First Steps

Luke 4:14-21; 1 Cor. 12:12-31a
January 24, 2010
A long time ago … in a galaxy not that far, far away, Time magazine carried a cover story headlined, “God Is Dead.” The story quoted, among others, a young Harvard Divinity School professor named Harvey Cox.
I’ve been reading Dr. Cox’s most recent book this month. I’ve got to confess, that when I heard it mentioned, my first reaction was, “I thought he was dead.”
Well, it appears that rumors of Harvey Cox’s death – and of God’s – have been greatly exaggerated.
Back in 1965, Cox was asking "Is it the loss of the experience of God, the loss of the existence of God in Christianity, or the lack of adequate language to express God today?" that generates the God-is-dead talk.
Today Cox is asking not about the future of God or God-talk, but about the future of faith.
The beginning of a new year, the early weeks of the lectionary cycle of readings, and the occasion of Jesus’ first public sermon as Luke reports it, provide compelling invitation to explore together the future of faith and to ask after first things.
So, to begin with, what does it mean to have faith? Today?
Well, to begin with, having faith does not mean offering intellectual assent to a series of statements concerning the ontological status of Jesus, the nature of his birth, of his mother’s sex life, his super hero powers or a single authorized description of what happened after the man, Jesus of Nazareth, was put to death by Roman imperial authorities.
It bears repeating: having faith does not mean offering your intellectual assent or consent to a series of propositional statements about God, about Jesus, about the church.
Faith is about so much more than that; and it is so much more challenging than that.
Faith is not primarily concerned with what your head believes to be true; faith is primarily concerned with what your hearts trusts. Faith is about what theologian Paul Tillich called the matter of ultimate concern.
Faith, in other words, is not a head trip though it has room for deep reflection and inquiry, for all the questions that confront us and for deepest doubt.
Faith is a whole-body experience and commitment.
Moreover, authentic faith redefines us – takes all of us and makes us new, reclaiming us as God’s own for the world.
Paul understood this in offering up the metaphor of the gathered faithful as the body of Christ in the world.
It takes all of us to make up that body, and it takes all of all of us.
From time to time I’ve quoted an African American woman who called the offering at the gathering of Presbyterian Women in Louisville some years ago. She said, “Jesus don’t want your five and tens; Jesus wants your twenties and fifties.”
Well, in the same way, Jesus doesn’t want part of you; Jesus wants all of you. Bring your best, the best of who you are, to this body. That’s what faith is all about. Your best, meeting the best of one another, so that together we can meet the needs of all at the worst moments.
St. Teresa of Avila puts it something like this:
Christ has no body on earth but ours, no hands but ours, no feet but ours. Ours are the eyes through which the compassion of Christ looks out upon the world. Ours are the feet with which he goes about doing good. Ours are the hands with which he blesses his people now.
Paul uses the metaphor of the body to underscore the variety of gifts, of resources, that we share together to give flesh and blood to the words of compassion, love and justice that Jesus speaks. Paul also uses this metaphor to remind us that faith is earthy, gritty, and involves our frailty and brokenness as well as moments of awe and wonder and sublime beauty.
Much of the work of faith takes place not in beautiful sanctuaries such as ours, but in the rubble of Port-au-Prince, the slums of Calcutta, the Ninth Ward of New Orleans – places of deep and desperate need where God is already at work and calling us to be as well.
Of course, most of us have neither the gifts nor calling to work in those place, and that is as it should be because there are plenty of places of need all around us right now, and God is already at work in such places as AFAC, Doorways for Women and Children, the sites of Rebuilding Together, the Arlington Free Clinic, the DC Pride Parade, Arlington Hospital, Whitman Walker or any of the myriad other places that you – that we, together – have gone in ministry and mission over the years.
The first step of faith often leads us directly into such places. Ours are the feet with which Christ goes about bringing healing, restoring hope.
If we take seriously the notion that the church – the whole church – truly is the body of Christ, then we understand how intimately connected we are. As Dr. King put it, “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”
“Moreover,” as Vinoth Ramachandra says, “if the church is truly the global body of Christ, and the body of Christ is qualitatively present in every local assembly, the way we become truly global Christians is not by detaching ourselves from local commitments in favor of a globe-trotting lifestyle (or spending more time on the Internet!), but rather by seriously engaging with the local as members of a global community that has re-defined our identities.”
