Sermon: Our Bad Religion Week 2

Our Bad Religion.
            That’s what I preached on last Sunday, and what I will be preaching on again this Sunday.
            In case you missed it—my premise is this, if you’re a religious leader—or a religious person in general—you can almost be guaranteed to get in a fight with Jesus.
            Jesus fights with Pharisees, Sadducees, scribes, and leaders of Synagogues. And it would be to our determent if we didn’t realize we religious people today, we Pastors, we Council Presidents, we Confirmation students, and we Congregants, often make the same mistakes as those religious people did then.
            Jesus’ conflicts, in 1^st century Palestine, revealed bad religion then—and in our reading of those conflicts, it reveals bad religion today. It reveals “Our Bad Religion.”
Prayer

            Jesus is heading to a meal at a Pharisees’ house on the Sabbath—and he performs another Sabbath healing—just like last week.
            But unlike last week, the religious officials are silent. He re-states his interpretation of Sabbath, that sick and hurting people ought to be saved from their ailment just like people and animals caught in a well ought to be saved from that well.

            Then he goes on to the dinner and points out folly after folly—everyone is trying to get ahead, trying to eat at the head table. After all, they live in an honor shame culture—where the pecking order wasn’t merely about popularity, but about quality of life.
            Imagine if you will, a society in which all that awkwardness of where to sit in the Junior High lunchroom the first week of school, would determine who you could marry, how much money you could make, how successful you would be in life! That was part of the reality of Jesus’ day.
            And Jesus pulls out the Wisdom of the book of Proverbs that we read today and reminds them to be humble and be raised up by their host instead of raising themselves up.

            Then, Jesus goes on and critiques the host as well.
             Jesus, in effect, says, “Hey, remember that guy with dropsy I healed? Well, why wasn’t he invited to this party? Was it because he had nothing to offer you in return? Well that’s a ridiculous position for a religious person to take! In fact, it’s morally right to invite those who do not have the means to pay you back—the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind!”
            Just as his first comment flew in the face of the honor/shame culture of his time, so too did this comment fly in the face of the patron-client system of his time. I’ve mentioned this ancient phenomena before—that everything was about who you knew, about owing everyone favors, navigating a society that flourished on you-scratch-my-back-I’ll-scratch-your-back thinking.
            And Jesus’ response to this is scratch the backs of those who can not scratch you back!

            In short, Jesus finds the Pharisee and his guests to be both bad guests and bad hosts, and as such are practicing Bad Religion.

            And as I said at the start, it’s worth asking, what about us? How do we buy into honor/shame dynamics and patron/client dynamics? How have we as individual religious folk and as a congregation been bad hosts and bad guests? What does this say about our Bad Religion?

            Us, bad guests? Well, maybe. Just think of the seating arrangement issue.
            It’s common knowledge that church folk get territorial about their seats—in fact in the colonial church the rich bought pews. Could it be we sit in such a way other guests—for example guests late to service—might be shamed—might have to scurry up front, or slink to the side—to sit in service?
            I know this admonition by Jesus was one of the reasons I avoid sitting in the big exulted chair behind the altar for the first year I was here.

            Do we sometimes confuse the church with a social club? Do we forget that we’re guests in the body of Christ—son’s and daughter’s of God no doubt—but still the Church is ultimately Christ’s not our own? Do we ever have such an ego that we assume faith is about us instead of about Jesus?
            Do we judge the sliver in someone else’s eye instead of the tree trunk in our own? Do we allow a pecking order to develop in the church? Do we distinguish between every Sunday members and Easter and Sunday members?
           
            For that matter—have we been bad hosts?
            Do we sometimes do the good works of the church in order to get folks into our doors, instead of because we’ve been freed by Christ to do those good works? Do we fall into the trap of a you scratch my back I’ll scratch yours world?
            Does the idea of the church being jam packed with the poor, the lame, the blind, and the crippled scare us at little?
            I think it does, after all, all those church growth manuals and fliers they try to sell pastors, show happy young, put together, fashionable, couples—obviously upper-middle class, 2.5 kids—perfect angels.
            And you know what! None of them had dropsy!

