The Church and Politics, part III

This is my third time writing on politics and the church, particularly the separation of church and state, in this year. Most of what I write here are not new thoughts--even for this blog. However, the first two times I wrote on this subject it was specifically in the context of the church and marriage, and this is not. This is a newsletter to the congregations I serve, venting some of my frustrations with churches that are playing politics to the detriment of everything that the church should be. My first two posts on the subject can be found here and here.

I don’t know about you, but I am completely numb to this year’s election. Actually, I pretty much was by the time it had begun. I receive mailings at the church almost every day telling me how to vote and, more often, telling me how to tell you to vote. It’s saddening in a way I can hardly express. The church, in many places, seems nothing more than a political arm of various interest groups—a far cry from anything the Book of Acts would have imagined.

            And that’s just what gets me. I see the Holy Spirit doing all sorts of great things with God’s church in Kittson County. I see a ton of opportunity; a ton of good being done for this community—the opening of the Cornerstone Food Pantry this past week being one very visible example. Simply, the church up here is doing exactly what the church should be doing: worshiping God and caring for the needy. Most people up here get it, which makes it all the more upsetting when we’re told by outside agencies what we need to do, how we need to vote, and that they represent God’s will. I want to call this what it is, but the only language appropriate for this is also unfit to print in a newsletter.

            I am appalled.

            I count history as one of my primary academic interests, especially early American history, and this year the figure I have read about more than any other is Roger Williams—a 17^th century Puritan minister and founder of Rhode Island. Probably I have read so much on Williams because, in this election year, I have found myself in the same kinds of quandaries that he faced. The Puritan establishment in the 1600s believed in a theocracy where the church and the government were essentially synonymous, because they believed that this was the only way to create a “New Jerusalem” with God lording as king over the perfect government. It sounded like a great idea, except that the churchly government, using God as its justification, tended to act all the more cruel and inhumane.

            Williams was excommunicated from the church. He believed that the only government worth anything was a government whose foremost responsibility was the liberty of the people, especially regarding freedom of religion and freedom of speech. A theocracy, by its nature, forbade both. Williams understood that the church wasn’t making the people more holy by influencing the government; all it was doing was making the church more corrupt. So, he founded Rhode Island on the principle of the separation of church and state; not because he wanted to take power from the church but because he wanted to remove the church from the corruption that came with being intertwined with the politics of the state.

            Our church faces the same temptation today. As a pastor, I face the same temptation today. Other churches—even some in our county—have given in to preaching political messages and spreading propaganda. I can’t tell you how much that disappoints me. I want to speak well of my neighbors, but there is also a time for calling a thing what it is, and this is a corruption of the Gospel. I will not preach a political agenda; not because of some government regulations but because I am far more concerned that you hear about Jesus than I am with influencing how you vote.

            Go ahead and vote your convictions on Election Day, and when somebody asks you what your church is saying about the election tell them the truth. We aren’t. We’re talking about Jesus, God’s grace, the cross, the resurrection; the same things we always talk about; things much more important to us than any political agenda.

            God's peace in this election season.

Dear Confirmation Class of 2012: We've built the walls... you reform the church.

Text: 1 Kings 8:27-30, 41-43

A sermon for confirmands... and the rest of us, as well.

            One of the camp songs that I remember most from my days counseling was a little, silly song called “God is Big.” The refrain is incredibly easy and goes like this, “God is big. God is big. God is very, very; very, very; very, very big.” As is the case with most silly camp songs, this one is pretty straightforward until you get the kid who you can see is thinking this through, and all of a sudden the light bulb goes on and he or she realizes that most things that are big are also easy to see. The sun is big, so are the stars and skyscrapers and blue whales and elephants. We can see them because they are big. But here we are singing that God is bigger than all those things and… well… “then where on earth is he?”

            That’s exactly the question Solomon asks, although in a different way. “Where on earth can God live?” Not even the earth or the heavens or the highest heavens—whatever that means—can contain God. To sum up Solomon: God is big but unlike most things that are big God is also mysterious and difficult to pin in place. So while Solomon is building a temple for God to live in he is also coming to realize that the temple is not enough. Solomon could not contain God, and neither can we.

            Most of what we do in the church is temple building. We are really good at constructing walls. We like to contain things; we like to know what is in and what is out, and who is in and who is out. Wall building allows us to delineate where the inside ends and the outside begins. Whether it’s individual salvation, our affiliation with denominations, or church membership we like there to be clear lines between those on the inside and those on the outside. If we didn’t have walls you could hardly claim that anything is outside or inside because there would be nothing keeping the outside out and the inside in.