None of that effort, that walking with Christ into local food pantries because we understand that we are first and foremost children of the same God – none of that requires intellectual assent to a set of abstractions by which some people have built walls around the faith.
When Tom Hull led our Rebuilding Together crew last spring the homeowner did not ask us to recite the Apostles Creed before we painted, plumbed, and basically restored her house. When we gather down at AFAC each month to bag groceries for our neighbors in need, no one stops us to ask if we believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus. When we donate to the people of Haiti, the relief agencies will cash our checks without reference to the Westminster Catechism.
Faith is how we live; it is not how we believe. Faith is about the Spirit of the Lord, not the letter of the law. Faith concerns the concrete rather than the creedal.
Faith is about being fully alive. As the great Howard Thurman put it, "Don't just ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and then go and do it, because what the world needs is people who have come alive."
None of which is to say we should be blissfully ignorant in our faithful living. There is content to our faith, and that content has specificity as well. We hope that the words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts draw us into deeper relationship with God. Words matter. Thoughtfulness is important.
Coincidentally, I think that faith’s first steps and their content form the theme of Jesus’ initial public speech in the text from Luke this morning.
Faith is about the Spirit of God – that same Spirit that upholds Jesus in the wilderness and the one that falls upon him when he returns to Galilee to teach. He does not stand up in the synagogue to teach anything about being “begotten not made” or “very God from very God,” as the council of Nicaea agreed. Nor does he say anything about God “Who is eternal, infinite, immeasurable, incomprehensible, omnipotent, invisible; one in substance and yet distinct in three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost,” as the Heidelberg Confession puts it.
But he does say this:
‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.’

Good news! In which authentic faith takes the form of liberation, restoration and mercy.
Ah, but consider that good news and Jesus’ proclamation alongside Paul’s assertion that we are the body of Christ. The Spirit is trying to say something to the church through this ancient set of texts. That same Spirit is trying to say something to the church in contemporary texts like Harvey Cox’s. That Spirit is telling us this: “you are anointed to bring good news to the poor, release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind and liberation to the oppressed in this the year of jubilee.”
You and me, all of us together, the body of Christ in the world. When was the last time you brought good news to the poor?
As Jim Wallis says, “the coming of the Spirit always has to do with God's purposes of justice, liberation and reconciliation in the world--not just within the believing community but in the world.”
Such first steps require deep trust in the One who calls us and sends us forth into a world that does not share such trust and that often greets authentic faith with soul-killing cynicism. Nevertheless, the essence of our faith is trusting in the One who calls and sends such that we are able to take those first steps.
As William Sloan Coffin often said, “I love the recklessness of faith. First you leap, and then you grow wings.”
And we creatures know that what we grow – all those body parts that Paul lists – they do not come from any power of our own. The parts of our bodies – formed in our mothers’ wombs – are not the work of our hands.
Nor are the wings to hold us up when our first steps of faith become leaps. They are gifts of the living God.
By grace alone we have these bodies, and by that same grace we are invited to be, together the body of Christ in the world. Let’s take the first steps together. Amen.

Living the Dream

Isaiah 62:1-5; I Corinthian 12:1-11
January 17, 2009
A few weeks ago, after I’d been luxuriating in a hot shower after a cold run, Cheryl commented that turning a knob and having hot water delivered to pour down over you is one of the most miraculous luxuries imaginable in all of human history.
Talking with Suzanne Matula yesterday in Tajikistan I was reminded just how miraculous it is. Suzanne’s water is usually cold, brown and smelly.
As I said to Cheryl, “it certainly makes me glad that I was not born 150 years ago; and that I’m lucky enough to have been born in America.”
She said, “yeah, and perhaps not 150 years from now either given the ways things are going.”
Does that make this moment Candide’s best of all possible worlds?
Are we living the dream?
Well, I suppose that depends upon whose dream we’re talking about, but the very question raises some interesting possibilities and some difficult challenges.
