Preaching and Teaching

Pastor, Western Presbyterian Church
Washington, D.C.
September 5, 2010

Text: Jeremiah 18: 1-11

In this morning’s passage, Jeremiah gives us one of the great images in the Bible—God the Potter. As a potter myself, I can envision God at work in every stage of the potter’s work: finding a good source of clay; mixing in some sand or gravel to create a strong clay body; wedging the clay; sitting at a wheel spinning out one creation after another; trimming the pots; loading leather hard work into a kiln. When all those steps are completed, the test takes place, even for God. Can the potter’s work withstand the fire?

Whenever I teach the pottery wheel, I tell my students, “Please, do not fall in love with a pot until it comes out of the kiln. Because you never know exactly what will happen during a firing. There may be a small air bubble in the clay that will cause a pot to explode. A pot may have been overly stressed during the throwing process and come out misshapen. The glaze and clay body may not adhere as planned. It is only after the firing, when the firing is completed and the pots are removed that we know what we have created.” The anxious moment when the kiln is being opened makes the entire creative process worthwhile. Good results or bad, it is a moment of pure, unadulterated revelation. We revel in the successes. We learn from the mistakes.

Comparing a potter’s creative process to the events of our own lives, it is easy to conclude that we are currently in the firing phase. It is hot and getting hotter. Some things have been created and now we can only wait to see how they turn out. As a nation, we over-extended ourselves militarily with wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Secretary of Defense Gates was surely correct last week when he said only history will be able to tell us the ultimate meaning of these wars. For almost a decade, we engaged in juvenile economic decision-making (cutting taxes and raising spending) that have resulted in 9.6% unemployment, even higher under-employment, and shocking numbers of foreclosures and personal bankruptcies. Only time will tell if we can work our way out of the hole we have dug for ourselves. We have witnessed shocking greed and corruption among our leaders in the political, corporate, religious and nonprofit sectors. Will current leaders choose a different path, a path of integrity? We will have to wait to see.

So a lot of things are already in the kiln of history and we can do nothing but wait for the results. However, it isn’t really that simple, is it? After all, you and I are not only God’s pots. We are potters. Yes, we are God’s creations. But God has endowed us with the creative freedom to shape things ourselves. In one of those paradoxes God just seems to love, we are created by God, and yet, we create our lives.

So as we undergo the fires of life, we do not always sit in a kiln passively, able only to submit to the pressures being placed upon us. Even as we are in the fire, we oftentimes have the freedom that all creators relish and use. Passing through the fires of life, we have the ability to adapt and evolve in ways that increase the likelihood that we will come through the firing successfully, faithfully.

In times such as our times, this is such an important reality to remember. Because there are many voices telling us that we are not creators of our own lives. They would have us believe that we are controlled and created by other forces.

One of the reasons I get so angry when I hear conspiracy theorists spinning their seductive webs is that they attack one of the fundamental doctrines of our faith. They deny that we are free. In fact, says the Word of God, we are not governed by secret forces and powers that manipulate us. On the contrary, we are free to live faithful, productive lives. Every great life is built on a realization of this truth.

For example, contrary to what the conspiracy folks would tell us, this nation’s problem isn’t Washington. The problem is us. Washington is a product of our decisions, choices and priorities. If we don’t like what is happening in Washington, vote for a new face or ramp up the pressure on the people already here. That, by the way, is precisely what the American people did in the 2006 and 2008 elections and appear ready to do in the 2010 election. At some point, the elected officials will get the message and become the agents of change they always portray themselves to be during election campaigns.

Our problem isn’t corporate America conspiring to control our behavior. Corporations either give us what we want or they go out of business. Period. If corporations are making things we don’t like, it is because we are buying them! For example, if most of us bought green products, the only products we would find on store shelves would be green.

The progressive Presbyterian voice in the United States isn’t fading because of all kinds of socio-economic and demographic changes. They take place in every generation. Here at Western, we have proven that one can grow a progressive Presbyterian congregation. No, the problem is that too many progressive Presbyterians are not engaged in hands-on, grassroots ministry. They are so busy analyzing the reasons for their decline that they aren’t in the trenches doing God’s work.

An addict isn’t an addict because he came out of a dysfunctional family or she has a high stress job or he has the wrong gene. An addict is an active addict because he or she doesn’t seek treatment for a very treatable disease; a recovering addict if he or she does seek treatment.

We aren’t overweight because restaurants and grocery stores offer us fattening food. We are overweight because we eat the fattening food they offer us. There are other options. We need to stop going to those restaurants and grocery stores that only sell high-caloric, high fat food.

Every generation has to fight a battle against some type of determinism. Our generation has to resist the folks who tell us someone else is in control of our lives and society. Anyone who thinks the United States government or corporate America are well-organized conspiracies simply doesn’t know the United States government or corporate America!

And then there is the biology is destiny argument. Those who think biology is destiny have paid little attention to individuals who regularly accomplish astounding things by overriding what they are handed given by life. Whether it be a deaf Beethoven writing beautiful music, Stephen Hawking refusing to let neuro-muscular dystrophy stop his probe of the universe or an impoverished kid from Calcutta rising to head a major corporation, the lives of our neighbors teach us that, in many instances, we can be what we choose to be.

Now clearly, there are realities in life that can and do limit us. I am not saying that some of us don’t face very real limits and barriers which impede us from getting where we want to go. We do. A person growing up in a poverty-stricken family faces obstacles not faced by a person growing up in an affluent family. A woman faces very real discrimination in the work place. A child born in a Rwandan refugee camp faces barriers none of us can imagine.

As Christians, we need to acknowledge and work to eradicate all such barriers that stand between individuals and their destinies. That being said, many of us have become masters at using barriers, real and imagined, as excuses for not doing what we need to do. We stop exercising our God-given creativity because we convince ourselves it is futile exercise.

The great creative lives of history are rooted in the ability to overcome obstacles others accepted as insurmountable. In the middle of the 19^th century, Mary Cassatt overcame withering sexism in the art world and the disapproval of her family to become one of this nation’s greatest painters. In the middle of the 20^th century, a Presbyterian preacher’s kid named Sally Ride was one of 8000 other people who responded to a newspaper ad recruiting future astronauts. Overcoming enormous odds against her, she was selected. Again, while we need to fight for those who face discrimination, disabilities and other obstacles, personally, we also have to work our way through them—courageously, creatively, and persistently.

Part of the creative process involves going with the flow. Many are the times when I start to throw a pot with one intended shape and end up with something else. This doesn’t happen because I don’t have the skill to create the desired shape. It happens because I feel the clay asking me to go in a different direction. So it is when creating a life.

This past week students started classes at GW and elsewhere around the country. Many of these students have a pretty clear picture of what they want to study and what kind of work they want to do when completed with their educations. However, I hope even those with a clear road mapped out remain open to the possibility that they may end up in a place very different from what they currently envision. A math major may end up as an elementary school teacher. A pre-med student may end up as a social worker. A person studying high finance may end up starting a small business.

As a pastor I listen to lots of people as they think through their options in life. It is a time of both joy and anguish. Rather than viewing such vocational visioning as a purely analytical process, I urge them to think more like an artist; to think of their lives as a creative process. What might they paint on the canvasses of their lives they never expected to paint? Might their lives have a shape of which they never dreamed?

We are all God’s creations. At the heart of God’s intention for us is “human beings as co-creators.” We are free to be the co-architects of our own lives and history itself.

Let our labor in life not be laborious. Rather may it be filled with the joy that comes when we tap into that innovative, imaginative and inspired spirit God has placed within each of us.

Let us pray: Creator God, you invite us to be your artisans—creating beautiful lives, beautiful things and a beautiful world. Give us the courage to reach out for that sacred calling. May we design, build and author lives worthy of the One who created us, You, our loving and graceful God. Amen.

Pastor, Western Presbyterian Church
Washington, D.C.
August 29, 2010

Text: Jeremiah 2:4-13

Those of you who know me will not be surprised that I follow the same route to the gym on my pre-sunrise walk through our second hometown in Mexico. I like traveling the same streets at the same time because I see many of the same people. It helps me feel the town’s life-rhythm.

Since San Miguel is a major party place, pre-sunrise is a VERY quiet time. A large portion of the population gets home only hours before I start my walk. Indeed, I sometimes people see people wobbling home. But people with jobs are up and about.

There are people delivering fruits and vegetables to restaurants. Maids come down from the large homes and hotels to the early-opening bakeries to collect fresh bolillos, a type of roll that is a staple in Mexico. The streets and little parks are dotted with street sweepers, cleaning up trash left by the previous night’s revelers. Small groups of men stand around waiting for friends to pick them up and drive to a construction site. And just like here, there are joggers out for a run and people walking their dogs. By the end of the month, I am a regular, one of a small company of spirits who float through last moments of night as the roosters boisterously proclaim the coming of day.

One of the men I pass regularly is an old fellow riding an even older bike with a huge chunk of ice on the back. Even with no sun, the ice is melting. He told me he takes the ice to a town several miles outside of San Miguel. I’ve seen worse. In Mexico’s scorching hot Yucatan Peninsula, I once saw a fellow furiously pedaling down a highway in the middle of the day with what was rapidly becoming a small ice cube. These guys are engaged in a losing battle; one they, nonetheless, fight every day.

I thought of all of these folks when I read the Old Testament lesson from Jeremiah. While they diligently and humbly take of their early morning business, the prophet describes a God who is upset, again, with the faithlessness and misplaced priorities of the people of Israel. In a fabulous line, God says, “(your ancestors) went after worthless things and became worthless themselves.” An astounding insight. We become that which we pursue. Diligently pursue the things of God and we become godly. Ambitiously pursue the things of this world and we become worldly.

Jeremiah ends his rant by comparing his contemporaries to individuals who pour water into a cracked cistern. In an arid climate such as that of Israel/Palestine, it was and is a compelling illustration. In the desert, cisterns are used to collect water for those seasons when there is no water. If a cistern is cracked and leaking rather than collecting and holding water as intended, a person will end up in a life-threatening situation during a time of drought.

Pouring water into cisterns that can’t hold water, fighting wars against the same people generation after generation, people of one religion bashing people of other religions, creating a string of financial bubbles that inevitably blow up in our faces, thinking we can prove our worth to ourselves, these are the ways of humankind. Despite everything history teaches us, we engage in behaviors that are transparently flawed. Despite what God’s Word tells us, we place our faith in things that have as much chance of satisfying us as a block of ice does surviving a trip across a desert.

The death of the delightful Dick DeLouise this week took me back to the days when I was one of his pastors at Bradley Hills Church in Bethesda. I remember my first visit to Bethesda like it was yesterday. Bradley Hills Presbyterian Church was considering calling me as their associate pastor. It was early May, 1976. Bethesda in early May looks like the Garden of Eden itself. Massive walls of azaleas, painting the landscape with brilliant colors. Cherry blossoms floating through the air like a midwinter storm. Enormous trees billowing in the wind. It is astoundingly beautiful.

Tucked into this amazing scene were beautiful homes with expensive cars parked in the driveway; children as well manicured as the lawns on which they played; high school campuses that looked like small colleges. As I rode through this wonderland, I thought to myself, “These must be the happiest people in the world.” Well, a couple of months later as a pastor there, I quickly learned that all that looks sublime is not sublime.