            Today we celebrate the ultimate act of wall-building in the church with the confirmation of our young people. They have been taught to build walls between what God is and isn’t, what is good to believe and what is not, what is right and what is wrong. In fact, confirmation is the most foundational example we have of building walls in the church. Some of these walls are necessary; the temple itself is not a bad thing. The walls of the temple—just like the foundations we build in Confirmation—remind us that God is present with us here and now. However, the danger in this reminder is that we start to believe this is the only place where God is. In the same way, confirmation wall-building is good when it gives us knowledge of the true God, and confirmation is not so good when it teaches our young people that we’ve captured God and that all the people who understand God differently are outsiders with nothing to contribute to our faith. It is easy to move from teaching about God to restraining God. 

            We tried to give you, the new confirmed members of this church, the best confirmation we could; we tried to set expectations and teach you all we thought you needed to know, but here’s the important matter: God will not be contained; not to a Confirmation class, not to a church building; not to the people or beliefs of the ELCA or any other church body; nor to the wisdom of the apostles and saints who have gone before. We cannot contain God with our knowledge any more than Solomon could trap God in a temple.

            You will come across people in your lives, especially now that you are full members of the church, who will use God to justify their actions and beliefs. They will say they know what God wants even while most of us have a difficult time figuring out what our cats want.[1] These people will use God; not the other way around. You see, the whole purpose for what we taught you in Confirmation was to open you to what God is doing in your lives in the hope that this will start a life-long conversation between you and God about your purpose in this world. If Confirmation is the last word in your relationship with God, then I’m sorry that we have failed you.

            With that said, Confirmation is that rare celebration that isn’t really about you. You are now a part of God’s church; not the adults’ church; not my church; not your church; God’s church. And God is going to do some crazy things with the church in your lifetime. Some of you will be part of the renewal of the church. Some of you will decide that this isn’t a very important place for you, but in your absence you will also be part of the renewal of the church.

            You really don’t have a choice in the matter. Neither did anybody else who sits in worship today. We are all called, apart from what we want, to be members of God’s church in the world. We are called to build pillars of the faith; we are called to teach and to preach so that others may discover God in their lives; and though we will inevitably build walls that are a hindrance to others, we are nonetheless called to temple building, to creating sacred places and spaces for God just as Solomon did in Israel.

            So, confirmands of 2012, you have a choice before you today. We talk a lot in the Lutheran Church about not having a choice as it pertains to things like your salvation, so it’s not often we talk about the choices we do have. Today is one of those days. You have a choice. You have had walls built around your faith. You have been packet-fed information until you got sick of it, and then you were given more. You learned a lot and forgot probably just as much. Today, you become full members of this church; you have every opportunity to vote, to serve, to teach, and to continue to learn about God. Will you do it or not? Your choice. The wall-building is over. We’re done with that business. Today you are free. You are free to leave and never come back; for some of you that is awfully tempting right now—this may even feel like a graduation service. We put you in robes that look suspiciously like graduation gowns and we parade you across the front of the church and out into the world, as if we half-expect to never see you again.

            But here’s the truth: we need you. Not because we need more young people in the church—we want more young people in the church, but that has much more to do with our insecurities than anything else. It’s not that, exactly; we need you because when the church is missing a member it is not the same church minus one person; it is an entirely different church. The church is like an ecosystem. You can’t remove a species from an ecosystem and call it the same ecosystem minus one species; it is an entirely different ecosystem. Each and every one of you is a pillar supporting the church; not the building—no, far more important than the building—you are supporting the body of Christ.

            Most of you—probably all of you—feel as if you’re not really that important. Nobody, outside of your parents, notices when you’re gone. How could you possibly be important?

            Well, who is it that Solomon calls on God to hear at the end of today’s reading? The foreigner. The stranger. The person who feels as if he or she does not belong. In you, God is particularly interested; for you, God is fashioning a new church. People like me—we’re beyond hope; we’re too tied up in what the church has been; we’re pillars of stone, unable to move our foundations—but you, you haven’t yet figured out what you want to be, what you want the church to be, who you think God is; whether you think God is anything at all. You see, we tried to make you into pillars of faith, but you resisted; you did exactly what you should do; you proved exactly why Jesus said it is to children that the kingdom of God is given.[2]

Now, I know, you’re not children, but you’re not adults yet either. You’re stuck between worlds—between childhood and adulthood, and because of that you are in a unique place to give the rest of us perspective. The opportunity is yours; the power is yours. I am not telling you to be a part of the church of the future; I’m telling you to make the church of the future. Renew it. Reform it. Retain it. In the spirit of this Reformation Sunday, you have the capacity to change the course of God’s church on earth. Solomon’s already asked God to hear your voices. The question now is whether you are going to speak…

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[1] Credit goes to @UnvirtuousAbbey on Twitter for that one.