            Yes, the church can be bad hosts and guests. That is part of Our Bad Religion.

            Yet, there are two subtle things to consider. Jesus is quoting from Proverbs about how to act when being in the presence of the King, and he’s describing how a wedding banquet should look like.
            By pointing out the flaws of the Pharisee’s dinner, he points to the flawless Banquet of the King.
            The banquet where every guest is honored, where those in need are filled, the sick healed, and where the host is gracious, giving with no strings attached.
            Yes, that is the Kingdom of God of which the Church partakes, the meal from which we are fed.
            The banquet where even the Pharisee and you and I, are freed from our bad religion and invited in.
            Invited to sing with thankfulness songs of pure delight.
            Invited to come and revel in heaven’s love and light.
            Invited to take your place at the table of the King.
            Invited—the feast is ready to begin.

A Kyrie for Today

In peace, in peace, let us pray to the Lord

Kyrie Eleison

For peace from above, and for our salvation, let us pray to the Lord

Kyrie Eleison

For the peace of the whole world…

For the peace of the whole world.

Peace—peace.

Not the stillness of children killed with chemicals.

But peace.

Not the slaughter of civilians or the rise of radical rebels

But peace

Not cruise missiles with their GPSes saying “recalculating.”

But peace

Not “kinetic military actions”

But peace

Kyrie Eleison

Knee-jerk politicians and pundits

A count down clock to a new ratings bonanza

Partisanship and cable channel loyalty informing the flock more than our faith

And our faith has things to say about this, you know!

For 2000 years we’ve struggled with being faithful in the world as it is

Faithful in times of persecution, famine, feast, power.

Kinetic military action, and yes, even war.

The line that sticks in my soul

From my tradition

Is this:

"Any decision for war must be a mournful one."

Kyrie/Christe/Kyrie Eleison--Amen

A Pastoral Letter on the Eve of an American Led Attack on Syria

            This morning I received a pastoral missive from my internship supervisor, Pastor Gregg Knepp formerly of St. John’s Pimlico, now of St. Peter’s Ocean City, on the subject of the likely upcoming attack by our country on Syria. It is entitled “A Kyrie for Today.”

            Kyrie, as in “Kyrie Eleison” “Lord, have mercy.” The start of our opening prayer to God at every service—the start of the prayer, in which we pray for peace from above and for our salvation—peace for the whole world…

            Peace for the whole world.

            Peace for the whole world while a regime who has killed tens of thousands of its citizens commits crimes against humanity in the context of a civil war.

            Peace for the whole world while we in the West, along with a few Arab States, prepare for some sort of limited war.

            I have to admit the whole situation breaks my heart. I have friends with ties to the Syrian people. I am of the generation for whom the shadow of Iraq looms especially large. I have a mother who works for the Veterans Administration and has seen the long term results of nations choosing to go to war.

            And I know there are no easy answers.

            But I also know our faith means something, the Church has something to say.

            “Kyrie Eleison.”

            We pray first for those who have died, and for those who will die. We pray for our leaders, that they might act as rightly as our world allows.

            We pray: “Gracious God, grant peace among nations. Cleanse from our own hearts the seeds of strife: greed and envy, harsh misunderstandings and ill will, fear and desire for revenge. Make us quick to welcome ventures in cooperation among the peoples of the world, so that there may be woven the fabric of a common good too strong to be torn by the evil hands of war. In the time of opportunity, make us be diligent; and in the time of peril, let not our courage fail; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”

            We also remember that our faith is not something limited to Sunday mornings and hospital visits. For two thousand years we Christians have been struggling with being faithful in the world as it is, in situations of persecution, famine, feast, might, and war. And those struggles have given us a rich tradition of thought and action, something much deeper than the knee-jerk reactions of TV pundits, or even the careful and vigorous debates currently going on in the UK’s House of Commons.

