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Sat - February 17, 2007
Preachers and Credibility
Any change I make to physical appearance, speech,
music, even worship practice runs the risk of becoming "just another gimmick,"
and I fail to pull off being what I attempt to become.
Warning - academic speak follows:
This post set me thinking about credibility and how preachers attempt to achieve it. I think there are many social discourses (discourses refer to more than language - dress, dialect, etc.) operating in and around discussion of "the emerging church" which go unacknowledged. How does one become an authority on a movement or trend? How does one signal to others that they are part of a group? Do you get tatted up both arms, spike your hair, dress in some exotic flavor? Do you go the academic route and grow a beard and get eyeglasses with tiny frames? Do you produce an impressive CV? When I bring up such issues, people tend to be dismissive. Dress and credentials and all these "superficial" things are not important, they say.
Except that they are. Everyone is attempting to pull off being a certain kind of person, trying to achieve an image they have of themselves. Failure to pull off being a certain kind of person (even if that kind of person is "authentic") will result in harsh social penalties and a loss of credibility.
Like Holden Caufield, we may lament that the world is full of phonies. But also like him, we play the game. If social discourse is phony (which it is not), then we are all phonies. The validation of authenticity is only an affirmation that we have succeeded in pulling off what we present ourselves as - "a genuine person," maybe. What kind of clothes does a genuine person wear? What kind of music does a genuine person listen to? The fact that we label successful discourses "genuine" highlights the power of social discourses. Put another way, people we label as "phony" have simply failed to pull off being something we believed they were attempting. Perhaps we were wrong in reading what they were attempting? But the fact that we make such judgments at all is proof that we believe and act within social discourses.
Social discourses decide if we have credibility, and who we have credibility among. As a preacher, I've been brushed off because I've worn a robe and because I've not worn a robe, because I have used church-language and because I've not used church-language. Most frustrating is when we do not read the social context correctly and we fail, or are perceived to fail, pulling off a certain social discourse. Then you're just a poser. These are language and power games.
And I'll confess, I have instantly dismissed others for similar reasons. I'm one of those people who has not gone to hear a particular preacher or speaker because their hair is wrong. Oh, don't look so shocked. When you've been channel-surfing, you've seen the televangelist with the hair helmet and in less than a second you made a judgment about how much you wanted to hear what he had to say.
Part of being in a group is accepting certain judgments about other groups as part of the group's philosophy. For example, some pastors in the church accuse academics of living in ivory towers. Academics accuse pastors who are not part of the intellegentsia of being "out of touch," or "premodern," or "trendy" - sometimes all at the same time! It's not uncommon to hear pastors being dismissive of seminary education. Nor is it rare to hear professors lamenting the state of the church when they have such blockheaded student-pastors to work with. I've inhabited both worlds and I've seen how these social discourses play out. You can lose credibility if you sound too smart. You can lose credibility for not using the right words. You can lose credibility for not having credentials. You can lose credibility for having credentials.
The reason this post got me thinking in this direction was I wondered what kind of things signify credibility to people suspicious of the establishment? (This wondering of mine is tangential - I'm not implying Taylor is necessarily "suspicious of the establishment"). How does someone achieve credibility among a group (street cred) especially when it comes to conversation about what is or is not properly "emerging?" What external social discourses signal to people hungry for reform or revolution that we should engage in conversation, that we are like-minded revolutionaries?
Preachers who agonize over reaching the world for Christ at some point have to struggle with credibility. And I'm not sure what is most threatening to preachers - the idea that their message might be irrelevant or that they may not have credibility. When it comes to signaling those frustrated with the institutional church that, though I am a representative of that institution, I'm also working to change it, where do I begin? Do I amplify my criticism of the church? Do I change what I do in worship? Any change I make to physical appearance, speech, music, even worship practice runs the risk of becoming "just another gimmick," and I fail to pull off being what I attempt to become. As pastors, we pull off or fail at a certain social discourse.
As groups, particular churches also participate in social discourse. What kind of church is this? A white yuppie church? A black prosperity gospel church? A contemporary church? A blue-haired church?
Again, it is easy for sincere people to misunderstand - you don't get to opt out of participating in a social discourse. This isn't about "fooling people" or being "authentic" or "wearing a mask." Social discourses run very deep, and you can no more opt out than you can decide not to have race, or socioeconomic class, or gender, or politics. You may do one or two social discourses very well, but you always broadcast social information.
How do preachers, pastors, and teachers achieve credibility?
This post set me thinking about credibility and how preachers attempt to achieve it. I think there are many social discourses (discourses refer to more than language - dress, dialect, etc.) operating in and around discussion of "the emerging church" which go unacknowledged. How does one become an authority on a movement or trend? How does one signal to others that they are part of a group? Do you get tatted up both arms, spike your hair, dress in some exotic flavor? Do you go the academic route and grow a beard and get eyeglasses with tiny frames? Do you produce an impressive CV? When I bring up such issues, people tend to be dismissive. Dress and credentials and all these "superficial" things are not important, they say.
Except that they are. Everyone is attempting to pull off being a certain kind of person, trying to achieve an image they have of themselves. Failure to pull off being a certain kind of person (even if that kind of person is "authentic") will result in harsh social penalties and a loss of credibility.
Like Holden Caufield, we may lament that the world is full of phonies. But also like him, we play the game. If social discourse is phony (which it is not), then we are all phonies. The validation of authenticity is only an affirmation that we have succeeded in pulling off what we present ourselves as - "a genuine person," maybe. What kind of clothes does a genuine person wear? What kind of music does a genuine person listen to? The fact that we label successful discourses "genuine" highlights the power of social discourses. Put another way, people we label as "phony" have simply failed to pull off being something we believed they were attempting. Perhaps we were wrong in reading what they were attempting? But the fact that we make such judgments at all is proof that we believe and act within social discourses.
Social discourses decide if we have credibility, and who we have credibility among. As a preacher, I've been brushed off because I've worn a robe and because I've not worn a robe, because I have used church-language and because I've not used church-language. Most frustrating is when we do not read the social context correctly and we fail, or are perceived to fail, pulling off a certain social discourse. Then you're just a poser. These are language and power games.
And I'll confess, I have instantly dismissed others for similar reasons. I'm one of those people who has not gone to hear a particular preacher or speaker because their hair is wrong. Oh, don't look so shocked. When you've been channel-surfing, you've seen the televangelist with the hair helmet and in less than a second you made a judgment about how much you wanted to hear what he had to say.
Part of being in a group is accepting certain judgments about other groups as part of the group's philosophy. For example, some pastors in the church accuse academics of living in ivory towers. Academics accuse pastors who are not part of the intellegentsia of being "out of touch," or "premodern," or "trendy" - sometimes all at the same time! It's not uncommon to hear pastors being dismissive of seminary education. Nor is it rare to hear professors lamenting the state of the church when they have such blockheaded student-pastors to work with. I've inhabited both worlds and I've seen how these social discourses play out. You can lose credibility if you sound too smart. You can lose credibility for not using the right words. You can lose credibility for not having credentials. You can lose credibility for having credentials.
The reason this post got me thinking in this direction was I wondered what kind of things signify credibility to people suspicious of the establishment? (This wondering of mine is tangential - I'm not implying Taylor is necessarily "suspicious of the establishment"). How does someone achieve credibility among a group (street cred) especially when it comes to conversation about what is or is not properly "emerging?" What external social discourses signal to people hungry for reform or revolution that we should engage in conversation, that we are like-minded revolutionaries?
Preachers who agonize over reaching the world for Christ at some point have to struggle with credibility. And I'm not sure what is most threatening to preachers - the idea that their message might be irrelevant or that they may not have credibility. When it comes to signaling those frustrated with the institutional church that, though I am a representative of that institution, I'm also working to change it, where do I begin? Do I amplify my criticism of the church? Do I change what I do in worship? Any change I make to physical appearance, speech, music, even worship practice runs the risk of becoming "just another gimmick," and I fail to pull off being what I attempt to become. As pastors, we pull off or fail at a certain social discourse.
As groups, particular churches also participate in social discourse. What kind of church is this? A white yuppie church? A black prosperity gospel church? A contemporary church? A blue-haired church?
Again, it is easy for sincere people to misunderstand - you don't get to opt out of participating in a social discourse. This isn't about "fooling people" or being "authentic" or "wearing a mask." Social discourses run very deep, and you can no more opt out than you can decide not to have race, or socioeconomic class, or gender, or politics. You may do one or two social discourses very well, but you always broadcast social information.
How do preachers, pastors, and teachers achieve credibility?
Posted at 11:37 AM |
Thu - February 8, 2007
Why Relevance is Irrelevant
And, at some point, even those who are too cool
for school will be able to hear King Lear with new ears, even if they have to
wait until their son-in-law takes away their car keys and puts them in a nursing
home.
It used to be easy for me to get caught up in
arguments about "relevance" in preaching and teaching the Bible. As preachers,
do we make the Bible relevant to today's listeners, or, as Barth argued, do we
make today's listeners relevant to the Bible? How do we bridge the gap between
cultures?
I'm weary of it. It's a stupid discussion.
I sat in English class in high school and I listened, transfixed, as my literature professor opened the word - Shakespeare's word, not God's. As old, mad King Lear dashed through the rain with his jester and disguised protector, I, a teenage student who couldn't yet grow a beard, felt my heart break with Lear's as he wept over his loss of control, the indignity of ageing, and the death of his daughter. I remember watching Hamlet and smiling at the ironies of life, drama, and how the two intertwine. In college, my English professor sat on the edge of a student's desk and interrogated us about Wuthering Heights. "What is love?" he asked. "Would you trade places with Catherine? Why?" Those English professors taught me more about preaching than a hundred preachers arguing about "relevance."
Is King Lear relevant to today's world? Is Wuthering Heights? Sure, a million students sitting in class text-messaging their buddies about this weekend's keg party may disagree, but for anyone who has been touched by the stories the question is... irrelevant. And, at some point, those who are too cool for school will be able to hear King Lear with new ears, even if they have to wait until their son-in-law takes away their car keys and puts them in a nursing home.
"Relevance" is something that obtains in a listener when there is perceived distance between the listener and the story. When you glance at your watch during the particularly tedious fight scene or boring dialogue in a movie, when something jars you out of identifying with the protagonist, you've reached a place where you make a judgment about relevance. Even if you decide that a story is relevant, you arrrive at the decision because something caused you to step back and look at the work as a whole, then look at your culture, and note that there were more points of agreement than disagreement. If we judge something "relevant," it's because it fits - but just barely.
I saw some news footage of interviews with people coming out of the theater after seeing Star Wars: A New Hope in 1976. The media took notice of Star Wars because science fiction had been considered a niche genre. Two teenage girls came out giggling, saying the movie was terrible, because it was "too make-believe." For whatever reason - they were not able to suspend disbelief, they didn't have the required amount of testosterone, they had tiny imaginations, or they were absorbed in their own worlds of gossip and fashion - the movie did not achieve relevance. For me, of course, it was a picture of the way reality should be. I figured every kid wanted a lightsaber.
Sometimes we run up against the same disconnection with the Bible. Because of the perceived difference between Biblical culture and ours, because of the alien feel, we cannot enter into the story. We stand outside it. To some extent it is good to be aware of the difference.
