Two Invitations

This summer at Arlington, we're reading the New Testament together using a reading plan from the Optina Community in Russia, courtesy of our friends at YouVersion. The plan involves reading one chapter from the gospels every day, then two from the rest of the New Testament, beginning with Acts. At the end of 89 days (which takes us from Memorial Day up to a few days before Labor Day), we'll have read the entire New Testament together.

Click on the links to learn more and participate with us if you're so inclined.

I'm going to occasionally blog about the day's readings if I find something interesting, as I did today.

I'm on day 4 of the plan, which involved reading Matthew 4.

I'm kind of embarrassed to admit this, because I love both of these stories and I've preached on them numerous times, but it occurred to me this morning that these two stories are in the same chapter, and their proximity brings out an interesting contrast.

In the first story, Matthew 4:1-11, John has just baptized Jesus in the Jordan, and Jesus heads out for a long retreat in the desert that culminates in a proof-texting joust with ha-Satan. The absolute best meditation on this story I've ever seen is Henri Nouwen's In the Name of Jesus. In the second story, Matthew 4:18-22, Jesus calls some fishermen as his first disciples.

As I was reading the chapter as a whole this morning, it occurred to me that both of these stories involve one person inviting another to do something significant, and the contrast in these invitations spoke to me about the crossroads we find ourselves at in the church today.

Jesus' verbal sparring match with the devil involved three challenges that either implied or outright promised a specific reward: "You've been fasting for 40 days. Hungry? Make some food out of these rocks. Heck, with that kind of power, you could solve the world hunger problem!" "Want people to listen to you? Do a cool trick so they'll know you're for real!" "Swear allegiance to me and I'll give you the keys to this whole place. Think of all the good you can do!"

Jesus' call to those first disciples simply invited them to act. "Follow me, and I will show you how to fish for people".

In a consumer oriented society, where you can't go anywhere without being bombarded by advertisements, one has to do something pretty special to rise above the din and get people's attention. We in the church spend lots of time and money figuring out how to most effectively answer the "what's in it for me?" question. We say things like "we will strengthen your family", "we'll show you how to find true happiness and fulfillment", or "you can punch your ticket to Heaven here".

None of these things are inherently bad, of course, but the message is fundamentally self-centered. "Here is what this will do for YOU."

Setting aside for a moment that the temptations were from the devil, none of the things Jesus were being challenged to were inherently bad, either. They would have allowed him to accomplish his mission in a much more efficient manner. The problem is that he would have been glorifying himself, instead of letting God work and provide the ultimate glory of the Resurrection.

Jesus' invitation to his first followers, on the other hand, has little to do with their own personal gain. He only invites them to follow with some vague metaphor that helps them understand that their new mission will be at least a little bit like what they already do: fish.

Perhaps the correct response to a consumer driven, ME oriented culture is not to make our message a barely Christianized version of an ad for a washing machine, but to offer a real alternative to all these other things that may promise ultimate fulfillment, but ultimately leave us feeling more empty and more alone.

This is a terrible marketing strategy, of course. We won't promise a stronger family, greater financial security, or certainty about anything, really. We can't promise bigger churches with more people in the pews and more dollars in the plates, who pay their full year's apportionments on January 1 (my apologies to Bishops and District Superintendents).

All we really have to offer is the promise of being part of something bigger than ourselves. We have the opportunity to the never-ending ME addiction of our consumer society and make a difference in the world that lasts after machines break down and clothes wear out.

In the process, we just might find a stronger family, more fulfillment, and all that other stuff, but it's one of the perks along the way rather than the end goal.

Maybe we should drop all the ME oriented marketing. Maybe our logos should say, "Let's get over ourselves and go do something meaningful". That's probably a bad marketing strategy, but it did work for Jesus. It's worth a shot.

Acts of Charity

(Note- I'm using Lent and Easter Wisdom from Thomas Merton as my Lenten devotional this year. I'll be blogging the journaling prompts most days.)

The call to "do penance" is based not on the fact that penance will keep us in trim, but on the fact that "the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand". ~Seasons of Celebration, p. 130

What was your last act of "charity"? Why did you do it?

Why, that's easy, my last act of charity was, uh... hang on a second...

To quote Rick Perry, "oops"

After a minute or two of thinking I remembered that last week I was helping fill bags at Arlington's food pantry because there were several people there all at once, and our one volunteer was looking a bit overwhelmed. I sat there talking with one guy for a few minutes, hearing about his struggles, and we said a quick prayer together.

OK, not a bad act of charity, but why was I blanking for a couple minutes? It's not because I'm such a charitable guy that I just can't keep track of all the works of mercy I do, and it's certainly not because I'm so humble that I don't keep count.

