Sermon: How did we get here?

            Our scriptures did not fall from heaven, 

pristine things untouched by the world in which they were written. 
Quite the contrary, 
Scripture is always compiled in a context. 

            The early Christian scriptures, the Greek New Testament, 
were written in large part in response to the destruction of the 2^nd temple in 70 at the hands of the Romans and the dispersion of the faithful out across the empire.
Out of distress—Gospel.

 

            Similarly, the Hebrew Scriptures were formed during the Exile some 650 years before the New Testament
—the time after Jerusalem was burnt,
the temple sacked, 
the King and his sons all killed, 
everyone who could read or write in Judean Society 
kidnapped and taken away to Babylon.

            Off in Babylon these people tried to write themselves into freedom… 
the priests codified the Torah, 
the Prophets collected their writings that stood the test of time, 
the Court Wisemen penned Proverbs 
and the Musicians scored the Psalms in a final form. 

 

            And the Historians… 
(these historians we’ll be looking at for the next 3 weeks)
They compiled a series of Holy Histories 
looking back at the way of life the Babylonians had eradicated
—The King and his Prophets, the Priests and their Temple.

            And they grasped at some profound questions:

-How did we get here?

-What were things like before our system exploded? 
-What was it like before that system existed?

-What was it like to live at a hinge of history—between one way of life and another? 
Because what we’re doing here in Babylon seems just as important!

            With the hindsight of history, what should we be looking for, now?

 

Prayer

How did we get here?

            There was a strange way of being a people, before the monarchy. 
12 tribes loosely allied with one another
from Dan and Asher in the North, 
and Judah and Simeon in the South.

            They had a pattern (which you can find reading the book of Judges) 
of struggling as small separate tribes in a crisis, 
God calling forth a Judge: 
A charismatic leader, 
who united the tribes, 
and then when the crisis was dealt with, 
they all returned to a decentralized, Tribal, norm. 
Some people describe this as a Kin-dom instead of a Kingdom.

            By no means was this a good system of government
—just read Judges
—but it was a system that trusted on God for deliverance.

 

            Then along came a Judge named Eli, 
who had corrupt sons;
sons who tried to take over his Judgeship from him, 
as if they were princes inheriting a Kingdom… 
and God thwarted their plan by sending Samuel as Judge, in place of them.

            And then, as we read today,
Samuel’s sons too were corrupt, 
accepting bribes and embracing injustice, 
seeming to inherit Samuel’s position, as if they were princes.

 

            And to this, the people say, “Give us a King!”

            You can hear the logic of it, 
if Judgeship is already an inherited position akin to Kingship
—they let’s do it right, 
let’s be a people in the same way as our neighbors!
It’ll be stable, 
we’ll know who governs us,

we’ll know who is going to ride out to fight our battles for us.

 

            In their fear, 
or valid attempt to keep Samuel’s sons from the throne, 
the elders of Israel break with their decentralized, tribal, way of life. 

            Instead of waiting for God to topple Samuel’s sons, 
trusting that God would act as he did with Eli’s sons before them… 
            They instead embrace a centralized powerful figure as their sovereign. 
A decision with lasting consequences
—conscription of sons, 
taking of daughters, 
requisitioning of property and people
—all that. 

            But more importantly, 
the one who governs them, 
the one who fights their battles
—will no longer be God.

            God will no longer be the one who travels with them through the desert, 
but will be confined to a temple in Jerusalem.

            God’s prophets will no longer wander the highways and byways of the land whimsically popping up as unexpected and powerful ways, 
but will serve at court.

            Never again shall God call forth a Judge for the people.

            “How did we get here?”
Wonders the Holy Historians. 
            “Was it rotten from the beginning? 
Were we chosen kidnapped few, 
the elites sequestered in Babylon, 
supposed to ever exist? 
Or are we an appendage of an institution God that never wanted our people to embrace?

            With the hindsight of history, what should we be looking for now? 
How can we be faithful in a strange land, off in Babylon?” 
Asked those Holy Historians.

            Our ancestors were looking for surety and sameness, 
instead of the uncomfortable strangeness of the Holy.

            Their fear overcame their ability to trust in God.

            Perhaps we ought to trust God goes with us, 
even now, 
even here.

