This week, just like every week, I have prayed and studied and reflected and discussed the scriptures with colleagues, yet this week, unlike most other weeks, I have found it terribly difficult to figure out what I might say about these particular passages of scripture. It’s not that they are so very difficult (although they actually are). It’s that I’m still reeling from the feedback that I received from last week’s sermon.
Last week I received more feedback than I think I ever have in 18 years of ordained ministry. It ranged from, “I’ve been waiting for a message like that!” to “I don’t agree with your politics, but I can still love you!” which was followed by a massive hug. Later in the week, I heard more disagreement, but it wasn’t necessarily over politics. Truth be told, I didn’t actually think the things I said were political, so much as they were Biblical and theological reflections on the issues of the day.
The concerns that were brought to me included politics, but the biggest concern was over the potential of dividing our congregation over political beliefs. I want you to know that I took that feedback very seriously. I reached out to the Session, confidentially and without naming names, for their advice. I reached out to other members to seek reconciliation (as Jesus mandates in our reading today). I reached out to mentors and colleagues who are both Ruling Elders and Teaching Elders. I listened. I prayed. I read the scripture through the lenses of the sacred relationships that we share as a congregation, and I looked back at our relationship through the lens of scripture as well. After all, seeing the world through the lens of scripture is what our good old buddy John Calvin advises, and he’s right about that.
What I have discerned is that I did not communicate as effectively as I had hoped last Sunday. What I intended to say was that there were bad things happening in Jesus’ time, and he called people to be agents of change – to be salt and light. The same is true here and now, and we are called to be agents of change – to be salt and light in our time. What some of you heard was something more like, “God wants you to be light, but you are actually the reason that there is darkness.”
That is obviously a broad generalization. No one thought that I literally said those things, but some of our members felt that way, and for that, I am very sorry. I say that because I mean it, but also because of a quote by Maya Angelou that my father had on his desk. “People will forget what you say. They fill forget what you do. They will remember how you made them feel.”
I had that in mind when one of my mentors asked me, “What’s the purpose of preaching?” I said, “I want everyone to feel loved in such a way that they are empowered to love others as a response to God’s grace and mercy in their lives.” He went on, “Do you tell them that?” I said, “I try to every Sunday.”
So, today, let me be clear. I love you. I am deeply sorry for any offense that may have made it seem like I don’t. My hope, on any given Sunday, is to make a faithful attempt to connect the gospel to our daily lives. The Book of Order says that I am supposed to “teach and preach the faith so that the people are shaped by the pattern of the gospel for witness and service.”
Here’s how I plan to do that moving forward. I’m not going to mention political figures or specific political issues. I might ask a reflective question about something going on in the world, but I’m going to focus on providing illustrations that allow us to work things out as the Spirit moves us. Why? Because that was what Jesus did for the most part. He did some things that crossed some lines culturally, and he called out practices that were unjust. We still need to do that, but I’m going to try to provide more opportunities outside of the sermon for those types of discussions. If anyone wants to help with that, you can let me know later.
“Why is he telling us this during the sermon,” some of you might be thinking, I guess that’s because I’m using the sacred trust that we share as pastor and congregation as the illustration for the day. I admit that’s a pretty uncomfortable thing to do, but I believe it reflects the heart of the gospel to say that we are bound together by God’s love, and no one, not even me, is exempt from the transformative power of the love of God.
We do still need to look more closely at our readings because there is a transformative love that awaits us. In Deuteronomy, Moses confronted the people by telling them that there is really only one way to move forward. Life in the land of Canna awaits them, but unless they remember the God who got them through the wilderness it will be short and brutal. In a similar fashion, Paul told the church in Corinth that the fact that they have divisions in their midst means, in the words of Jack Nicholson, “they don’t want the truth. They can’t handle the truth.” The truth is that they are not being as faithful to God as they are to their own allegiances, as though the church were like an episode of Survivor.
Then we have Jesus, according to Matthew, interpreting the law to say that it’s not enough to say, “Well, I didn’t kill anyone.” In fact, you can’t even call someone a “fool.” If we are to live as those in the Kingdom of God, then our intentions and our actions must be the same – such that we don’t need to promise anything, because our word is our bond and our actions demonstrate love and mercy.
Now, some of you may be wondering if I’m ever going to ask for your input on these texts since I sent out an email asking for it. I specifically asked for short answers, because I don’t think we need 15 sermons. My hope is that God will weave this into something beautiful regardless of what I had in mind.
The first question is about how you feel about being forced into a decision. Most of us are used to having plenty of options, and if you don’t like what’s on the menu, you can usually “build your own burger.” So, how does it feel to be told that you have two options, and one of them is horrible? [Answers are given, including Limiting, manipulative, and, loving-if it saves you from harm.]
