike codices. In the 15th century, the printing press revolutionized the world by getting Bibles into the hands of nonclergy for the first time. Today we beam texts onto PowerPoint slides, and people bring Bibles to church on the iPhone.

            Think about all the ways technology has altered age-old interactions between people. We used to talk face to face. Then we created the telegraph and eventually saw a phone in every home. Now we carry our phones, ditch our land lines and drop text messages to avoid those pesky, lengthy human interactions.

Previous generations wrote letters and posted them through couriers. Then MIT nerds in the ’60s created an intranet, which led to e-mail, which spawned a worldwide Internet. One-to-one communiqués became SPAM, Facebook wall postings and Tweets about what cereal we ate for breakfast.

Tonight Show host Conan O’Brien predicts one giant time-wasting Web site to come: MyTwitFace.com.
 
However, the point is not to disparage change. The point is to recognize that change is the air we breathe.

Pondering Resistance to Change

I just thought I would share the following little list. I hope it is helpful. Some may suggest some additions. Some may want to disagree.


People resist change for the following reasons:

• When the reason for the change is unclear. Ambiguity — whether it is about costs, equipment or jobs — can trigger negative reactions among users.

• When the proposed users have not been consulted about the change, and it is offered to them as an accomplished fact. People like to know what’s going on, especially if their jobs may be affected.

• When the change threatens to modify established patterns of working relationships between people.

• When communication about the change — timetables, personnel, monies, etc. — has not been sufficient.

• When the benefits and rewards for making the change are not seen as adequate for the trouble involved.

• When the change threatens jobs, power or status in an organization.
—University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, 4.uwm.edu/cuts/bench/change.htm.

Sunday, November 15, 2015

Pondering James F. McGrath and Progressive Christianity


           
Some of colleagues in Indiana seem willing to identify themselves with the progressive Christian “movement,” if that is what it is. I have wrestled with making the time to explore what this terminology actually means. James F. McGrath, an associate professor of Religion at Butler University, has been attempting to express his notion of what Progressive Christianity is. He has done so in a way that I think is helpful to those of us who do not self-identify as such. I have wanted a dialogue partner in exploring what Progressive Christianity brings to the table. I am taking some of his posts at www.patheos.com as that dialogue partner. If you are a progressive Christian, I invite you to share with me whether McGrath has adequately described what it means to be progressive in one’s Christianity.

            First, McGrath says that Progressive Christianity is a reaction fundamentalist and literalist views of the Bible. Liberal Christianity, which arose out of the Enlightenment, does the same thing. At this point, the liberal Christian and the progressive Christian are one. Now, let me say that someone who self-identifies as evangelical, orthodox, or conservative, could also react against the narrow reading of the Bible that the fundamentalist often brings to the table. The test case is whether one who seeks faithfulness to scripture also accepts the findings of physics and biology. Wolfhart Pannenberg, in Chapter 7 of his Systematic Theology, is one who shows the way in this regard. Science describes the world it sees, based upon its procedures of tests and hypotheses. One does not need an ancient view of the world of nature to say that God created the universe and caused life to burst forth here. One can still affirm that the heavens declare the glory of God. My point here is that the view one has of the Bible does not determine where one ends up theologically. Other issues are involved, and it is time to explore them.

            Second, McGrath defines Progressive Christianity in the following way.

 

Progressive Christianity is a broad tradition, encompassing all forms of Christianity which honestly acknowledge that being a Christian is not merely about preserving things from the past, but innovating, revising, reforming, and creatively engaging with the present as well.

 

In my view, this definition fits the conservative, evangelical, and orthodox traditions far better. Among the many good points of Pannenberg is that one does not establish the truth of Christian proclamation in particular, historically conditioned statements. Such statements call for continual testing in terms of their faithfulness to the subject matter of scripture and to its truth. The point here is that the content and truth of Christian teaching does not rest on consensus. Rather, knowledge of the subject matter of scripture should produce consensus. Yet, even if we have consensus, it stands in need of constant renewal because the exposition and interpretation of scripture is still ongoing.[1] Those faithful to the Bible have had to change as they move into differing cultures and differing centuries.