Yet for some reason I can read The Kite Runner, or Dune, or the Joy Luck Club, and enter into an alien culture and even an alien person. Yes, yes, I know - that's not the same thing as understanding a culture (as if most people even understand their own culture) yet I walk away from these books transformed. Something in me changes. For many people, reading The Red Tent opened them up to the Bible in a way they had never experienced.
If we cannot do the same thing with the Bible - enter into the text and be transformed by it - it is not the Bible's fault. The Bible has transforming power. What's needed is a storyteller or a teacher who will open the Word and interrogate you with it: would you switch places with King David? with Paul? Why? Do you find this proverb convincing? Is this author speaking literally or figuratively? What's going on in this text? To fully enter into a text, to fall in love with it, you have to be willing to ask these kinds of questions. Some Christians won't because they find the questions threatening. But reading the Bible should destabilize our carefully-constructed world.
I loved listening to the commentary on the DVD of The Seven Samurai. The film professor talked about Kurosawa's technique, the anarchic fight choreography, the way the musical themes introduced certain characters, and all the innovative stuff that influenced directors for years after. He clearly loved the movie. I imagine that if you asked him if The Seven Samurai were relevant to today's culture, he might look at you as if you were insane. Talk to anyone about the thing in their life that alters their universe and ask them if it's relevant. I've listened to mechanics that can talk about an engine with such passion that it makes me want to give up preaching and go take apart a car.
I suspect that if some in our culture are "too cool for school," refusing to enter into Star Wars or Shakespeare or Spaghetti Westerns, they will not find relevance in the Bible either. For such people, even if they were to see a movie or read a book about their own life, they would most likely make the same judgment: this story is not relevant to me. Their problem is not with the relevance of the story. Their problem is that their fear of transformation prevents them from entering into the story. They will not become vulnerable.
At the same time I believe there are preachers who know intuitively that people should love the Bible, but they can't quite figure out how to spread the love. So they stand outside of the text, trying to make it fit, instead of entering into it themselves. I've done the same thing, not just with the Bible but with other areas of life. I've tried liking something because I felt I should. Eventually I give up. But when I come back to it later, and enter into it without carrying with me the image of who I believe I'm supposed to be - if, in other words, I can leave behind my baggage - I sometimes find, to my surprise, that this text, or music, or film, really rocks in an unexpected and delightful way. The problem is not relevance. The problem is me.
I think that when some preachers talk about relevance, what's really at stake is their own credibility - but I'm saving that for another post.
I'm weary of it. It's a stupid discussion.
I sat in English class in high school and I listened, transfixed, as my literature professor opened the word - Shakespeare's word, not God's. As old, mad King Lear dashed through the rain with his jester and disguised protector, I, a teenage student who couldn't yet grow a beard, felt my heart break with Lear's as he wept over his loss of control, the indignity of ageing, and the death of his daughter. I remember watching Hamlet and smiling at the ironies of life, drama, and how the two intertwine. In college, my English professor sat on the edge of a student's desk and interrogated us about Wuthering Heights. "What is love?" he asked. "Would you trade places with Catherine? Why?" Those English professors taught me more about preaching than a hundred preachers arguing about "relevance."
Is King Lear relevant to today's world? Is Wuthering Heights? Sure, a million students sitting in class text-messaging their buddies about this weekend's keg party may disagree, but for anyone who has been touched by the stories the question is... irrelevant. And, at some point, those who are too cool for school will be able to hear King Lear with new ears, even if they have to wait until their son-in-law takes away their car keys and puts them in a nursing home.
"Relevance" is something that obtains in a listener when there is perceived distance between the listener and the story. When you glance at your watch during the particularly tedious fight scene or boring dialogue in a movie, when something jars you out of identifying with the protagonist, you've reached a place where you make a judgment about relevance. Even if you decide that a story is relevant, you arrrive at the decision because something caused you to step back and look at the work as a whole, then look at your culture, and note that there were more points of agreement than disagreement. If we judge something "relevant," it's because it fits - but just barely.
I saw some news footage of interviews with people coming out of the theater after seeing Star Wars: A New Hope in 1976. The media took notice of Star Wars because science fiction had been considered a niche genre. Two teenage girls came out giggling, saying the movie was terrible, because it was "too make-believe." For whatever reason - they were not able to suspend disbelief, they didn't have the required amount of testosterone, they had tiny imaginations, or they were absorbed in their own worlds of gossip and fashion - the movie did not achieve relevance. For me, of course, it was a picture of the way reality should be. I figured every kid wanted a lightsaber.
Sometimes we run up against the same disconnection with the Bible. Because of the perceived difference between Biblical culture and ours, because of the alien feel, we cannot enter into the story. We stand outside it. To some extent it is good to be aware of the difference.
Yet for some reason I can read The Kite Runner, or Dune, or the Joy Luck Club, and enter into an alien culture and even an alien person. Yes, yes, I know - that's not the same thing as understanding a culture (as if most people even understand their own culture) yet I walk away from these books transformed. Something in me changes. For many people, reading The Red Tent opened them up to the Bible in a way they had never experienced.
If we cannot do the same thing with the Bible - enter into the text and be transformed by it - it is not the Bible's fault. The Bible has transforming power. What's needed is a storyteller or a teacher who will open the Word and interrogate you with it: would you switch places with King David? with Paul? Why? Do you find this proverb convincing? Is this author speaking literally or figuratively? What's going on in this text? To fully enter into a text, to fall in love with it, you have to be willing to ask these kinds of questions. Some Christians won't because they find the questions threatening. But reading the Bible should destabilize our carefully-constructed world.
I loved listening to the commentary on the DVD of The Seven Samurai. The film professor talked about Kurosawa's technique, the anarchic fight choreography, the way the musical themes introduced certain characters, and all the innovative stuff that influenced directors for years after. He clearly loved the movie. I imagine that if you asked him if The Seven Samurai were relevant to today's culture, he might look at you as if you were insane. Talk to anyone about the thing in their life that alters their universe and ask them if it's relevant. I've listened to mechanics that can talk about an engine with such passion that it makes me want to give up preaching and go take apart a car.
I suspect that if some in our culture are "too cool for school," refusing to enter into Star Wars or Shakespeare or Spaghetti Westerns, they will not find relevance in the Bible either. For such people, even if they were to see a movie or read a book about their own life, they would most likely make the same judgment: this story is not relevant to me. Their problem is not with the relevance of the story. Their problem is that their fear of transformation prevents them from entering into the story. They will not become vulnerable.
At the same time I believe there are preachers who know intuitively that people should love the Bible, but they can't quite figure out how to spread the love. So they stand outside of the text, trying to make it fit, instead of entering into it themselves. I've done the same thing, not just with the Bible but with other areas of life. I've tried liking something because I felt I should. Eventually I give up. But when I come back to it later, and enter into it without carrying with me the image of who I believe I'm supposed to be - if, in other words, I can leave behind my baggage - I sometimes find, to my surprise, that this text, or music, or film, really rocks in an unexpected and delightful way. The problem is not relevance. The problem is me.
I think that when some preachers talk about relevance, what's really at stake is their own credibility - but I'm saving that for another post.
Posted at 09:52 PM |
Wed - January 24, 2007
The Poor You Always Have With You
Often I've felt like throwing my hands in the air
and giving up, because if the man keeps eating the bait and leaving the fishing
pole at home then how can you teach him anything?
Confession time: I'm one of those
well-intentioned, socially-concerned preachers who seems to love beating up
white, middle-class, guilt-laden listeners with images of "the poor." It's a
moral failure, I'll admit it - not just a rhetorical one. It probably ranks up
there with using other stock images: the working single mom, the rich fat cat
driving his luxury car, the malnourished child in a developing country, the
soccer mom in her SUV, the homeless lady pushing a grocery cart. We use them as
a kind of rhetorical shorthand. We dress up socioeconomic anxiety in Christian
clothes and make it do tricks.
I've become more circumspect using such images as I've actually gotten to know some of these people, rich and poor alike.
Here's one image of "the poor" - A guy works two jobs to make ends meet and raise his two kids. He has no health insurance. His extended family has either died or become addicted to drugs. He drives a 1988 Honda hatchback with 200,000 miles on it. He admits he has made some stupid financial decisions, like using one of those payday cash advance places (the profits from which help supplement the income of several state legislators). One day the transmission goes out on his car. Because he cannot make it to work, he loses both jobs. Because he loses his income, he cannot pay his electric bill. The milk and meat in the refrigerator spoil and makes the whole house stink. He doesn't ask his church for help. He just stops going. Prayer doesn't seem to be doing the trick anyway.
Here's another image - A guy "between jobs" conveniently runs out of gas in the church parking lot. He says he is trying to make it to the next state where he will become gainfully employed. Though he reeks of cigarette smoke (what do those cost now - 4 bucks a pack?), he says he doesn't have enough money to buy gas. He holds in his hand a well-worn Bible. As he talks to the preacher (who looks like an easy mark) he makes abundant references to how he believes God will provide, but he's running out of faith because the last three churches were stuck up and didn't believe in helping someone who was hard up. But certainly, he implies, this preacher will be different.
Anyone who spends any time in a church and feels any sort of conviction that the gospel should be "good news to the poor" has to run up against the very practical problem of who is the poor and what kind of Good News should it be? Idealists say that you should reach for your wallet because Jesus said, in the Sermon on the Mount, to "give to whoever asks of you." It is your responsibility, they say, to give, and God's to mete out punishment or reward. What the person does with the money you give them is between them and God.
I would cling to that ideal if it didn't feel like a cop-out. Scam artists have an interesting strategy. They use a mixture of guilt, pity, fear, and annoyance. I've found that if I address my own emotional reaction to the situation, I can sometimes find a real person under the scammer. I told one con artist (the "out of gas" variety) that I would be happy to drive him where he was going. I've offered to buy such people lunch if they will simply sit down with me and tell me their story - the true version. I have very rarely had anyone take me up on my offers. I figure that if I am supposed to see the image of the Living God in people, I may have to wrestle it out of them. God never takes offense at the challenge of greater intimacy. But I think God would be royally pissed if I gave him money just to get out of my face. Fear and pity are not the same as love.
On the other hand, I think it is also a feature of living a (mostly) privileged existence that we're always afraid of getting cheated. I try not to act out of such fear, but pastoral care for the scam artist is a tricky thing. The people who see churches and pastors as marks do need something. Sometimes they are really poor.
Working with the - shall we call them the sympathetic poor? - can be just as frustrating. Some folks learn helplessness and figure why try to live on a budget when life will simply kick your legs out from under you? Why bother trying to save something, or get out of debt, or expect anything better for your children than you got? Sometimes they find ingenious ways to sabotage themselves. Conventional wisdom says that if you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, but if you teach him to fish, you feed him for a lifetime. Often I've felt like throwing my hands in the air and giving up, because if the man keeps eating the bait and leaving the fishing pole at home then how can you teach him anything?
Then again, perhaps it is not my place to teach, but to learn.