It doesn’t feel great to be forced into a choice, does it? Unless the choice is based on love, it doesn’t feel very good. Sometimes, even then, it takes years to figure out why some choices are made, and even then we still wonder if there wasn’t another way. Sometimes we seek others who might have shared experiences, or who agree with our way of doing things. That’s not a bad thing. We are tribal by nature.
The only time it becomes bad is when we think our tribe is the only tribe. Now, this tribe happens to be a Presbyterian tribe, and we are disciples of Jesus who come from the Reformed Tradition. That gets us to question number 2: Does it matter to you to say that we are from the Reformed Tradition? [Answers are given, including: yes, no, and absolutely!] As a follow up to that, what does it mean to you to say that we are Reformed and always Reforming? [Answers are given, including open to change, always moving, always room for improvement, open-minded, and forgiving.]
Good answers! You folks are encouraging me today! One thing that I would add is that the Reformers felt like they were setting a pretty good baseline. I think they thought that they had things figured out pretty well, and if the church got too far afield from what they had established then the constant call to be re-formed around the truth of the gospel would help reset the church to the factory default settings they had established. Nowadays people tend to think about it as a constantly expanding understanding of the scriptures as we apply the truth of the gospel in ever-changing circumstances. We are formed and re-formed as God’s people when we view the world through the lens of scripture.
That leads me to my last question. What does it look like, in an ideal world, when we are formed and re-formed as God’s people by viewing the world through the lens of scripture? You can also use real examples if you want, but what are some characteristics that you would use to describe a faithful congregation, such as ours? [Answers are given, including engaging with each other as well as the community, loving, and accepting.]
Thank you, and it is true that so many of those apply directly to us! We’re not perfect, but we are faithful to God. Fidelity to God is what Moses called for – loving God with your whole self and putting that love into practice with others – and that puts us in some vulnerable places. In those places, we cling to God and find that we are being held by the one we are holding on to for dear life.
Being the church where we give and receive the life-giving presence of God is what Paul was describing to the people of Corinth. You aren’t the church of Roades Stipp or Zach Sasser or whoever you’ve heard preach in the past. You are the church of Jesus Christ, and everything we do is but a faithful attempt to respond to the grace and mercy that we have received.
How do we know if we are doing that? Simple. We know it when we see that the things we do are life-affirming. We know that we are responding to grace and mercy when people see what we are about and they say, “God must be involved for that to be real.” We know that we are responding to grace and mercy when our actions and our intentions line up in such a way that we become a demonstration of love.
When our actions and relationships are life-affirming; when they lead to God’s glory and not our own; when we become a demonstration of God’s transformative love, I would say that we have been shaped by the pattern of the gospel for witness and service!
I pray that it may be so with me and that it may be so with you this day and all that follow, and to God be the glory, now and always, amen.
Last week I received more feedback than I think I ever have in 18 years of ordained ministry. It ranged from, “I’ve been waiting for a message like that!” to “I don’t agree with your politics, but I can still love you!” which was followed by a massive hug. Later in the week, I heard more disagreement, but it wasn’t necessarily over politics. Truth be told, I didn’t actually think the things I said were political, so much as they were Biblical and theological reflections on the issues of the day.
The concerns that were brought to me included politics, but the biggest concern was over the potential of dividing our congregation over political beliefs. I want you to know that I took that feedback very seriously. I reached out to the Session, confidentially and without naming names, for their advice. I reached out to other members to seek reconciliation (as Jesus mandates in our reading today). I reached out to mentors and colleagues who are both Ruling Elders and Teaching Elders. I listened. I prayed. I read the scripture through the lenses of the sacred relationships that we share as a congregation, and I looked back at our relationship through the lens of scripture as well. After all, seeing the world through the lens of scripture is what our good old buddy John Calvin advises, and he’s right about that.
What I have discerned is that I did not communicate as effectively as I had hoped last Sunday. What I intended to say was that there were bad things happening in Jesus’ time, and he called people to be agents of change – to be salt and light. The same is true here and now, and we are called to be agents of change – to be salt and light in our time. What some of you heard was something more like, “God wants you to be light, but you are actually the reason that there is darkness.”
That is obviously a broad generalization. No one thought that I literally said those things, but some of our members felt that way, and for that, I am very sorry. I say that because I mean it, but also because of a quote by Maya Angelou that my father had on his desk. “People will forget what you say. They fill forget what you do. They will remember how you made them feel.”
I had that in mind when one of my mentors asked me, “What’s the purpose of preaching?” I said, “I want everyone to feel loved in such a way that they are empowered to love others as a response to God’s grace and mercy in their lives.” He went on, “Do you tell them that?” I said, “I try to every Sunday.”
So, today, let me be clear. I love you. I am deeply sorry for any offense that may have made it seem like I don’t. My hope, on any given Sunday, is to make a faithful attempt to connect the gospel to our daily lives. The Book of Order says that I am supposed to “teach and preach the faith so that the people are shaped by the pattern of the gospel for witness and service.”
