“God hates the world!” So proclaimed a poster that Noah Phelps-Roper, 12, held up, as he and family members from Topeka’s Westboro Baptist Church picketed outside the U.S. Naval Academy. Brother Gabriel, 8, held up a poster declaring that “You’re going to Hell.”1 Do you remember these people? The Westboro Baptist Church was established in 1955 by lawyer Fred Phelps. It claims to be a Primitive Baptist Church, although it has been disowned by that denomination. The reason? Westboro boasts of having conducted over 47,000 demonstrations since 1991, most of them shouting out a gospel of hate. The church made international news when its pastor threatened to burn a Qur’an, and, to the sorrow of the families of soldiers, when the Supreme Court upheld its members’ right to picket military funerals. Holding to an extreme form of Calvinist theology, the members of Westboro believe that only a tiny percentage of people are saved, essentially themselves and others who agree with them, and that all others are damned to an eternity in Hell. Since they have no desire to evangelize or convert others, their principle work as a church is to support each other and witness to their beliefs by picketing and harassing others, especially lesbian and gay people.
Does our own view of God come anywhere close to that of the Westboro Baptist Church? Do any of us believe in an angry God, who damns us to eternal punishment if we don’t strictly toe the mark? If not, then we would do well to ask ourselves the two most important questions that any thinking person can ask. How do we see God? And, what do we think God expects us to do? The answer to the first question that orthodox Christians can – or ought to – give is embedded in our Gospel passage for today. Our answer stands in stark contrast to the view of God promulgated by the Westboro Baptist Church: “… he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd ….” Compassion, literally suffering with us. It’s a word used at least eight times in the Gospel, and it is implicit in Jesus’ entire life. We see Jesus’ compassion especially in all the healing stories in the Gospels. Indeed, one might say that the healing stories demonstrate not so much that Jesus was a medical magician, but that he cared deeply enough about people to attend even to their physical ills. We also see Jesus’ compassion in all the stories about people being fed. We see it in his willingness not only to heal and feed a person here or there but to minister to great crowds of people, seemingly never tiring. And of course we see Jesus’ compassion for humanity in his own Passion, his suffering on the Cross for our sake. Since we Christians believe that Jesus was God incarnate, God visible as a human being, it follows that the compassion for all that Jesus showed us is the essence of God, our creator and judge. As we watch Jesus relate to the people around him in the Gospels, we can be sure that not only does God not hate the world, but that God loved and continues to love the world that God has made.
Nor should we be surprised or shocked to be reminded that the God we trust is a God of compassion. All our Scripture bears witness to God’s compassion for humanity. Remember all those covenants with Israel that we talked about during Lent? All of them speak to God’s care and concern for Israel, God’s unfailing attempts to heal first Israel and then ultimately all humanity. The prophets witness to God’s compassion in even clearer tones. Almost all of the prophecy of Isaiah speaks to the return from Exile of the Jews and the re-establishment of Jerusalem. Ezekiel too speaks to God’s care for Israel, giving us that wonderful image of the dry bones of the House of Israel coming back to life through God’s breathing on them. God’s compassion shines through even in today’s reading from Jeremiah. Dismissing the bad shepherds, the stupid and venal religious and political leaders, who “destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture,” God promises restoration and return for his people. God promises to raise up new shepherds, so that the people will no longer be afraid and upset. Most important, God promises a new age of justice and righteousness, of safety and salvation.
And here’s the really good news. God’s compassion, especially as it is exemplified by Jesus, is extended to all, to people of all races, ethnicities, nationalities, and genders, to all of humanity. The prophetic tradition and Jesus’ own interaction with people bear witness to God’s ultimate desire to include all people in the salvation first extended to Israel. As Christians we believe that indeed in Jesus the inclusion of all in God’s promises has been accomplished. We hear that message clearly in the Letter to the Ephesians. Writing primarily to Gentiles, the writer reminds the new Christians at Ephesus that they “who were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.” Christ has broken down the wall separating Israel and other nations, “that he might create in himself one new humanity ….” If we were stand toe to toe with the Westboro Baptist folks, this would be our ringing claim, shouted and painted in letters a foot high: God’s compassion for the world is so deep that no one is excluded from God’s saving love.
