I haven't written anything about pastoring, preaching or the church in awhile. Preaching has been interesting lately, for some reason I have had manuscripts written that I then outline as opposed to just notes as it has mostly been for several months.
During Lent I have been preaching on faith. I went from preaching a series on Discipleship using portions of David Augsburger's Book Dissident Discipleship as springboard for each sermon. That series on Discipleship I planned. This series on faith just showed up as I prepared the sermon for the first Sunday in Lent and said this is what you are preaching on for Lent. Four weeks on explorations of the nature of faith, (I have posted three of the 4 sermons, you can find them here, here and here). Yes I know Lent is longer than 4 weeks but I am not preaching this Sunday, Kate and I are off to St Gregory's Abbey for a few days today to Sunday, so I am not preaching this Sunday and I might give a short meditation on Holy Week on Palm Sunday but that service is so full that a sermon seems a little too much. I am not preaching again until the Join Good Friday service with Immanuel, St Elias and the Community of St Francis.
The series on Discipleship came to me as a surprise. Since I follow the lectionary I don't think in terms of series and a series of sermons makes me think of a form of Christianity I have left behind and never was completely immersed in. However, the lectionary texts after Epiphany, where Reconciler is at as a congregation and some of the questions that had been brought up at various council meetings last year all came together and so there was a series.
The Lenten series is different, for the first time in a while I am preaching as much to myself as to the congregation. For clarity, it is not that as I prepare a sermon I don't find a word for myself, but usually (that is in the past four years preaching at Reconciler up till now) I have had to first hear what the texts were saying to me and get beyond that. I rarely in the past four years could preach on a word that I heard for myself from the texts. Writing this now that seems a little odd perhaps. However, as I entered the pastorate I realized that I had to get out of the way especially in preaching, my issues, my opinions, my interpretations didn't matter. I needed to hear what these particular texts might be saying to those who gathered together as Church of Jesus Christ, Reconciler. In Lent this has changed somewhat, as I find that I am working out a theology with the congregation as I preach. I am not even certain that the manuscripts I have posted reflect the full development since, as I have said elsewhere on this blog, even when I take a manuscript into the pulpit I do not read it, its there to jog my memory when I need it.
Faith is a tricky thing to preach about and get at I am finding at least right now. I don't know if I have a definition. However, it isn't that I am at a loss as to what faith is in my life and in the life of my congregation. It just seems that attempting to tackle faith directly and say this is it, faith is evading that sort of certainty. Rather, I think this is cultivating a greater sense (in me at least) of what the disposition of faith is, rather than something I can directly tell you about.
Well I am off to the Monastery in just a little bit. I plan to post something on my return.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Wednesday, March 04, 2009
Tangential Sermon thoughts: Hermeneutics, Faith and Politics
An acquaintance and colleague of mine sent out a reflection on the lectionary texts for this coming Sunday, specifically Genesis 17 and Romans 4:13-25. These passages are about Abraham and the promise of God, and faith. My colleague in this e-mail says that given the entire story of Abraham he must disagree with Paul, claiming that Paul's account of Abraham's faith as hoping against hope and not wavering in faith contradicts the story of Abraham found in Genesis. I assume in interpreting Paul that he knew the Scriptures, and I agree that in this knowing well the Scriptures he also takes what some may consider questionable hermeneutical moves. However, I do not think that Paul is ignoring all the failings of Abraham nor ignoring the way the story seems to indicate he doubted or attempted to make good on God's promise on his own terms. I think Paul challenges our notion of faith, and the righteousness that comes from faith. Clearly faith did not make Abraham perfect in all he did. In fact I think Abraham's failings are part of what lead Paul to make the grandiose statements about Abraham here. The perfection of the Law isn't in these story's. It seems tome that if we see Paul's statements as contradicting the story of Genesis is to have faith become a work that perfects us and makes us righteous. However, if we take Paul's account of Abraham and the Genesis stories with all Abraham's foibles and false starts, what we see is someone who is consistently open to God, and to submitting to the will of God. Abraham in the midst of all the mistakes is still the object of God's faithfulness. God is faithful through Abraham in these stories. Faith is not something without doubts or failings but something one has in the midst of human messiness, which is another way of saying that faith is not a work. The faith of Abraham that is accounted righteousness then is not perfection but an attitude of the person, a disposition towards God that is open to God's faithfulness, regardless of the mistakes one makes or the doubts one has. If Paul's account of Abraham means that Abraham was perfect or never doubted then it seems to me that faith is a work and would then be under the Law. This contradicts Paul's very point that faith is not under the law, this is freedom and the good news of faith in Jesus Christ. Rather what is being lifted up by Paul is the persistent and enduring faith of Abraham which bears out in the whole of his life even if at any one point we may judge Abraham lacking in faith and/or righteousness or perfection, but that's the point isn't it?