Anyway, I would like to issue a challenge to preachers, especially those preaching to middle-to-upper-class congregations. The next time Satan tempts you to trot out an abstraction of "the homeless" or "the poor" to make your homiletical point, try to have someone in particular in mind. Who is the poor? Give them a face, a situation, a name.
I've become more circumspect using such images as I've actually gotten to know some of these people, rich and poor alike.
Here's one image of "the poor" - A guy works two jobs to make ends meet and raise his two kids. He has no health insurance. His extended family has either died or become addicted to drugs. He drives a 1988 Honda hatchback with 200,000 miles on it. He admits he has made some stupid financial decisions, like using one of those payday cash advance places (the profits from which help supplement the income of several state legislators). One day the transmission goes out on his car. Because he cannot make it to work, he loses both jobs. Because he loses his income, he cannot pay his electric bill. The milk and meat in the refrigerator spoil and makes the whole house stink. He doesn't ask his church for help. He just stops going. Prayer doesn't seem to be doing the trick anyway.
Here's another image - A guy "between jobs" conveniently runs out of gas in the church parking lot. He says he is trying to make it to the next state where he will become gainfully employed. Though he reeks of cigarette smoke (what do those cost now - 4 bucks a pack?), he says he doesn't have enough money to buy gas. He holds in his hand a well-worn Bible. As he talks to the preacher (who looks like an easy mark) he makes abundant references to how he believes God will provide, but he's running out of faith because the last three churches were stuck up and didn't believe in helping someone who was hard up. But certainly, he implies, this preacher will be different.
Anyone who spends any time in a church and feels any sort of conviction that the gospel should be "good news to the poor" has to run up against the very practical problem of who is the poor and what kind of Good News should it be? Idealists say that you should reach for your wallet because Jesus said, in the Sermon on the Mount, to "give to whoever asks of you." It is your responsibility, they say, to give, and God's to mete out punishment or reward. What the person does with the money you give them is between them and God.
I would cling to that ideal if it didn't feel like a cop-out. Scam artists have an interesting strategy. They use a mixture of guilt, pity, fear, and annoyance. I've found that if I address my own emotional reaction to the situation, I can sometimes find a real person under the scammer. I told one con artist (the "out of gas" variety) that I would be happy to drive him where he was going. I've offered to buy such people lunch if they will simply sit down with me and tell me their story - the true version. I have very rarely had anyone take me up on my offers. I figure that if I am supposed to see the image of the Living God in people, I may have to wrestle it out of them. God never takes offense at the challenge of greater intimacy. But I think God would be royally pissed if I gave him money just to get out of my face. Fear and pity are not the same as love.
On the other hand, I think it is also a feature of living a (mostly) privileged existence that we're always afraid of getting cheated. I try not to act out of such fear, but pastoral care for the scam artist is a tricky thing. The people who see churches and pastors as marks do need something. Sometimes they are really poor.
Working with the - shall we call them the sympathetic poor? - can be just as frustrating. Some folks learn helplessness and figure why try to live on a budget when life will simply kick your legs out from under you? Why bother trying to save something, or get out of debt, or expect anything better for your children than you got? Sometimes they find ingenious ways to sabotage themselves. Conventional wisdom says that if you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, but if you teach him to fish, you feed him for a lifetime. Often I've felt like throwing my hands in the air and giving up, because if the man keeps eating the bait and leaving the fishing pole at home then how can you teach him anything?
Then again, perhaps it is not my place to teach, but to learn.
Anyway, I would like to issue a challenge to preachers, especially those preaching to middle-to-upper-class congregations. The next time Satan tempts you to trot out an abstraction of "the homeless" or "the poor" to make your homiletical point, try to have someone in particular in mind. Who is the poor? Give them a face, a situation, a name.
Posted at 09:39 PM |
Mon - January 22, 2007
Sermon Series on Prayer
I'm sure when I read it before I read it as one
of those trite sayings people of faith sometimes make: "I don't worry about all
that theology stuff - I just have faith."
I start a sermon series on prayer this Sunday
evening. I'm struggling a bit with my perspective. It's hard to preach about
prayer without sounding like I think I'm
good
at it.
Good
at
prayer?
I can't figure out if the idea of being
good at
prayer is presumptuous or just absurd. Maybe
like I'm good at tossing
mountains into the sea. Maybe like I'm good at breathing and pumping
blood.
Plenty of people have written about prayer, about what parts of it are talking and what parts are listening to God. The other night at Trinity, Tony Campolo spoke beautifully about prayer bringing us to the "thin place," as the Irish monastics said, about "driving back the animals," about bringing us into the presence of God. He quoted an interview with Mother Theresa in which the interviewer asked her, "how do you pray to God?" She replied, "I listen to God." The interviewer, flustered, asked, "and what does God say to you?" She replied, "God listens to me. And if you don't get that, I can't explain it to you."
Those who regularly pray develop the sense that the best work of prayer is simply to center us, to bring us before God. But let's face it: most of us wouldn't ever begin to pray at all if we didn't feel a need to ask God for stuff.
So for me to even attempt to preach about prayer, I feel I'll have to start with a disclaimer: I'm not "good at" prayer. When it comes to daily spiritual disciplines, I feel I'm doing great (for me) if I hit four days out of seven. I always feel like a hypocrite when I talk about the importance of daily spiritual discipline, because I'm lousy at it. But I also know the difference between a day begun with prayer and a day without. My grandfather read the same half-dozen psalms every day. He began every day by saying "this is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it." When he came home from the war, all but one of his high school buddies had been killed. I think that verse meant something different to him than it does to me. It drove him to give thanks daily to God. When you look at his Bible, you see the darkened thumb prints from where he turned the pages on those same few psalms every morning. It's like looking at a path that someone's feet have worn in the grass, walking from the house to the well and back, every single day for years on end.
Anyway, when I am on a spiritual disciplines roll, I like to use A Guide to Prayer for All God's People. It follows the lectionary, and each day begins with a psalm. Today's psalm, 131, floored me. I sat there staring at it for a long time, trying to catch my breath:
My heart is not proud, O Lord,
my eyes are not haughty.
I do not concern myself with great matters
or things too wonderful for me.
But I have stilled and quieted my soul
like a weaned child with its mother.
Like a weaned child is my soul within me.
O Israel, put your hope in the Lord,
both now and forevermore.
I know I've read these words before, but they didn't stun me the way they did this morning. I'm sure when I read it before I read it as one of those trite sayings people of faith sometimes make: "I don't worry about all that theology stuff - I just have faith." But the image of the weaned child captured me. I could see the baby who has finally learned that it won't die if it doesn't get the breast. I heard, "shush - all shall be well." That's what I would like to get out of prayer. To bring my laundry list of requests to God, to bring my hunger and my anxiety, my theological questions, my frustration, and to be stilled.
I also hear something about spiritual maturity implied in those verses. A weaned child is not an adult. She cannot drive or take out a mortgage or maybe even speak. But she knows she won't die if she doesn't get what she wants immediately.
Here is the tentative schedule for the sermon series:
1. Pray Then in This Way: The Lord's Prayer
2. Have Mercy: The Jesus Prayer
3. Be Still and Know that I am God: Centering Prayer
4. Active Prayer: Praying and Doing
I know I blew it with the Hell series, but this time I really do plan on getting these puppies recorded. And I do still intend to go back and write a synopsis of the Hell series. After all, I may want to repreach it someday.
edit: How appropriate that my Dad just posted a piece on accountability. I should have mentioned that I always do better with spiritual disciplines when I have a someone else to check up on me. We just started a Covenant Discipleship group for our Singles ministry, and I'm helping them launch. Accountability groups provide me with the motivation to get my spiritual act together and to pray regularly.
Plenty of people have written about prayer, about what parts of it are talking and what parts are listening to God. The other night at Trinity, Tony Campolo spoke beautifully about prayer bringing us to the "thin place," as the Irish monastics said, about "driving back the animals," about bringing us into the presence of God. He quoted an interview with Mother Theresa in which the interviewer asked her, "how do you pray to God?" She replied, "I listen to God." The interviewer, flustered, asked, "and what does God say to you?" She replied, "God listens to me. And if you don't get that, I can't explain it to you."
Those who regularly pray develop the sense that the best work of prayer is simply to center us, to bring us before God. But let's face it: most of us wouldn't ever begin to pray at all if we didn't feel a need to ask God for stuff.
So for me to even attempt to preach about prayer, I feel I'll have to start with a disclaimer: I'm not "good at" prayer. When it comes to daily spiritual disciplines, I feel I'm doing great (for me) if I hit four days out of seven. I always feel like a hypocrite when I talk about the importance of daily spiritual discipline, because I'm lousy at it. But I also know the difference between a day begun with prayer and a day without. My grandfather read the same half-dozen psalms every day. He began every day by saying "this is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it." When he came home from the war, all but one of his high school buddies had been killed. I think that verse meant something different to him than it does to me. It drove him to give thanks daily to God. When you look at his Bible, you see the darkened thumb prints from where he turned the pages on those same few psalms every morning. It's like looking at a path that someone's feet have worn in the grass, walking from the house to the well and back, every single day for years on end.
Anyway, when I am on a spiritual disciplines roll, I like to use A Guide to Prayer for All God's People. It follows the lectionary, and each day begins with a psalm. Today's psalm, 131, floored me. I sat there staring at it for a long time, trying to catch my breath:
My heart is not proud, O Lord,
my eyes are not haughty.
I do not concern myself with great matters
or things too wonderful for me.
But I have stilled and quieted my soul
like a weaned child with its mother.
Like a weaned child is my soul within me.
O Israel, put your hope in the Lord,
both now and forevermore.
I know I've read these words before, but they didn't stun me the way they did this morning. I'm sure when I read it before I read it as one of those trite sayings people of faith sometimes make: "I don't worry about all that theology stuff - I just have faith." But the image of the weaned child captured me. I could see the baby who has finally learned that it won't die if it doesn't get the breast. I heard, "shush - all shall be well." That's what I would like to get out of prayer. To bring my laundry list of requests to God, to bring my hunger and my anxiety, my theological questions, my frustration, and to be stilled.
I also hear something about spiritual maturity implied in those verses. A weaned child is not an adult. She cannot drive or take out a mortgage or maybe even speak. But she knows she won't die if she doesn't get what she wants immediately.
Here is the tentative schedule for the sermon series:
1. Pray Then in This Way: The Lord's Prayer
2. Have Mercy: The Jesus Prayer
3. Be Still and Know that I am God: Centering Prayer
4. Active Prayer: Praying and Doing
I know I blew it with the Hell series, but this time I really do plan on getting these puppies recorded. And I do still intend to go back and write a synopsis of the Hell series. After all, I may want to repreach it someday.
edit: How appropriate that my Dad just posted a piece on accountability. I should have mentioned that I always do better with spiritual disciplines when I have a someone else to check up on me. We just started a Covenant Discipleship group for our Singles ministry, and I'm helping them launch. Accountability groups provide me with the motivation to get my spiritual act together and to pray regularly.
Posted at 10:12 PM |
Mon - January 1, 2007
Preaching Basics, Part 3 - The Pause that Refreshes
Their brains will latch on to whatever image made
the most sense in the recent past, and, since they cannot connect it to what the
preacher is saying right now, they will connect it to what they saw on
television last night, or what their grandma used to say, or something that has
been bothering them.
