The God I Don't Believe In #1: The God of Damnation

·      The following sermon is presented as one view point among many in the world of Christian theology.  No expectation of strict agreement with this sermon is necessary for one to use these words as a starting point for conversation.  The pastor submits that he does not have all the answers and is using experience and reason as methods to come to his conclusions. 

In the Christian tradition, hundreds of years of thought have led to certain understandings of who God is for us.  But all those discussions have also led us astray from Biblical upholdings and down a road that is more cultural than Biblical. And along the way, God has been made into something that is all together different.  And so…these are God’s stories…

In the year of our Lord 1555, a lot was going on in Europe.  Only nine years after Martin Luther’s death, and a 35 years since the beginning of the reformation, the Church was in upheavel everywhere.  Catholics were reforming, the Protestant Church had started its great solidication and distancing from the Catholic faith, the divisions that plagued the middle ages were still going on, and  a playright named Dante captured it all in a vision we hear today as the Divine Comedy. For some, in fact for many, it was a brilliant piece of work.  And his eloquence was visioning, especially his depth at creating a model of a nine circle place called hell where souls are sent to burn for all eternity.  If you’d read it you will realize how terrifying and also imaginative it is.  It’s story leads you all the way through the circles until you reach the end.  You’ll need a glass of something stronger than our grape juice to prepare yourself.  It’s an amazing story….BUT THAT”S WHAT IT IS…A STORY.

      Since it’s creation in the 1500s, this vision of hell has been converged into Christian theology.  In 1667, John Milton wrote Paradise Lost and again we were mesmerized by the visions of hell, this time even more molded to Christian identity.  And in the late 19^th Century, the Fundamentalist movement tried to circumvent a focus on hell by making one of their five pillars the sacrificial atonement belief about Christ, making him out to be a lawn to be slaughtered by a violent God who was really interested in sending us to fire and brimstone hell.  There’s two more sermons in this series that will address what I just said later.

      But Hell…and Heaven.  The two are intrinsically tied together. When we think about Hell, we see images of fire and of suffering.  But the Jews never saw that.  In fact, what the Jews believed is that when people died, they went to a place called Sheol”, which means the place of muddy waters.  It’s a pretty destitute place, where people kind of milled around.  Nobody really wanted to go there, but they felt that that was it.  They’d all see each other again in this place that wasn’t really all that happy but at least wasn’t burning.  So, Jews never got this idea.  But Jesus spoke of it didn’t he…

      Maybe, but remember, Jesus was a Rabbi.  And if you really look at the message, he didn’t talk about things as different from a Rabbi as you might think.  He wanted people to follow the Sabbath, LIVE out the Torah, etc.  But Cody…he talks about Hell right there in Matthew and Luke.  Well…maybe.

      I think it makes sense to believe that…except when you consider context. And context is everything.  Let’s just start by remembering something I told a few of you a couple of years ago in a sermon…

In Jesus’ time, he seems to talk an awful lot about burning and consuming of things.  Outside of Jerusalem, there’s a garbage dump.  Archeological digs believe it may have been the largest garbage dump in the ancient world, in fact, there is such a large area of it that archeologists are unsure if they are ever going to be able to uncover it all.  But this garbage dump had pretty much everything in it that had rotted and had gone bad.  They didn’t have anything else to do with the stuff.  So what they routinely did was burn up as much stuff as possible, consuming it in brilliant fires that lit up in the night.  The gospels really don’t mention “Eternal damnation” but rather “burning and consuming.”  Heaven and Hell become a shorthand description of what happens when you die, and that description is the NOTHINGNESS… or the eternal life.

            The Weeping and Gnashing of teeth is a little bit harder except focusing on who God is.  And that’s the bigger question of this entire sermon series.  If you imagine that God is a God of damnation, then you can conceptualize that there will be people who end up in hell because they were sent there.  If on the other hand, you just believe that hell exists, then you have to allow yourself to send on toward God and add this awkward understanding of God to what you already believed.  Neither direction of thought seems very exciting.

            John Wesley, the founder of United Methodism, he didn’t focused on hell.  In fact, he focused on Grace, on the idea that God has already forgiven us for our sinfulness, has already restored us to wholeness, and invites us to grow in love to God and to neighbor.  Wesley, along with many of the others, wasn’t focused on hell, he was focused on hope.

Heavenly Alternatives

            When one spends their time worried about avoiding an ill fate, they often do so by establishing an alternative future.  Instead of hell, this is where we could go…and that place is heaven.  You might recognize heaven from Hollywood in movies like Ghost, City of Angels, What Dreams may come, and many many others.  And I admit, Joe last year did get me to read a compelling book about a little boy who medically was dead and started talking about heaven.  And I actually believe Heaven does exist, but I’m not sure we’re headed there.

            The reasons for this are many, and for a moment I want you to conceptualize the common story.  Human beings, born into this world, are given a chance to prove themselves to God.  Some make it, others not so much.  The ones who don’t do so well go to Hell forever.  The good ones, those like you and me (at least I think so) go to heaven to a place of magnificent glory and beautiful people with bagels and cream cheese.  Ok maybe I’m mixing ideas….but that’s really what I think we’re all doing ourselves. 

            Media is a powerful force in the world, and after a while we start thinking that what people have put on the movie screen is actual what the Bible says…and it doesn’t.  In fact, there is VERY little if anything that can be said about heaven.  There are a few stories of angels and singing, of trumpets and magnificent chairs, but mostly what we glean from the Bible is that God is in Heaven and Jesus ascended their after the resurrection.  You may have heard Jesus once or twice refer to this house that has many rooms that has a place prepared for you and me.  But have you also captured those many moments where Jesus says, where I go, you can not be.

