Living The Word: The Living, Breathing Church

AUGUST MARKS A TIME OF TRANSITION. Summer is fading. Fall is near. If you haven’t gotten your vacation in, it’ll have to be rushed because school starts shortly. Retail prices are “lowered” for back-to-school shopping. Churches are preparing for the return of students. Pastors are sneaking in a last-minute retreat or a continuing-education class. Church is in flux. What about our behavior, our faith lived out in the world?

The lectionary passages for these weeks speak directly to this context of common life. How will we keep our promises? Will we prioritize the Sabbath? Are our interior and exterior lives built around hospitality?

God is not in flux, even if we are. God still longs for our worship. God is clear that the kind of worship that brings God joy leads to a life that demonstrates God’s peace and restoration. We’ll need more than good ideas and willpower. We’ll need the gift of faith to act in the world as if God is still making all things new. Even with all of the transitions around us, including the mechanics of church, we’ll need to make sure worship is as authentic and passionate as ever.

Do your pastor a favor and lend a hand, say a special prayer, extend grace. If you’re a pastor, then safety nets are in order. Now is the time to be connecting with colleagues, sitting with your spiritual director, visiting the therapist. Your people need you. You need God. The world needs the church!

[August 7]

Promises to Keep

Genesis 1:1-6; Psalm 33:12-22; Hebrews 11:1-3; Luke 12:32-40

IN GENESIS 15, we find Abram just out of battle. He’s recovered his nephew, women from his community, and loads of property. But there is still something missing: He has no children of his own to carry forward his name.

Abram is a visionary. But without God’s promise to bring the vision to fruition, he’s only dabbling in wishful thinking. How else can one cope with that moment when death is knocking, and the vision is still far off? “Like anybody, I would like to live a long life,” preached Dr. King. “Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And he’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the Promised Land.”

But sometimes a vision and promise isn’t enough. We live in a world of instant gratification. The expiration dates on our visions feel as if they are creeping up on us. The best visionaries struggle with this and with “promises.” We live in a time of increasing divorce rates, declining church memberships, and hate-filled campaign rhetoric. In our day it seems deception and fear trump the keeping of promises. We’ll need something more. Abram and the psalmist felt this, which is why the author of Hebrews has taught us to know Abraham not by his visions or promises made to him, but by his faith. The psalmist calls it trust (33:21). King saw it too. “I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land! ... Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!” Either way, in order for vision and promise to stick in the face of death, we need the gift of faith to trust in “the glory of the coming of the Lord!”

[ August 14 ]

Peace Through Division?

Jeremiah 23:23-29; Psalm 103:1-8; Hebrews 12:18-29; Luke 13:10-17

WHEN THERE'S TALK of fire and Jesus (as in Luke 12:49-56), the “nones” run for cover. In scriptures such as these, fundamentalist Christians often find proof-texts for the fires of hell and mainliners have another occasion for hermeneutical gymnastics.

“I came to bring fire to the earth,” says Jesus (12:49), “and how I wish it were already kindled!” A difficult text, indeed! No meek and mild Jesus here. We’d better interpret Jesus rightly. If not, then we too are hypocrites. Jesus is facing the evil of the cross. With blazing power, he will be raised to new life, conquering sin and death. This is one who is preparing for the fire baptism of the Spirit. When we share in this baptism, we are incorporated into the family of God, the body of Christ.

This kind of baptism causes all sorts of trouble for the world’s definition of family and belonging. To be part of the family of God, of Christ’s body, is to be bound to Jesus’ body among the least of these, among the enemy, among the foreigner, the hungry, the poor, the prisoner, the sick. This is participating in the very peace of Christ. And this peace, which brings together those who the world says should stay apart, is a site of division.

Theologian Willie James Jennings puts it this way: “If the social order and the processes of commodification are not transformed in relation to the body through salvation, then salvation becomes hyperlocalized to a single relationship: God and the one being saved.”

