Jim Wallis Indy 2014

During the Life Together event of 2014 in Indianapolis, Jim Wallis was one of the speakers. I could appreciate his brief reflections on the tyranny of the urgent. It reminds me of the Stephen Covey distinguishing between the urgent, which often receives are attention, and the important, which often receives a push into the background of our live.

            John Randall, a friend on facebook, was able to get this list of what Jim Wallis concerning what we can do for the common good.

Here are ten personal decisions you can make to help foster the common good.

 1. If you are a father or a mother, make your children the most important priority in your life and build your other commitments around them. If you are not a parent, look for children who could benefit from your investment in their lives.

 2. If you are married, be faithful to your spouse. Demonstrate your commitment with both your fidelity and your love. If you are single, measure your relationships by their integrity, not their usefulness.

 3. If you are a person of faith, focus not just on what you believe but on how you act on those beliefs. If you love God, ask God how to love your neighbor.

 4. Take the place you live seriously. Make the context of your life and work the parish that you take responsibility for.

 5. Seek to develop a vocation and not just a career. Discern your gifts as a child of God, not just your talents, and listen for your calling rather than just looking for opportunities. Remember that your personal good always relates to the common good.

 6. Make choices by distinguishing between wants and needs. Choose what is enough, rather than what is possible to get. Replace appetites with values, teach your children the same, and model those values for all who are in your life.

 7. Look at the business, company, or organization where you work from an ethical perspective. Ask what its vocation is, too. Challenge whatever is dishonest or exploitative and help your place of work do well by doing good.

 8. Ask yourself what in the world today most breaks your heart and offends your sense of justice. Decide to help change that and join with others who are committed to transforming that injustice.

 9. Get to know who your political representatives are at both the local and national level. Study their policy decisions and examine their moral compass and public leadership. Make your public convictions and commitments known to them and choose to hold them accountable.

 10. Since the difference between events and movements is sacrifice, which is also the true meaning of religion and what makes for social change, ask yourself what is important enough to give your life to and for.

            Part of his assigned task, apparently, was to share about the beginning of his organization, Sojourners. His story involved rejection of what he perceived to be lack of care or concern for the racial issues of his youth, which he started seeing as a teen. Since he and are the same age, it reminded me of the debates that my father and I had concerning race. He had stories of “niggers” when he was in the Navy. The conversation went downhill from there. As for me, the little bit I could know of Martin Luther King Jr in the largely white town of Austin, MN, I liked and agreed. By then, I had also made a commitment to Christ and to the little non-denominational and evangelical church in Austin, MN. Where our experiences diverge is that I did not pick up any racism in the church in Austin or in the evangelical schools I attended during my late teens and twenty’s. In fact, I found confirmation of something I instinctively knew. I could not imagine how the color of skin could make any difference as to my relationship with anyone. It did not take long to reflect on biblical passages that moved me in the same direction. In fact, I would say that one of the gifts of the baby-boom generation to America has been to move America to overcome its bigoted and racist past.

            Jim Wallis also made it clear that as the “religious right” rose in the 1970s and 1980s and that he opposed it. Of course, I lived through these years as well. Although I agreed with many of the conclusions of the religious right, especially with limited government, respect for life, and strong national defense, I disagreed with its approach to the Bible. It never made sense to me to find solutions to modern political issues by referring to biblical passages. It also felt to me like the Bible and evangelical theology had become a tool to advance a particular political agenda. Even if I had some symmetry with the agenda, the method did not strike me as authentic. Thus, my reaction was to reject the method. Jim Wallis, on the other hand, adopted the method of using the Bible and a different interpretation of a biblical literalist to advance his political agenda, which is progressive, far-left politics. All Jim Wallis did was exchange baptism by the religious right of conservative politics with baptism by the religious Left of progressive politically Left politics. It would have required some actual intellectual effort to choose a different course, an engagement Jim Wallis was unwilling (clearly he is able) to have. For him, the way you are close to Jesus is to care for the least of these, understanding Matthew 25 as saying the progressive and politically Left politics is the only way to care for the least of these. The notion that someone with a conservative political ideology may have just as much desire to minister to the least of these does not seem to occur to him. I refer to Marvin Olasky as an author who has written well on this topic over the years. The approach by Wallis is no more authentic than that of the religious right.

            I agree with Jim Wallis that Washington DC is a dysfunctional place. It has more concern for large political agendas than for actually solving some of the social issues that face the nation. His conclusion is that we should not expect concern for the common good to come out of Washington DC. All right, I can agree with that, but have a problem with his solution. Being solidly on the political Left, every solution he offers centralizes economic, health care, and poverty solutions in Washington DC. He wants to move increasing amounts of power to Washington DC, the dysfunctional place he has described. One of the things that people like Jim Wallis seem incapable of understanding is that the federalist system works. It breaks down a large and diverse nation into manageable units. You let the states and the people work out many of the social issues that face us. The exception, of course, is if any state imposes rules against the constitution, but let us put that aside for a moment. The states could become laboratories of social experiments with many of the social issues that face us. Matters like abortion, health care, care for the aged, and care for the poor, find their best solution among the states, where government action seems needed, and among the people, where the free actions of groups (like churches) seems best. America is not a little island nation like Great Britain, or a little nation like France, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, or Germany. The European model of the social welfare state is not working in that setting, let alone in a nation like this. In the federalist system, the best solutions will rise to the top. Further, many states find that while politicians fight in the elections vigorously, after the election, they work together on some issues to solve the practical issues the state faces. If a state becomes dysfunctional, it affects only the people in that state. If Washington DC is dysfunctional, it affects us all.