The Jewish tradition never believed that people were going anywhere.  That’s why the story of Elijah being taken up to Heaven on a chariot was a big deal.  He didn’t go to Sheol.  And Moses, Abraham, those guys, Jews thought they were there too.  But only Christians think they themselves are going to heaven.  Cody….Jesus said he opened the gates of heaven to us… Or perhaps what the greek translation that we misunderstand is that Jesus brought God to us from Heaven…. Not that we are traveling to Heaven.  In fact, the traveling is supposed to take place by Heaven itself…

           Hear that passage again (Revelation 21:1-4).  The Heaven we are talking about is not us going away. It’s coming here. Who is this God of Damnation.  I don’t see it in this passage.  I see a God of love, returning to be with God’s people in love and hope and to wipe away tears and to bring about the kingdom of God here on earth as it is in Heaven.  And we as Christians are watching for resurrection of all persons.  Sometimes at funerals we bless the memory of the person with these words… May you rest in Peace until you rise in Glory…  That does not mean to Heaven necessarily, but to a new beginning…and that new beginning, it may happen here.

            Do I expect you to believe everything I say about this God.  No. Do I expect this sermon to challenge you.  Absolutely.  But this sermon series is meant to be an extended about who you believe God to be.  For me, certain aspect of God have been misrepresented, starting with God’s focus on eternal damning of most and elected joy of a few.  I’m happy to report that this to me feels like a sad and desperate creation of God in our image rather than that of the Biblical image.  So as we continue throughout these next seven weeks, challenge yourself and begin to articulate the God you believe in, and I’ll keeping working to articulate The God I DON”T believe in.

Amen

Manifesting Justice for All

When I went to seminary in Washington D.C., I did so partially because of a man named Bruce Birch.  Now to you all,  Bruce Birch doesn’t represent anything too important.  That’s ok, but Bruce Birch is one of the foremost authorities in the world on the Hebrew Bible.  He is perhaps only less brilliant than another man who I sometimes reference named Walter Brueggemann.  And when you are in that category of discussion, you know you’ve made it in this field.

            Bruce Birch tells the story of being a squirrely 22 year old seminary student starting at Yale Divinity School in the late 1960s.  Bruce had been given a chance to study under some of the most famous theologians at the time, but was flat broke and needed a job.  He was told by the school administrator that the chaplain had a position open.  But he didn’t know the chaplain.  As he walked down the hall, he say that he walked in, was looking for the chaplain, and encountered a person unlike any other.  His name: William Sloan Coffin.  Over the next three years, Bruce would study under the man once called the White Protestant MLK and would frequently find himself bailing him out of jail, unchaining him from buildings after protests, and simply traveling with him around witnessing a man who would not relent on his concerns for the poor, those whose voices are unheard, anyone.  Coffin was a modern day prophet in his mind.

            And this fire, this focus, this call to become a prophetic voice and a prophetic actor of the gospel, this is where the realm of social justice begins.  And it where Love and community and discipleship make a distinct difference on the world.  It is what our mutual action in the world creates.

            And it is so difficult for us to understand this.  Going way back to the Hebrew Canon, the Israelites struggled to figure out how to live.  What they thought God was demanding of them was their first born child, their sacrifice of being, their very livelihood through crops and cattle.  And God says NO, despite the fact that you think that is what I want of you, all I want is you to LOVE GOD, DO JUSTICE, and LOVE KINDNESS.  That’s it.  Remember, LOVE is all you need.  And know that when you love like that, you manfest justice.  And that’s all I want from you.

            Now we’ve spent plenty of time talking over the past two weeks about discipleship and what it means to be a community in action.  Social justice is the result.   And social justice simply becomes what we are about, not some program that we do.  Perhaps that’s the great difference between service and justice.  Right now, we go out and pick apples, do feed my starving children, host blood drives and bone marrow drives.  And all of those things are what we need to be doing.  But they can be seen as programs.  They are acts of service.  Making social justice who we are is the next step.  It combines what we learn from the Bible with our hands and feet action.  It combines are authentic sense of loving one’s neighbor with the call that all are welcome in the community that we strive towards. It means looking out at the homeless person on the street and bringing them into our community, feeding and caring for them and then stopping the systemic hunger issues by advocating and protecting each person we meet.  And it’s hard work, but it’s everything we are called to be.

            Social Justice is what happens when we get out into the world and bear witness to the problems with our neighbor and work to change that.  It is what Isaiah was talking about when he says, is this not the fast that I choose….when you see the naked, to cover the, and not to hide yourself from your own kin.  We can write a check and give a dollar to someone on the street, but then we want them to go away.  Do we want them to be made well.  Do we want them to be satisfied or us to be satisfied.  Social justice is not about what makes us feel good, but about what makes us all good. 

            And I want to speak to that a little.  Charity is something that is often easy to fall into as educated persons.  Each of you in this room will probably make enough money to do pretty well in the world.  You’ve been offered a gift: a chance at higher education.  But here is my education for you: the degree you receive, the money you will someday earn because of the job you got because of that degree, it all started because somebody gave you a chance.  Some people say we pull up our bootstraps and to a degree I agree with that, but there are no self-made persons.  Each of us need each other, and to those who have offered much, much is truly required.  And so we give.  We, those who have money, we are called by charities and we write checks out to people far away who we never meet.  We tell people about how we stopped and gave this guy on the street corner bread and a sandwich from burger king.  But do not be mistaken in your sinfulness that this is the call of the gospel.  Because while it may appear to be, we know that much of those actions are done to satisfy guilt in our own hearts.

