Knowing that You Don’t Know

Eph. 3:14-21; Mk. 6:45-56[1]

You can hear the strangest conversations in a book store. I know this because I frequent book stores the way some guys do hardware stores or electronics stores. And, of course, since I tend to hang out in the Religion section of book stores, the conversations I overhear tend to be about Religion. The other day, I overheard a conversation between two young women about some of the books on the shelf. One young woman was obviously “instructing” the other one about which books to read and which not to read.

At one point, she started talking about reading a book that was written by a [gasp!] pacifist. You would have thought the guy was some kind of “antichrist.” Seems the author outlined various views on violence and then had the nerve to actually endorse pacifism as the best option for Christians. This young woman was convinced that he was wrong because no one would hesitate to kill a burglar who broke into your house and threatened to kill you or your family! Now, I must admit that the whole thing about threatening family gets to me. But I wanted to ask this young woman an alternate version of “what would Jesus do?” I wanted to ask her, “whom would Jesus kill?”

I never cease to be amazed at the fact that people can speak with such absolute certainty about matters relating to God. Now, let me say that it doesn’t surprise me a bit to hear people talk that way about Religion. Religion is something we humans have created to take God and all the mystery surrounding God and turn it all into something you can summarize in 2 minutes or less! So I’m not surprised by people who talk so authoritatively about Religion.

But God is another matter. Human beings have been experiencing God, reflecting on God, contemplating God, praying to God, and in all sorts of ways trying to understand God for several millennia! Call it what you like—Yahweh, the Holy Spirit, Allah, Brahman, or the Dao—it seems to me that there is no disputing the fact that the human race has by and large operated from the conviction that there is a powerful spiritual life force that pervades and upholds everything and fills it all with life and love.[2] Unfortunately, I’m not sure we can go much beyond that. For all our experiencing and reflecting and praying over the last several thousand years we’ve still only touched the “hem of the garment” of God. It seems to me, then, that if the life of God in this world is so mysterious, the other side of affirming what we believe is recognizing the importance of “knowing that we do not know.”

It is always the followers of a great spiritual leader who are the ones who try to systematize and institutionalize their great insights into the mystery of God. In the same way that many Calvinists are far more dogmatic than Calvin, so also many Buddhists are more dogmatic than Gautama. The same holds true for Jesus’ disciples, to some extent. He goes around spreading the joy of God’s kingdom, and they keep wanting to build little shrines to preserve and manage that joy. So it comes as a bit of an understatement when our Gospel reading remarks that the disciples were “astounded” by Jesus’ calming the Sea of Galilee because “they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened” (Mark 6:52).

At first glance that might seem a bit harsh! I think most anybody would have been astounded by Jesus calming the Sea of Galilee! But the point here is a bigger one than whether or not they understood meteorology. It seems to me that Mark uses this as one of several examples of the fact that Jesus’ own disciples—the ones who were with him every day for anywhere from 9 months to 3 years—didn’t understand him. In fact, this is a fairly prominent theme in all the gospels—Jesus’ own Apostles seem to completely miss the point of his life and teaching until after he is crucified and resurrected. Even then, we’ve seen that they missed it on several matters.

What does this have to do with our discussion of what it takes to have a thriving church? By now you can probably quote the theme with me: “having a thriving church is not primarily about strategies and techniques, but about a quality of life.” I think the point of our lessons today is that this “quality of life” can be incredibly elusive! So maybe we shouldn’t feel so bad if there is much about God and spirituality that we don’t understand. It seems as if it goes with the territory. In fact, I would say that in a very real sense true spirituality, authentic experience of God, is by definition counter-intuitive. All our efforts to nail it down and bottle it up are mere exercises in futility—you may as well try to manufacture love!

Therefore we ought not be surprised when we hear St. Paul saying that we have to “be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit” so that “Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith” (Eph. 3:16-17) The end result of this is that we might “know all about Christ's love, although it is too wonderful to be measured” and that our lives “will be filled with all that God is” (Eph. 3:19, CEV) If that sounds too good to be true, Paul adds for good measure, “[God’s] power at work in us can do far more than we dare ask or imagine” (Eph. 3:20, CEV). It seems to me that the bottom line in the Christian life is that it’s all something that God does in us; in fact it’s something that only God can do in us.[3] That means we have to entrust ourselves to that mysterious and wonderful power of love that surrounds us all; it means we have to trust God to do that wonderful, unimaginable work of new life.

