It’s harder to declare what you do believe, than what you don’t believe. That’s the conclusion the Theology on Tap crew reached after a summer of wrestling with questions of faith. With great passion, some of us can critique beliefs we’re not able to accept, yet find it more challenging to articulate the credo to which we can anchor our lives and faith. We’ll keep at it, though!
Central has spent the month of August exploring beliefs and practices of Christian Nationalism and how this cultural phenomenon has been a destructive force against democracy and a heretical expression of Christian faith. I’m grateful for the multiple responses to sermons and ways you’ve engaged the topic– and look forward to more conversation. But I don’t want to leave the topic of mixing politics and religion without casting a clear vision for how the Church can do so, faithfully to God’s Word and effectively in our divided, broken nation.
I feel a certain sense of urgency, partly because of the looming presidential election, but also as I close in on retirement January 31, 2025. From now till then my sermons will draw from what I’ve learned over 40 years of pastoral ministry in five congregations, even as they point to the unknown future. Consider this my best understanding of the vision this beloved community is called to pursue and practice.
A warning. In my thirteen years as your pastor, my vision has declined significantly—from using Walgreen’s reading glasses with 1.25 power to my latest pair, which had to have a custom prescription. (Not saying there’s direct causation between this—or my grey hair—and you’all as a congregation, but. . . . !!)
I’ve also learned that people can be visionary partly because of the great many things they don’t see. You know, like obstacles. Cynicism. Discouragement. Financial worries and scarcity talk. Maybe even so-called “realistic” expectations. These days I hear from so many of their exhaustion and anxiety about the future. I experience it myself from time to time.
More than ever, I think, we need a renewed spiritual vision that includes both human action and Divine power, one that neither relinquishes personal responsibility (just “give it to God”) nor imagines that it only depends on us.
Any number of Scripture texts could contribute to this vision. Jesus drew from the ancient Jewish shema to affirm the two best ways to live: To love God with all your heart, strength, soul, and mind, and to love your neighbor as yourself. There’s the “gospel in a nutshell”– John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that God gave the only son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life. And the even simpler God is love. [I John 4:8] My favorite Bible verse: This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it suggests the vision be built on gratitude and joy.
Some might rely on the biblical picture we have of God as a good and faithful shepherd of the sheep, providing for needs and protecting from danger. We have marvelous metaphors in the New Testament identifying Jesus as Bread of Life, Living Water, Light of the World, Resurrection and Life. As a Matthew 25 congregation, we are guided by a vision of following Jesus by caring for the poor, the excluded, and vulnerable, those often regarded “last and least.” It would be impossible to envision Christian faith without that primary consideration.
All of these and more help us discern God’s vision for this and every time. Today I’ve chosen two different texts: one that seeks to align our actions with Divine vision and to express it in our national and religious lives, and the other speaks to its countercultural aspect. We pray for the Kindom of God on earth as it is in heaven, and know that things will have to change before it is fully realized.
A reading from the book of the prophet Micah, in the sixth chapter, verses 6 through 8. Listen for God’s Word to the Church. [Micah 6:6-8].
Do justice. What does that imperative mean to you? The concept throughout scripture by and large speaks of it in an economic context. Closing the wealth gap. Liberating people from paralyzing debt. Being fair in business transactions. The Old Testament prophets railed against those who grew wealthy while others languished for even necessities, because God’s vision embraces community well-being.
While there are many ways and means to carry out social justice in a nation, the Church understands that this is a priority value of God’s Kindom. We have to include consideration of justice as we vote for candidates and particular ballot initiatives, and make decisions about our personal financial stewardship. The Lord requires it.
Love kindness. God’s vision is one that restores relationships between and among human beings. Kindness is not simply being polite (though society could do with a lot more of that); it’s developing empathy and understanding for other people. Kindness transcends partisan politics and refuses to throw gasoline on simmering hostility. It’s being slow to judge their perspectives or behaviors, because you take a moment to wonder what sorrow, what trauma, what deprivation, what experiences have shaped them to see or do this way?
Kindness doesn’t demean; it is the oil that soothes burned (or burned-out) spirits; it’s the sturdy patience that is there for others; it’s the acknowledgement that we are all vulnerable: hungry, lonely, grieving…. and mortal. Above all my friends, kindness moves us identify and strengthen the connections among us. People over programs. Compassion over creeds. Relationships over righteous indignation. Love above anything else.
Walk humbly with God. A church is not simply a voluntary organization where people gather to do some good things. We are people called to be Christ’s body in a world of hurt, and to walk with God, caring for the poor, comforting the bereaved, overturning tables on the unjust, proclaiming truth and pointing to God’s vision that is being fulfilled. We serve with utter humility; aware of the ways we mess up, fail to live up to our calling, fall short of God’s vision again and again.
The problems of divisiveness and meanness and inequity in our nation and world are at the heart of it spiritual problems, and the Church has remedies for these: grace, forgiveness, restoration, reconciliation, resurrection.
Big concepts; big faith. But let us be reminded of the ways God’s big vision upends conventional wisdom by becoming “little.” A reading from Mark in the tenth chapter, verses 13 – 16. Listen for God’s Word . . . to the child within each of us. [Mark 10:13-16] Children disrupt solemn assemblies; they call attention to their basic needs, loudly sometimes and inexhaustibly; their confidence in parents or caregivers to give them what they need is absolute. They speak uncomfortable truths out of innocence. And they are the exemplars of God’s vision Jesus came to show us.
We weigh the morality of a vision by considering what it will do to lift up children. How will it benefit the children of Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan, Denver, the precious children whose photos grace your desk or hallway? There is no moral vision that does not provide for and strengthen the lives of children, and as Jesus did of old, bless them.
It’s one of the main reasons children are always welcome at the Table, to be nourished for Kindom living, their faith formed and informed in beloved community called by Jesus’ name. So are we all.
So, let us walk together these next four months. With hope, because we trust God’s lively presence in the world and dare to believe that through our Divinely-inspired actions, little children everywhere will thrive, life will conquer death, light shines in the darkness and is not overcome, generosity replaces greed, guns are beaten into garden tools, earth can breathe again.
God’s vision is too big to reduce to a single agenda, be it political or religious. Instead, Church, let’s walk together with the Spirit to pray for and work towards the world God envisions and will one day complete.
May it be so.