            Jim Wallis presented an example of his participation in the dysfunction by his reference to immigration issues. He said that fear of more non-white persons entering the country, of non-white becoming a majority, is what motivates the opposition to his position of largely open borders. I cannot speak for everyone who would differ with Jim Wallis on his open borders notion, but I know that is not my concern. The reason America needs measured immigration is that so many people want to come here. Many do not come from nations that value freedom. Measured immigration is about giving people time to understand what it is to be American, which means to treasure liberty of individuals and groups, understand the basics of governance, and learning the language.  If fear is behind any of the immigration debate, the fear is that America will become like other nations in their disregard for the worth and dignity of their citizens. Another concern, whether valid or not, is the pressure it seems to put on the criminal justice system and the welfare system. Jim Wallis participates in the dysfunction by failing to understand those who differ from him, willing to label his opponents as racist. Healing the dysfunction would mean he could state what his opposition thinks in a way the opposition could recognize itself.

            Jim Wallis came to Asbury Seminary while I was there in the late 1970s. Professor Robert Lyon brought him there. I always appreciate hearing from him. I have read two of his books with profit, but always come away disappointed. He has had the opportunity to be a genuine bridge that could encourage understanding between politically differing groups. However, when you conveniently label your opposition as racist and uncaring of the least of these, you have thrown in with one side of the political debate and increased the alienation that exists.

What is Forgiveness

What is forgiveness?

            In their book The Faces of Forgiveness, LeRon Shults and Steven Sandage discuss an introducing facial hermeneutics. The face represents a powerful interpersonal text that evokes an attempt to interpret the feelings and dispositions of the other. Yes, they refer to the human face, but they also make up a verb, “facing,” that is, encountering and confronting the presence of other. Sandage, the psychological part of these writers, discusses matters like losing face and de-facing in that context. Shults discusses the biblical notions of the face of God and the human face. This book delves into the biblical concept of 'facing' reflecting the face of God to other people through your own face. And, this book stresses the need to forgive in the redemptive power that is found in community.

When they discuss forgiveness, they identify at least three different ways that we can define it. One definition is “forensic” or “legal” forgiveness — the kind that your insurance company wants to give you, or the kind that involves having a debt erased. This kind of forgiveness is a “transaction … in which one party agrees not to exact what the law requires.” This kind of forgiveness is situational and may be limited to one particular incident. The problem here is that it does not invite one into relational matters like justice and making peace. As human beings, we do not simply long for such forgiveness, that might one day pay off, but has no effect here.

A second definition of forgiveness connects it with a therapeutic benefit. Forgiveness in this sense is a process by which the offended party is motivated to become “less vengeful and avoidant and more benevolent” toward the wrongdoer. Forgiveness in this context does not condone the offense or forget about it. Forgiveness is about releasing claim over the offender and moving forward in another direction. This kind of forgiveness, like the legal definition, is also limited. It does not necessarily bring about reconciliation and restoration of a broken relationship.

A third definition is redemptive forgiveness. Forgiveness is about inviting people in the here and now into joyful, infinite life and glory of the Father, Son and Spirit, that is, into a community of infinite love. It's incarnate, unending grace. Redemptive forgiveness is when "a party agrees not to exact what the law requires" (pg. 20). Therapeutic forgiveness is a moral judgment that an offender is responsible for harmful actions, surveying the damage done by the hurtful actions and eventually remembering it differently (pg. 22). Redemptive forgiveness includes both forensic and therapeutic forgiveness but the "overarching meaning of [redemptive] forgiveness is manifesting and sharing redemptive grace" (pg. 23).

Shults writes, "I suggest that the overarching meaning of forgiveness in Scripture is manifesting and sharing grace" (125). "When forgiveness, an aspect of a broad horizon of salvation, becomes relational and present, it also becomes communal, not individualistic. "Speaking from a free-church tradition, Miraslov Volf argues that redemption is mediated through real relations in community, not simply 'immediately' to the individual" (160).

 

Just as salvation/redemption is "by grace through faith," so is forgiveness. Shults writes, "Trying to work up the energy to forgive another exhausts human resources. Divine forgiveness makes room for humans to share in the grace and joy of trinitarian love, which provides an infinite resource for human forgiveness" (169).

Scripture and False Teaching

II Peter 1:19-21

¹⁹ So we have the prophetic message more fully confirmed. You will do well to be attentive to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. ²⁰ First of all you must understand this, that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, ²¹ because no prophecy ever came by human will, but men and women moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.

