Advent Perspective: The Darkness Before the Dawn

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.

Comments are always welcomed.

The Darkness Before the Dawn

The people who walked in darkness

have seen a great light;

those who lived in a land of deep darkness -

on them light has shined.

Isaiah 9:2 (NRSV)

Glory to God in the highest

Peace on Earth, good will to all men

Let all of the world sing the chorus of joy

Because hope was born this night

From "Hope Was Born This Night" by Sidewalk Prophets

It has been said that Christmas starts earlier and earlier each year.  This year, as I was walked around the local shopping mall on the day before Halloween, I noticed that Santa's workshop had already been set up.  In mid-November, soft rock radio stations started playing Christmas songs all day every day.  Perhaps I am letting my cynicism speak for me, but I cannot help but think that all the early Christmas ambiance is intended to get people in the mood to spend money by subconsciously appealing to their previous experiences of shopping for Christmas presents.

Along with "Christmas Creep," as some have named it, there is another phenomenon that has been observed in recent years: many people, particularly those who work for retailers, have been greeting people with "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas."  Outraged by a supposed "War on Christmas," many Christians have been fighting to "keep Christ in Christmas."  Though I fully understand that Jesus is "the reason for the season," hearing people say "Happy Holidays" doesn't really bother me, because I feel that what the prevailing culture has been calling Christmas and what the Church observes as Christmas are actually two very different things.  I believe that what many call Christmas is actually a hijacking of a sacred celebration for economic purposes, so I don't really mind if people don't call it "Christmas."

On the Church calendar, there are two high holidays, Christmas and Easter, both of which are preceded by more somber seasons of preparation.  The Church and the prevailing culture celebrates this time of year in very different ways.  For many, the holiday season is the end of the year, but, for the Church, it is the beginning of the year.  For many, December 25 marks the end of the Christmas season, but, for the Church, December 25 is only the first of the twelve days of Christmas.  In the midst of the the Christmas shopping season, the Church is observing the season of Advent.

Advent is a time of preparation for Christmas.  While many of us prepare for Christmas by shopping for presents for our loved ones and by attending potlucks with our friends and coworkers, many also prepare for Christmas by looking inward.  Many think of Advent as a season of repentance, not unlike the season of Lent which precedes Easter.  The Scripture passages typically read in Churches during this season tell of the ministry of John the Baptist who called people to repentance in preparation for the coming of their long-awaited Savior.

Ever since I was a child, what has stood out to me the most about the season of Advent is the lighting of the candles on the Advent wreath.  On each of the four Sundays preceding Christmas, churches that observe Advent light a candle, the first for hope, the second for peace, the third for joy, and the fourth for love.  On Christmas Eve, a fifth candle is lighted for Christ Himself.

Two years ago, at my home church's Christmas Eve service, my pastor did something I had never seen before: she extinguished the candles for hope, peace, joy, and love before lighting the candle for Christ.  At that time, Advent took on a whole new meaning for me.

We light a candle for hope, yet the lives of many are marked by despair.  Many people in the world are stuck in situations from which they cannot find any means of escape.  To borrow a phrase from Henry David Thoreau, many "lead lives of quiet desperation."

We light a candle for peace, yet many live in the midst of conflict.  Many people in the world live in war zones.  Such an area of conflict might be an embattled region on the other side of the globe, a violent household down the street, or a person's own troubled mind.

We light a candle for joy, yet the experience of many is one of sorrow.  Ten percent of the population of my country need antidepressants just to get through the day,¹ and for many people, the holiday season is a time that evokes deep sadness.

We light a candle for love, yet many are afflicted by hatred.  Many people in the world suffer because they are hated by other people, and many people in the world are poisoned by the hatred they harbor for others.

Nowadays, I like to think of Advent as a season of longing.  We light candles for hope, peace, joy, and love, not because we possess such things, but because, in the depths of our souls, we yearn for them.  After all, a person has no need to light candles unless it's dark.  In our longing for hope, peace, joy, and love, we are forced to confront the despair, conflict, sorrow, and hatred in the world and in our own hearts.  We seek hope, peace, joy, and love in the world, but what the world has to offer is often empty and shallow.  Time and time again, the world lets us down.

On one occasion, Jesus warns His audience about a time of great suffering, a time so dire that the sun, moon, and stars will cease to shine.  He says that, in this dark time, people "will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds with great power and glory" to gather up His people.²  One writer records Jesus as saying, "Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near."³  Many think that Jesus is speaking about His return to the earth, a "Second Coming" as some people call it, but I think these words have something to say about the way Christ meets the world.  The world can be a very dark place, but it is in the midst of such circumstances that Christ breaks into the world, a single light in the darkness.

Jesus once said, "I am the light of the world."⁴  On another occasion, Jesus announced to His audience, "You are the light of the world."⁵  So is Christ the "light of the world," or are we?  The answer is, of course, "Yes."  Christ is like the sun, the source of light, and we are like the moon which catches the light of the sun and reflects it into places of darkness.  When we draw near to the light of Christ, our own hearts ignite, and we carry that light with us.  Hope, peace, joy, and love are results of the presence of God in a person's life.⁶

Advent is like the darkness before the dawn.  Amid the frenzy of the season, we remember that the world is desperate for hope, peace, joy, and love.  On Christmas, we remember the Good News that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came to bring light into a dark world.  We are all called to carry that light with us throughout the world, sharing with others the hope, peace, joy, and love we've found.

May we not forget those who yearn to see the light.

Come, Lord Jesus.


Notes:

1. http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/12/a-glut-of-antidepressants/
2. Mark 13:1-27 (NSRV)
3. Luke 21:28 (NRSV)
4. John 9:5
5. Matt 5:14
6. Love, joy, and peace are among what St. Paul calls the "Fruit of the Spirit."  See Galatians 5:22-23.  I believe that hope could be considered a fruit of the Spirit as well.

The photograph featured in this perspective was taken by me at Bethel United Methodist Church in West Greenville, South Carolina.

Perspective: Do You Want to Believe?

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.

Comments are always welcomed.

Do You Want to Believe?

When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples and said to Him, "Are You the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?"  Jesus answered them, "Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them."

Matthew 11:2-5 (NRSV)

Give me Your eyes for just one second

Give me Your eyes so I can see

Everything that I keep missing

Give me Your love for humanity

From "Give Me Your Eyes" by Brandon Heath

I am starting to believe, more and more, that an encounter with God requires an open mind.  Sadly, open-mindedness is not always regarded as a virtue within religious circles.  In fact, Christians are generally encouraged to defend the faith and to fortify themselves against anything and everything that might challenge or stretch their beliefs.  Some even criticize open-minded people, saying things like, "Some people are so open minded, their brains are going to fall out!"

As I noted in my previous blog post, Jesus didn't always get along with the religious leaders of His day.  One day, a group of religious leaders approached Him and demanded a sign from Him, some proof that He was who He said He was.  Jesus rather harshly replied, "An evil and unfaithful generation searches for a sign."¹  Later on, another group of religious leaders asked Jesus for a sign from Heaven, and He remarked that, even though they could look at he sky and predict what the weather would be like in the next few hours, they couldn't see the signs that were all around them.  Again He said, "An evil and unfaithful generation searches for a sign."²

Did the religious leaders' requests for a sign really come from a search for the truth, or were they actually challenging Jesus?

Not long before Jesus began His public ministry, there was another traveling teacher and prophet, a rather eccentric man named John.  John traveled throughout the region, calling people to repentance, and he invited people to engage in a ritual cleansing - a baptism - as an outward sign of their repentance.³  As I have written elsewhere, the Greek word translated into English as repentance is metanoia, which describes a change of mind, particularly one that results in a change of behavior.⁴  John was asking people to change the way they think about things.

John always spoke of One greater than he who would succeed him.  When John was born, his father prophesied that he would be the one to prepare the way for the Messiah, the long-awaited leader sent by God to bring freedom to Israel.⁵  John was described, in the words of the ancient prophet Isaiah, as "A voice crying out in the wilderness: 'Prepare the way for the Lord; make His paths straight.'"  Perhaps John fulfilled this prophecy and prepared the way for the Messiah by calling people to open their minds and to change the way they think.

