My Approach to Prayer –

Dennis Maher – November 4, 2024

How can we "pray" when we do not believe in a literal God "above." God is a symbol for our very being, for life itself, for all the cosmic mysteries (that which we do not yet understand). Earlier writings of Jack Caputo beginning in 2004 changed the ways in which I have led prayer in worship. I draw on my interest in Carl Jung and his “depth psychology” during the 1980's. And Pope Francis said a few years back that he welcomed the “desires” of atheists as prayers. So – 

In prayer I think of myself as looking inward to my deepest and most fundamental self (which I understand as “soul”), and I speak from there, which is where words are found that are most filled with meaning. This is the place from which poetry arises. It is the place to which we retreat in times of tragic loss and before tremendous and sudden change in our lives.

It is from this deep place that we may speak our deepest thoughts, and it is also the deep self to whom we will address those thoughts. We are speaking from and to ourselves. In prayer we are speaking from our depths to our depths. We can surprise ourselves with our expression of thought; we think new thoughts by finding words to express them. Our new thoughts are built on previous thoughts and the input of others on our lives. I think of “spirit” as what transpires between us, an exchange of souls, so to speak.

We need to hear what comes from our own profundity. It is what we do with all of our conscious thought all day long, every day. We talk to ourselves and we answer ourselves. We challenge ourselves, direct ourselves, correct ourselves. There is no one else inside ourselves; there are only real, other persons outside of ourselves. Even at night in our dreams, as we process the day’s activities, we are speaking from depth to depth, from the profound to the profound.

We compose poetry to ourselves. Composing poetry is a high level of human thought because it is from the depths of our souls, our selves. Such is prayer. So when we pray whom do we address? I speak to myself and to the cosmos, to the source of highest, human values. From some Sunday prayers of the past two years, I have introduced others to this mode of prayer:

1. God, we call you, who in your greatness is utterly and thoroughly awesome, 

who is in love and mercy gracious beyond our deserving and expectation, 

and who in being and truth is beyond our words to tell.

You are for us the Great and Gracious Lover of the world, 

who has made yourself a friend to us in Jesus as the Christ,

and given us your Spirit to stir us up.

Or I might begin with acknowledging what brings us together:

        2. Our prayers begin with our joys and concerns in our lives in this world.

            Our prayers dive deep into our inmost selves and from there

        our deepest thoughts speak to our deepest selves.

            This is the place where we receive love and from where love rises within us.

            Here we agonize for our loved ones, our friends, the sick and dying, 

        the hungry and the homeless, those who grieve, and those who struggle

    with addictions and mental and emotional distress, 

and those who face injustice, and those who live in war.

Or I might address our values directly and ask questions:

        3. We address the source of all love and justice with questions:

            Why can’t we see these values 

        and make them real in our behaviors and laws?

            Why did violence enter our lives when we did not seek it?

            Why weren’t we taught about the non-violence at the heart of the gospel?

            How can the churches be more the source of good news?

            Why is the world and its troubles and conflicts too much with us?

            We know that we are the enemy that always opposes us, 

        and we are the solution to the problems ever before us.

            We are the good news for the world, 

        if we choose to take up the cause of love and justice, and kindness and mercy.

And I fall back on the salad form of prayer (“Let us”) and the “May we” locution. Both are passive and seem cowardly to me, but they are hard to escape:

        4. Let us concentrate on our deepest selves.

            Let us think on our relationships with others.

            Are we in a good place as a self? As a human?

            Are we in a good place with those around us? 

    With those we encounter each day?

            Is there love and happiness in my heart?

            Or does my heart ache with loneliness, fear, anxiety, grief and sadness?

            Those closest to us also struggle with their hearts

        and when their troubles come into the light they become ours; 

    so we must find good ways to respond to them.

            Our deep desires are for those who present us with their trials and needs.

            We want a better life for all who come into our thoughts from the larger world,

            in Gaza and Israel, in Ukraine and Russia, in Africa and many other places.

            We age in body and mind. Let us not age in spirit and love,

            but let us pray for our healing and the healing of the world

          with the spirit and words of Jesus, who taught us to pray, saying....

        5. We know that there are family and friends who were traumatized by some great harm and hurt.

            May we be gentle with them and kind to them.

            May we find places in our thoughts and hearts and actions

            for people we encounter in the world. 

            May we be empowered to work for the justice and peace 

            behind and under which is everything holy to all peoples.

            May we listen to Jesus, and follow his teachings, and so we pray as he taught....

Jesus and "The Rule of Law"

This is a long sermon with a long introduction: 

Around the year 586 before Jesus the Babylonians defeated the ancient Israelites and destroyed the temple in Jerusalem. About 20,000 people, 1/4 of the population including many leaders, were exiled to Babylon over a period of about ten years.

While in Babylon (near present day Baghdad) these Jews wrote much of their history and laws, what we often call the "Old Testament." But it is only "old" if we think that the Greek scriptures about Jesus the Christ supercede the Hebrew scriptures, which were the Bible to Jesus.