 

II Peter 1:19-21 has the theme of protecting believers from false teaching through an inspired text, the Bible. If we go into the second chapter, the author makes it clear that a concern is for false teaching that has arisen. The author believes that Scripture properly read can preserve the community of followers of Jesus from such teaching. We find a similar concern in Romans 16:17-20 for false teaching that causes dissension within the church. Another primary passage in this regard is II Timothy 3:16-17. 

16 All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work. 

Scripture holds a special place for us today because God breathed life into it, and therefore, it becomes life to us, if we are open to receive it. Scripture is “useful” in that it teaches us positive matters we are to believe, as well as reprove and correct our belief and practice. It trains us in righteousness, so that we who belong to God may become proficient for good works.

In the II Peter passage, that “we” would do well to pay attention to the prophetic message of Scripture, just as “we” would pay attention to a lamp shining in a dark place. Barth is insightful at this point, stressing that the matter of the Word seems complicated by the fact that in comes in the form of the human word of prophets and apostles. Therefore, the divine Word meets us in the thick of the fog of our own intellectual life, taking on the same form as our ideas, thoughts, and convictions. Yet, for him, the Word is a light that shines in a dark place, but it needs no explanation because it simply shines.[1]

II Peter further stresses that his readers should pay attention until the day dawns and the morning star rises in their rises in their hearts. The most important thing to understand is that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation. The reason is that no prophecy comes by human will. Rather, the Holy Spirit moved men and women to speak from God. Barth takes this to mean that we allow scripture to interpret itself. We allow it to control our exposition. What he finds decisive is the role of the Holy Spirit. He thinks that the Holy Spirit and the Bible have an intimate relation. The unity of the Spirit and the Word is a free act of the grace of God, and therefor for us its content is always a promise. He goes so far as to say that his view of inspiration is one the reader can judge in light of this passage, combined with II Timothy 3:16-17.[2]

Of course, we are not to read scripture in a casuistic way, as if it were simply a book of church law. The Pharisees tried that approach. Paul rarely appealed to a line of the Old Testament law, but he did appeal to Jesus, most famously in Philippians 2:5. Jesus provides an example of reading scripture through his elevation of the commandment to love God with heart, mind, soul, and strength, and to love the neighbor as oneself. Thus, while the Old Testament and Judaism yet today take the purity and sacrificial laws seriously, the New Testament took the purity laws, the regulations concerning clean and unclean foods, and the entire festival and sacrificial system, and interpreted them as finding their fulfillment in an unexpected way in the suffering servant, Jesus of Nazareth. Another obvious example is that to conclude Jesus was the promised Jewish Messiah required a new reading of the Old Testament. Here are some other examples. Jesus and Paul redefined the people of God, recognizing the overwhelming power of the Roman Empire, and therefore did not lead others to agitate in a military way against the Empire. Jesus encouraged a form of strategic pacifism in this regard. We have Romans 13 as an example of the view of Paul toward the Empire. Even when the Empire became beastly, as we see in the Book of Revelation, the author does not recommend a futile military battle between first century Christians and the Empire. The church in the first century took the practical approach they could not effect large political changes. Yet, recognizing that the people of God must reside within the Empire, both Jesus and Paul commented on how the people of God were to act. Another example is that we have his instructions in the Sermon on the Mount, including reflections on marriage. Matthew 5 is particularly instructive, in that Jesus could say, “You have heard that it was said … but I say to you.” Thus, when Jesus says love your enemies, it should make the Christian look at certain Psalms and certain part of the Old Testament in a different way than the writer intended. With Paul, we have what scholars call the household rules, such as we find in Colossians and Ephesians, his statements on marriage and divorce in I Corinthians 7, his elevation of love in I Corinthians 13, his ethical directions in Romans 12-15, and his various lists of virtue and vice, notably in Galatians 5. From the Christian view, then, the reader of the Bible has no obligation to treat every word as if each word had the same value, for we read in light of Jesus and the New Testament. For those of us who value the Bible, it requires some discipline to learn to read the Old Testament in such a way that it finds genuine fulfillment in light of the further revelation Christians believe they have in Jesus Christ.

All of this is simply way of recognizing that the Word of God comes to us today in human words and cultural settings. It means every word of the Bible, understood in its context, may require interpretation from further revelation. Every word does not carry the same weight. It requires a careful reading, a discerning reading, and a humble reading. When we read things we do not like in the Bible, our human inclination is to say the Bible is wrong. However, it just might be that is where God is speaking to us in a challenging way. We might need to listen even more carefully.

Pastors are teachers of the Word. Of course, the words of the Bible are to lead us to the Word, that is, Jesus Christ. We rightly give priority to the Scripture. II Peter and II Timothy give me great pause to consider that the responsibility of the pastor is to go somewhere with the Word. Every Sunday, the pastor is to help people take that journey as well. Every service of worship is an attempt to go somewhere with the Word, recognizing that the Word is not simply open to my private interpretation, but rather, open to the interpretation through a community. The community began in the around 2000 years of the period covered by Scripture itself. It continues in the 2000 years since the formation of the canon of the New Testament. We go somewhere with the Word in order to receive teaching, reproof, correction, and training, all for the purpose of leading to a good life. The Bible holds a privileged place in the communication of the church. I do not go rummaging around in other texts, as much as I may value them. I learn much from psychology, sociology, philosophy, and theology. I learn much from the newspaper. The music, prayers, and message are accountable to the Bible. I value my reading of other religious texts. However, as Bishop Willimon has said somewhere, the Christian and the Buddhist differ largely because we have listened to different stories, differing visions of the world.