In fact, over the ensuing six years, my office was filled with people who had many of the same problems that a pastor would hear in Biloxi, Boise or Berkeley. From the good people of Bethesda, I heard about troubled marriages, rebellious or disinterested youth, lucrative but unfulfilling work, chronic depression, stress-induced health issues, spouse abuse. To this day, when I drive through Bethesda, I see a totally different world than the one I saw on that first visit.

It isn’t that Bethesda has worse problems than anywhere else. It has the same problems as everywhere else because, despite the impressive veneer, too many people, like too many people everywhere, pour themselves into cracked cisterns. We are inclined to think a Cadillac education will lead to a Cadillac life; a great career will bring us total fulfillment; a perfect spouse and children will deflect attention from our imperfections. Such is not the case.

If I have learned anything over the past 36 years of ministry, it is that we routinely attempt to fill things with more meaning than they can hold. It is like attempting to put 16 ounces of fluid in a cup that holds 12 ounces. It just can’t be done. Things can only hold what they can hold whether the thing be a job, a relationship or money.

Yes, financially secure is a desirable place to be. But it can’t make us secure in any kind of lasting, ultimate sense. Financial security allows us to pay our bills. However, we all know families who have a combined income of $100,000, $200,000 or $300,000 and they still don’t feel secure. They are attempting to fill a cracked cistern. The more money they make, the more money they spend. They get a bigger house, a more expensive car, or take a more costly vacation. Therefore, as their earnings rise, their expenses and debt rise. Consequently, they never feel secure.

Recently, we went up to visit our son and his family for a couple of days. We flew into Albany, New York and rented a car to drive down to New Paltz. Because it only cost $20 extra, I rented a pretty nice car. That was a huge mistake. My Sentra now feels like a total piece of junk even though it is perfectly fine! Such is the way our minds function, leading us to cracked cisterns.

Of course, even people who are making millions of dollars don’t necessarily feel secure. Because financial security never has been and never will be synonymous with spiritual and emotional security. A true sense of security comes from a spiritual centeredness that money, careers and even relationships can’t provide.

In small clips I have read in the newspapers, Elin Nordegren, who recently divorced Tiger Woods, had some interesting things to say. Who could have thought she was more secure—with a seemingly solid marital relationship, two children, and more money than anyone could possibly spend? Over the past year, she says that she has found a new, inner strength that she didn’t possess prior to her personal and family crisis. Asked if the huge amount of money she received in the divorce settlement was helpful, she was refreshingly honest, saying, “”Money doesn’t make you happy, but I have to be honest: It is making some things easier.”

I think that kind of summarizes a lot of things. Money, careers, volunteer work, even interpersonal relationships can make life easier or more fun or more interesting. But they can’t fill our lives with meaning and purpose. Too much leaks out through these cracked cisterns. Only a solid relationship with God can hold the water of our lives.

Many Protestants have problems with the lifestyle of Roman Catholic priests and nuns. Their decision to be celibate and live in community without much in the way of personal, material possessions seems odd, even alien to many. However, while I certainly don’t and don’t want to live their lifestyle, I have tremendous respect for it. They provide a powerful role model as to what matters most in life.

These folks and many others who choose to live very humble, simple lifestyles remind us that one can be perfectly happy without many of the things we tend to think are absolutely essential for happiness. We don’t need most of what we have. We just don’t.

Jeremiah records God as saying, “they have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and dug out cisterns for themselves, cracked cisterns that can hold no water.” Why is it that we walk away from a tried and true source of water and attempt to create our own sources of water? Why can’t we accept God’s statement that we are good? Why do we need to prove to ourselves and others that we are good? It is one of the great puzzles of human history.

Whatever the answer to those questions, the fact is that God offers us everything we need. We have been hearing this message in the Gospel of Luke for a month. During August, we have heard about an insecure farmer who felt the need to store up excessive amounts of grain in his barn, despite God’s promises to care for us like the birds of the air and lilies of the field. We heard Jesus pleading for us to put our treasure where our heart is. And now this morning, we hear Jesus telling us to stop building ourselves up for “those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

Maybe those fellows with the ice on the back of their bicycles aren’t as crazy as I was initially inclined to think they are. Perhaps they have figured out something many of us still haven’t figured out. They seem to have great faith that what they are doing is both important and worth the effort. Believing they are validated, justified and cared for by God, they lead much less anxious lives than most of us.

If we study God’s Word and Way, attempt to live it out as best we can, and confess our failures when we don’t, I am absolutely and totally convinced that the fountain of living water of which Jeremiah speaks is there for us. Whether we go through times of plenty or drought, the living waters of faith, hope and love will nourish and sustain us.

In a culture where we are told from a very early age that if we don’t care for ourselves, no one will, it is very challenging to “let go and live” as Jesus, Jeremiah, Mary and so many others have done. It is a bit scary. But when we do “let go and live,” we discover a freedom that sets us free to travel toward our grandest dreams.

As the summer ends and a season of hectic busyness descends upon us, as another school year begins with all the pressures that accompany it, may each of us find ways to live more humble, simple, less anxious lives. As we do so, we will never have to worry about going to the cistern and finding it empty because it was cracked. The well to which Jeremiah directed us is always full.

Let us pray: Gracious God, we invest in things and, at times, they lose their value. When we invest our lives in you, they always gain in value. For your trustworthy presence on the road of life, we are so, so very grateful. Help each of us to be as trusting of you as you are trusting of us. All this we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Pastor, Western Presbyterian Church
Washington, D.C.
August 15, 2010

Text: Luke 12:49-56

“Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth?” boomed an angry Jesus in this morning’s Gospel lesson. “No,” he continued, “I tell you, but rather division!” Then again, maybe he said it with a very sad tone of voice. “Listen, I don’t want to be a cause for conflict. I really don’t. But it seems inevitable.” Or maybe he said it with a matter-of-fact tone. “Folks, it is what it is. I can’t control the way people respond to me or my message. If they don’t like our ideas, they are going to resist them.”

Whichever you prefer, it doesn’t change the meaning of the passage much, does it? Jesus’ message caused conflict. Trying to live like Jesus will cause conflict.

Ongoing conflict is a spiritual fact of life that struck fear in the heart of Christians in Wisconsin where I grew up in the fifties and early sixties, an area dominated by a Scandinavian approach to reality. Because if my neighbors, friends and classmates were typical, and I think they were, they REALLY didn’t like conflict. They abhorred conflict.

I can’t remember his name but there was a comedian from Minnesota who had an entire routine about the Scandinavian aversion to conflict. One piece of the routine was about a Norwegian-American man whose wife kept making asparagus for dinner. He hated asparagus but never told her, fearing an argument. One morning at breakfast she told him they were going to have asparagus for dinner, he just began to sob uncontrollably. In the upper Midwest, it was a routine that got a huge laugh because we all knew what he was describing. Some people will tolerate almost anything rather than start an argument.

My family wasn’t Scandinavian. But we were pretty reflective of that culture. I don’t ever remember our mother and father raising their voices toward each other. I am sure they had disagreements and arguments outside our hearing. But there must have been a concerted strategy to create a conflict-free family life.

Of course, with me as their son, one part of that strategy was doomed to failure. For reasons I don’t understand, I am very comfortable in the midst of conflict—as long as it doesn’t get too close. I don’t like conflict in my marriage. I don’t like it around here. It happens in both places at times. But when it does, my Midwestern genes take over. Feeling like I have failed in some way or another, I think I should have been able to prevent the conflict.

As a result of such mixed feelings about arguments, hearing Jesus endorse not only the reality of conflict but its necessity is very liberating to many of us. In essence, he tells us that conflict isn’t always the result of bad intentions or mistaken actions. It isn’t because we weren’t sensitive or attentive to other people’s feelings. At times, conflict is both inevitable and required to advance God’s cause.

Jesus realized that, ironically, conflict is resolved by conflict. In the short term, perhaps by intensified conflict. Wholeness comes by looking division right in the eye and taking it on. To confirm this point, a few examples are in order.

Obviously, the Middle East is filled with conflict. However, to create peace in that region will require even more conflict. It needs to be non-violent conflict around a negotiating table. But until healthy, mediated, conflict-filled conversations take place, blood will continue to flow in Palestine and Israel. If we are demanding anything of either party, it should be that they sit down and talk to each other with no pre-conditions.

Many people are tired of the debate over the rights of the LGBT community in the church and society. However, the emotional conflict over various issues has produced enormous progress in a very short period of time. As conflicting viewpoints have clashed and been worked through, much of the conflict has been resolved.

Most families have undiscussed issues that need to be addressed. Fearful of starting an argument with family members we love, we choose not to address problematic issues. It is only when someone has the courage to speak up, to provoke the argument, that things come out into the open where they can be thrashed out in a healthy, healing manner.

The longer conflicts go unaddressed the more challenging it is to deal with them constructively. It is a bit like having a gas leak in our home. If we deal with a gas leak quickly, a problem is averted. If we don’t deal with it promptly and allow the gas to accumulate, any small spark will set off an enormous explosion. In like manner, if we allow conflicts in our lives to sit unresolved over years, when they finally get addressed, they are highly combustible and potentially very damaging.

On a national level, the Social Security program is a case in point. For decades, we have known there is a funding problem on the horizon. Well, the horizon is no longer so far away.

Not wanting to pay a political price, our politicians have avoided this conflict. Not wanting to see our benefits reduced, we have encouraged our politicians to avoid the debate. So now, with a huge and growing federal budget deficit, the potential for a nasty generational conflict has multiplied. It didn’t have to go down this way.

Even at this late date, we are better off having a fight now rather than avoiding it. We have reached a national consensus on issues as difficult as Social Security. If we approach the conflict respecting the positions of all parties, there is absolutely no reason why we can’t work our way to a resolution acceptable to reasonable people.

Some of us avoid conflict because we don’t like conflict. Others of us avoid conflict because we know the conflict can only be resolved by us making change; changes we don’t want to make.

People over the age of 55 don’t want lowered Social Security benefits. Two people in a troubled relationship don’t want to change their individual behaviors to improve the relationship. Members of a congregation don’t want to change their congregational way of being because, well, they will have to change. I think our reluctance to change is why Jesus confidently proclaimed that his ministry would create division—even between parents and children, even between siblings.

Jesus did not come to bless the status quo. Jesus was a change agent. He opened his preaching with a call for repentance. There is no need to repent if we are currently doing the right thing. However, change, even the thought of change, creates conflict. We need to acknowledge that fact.

When I was doing my MBA, we had a guest lecturer come in to talk about change strategies. She said, “Let’s be clear about something. When you stand before a group of employees and say, ‘We need to make some major changes. But don’t worry, you won’t be harmed. Indeed, you will be better off,” please do not think for one second that any of your employees believe you. They don’t. What you are promising them is totally contrary to their life experience. Life has taught them that when change takes place, somebody has to pay a price and it is usually them. They know it and they will always be afraid that they will be the one who suffers the price of change.” I immediately knew the lecturer was correct.

If Social Security changes, no, make that, when Social Security changes, I will be harmed. There is just no way around it. Cost of living increases or other things are going to have to be changed in ways that cost me money.

However, the way to frame this conversation is to think in terms of alternatives. Don’t promise me and others that change won’t impact me and impact me negatively. The issue is what happens if change doesn’t take place. What will happen to the Social Security system if we continue to ignore the problem? The changes I will face then, a bankrupt system, will be worse than the changes I will face if the system is reformed.

