Temple Tuesday

Temple Tuesday

 

Acts 2:42-47

The believers' common life 

 

2:42 They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.

 

2:43 Awe came upon everyone because many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles.

 

2:44 All who believed were together and had all things in common;

 

2:45 they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need.

 

2:46 Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts,

 

2:47 praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.

 

One of the recent trends in my perusing the weekly Common Lectionary texts for ideas to write a sermon about is that often a single word jumps out at me. I wonder why that particular word was chosen by the text writer, or the translator, which sends me on a bit of a word study. Often, though, it is not the word choice that grabs me, as much as the questions it raises. This week’s message is one of the latter circumstances.

 

Now, this particular text in Acts has always raised questions, especially among Western Christians who relish their bourgeoisie status in “free” capitalist states like the United States. As a pastor, I was often asked, somewhat incredulously, “Did they really support Communism in the early church?” Short answer: No. The earliest Christians were first and foremost, mostly Jewish “commonfolk,” who were either fascinated by Jesus and began following him, or who had been the recipient of one of his many acts of healing and/or mercy, and out of gratitude, signed on. The next largest group of early Christians were former pagans, or those who practiced the Greco-Roman faiths that had a god for everything. As we have covered before, some of these pagan groups engaged in bizarre “worship” practices that could include wild orgies and sexual practice, most of which exploited either prostitutes or young boys—sometimes both. The latter, coupled with the Greco-Roman “bathhouse” culture among men, were the reasons Paul writes what he writes about “homosexuality,” because it was exploiting and corrupting young men. (Similarly, the Old Testament prohibitions about “men lying with men” were condemning the Mid-Eastern practice of raping both men AND women, when conquering a foe, as a sign of dominance and degradation.) Most scholars believe that neither body of prohibitive texts were aimed at persons who simply had a “same sex” preference in terms of life partners, and even the early church left these folk alone.

 

The “had all things in common” text of Acts was more about survival and trying to assure that new-found faith “siblings” weren’t starving or struggling to subsist. Many of these early converts to Christ-following (remember, they weren’t called “Christians” until Antioch) were being ostracized by family and friends, be they Jewish “purists” or members of a pagan, cultish religion. The early church had a “thing” about caring for the “least of these,” and “loving thy neighbor as thyself,” that they had heard somewhere. No “doctrine” of Marxism arises in the church, nor to we read really anything else about this early attempt to meet needs by sharing resources “commonly.” It is clear that this “experiment” doesn’t survive the first century or so of the fledgling church. So you diehard capitalists don’t have to worry…unless you take the “love thy neighbor” and caring for “the least of these” seriously? Jesus didn’t say, “Go and become a socialist,” although socialism in some benign form is a legitimate way to keep people of lower means from starving. Today, we call it “Social Security.”

 

I had to get all of that out of the way because I knew you’d be thinking about it. Believers and their money (resources) are not easily parted. In fact, there is a whole “branch” of Christianity out there that supports the “blessings of wealth” line. You know, “your best life now” thing? Osteen is just the modern incarnation of “Rev. Ike,” a black preacher from my youth whom we used to watch on television. “Money LOVES me!”, he would proclaim, and “You can’t LOSE with the stuff I use!”, meaning that God wants “true believers” to be blessed financially. The good reverend used to tell his TV audiences that if they thought God wanted them to be the “humble poor,” they could send their money to HIM, because God wanted to bless HIM. Not bad work, if you can get it…

 

No, the word that caught my eye was “temple.” The text clearly says they spent “much time together in the temple.” So, the early “Christians” had a “Temple Tuesday”? As I mentioned earlier, the early Christ-followers were of all different religious ilks, including the first-century “nones,” however, most of them came from a Jewish background, since Jesus was himself a Jew. But this text says they did the temple stuff “together,” meaning it was an inclusive undertaking. A bit of research says that the temple “tolerated” and “hosted” these early gatherings, so as not to disenfranchise the many Christ-followers who practiced their Christianity as a subset of their Jewish faith. Just as the Essenes were a “sect” of Judaism, so many of the early Christians saw themselves in this regard. (The Essenes would have been welcomed into the temple, too, had they not been kind of xenophobic and hanging out in the desert.) This idea of “Temple Tuesday” fascinated me, especially in its apparent inclusiveness. Some commentaries said that the band of Christ-followers probably were welcomed into some of the meeting or common areas of the temple, since they were not all of Jewish heritage, but probably not into some of the specifically Jewish “worship” or Torah study parts of the complex. I can see this. 

 

Today, many of our churches (certainly some in survival mode) rent out “space” to community groups, or even other religious gatherings. Before I arrived on the scene, my first church had rented out the entire educational wing, which was not being used by the church, to a group from the local high school, that turned it into a giant, month-long, Halloween haunted house, as a fundraiser. I tactfully shut it down when I found out that the Christian TV station in a neighboring community was slandering the church for doing this (a fundamentalist view, for sure, but one that was certainly harmful PR for that local church, especially if we were to turn around its fortunes), AND when a brief study of the utilities costs of the haunted house showed that renting it out was showing a substantial deficit. Another of my congregations rented provided space for a group of charismatic Roman Catholics—they called themselves the “Children of God Community”—to meet, as they were not welcome to assemble in the local Catholic Church. It seems that the Vatican was more restrictive than the Methodists, if they weren’t sure if they “endorsed” the religious practices of one of their own “sects.” And while their theology wasn’t exactly Wesleyan, we went by the old John Wesley chestnut, “If your heart is of my heart (holding common ‘essential’ Christian beliefs), I give you the hand of fellowship.” Besides, they were really nice people, and their kids were classmates of our kids. 

 

This last part is my central point. Inclusiveness, which was a hallmark of Jesus and the early Christian movement, doesn’t have to mean we all believe exactly the same thing. Methodists, it turns out, latched on, thanks to Mr. Wesley, to this early church concept, and functioned as a VERY inclusive group, welcoming many “strangers” into our church AND ministering cooperatively with other believers whose doctrines were divergent from our own. That is, up until the various splits, schisms, and now this modern “disaffiliation” took hold. The Baptists are even worse. Thanks to numerous differences in doctrine, dogmatic “wars” among their preachers and theologians, and various schisms, there are over 100 different forms of “Baptists.” I don’t know how they keep things straight. 

 

On one hand, I have often defended the differing “denominations” of the Christian faith by suggesting that we all tend to “find our friends” at a party. If we’re into sewing, or cars, or reading good books, we will drift around until we find like-minded folk, among whom we are most comfortable. And people who are looking for a place to nurture their spirituality are like this, too. Hence, churches of various styles of worship, musical expression, and types of theological divergence have sprung up, and folk have affiliated, accordingly. I have tried to apply this same reasoning in order to come to terms with the disaffiliation that my denomination recently went through, but I find it hard to be tolerant, given the nasty—and often deceptive—tactics employed by those driving the movement. Secondarily, there has been a tendency for many who have disaffiliated to adopt the position that the United Methodist Church is “wrong” or “apostate” in its more inclusive stance, theologically, and claim the high ground of doctrinal correctness and “appropriate” scriptural “authority.” I really struggle with this tact, on their part. (Full disclosure: One of the most historic, heavily resourced, and beloved churches I served was persuaded to disaffiliate by my successor, who then became a member of the hierarchy in the “new” denomination.)