Third, when he refers to Progressive Christianity as a broad tradition, I simply disagree. He tries to identify it with a tradition that goes back to the Reformation, but I do not find him persuasive. In reality, Progressive Christianity is a relatively recent and narrow movement. It has advanced beyond the liberal in that it accepts a Marxist critique of the Enlightenment and Modernist view of the world. McGrath specifically says that Progressive Christianity agrees with atheism in challenging “anthropomorphic depictions of God,” promoting scientific discoveries, and recognizing the historical and moral ways in which the Bible is wrong. He thinks that if atheists were not reacting against fundamentalism, they might find themselves open to a form of Christianity that is “skeptical of the miraculous, committed to reason, and equally committed to living lives of love and self-sacrifice.” Most of us who self-identify as conservative or orthodox in our faith are not as incredulous and ready to believe in every testimony of the miraculous as McGrath or the atheist suggest. Even the Roman Catholic Church, while embracing such testimonies in certain specific cases, does not do so universally. I will say that openness to things that science cannot presently explain is a dimension of Christian life and practice. Further, commitment to reason is thoroughly within the genuinely broad and deep tradition of orthodox Christianity, as we find it expressed in Augustine, Aquinas, Calvin, John Wesley, Karl Barth, and Wolfhart Pannenberg. When it comes to living lives of love and self-sacrifice, I find this far more evident in missionaries, in Mother Teresa, in St. Francis, and in many others of orthodox belief, as over against many self-identified progressives.

Fourth, McGrath gets to the nub of the issue, however, when he says that Progressive Christianity is willing to revise theology, beliefs, and values based upon new evidence. This path opens the way to liberate the Progressive Christian from accountability to Jesus and to the biblical witness. For the traditional believer, Jesus and the biblical witness is the path to the freedom of the children of God. For the Progressive Christian, Jesus and the biblical witness have become a prison. This amounts to placing present interpretation of experience above the depth of tradition. He refers favorably to an explanation of the Unitarian-Universalist view that rejects the Trinity, and that therefore Jesus is one valuable teacher among many. He admits that Progressive Christianity is open to revising views of God, and of everything else. Thus, God is:

 

an experience of belonging — not just to a family, or a nation, or even a galaxy, but to everything: the experience of ultimate belonging. The experience of God intimately and extensively CONNECTS us to everything — all that is present in our lives and our world, as well as all that is past and all that is possible.

In a word, God is the experience of possibility.

 

Little wonder, then, that a Progressive Christian finds the concept of “mending the universe” (a term found in a willingness to serve form submitted to the Indiana Annual Conference) an appealing mission.

            Little wonder, again, that some Progressive Christians are comfortable with the term “atheist Christian.” It forms the typical elitist jab that one might find in the faculty lounge of almost every public university.

            McGrath comes back to the commitment by the Progressive Christian to revising and revisiting historic beliefs and values, contrasting such openness with accepting what the Bible and Jesus say with obedience without questioning or understanding. Such a Christian will not unquestioningly follow anything in the Bible, and that includes Jesus. Karl Barth will say that our study of Christian teaching will lead to new questions as we constantly test what the church proclaims and what the Bible wants it to proclaim. If questioning ceased, we would be at the end of history. The kingdom of God would have dawned.[2] In the words of Pannenberg, God alone has the competence to speak the final word about the work of God in history.[3] Many of us have a personality that naturally asks “Why.” I would be among them. I am not sure anyone can take seriously the Bible or Jesus without asking questions. In fact, classic Christianity has always revisited its teachings. We see examples in various historic creeds, in differing uses of philosophy (Plato in Augustine and Aristotle in Aquinas), in renewal movements within the Roman Catholic Church, in Reformation, in Evangelical Renewal, and in many other ways. The Christian tradition has depth and breadth because it must continually revisit its beliefs and values. The tradition is dynamic in that sense. It does not speak with a single voice.

            The overlap McGrath describes between the Progressive Christian and the atheist is a problem. I have read several recent atheist authors such as Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and Daniel Dennett. As intelligent as they obviously are, they have an infantile knowledge regarding religion. The most obvious place one sees this shallowness is the accusation of superstition. Anyone who reads seriously the depth of thought contained within Christianity, the insight of Buddhism, the practices of Hinduism, could hardly dismiss it with the label of superstition. Further, when referring to sacred writings, to read it with literalness is to read it in ways that, at least within the Christian tradition, have not been the primary way to read the text. My point is that Progressive Christianity shares this infantile and shallow reading of the Christian tradition in which atheists have long engaged with the purpose of discrediting the sacred text. The motive of the Progressive Christian in identifying with such an infantile reading of the sacred text that the Progressive Christian claims to honor is a mystery to me.

            Although McGrath does not explore specific matters that are before the churches today, I would like to explore two.

