A thought on today's gospel lesson

Fred Craddock in his commentary on the Gospel of Luke¹ in the Interpretation Bible Commentary series makes an observation on this week’s gospel lesson that the Revised Common Lectionary suggests.  The reading is Luke 9:51-62.  That text reads, in part:

When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. And he sent messengers ahead of him. On their way they entered a village of the Samaritans to make ready for him; but they did not receive him, because his face was set towards Jerusalem. When his disciples James and John saw it, they said, ‘Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?’ But he turned and rebuked them. Then they went on to another village.

James and John reflect the response of Elijah to those who opposed him.  Twice the prophet called down fire from heaven (2 Kings 1:9-12).  Jesus “rebuked” them, but they had already done the moral damage.

Craddock says, in relation to the response of James and John: “Is it not interesting how the mind can grasp and hold those Scriptures which seem to bless our worst behavior and yet cannot retain past the sanctuary door those texts which summon to love, forgiveness, and mercy?  Jesus rebukes James and John for an attitude of revenge and retribution, an attitude totally foreign to his ministry and theirs.”

I like that line.  I think it’s a tremendous insight.  And… I am sad to say that I see more than the occasional example of exactly what Craddock is talking about.  Not only do folks cherry-pick as they move through the Bible, but their selectivity in terms of what they sanction or how they act or what they believe a particular text empowers them to hate is extraordinary.

Lord, have mercy.

Christ, have mercy.

Lord, have mercy.

¹Interpretation A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching,

Louisville: John Knox Press, c. 1990

And also with you

 The late Hoyt Hickman, one of the Deans of modern United Methodist liturgical thought, wrote a book titled Worshiping with United Methodists.¹  In it, he sought to answer the question, “What is Christian worship?” He listed five principles that characterize Christian worship.  His second principle is: Active congregational Participation is crucial.

We have all been in worship experiences where the expectation of the congregation was that the people would sing a couple of hymns and put money in the collection plate.  Everything else that takes place is in the front of the sanctuary, inside the chancel (if the church arranges itself that way).  In these settings the worshipers are passive observers of activity carried on by the few: preacher, liturgist, musician(s), perhaps a few others.  This can be an entertaining stage show.  It has little to recommend it as worship.

Authentic worship involves everyone present.  In its purest form it is dialogical.  That is that there is a call-and-response element to the proceedings.  There might be a call to prayer, and then the people pray.  A service might include a sequence of invitation, confession, absolution and passing of the peace.  A prime example of this idea would be that a leader would read a scripture lesson or lessons, someone would preach a homily or sermon, and then the people would respond with an affirmation of faith, doxology, prayer, offering or some other act of commitment. 

This is to say that genuine worship involves the worshipers throughout the event.  The division is not necessarily 50-50 between leaders and congregation, but that is not a bad goal.  The people of God have come together to worship God, not to view a presentation.

The Lord be with you.

¹Nashville: Abingdon, 1996

The Second Article of Religion of The United Methodist Church

A further look at the United Methodist Church’s Articles of Religion -- as stated in a previous post:

The United Methodist Church has several sources that historically define its “doctrinal standards.”  These include the church’s Confession of Faith, the General Rules, John Wesley’s Explanatory Notes on the New Testament and Wesley’s Standard Sermons.  Also, in this roster of foundational documents are the church’s Articles of Religion.  In 1784 when the American Church was chartered, John Wesley provided these Articles for the church.  Wesley had composed 24 statements, and the American church added a 25th that was America-specific.  They have always been authoritative in Methodism and the church included them in its Discipline from 1790 on.  The second article is:

Article II — Of the Word, or Son of God, Who Was Made Very Man

The Son, who is the Word of the Father, the very and eternal God, of one substance with the Father, took man's nature in the womb of the blessed Virgin; so that two whole and perfect natures, that is to say, the Godhead and Manhood, were joined together in one person, never to be divided; whereof is one Christ, very God and very Man, who truly suffered, was crucified, dead, and buried, to reconcile his Father to us, and to be a sacrifice, not only for original guilt, but also for actual sins of men.

The church packs a lot into this article.  The early portion is an almost painfully careful Trinitarian statement that builds on the first article.  The nature of the Trinity has always been confusing for the church.  The greater church has struggled to find its balancing point in affirming the co-equal essence of all three Persons.  It is frequently the case that other elements in a personal or denominational theology weight one member – Father, Son, Spirit – to the detriment of the other two.  Or, some groups “demote” the role of one – usually the Holy Spirit – and emphasize the Person or function of the other two.  In this article Methodism tries to say all it can say without going in circles.  For John Wesley, faith in the co-equal members of the Trinity as well as in the unified whole was an essential element in Christian belief.