We also seem unable to see the persistence and the continuity of enduring faith of the Church when confronted with the failings of Christians and the hierarchy of the the church or of historical Christian societies and cultures. I am currently reading a collection of essays by archbishop Anastasios (Yannoulatos), Facing the World: Orthodox Christian Essay on Global Concerns. The first two essays deal with issues of justice one from the perspective of the Global Community and the other in terms of human rights. Anastasios in these essays is defending the resources in Orthodox Christian theology and faith for helping bring about a just Global human community and for the defense of human rights. In mounting this defense he admits the ways in which Christians, the hierarchy of the church, and Christian states and politicians have failed to fully live up to the ideals he presents as being the faith of the catholic and orthodox church. This is a very different attitude than I hear from many Christians who also see the the Gospel as a source for working for justice and human rights. Many Christians whether emergent, or mainline or liberal, or progressive I hear speak this way usually look at the failures as a means to show that we need to be suspicious of how the faith has been handed down to us. There are reasons for this certainly in the US, given that Fundamentalists have long claimed to be those who represent the true Christian faith and in recent memory (this was not always the case) conservative evangelicals and Fundamentalists have either allied themselves with forces that perpetuate injustice and work against human rights or even themselves, in certain cases, actively seek to undermine certain goals of human rights. It seems to me that we have simply accepted that these voices represent true Christianity and the faith as it is passed down. Rather than being suspicious of the Faith passed down to us we should be suspicious of the sectarian claims of representing the true whole. For Anastasios, while it is regrettable that Christians do not always live up to the goal, the witness of the Saints and other faithful Christians should be the place of our emphasis not on the place of the failures to live out the Gospel. On the other Hand, Anastasios also is pessimistic of the ability of humanity to achieve a just global community and a consistent defense of human rights on our own efforts of law and international declarations. He has a (I believe healthy and true) skepticism about human ability in terms of resolving the worlds issues politically and of the State being able to live out these things consistently. In this sense he has the reverse attitude of many people I know who are deeply skeptical about the church and Christians (with good reason I will admit) but who are much less skeptical about human ability through politics and the State. Anastasios witnesses to a faith in God who, through Jesus Christ and his followers who remain faithful to Christ, can transform the world (but whose hope ultimately lies not in the achievement of Christians but the work of God in Christ). While many Christians I know seem to have more faith in human beings and politics to make things right. And so we have to go out and do, do, do, and become righteous by working for Justice and human rights in part because the Church has failed. I don't find this latter position to be one of much faith, but of a certain desperation and a result of a failure of faith. Anastasios in faith says yes there were Christian emperors and they did not follow the ideals of the Gospel, but at the same time there were faithful Christians who like St. Chrysostom (and there were many others throughout history, known and unknown) who criticized and continually lifted up the truth of the Gospel and its respect of the dignity and freedom of all persons and its call for justice, but also in the evaluation that humanity is sinful and incapable on its own of doing justice and living out its life within the true an holy divine community. I find Anastasios' position one full of faith and lacking entirely in self-righteousness.
