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Discernment and Rebuilding the Church

6/10/2015

the Rev. Carol Tookey

Sermon for Proper 5 B – St. Mark’s 7 June 2015
The Rev. Carol Tookey

My Franciscan community has been doing some discernment around the theme “Rebuild my Church.” If you know Francis’s story, you know that “rebuild my church” is what Francis heard from the crucifix as he prayed at the little church of San Damiano after his conversion. As part of this process, our own fellowship group in Albuquerque has been looking at the life-cycles of communities.

A community usually starts out with a charismatic leader with vision. Then it starts to organize itself around this person and vision. There’s lots of enthusiasm; lots of people join. As time goes on, it builds up a structure... the established way of doing things. Eventually the charismatic leader leaves or dies, and the organization becomes more rigid around their own rules and regulations... if there is not a renewal – a revisioning – the organization becomes rigid with its only purpose to sustain itself, and dies.

St. Francis of Assissi (detail) by Bencivieni di Pepo Giovanni Cimabue

A community usually starts out with a charismatic leader with vision – then it starts to organize itself around this person and vision. There’s lots of enthusiasm – lots of people join. As time goes on, it builds up a structure – ‘norms’ is what they call it in group process – the established way of doing things. Eventually the charismatic leader leaves or dies, and the organization becomes more rigid around their own rules and regulations. And then the cycle winds down – if there is not a renewal – a revisioning – the organization becomes rigid with its only purpose to sustain itself, and dies. St. Francis wasn’t even dead in the ground before some of his followers were changing his vision of radical poverty and dependence on God to the development of an organization. And right after his death they started building the Basilica of St. Francis in Assisi. And our own Third Order community has not been immune to this process.

That’s the situation we see in the story of Samuel. The people of Israel were delivered from slavery through the vision and leadership of Moses – the charismatic leader who spoke with God. When they entered the Promised Land, Moses died, and left the leadership to his assistant Joshua. They wandered around the desert for 40 years, and as they did so, they started the process of fleshing out the Law of Moses with lots of rules and regulations that would establish themselves as a community separate from the surrounding culture. But they continued to be led by men and women – judges and prophets – who listened to the Spirit of God. But now they are disillusioned. They look to the countries around them – strong and stable with kings for leaders – and that’s what they want. So they come to Samuel – the latest prophet – and tell them that they want a king. Samuel warns them what happens when a movement becomes an organization – but they don’t see it. So Samuel and God let them have their way. And it’s just 3 generations of kings before all of Samuel’s predictions come true under the rule of Solomon – conscription, taxation, stratification of society. One of the themes I see in this story is discernment and choice. People try to discern for themselves what’s best for them, and they make a choice to go with the culture of the world. And the results are predictable.

In the gospel we have this very weird story about demons, accusations of Jesus being in league with Beelzebul, accusations of madness, talk of blasphemy and ideas about family. There’s a lot of stuff packed in this short passage, more than we can sort out today. But I think here, too, we have a problem of discernment.

The scribes accuse Jesus of being in league with Beelzebul – the ruler of the demons. And this accusation prompts Jesus to make probably his worst condemnation in all of the Gospels – the withholding of forgiveness – forgiveness which seems to be a central feature of the Kingdom of God that Jesus came to proclaim. As I read this, I wondered if these accusers had a vested interest in the evil spirits that were holding the people. Was there some kind of money or power involved? Were they getting something out of it?

I wondered if these accusers had a vested interest in the evil spirits that were holding the people. Was there some kind of money or power involved? Were they getting something out of it?

The story made me think of a gas station out by the little community on the reservation where Les and I occasionally go. The guy who owned the gas station applied for a liquor license. The people in the Navajo community nearby pleaded that he not sell alcohol there. There was, and still is, such a problem with addiction in that community, and they didn’t want to have the temptation within walking distance. But the owner of the gas station knew he had a lucrative proposition, and if he could keep the ‘spirits’ available, he would make money. To the owner, making money was a good thing. To the local community, the ready availability of alcohol was an evil spirit.

I don’t know if the scribes had some kind of interest in keeping people enslaved to the demons that Jesus was casting out. But what is clear is that Jesus’ accusation against them is that they discern wrongly – they are calling what is good, evil. By saying that Jesus has an unclean spirit, they are blaspheming against the Holy Spirit. And somehow, if people are that deeply confused about good and evil, they will find forgiveness hard or impossible to receive.

...if people are that deeply confused about good and evil, they will find forgiveness hard or impossible to receive.

