Reflecting on priorities in our vision of reality

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In the Cedar Crossings, I wrote about how we have stories before beliefs. Then, in my sermon on September 18, I shared about how we are lost before we are sinners. After that service someone asked if the sermons were printed so she could remember what precedes what. So here they are:

Story precedes Belief: Since I already wrote about this last week I won’t repeat myself – only to remind that people’s beliefs connect to the lives they have lived, and if we want to understand why they believe the way they do it is imperative to learn more about the stories of their lives.

Lost-ness precedes Sinfulness: This also is repetitive since I was preaching about it. The focus in the theology of most Protestant churches is that we are saved from our sin – Jesus died for our sins – and this is understood as moral failure. I believe that there are many ways that God in Christ can transform us – healing our waywardness is one of those ways, but it isn’t the only way. Long ago I read a book by Paul Tillich entitled The Courage to Be about the various kinds of anxiety we experience. One of those is the anxiety of condemnation – this is the need to be reconciled with God because of sin. There are other anxieties: death, isolation, meaninglessness. The idea is that we all feel separated from in different ways, expressed in different anxieties. The anxiety of isolation is, for example, a common one in today’s world. Many young people, particularly boys feel that they are all alone – that God doesn’t love them. They don’t necessarily feel that they’ve done anything wrong and to tell hem that Jesus died for their sins would not be helpful. They need to know that they are loved and can be connected – they need community. Each of these anxieties represents a way of being lost. Being a sinner is one way to be lost but lost-ness precedes sinfulness.

Theology precedes Morality: This comes from one of my Old Testament professors, James Sanders. It means that when we read the Bible we need to ask first, what is this saying about God before we try to extract any moral message. Those who wrote the Bible for mostly trying to say something about God; any moral meaning is secondary and must be read in the context of what is said about God. This is a refutation of the belief that the Bible is a playbook for life. Too often we emphasize moral precedence over the overall character of God. And too often that can lead to judgment of others.

Biology/Ecology precedes Economy: I didn’t mention this one on Sunday, but it bears mentioning. It is a reminder that when God created the first thing created was the economy. The biology, geology, ecology of the creation is more basic to reality that economics. Yet, our lives and our politics are consumed by economic issues. And often these issues stand in conflict with the needs of the earth. I can easily see an Old Testament prophet telling us that to choose economic growth at the expense of the environment is folly. To frame it in the context of our current adult study, it would be to choose one’s own needs rather than the common good. And just as eventually the people of Israel paid for their folly, so will we if we do not understand that ecology is more fundamental than the economy.

Justice precedes Peace: There was at the time of Jesus something called Pax Romana – the Peace of Rome. It was the peace that Roman hegemony brought to the world. There were no more wars, aside from Rome continuing its conquest of Germania and elsewhere. But the Peace of Rome was bought at a price – domination. Sure, there were fewer wars but not less violence – it came in the form of persecution. Jesus was a victim of that persecution; Jesus was a martyr to the Peace of Rome. Any real peace must be preceded by justice for all people. Any nation or corporate entity in the world that has real power must keep this in mind – and we must keep it in mind when we vote. Does this person have the vision of Justice for all – or some variation of Pax Romana?

Generally this has to do with how we see the world – what is more important, more fundamental? We need to reflect on our priorities, not only personal priorities but priorities in our vision of reality. See you in worship.

P.Jim

We have stories before we have beliefs

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We have stories before we have beliefs. Often people think that church is a place where we are united by beliefs that we share; we are united in a person, Jesus Christ, who has a story too. To be a follower of Jesus is not to believe things about him but to live in his story. When the image of a church is a place that requires certain beliefs it becomes very difficult to invite or encourage people to join us. Many times I have spoken to people who say they are not sure if they believe in God, or that they probably don’t believe all they things they think they are supposed to. My response to such comments can be to ask them about the God they are not sure they believe in, or to tell them that I’m sure the people in the church aren’t sure they believe all they are supposed to. That is, the people in the church struggle with beliefs too. I prefer an image of the church of people struggling together to live in the story of Jesus. What if we went into the world with this image rather than thinking we need to share what we believe?

Not only do we have stories before beliefs, our stories are never created in isolation. In our culture there is an idea that we make up our own lives be ourselves but this is wholly impossible. We are always in relationship with others and are formed in and through those relationships. Reality itself is interdependent and we are dependent upon all who have come before us, and are who we are as we are connected to others. The church is a place of connections; it is an environment in which as we relate to each other we form each other and become a part of each other’s stories, and together a part of the Story of God.

When this season comes around, probably more than any other, with children going back to school and summer vacations over and we gear up for the fall, I feel the need to share with the world what a wonderful gift the church is. I see a lot of lonely people in the world – people who are cynical and feel defeated – people who feel that they have to do everything by themselves and depend on no one; people who see the church as a closed community of people who believe the same thing, who do not know the transformative power of living in community. And I want to share this different image of the church and of faith. We do not invite people into our community because we want them to believe like we do, we invite them into our lives, as persons and as a community. And our first question to visitors is not about belief but about their stories. Where do you come from? Who is your family? How do you spend the time of your life? Who are your communities? One can disagree with someone’s beliefs, but one cannot disagree with another person’s story.

I feel that there are many people who are waiting for us to ask these questions. We have had many visitors and new people will be in the church through the Preschool. Now is a good time to reach out to people and invite them into our lives and community. We have the power to transform the world.

P.Jim