This is the last in a 3-part series of
simple things that can improve almost any
sermon.
...
Those three dots, called an ellipsis, keep you from passing out. They tell you to breathe. In fact, take three deep breaths - one for each dot.
Pauses are not just for dramatic effect. Silence can accomplish many things. It helps listeners hear. It helps preachers preach. It makes space in the sermon for God to work.
Silence gives listeners’ minds a chance to file the information they have received into the appropriate categories. Though I do not have the physiological data to back it up, I suspect that listeners need time for the chemical reactions to take place in their brain that allow them to understand. It gives them time for their brains to make new memories. They digest what you have said, and they prepare for what comes next.
Preachers who do not pause create an impenetrable wall of words. They focus so intently on saying what they want to say, on making a point, that their mouths become machine guns spraying the congregation with syllables. The staccato rhythm becomes hypnotic. Budda budda budda budda boom. Budda budda budda budda boom. The shell-shocked listeners stare into space. Drool collects at the corner of their mouths.
A pause helps listeners establish a point of view. If a preacher rushes from one idea or illustration to the next, it can be difficult for the images to solidify. Are we still talking about Jesus or have we moved on to the disciples? Are we talking about the Israelites or the contemporary church? When listeners’ brains have to work too hard to make connections or understand a point of view, they slip off into daydreams. Their brains will latch on to whatever image made the most sense in the recent past, and, since they cannot connect it to what the preacher is saying right now, they will connect it to what they saw on television last night, or what their grandma used to say, or something that has been bothering them. Later on, when they tell the preacher what they got out of the sermon, the preacher will shake his head and marvel at the power of the Holy Spirit, since what the listener heard was clearly not what he was preaching. And who am I to judge the work of the Holy Spirit? Perhaps it is grace that God gives every listener a brain that will find meaning, if the sermons we preach have none.
Silence also gives a preacher self-control. If you can be comfortable with silence, it can help you to have mastery of the situation. Chatter gives us a feeling of being out of control. Taking time for silence allows the preacher to remember that she is the preacher. It arrests listeners' attention. It arrests the preacher’s attention. Expectant silence gives us a chance to get our bearings, to let the echoes die down so that we can be heard clearly when we next open our mouths.
...
Those three dots, called an ellipsis, keep you from passing out. They tell you to breathe. In fact, take three deep breaths - one for each dot.
Pauses are not just for dramatic effect. Silence can accomplish many things. It helps listeners hear. It helps preachers preach. It makes space in the sermon for God to work.
Silence gives listeners’ minds a chance to file the information they have received into the appropriate categories. Though I do not have the physiological data to back it up, I suspect that listeners need time for the chemical reactions to take place in their brain that allow them to understand. It gives them time for their brains to make new memories. They digest what you have said, and they prepare for what comes next.
Preachers who do not pause create an impenetrable wall of words. They focus so intently on saying what they want to say, on making a point, that their mouths become machine guns spraying the congregation with syllables. The staccato rhythm becomes hypnotic. Budda budda budda budda boom. Budda budda budda budda boom. The shell-shocked listeners stare into space. Drool collects at the corner of their mouths.
A pause helps listeners establish a point of view. If a preacher rushes from one idea or illustration to the next, it can be difficult for the images to solidify. Are we still talking about Jesus or have we moved on to the disciples? Are we talking about the Israelites or the contemporary church? When listeners’ brains have to work too hard to make connections or understand a point of view, they slip off into daydreams. Their brains will latch on to whatever image made the most sense in the recent past, and, since they cannot connect it to what the preacher is saying right now, they will connect it to what they saw on television last night, or what their grandma used to say, or something that has been bothering them. Later on, when they tell the preacher what they got out of the sermon, the preacher will shake his head and marvel at the power of the Holy Spirit, since what the listener heard was clearly not what he was preaching. And who am I to judge the work of the Holy Spirit? Perhaps it is grace that God gives every listener a brain that will find meaning, if the sermons we preach have none.
Silence also gives a preacher self-control. If you can be comfortable with silence, it can help you to have mastery of the situation. Chatter gives us a feeling of being out of control. Taking time for silence allows the preacher to remember that she is the preacher. It arrests listeners' attention. It arrests the preacher’s attention. Expectant silence gives us a chance to get our bearings, to let the echoes die down so that we can be heard clearly when we next open our mouths.
Posted at 08:03 PM |
Sat - December 30, 2006
Preaching Basics, Part 2 - Kill All Passive Verbs
Is will invite his friends over, and before you
know it your paragraph smells like an apartment after a frat
party...
Mr. Palmer, my high school English teacher, would
not allow us to have more than one “is” or “was” in a
sentence. He would wince as he graded essays, circling each “is”
with his red pen. If anyone crammed more than three
ises
in a sentence, he automatically subtracted a point from our grade. It seemed
harsh and unreasonable. Why?
Is is
such a useful verb.
Is is also boring. Is doesn’t do anything. Is doesn’t sprint, leap, laugh, beg, or dance. Is is what English teachers call a passive verb, a “state of being verb.” Is is an equal sign. He is tall. One and one is two. Boring, boring, boring.
Is shares an apartment with other slacker verbs: are, was, be, has, have, and had. They lie around all day among empty pizza boxes, smelling of old laundry and cheese curls, flipping channels with the TV remote in their hands. They don’t do anything. Line up enough of them in a sentence and a listener’s brain will scamper off to do something more interesting, like sorting their sock drawer. Read through this paragraph to see what I mean:
Is is also boring. Is doesn’t do anything. Is doesn’t sprint, leap, laugh, beg, or dance. Is is what English teachers call a passive verb, a “state of being verb.” Is is an equal sign. He is tall. One and one is two. Boring, boring, boring.
Is shares an apartment with other slacker verbs: are, was, be, has, have, and had. They lie around all day among empty pizza boxes, smelling of old laundry and cheese curls, flipping channels with the TV remote in their hands. They don’t do anything. Line up enough of them in a sentence and a listener’s brain will scamper off to do something more interesting, like sorting their sock drawer. Read through this paragraph to see what I mean:
What is Jesus saying here? Loving our
enemies is difficult! Jesus’ words are especially challenging when the
world is full of enemies. They are on the evening news all the time: terrorists,
foreigners, criminals, secularists - or members of the other political
party!
Perhaps, because you are a tenacious reader, your brain didn’t leave by the third sentence. But compare it with a rewritten version and see if it holds your interest better:
Perhaps, because you are a tenacious reader, your brain didn’t leave by the third sentence. But compare it with a rewritten version and see if it holds your interest better:
Can you believe what Jesus says? Love our
enemies! We tremble just to count them all. The evening news chatters about
enemies who lurk around every corner: terrorists, foreigners, criminals,
secularists - or members of the other political
party!
I’ve replaced is saying, is difficult, is challenging, and are on the evening news with more active versions. Rather than saying that loving enemies is difficult or challenging, I’ve shown what the challenge looks like - we tremble. Rather than say that enemies are on the evening news, I’ve chosen the evening news chatters and I’ve made the enemies lurk. We could rewrite the paragraph any number of ways to make it more active.
Try not to let yourself use more than one is in a paragraph. Is will invite his friends over, and before you know it your paragraph will smell like an apartment after a frat party: “The importance of what Jesus is saying cannot be overemphasized; it has held true for all generations.” Kill those verbs before they multiply.
The worst of the passive verbs are the favorite of preachers: should, could, must, need and ought. I call them “state of non-being verbs.” These verbs float like mists through the ether. They describe a world that isn’t, but ought to be. Ought sounds like the ghost king from Hamlet: judgmental, long-winded, and impotent. Should has all the charm of the last lecture you heard from your parents. Since they are both inactive and judgmental, perhaps they should be called “passive-aggressive verbs.”
Sadly, many preachers’ sermons hinge on some simple statements: we shouldn’t do bad things, and we should do good things. We oughtn’t be apathetic or hateful, but we ought to love Jesus. Bad people could be better, but they won’t. These sentences have all the motivational power of a strong sedative. If your sermon can be summed up by one of these verbs, tear it up and throw it away; it is better for you to enter the kingdom with one sermon missing than for your whole body to thrown into hell.
I’ve replaced is saying, is difficult, is challenging, and are on the evening news with more active versions. Rather than saying that loving enemies is difficult or challenging, I’ve shown what the challenge looks like - we tremble. Rather than say that enemies are on the evening news, I’ve chosen the evening news chatters and I’ve made the enemies lurk. We could rewrite the paragraph any number of ways to make it more active.
Try not to let yourself use more than one is in a paragraph. Is will invite his friends over, and before you know it your paragraph will smell like an apartment after a frat party: “The importance of what Jesus is saying cannot be overemphasized; it has held true for all generations.” Kill those verbs before they multiply.
The worst of the passive verbs are the favorite of preachers: should, could, must, need and ought. I call them “state of non-being verbs.” These verbs float like mists through the ether. They describe a world that isn’t, but ought to be. Ought sounds like the ghost king from Hamlet: judgmental, long-winded, and impotent. Should has all the charm of the last lecture you heard from your parents. Since they are both inactive and judgmental, perhaps they should be called “passive-aggressive verbs.”
Sadly, many preachers’ sermons hinge on some simple statements: we shouldn’t do bad things, and we should do good things. We oughtn’t be apathetic or hateful, but we ought to love Jesus. Bad people could be better, but they won’t. These sentences have all the motivational power of a strong sedative. If your sermon can be summed up by one of these verbs, tear it up and throw it away; it is better for you to enter the kingdom with one sermon missing than for your whole body to thrown into hell.
Posted at 10:00 AM |
Thu - December 28, 2006
Preaching Basics, Part 1 - Keep it Stupid SImple
Carl Sandburg put together a few sentences about
a red wheelbarrow, glazed with rainwater, beside the white chickens, and
suddenly he had a poem that was bigger than the words that made it
up.
There are three things that can improve almost
any
sermon, whether it is a sermon preached by a rookie preacher or a seasoned
wordsmith. Here is the
first:
Keep it Stupid Simple
Most American adults read somewhere between a 6th and 9th grade level. They do not use words like “eschatology” or “implausible.” Don’t get me wrong – these are good words. But they do not reflect the way people really talk, or the way they really listen.
“Simple” doesn’t only mean non-academic, either. We get used to Christian language: propitiation, revelation, restoration, justification. Each one of those words could be an entire sermon - or an entire sermon series! We also use uniquely Christian grammar. Because of a few phrases in the King James version of the Bible, we actually construct sentences like this: “God will prosper you.” God will prosper you? Would anyone use prosper that way in any other context besides church?
Keeping language simple does not mean dumbing down. Sometimes the most beautiful and profound sentences are put together with simple words. William Carlos Williams put together a few phrases about a red wheelbarrow, glazed with rainwater, beside the white chickens, and suddenly he had a poem that was bigger than the words that made it up. What is the poem about? The trials and tribulations of farming? The glorification of a simple lifestyle? He said a lot, but he said it in just a few words. Preachers could stand to learn something from poets. Simple language is the language of folk singers, poets, and revolutionaries.