That being said, the discussion of tradeoffs of this type is a major reason why we avoid conflict. We know we are going to have to give up something we currently possess. Conflicts end with us giving up something we don’t want to give up so the other party is happier with the situation.

We like to think that contentious situations can end with a win-win scenario. Some can. However, to get to win-win, it usually involves lose-lose. For example, when the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is resolved, Palestinian militants will lose their battle to eradicate Israel. Right wing Israelis will lose their claim on East Jerusalem and other lands they believe to be theirs. Everyone will win in the sense that peace will be a reality. However, to get there, most people will have lost/given up something they hold dear.

When Western went through a congregational fiscal crisis during the 2009 global fiscal crisis, everyone lost something: benevolences and program budgets were reduced, the Capital Reserve draw was lowered, and staff lost pay increases. However, we all gained something: fiscal stability. The process of getting to fiscal stability produced some conflict, at times, heated conflict. But it was necessary and healthy.

I have never seen a broken relationship repaired where both individuals didn’t have to lose something they held precious. However, when a person accepts the risks of making personal sacrifices, a relationship can be regained. Not always. But the relationship will most definitely fail if no one is willing to bend, to make a sacrifice, to change.

One of the things we learn from Jesus is how to work through conflicts. Jesus had the ability to be simultaneously tough and respectful. Yes, he lost his temper occasionally. That is part of him being fully human. Calling the Pharisees and Scribes hypocrites is like me losing it occasionally and calling Christian fundamentalists hypocrites. In the heat of conflict, we say stuff we really shouldn’t say, do things we really shouldn’t do.

However, the key is what we do after we lose it. Can we back off, even back down? Can we admit to ourselves and others that we crossed a line? Can we look for places where we can connect emotionally, personally with those with whom we are in conflict?

During a lunch break, perhaps we ask the person on the other side of the conflict how their kids are doing or how their sick spouse’s health is coming along. Perhaps we talk to them about a topic about which we agree. There are a bunch of strategies that work in building personal bridges to people with whom we are in conflict. But work them we must if we are going to find our way through complicated conflicts.

If I have learned anything living in D.C., it is that you don’t have to dislike those with whom you disagree. Watching odd couples like Teddy Kennedy and Orrin Hatch or Tip O’Neil and Ronald Reagan, I have come to realize that it is one thing to disagree. It is another to be disagreeable. It is one thing to prevail in a conflict. It is another to destroy the other party.

Few things are more important than learning the skill of developing positive relationships with those with whom we disagree. Clearly, Glenn Beck didn’t learn it. Actually, Beck is a bad example because he is making millions of dollars playing the angry man. We need to understand that folks such Beck, Limbaugh, and Oberman profit economically from being disrespectful and disagreeable. The more conflict they create or perpetuate, the more money they make. But there are a limited number of slots in life where that approach will make us money or bring us success.

For most of us, what pays off, emotionally if not financially, is finding a way to keep our integrity in contentious, argumentative situations while also remaining a decent, civil person. In some ways, this responsibility is more challenging today than in the past because of the speed with which we can communicate with one another. It is way, way too easy to rip off an instant, angry reply to someone who is pushing all of our buttons.

But our technology has not created the problem. As Jesus rightly notes, conflict is inevitable. Our efforts to do the right thing are going to be contested by malevolent forces. That is conflict we cannot avoid. More challenging, they are going to be opposed by good people who simply don’t agree with our goals, thoughts and/or strategies. That is also conflict we cannot ignore.

In warning us about the inevitability of conflict, Jesus was telling us that we need intense spiritual discipline to do what we are called by God to do. Do we have the self-control, self-restraint to walk into the muddied waters where conflict leads us? Knowing the members of this congregation, I think we do. But to emerge from those muddied waters still headed toward the Promised Land, we need to be spiritually focused and disciplined—totally and deeply. May we study and learn from those who have mastered the skill of living faithfully in the midst of conflict. Most especially, may we learn from Jesus himself.

Let us pray: God of this world, few of us really enjoy conflict. However, a day rarely passes when we are not immersed in some type of conflict. Help us to see conflict for what it is—an opportunity to express and ultimately resolve differences of opinion. As we do so, may we gain confidence in our ability to navigate the waters of contention. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

Pastor, Western Presbyterian Church
Washington, D.C.
August 8, 2010

Text: Luke 12:32-40 and Isaiah 1:1, 10-20

By the time I left for vacation six weeks ago, I was pretty worn down. In fact, for only the third time in my life, I blew out my back the week before I left. I could hardly stand up straight. I kept thinking, “I am walking around like an old man.” Then I realized, “I am an old man.”

Gratefully, my back doesn’t go out because of spinal problems. It goes out because of stress. I should have seen it coming. Our efforts to get health care to the poorest of the poor in Ethiopia have been exhausting, frustrating albeit very important for those we serve. The work took its toll.

In another challenge, for over a year, I have been working to make sure our denomination doesn’t do what progressives sometimes do—take a stance on an issue that is more emotional than helpful. The issue is Israel and Palestine. Some very well intentioned folks, distraught over the plight of the Palestinians, want to blame the entire situation on Israel, ignoring the political complexities and internecine history of that region. Historically, the Presbyterian Church has taken the position that both sides are wrong, both sides are right.

I spent the first couple of weeks of my vacation continuing to work on the debate remotely from Mexico. Gratefully, an excellent compromise was reached at the General Assembly which met in the first week of July. We basically reaffirmed our historical position with criticisms and affirmations of both sides. But arguing with people with whom you agree on 95% of all other social justice issues is not fun. It wears you down.

On one of those “signs of the times,” I have received a number of emails from friends wondering why they didn’t bump into me at the General Assembly in Minneapolis since they heard I was there. Well, I wasn’t there physically. But with email, Skype and phones, these days you can be somewhere you aren’t.

The longer list of issues I was dealing with last winter and spring isn’t worth mentioning. I only mention any of this because I know each and every one of you has a similar list. Each of you is dealing with frustrating situations at work, in your family systems, and/or on the political front. These things cause your back or something like it to go out on you. Such is life.

In our frustration with problems that won’t disappear, problems that begin to feel unresolvable, we are not alone. God also gets worn down by problems; difficulties created by human beings like you and me. In the Old Testament lesson this morning, we hear fatigue and frustration in God’s voice as relayed by the prophet Isaiah. God complains about human behavior, “I have had enough….I do not delight….I cannot endure” Speaking of our selfish ways, God declares: “They have become a burden to me, I am weary of bearing them.” And my favorite lament from God: “…who asked for this?”

Indeed, who asked for the Tea Party, vicious anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant sentiments, an out-of-control addict in the family, cancer, a job that doesn’t produce any satisfaction, trouble finding a job, the health problems of our aging parents? Who asked for any of this and how do we cope with it? Reasonable answers to such questions are necessary to lead a healthy, holy life.

There are a number of classic, self-defeating behavioral responses to the multitude of problems that confront us. We can just take care of ourselves and try to forget about everyone and everything else. However, as we discussed last week, it is a futile strategy. We don’t live in a bubble separated from everyone and everything else. And, no matter how hard we try, we can’t create such a bubble. If we attempt to create a bubble, we will just be in worse shape when it pops.

We can become cynical. Over the past decade, the increase in deeply cynical behavior has been disheartening. How cynical was it for the Wall Street community to award itself mind-boggling bonuses when so many Americans can’t even find a job? How cynical is it for politicians to put the welfare of their party over the welfare of the nation in a time of profound economic crisis and our soldiers fighting two wars? How cynical is it for our Mayor to throw juicy government contracts in the direction of his friends and then refuse to answer questions on the subject? Cynicism breeds cynicism. Unlike wealth, cynicism does trickle down fairly rapidly.

We can disengage. Upset that our efforts to create change don’t create enough change or fast enough change, we just quit. It is an adult version of “If you don’t play the game the way I want it played, I will pick up my marbles and go home.” I have observed too many people in my generation take this approach. Upset that our youthful visions of a totally transformed nation weren’t happening rapidly enough, large numbers of folks decided to chase personal wealth rather than pursue social reform; personal peace rather than world peace.

When things don’t change fast enough to suit them, we oftentimes see people disengage from their church, family, job or a relationship. They just drop out, run away, punt. It is an incredibly childish response.

In the days of Isaiah, as enraged as God was at the people of Judah, God did not disengage, act cynically, or decide to focus on things in heaven and leave earth to its own devices. God definitely vented about the myriad of problems flowing from Judah. But God did not punt. Indeed, God doubled down on the demand for reform in Judah, sending Isaiah to the people with a scathing message.

Of course, this begs the question as to why so many of our problems seem intractable. Why can’t they be solved? Why are the poor always with us? Why do people continue to resort to violence? Why doesn’t a catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf produce one iota of change in our government or our lifestyles?

The best answer I have heard comes from Paul when he reminds us that we don’t do the good we want to do and we do bad things we don’t want to do. Members of the Taliban were doing some very evil stuff in Afghanistan at the beginning of this millennium. They needed to go. 9/11 created a rationale for us to be the ones to remove them. However, in our desire to do good, we ended up creating a whole set of new problems for the people of Afghanistan and ourselves.

A family has a teenager who is struggling in school. Her parents want her to perform better so she will have a good future. However, as the parents begin to lay down the law, the young person rebels and engages in some self-destructive behavior.

A non-profit organization has financial problems. As the organization presses its faithful contributors to give more, some of the contributors begin to resent being approached for money all the time and stop giving. Given its problems, others begin to question whether investing in the organization is wise. The financial problems are exacerbated by the effort to solve them.

So some of our problems are intractable because the very effort to address them sets off the law of unintended consequences. The more we try to solve something, the more we venture into unknown areas with new problems. Stress builds. Backs go out.

To de-stress our efforts to change the world, ourselves or our relationships, we need to stop thinking we have to or can solve all our problems. Has God been able to end war, eliminate poverty or protect the environment? Well, why do we think we will have some kind of instant, magical success in these and other areas? God does not expect us to solve problems God hasn’t been able to solve.

A spiritually mature person isn’t successful in solving every problem. God calls on us to work on problems, not eliminate them. Do what we can…while we can.

As we heard in the Gospel lessons last week and today, Jesus oftentimes recommends a “one day at a time” approach to life. Last week, we heard him warning us against devoting all of our time and effort to saving up for a day that may never come. Today, he is doing more of the same. He tells people, “Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit.”

Miriam’s Kitchen hasn’t solved the homelessness or hunger problems in D.C. However, for 27 years, we have been helping two to three hundred folks get through the day. Our Clinic operation in Addis Ababa isn’t solving the extreme poverty situation in which our patients live. However, we are solving some immediate health problems that make their days and nights living hells. Our advocacy for the full inclusion of LGBT folks in the life of Presbyterian congregations hasn’t been totally successful. But we get closer to our goal every year. On many different fronts, we are doing what we can, where we can, while we can.

As many of you know, when I came to Western in 1983, our membership was overwhelmingly folks in the retirement phase of their lives. They had watched Western’s membership decline from 600 to around 100 active members. Walking into this environment as a newcomer, what struck me was how little anxiety and stress there was in the place, despite the decline in membership. I was stressed. But everyone else was pretty much relaxed.

As I got to know our members, they shared their hopes for the congregation. Most viewed the primary purpose of the church as keeping them spiritually strong. They also believed that if Western could hang on—for another day, week, or year—something good would happen. Basically it was a survival strategy. Slowly, we changed to a growth strategy. But undergirding the growth was a profound sense that God was going to take care of us here at Western.