About 50 years later the Persian king Cyrus conquered Babylon and released the Jews from their captivity. Ezra, a leader of those who returned, launched a long and sometimes secret campaign to rebuild the temple. The majority who remained had not worshiped God or followed the law while the leaders had been in exile. The story is that on their return Ezra organized the priests and planned to read the law, probably most of the book of Deuteronomy, to the people.

We don’t know how accurate this story is, but much that is in it is most likely exaggerated. Whenever an ancient story says “everyone” or “all the people” did something, it probably did not happen that way.

Selections from 5 chapters, Nehemiah 8-13 (edited)

All the people gathered together into the square. The scribe Ezra, (these were people who could read and write), brought the book of the law of Moses, which the Lord had given to Israel. The priest Ezra brought the law before the assembly, both men and women and all who could hear with understanding. 

He read from it facing the square from early morning until midday, in the presence of those who could understand; and the ears of all the people were attentive to the book of the law.... And the Levites, the priests, helped the people to understand the law, while the people remained in their places. So they read from the book, from the law of God, with interpretation. They gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading.

The reading took a long time, and Nehemiah, who was the governor, and Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who taught the people said to all of them, “This day is holy to the Lord your God; do not mourn or weep.” For all the people wept when they heard the words of the law. 

The people heard the law and pledged to adhere to the law of God, and to observe and do all the commandments of the Lord our God and his ordinances and his statutes. Then the leaders of Judah came up onto the wall, and there were trumpets and cymbals, harps, and lyres. The singers sang. The people offered great sacrifices that day and rejoiced, for God had made them rejoice with great joy; and [always a second thought] the women and children also rejoiced.

The joy of Jerusalem was heard far away. (END OF READING)

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SERMON:

In early 2020 when listening to the news about the rule of law, I suddenly thought, 

        "Hey, this isn't new. This is in the Bible.

         There is something deep and important and religious here, and it is being ignored.

 What is happening in our country today echoes something I remember 

                from the history of Ancient Israel."

"The rule of law" describes how we rule ourselves by electing legislators

who write laws, a president who carries them out,

and courts who settle disputes about those laws through interpretation of our Constitution 

that establishes our whole system of government.

The phrase, "the rule of law," is shorthand for how we write our laws through representatives

and how this replaces having a king who can decide what the laws will be.

The concept of "the rule of law" has been in the news regularly since 2016.

So I turned to the stories of Ezra and Nehemiah, which led me to Deuteronomy, 

where most of the Hebrew laws are given.

Now this isn't easy for Christians, because we in the churches have been told 

that the law of ancient Israel was basically a bad thing, 

that there were too many of them and that they diminished the lives of the people.

Jesus objected that requirements and obedience to laws 

sometimes prevented people from helping those in need.

Added to this is the Apostle Paul, who frequently and at length 

spoke of how the law corrupts faith, 

                        so that what one does in obedience to law cannot satisfy God.

But Jesus quoted the law frequently.

As a good rabbi, he summarized the Ten commandments in two tablets: 

Love God and love your neighbor.

Jesus rediscovered and re-interpreted the ancient law of Israel, 

which had been abused and misused in his time.

This had happened before, so in Ezra and Nehemiah we have a story 

of a people who re-discovered the law long before Jesus,

        and found in it something of great importance that they had lost.

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So let’s listen to the law beginning in Chapter 6 of Deuteronomy

which outlines the laws and the principles underlying the laws of ancient Israel.

You aren’t likely to read Deuteronomy, so I have done it for you.

I have summarized what the people of Jerusalem would have heard 

        when the forgotten laws were read to them, causing them to weep.

Some of this you know.

The tradition is that Moses wrote the Torah, meaning both all the law,

and the first 5 books of Hebrew scripture, so Moses is speaking:

“This is the great commandment—the statutes and the ordinances—

        that the Lord your God teaches you to observe, 

so that it may go well with you, and so that you may multiply greatly 

        in a land flowing with milk and honey, 

        as the Lord, the God of your ancestors, has promised you.

        Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. 

        You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, 

        and with all your soul, and with all your might....

Two reasons are given for why the people should love God and neighbor:

The first is an old idea of a "just" God who will punish people for not doing what God says.

The second is that the people should "Do what is right and good in the sight of the Lord, 

        so that it may go well with you and so that you may go in and occupy the good land 

                that the Lord swore to your ancestors."

Finally, we are told "If we diligently observe this entire commandment before the Lord our God, 

        as he has commanded us, we will be in the right.”

This means that obeying the law puts us on the right side of God.

Obeying the law makes us "righteous."

We need always to be reminded that the Bible often translates Justice as Righteousness.

The ancients were telling the people first that laws come from God.

The authority of the law was that it came from God.

This authority was passed down to kings and priests, who were thought to be chosen by God.

With the enforcement power of kings, the law was not to be trifled with.

But the law was not just a matter of the temples or the churches. 

Ancient Israel, ancient Greece and Rome, and ancient tribes 

such as the Hau-de-no-suan-ee (Iroquois) of New York 

were the inventors of Constitutions, 

                        modern representation and democracy, and this rule of law.