Theologian Douglas John Hall asks us whether, as Christians, “We have grasped the full radicality of belief in a compassionate God. He reminds us of the warning in the first letter of Peter, “the time has come for the judgment to begin with the household of God (4:17), and asks us “whether as a church we are ready to live that compassion in our profoundly threatened world.”2 We who have committed ourselves to the Episcopal Church might particularly ask ourselves that question. In the wake of our just-completed General Convention, some national commentators took the Episcopal Church to task, either for dealing with what some deemed as trivial issues or for being too progressive and “liberal.” Some of you may have seen the most scurrilous of these articles, Jay Akasie’s op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, which was nothing more than an opinionated diatribe, and Ross Douthat’s piece last Sunday in the New York Times, which suggested that liberal Christianity, epitomized by the Episcopal Church, was on its deathbed. Many far better writers than I have refuted both these pieces. However, as I look at all that General Convention accomplished in eight days, I see, rather, a church that is striving to live out its vision of God’s compassionate, inclusive love. We commended and continued our eleven-year relationship of full communion with the ELCA. We approved a provisional liturgy for the blessing of same-sex unions. We created an “HIV Welcoming Parish Initiative.” We welcomed trans-gender people into the ordination process. We affirmed positive investment in the Palestinian Territories and in the peace process in the Middle East. We faced squarely the decline in membership in the Episcopal Church – a fact of life for all mainline denominations and the Roman Catholic Church – by agreeing to slim down our organization and restructure, so that we can more effectively live out our commission as evangelists, as those who are charged with proclaiming the good news.
Thank God for the Episcopal Church! Thank God we can offer a different view of God’s relationship with the world from that offered by the folks at Westboro. Yes, the church is changing. Yes, we are no longer the establishment church, whose membership represented the rich and powerful of most communities. But we are not done for! Pastor Robert LaRochelle reminds us that the mainline church “has the potential to be a voice for an inclusive, welcoming Christian vision in neighborhoods and towns.”3 Bishop Stacy Sauls gives us an even more empowering vision of the kind of church we strive to be. In his response to the Wall Street Journal article, Bishop Sauls says that,
"The Episcopal Church is on record as standing by those the culture marginalizes whether that be nonwhite people, female people or gay people. The author [of the Wall Street Journal article] calls that political correctness hostile to tradition.
I call it profoundly countercultural but hardly untraditional. In fact, it is deeply true to the tradition of Jesus, Jesus who offended the "traditionalists" of his own day, Jesus who was known to associate with the less than desirable, Jesus who told his followers to seek him among the poor. It is deeply true to the tradition of the Apostle Paul who decried human barriers of race, sex, or status (Galatians 3:28).
What ails the Episcopalians is that this once most-established class of American Christianity is taking the risk to be radically true to its tradition. There is a price to be paid for that. There is also a promise of abundant life in it."4
As we live out our lives here in this parish, may God enable us to welcome all and to live into that abundant life.
1. Joanie Eppinga, “The Face of Hate,” Sojourners (41,6, June 2012), 14ff.
2. Feasting on the Word (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2009), 264.
3. Part-Time Pastor, Full Time Church (Cleveland: Pilgrim Press, 2010), 35.
4. The Wall Street Journal, Letters, July 19, 2012, accessed at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444464304577534993658282250.html?KEYWORDS=episcopal
Showing posts with label Pentecost 8. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pentecost 8. Show all posts
Sunday, July 22, 2012
Sunday, July 18, 2010
“Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing.” It’s a familiar story. Martha is angry. Why wouldn’t she be? Like any good woman of her day, she has worked hard getting ready for the arrival of a friend of the family, Jesus of Nazareth. There’s been so much to do: slaughter, dress, and cook the meat, make the cakes, prepare the fruits and vegetables, set the table, heat the water for the bath that Jesus, dusty from the long road, would surely want. Now he’s here, but there’s still plenty to do. But where’s Mary? As soon as Jesus arrived, she joined the men, plunked herself down at Jesus’ feet and began listening to Jesus’ teaching? Women don’t mix with men who are not relatives, they don’t study Torah, and they certainly don’t listen to a rabbi’s teaching. What is Mary doing? Why isn’t she helping?