John believed that Jesus was the Messiah.  When Jesus entered the scene, He had no interest in maintaining the status quo or in telling people what they already believed.  Shortly after Jesus was born, an elderly man named Simeon prophesied that Jesus would be the cause of the rising and falling of many people.⁶  More than once, Jesus stated that in the Kingdom of God - the Kingdom He came to usher in - the last would be first and the first would be last.⁷  Needless to say, following a leader so committed to such radical change would require an open mind.

Like John, many people came to believe that Jesus was their long-awaited messiah.  The religious leaders, on the other hand, would have nothing to do with such a notion.  Their demand for proof came not from a desire to believe but from a resistance to believe.  The religious leaders were so hard-hearted and stubborn that one day, when Jesus performed a miracle, they attributed His miracle to the devil.⁸

I think that, for the most part, people believe what they want to believe.  Peter Rollins makes the observation that people don't usually form their beliefs based on the evidence and arguments presented to them.  Instead, people typically seek out evidence and arguments to justify and reinforce the beliefs they already have.  This process is called rationalization.⁹  People who want to believe in something don't need a reason to believe, they just believe.  As Jesus points out, anyone who actually wanted a sign that He was the Messiah could have easily found one.  The religious leaders, on the other hand, continued to demand a sign because they simply didn't want to believe in Him.  People who want to think they have it all figured it out generally aren't inclined to be open-minded.

The religious leaders didn't believe that God's work of Salvation had come through Jesus because He didn't meet their expectations for the Messiah, nor did He even meet their expectations for a good Jew.  They were expecting a mighty warrior King who would drive the Roman Empire out of Israel.  Jesus, by contrast, was a wandering teacher who had some crazy ideas, associated with the riff-raff of society, and didn't follow the religious rules quite as carefully as some people would have preferred.

I don't believe that Jesus' harsh criticisms for people who wanted a sign were directed toward people who were struggling to believe but rather toward people who flat-out refused to believe.  As prophets are wont to do, John drew the ire of the powers that be, and, as a consequence, he was incarcerated.  As he sat in jail, his own faith in Jesus began to falter, and he sent some of his associates to ask Jesus whether or not He actually was the Messiah.  Jesus said to them, "Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them."  Jesus basically said to John what He would later say to the religious leaders: the signs were there if he wanted to believe.

In the same way that people who lived in Israel two thousand years ago needed to have an open mind to see God at work in Jesus Christ, we need to have an open mind if we want to see God at work in our day and time, for so often God does not conform to our expectations.  Rachel Held Evans, in her memoir Evolving in Monkey Town, writes,
The longer our lists of rules and regulations, the more likely it is that God Himself will break one.  The more committed we are to certain theological absolutes, the more likely we are to discount the work of the Spirit when it doesn't conform to our presuppositions.  When we cling to our beliefs as children cling to their favorite toys, it is hard for Jesus to take us by the hand and lead us somewhere new.¹⁰

I have come to believe that, wherever we look, God is hidden in plain sight.  Seeing is believing, and if you want to see God, simply open your eyes and look around.  St. Paul writes, "Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things."¹¹  Perhaps Paul offers this exhortation because it is in such things that we can see God in the world.  If we're closed-minded, we run the risk of missing God, but, if we open our hearts and minds, perhaps we'll experience God in ways we wouldn't expect.


Notes:

1. Matthew 12:38-39 (CEB)
2. Matthew 16:1-4 I(CEB)
3. See Matthew 1:12 and Luke 3:1-17.
4. Wikipedia: Metanoia (Theology)
5. Luke 1:61-80
6. Luke 2:34
7. See Matthew 19:16-30 and Matthew 20:1-16.
8. See Matthew 12:22-32.
9. Peter Rollins.  Insurrection: To Believe is Human, To Doubt, Divine.  2011, Howard Books.  p. 10-11
10. Rachel Held Evans.  Evolving in Monkey Town: How a Girl Who Knew All the Answers Learned to Ask the Questions.  2010, Zondervan.  p. 154
11. Philippians 4:8 (NRSV)

The photograph featured in this perspective was taken by Wikimedia user Saperaud and is used under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license.  The photographer is in no way affiliated with this blog.

Introspection: A Heavy Load to Bear

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.

Comments are always welcomed.

A Heavy Load to Bear

The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat; therefore, do whatever they teach you and follow it; but do not do as they do, for they do not practice what they teach.  They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others; but they themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to move them.  They do all their deeds to be seen by others; for they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long.  They love to have the place of honor at banquets and the best seats in the synagogues, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have people call them rabbi.  But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all students.  And call no one your father on earth, for you have one Father - the one in heaven.  Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Messiah.  The greatest among you will be your servant.  All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.

Matthew 23:2-12 (NRSV)

I focused on the score

But I could never win

Trying to ignore

A life of hiding my sin

 

To label me

A hypocrite would be

Only scratching the surface

Of who I've been known to be

From "Undo" by Rush of Fools

Don't you hate it when you read a passage or a story from the Bible and realize that you have more in common with the supposed "bad guys" than you do with the "good guys"?

Time and time again, Jesus butted heads with the religious elite of His day, especially the Pharisees, a group of Jewish people who dedicated their lives to following their religious Law and to teaching the Law to other people.  Not long after Jesus rode into Jerusalem as if in a royal procession and made a scene at the temple,¹ the Pharisees and other religious groups began hammering Him with loaded questions, trying to collect enough ammunition to bring Him down.²  Fed up, Jesus issued forth a series of scathing critiques directed toward the Pharisees and the religious scholars.³

Though Jesus had a lot of criticisms for the Pharisees and the scholars, it is worth noting that His criticisms generally didn't involve their teachings.  He probably agreed with them on most issues.  In fact, Jesus even said that the people should follow their instructions because they "sit on Moses' seat."  Moses is the one who originally received the Law from God and taught it to the people, so, by saying that the Pharisees "sit on Moses' seat," Jesus is basically affirming them as teachers of the Law.

Jesus' conflict with the Pharisees and the religious scholars stemmed not from their teachings but rather from the fact that they did not follow their own teachings.  Jesus remarked, "They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others; but they themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to move them."  The Pharisees knew that the Jewish Law was extremely difficult to follow, but, instead of being honest about their own struggles, they faked it.  Over and over again, Jesus called them "hypocrites."  The word hypocrite is derived from the ancient Greek word hupokrites which means "actor."⁴

I believe that Jesus might have some similar critiques for modern-day Christians.  Like the Pharisees, Christians have a nasty tendency to place more importance on orthodoxy - right belief - than on orthopraxy - right behavior.  For example, one preacher can be judged and condemned as a "heretic" regardless of the kind of life he or she lives, while another supposedly more "orthodox" preacher can be lifted up as a man or woman of God despite being a generally contemptible person.⁵  Churchgoers who find themselves in disagreement with what their pastor teaches will leave their church and seek another one, and entire denominations have even split over matters of doctrine.

Can we Christians honestly say that we place such an importance on what the church actually does?

So often, Christians, myself included, are a lot more concerned about being right than doing right.  Simply being right doesn't make a person any better than anyone else.  It doesn't matter what we know if we don't put what we know into practice.

As someone who tries to pass along insights into the Christian life though Sunday school lessons, blog posts, and occasional sermons, I feel as though I, like the ancient Pharisees, place heavy loads on people's shoulders.  To use a pole-vaulting analogy I sometimes set the bar so high in my writings that I cannot clear it myself.  For example, not long ago, I delivered a sermon about how we would do well not to say, "Why bother?" yet, a few days ago, I found myself thinking these very words.  I like to remind people that all religious instructions boil down to two "simple" rules - love God, and love each other.  These two rules are easy to remember, but at times they can be damn near impossible to follow.  It's easy to preach, and it's easy to teach, but putting into practice what one preaches and teaches is an altogether different story.