All of them taught that the law is good because it expresses the values

which manifest our idea of what we call God.

Therefore, to mess with the rule of law 

is to undermine and threaten all that is holy and sacred 

and is to be treated with awe if our lives to have meaning

                        and if we are to be able to live in a structured and orderly society.

Today we understand that God is not a real person. 

I personally describe God as the spirit behind our highest human values,

Our human, American rule of law is no different than ancient Israel’s rule by God’s law.

The law is intended to declare what is right and good and just.

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So the Israelite law begins with the command: 

1. You shall not exalt yourselves.

So now, O Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you? 

Only to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways,

to serve the Lord your God [by obeying the law!]

with all your heart and with all your soul... for your own well-being.... 

For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, is not partial and takes no bribe, 

executes justice for the orphan and the widow, 

loves the strangers, providing them food and clothing. 

You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. 

We can hear echos of the issues of our present day and our violations of these ancient laws.

All who have ears, hear today’s news in the book of Deuteronomy.

2. There are laws on what foods to eat and which cannot be eaten. 

This was the ancient way of bringing preventive health care to the people.

3. There are detailed laws on giving tithes for the temple and the government. 

This was early socialism, the novel idea that we are not isolated individuals 

with no responsibility for our common life together. 

We should share the cost for all the things that help us create and maintain communities,

our common basis for economic growth and social progress.

4. They went so far as to say that:

Every seventh year you shall grant a remission or cancel all debts.

This shows an early understanding of how unregulated 

buying and selling leads to economic inequality 

which must be corrected and made right somehow. 

Such cancellation of debt probably never happened as written here, 

but there are numerous laws here to alleviate the poverty 

        of those who lost their lands and wealth to weather or oppression.

5. You shall appoint judges and officials throughout your tribes, 

in all your towns that the Lord your God is giving you, 

and they shall render just decisions for the people. 

You must not distort justice; you must not show partiality; and you must not accept bribes, 

for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and subverts the cause of those who are in the right. 

6. Kings must be controlled in order to have justice: "Justice, and only justice, you shall pursue...." 

When you have come into the land and have taken possession of it and settled in it, and you say, 

        “I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are around me,” 

you may indeed set over you a king but you are not permitted to put a foreigner over you.... 

Even so, he must not acquire many horses or wives for himself..., 

Also silver and gold he must not acquire in great quantity for himself.

7. There are laws forbidding all magic and superstitious nonsense and con games.

This was the way they protected reason and science such as it was.

8. God continues to give laws against lies and for truth:

You may say to yourself, “How can we recognize a word that the Lord has not spoken?” 

If a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord but the thing does not take place or prove true, 

it is a word that the Lord has not spoken. 

The prophet has spoken it presumptuously; do not be frightened by it.

9. There are laws against crime and to protect the rights of the accused:

You must not move your neighbor’s boundary marker

Only on the evidence of two or three witnesses shall a charge be sustained. 

Punishments shall be limited and proportionate to the offense.

10. Laws are given for every case that came before the early sages and judges:

There are rules of Warfare, for treatment of captives,  

the Right of the Firstborn and rules for inheritance.

You may not withhold your help from a neighbor. 

AND, You shall make your house safe for others.

There are laws concerning Sexual Relations, adultery, rape, 

prostitution, loans and debts, marriage and divorce, kidnapping.

There are rules for the prevention of contagion!

There are laws for making loans and collecting on them.

There are labor laws:

You shall not withhold the wages of poor and needy laborers, 

        whether other Israelites or aliens. 

You shall pay them their wages daily before sunset, 

because they are poor and their livelihood depends on them.

Business shall be conducted fairly:

You shall not have in your bag or in your house two kinds of weights, large and small. 

Many laws deal with immigrants:

You shall not deprive a resident alien or an orphan of justice. 

Anything left in your field after harvest shall be left for the alien, the orphan, and the widow. 

I have omitted many important and relevant laws.

Finally, the last Law: You shall offer First Fruits and Tithes gratefully.

------------------------------------------

In conclusion, Deuteronomy summarizes the ancient rule of law, 

This was the law of Jesus, and our laws are not much different.

Laws are often abused, but at their best they are an attempt to declare 

what is right and good for individuals and for society.

Some laws are punitive and require retribution.

Higher laws are concerned with “distributive justice,” which is about equal justice before the law.

"Equal justice before the law" is inscribed on our Supreme Court building.

The purpose of the ancient law was to put us on the right side of God.

Obeying the law would make us "righteous" or just.

The Hebrews believed that the law came from God, and that God required justice. 

We might say that behind the law is the creative power of life and love, which we name God,

which reflects our highest and deepest values, such as love, mercy, and justice.

Jesus said, "Seek first the rule of God" and everything else will follow.

“In England,” Tom Paine said, “The King was the Law. Here the Law is King.”

This defined the rule of law.

We argue about laws if we think they are are unfair or unjust, and we disagree about that.

We bring laws up to date when we have learned new truths  about human life and behavior.

But with reflection we realize that we cannot live without the rule of law, 

because ultimately it makes us human.

