[Propertalk] Fw: 5/9/10, "Judged Faithful," Acts 16:9-15

Tue May 11 19:41:29 EDT 2010

Forwarded:

----- Original Message ----- 
From: JEFF SPENCER 
To: PROPERTALK.topic at ecunet.org 
Sent: Tuesday, May 11, 2010 2:01 AM
Subject: 5/9/10, "Judged Faithful," Acts 16:9-15

Judged Faithful

A sermon preached at Niles Congregational Church, United Church of Christ
Fremont, on Sunday, May 9, 2010, by the Rev. Jeffrey Spencer.

Scripture:  Acts 16:9-15

Copyright © 2010 by Jeffrey S. Spencer

            Our lesson from Acts is a rich with possibilities for sermons.  It starts out with Paul, Timothy, Luke (the author of the Book of Acts), and maybe some others, ministering in what is now Turkey.  While they're there, Paul has a dream in which he sees a man from Macedonia pleading with him to come there and help them.  I like the way Eugene Peterson describes the dream in The Message.  "A Macedonian stood on the far shore and called across the sea, 'Come over to Macedonia and help us!'"     You can see on this map the sea he's talking about.

            They immediately cross the Aegean Sea the Macedonia because, as the NRSV puts it, they were "convinced that God had called us to proclaim the good news to them."  There's a sermon in here about how we become convinced about what God is calling us to do.  And maybe, given the discernment process our congregations are in, that would have been a good sermon to preach.  But that's not what hooked me as I lived with this scripture.

            There are sermon possibilities about the new Christian community that gets formed in Philippi.  I suppose I could talk about forming new Christian communities, new churches.  I suppose I could talk about evangelism, of Paul's strategy of seeking out places where faithful people are and then telling them the good news about Jesus.  Or I could talk about one of the things that's important about that community to us today - the role of women in leadership.  But none of that caught me as I listened to this scripture.

            What caught me is what happens at the end of the passage, after Paul has told these prayerful women about Jesus and Lydia and her household are baptized.  Lydia extends an invitation to Paul, Timothy, and Luke.  She invites them to stay in her home, "if you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord."  And that got me wondering what it means to be judged faithful.

            Last weekend, someone parked an SUV filled with flammable and explosive items, including tanks of gasoline and propane, in the middle of Times Square.  Faisal Shahzad has been arrested for this act, a man described in a New York Times article[i] soon after his arrest, as "a naturalized United States citizen from Pakistan."  I was surprised, when I went back to look for how he was described, that there was, initially, no mention of his faith.  But that didn't last long.  Within days, news agencies were talking and writing about his faith tradition and linking it to the attempted bombing.[ii]

            As I read about Faisal Shahzad, I started thinking about the November shooting rampage at Fort Hood.  It wasn't anything anyone said, but I made that connection.  And the only reason I can come up with for connecting these two violent acts is that Major Nidal Malik Hasan is Muslim, too.  I remember news media making a big deal of that fact.

            There are plenty of differences between the two men, like their ages and their ethnic roots; or that Hasan is an American-born citizen; Shahzad is a naturalized citizen; or that Hasan was in the Army; Shahzad wasn't.  Yet both being Muslim, I connected the two in my mind.  I'm not proud of this.  In fact, I understand why Muslims object to each of these men being identified as Muslim.

            Do you remember back during Holy Week, the FBI conducted a series of raids and arrested the leaders of a group of men?  According to the FBI, the group was planning to kill police officers and then attack the resulting funeral processions.  I remember the news reports about this, but I don't remember these terrorists being labeled with a religious identity.  And then I read a commentary[iii] about them.

            It turns out the groups identifies itself as a Christian group.  They call themselves the Hutaree and they are "a group that is fond of quoting Christian scripture.  [The group's] Web site features this line from Jesus in the Gospel of John:  'Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.'  The mission of the group is spelled out:  'Preparing for the end time battles to keep the testimony of Jesus Christ alive.'

            "According to the FBI, the group['s plan] to kill police officers and then attack the resulting funeral processions [was] an attempt to provoke an endtime battle."

            I went back to check news reports when the arrests were made.  It turns out the group was typically identified as Christian, but almost always as a "Christian militia" group.  I wonder if the identification as a militia allowed me to dismiss the group as a fringe group, forgetting the modifier of "Christian."

            I agree with the editorial:  "To the vast majority of Christian, the Hutaree represent an appalling distortion of Christian beliefs.  Christians cringe to see quotes from Jesus used to support paranoid antigovernment violence.  They also cringe to see this fringe group labeled as Christian - as several major news outlets characterized it.  What's Christian about it?  Columnist Eugene Robinson wrote that in the case of the Hutaree he would 'put the word Christian in quotes because anyone who plots to assassinate low enforcement officers . is no follower of Christ.'

            "The discomfort is understandable - and educational, for it gives Christians a chance to experience the incongruity many Muslims feel when the media refer to Muslim terrorists.  Suicide bombers may site the Qur'an and consider themselves Muslims, but that does not necessarily make them Muslim terrorists.  Defining terrorists who quote the Qur'an as Muslim terrorists is no more enlightening than defining the Hutaree by reference to their avowal of Christianity.  The religious adjective doesn't tell us much.  Pamela Taylor, a Muslim activist in Cincinnati, argues, 'The idea of Christian terrorism is ludicrous, in terms of theology, just like the idea that Islamic theology is responsible for terrorism is also ludicrous.'"

            I agree with Taylor and I do not judge the Hutaree or any group that acts like them or has a theology like theirs as faithful.