When the Pharisees did practice what they preached, they did so for the sole purpose of impressing people.  For example, Jesus made the observation that they "make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long."  Phylacteries were little boxes attached to straps that Jewish people would wear on their arms or on their foreheads while praying.  Inside the box was a tiny scroll on which a Scripture passage was written.⁶  The fringes of which Jesus speaks were the tassels on the corners of a prayer shawl.  Both of these things were meant to remind the wearers of their duty to follow the Law.⁷  If Jesus wanted to make a similar observation about showy Christians in our day, He might say, "They wear T-shirts with Bible verses, and WWJD bracelets, and large shiny crosses on their necklaces."

Jesus remarked that the Pharisees, "love to have the place of honor at banquets and the best seats in the synagogues, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have people call them 'rabbi.'"  As someone who also finds himself preoccupied with his own self image, I must confess that I can relate to the Pharisees in this respect.  Last year, a friend of mine introduced me to several members of his church, saying that I was "a preacher."  Being called a "preacher" made me feel pretty good about myself, proud even.  I felt as if I had accomplished something I had set out to do.

If you have been reading this blog for a while, then you know that, a few years ago, while I was working at my previous job, I began to flirt with the possibility of going into the ministry.  Though I desired to do something more with my life than to write software for gambling machinery, looking back, I am beginning to think that some of my motives might not have been so pure.  I think that maybe I considered going into the ministry because, in the circles in which I was traveling at the time, that was what all the "cool kids" were doing.  I think that maybe I wanted to be someone special - to be part of the club, so to speak.  I'm only a little bit ashamed of this fact.  I have no regrets because I know that God was at work, for it was through the journey I started back then that I discovered my spiritual gifts.

To be perfectly honest, I have discovered that doing the things I started doing since that time - teaching Sunday school, delivering sermons, and publishing blog posts - can be an ego trip.  Hearing that I gave somebody "something to think about" always gives my pride a shot in the arm.  It does my ego good to stand at the pastor's podium, delivering a message to an entire congregation, and to stand in the church foyer afterward, shaking people's hands and hearing people tell me that I did a great job.

Though the Pharisees and the religious scholars liked to be called "rabbi," Jesus said that we should not call anyone "rabbi" or "instructor" because ultimately we have only one teacher, Christ Himself.  He then reminded the people that, in the Kingdom of God, the first will be last and the last will be first, as He had already said more than once.  This is not to say that nobody serves as a teacher in the Kingdom, but that to be a teacher is not to have a title of honor to flaunt but to have a responsibility to other people.

In the Kingdom of God, all of us are equal before God.  The fact that some of us have the audacity to try to teach spiritual truths to others doesn't make us experts in such matters.  Pastors, preachers, and Sunday school teachers put their pants on one leg at a time just like everybody else: they have the same struggles as everyone else.  The fact that the Pharisees put a heavy load on other people's shoulders was not the problem, for spiritual truths can be very difficult to bear.  The problem was that they made themselves appear to be more spiritual than they were, when they should have admitted their own struggles and tried to help others to bear the load.

I think that we all have a basic understanding of what is right and wrong, but, deep down, we all know that it can be difficult to do what is right.  I think that, like the Pharisees, we all have trouble practicing what we preach.  As Christians, we are all called to follow in the footsteps of Christ, and we call other people to do the same.  Following Christ is indeed a heavy load to bear.  We are not called to simply dump this load on each other's shoulders but to help each other carry the load.  We must be honest about our own struggles, willing to help others carry their loads, and humble enough to let others help carry ours.


Notes:

1. See Matthew 21:1-17.
2. See Matthew 21:23-27 and Matthew 22:15-40.
3. See Matthew 23:1-36.
4. Wiktionary: Hypocrite
5. Benjamin L. Corey makes such an observation about a number of high-profile preachers on the fourth episode of the podcast That God Show.
6. Wikipedia: Tefillin
7. See Deuteronomy 11:18 and Numbers 15:38-39.

Christian Reading in His Book was painted by William Blake.

Introspection: Not in Kansas Anymore

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.

Comments are always welcomed.

Not in Kansas Anymore

But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.

For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.

Jeremiah 29:7,11 (NRSV)

My life has led me down the road that's so uncertain

Now I am left alone and I am broken

Trying to find my way

Trying to find the faith that's gone

From "Revelation" by Third Day

The year was 597 BC, ten years before the Babylonians razed the city of Jerusalem and burned down the Temple of the Lord.  It was a time of political turmoil for the Kingdom of Judah: King Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon attacked Jerusalem, plundered the temple, and took a significant part of the population of Judah into captivity, including King Jeconiah.  Nebuchadnezzar then installed the king's uncle Zedekiah as a puppet ruler.¹  A few years later, a self-proclaimed prophet named Hananiah began claiming that the Jewish exiles in Babylon would be returned to Judah within two years.²  Hananiah was not a prophet but a liar: like far too many people in the world, he used his status as a supposed man of God to gain popularity for himself.

If the Jewish exiles in Babylon were under the impression that they would be returning to their homeland within a couple of years, then they would probably be tempted to put their lives on hold, circle the wagons, and bide their time until they got the chance to go home.

It's not such a bad plan for a people in exile - as long as they could be absolutely certain that their situation would soon return to normal.

But what if their situation didn't return to normal?

Still in Jerusalem, Jeremiah wrote a letter to the people in exile to let them know that things would not return to normal anytime soon and that they would be in Babylon a lot longer they thought, decades even.  He encouraged them not to put their lives on hold but instead to adapt to their current circumstances.  He told them to build lives for themselves in Babylon by building houses and planting gardens.  He told them to get married, to have children, and to help their children get married, in other words, to "be fruitful and multiply."  He told them to engage with the city where they found themselves and to seek the common good there, for their own welfare depended on it.³

If the Jewish exiles in Babylon did not follow Jeremiah's instructions, then they would have inevitably died out, and there would have been nobody to return home to Judah when Babylon did eventually fall.

According to Shane Hipps, exile is not merely a matter of location but rather a state of the heart.  Exile can be described as an experience of dislocation and disorientation.  Exile is a time when the things one thought to be true and certain no longer seem to hold up.  It is a time when what is normal in life is redefined.  Anyone who has ever lost a job, gone through a divorce, been forced to relocate, lost a loved one, gone through a major life change, or had any kind of traumatic experience knows what it is like to enter into exile.⁴

Exile is finding yourself a "stranger in a strange land," literally or figuratively speaking.

Exile is the realization that you are "not in Kansas anymore."

When you go through an experience of exile, you have two options, the same two options the Jewish exiles in Babylon had.  You can put your life on pause and wait for things to go back to normal, or you can adjust to your new surroundings.  You can wait for your circumstances to change, or you can change yourself.  If you opt for the former choice and sit back and wait for your life to go back to normal, then you run the risk that your life will pass you by as you wait for a day that will never come.

I have experienced exile a number of times in my life.  I experienced exile when, after nearly two decades of education, I was thrust into the 9-5 working world, working at a job I came to hate.  I experienced exile two years later when I lost that first job and began seeking another one, unsure that I even wanted to stay in my current field.  I experienced exile again when I realized I had outgrown my college faith community and needed to move on.  I experienced exile last year when I began to question things I once believed about myself.

If the desert of exile has taught me anything, it is that, as the old adage goes, "That which does not kill us, makes us stronger."⁵

The experience of exile can come in any number of shapes and sizes.  In fact, entire church congregations can go through times of exile.

My home congregation, Bethel United Methodist Church, was planted in 1895 by members of a large downtown church to minister to the people of a textile mill village in West Greenville, South Carolina.⁶  The church peaked in membership at over 400 members somewhere between the late 1950s and the early 1960s.  In 1967, the mill village was demolished, and, around this time, Bethel's membership and attendance began to decline.⁷  As the years passed, the community surrounding the church became very different from the community the church was founded to serve.