The Age of the Spirit

(Acts 2:1-21, The Story of Pentecost, and John 15:26-16:15, excerpts)

I always thought of Pentecost Sunday as the first Sunday of the Season of the Spirit, 

        which begins Pentecost Sunday in May.

But Pentecost Sunday is not the first Sunday of a new season. 

It is the last Sunday of the Easter season.

It is about resurrection as much as it is about Spirit

and it is about Life every bit as much as resurrection is about life.

The story of Pentecost tells how the first followers of Jesus were distraught and confused 

after the crucifixion of Jesus.

They didn’t know what to make of tales of an empty tomb and appearances of Jesus.

The book of the Acts of the Apostles, which is sometimes called “The Acts of the Holy Spirit” 

begins with these apostles, sad because Jesus has left them.

The writer, who also wrote the Gospel of Luke, seems not to have known of  of the Spirit, 

as an Advocate for his followers when he was gone.

For many, the Holy Spirit became another name for God’s grace and presence,

as a way to deal with the absence of Jesus.

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At a conference 20 years ago, I was talking with Paul Laughlin, 

a Bible professor and Methodist who is about my age.

We went to different seminaries in the late '60s and early '70s.

He asked me, “Did you ever think about what we weren’t taught in seminary?”

I replied, I don’t know. I hadn’t thought about it. 

He said, “We weren’t taught world religions and the Spirit,

the two most significant things about religion since we graduated.”

In the ‘60's mainline Protestant seminaries didn’t teach these things.

E.g., we didn’t know about Pentecostals, now more than a fourth of all Christians in the world 

        and the fastest growing part of Christianity.

But by the early ‘70's, as the world began changing and ever more rapidly, 

people everywhere began to talk about something called “Spirituality.”

Now at my old Presbyterian seminary there is a course on World Pentecostalism,

taught by a professor who is a Bishop in the Church of God in Christ, 

and who sits on the board of trustees at Oral Roberts U.

That’s pretty much of a shock to me.

And the faculty now includes Baptists and Jews and Catholics, so we are left with the questions, 

“What does it mean to be Presbyterian?”  And “What does it mean to be Christian?”

Let’s look at that church name “Pentecostal.” 

It says something about the importance of Spirit

to the large number of Christians who identify with that name.

They emphasize direct personal experience of God through baptism by the Spirit, 

and gifts of the Holy Spirit such as speaking in tongues and supernatural healing.

It began in 1901 when many people were dissatisfied with the organized churches, 

when Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and Episcopalians were the comfortable upper classes. 

Pentecostals would hate sermons like this one.

They wanted a religion of the heart, with emotion, evidences of the love and power of God.

These evidences included the realities that they they overcame racism, 

allowed women to preach, and saw nothing dishonorable about being poor.

We can only imagine what Presbyterians then would have thought of it.

Little wonder that many people called Presbyterians “the frozen chosen.”

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I and others have told you how we are today in a period of great transition 

from the world that we have known, in which we grew up,

to something we cannot yet understand or fully imagine.

There are many writers who think that all this change and perhaps this fear of the future 

is the cause of the decline of churches,  and our national political divisions. 

Last month I spoke of how we live by violence and must learn to live by non-violence.

I think of Spirit as the opposite of violence, 

by which I mean that it is difficult if not impossible to think of, or live with the Spirit of God 

which is the Spirit of the Good, and practice or defend violence at the same time.

As many as 85% of Americans consider themselves “spiritual” in some way.

Perhaps Spirit is so desirable because it is non-violent.

To seek the Spirit is to seek non-violence.

----------------------

Spirit is more than just an event or a season or the highest value of particular churches.

It turns out that Pentecostalism and spirituality were not new.

In the 1100s a man you and I have never heard of,

thought the Christian church was in a lot of trouble.

[Joachim of Fiore was] an Italian monk who studied the Bible 

and said some interesting things about world history:

He called the time before Christ the Age of God the Father. 

It was a time of fear.

The time after Christ was the Age of the Son. It was a time of faith, understood as belief.

Believing the right things became more and more important, 

and the followers of Jesus became churches controlled by Popes and Bishops and priests.

A third era began, church structures became destabilized and decentered. 

It would be a time for fewer, but committed and active believers. 

This new time would be the Age of the Spirit. 

It would be an unsettled time, but a time of love.

Father, Son, and then Spirit. Fear, Faith, and then Love.

But the age of the Spirit was postponed, or derailed

        by the Reformation which brought an Age of the Word, 

        with strong emphasis on the printed word and the preached word. 

Spirit was mostly ignored until Pentecostalism arrived 125 years ago.

But some writers think that Joachim’s Age of the Spirit may have begun in the last century.

Those first Pentecostals knew that Spirit means a disturbance of the air 

and is translated in the Bible as breath, or wind, as well as Spirit.

Spirit is about Freedom from church authorities to be in direct connection with God.

Spirit upsets; it is revolutionary; it is the power of love between us.

Spirit brings upheaval; it is uncontrolled and uncontrollable.

There are signs all over the world that millions of people in this new age think great change is needed; 

beyond what we know as civilization,

great change in the ways we live with each other, in our work and in our government.