We also seem unable to see the persistence and the continuity of enduring faith of the Church when confronted with the failings of Christians and the hierarchy of the the church or of historical Christian societies and cultures. I am currently reading a collection of essays by archbishop Anastasios (Yannoulatos), Facing the World: Orthodox Christian Essay on Global Concerns. The first two essays deal with issues of justice one from the perspective of the Global Community and the other in terms of human rights. Anastasios in these essays is defending the resources in Orthodox Christian theology and faith for helping bring about a just Global human community and for the defense of human rights. In mounting this defense he admits the ways in which Christians, the hierarchy of the church, and Christian states and politicians have failed to fully live up to the ideals he presents as being the faith of the catholic and orthodox church. This is a very different attitude than I hear from many Christians who also see the the Gospel as a source for working for justice and human rights. Many Christians whether emergent, or mainline or liberal, or progressive I hear speak this way usually look at the failures as a means to show that we need to be suspicious of how the faith has been handed down to us. There are reasons for this certainly in the US, given that Fundamentalists have long claimed to be those who represent the true Christian faith and in recent memory (this was not always the case) conservative evangelicals and Fundamentalists have either allied themselves with forces that perpetuate injustice and work against human rights or even themselves, in certain cases, actively seek to undermine certain goals of human rights. It seems to me that we have simply accepted that these voices represent true Christianity and the faith as it is passed down. Rather than being suspicious of the Faith passed down to us we should be suspicious of the sectarian claims of representing the true whole. For Anastasios, while it is regrettable that Christians do not always live up to the goal, the witness of the Saints and other faithful Christians should be the place of our emphasis not on the place of the failures to live out the Gospel. On the other Hand, Anastasios also is pessimistic of the ability of humanity to achieve a just global community and a consistent defense of human rights on our own efforts of law and international declarations. He has a (I believe healthy and true) skepticism about human ability in terms of resolving the worlds issues politically and of the State being able to live out these things consistently. In this sense he has the reverse attitude of many people I know who are deeply skeptical about the church and Christians (with good reason I will admit) but who are much less skeptical about human ability through politics and the State. Anastasios witnesses to a faith in God who, through Jesus Christ and his followers who remain faithful to Christ, can transform the world (but whose hope ultimately lies not in the achievement of Christians but the work of God in Christ). While many Christians I know seem to have more faith in human beings and politics to make things right. And so we have to go out and do, do, do, and become righteous by working for Justice and human rights in part because the Church has failed. I don't find this latter position to be one of much faith, but of a certain desperation and a result of a failure of faith. Anastasios in faith says yes there were Christian emperors and they did not follow the ideals of the Gospel, but at the same time there were faithful Christians who like St. Chrysostom (and there were many others throughout history, known and unknown) who criticized and continually lifted up the truth of the Gospel and its respect of the dignity and freedom of all persons and its call for justice, but also in the evaluation that humanity is sinful and incapable on its own of doing justice and living out its life within the true an holy divine community. I find Anastasios' position one full of faith and lacking entirely in self-righteousness.
Tuesday, March 03, 2009
Some links and Reflection
Catapult's latest issue "Self Diagnosis" is out. Check it out. I found the article A Meditation on Two Doctors Appointmentsparticularly moving, and I think expresses a number of things: the importance of the body in Christian spirituality (and that many forms of Christianity fail to teach this.) as well as expressing what might be called a "postmodern" or "emergent" attitude towards faith, science, medicine and Eastern medicine and meditation. Not that I am particularly enamored of either the term "postmodern" or "emergent", but they are terms used for real phenomena in our current context, and I think this article is a healthy example of both. Well read it for yourself and let me know what you think or leave a comment on the conversation page
Also, I commend the reading of the article Reworking the Recipe also in the current issue of Catapult, explores how we deal with gaps or "missing ingredients in the recipe" in ones faith tradition. The article is addressing some of what I was addressing in my sermon on Sunday. Where I went with the issue of what we might be missing of have forgotten is to look towards catholicity.
Along different subject matter I have been meaning to link to a new blog: Queeresque To give you an idea of the blog its subtitle is the "Burlesque of Gender Deconstruction."
Well that is what I have for now.
Also, I commend the reading of the article Reworking the Recipe also in the current issue of Catapult, explores how we deal with gaps or "missing ingredients in the recipe" in ones faith tradition. The article is addressing some of what I was addressing in my sermon on Sunday. Where I went with the issue of what we might be missing of have forgotten is to look towards catholicity.
Along different subject matter I have been meaning to link to a new blog: Queeresque To give you an idea of the blog its subtitle is the "Burlesque of Gender Deconstruction."
Well that is what I have for now.
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