It could be said that Bethel UMC is church in exile.  Though the church has not changed its location, the church's location has changed around it.  Like many church congregations in exile, mine has been slow to realize the need to adjust to a changing culture.  I am hoping that the people of Bethel are starting to heed the prophetic word Jeremiah relayed to his own people in exile: the future of Bethel UMC is tied to the community around it, so we must be fruitful within the community.  The mill village is never coming back, but, if we are fruitful as a church in exile, we just might find ourselves at home in the community, and the people of the community just might find a home in Bethel.

Jeremiah offers a message of hope to anyone going through exile: "I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope."  I believe that God has a purpose and a plan for all of us, wherever we find ourselves, as long as we are open to it.


Notes:

1. Wikipedia: Siege of Jerusalem (597 BC)
2. Jeremiah 28:1-4
3. Jeremiah 29:1-14
4. Shane Hipps.  "Clay Hearts."  Mars Hill Bible Church Podcast, 09/05/10.
5. Attributed to Friedrich Nietzsche
6. The church, at the time of its founding, was named Bethel Methodist Church.  The United Methodist Church was not established as a denomination until 1968.
7. http://scmillhills.com/mills/american-spinning/churches/

The photograph of Death Valley is public domain.

Perspective: Please Speak Responsibly

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.

Comments are always welcomed.

Please Speak Responsibly

I know You can do anything;

no plan of Yours can be opposed successfully.

You said, "Who is this darkening counsel without knowledge?"

I have indeed spoken about things I didn’t understand,

wonders beyond my comprehension.

You said, "Listen and I will speak;

I will question you and you will inform Me."

My ears had heard about You,

but now my eyes have seen You.

Therefore, I relent and find comfort

on dust and ashes.

Job 42:2-6 (CEB)

Somewhere I will find all the pieces torn apart

You just left behind in Your mystery

Somewhere I will see all You've taken from me

All You kept deep inside in the mystery of You

From "Mystery of You" by RED

Job was a man whom one might call "blessed."  He was married with ten children, and he owned so much livestock that he had to employ a sizable staff of servants to take care of all of his animals.¹  One might also say that Job was a good man.  He was a true servant of God who was known for his integrity, for his generosity toward people in need, and for the kindness, respect, and dignity he showed to all people, including his own servants.²

In a single day, this good man lost everything.  All of his animals were either stolen by bandits or killed by fire, and most of his servants were killed as well.  Worst of all, while gathered together for a birthday party, all of his ten children lost their lives when his son's house collapsed on them.³  Soon afterward, as if his pain wasn't already enough, he broke out in sores from his head to his feet, and his wife became cold toward him.  Job found himself sitting in ashes, scratching his sores with a broken dish.⁴

Three of Job's friends heard about what had happened, so they set out to console Job.  When they arrived at his house, they wept out loud at the very sight of their dear friend, because they couldn't even recognize him.  They sat on the ground in the ashes with him in silence.⁵  After seven days, Job broke the silence, cursing the day he was born.⁶  Job's three friends then made a key mistake a lot of us make when someone we love going through a time of turmoil: they tried to make sense of what had happened to their friend.

Job and his three friends all shared the same worldview: they all believed that prosperity and happiness are rewards from God for doing what is right and that calamity and suffering are punishments from God for doing what is wrong.  Job insisted on his own innocence, unable to think of anything he could have done to offend God.  Believing that God had treated him unfairly, Job desired an audience with God so that he might plead his case.⁷  Job's friends, on the other hand, basically took turns trying to convince Job that He must have done something to incur God's wrath.  Maybe they were only trying to help: maybe, like many of us, they thought that explaining what had happened would somehow make his pain more bearable.  They were wrong, for they only added to his pain.⁸

What Job and his friends did not know is that there was a "wager" of sorts going on in Heaven between God and someone aptly called "the accuser" or, in Hebrew, ha-satan.⁹  God was quite proud of Job, yet the accuser believed that Job wouldn't be so loyal to God if he didn't live such a charmed life.  With God's permission, the accuser destroyed Job's life to see if Job would renounce God or be faithful to God.¹⁰

After much debate between Job and his friends about the nature of God and about whether or not Job did anything to deserve his turmoil, a whirlwind suddenly appeared, and God finally spoke.  God did not tell Job why he had to suffer such tragedies, nor did God say anything about the cosmic wager going on beyond the veil that obscures the spiritual realm from the physical realm.  In fact, God had no answers for Job but only questions.

Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?

Who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb?

Have you commanded the morning since your days began, and caused the dawn to know its place?

Have you entered into the springs of the sea, or walked in the recesses of the deep?

Have you entered the storehouses of the snow, or have you seen the storehouses of the hail?

Who has cut a channel for the torrents of rain, and a way for the thunderbolt?

Do you know when the mountain goats give birth?

Do you observe the calving of the deer?

Is the wild ox willing to serve you?

Do you give the horse its might?

Is it by your wisdom that the hawk soars, and spreads its wings toward the south?¹¹

I think that God's poetic barrage of questions was meant to put the fear of God into Job and his friends.  When I refer to the fear of God I do not mean some simple sense of respect for God, nor do I mean the fear that God will throw us into hell if we don't straighten up and fly right and start believing all the right things - a fear that so many would-be evangelists use to convince people to become Christians.

In The Problem of Pain, C.S. Lewis describes the fear of God as an "experience of the Numinous" or a sense of "awe."  If you were told that there was a tiger in the adjacent room, you would be afraid for your life, but, if you were told that there was a ghost in the next room, you would be afraid for altogether different reasons.  Though you know that a tiger is a predator with the capability to tear you limb from limb, you know nothing about an otherworldly being such as a ghost.  Lewis suggests that the fear of God is less like the fear of the tiger and more like the fear of the ghost.¹²

An import part of the fear of God, I believe, is the humility to realize that one doesn't have God all figured out, not to mention the vastly complex universe God created.  As I stated before, Job and his friends have lived their lives under a certain set of assumptions about God and the world, namely that success and happiness are rewards from God and that disaster and suffering are punishments from God.  Though many still make the same assumptions today, Job's story was written to refute such a worldview.  Job meets with great loss and suffers immensely for it, yet it is established at the beginning of the story that he has done nothing to deserve it.

When God grills Job with questions about the creation of the earth, the creatures that dwell therein, and all the things that happen in the world, I think that God is trying to get it through to Job and his friends that the world is far too complex for simple paradigms about how the world should work, that a person's behavior does not determine the actions of God, and that the God who created, understands, and maintains this complex universe is far too great for us to fathom.  I think that God is basically asking Job, "Who do you think you are to make such grand claims when you know so little?"  Utterly overwhelmed, Job admits, "I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know."  I think that the humility Job learns is a hallmark of a proper fear of God.  As one wise sage has said, "Never be rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be quick to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven, and you upon earth; therefore let your words be few."¹³

I think that, far too often when we talk about God, we don't really know what we're talking about, much like Job and his friends.  When we speak about God, we need to speak with great humility, especially if we are speaking to someone who is going through a difficult time.  We need to avoid seemingly spiritual platitudes such as "Everything happens for a reason," "God is testing you," and the ever popular, "God will never give you any more than you can handle."  When we make such cheap statements to someone, I think we are probably doing more to make ourselves feel better than to comfort the one who is actually suffering.

If you have been reading my writings for any length of time, then I hope you would not expect me to claim that anything bad that happens to us is caused by God to test our faith or caused by the devil to destroy our faith.  Though we are told that spiritual forces caused Job's suffering, this fact remains obscured to Job and his friends.  Likewise, the spiritual realm remains veiled to us in our day and time as well, so I do not think it is a good idea to make claims about it.  I realize that I know nothing of the spiritual realm, so I try to write only about what I see in the world and about my own experience of faith.  What I will say is that the story of Job teaches us that we are all subject to forces beyond our control, be they natural or supernatural.

Sometimes good things happen to good people, and sometimes bad things happen to bad people.  Still, sometimes bad things happen to good people, and sometimes good things happen to bad people.  Sometimes we bring misfortune upon ourselves because of our bad choices.  Sometimes other people bring misfortune upon us because of their bad choices.  Sometimes we experience misfortune for no other reason than, for lack of a better word, bad luck.  In the grand scheme of things, it matters very little what we think we deserve or even what might legitimately deserve.  I suspect, for better or for worse, we rarely get what we deserve in this life.

