Giving like you mean it.

Tithe barns can be found throughout Great Britain and Europe. They remain from a bygone era (about 500-700 years ago) when the town church, cathedral, or monastery built barns to store the tenth, or “tithe,” of what the local farms produced, which had to be given as offerings. The offered food was distributed to the needy and supported the church itself. It was a time before rulers and governments had developed elaborate systems of taxation and providing social services, when the Church was in charge of caring for the poor and disadvantaged.

In more recent centuries, while tithing was still the expected norm for all church-going Christians, it was out of that abundance of offerings that the Church continued its leadership in addressing the needs of society: before there was Medicare, the Church built hospitals; before state universities, the Church built colleges. The Church did phenomenal things from money given by faith, expressing values of faith.

There is something to be said for giving voluntarily. When we pay a tax because it is required of us, the reasons for giving become meaningless. Whether or not we “believe in” what we are paying for – unemployment benefits, health care, roads, libraries, schools, teachers, armies, legislators – really doesn’t matter. You pay to keep from going to jail.

When we give an offering of our own free choosing, we truly need to believe in what we are doing and know why our gift matters. For Christians to give as a spiritual discipline is to acknowledge God as source of all we have, that God provides enough for all – enough to meet our needs and to share for the improvement and well-being of others. To give to provide for schools, hospitals and basic human needs is to say, “These are things my faith says are important.”

Voluntary giving has tended to decrease in recent decades, while tax obligations have increased. Governments address needs that churches used to. Resentment over tax burdens overshadows personal engagement with the well-being of others. My prayer is that Christians not lose sight of the spiritual benefits of giving, that we give gladly and generously to things we believe in and that express our faith in the God who loves us all.

The Lord's Prayer

In Luke 11, Jesus’ disciples ask him to teach them how to pray, and Jesus replies by teaching them what we know as the Lord’s Prayer. Part of Jesus’ lesson on prayer is also about persistence in prayer, that God answers pray-ers not only out of God’s love and benevolence but also because prayers are offered continually and relentlessly. “So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.” (Luke 11.9–10)

What does this mean? That God is like a genie in a bottle, ready to fill our orders? That God will give us absolutely anything we ask for, satisfy our every whim, no matter how self-serving? Hey, I could get used to that: “Give me a million dollars, God.” Poof! “And when I run through that million, give me a million more.” Poof! “Strike down my enemies.” Poof! “And, hey, come to think of it, punish that guy who just cut me off on the highway.” Poof! “End war. End poverty. End hate. Just don’t expect me to sacrifice or change to make those things happen.”

It’s hard to know fully what Jesus meant by, “Ask, and it will be given.” But I think a good place to start is at the beginning of the lesson: “When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us. And do not bring us to the time of trial.” (Luke 11.2–4) What are the things about which Jesus tells us to pray, and to do so persistently?

That God’s kingdom may come. That God’s will may be done. This is your world, God. Let it be as you would have it.

Give us what we need each day; not what we want or whim, but what we need – enough food, enough clothing, enough shelter; and may everyone have enough; and since it is about what you desire, help us to share what you give so everyone has enough.

Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. Expect us to forgive as fully as you have forgiven us, God. And if we don’t extend our forgiveness to others, it’s only fair you should be as stingy toward us. May our forgiveness of others be as generous and complete as your forgiveness of us.

A sermon accompanying this post can be heard via podcast at http://revbob.podbean.com/2010/07/27/july-25-2010/

Prophet; Part II

Last week I wrote about prophets and their unique role in the Judeo-Christian tradition. Prophets are persons with a special connection to God and special understanding of God’s desires for the world. I emphasized the prophet’s work in calling people to change their ways, to be more in line with God’s will, in order to avert the disaster that results from straying from God’s intentions.

However, this is only half the story. As persons with special understanding about God’s character and desires for the world, prophets know better than anyone that God’s predominant interest is not punishment but salvation. Prophets do not only warn us of doom unless we act right. They also remind us that God loves us, that God is faithful to his Covenant promises, that God is working for the well-being of creation and its deliverance from the powers that threaten it. “The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety.” (Jeremiah 5-6a) It is up to the prophet to offer God’s word of hope and encouragement, every bit as much as it is to offer warning and correction.