            One is the place of Jesus in Christianity. As strange as it feels to me to have to explain this, I will offer my view. For Christian teaching, the subjective matter is the act of God in Jesus of Nazareth. This act is the object of the faith of the church and of all individual Christians. Christian faith from the very first has confessed Jesus of Nazareth and the act of God in him. This is the essence of the confessions and dogmas of Christianity. He reveals the love of God to humanity. God has brought clarity into human history by offering the Son, Jesus of Nazareth to offer his word and deed, his sacrificial life, for us. The witness of the apostles is that God raised him from the dead. I accept their testimony. I do so with many questions. I do not find it easy. Yet, I accept it and have sought to live my life by the belief that my life needs to be about Jesus. What this means for me is that the orthodox view of the Trinity is central. The development of this teaching arose out of the experience of God in Christ and in the power of the Spirit. It resolves a tension that we find in the Old Testament, but I would suggest, in the history of religion as well. The tension is between the transcendence and immanence of God. Yes, God transcends nature and history. God has a life, so to speak, beyond the world of human experience. Yet, God has entered the world God has made for no other reason than that God loves this world. God especially has seen the self-destructive nature of humanity and has entered the human condition in order to show the way to healing and liberation of what ails humanity. God has entered the world in Jesus of Nazareth, and God continues to enter the world through the presence of the Holy Spirit.

            Two is the place of the moral teaching of the Bible, but especially that of the Ten Commandments, Jesus, and Paul. Here is not the place to offer a broad ethic, although I would strongly suggest that you read the beatitudes, the parables of Jesus, the Sermon on the Mount, the household rules of Paul, and the vice and virtue list of Paul. To my way of thinking, read prayerfully and with a desire to understand and ask questions, one will have a good grasp of the kind of life we are to lead. However, the place where these values seem attacked today is that of family and sexuality. Jesus made it clear that marriage is between man and woman. We see it in his presence at weddings, in his parables of weddings, and in his bringing back to the creation of humanity the institution of marriage in Mark 10:6-8. Paul does so in his household rules and in his exploration of marriage in I Corinthians 5-7. If read with humility and willingness to learn, as well as with questions, one will gain wisdom in what both Jesus and Paul have to teach us regarding family and sexuality. Unfortunately, saying you are “for” this understanding of family and sexuality means to many that you discriminate based upon fear, as yet another clergy “willingness to serve” form put it. Yet, to offer anecdotal evidence from my experience, Christians of all stripes work with people who differ from them in beliefs and values all the time. They still love their neighbors and treat them respectfully. Most have family members whom they continue to love while disagreeing with the lifestyle choices they make.

            At this point, let me briefly return to the role of Scripture in the formation of faith and values in the lives of many of Christians. What I find in the Bible is a reliable witness to what God is doing in Israel and therefore what God is doing in Jesus. Of course, the focus of my attention is Jesus. The witness of the apostles is reliable. I am willing to lay my life alongside the Bible, meditate upon it, and accept its wisdom for my life. I do so with many questions that I keep exploring. I understand the struggle with matters of science and history, and I suppose I have my way of thinking through these things that some who hold to conservative theology might not like. At the same time, I do not find that questions in these areas demand a conclusion that one needs to place classic, orthodox, conservative Christianity in the trash-heap of history.

            Fifth, McGrath includes the matter of progressive politics in his considerations. He admits that some Progressive Christians will hold to orthodox beliefs, but hold to a progressive politics. He is at least hinting that one might be evangelical and progressive. However, the caveat is that they must then accept progressive politics. Here is what I have noticed. Progressives can “forgive” someone who holds to orthodox beliefs only if their politics are “progressive.” That which unifies the progressive side of American culture is not its religious opinions or judgments, but its politics. This fact elevates a political agenda above the theological. I might suggest that the political has become an idol, the true god of the movement. Their willingness to demonize anyone who disagrees with their political positions as misogynist, haters of gays, racist, and so on, suggests as much. These political beliefs must embrace the agenda of the various radical politics of the day, which one might broadly define as identity politics. Your “tribe” defines you. If your tribe is homosexual, then 98% of the people oppress you. You are on the margins. If your tribe is black, then white people oppress you. If your tribe is white, you have received privilege. If your tribe is woman, the male has oppressed and used you. Such an approach examines America from a radical perspective, and therefore the nation had an illegitimate founding. Its present is immoral. Understanding this explains why the Progressive wants the American footprint in the world to decline, the economy to decline, and moral values (much of it traditionally Christian but also Enlightenment) to decline. What defines America are its sins, especially racism and greed, rather than its commitment to liberty and justice. For the Progressive, their opponents are evil. For their conservative opponents, the Progressive is wrong. These are two quite different forms of argument. The Progressive seeks to shame their opposition into submission. The attempt to purge the language of politically incorrect statements is a powerful example. Their conservative opponents seek to persuade through rational discourse.