In Ched Myers’s commentary on the Gospel of Mark, called Binding the Strong Man after this very passage, his whole premise is that what Jesus is attempting to do is a nonviolent action against the forces in society that confuse good and evil, what traditionally have been known as virtues and vices. Myers talks about Roman and imperialism and temple establishment. And that brings us back to those organizations that came about from the decisions of the Hebrew people, and the transformation of a Spirit-led desert people into a religious hierarchy and a nation-state.

What if we could free people from addiction, not only to intoxicating spirits, but to over-consumption? What if we could free people from having to do work that was demeaning, poorly paid and unsafe? What if we could free people from the power of soul-destroying institutions like government bureaucracies?

What if we could free people from addiction, not only to intoxicating spirits, but to over-consumption? What if we could free people from having to do work that was demeaning, poorly paid and unsafe? What if we could free people from the power of soul-destroying institutions like government bureaucracies?

Discernment is the key in being able to see these structures – or in Biblical terms – these principalities and powers – for what they truly are. But discernment isn’t easy. It can be tricky. A business like tobacco is a good example (and less controversial than some others I could name). We know now that smoking is dangerous and costly. But, as poet and philosopher Wendell Berry admits, it was a life-saving economy for small communities in the southeast where other forms of agriculture just didn’t work, and there weren’t many options for making a living. When the people of Israel went to confront Samuel, they saw an old man who couldn’t hold things together much longer, and no future in his sons who had been corrupted by power and position. So they made a choice they thought would be better – a king, like the nations around them.

Amish of Lancaster County, courtesy of wikimedia.org

We all have to make similar choices. Sometimes, like those people, there just isn’t an easy, black and white answer. So probably the most important lesson to be gleaned is the importance of the process of discernment. I think that’s made even more difficult in a culture where there are so many choices out there, and so many vested interests, and a media that’s probably determined to confuse virtue and vice in the pursuit of an economic goal. As people of faith, it seems we are obligated to be thoughtful and prayerful in the choices we make.

I tell people that I admire the Amish because of the way they make decisions. They are known for their rejection of a lot of modern technology – like internal combustion engines, for example. But they don’t reject all modern conveniences. What they do is, as a community, prayerfully consider what the impact of a technology will be on their community before they reject or embrace it. What a thought!

We, as a church, are surrounded by a culture that doesn’t do that – that makes decisions based on convenience and the bottom line. But I think these passages are calling us to be more discerning in the decisions we make. Not to make them based on values that are not in keeping with our own tradition. Not the values of the market but the values of family. To be thoughtful and prayerful about how we live together and make decisions as a community, and for that matter, as individuals and families – in line with the kingdom of God. Our communities, like my Franciscan family, often do metamorphose from being a spirit-filled community to an organization. But God calls us to continual reformation. And the only way to do this is prayerful
discernment.

Born Again.

6/2/2015

Dr. John "Kip" A. K. Boyd

A Sermon Preached by John A.K. Boyd, MD
St Mark’s Episcopal Church
Trinity Sunday, May 31, 2015
Durango, Colorado

I’d like to read you a few verses from today’s gospel – but from the Authorized (King James) Version rather than the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV).

3Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
4Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born?
5Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
6That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
7Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.

Born again! I saw some of you squirm. This term makes many of us uncomfortable.

Born again! I saw some of you squirm. This term makes many of us uncomfortable. It has become one of the commonest, least helpful clichés in the religious dialogue of our time. My guess is that, at some time in your life, those of you around my age have been asked (usually by a well-intentioned Christian) whether or not you have been “born again” – or whether or not you are a “born again” Christian. My guess is also that you may have had some legitimate difficulty answering. Fortunately, the Greek word here for “again” can also be translated “from above,” and, thankfully the Bible we use for public reading uses the latter. Unfortunately, we can’t know exactly what Jesus meant because he spoke Aramaic, and there is no Aramaic or Hebrew word that has both of these meanings. But, whether we read “born again” or “born from above,” the question I want to address today is, “What is Jesus trying to tell Nicodemus and us about what it takes to see and enter the kingdom of God by saying that we must experience a different kind of birth in order to do so”? At the very least, he seems to be implying that we must be willing to begin our lives again, to start over from scratch – to be, in some way, radically reinvented. But first, let me digress.