Pastors will often read authors who point to a quite different approach to the text than I am suggesting here. Some authors begin with the view that the Bible is violent, narrow, primitive, incomprehensible, disordered, and even weird. Dare I say it? So are you, as a reader of the text. As post-modern people, we adopt a superior attitude toward the Bible. We call the Bible sexist and patriarchal, as if we are not. We think we have risen above the Bible. We think the culture of the Bible conditions it so much that it has nothing to say to us. We do not see how our culture has conditioned us, especially as we read the Bible. Yes, part of my job as a preacher and teacher of the Bible is to make the Bible comprehensible to us as post-modern people. However, an even more important task is to help us be worthy listeners of the Word.

The Bible is about God. Most of us are scrambling around for a few crumbs that we can summarize on a bumper sticker. The Bible is about large matters, as we often hear today, things that matter most. We often come to the Bible thinking of ourselves. The Bible is first about God, and secondarily a disclosure that concerns us.

The Bible is about us. The Bible is messy, just like our lives. In fact, the Bible keeps on going with no conclusion. Like some episodes on television, “to be continued” is at the end of every story. In fact, one reason many of us love the Bible, and have spent much of our lives studying it and teaching it, is that we have a hunch that the Bible is our story as well. It keeps disclosing to us deeper levels of our lives that need the healing, liberating, and guiding presence of God.

Having said all of this about the Bible, the reader of the Bible that the primary issue is not a defense of the Bible, but finding ways of letting the Bible live in our lives in ways that challenge us as well as those around us. The Word trains us in righteousness and good works.

The great missionary doctor, Albert Schweitzer, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1953, making him world-famous. Soon after winning the prize, Dr. Schweitzer was visiting Chicago. A whole contingent of reporters and politicians had gathered at the train station to meet him.

As Dr. Schweitzer stepped off the train -- 6 feet 4 inches in height, bushy hair, large moustache, decked out in his trademark white suit -- news cameras flashed, and city officials lined up to be photographed beside the renowned humanitarian.

 Just then, the doctor seemed to see something far off that attracted his attention. He asked the reporters if they would excuse him for a moment.

Dr. Schweitzer walked right through the crowd, which parted to make room for him, until he reached an elderly African-American woman who was struggling under the weight of two large suitcases. Smiling, he picked the bags up in his big hands, and escorted her to the steps of her bus. After helping her aboard, he wished her a safe journey.

As all this was going on, the doctor's entourage had tagged along behind him. Turning around and seeing them, he said simply: "Sorry to have kept you waiting."

A member of the reception committee turned and said to one of the reporters: "That's the first time I ever saw a sermon walking."

 

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[1] Church Dogmatics I.2 [21.2] 716.

[2] Church Dogmatics I.2 [19.2]  504-17.

Is Scripture Still Our Guide?

One of my colleagues recently posted that the Bible is simply a human word. The phrase came from author and frequent speaker at United Methodist events, Marcus Borg. I want to be quite careful here, for many of my colleagues would agree with this assessment. Most UM pastors, including this one, recognize the human dimension of the Bible. The books, letters, wisdom, and poetry of the Bible occur in historical contexts and written by people. Yet, the Bible has always had a special role in the church. The “authority” of the Bible does not mean the Bible is "perfect." It simply means that the pastor and church have a responsibility to lay their lives alongside what we read in the Bible and allow the Bible to check their views of God, self, and others. They recognize that their way is not always best, and in fact, that they often get God and discipleship wrong, if left to their devices. To accept this special role for the Bible is to have a degree of humility concerning your life. Whatever guidance you need as to who God is and who you are to be does not simply well up from inside you. In fact, you admit that the guidance you most need comes from outside you. The reason is that you recognize in the Bible a special working of God in Israel and in Jesus Christ. Such witnesses to what God is doing in history and in human lives become that “check,” that external reference that gets you out of yourself and directs you to God.

Consequently, when I read one of my colleagues (and assuming that many others agree) concluding that the Bible is simply a human word, I find myself in different terrain. Some of this feeling arises from personal experience. The beginning of my journey involves a testimony that as a mid-teen I started studying the Bible, beginning with Romans. The Bible has been my companion ever since. Thus, it feels like the person is saying that the Bible is more like an opinion piece in the newspaper, or insight from poetry, or maybe providing debatable philosophical points. Regardless, if I understand correctly, it means the Bible is not a reliable witness to what God wants in the world. The pastor and the church of today would then have much freedom to pursue their own understanding of what God wants. Quite likely, pastor and church today may go directly against the Bible, having no check or reference outside themselves to correct them.