            McGrath makes it clear that poverty is not something the poor create, but a system of capitalism that impoverishes them. The poor are victims. Such a notion is pure Marxism, a term I use in a descriptive way, as one who has read Marx, and not in a pejorative way. It will see the political and economic world as the opposition of rich and poor, the one percent against everyone else, and so on. It fails to see the multi-faceted reasons that persons in a free society might be poor. Of course, this means moving away from a romantic notion of the self and to a more realistic view of the self as “crooked timber,” as Immanuel Kant put it. I have seen it. Some may have slowness of learning. Some may have never learned the proper attitudes and behaviors that would lead to a healthy participation in the economic system. The clearest example would be those who commit themselves to drugs and alcohol. To my knowledge, no one is sitting around thinking how to keep people out of the economic system. In fact, if you have learned to make a valuable contribution to a business, you will find work. The Marxist interpretation of capitalism alienates the poor from the very people who would love to help them out of poverty. My point is that an economic system rooted in freedom on the side of producers, consumers, and employees requires that people learn what it takes to engage the system.

            On the anecdotal side of this matter, the journey of Tony Campolo and David Neff suggest that the inevitable journey of the evangelical left will be toward a thoroughly progressive Christianity. The hoped for “center” will not hold.

            As I review this essay, I have a few concluding remarks.

For one thing, I do not assume that McGrath has defined the totality of Progressive Christianity. However, I hope he has given me a reasonable grasp of this movement. He expresses the need for humility and generosity in such discussions. I have sought to express myself in that way. I will say, however, that the Progressive Christians I know are far from humble and generous with classic, traditional, evangelical, and orthodox Christians. I think Progressive Christians are wrong in the direction they want to take the church. They think I am evil. It will be difficult to have a humble conversation in such a context.

            For another thing, I believe we are moving toward a time in America when to hold the beliefs of traditional Christianity will be to risk the label of hate speech from the Progressive in general and from the Progressive Christian in particular. I do not think that those who hold to traditional or classic Christianity are under any obligation to affirm ways of life it views as leading to brokenness and imprisonment. It ought to follow Jesus, who calls us to follow him, even as Jesus of Nazareth bid people to follow him long ago. The story in John 8:1-11 is illustrative. The woman caught in adultery engaged in a broken way of life. Others approached her simply in judgment. Jesus reminds us all that we are sinners. Human beings unite in their brokenness. Yet, the one who seeks to follow Jesus, the one who seeks to have Christ living within and who seeks to live in Christ, is also one who, with the woman caught in adultery, hears the word of Jesus, “Go, and sin and no more.” Human brokenness and imprisonment spiritually has the possibility of healing and liberation. It does involve a way of life, a journey, in which we stumble, lose our way, and fall. It also involves Jesus, who walks with us and lifts us up.

            One final point I offer, but with a caveat. I recognize that some Progressive Christians would themselves as “evangelical” and “orthodox,” and believe their Progressive Christianity arises out of their relationship with Jesus. Karl Barth in a 1952 letter, wrote to Rudolf Bultmann that the deepening differences between them are a bit like the whale and the elephant who met each other on the shore. They had gotten so deep into their ways of thinking that they were talking past each other. They no longer understood each other. I feel something like that when I hear someone speak of faithfulness to Jesus and the Bible while arguing against what Jesus and the Bible say. However, for other Progressive Christians as McGrath defines them, I think the following concern applies. The end of John 6 contains a powerful story. After Jesus has said some tough and unpopular things to say, some of his disciples left him. They no longer wanted to associate with him. Jesus gives the Twelve a chance to leave. Of course, they do not leave. They continue associating with Jesus. Yet, I would suggest that if Progressive Christianity were what James F. McGrath says it is, it would take the opportunity to leave Jesus behind. Their notion of progress has taken them to the point of “progressing” past Jesus and into new experiences of the present that are decidedly without the guidance Jesus brings.



[1] (Pannenberg 1998, 1991), Volume 1, 8-17,.
[2] (Barth 2004, 1932-67). Volume I.1, 7.1, 269.
[3] (Pannenberg 1998, 1991), Volume I, 16.