Keep it Stupid Simple
Most American adults read somewhere between a 6th and 9th grade level. They do not use words like “eschatology” or “implausible.” Don’t get me wrong – these are good words. But they do not reflect the way people really talk, or the way they really listen.
“Simple” doesn’t only mean non-academic, either. We get used to Christian language: propitiation, revelation, restoration, justification. Each one of those words could be an entire sermon - or an entire sermon series! We also use uniquely Christian grammar. Because of a few phrases in the King James version of the Bible, we actually construct sentences like this: “God will prosper you.” God will prosper you? Would anyone use prosper that way in any other context besides church?
Keeping language simple does not mean dumbing down. Sometimes the most beautiful and profound sentences are put together with simple words. William Carlos Williams put together a few phrases about a red wheelbarrow, glazed with rainwater, beside the white chickens, and suddenly he had a poem that was bigger than the words that made it up. What is the poem about? The trials and tribulations of farming? The glorification of a simple lifestyle? He said a lot, but he said it in just a few words. Preachers could stand to learn something from poets. Simple language is the language of folk singers, poets, and revolutionaries.
Posted at 04:40 PM |
Sat - December 2, 2006
Sermon Starters
What with Grandpa in the hospital and the
activity of Advent, I haven't had a lot of time to write. But I was pleased to
see my Sermon Starters in the newest issue of Circuit
Rider.
I should put together sermon reflections 4 months in advance more often. It's a great feeling to have the first of the year already planned out!
I should put together sermon reflections 4 months in advance more often. It's a great feeling to have the first of the year already planned out!
Posted at 09:38 AM |
Sat - October 21, 2006
Blog Post Round-up
Some things that have been sitting in my clip
file too long:
Some things that have been sitting in my clip
file too long:
1. I get involved in disputes about which translation of the Bible is "better" more often than I would like. People who speak only one language can hold very strong opinions about which translation is more "correct" or "accurate," terms which sounds solid and concrete but are themselves really very slippery.
Richard Rhodes uses a cartoon to make a point that I often struggle to convey. An excellent post. Go read it!
2. The Busybody has a good read on the Pharisees, the Sadducees, life after death, and how we think of the afterlife today. I think a good bit of our political and social life is grounded in what we believe about life after death, and that it influences everything from how we think about economic class, race, and gender, to how we conduct our foreign policy.
3. Jan Edmiston at A Church for Starving Artists continues to rock about all things church-related.
4. This Get Religion piece on how media covers the startling persistence of religion (in spite of the TIME's famous cover story which asked "Is God Dead?" 40 years ago) is chock full of savory goodness.
1. I get involved in disputes about which translation of the Bible is "better" more often than I would like. People who speak only one language can hold very strong opinions about which translation is more "correct" or "accurate," terms which sounds solid and concrete but are themselves really very slippery.
Richard Rhodes uses a cartoon to make a point that I often struggle to convey. An excellent post. Go read it!
2. The Busybody has a good read on the Pharisees, the Sadducees, life after death, and how we think of the afterlife today. I think a good bit of our political and social life is grounded in what we believe about life after death, and that it influences everything from how we think about economic class, race, and gender, to how we conduct our foreign policy.
3. Jan Edmiston at A Church for Starving Artists continues to rock about all things church-related.
4. This Get Religion piece on how media covers the startling persistence of religion (in spite of the TIME's famous cover story which asked "Is God Dead?" 40 years ago) is chock full of savory goodness.
Posted at 08:14 AM |
Wed - October 4, 2006
The Bad Samaritan
This was my sermon on the parable of the "Good
Samaritan."
My sermon from last Sunday's Contact service is
up on the iTunes
store.
Or you can get it here.
Or you can get it here.
Posted at 08:31 PM |
Sun - October 1, 2006
Parabolic Thinking
We strip the story of its characters, plot,
setting, and come up with a few abstracted principles, created a PowerPoint
slide, and list them as bullet points.
I preached on the parable of the Good Samaritan
today in Contact, the contemporary service. I was eager to get people to hear it
with fresh ears, so I titled it "The Bad Samaritan." For the publicity art, I
chose a picture of a biker
dude. I figured he made a pretty good Samaritan figure.
As I prepared this week, I started reflecting on the whole idea of parable. It is a metaphor, really. A parabola is a curve. It comes from the roots bole and para, throw and around.
I thought about how different a parabola is from a point. So often preachers make points. They take a stab at an idea. "Here are three things we can say about the Good Samaritan." We strip the story of its characters, plot, setting, and come up with a few abstracted principles, create a PowerPoint slide, and list them as bullet points. This is not always a bad approach.
But a parabola moves around a point. It circumscribes an area, draws a boundary, makes your eye move from one point to another. You can slice one plane out of a three-dimensional cone to get a parabola, so that even as you trace the curve of the parabola in two dimensions there is the hint of some greater shape, of dimensions beyond this one. It describes an interior and an exterior, a starting point and a destination, a place where we are close to the center and a place where we are far away.
Parables are like that. They don't make a point. They curve around a point, taking lots of points into themselves, and gesture at the world. You can look at them from multiple angles and see something different each time.
As I prepared this week, I started reflecting on the whole idea of parable. It is a metaphor, really. A parabola is a curve. It comes from the roots bole and para, throw and around.
I thought about how different a parabola is from a point. So often preachers make points. They take a stab at an idea. "Here are three things we can say about the Good Samaritan." We strip the story of its characters, plot, setting, and come up with a few abstracted principles, create a PowerPoint slide, and list them as bullet points. This is not always a bad approach.
But a parabola moves around a point. It circumscribes an area, draws a boundary, makes your eye move from one point to another. You can slice one plane out of a three-dimensional cone to get a parabola, so that even as you trace the curve of the parabola in two dimensions there is the hint of some greater shape, of dimensions beyond this one. It describes an interior and an exterior, a starting point and a destination, a place where we are close to the center and a place where we are far away.
Parables are like that. They don't make a point. They curve around a point, taking lots of points into themselves, and gesture at the world. You can look at them from multiple angles and see something different each time.
Posted at 01:31 PM |
Sat - September 16, 2006
Hell Redux
So at the end of Isaiah, when God gathers all the
scattered faithful from all over the world, they come to Jerusalem and they look
out on the valley and they see the bodies of all the faithless who died in the
slaughter, and there the corpse worms do not die, because they have plenty of
food, and the fire is not quenched because of all the fuel it has.
The problem with doing a lot of research on hell
is it tends to stick in your brain. I've been carrying around a dark cloud of
morbidity for the past week or
so.
Although I tried to record last week's sermon, I had some technical difficulties. So, no podcast, which is unfortunate because the sermon was much better than my notes! I was thrilled that we packed out the little chapel - reports vary, with 42 on the low end and 52 on the high end. That's a big crowd for the evening service, which has been running between 12 and 20 since I arrived. It is entirely possible that it was a large crowd just because of the novelty. We shall see if tomorrow's attendance keeps it up.
Anyway, here are my expanded notes from last week: A Brief History of Hell
Who Goes to Hell? - A Brief History of Hell
Intro:
According to a Harris Poll, 90% of American adults believe in God.
84% believe in the survival of the soul after death
82% believe in heaven
69% believe in hell
63% believe they will go to heaven, but 75% of Christians believe they will go to heaven
18% don’t know where they will go after they die.
6% believe they will go to purgatory.
1% believe they will go to hell.
One per cent of the population believes they are going to hell. I don’t know whether that’s sad, scary, or funny. So my question is, if you are one of the nearly 70% of people who believe in hell, who goes to hell? Who is in hell? Is Adolf Hitler in hell? Is Aunt Fanny in hell? Who goes to hell?
Disclaimer:
I need to start with a disclaimer about this series. I've never been to hell, although some people have told me that I should go. Some have said that I probably will go, usually because I don’t believe the same things they do. And others have said that they would be glad to hasten my trip. But I’ve never been, so I can’t say a whole lot definitive about hell. Everything that I say in the following series is really more to help raise good questions, not to provide answers.
Some people will tell you that the Bible is very explicit about hell, and they will pull 20 different scriptures from 20 different places and be able to draw very detailed maps of hell and probably show you lists of people who are there. I’m really more interested in how we talk about hell, what it says about us. I will say that I think hell is real, but probably not in the same way that any given TV preacher will say.
Personal story:
My own interest in the subject came from when I was a teenager. We partnered with a more evangelical church for a special youth week. Their youth director gave a talk in which he emphasized that we had a choice where we would spend eternity - in heaven or in hell. Those who accepted Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior would be allowed in heaven, and those that rejected Christ - which included most of my friends - would be sent to hell. I had a hard time with this, since I spent a good part of junior high being bullied, excluded, and put down by church-going kids. Most of the social misfits I like to hang around were not Christians, but they were more loving, more interesting, and had more moral sense.
So after being confronted with this very black-and-white understanding of salvation, I argued with my parents, and I decided that I would not be a Christian. Now, I continued to go to the youth group at church, but I rejected this model of salvation. It sounded like God expected me to forgive seventy times seven times, but was unable to do the same.
After several years a friend handed me The Screwtape Letters, by CS Lewis. It was like someone opened a window in a musty room and a cool breeze blew through - I found that I didn't have to leave my brain behind when I came to church. I found that there were reasonable ways to think about religion.
I also began to recognize that evil could be personal. That there are forces in the world that do not want people to experience the liberating love of God.
I also read a book called the Great Divorce, by C.S. Lewis, which helped me to understand that we choose between heaven and hell every day. It's not just one big choice, but a thousand little choices through which we color our world, and that we have a choice as to whether we are going to live in a world colored by the grace of God, or a world colored by our own greed, anger, cynicism, victimization, and hatred.
So in a way I've been working on this sermon series for most of my life..
Format
Tonight I'm going to give a *very* brief history of the idea of hell, and how the idea functions in our world today. Then over the following weeks we're going to look at some key ideas about salvation - selective salvation and universal salvation. I'm going to talk about one line that we usually leave out of the Apostle's Creed (Jesus descended to hell). And I'm going to conclude, before we get into the Halloween season, by addressing a fairly recent phenomenon - churches doing haunted houses about hell to scare kids into faith in Jesus Christ.
Etymology of Hell
There are three different words that get translated in the English Bible as “hell.”
Sheol
The first word is Sheol, a Jewish word. Sheol should probably be translated simply as “the grave.”
From Ecclesiastes 9:5-10
5 For the living know that they will die,
but the dead know nothing;
they have no further reward,
and even the memory of them is forgotten.
6 Their love, their hate
and their jealousy have long since vanished;
never again will they have a part
in anything that happens under the sun.
Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the grave, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom.
In the earliest writings of the Hebrew Bible, it's pretty clear that they didn't believe in an afterlife. Immortality came through your children. The dead have no consciousness. In fact, even in Jesus' day, plenty of people did not believe in an afterlife. The Sadducees believed that the importance of the Law of Moses was to give glory to God while you are alive. Maybe you remember the passage from Matthew 22:22, when the gospel writer says that Sadducees, who did not believe in the resurrection, came to Jesus with a legal question about the afterlife. In sarcastic voices they told a story about a widow who marries a succession of brothers, all of whom die. In the resurrection, they ask, whose wife will she be? Will all the brothers have to share this one wife? So plenty of religious Jews of Jesus’ day did not believe in any life after death.