Again, we can look to Jesus-as-prophet. Certainly, Jesus has that special connection to God and keen insight about the way people ought to live. Jesus was not above calling people to task, overturning the money-changers tables and prodding the religious authorities to attend to the “weightier matters of the Law: justice and mercy and faith.” But for most of us our prevailing impression of Jesus is one who came to offer hope; to calm storms and cure ailments and rid the world of injustice and oppression; to reach out to the poor and the lonely and the rejected; to confirm God’s promise of a better world.

Hear a sermon related to this post at http://revbob.podbean.com/2010/07/28/july-18-2010/

Prophet; Part I

“Prophet” has a very particular meaning in Biblical, Judeo-Christian theology. We tend to think of prophets as predictors or forecasters or even “fortune tellers.” I like to differentiate prophets from mere predictors this way: prediction is about events that will inevitably come; prophecy is about where we are headed unless we change our ways. Prediction is about preparing for something to happen. Prophecy is about changing behavior so the worst does not happen.

A prophet is someone who
(1) analyzes the state of the world around us,
(2) compares how things are with how they should be,
(3) warns of what fate awaits if the current course continues, and
(4) urges the appropriate folks to change their ways.

An economist might be “prophetic.” The economist evaluates current business behaviors (how things are) against sound, established economic practice (how things should be). A prophetic economist might have said something like this 5 or 10 years ago: “This risky home-mortgage business will mean trouble. They are lending more than the homes are worth; they are lending more than the people can pay; they are avoiding accountability. If this keeps up, the economy is in for a collapse.” Such a “prophecy” might have helped change what was happening before it resulted in catastrophic collapse.

The Biblical prophet aims for the same kinds of things: to remind people how they ought to be faithful, because bad things tend to happen when we don’t live the way God intended. For a Jewish or Christian prophet, the “standard” or “measure” of how things should be is God’s will, revealed directly to the prophet or through the scriptures. In addition to being God’s son, Jesus was also considered a “prophet,” because he critiqued how things were and told us how they ought to be to conform with God’s reign.

Read a passage from a prophet named Amos (Amos 7.7-17), who lived almost 800 years before Jesus. Amos reminds us that prophets often tell people things they don’t want to hear. Whether we are listening to Amos or Jesus, we must learn to hear the prophet’s voice, to get past our initial resistance, and consider how we ought to change to be more faithful.

What's in your pocket?

Picture the scene in your minds eye. It is a typical Sunday morning worship service, in a church like this one, on a day like today. The communion table is set – beautiful, as usual – the chalice, the loaf, candles lit on either side; the light shining on the table just right. The congregation settles down, back into their seats after the pastor has finished giving thanks over the Eucharist. The familiar words of the hymn just sung are still fresh in everybody’s minds. And all the people sit, in the cool of the sanctuary, as each awaits their turn to approach the Lord’s table; watching fellow church members walk solemnly forward, receive communion and returning to their seats. There are young and old, men and women, approaching the Altar; some with a spring in their step, some with knees aching and backs bowed by years of labor; some look upward expectantly, excitedly into the face of Jesus in the stained-glass window, some cast their eyes down to the floor, humble, serious, deep in thought or prayer.

Some of the congregation watch as old Mr. Jones walks from his usual pew – five rows from the back, left-hand side on the center aisle – to take his place at the altar rail. Everyone knows who he is; a member of this church since he was a baby, 72 years and counting; friendly, popular, respected; president of the bank; officer on the church council, trustee; generous with his money; always involved in mission work; never misses a Sunday. There is nothing really special about his appearance. Some watch him, casually, most distractedly look elsewhere. As Mr. Jones approaches the rail, he bends down to ease himself down on his knees. Suddenly, in one movement, the lapel of his tweed sport coat swings wide open, and toppling out of his well-worn, inside breast pocket falls a small flask of brown liquor. It hits the floor with a loud “clunk,” easily heard throughout the quiet sanctuary. Everyone hears it, even if only those at the Communion rail know what made the sound. Sacrilege … in CHURCH, of all places…. At the LORD’S TABLE!