In preparing for a sermon that involved Matthew 5:17-20, I found some interesting comments from two theologians, Karl Barth and Wolfhart Pannenberg, which I thought I would share. While they differ on many points, they are quite close in how they read this passage. Matthew records sayings that have the theme of Jesus as the fulfillment of the Law. Most scholars today think of these verses as reflecting a controversy in the early Christian community over whether the Law was still binding on Christians. The relationship of Jesus to the Mosaic Law is in debate here. I will point out the passages unique to Matthew and the passages that Matthew shares with Luke.

Jesus begins (from Matthew) by saying that he has not come to abolish the law or the prophets, but to fulfill them. Barth[1] takes the occasion of this verse to reflect upon the notion that the early church accepted the canon of the Synagogue. For the early Christians, it was the New Testament that was added, enlarging a canon already given, extending it as a new action of God. He notes that the early church did not try to adopt the sacred writings of other religions as such a “preface,” an approach that would have made the missionary task much easier. Yet, it is not just a preface or introduction to the New. It is Scripture. He[2] notes that what Jesus has in mind was not the piety of other religions, but that of the Israelite religion of revelation. He does not intend to dissolve that religion. He accepts it. He does not require his disciples to abandon or replace it.

Then, in a saying from the source common to Matthew and Luke, Jesus says that he truly tells them, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, an iota or serif, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Barth[3] points out that given the regard this passage shows for the smallest letter of the Hebrew Bible, “we must be on our guard against trying to say anything different.” These words belong to revelation and their writing by the Spirit.

Then, in the material unique to Matthew, Jesus says that whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be the least in the kingdom of heaven. In contrast, whoever does them and teaches them will be great in the kingdom of heaven. The point seems to be that Jesus exercises his lordship in such a way that the Torah remains valid. He tells them that unless their righteousness exceeds that of scribes and Pharisees, they will never enter the kingdom of heaven. This notion of “entering,” as Pannenberg[4] says, contains a future element to the teaching regarding the kingdom. The decisive element for Matthew is that the love commandment becomes the center of these intensified individual commandments. Based on the antitheses (you have heard it said … but I say to you …) in the rest of the chapter, the higher righteousness of the disciples is not only a quantitative increase of the fulfilling of the law - measured on the Torah - but also primarily a qualitative intensification of the life before God - measured on love. The concept that Jesus fulfills law and prophets completely and perfectly means at the same time that for Matthew there is no longer any other way of access to the Bible of Israel than by way of Jesus.  Therefore, this preamble to the antitheses has at the same time the effect of a reprimand of Israel.  Matthew, for whom the authority of the Bible is fixed through Jesus, can do no other than measure the scribes and Pharisees by the standard of the higher righteousness that is set by Jesus.  Measured by this standard, which is not theirs, their righteousness is found as not enough. Barth,[5] in substantial with Pannenberg on this point, says that although Jesus accepts the Law, he does demand that the followers of Jesus should go a new way in its exercise, a “better righteousness,” than did its greatest champions. Of course, that better righteousness is following the two great commandments of love toward God and neighbor.

The challenge that I see here for the pastor and church today is that we need to exercise great care with Scripture. I find it one of my great responsibilities, sometimes with fear and trembling, to stand before people and share the Word of God. The church always wrestles with what this Word means for today. Pastors do so in a quite personal and public way.

My concern is that if we conclude that this Word is simply a human word, then we will be quite free to say something different from it. We become the judge of the Word. This feels arrogant to me. However, if pastor and church have a bond with Scripture in a way that it remains our guide, our check, or our external reference in what we believe and how we live, we must exercise enough care that we do not say something substantially different.

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[1] (Church Dogmatics I.2 [19.2] 489)

[2] (IV.2 [66.3] 551)

[3] (Church Dogmatics I.2 [19.2] 517)

[4] (Systematic Theology, Vol 2, p. 328)

[5] (Church Dogmatics IV.2 [66.3] 551)

Influence of Disciples of Jesus

When Jesus speaks of the difference his people make in the world, he uses two rather small, often unnoticed, seemingly insignificant substances-salt and light. Today, we come by both quite easily. Some areas complain of having too much light, calling it light pollution. Some of us must limit our intake of salt. Personally, I rarely salt anything anymore, having discovered that most meats have plenty of naturally occurring salt. I have a good friend and colleague who surprised me when I saw him put enough salt on his meat to turn it almost white.

In any case, in the days of Jesus, these metaphors took on a quite different meaning. Light can be very fragile, but even in small quantities it makes quite a difference. During my one experience exploring a cave in southern Indiana, as we descended into the darkness, I looked at the tiny lights we had been given to shine along our way. They were just miniature flashlights, but in the darkness of the cave they made all the difference. When the darkness is particularly great, one does not need a huge amount of light to make a great difference. 

Bishop Willimon, in a 1999 sermon, said he finds it interesting that when Jesus spoke of us, seizing upon some metaphor to characterize who we are, he did not say, "You are a great army marching into the world." He did not say, "You are a loudspeaker put up in the marketplace to shout my message to everybody." Rather, Jesus said that we are "salt," and we are "light." Small, fragile, and yet both of these substances go a long way. They can make all the difference. 