 

As I said in a recent sermon, quoting the late Rodney King, “Why can’t we all just get along?” It is clear from this text that both the early Christians AND even the Jewish temple did their best to live this kind of inclusive and tolerant faith perspective. The early church was more about sharing than power, more about living the teachings of Jesus than fighting over them, and more about being trustworthy than sorting out who had “more true” than the next person. If there is an “early church” concept I would like to see us emulate, it would be this “commonness” of faith and openness of fellowship. If there is any one who should be deeply grieved over what has transpired in the church down through history, it would be the Holy Spirit. Maybe it is time to look to another of the practices of these early believers?

 

That would be what this text says in verse 46: they “broke bread” in their homes together. Their homes was a “safe space” to develop meaningful relationships, apart from the antiseptic temple grounds. Oh, they had their “Temple Tuesdays” where they could maintain their former religious relationships, and probably get some good, historically based teachings, but the real growth of the early Christ-followers happened in their homes! And this formula worked quite well, as the Acts text tells us that goodwill abounded and was shared, and that “the Lord added many to their number of those who were saved.” God honored their inclusiveness, their hospitality, their open-hearted goodwill, and their compassion for each other, and their neighbors. That works, friends!

 

There is something about this “welding together” of the “Temple Tuesday” and the home-based fellowship and relationship building that we should rediscover, in my opinion. Our churches are seeing less and less folk “interested” in coming, and maybe it is because the “home” element has been lost? And I am aware that a number of efforts to start “home” churches have likewise failed or fell flat, either because some “big fish” in those little ponds attempted to dominate, or because the resources and more “formal” worship setting represented by the local church facility (and history) was excluded. Perhaps the “magic formula” of the church that God blessed was this marriage of institution AND home-based fellowship? I do know this: if less and less “believers” continue to eschew “Temple Tuesdays,” the institutional church is doomed, and probably within a couple of decades. Is Acts trying to warn the church that it takes two elements to build a sustainable religious community? The institutional church provides a safe, sane, and “educated” framework for Christians to grow, learn, and come together to serve the work of the Gospel. The home-based fellowship may be the “incarnational” entity that could welcome “seekers” and invitees into the faith, something we are beginning to miss out on. Just a few biblical thoughts this week as “grist for the mill.” Think about it. Amen.

 

 

What's That You Say?

 

What’s That You Say?

[A version of this message will be preached on 4/19/26 at the McKnight and Epworth UMCs]

 

Psalm 116:1-4, 12-19

I will call upon God 

 

116:1 I love the LORD because God has heard my voice and my supplications.

 

116:2 Because God inclined the divine ear to me, therefore I will call on God as long as I live.

 

116:3 The snares of death encompassed me; the pangs of Sheol laid hold on me; I suffered distress and anguish.

 

116:4 Then I called on the name of the LORD, "O LORD, I pray, save my life!"

 

116:12 What shall I return to the LORD for all God’s bounty to me?

 

116:13 I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the LORD;

 

116:14 I will pay my vows to the LORD in the presence of all God’s people.

 

116:15 Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of the faithful ones.

 

116:16 O LORD, I am your servant; I am your servant, the child of your serving girl. You have loosed my bonds.

 

116:17 I will offer to you a thanksgiving sacrifice and call on the name of the LORD.

 

116:18 I will pay my vows to the LORD in the presence of all God’s people,

 

116:19 in the courts of the house of the LORD, in your midst, O Jerusalem. Praise the LORD!

 

Friends, this sermon has the potential to be the most boring one you’ve heard/read! If I told you I was going to talk about “prayer,” what might be your reaction? B-O-R-I-N-G, I’ll bet! And not because we aren’t interested in prayer, but precisely because we ARE! Don’t all of us want to understand how prayer “works,” and how to better DO it? Don’t we all want to have our prayers answered? Personally, I would like to understand the “logic” behind what the church has DONE with prayer, down through the centuries, that something so interesting to all of us has been brought to the point where just saying we’re going to talk about it, invokes BOREDOM? And even worse, don’t our eyes get glazed over when someone says, “Let’s PRAY”? Prayer doesn’t deserve this. No, not at all.

 

The word “prayer” appears over 650 times in the Bible, at least according to Google. Amazon alone offers over 70,000 books on prayer. Why, even the twelve men closest to Jesus asked, “Lord, teach us how to pray.” It’s been a hot topic since Adam first “walked with God in the evening” in Genesis, and I assume got even hotter after the whole serpent/tree of knowledge of good and evil incident, and being banished from those evening walks. The good news for Adam—and for all of humanity—is that God never stopped listening.

 

This piece from Psalm 116 tells us that right in verse one:  I love the LORD because God has heard my voice and my supplications. I admit, I’m tempted to ask the psalmist right from the outset, “Do you love the Lord just BECAUSE God listens to our prayers?” I know my wife tells me she loves me a little more when I listen to her, so maybe it’s a thing. Now, right there is a clue as to what prayer is all about—Listening to each other. We might even say being PRESENT to one another. Isn’t there something about being “present” with someone you love that just feels right? And doesn’t this presence often lead to further openness and conversation, both of which may lead to self-revelation and even self-understanding? It certainly may lead to understanding others—through presence, listening, and conversation, that is. So, what IS prayer, and what ISN’T prayer? Let’s think about these questions for a moment or two.

 

It’s easier to address the question of what prayer “isn’t,” by suggesting that there is very little that can NOT be offered as prayer to the Divine. Fear, anger, wonder, confusion—they all can be. Art, music, drama, comedy—they can be, too. Not all words are formed into prayer, and yet, not all prayers that use words—even many words—communicate what we really want to say to God, do they? I remember back in elementary school, the teacher asked the members of our class to write our own poems. Most of the ones that emerged rhymed, usually at the expense of having much meaning or even coherence. I was that student who wrote in more blank verse, but tried to cover a subject that intrigued me, stirring the narrative. My teacher loved it. The rest of the class avoided me for about a month, not sure of my sanity. Praying is a lot like that. Aren’t we afraid of forming a prayer that scares God away? If you want to get a room of Methodists quiet, ask one of them to lead a prayer at the beginning or end of a meeting or a Bible study. We like those people in the room, for the most part, and don’t want to scare THEM, let alone God, so we go quiet, hoping the pastor will realize the silence means we think she/he should do the public praying.