            The Lutheran tradition follows in this rich tradition—a tradition that includes Just War Theory, “which requires certain conditions to be met before the use of military force is considered morally right.  These principles are:

1. A just war can only be waged as a last resort. All non-violent options must be exhausted before the use of force can be justified.
2. A war is just only if it is waged by a legitimate authority. Even just causes cannot be served by actions taken by individuals or groups who do not constitute an authority sanctioned by whatever the society and outsiders to the society deem legitimate.
3. A just war can only be fought to redress a wrong suffered. For example, self-defense against an armed attack is always considered to be a just cause (although the justice of the cause is not sufficient--see point #4). Further, a just war can only be fought with "right" intentions: the only permissible objective of a just war is to redress the injury.
4. A war can only be just if it is fought with a reasonable chance of success. Deaths and injury incurred in a hopeless cause are not morally justifiable.
5. The ultimate goal of a just war is to re-establish peace. More specifically, the peace established after the war must be preferable to the peace that would have prevailed if the war had not been fought.
6. The violence used in the war must be proportional to the injury suffered. States are prohibited from using force not necessary to attain the limited objective of addressing the injury suffered.
7. The weapons used in war must discriminate between combatants and non-combatants. Civilians are never permissible targets of war, and every effort must be taken to avoid killing civilians. The deaths of civilians are justified only if they are unavoidable victims of a deliberate attack on a military target.”

            Additionally, this Church, the ELCA, in 1995, created a document “For Peace in God’s World” which particularized our understanding of Just War Theory to the challenges of the 20^th and 21^st century. Here are a few stand out statements:

            “Wars, both between and within states, represent a horrendous failure of politics. The evil of war is especially evident in the number of children and other noncombatants who suffer and die.”

            “Helping the neighbor in need may require protecting innocent people from injustice and aggression. While we support the use of nonviolent measures, there may be no other way to offer protection in some circumstances than by restraining forcibly those harming the innocent. We do not, then--for the sake of the neighbor--rule out possible support for the use of military force. We must determine in particular circumstances whether or not military action is the lesser evil.”

            “From the posture of the just/unjust war tradition, the aim of all politics is peace. Any political activity that involves coercion should be held accountable to just/unjust war principles. They are important for evaluating movements, sanctions, embargoes, boycotts, trade policies to reward or punish, and other coercive but nonviolent measures.”

            “We give priority to treaties to ban the production, sale, and use of biological and chemical weapons.”

            And finally, and most solemn, "Any decision for war must be a mournful one."

           

            And so, I conclude this letter as it began, Kyrie Eleison.

In Christ’s Peace,

Pastor Christopher Lee Halverson

Sermon: Our Bad Religion

Jesus often gets in fights with religious authorities—the scribes, the leaders of the Synagogue, the Pharisees and the Sadducees.

In fact, if you’re a religious leader you can almost be guaranteed to get in a fight with Jesus.

         Think of that for a second—God shows up in human form and the people who pick a fight with God are the religious ones.

         That’s because Jesus reveals bad religion.

         And it’s worth remembering that.

         It’s worth remembering that, because we too are religious people.

         One of the dangers of reading about the conflicts Jesus had in his time, is we keep them there.

         We spend needless time railing against those religious hypocrites without checking ourselves.

         The danger is, it becomes a religious leader of a church—the pastor—and the religious people of the church—the assembly—reading about the religious leaders and religious people of Jesus times, without reflecting on our own sin.

         For that reason, this week and next week, as we read about two particular conflicts Jesus gets into with particular religious people—I want us to reflect explicitly on what these conflicts might say about our own misuse of the faith.

         I want us to reflect upon “Our Bad Religion.”

Prayer

         Yes, Jesus reveals bad religion, and it would be foolishness on our part if we didn’t include our own simultaneously saintly and sinful faith in this revelation.

         Our Bad Religion.

        

         Jesus is teaching in the Synagogue on Saturday, as a good Jewish religious figure is want to do.