Spirit is a way we speak of participating in a new world and a new way of being. 

Scripture speaks of being born again, of our becoming a new humanity by the Spirit.

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Worship for many has become a way to create “spiritual” experiences; 

which means more direct experiences of God.

Here is an example of how that works.

On Long Island I brought in a large canvas labyrinth 30' across into the church fellowship hall. 

(You may have walked a labyrinth and know something about the experience of walking one.)

People walked this path in silence.

Several people who walked this path broke into tears,

the experience evoked such strong feelings in them.

They described this special experience as “spiritual.”

We enter this odd ritual, and follow a path, one step after another and it can do something to us.

Surrendering ourselves to walking on this new path, our mental pathways are somehow broken,

        and we find ourselves somehow free and controlled by something bigger than ourselves.

We usually think of the Spirit in such terms of special, out of the ordinary experiences.

For too long the church has expected and hoped for 

        another mountain top experience or another Pentecost, a special revelation, 

that would make everything all right again in the churches and in our lives.

Sometimes in life we have such religious or spiritual experiences, but mostly they don’t last.

Often it is an experience when a teenager at a summer church camp.

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But I have a book that says something different about Spirit.

Joe Haroutunian wrote:  

“The Holy Spirit is not a ghostly presence or being.

To speak of the HS is not to describe a vertical relationship

of the individual with God, but a horizontal relationship with each other.

The HS is not so much in us – as it is among us and between us."

Haroutunian called Spirit "transpersonal," not just interpersonal.

It is what happens in each of us when something happens between us, 

when we speak and interact with another person.

God is both Spirit and Love, as it says several times in scripture,

If God is Spirit, God is what happens in our interactions when the Spirit moves between us.

Spirit then is the life force and creative energy that we know in our living with each other. 

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So what is the result of all our interacting, of all our loving each other?

We speak of the spirit of the age, as the set of ideas, beliefs, and aims 

        that is typical of people in a particular period in history. 

We make the spirit of the age as the spirit is manifested among us.

This was most clearly illustrated answered by Mr. Rogers, 

        the Presbyterian minister, Fred Rogers, who had his own neighborhood on television.

He said – 

    “If you could only sense how important you are to the lives of those you meet;

      how important you can be to other people in ways you may never even dream of.

      There is something of yourself that you leave at every meeting with another person.” 

That other person gives a part of what you gave to them to others.

So what we say and do and give carries the Spirit to others, 

and a huge web of thought and feeling moves through society.

The predominant thoughts and feelings of each year and decade and century 

        shift and change and move in surprising and not so surprising ways.

The spirit working between us and among us makes the culture in which we live.

It impacts what we think and feel, 

and what we think and feel then in turn influences the larger culture.

It can be good or bad.

That is why our culture is always such a mixture of good fruit and awful weeds.

The power of Spirit rising out of our interactions has a dark side

because you and I don’t always think and share what is good. 

We fill the air around us with Good and bad.

        It affects us, and we are mostly unaware of how we contribute to it. 

Sometimes we interact with people who do not respect others as worthy human beings.

So there are good spirits and evil spirits as described in scripture.

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An exercise. An assignment, if you will accept it.

Keep a journal of every encounter you have with another person, 

beginning with your conversations after worship this morning.

This includes face to face conversations, phone conversations, emails, and texts.

Sit down and make a list of the people you have spoken with since worship today.

What have you received from the other?

What have you given to the other?

What do you carry away from that encounter with the other?

What effect does it have on you later?

Does anyone come back to you days later and say – 

“You know that thing you said about family or whatever? 

I’ve been thinking about it and how it applies to me.”

Or do you go back to someone in your family or a friend,

and you tell them how something they said affected you.

That’s the Spirit at work. Spiritual Presence.

I have discovered that I can change the spirit in a grocery store 

by what I say and how I say it to the clerk there.

We can’t see Spirit, but spirit is within us and between us.

Spirit is what happens between us in our interactions.

Spirituality is relational and transpersonal. 

And the meaning of all this stuff that I have made all too complicated is simply: 

We should be nice to each other. We should listen. We should be kind. 

It's catching.

We are making the culture we complain about unless we make the kind of culture we want.

We are doing the work of God here on earth. Or we are not.

"There is something of yourself that you leave at every meeting with another person.”

Let’s leave something good for others and live in the Age of the Spirit.

What Jesus and Resurrection Are Really About

This is an audacious sermon title, so I will try to explain. 

First, I owe much here to John Dominic Crossan, and his books and lectures of the past two decades,             especially In Search of Paul, God and Empire, Render Unto Caesar, and everything else.

Only once did I preach a sermon which caused people to walk out of the worship service.

It was a sermon against guns, after John Lennon was shot and killed in 1980.

That probably means that none of my sermons since then were challenging in any meaningful way.

If you choose to walk out today, at least listen to Jesus and Paul.

I observe that most Christians find it difficult to express what they believe about God and Jesus, 

the resurrection, the Trinity, and all the other stuff we talk about in church. 

I’ll bet most of you would be hard pressed to explain to others what you believe. 