Job's three friends did their best to console job: they rushed to his side, they cried for him, and they sat with him in silence.  They did a pretty good job until they opened their mouths and started discussing theology.  When we have loved ones who are suffering, we need to be slow to speak, eager to listen, and generous with our compassion.  We must not rush to give easy answers - or maybe lazy answers - that we have no authority to give.  Simple statements like "I don't know," "I'm so sorry," or "That sucks," are a lot more honest and would probably be more appreciated.  In such times, our presence is a lot more valuable than any answers we could try to give.  When we do speak about God, we must do so with reverence, awe, and humility, for we speak about what we do not fully understand.


Notes:

1. Job 1:1-3
2. Job 31
3. Job 1:13-19
4. Job 2:7-10
5. Job 2:11-13
6. Job 3
7. Job 23
8. Job 6
9. Wikipedia: Book of Job
10. Job 1:6-12, 2:1-6
11. Selected verses from Job 38-39 (NRSV)
12. C.S. Lewis.  The Problem of Pain.  ch. 1
13. Ecclesiastes 5:2 (NRSV)

The Patient Job was painted by Gerard Seghers in the 17th century.

Sermon: We Are All Priests

Delivered at Bethel United Methodist Church in West Greenville, South Carolina on October 19, 2014, Laity Sunday.

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.

Comments are always welcomed.

We Are All Priests

Audio Version

Come to Him, a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God's sight, and like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.  For it stands in Scripture:

"See, I am laying in Zion a stone,

a cornerstone chosen and precious;

and whoever believes in Him will not be put to shame."

To you then who believe, He is precious; but for those who do not believe,

"The stone that the builders rejected

has become the very head of the corner,"

and

"A stone that makes them stumble,

and a rock that makes them fall."

They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.

Once you were not a people,

but now you are God's people;

once you had not received mercy,

but now you have received mercy.

1 Peter 2:4-10 (NRSV)

I can hear the least of these

Cryin' out so desperately

And I know we are the hands and feet

Of You, oh God

So if You say move

It's time for me to follow through

And do what I was made to do

And show them who You are

From "I Refuse" by Josh Wilson

What do you want to be when you grow up?

It is the type of question a grown-up might ask a young child.  It also happens to be the type of question a foreign language instructor might ask her students.

As I approached my junior year of college, I decided to bite the bullet and begin working on the foreign language requirements for my degree, and, in the fall term, I found myself in an introductory German class.  One morning, my professor asked all of us in her class what we wanted to do after we graduated, and we were all required to respond auf Deutsch.  When it was my turn to answer the question, I responded, "Wie sagt man 'computer programmer'?"  I asked her, in German, "How does one say 'computer programmer'?" because our vocabulary lesson did not cover that particular career choice.  As my professor told me that the German word I wanted was Computerprogrammierer - a word obviously borrowed from the English language - something inside me asked, "Are you sure that's really what you want to do with your life?"

Months earlier, I declared my major in computer science-mathematics,¹ and, though I knew I was somewhat less than passionate about computer programming, I knew it was something I understood.  I also knew that, unless I wanted to become a professor myself, a degree in computer science would do a lot more to help me pay the bills than a degree in religion or philosophy, which is what I would have pursued if I had actually followed my heart.  At some point in the years that preceded my decision, I dismissed the idea of becoming a pastor because I didn't want to have to be a role model or an example for anyone else.  I was well aware of the fact that pastors are held to a higher standard than other people, and that kind of life just wasn't for me.  I knew that, if I became a pastor, people would be watching me attentively, as a critic might carefully watch an actor on a stage.

The Christian existentialist philosopher Søren Kierkegaard once compared the activities of the Church to a theatrical production.  In a typical stage production, one or more performers put on a show for an audience, all the while taking cues from an unseen prompter or director.  Typically, people in a church congregation understand themselves to be an audience watching a production at the front of the sanctuary.  The pastor is understood to be a performer, delivering sermons and exhortations from the stage, with God as the unseen director who gives the cues to the performer.²  If you're not very fond of theatre metaphors, then a church congregation might compare itself to a crowd watching a sports event.  The pastor might be compared to an athlete on the field, while God might be compared to the athlete's coach.

In this way, "church" is typically understood to be a spectator event.  We speak of going to church in the same way we might speak of going to the game or going to the movies.  Some people even go "church shopping," seeking out the church that can put on the best production and draw the biggest audience.  They seek the church that has the most charismatic orators on stage delivering the most compelling messages with the most cutting-edge music to accompany the performance.  Churchgoers complain when the performers put on a less than stellar performance, and they complain when they just don't get as much out of the production as they had hoped.

As you all probably know, a few months after I graduated, I began working for a casino vender as a software engineer, and I learned that computer programming in the private sector is not all it's cracked up to be.  I utterly hated my job.  I constantly felt ashamed for working in a morally bankrupt industry, and, at work, I was surrounded by workaholics who believed that keeping casinos in business was actually important.  In my misery, I began to wonder if I might have missed God's calling for my life.  After all, if I was thinking up reasons not to become a pastor, then the idea of going into the ministry had obviously found its way into my mind.

I began to reconsider a career in the ministry, thinking that, if my career was something that would inevitably take over my life, then my employer had better be God.  I decided to stick my toe in the water.  Wondering if I was capable of preaching on any given Sunday, I requested the opportunity to preach a few times.  Realizing that my opportunities to preach might be few and far between, I also volunteered to teach Sunday school once in a while.  I figured that I would just have to deal with anything in my life that would make me less than a qualified pastor.  Almost anything would be better than the career I had chosen.

More than once, I have heard people expressing apprehension at the thought of being called by God.  The feeling they typically express is the fear of being unqualified for the job, but, if they're like me, then unworthy might be a better word to describe their feelings.  As I said earlier, pastors are held to a higher standard than other people.  This fact is not without a biblical basis: letters addressed from Paul to early Church pastors Timothy and Titus describe the type of character a leader in the Church should have.³  Though people fail morally on a daily basis, we find ourselves particularly shocked and appalled when church leaders fail to live up to our expectations.  We tend to forget that church leaders are mere mortals just like the rest of us, and we forget that they need grace just as much as everyone else.

St. Peter, in one of his letters to the early Church, calls his readers to be built like "living stones" into a "spiritual house" of which Jesus Christ Himself is the cornerstone. He then reminds his readers that they are a "holy nation" and a "royal priesthood" that offers "spiritual sacrifices" to God.  For Peter's Jewish readers, this exhortation would have called to mind a scene from the Book of Exodus.  The ancient Israelites had been delivered by God from slavery in Egypt, and they had trekked through the wilderness for three months until they reached the foot of Mt. Sinai, where they stopped and set up camp.  There, God commanded Moses to deliver a special message to the Israelites:
You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to Myself.  Now therefore, if you obey My voice and keep My covenant, you shall be My treasured possession out of all the peoples.  Indeed, the whole earth is Mine, but you shall be for Me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation.⁴

Through Moses, God called the ancient Israelites to be a "priestly kingdom," and Peter uses the same type of language to describe God's calling for the Church.  So what exactly does it mean to be a kingdom of priests?  According to Rob Bell and Don Golden,
A priest mediates the divine.  To mediate is to come between.  A priest comes between people and a god or gods.  A priest shows you what his or her god is like. When you go to a temple or shrine and you see the priest there - what they do, what they say about it, the rituals they perform - you get a sense for what their god cares about.  So when God invites the people to be priests, it's an invitation to show the world who this God is and what this God is like.⁵
At the foot of Mt. Sinai, God called the people of Israel to show the world what God is like.  Peter has come to the realization that, in Christ, this call is not restricted to the Jewish people but is extended to both the Jews and the Gentiles.⁶

Peter calls his readers to be built into a "spiritual house" with Christ as the cornerstone.  St. Paul uses similar language in his first letter to the Corinthian church, in which he reminds a divided congregation that together they are the very temple of the Holy Spirit, built on Christ as their foundation.⁷  In this same letter, Paul says that the Church is not just a structure but also a Body.  In the same way that a body is made up of many different parts, the Body of Christ - the Church - is made up of many different people with many different gifts and talents.⁸  What we learn from these metaphors is that the Church is empowered by the Holy Spirit to carry on the work Christ started two thousand years ago.  The Church is made up of many people with many talents and functions united as one Body with one Spirit and one purpose.  A building with stained glass windows and a steeple is not the Church.  Such a building is merely the place where a very small part of the Church gathers every week.