And there is this woman, who for 18 years was crippled,

was curved in upon herself… her body was so fully twisted that in the Greek the description of her infirmity itself is twisted and convoluted—a pretzel of grammar—warped words.

         And Jesus takes that pretzel, and changes it into praise.

         A hunched over question mark, and makes it an exclamation point.

         She praises God for her healing—for 18 years of slavery becoming liberation.

…

         And an argument erupts!

         The religious folk, want to fight about Sabbath rules, about Blue Laws, about what you can and can’t do on the Sabbath!

         And the argument that follows is actually quite interesting, something religious folk of the time debated.

In fact, it’s an argument we find right in the Old Testament, when it tells of the 10 Commandments.

         In the book of Exodus the 3^rd commandment—keep the Sabbath Holy—is justified by a description of God creating the world in 6 days and rested on the 7^th. That’s the starting point for the leader of the synagogue’s argument.

         God worked for 6 days, and rested for one. If that’s good enough for God it’s good enough for us!

         In the book of Deuteronomy, however, the 3^rd commandment is justified differently. It is justified in this way

—you were slaves in Egypt, and didn’t get to rest then—you know what it’s like to be worked to death and you’ve been liberated from that bondage to slavery in Egypt. Act like it.

         This is Jesus’ response to the religious folk’s attack—there is no better day to release this woman from her bondage of 18 years than the day in which we rest from the bondage of slavery in Egypt.

        

         Additionally, Jesus brings up a common rabbinic debate about whether you can untie donkeys and oxen on the Sabbath. He seems to know what side the Synagogue’s leadership falls on, that they are on the more liberal side that allows for sustaining lives of livestock on the Sabbath.

         To make it plain, it’s okay to liberate livestock from their stockades on Saturday.

         Then he argues from small to large—if a cow can be freed from it’s fence, how much more can this woman be freed from her bondage and bending and oppression by the devil!?!

         But, as fascinating as this argument is, between Jesus and the Leaders of the Synagogue—how rooted it is in arguments of the time—how Jesus skillfully argues in favor of this woman he’s healed—focusing on the argument is the very problem Jesus has revealed.

This is an example of Our Bad Religion.

         They have before them a concrete example of God’s goodness, that God has freed this woman from 18 years of horrible disfigurement.

Yet they prefer to debate religion.

They prefer to use it as a way to get one over on their opponent—in this moment Jesus.

In short, they are too busy fighting to see the Goodness of God right in front of them and praise God for it.

         Praise God like this woman is doing.

         In a way, it’s like reading comments in an online news article.

         For example, I was reading a news article online about Antoinette Tuff,

the lady who talked down, and prayed for, a gunman who was intent on murdering children at an Atlanta elementary school this last Wednesday.

         It was a fine article—very uplifting—a story worth praising God about.

         But then I got to the comments section at the bottom.

         People were arguing guns. Arguing politics—even politics from 2 decades ago. Arguing Race. Arguing Religion. Arguing Divorce. Arguing about EVERYTHING. Because they just wanted to argue.

         They could have been so overjoyed that those 500 rounds of ammunition didn’t find 500 targets—but instead, they argue.

         And, that’s just what these leaders of the Synagogues wanted to do—argue instead of praise God.

         That’s what Jesus ends up calling them out for, even as they argue. That they ignore God’s loving action even as they fight.

         And that’s their bad religion and it can be Our Bad Religion too.

         Take a moment—think of a time you’ve done such a thing?—Arguing Religion instead of praising God.

         I’m guessing you have—I know I have.

(pause)

         To these leaders of Synagogues, and to us here today, I want to say.

 Praise God.

         Praise God for finding us when we’re bent-in-on-ourselves—sinners that we are—paralyzed by our own self-centered nature.

         Praise God who is the salve for our scars of cynicism and self-righteousness.

         Praise God for straightening us out when we get bent up.

         Praise God for Jesus’ miraculous healing on the Sabbath and for the faith of Antoinette Tuff on Wednesday.