Jesus, Prince of Peace, brings judgment and division by interrupting the world’s logic of belonging. How is God calling your church into a new “we”? Who are the most vulnerable among you? Who are those members of the body whose differences are repulsive to you? Who are those “others” from whom it feels “natural” to be separated? Boundary-transgressing is at the heart of the peacebuilding to which Jesus calls us. May we interpret Jesus rightly in our own times.

[ August 21 ]

A Phony Sabbath?

Isaiah 58:9b-14; Psalm 103:1-8; Hebrews 12:18-29; Luke 13:10-17 

THE PROPHETS teach us better than others in scripture that there is real moral responsibility in claiming intimacy with God. True religion is about living right, as the old saints say. The apex of that living is Sabbath. Unlike some common notions of Sabbath as “a day off” or a time for leisurely comforts, the biblical writers align Sabbath squarely with worship, compassion, and justice. These are activities wholly focused on God and neighbor. “I” and “me” are only relevant as they find their orientation in prioritizing our relationship with God and God’s creation. “We” is the language and practice of true worship, of Sabbath, of those that claim Christ as their lord and savior.

Walter Brueggemann sets the context when he writes, “Thus the Sabbath of the fourth commandment is an act of trust in the subversive, exodus-causing God of the first commandment, an act of submission to the restful God of commandments one, two, and three. Sabbath is a practical divestment so that neighborly engagement, rather than production and consumption, defines our lives.”

Those that don’t take this command of Sabbath and worship seriously better watch out! In direct confrontation with the fragility and political correctness of those who cringe at the word “judgment” in our contemporary society, God is not unclear: Judgment and worship are inseparable. Brueggemann continues, “Worship that does not lead to neighborly compassion and justice cannot be faithful worship of YHWH. The offer is a phony Sabbath!” The God of Sabbath is a consuming fire for those that want to continue with cheap reverence and grace. But judgment shouldn’t be our motivation for true worship. The promises of restoration, peace, and joy are bound up with faithful Sabbath-keepers; neither should these be the focus of our motivation. It is the one behind both judgment and promise that we should be seeking.

[ August 28 ]

Creating Space

Sirach 10:12-18; Psalm 112; Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16; Luke 14:1, 7-14 

HOSPITALITY IS NOT primarily about dishes, delicacies, and décor. These too easily entrap the host and guest in the cultural practices of honor and duty. Jesus reminds the disciples that such practices are tied to ego, of wanting to be repaid, of wanting to be noticed.

“A life of hospitality begins in worship,” Christine Pohl reminds us, “with a recognition of God’s grace and generosity. Hospitality is not first a duty and responsibility; it is first a response of love and gratitude for God’s love and welcome to us.” Hospitality is ultimately a matter of the heart. Is the ego or God directing your heart? There’s not space for both: “The Lord overthrows the thrones of rulers, and enthrones the lowly in their place” (Sirach 10:14). The ego is a clear demonstration of forsaking the Lord, of a heart distanced from God’s direction (see Sirach 10:12).

A heart of lowliness and humility has the capacity for trust. Trust in God to work through God’s people in a way that is full of grace and new possibilities. This is why Jesus opens up our imagination for hospitality to those with whom a prideful heart has no place: the poor, the prisoner, the tortured, the crippled, the lame, the blind, the stranger. And yet, to be hospitable to these presumes an open heart to all of life, beginning with the ordinary. Hospitality, writes Henri Nouwen, “means primarily the creation of a free space where the stranger can enter and become a friend instead of an enemy. Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer them space where change can take place. It is not to bring men and women over to our side, but to offer freedom not disturbed by dividing lines.”

Jesus makes sure to remind us that hospitality begins at home (Hebrews 13:4). Hospitality is about all of life, from the mundane to the spontaneous to the traumatic. Only an open heart can live up to this call—a heart of contentment that trusts God is present always, a heart whose continual testimony is: “The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can anyone do to me?” (Hebrews 13:6).

"Preaching the Word," Sojourners' online resource for sermon preparation and Bible study, is available at sojo.net/ptw.