But some Israelites came to believe in a kind of insubstantial state that was neither total death nor total life. All the dead, good and evil, rich and poor, go to Sheol, where they live an insubstantial kind of half-life. Sheol simply means the underworld. And David writes of Sheol in Psalm 139
7 Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.
Sometimes Sheol is translated as “the grave” or is simply a metaphor for death. Other times Sheol is clearly the underworld. But it doesn’t really correlate to our idea of “hell.”
Hades
Another word that gets translated as hell is Hades, a Greek word. Probably the most famous scripture that refers to Hades is the story of Lazarus and Dives. Jesus tells a story about a rich man who wears purple and feasts in his lavish villa. Just outside his gate, a poor man named Lazarus starves to death, wishing he could eat the crumbs from under the rich man’s table. When the both die, the poor man is “gathered to Abraham.” As for the rich man, Jesus says, “in Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Lazarus a long way off.” Now here’s an important detail. Both men are in Hades. In the Greek understanding of Hades, all people go to Hades, but there’s a good side and a bad side. The bad side is Tartarus, and there the bad guys spend eternity in torture. Maybe you have heard of Sisyphus, the man sentenced to roll a boulder up a huge mountain. When he gets near the top, he slips, the boulder rolls back down, and he trudges to the bottom and starts over - all day, every day, for eternity. Then there’s Tantalus, who stands knee-deep in a crystal clear pool, but every time he bends to drink, the pool recedes. And every time he reaches for the ripe fragrant fruit that hanges just above his head, the branches pull away. So for eternity he stands there unable to satisfy his thirst or still his hunger. It’s where we get the word tantalizing - something so good, just out of reach. But it isn’t a Jewish idea at all. And it isn’t a Christian idea. It’s a pagan myth. In fact, the story that Jesus tells is borrowed straight out of another pagan story. But Jesus gives it his own twist.
The point of the story of Lazarus and Dives is not that there is a real place of torment called Hades. Jesus tells the story to show that God has a different idea of justice than we do. In the Kingdom of God, Jesus says, the rich will be poor and the poor will be rich. Don’t shut the poor out in this age, or you may be shut out of the kingdom in the new age. Jesus was not teaching that there is a Hades! It's as if Jesus had told a joke about St. Peter at the pearly gates, and religious people for the next several centuries acted as if he meant it literally. Hades is not a Jewish or Christian idea. It’s a pagan import.
Gehenna
The third word, and possibly my favorite, is Gehenna, a hybrid of Greek and Hebrew. Gehenna gets used most often in the Gospel of Matthew. Matthew loves talking about Gehenna!
Gehenna is a reference to a valley situated on one side of Jerusalem. The Valley of Hinnom. In ancient Israel, way before Jesus, the Israelites dabbled with pagan religions. According to Jeremiah, they sacrificed children to pagan gods in the valley of Hinnom, and they held sexual religious rituals in the gardens there. So Jeremiah prophesied that when God sent armies to sack and burn Jerusalem, the valley of Hinnom would become the valley of slaughter. There would be so many killed there that the valley would be filled with dead bodies, and they would not be able to bury them all. In order to get rid of all the corpses, they would have to be burned, or left for the wild animals to eat. So at the end of Isaiah, when God gathers all the scattered faithful from all over the world, they come to Jerusalem and they look out on the valley and they see the bodies of all the faithless who died in the slaughter, and there the corpse worms do not die, because they have plenty of food, and the fire is not quenched because of all the fuel it has.
Over time, the valley became Jerusalem’s waste dumpy. It’s where people emptied their chamber pots and threw unclean animal parts that couldn’t be offered in the temple. The Romans threw the bodies of crucified criminals into Gehenna. So Gehenna was basically a big, stinking, burning trash heap.
So in Matthew Jesus says, if your hand sins against you, cut it off and cast it from you, for it is better for you to enter the kingdom one-handed than for both you and your hands to be thrown into the dump. Gehenna became a metaphor for the punishment of the wrath of God. Just like in Isaiah, just like in Jeremiah, when God judged Israel and sent armies to attack it and cast the dead into Gehenna, you could expect something similar when God came to set up Kingdom permanently.
Hel
Now, none of these ideas is exactly like what we mean when we say “hell.” So you may be wondering if these three words get translated into the word “hell,” where did the word “hell” come from?
The word “hell” comes not from Greek or Hebrew, but from Norse mythology!
In Norse mythology, the goddess Hel is the daughter of Loki, a trickster god, who is sometimes called the Lord of Lies. Hel is a gruesome hag whose body is half dead. Her kingdom is in a cold, misty cave under the earth. The spirits of those who had died cowardly deaths went there. Here’s a description of her realm:
Hel is said to be a hall with a roof woven from the spines of serpents which drip poison down onto those who wade in the rivers of blood below. The people who dwell in the halls are given nothing but goat's urine to quench their thirst. (www.wikipedia.org)
So you may wonder why a word from Norse mythology found its way into the Bible. I don’t know!
Sometimes we Christians - especially we American Christians - try to import ideas without thinking about the Bible as a whole. We take words or ideas out of context, strip them of their historical meaning, and then drop them into our pictures about the world. So for us, hell is a place of fire in which little guys in red suits run around with pitchforks.
But I want to tell you why I finally came to believe that hell exists: because I see it everyday. I see it when a young woman bounces from one abusive relationship into another. I see it when someone who knows better puts a needle in their arm and shoots up meth, becoming instantly addicted. Months later their teeth are rotting out of their head, they are skinny as a rake, their hair is stringy and falling out, and they can’t follow a simple conversation because their brain is too fried. I’ve seen hell in a country that is so addicted to fossil fuels we would destroy the world rather than change our lifestyle. Hell is real, and we choose it every single day. We choose it when we run our plastic cards through the scanner and go deeper and deeper into debt, so we can by Christmas gifts for our families so that we can celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, who came to pay our debts! Hell is all around us. And there’s no reason to expect that if we choose it in this life, that we wouldn’t choose it in the next life, either. C.S. Lewis tells a story about a man who takes a bus trip from hell to heaven. When he gets to heaven, he gets off the bus and sees his enemy. He says, “well, if he can get in here, there’s no way I’m staying!” and he gets on the bus and goes back to hell. I wonder how many of us would make that same decision. I wonder how many of us would get off the bus and see someone we hate - someone of a different race, or religion, or a personal enemy who has done something to hurt us - and turn around and get back on the bus to go to hell.
Over the next few weeks, we’re going to explore some different ideas about hell. And maybe we’ll answer some of your questions. I hope that we ask some questions that maybe you haven’t thought of as well.
And I want to let you know that I don’t believe in hell in the same way that I believe in God’s power to overcome hell. But I think the idea of hell represents a very real thing. In the story of the rich man and Lazarus, the rich man did not expect to be in torment. He cries out to Abraham to send a warning to his brothers to let them know that if they don’t change, they will wind up where he is. Abraham says, “they won’t listen. Even if someone comes back from the dead, they won’t listen.” The important message behind the idea of hell is that all our time is limited. We die. Our money doesn’t save us. Our power doesn’t save us. And if we want to have anything to do with the Kingdom of God, we cannot shut a huge slice of humanity outside our gated communities while they die. Any barrier we erect between ourselves and our neighbors is also a barrier between us and God.
Now, we don’t have to agree about hell. About who goes there, or who doesn’t, or how big or hot it is. Like I said, I don’t know much about hell. But I do know that it is in God’s power to deliver us from whatever hell we are in right now.
Although I tried to record last week's sermon, I had some technical difficulties. So, no podcast, which is unfortunate because the sermon was much better than my notes! I was thrilled that we packed out the little chapel - reports vary, with 42 on the low end and 52 on the high end. That's a big crowd for the evening service, which has been running between 12 and 20 since I arrived. It is entirely possible that it was a large crowd just because of the novelty. We shall see if tomorrow's attendance keeps it up.
Anyway, here are my expanded notes from last week: A Brief History of Hell
Who Goes to Hell? - A Brief History of Hell
Intro:
According to a Harris Poll, 90% of American adults believe in God.
84% believe in the survival of the soul after death
82% believe in heaven
69% believe in hell
63% believe they will go to heaven, but 75% of Christians believe they will go to heaven
18% don’t know where they will go after they die.
6% believe they will go to purgatory.
1% believe they will go to hell.
One per cent of the population believes they are going to hell. I don’t know whether that’s sad, scary, or funny. So my question is, if you are one of the nearly 70% of people who believe in hell, who goes to hell? Who is in hell? Is Adolf Hitler in hell? Is Aunt Fanny in hell? Who goes to hell?
Disclaimer:
I need to start with a disclaimer about this series. I've never been to hell, although some people have told me that I should go. Some have said that I probably will go, usually because I don’t believe the same things they do. And others have said that they would be glad to hasten my trip. But I’ve never been, so I can’t say a whole lot definitive about hell. Everything that I say in the following series is really more to help raise good questions, not to provide answers.
Some people will tell you that the Bible is very explicit about hell, and they will pull 20 different scriptures from 20 different places and be able to draw very detailed maps of hell and probably show you lists of people who are there. I’m really more interested in how we talk about hell, what it says about us. I will say that I think hell is real, but probably not in the same way that any given TV preacher will say.
Personal story:
My own interest in the subject came from when I was a teenager. We partnered with a more evangelical church for a special youth week. Their youth director gave a talk in which he emphasized that we had a choice where we would spend eternity - in heaven or in hell. Those who accepted Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior would be allowed in heaven, and those that rejected Christ - which included most of my friends - would be sent to hell. I had a hard time with this, since I spent a good part of junior high being bullied, excluded, and put down by church-going kids. Most of the social misfits I like to hang around were not Christians, but they were more loving, more interesting, and had more moral sense.
So after being confronted with this very black-and-white understanding of salvation, I argued with my parents, and I decided that I would not be a Christian. Now, I continued to go to the youth group at church, but I rejected this model of salvation. It sounded like God expected me to forgive seventy times seven times, but was unable to do the same.
After several years a friend handed me The Screwtape Letters, by CS Lewis. It was like someone opened a window in a musty room and a cool breeze blew through - I found that I didn't have to leave my brain behind when I came to church. I found that there were reasonable ways to think about religion.
I also began to recognize that evil could be personal. That there are forces in the world that do not want people to experience the liberating love of God.
I also read a book called the Great Divorce, by C.S. Lewis, which helped me to understand that we choose between heaven and hell every day. It's not just one big choice, but a thousand little choices through which we color our world, and that we have a choice as to whether we are going to live in a world colored by the grace of God, or a world colored by our own greed, anger, cynicism, victimization, and hatred.
So in a way I've been working on this sermon series for most of my life..
Format
Tonight I'm going to give a *very* brief history of the idea of hell, and how the idea functions in our world today. Then over the following weeks we're going to look at some key ideas about salvation - selective salvation and universal salvation. I'm going to talk about one line that we usually leave out of the Apostle's Creed (Jesus descended to hell). And I'm going to conclude, before we get into the Halloween season, by addressing a fairly recent phenomenon - churches doing haunted houses about hell to scare kids into faith in Jesus Christ.