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[1] © 2009 Alan Brehm. A sermon preached by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 7/26/09 at First Presbyterian Church, Dickinson, TX and at A Community of the Servant-Savior Presbyterian Church, Houston, TX.

[2] Cynthia A. Jarvis, “Ephesians 3:14-21, Expository Article,” Interpretation, 45 (July, 1991): 286: “The paradox held in solution in Paul's prayer is that the one who is rooted and grounded in love, who "knows" the breadth and length and height and depth of that love, knows God's love cannot be contained by human knowing. The dimensions of God's love are without limit and so defy any limits created by human claims to know.”

[3] Jarvis, “Ephesians 3:14-21,” 286: “One can only wonder what the church would be, or what our relationship with peoples of other faiths would be, if our total identity and existence were permanently inhabited by him who came to unite all things.”

No Strangers Allowed!

Eph. 2:11-22[1]

The 2002 film My Big Fat Greek Wedding is the story of Toula, a young woman in a Greek family struggling to make her own life. What you have to understand is that her father Gus is not just very Greek, but fanatically Greek. Their house is modeled after the Parthenon, complete with Corinthian columns and statues of Greek gods. And the garage door sports a larger-than-life-size Greek flag. Gus believes there are only two kinds of people in the world: Greeks and those who wish they were Greeks! When Toula meets and falls in love with Ian Miller—who is in no way, shape or form Greek—you can imagine what a stir it causes. Gus is distraught that she doesn’t want to marry “nice Greek boy,” but a “xeno.” In Gus’s own words, “A xeno with big long hairs on top of his head.”

The word “xeno” is probably not one you’re familiar with. It is the Greek word for “foreigner” or “stranger.” It’s the source of our word “xenophobia”—which means an irrational aversion to people who are perceived to be different from oneself. In ancient times, to the Greeks everyone who was not Greek was a “xeno.” But that’s okay, because to the Jews everyone who was not Jewish was a “gentile dog.” And everyone who wasn’t a Roman was a barbarian. You get the idea: if you’re not one of us, then your less than us. While we may pride ourselves on being so “modern” and “advanced” in our civilization, I’m afraid that principle of human behavior is still true for some folks. Make that most folks. Especially in this country of ours that has become the de factor dominant culture of the world. If you’re not (fill in the blank with whatever it is we think we are), you’re not one of us!

We live in a world in which we all have all kinds of dividing lines between people who are like me and “not like me.”[2] Unfortunately, Church has been a place where those dividing lines and hostilities have been reinforced.[3] My friends, it should not be so among us. One of the fundamental principles of our faith is the inclusion of all people in the community that bears Christ’s name and is formed by his work of reconciliation.[4] That’s not a modern innovation; St. Paul the Apostle was convinced that it is a major implication of Jesus’ death on the cross. We who were alienated and estranged, who were without hope and without God, we who were far away have been brought near and every barrier to our full participation in the household of God has been removed. St. Paul affirms that the cross of Christ means that God’s shalom—God’s peace that brings new life—has been extended to all people, without exceptions, qualifications, or omissions!

The good news that our faith proclaims is that all the barriers have been destroyed—the ones between heaven and earth as well as the ones we throw up around us to make ourselves feel “safe.”[5] As we seek ways to help our congregation find new vitality, it seems to me that this view of salvation—in which we are all the strangers who have been taken in—must take center stage. I’ve said it before, and I’ll keep saying it: having a thriving church is not primarily about strategies and techniques, but about a quality of life.

I would have to say that that the most pressing factor in that “quality of life” that can seem so elusive is hospitality.[6] Now at first glance that might seem so simple as to be positively trivial. But what we’re talking about here isn’t covered by Southern Living or Martha Stewart. The kind of hospitality we’re talking about is something the Bible reinforces over and over again—“it is a matter of welcoming, caring for, and befriending the stranger, the poor and needy, the homeless and destitute, the unloved and unlovable, the weird and the strange.”[7] We’re not talking about the kind of hospitality that calculates the number of finger sandwiches needed for a reception, but rather a way of life that flows naturally from our experience of God’s generous grace and mercy and love to our joyfully extending that grace and mercy and love to others. We’re talking about a quality of life that makes a congregation a place where God really lives (cf. Eph. 2:22).