 

I like what the psalmist says in verse two: because God listens (literally, “inclined the Divine ear”) to us, we will “call on God as long as [we] live.” On the humorous side of this, don’t we generally avoid that person who just keeps talking because we have shown a willingness to listen? (Pulpit preachers can be that person, unfortunately.) However, it seems true that God DOES “incline the Divine ear” and never shows weariness at listening to us, regardless of how petty our prayers may be. Of course, in this Psalm, the psalmist specifically mentions the salvific prayer: “O Lord, I pray, SAVE MY LIFE!” From a spiritual aspect, this is a prayer God always answers, especially when we hold this request against the fact that God sent God’s only begotten Son into the world to do just that! Sometimes, though, the salvific prayer is literally a prayer asking to be spared or rescued. I once heard the testimony of a young women who told of falling down a deep water well on the farm on which she was raised. She leaned over to “unstick” a bucket she was lowering into the well, lost her balance, and fell in. In the split second she was falling, she cried out, “God, SAVE me!” She survived the fall, and was rescued to safety by her family, but her story didn’t end there. She went on to say that something “spiritual” happened to her in that incident, and her feelings about God, the Christian faith she was learning about in Sunday School, and the directions her life would take all changed. From that moment on, she proclaimed herself “saved,” and not just from a watery death. So, you see, sometimes a salvific prayer may invoke God’s “rescuing” interests across both physical AND spiritual planes. 

 

Let’s go back to that “presence” thing again. My lovely wife and I have been together now for over 49 years, as of next month. I know this may sound unusual, but both my relationships with Dara AND with God continue to be challenging, FRESH, and deeply fulfilling. I know I’ve said this before, but I really am almost daily trying to convince Dara she didn’t make a BIG MISTAKE back on May 28 of 1977, and I think I’m almost there. Regarding my relationship with God, while I believe God IS STILL listening intently to my prayers, I’m almost daily trying to convince God that I’M still listening to that “still, small voice” of the Divine. As we know, but struggle to practice, prayer “cuts” both ways. Our relationship to God is in so many ways quite parallel to our relationship with our spouse or significant other. Permit me to go a little deeper into this. I love spending time with Dara, even when we are just being “present” to each other. This may be while we are sitting on the sofa together reading, listening to music, or enjoying one of the rare TV shows or movies we both like. We may or may not engage in any conversation during these times, but presence counts for something. During those times, especially when the shared activity is reading or “thinking” silently, I find myself thinking about her, often reminiscing over our life together, our family, our long history of ups and downs, challenges and blessings. Something I’m reading may provoke this, or it may be spontaneous. I may even be compelled to share one of these thoughts out loud with her, which often spurs further conversation, or a brief moment of shared intimacy. This same kind of thing happens when I take the time to be present to the Divine. I’m convinced the whole time in such “meditation” is a prayer, and occasionally, out of the silent shared presence, an actual “conversation” between the Divine and me may erupt. Either of us may initiate it, but it is always meaningful, even powerful. Do you see what I’m saying here? God is always “in the room” with me in these times, and God’s ear is inclined in my direction. It is up to me to incline mine in God’s direction, if it is to be a conversation. THIS is certainly just like what happens between Dara and me. 

 

True confession: often when Dara and I travel distances in the car, there is silence. Two rather talkative people tend to ride in silence, just enjoying the journey. However, when something does “erupt” in the way of conversation, it is often important, deeply revealing, and quite meaningful. Is not our spiritual journey like this? If that is not your experience, practice a little “presence” with God, and you may find your “prayer life” starts to be anything but boring!

 

I’m not here to give you “five ways to pray more effectively.” Over 70,000 books have been written (I’m guessing WAY more than that, down through the ages!) on the subject. When Jesus’ disciples asked him to teach them to pray, he gave us this framework:

 

*Address God and offer “praise,” which is kind of like the “Dear Sir” of a letter.

(Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name.)

 

*Let God know you are on board with trying to make Earth look a lot more like Heaven, or at least living according to heavenly values, and that you are OK with those values yourself.

(Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.)

 

*Don’t be afraid to ask God for the basics—“our daily bread”—but note that Jesus uses “OUR” language, not “I” language, here. The “daily bread” is for our neighbor as well as ourselves.

(Give us this day our daily bread.)

 

*Confess our sins and ask for forgiveness, but don’t forget to pay it forward.

(And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.)

 

*Ask God for the wisdom to avoid the inevitable temptations to live more according to “ME” than “THEE.” Evil lives in the personal ambitions, personal desires, and personal “details,” especially when selfishness becomes the grease.

(And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.)

 

*Remind God whom you believe is in charge, and don’t term limit the Almighty. This is a forever prayer.

(For Thine is the Kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever.)

 

*Don’t forget the “Amen,” an untranslatable word (it’s transliterated the same from Hebrew to Greek to English), that I once heard an old preacher say meant, “I’m in favor of it, and here’s my share of the cost.”

 

This is really all you need to know about the mechanics of prayer. Oh, you can categorize prayer into “adoration,” “confession,” “supplication” (for yourself), and “intercession” (for others), but what really counts is the motivation for the conversation. That works for my wife, too. If I bring something up that obviously from a selfish angle, she sniffs that out like a mouse to cheese, and the results are rarely what I hope for. But when my aim is for the good of “us” and the relationship, the channel to that “inclined ear” is a bit less noisy. 

 

While that popular movie of a few years back—“Bruce Almighty”—is moderately entertaining, the one part of it that really grabbed me was when “Bruce,” who has won the “God for a Day” contest, is plopped in front of the Divine computer and told to answer the world’s prayers. In the scene, Jim Carrey (Bruce) decides to make good on one of his personal beliefs, namely that a “good God” would always answer a “true believer’s” prayers in the affirmative. So, rather than incline his prayer ear to each individual prayer (and there were billions popping up), he just said “YES” to them all. The chaos that ensued was monumental, in a moment that should have made all of us think. There is a reason that when we pray, the answer is not always “yes.” Sometimes it is “maybe,” or “wait a while,” but even a “no” doesn’t signal God’s lack of interest. Quite the contrary. Jesus said it best: “What loving parent, when asked by its child for bread, would give it a stone?” As all parents know, however, sometimes a “no” is best for the child in the moment.

 

There are those who, thanks at least in part to the same kind of philosophical logic employed in “Bruce Almighty,” have a hard time believing that the Creator of the whole universe DOES “incline” the Divine ear to the simple prayers of an individual creature, especially one who may or may not practice “presence” with God on a regular basis. The biblical witness, and the testimony of billions of people down through the ages, are clear evidence that God DOES listen. And the fact that so many of us have said “yes” to God’s call into the ministry or to ministries of all kinds, as laity, means that we ARE also doing a bit of listening on our part. 

 

If there is anything that I would like to suggest to you, the listener/reader, though, it is to begin a regular practice of being “present” to God, to the universe around you, and to the inner dialogue going on in your own head, and to do it without “external” stimuli, just in the silence. I guarantee that you will be amazed at what happens when you do! Don’t always make your prayers a “to do” list for God. Remember, as I’ve said many times before, God is NOT the genie in the lamp, waiting to grant you your three “wishes,” and prayer is not “rubbing the lamp” correctly to get the genie’s attention. Effective prayer is a loving presence between ourselves and the Divine, and it may or may not involve actual conversation. And prayer, as Jesus taught it, uses more “we,” “us,” and “our” language than “I,” “me,” and “mine.” What is most intriguing about all of this is that because God is a loving parent, we should never be afraid to tell God the desires of our heart or to share our deepest needs. What keeps these things from being selfish is that we understand the “Bruce Almighty” lesson, that in the best interests of the Kingdom of God, not all of our prayers can be answered with a “yes.” Amen.