            The gospel is not a story about people being guilted into giving of their money to a cause they will otherwise never be involved with.  The gospel is a story of giving up things that are precious and valuable to themselves, selling everything, and following Jesus.  The Gospel is not a story where God wants us to remain in our penthouses and give enough to change others lives so much as it doesn’t change us.  No truly we are called to love and live and act out a gospel that truly gets us uncomfortable, but only for the sake of making all truly able to thrive in the world.  And God will ask us perhaps one day, were you there when I was hungry, where you there when I was naked, did you seek me out, did you change the situation.  Did you change it for yourselves or did you see yourself in the other person, the neighbor that is you, and did you act as you would pray and hope they would act on your behalf.

            Social justice is not able simply giving of money.  It is about giving your blood and your sweat and your time to change the lives of others because we are all in this together.  That’s why this gospel is so hard.  We are ALL in this together.  From the Christians we are frustrated with to those who don’t care about each other to those who would present us with quite an intriguing dinner date, we are all in this together.  Justice happens when all of humanity stops acting as individualistic and tribal horders of equity and starts persuing what is right.

            Now you are going to wonder if I sound like a Socialist here pretty soon.  Well…look at Jesus.  If you are here at the University of Minnesota to get a nice degree so you yourself are set for the rest of your life, I beg you to consider that the paycheck you make some day, it could be used in a lot of ways to help others just as much as it helps you.  At home, I have a desktop, a lap top, an I phone, my wife has a lap top, an ipad, and I have an ipad that I got through work. Now I don’t need all of these things.  There is no doubt about that.  I have a library of over 2000 books.  And I could probably share them.  To whom is given much, much is required.  You are making a way possible for many others.  You might become a millionaire.  Will that million dollars be better served by you in a mansion or you sharing with others so that they might live a life where they can have food and still get your perspcriptions or pay their heating bill too.

            William Sloan Coffin understood that to be a Christian nation, we might have to be better than we certainly acted. That’s why he was so hard on the government, who often times in his life would act so unjustly toward others it sickened him.  That’s what led Coffin to March with king at Selma and Montgomery, that’s what led him to chain himself to buildings over environmental destruction, that’s what led Coffin to speak out against nuclear arms, even being tried to treason by the U.S. Government in 1976.  And nowadays there are those among us who call us beyond the simplicity of our faith and into the complex moral issues of our time.  Perhaps you have heard the quote from Stephen Colbert from a couple of years ago…

“If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn't help the poor, either we have to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we've got to acknowledge that He commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition and then admit that we just don't want to do it.”- Stephen Colbert 

The reality is this isn’t a Christian nation, not even in name.  But what it can be, what I believe it should be, is a nation where we truly care for one another and change the injustices that will send some of the poor house and others to Plymouth.  It’s great to pull up yourself by your bootstraps….except some people don’t even have any boots.

            We love, because we were loved.  We are living beyond community.  We are disciples of Jesus, called to action.  And when we come out of this core, we because advocates for justice.  And we do so not for ourselves, but because in the end, God might just ask us….were you there to serve me.   Amen.

A Call to Discipleship

2 Timothy 3: 12-17.  

Genesis 12- 1-5a 

Mark 10: 17-22

            This week I had the privilege to sit outside for what was a beautiful day at the St Paul activities fair.  It was a relatively quiet day, as expected, but also quiet because fewer than half the registered student groups actually showed up.  It really is a sad showing I would say when you want to invite people to your groups but won’t even go over to St. Paul to find them. 

            While I was there, I happened to find that CRU took a liking to my location, and thus situated themselves right next to me.  We were cordial as expected and didn’t say much to each other for about an hour, as I was reading and they were busy handing out free coupons that mysteriously were already expired.  You could get these free coupons if they put their email and name down.  Hmmmm…..

            After about an hour, one of their lovely participants actually asked me so what is Wesley.  I told them, explaining that we were one of the campus groups that tried not to be aggressive about our faith, were very open to multi-faith dialogue and collaboration, and focused on social justice as a part of our experiences together.  They were interested, found out quickly that I was indeed a reverend and had gone to school for three years in order to lead this kind of thing, and were generally nice when I asked questions.  One particular one I asked stands out to me.  “Tell me about what kinds of things you are studying.”  Their response was simple: one group was focused on the way Jesus did evangelism, the other on the book of James.  Perfect.  Now for some of you who might know the book of James, James is famous for challenging Paul somewhat but also just adding to the discussion and offers us the famous passage where he says “Faith without Works is Dead.”  And Jesus’ understanding of Evangelism….oh yes.  They are trying to be like Jesus….to be what we call a DISCIPLE.  Now let me stop there for a moment…

            The Act of being made a Disciple, discipleship, that’s what we are talking about this week.   Now Discipleship is a pretty scary sounding word.  It’s very utterance is often something people want to run away from.  I’ve been considering that for the last couple of weeks when we’ve had our display board out.  But discipleship is what we are called to do.  As Christians, or at least as a Christian community, we are called to discipleship.  In Jewish Rabbinical teaching, the Rabbi, whoever they were, would surround themselves with a group of pupils, persons who were training to become Rabbis themselves.  And they would come to learn all that their teacher knew, following him wherever he went and following in the ways and methods of his rabbinical teaching.  Eventually, they would graduate from pupil to rabbi themselves, and they would be known coming from a certain teacher.  Some were Rogers, other Stan, Isaiahs, Hillels.  While they were learning, while they were growing and being perfected into the perfect image of their rabbi teachers…they were called Disciples.