One of the great gifts of our faith is the blessed assurance that all will be well. According to many Biblical accounts, even God, at times, has difficulty believing that everything will work out. However, it is true. Things, in their own way, do work out. Sometimes they work out because of us. Sometimes they work out despite us. Sometimes they work out without us. But they work out.

Our problems are not new problems. They are recurring problems. We coped with them in the past. We will cope with them today.

Any student of American history knows that the Tea Party is not an aberration. Fringe groups challenging the American Way appear repeatedly throughout our history. The battle to protect immigrants in this country isn’t new. The Irish, Italian, Jews and many others faced the same kind of hostility some Mexicans are facing today. A family having problems isn’t new. Read about England’s royalty some time.

If we see our problems as what they are, challenges we need to address faithfully, courageously and persistently, they will not overwhelm us. If we see them as a test of our personal faithfulness, competency or intrinsic value, they may very well overwhelm us. They aren’t personal fitness tests. They are problems.

“Who asked for this?” wondered a God who was clearly feeling disheartened and perhaps even resentful about the endless problems the people of Judah created. No one. No one asks for problems. But God has to deal with problems and so do we.

So let us not succumb to the temptation to disengage, become self-absorbed or cynical. Rather, let us take a deep breath, maybe a vacation and then go back to work. As Jesus said, we need to get “dressed for action and keep our lamps lit.” As we do so, we will work our way through our problems in surprising, serendipitous ways that ruin neither our health or relationships.

Let us pray: Gracious God, life is challenging. The problems we face can overwhelm us. Help us to maintain a calm and steady approach toward life, doing what we can, making a difference—sometimes small, sometimes large. As we do so, we will slowly grow the mustard seed you have planted inside each of us and inside human history itself. Amen.

Pastor, Western Presbyterian Church
Washington, D.C.
August 1, 2010

Text: Luke 12:13-21

A year or so out of seminary, I had a question for the head of staff of the congregation I was serving as an assistant pastor. “How do you manage to come up with a new sermon every week?” I inquired. Maynard responded, “As you’ll discover, the more you preach, the more you have to preach about.” It has turned out to be absolutely true, in part, because life regularly serves us up incredible fodder for sermons. The times in which we live are as fertile for preaching the Word of God as any in history.

At first glance, this morning’s Gospel lesson is nothing earth-shattering. Jesus tells a parable about a man who devoted himself diligently to storing up grain and goods so, later in life, he could “relax, eat, drink and be merry.” While the man’s efforts seem like a reasonable, even prudent strategy, Jesus raises a profound question about them. He asks his listeners, “What happens if the future for which you all are saving never arrives? What happens if everything changes in the blink of an eye? Then where will you be? Put your faith in God, not in the riches you store up for yourself.”

Given the economic turmoil of the past three years, Jesus’ parable is anything but routine for our generation. It describes perfectly why we are in the fix we are in economically. In today’s world, Jesus would alter the parable slightly. Instead of a farmer storing up crops in a barn, he would describe people diligently saving money in their 401k or working for years to earn pension credits so they can retire, relax, eat drink and be merry. And Jesus’ response to this behavior might go something like this: “What happens if the tech bubble pops, the real estate bubble pops, the stock market drops 20% or the financial industry almost shuts down? Indeed, what happens if all of those things take place within the same decade? What value will all your savings and investments have then? Put your faith in God, not in the riches you are storing up for the future.”

This summer I read a fairly dense economic analysis of all the major financial crises that have taken place since the 19^th century. If you like tables, statistical standards of deviation and graphs, you will adore this book. It is entitled This Time Is Different. Looking at economic behavior over centuries, not just decades, the authors see some clear trends that lead to a wisdom we all need to hear. In summary, the authors conclude that behind every major financial crisis lies the firm conviction that everything is different than it was in the past. Every generation thinks it has learned the lessons from its ancestor’s failures, figured out things its ancestors didn’t know, found natural resources or inventions that have changed the economic playing field forever, or created laws and regulations to make sure abuses aren’t repeated.

However, in each and every generation, far from things being different, everything remains very much the same. Greed undermines all the supposed advancements in learning, production or technology. Hubris overrides common sense.

The data about our current economic crisis is clear: the still open economic wounds that weaken our nation today are self-inflicted. In ways small or large, we have all participated in the making of this crisis. Until we confess that fact, we will have a difficult time putting it behind us.

In urging people to trust God in this parable, Jesus certainly wasn’t criticizing the important discipline of saving for a rainy day. One of the reasons we are in the jam we are in today is because we stopped being a nation of savers. Instead we became a nation of spenders, obsessive compulsive consumers. We bought homes, cars, and many other things we couldn’t afford. As a result, we became and remain a debtor nation.

No, Jesus wasn’t questioning savings. He was calling our attention to the inordinate faith we place in our personal planning. No matter how much life smacks us around, we always think we can control the future by planning for it. Having been knocked down once, we say to ourselves, “The next time will be different. I will do a better job of preparing for the future.”

It is as if we simply don’t believe Jesus’ assertion when he said, “If God cares for the lilies of the field and the birds of the air, will not God also care for us?” Our behavior on a variety of levels reveals that we are absolutely convinced that if we don’t care for ourselves, no on else will. We don’t trust our future to God or anyone else. We trust only ourselves. Given our pathetic track record caring for ourselves, that is really quite an astonishing conclusion.

Our lack of trust in God manifests itself in things personal and global. On a personal level, for example, many of us spend a lot of time exercising, eating the correct foods and otherwise taking care of our physical health. Again, just like saving for the future, this is a good discipline.

However, no matter how well we manage our health, there are too many wild cards involved, especially in terms of genetic and environmental factors, for us to have any kind of ultimate control over our health. As examples, we read about the highly disciplined marathoner who dies of a heart attack in his forties or the person who happened to be on a plane that crashed. If we place our trust in things such as the well being of our bodies or some airplane maintenance company, occasionally we are going to be horribly surprised.

On a global level, it is absolutely clear that, no matter what they say, nations do not trust in God. Here in the U.S. we have the chutzpah to put “in God we trust” on our money. Nonsense. It is propaganda. Like the farmer in the parable, as a nation, we, in the United States, put our trust in earthly things we can stockpile—especially weapons. Guns in our homes. Nuclear weapons on our arsenal of rockets. Special operations forces at the ready. We don’t trust God. We trust our weapons.

Somebody can wound us, as they did on 9/11. However, we say to ourselves, “We will hunt them down and kill them (as well as anybody who gets between them and us) before they get the chance to wound us again.” Where is the trust in God and God’s Way in such an approach to life?

The ultimate sign that we lack trust in God is evident when things go wrong in our lives. Too often, we turn on God, thinking God is out to get us or even worse, we begin to believe that God is indifferent to our plight. No longer willing to rely on God, we intensify our efforts to take care of ourselves, to become totally self-sufficient, as though a self-sufficient person ever existed on earth.

The myth of the self-made person is one of the most seductive and misguided myths in history. Even Jesus wasn’t self-sufficient. The first thing he did was gather a group around him to support and give him advice, a group of friends to love and love him.

At this point, it would be fair for any or all of you to ask, “Well, John, you have described a distrustful life. What would a life look like that was built on trusting God?” Indeed, we can’t just define what a distrustful life looks like. We need to visualize a trustful life.

We don’t have to look far for real life examples of individuals who possessed a remarkable trust in God. We can look at Sarah or Jesus, Sojourner Truth or Desmond Tutu, Aung San Suu Kyi or Oscar Romero. All chose to live their lives depending not on things of this world but on God. As a result, they were or are fearless. Nothing and no one could or can intimidate them.

None of these people led problem free lives. Indeed, each of them suffered mightily and, in some cases, died martyrs deaths. However, they knew that, as Paul wrote to the Romans, “…neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” With such a trust in God, they dealt faithfully with the problems life thrust in front of them, the problems life inevitably thrusts in front of all of us.

When we trust in God, many of our actions will, in fact, resemble those of people who trust only in themselves. We will save money, take care of our bodies and minds, and develop long term strategies just as they do. However, we do so because it makes sense, not because we think it will save us; because it is an appropriate strategy, not a redemptive strategy.

Trusting in God rather than our own strength, we will not get sucked into the trap of thinking we are safe because we kill others before they can kill us or because we have more money in the bank than we will most likely use. No, we are safe because God has assured us that we are safe. Because of God’s love and those God sends to love us, we will persevere no matter what happens to our savings, jobs, or health.

As one studies economics, the only thing really surprising is that, throughout history, people repeatedly think they have taken the surprise out of economic behavior. As we study the history of nations and visit the ruins of great empires from Rome to China to Ethiopia to Peru, the only thing bizarre is that we walk away thinking our empire will last forever; that somehow we will avoid what every empire before us has failed to avoid. This time will be different.

However, studying history, we realize that the more the world changes, the more the world remains the same. And gratefully, part of that sameness is the trustworthiness of our God. No matter what happens to us, no matter what we do or others do to us, God loves us and will make sure we get through whatever we need to get through. “Lean on me,” says God, “Depend on me. We’ll get through this together.”

The way beyond our problems, both personal and collective, is not to save more, eat better food or stop being an empire—as wise as it would be to do all of those things. The Way is rooted in a profound trust in the only reality that has proven totally and absolutely trustworthy since the creation of this universe—a loving and providential God.

Let us pray: Gracious God, we thank you, from the bottom of our hearts, for your steadfast love. You are always present for and to us. May we be wise enough to put our trust in you. All this we pray in the name of One who did just that, Jesus of Nazareth. Amen.

Pastor, Western Presbyterian Church
Washington, D.C.
June 20, 2010

Text: Luke 8:26-31

Those of you familiar with this passage will realize that I cut it off a bit short before its usual conclusion. I absolutely hate reading aloud the part where Jesus allows the demons to enter a bunch of pigs who then rush into a lake and drown. Maybe it is residual guilt from my days when I was a meat packer at Oscar Mayer in Madison where I was part of a system that killed thousands of pigs a day.

Whatever, I now realize and treasure the reality that animals are as surely God’s creatures as you and I are. So why is it any better for them to be possessed by demons and die than a human?

It is an ongoing question that haunts the life of this nation. We massacred hundreds of thousands of buffalos that roamed the plains of the West, bringing them close to extinction. Now we are massacring the sea life and birds of the Gulf of Mexico with this oil slick. God put us on this planet to share with, not murder, our co-inhabitants. Humans need to change our ways—now.

However, while I don’t like the part about the pigs and the sea, I couldn’t avoid preaching on this Gospel lesson. It is too important. When I first started in ministry, I didn’t like the story because I didn’t believe in demons. I thought the idea of demons was a relic of a primitive, unscientific worldview.

People in ancient times didn’t know the truths uncovered by modern medicine, psychology and sociology. They didn’t realize that the behaviors they associated with demons might be caused by serious mental illness, Turret’s syndrome or post traumatic stress disorder. So let’s end all the talk about demons, I thought, and approach reality from a modern worldview. I especially scoffed at the part of the story where the demons spoke with Jesus. In the 21^st century, am I really supposed to believe that there are not only demons, but talking demons?

I thought all of this until I began to identify and acknowledge my own demons, those of my family system, those that have found a place to live in the church and our nation’s life. I began to realize these demons not only exist; they are talking to me all the time. Maybe it was the first time a voice within me told me, “No need to slow down on the drinking, John. You’re fine. You’re a man. You can handle it.” Going back four or five generations, my family system, like many others, has its fair share of alcoholics. So when this particular demon started to encourage self-destructive behavior, it got my attention. And it really didn’t feel like it was me talking to myself. It felt like I was talking to someone or something else.