The cat’s out of the bag, now. Red faced, Mr. Jones reaches out to collect the bottle, lying face up on the carpet in front of the small child kneeling beside him. In attempt to be helpful, Tom, the next closest adult reaches out, scoops up the bottle, and hands it, discretely, without fanfare to his elder friend, Mr. Jones, who is shaking pretty well now. To say he is embarrassed is putting it lightly – humiliated is how he feels. But as Jane, the lay leader assisting with communion stands before him, she makes solid eye contact and, with a smile of grace and sensitivity on her face, places the small piece of bread in his sweating palm. She holds it there and speaks the solemn words, “This is the body of Christ, given for you.”


Do you think that could happen in your church?
Do you think there haven’t been times when people brought something “unacceptable” into the church, into worship? It happens all the time? It may not occur so blatantly, so obviously; but it happens. Whether we mean to or not, we all carry with us those unsightly secrets about ourselves we don’t want others to know. We bring them to church, we bring them to work, we bring them to school, we bring them home. Sometimes they tumble out of our pockets, and our darkest secrets are exposed. Mostly we seem able, through years of practice, to keep our vices, our embarrassments, our secrets secret.

Why did Mr. Jones’ bottle come tumbling out? Was it an accident? Was it carelessness from years hiding that he no longer had to think about? Was it, subconsciously, a call for help? Did he want to confess a drinking problem, want to ask for support to quit? Was it, unintentionally, a sign of inner pain no one new Mr. Jones was feeling? Loneliness, grief, depression, illness?

Our first reaction probably is that it is inappropriate to bring such things into a church, let alone a church at worship. But I want to suggest that it is not. Because we all bring with us these things about ourselves that may be ugly, that are bad for us, that are ruining or making less of our lives; that we try to hide from the world, but we can’t hide them from God, and maybe we should not hide them from each other. Where else is a better place for the wounds, the brokenness, the pain, the sins of our lives than the Lord’s Table? Whether we bring them to worship to confess them and bring them to light and ask for deliverance from them, or we bring them because we haven’t quite figured out they are wrong for us at least we are bringing our authentic selves, the good and the bad, “warts and all,” we are bringing them into the presence of God and into the presence of each other, “This is who I am.”

And God and the rest of us are here to receive you, to gather with you as you gather with us and receive us. We are here to notice when things fall out of each other’s pockets, not to judge and cast stones, as if we were without our own embarrassing stains, and not divert our eyes, not pretend it didn’t happen. But to look into each other’s eyes, aware of each other’s shame and humiliation, and try to reassure each other and say, “This, this gathering, this congregation, this is the body of Christ for you. Don’t be embarrassed. We all have our dark places. God loves us. Jesus forgives us. You are among friends.”


 
Most of you know I recently attended our Annual Conference, that yearly gathering of Western NC United Methodists at Lake Junaluska. Many of you ask how was Conference. And it was fine. That’s how I answer. It’s a meeting. It’s fun to see friends I don’t see much of except at Conference. It’s fun to sleep in a noisy, old boarding house without air conditioning (where I stay) and walk to the different sessions each day. But it’s a business meeting. You do a lot of sitting and listening. People make speeches that are too long. It’s important to be able to vote approval of the conference business – budgets, committees, etc. – but most of the time we are putting a rubber stamp on what other people have done properly. It’s a pain to pay for the costs and the time of the Conference, to be away from home for a meeting that seems so inefficiently run – when you want to just get the business overwith and get on with life! And you begin to think, ‘Couldn’t we just “mail this in?”’ Couldn’t we save everyone a lot of time, expense, and inconvenience with a big conference call?

But the essential thing about Methodist conferencing is, meeting is most of the point. Being together. Annual Conference, like Christian worship, can’t properly be done alone, by teleconference or by television. There are a lot of great preachers on TV, and they are a great source of inspiration, and if you can’t leave home that’s all a lot of people have for worship.
But Christians need to be together. (That’s why churches need to visit their shut ins!!!!)

Christians-being-together is the half the point. Together we greet, support, show concern, feel loved. We rub up against each other, irritate each other. We are present when things fall out of our pockets, when we intend or not to let others see our raw, vulnerable sides. We are here not to judge, but to recognize the brokenness in you is like the brokenness in me and Jesus loves us both anyway. We can’t do those things alone. And we can’t do it if we brush the dirt under the rug and pretend it never happened or it isn’t there.

