September 11the Readings

First Reading
Exodus 32:7-14New International Version (NIV)
⁷ Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go down, because your people, whom you brought up out of Egypt, have become corrupt. ⁸ They have been quick to turn away from what I commanded them and have made themselves an idol cast in the shape of a calf. They have bowed down to it and sacrificed to it and have said, ‘These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.’
⁹ “I have seen these people,” the Lord said to Moses, “and they are a stiff-necked people. ¹⁰ Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation.”
¹¹ But Moses sought the favor of the Lord his God. “Lord,” he said, “why should your anger burn against your people, whom you brought out of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand? ¹² Why should the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil intent that he brought them out, to kill them in the mountains and to wipe them off the face of the earth’? Turn from your fierce anger; relent and do not bring disaster on your people. ¹³ Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac and Israel, to whom you swore by your own self: ‘I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and I will give your descendants all this land I promised them, and it will be their inheritance forever.’” ¹⁴ Then the Lord relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened.


Second Reading

The Lord’s Grace to Paul

¹² I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has given me strength, that he considered me trustworthy, appointing me to his service. ¹³ Even though I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man, I was shown mercy because I acted in ignorance and unbelief. ¹⁴ The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.
¹⁵ Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst. ¹⁶ But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his immense patience as an example for those who would believe in him and receive eternal life. ¹⁷ Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen.

Basic Advice on Choosing a Church

An out-of-town gentlemen wrote and asked an interesting question:

Is there any advice that you have as to where or how I should go about trying to get back involved in church? I am not picky as to a certain kind of church as I believe they all have very good aspects to them, just looking for one that me and my family can feel like more of part of that community.

Several thoughts come to mind, all of which revolve around finding a community that will allow you to explore God and will be a great place for your family to engage.

1.  You're correct in avoiding assumptions that a particular denomination will answer your needs.  Denominational affiliation is weaker in this era than it's ever been.  You'll find a variety of church communities within any denomination.  The only thing to be wary of is that some denominations encourage their congregations to act/believe in ways we're going to suggest you avoid.  In general you can't tell by the label alone anymore.  You have to worship with people of a community before you can tell what the community is about.

2.  Initial impressions tell.  Once you get over the natural fear of stepping into a new place you usually get a sense of how the congregation is reacting to you.  Ignoring you completely is a bad sign.  But there's also the kind of "friendly" that feels like salesmanship.  Both make you into a commodity.  If your gut says you're welcome here and you also observe people having a fun and faithful time, that's a good sign.

3.  Listen hard to the sermon and the prayers.  The theology comes out here.  Beware churches that make their own members feel good at the expense of people outside of their walls.  That's cheap and incorrect interpretation of scripture.  You'll soon find that if you don't agree with everything they say you'll become the target of their theology, sacrificed to make them feel better.  Listen hard to see if they put up any walls between themselves and others.  Scripture tells us that when we put up walls in God's name to disadvantage our brothers and sisters, God always hops over that wall to get on their side instead of ours.  All we're left with is that smug feeling...a poor substitute for Christ.

In general sermons should be advocating for something, not railing against something.  On the occasions when a preacher speaks against a wrong, you should get the sense that he's talking about the wrong in his own congregation to better prepare them to serve the world, not talking about the wrong in the world to make his congregation feel better about themselves.

4.  One of the surest indicators that the theology has gone awry is an over-emphasis on your choices leading to salvation.  Not only is that scriptural inaccuracy, it inevitably sets up the theology we just described.  Everything depends on your choices, some make better choices than others, some get into heaven and some don't.  What's our job here?  Not serving God but making choices to advantage ourselves, then judging everybody else by the choices they're making.  Self-centered judging is not the sign of a healthy church.

5.  As you get to know a community, watch to see who participates in key ministries and how.  Do the same people do everything?  Is everything the same flavor all the time (same music, same programs, same Bible Studies)?  Vibrant churches don't think they know the right way to do everything.  They explore different ways to share gifts and express God.  You should be challenged and stretched by worship and other ministries.

Maybe it's my bias, but I'm suspicious of churches where professionals do everything.  I've seen some wonderful praise bands, for instance, but when those praise bands do all the music and you never see normal folks sharing music I wonder what people are really learning.  Sure the music is great every time, but great music isn't a goal unto itself.  I'd rather see a 14-year-old up there stumbling through her first guitar piece on occasion than have the most polished, slickest-looking church show in town.  Watch how "regular folks" in the congregation serve.  That'll show you how much room there will be for you.

6.  Look for ways a church does public mission in the community/world.  Are any visible?  If so, are they just paying other people to do it by proxy or are they also engaged personally in their own community serving local needs?  Could you see yourself being part of one of those projects or even creating one of your own?  Do you know a need that church could help with and do the people there seem eager and willing to do so?