Etymology of Hell
There are three different words that get translated in the English Bible as “hell.”
Sheol
The first word is Sheol, a Jewish word. Sheol should probably be translated simply as “the grave.”
From Ecclesiastes 9:5-10
5 For the living know that they will die,
but the dead know nothing;
they have no further reward,
and even the memory of them is forgotten.
6 Their love, their hate
and their jealousy have long since vanished;
never again will they have a part
in anything that happens under the sun.
Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the grave, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom.
In the earliest writings of the Hebrew Bible, it's pretty clear that they didn't believe in an afterlife. Immortality came through your children. The dead have no consciousness. In fact, even in Jesus' day, plenty of people did not believe in an afterlife. The Sadducees believed that the importance of the Law of Moses was to give glory to God while you are alive. Maybe you remember the passage from Matthew 22:22, when the gospel writer says that Sadducees, who did not believe in the resurrection, came to Jesus with a legal question about the afterlife. In sarcastic voices they told a story about a widow who marries a succession of brothers, all of whom die. In the resurrection, they ask, whose wife will she be? Will all the brothers have to share this one wife? So plenty of religious Jews of Jesus’ day did not believe in any life after death.
But some Israelites came to believe in a kind of insubstantial state that was neither total death nor total life. All the dead, good and evil, rich and poor, go to Sheol, where they live an insubstantial kind of half-life. Sheol simply means the underworld. And David writes of Sheol in Psalm 139
7 Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.
Sometimes Sheol is translated as “the grave” or is simply a metaphor for death. Other times Sheol is clearly the underworld. But it doesn’t really correlate to our idea of “hell.”
Hades
Another word that gets translated as hell is Hades, a Greek word. Probably the most famous scripture that refers to Hades is the story of Lazarus and Dives. Jesus tells a story about a rich man who wears purple and feasts in his lavish villa. Just outside his gate, a poor man named Lazarus starves to death, wishing he could eat the crumbs from under the rich man’s table. When the both die, the poor man is “gathered to Abraham.” As for the rich man, Jesus says, “in Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Lazarus a long way off.” Now here’s an important detail. Both men are in Hades. In the Greek understanding of Hades, all people go to Hades, but there’s a good side and a bad side. The bad side is Tartarus, and there the bad guys spend eternity in torture. Maybe you have heard of Sisyphus, the man sentenced to roll a boulder up a huge mountain. When he gets near the top, he slips, the boulder rolls back down, and he trudges to the bottom and starts over - all day, every day, for eternity. Then there’s Tantalus, who stands knee-deep in a crystal clear pool, but every time he bends to drink, the pool recedes. And every time he reaches for the ripe fragrant fruit that hanges just above his head, the branches pull away. So for eternity he stands there unable to satisfy his thirst or still his hunger. It’s where we get the word tantalizing - something so good, just out of reach. But it isn’t a Jewish idea at all. And it isn’t a Christian idea. It’s a pagan myth. In fact, the story that Jesus tells is borrowed straight out of another pagan story. But Jesus gives it his own twist.
The point of the story of Lazarus and Dives is not that there is a real place of torment called Hades. Jesus tells the story to show that God has a different idea of justice than we do. In the Kingdom of God, Jesus says, the rich will be poor and the poor will be rich. Don’t shut the poor out in this age, or you may be shut out of the kingdom in the new age. Jesus was not teaching that there is a Hades! It's as if Jesus had told a joke about St. Peter at the pearly gates, and religious people for the next several centuries acted as if he meant it literally. Hades is not a Jewish or Christian idea. It’s a pagan import.
Gehenna
The third word, and possibly my favorite, is Gehenna, a hybrid of Greek and Hebrew. Gehenna gets used most often in the Gospel of Matthew. Matthew loves talking about Gehenna!
Gehenna is a reference to a valley situated on one side of Jerusalem. The Valley of Hinnom. In ancient Israel, way before Jesus, the Israelites dabbled with pagan religions. According to Jeremiah, they sacrificed children to pagan gods in the valley of Hinnom, and they held sexual religious rituals in the gardens there. So Jeremiah prophesied that when God sent armies to sack and burn Jerusalem, the valley of Hinnom would become the valley of slaughter. There would be so many killed there that the valley would be filled with dead bodies, and they would not be able to bury them all. In order to get rid of all the corpses, they would have to be burned, or left for the wild animals to eat. So at the end of Isaiah, when God gathers all the scattered faithful from all over the world, they come to Jerusalem and they look out on the valley and they see the bodies of all the faithless who died in the slaughter, and there the corpse worms do not die, because they have plenty of food, and the fire is not quenched because of all the fuel it has.
Over time, the valley became Jerusalem’s waste dumpy. It’s where people emptied their chamber pots and threw unclean animal parts that couldn’t be offered in the temple. The Romans threw the bodies of crucified criminals into Gehenna. So Gehenna was basically a big, stinking, burning trash heap.
So in Matthew Jesus says, if your hand sins against you, cut it off and cast it from you, for it is better for you to enter the kingdom one-handed than for both you and your hands to be thrown into the dump. Gehenna became a metaphor for the punishment of the wrath of God. Just like in Isaiah, just like in Jeremiah, when God judged Israel and sent armies to attack it and cast the dead into Gehenna, you could expect something similar when God came to set up Kingdom permanently.
Hel
Now, none of these ideas is exactly like what we mean when we say “hell.” So you may be wondering if these three words get translated into the word “hell,” where did the word “hell” come from?
The word “hell” comes not from Greek or Hebrew, but from Norse mythology!
In Norse mythology, the goddess Hel is the daughter of Loki, a trickster god, who is sometimes called the Lord of Lies. Hel is a gruesome hag whose body is half dead. Her kingdom is in a cold, misty cave under the earth. The spirits of those who had died cowardly deaths went there. Here’s a description of her realm:
Hel is said to be a hall with a roof woven from the spines of serpents which drip poison down onto those who wade in the rivers of blood below. The people who dwell in the halls are given nothing but goat's urine to quench their thirst. (www.wikipedia.org)
So you may wonder why a word from Norse mythology found its way into the Bible. I don’t know!
Sometimes we Christians - especially we American Christians - try to import ideas without thinking about the Bible as a whole. We take words or ideas out of context, strip them of their historical meaning, and then drop them into our pictures about the world. So for us, hell is a place of fire in which little guys in red suits run around with pitchforks.
But I want to tell you why I finally came to believe that hell exists: because I see it everyday. I see it when a young woman bounces from one abusive relationship into another. I see it when someone who knows better puts a needle in their arm and shoots up meth, becoming instantly addicted. Months later their teeth are rotting out of their head, they are skinny as a rake, their hair is stringy and falling out, and they can’t follow a simple conversation because their brain is too fried. I’ve seen hell in a country that is so addicted to fossil fuels we would destroy the world rather than change our lifestyle. Hell is real, and we choose it every single day. We choose it when we run our plastic cards through the scanner and go deeper and deeper into debt, so we can by Christmas gifts for our families so that we can celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, who came to pay our debts! Hell is all around us. And there’s no reason to expect that if we choose it in this life, that we wouldn’t choose it in the next life, either. C.S. Lewis tells a story about a man who takes a bus trip from hell to heaven. When he gets to heaven, he gets off the bus and sees his enemy. He says, “well, if he can get in here, there’s no way I’m staying!” and he gets on the bus and goes back to hell. I wonder how many of us would make that same decision. I wonder how many of us would get off the bus and see someone we hate - someone of a different race, or religion, or a personal enemy who has done something to hurt us - and turn around and get back on the bus to go to hell.
Over the next few weeks, we’re going to explore some different ideas about hell. And maybe we’ll answer some of your questions. I hope that we ask some questions that maybe you haven’t thought of as well.
And I want to let you know that I don’t believe in hell in the same way that I believe in God’s power to overcome hell. But I think the idea of hell represents a very real thing. In the story of the rich man and Lazarus, the rich man did not expect to be in torment. He cries out to Abraham to send a warning to his brothers to let them know that if they don’t change, they will wind up where he is. Abraham says, “they won’t listen. Even if someone comes back from the dead, they won’t listen.” The important message behind the idea of hell is that all our time is limited. We die. Our money doesn’t save us. Our power doesn’t save us. And if we want to have anything to do with the Kingdom of God, we cannot shut a huge slice of humanity outside our gated communities while they die. Any barrier we erect between ourselves and our neighbors is also a barrier between us and God.
Now, we don’t have to agree about hell. About who goes there, or who doesn’t, or how big or hot it is. Like I said, I don’t know much about hell. But I do know that it is in God’s power to deliver us from whatever hell we are in right now.
Posted at 10:28 PM |
Mon - August 28, 2006
Who Goes to Hell?
I'm looking forward to a sermon series I'll be
doing on Sunday nights: Who Goes to Hell?
I'm looking forward to a sermon series I'll be
doing on Sunday nights: Who Goes to
Hell?
Week 1: A Brief History of Hell
Week 2: Last One is a Rotten Egg: Selective Salvation
Week 3: All-y All-y In Come Free: Universal Salvation
Week 4: Razing Hell: How Jesus Breaks the Power of Sin
Week 5: (Ummm... I've forgotten what I was going to title this one.)
edit: oh yes, week 5 is Mercy House: The Alternative to Judgment House.
Week 1: A Brief History of Hell
Week 2: Last One is a Rotten Egg: Selective Salvation
Week 3: All-y All-y In Come Free: Universal Salvation
Week 4: Razing Hell: How Jesus Breaks the Power of Sin
Week 5: (Ummm... I've forgotten what I was going to title this one.)
edit: oh yes, week 5 is Mercy House: The Alternative to Judgment House.
Posted at 08:14 AM |
Mon - July 31, 2006
Cedar vs. Mustard (Sermon from June 18, 2006)
Every time we preach it we make it about growing,
about something small becoming big, because we are afraid of being small
ourselves, and we want to have hope that one day we will be big and important
and people will finally wake up and say, “gee, those Christians must be
right, because they sure are big,” so we put up the ten commandments in
court houses and we yell and scream on talk radio, and we try to grow big
Christian businesses to compete with “secular” radio and books and
movies, because God knows it’s all about winning the
championship!
Mark 4:26-34
“With what can we compare the
kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? It is like a mustard seed,
which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; yet
when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all herbs, and puts
forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its
shade.”
With many such parables he spoke the word
to them, as they were able to hear it; 34he did not speak to them except in
parables, but he explained everything in private to his
disciples. (NRSV)
Jesus loves talking in parables. He tells these odd
little stories that supposedly illustrate the Kingdom of God. Trouble is, people
often don’t quite understand them, and he has to explain it in private to
his disciples. What could be easier to understand than the parable of the
mustard seed? Seeds grow into big plants. So what?