The conclusion of Article Two is a statement of function rather than essence.  It is a reminder of what it is that Jesus accomplished – and continues to accomplish – in his atonement.  The credal elements of “suffered, crucified, dead, buried” take in much of the fulness of the Wesleyan understanding of Jesus’ presence in the world.  We should not let the concluding statement elude us, either.  Jesus’ sacrifice was sufficient to remove “not only original guilt, but also for actual sins.”  That Jesus’ act removed the nature of original sin is again a cornerstone belief for Wesley.  But the statement further reminds us that Christ’s efficacy is ongoing, that Jesus’ death addresses our daily individual sins as well.

Article Two addresses, in a fairly succinct fashion, two foundational ideas for Wesley and the Wesleyan tradition.  One cannot comprehend Wesleyan belief or Methodist doctrine without an understanding of the precepts of this Article.

The Color for the Day

I capitulate.

That leaves the taste of old vinegar in my mouth.

But I give in.  Not give up, but give in.

The paraments, my stole and other appointments in our sanctuary today are green.  It is the color of life.  It symbolizes continuity.  It is the color prescribed by United Methodism (and most of the Christian Church) for ordinary time.  And so, green it is.

You have to understand, that through my childhood and even into the early days of my ministry, The Methodist Church and later The United Methodist Church observed a season of Pentecost that began on Pentecost Sunday and continued through the summer, terminating the last Sunday in August.  Then began the season of Kingdomtide, which carried on to the Sunday prior to the beginning of Advent.  In terms of color, red was the color prescribed for the Season of Pentecost, followed by Green for Kingdomtide.

With the advent of the work of the Consultation on Church Union (COCU) and the liturgical reform movement within United Methodism (which resulted in the issuance of a new Book of Worship in 1992), The UMC discarded the former color scheme and moved to one color – green – for “The Season After Pentecost (United Methodist Kingdomtide)”  With certain exceptions (All Saints’, Reformation Sunday and a couple of others) green is the color of the day.

While the church does not impose these color usages on local congregations (I have been a part of local churches that only had one set of paraments, and therefore only had one color option), this is the accepted denominational “way of doing things.”  I capitulate.  I can no longer in good conscience stand up firmly for the church rubrics with which I am comfortable, or with which I agree, while discarding policy I don’t like.  So green it is.

Green is the color of denominational choice throughout Ordinary Time (so labeled because we count the Sundays with Ordinals rather than with Cardinal Numbers).  So as a sign of my ordination and in symbol of my solidarity with the liturgical practices of my church (with which I do agree on just about every other count), I go green.

Ordinary green.  And that is not a comment on the numbering system.

The peace of the Lord be with you.

Of the Connection and Connections

For anyone who does not know a lot about the way Methodists do things, we are a connectional church as opposed to a congregational church.  Congregational churches carry on most of their business in a church-by-church basis.  That means that they secure their pastors through their own local process.  They self-determine their resources.  They may pool their finances for certain ministries, but this is truly on a volunteer basis.

United Methodist churches are connectional, in that bishops and district superintendents deploy pastors.  United Methodist churches contribute a set percentage of their budgets to collective ministries in the local, regional, national and global levels.  Methodists also support a number of hospitals, educational institutions and local ministries of various kinds by collectively funding those endeavors.

United Methodist ministers work with what is essentially a one-year contract.  Each year the pastor confers with bureaucrats and with their local congregation to decide whether they will remain in a certain ministry setting for another year or whether they will be deployed to a different location.  So, it is the nature of the beast that a pastor establishes relationships and then moves on and leaves those things behind.

It happens that certain parishioners come to mean a lot to the pastor, and then the pastor goes to another field of service, leaving those layfolk to the care of another minister.  Much less discussed are the connections that pastors make with other United Methodist pastors.  Preachers establish relationships through lunch- or coffee groups.  They may gather regularly for study sessions.  There are clergy who find a great deal of support in occasional (or regular) contact with neighboring pastors.  So, when this time of year comes around (moving day in our conference is June 23 this year), a pastor may stay in place but have some or all of a colleague group go away.  So, the irony is that a person who is part of a fairly large group can stay in place and yet find themselves on an island.

Now, the connection – and mission and ministry – doesn’t grind to a halt because of the wants of a particular local pastor.  But this is one of those years when a large number of my local fellow clergy are moving on to other flocks.  Their new congregations will enjoy them a lot.  But I’ll miss them.

This is the word of the Lord

The late Hoyt Hickman, one of the Deans of modern United Methodist liturgical thought, wrote a book titled Worshiping with United Methodists.¹ In it, he sought to answer the question, “What is Christian worship?” He listed five principles that characterize Christian worship.  The first is “God’s word is primary.”  Hickman maintains that it is through the essential element of encountering the word of God that the worshipers discern who God is.

Throughout authentic worship the faith community reads the word.  It proclaims the word through (though not exclusively by) preaching.  Then the church engages in one or more responses to the hearing of the word.  He makes the further point that scripture is not only for the preaching moment but for other elements as well.  In gathering words, prayers, offertories, benedictions and other locations throughout the worship event Bible-based language increases the gravity of worship.