            That’s what we are nowadays.  We are the learners, the followers of Jesus, the one we consider had a perfected life of what God intends for the world.  There are a lot of us, at various stages.  And you can imagine that it was pretty much like that for all the rabbinical teachers.  There were doubters, deep questions, moment of frustration, and people who didn’t get it.  And yet, the Rabbi’s would not give up.  They may have had to rebuke a few times (get behind me Satan comes to mind,) but the story I think remains the same.  And if we watch, and if we imagine Jesus as teacher for just a moment, we probably don’t think of him as a rigid, one way to the truth kind of guy.  IN fact, I think Jesus was a pretty calm evangelist, but of course we have to ask ourselves…what did Jesus do…like what are we supposed to do to become like him….

            That’s the real question of discipleship.  That was also my question I had for the CRU group the other day.  Their response, sharing.  What do I mean by Sharing, I mean they share how Jesus died for us and how if we don’t receive that into our life, we’re going to die and burn in hell.  TALKING is all they do. Now…. I agree that Jesus died for us, but that’s a much bigger discussion.  I don’t think we’re going to burn in hell, and that’s a big discussion.  I do believe it’s important for us to share though.  And by sharing I mean to share in Jesus’ teaching…. And Jesus was quite different.  His teaching, it was in action.  The very act of living out the Torah.  The thing he does to become for us the kingdom of God.  And that,friends, is where the plot thickens for the CRU and for us.

             As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, ‘Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ Jesus said to him, ‘Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: “You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honour your father and mother.” ’ He said to him, ‘Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth.’ Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, ‘You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.’ When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.

            This sounds like a story about money.  But it’s not. It’s a story about loving neighbor, and acting as you are supposed to.  Jesus’ life was not that of many words, but one of action.  His metaphors and teachings were not focused on sharing the repeated words of the Torah which had been said thousands of times before, but by becoming them.  The commandments tell us to love god and love neighbor.  Sum all of the commandments up and that’s what you get.  SO, to do so, he tells the rich young ruler, act upon it.  Sell what you own, give to the poor, and come, follow me.  We’ll feed the hungry, heal, clothe, we’ll become the very thing we were born to be.  And you will be my disciple and I will show you the way to truly live. 

            And that’s what made Jesus so different.  He wasn’t a Rabbi of many words, but a Rabbi who took the words and transformed them into action.  We can say we are a disciple, but if we aren’t caring, loving, or Welcoming, we aren’t really living it out.  Disciples of Jesus spoke little, and acted much.  Sure, they did talk things out, but once they discussed it, they moved onto to living it. 

            If we are to be a community that is growing, is deepening, and is truly following something of importance, it is imperitive that we act. That’s why we glean.  As Joe told me yesterday, we are doing exactly the thing that we fundraise for, this is exactly why we ask for money.  It’s true, it’s all discipleship because it’s all about as love in community that transcends words and becomes actions.  And people have always been called.  Abram, who we know mostly as Abraham, trusted and followed God to the ends of the earth.  He didn’t just use words to claim allegiance, he followed.  He trusted, he acted. We, the people who are at least somewhat trusting and faithful, are called to act.  We are not called to just speak loudly, but to bear witness as hands and feet. 

            Paul tells us that discipleship is use the teaching found in here as good for teaching and that to live a Godly life is to act upon what you hear.  When Jesus speaks, the disciples act. FEED!  HEAL!  GET UP!  GO FORTH!  LOVE ANOTHER!   CARE!

            Where does the idea of loving all in a community come from?  It comes from an example, a figure, a person to whom we follow.  Jesus, our teacher, our guide, our example.  If you could just see God as the one who calls us to live better than what we are living, if you could see the call to discipleship as one to grow deeper in our understanding and action, could you yourself follow.  Could you yourself stop what you are doing, drop everything, and act.  Would that message, a message of a call to action, would that convince you that this community is worth being a part of.  Would love from you overflow for your common other.  Would you be willing to do deeper in a faith journey that was not about picking carpet samples or reciting the right words and instead about acting in ways that benefit all.  Would you travel beyond your comfortable place, casting aside what others might think of you in order to do good, to act as Jesus acted.  Then it might be time to realize that if you would like this, if you believe that this is what the Church is supposed to be doing, you to can be a disciple, and can transform this church into one that truly makes sense.  A Church full of people who care about each other, who don’t worry about being different, or sweat the small stuff, but get busy living out this message and become examples, emulations of the Rabbi who stopped speaking words and starting living it all out.  I call you to discipleship, the act of loving in community and acting for a world that badly needs help.

Living Beyond Community

Living Beyond Community

Rev. J. Cody Nielsen

           If Love is all you really need to know… then the question becomes how you learn to make Love an active practice… The answer, live in community.  And to really learn how to love, live beyond community, in communion.  And that is where our story begins.

            In the beginning. There was only face to face contact… it was simple and challenging.  You knew the people who lived down the street from you, you talked to people who showed up at your door.  It was challenging because if you lived more than about an hour or two away, you had to send letters.  And you then, slowly, telephones and email became the way to talk to each other.  People spread out, distances did not matter as much, and the world got smaller and smaller and smaller.  The mail stopped being sent, people slowly stopped writing things by hand, people lost track of who was in their neighborhood, let alone who their next door neighbor was. And then… In 2004 facebook entered the world.  And everything changed.  That’s when people stopped talking to each other.  I mean, that’s when people started talking to everyone, just not really considering what it meant.  There were chat room and there was AOL and MSN messanger sure, but facebook changed everything.  In fact, Facebook was the beginning of the end.  And from there, everything went downhill.  For a little while…because people slowly started to realize that you couldn’t just make friends over a text box, and so twitter came into the world for those who are older and missed out on facebook.  But everyone said, we need something more than words…  And so, skype entered into the world.  And then people struggled with skype and so other face to face contacts entered the world, like facetime on my iphone.  Today, at this moment, anyone in the entire world, from my mother, to my friend Gary in Hong Kong, could call me right now, in the middle of this sermon, and catch me up on his world.  BUT NONE of it, despite what anyone might say, is REAL. 