I remember another demon. It told me, “John, don’t defeat your opponent in this debate. Destroy him. Pulverize him.” Yet another demon told me, “John, there is nothing wrong with telling an occasional sexist or racist joke. You’re just having some fun.”

Yup, there are demons, I learned. And they were talking to me. Even more bizarre, they were talking from within me. I’m willing to bet most of you have your own demons who are talking to you.

Four decades ago or so, there was a comedian named Flip Wilson who made the nation laugh as he described some of his outrageous behavior. He would always end by pausing and then saying, “The devil made me do it.” We laughed because we know how often we do something bad and attempt to offload the responsibility for doing it. And who better to blame than a mythological devil?

But underneath our laughter I sensed a bit of nervousness. Because we also sense some truth in what Flip was saying. Sometimes when we do something crazy, it does feel as though someone other than ourselves has control of us. Not the devil, maybe, but something, for lack of a better word, that we might call a demon.

The more I have thought about demons, the more I keep coming back to this Gospel story. Because one of its truths is that demons have no life if they don’t inhabit something or someone. All right, I guess I have to read the concluding verses of the story after all. Some of you may not remember the end of the story. “Now there on the hillside a large herd of swine was feeding; and the demons begged Jesus to let them enter these. So he gave them permission. Then the demons came out of the man and entered the swine, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned.”

Once identified as present by Jesus, what was the concern of the demons? They worried that Jesus would cast them out of this poor man and they would have no home. They wanted to jump into the pigs because at least they would survive. The pigs, however, decided they would rather die than be inhabited by the demons. So they either committed group suicide or martyred themselves to eliminate the demons from the world. Whatever, the pigs died as a result of the demons making them their home

One of the story’s points is that demons can only live if they live in someone. Without someone or something to possess, they lose their power/control.

Another key point is that we don’t have to live with these demons dictating the quality and content of our lives. If we are hearing demons’ voices, we need not be possessed/controlled by them. We can get them out of our lives.

Just as this poor fellow was unnecessarily living with the demons destroying his life, many of us have grown comfortable with the controlling, influencing voices of demons in our lives. Here is where the 21^st century comes back into focus. We won’t get rid of demons with exorcisms. But we can get rid of them with spiritual counseling, psychotherapy, various kinds of medication, prayer, support groups, the list goes on. With God’s help, we can cast demons out of our lives and the lives of others. Maybe.

I say maybe because I have been able to get rid of some of my demons. But some of them are like the weeds in my yard. I think I have gotten rid of them and yet they keep reappearing.

I still hear that voice, “John, you can drink as much as you want, as often as you want. You’re not like the others.” I then have to get in a conversation with this voice who, by the way, is paying me no rent to live within me. This voice is a real freeloader. I have to say, “Yes, I can drink. But not as much as I might want and not as often as I might want.” I have reconciled myself to the fact that I will have this internal conversation as long as I am alive.

I still hear voices that push me in a sexist, racist or homophobic direction. I will take them to my grave as well. But I will not allow them to control me. When they talk, I talk back.

So yes, we can get rid of some of our demons. But some of them will be traveling companions for all our days on earth. Nonetheless, we don’t have to put them in the driver’s seat. It is one thing to have them along for the ride as passengers, irritating as they may be. It is a whole different ball game if we put them in the driver seat of our lives.

Demons don’t inhabit just individuals. As a nation, we have some profound demons. We aren’t all that unique. Most nations have them.

The demon called Violence has had disproportionate influence on our actions since the day we hit the shores of this Garden of Eden. It has convinced us to inflict violence of nature, animals, native Americans, and each other. It has convinced too many of us to put our trust in guns rather than God. Since the middle part of the 20^th century, it has convinced us that we can use violence to impose our will on nations and peoples around the world. It has persuaded us that we have the right to verbally and physically abuse family members.

The demon called Greed has transformed us into slick-talking salespeople. We sell ourselves and others on the idea that if we can make a buck at something, it is good. So what if it means drilling a mile deep into an ocean floor or laying off all our neighbors and shipping their jobs overseas or creating financial instruments that have no intrinsic value?

The demon called Careerism begs us to forsake our families, friends and everything else to pursue our careers. “Just work harder and everything will be fine,” the demon reassures us.

There is a tell tale sign that we are dealing with a demon. If we follow the demon’s advice and are totally unsatisfied, the demon’s response will be, “You’re not trying hard enough. Drink more, spend even more time at work, be more violent, or hoard even more money and you will be satisfied. You’re just a slacker. Double down on it.” That voice is a demon’s voice. Note it well.

The demon’s advice is in direct contrast to the counsel a very wise Rabbi gave me some thirty years ago. Rabbi Friedman said, “John, if something isn’t working for you, you have simply proven that it doesn’t work. Try something else or try doing it a different way. But stop doing what you know doesn’t work.” The rabbi’s advice has been a fundamental, guiding principle of my professional and personal life.

The church surely has its demons as well. The demons of the Roman Catholic Church have been all over the front page for several years now. The demons of the Presbyterian Church tell us to ignore that our membership is shrinking steadily as a denomination. “Not to worry,” says the demon. “Everything will work out.” “Not really,” Rabbi Friedman would counter. The demons of the conservative churches tell them to impose their beliefs on others.

My goal this morning is not to get us to believe in the kinds of demons we see in horror movies or the famous movie The Exorcist. I have two goals. First, I am trying to help us acknowledge the demons we know exist. We know they exist because they live within us. They speak to us as surely as I am speaking to you now. They attempt to influence our decision-making as surely as advertisers hope we will buy their products. The fact that we can’t touch or see them doesn’t mean they aren’t real. Lives destroyed by these demons are the very real evidence that they exist. I don’t care if we understand them as spiritual, psychological, biological or cultural phenomena. I just care that we understand they are real and powerful.

Second, I want us to understand Jesus’ message about these demons. We don’t have to live under their power. We don’t have to be possessed by them. They can be cast out. Maybe we can’t remove them from our lives totally. Maybe we can’t stop them from talking to us. But we can stop listening to them. We can eliminate their influence on our actions.

The alternative to acknowledging and taking control of demons is the Flip Wilson model. We can use the demon’s advice as our excuse for doing bad things.

On this Father’s Day, I remember the way my dad responded to excuses. When I told him I did something bad because my friends did it too, he stared at me in disbelief. “So if they told you to jump off a cliff, you would jump off a cliff?” he would ask me. I have a feeling we are going to get a similar response from our Divine Parent if we try imitating Flip Wilson on Judgement Day. “So because the demon said over-eat, over-drink and over-work, you did it?” God will ask us.

The Good News in this morning’s Gospel lesson is clear: God will help us deal with our demons—demons that come to us from our family systems, the culture in which we live, even the religion we practice. But God will not accept personal, family or societal demons as excuses for our destructive and self-destructive behavior. Because God has told us all demons, not some, all demons can be cast out and controlled. May each of us have the strength and patience to work with God to that end.

Let us pray: Gracious God, at times, there are some scary voices within and around us. Help us not to be afraid of them. Rather, help us to confront them. As we do so, may we feel ourselves taking control of our lives. For your healing, empowering presence as we deal with these very challenging voices and forces within us, we give you thanks. Amen.

Pastor, Western Presbyterian Church
Washington, D.C.
June 13, 2010

Text: Galatians 2:15-21

I don’t subscribe to the notion that there is no such thing as a new idea. But there are very few of them when it comes to philosophy and theology. What constitutes a new idea in these two fields is usually the rebirth or reframing of an old idea. Nowhere is this more obvious than with some of the key ideas of the Protestant Reformation.

Because the Reformation radically changed the direction of history, it is easy to overstate the novelty of its intellectual underpinnings. However, most scholars would agree that the most important element of the Reformation, the assertion that we are justified by our faith not our works, is a very old idea indeed. We find it numerous times in the Old Testament. Paul was its primary advocate in the New Testament. Augustine elevated the doctrine in his writings in the 5^th century. So when Luther and Calvin reclaimed justification by faith in the 16^th century, they were working fallow but familiar fields.

When I teach the intellectual history of Christian theology, after a brief review of the Old Testament, I start with Paul. He was not just a master evangelist. He was a master theologian. Four hundred years later, Augustine picked up and expressed Paul’s thinking in powerful writings.

One thousand years after Augustine, Luther, an Augustinian monk, resurrected Augustine’s thinking and with him, Paul. Luther did so after three centuries dominated by Thomistic thinking. For those unfamiliar with the term, Thomism refers to the theological teaching of Thomas Aquinas. It took me a couple of weeks in grad school to figure that one out!

Some scholars argue Luther and Calvin reasserted a platonic or neo-platonic worldview since Augustine had roots in that camp. Aquinas, on the other hand, was clearly beholden to Aristotle. Few remember it today but Aristotle’s writings were basically unknown in Europe prior to the 13^th century. Aquinas lived in the time when Aristotle’s works were brought back from the Middle East by returning Crusaders. As he read the ancient Greek philosopher, Aquinas was captivated and ultimately captured by Aristotle’s brilliance. He immediately applied Aristotle’s worldview to Christian theology.

I rehearse this brief history of theology to prove a point. The doctrine of justification by faith won’t go away. For all intents and purposes, it has disappeared from the church’s core teaching for centuries at a time. But it always comes back because it is at the heart of the Christian message.

The fact that we are justified by our faith and not our works is, in my opinion, the single most compelling revelation that Christianity brings to the world. It is the reason I am a Christian. It is the reason I am a Christian in the Reformed tradition.

Many are those who believe that we should do works of justice and peacemaking. Many are those who believe we should express gratitude to our Creator. Many are those who believe God is at work in history. But the idea that we need do nothing more than believe in God to be justified before God is a unique and totally astounding assertion. Astounding.

Paul, Augustine and Luther all came to their conclusions that they were justified by their faith through a combination of experience and revelation. Prior to becoming a Christian, Paul feverishly attempted to work his way into God’s good graces. Following the exhaustive and exhausting laws of first century Judaism, he tried to live faithfully. He failed, time after time after time after time. And the more he failed, the more he grew to despise himself. Comparing himself to the standard set by religious law, he came to see himself as weak and incompetent.

Augustine went in a very different direction. By his own account, he engaged, at times, in a narcissistic lifestyle, including having a son with his concubine. Despite his self-indulgence, by the age of 30, Augustine, an outstanding scholar, was appointed to the most visible academic position in the Latin world—professor of rhetoric for the imperial court in Milan. There, he left his first concubine and took up with another. That relationship ended shortly.

Totally frustrated with his corrupt lifestyle, knowing that he was hurting others and yet gaining no lasting satisfaction from his behavior, one day Augustine picked up Paul’s Letter to the Romans and read from the 13^th chapter, “Let us walk honestly, as in the day, not in rioting and drunkenness.” His life turned on a dime. From that day forward, Augustine devoted himself to God, under the tutelage of Bishop Ambrose.

Like Paul, Luther was also a highly disciplined person. Once he became a priest, he was known for his lengthy fasts, copious confessions and study of the Scriptures. Wrote Luther of himself, “”If anyone could have gained heaven as a monk, then I would indeed have been among them.” And yet, his spiritual discipline did not give him what he needed and sought. It was not until Luther began to lecture on the Psalms as well as the Letters to the Hebrews, Galatians and Romans that the monk found the peace he sought. He realized that he need not and could not prove his worth. He needed to accept it.