Here’s how I plan to do that moving forward. I’m not going to mention political figures or specific political issues. I might ask a reflective question about something going on in the world, but I’m going to focus on providing illustrations that allow us to work things out as the Spirit moves us. Why? Because that was what Jesus did for the most part. He did some things that crossed some lines culturally, and he called out practices that were unjust. We still need to do that, but I’m going to try to provide more opportunities outside of the sermon for those types of discussions. If anyone wants to help with that, you can let me know later.
“Why is he telling us this during the sermon,” some of you might be thinking, I guess that’s because I’m using the sacred trust that we share as pastor and congregation as the illustration for the day. I admit that’s a pretty uncomfortable thing to do, but I believe it reflects the heart of the gospel to say that we are bound together by God’s love, and no one, not even me, is exempt from the transformative power of the love of God.
We do still need to look more closely at our readings because there is a transformative love that awaits us. In Deuteronomy, Moses confronted the people by telling them that there is really only one way to move forward. Life in the land of Canna awaits them, but unless they remember the God who got them through the wilderness it will be short and brutal. In a similar fashion, Paul told the church in Corinth that the fact that they have divisions in their midst means, in the words of Jack Nicholson, “they don’t want the truth. They can’t handle the truth.” The truth is that they are not being as faithful to God as they are to their own allegiances, as though the church were like an episode of Survivor.
Then we have Jesus, according to Matthew, interpreting the law to say that it’s not enough to say, “Well, I didn’t kill anyone.” In fact, you can’t even call someone a “fool.” If we are to live as those in the Kingdom of God, then our intentions and our actions must be the same – such that we don’t need to promise anything, because our word is our bond and our actions demonstrate love and mercy.
Now, some of you may be wondering if I’m ever going to ask for your input on these texts since I sent out an email asking for it. I specifically asked for short answers, because I don’t think we need 15 sermons. My hope is that God will weave this into something beautiful regardless of what I had in mind.
The first question is about how you feel about being forced into a decision. Most of us are used to having plenty of options, and if you don’t like what’s on the menu, you can usually “build your own burger.” So, how does it feel to be told that you have two options, and one of them is horrible? [Answers are given, including Limiting, manipulative, and, loving-if it saves you from harm.]
It doesn’t feel great to be forced into a choice, does it? Unless the choice is based on love, it doesn’t feel very good. Sometimes, even then, it takes years to figure out why some choices are made, and even then we still wonder if there wasn’t another way. Sometimes we seek others who might have shared experiences, or who agree with our way of doing things. That’s not a bad thing. We are tribal by nature.
The only time it becomes bad is when we think our tribe is the only tribe. Now, this tribe happens to be a Presbyterian tribe, and we are disciples of Jesus who come from the Reformed Tradition. That gets us to question number 2: Does it matter to you to say that we are from the Reformed Tradition? [Answers are given, including: yes, no, and absolutely!] As a follow up to that, what does it mean to you to say that we are Reformed and always Reforming? [Answers are given, including open to change, always moving, always room for improvement, open-minded, and forgiving.]
Good answers! You folks are encouraging me today! One thing that I would add is that the Reformers felt like they were setting a pretty good baseline. I think they thought that they had things figured out pretty well, and if the church got too far afield from what they had established then the constant call to be re-formed around the truth of the gospel would help reset the church to the factory default settings they had established. Nowadays people tend to think about it as a constantly expanding understanding of the scriptures as we apply the truth of the gospel in ever-changing circumstances. We are formed and re-formed as God’s people when we view the world through the lens of scripture.
That leads me to my last question. What does it look like, in an ideal world, when we are formed and re-formed as God’s people by viewing the world through the lens of scripture? You can also use real examples if you want, but what are some characteristics that you would use to describe a faithful congregation, such as ours? [Answers are given, including engaging with each other as well as the community, loving, and accepting.]
Thank you, and it is true that so many of those apply directly to us! We’re not perfect, but we are faithful to God. Fidelity to God is what Moses called for – loving God with your whole self and putting that love into practice with others – and that puts us in some vulnerable places. In those places, we cling to God and find that we are being held by the one we are holding on to for dear life.
Being the church where we give and receive the life-giving presence of God is what Paul was describing to the people of Corinth. You aren’t the church of Roades Stipp or Zach Sasser or whoever you’ve heard preach in the past. You are the church of Jesus Christ, and everything we do is but a faithful attempt to respond to the grace and mercy that we have received.
How do we know if we are doing that? Simple. We know it when we see that the things we do are life-affirming. We know that we are responding to grace and mercy when people see what we are about and they say, “God must be involved for that to be real.” We know that we are responding to grace and mercy when our actions and our intentions line up in such a way that we become a demonstration of love.
When our actions and relationships are life-affirming; when they lead to God’s glory and not our own; when we become a demonstration of God’s transformative love, I would say that we have been shaped by the pattern of the gospel for witness and service!
I pray that it may be so with me and that it may be so with you this day and all that follow, and to God be the glory, now and always, amen.
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