The most pressing question for any church in this culture that is splintered by divisions of all kinds and poisoned by fear and suspicion of others must be “how do we convert hostility into hospitality, exclusion into embrace?” How do we convert the “closed fist of hostility” into the “open hand of hospitality”? [8] Throughout the centuries, the saints and sages of our faith have recognized that hospitality is the central practice of the Christian faith. It is essential to our life as a congregation because, more than any other Christian practice, it demonstrates who God is, who we are called to be, and what the world can become through God’s grace.[9]

We live in a world where grace and mercy are foreign concepts. In our world we’re much more comfortable with posting a sign like “No strangers allowed” that reflects the suspicion and fear of our time. But perhaps it is time for us to acknowledge our fear, confront it, and turn that very slogan on its head. “No strangers allowed” means that we refuse to acknowledge the barriers and boundaries that divide our world. “No strangers allowed” means that we acknowledge that the one God loves and accepts all persons through Jesus the Christ, and therefore we do too. “No strangers allowed” means that in the Kingdom of God nobody is a stranger, therefore in this congregation nobody is a stranger.[10]

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[1] © 2009 Alan Brehm. A sermon preached by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 7/19/09 at First Presbyterian Church, Dickinson, TX and at A Community of the Servant-Savior Presbyterian Church, Houston, TX.

[2] Cf. Henri Nouwen, Reaching Out, 46.

[3] Cf. Jürgen Moltmann, The Church in the Power of the Spirit, 188-89.

[4] Cf. Confession of 1967, 9.21-26. Cf. also Amy Plantiga Pauw, “Theological Reflections on Ephesians 2:11-22,” Theology Today 62 (2005): 81: “Christians are invited into this new space to live lives that conform to the reconciliation already accomplished for them in Christ.” Cf. similarly Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics 3.4:323.

[5] Cf. Ronald Goetz, “Miracles of Inclusion,” The Christian Century (July 2, 1997): 625: “After the dividing wall between gentile and Jew has been broken down, the destruction of all other human barriers must follow.” Cf. also Moltmann, Church in the Power, 84, 104, 188-89.

[6] Cf. Arthur Sutherland, I Was a Stranger: A Christian Theology of Hospitality, 83: “Hospitality is the practice by which the church stands or falls.”

[7] Paul J. Waddell, “Toward a Welcoming Congregation,” Christian Reflection 2007:77; cf. also Diana Butler Bass, Christianity for the Rest of Us, 83.

[8] Waddell, 76, 78.

[9] Waddell, 79; cf. also Bass, Christianity for the Rest of Us, 82: hospitality “stands at the heart of a Christian way of life, a living icon of wholeness in God.”

[10] Cf. Waddell, 79: “There is no fear in the Kingdom of God because there are no strangers there.” Cf. also Moltmann, Church in the Power, 316: “The community of [equals] proclaims the kingdom of God through its way of life, which provides an alternative to the life of the world surrounding it.” See also ibid., 342.

Looking Redeemed

2 Sam 6:1-19; Ps 24; Eph 1:3-14[1]

Every year Fortune magazine publishes a list of the best companies to work for—places where people actually like their working environment and actually enjoy what they do. This year, Methodist Hospital is the highest-ranking company in Houston on the list. What a concept—spending your life at something you really like and enjoy! As we look at scripture from the perspective of learning ways to help our church find new vitality, I wonder if we ought not look at the enjoyment factor. Having a thriving church is not primarily about strategies and techniques, but about the quality of life that is present among us.

Unfortunately, most churches would not be characterized as “joyful.” I think Friedrich Nietzsche said it best when he mocked that for him to learn to have faith in Jesus, his disciples would have to look “more redeemed”![2] From a less cynical perspective, Paul Tillich asks whether the lack of joy that is conspicuous in many churches is due to the fact that we are not “sufficiently Christian”![3]

By contrast, our Psalm for today portrays a festival celebrating Yahweh’s reign over Israel—indeed, over all creation[4]—that is nothing if not joyful! After confidently declaring that Yahweh rules over the whole cosmos, the Psalmist characterizes those who seek God as the “pure in heart” who “see God” (cf. Matt. 5:8) and are overcome with joy.[5] And they express their joy with an antiphonal shout welcoming Yahweh as the “King of Glory.” I don’t know that we can be sure, but many Bible scholars think that this Psalm was composed for just such an occasion as the one described in 2 Samuel. As David brings the Ark of the Covenant into his new capitol, Jerusalem, he is clearly overcome with joy. Whether or not David’s motives in this were completely pure, it would seem that “joyful celebration” is a pretty good description of what he was doing. [6] David gave full expression to his joy over God’s covenant faithfulness and God’s continual presence with Israel.