The Real McCoy

The Real McCoy

 

1 Peter 1:3-9

New birth to a living hope 

 

1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead

 

1:4 and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you,

 

1:5 who are being protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

 

1:6 In this you rejoice, even if now for a little while you have had to suffer various trials,

 

1:7 so that the genuineness of your faith--being more precious than gold that, though perishable, is tested by fire--may be found to result in praise and glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.

 

1:8 Although you have not seen him, you love him, and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy,

 

1:9 for you are receiving the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

 

 

“Genuine” is a beleaguered word in our day, isn’t it? I have two cars with “genuine” imitation leather seats. What does that even mean? Did the material come from an imitation cow? For drying my cars after a bath, I purchased a “man-made chamois.” I have to wonder what THAT animal looked like? Honestly, a word that should be getting more airplay today is “Disingenuous,” don’t you think? It’s getting so when someone says, “This is the god’s truth,” you had better grab your wallet tightly, and close your mind to what comes next! Back in the day, as they say, if one wanted to pronounce something as “genuine,” one would say, “It’s the real McCoy.” While I grew up hearing that phrase as a stamp of authenticity, and have even used it from time to time, I had to look it up as to its etymology. The phrase comes either from Elijah McCoy, an inventor of a high-quality lubricator for steam engines in 1872, when train engineers said they only wanted “the real McCoy,” or from William McCoy, a notorious rum runner during Prohibition, known for smuggling “the Real McCoy,” a non-counterfeit liquor. Given the current state of world affairs, I think I will go with the boozy one. I could use a still “McCoy.”

 

Being a major “Trekkie” (fan of the Star Trek genre of Sci-Fi), I would guess that when Gene Roddenbery wanted to create a ship’s doctor who would be a “standard” of truth and trustworthiness, he intentionally named him “McCoy” for a reason. After all, when you are millions of parsecs out in space, who wants a snake oil doctor, or a lamebrained antivaxxer?

 

Unfortunately, we have come to be quite skeptical of things that self-pronounce as “genuine.” Here are some things that we patently distrust, when a claim of “genuineness” is made about them: politicians; fuel-efficient vehicles; soothing music; pain-free dentistry; blockbuster films; non-partisan media; secure Internet; free banking; seedless watermelon; comfortable jeans; and lifetime anything. (I’m sure you have your own lists…) 

 

ARE there things we DO believe are “genuine” in their substance or claims? As a holder of three degrees that helped hone me as a critical thinker, I might suggest “higher education.” A good book? Some name-brands in clothing or shoes? Apple computers? (Yes, I’m an Apple geek.) Some jewels, since they are fairly easy to have authenticated. Nobel Prize winners. I DO hope you have your own lists, as I’m really coming up short on things that are “genuine,” in this culture!

 

And now the big question: WHAT is “genuine faith,” given that this biblical author suggests that the “genuineness of [your] faith is more “precious than gold”? We can certainly go down a lot of proverbial “rabbit holes” here, but let’s see what we can come up with on this.

 

At the outset of our investigation, I might suggest that the term “genuine faith” is a type of oxymoron. If one takes “faith” to mean something we believe in, but that may not be “provable” in the scientific sense, then how would “genuine” apply to it? If it is something I believe, who is in a position to question what I believe? If I TRULY believe the earth is flat, then my faith in this postulate is indeed genuine, isn’t it? (In this case, my belief has nothing to do with truth or reality, but the question still applies.) My belief in a Divine Creator/God certainly is genuine, but someone may call it otherwise, if they disagree either with the basic premise of my belief, OR the “boundaries” or doctrines I may superimpose on it. I think it is safe to say that any kind of “faith” may be considered “genuine” if the believer believes it. This necessarily moves us to the next questions regarding what does this “faith” mean to their life, and/or how do they “practice” this faith. This is where it gets interesting, and where the I Peter passage begins to apply.

 

Suffice it to say we can “believe” in things that may have nothing to do with how we live. I can believe in ghosts, for instance, but this probably does not affect how I carry out my days, other than to introduce a new fear to the darkness. But when we talk about having a “faith,” I would suggest that this moves “belief” along to some kind of systemic “practice” for us, for even if I have “faith” in a friend or loved one, this usually implies a level of trust and interest that DOES alter how I live, at least in reference to this person. Religious faith naturally implies some system of “beliefs” that usually includes certain practices such as prayer and meditation, some form of “worship” or intentional focus on the deity in question, and possibly even a “community” relationship to others who share this faith. As we move along this progressive continuum of faith, this is where the “genuine” term begins to apply.

 

I would understand that, for the Petrine author, “genuine” faith is one that is most assuredly practiced on a daily basis, if not “woven” into the entirety of the life of the individual. It implies that this faith is held in common with the author’s, as well as others in the “body of Christ,” since these are Christian scriptures. A genuine faith in this context is one that has such a high priority that the “believer” is even willing to lose temporal assets to gain salvation, and/or to make personal sacrifices to advance the “cause” of her/his faith. The Petrine author’s understanding of “genuine” here would be quite counter to what Dietrich Bonhoeffer called “cheap grace.” A genuine faith comes with a price, both for the “Savior,” Jesus, who died for it, and for the believer, who must commit to living out the faith and teachings inherited directly from Christ and nurtured through the church. If we take a mental leap of faith to assert that Peter was the author of this text (even though most scholars see it as a product of some disciple of Peter’s), we get a strong endorsement of both the sacrifice necessary to hold a “genuine” faith, and the commitment to standing with the persecuted early Christian faith community. A disingenuous faith would be one worn loosely, with little commitment to stand up to cultural adversity towards it, and with a lack of willingness to “work” to advance it, through mission, ministry, and witness. “Faux Christians” were not only useless to the early Christian movement, but in some cases, they may have even been dangerous, especially during the times of highest persecution by Roman authorities.

 

Take note of some of the elements this author lists for a “genuine faith”: imperishable; undefiled; and unfading. Genuine faith does not fade like an old Polaroid, nor does it “run out,” especially in the time of the most need. And the one who professes it does not tarnish it by hypocritical actions or attitudes. I once got in trouble with a parishioner when I suggested that “libertarian” views ran askance of the Christian faith. Where “libertarians” tend to believe in unencumbered personal liberties, Christians believed in putting our liberty in subjection to the gospel, the doctrines of our particular faith community, and the wider “good” of the community at large (love of “neighbor”). In the current political climate, it is hard for the Christian to justify some of the violent tactics being employed against refugees and immigrants, not to mention attacks on sovereign nations, motivated by our own interests, with little regard for the people of the countries under our attack. These kinds of things “tarnish” or defile the Christianity of those engaging in or justifying these kinds of actions. Likewise, at a personal level, hypocritical standards and “rights” claimed that denigrate or ignore the concerns of others, reflect very poorly on the Christian faith community when the individual in question confesses the faith. 