What’s your response to this story? Do you sympathize with poor, overworked Martha, Martha who is doing everything expected of her? I’ve read somewhere that, in any organization, ten percent of the people do eighty percent of the work. Where are the rest? When we ask for Vestry nominees or delegates to Diocesan Convention, why is it the same people who are willing to serve? Whether it’s church clean up day or Loaves and Fishes, why do the same people turn up? Why do so few come forward to be lectors, Eucharistic Ministers, or Eucharistic Visitors? Of course, all of us are grateful for those who do come forward, but if you’re one of those ten percent, you might just want some of those other ninety percent to do a little more, right?
On the other hand, perhaps you’re looking at Mary and thinking, “Yes! Good for her, for breaking free of the kitchen – or the fireplace in this case – and doing what a true disciple should do: joining with other disciples and deepening her relationship with Jesus. And good for Jesus, you might think, supporting Mary in claiming her right to be a full disciple.
What’s going on here? Is Jesus really rebuking the hardworking Martha? Does Jesus really approve of what Mary has done? The traditional interpretation of this story is that Martha represents the active life, and Mary represents the contemplative life, and that here at least Jesus suggests that the quiet contemplative life is preferable to the noisy active life. But I wonder. Does Luke really want us to believe that Jesus prefers the contemplative life to the active life, that it’s better to spend your life in a convent or monastery than out ministering in the world? Remember that this story immediately follows the story of the Good Samaritan, which you heard last week. If nothing else, the Samaritan engaged in active ministry, in real service to the man who’d been left half dead by robbers. There is no question that ministry is an important theme in Luke’s Gospel. Think of what the Seventy were told to do: not only proclaim the nearness of God’s Reign, but also to heal the sick. Think of the many times that Jesus is shown healing people. So I don’t think that we are to see Jesus as suggesting that service is unimportant, or that the contemplative life is preferable to the active life.
Actually, the story of the Good Samaritan and this story are complementary, each of them teaching us something about what it means to be Jesus’ disciple. In fact, the meaning of discipleship is an over-arching theme in Luke’s Gospel. Remember that Jesus told the Good Samaritan story in response to the second of two questions. The first question the lawyer asked Jesus was, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” When Jesus asked him what was written in the law, the man answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” He then asked Jesus who his neighbor was, and Jesus responded with the story of the Samaritan who went against social expectations and show unexpected compassion. Through that story, we are reminded that we must minister to all. In the story of Mary and Martha, Luke asks us to look at the other aspect of discipleship, loving God with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind. Through the devotion of Mary, we are reminded that what is most important to being a faithful disciple is having an intimate relationship with Jesus. Serving people is important, but knowing Jesus is even more important. Intimate friendship with Jesus must be the foundation of all our service, indeed of our entire lives. Knowing Jesus involves sitting with him in prayer, listening to him, learning from him. And notice that for Luke having such a relationship with Jesus involves a choice. While we believe in God’s free gift of grace, while we believe that God continually reaches out to us with an invitation of love, nevertheless we must choose to accept God’s love. Mary has chosen the better part, intimate relationship with Jesus – and so must we.
And there’s more. When our lives are grounded in an intimate relationship with Jesus, when we pray and worship regularly, when we allow silence into our lives so as to better hear Jesus’ words, when we meditate and journal regularly, then God’s transforming grace begins to work in our lives, and our lives begin to change. Perhaps we begin to question the other choices we may have made in our lives. Perhaps we begin to see places where our lives need to change. Perhaps we see roles that our culture has encouraged us to take on that now no longer fit. Perhaps we begin to understand the distinctive ministry to which God is calling each of us. Whatever the outcome, we can be sure that as we deepen our relationship with Jesus, as we choose the “better part,” as we sit more intentionally at his feet, he will lead us to into change and transformation, perhaps even unexpected change and transformation, so that we become more nearly the person we have truly been created to be.