            The editorial goes on:  "The surfacing of the Hutaree also reminds us that there are limits to Christian diversity.  Not everyone who claims to be a Christian really is a Christian.  That assertion may seem obvious in the case of the Hutaree, but it is one that liberal Christians, in other circumstances, are often reluctant to make.  In most discussions, liberal Christians are inclined to be inclusive when it comes to issues of doctrine and practice, and are wary of anybody trying to enforce an orthodoxy.  If you say you are a Christian, aren't you a Christian?  Well, no.  Christianity is not infinitely elastic, in doctrine or practice.  Jesus did say those disturbing words:  'Not everyone who says to me, "Lord, Lord," will enter the kingdom of heaven.'"

            So, I've identified what sort of actions and beliefs make me say someone is not faithful.  But what does it take to be judged faithful?

            There are plenty of people who think it is about right belief, about orthodoxy.  I remember when I was a chaplain at the Juvenile Hall in Martinez, being judged as to whether or not I was faithful.  A very active volunteer started to figure out how progressive I am and so one day he stated questioning me.  I remember him asking me, "Do you believe in the Word of God?"  
            I said, "Of course I do.  You can't be a Christian and not believe in the Word of God.  The Bible says Jesus is the Word of God."  
            He wanted to ask if I believe in biblical inerrancy, but my answer flustered him enough to get him to stop asking questions.  Nonetheless, I bet he left that exchange judging me insufficiently faithful because, for him, faithfulness is about right belief.

            Well, I consider my beliefs, though different from his, to be faithful.  So my conclusion is that having "right" beliefs is not enough to make the judgment.

            Maybe actions speak louder than words or beliefs.  Back in the early 1970s, the people in the little town of Carnation, Washington, held an election of sorts.  They decided to vote on who was the most Christian person in town.  They were, in essence, judging who was the most faithful Christian in town.  The winner was Howard Miller, the only Jew in town back then.

            I lived in Carnation for a decade at the turn of the century, and I got to know Howard Miller, and I understand why people would have considered him ethical.  He founded, and back in the 70s was still running the dry goods store in town.  He was extremely fair.  He supported the local school, especially the sports teams.  Really, the bottom line is, he was a nice guy.  But he was Jewish.

            How he acted was not enough, in my opinion, to judge him faithful as a Christian.  A faithful Jew, perhaps (though I think other Jews should make that judgment), but not a faithful Christian.

            Two women were having a conversation at a party that followed a speech.[iv]  Most of the people at the party, who had been at the speech, were movers and shakers and one of these two women, the wife of the guest speaker, found this a little intimidating.  So when she was asked by the other woman, a lawyer at some prestigious law firm, what she did for a living, she replied, "I am nurturing two Homo sapiens into the dominant values of the Judaeo-Christian tradition in order that they might become instruments for the transformation of the social order into the kind of eschatological utopia God envisioned from the beginning of time."

            Do you like that description of being a mom?  Today we hold up the vocation of motherhood, but no matter how lovingly a mother "nurtures her Homo sapiens into the dominant values of the Judaeo-Christian tradition," I don't think it's enough to judge her faithful.

            How we act is not enough.

            Faith is about trust and fidelity.  So being faithful has something to do with being trusting and possibly being trustworthy, too.  It has something to do with fidelity.  And these are relationship words - trusting, trustworthy, fidelity.  To be judged faithful means, I think, to be judged to be in a meaningful, transformative relationship with God.  Yes, it has something to do with beliefs.  Yes, it has something to do with actions, behavior, an ethical life.  But deeper than that, it has to do with relationship.

            Martin Luther, the father of the reformation, is supposed to have asked something like:  "Can a rock that has been in the sun light all day not fail to give off warmth and heat at night?"[v]  Can a rock that has been in the warmth and heat of the sun light all day not fail to give off warmth and heat at night?  Can a Christian who has lived in the sunlight of God's love not fail to give off warmth and love?

            Paul's first lesson for Lydia wasn't, "Start loving each other.  Be nice."  No, Paul's first lesson was an invitation to live in the sunlight of God's love.

            We need to bake in the sunlight of God's compassion.  We need to absorb God's light into us.  And then we start to give off the love.   Then, our beliefs and actions come from a place of faithfulness.

            May your light shine on us, God.  May your love shine on us, God, so that we may be judged faithful.  Amen.

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[i] William K. Rashbaum, Mark Mazzetti, and Peter Baker, "Arrest Made in Times Square Bomb Case," The New York Times, published 3 May 2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/04/nyregion/04bomb.html?scp=5&sq=Faisal%20Shahzad&st=cse (8 May 2010).

[ii] See, for instance, Omar Waraich, "Faisal Shahzad Bomb Inquiry Looks at Pakistan Training, "http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20100507/wl_time/08599198745500, (8 May 2010).

[iii] "Christian Terrorists?" The Christian Century, 4 May 2010, page 7.

[iv] Adapted from a story in an email dated 26 April 2010 from sermons.com.  The mail attributes the story to Tony Campolo, adapted by James Moore, "Collected Sermons," on sermons.com.

[v] Edward F. Markquart, "The Father is Still Living in Me," from an email dated 4 May 2010 from sermons.com. 

ü Please consider the environment before printing this email.

emailed from my home:

Rev. Jeffrey Spencer

Pastor and Teacher at Niles Congregational Church, United Church of Christ

PO Box 2265, Fremont CA 94536

510-797-0895   www.nccucc.org

My blog is:  jeffsjottings.wordpress.com 

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Check out my curriculum for Adult Learners (and older youth) at:  www.deathpenaltycurriculum.com

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