1. We love underdogs. We cheer when we hear a
Cinderella story. In every other movie Americans watch, some underdog struggles
and struggles and finally overcomes. Napoleon Dynamite, the big gawky nerd,
finally gets up on stage and dances like nobody’s business, and propels
his friend to win the election for school president. We tell the same stories in
church, too. If you go to Cokesbury bookstore and scan the shelves about church
growth, you’ll find all kinds of books written about some small church
that managed to turn around, and now they have 10,000 members and a church
campus that takes up seven city blocks. We root for the occasional unknown
sports team that makes it to the championship. In fact, we tell our national
history as if it were and underdog story. We used to be 13 little colonies, but
look at us now! That underdog grew up to be a big dog! So when Jesus starts
talking about seed, we cheer. Those Israelites who surround Jesus know when he
pulls out this seed metaphor, they will finally get to win. No more feeling
crushed under the heel of the Roman Empire, no longer living as second class
citizens, they are going to make it big. Here we go, fellow disciples! We are
going to be world champions! Surely they think back to the scripture in Ezekiel
they memorized:
This is what the Sovereign LORD says: I
myself will take a shoot from the very top of a cedar and plant it; I will break
off a tender sprig from its topmost shoots and plant it on a high and lofty
mountain. On the mountain heights of Israel I will plant it; it will produce
branches and bear fruit and become a splendid cedar. Birds of every kind will
nest in it; they will find shelter in the shade of its
branches.
(NRSV)
They remember this scripture, and they hope. One
day, we too will be like a Cedar, and people from all over the world will come
to us and make their homes here, like birds of the air. We will be a great
melting pot, a great nation, a great religion. The disciples know the story of
the oak that grew from the acorn, or the cedar that grew from a small cutting.
They smile and wink to each other, because they know what it means. The
underdogs will win! They cheer because they know this Cinderella story. We love
the underdogs.
2. But look closely at the seed. Listen carefully to
what Jesus says. He brushes his hand across a thin, dry, scraggly plant. He
holds out his hand and shows a few little brown specks. A little bit of nothing.
Mustard seeds. He shows us a common weed, probably planted by some passing bird.
It’s a bit like someone snatched a passing dandelion seed floating by on
the wind and said, “here is the Kingdom of God.” You can almost hear
the gasps. How sacrilegious! Jesus mocks our hopes and dreams for greatness!
Yes, I know, we usually think of Jesus speaking in a monotone, saying
“truly, truly I say unto ye.” But I suspect as Jesus holds up the
tiny grains of mustard he chuckles. Jesus has a sense of humor. Sometimes
he’s even sarcastic! The Kingdom of God is not like a cedar - it’s
like a mustard weed or dandelion. It pops up where you don’t want it. It
threatens the orderly and uniform green of golf-course lawns. You may have seen
people outside on Saturday mornings, cursing those little white puffballs that
sprout up and soon take over the lawns. How annoying! We may dream of lofty
heights and majestic cedars, but Jesus gives us weeds. Looks closely at the
seeds he holds up. Not a tree, but a common weed.
3. Imagine those early Christians. Think about the
early church. Small groups of a handful of Christians meeting in catacombs among
the rotting tombs. Sometimes they gather secretly after dark in someone’s
kitchen. Singing softly and speaking in hushed voices so their neighbors
don’t hear. Whenever they hear the tramp of Roman boots on the
cobblestones, they all freeze. They listen for the sharp rap at the door, the
sign that they will be arrested and hauled off, imagining all kinds of things
from thumbscrews to lions in the arenas. They can’t worship in public
because Caesar outlawed Christianity. Their families rejected them saying
“you’ve joined some kind of cult!” And as they hear the words
of Jesus, talking about mustard seeds, they breathe a sigh of relief. They know
that they may never become a great cedar, but they can be mustard. Small groups
of committed Christians, living outrageously different lifestyles. C.S. Lewis
says that small groups of friends who turn their back on the world are the ones
who wind up changing it. He and his friends - J.R.R. Tolkein, Owen Barfield,
Charles Williams, and Dorothy Sayers - changed the way many Christians think
about faith and literature. But all small groups of Christians share in the
mustard seed strategy of the Kingdom. Your Sunday school class, your weekday
Bible study, your prayer group. Wherever two or three believers gather together,
God plants and tends a mustard seed. Long ago, John Wesley gathered his college
roommates together once a week or more and they formed the Holy Club. Because of
them we’re here today in a Methodist church. So imagine those early
Christians gathered in their kitchen, listening to the story of the mustard
seed. Imagine them hearing Jesus’ words for them.
4. Now imagine the modern church. See the church of
today, with our large buildings and our own publishing houses! Of course we
expect the Kingdom of God to be big. God must be big, right? And God must live
in a big house. Christians want their churches to be big. At Annual Conference a
couple of weeks ago, we waited on the edge of our seats while the conference
statisticians read the numbers. We can’t shake the idea that God will grow
us into a big cedar! In fact, if we want to be honest with ourselves, we hate
this parable. We have to twist it to make it fit what we want. Every time we
preach it we make it about growing, about something small becoming big, because
we are afraid of being small ourselves, and we want to have hope that one day we
will be big and important and people will finally wake up and say, “gee,
those Christians must be right, because they sure are big,” so we put up
the ten commandments in court houses and we yell and scream on talk radio, and
we try to grow big Christian businesses to compete with “secular”
radio and books and movies, because God knows it’s all about winning the
championship! It’s all about the underdog coming out on top! And because
we can’t stand the idea of being common mustard, we even change the words
of Jesus. Surely Jesus must mean a mustard tree. That rare and exotic plant,
almost as rare as the dandelion tree, and the giant pygmy elephant. We
don’t want to be mustard. Not a little herb. So popular Christian authors
write about the end times, about the end of the world and the rapture, when
Christians “win” and all the losers will get “Left
Behind.” Christians want to be big. We want to grow up. Like little
children who want to tell the world “you’re not the boss of
me!”
5. Imagine a field of mustard plants. Look out
across the world and see it full of tiny growing things. Each one starts small,
and produces seed, and the seed falls to the soil, and a new plant grows, and so
on and so on. Jesus says get your head out of the clouds! Stop dreaming about
winning, about being the biggest and best, and start dreaming about reproducing.
At a workshop I attended recently, the speaker said that we’ve forgotten
what being fruitful is for. He said you hear Christians talk all the time about
spiritual fruits, about leading a fruitful life. Then he asked, “what is
the purpose of an apple tree? It isn’t to produce apple fruits. The
purpose of an apple tree is to produce another tree. The purpose of a disciple
is to produce another disciple. The purpose of a church is to produce another
church.” Wow. Here we were thinking God wanted to make us into a giant
cedar, towering over the world. But that’s far too small. God wants to
make a forest. A jungle full of creeping and growing and living things. God
doesn’t play by our rules, because our rules are far too limiting. Imagine
what would happen if Christians stopped trying so hard to fight a culture war,
and instead tried to be salt and light to a world that desperately needs Jesus.
What would happen if we stopped trying to win, and offered ourselves up as a
holy and living sacrifice? What would happen if we stopped trying to be cedar,
and accepted our calling to be mustard? It might look like a group of people
gathered around a kitchen table in someone’s house, taking turns sharing
what’s going on in their lives, and asking for prayer. It might look like
a small group of people reading the Bible in a Disciple study and talking and
laughing about what they find there. It might look like one small child baptized
on a Sunday morning. It looks like a handful of people blowing across the sea to
a foreign mission field, like a dandelion seed caught on the wind. Each one
leads to another, and another, until there is a field full of growing things.
Imagine a field of mustard growing in the sunshine.
6. We all love underdogs because we think hey,
that’s us. And we long to grow up to glorify ourselves, telling ourselves
God is on our side. But God plays by different rules. The Kingdom of God is less
like a cedar tree, and more like a mustard seed. Watch carefully, because
it’s easy to overlook. Yet if you have eyes to see, you’ll see it
growing up all over the place.
Posted at 08:11 PM |
Sun - April 16, 2006
The Best Sermon Ever Preached
Like pompous Polonius lecturing Laertes,
preachers and religious leaders would deliver one memory verse after another,
citing chapter and verse as if each scriptural nugget had a place in a clip file
of sermon illustrations.
Today I tackled what was probably my most
ambitious preaching task to date. I memorized the Sermon on the Mount. I had
wanted to put on the sign outside the church, "The Best Sermon Ever Preached."
That way, when someone accused me of being arrogant, I could say, "I can say
that, because it isn't my
sermon." I wimped out.
I've never been enamored of memorizing scripture. Even as a kid, the out-of-context sound bytes struck me as trite. Like pompous Polonius lecturing Laertes, preachers and religious leaders would deliver one memory verse after another, citing chapter and verse as if each scriptural nugget had a place in a clip file of sermon illustrations. What was the point of memorizing such things? Could I drop them in casual conversation with my friends?
But somehow, as I worked on memorizing this thing, the beauty of in-context memorization really struck me. Why don't we teach scripture memorization the way we teach poetry in classical education? There are some beautiful passages in the Bible, and learning both the verses and the context can be a powerful thing. When I hear the Bible treated as a tome of isolated proverbs by someone rattling off memory verses, I feel like I'm watching someone match Van Gogh's Starry Night with paint chips from Home Depot. "Here is a color that is called Ebony Popcorn, #3411. It would go perfectly with our sofa." "Here is a scripture about how folly leads to poverty. Let's base our state economic policies on the premise that poor people deserve to be poor."
I was surprised at how hard it was, though, not to slip into the King James Version as I preached. Apparently, I've absorbed more memory verses than I had thought.
The structure of the sermon fascinates me. Chapters 5 and 6 have a fairly logical structure, but 7 seemed at first like the basket where Matthew put all the pieces that didn't fit it the first two. As I studied it, though, I began to see connections. I think there is more structure there than many commentators recognize. Except for the "pearls before swine" proverb. That one still baffles me.
I took a few liberties. After all, I am supposed to preach a sermon, not just recite one.
I've never been enamored of memorizing scripture. Even as a kid, the out-of-context sound bytes struck me as trite. Like pompous Polonius lecturing Laertes, preachers and religious leaders would deliver one memory verse after another, citing chapter and verse as if each scriptural nugget had a place in a clip file of sermon illustrations. What was the point of memorizing such things? Could I drop them in casual conversation with my friends?
But somehow, as I worked on memorizing this thing, the beauty of in-context memorization really struck me. Why don't we teach scripture memorization the way we teach poetry in classical education? There are some beautiful passages in the Bible, and learning both the verses and the context can be a powerful thing. When I hear the Bible treated as a tome of isolated proverbs by someone rattling off memory verses, I feel like I'm watching someone match Van Gogh's Starry Night with paint chips from Home Depot. "Here is a color that is called Ebony Popcorn, #3411. It would go perfectly with our sofa." "Here is a scripture about how folly leads to poverty. Let's base our state economic policies on the premise that poor people deserve to be poor."
I was surprised at how hard it was, though, not to slip into the King James Version as I preached. Apparently, I've absorbed more memory verses than I had thought.
The structure of the sermon fascinates me. Chapters 5 and 6 have a fairly logical structure, but 7 seemed at first like the basket where Matthew put all the pieces that didn't fit it the first two. As I studied it, though, I began to see connections. I think there is more structure there than many commentators recognize. Except for the "pearls before swine" proverb. That one still baffles me.
I took a few liberties. After all, I am supposed to preach a sermon, not just recite one.
Posted at 10:58 PM |
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contact: dave at davebarnhart dot net
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