My time working in the gambling industry did not last for very long: I lost my job nearly two years after I accepted it.  Looking back, I realize the job was a gift from God... in the same way the whale that swallowed Jonah was a gift from God.  It was the wake-up call that made me realize how important it is for me to be intentional about my life and my faith.  A few months after I lost my job, I accepted another job as a computer programmer at a local two-year college, where I have been employed for nearly five years.  I cannot say that I am working at my dream job, but I can say that I am grateful for the opportunity to use my skills for good and not for evil.

I continued to wade out into the waters of ministry.  I continued teaching Sunday school, writing about my faith, and preaching whenever I got the chance.  I started taking classes to become certified to preach as a layperson,⁹ and a number of times I've had the honor to preach for congregations other than my home church.  I still don't know if I have it in me to shepherd a congregation, but do know that I love writing about matters of faith and sharing what I write with other people.  Last year, I took a bus ride with a number of people from a large church downtown, and my friend David introduced me to everyone else on the bus as "a preacher."  It was at that moment I realized that I had accomplished what had I set out to do.  I preach; therefore, I am... a preacher.

Sometime earlier, I had come to another realization: I am a minister, a pastor, a priest, even though I have not gone to seminary and earned a Master of Divinity degree, even though the bishop has not placed a stole around my neck.  And I am here to tell you that if you identify yourself as a Christian, if you describe yourself as "saved" or "born again," if you have put your trust in Jesus Christ and have decided to follow in His footsteps, then the same is true about you.

According to Kierkegaard, the vast majority of us are dead wrong in our understanding of the Church.  The people in the congregation are not the audience watching the performance: they are the actors themselves.  The pastor is the prompter, offering the congregation cues from the front of the sanctuary.  The performance - life itself - is being watched and critiqued by an Audience of One, namely God.¹⁰  In this way, the Shakespearean character was correct to say that the world is a stage and that the people in it are actors.¹¹  To return to the sports analogy, the people of the Church are not called to be spectators of the game: they are called to get in the game and play their hearts out before their God.

In the Church, we have a tendency to draw a very distinct line between the clergy - the people "who are trained and ordained for religious service"¹² - and the laity - the rest of us.  Within the Church, there are people who have been granted certain authority and responsibility by their denominations or congregations.  Though such a distinction is probably necessary, I wonder if we have somehow constructed a false dichotomy.  I wonder if ultimately there is no laity or clergy in the Church, because, according to St. Peter, we are all priests.

We are all pastors, for we all lead and shepherd one another.

We are all ministers, for we all minister to the needs of others.

We are all preachers, for we all proclaim the Good News that "Jesus Christ is Lord."

We are all priests, for we all show people what our God is like.

If you regularly attend church, take some time to take a look around the room during your next gathering.  The people you will see there are your priests, and you are theirs.

The Priesthood of All Believers is the Christian doctrine that reminds us that, in the Church, we are all called to carry on the ministry Christ started.  We are all called to "proclaim the mighty acts of [God]" by our words and by our actions, for, like the ancient Israelites, we too have all been called "out of darkness" and into "[God's] marvelous light."

All analogies fail at some point, and one way in which I think Kierkegaard's theatre analogy falls short is the fact that God is not the only one watching the Church's performance.  The fact of the matter is that Church is being watched by the rest of the world as well.  Though we tend to forget that our clergy are only human like everybody else, perhaps the problem is not that we hold our clergy to a higher standard but that we are not holding ourselves to the same high standard.  We are all priests, so the world is watching us, the Church, to see what our God is like.  Our priesthood is not a mere 9-5 job but rather a 24/7 reality.

If it is the task of a priest to show the world what his or her God is like, and if we are all priests, then we must ask ourselves what kind of God we are showing the world.  Are we showing the world an angry, fearful God, full of hate, ready to be done with the world?  Or are we showing the world a God who is irrelevant, powerless, useless, and, quite frankly, dead?  Or are we showing the world the same God who has been revealed to us in Jesus Christ, a God of grace, peace, mercy, and love?

So, as priests, how are we to show the world the God revealed in Christ?  Jesus said to His first disciples,
I give you a new commandment, that you love one another.  Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.  By this everyone will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.¹³
It is through acts of self-sacrificial love that we are called to show the world what our God is like.  St. Teresa of Ávila once said,
Christ has no body now on earth but yours; no hands but yours; no feet but yours.  Yours are the eyes through which the compassion of Christ must look out on the world.  Yours are the feet with which He is to go about doing good.  Yours are the hands with which He is to bless His people.¹⁴

Revolution Church of New York City was a small, progressive, non-denominational congregation that met in a bar in Brooklyn and had a sizable online following.  Founded in 2006 by Pastor Jay Bakker, this "community of grace and provocation" was a far cry from the Pentecostal "empire" started by Jay's parents, Jim and Tammy Faye.  If you are seeking a church off the beaten path, then look no further than Revolution.¹⁵

In early 2013, Jay moved to Minneapolis to plant another church community, leaving the Brooklyn community in the care of his co-pastor Reverend Vince Anderson.  One Sunday, during that time of transition, Vince called his anxious congregation to take an active role in shaping the church's future.  He recounted the story of how he became Jay's co-pastor and then said to the congregation,
Today I ordain everyone that is in this room and everyone that is listening online as ministers of Revolution.  You might have walked in wanting something, but you're going to walk out (or you're going to log off) as a minister.¹⁶
Imagine my surprise as I sat at my desk at work, listening to this sermon on my iPod, being ordained as a minister of a church I have never even visited.  Though Vince didn't speak directly about the priesthood of all believers, it is obvious that he not only understood the ministry we all share, but also wanted it to be a reality to his congregation.

At this time, I still have not discerned that I have a future in the ordained ministry.  Nevertheless, the journey I started nearly six years ago has changed my life.  Somewhere along the way, I realized that, ordained or not, as a Christian, I am a servant of God and a representative of Christ.  If you remember nothing else from this sermon, please remember that the same is true about you.  We are all priests - qualified or not, worthy or not, ready or not, like it or not - for we all share in Christ's ministry.

Amen.


Notes:

1. My major was interdisciplinary, half computer science and half math.  I later declared my second major in straight computer science.  General education requirements aside, my studies consisted of two parts computer science and one part math.  I think my brain would have melted if I took any additional math courses.
2. Søren Kierkegaard.  Parables of Kierkegaard (Thomas C. Oden, editor).  1978, Princeton University Press.  pp. 89  (I owe much of this interpretation of Kierkegaard's analogy to my friend David.)
3. See 1 Timothy 3:1-13 and Titus 1:5-9.
4. Exodus 19:1-6 (NRSV)
5. Rob Bell and Don Golden.  Jesus Wants to Save Christians.  2008, Zondervan.  pp. 30-31  (Paragraph breaks have been removed from this quote for simplicity.)
6. See Acts 10.
7. 1 Corinthians 3:10-17
8. 1 Corinthians 12:12-27
9. FYI, this sermon is a rewrite of the sermon I delivered for the first of these classes.
10. Parables of Kierkegaard, pp. 89-90
11. Such a statement is made by the character Jaques in Act II Scene VII of William Shakespeare's play As You Like It.
12. Wiktionary: Clergy
13. John 13:34-35 (NRSV)
14. http://www.catholicity.com/prayer/prayer-of-saint-teresa-of-avila.html
15. I write about Revolution NYC in the past tense because the congregation has amicably split from Revolution Minnesota and continues to meet as Barstool Tabernacle.
16. Vince Anderson.  "Cooking with Gideon."  Revolution Church Podcast, 03/17/13.