If it’s the American Dream that we’re talking about, then we are certainly living some version of it. Despite being mired in the Great Recession, we still live in the most affluent society in the history of the world. So much so that we simply take for granted the miracle of clean, plentiful water delivered directly into our homes. So much so that we take for granted that getting around town and across the country is not only our right but that we should be able to do it in our private vehicles should we so choose, driving on smooth and open highways with food and fuel at the ready and on the cheap. So much so that we take for granted the miracle of mass communication, of cell phones, web pages, instant connectivity to friends on the far side of the globe.
We are living that American Dream.
As we gather here on this Sunday of the King Day holiday, it’s clear that we are also living into some aspects of Dr. King’s dream – in fits and starts and much too slowly and incompletely to be sure, but we are closer today than we were in 1963 to living in a society that embraces its own founding ideal that all of us are created equal and share common human rights. I was reminded of that yesterday when we stopped at a burger joint out near the Blue Ridge. Their staff was multicultural, and as we waited for our food, a middle aged African American man was casually chatting with a middle aged white guy at the counter. No way that happens there in 1963.
We are living that American Dream, as well.
Given that, we could all just pat ourselves on our backs, go home and watch some football.
Mission accomplished.
Hm …
There is something about that phrase that sounds a warning.
I’m going to guess that when Isaiah spoke there were many who felt strongly that they were living in the best of all possible worlds. Our text this morning comes from what Biblical scholars call Third Isaiah. Walter Brueggeman argues that this section, comprised of the final 15 or so chapters of the Isaiah arc, is intimately connected to the passages that immediately precede it, and that Isaiah is providing an answer to the either/or questions that hang in the balance in the section known as Second Isaiah.
The first section of Isaiah is clearly written to the Hebrew exiles in Babylon. The words of promise that we Christians read and sing in our Advent season – a shoot grows from the stump of Jesse … a little child shall lead them … he shall be called wonderful, counselor, mighty God, everlasting Father, prince of peace – those texts are words of comfort to sustain an exile people.
The later part of Isaiah, including our text this morning, rings out with words of challenge to the returning exiles. Who will they be?
This is the either/or that Isaiah poses. As Brueggeman puts it, “Either be a community of like-minded people who are convinced of their own purity, virtue, orthodoxy, and legitimacy, excluding all others, or …” or heed the prophet’s warning and follow his invitation to a future otherwise.
Either believe that this is the best of all possible worlds, and that our American dreams have been realized fully and exclusively for us to the exclusion of all others, or … or read Isaiah.
Now I’m no Isaiah nor any Martin Luther King, but I have been reading both of them for a long time now, and I fully believe and am deeply committed to the call that echoes everywhere through their words.
For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent,
and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest,
until her vindication shines out like the dawn,
and her salvation like a burning torch.
Those words of Isaiah are for us.
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
Those words of King are for us.
In those words lies our calling as church right now. My dream for us arises out of that calling and is shaped by the words from Paul’s letter to the church at Corinth.
Let me spell it out, then. I have a dream today for the church at Clarendon in 2010 and beyond.
My dream for us can be described under three simple words: charity, compassion, and Christ.
There are some people, folks who are deeply committed to social justice, who sometimes belittle the notion of charity. They will tell the tale of the man who came upon the bank of a river where people were desperately pulling out broken bodies and said, “it’s great that you are rescuing these people, but shouldn’t we go upstream and find out who is throwing them in the river in the first place?”
The thing is, the people in the river need to be saved, too. So the work of charity is as desperately needed as the work of justice. In fact, the two should never be separated in the first place.
As we give this morning to assist the people of Haiti who are in such desperate need right now, let us not forget that years of neglect helped create a society in which a major natural disaster becomes a humanitarian disaster of staggering breadth. The bodies must be bandaged, but the system must be repaired as well. There were starving children in Haiti before CNN landed to cover this disaster; there will be starving children after the cameras go home. So over brunch this morning, let’s live into the dream of a community of charity and plan our own best response to this tragedy.
Being repairers of the breach and restorers of the city’s streets to live in – Isaiah’s dream – requires that we be willing to work on multiple levels at the same time, each according to his ability. Paul knew this. To some is given the gift of wisdom – which enables them to speak truth to power. To others is given the capacity to work miracles – which enables them to stand in the crucible of suffering and minister to those in deepest need.