In both cases, light and salt depend upon their environment in order to have the influence they are to have. The church is not everything you need. Your families, your neighborhood, your work, your government, are all vital parts of your life. Yet, the church has a message and a life that is to enlighten and salt every part of your life.

A grandfather told this story to a child.  Once upon a time in a land far away there was a lighthouse that sat on a rocky shore and helped ships get through the water safely without hitting the big rock.  One day the lighthouse operator got sick and a substitute was put in charge of the lighthouse.  When the big storm came, he got out a large piece of canvas and covered up the lantern in the lighthouse so it would not get wet in the rain.  So the lantern stayed dry, but no one could see the light to guide them through the dangerous waterway.  The boy thought about this for a moment.  "That new guy did something pretty silly, didn't he!"  The grandfather said, "Honey, Jesus told a story like that once.  He would agree with you."[1]

It would not be natural to hide a light when you need it to show the way. It would not be natural for salt to lose its ability to affect its environment. Yet, it seems so easy for disciples to find ways to hide their faith.

I can illustrate the struggle with an article from the New York Times, around Christmas 2010, by Ross Douthat. He begins by discussing the difficulty of being a Christian around Christmas time. This quickly expands, however, into the notion of the changing culture in America, and the difficulty amidst the changes. He refers to two books that have helped him wrestle with this. One book is American Grace by Robert Putnam (Harvard) and David Campbell (Notre Dame). The book is quite technical. It takes much work to mine any nuggets one can find, according to some. As if to spare me the hard work of reading its 550 pages, he summarizes the book by saying that it examines the role that religion plays in binding up the social fabric of the nation. Society reaps enormous benefits from religious people engaging it, while suffering few of the potential downsides. Widespread churchgoing seems to make Americans more altruistic and more engaged with their communities, more likely to volunteer and more inclined to give to secular and religious charities. Yet at the same time, thanks to Americans’ ever-increasing tolerance, this country has been spared the kind of sectarian conflict that often accompanies religious zeal.

All of that sounds like the church is being what it is supposed to be, at one level. It is being salt and light in American culture.

Another book, by James Davison Hunter, To Change the World, presents a different picture. By the way, the United Methodist Church says it makes disciples “for the transformation of the world.” Yet, this author discusses the vain attempts by Christians, whether from the political Left or Right, to engage the culture from a “populist” perspective and have lost. Both groups express themselves in the “language of loss, disappointment, anger, antipathy, resentment and desire for conquest.” Thanks in part to this bunker mentality, American Christianity has become what Hunter calls a “weak culture” — one that mobilizes but does not convert, alienates rather than attracts, and looks backward toward a lost past instead of forward to a vibrant future. He argues that the Christian churches are mainly influential only in the “peripheral areas” of our common life. One of his central theses is that "culture" does not usually change in a populist, bottom up manner. Rather, it changes by the influence of a small network of elites with symbolic power to create and change the institutions in which we live. Churches used to be among such elites. They are no more.

            Douthat concludes that believing Christians are no longer the influence they once were, either upon popular culture or upon the elites with symbolic power. The term for this is secularity, as the culture and the political class remove themselves in an increasingly open away from the church. Christians need to find a way to thrive in a society that is becoming less friendly to Christians.

Here is my struggle. The church is rapidly becoming a minority movement in a culture it helped create. I would be among those who feel some loss there. Yet, in the process, we may actually feel more connected to the tiny band of followers to whom Jesus first spoke these words concerning being salt and light.   

Karl Barth[2] suggests that the way salt loses its savor is the process of secularization. He does not find it surprising that the world is secular, for that is what it is, and always will be. The world will naturally live its life without God. However, “when the church becomes secular, it is the greatest conceivable misfortune both for the church and the world.” For him, this is what happens when the church wants to be only “for” the world, nation, and culture. It loses its importance, meaning and reason for existence. The secularization of the church, in all its attempts to connect to the world, is actually its alienation. The United Methodist Church wrestles with the relevance of this notion of influence in the world. As a denomination, we have long sought to learn new ways of being disciples in this world. One can also see that as “progressive Christianity” continues to expand, it keeps favoring current political movements of the political Left, trying to erase the distinction between itself and a part of the culture, and yet, runs the risk of this alienation. The reason, of course, is that if the church is only “for” the world, it is no longer “for” Christ and “for” God. Later, Barth[3] offers the opinion that sometimes, the church may be at peace with the world precisely because it has lost its saltiness. Barth[4] also says that the Christian community has a simple and unassuming task in being light and salt. If God wills to accomplish much through its labor, that is the affair of God. The Christian community can neither bring this about nor enforce it. It has no right to ask for successes. It must simply hold itself in readiness for God.