 

The Petrine author is trying to give us some help in understanding what a “Real McCoy” faith looks like. The Christian believer understands that her/his faith is a gift of God’s grace in Jesus Christ. The “Real McCoy” believer knows that her/his life must be lived in the wider community of believers, and that personal rights take a back seat to values that can be shared by that community, and that work to the betterment of not just that community, but the world, as we are ALL children of God. The “Real McCoy” Christian also understands that a genuine faith may also mean personal “sacrifice” or investment of time, talents, and financial resources to advance the cause of the Gospel and build up the body of Christ. Unlike what is sometimes hawked by the enriched TV evangelists of our time, the “best life now” of the Real McCoy Christian is one lived to the glory of God, and for others, not one that brings many earthly rewards. It is also my conviction that one can substitute “the Kingdom of God” for “heaven” in this narrative, in that the author believed in the shared work of bringing God’s Kingdom into fruition NOW and not waiting for the eschaton for it to be accomplished. Seeing God’s Kingdom fully realized in our time is truly the “Real McCoy” of your “best life now.”

 

As a Christian of the Wesleyan persuasion, I resonate with what this scriptural author is telling us. This is both a “hard” and yet a practical faith to have, life, and keep “genuine.” If our life is not yet evidence of the change Christ has wrought in us, and of the Holy Spirit’s presence and work in us, then we have more work to do. And a genuine faith fully understands that we do! Mr. Wesley called this endeavor “going on to perfection,” remembering that “perfecting” and “perfect” are two different things. The work of “perfecting” our faith is real—the Real McCoy, indeed. Amen.

 

Never Give Up, Never Surrender

 

Never Give Up, Never Surrender!

 

Acts 10:34-43

 

10:34 Then Peter began to speak to them: "I truly understand that God shows no partiality,

 

10:35 but in every people anyone who fears him and practices righteousness is acceptable to him. 

 

10:36 You know the message he sent to the people of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ--he is Lord of all.

 

10:37 That message spread throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John announced:

 

10:38 how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power; how he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him.

 

10:39 We are witnesses to all that he did both in Judea and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree,

 

10:40 but God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear,

 

10:41 not to all the people but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses and who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.

 

10:42 He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one ordained by God as judge of the living and the dead.

 

10:43 All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name."

 

 

You might recognize the title of this Easter sermon. It is the “rallying cry” of the protagonist of the 1999 sci-fi spoof, Galaxy Quest. Thinking about what to say about Easter 2026, as we Christians celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ, it is what came to mind—the statement, not the film, although it is a “fun favorite” of mine. What can a retired preacher say about Easter that hasn’t been said a thousand times, already? This is the challenge, isn’t it? Or IS it? There was a time in my ministry when I just decided to “tell the story” of that first Easter and let it stand on its own, and there is certainly logical support for this approach. The story has power, regardless of what one “believes” about the resurrection. Are there different beliefs about it? There certainly are.

 

There are those who suggest that the “need” for Jesus to have been physically resurrected is overstated, and that his life, teachings, and his willingness to submit himself to the authorities and the cross are “enough.” They further suggest that the “resurrection” is a spiritual state that evolved because the efficacy of Jesus’ teaching and example “would not die.” Proof of this is that we Christians are still here. The faith is still vital and growing, in some parts of the world, and the church—in its MANY forms—is still here. These facts may be the very thing that disputes the “spiritual” or “virtual” resurrection concept, however. Would the eleven surviving weenies who ran and hid after Jesus was crucified have summoned the courage to visit the heavily-guarded tomb, after the brave women went first, and excitedly gave the disciples their eye-witness account of the Risen Christ? Would they have continued, then, to witness, preach, and spread the faith germinated by Jesus throughout the known world, even in the face of oppression and threat of violence? Historically, we know that each of them eventually died a martyr’s death. Would they have had the courage to face death, unless something had turned them significantly from their initial fear that “we may be next” after Jesus was brutally killed? The best argument for the miracle of the resurrection of Jesus Christ is the bravery of the men AND the women, going forward, who would sacrifice everything to spread the Gospel message. The fear that gripped them was blown away by the same force that “ejected” the stone from the garden tomb—the total resurrection of their Lord.

 

I say “total” in that the story of the resurrection is more than a body being “raised” from a dead state. Modern medical science can perform this “miracle” and does so regularly. Yes, I know that it usually doesn’t happen after three days, but my point is that what God is up to in the resurrection is far more than just a divine form of CPR. Our theology says that Jesus was raised “incorruptible.” He died a physical being, but was raised as a “hybrid” of both physical and eternal, no longer to be tempted by sin, no longer to be threatened again by death, and no longer to be infected by any passing disease. Paul calls him the “Second Adam,” the “firstborn of the dead.” The Jesus that the disciples will eventually see just float off toward Heaven in the clouds, is the same Jesus whom Thomas got to physically touch, and who ate fish with them on the shore of Galilee. The epistle writer of I John 3:2 wrote: Dear friends, we are God’s children, and it hasn’t yet appeared what we will be. We know that when he appears we will be like him, because we’ll see him as he is. The writer is obviously referring to the Risen Christ, who they believed to be the “prototype” of what the redeemed will be “like” ourselves in eternity. The resurrection is the crowning “achievement” of the Christ event—the “firstborn” of the human/spiritual being of what God’s people “will be.” Even as the Christ Event “saved” humanity from our own selfishness, short-sightedness, and sin, so the Risen Christ leads us into eternity with the hope of an “incorruptible” life. This is the ultimate promise of Easter, but again, it’s not what came to mind, as I pondered today’s text.

 

The “Never give up, never surrender” line from the movie came to be for two reasons. The first has to do with the early church, part of the story of which Peter is demonstrating in the text from Acts. Though their encounters with the Risen Christ energized Peter and the disciples to get about the mission Jesus had given them—to “go into all the world to preach the gospel, baptizing in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit”—they faced fierce opposition, and as mentioned earlier, even eventual martyrdom in the name of Jesus. And yet, they forged ahead. Their motto easily could have been, “Never give up, never surrender!” One need only to read the accounts throughout the book of Acts, and to read the chronicles of the Apostle Paul to see this spirit driving the ministry and outreach of the early church, not as a “battle cry,” but as a benevolent call to spread the love and grace of God in Jesus Christ. This they did, and down through the centuries, women and men of great courage continued the quest. We are still here as people of faith because they DID never give up, nor surrender to fear or crippling doubts. This history, too, is what our Easter celebrations are all about!