As I think about this story, it occurs to me that we don’t see much of that kind of thing in church. It seems that most churches would be less accepting of David and more like his wife Michal who thought he was making a royal fool out of himself! Now, I’m not too interested in shouting and leaping in church, but it seems to me that a good dose of laughter is very appropriate. And dance can convey a wonderful sense of joy in worship.[7] Of course, different people express joy differently—some more externally, others more internally. But either way, joy is something that I think should be a natural part of our Christian lives. We’re meant to “look redeemed”!

If we want to see our church thrive, I think we should make cultivating joy a priority—joy in life, joy in service, and joy in worship. Christian worship is intended to be a celebration of the resurrection, a celebration of new life. [8] At one time or another, most of us have probably experienced the level of joy in our faith that David displayed. But the question is how we maintain a sense of joy—not necessarily a “dancing in the streets” kind of joy, but joy that lasts.

How do we cultivate that kind of sustained joy in our congregation? I think it begins with our relationship with God. The church is the place where Jesus Christ “is present and alive”![9] It is the place to celebrate God’s presence, God’s life, and God’s grace in this world.[10] Sustained joy also comes from recognizing our blessings—as Paul enumerates them in his letter to the Ephesians: freedom, pardon, hope, and assurance—and all an expression of God’s great pleasure in us (cf. Eph. 1:5, The Message)! Sustained joy can also come from our mission. We are called to be the church that is out there striving for the justice of God that makes all life holy, striving for the universal peace of God that embraces everyone in God’s love and that sets all creation free from the chains of death. [11] When we cultivate these aspects of our faith, our very life becomes infused with the joy that comes from God’s grace and mercy. Then we cannot help but be joyful. Then, perhaps, we can look more redeemed.

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[1] © 2009 Alan Brehm. A sermon preached by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 7/12/09 at First Presbyterian Church, Dickinson, TX and at A Community of the Servant-Savior Presbyterian Church, Houston, TX.

[2] Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, 79.

[3] Paul Tillich, “The Meaning of Joy,” in The New Being, 142

[4] Cf. H.-J. Kraus, Psalms 1-59, 314; cf. also James L. Mays, Psalms, 120: “To see the world is to behold the evidence of the reign of the lord. To live in the world is to be dependent on the reign of the lord.”

[5] Cf. Kraus, Psalms 1-59, 314; Mays, Psalms, 121

[6] Cf. Walter Brueggemann, First and Second Samuel, 248-50 on the mixture of political maneuvering and authentic devotion that may have characterized David’s action. Cf. also Michael Goulder, “David and Yahweh in Psalms 23 and 24” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 30 (2006):463-73 for a more detailed account of the challenges David faced in turning Jerusalem into the seat of Government and of the shrine of Yahweh.

[7] Cf. Jürgen Moltmann, The Passion for Life: A Messianic Lifestyle, 72, 73, 74: worship should begin with the “laughter of the redeemed, the dance of the liberated.”

[8] Jürgen Moltmann, The Church in the Power of the Spirit, 109, says that new life in Christ is to be “celebrated as the feast of freedom, as joy in existence and as the ecstasy of bliss.”

[9] Cf. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics IV.3:750-762. Cf. also Moltmann, Passion for Life, 19: “Where Jesus is, there is life. There is abundant life, vigorous life, loved life, and eternal life.”

[10] Moltmann, Church in the Power, 205; cf. similarly Jürgen Moltmann, The Spirit of Life: A Universal Affirmation, 279.

[11] Moltmann, Church in the Power, 340-361; see also Moltmann, Spirit of Life, 54, 123, 141, 143, 154, 271-72.

The Secret of “Success”

2 Sam. 5:10; Ps. 48; Mk. 6:6; 2 Cor 12:9-10[1]

There are a great many ideas out there about what it takes to succeed at church growth. In the first part of this century, the “secret” was tent revivals. Once a year, at least, a church should pitch a huge tent and hold meetings every evening to get new members. Back in the 1970’s, it was bus ministry. Every church needed an old school bus to bring children from all over town into their building every Sunday morning. The idea was that if you get the kids, you’ll get the parents too. In the 1980’s the “secret” was Bible studies in apartment complexes. One church in Arlington, Texas had over 2000 people involved in Bible studies all over town. In the 90’s it was contemporary, seeker friendly worship (a la the Donny & Marie Osmond show), complete with multimedia. These days it’s small group ministries. If you start a small group program in your church, you’re sure to get new members.