            Sure, we do the best we can.  And I honestly want to live a distance away from my parents.  But my relationship with them is not as real as say, my relationship with my friend Aaron, who I talk with and see most every week.  To live in community with people is more than just a simple passing by.  It takes time. And energy, and a space. The term community is defined by Webster’s Dictionary as, “A social group of any size whose members reside in a specific locality, share government, and often have a common cultural and historical heritage.”  One can not authentically live into community from a far distance.  It is not community.  It’s more like friendship from afar.  That’s a little why some of you are a little homesick right now.  And we still can’t live into community with one another by simply being around once a week for an hour where no interaction takes place.  You can go to worship, but if you don’t interact what’s the point. You can’t experience the deep calling that we are supposed to be living into.

            In church speak, what we are called to be is that which is called Communion.   Communion respectively is defined as “ An interchange or sharing of thoughts or emotions; intimate communication.” Emotions and intimate communication is what strike me here.  It is no surprise that after Jesus gives the disciples the bread and the cup through which to remember him, he then tells them that the new commandment is to love one another as Jesus has loved.  Emulate the love I just gave you at the table fellowship.  Care and share deep connections with each other.  Don’t just see each other once a week, shaking hands when you pass by, sending a text two or three times a weeks that has autocorrected to something else.  Live in community, in fact Live beyond community, beyond what the Romans now do with their spectacles and rituals, more than just shaking hands and living off indulges in the world, live authentically, love mutually, seek each other’s common welfare.  Love, as I have loved you, and you will find life beyond community:  COMMUNION .

            Communion comes from the greek word “Koinonia,” and in that context it is way beyond anything most of society was living into at the time.  As Jim Walker pastor of Hot Metal Bridge Church in Pittsburg attests, Koinonia  was and is not about the superficial sharing that we so often do with each other.  It’s about going into deeper, authentic levels with people.” And honestly, authentic levels of emotional intimacy is hard. Living into a life beyond Community is hard:  we are all very busy.  We are also not always around, nor are we wired during college to care about others nearly as much as during other times in our lives.  This is the self-serving time, the time for me to identify what we are doing for the rest of our lives, for me to be a little self-indulgent about my needs and my wants so that in the future, I might be more self-giving.  This is the time for me.  And yet, we know that is ultimately not true.

            It’s also hard because to live this way is a both/and situation.  You have to share your life as you seek to share in someone else’s.  The last time you sat around with someone and shared your emotional self intimately with someone was…think about that while we continue.

            Every research study that has analyzed the competitive self-serving culture in higher education has correlated that those who feel like it’s a me me me world also have higher rates of depression.  Self-serving attitudes regarding behavior often lead to poor health in relationships, including a lack of satisfaction around sexuality.  People who are living into a time of self-servingness often find themselves to be more lonely than at any other point in their life and will often succumb to more mental health problem. Yes, college is a time of self-servingness, but the reality is that we are intricately connected together.  We always have been, and we always will be.  But boy is it hard work. 

            Just look at Paul’s message to the Romans.  Let your love be genuine, outdo one another in showing honour.  Do not lag in zeal.  Be ardent in spirit.  Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering. Contribute to the needs of the saints, extend hospitality to strangers.  Geez.  Does this list end.  But the beauty of this list is its simplicity.  Once a long time ago, a Jewish Rabbi named Hillel (yes that Hillel) was asked by a lay person to recite the whole of the Torah while standing on one foot.  His response, while standing on one foot: That which is hateful to you, do not do onto one another.  All the rest of is commentary.  And Jesus’ later statement: love one another as I have loved you.

            It is hard work to live out the message of the Bible.  It is extremely hard work to contribute to the needs of others, to extend hospitality to strangers, to feed the poor, clothe the naked, to love one another as Jesus loved us in emulation of God’s love for us.  Of course it is.  Because if Love is all you need to know, and we still don’t know it after all this time, then it’s certainly not going to happen overnight.  But it is in living beyond community, in this practice of communion that we can fully learn what it means to love.

            It may be hard to imagine acting yourself in this way, but if you could imagine a group of people who acted like this toward you, oh how you would find yourself amazed.  If you could walk into a setting and have a group of people care for you and authentically wanted to know about your life and how to support you and then did support you, oh how would that be the kingdom of God manifest on earth.  And so many people would want to come, because they would be cared for.  This is the call we are faced with: to live like this in love with one another, beyond simple handshakes and into communion, the practice of following God’s love and making it into our own act of love both in receiving and in giving.  This is the greatest challenge the world has ever known, because it would truly solve almost every problem we have, almost every discourse we might make with each other, and would dissolve lines of division and strife. 

            That’s the Wesley Foundation way we are called to be. We love each other and we spend time with each other.  We don’t just show up just one hour a week.  In fact, John Wesley would tell us “the Bible knows nothing of solitary religion.” There is no such thing as a solitary community, no thing as a group of 1 gathered together, but of two or three gathering together and there God will be.  In community, beyond community, God is calling us to mutual affection.  For in this space, all you need to know is indeed known and the kingdom of God is present.  So come, let us truly learn to live beyond community.  Let us learn to love one another as God has loved us.  Everything you need to know: it starts here.

Everything you Need to know

Everything you need to know…

Well, you made it!  You made it through the first week of classes! Congrats.  For those of you who are freshman, you also made it through orientation week, the most intense week of college outside your Ph.D oral defense.  Seriously I can’t think how in the world you can remember anything about what you are supposed to do or be or anything about this university from that week.  When I started, I remember vaguely the convocation service with the president and an outdoor cookout where we got t-shirts we could read upside down because they had been printed wrong.  Guess that’s what happens when you go to a school of 13,000 instead of the Behemoth that is Minnesota.