 

But there is another reason for my momentary preoccupation with this rallying cry, and it has to do with God. You see, humanity has not made it easy on God to forgive and redeem us. As a species, we regularly resist God’s actions to reconcile with us, and to facilitate our reconciling with each other. While I believe the redeeming action of God was “set loose” on the world through the Christ Event, even manifesting God’s “saving” love through the other major religious traditions with which we share this planet, we continue to fight for the “high ground” and oppose those who don’t believe exactly as WE believe, and this extends even to the factions within the Christian faith. I recently heard a story about a United Methodist colleague who followed a much more “conservative” pastor into a church, and was told after a few weeks of ministering to this new congregation that they were “praying for his salvation,” for he didn’t preach like he was “saved.” How hard that must have been to hear, especially as a dedicated Christian pastor with a vital testimony, but apparently not one that matched up with these people. (I am aware that I have colleagues who have “prayed for my salvation” over the years because I believe in loving, cooperative interfaith relationships, and in full inclusion of our LGBTQ+ siblings into the life and ministry of the Christian church.) I’m quite sure Christ himself grieves when yet another church schism or “disaffiliation” tears asunder God’s people who have been REDEEMED by Christ. As I might anthropomorphize God, superimposing my own feelings on the Divine, I could imagine God getting angry with God’s people, mirroring the “Noah’s Ark” Bible myth that postulates this very thing, leading to a water-born mass extinction. However, it is clear this is NOT the nature of God, The God of Easter has made it clear that God will NOT GIVE UP on humanity, and will NEVER SURRENDER the human race, nor any other part of the creation, to the base instincts, or the devil’s deception that might destroy us. 

 

We are living in precarious times. As I write this, we are at war with one of the ancient cultures of the Middle East, warring against them alongside the people God first called “Israel.” And to what end? In our own nation, we are a deeply divided people, with political and socially motivated violence against others becoming far too common. Our economic disparity is freshly asserting itself as a factor that further separates us into the “haves” and “have nots,” in this country, negating the high ideals upon which the nation was founded. Everywhere I look, I’m seeing signs of the degeneration being accelerated by these ungodly events, attitudes, and mindsets. The sadness I feel when important moral aims like inclusiveness, anti-racist policies, and empowering women in business and leadership are being dispatched as “woke,” a denigrating term being coined by some who choose to roll back the clock to the 1950s, when white people “reigned supreme.” Precarious times, indeed. However, the hope of Easter is that God is not giving up on us, and neither is God waving the white flag (and yes, don’t miss my double meaning in this phrase!). The reach and power of the Christ Event will not be denied; God will not surrender to our human desire to “run the show,” especially when the show we want to run leaves so many rejected, disenfranchised, and marginalized. The hope of Easter is that, as the old hymn says, “God’s TRUTH is marching on.” The Risen Christ is still among us and the Spirit of Jesus is not without her prodigious power to resurrect, redeem, and heal! 

 

Friends, Christ is RISEN! He is RISEN INDEED. Never give up, never surrender!” As Rob Bell says in his best-selling book, LOVE WINS! Amen.

The Dark of Noon

 

The Dark of Noon 

Matthew 27:38-45

 

27:38 Then two bandits were crucified with him, one on his right and one on his left.

 

27:39 Those who passed by derided him, shaking their heads

 

27:40 and saying, "You who would destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself! If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross."

 

27:41 In the same way the chief priests also, along with the scribes and elders, were mocking him, saying,

 

27:42 "He saved others; he cannot save himself. He is the King of Israel; let him come down from the cross now, and we will believe in him.

 

27:43 He trusts in God; let God deliver him now, if he wants to; for he said, 'I am God's Son.'"

 

27:44 The bandits who were crucified with him also taunted him in the same way.

 

27:45 From noon on, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon.

 

 

It was that last verse that caught my attention this week, as I prepared this message for “Palm/Passion Sunday.” By the way, did any of you pastors out there have parishioners who panicked when they heard that you decided to preach on the “Passion,” rather than on the “cloak and jagger” story of the Palms? They usually remember how this often leads us to read the entire Passion narrative, which takes about 15 minutes to read aloud, but rarely then did we shorten our own remarks, accordingly, meaning the sermon-con-scripture is a marathon. One of my irreverent parishioners once said, “It took Jesus less time to die on the cross than it did to read the story of it in church, today.” He was probably right.

 

While we only have the Gospel narratives as the historical record of exactly what happened, both on “Palm Sunday” and the crucifixion, and of course they don’t agree at all, it IS the history we have, so we’ll treat it accordingly. However, if we allow each of the Gospel writers to have their reasons for what they include or redact of those events, we can “guess” why they might have made the choices they do. A good example is the story of Jesus being crucified between two “bandits” or thieves. Matthew includes this, but just as one of the entities who were mocking Jesus, along with “those who passed by” and the chief priests and religious leaders. Isn’t it interesting that these bandits, religious leaders, and the riff-raff are of the same mind in doing this? For those of us who ARE religious leaders, it sure sounds like the wrong crowd to be seen with. 

 

In the longer rendering (I’ve chosen only a few key verses for this week’s Palm Sunday message) of Matthew’s version, he tells us of Barabbas. Given a choice between a man who taught and lived a higher morality and both from a “love thy neighbor” plane, and Barabbas, a murderer and insurrectionist, they chose the latter. Doesn’t say much for the voting public, does it? If you are looking for the agar that nourishes the gross bacteria of society, look no farther. As the comic strip “Pogo” said many years ago, “We have met the enemy, and he is US.”

 

This shoddy human behavior leads us to my main point today, which was spurred by the last verse of this pericope: “From noon on, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon.” Why the darkness? (Let us please ignore the science of HOW it got dark from Noon until 3:00PM. It could have been a storm front, or a solar eclipse, I suppose, or it could have been a “miracle” wherein God suspended the natural laws and just made it dark.) The question I’d like to investigate is not “how,” but “why.” Did it get dark because God was grieving the death of Jesus? Some have suggested this. Was it as a sign for those who voted for Barabbas, or for the ones who had Jesus crucified? It might have been a bit disconcerting for the “mob” who shouted, “Giv e us BARABBAS!” to see God darken the SUN, don’t you think? It might also have caused the chief priests and religious leaders to check their egotistical theology that condemned Jesus. I guess we may not ever know the answer to this question on this side of glory, but let me suggest an idea.

 

God made it dark to mirror the “ease” with which the human soul can “go dark.” Mobs form quite easily, don’t they? We can fall for temptation almost at the drop of a hat. Here’s an exercise for you: think of a neighbor you “like,” and list why you like them; now think of a neighbor you have issues with, and list the reasons you DON’T “like” them. My guess is, the latter case is easier to prosecute for most of us. We “go dark” easily. Having worked with both parties trying to save a marriage, and others who have suffered a divorce, I can testify that it often takes some serious prompting to get the would-be marriage savers to list the “good” things or the things they appreciate about their partner, while most of the ones who are going through a divorce have little trouble coming up with both the reasons (in some cases “rationalizations”) for why they are divorcing, AND the proverbial “50 ways to leave a lover.” Going negative (dark) is like diving a submarine—going down is much easier than coming back up, but we should ask ourselves, which is more important? 

 

Did God’s Noon to Three “lights out” serve as God’s disappointment with what humanity has done with the freedom of choice God gave us? Even when “visited” by the Son of God, we “went dark” and found ample reasons to destroy him, and at that, violently. One of the movies I have used in my “Theology and Film” classes is Clint Eastwood’s “The Unforgiven.” In that film, Eastwood plays a “retired” contract killer in the “Wild West,” who has redeemed his life by turning to farming, marrying, and having a family. While he is working through grief over the death of his spouse, a young man visits him, who knows his past. The young man is an aspiring “murder for hire” candidate himself, and he asks the Eastwood character, Will Munny, to “show him the ropes.” In the throes of grief, and in the weakness of the moment, he agrees, and goes with the young man on his first killing assignment. I won’t go into the rest of the story, but what got me was just how QUCKLY Eastwood’s Will Munny “backslides” into being a ruthless gunslinger again, something that even spooks the young protégé. It’s scary—just like sinking a submarine, only faster. We DO “go dark” rapidly. I really don’t think God is happy at all about this development in the human psyche.

