Church in the World

For Sunday, November 27, 2011
Advent Sunday

This Sunday moves us from the Revised Common Lectionary’s “Season After Pentecost” to “Season of Advent” and from Year A to Year B.  What this means is that we’ve completed our first of three annual sojourns through the Bible and are now beginning the second.  It’s a good time to pause and reflect: how has my life been saved or changed by the gospel of Jesus over the last year?  How this next year might my life be saved or changed as I deepen my commitment to him?  

The English word ‘advent’ comes from the Latin ‘adventus’ which means “coming”.  The purpose of Advent is to give us a reason to pull out all of our Christmas kitsch.  Well… sometimes it seems that way, doesn’t it?  What Advent is supposed to be about is this: preparing ourselves as the people of God for our Savior, the one through whom God would save us from ourselves and restore a world broken beyond recognition. 

This week’s first reading, Isaiah 64, moves us from Christmas kitsch to the cosmic significance of what actually happened 2,000 years ago:

Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains would tremble before you! . . . Since ancient times no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who acts on behalf of those who wait for him.  

Mary and Joseph waited on God and he acted.  We may find ourselves waiting likewise today.  What if we really believed God would act on our behalf?  Take heart, because He did, and He will.

Yet while we wait expectantly we must also wait penitently:

All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we shrivel up like a leaf (a good metaphor for late fall in Wisconsin), and like the wind our sins sweep us away. . . Do not be angry beyond measure, O Lord; do not remember our sins forever.

As this week’s final reading, 1 Cor. 1:3-9, reminds us, our Heavenly Father has bestowed upon each of us who follow Christ boundless gifts of grace and strength:

For in him you have been enriched in every way – in all your speaking and in all your knowledge . . . Therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed.  He will keep you strong to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.  God, who has called you into fellowship with his son Jesus Christ our Lord, is faithful.  

May this Advent be one in which we bring ourselves into the Nativity (“the birthing among us”) of Jesus, and in the wonder of this moment find the grace which can renew our souls and slake the thirst of those around us who remain utterly lost in a desert of despair.

“Christ in Judgment“, Florence, Italy (1300)

For Sunday, November 20, 2011
Reign of Christ
Proper 29

Are you feeling lost today?  “Lost, ah… no.  Just temporarily disoriented.”  Right…  Well… if you ever do find yourself lost, this week’s readings can be of encouragement.   They are about a shepherd, his sheep, some goats, and a destiny.  

For this is what the Sovereign Lord says: I myself will search for my sheep and look after them . . . I will rescue them from all the places where they were scattered on a day of clouds and darkness. . . I will tend them in a good pasture.

There is no place I would rather be than under this Shepherd’s care here in this good pasture.  How about you?  

In this week’s second reading, Psalm 100, we find reinforcement for the reality of the people of God as sheep under a good Shepherd in a very good place:

Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth.
Worship the Lord with gladness;
come before him with joyful songs.
Know that the Lord is God.
It is he who made us and we are his;
we are his people, the sheep of his pasture (vv. 1-2).

In this week’s third reading, Matthew 25:14-30, we learn what separates the sheep from the goats.  The sheep are the ones that respond to others in need – whether they be thirsty, away from home, sick, or imprisoned.  The goats are those who fail to recognize the face of their Lord in the presence of the needs around them:

When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory.  All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people from one another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.  He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

The sheep will be the ones that saw the needs around them, saw the face of their King on the pang of the throng, and responded accordingly.  The goats will be the ones that also saw the needs but did nothing but look the other way.  Here is a haunting question: how many of us are counting ourselves among the sheep while merely looking the other way in response the needs around us?  

In this week’s  final reading, Ephesians 1:15-23, we read about sheep who have been empowered by the God who has put their Shepherd at his own right hand.  Hear how the Apostle Paul prays for his dear followers in Ephesus:

I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe.  That power is like the working of his might strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but in the age to come (vv. 18-21)

 And why did God do this? . . . all for a bunch of sheep (a.k.a. the church):

And God placed all things under his feet (Jesus’s), and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fill everything in every way (v. 22).

The church in the world is a very good place to be.  May we be in the world what God has called us to be.

For Sunday, November 6, 2011
(Readings for All Saints Day, Nov. 1, 2011)
Proper 27

This Sunday is All Saints Day.  If you are a Protestant than what this probably brings to mind is nothing but the sound of crickets.  Yet in this quiet moment why don’t we let history speak to us and see in what direction it might redirect us forward?

Dr. Dan Clendenin has a wonderful essay entitled “Celebrating the Saints: All Saints Day” in which he traces the origins of this day and suggests some ways it could bless us in the present.  He notes that in the first four hundred years of the church’s history there was a felt need to remember those who had founded the faith, especially at the price of their lives.  Just as those of us who are Americans draw strength from remembering George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln, so did the early church draw strength from remembering heroes such as The Apostle Paul, Justin Martyr, and Augustine.  The author to the Hebrews provides a wonderful panoramic of the people of God’s early history in Hebrews 11 which he concludes with this: 

And what more shall I say?   I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, and the prophets, who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions, quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword; whose weakness was turned into strength; and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies.  Women received back their dead, raised to life again. . . Some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison.  They were stoned; they were sawed in two; they were put to death by the sword . . . the world was not worthy of them. (Heb. 11:32 – 38, selected).

If the church is to be what she is called to be today then this legacy must be nurtured and cherished.  Yet as Clendenin notes, in honoring this legacy mistakes have been made.  He quotes Martin Luther, whom many consider to be the founding father of Protestantism:

These vulgar distortions of the Gospel made Luther’s blood boil: “What lies there are about relics! One claims to have a feather from the wing of the angel Gabriel, and the Bishop of Mainz has a twig from Moses’ burning bush. And how does it happen that eighteen apostles are buried in Germany when Christ had only twelve?”

So how might we recover the legacy without being blinded by such abuses?  Clendenin points the way forward:

. . . Protestants shouldn’t overreact and throw out the baby with the bath water. We shouldn’t dismiss a practice just because it’s abused. Protestants could do a better job of honoring the role that the saints can play in our Christian lives, especially for us who in stressing the personal nature of salvation often slide into individualistic, privatistic, and even narcissistic patterns of discipleship. We should see ourselves in the greater, communal identity of all God’s people. There’s a social and corporate dimension to our journey with Jesus that should include the saints.

When I think about the saints, whether the especially holy like Mother Teresa or the egregiously fallen like Jimmy Swaggart, I’m reminded that I have choices to make in my Christian life, and that my choices matter (emphasis mine). These choices have consequences for my spiritual welfare.  

Here then are a few practical suggestions on how we might mark All Saints Day personally and corporately.  First, if you are part of a small group, take an evening to share about your favorite biblical heroes of the faith, and how they inspire you.  Second, consider reading a book about great heroes of the faith, such as John Woodbridge’s Great Leaders of the Christian Church.  Third, take a morning to journal about the contemporaries who have made the most significant marks on your own journey faith.  I think of people like Jan Godfrey, Bill Godfrey, Stuart Briscoe, Mike Franz, Steve Sonderman, Jeff Chudy, Sam Osterloh, Doug Clarkson, and Jerome Iverson.  Unfortunately, like the author to the Hebrews, I don’t have time to tell you more.

The important thing, however, is to remember that God in his mercy and sovereign glory uses those who have gone before to point the way ahead.  On this All Saints Day may our common path forward be blessed by the rich legacy into which we’ve been called.