One by one, each of these theories about what it takes to make a church thrive have come and gone. That’s even true of small groups—their popularity is already fading. While it’s true that some churches have benefited from one strategy or another, there doesn’t seem to be any pattern that can explain why one “secret” succeeded for them but not for others who tried the same exact strategy. I think the reason for this is that the Christian life can rarely be reduced to one specific strategy or “secret” of success. As I’ve said before, we’re in the business of changing hearts! That means that to succeed we must respond to life in all its bewildering and chaotic variety.

In my opinion, contrary to the popular film and book that has been sweeping the country, The Secret is not a particular strategy or mindset. Rather in scripture the “secret” is the presence of the living and life-giving God![2] Look at the fledgling King David—he succeeded because the Lord, the God of hosts, was with him (2 Sam. 5:10). Now, I’m not so sure I would define his life as one of success—in the end the Bible describes him as a man who became obsessed with his own power.[3] But it’s clear from the text for today that David’s rise as King over all Israel is inexplicable except from the premise that it was the presence of the living God that accomplished it.[4]

It’s easy to forget in our results-oriented society that one of the central truths of our faith is “God will never forsake you.”[5] It’s the central truth about the God of the Bible: God is the one who is completely faithful,[6] which also means that God is always, always, always with us. Our Psalm for today puts it this way: “Our God is like this forever and will always guide us.” (Ps. 48:14). The Psalmist evidently saw the fortress city of Jerusalem as impregnable—even as the Jebusites who claimed that “even the blind and the lame” could repel David’s army (2 Sam. 5:6). As the ramparts of David’s city appeared so strong that they would stand forever, the Psalmist declared that God’s faithful love would also stand forever. Jerusalem’s defenses may have vanished, but God’s faithfulness is still standing.

But the question is whether we will have the faith to entrust our future to such an ambiguous strategy for success. Or will we be like the people of Jesus’ native region, whose unbelief caused Jesus to be amazed? Over and over again, Jesus amazes the crowds with his words and deeds. In Nazareth, it was the unbelief of his own friends and relatives that amazed Jesus (Mk. 6:6)! The difference between them and those who saw Jesus and found new life, restored health, forgiveness of sins, and re-invigorated hope was their faith.

It’s the difference between the view that nothing will happen unless I can muster enough talent or will-power to make it happen and the view Paul expresses in his “boast” that the power of Christ is made all the more effective by his weaknesses (2 Cor. 12:9). What makes a church thrive is to remember that we are the “church of Jesus Christ,” which means that the presence and power of Christ is the secret of our success.[7] What makes the church thrive is the confidence that “when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor. 12:10).[8] That’s hard to put into a strategic plan, but I think trusting in the presence of the life-giving God and trusting in the power of the living Christ is a strategy for true success.

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[1] © 2009 Alan Brehm. A sermon preached by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 7/5/09 at First Presbyterian Church, Dickinson, TX and at A Community of the Servant-Savior Presbyterian Church, Houston, TX

[2] Cf. similarly Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics IV.3:750-762, where he speaks of “the secret” to the church’s existence in that Jesus Christ “is present and alive” in the church in and through the Holy Spirit.

[3] Cf. David A. Bosworth, “Evaluating King David” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 68 (2006): 191-210, for an overview of the difficulties.

[4] Cf. Barth, Church Dogmatics II.2:374-384, where he discusses David as an example of the “election” of an individual.

[5] Deuteronomy 31:6, 8; cf. Psalm 37:28; 94:14; Isaiah 41:17; 42:16.

[6] Hendrikus Berkhof, Christian Faith, 134; Jürgen Moltmann, Theology of Hope, 112-120, 143-148.

[7] Moltmann, The Church in the Power of the Spirit, 361: “The one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church is the church of Jesus Christ. Fellowship with Christ is its secret. The Church of Jesus Christ is the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church. Unity in freedom, holiness in poverty, catholicity in partisan support for the weak, and apostolate in suffering are the marks by which it is known in the world.” Cf. also Barth, Church Dogmatics IV.3:751-762.

[8] Cf. Barth, Church Dogmatics IV.3:742-750: “in all its weakness [the church] is sustained by a strength compared with which all other strength is really weakness” (750).