One author imagines a speech by Jesus to the church of today:

 

How baffling you are, oh Church, and yet how I love you!  How you have made me suffer, and yet how much I owe!  I should like to see you destroyed, and yet I need your presence.  You have given me so much scandal and yet you have made me understand sanctity.  I have seen nothing in the world more devoted to obscurity, more compromised, more false, and I have touched nothing more pure, more generous, more beautiful.  How often I have wanted to shut the doors of my soul in your face, and how often I have prayed to die in the safety of your arms.  No, I cannot free myself from you, because I am you, although not completely.  And where should I go?[5]

 

Light can be very fragile, but even in small quantities it makes quite a difference. The metaphors Jesus uses here challenge Christians to live the Christian faith in all areas of their lives. Indeed, the church has a simple and unassuming task that can make all the difference in our personal lives, those closest to us, and in a world that needs to see as well as hear.

---

[1] (Emphasis, Ja-Fe 1993, 42-43.)

[2] (Church Dogmatics, IV.2 [67.3] 688)

[3] (IV.3 [71.5] 619)

[4] (III.4 [55.3] 487)

[5] (Carlo Carretto, The God Who Comes.)

Fishing and Evangelizing

Know what you're fishing for ...

Go where the fish are biting ...

Learn to think like a fish ...

Catch fish on their terms ...

Use more than one hook ...

 

Fly anglers say that the most difficult aspect of fly-fishing is "the presentation of the fly." To catch fish, you must animate an artificial fly so it appears to be alive - or let it float "dead drift," if that is how fish would find it.

After acquiring fishing equipment and familiarizing yourself with it enough to know a rod from a reel, a line from a fly, it is time to start to practice.

First comes CASTING. Experts say, "To propel a fly line, your forearm and hand move backward and forward. The movement looks like a V with your elbow at the bottom of it. That is the basic casting stroke. It is exactly like the motion you would use to throw a chunk of potato off the tines of a dinner fork. Imagine that."

You want to try fly-fishing. Never mind the neighbors. Go outside, aim away from the house, and try throwing a chunk of raw potato off a dinner fork. "First," say those in the know, "throw a potato chunk behind you, up and over your shoulder. Still relaxed but with your wrist rigid, throw another piece of potato forward, up and away from you. If you try the potato exercise, you will see that the chunk takes off when you snap and STOP the stroke. The potato flies where the tip of the fork is pointing at the snap - stop. That's exactly how the fly-casting stroke works: The line flies where the rod tip is pointing when you snap - stop the stroke."

WADING. "Fish usually are closer than you think; if you cast from the bank, you probably will catch as many or more fish than you will by wading across a stream. If you must wade into flowing water, shuffle into the current sideways so the water has less surface to push against."

PRESENTING THE FLY. This is the most difficult task of successful fly fishing. "To catch fish, you must animate an artificial fly. Sometimes, you make a fly appear as though it is swimming or crawling or fleeing. When you're fishing a floating mayfly imitation, however, it has to behave like all the other mayflies caught in the current, drifting with no unusual movement."

LANDING AND RELEASING. "Reacting too quickly is probably the main reason fly fishers lose fish on floating flies. Seeing a trout rise to your dry fly or a bass attack your popper is so exciting that you may lift the rod tip and pull the fly right out of the fish's mouth." "Relax. Let the fish strike, and only after the fly disappears should you strike back. When you have a fish under control, reel in enough line so you can reach out to the fish. Keep the rod tip high."

These days most anglers practice "catch and release" instead of catch and consume.

I do not fish, but some people close to me do. These reflections have helped me consider the care with which good anglers approach their craft and the joy can take in it. Of course, the patience of such persons is often amazing me. Yet, the happiness when they catch what they are looking for is contagious.

This might give some context for some interesting statements in the Bible.

 

Jeremiah 16:14-16

14 Therefore, the days are surely coming, says the LORD, when it shall no longer be said, "As the LORD lives who brought the people of Israel up out of the land of Egypt," 15 but "As the LORD lives who brought the people of Israel up out of the land of the north and out of all the lands where he had driven them." For I will bring them back to their own land that I gave to their ancestors. 16 I am now sending for many fishermen, says the LORD, and they shall catch them; and afterward I will send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain and every hill, and out of the clefts of the rocks.

 

Of course, Jesus famously said: “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.” (Matthew 4:19)

Challenges to Evangelizing

Lately, I have been reflecting on some of the challenges presented to the churches today in sharing the good news and witnessing to what God has done in Christ and continues do in the church and in the world. I share this reflection as a United Methodist pastor who enjoys theological and biblical study. The following is a matter of thinking along with Avery Dulles, in an article he wrote, "Evangelizing Theology" (First Things, March 1996, pp. 27-32). This Roman Catholic theologian enumerates the reasons why he thinks evangelization is difficult for contemporary Catholics. I have found that his reflections affect United Methodism as well.

            Dulles says there are certain theological factors, common theological viewpoints that achieved ascendancy in the past few decades that have made evangelization peculiarly problematic for us. He recalls a time when theological triumphalism, with themes like “A Million More in ’84,” were prominent. However, he thinks that in this time we are in danger of theological defeatism. He thinks that Christians have reduced the actions of God in the world to a way of being helpful, rather than focusing on God. He thinks the church will attract few people with that message.