Maybe it is that vulnerability, maybe it is that prospect of leaving ourselves open to that intensely personal closeness that makes people avoid church. Maybe it is also what draws people in, what people seek in church, in a world where we search for authenticity, where we crave “reality”.” At its best, the church ought to provide the ability to be ourselves without trying, without masks; it gives us the opportunity to meet others who are also real, a place where we can all be ourselves.



What’s in your pocket? What are you hiding? What do you bring with you into the sanctuary, into God’s house you don’t want others to know about? What things do you carry here with you that don’t seem “proper” for God’s house. Is it something embarrassing? Something not quite acceptable in “polite company?”

We’ve all got them. But what better place for us to bring them than here, in the presence of God, in the presence of Christ’s body?

This sermon can be heard by podcast at http://revbob.podbean.com/2010/07/28/july-4-2010/

Together

I am a huge fan of the “digital age,” especially what it is doing for communications. “Social networking” by means of computers is an enormous industry today – tweets, blogs, facebook, podcasting; i-phones, i-pods, blackberries, computers and wi-fi. People, information, services are all more available than ever. Facebook has allowed my to connect with friends, classmates I had not heard from in 20 years, and I probably would lost touch with them forever. The day is already here when business meetings and school classes can be conducted by way of teleconferences, and employees can conduct most of their work at home without commuting.

Communities are no longer limited by geography. What sailing ships once did to extend nations beyond the oceans, what cars and highways once did to spread families across the country, what space travel once did to make that “one giant leap for mankind,” so digital technology has stretched our ability to interact with people all over the globe in real-time.

Yet we can never lose sight of the need for our face-to-face, in-person, in-the-flesh interactions with one another. As valuable as the new technologies are for keeping us connected, there are some things we can only get by being together.

Computers were not something Jesus had to deal with 2,000 years back. There were other, more fundamental forces at work that pulled (and continue to pull) people apart and to fracture human interaction. Jealousy, greed, power, advantage, privilege, hatred, fear, all these things cause people to set up barriers between themselves and others. So Jesus came proclaiming reconciliation and forgiveness, not only with God but between humans themselves. Jesus preached not to be judgmental towards “the outsider” because we ourselves are forgiven of the sin that once made us outsiders to God. Jesus wanted us to be together.

Together we see all the expressions on each other’s faces; we see all the body language – is she happy, sad; is he upright or downcast. Together we get to offer a hug or hold a hand. Together we may enjoy a laugh or we may console a cry. And yes, together we may get on each other’s nerves. Together we may expose a weakness or reveal our shame. Together we may also offer our understanding and forgiveness. Together we have the chance to be our truest, most authentic selves.

Celebrate what it means for us to be together.

Redemption

Redemption, the defeat and healing of Sin, is not something that only involves individual persons. Christians believe that the God who created the universe is working to redeem the entire world from the brokenness of sin. In the context of Christianity, redemption is about restoring, repairing, renewing what was broken by Sin and returning it into its original, perfected condition. Redemption is a bit like the way people restore antique cars, tractors, houses, and all kinds of things, to make them like they were brand new.

The Christian understanding of Redemption is grounded upon several core beliefs: one is that God created everything, and everything God created is good: meaning perfect, wonderful. This is why the Garden of Eden in Genesis 2 is considered “Paradise;” it is simply a glorious place where everything is as God meant it to be. How and why Sin is so destructive is a big topic for another day; for now, let’s just say that Sin disrupted what God made perfect.

Another core Christian belief is that God wants to fix, repair, restore, redeem Creation from its broken condition. Redemption is what the Covenant with Abraham and Israel was about; it’s what the prophets spoke about; it’s what Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection brought about.

Finally, Christians believe that God’s redemptive work will come to an eventual completion, that there is a particular end-result we anticipate. Today’s reading from Revelation 21 speaks of this eventual day. We don’t know when, but we fully expect that one day God will return Creation to its original, perfect condition; and in fact, it will be even better because the problem of Sin will have been dealt with once and for all. We don’t know everything about what the complete redemption of the world will look like, but it appears that heaven and earth will be as one, new creation; that God will dwell among us again as in Eden. We will all live in such perfect understanding and trust of God and each other that there will be no more strife and conflict and disruption of what God made good. This is our expectation not only for life eternal in heaven but also for life on earth.