If it is true that encountering the word of God is a vital part of our worship (and I believe it is), then it might be that the community of faith should heighten its efforts to do a better job of handling the word.  This is not a blanket criticism of preaching.  I believe that most pastors take the task of proclamation seriously most of the time.  We have varying gifts, and the judgment is not on “how well a preacher does,” but on the faithfulness of “how conscientious that preacher has been in a given instance.” 

All preachers can testify that there are weeks when weddings and funerals and hospitals and administration and all the rest have crowded study time.  It happens.  It is also the case that our perspective can be skewed by how much effort we believe we have expended.  There is not a preaching minister in the world who hasn’t stepped down from the pulpit on a particular Sunday and thought, “Well, they can’t all be gems,” only to have congregants respond as if the preacher had delivered the Sermon on the Mount.  It is also true that we come out of the worship experience occasionally with the reflection of, “Well, that was a good one.  That’s about the best I can do.”  Then, as we greet people at the door, there is a uniformity in their response which goes something like, “Good morning, pastor.”  As I say, it happens.

I once heard Fred Craddock remark on William Sloane Coffin when Westminster John Knox Press published Coffin’s collected sermons.  Craddock said, “When Bill was prepared, he was the best preacher in the English-speaking world.  Of course, Bill wasn’t always prepared.”

The caution I would offer is not on preaching itself.  It is on the way that leaders handle other elements – particularly scripture-related elements.  I have heard preachers read their text as if they couldn’t wait to get through with it so that they could get to the business of preaching.  I have also heard leaders, lay and clergy alike, stumble through lessons as if it were written in a foreign language.  Sure, if you read Acts 2 or Romans 16 (which are both extensive lists of complicated proper names) that takes a little extra work.  But it is no surprise that these readings are part of the day’s liturgy.  I heard David H. C. Read say in a gathering of preachers, “I experience two categories of preachers when they read scripture in worship.  There are those who act as if they have never seen it before.  Then there are those who act as if they wrote it themselves.”

All I am saying is that, if the treatment of God’s word is of primary importance in worship, let’s take the time to do it right.  Read it (beforehand) aloud.  Get a since of the syntax.  Pause in the appropriate places.  Emphasize the meaningful words.  Handle it so that when we say, “This is the word of the Lord,” people can believe it.

¹Nashville: Abingdon, c. 1996.

About Wisdom

For this week the Revised Common Lectionary suggests for the first reading of the day Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31.  That text reads:

Does not wisdom call,

   and does not understanding raise her voice?

On the heights, beside the way,

   at the crossroads she takes her stand;

beside the gates in front of the town,

   at the entrance of the portals she cries out:

‘To you, O people, I call,

   and my cry is to all that live.

Wisdom’s Part in Creation

The Lord created me at the beginning of his work,

   the first of his acts of long ago.

Ages ago I was set up,

   at the first, before the beginning of the earth.

When there were no depths I was brought forth,

   when there were no springs abounding with water.

Before the mountains had been shaped,

   before the hills, I was brought forth—

when he had not yet made earth and fields,

   or the world’s first bits of soil.

When he established the heavens, I was there,

   when he drew a circle on the face of the deep,

when he made firm the skies above,

   when he established the fountains of the deep,

when he assigned to the sea its limit,

   so that the waters might not transgress his command,

when he marked out the foundations of the earth,

   then I was beside him, like a master worker;

and I was daily his delight,

   rejoicing before him always,

rejoicing in his inhabited world

   and delighting in the human race.

The reading is interesting in that it anthropomorphizes Wisdom.  Proverbs 1:20 characterizes it as a female.  This lesson pictures Wisdom as being present with God at the time of Creation.  It has given some folks more than a little trouble as they have tried to figure out the imagery and reconcile it with their own Trinitarian theology.  There is a position that holds that Wisdom is the Old Testament designation for the One we know as the Holy Spirit.  This is difficult to support at best.  Other attempts at explanation have Wisdom as being an angel.

I would remind folks of the rich imagery that the biblical writers – and the Old Testament authors in particular – tend to employ.  That Wisdom is admirable and wondrous is something that the writers describe with a wide arsenal of description.

Some will remember the flash-in-the-pan controversy of a couple of decades ago surrounding “Sophia.”  Sophia is the Greek for wisdom.  There were folks in this time period who characterized Sophia as “the goddess,” and even elevated this being to the level of the Holy Trinity.  The movement was a tempest in a teapot, but it had a lot of traction in its limited run.

The Jewish rabbis imaged Wisdom as being from the beginning, but in no way on a par with God.  There came a time, according to their teaching, when Wisdom came to dwell in the tents of the Children of Abraham.  Wisdom became The Law and continues to abide with the Chosen People.

A word to the wise: scripture itself is not going to contradict orthodoxy.  There may be some question as to how many animals Noah took aboard the ark, or what might have been the sequence of created things.  But Holy Writ is not going to be unspecific about the nature of God.  That is the heart of wisdom.