What you learned at orientation…well (and this is about the only time I’ll speak back against the university) is simply not preparing you for being here.  Everything you need to know in college, you’re going to learn it from experience.  What you need to know really isn’t what you think it is… And so with that, let us begin with things other would tell you, you need to know..

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

I can tell you that you need to know the bus schedule.  It’s quite simple.  Every five minutes, you are supposed to see a bus.  The connector goes to St. Paul.  If you live on West Bank, you’ll need this to come to Wesley in the winter (unless you call me).

You need to know it works well during the week, but on weekends, it slows down a lot.  In fact, if you live in Bailey, sometimes you might just want to call me an hour or two before worship for me to get you.  For sure you’ll want to ask for a ride home after worship.

You need to know the real reason for going to the football games is to watch the marching band.  No matter how they do the first four weeks of the year, there is no cheering “rose bowl, rose bowl” until they have defeated a big ten team.

You need to know that this school hates Wisconsin.  But I think it truly hates Iowa more.

You should know that there are really really good seats at Women’s Hockey games that you should go to.

You should know that chairs in Coffman are for sleeping, and they are quite delightful.

You need to know also that St. Paul campus is another world, but that it is probably the most beautiful part of campus (honestly).

You need to know that the real food diversity…it’s on the west bank.

You should know that although Dinkytown seems wonderful right now, you might want to become an advocate before it becomes all apartment complexes.

Now About College in General

You should know that being a morning person may prevent you from having any friends on the weekend…

You should know that your roommate may have their boyfriend over and that you should say something if you are uncomfortable.

Drinking happens every weekend, and most week days

No matter what you do, stay away from frats with Lions

A lot of you who might have relationships from your hometown will break up by thanksgiving.

You in about to change.  If you don’t want to change, better change your attitude.

It is perfectly acceptable to change what you thought you were going to be, even if you were planning to be a doctor since you were 6.

You should know that freshman know more than seniors…sort of.  You need to know that everything you have ever been told is about to be completely challenged.

You should also know some things About Faith

You should know some things around faith…and about your beliefs.

1.)   You should know that I am not here to dictate your faith.  Any clergy professional who tells you what to believe ultimately is to be steered clear of.  Faith is about experiencing your understandings and questioning for a lifetime.  Ultimately, the shared experience of the Church is one of individual and collective wisdom.

2.)   I would like you to know the definition of a few things.  The gospel of prosperity is one where people believe if you are faithful enough, you will receive extreme wealth.  If you have heard of Joel Olsteen, then you know what I’m talking about.  I can’t find a Biblical argument for this.  Let me know if you can.

3.)   You need to know that  Christianity is not about just going to heaven.  Saying the right words and a little prayer doesn’t prevent you from having to care about others.

4.)   You need to know that to be engaged in your faith from a social justice perspective means that you are engaged politically.  The separation of Church and State is real, but the reality of the world is that your faith should influence your advocacy and your decision making.  That also mean anyone who tells you who you can’t be a democrat and a Christian doesn’t fully understand how this relationship between political and Christianity works.

5.)   Christianity does not just happen.  It takes time, it requires doubt, questioning, and real authentic vulnerability. It is also not just a Sunday experience.  It is a community (more on that next week)

6.)   Finally, I want you to know that being a Christian does not make you necessarily happy or in a situation where nothing will ever go wrong.  People who are wandering around with happy faces all the time are typically not experiencing the world wholly…because it sucks sometimes.

NO,….What you really need to know

            NO…these are things to know, but In the end though, there’s really only one thing you need to know: Love.

And you need to know is that God loves you.  That sounds cliché, but it’s true.  You don’t need to have all your beliefs worked out, you don’t need to be a white anglo saxon protestant, you don’t have to be all grown up, you don’t have to be a heterosexual, you don’t have to be one political affiliation, you are loved.  You can question, doubt, run away from, and criticize  God, but you can’t run away from love.

You’re not hear tonight to hear a sermon about if you pray the right way or say the right words, everything will be fine and God will protect us or care about us more than others.  In fact, it’s just the oppositve.  God cares about you no less than whether you were here.  And that is worth coming together for.

In fact, I believe that’s why we are coming together.  We come together to worship a God who loves us, and we spend time together sharing that love with one another.  In fact, if you think about it, if you accept that God loves you, it’s hard not to love others.  Because if we are created in the perfect image of God, then not loving others is simply missing out on what God has done for us.

And contrary to what you may think, Love is not an emotion. It is not something that we feel, but something that we do.  I can tell my wife of seven years that I love her, unless we actually act out that love by spending time with one another and letting go of my wants in order to create space for our wants.  That act of vulnerability is everything that love is about.  The God we are talking about through our scriptures is not a dispassionate and distant God, but a God who loves.  And in so doing, becomes vulnerable and can feel the suffering of people’s in Egypt, who sorrows at the tragedies that befall the world.  And has to let go and be in the midst of the tragedies.  You are loved.

That’s all you need to know.

So in this community, we strive to love.  It doesn’t matter who you are, we seek to love you.  We’re not perfect, we have a long way to go some days, but we are called to love each other.  It doesn’t matter which football team you root for, even if you are a Packers fan, you are loved by this community.  This community welcome All.  And we mean it.

In the whole spectra of college, there are very few things you really need to know.  The problem with what you might have been told is that you’re really not hear to get a degree. You come here and leave here with expectations of a degree, but you’re hear to learn who you are, and how to learn who you are.  A

So if you are looking for a community who is willing to let you learn how to learn, to learn how to question, and to give you space to be yourself, then I personally invite you to stick around.  Because in the end, this community is learning to love.  And that’s all you really need to know!