I talk a good game and challenge people to make acts of mercy part of their discipleship, but when that question gets turned on me, I stumble for a few moments.

My blanking in answering that question reminds me that I'm often so busy being a pastor, I forget to be a disciple of Jesus. I'm very fortunate that my call is also my vocation, and I spend my time helping others grow in their discipleship, which I guess you could interpret as acts of charity.

Remember how I said a "quick prayer" with that guy? It was quick because I had a massive "to do" list sitting on my desk.

The unfortunate truth is that I've fallen into the trap of busyness. I'm working very hard on getting The Road up and running, preparing for my ordination interviews, plus all the normal pastoral duties I do, and I've unfortunately been neglecting my own discipleship, even though the reason I'm a pastor in the first place is because I felt a profound call at a fairly young age to devote my whole life to being a disciple of Jesus.

Lest I beat myself up too much (which, as Father Merton points out, is not the purpose of Lent), I have been fairly faithful to works of piety, but as Mr. Wesley emphasized, acts of mercy as just as essential. When the two get out of balance, our priorities and perspectives get out of whack. Say, for example, spending too much time on the nuts and bolts work of ministry while having a hard time remembering what my own last act of charity was.

An Apt Metaphor for the Church

I've been on vacation this past week, and I've had quite a bit of time to reflect on a lot of things. One thing I've bee pondering is what we're really devoting our energy to in the church. I'm talking about local churches, regional and denominational bodies, and the whole church universal.

Sometimes I think we're no better than the members of a society portrayed in my favorite Monty Python sketch:



I sometimes wonder if we're so focused on pandering to the values of our society so we can pad our numbers by getting some shallow "decisions" that we've lost sight of the lifelong journey of discipleship. We're too busy trying to cram people into one mold or another to embrace the possibility of God doing just about anything. In other words, we're too obsessed with the tangibility of "putting one thing on top of another thing" to realize that the whole thing is rather silly!

Violence in Church

By now you’ve probably heard all about the shootings at a missionary training center and a mega-church in Colorado (if you haven’t, here’s a report courtesy of the New York Times). Whenever a senseless act of violence occurs theological questions inevitably follow, mostly asking why a good and loving God would allow such a thing to happen. This incident is no different, but the fact that the gunman was killed in a church by a volunteer security guard raises some serious ethical questions as well.

I am torn on whether having armed security guards in a church is a good thing or not. As a pastor I can’t even begin to imagine how I would feel if someone walked into my church and started shooting. If one of my parishioners killed the shooter before he could do any further harm I would be relieved because I don’t want to see anyone in my church (or anyone else, for that matter) hurt. And yet I’m not totally comfortable with church condoning violence, even if it is in self defense.

In Matthew 26 we find Judas leading a large group of armed men straight to Jesus. Peter, attempting to defend Jesus, draws a sword and cuts off a guy’s ear. Simon Peter: God’s soldier. Great idea, right? Except that Jesus stops him, supernatural-glues the guy’s ear back on, and says, “All who live by the sword will die by the sword”, and then submits himself to torture and execution. So began the Christian tradition of non-violent resistance to evil. The list of notable exceptions is too long to mention (we’re still paying the price for the actions of our Crusader ancestors), but the fact remains that Jesus was a non-violent person, even though his instinct for self-preservation was as strong as anybody else’s. So does this mean that followers of Jesus can never engage in violence of any sort?

Dietrich Bonhoeffer struggled with this very same question. In 1937 he published The Cost of Discipleship, his own study of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) and probably the greatest articulation of a Christian theology of non-violence ever written. And yet Bonhoeffer was executed at Buchenwald in 1945 for his participation in the plot to kill Adolf Hitler. A man who preached non-violence so passionately participated in attempted assassination, and suffered a violent death as a result. Does this make him a hypocrite? I don’t believe so. Bonhoeffer wrote in his Letters and Papers from Prison that he could not justify his violent actions. He said that not acting in the face of evil was itself evil, and that he knew what he must do even if he went to Hell for it. This action was, in Bonhoeffer’s view, not a necessary evil, but a lesser evil.

Killing a gunman in the lobby of a church undoubtedly resulted in fewer lives lost than would have been had he gone on with his shooting rampage. But I’m not ready to say that it was a justifiable or necessary act. The volunteer security guard claims that God steadied her hand and guided her aim. Whether or not that’s true is between her and God. All I know is that she made a choice in a situation where no ideal outcome was possible, and the result was probably the lesser evil. Violence is always evil, even if it is done for the right reason. All we can do is ask God for forgiveness for all our sins and pray for the courage to make the best decisions in situations where no one wins.