7.  Traditional churches create positions and then look for people to fill them, as if the position defined goodness and members were cookie-cutter pieces to be plugged in.  Living churches ask what gifts their members have and then design ministries around them.  Do you play trombone really well?  Then trombone should eventually get woven into the life of the church.  Can you lay bricks, cook, tap dance?  What's your passion?  When you find a church that recognizes those things as gifts from God and then follows you into new ministry expressions because of them, you've found a home.

8.  Listen to how church members speak about the church itself.  Do they define it by building and tradition alone or is it a living, breathing, evolving community?  Bad churches focus everything inward.  We all serve the church, we support the church, we preserve the church, we do for the church, we reach out and try to get more members into the church...it's all self-centered except they've replaced the "church" self for the individual self.  Amazing churches focus outward.  The church serves others, supports others, uplifts others, does for others.  The goal isn't getting more members in, but getting church members out into the world to share the Good News and love that they experience when they gather each Sunday.

People haven't been taught to do church well.  So many churches assume that their own existence is the paramount goal...that they're doing God's work just because they exist.  Others assume that church is about effective performance and technical perfection instead of participatory community...the show becomes bigger than life and thus overwhelms it.  In each case the congregation will be willing to sacrifice its neighbors, and eventually you, in order to achieve their goals.

Great churches aren't out to preserve themselves, but to give up their lives for others as Christ asked his disciples to do.  They're critical in their self-examination, gracious towards everybody else.  They gather in joy and genuine welcome.  They explore the length and breadth of scripture, not just the message that's convenient for their purposes.  They consider the God's Word an opportunity for exploration, not a method of indoctrination.  They're never satisfied that they've got it right or understand it and they're always reaching out for more to learn.  They understand that they fall short of God's ideal, which is the reason Christ saved them in the first place.  They're open about their own shortcomings and don't let the divisions they cause get in the way of serving others.  They share love and peace, holding them as the truest expressions of God...not just talking about them but bringing them to life in everything they do.

Communities like this are out there.  You'll also find plenty of church communities who want to be like this but find themselves stuck or astray...communities that your brand new voice might help.  Don't just walk into a church asking what it's going to do for you, also ask what you can do for these people.

If you look, you'll find a place to call home.  Blessings as you seek it.

--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)

"Christian" Doesn't Always Mean "Good"

I had an interesting conversation in a public forum earlier this week.  A person began a statement with, in essence, "I must say this because I am a Christian and I can't remain in this group without stating it."  The person then proceeded to state his case in a fairly injurious way, knowing that it would affect the people around him negatively.  When others started to object he re-asserted his right to make the statement and accused people who disagreed with him of religious intolerance.  "You say we should tolerate X and Y but then you don't tolerate my right to have my opinion!"

To his own ears this sounded quite noble.  He got to stand up, trumpet his own views regardless of how they'd fall on other people's ears, and then claim to be a victim--and his audience as hypocrites--the instant someone challenged him...all in the name of his belief in God.

Yeah, it was pretty gross.  And the conversation that flowed from this incident was unhelpful, fractured, embarrassing.

And yet we've all heard this kind of thing before.  "If you don't tolerate me saying this then YOU'RE the bigot!"  How much water does this hold?  Is this a case of the persecuted Christian standing up for their faith in a world that hates them?  If not, where did they go off the track?

You can tell already by the tone of my writing that I'm going to argue that this was NOT a case of a persecuted Christian being wronged.  In fact I found this person's interpretation of "Christian" lacking, though unfortunately quite common.  So let's take this from the beginning.

Did the person fall short of Christianity because he had an opinion on the matter in the first place, based on his understanding of scripture?  No.  This is exactly what we're supposed to do, draw from the well of scripture and base our lives accordingly.  Scripture is vast, touching all times and places.  Humans are different.  Inevitably some people will draw from scripture in one way while a neighbor comes to an opposite conclusion.  That doesn't make one "Christian" and the other not.  We are free to hold opposing convictions on many matters.  None of us are perfect.  The world will never be sinless.  We're never going to find full agreement.  If we do, that belief will have become our idol...a false compromise with a broken world.

Fortunately as Christians we understand that we're not saved by our own opinions.  Christ saves us despite our opinions.  Some beliefs rest on firmer foundations than others but in the end we have to go with our understanding of God.  If that lands us in a place different than most, that's the way it is.  God loves us anyway.  This guy's opinion didn't make him not a Christian.  There's room for people you disagree with at the table.

The point at which our speaker went off the rails was when he chose to express his opinion without regard for the people around him.