 

Please understand that this preacher is not pontificating here. You may have your own stories of “backsliding” to think about, but I have several of my own. The one that bothers me most is how quickly I can become impudent and sarcastic in an “argument”—especially over politics—on social media. I am a “well read” person, and not a day goes by that I don’t take my fill of the broadest possible “survey” of news and current events. So, as one who considers himself informed, I often start out these social media “debates” thinking I am taking the high ground. But, as I already said, I can “go dark” very quickly, especially when I “judge” my opponent as “inferior” or UN-informed. Why is this, I ask myself after the debate goes off the rails? And it usually does, because with my impudent attitude, I “push the buttons” of the other. And isn’t it interesting that this is the first “sin” I thought of when I read verse 45, while working on this sermon? Is this what we call “conviction”? Or is it just guilt, that I, a well-educated, well-read individual, can so quickly devolve into a social media “gunslinger”? I wish I could say that I never brought this “dark” fighting spirit into the pulpit, but from time to time, I’m sure I did. I guess there’s a reason Teddy Roosevelt called it a “bully” pulpit? Thankfully, this was an infrequent occurrence, thanks to Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, where my beloved professors taught me to “preach the text,” and to do my best to stick to God’s agenda, even when my own was quite tempting.

 

Humanity, like Will Munny, has so easily left God’s agenda behind. Our wars prove this. Our racism and sexism prove this. Our poor vs. rich proves this. And right now, our politics is proving it. How are you getting along with that neighbor who stuck a Trump sign in his front yard? When you argue with your spouse, are you listening to what he/she is saying, or are you readying your next salvo? How do you feel about refugees and immigrants, even before you know their “legal” status? When you hear of a terrorist attack of some sort, how broadly does your anger rage against Muslims? There are countless other examples. 

 

When WE crucified Jesus Christ, was this the “final straw” in God’s disappointment regarding how humanity has used God’s wonderful gift of “free will”? Did God hide the Sun because we killed the Son? If God got as snippy as I can in a word fight, God might have said out loud, “Oh, you LIKE the darkness? Well, here you go!” But again, I believe God was grieving, not angered. Grieving both at the horrific death of Jesus, but even more at the created beings that the Psalm says God had “made a little lower than the angels.” 

 

Might possibly the Noon to Three darkness on the day Christ was crucified be as important to the future of humanity as what God is doing in the atonement? That God would give humanity an “Olly, olly in free” invitation by forgiving the sins of our rebelliousness and selfishness through the Christ Event is HUGE, but the “darkness” warning may be God’s way to spur us to clean up our act, which might save US, the planet, the rest of creation, AND help bring about God’s Kingdom on earth! As United Methodists, we believe that GOD does the forgiving, but HUMANS may make the choice to use the “free will” God gave us to “go on to perfection,” an old world way of saying we CAN not only GET better, but we can DO better, and we can join our other religious siblings in fixing the world (tikkun olam, in Hebrew). 

 

Each week in our worship services at St. Paul’s United Methodist Church in Allison Park, PA, one of our pastors lights a “peace” candle and says a specific prayer for a current need for social justice, and for persons being victimized by injustice in our world. The response we use is from the prologue to the Gospel of John: 

 

Pastor: The light shines in the darkness, 

People: And the darkness has not overcome it.

 

As we wave our palm branches this week, and as we remember the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ, may we also relish the “dark” reminder of the worst of the human spirit, and that the Holy Spirit of God may rescue us from living our lives IN the darkness. May it not “win,” and may WE begin our journey on to “perfection,” to the glory of God! Amen.

 

 

Blithe Spirit (Lent V)

I 

Blithe Spirit – Lent V

 

Romans 8:6-11

Life in the Spirit 

 

8:6 To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.

 

8:7 For this reason the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God's law-- indeed, it cannot,

 

8:8 and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

 

8:9 But you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.

 

8:10 But if Christ is in you, then the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness.

 

8:11 If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you.

 

 

I hate to begin a message with a controversy, but here we are. What do we understand about the “Word of God”? Theologically, the Gospel of John says that JESUS is the Word of God, made flesh, and who “tented” among us human beings. Throughout the Bible, the “scriptures” referred to would have been the Torah and the writings of the Jewish faith, as nothing in what we know as the “New Testament” existed. One theological/biblical vein would be that we believers should learn what we could of biblical history and the journey of God’s people Israel through the pages of the Jewish texts (our “Old Testament”) and should take very seriously the testament that tells us of the life, ministry, and teachings of Jesus Christ. Those who assembled and accepted the “canon” of the “New Testament” included a number of epistles (letters) of Paul and other early church leaders, as well as the witness of the Gospel writers and the “historical” book known as Acts. They also included a book of apocalyptic writings ascribed to John which we know as Revelation.

 

Another school of thought, and one that is pretty militant about it, is the “evangelical” school, that believes that the “Word of God” is the Bible as written, or at least as it was written down in the “original manuscripts,” none of which we have access to. By accepting “the Bible” as the “Word of God,” which was in some way “inspired” or “God-breathed,” this school believes in taking what it says literally. This concept has even become a kind of “litmus test” as to whether someone is a “true Christian” or now—“Do you believe the Bible is LITERALLY true?” If one is to answer “no” or qualifies their answer in some way, they are often judged to be a “nominal” Christian, or not a Christian at all. So, who is right?

 

As usual, the TRUTH is probably in the middle. It is hard to argue against the Christology that posits Jesus as the “Word made flesh,” and therefore God’s “final answer” to humanity. From my perspective, I DO believe in the “authority” of the written scriptures of the two testaments in our Bible, however, I believe that, while they are “God-breathed”—written by men and possibly women inspired by the Spirit of God—they are not dictum from God, Godself. These words are “filtered” through the human experience and told by people who either lived what they wrote, or were first-century witnesses of some sort, at least as far as the New Testament is concerned. I do not believe—and neither did the early church, or the church, going forward, as Christian history unfolded—that the Bible is the product of a kind of “automatic writing” wherein God “dictated” what God wanted to be written on the page, with little influence of the human writer. “Inspired” or “God-breathed” doesn’t mean DICTATED. It leaves much room for the actual writer’s testimony of what they saw or experienced, and may indeed include both the influence of the cultural history of the time in which they were writing, AND their own interpretation of what they believed. So why do I bring all of this up as we begin to examine this passage from Paul’s letter to the church at Rome?