ACC yearbook, 1968. Photo courtesy of The Portal to Texas History, http://texashistory.unt.edu/

In the fall of 1968, after graduating from High School, I drove one thousand miles from Prescott, Arizona to attend Abilene Christian College (ACC) in Abilene, Texas. The problem, of course, was that I left a pom-pom girl named Nellie Whittington back in Prescott. And ACC was a pretty weird college campus for the late 1960s. Female students were forbidden to wear shorts or pants on campus (with the exception for pants when going to or from a PE bowling class). Skirt lengths were measured. Freshman females had an 8 p.m. dorm curfew – unless they were attending a campus or church function. Male students were not allowed in female dorm rooms – and vice versa. Male students could not have long hair or facial hair beyond well-trimmed sideburns and a tasteful mustache. I couldn’t play tennis on campus courts without my shirt. The campus, town and county were “dry” with respect to ethyl alcohol – and none of us could drink any of that substance anywhere without risking expulsion from the college.

After my second year, for a number of reasons (mostly having to do with the pom-pom girl) I decided to transfer back to an Arizona school – the University of Arizona in Tucson. When I arrived on that campus, I discovered that it was very different from ACC. I kept falling off curbs and running into palm trees because women were wearing not only very short skirts and shorts – they were wearing tank tops (and only tank tops) on their upper torso. The hair and beards on many of the guys made them look like the characters on the inside of a Dutch Masters cigar box. Students drank beer in their dorm rooms and smoked reefers under the bushes on the grounds. My first few weeks were filled with sensory input overload – to include tear gas that wafted over to my dorm one evening from an anti-Vietnam War protest being dispersed by police near the campus entrance.

I started to notice some counter-cultural student types that were new to me. Many of them had long hair and beards, but they were talking about Jesus and being “born again.” They had custom latigo leather covers on their Bibles and wore very cool leather sandals.

Once I began to adjust to my new environment, I started to notice some counter-cultural student types that were new to me. Many of them also had long hair and beards, but they were talking about Jesus and – you guessed it – being “born again.” They had custom latigo leather covers on their Bibles and wore very cool leather sandals (both of which I learned later were made by local Christian leather craftsman). Being somewhat disillusioned at the time by institutions of all sorts, including the Church, these “Jesus People” intrigued me. So I decided to visit one of their meetings. I didn't want anything too charismatic, so I picked the Vineyard (unrelated to today’s Vineyard Christian Fellowship founded by John Wimber), an evangelical, non-denominational Christian coffee house (with very bad coffee – this was pre-Starbucks) a few blocks from campus where a bunch of these folks hung out.

"Born Again" copyright Frank Lisciandro (franklisciandro.com)

The Vineyard had purchased the building of a defunct Greek Orthodox Church. The pews, altar and icons had all been removed. The floor was covered with donated carpet scraps. The walls on the sides were covered with stained, rough-sawn boards, and a painting depicting an apocalyptic scene from the biblical book of Revelation covered the wall behind the stage in front where an altar had once stood. When I first walked in, I envisioned myself as young prophet who had spent two years at a Christian college and was fully equipped to lead these Christian beginners from their spiritual naiveté to real Christianity. But I found out that they were also giving “street people” a place to sleep, and they were finding jobs for drug addicts. And the folk group which lead the singing were really good musicians – especially a couple of the guitar players. We sang contemporary Christian folk music and a few praise choruses. A speaker, who sounded like he was a counseling student, led a Bible study – and his message made a lot of sense. By the end of the meeting, there were tears running down my cheeks, and I knew I should be listening to “Jesus People” – not trying to fix them. And of course, they were talking about having been “born again” – and they were asking me whether or not I had been so born.

Sadly, since the late 1960’s, Jesus’ language (especially the King James version thereof) has been popularized, politicized, hackneyed, clichéd and misused. It has been used as a Christian code for someone who is a “true” Christian – not just a nominal Christian; for someone who has a certain interpretive view (usually literalist) of the Bible; for someone whose life has been dramatically changed for the better by religion; for someone who has received the “gift of the spirit” (usually speaking in tongues); for someone who has had a dramatic conversion experience; for someone who has been baptized by immersion; for someone who has said the sinner’s prayer; for someone who is saved from Hell and locked-in on a trajectory for Heaven when he dies; for someone who agrees with me about what constitutes “real” Christianity; or for someone who incorporates any combination of the characteristics above.

So what was Jesus trying to communicate when he told Nicodemus, “Ye must be born again” – or “born from above”? Is there something in this language that we can connect with today that does not simply “spin” and pervert Jesus’ message in order to appeal to our post-modern sensibilities? There may be.

The synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) are full of Jesus’ descriptions of the “Kingdom of God,” but today’s gospel reading is the only passage where this term is used in John’s gospel. Here, as in the synoptics, it is, I think, Jesus’ way of describing human flourishing as his followers in relationship with God. To be able even to see that vision, Jesus says that his followers, must “begin again” in a way so radical that it can be described as a “rebirth” from “above.” To actually enter and participate in that vision, Jesus says that his followers must be born (or reinvented) by “water and Spirit.” What could he mean by this?

Traditionally, Christians have interpreted a new birth by water and Spirit as a profound conversion experience and baptism – leading to a radical change in behavior and practice. This kind of experience is portrayed in the adult conversion stories in the book of Acts (like those on the day of Pentecost and that of St. Paul), and seems to have been common for early Christians. It has worked for many Christians over the centuries. This interpretation of being “born again” accurately depicts the experience of my brother-in-law. He was a new and changed man after accepting Jesus as his Savior and being baptized. But it isn’t representative of all Christian experience. What about those of us who were raised in Christian families and who were baptized as infants or young adults – those of us who have never “not known” Jesus? Do we even need to be reborn of water and Spirit – and if so, how might it happen? I think we do. I think it might happen during serendipitous sacramental encounters with physical elements of creation (such as water) in tandem with the movement of God’s Spirit.

After that experience, my spiritual journey “started again.”

In my own case, even though I had grown up believing in Jesus and was baptized by immersion at the age of 13, I had come to believe that being a real Christian who could be “saved” was impossible – especially with hormones. My first memorable spiritual reinvention occurred at Abilene Christian College in Tony Ash’s class on the life and teachings of Jesus. During that class, after spilling a styrofoam cup of coffee on the crotch of his slacks and creating an apron covering the affected area with his suit coat by tying the sleeves, he continued his lecture from Luke noting that our salvation depended, not on what we do, but on what Jesus did. I was awake and paying attention because of the physical mishap (could spilled coffee be a sacrament?), and I understood intellectually and emotionally for the first time that my life was not all about me. It was about God’s love and the power of the Spirit to change my life – it was, in fact, possible to be a “saved” Christian. After that experience, my spiritual journey “started again.”

And what about those of us who want to follow Jesus but are perpetual skeptics? What about those of us who have trouble believing in miracles, reconciling the history of the Church with a God of love, defending the claims of Christian doctrine in the face of new scientific discovery, and applying the critical methods of philosophy to faith? Can those of us who can’t buy the whole traditional Christian enchilada be “born again”? I think so. To the degree that we are able to see in Jesus’ love the very nature of the eternal Creator, and to the degree that God can touch our souls with that love through the elements of creation (such as water) and the indwelling of the Spirit, there is every possibility, in spite of our skepticism, that we can be “born again” – and perhaps more than once. I may have been “born from above” the first time I attended the Vineyard, experiencing God’s love through the sound and rhythms of the music, the odd physicality of the space, and the obvious presence of God’s Spirit in the students gathered there – because, after that experience, my spiritual journey “started again.” It may have also happened the first time I attended an Easter Vigil service at St. Mark’s, experiencing God’s love through the candlelight, the air filled with incense, and Jesus’ palpable presence in the darkened tomb-like nave followed by a shower of light and ringing bells when we sang the Gloria and celebrated his resurrection – because after that experience my spiritual journey “started again.”

To the degree that we are able to see in Jesus’ love the very nature of the eternal Creator, and to the degree that God can touch our souls with that love through the elements of creation (such as water) and the indwelling of the Spirit, there is every possibility, in spite of our skepticism, that we can be “born again” – and perhaps more than once.

The final message of this morning’s gospel is that God, the Creator, actually loves the world – and demonstrated that love in Jesus: “for God so loved the world . . . .” In a beautiful line from a short story about his parents, Don Snyder writes, “Let us hope that we are all preceded in this world by a love story.” If Jesus is actually God’s revelation to the world, such a hope is fulfilled for each of us, and there is every possibility – even for us skeptics – that our lives could be reinvented by that love story, could be “born from above.” What could be better news than that?

REFERENCES
Jn 3:1-17 (NRSV)
Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. 2He came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.” 3Jesus answered him, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” 4Nicodemus said to him, “How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” 5Jesus answered, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. 6What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ 8The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” 9Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” 10Jesus answered him, “Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things? 11“Very truly, I tell you,
we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony. 12If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? 13No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. 14And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. 16“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. 17“Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

Of Time and Memory: My Parents' Love Story, Don J. Snyder
“Let us hope that we are all preceded in this world by a love story.”

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Born Again.

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