What might such a life grounded in love of Jesus look like? Grace Thomas* was born in the early part of the twentieth century, the second of five children of a streetcar conductor in Birmingham, Alabama. After marrying and moving to Georgia, Grace became a clerk in the state capitol in Atlanta and became interested in politics. Although she was a full-time mother and employee, she enrolled in night school to study law. In 1954 she shocked her family by announcing that she would run for governor of Georgia. The only candidate to strongly support the decision in Brown v Board of Education, she was soundly defeated. However, in 1962, she decided to run again. By then, racial tensions in the South were great. Grace received death threats because of her progressive platform on race. One day she held a rally at the old slave market in a small town. Standing where human beings had once been bought and sold, she proclaimed that, “The old has passed away, the new has come. A new day has come when all Georgians, white and black, can join hands and work together.” At that point a man angrily interrupted her speech and shouted, “Are you a communist?” Why, no,” Grace replied quietly. “Well then where’d you get all them galdurned ideas?” Grace pointed to the steeple of a nearby Baptist church. “I learned them over there, in Sunday school.” Grace had spent time listening to the Word of her Lord and grounding herself in that Word. What she heard changed her life and launched her on a very specific mission in life.
And so we come back to service and ministry. The story of Martha and Mary does not ask us to choose between service and prayer, between the active and contemplative lives. It does not suggest that the contemplative life is superior to the active life. What it does suggest is that all our activity, all our ministry, must be grounded in a deep relationship with Jesus. Ultimately, it is our relationship with Jesus that must order and govern our lives. And this is true for us both as individuals and as a community. As both individuals and as a community, Jesus calls us to be both grounded in relationship with him, through prayer, worship, and study, and ready to serve a hurting and broken world in his name. Is this a vision that we can pursue as a parish? To be a powerhouse of both prayer and mission? As we go forth from this place, formed by the Word we have heard and taken into ourselves, may we continue by God’s grace to deepen our relationship with Jesus even as we are strengthened for service to God’s people.
*From a story told by Tom Long and posted by Scott Hoezee at http://cep.calvinseminary.edu/thisWeek/index.php.
What’s your response to this story? Do you sympathize with poor, overworked Martha, Martha who is doing everything expected of her? I’ve read somewhere that, in any organization, ten percent of the people do eighty percent of the work. Where are the rest? When we ask for Vestry nominees or delegates to Diocesan Convention, why is it the same people who are willing to serve? Whether it’s church clean up day or Loaves and Fishes, why do the same people turn up? Why do so few come forward to be lectors, Eucharistic Ministers, or Eucharistic Visitors? Of course, all of us are grateful for those who do come forward, but if you’re one of those ten percent, you might just want some of those other ninety percent to do a little more, right?
On the other hand, perhaps you’re looking at Mary and thinking, “Yes! Good for her, for breaking free of the kitchen – or the fireplace in this case – and doing what a true disciple should do: joining with other disciples and deepening her relationship with Jesus. And good for Jesus, you might think, supporting Mary in claiming her right to be a full disciple.
What’s going on here? Is Jesus really rebuking the hardworking Martha? Does Jesus really approve of what Mary has done? The traditional interpretation of this story is that Martha represents the active life, and Mary represents the contemplative life, and that here at least Jesus suggests that the quiet contemplative life is preferable to the noisy active life. But I wonder. Does Luke really want us to believe that Jesus prefers the contemplative life to the active life, that it’s better to spend your life in a convent or monastery than out ministering in the world? Remember that this story immediately follows the story of the Good Samaritan, which you heard last week. If nothing else, the Samaritan engaged in active ministry, in real service to the man who’d been left half dead by robbers. There is no question that ministry is an important theme in Luke’s Gospel. Think of what the Seventy were told to do: not only proclaim the nearness of God’s Reign, but also to heal the sick. Think of the many times that Jesus is shown healing people. So I don’t think that we are to see Jesus as suggesting that service is unimportant, or that the contemplative life is preferable to the active life.