It’s not your fault.

Christian teachings and beliefs are complicated; and some don’t make much sense.

I have an easy and quick fix to this: Christianity isn’t or shouldn’t be about belief.

Christianity should be about following Jesus.

That’s how it began, with Jesus asking men and women to “follow me.”

But how do we follow Jesus? The answer might cause some to walk out today.

This is the season of Easter, so I will focus on the resurrection today.

We can observe that the four gospels have a hard time explaining the resurrection, 

        so I skipped them this morning.

Here is why:

The first or earliest gospel, Mark, doesn’t have much resurrection at all.

It tells of women going to the tomb of Jesus. 

They found “A young man in a white robe... who said to them, 

‘He [meaning Jesus] has been raised; he is not here.’ 

They fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them, 

and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”

That’s how the gospel ends; the other things you will find there at the end 

of the chapter are commonly understood to be later additions.

The truth is that the gospel writers didn’t know how to explain the resurrection.

The first followers of Jesus experienced him as alive even though he had been crucified.

How do you write about such an intense experience?

So they told of an empty tomb and of appearances of Jesus to some of his followers.

It wasn’t until 400 years later that artists began to depict the resurrection.

They showed sleeping guards, an open tomb, and a risen Christ.

Later artists added women to the scene. 

Within another 200 years the Eastern Orthodox churches were using an icon, a painting on wood, 

a sacred image used for worship and teaching, 

Crossan directs us to the icon entitled “the resurrection” or “h’anastacis.” in Greek.

                        (The Russian girl’s name Anastasia means resurrection.)

This icon gives an idea of resurrection that we find unusual 

in our Western, Catholic or Protestant churches.

In the Western artistic tradition, Jesus emerges from the tomb alone and victorious. 

This famous icon shows two empty coffins from which Christ is pulling Adam and Eve 

        by the hands, up and out of hades.

On the left of the icon, are David and Solomon, 

representing those who died before Jesus’ crucifixion.

On the right side of the icon is Abel, the first person to die as a result of Cain’s violence,

        with John the Baptist, Jesus’ teacher.

                [wow- Abel is remembered!] 

The Eastern Churches emphasize the resurrection of all humanity, symbolized by Adam and Eve, 

whereas in our Western Churches, it is everyone for himself or herself as individuals.

The icon focuses as much on us as on the Christ.

The resurrection is about our liberation.

We are important, and we have to ask, “What happens to us, to humanity now that Christ is raised?” 

What did the earliest Christians think would happen to them after the resurrection of Christ?

We can imagine much confusion after Jesus’ crucifixion.

The leader was dead and gone, or he had appeared to a few, but not to everyone.

All of us since then still behave badly, suffer, and die.

So the author of Luke and Acts speaks of our living as in an “in-between time,”

        between the crucifixion and an expected return of Christ.

I think Jesus had another idea, one that escaped most of his followers.

Mark had it just about right.

Some scholars who study Mark say that his message is not comforting.

If we read that short gospel story without the endings added later,

we get the idea that if we are to follow Jesus after he has gone, 

in the way of his life and death, we will probably be killed.

If we want to faithfully follow Jesus, we will die.

Not a comforting message of earthly success. 

So the resurrection is about our living in new ways because Christ is risen.

I saw a sign on a church board last week, proclaiming “Happy Easter!”

In so much as Easter is a symbol of new birth and the return of spring, that’s great.

But maybe the sign should say “Christ is Risen. This is scary.”

If we think about these things, then some of Jesus’ teachings 

and the crazy rants of Paul begin to make sense.

“Turn the other cheek, Love your enemies, walk an extra mile.”

These are basic teachings of Jesus from the sermon on the mount, 

        and they are actions that would get you in big trouble.

The truth is that the teachings of Jesus and Paul are the ways of non-violent resistance to power.

Jesus was opposed to the Roman Empire, but did not participate in violent resistance like the Zealots.

Rome killed Jesus because he preached about God’s Empire as opposed to Rome’s,

        and led a group that followed Jesus and not the Emperor.

“When Paul says ‘you have been raised with Christ,’ he means ‘you should be living risen lives.’”

A risen life is one that is not afraid of death 

because you have the faith, the trust, the confidence of Jesus.

It is a life totally committed to the teachings and example of Jesus.

A risen life is different from the lives that almost all of us live.

I preached here last year about Dietrich Bonhoeffer as one 

        who discovered in himself this faith and this commitment in his opposition to Hitler.

But we know little about nonviolent resistance.

It is not a large part of our experience and we are not taught it.

We are taught that war and violence are good or to be accepted.

We do know that Martin Luther King, Jr. taught and led people in non-violent action.

But we may not know of Bayard Rustin to taught non-violence to King.

[Check out the film, Rustin on Netflix.]

We have heard of Mahatma Ghandi,

but we may not know that Ghandi learned it from Leo Tolstoy, 

         who after writing such big books as War and Peace and Anna Karena,

         wrote many short stories about living simply, 

             peacefully, and non-violently as Jesus taught.

Non-violent resistance has a long history, but it is not popular to say the least.