            Perhaps we ought to make peace with being different, 
embrace the plain truth that holiness means sticking out, 
being a little weird.

 

            That holy wrestling with the past, 
naming more clearly how we got here, 
even when it stings, or uncovers where we’ve fallen short. 
That is not a task for holy historians alone.

            How did we get here? 
What was there before the loss, before everything exploded? 
In hindsight what should we be looking for now? 
How is God at work in our midst now?

            These are questions worthy of any nation, or denomination, or congregation, or family, or individual.

Amen.

 

The Task of the Church in a 4D World

As any longtime reader of this blog knows I believe Christians need to do ministry in a way that takes into account the 3Ds: Disestablishment, Decentralization, and Demographic Shift.  I’ve been pointing to this reality now for about 10 years, and recently pointed to this dynamic in my Lenten Devotional.

I bring all this up because I think there is a fourth D, Disenchantment. The book that recently convinced me of this is Hunting Magic Eels by Richard Beck. This book essentially popularizes Andrew Root’s work on the Church and Secularism, which is an application of Charles Taylor’s “A Secular Age” to the life of the Church. What follows are some of Beck’s big ideas:

 Perception:

             Citing the famous Selective Attention Test in which most people will literally miss the gorilla in the room if you tell them to focus on a moving ball, Beck affirms that what we seek is what we see. In this context, most folk don’t see God at work in the world, because we’re not looking for it. The narratives and habits of our secular society focus our attention elsewhere. And this makes belief unbelievable. Belief needs to be connected to some sort of experience, it needs to correspond to actual reality, otherwise it is a series of unproven propositions.

              Beck proposes that “Enchantment thrives when it is made visible.” That religious beauty captures the attention. Icons, crosses, sacraments, are all visual nudges that allow us to notice the gorilla in the room. These types of things that retrain our perception Beck calls Enchantments.

 

The Reformation & the Enlightenment:

               Beck argues that the present disenchanted way of looking at the world, the secular focus, comes from two sources, the Enlightenment and the Reformation.

              The Reformation was in some ways a religious parallel to the Renaissance, a return to classical sources, including original languages, to determine meaning of texts, namely the Bible, over and against relying on traditions and authority. Out of this impulse, multiple reforms to the Roman Catholic Church were attempted, and gave birth to a variety of Protestant Churches. Beck argues that the Protestant Reformation shifted the focus of Christianity from the mystical to the moral. Religion is now about one’s individual conscience (for example Luther’s famed “I can not go against my conscience; here I stand, I can do no other”) and being a good person, instead of continually engaging with enchantment.

              The Enlightenment was an intellectual movement and period of time where European thinkers responded to the religious wars in Europe by turning from religion towards rationalism and observation. The important thing Beck takes from this is that we still have an enlightenment era fixation of that which can be scientifically measured, to the detriment of our ability to focus on sacred meaning. Consequently, goals and values are now seen as subjective things, instead of objective ones.

              As a student of the Enlightenment (My History degree focused on Voltaire and Rousseau, two founding thinkers of the Enlightenment) and formed within one of the traditions of the Reformation (I am Lutheran and have a Master of Divinity from a Lutheran Seminary) I think Beck gave a fairly flat, not to mention a little warped, reading of both eras, but he wasn’t looking to give a history report, instead he was nodding at the origin of relevant things in the present.

A few things to tease out from his assessment:

The Reformation shift from the mystical to the moral means that if Christianity isn’t producing good people, or if there is a better way to produce good people, it isn’t true.

Also, if the only things that matter are measurable and we’ve determined that goals and values are subjective, then the stuff of faith are simply matters of taste and determined by whim.

Absent enchantment, all religion boils down to a battery to power other things, be it a justification for a moral vision or shibboleths for a political movement or the glue that holds an ethnic group together. Humans become the only actors on the stage of life, God is at best an object.

The best we can hope for, for people living in a disenchanter world, Beck says, is that they notice the absence of God and ache for God. “Notice the ache for God; if you can’t believe in God, at least desire God.”