Actually, the story of the Good Samaritan and this story are complementary, each of them teaching us something about what it means to be Jesus’ disciple. In fact, the meaning of discipleship is an over-arching theme in Luke’s Gospel. Remember that Jesus told the Good Samaritan story in response to the second of two questions. The first question the lawyer asked Jesus was, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” When Jesus asked him what was written in the law, the man answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” He then asked Jesus who his neighbor was, and Jesus responded with the story of the Samaritan who went against social expectations and show unexpected compassion. Through that story, we are reminded that we must minister to all. In the story of Mary and Martha, Luke asks us to look at the other aspect of discipleship, loving God with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind. Through the devotion of Mary, we are reminded that what is most important to being a faithful disciple is having an intimate relationship with Jesus. Serving people is important, but knowing Jesus is even more important. Intimate friendship with Jesus must be the foundation of all our service, indeed of our entire lives. Knowing Jesus involves sitting with him in prayer, listening to him, learning from him. And notice that for Luke having such a relationship with Jesus involves a choice. While we believe in God’s free gift of grace, while we believe that God continually reaches out to us with an invitation of love, nevertheless we must choose to accept God’s love. Mary has chosen the better part, intimate relationship with Jesus – and so must we.
And there’s more. When our lives are grounded in an intimate relationship with Jesus, when we pray and worship regularly, when we allow silence into our lives so as to better hear Jesus’ words, when we meditate and journal regularly, then God’s transforming grace begins to work in our lives, and our lives begin to change. Perhaps we begin to question the other choices we may have made in our lives. Perhaps we begin to see places where our lives need to change. Perhaps we see roles that our culture has encouraged us to take on that now no longer fit. Perhaps we begin to understand the distinctive ministry to which God is calling each of us. Whatever the outcome, we can be sure that as we deepen our relationship with Jesus, as we choose the “better part,” as we sit more intentionally at his feet, he will lead us to into change and transformation, perhaps even unexpected change and transformation, so that we become more nearly the person we have truly been created to be.
What might such a life grounded in love of Jesus look like? Grace Thomas* was born in the early part of the twentieth century, the second of five children of a streetcar conductor in Birmingham, Alabama. After marrying and moving to Georgia, Grace became a clerk in the state capitol in Atlanta and became interested in politics. Although she was a full-time mother and employee, she enrolled in night school to study law. In 1954 she shocked her family by announcing that she would run for governor of Georgia. The only candidate to strongly support the decision in Brown v Board of Education, she was soundly defeated. However, in 1962, she decided to run again. By then, racial tensions in the South were great. Grace received death threats because of her progressive platform on race. One day she held a rally at the old slave market in a small town. Standing where human beings had once been bought and sold, she proclaimed that, “The old has passed away, the new has come. A new day has come when all Georgians, white and black, can join hands and work together.” At that point a man angrily interrupted her speech and shouted, “Are you a communist?” Why, no,” Grace replied quietly. “Well then where’d you get all them galdurned ideas?” Grace pointed to the steeple of a nearby Baptist church. “I learned them over there, in Sunday school.” Grace had spent time listening to the Word of her Lord and grounding herself in that Word. What she heard changed her life and launched her on a very specific mission in life.
And so we come back to service and ministry. The story of Martha and Mary does not ask us to choose between service and prayer, between the active and contemplative lives. It does not suggest that the contemplative life is superior to the active life. What it does suggest is that all our activity, all our ministry, must be grounded in a deep relationship with Jesus. Ultimately, it is our relationship with Jesus that must order and govern our lives. And this is true for us both as individuals and as a community. As both individuals and as a community, Jesus calls us to be both grounded in relationship with him, through prayer, worship, and study, and ready to serve a hurting and broken world in his name. Is this a vision that we can pursue as a parish? To be a powerhouse of both prayer and mission? As we go forth from this place, formed by the Word we have heard and taken into ourselves, may we continue by God’s grace to deepen our relationship with Jesus even as we are strengthened for service to God’s people.
*From a story told by Tom Long and posted by Scott Hoezee at http://cep.calvinseminary.edu/thisWeek/index.php.
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