         Praise God who hears not our babble and our noise—our sound and our fury, but instead the clear voice of His beloved Son.

         Praise God who is faithful to us despite our bad religion.

A+A

Racial Diversity and the ELCA

So, I've been looking at the ELCA's social statement on race "Freed in Christ: Race, Ethnicity, and culture" for my pub theology discussion tonight.
One of the goals coming out of this statement was for the ELCA to grow non-white membership to 10% of overall membership by 2003.
Here's a chart comparing the church I serve, the national church, and the community I serve in (please note the South Plainfield statistics don't add up to 100% because of how they count Latinos... the national church one is slight off too... I fused wiki with this):

	St. Stephen	National Church	South Plainfield
White	90%	94%	67%
African Descent	7%	1%	10%
Asian	0	1%	14%
Other	0	1%	5%
Multiracial	1%	1%	3%
Latino	2%	1%	13%

156 10 word or less quotes Or 3 years worth of Good Church Signs! The Last Batch

1. Be captured by love of one another.
2. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light
3. Neither do I condemn thee: go and sin no more

156 10 word or less quotes Or 3 years worth of Good Church Signs! Eighth Batch

1. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord
2. He will swallow up death forever
3. God will wipe away the tears from all faces
4. Comfort O Comfort my people
5. He was despised, and we held him of no account
6. The righteous one shall make many righteous
7. God’s word is in my heart like a fire
8. Do no wrong to immigrants, orphans, or widows
9. I have continued my faithfulness to you
10. How lonely sits the city
11. His mercies never come to an end
12. Go down the mountain
13. I will search for my sheep
14. Mortal, can these bones live?
15. I see four men unbound in the fire!-Nebuchadnezzar
16. I desire steadfast love, not sacrifice
17. They sell the needy for a pair of sandals
18. Let justice roll down like mighty waters
19. Should I not be concerned about Ninevah?
20. Do justice, love kindness, walk humbly with your God
21. My spirit abides among you; do not fear
22. We are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses
23. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers
24. Be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger
25. Pray for one another

156 10 word or less quotes Or 3 years worth of Good Church Signs! Seventh Batch

1. You intended harm, God intended good—Joseph
2. You shall be holy
3. See, I receive a command to bless
4. Justice, only justice shall you pursue
5. The Lord your God is with you wherever you go
6. Speak, for your servant is listening
7. Nathan to David, “You are the man!”
8. The Lord is my rock and my fortress.
9. God’s steadfast love endures forever
10. Consider my servant Job
11. I know my redeemer lives
12. The Lord is my shepherd
13. Be strong, and let your heart take courage
14. Why are you cast down, O my soul?
15. Create in my a clean heart, O God
16. Two or three gathered—there I am.
17. Teach me your way, O Lord
18. In his word I hope
19. I am fearfully and wonderfully made
20. Get wisdom get insight!
21. Vapor vaporizing, vapor, all is vapor.—Ecclesiastes
22. For everything there is a season
23. Do not be quick to anger
24. Love is stronger than death
25. Here am I; send me!

Scarcity and Abundance (An outline of My sermon on Luke 12:11-24)

 A roughly filled out outline of today's sermon:

Money and Luke:

The Gospel of Luke emphasizes very heavily the dangers of wealth. For example it starts with the Magnificat—in it Mary says the hungry will be filled, but the rich will go away empty. Similarly Luke does not just have beatitudes in which the poor are considered blessed, but it also includes a part in which Jesus states, “Woe to the rich.”

Finally, as we see in a few weeks, it is pointed out you can’t serve both God and Mammon.

I bring this up because—

The 1^st two weeks of August & the last two weeks of September are week in which it is impossible not to preach about God and Mammon—God and money. On top of that  Synod Stewardship Guy will be preaching in a few weeks time, and I bet he’ll mention money in one way or another.

Dangers of talking about wealth:

There are several dangers when the church talks about wealth.