Paul, a Type A workaholic, Augustine, a man searching for something just beyond his grasp, and Luther, a pious monk, all arrived at the same conclusion. They could not justify themselves through their work or piety. They couldn’t prove their worth to God, their neighbors and, perhaps most importantly, to themselves. They just couldn’t. They had to accept God’s declaration that they are worthy.

For two thousand years, the church has strayed from this core message more times than not. Creating religious rules for behavior, we have talked about the temptations of human sexuality, money, violence and many other things. But as humans, the primary temptation we face is not a moral temptation. It is the ontological temptation to prove our worth. We think we can prove how good we are by compiling good grades or ever-growing financial wealth, promotions and academic degrees, looking good or acting good. We can’t.

And in the greatest irony of human experience, we can’t prove our worth because we have already been deemed worthy by God. We are trying to do something that is already a done deal.

If we believed we were good, we wouldn’t try so desperately to prove we are good! Would we? Why is it so difficult to accept/believe that we are good?

Frankly, I don’t have a good answer to that question. Some people come into my office and say they can’t believe they are good because their parents were hyper-critical of them. But I know other people with hyper-critical parents who very much affirm their own worth. Some people say they developed low self-esteem have the were subjected to a lot of verbal abuse by classmates in school. Yet others who were dumped upon emerge with their self-esteem intact.

So I don’t know exactly why we find it so difficult to accept God’s declaration that we are good—a declaration God voices as early as Chapter One of the Bible. But I do know it is a crippling, debilitating problem.

We react to our lack of self-esteem in a variety of ways. Some of us get angry and inflict that anger on anyone, anywhere. Some of us become depressed. In an attempt to prove to ourselves that we are not worthy, some of us feed our low self-esteem with addictive behaviors.

Responding to our lack of self esteem, we get busy justifying ourselves. But self-justification doesn’t work. It didn’t work for Paul, Augustine or Luther. It doesn’t work for us. The harder we try, the harder we fail.

There is only one way to believe in ourselves. We have to believe in a loving God and God’s love for us. As we take this leap of faith, we realize we are good; we understand that we are created in God’s image in ways we dared not dream possible.

But we cannot believe in just any God. We must believe in a God whose goodness overflows into the creation, into you and me. If we believe God is a wrathful, threatening force, we are likely to be as hard on ourselves and others as we imagine God will be. If we believe a Creator God is totally detached from the creation, we are left to create our own worth.

Understanding ourselves as created in the image of our good God, we can start acting like it. This is why Calvin, in particular, devoted most of his work trying to focus us on the sanctified life. Luther lifted up the doctrine of justification by faith. Calvin thought out the implications of that doctrine when it comes to everyday living.

The Christian life is not about trying to prove we are good, said Calvin. It about acting out our gratitude for the revelation that God loves us. This is not a matter of semantics or some philosophical trick.

When we do good in order to prove we are good, we will fail. When we do good because we are grateful for and accept God’s declaration that we are good, we have a pretty good chance of succeeding. I say “pretty good chance of succeeding” because we live in a world that makes it very challenging to do good. Paul summed this up when he bemoaned that we don’t do the good we intend.

When liberals built housing projects in the 1960s, they were trying to do good. But a variety of external factors caused those new homes for poor people to become, over time, prisons for poor people. When conservatives decided to reduce the size and scope of the government’s regulatory structure in the 1980s, they were trying to do good. But a variety of factors have caused those efforts to corrupt things as seemingly disconnected as Wall Street, our food and oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico.

For our closing hymn, we are going to sing “Amazing Grace.” My mother never liked the hymn because she didn’t consider herself a “wretch”! She wasn’t. Neither are you or I. But think for a moment about the cause of the composer’s wretchedness. It was rooted in his feeling of being lost, unfulfilled, without purpose. He was drifting through life doing this, doing that, without any rhyme or reason why. The composer’s joy is in his feeling that he has been found. Crucially, he didn’t find something. He was found by a God who had loved him all along. Tired of justifying himself, he needed to accept that he was justified.

So many people in this and every generation are living wretched lives because they are lost, adrift in the chaos of their times and lives. In their confusion and lostness, they develop low self-esteem and fail to believe in their intrinsic value. To such people, Jesus’ followers must preach the Good News. When we believe in God, our eyes are opened, our ears unplugged, our hearts restored. No longer lost, we find ourselves in relationship with a God who sees a goodness in us we haven’t seen. Suddenly, we believe the unbelievable—God loves us because we are good, even when we don’t act good.

The Gospel lesson tells the sweet story of a sinful woman who lavishes a precious ointment on Jesus. The righteous men in the group, busy justifying themselves, objected to Jesus being handled by a woman with such a reputation. Jesus dismissed the objections of the men and focused on the woman. He saw a goodness within that made his heart sing.

God sees the same thing in you and me—a goodness that makes everything God does worth the effort; that keeps God coming back to us even when we fail. Can we accept this love? Can we allow it to wash away our self-doubts and occasional self-loathing? We can. Millions upon millions have.

Let us pray: Gracious God, you have found us, loved us, justified us in ways we cannot do for ourselves. Thank you. May we respond to your goodness and love with gratitude and thanksgiving, with acts of love and generosity that change the world. All this we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Pastor, Western Presbyterian Church
Washington, D.C.
May 30, 2010

Text: Romans 5:1-5

When I first came to Western 27 years ago, there were a number of members who had fought in the front lines of World War II, not that they told me about it. Others told me. Our members who served in the war didn’t speak about their experiences.

Watching the HBO show Pacific the past ten weeks, I understand why. The trauma the troops experienced, the brutality and bloodshed they observed and in which some of them participated was devastating. It was challenging even to watch it in dramatic form some sixty years later. What people on both sides suffered is unfathomable.

A legacy of suffering is why Memorial Day has a very somber feel to it. There are no joyful celebrations. Rather, we remember the enormous sacrifices people make and made to protect freedom, to create justice, to establish peace. It is a melancholy, wistful holiday if ever there was one.

As I do every Memorial Day, I urge us to remember not only those in the military who died defending our liberties and rights but others defenders of freedom as well. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Dr. King, Bishop Oscar Romero, the young Neda Agha-Soltan in Iran, to name a few, willingly put their lives on the line to advance the cause of freedom, social justice and peace in the world. They sacrificed their lives so others might be free.

Given all of the sacrifices made by those who came before us, a disquieting question weighs heavily on us each Memorial Day: “For what will we be remembered—you and me? For what sacrifices will we be praised?” Certainly many parents will be remembered for enormous sacrifices they made on behalf of their kids. Members of this congregation have made sacrifices to keep our ministry alive through civil and world wars, economic depressions and recessions. Volunteers sacrifice free time to work at Miriam’s Kitchen, the Ethiopia Clinic project, the Race for the Cure and so many other worthy programs.

However, in the year 2010, the question that really haunts us as a people is whether or not we are willing to make the sacrifices necessary to keep this nation great, as did our ancestors. Because greatness is always built on sacrifice. Great relationships, careers, congregations, nations, it makes no difference. Greatness requires sacrifice. Sacrifice generates greatness.

Our foremothers and fathers made huge sacrifices when they ventured away from the known realities of their homelands—from Asia and Europe, Latin America and Africa—to create the nation we are. They fought a bloody civil war to end the brutal system of slavery. They traveled across two oceans to help defeat fascism in Europe and Asia. Brave souls walked through angry mobs in the struggle to create civil rights for women and people of color.

In our generation’s moment of crisis, actually, crises—fighting two wars, a stubborn economic recession, environmental disasters, the questioning of government itself—what sacrifices are we prepared to make? Because, frankly, we appear unwilling to make the type of sacrifices previous generations made. Indeed, at the moment, it is hard to be optimistic about how history will judge us.

A nation of debtors, we refuse to live within our means, personally or as a nation. We reject even the mention of paying higher taxes to cover our expenses as a people. We prefer to pollute the earth rather than reduce our dependence of oil, coal and nuclear energies. Baby boomers recoil at the mere suggestion of changes to our future social security benefits.

As a result of our sacrifice-phobic approach to reality, this Memorial Day is a bittersweet day for us in the United States. We remember and honor that which we are seemingly unwilling or unprepared to do ourselves: make sacrifices. We praise the ideal of sacrifice but adamantly refuse to practice it.

Into our sacrifice-starved milieu comes the Word of God as found in Romans 5 where Paul writes, “we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.”

Paul wasn’t describing suffering as a theoretical good. He was describing his life. By the time he wrote these words, Paul had been imprisoned numerous times. Forsaking a stable, settled family life, he spent his days on dangerous roads and perilous seas. Materially impoverished, the apostle was reviled and threatened by opponents who saw him as a challenge to everything they held dear.

Paul did not recoil from the suffering. He embraced it as his teacher. His suffering taught him the power of endurance, enabling him to think long-term when others thought short-term; to move forward when others retreated. Endurance showed him the value of character. He came to realize that his character was far stronger than he had imagined. He could endure things he didn’t know he could endure. With his character being forged in the white-hot furnace of suffering, Paul discovered and was directed by a hope that springs eternal. Indeed, he quickly identified this hope as flowing from none other than Almighty God.

Read the lives of the saints and they all describe a similar procession from suffering to character to hope. Read the biographies of individuals who embraced suffering for a greater good—explorers, social justice activists, humanitarians—and they too tell us about the way suffering shaped and steeled their character.

As a pastor, I have the challenge and privilege of watching people suffer. It is a challenge because no one likes to watch another person suffer. It is a privilege because of the inspiring way in which so many people become stronger, better women and men as they cope with and learn from their suffering, as Paul did.

Before I utter one more word, I need to say that I do not view suffering as some type of paradoxical gift from God designed for our spiritual growth. To me, such thinking is blasphemy. What parent would wish suffering upon their children to build character? We don’t. God doesn’t.

Suffering is inflicted on us by life, not by God. Dr. King suffered because he challenged an oppressive, racist system, not because God wanted him to grow spiritually. A woman battling breast cancer suffers because of cancer cells, not because of the will of God. The people of Palestine and Israel suffer because their leaders won’t create the peace vast majorities in both nations want. Suffering is not caused by God. It is caused by people and events.

That being said, suffering produces a lot of pain and agony which, in turn, has the potential to create character. I say potential because it also has the potential to destroy us, to melt us down into a puddle of uncontrolled, uncontrollable emotions. Whether our character is strengthened or destroyed by suffering depends on how we respond it.

In my first pastoral position, I got to know a church member whose adult son was an addict. My memory of Sarah is that of an older woman. But when you are 28, almost everyone seems old. She was probably in her mid-fifties. A widow with no other children, as a family unit, it was just Sarah and her addicted son.

The son would come home at all hours of the night and basically terrorize her with drug and alcohol-crazed rants. When I first met Sarah, she hadn’t gotten a good night’s sleep in months. Given her lack of sleep and inability to focus, Sarah feared she would lose her job. She also worried her son would fall asleep in a drunken stupor and burn down the house.

At an Al anon meeting, several parents told Sarah she needed to throw her son out of the house. “He needs some tough love,” they said. “Stop enabling his destructive lifestyle.” So she did.