        In fact most people are opposed to it.

It seems like suicide and failure to protect our families and our nation.

We have been taught to prefer violent retribution in response to violence.

This seems reasonable when we consider the attack on Pearl Harbor and our response to it.

Our response in that instance seems understandable, but it was explicitly vengeful.

What we believe today is the same thing that the Romans believed:

That violence produces peace.

When Jesus spoke of peacemaking, he spoke of love and forgiveness,

        but we see nothing odd about naming the Colt .45 repeating pistol “the peacemaker.”

                [BTW, The Pentagon and the US Army has long struggled 

                        with the concepts of “peacemaking” and “peacekeeping,” 

                settling on achieving stability (operations to restore order) with violence, 

                           and remaining neutral with policing.]

War does not make peace.

We have been taught to believe that an eye for an eye is a summary of Jewish law. It is not.

Love and justice are OT law.

We have been taught that God exacts revenge on God’s enemies,

but that is only one strand of the Bible.

We have two images of Jesus; one on a donkey as a messenger of peace on Palm Sunday,

        and one on a warhorse bringing violence to sinners in the book of Revelation.

Because of the way the Bible was written, edited, and assembled 

we are led to believe that the teaching of the book of Revelation 

is superior to the teachings of Jesus in the gospels.

This leads to images of Jesus carrying an AR-15, presumably to set right all the wrongs in the world.

Jesus, however, was about forgiveness and loving our enemies,

        but mostly we do not do those things.

Paul offers this suggestion, shocking your enemies by helping them:

“Beloved, never avenge yourselves, if your enemies are hungry, feed them;

  if they are thirsty, give them something to drink, 

for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads.” 

“Heaping burning coals on their heads” 

is a violent image to explain shaming those who are violent to us 

by demonstrating our unwillingness to do as they do.

Or maybe it is an image of someone’s face “turning red,” blushing, in shame 

for what they know they have done wrong.

Doing good to those who do us wrong

prevents us from allowing others to control us and our behavior.

When we respond to violence with violence 

we are doing what the other wants us to do.

Jesus and Paul were teaching non-violence 

but it is not easy to see when everyone has told us otherwise 

that Jesus supports us in going to war.

“Presenting your bodies as a living sacrifice” is non-violent resistance,

risking our lives for what we believe.

Paul says “Do not be conformed to this age” of Roman values and violence,

“but be transformed by the renewing of the mind,” 

He means for us to learn and practice active, organized, non-violent resistance.

This is what many Jews were doing before and after Jesus.

One great example was the Roman plan a few years after Jesus was crucified

to install a giant statue of Caligula as Jupiter in the Jerusalem temple.

A general strike was called.

Tens of thousands of Jews showed up for “sit-ins”

offering themselves for death if the statue was set up.

The Romans relented.

There are dozens of examples through history, many in our own time, 

of non-violent protests bringing about dramatic change 

in government policies and the governments themselves.

The extent that Jesus and Paul were practicing and teaching 

non-violence was not well understood until recently.

There are a number of good books on this

A search on Amazon or at the library will uncover them.

All of this is personal for me because I became a Christian in 1966,

        which led me to protest the American war in Vietnam.

As a Christian, as a pacifist, in witness to Jesus, I refused induction into the army, twice.

I prepared to go to prison, but I entered seminary, and a year later

I won a lawsuit against the Selective Service System and the Attorney General. 

I did not enter seminary to become a pastor, but to learn how to be a Christian in the world.

I failed in this because I did become a pastor, a “professional Christian”

        and was no longer “in the world” without the backing of the church.

I failed in peacemaking, too, because over the years I left peacemaking behind, 

        believing that I had done my part.

When I wrote my memoir a few years ago, 

        I thought that peacemaking might be the central theme of my life.

But I realized that it had occupied only a few years of my life.

I did not live up to the teachings of Jesus and Paul.

I reclaim it today, but I realize that few have lived up to those teachings, and few will.

This failure of Christianity to live up to Jesus is the tragedy of the way of the world

        and the way of the churches. 

The world will not succeed in its greedy and violent drive for ever increasing wealth and power, 

        because the world is busy destroying itself in its search to elevate the self over others.

And the churches, failing to understand Jesus, continues to seek salvation as rescue 

        rather than as healing and making individuals and society whole.

The denomination put out a poster in 1973 and I put it on a wall in our church fellowship hall.

It said “For Christ’s Sake – Do something!”

The Session said it had to come down. 

I still want to know why.

The Future of the Church May Be God-less

The Presbyterian Outlook isn't interested in printing this (I wonder why), so I am publishing it here: 

Two recent articles in the Presbyterian Outlook state that “The future of the PC(USA) is pastor-less, and that’s OK,” by Catherine Neelly Burton, and “The future of the PC(USA) is being reformed by God,” by Allison Unroe. The first describes the decline of congregations, especially rural ones, and the decline of small towns in rural America. The second raises questions about the value we do or do not place on “theologically educated and ethically trained pastoral leadership.” A look into the recent past and a larger context is needed to address these issues. Active, engaged church members and leaders only see the problems from inside the churches and are no longer in conversation with those who have left, who would have much to say about churches and the need for educated pastors.  