1.    There is the danger we’ll say nothing, after all it’s impolite to talk about sex, politics, and money. But that’s not an option—Money is 15% of what Jesus talks about—there are well over 2,000 verses in scripture dedicated to the subject.

2.    The next danger is that the Pastor will say—“Love of money is the root of all evil—but none of my concregation would love money—so we don’t need to worry about it.

3.    Lastly, the Pastor might simplify things and say “Money is evil—unless you’re giving it to church, then it’s good stewardship… and call it a day.

This week and next week—Scarcity and Abundance

I would like to define these two ways of looking at the world, by the first questions they bring up in us—they are:

ScarcityàWhat don’t I have? What do I need?

Abundanceà What do I already have? What has God already provided for me?

Prayer

Jesus begins today’s lesson by telling everyone it’s going to get rough, they’ll be drug before religious and political leader—but they shouldn’t worry, the Holy Spirit has them covered—they have an abundance of God’s help

Then he’s interrupted, with a question from the back—what about my inheritance? What about money?

Jesus responds to this request, as he often does, with a story… in this case a Story of Scarcity

A man collects massive amounts of possessions, then he dies, unable to “take it with him.”

There are a few things we should take away from Jesus’ story:

1.    Talks to self (The man in Jesus’ story talks to himself—he says I, Me, or My 13 times in 3 sentences—because he’s obsessed with scarcity he is constantly looking out for #1, he’s stuck in a defensive crouch

·       For that matter he sounds like Smeagol from Lord of the Rings, whispering “My precious” to his possessions

·       He’s the classic definition of sinful—he’s Homo Incurvatus in Se a person curved in on their self—he’s so concerned about his needs that he’s stuck in his own belly button.

2.    A Dis-ordered life (The man also has a disordered life—think about this number sequence:17, 2, 3, 4. 17 shouldn’t be the first number, one should—likewise scarcity can make possessions, our number one thing, which isn’t where they should fit in our life.

·       Think about it, he’s put things before his very life! And now that his life is being called for he realizes his mistake. You’ve heard the old phrase, there are People to love, things to use—well scarcity can disorder this formula so you use people and love things.

·       Think of our reading from Ecclesiastes—the author chased after money, and wisdom, and such things, and when attaining them found it all to be “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity” “Vapor vaporizing, all is vapor.” The wealth he grasped at in his barn was elusive, and fled from his fingers like smoke.

But Jesus doesn’t stop there, he follows this story up with a Story of Abundance

He says, “Hey, look at that Raven—it looks plump and happy, God provided for it… and it doesn’t have a barn! It has enough!

Jesus is saying to the man who interrupted him:

1.    Order your life. Consider what you have (You’re alive, the person you’re inheriting from is dead, count your blessing!)

2.    Talk to brother. Consider who you have (You’re in danger of breaking your relationship with your brother over material things—don’t do that!)

In conclusion, when you start with abundance instead of scarcity you are thankful for your life and all you have. Also, you might even start saying I, me, and my less and saying we, us, and our more.

I’ll more about that last one next week.

Amen and Alleluiah!

156 10 word or less quotes Or 3 years worth of Good Church Signs! Sixth Batch

1. Go and make disciples
2. The Good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
3. Who do people say that I am?
4. Whoever welcomes a child, welcomes me
5. The Son of Man came to serve
6. Terror and amazement had seized them.
7. My soul magnifies the Lord
8.  Glory to God in the highest
9. Every mountain and hill shall be made low
10. Do not judge, and you will not be judged
11. Love your enemies
12. The Kingdom of God has come near to you.
13. Our Father who art in heaven
14. God searches for the lost
15. Father, forgive them.
16. In the beginning was the word
17. The Word became flesh
18. I am bread, water, light etc.
19. New Commandment—Love one another.
20. That you may believe and have life
21. I see open heavens and the Son of Man!
22. What is to prevent me from being baptized?
23. We too are his offspring.
24. The Lord bless you and keep you.
25. Indeed it was very good