In the not too distant past the church was a cultural driving
force. It was the center of
morality. Most everyone, whether they
actually were members of a church or not, knew the basics of a church. Not so anymore. You can’t assume anything. Here’s an example.
As many of you know there is a Geocache hidden under one of the
benches in our outdoor chapel. Geocaching is a worldwide game of hidden
containers – or caches - that can be found with GPS. Ours is very popular, especially for people
with kids; and that’s probably because it’s large and filled with toys to
trade. When people find our geocache
they almost always write something on the online log about it; something like,
“Nice find,” or “Thanks for the cache.”
Here’s a log entry from late April that says too much, but it reveals an
interesting perspective on many people’s understanding of church.
“I pulled my motorcycle up to the corner parking lot and resisted
the urge to ride right up to ground zero and instead, parked next to a grounds
maintenance truck in the otherwise empty lot.
A short walk across the grassy field
and I came to the site of some kind of ceremonial stage. I thought this might
be related to Easter or some kind of summer sermon or something.”
When someone calls an altar in a
worship space, “some kind of ceremonial stage,” you know this person is not
acquainted with spiritual spaces! This
is just antidotal but it is becoming the norm.
With the significant decline of the
church is also coming a significant decline in the foundational voice of our
society’s morality. When I say morality
I don’t mean things like issues around human sexuality, or whether a behavior
or substance is legal or illegal. I mean
something much deeper. And let’s get at
that by looking at the gospel reading.
Jesus has been invited to a meal at a
religious leader’s house on the sabbath.
This is probably a formal meal and Jesus is a special guest. He challenges some religious laws about what
is or is not acceptable to do on the sabbath and then gets into something much
deeper. He notices the way guests are
seating themselves. In those days meals
were important social ceremonies. Little
was left to chance. People noticed where
one ate, with whom one ate, and where one sat to eat. All of these things determined one’s social
position.
First Century lawyer Pliny the Younger
recorded this criticism about the discriminatory meal practices of his host in
one of his letters: “Some very elegant dishes were served up to himself and a
few more of the company; while those which were placed before the rest were
cheap and paltry. He had apportioned in
small flagons three different sorts of wines; but you are not to suppose it was
that the guests might take their choice: on the contrary, that they might not
choose at all. One was for himself and
me; the next for his friends of lower order (for you must know that he measures
out his friendship according to the degrees of quality); and the third for his
own freed-men and mine.” (Pliny, the
Younger, Letters 2.6)
Jesus’ message about all of this was
nothing new. He is just citing Proverbs
25 when he says that at a banquet you should take the lowest seat and wait to
be invited higher rather than taking a high ranking seat and be asked to move
lower. In and of itself that is just
good advice to avoid embarrassment, but we realize he meant something more when
he goes on to instruct the religious leader who invited him, “When you give a
luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your
relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you
would be repaid. But when you give a
banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot
repay you…”
This advice is more than just being
charitable, it is somewhat scandalous.
The crippled, the lame, and the blind were explicitly excluded from many
things, especially religious service, and in some communities not even allowed
in religious worship services. Yet Jesus
says these are the very people who should be invited.
Today we do not have the strict social
rules that they had in Jesus’ day about meals, but we all know that we still
have social stratification. And
underneath that also exists what Jesus was really attacking – the desire to
move up higher. It seems like in every
culture and every nation people have strategized ways to get ahead; and devoted
their lives to it. I don’t think we
overtly endorse it as Americans, but we still do it in very subtle ways.
We’ll be celebrating confirmation soon
and even our confirmands are well acquainted with how it all works. Let’s say they enjoy playing soccer and want
to improve. Can you really expect to be
a significant player on the team if you just sign up at the beginning of the
school’s soccer season and show up for the first practice?
No!
You’ve probably been playing for years already. Almost all have done soccer camps and travel
teams; many playing soccer year round.
Now the school’s coaches aren’t going to tell you that you can’t make
the team unless you do all these extra things, but if you don’t you’ll probably
never develop enough skills to make the team.
If you want to be on the team it becomes a multi-year, and year-round
strategizing of teams, camps, and clinics.
And it’s not just soccer. I see
the same thing with youth in baseball, softball, basketball, lacrosse, and
others.
And it’s not just sports. It’s academics too. I’ve had parents give me advice about
strategies to make sure my kids can get in the National Honor Society. And it goes for music too, often private
lessons are used to get a higher seat in a school musical ensemble.
If you have a passion for something,
and you truly love doing it, and you just want to become as good at it as you
possibly can, then I have no problems. I
encourage it. But whenever something
becomes a strategy to get ahead of others the church’s teaching have a problem
with it. That is where the foundation of
the church’s morality and the foundation of society’s morality are seriously
parting ways.
When the confirmands make their
affirmation of faith with the Apostles’ Creed and make other promises to
continue to live in the covenant of their baptisms I’m not concerned about
their beliefs about church doctrines, or how they interpret Bible stories, or even
if they’re going to call a worship space, “some sort of ceremonial stage”.
My focus, and what they are really
doing, is making a public statement that they will not live their lives
according to the growing social morality, which is to strategize to get ahead
in life and get as high as you can. Rather,
they will live by Jesus’ teachings, which are that that sort of thing is
misguided. You’re wasting your live and
your energy if you’re driven to be the person on top. There’s always going to be someone else who
want that role. And even if you do
succeed in getting there – and you’ve probably walked over lots of people to
get there – sooner or later someone else is going to take you down.
Commentator R. Alan Culpepper says,
“[Jesus’ teachings] are liberating word that can free us from the necessity of
succeeding in our culture’s contests of power and esteem. They free us form over-under relationships
and the attitudes and barriers they create, so that we may be free to create
human community and enjoy the security of God’s grace.” (New Interpreter’s
Bible, Volume 9, Pg. 287-8)
To our confirmands, and to all of us, the
nation’s morality is changing. The
foundation that used to be there is largely gone. To affirm that you will live your life
according to Jesus’ teachings of God’s goodness is increasingly
counter-cultural. But it is something we
do because we know the other way to be a lie.
Let us live with confidence, and let
us live so that our faith is not just about our own fulfillment, but so that we
can witness to others the same moral foundation which leads to such
fulfillment.
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