For the first week, the son would come home in the middle of the night, sit in the front yard and scream at the house. Lights went on in the neighbors’ houses. A few times the police were called. Sarah would call me and say, “I don’t know if I can do this. It is the hardest thing I have ever done. I’m not sure I’m even doing the right thing.” Neither did I. I have never been an unconditional fan of the tough love strategy.

The son finally stopped coming home. Eventually he sobered up. However, their mother-child relationship hadn’t been repaired by the time I moved up here to the Washington area. There wasn’t a neat, tidy ending. In life, there rarely is.

Nonetheless, what I observed was a woman who grew more resolute as she endured her suffering. When I first met Sarah, she was a pretty wishy-washy type of person. But as she took this bull of suffering by the horns, a quiet strength began to appear within her. With the new strength came a new vision of a life for herself and, if he was willing and able, her son. Suffering led to endurance to stronger character to renewed hope, just as Paul predicted.

This is how memorials are built. They are rarely the product of our planning. They are produced by our response to life’s surprising twists and turns and the suffering which sometimes accompanies them.

Just as I cautioned against assigning the origin of suffering to God, I have another caution for us. As Calvinists who understand the potential value of suffering, we need to be careful that we don’t begin looking for opportunities to suffer! I see this happen from time to time.

While I was in college, the nation was going through a bad recession and none of us could find summer jobs. So a friend and I moved to a small rural town in Wisconsin to work in a pea-packing plant. Our co-workers were all migrant workers, country boys from Arkansas, who hated us college kids and made our lives miserable. We rented a room with one double bed from a retired woman who wouldn’t let us take a shower when we got home at night because it might wake her up. We worked 16 hour shifts at pathetic wages.

After a few weeks of this, my friend Carl Marquardt, said, “We are going to quit. This just isn’t worth it.” I responded angrily, “Carl, we can’t quit. If we do, we may develop a lifelong pattern of quitting. What will happen if we end up in Vietnam? We won’t be able to quit then, will we?” Looking at me incredulously, Carl said, “John, this isn’t Vietnam. This is a Columbus, Wisconsin pea-packing plant. We’ll deal with Vietnam if we get to Vietnam. This isn’t about being a quitter. This is about quitting a job that isn’t worth the hassle.” Carl was one of those preternaturally wise Scandinavian Lutherans from Wisconsin who regularly saved me from myself.

As a nation, as individuals, we are building our memorials right now. Some will stand for eternity. Some will disappear even before we die. In no small part, the difference between the two is rooted in the amount of sacrifice that goes into their construction.

Over the past few decades, we have learned a lot about investment bubbles—the tech bubble, the real estate bubble, the credit default swap bubble. In every case, the bubbles were successes built on very little, if any, sacrifice. As a result, they evaporated just as quickly as they appeared.

Contrast such temporary successes with what happened in Europe and Japan after World War II. We not only fought a war to stop fascism. We helped the people of those nations rebuild their lives. We and they made huge sacrifices. As a result, for the past fifty years, the United States, Europe and Japan have had unprecedented peace and prosperity.

People often ask me how the ministry of Western Church has been renewed over the past thirty years. I tell them, “First, it took thirty years, not five or ten. Second, our renewal is rooted in the sacrifices of the people who were here from 1950-1980 when there was no reasonable prospect for this ministry to succeed. They believed, suffered and endured when no one else believed a successful ministry here was possible.” The pastor of New York Avenue Presbyterian, at the time, tried to convince our members to sell the property and join their congregation. The IMF and Presbytery tired to convince our members to close the church and sell the land. They chose another option—they opted to endure by making sacrifices. It is why this congregation has such a strong and deeply ingrained character.

Memorials are built on sacrifices, on the ability to endure suffering which produces incredibly strong and resilient character which fuels a hopeful vision for the future. If ever we need to engage in such a sacred process, it is today. If we will make the sacrifices, God will help us build the future of our dreams.

This is the Word of God for people looking for work right now, young people trying to figure out what is next, people in parts of our nation going through enormous economic transformation, our fellow citizens along the Gulf Coast, for you and me. If we will work our way through suffering, allowing it to be our instructor, we will not only endure, we shall overcome. Millions upon millions of lives bear witness to this eternal truth.

Let us pray: God of our lives, these are trying times. Most of our problems we can trace right back to our own actions—individually or collectively as a people. Help us not to lose hope. Rather, help us to stand together in this time of suffering so we can build a better future for our children and grandchildren. All this we pray in the name of One who suffered on our behalf, Jesus the Christ. Amen.

Pastor, Western Presbyterian Church
Washington, D.C.
May 23, 2010 Pentecost Sunday

Text: John 14:25-27

One of the fascinating things about the Bible is the way translations change over the years. Since many words have multiple meanings, translation is an art form, involving the interpretation of a word and the grammatical setting in which it is found. In reputable translations such as the New Revised Standard Version we use here at Western, textual changes oftentimes come from new understandings of very old words. Usually such new insights are the result of archaeological discoveries.

Whenever archaeologists dig up a bunch of manuscripts or find words inscribed on the walls of crypts or a piece of pottery, we gain new knowledge about how a particular word was used in a given period of history. Using an example from our era, until the mid-1950s, the word “cool” had to do with temperature. Since the mid-1950s, it may still relate to temperature but it also may indicate how appealing or trendy something is. Future translators will have to determine which meaning to use when they are translating documents from our time period.

All of this is introduction to the fact that some scholar found something somewhere that has led to a significant change in the translation of verse 26 of John’s 14^th chapter. As read this morning, the Holy Spirit is described as an “Advocate.” In previous Revised Standard translations, the word was translated “Counselor.” It is a major change—at least, to a preacher in search of a sermon. To preachers, such distinctions are like setting a box of Godiva chocolates in front a chocoholic.

The Oxford English Dictionary is one of the great reference books of the world, even if you do have to use a magnifying glass to read it. It reveals that the word counselor is rooted in the Latin conseillere, meaning “to advise.” Advocate comes from two Latin words “ad” and “vocare” meaning “called or summoned to another.” More specifically, the OED continues, “advocate” means “called or summoned to plead another’s cause in court.”

So with our new translation of John 14:26, we no longer look at the Holy Spirit as a divine advisor. Instead, Jesus said God was sending us as an Advocate, One who is called or summoned to plead another’s cause in court. The Spirit is about advocacy, not advice.

The Advocate’s client is God, which begs the question, “Why does the Creator of the Universe need a barrister?” Because humanity is a tough jury! We are just as inclined to disbelieve as believe what God reveals as the Truth. Give us any reasonable doubt and we just may walk away from God.

In front of the court of human experience, God needs an Advocate arguing that God loves us, contending that God is engaged, not disengaged, pleading that God is caring, not indifferent to the human condition. More specifically, when our health is bad and doesn’t seem to be improving, God needs an advocate to convince us that God wants us healthy. Because it feels as though God has cursed us. When a long term love relationship is falling apart, God needs an advocate to convince us we are capable of loving and being loved. Because we feel like a failure at love. When a family member is dying a painfully slow death, God needs an advocate to argue that God is paying attention. When a devastated country like Haiti is ravaged even further by a natural disaster, God needs an advocate to convince the world that God is not capricious.

The beliefs of most atheists and agnostics are the result of observation and interpretation. They watch negative, destructive things going on around them, and maybe within themselves, and reach the conclusion that no loving God would ever accept or allow such things to happen. A loving God would not tolerate the intolerable, they claim.

Theirs is not an unreasonable conclusion. An empirical case can be made for their position. However, as God’s Advocate argues, it is a false conclusion, a classic case of looks deceiving us.

God’s Advocate contends that cancer is not the result of divine indifference to our health. It is caused by carcinogens, most of which are created by human environmental devastation. A relationship breaks up not because we are unlovable but because we weren’t good stewards of love. Haiti’s devastation isn’t the result of a detached, disinterested God. It is the result of Haiti being located almost on top of a fault line (Earthquakes of similar violent force hit Haiti nineteen years apart in 1751 and 1770).

Luke, the author of both the Gospel of Luke and Acts of the Apostles, saw the Holy Spirit at the center of what God did both in Jesus’ ministry and that of the early church. Indeed, scholars I respect describe Luke’s writings as two volumes of a single work that could be entitled The Work of the Holy Spirit in the World. To make his point about the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit in Jesus’ life and the life of the church, Luke draws multiple parallels between the two. For example, in the first volume, Jesus is baptized into the work of the Holy Spirit. In the second volume, the church is baptized into the work of the Holy Spirit. Jesus suffered because he acted as God’s Advocate. So did the early church. The parallels go on.

I like using this paradigm because it can serve as a frame for our work here at Western. Just as the Holy Spirit was at work in the life of Jesus and the early church, it continues to be at work in our ministry. Working through our ministry, the Holy Spirit, competes for the hearts and minds of human beings—college students, the homeless, newcomers to Washington, you and me. Because the advocates who argue against the existence of a loving God are skilled and articulate compelling arguments, we need ministries such as our own to advocate a God who is just, loving and graceful.

However, if we aren’t careful, this paradigm can be bit presumptuous and parochial. It can begin to assume as though the Holy Spirit wasn’t at work in the world prior to Jesus or outside the work of the church. But who was more effective as advocates for God than Moses and Esther, Micah and Amos, Ruth and Isaiah? Surely the Spirit was at work through them.

And how can people argue that the Spirit is only at work in the Church? Is not God’s Spirit working through the efforts of a Hindu such as Gandhi, a committed Muslim such as Muhammad Yunus or a devout Jew such as Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel? Indeed, I would argue that the Holy Spirit oftentimes works through people who have no relation to religious faith whatsoever.

Christianity is all about incarnation—the indwelling of the divine in the human; the Word become flesh. So the Holy Spirit does not function in a disembodied manner. To speak words humanity can hear, God must speak and work through us.

If this newest translation of John 14:26 is correct, when you and I open ourselves to the Holy Spirit, we become God’s advocates, arguing God’s case to our families and friends, and colleagues at work; to the political and economic principalities and powers of the world. To despondent, despairing friends, we argue that God got the Hebrew people to the Promised Land and will get us there as well. To people who can’t find a job, we argue that God has a purpose for them. To a fearful, anxious nation, we argue that we should put our trust in God, not guns and foreign military interventions.

When thinking about advocacy, it is important to remember that not everyone communicates verbally. Many people are strong, effective non-verbal communicators. Nelson Mandela is obviously a very gifted verbal communicator. He is equally gifted as a non-verbal communicator.

For example, when he became President of South Africa, Mandela invited Percy Yutar to lunch at the presidential residence. Yutar was the notorious prosecutor who sent Mandela and many other innocent people to prison during the apartheid era. Several of Mandela’s closest aides, including Walter Susulu, refused to join them for lunch. They didn’t want to break bread with their prosecutor. Mandela did. It was an act of reconciliation that spoke louder than any words. In a non-verbal manner, he advocated that his nation put behind itself a divisive past.

Rosa Parks said nothing the day she sat down in a portion of a bus reserved for white people. Her non-verbal statement is now enshrined in our nation’s history. Without speaking a word, Rosa Parks became one of the Holy Spirit’s most powerful advocates for racial integration.

Whether our advocacy is verbal, non-verbal or both, as Christians, it is important to pay attention to what is happening within us. For as we advocate for God, if we are attentive, we will feel a Spirit at work within us; a spirit greater than our own; a power that transcends our power. Anybody who was involved in the civil rights movement can tell us about it. I could feel it when I testified to the City Council in favor of same-sex marriage legislation. People will feel it as they participate in the three-day walk for a cure to breast cancer. For those who are attentive to it, the sense of the Spirit’s presence is palpable in moments of advocacy.