A young man came into church Thursday afternoon. He is deaf and was in pain due to sickle cell anemia. I don’t sign, but I knew that right across the street lives a member of this community who possesses what to me is a miracle – and must have seemed so to the young man in my office Thursday – fluency in American Sign Language. We were able to provide a band aid in that moment because we have been given such gifts. I have a dream that we will be a community that feeds the hungry and binds up the broken.
And I have a dream that we will be a community that speaks truth to power, calling the church to justice with regards to ordination issues, for example, and calling the commonwealth to justice as well with regards to marriage rights, adoption rights, the rights of the poor and the imprisoned.
As I look around this morning, I know that we are already living the dream. And I know that we can live it more fully and completely when our spirits are more fully open to the gifts of God’s spirit.
We can be a more generous people. When I talk, for example, about tithing to the church, I am not concerned with keeping our lights on – even though in a meeting Thursday evening we talked about what it might mean to the young adults in the Clarendon corridor if our lights were on from 10:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m. on Friday and Saturday nights as they pour out of the bars and restaurants, thirsts quenched but spirits parched. Still, I’m not so much concerned with keeping our lights on and doors open as I am concerned with keeping our spirits open so that light can shine into them.
Surely if each of us contributed 10 percent of our incomes to the church most of the institution’s financial concerns would be taken care of. But far more significantly, most of our spiritual concerns would be taken care of as well.
Why? It’s not a simple transaction: you give to God and God takes care of your spirit in return. No.
It’s far more complicated, but Jesus understood it well and made it plan: where your treasure is there will be your heart also. When we open our wallets to give, we open our hearts as well. When we give away enough to make a difference in our own finances – and only when we do that – then we have opened ourselves up to ask the foundational spiritual questions: what really matters to me? What do I really need? What do I desire – and why do I desire it? What is the true source of all I have received? What am I called to do with what I have been given?
Charity begins at home, and it begins when we give enough of our time and our talents and, yes, of our money. I have a dream that we will be a community of deep and authentic charity.
I have a dream that we will be a community of compassion.
I love that word, compassion, with its Latin roots that mean literally with suffering or suffering with.
I do not love it out of any strange desire to suffer. Not at all – I do not desire to suffer. In fact, I am a wimp, as my family will attest.
No, I love the word compassion because it reminds me of the desperate seriousness of Christian community, of what Dr. King called “the fierce urgency of now.”
You do not have to look past the headlines of the week – Haiti, of course, but also unemployment, whose true level in this country hovers around 15 percent, and all of this against the dull background drone of seemingly endless war. You do not have to look beyond these headlines to know that the world is filled with suffering, and often we do not have to look beyond our own neighborhoods or families to confront deep suffering. Some of that suffering is physical; much of it is also spiritual, and you do not have to look beyond the great Metro corridor right outside our stained-glass windows to find thousands of our sisters and brothers desperately longing to connect, to find community, to give themselves to something larger, to make a difference, to know that they are loved.
The question Is not, “is there suffering.” The question is not even the age-old question of theodicy, “why is there suffering.”
No, the question for a community that would call itself Christian is this: what are we doing about suffering? Where do we stand in relation to suffering sisters and brothers? We are called to stand with them. To be alongside them in their suffering. To carry the light of Christ into the darkest corners so that people who dwell in deep darkness know that they are not alone, and that the darkness is not the end of the story.
I have a dream.
And when we go into such places – to rebuild together the homes of our neighbors in need or to travel together to places far distant to lend a helping hand there – when we go into such places we put flesh on that dream. When we go into such places – to feed the hungry in Arlington, perhaps by extending our hospitality even beyond our work at AFAC – when we go into such places we put flesh on that dream. When we go into such places – to meet the spiritual wayfarers all around us and invite them into deep community and deeper communion with the One whose love breathed life into creation – when we go into such places we put flesh on that dream.
I have a dream this morning.
And when we do these things, when we put flesh on the bones of an ancient dream, we begin, in fits and starts, with missteps and misjudgments to be sure, but when we do these things we begin to live into the incarnation of Christ in the world, we begin to live into the Beloved Community.
Christ stands at the center of such a community, calling us together – not to agreement on ancient creeds or theological statements – but to deep relationships: with God and with one another, such that we are able together to respond to God’s invitation to bear one another’s burdens and share one another’s gifts, to bind one another up, to love one another. It really is all that easy … and all that hard. That is my dream for us. Now let’s build a common dream together.