Notice how the statement began.  "I must say this..."  For whom was this statement made?  The primary motivator was not the need of the listener, but the need of the speaker.  People often want to hide behind the truism, "Didn't Jesus speak boldly and correct people?"  He did indeed.  But at no point did Jesus get up and speak to make himself feel better, more secure, more justified in his belief.  He didn't put himself first.  He spoke on behalf of the people around him.  

The times when Jesus spoke stridently, correcting and getting angry at others, all contained a common thread:  he got angry at people who were victimizing others in God's name.  The Pharisees and temple leaders put themselves first whenever they spoke about God.  THAT'S when Jesus got angry.  He corrected them right there in the presence of their victims precisely to show those victims that the self-centered approach that they'd been subjected to by "faithful" people was wrong.  Even here Jesus wasn't speaking on his own behalf, but to protect some of his people from others of his people who were hurting them.

When our speaker unleashed his opinion, defining it as "Christian" because of its content instead of its effect on the community, he ceased speaking a Christian manner.  At that moment he stopped following Christ and started following the people Christ spoke against.  This was true even though his words were couched in scriptural terms just as the words of the Pharisees were.

Summarizing for clarity:  "Christian" isn't shown by what you believe as much as what you do with what you believe.  Believing right and doing the wrong thing with it doesn't make you Christian.

As it turned out, our speaker's statements victimized the people around him.  It was probably more carelessness on his part than intent, but that doesn't change the effect.  Predictably these people reacted negatively.  Instead of love, joy, forbearance, and the other fruits of the Spirit flowing from this conversation we got anger, frustration, pain.  Whether the intent was to assert his own beliefs or educate people around him as to the "right" way the speaker failed miserably.

Predictably when the listeners objected and expressed their anger and pain the speaker turned around the issue, claiming that they were intolerant of his beliefs.  This is a common and distressing practice which should be addressed.

First of all, claiming the protection of religious intolerance was ironic since this guy wasn't following Christian tenets in his speech.  People weren't objecting to scripture or a faith system.  People were objecting because this guy was being a jerk!  He stated things in ways that felt like an attack to other members of the audience and then claimed that God mandated that he do so.  Who isn't  going to object to that?  In fact the people who countered him fit into Jesus' sandals better than he did.  They at least were responding to protect the people around them, a legitimately Christian motivation.

Second, common sense tells you that you can't throw the first punch at somebody and then scream, "Hey! No fighting!" when they swing back.  You can't state something that's unfaithful and intolerant and then claim other people are being intolerant for not accepting your injurious words with tolerance.

Let's say we were at a gathering full of people of all kinds of races.  Somebody stands up and says, "The Bible says that God hates everybody who is not white!"  People start to object, saying that this is not OK and that God loves and accepts everybody.  The speaker now stands up and says, "Well you're not loving and accepting me because you got mad at my opinion and say it's not faithful!  You didn't let me express myself and are persecuting me!"  

Is that true?  Is everybody being equally intolerant here?  Of course not.  The speaker isn't being persecuted for his beliefs.  He's being stopped from doing damage to everyone around him in God's name.  "God loves and accepts his children" doesn't mean that Christian folks are supposed to stand by and smile tolerantly while people hurl racial epithets or abuse or imprison or commit all kinds of wrong against their fellow human beings.  Rather we move to combat the things that would send the message that God doesn't care about you--slurs and abuse and wrongful imprisonment and people standing up and speaking however they want without caring about others--and lift up the things that show God does care.

If we see somebody beating another person with a baseball bat we need to show that God cares about the person being hit by stopping the beating.  We don't stand there and say, "I can't interfere because that would make me seem intolerant towards the guy with the bat."  What about the guy who's being hit?!?  Jesus loved everybody and died for everybody.  He never stood by while another person was victimized in God's name.

This "I can say whatever I want and you can't object or I'll claim I was persecuted" is garbage.  Being persecuted means suffering for the sake of someone else in the course of helping them.  It's not a way to weasel out of responsibility for your own utterances.  Nor is it a shield to hide behind while you lob attacks at other people.  The Pharisees didn't get to claim they were victims because they weren't allowed to damage all those around them.

In his own mind our original speaker felt like a hero for his faith.  He stepped up and said something he thought would be unpopular regardless of consequences and became a martyr when people responded negatively.  Reality is far less noble.  His message was harmful, his consideration and love for his neighbor non-existent, and even his martyrdom was pretty weak, as he objected to the counter-attacks all the way.  If this were old-time Rome he would have happily been thrown into the Coliseum to face hungry lions for the sake of his faith as long as nobody actually opened the lion cages, as long as he could continue throwing stones and accusations at the crowd in the process, and as long as he could storm off feeling self-justified at the end instead of being eaten.  

It was a miserable experience all around, completely un-educational, largely a waste of time.  But that's what happens when you define Christianity as something you do and believe instead of something that God works through you for the sake of the world.

--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)