The image of the approach to Mount Sinai was painted by David Roberts in 1839.

Sermon: Why Bother?

Delivered at Brandon United Methodist Church in Greenville, South Carolina on October 1, 2014.

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.

Comments are always welcomed.

Why Bother?

Audio Version

The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD in the tenth year of King Zedekiah of Judah, which was the eighteenth year of Nebuchadrezzar.  At that time the army of the king of Babylon was besieging Jerusalem, and the prophet Jeremiah was confined in the court of the guard that was in the palace of the king of Judah, where King Zedekiah of Judah had confined him.  Zedekiah had said, "Why do you prophesy and say: Thus says the LORD: I am going to give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall take it; King Zedekiah of Judah shall not escape out of the hands of the Chaldeans, but shall surely be given into the hands of the king of Babylon, and shall speak with him face to face and see him eye to eye; and he shall take Zedekiah to Babylon, and there he shall remain until I attend to him, says the LORD; though you fight against the Chaldeans, you shall not succeed?"

Jeremiah said, The word of the LORD came to me: Hanamel son of your uncle Shallum is going to come to you and say, "Buy my field that is at Anathoth, for the right of redemption by purchase is yours."  Then my cousin Hanamel came to me in the court of the guard, in accordance with the word of the LORD, and said to me, "Buy my field that is at Anathoth in the land of Benjamin, for the right of possession and redemption is yours; buy it for yourself." Then I knew that this was the word of the LORD.

And I bought the field at Anathoth from my cousin Hanamel, and weighed out the money to him, seventeen shekels of silver.  I signed the deed, sealed it, got witnesses, and weighed the money on scales.  Then I took the sealed deed of purchase, containing the terms and conditions, and the open copy; and I gave the deed of purchase to Baruch son of Neriah son of Mahseiah, in the presence of my cousin Hanamel, in the presence of the witnesses who signed the deed of purchase, and in the presence of all the Judeans who were sitting in the court of the guard.  In their presence I charged Baruch, saying, Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Take these deeds, both this sealed deed of purchase and this open deed, and put them in an earthenware jar, in order that they may last for a long time.  For thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land.

Jeremiah 32:1-15 (NRSV)

Whenever you run away

Whenever you lose your faith

It's just another stroke

Of the pen on the page

A lonely ray of hope is all that you'll need

To see a beautiful history

From "Beautiful History" by Plumb

The year is 589 BC.  The Northern Kingdom of Israel was conquered by the Assyrian Empire around 130 years earlier, and now King Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon has laid siege to Jerusalem, the capital of the Southern Kingdom of Judah.  The prophet Jeremiah is imprisoned in the king's palace for announcing the inevitable, that Judah will fall to the Babylonians and that King Zedekiah will be captured.  There are just some things a person is not supposed to say, even if he or she happens to be a prophet of God.  The people of Judah are facing the consequences of their choices, and Jeremiah is facing the consequences of telling it like it is.

Jeremiah is probably one of my favorite characters in the biblical narrative.  He was a reluctant prophet, called by God to speak out against the evils of Judah and to warn the people of the calamity that awaited them if they did not change their ways.  The people of Judah had turned away from God and had begun serving false gods of prosperity, even sacrificing their own children to them.¹  The people had forfeited some of their humanity, as we all do when we serve a god who is not, by nature, love itself.  Jeremiah lived a hard life.  He had to compete with false prophets who proclaimed a contrary message, and he endured persecution at the hands of the powers that be.  Though people would occasionally ask him to appeal to God on their behalf, they would never do anything God told them to do.  Jeremiah was a tragic hero: despite his best efforts, he could do nothing to convince the people to repent of their evil.  Ultimately all he could do was to watch in despair as Judah went to hell in a proverbial handbasket.

While detained at the king's palace, Jeremiah receives a word from the Lord.  God tells him that his cousin Hanamel will soon visit him at the palace to ask him to buy a piece of land from him.  Sure enough, just as God predicts, Hanamel arrives at the palace and says to Jeremiah, "Buy my field that is at Anathoth in the land of Benjamin, for the right of possession and redemption is yours; buy it for yourself."

To truly understand what is going on in this story, we need to know something about Jeremiah's religious and cultural context.  The Jewish Law lays out certain rules regarding the sale of land.  According to the Book of Leviticus, the Israelites were technically not allowed to sell their land.  They could, at most, sell the use of their land for a limited amount of time: in other words, they could rent their land out to someone.  Every fiftieth year was designated a Year of Jubilee in which all Israelites were required to return to their own land.  If an Israelite fell into financial difficulty he could sell the use of his land up until the Year of Jubilee.  At any time, the landowner or his next of kin could buy back or redeem the land if the funds became available.²  It seems that God wanted land ownership to remain within families; otherwise, all real estate in Israel might end up in the hands of a few rich people.³

Apparently, Jeremiah's cousin has fallen on hard times, forcing him to part with his land.  As a relative with means, Jeremiah has both the right and the responsibility to redeem the land.  Since God has instructed him to go ahead and purchase the field, he finds some witnesses, signs and seals the deed, and pays his cousin.

A keen onlooker might be tempted to say, "Hey, Jerry!  While you still have your checkbook out, I've got some prime swampland in Florida I'd like to sell you!"  I am not what you would call an expert in the real estate business, but I would wager a guess that the value of your property is not very high if your country is on the verge of being conquered by a foreign power.  Furthermore, I would suspect that any deed in your possession would not be recognized by the conquering power.

What I particularly like about Jeremiah is that he has no trouble letting God know exactly how he feels - in explicit detail.  For this reason, he is remembered by many as the "Weeping Prophet."  Perhaps you've noticed his collection of Lamentations while flipping through your Bible.  Some time earlier, Jeremiah had even accused God of luring him into an excessively difficult life.  "O LORD, Thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived," he said, according to the King James Version.  He then cursed the day he was born and cursed the person who announced his birth for not killing him instead.⁴  I'm just a little bit surprised that the Book of Jeremiah doesn't end with the prophet being struck by a lightning bolt.

Jeremiah is no dummy.  He has spent years speaking to the people of Judah on God's behalf, warning them that they need to repent of their ways or else face the consequences of their actions.  He has been met with deaf ears time and time again, and now Jerusalem is surrounded by the Babylonian army.  He knows that the city of Jerusalem will soon fall and that the Kingdom of Judah will be conquered.  He knows that the field he just purchased will soon be occupied by the Babylonians and that the deed in his hands is basically worthless.  Jeremiah goes to God in prayer once again, wondering why in the world God would tell him to purchase an utterly worthless piece of property.  He says,
See, the siege ramps have been cast up against the city to take it, and the city, faced with sword, famine, and pestilence, has been given into the hands of the [Babylonians] who are fighting against it.  What You spoke has happened, as You Yourself can see.  Yet You, O LORD God, have said to me, "Buy the field for money and get witnesses" - though the city has been given into the hands of the [Babylonians].⁵

The question at the heart of Jeremiah's prayer is, "Why bother?"  Jeremiah is essentially saying, "Judah is just going to be conquered by the Babylonians, so why bother redeeming this land?"  I imagine that, like Jeremiah, most of us have, at some point in our lives, considered some opportunity or some course of action and asked ourselves, "Why bother?"

I'm just going to fail, so why bother?

My circumstances will never get any better, so why bother?

I tried that before, and I didn't get the results I wanted, so why bother?

I will never overcome my addiction, so why bother?

It's a lost cause, so why bother?

She'll just break my heart, so why bother?

I've screwed up my life beyond repair, so why bother?

People won't respond like I hope they will, so why bother?

My life will never turn out like I want, so why bother?