Sexism and Gender Binary Issues in the Bible (a two week series)

I. Introduction/Welcome Back

Anne: Tonight, we continue our conversation about masculinity, femininity, and our faith. We will attempt to climb this mountain, to have a discussion and to address it seriously.

Cody: We will strive to have compassion for voices other than our own, even if we do not understand what is being said, and we will try to recognize our own voices might cause harm to others. For we are a community of faith based in the redeeming love of Jesus the Christ.

Both: And with that, our journey continues…

II. Experience

Anne: I’m five! I like adventure stories and running outside and playing in the dirt! When I play pretend, I like to be the hero!

Cody: Girls shouldn’t play in the dirt.

Anne: Well I do.

Cody: Girls should play inside with Barbie Dolls. Girls can’t be heroes anyway.

Anne: I don’t like Barbie Dolls. They’re stupid, and I’m not. I’m strong!

Cody: Only boys are strong. That’s why boys are always the heroes in your favorite stories.

Anne: I’m fourteen. I don’t wear make up. I don’t like dresses. I do like my long hair… But I’m not a good liar, so I still can’t pretend to be weak. In fact, I’m trying to show how strong I am by being kind of violent. I can’t stop yelling at people sometimes. But I don’t like that either.

Cody: Just be a girl!

Anne: I just said I’m a terrible liar. I’m just not the girl you want me to be!

Cody: Then you’re not a girl! You’re dyke! Butch!

Anne: I am so a girl! I’m just… odd?

Cody: Freak.

Anne: I’m twenty. I’m still a freak, but I’m beginning to like myself this way. Dresses are nice every once and a while, but I really haven’t changed much.

Cody: And you got rid of your one redeeming feature, your long hair. You’re not even trying to be a girl! Look around you, real women have long hair and wear make-up and eat salads and have better grades and volunteer more and cuss less and don’t meditate and you are a—

Both: Freak…

Cody: I’m five.  I’m tired of toy trucks.  I want to play house.

Anne: Boys most definitely don’t play “house.”  They play with Legos and ride on bikes and make a mess in the dirt. Sometimes they even eat worms.

Cody: I like cooking, but I don’t want to eat worms. That’s gross. If we can’t play house, can we play store? I’ll go grocery shopping, and –

Anne: Just stick with the stuff in the boys toy aisle, ok? Look, let’s get you a G.I. Joe.

Cody: I’m 15. I don’t understand why I can’t wear this shirt.

Anne: Guys are supposed to wear ties, polos, letterman jackets. And that color is, well, off. Guys don’t wear that color… unless…

Cody: Unless what? I think lavender is a perfectly fine color.

Anne: Never mind. Just put on this blue shirt instead.

Cody: I’m 21. I thought about medical school, but nursing just sounds so much more enjoyable. I love working with the patients and every day is different –

Anne: Do you understand what’s going to happen if you become a nurse? You’ll be a joke! Don’t be [a girl! Don’t be –]

BOTH.e A FREAK

Both: Do we see the problem here?

III. Reason

Cody: Our society and many others have long operated on the assumption that there are two kinds of people in this world: There are women; There are men. Two, only two. A binary, a dichotomy. Two balanced forces, forever opposite and, in a perverse way, “balanced.” When one is violent, the other is passive. When one is emotional, the other is stoic. Lustful versus Sexual “Purity.” Rational versus Emotional. Bread-winning versus Caregiving. And as we explored last Sunday: When one is powerful, the other is weak.

Anne: This society belief in a binary is called genderism.

Of course, we’ve hidden from the fact that these boxes have been challenged for a long time. In Western history in particular, we have King Henry III of France, who frequently cross-dressed and was addressed as “her majesty” by the royal courtiers.

Cody: Joan of Arc wore men’s armor into battle, dressed as a boy behind enemy lines, and kept her hair cut short during the Hundred Years War in Europe; a political enemy had her burned at the stake for her habits of dress (after the War the Church would condemn the trial that resulted in her death, too late).

Anne: In 1654, Queen Christina of Sweden abdicated the throne, dressed in men’s clothing, and took the name Count Dohna. And of course, the 1969 Stonewall Riots in New York were ignited by the actions of Sylvia Rivera, a transwoman. Also, did you know that in 1975 Minneapolis adopted the first local antidiscrimination law protecting transgender people?

The binary has long been challenged, and now it is beginning to wear thin. Where there used to be solid walls defining two genders, now there appears to be plastic wrap. Things are looking blurry, yet so often we continue to keep ourselves locked in. Defined rules are breaking, and gender roles are spilling over. Truth is, the more we look around, the less “masculine” and “feminine” fit into these boxes. Truth is, the more we live into this century, the less so-called “feminine” traits seem to oppose so-called “masculine” traits. More and more people don’t seem to fit into either box quite right. Their gender is more fluid, less stereotype-able, and God they are fantastic!

But not everyone sees it that way.

Cody: It’s scary seeing things change so fast. The thing about a dichotomy—on which a hierarchy is based—is that there are those who are used to being on top in that hierarchy, and there are those who gain prominence by fulfilling the dichotomy’s expectations. They are not going to see challenges to those structures in a favorable way.

Anne: "The horror of [...] prejudice,” states Dorothy Allison (a famous writer and a self-identified lesbian femme), “is that some people begin to think that the security of their families and communities depends on the oppression of others, that for some to have good lives there must be others whose lives are short and brutal."

Both: It’s a filthy lie, our Christ teaches us… But repeat a lie enough, and it begins to sound like truth. It begins to sound like a good enough reason to gossip, to bully, to insult, to attack those who don’t fit in the box.