In Acts 17, some of Paul’s opponents go to the local authorities to complain about the growing Christian movement. I absolutely adore their description of the early Christians. The locals call them, “These people who have been turning the world upside down.” People who turn the world upside down. What a glorious slander!

Wherever people are turning the world upside down to create justice and peace, to break down walls that divide, to reconcile ancient enemies, to heal broken hearts, to console the grieving, there we find God’s Spirit at work—advocating for the world God created, not the world we have created. As we baptize little Logan Michael today, it is our prayer that he will turn the world upside down. Actually, he has already turned Lisa, Geoff and Andrew’s world upside down. But we pray that he will continue to do so outside the confines of their family.

And may each of us turn our worlds upside down as we become God’s advocates in our homes, neighborhoods, workplaces, politics and the church, giving expression to that which God wants said, doing that which God wants done. Life in the Spirit is a life of advocacy.

Let us pray: Gracious God, you call us to speak the truth. Help us to do so. May we, like those in the early church, live not in fear of our society’s condemnation. Rather, as your advocates in the world, may we worry only about being less than faithful to our calling. All this we pray in the name of our Triune God—Creator, Christ and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Pastor, Western Presbyterian Church
Washington, D.C.
May 9, 2010

Text: Acts 16:9-15

One of our members thought I was being a bit unfair when I characterized Paul as a fanatic. I described Paul as a fanatical Jew who became a fanatical Christian, the common theme being fanatic. While I think Paul was a fanatic, I certainly wasn’t intending that to be the singular definition of his life.

Paul was a master at multi-cultural communication, able to work effectively in cultures as different as those found in the Palestinian Jewish community in and around Jerusalem, the diaspora Jewish community in places such as Antioch and Galatia and predominately non-Jewish populations in places such as Athens. Paul demonstrated great skill at mediating differences within the Christian community on divisive issues ranging from speaking in tongues to slavery to attitudes toward government.

In addition, Paul was a visionary leader. Without his vision of taking the Gospel into the Gentile world, the church would have remained and perhaps died as a small sect within Judaism. By following his vision of the Gospel being universal rather than particularistic to any single group of people, Paul set in motion a sequence of events through which Christianity lost many of its Jewish trademarks.

First, the church lost its negative attitude toward Gentiles. Second, in order to mix it up successfully with Gentiles, the church gave up Jewish dietary restrictions. Third, as the early Christians in the Greek speaking world discussed Jesus’ nature and that of the Holy Spirit, they readjusted their thoughts about God, moving slowly but surely toward a Triune formation of God’s nature. So, following Paul’s lead, the church clearly distinguished and differentiated itself from Judaism.

Throughout this metamorphosis, Paul’s vision for the church was under attack. It was under attack from within by some of the leaders of the Jerusalem Church who thought Gentiles were not worthy of the Gospel. It was attacked from without by secular government officials from Jerusalem to Rome.

As a result of these threats, Paul simultaneously had to cling firmly to his vision to keep it from being diluted and polluted and, at the same time, fine-tune his vision on-the-run, making adjustments as his ministry moved further from the realities of Jerusalem and ever closer to those of Rome. It was a dicey job. He managed it with amazing leadership dexterity.

What I label his “fanaticism” helped Paul to hang onto his vision for the church. If he had not believed so firmly in his message, he would have been tempted to compromise on key issues. What others call his adaptability helped him revise his message on less crucial issues, tailoring the Gospel to the wildly different audiences to whom he preached. As a result of his fascinating combination of tenacity and adaptability, I believe we are as much the church of Paul as we are the church of Jesus.

In this morning’s lesson from Acts, we see Paul the Visionary Leader at his best. His original ministry was aimed at the Jewish communities that dotted modern day Turkey in places such as Tarsus, Iconium and Antioch. One night, standing in Turkey on the shores of the Aegean Sea, near the town of Troas, Paul had a vision of a man on the shore of the European continent beckoning him to come over. Convinced the vision was from God, Paul and his colleagues immediately set sail across the Aegean Sea for Europe.

It was a world history-changing decision from which there has been no turning back. In the decades and centuries that followed, the church more and more reflected the beliefs and realities of Europe, less and less the beliefs and realities of the Middle East. For better and worse, the church that developed in Europe is the church of which you and I are members.

Visionary leadership always changes the world. Christopher Columbus, the authors of the U.S. Constitution, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Dr. Martin Luther King were all visionary leaders. Today, we are desperately in need of visionary leadership when it comes to the environment.

Some are saying the environmental crisis along the Gulf Coast created by this huge oil slick is a wake up call. I don’t agree. We have had wake up calls for a long time—a lot of them. The Exxon Valdez oil spill, air in China so polluted the Chinese cabinet met last week and issued harsh new regulations to business owners, the Love Canal near Niagra Falls—no, we have had more than enough wake up calls.

This latest disaster isn’t a wake up call. It may be a last call. It is also a call for visionary leadership to step up and lead us to a better place.

On this Mother’s Day, it is good to remember that Mother Nature is a fabulous mother—nurturing and supplying us with everything we need to enjoy life. However, like other good mothers, her patience is not inexhaustible. At some point, she is going to say, “Enough is enough.”

The idea that humanity is somehow invincible, bulletproof, forever capable of surviving our own excesses is inconsistent with what science teaches us about evolution. Science teaches us that species are regularly flushed out of the evolutionary chain. Humanity’s actions vis-à-vis the environment are ultimately going to produce that kind of reaction. The planet will become inhospitable to human life.

The idea that humanity is untouchable also doesn’t match what the Bible teaches us about God. God has not given us unconditional use of this good earth. Our presence here is conditioned on our respectful use and care of the creation.

The crisis in the Gulf is not just about oil companies. It is first and foremost about you and me—the customers of the oil companies. George Bush said we, as a nation, are “addicted to oil.” He was right.

However, the issue is broader than oil. We have an insatiable appetite for energy. We want everything and anything powered. And yet, our energy sources range from highly problematic to downright disastrous for the environment.

The problems with oil don’t need explanation on this particular Sunday. The problems with coal relate both to the devastation of the environment and the death and disease coal miners suffer to get us the coal. The problems with nuclear power are rooted in our inability to solve the nuclear waste problem. Every day we use nuclear power, we create a massive, toxic problem for our grandchildren and their grandchildren. Even solar, the supposed silver bullet that will slay our energy problems, has a huge downside. Solar energy is stored in batteries but no one knows what to do with the highly toxic batteries once they die. By the way, the same is true of the batteries that power everything from our cell phones to our ipads. So our problem is energy, not oil.

We have an energy problem because energy fuels our lifestyles and our lifestyles reflect an insatiable desire for more. We want to live in houses that are bigger than those in any country in the world. We don’t want to travel on mass transit in groups. No, we want to drive just about anywhere, anytime, happily cruising down the road in our own little cocoon. We don’t want to rake our leaves. We want to blow them with powered blowers. We don’t want to mow our lawns unless we are using a powered mower. We don’t want a light on in the room where we are reading. We want lights on throughout the house.

I got into a little management spat here a number of years ago when I told staff members at Western and Miriam’s Kitchen that people need to turn off their computers when they leave for the day. Since both organizations are committed to living a greener lifestyle, I was surprised to get some push back. But a number of folks said, “In the bigger scheme of things, what difference does my computer make?”

Well, even Microsoft, EVEN MICROSOFT, tells us to turn off our computers. They say that even if we just set it to hibernate at night, we will save $90 per year. In this building, since Miriam’s has a lot of computers, that would save about $2700 annually.

But this sermon isn’t about saving money. It is about saving energy. The amount of energy we could save if everyone in the U.S. turned off our computers is mind-boggling. And that is just one tiny change.

However, again, we don’t want to be bothered. We don’t want to change our lifestyles. Because lifestyle changes demand constant attention to that which is being changed. We have to think every minute of every day about how we can save some energy.

A recovering addict has made a huge lifestyle change. However, stopping the addictive behavior initially is, in many ways, the easiest of the recovery steps. It is sustaining the change that is the real challenge. Addicts can’t afford to stop thinking about their addictive triggers. One misstep and a person is back in the bottom of that dark pit again. So addicts have to think about their addiction every hour of the day.

If we are going to change our lifestyles in relation to energy usage, we are going to have to think about the choices we are making every minute of every day. How many times in any given hour do we turn on something or start something up that uses energy? We flip a light switch, make a phone call, start our car, turn on the air conditioning, boot up a computer, the list goes on.

Of course, some people inevitably ask, “What difference will it make if I change my behavior when big industrial polluters don’t change their behavior?” Such comments are the reason nothing changes. Social change is always incremental and based on personal decisions by individuals.

Segregation didn’t collapse because of sudden changes by big institutions. It changed as individual Americans changed their behavior and attitudes—one person at a time. The decline of smoking didn’t occur because we outlawed tobacco. It stopped because of the rising price of tobacco plus a massive public education program to which people, one person at a time, responded positively.

When I pushed my mother, she would take it for a while but eventually she pushed back—hard. She knew she would be doing me no favors to accept my unacceptable behavior. I am convinced that we have pushed Mother Nature just about as far as she is going to be pushed. Indeed, the push back has begun. Abuse nature enough and nature will abuse us.

On some counts, the rants against the oil and other energy companies are well deserved. The failures of this oil rig were predictable and probably preventable. However, the rants are a bit like a cigarette smoker railing against a tobacco company. Don’t blame the seller. Stop buying.

As a nation, I wish we would follow the example of how we changed smoking in this country and raise taxes on consumption. Slap a $1 per gallon tax on gasoline tomorrow. As prices rise, human behavior changes. As a bonus, the tax revenue could be used to reduce the gap in our deficit federal budgets.

However, for change to take place, whether it be individual, corporate or government change, we need visionary leaders to stand up and speak up/to lead—women and men who can envision a renewed environment and show us how to create it. We need visionary leaders to encourage us, scold us, motivate us. In short, we need them to push us to do whatever it takes to make the vision a reality. That is what is missing today—in our politics, in the church, in the business community. We need leaders to stand up and lead—leaders with the zealous, relentless drive of a Paul, a Benazir Bhutto, or an Oscar Romero.

If these leaders get defeated in elections or lose their pulpits, so be it. Paul ended up in prison. King, Bhutto, Romero and many others made the ultimate sacrifice to see their vision become reality. A visionary leader isn’t afraid of losing an election or anything else. She is only afraid of losing the vision.

And you and I? We need to follow. We can question and complain. But when all is said, we need to follow visionary leaders, especially when they call upon us to make sacrifices for the greater good.

When we baptize a child as we did today, we make promises to the child and his or her parents. If we are unwilling to change our energy guzzling lifestyles, perhaps we need to be more honest with ourselves, our babies and their parents. Perhaps we need to tell them that we will make some small changes to our lifestyles but we’re not going to do everything in our power to insure the baby a healthy environment in the future.

The time for self-deception and denial is over. The time for visionary leadership and visionary followership is here. May we seize the moment and pray that we aren’t too late in so doing.

Let us pray: Mother God, you give us everything we need and then some. Help us not to abuse your trust. Indeed, guide us to be wise and faithful stewards of this good earth. All this we pray in your Holy Name. Amen.