 

Well, partly because Paul is a scholar AND an interpreter of scripture—a Pharisee—within his original Jewish tradition. It stands to reason that he would bring this “scholar’s eye” into his leadership and teaching in the life of the early church. Paul would not have taught the Torah as something to be blindly “obeyed,” but instead, God’s guidance for a people God wished to protect and to whom God wished to offer wisdom for how to incorporate their faith in life. Certainly, Paul was not expecting he was crafting “Christian Torah” as he wrote letters of comfort, guidance, and even chastisement, to branches of the early church. He seems free to state his opinions in his writings, even occasionally stating overtly, “I say, not the Lord…”, meaning he didn’t profess to be “speaking God’s word” directly. The problem with the evangelical view is that taking the Bible literally means ignoring both the magic of the wisdom and interpretation of the early church leaders like Paul, AND some of the history of their experience and context, which when included in “the Word,” may distort what we take FROM it. In short, there are things the early church was grappling with in their context that no longer should matter to us today, as our context and state of knowledge is totally different from the first century. Indeed, throughout the ages, Jewish scholars have interpreted, re-interpreted, and then re-RE-interpreted Torah for the people of Israel, as history and life changed, evolved, and as people became more knowledgeable. It is this ability to “re-interpret” that helps the Bible be a “living” book, not a summary of some sort of “golden tablets” God just delivered through writers in some kind of spirited trance. 

 

Today’s passage from Romans 8 is a perfect example of why we need to take a critical and contextual look at what we label “scripture.” Romans 8:6-11 is clearly and heavily influenced by Gnostic thought. The Gnostics were a philosophical “movement” in the early days of Christianity who believed that the “spirit” and the “flesh” of humanity could be and should be separate things. In a condensed and frankly overly-simplified understanding of Gnosticism, the Gnostics promoted building up and encouraging one’s spiritual life, while acknowledging the “lusts” and primitive hungers of “the flesh.” In short, the Gnostics believed one could be “pure in spirit” while indulging the “desires of the flesh,” and that this could be pursued simultaneously! In fact, it is my understanding that some Gnostic sects actually “celebrated” both by incorporating human sexual rituals in their “temple worship.” Gnostic ideas of this “separation” of spirit and flesh crept into the early church, and this passage in Romans shows that some form of it even “leaked” into our scriptures! Thankfully, we don’t see the truly prurient version of Gnosticism in the Bible, but the idea that “spirit” and “flesh” need to be kept separate, with one being the “desirable” one to be lifted up, while the other “denied” is clearly what we see in Romans 8:6-11. In caveman language, spirit GOOD, flesh BAD. But is this really true?

 

The Romans author starts off this pericope by the polemical statement that the “flesh” is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is “life and peace.” That’s blatantly Gnostic, friends. Did Paul get swept up in this? Or are we reading some words penned by an amanuensis recording his own “thoughts” of what he thinks Paul believes? Frankly, it’s hard to believe a Jewish Pharisee like Paul the Apostle would get swept up into Gnosticism, especially given in several other places in his epistles he speaks against it. If it is true that “those in the flesh” cannot please God, then we are all doomed, for I confess to being a creature in the flesh, and like it or not, so are you! Now, I have to ask you: do you think God would have created us as “fleshly” creatures if only the “mind of the Spirit” could please God? Would God have made such a deal out of sending the Son into the world—BORN into the world as a “fleshly” creature—to “tent” among human beings if the ultimate desire of God was that we would somehow be “transformed” totally into “Spirit-minded” beings? Why would God have created us as fleshly, sexual beings with senses like touch and taste, if God wanted only spiritual obedience? None of this makes sense, unless we respectfully “filter” the Gnosticism out of Romans 8:6-11. 

 

Indeed, the “incarnation”—God in Christ as the perfect fusion of flesh AND spirit—is the very fulcrum of the Christian faith. The most condemned heresies of the faith occur when you discount either the “fully human” or the “fully divine” attributes of Jesus Christ. Isn’t this, to a lesser degree, just what the author of this passage is doing but saying that the only way we can “please” God is to fully eschew our fleshly reality and desire to think only of “life in the Spirit” as the ultimate form of Christian worship? Thankfully, the passage doesn’t end after the Gnostic prologue of verses 6-8! Let’s go on…

 

 In verse 9, the author turns to Jesus, suggesting that if Christ “lives in us,” then Christ brings the Spirit into OUR spirit, taking up residence there, and connecting us—flesh AND spirit—to the divine. Later, the author writes that Christ “gives life to our mortal bodies” as well. Now we’re getting somewhere! Just as the Christian church has long affirmed both the total humanity and total divinity of Jesus Christ, so we, too, are both flesh AND spirit beings, with God’s own Spirit inhabiting, or “tenting” along with us. Taken this way, this passage that begins with a Gnostic underpinning, moves us to understand that we CAN’T separate flesh and spirit, as this is precisely how God “designed” us, affirming the “formula” by sending God’s own Son among us as the fullest incarnation of it. Jesus pleased God because he fully utilized the miracle of his human existence—including his flesh—while focusing his spirit on God’s Spirit, thus “awakening” the “third” part of the human experience. Remember how God is “three-in-one, one-in-three,” or what we label the Holy Trinity? So God made us beings of body, mind, and spirit. We best please and glorify God when we use ALL THREE in harmony to do and live the will of God for us, and this harmony is possible because of the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, AND because God sent the “Spirit of Jesus” into the world to guide and empower both Christians and the Christian church. You think maybe this is what the Romans author is thinking here? I do. 

 

So, to review:

 

*The Romans author is NOT being seduced by the Gnostics, ultimately, but MAY be using their lingo to get their attention, similar to how the author of the Gospel of John uses the language of Greek philosophical thought in that amazing prolegomena in chapter one (i.e. the “logos”) to lure them in.

 

*The text is NOT telling us to ignore, eschew, or even “hate” our bodies, but to use them to please God, not just to satisfy our own desires and/or to break God’s law. There is a fine point here. God gave us these bodies, made us as sensual creatures capable of enjoying loving relationships, tasting of the fruit of the creation, and gave us the other senses to fully experience the magnificent world around us. 

 

*We should do this! However, without a healthy relationship with God and the guidance of the Spirit of God within, we will be in a constant battle against “the flesh,” as its temptations and excesses threaten to lead us astray from the aim of pleasing God, even as we enjoy life.

 

*”Life in the Spirit” is an act of Grace freely given by God in Christ Jesus. It is not meant to be a drudgery, nor is it meant to be abused by “going Gnostic” and trying to separate spirit from flesh and using this as a selfish shortcut to self-fulfillment.

 

*Righteousness is just “right living,” something made possible by both an ongoing act of the human will, coupled with the indwelling Holy Spirit. This right living is meant by God to be a joyful thing, and not a “war” between the worlds of flesh and spirit. 

 

*Never forget the most human thing Jesus did—he wept for Lazarus, when he heard of his death. Weeping—or any of the other uniquely “human” things such as ecstasy, fear, love and grief—are God’s emotional gifts to us “in the flesh.” They are not to be ignored, but celebrated, and never exploited to selfish ends. 

 

My wife the dietitian uses as her slogan in her field: “Eat less, move more, everything in moderation.” Based on today’s text, here’s one for us Christians: “Listen for the Spirit, live rightly, bless God and yourself!” And don’t forget to love your neighbor! Amen.