            The first theological trend that Dulles cites is the contemporary trend to regard "faith" as some a universal, innate, human quality found in many different forms among the world's religions, shared by everyone who cares deeply about anything. Theologically, he identifies the notion in Paul Tillich of "ultimate concern" as consistent with this view. Faith in this view exists without any definite set of beliefs, without gospel. The Christian faith is merely a human construction that many people throughout the ages have found helpful. Every religion is only a particular expression of that deeper, more universal, and more important disposition called "faith." However, Dulles notes that such a notion of faith is quite different from the faith proclaimed by Paul:

 

"We thank God constantly for this, that when you receive the Word of God which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of man but that which it really is, the Word of God, which is at work in you believers" (1 Thessalonians 2:13).

 

            Second, Dulles lists "metaphysical agnosticism" as a theological deviation that hinders our evangelization. Anything we say about the divine is always metaphorical, and therefore unreliable. What can we know about God anyway?

            All statements about the world have a degree of inexactitude about them. Everything we say about the world, even the world of things, is also a statement of faith. When we say things about the supernatural world, we speak through analogy; but analogous speaking can still be truthful speaking. The Bible asserts that our God is a God who hides. Now we see through the mirror dimly; however, Christians claim that through the gift of Christ and his Holy Spirit, we do know God. Faith is not a vague experience of the ineffable. Faith is also a realistic confidence in what God has revealed to us.

            Dulles' third obstacle to evangelization is the "pragmatism and utilitarianism" that infects our theology. We have been guilty of presenting the Christian faith as if it were some helpful means to some humanly desired end. We have reduced the Christian faith to a technique for getting what it is we wanted before we met Christ. In this view, the Christian faith is justified based on its effects - the promotion of self-esteem, inner peace, liberation of the oppressed, economic progress. In this view, it is not so important whether or not God is real, but whether God is helpful.

            Next Dulles lists the problem of "cultural relativism." We have found, through the modern social sciences such as anthropology, that various cultures have an integrity of their own and cultures ought not to be destroyed by Western imperialism

            Christianity has shown a genius for adapting itself to many of the world's cultures. It has proved supremely adaptable in a wide diversity of cultural expressions; however, there is no denying that Christianity always brings with it a collision of cultures. Each day each one of us moves easily between any number of different "cultures." Christianity is one of them. The mission field is always full of debate, asking ourselves "Can we baptize this particular cultural expression as our own or not?"

            However, as Dulles says, to be a Christian means to be someone who affirms that the culture that is Christianity is that which is true, that which is the light of the world, that in which each culture finds its best fulfillment.

            Dulles then lists the problem of the relativism enjoined by religious pluralism. Having discovered the diversity of religious expressions on our globe, some say that humanity should allow each of these expressions to stand alone, unhindered by dialogue with, engagement with, and possible conversion by others. This is what Dulles calls "soteriological relativism." The impression one gets is that Jesus is the Savior, which is helpful for us, but not for the whole world. Each religion has its own path to salvation, and no path is truer than any other is. This is not a new proposal, but it is a wonderfully attractive proposal for avoiding the conflicts between the competing truth claims of religions. Unfortunately, it will not work. Most all religions claim to be true. They are not all saying the same thing. To imply that they are all equally helpful, all equally true, is not to take them at their own word. There is no way for religions to avoid bumping up against each other. One cannot smooth over the conflict by denying that there are true differences. Rather than take the differences among religions seriously, the underlying argument is that no religions makes any basic difference anyway, so why take them at their word.

            It is of the nature of our religion to want to share its joy with whomever will listen. Christianity is not unique in this. As Christians, we ought to be intensely curious about the faith claims of others; we ought to listen to them, both in order to understand our neighbors better, and also to understand ourselves better. At some point, however, we long for the opportunity to witness, in word and deed, to the truth that we have found, or more properly, the truth that has found us, in Christ.

            The sixth obstacle that Dulles lists is, "the false concept of freedom that pervades contemporary culture and frequently infects theologians." Here, Dulles is pointing to our modern infatuation with choice. The significance of my life lies solely in the choices I make. I choose, therefore I am.

            Of course, this is an inheritance from the European Enlightenment. The Enlightenment invented the notion of the individual, the individual whose existence is constituted through his or her choices. No wonder that, under this construal of humanity, religion became a purely private and personal matter, something that I had chosen. When one thinks about it, it is rather odd that during the same era in which the social sciences showed us how caught our lives are in webs not of our creation - our parents, our histories, our economics - we brag so much about our freedom of choice.

            The gospel in not a mere human contrivance, a "lifestyle option" among others. We believe that the gospel is something given to us by God, an act of God

            Finally, Dulles lists the seventh theological aberration, which he calls "anti-authoritarianism." Many of those who reject the gospel do so because they believe that it violates their human autonomy (autonomy: literally, "self-law"). They are not about to submit to some external authority; they want to be free.

            Submission to the gospel gives us the means to lay hold of our lives, to say no to our better selves, to turn our lives into an adventure; as we are fond of singing in our hymn, "Make me a captive Lord, then I shall be truly free."