 

Enchantment:

              Beck laments the loss of enchanted:
time—namely sabbath and feast days,
space—places for pilgrimage, Churches that are religiously beautiful as well as function as places to preach the word, sacraments, and thin places,
people—saints.
If we have no models of holiness, no place to experience the strangeness of God, and we don’t have time to contemplate the goodness of the world around us, no wonder we have a hard time believing holiness exists! A disenchanted church can offer nothing more than abstract ideas.

              As an analogy for what disenchantment has been doing to western society Beck points to the experience of retirement; retirement often leads to a deep loss of identity and meaning. People often drift after retirement. Retirement is a radical reordering of time (when do you have to get up for work, weekends have a different meaning), space (work is no longer a place you go), and people (a bunch of people are no longer your fellow employees, that relationship I gone). The disenchantment of the world feels like a collective retirement from God.

 

4 Styles of Enchantment:

              As a way to re-invest our attention, so that we can again see the sacred, Beck offers four examples of Enchanted Christianity.

Liturgical Enchantment: Much of this style of enchantment comes from Beck’s experience of Roman Catholicism (he was the lone protestant in his Catholic grade school). Marking time with a liturgical calendar re-enchants time, the sacraments make matter matter, and there is an artistic beauty to Catholic Churches that reaches beyond the glorified auditorium that Beck experienced as Protestant sanctuaries.

Contemplative Enchantment: Contemplative Christianity tries to live ordinary life, but aware of the presence of God, or to say it another way, it seeks to find the presence of God in the world as it is. Habits can either enchant or disenchant the world, so contemplatives practice the later. For example, using the Ignatian Examine, or naming “Roses and Thorns” from the day, to reflect on where God was at work that day; another holy habit is to pray before taking an action, be it small or large.

Charismatic Enchantment: The third type of enchantment Beck points to is found in the Charismatic and/or Pentecostal movement of Christianity. The focus of this type of enchantment understands faith as a romance, refusing to amputate the heart during worship. There is an assumption that God is going to act. When God is the main actor it leaves humans in a posture of receptivity—waiting for God, encourages a hermeneutic of gratitude—wow, God continually is doing good things in my life, and leads practitioners to testify—hey everyone, this is what God has done for me!

Celtic Enchantment: The final place Beck goes for enchantment is the sort of Christianity that flourished in the British Isles from 430-870CE, Celtic Christianity. He points to reverence toward “Thin Places”—where heaven and earth seem to be closer to one another, the practice of Holy Poetry, a particular fusion of fasting and hard work, and an emphasis on Sacred Friendships, as all unique enchantments offered by Celtic Christianity.

 

How might we Reenchant our world?:

              Richard Beck’s book planted many seeds in my soul and mind. Here are a few things that have started to sprout.

1.      When engaging with the secular world we need to be careful never to offer the faith as a battery for this cause or that.

2.       We ought to be bolder in naming the ache, both for ourselves and when we are sharing our faith with others.

3.      Holy time can capture the imagination. Sabbath is a time good for nothing, celebrating particular saints opens up past ways of being faithful, and marking time with the Christian calendar places our life in the rhythm of the story of God we confess with our lips.

4.      Closing a day reflecting on highs and lows (roses and thorns) and reflection on what God might have been up to is surely a wholesome practice.

5.      Breaking down some of the charismatic ways of being Christian to their essence: Pathos and sharing the faith, feels a lot more faithful and accessible than the essentials many practicing Charismatic Christians I’ve met focus on.

6.      There was something especially beautiful about the Celtic idea of Holy Friendship. In a society with an epidemic of loneliness, truly this is good news!

 

A Lutheran Enchantment?:

One final thought, in Luther’s explanation of the Lord’s Prayer he describes the first four petitions, parts of the prayer, as being about our perception of God’s work in the world.

-God’s name is Holy, we pray so that it may be holy in and among us.

-God’s kingdom comes, we pray that it comes to us.

-God’s will is done, we ask that it comes to and among us.

-Everyone receives daily bread, we ask that we might recognize it.

              Luther too, in a way, is teaching us to notice: notice Holiness in our engagement with scripture and the way we live our life, notice God’s kingdom in our way of trusting, notice God’s will when we are kept steadfast in the faith in the face of other powers, notice all that makes this world good and very good and giving thanks for it.

              I think there is something more to this last point, maybe a uniquely Lutheran contemplative prayer, a new framing of Luther’s explanation of the Lord’s Prayer?