The prophets are typically remembered for their use of words - their scathing social critiques, their dreadful oracles, and their occasional words of hope - but, every once in a while, the prophets would use performance art to get their point across.  The prophet Isaiah was instructed by God to walk around in public stark naked for three years to symbolize the shame that Israel's political allies would experience when defeated by the Assyrians.⁶  The prophet Ezekiel was instructed by God to eat food cooked over human feces to symbolize the unclean food the people of Judah will have to eat when they are taken into exile.⁷  Jeremiah's redemption of his cousin's land is, likewise, a piece of performance art.

Deep down, Jeremiah already understands why God instructed him to buy the field, but circumstances have become so dire that, at some level, he wonders if there is anything God could possibly do to redeem the situation.  God responds to Jeremiah and asks, "Is anything too hard for Me?"  God does not sugarcoat the situation: the people of both Israel and Judah had hardened their hearts so much that the only way God could get through to them is to let them get what's coming to them.  There is no question regarding what is about to happen: Jerusalem will be leveled to the ground, and the people of Judah will be carried off to exile in Babylon.⁸  God is looking beyond the immediate future, for, in God's eyes, the calamity that the people of Judah will soon face is just a part of their redemption.

Jeremiah will never enjoy the land he has just purchased, nor will he even be able to see it.  He will later attempt to escape Jerusalem to go to his land, but he will be detained by palace officials once again.⁹  When Jerusalem falls to the Babylonians, Jeremiah will be taken against his will to Egypt by others fleeing Judah, and he will presumably spend his remaining days there.¹⁰  Even so, Jeremiah's purchase of his cousin's property is no empty gesture.  God says to Jeremiah,
Just as I have brought all this great disaster upon this people, so I will bring upon them all the good fortune that I now promise them.  Fields shall be bought in this land of which you are saying, It is a desolation, without human beings or animals; it has been given into the hands of the [Babylonians].  Fields shall be bought for money, and deeds shall be signed and sealed and witnessed, in the land of Benjamin, in the places around Jerusalem, and in the cities of Judah, of the hill country, of the Shephelah, and of the Negeb; for I will restore their fortunes, says the LORD.¹¹
Jeremiah's purchase of his cousin's land is symbolic of God's promise to bring the Jewish exiles back home again.¹²  There will come a time - a Year of Jubilee - when the people of Judah will return to their homeland.

One attitude that I think has become prevalent in our society is an attitude of cynicism.  Cynicism originated as a school of thought within ancient Greek philosophy.  Ancient cynics would eschew all things worldly in order to pursue inner virtues.  By contrast, our modern understanding of the concept can be described as "an attitude of distrust toward claimed ethical and social values and a rejection of the need to be socially involved."  At it's very best, it can be a prudent skepticism, but, at it's worst, it is a form of pessimism toward humanity.¹³  Pessimism in general is a hardness of heart that blinds us and numbs us to any goodness and hope to be experienced in the world.  It could be described as a defeated spirit - a spirit of "Why bother?"

In early 2009, philosopher Peter Rollins spoke at Calvin College where he apparently raised some eyebrows with his unconventional views on the Christian faith.  Someone in attendance saw it fit to ask him if he denied the resurrection of Christ.  Rollins confessed that he did, indeed, deny the the resurrection, and then he went on to make a very provocative statement:
I deny the resurrection of Christ every time I do not serve at the feet of the oppressed, each day that I turn my back on the poor; I deny the resurrection of Christ when I close my ears to the cries of the downtrodden and lend my support to an unjust and corrupt system.¹⁴
Rollins was basically saying that, regardless of whatever we claim to believe, we deny the resurrection of Christ when the presence of the living Christ is not evident in our lives, when Christ does not come alive within us.  We deny the resurrection when resurrection does not happen in us.

As Christians, our defining story is the Gospel story.  The Gospel story contains disappointment, desolation, despair, and death, but it does not end with these things.  Our defining story does not end with a would-be messiah languishing on a cross, crying out, "My God!  My God!  Why have You forsaken Me?"  Our defining story ends with an empty grave.  As Christians, we are Resurrection people.  Frederick Buechner once wrote,
The worst isn't the last thing about the world.  It's the next to the last thing.  The last thing is the best.  It's the power from on high that comes down into the world, that wells up from the rock-bottom worst of the world like a hidden spring.  Can you believe it?  The last, best thing is the laughing deep in the hearts of the saints, sometimes our hearts even.  Yes.  You are terribly loved and forgiven.  Yes.  You are healed.  All is well.¹⁵
The resurrection is a source of hope for all who put their trust in Jesus Christ and choose to follow in His footsteps.  That said, maybe we also deny the resurrection when we give up hope and fall into pessimism.

In this life, all kinds of bad things will happen.  We will all have crosses to bear: we will all certainly face suffering and failure.  The Gospel teaches us that these things do not have to be the end of the story, for, in the same way that Good Friday precedes Easter Sunday, the pain of destruction precedes the joy of new life.  So often in the Church we focus on life after death, but sometimes we just need to be reminded that there's life after life.

We do not know what the future holds for us, but we do know that God loves us and actively seeks the best for us.  St. Paul writes, "We know that God works all things together for good for the ones who love God, for those who are called according to His purpose."¹⁶  Paul is not necessarily saying that God makes bad things happen to us in order to bring about some greater good but instead that God can take up anything bad we do or anything bad that happens to us and bring some good out of it.  In the words of Adam Hamilton, "God forces evil and suffering to serve God.  God brings good from evil.  God takes our sorrow, suffering, and sin and bends it, redeems it, and sanctifies us through it."¹⁷  I would add that, though God actively seeks the good for us, we will not see the good if we harden our hearts to it through pessimism.  By God's grace, what was and what is do not need to determine what will be, so we would do well not to say, "Why bother?"

After Jeremiah signs and seals the deed to the field, he instructs his scribe Baruch to place the deed in a jar so that it will be preserved for posterity.  He then announces to everyone present, "Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land."

In 587 BC, the walls of Jerusalem were finally breached by the Babylonians.  King Zedekiah was captured; the Temple of the Lord was burned down; the city was razed to the ground; and many of the people were carried off to exile in Babylon.¹⁸  Eventually, the Babylonian Empire was conquered by the Persian Empire, and, in 538 BC, the people of Judah were allowed to return to their homeland to rebuild their city, their homes, their temple, and their lives.¹⁹  Maybe - just maybe - someone from Jeremiah's family found the deed that Jeremiah signed and returned to the field he purchased from his cousin.

The next time we are presented some opportunity and find ourselves thinking, "Why bother?" perhaps we should reconsider.  We do not know what the future will hold, but we do know that God desires the absolute best for us even though there might be pain on the road ahead of us.  "I know the plans I have for you," God says through Jeremiah, "plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope."²⁰  The future does not need to be frightening for us if we put our trust in God.  Let's resist the temptation to say "Why bother?"  We might succeed, or we might fail, but we will never know for certain what will happen unless we try.  Even if our actions do not yield the results we desire, it is quite possible that someone in our midst could draw strength from a piece of performance art.

Why bother?

Because we have a reason to hope.

Amen.


Notes:

1. Jeremiah 32:33-35
2. Leviticus 25:8-28
3. Speaking of things one is not supposed to say, it seems as though God wasn't a very big supporter of free-market capitalism.
4. Jeremiah 20:7-18
5. Jeremiah 32:24-25
6. Isaiah 20
7. Ezekiel 4:9-15
8. Jeremiah 32:26-35
9. Jeremiah 37:11-16
10. Jeremiah 43:1-7
11. Jeremiah 32:42-44
12. Jeremiah 32:36-41
13. Wikipedia: Cynicism (contemporary)
14. http://peterrollins.net/2009/01/my-confession-i-deny-the-resurrection/
15. https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/416962-the-worst-isn-t-the-last-thing-about-the-world-it-s
16. Romans 8:28 (CEB)
17. Adam Hamilton.  Why?: Making Sense of God's Will.  2011, Abingdon Press.  ch. 4
18. Wikipedia: Siege of Jerusalem (587 B)
19. Wikipedia: Cyrus the Great
20. Jeremiah  29:11 (NRSV)

Jeremiah Lamenting the Destruction of Jerusalem was painted by Rembrandt in 1690.