IV. Scripture

Cody: The second story of the creation of humanity in Genesis[1] has long been used to promote a gender binary, the roles associated with those two genders, and the supposedly superior role of one gender over another. Anne: Now I’m going to resist the temptation to do equally inappropriate exegesis—that is, that Eve was obviously the culmination of all God’s creative work and obviously that makes the female the best—and instead point out a teeny little tidbit that we don’t often pay attention to in English translations of the ancient Hebrew text. In Hebrew, adam is how you say human. Now granted, for a long time we’ve treated “man” as the equivalent to “human,” and English translations have reflected that, but adam nonetheless means “human.” In Hebrew, the word for earth, dust, dirt, ground, that’s adamah. As in the human one comes from the earth. And then Adam meets someone… and stops calling himself adam.

Eve isn’t the word used in Hebrew; it’s not even a transliteration. Honestly, I’m not entirely sure how we English-speakers named her when the Bible was first being translated into the vernacular. Not the point. The second human is called ishshah, which came to mean wife and woman. But when the first human meets the second human, adam says, “This one shall be called ishshah, for out of ish this one was taken.” The name adam is not used, and in fact it will rarely be used to refer to an individual human being ever again in the Hebrew texts. You see, adam is more than simply “human.” I lied before. Adam means “humanity.” The first human, ish, is part of adam, and now that there’s another human, ishshah, they are both humanity. They are both, together, adam, God’s creation from the earth. They are in this new venture together, partners.[2]

Cody: Now, the ancient Israelites did interpret these two to be the first male and female. Let’s be frank: The fact that there were two humans in the creation story fits well with what they knew of human physiology; personally, I don’t hold this against them. I can’t really bring myself to judge them based on my own scientific standards.

Both: But that does change how I come to the text. It adds nuance to how I lead my life in response to the scripture. Gender doesn’t seem quite as clearly defined to me in the world I live in or in the Bible I read. The sacredness of relationship, whatever our genders, is emphasized instead.

That brings us to Paul.

Cody: Last week we talked about how knowing the original Greek changes how we think about his epistles a lot, so we’re not going to cover that tonight. Instead, hear again these words that were once used for the baptism of the earliest Christians:

Anne: “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”[3] Maybe Paul was writing this as someone ahead of his time. Maybe he was describing the vision of the kingdom of God. Maybe Paul was prophesying without even realizing it.[4] I don’t know. But I think I know what the point was.

Both: Everyone has strengths, weaknesses, talents, gifts, needs, and failures within a community. Gender is not the point here. A person, no matter their gender identity, can be both caring and strong, empathetic and powerful, caring and ambitious.

Anne: This is not to say gender identity is unimportant; like all our identities, your gender identity helps inform who you are, what choices you make, the experiences you have, etc. It’s a part of you that cannot be withdrawn from your everyday life, let alone your faith. And the fact remains that we have created systems of power around gender that abuse all participants, willing or otherwise.

Both: But that’s something we created, not God. God created us to be in relationship, to love and be loved as human beings, not because we succeed or fail to live into some arbitrary requirements for your “type” of human. We are called to be in this together.

V. Tradition

Cody: Of course, if you think that’s how the Church has been running its committee meetings for the last couple millennia, you’ve probably been living under a rock. There really is no way to make Church history look pretty when it comes to welcoming a mosaic of gender identities.

Anne: It didn’t take long for the newly institutional church to force women, self-identified or otherwise, into subservience, treating people as sub-human creatures. In fact, the years between 150 and 500 CE are considered so counter to equality of sexes and recognition of a breadth of genders, it is called the “Patristic” Age.[5] The boxes defining the gender roles that we are most familiar with in a Western context were first being constructed during this time period. With Christianity in the pocket of the Empire, our religion played a major part in created the institutions and cultures that have since caused irrevocable destruction and pain to uncountable members of humanity. Remember Joan of Arc? Harm is still being done because of what they started.

Both: Nowadays, the idea that there is more to gender than “man” and “woman” seems new, fresh, challenging, dangerous even. It’s always been there, that grand universe of gender-bender stuff. Perhaps God has been trying to tell us that all along. But we’ve only just tasted a bit of its magnificence. Time to chart a new course, an ancient course.

VI. Conclusion

Anne: We are flawed creatures, us humans.

Cody: Obviously; we are pretty sure folks from all across the spectrum of Christianity have good (and less good) reasons to criticize this very sermon series we’ve subjected you lot to.

Both: Yet Jesus the Christ calls us toward inclusion, relationship, and love based on equality and respect, using his ministry, his life, his death, and his resurrection as an example. God in her majesty did this. We’ve started the conversation, at the very least. And as you would know if you’ve ever had to write an essay, it’s the starting that is the hardest bit.

In a way, Christ has shown us the way already. Let’s be honest, Jesus broke the rules. The followers of the Way, that early religious movement, they broke the rules. Probably in fits and starts, and again filled with all of that imperfection humanity is. We are here to tell you tonight that it is time to break the rules and break the boxes with understanding, clear intent, and faith. Challenge the power structure that is sexism. Challenge the ostracism that is genderism. And have faith that despite all our many flaws, God’s glory will out. With our spiritual ancestors as our foundation, have the conversations, and chart a new course. Let us strive to follow our God. Because we’re all in this together.

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[1] There are two, ask questions later if this is a surprise.

[2] http://skipmoen.com/2013/02/15/switch/

[3] Gal 3:28

[4] Caolyn Osiek, ‘Galatians,’ from The Women’s Bible Commentary, edited by Carol A. Newsom and Sharon H. Ringe (SPCK, 1992). 192-193.

[5] As in you don’t get much more patriarchy then this.