I saw these issues close up during the 1990's, when I was Associate for Professional Development in Louisville, and then Executive Presbyter/Stated Clerk in Great Rivers Presbytery. “Leadership” for times of change was the cry of the day in reaction to “management” which had been fitting for a seemingly unchanging church in the 50's. Presbyterian denominations had begun their membership decline in 1965 when I became a church member, and even when I graduated from seminary in 1972 my professors assumed that I would be a custodian of a small part of a large, stable and secure institution. Many of us could see in the 90's that the mainline churches would fall off a cliff when the “greatest generation,” the largest cohort within the churches, passed on.

My favorite explanation for the church decline we experienced was given by Hoge, Johnson, and Luidens in Vanishing Boundaries, who described active Elders and other lay leaders in the Presbyterian and other mainline churches as “lay liberals,” middle and upper-middle class professionals whose humanist and secular values were stronger than the propositions of traditional faith. They directed their children from confirmation classes into non-church-related colleges and universities, where they chose secular careers. Later, most chose not to attend church. I concluded that the cause of our decline lay with John Calvin and the early Presbyterians who valued education so highly that many of us were educated out of the church. 

I believe that secularization was a good thing. After all, the churches proclaim that God sent Jesus not to condemn the world, but to save it through him. I think of salvation as making whole, or tikkun olam, repair of the broken world, a task given to all of us. A vital church near me teaches to act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly (Micah 6:8), a simple vision that stirs the people there. 2001 was the first year that more Americans were unaffiliated with a church than belonged to one. Since then even Presbyterians feed at the new and plentiful smorgasbord of spiritualities, or leave theism entirely. The decline in belonging to church cannot be separated from ceasing to believe old orthodoxies. 

While working for the denomination on issues of professional development, I still assumed the presence of a pastor in almost all congregations. In west central Illinois I saw that this was not so. Congregations without theologically educated pastors may wander into strange beliefs. Only congregations with well-read, articulate lay leaders will be able to provide their communities with the role of ethical and authoritative guidance that pastors once filled. When I was pastor in the ‘70's and ‘80's, I was alarmed that many of my congregants read books by Billy Graham and Oral Roberts, which they received for  contributing to those evangelists’ television shows. The times were changing, but we could not see exactly how or where it would lead. Too many in the church thought I possessed priestly powers, yet our worship services could not compete with the new media.  Today, affluent congregations seek growth with electronic technologies of their own, while the basic causes of church decline remain mostly unaddressed. Churches going their own way may become centers of “Christian nationalism” or various kinds of personal pieties. Theology and Christology as serious fields of study are now on the operating table, awaiting surgery or death.   

As presbytery executive once, and as guest preacher today, I see that most small congregations want to hold on to their past identity, and cannot envision changing.  They will rarely collaborate with other nearby congregations, Presbyterian or otherwise, which might multiply their ministries. On Sunday mornings I used to travel to these towns, stop at the convenience store, and ask where the Presbyterian church was. Rarely did any one even know that a Presbyterian church existed there. My point to the congregations was that they should be known for doing something to benefit the town and its people.

The town without a doctor, lawyer, or minister is in serious decay. Farms have become larger, high tech operations. Many farm families who used to go to church, visit the doctor, and retain the lawyer for business needs have left. The stores that served the farms are gone, and the Walmart in the county seat has everything anyone needs. We are dealing with a cascade of loss.

Fewer church members means less financial support and fewer pastors, which means smaller and fewer seminaries, resulting in fewer jobs for teachers of ministers, and the writers of fewer articles and books of theology and bible interpretation. Large universities close their religion departments from which those teachers would come, because fewer students major in subjects that are no longer in demand. 

The fact that remaining pastors post their sermons online means that anyone in the pastor-less church can read them to their congregations, but then, if members are really interested, they can read them on their own at home, separated from the community. Not many of those sermons will be honest, or teach what needs to be known. Without a pastor there will be no one dedicated to teaching,  resolving conflicts, or organizing church life and missional outreach. However, a “mission and ministry connector” can direct them to good resources and teach lay leaders how to use them. A knowledgeable Ruling Elder from another congregation can serve as the presbytery to others in this way. 

The human desire for meaning in life, and the need to belong in community, will last. How people find ways to satisfy such longings in the future we do not yet know, but the denominational and congregational model we have known will change. I see droplets of hope in some conversations and initiatives in and around the denominations, but what denominations do draws little interest. The creation of new institutions seems unlikely in the near future. Some congregations do grow, usually in more densely populated places, but their experience is individual and anecdotal. 

In retirement I have turned to music and to my relationships with historical Jesus scholars in the Westar Institute. At the end of my memoir, Blue Neon Cross, I wrote, “Who am I to say what small groups of people, unknown to me, now or in some future time, struggling with the teachings of Jesus, might yet become or achieve?” If they sit around a table, and share food and drink (bread and wine?) while studying Jesus, and seeking a more just and inclusive future, I think it is a church.