[2] cf. Luke 18:17

Why Are You Posting That?

After about the 10,000th politically-related post/rant to cross my Facebook feed I had an epiphany, or, maybe more accurately, I realized a fundamental question this was bringing to my mind: Why are you posting that?

No, seriously, why? Most political posts begin under the guise of debating an issue, but in the way they are formatted there is no invitation to discussion. Instead, it is clear that the poster knows he or she is correct and that is the very reason they are posting. This serves only to reinforce what others already believe, and so there is no new knowledge shared between individuals of differing viewpoints. No common good is created. Nothing of note comes from these exchanges. So, again, why are you doing that?

For example, a friend posted this:

What kind of discussion can ensue from this post? Perhaps a good deal if the poster and the audience with whom he/she is interacting are interested in talking about issues of ID, immigration and health care in a productive way, but the reality is that most anybody who responds will have already made up their mind. We've been taught to act like candidates trying to defeat their opposition rather than citizens concerned with bettering our world. It's the same debauchery that is deciding who has "won" a debate. Shouldn't the citizens of this country win when we debate issues? Apparently not.

As it turns out, posts like these are an obstacle to discussion because it has poisoned the well from the start. There is nothing in here inviting; in fact, it is quite the opposite. The original post could only be made to suggest that "I am right; you are wrong. So shut up." In fact, one of the early comments under the post essentially said just that.

Then, I wonder, why are you posting? To inflate your ego? Because you're not bringing about change or starting a discussion; you are simply stating your correctness.

Here's one from the other side:

 Thanks, internet, for politicizing the figures of my childhood. Seriously, what kind of discussion can start from this other than one side nodding their heads vigorously while the other says "Nuh uhhh!

So, here's my challenge, before you post on Facebook or in any online medium, ask yourself this question: What am I hoping to achieve?

Here are a few possible answers:

Stroking your ego: This is the typical Facebook post, determined to humiliate the other side by taking a grain of truth and twisting the reality in such a way that the opposition has no practical means to direct the post toward a fruitful discussion. The only reason for the post is to feel better about your opinion.

Proving a tru-ism: This is when something is posted because it's so momentously obvious to the person posting it that clearly everyone in the world will see the truth in what is being said and realize the previous errors in their ways. These tend to be the posts that disappear later from your timelines when the original post-er discovers that, in fact, not everyone agrees with the "obvious" premise.

Trolling: Related to stroking your ego, these are posts baiting the other side into a rant and raving party. This is basically what's wrong with the internet. Feel free to block these people; it will free your life in wonderful ways.

Persuasion: This is the kind of post that poses a question meant to persuade the other side. In principle, this seems like a good place to start because the person posting is laying their cards on the table from the get-go and hoping by doing so to enact some change. However, in reality this tends to be less than constructive because internet debates become far more personal far quicker than in the real world and the tendency toward stroking the ego becomes more and more tempting as these "discussions" unfold. Of course, that's because they are rarely discussions at all; mostly, it is people talking past one another.

Which is why there is only one legitimate reason for posting to the internet...

Discussion: These are rare, but the digital landscape is not completely devoid of hope for useful dialogue. These usually start with a premise, which is not necessarily neutral but always encourages more thought and conversation. Here's an example:

It should be obvious where this person stands on the issue, but the language itself is conciliatory: "I propose a compromise"--the kind of thing that begs for discussion rather than the "I'm right; you're wrong" stupidity with which the internet is wrought. Moreover, the question raised is a philosophical one--one that addresses a base question rather than a hot-button issue with entrenched opinions. In short, the bull has been distilled and what we are left with is a legitimate starting place. You can argue against this--and people do and will. That's great. That's how it should be, but it starts from a place of respect--something often lacking in the recesses of the internet.

So, by all means post that political thought to the vastness of the inter-webs, but ask yourself first: Why am I posting this? Is it to demonstrate how right I am? Or am I doing it to learn something from my neighbor, and maybe, just maybe, teach them something in return. If the answer is the latter then I look forward to many fruitful discussions to come. If not, save your time.

David vs. Exile: What happens when we stare death in the face

Text: 2 Samuel: 1-17

            The theologian, Walter Brueggemann, once wrote about this passage in particular, saying, “I judge this oracle with its unconditional promise to David to be the most crucial theological statement in the Old Testament.”[1] In other words, one of the finest late-twentieth to early-twenty-first century Old Testament thinkers believes that this is the most important passage this side of Jesus. Then it would stand to reason it should affect us in some way. But at first blush it’s hard to see how. So, God promised David a kingdom forever. What does that have to do with us?

            Firstly, let's set the scene: the prophet Nathan brings a message from God to David, who has decided to build a temple—or “house”—for God. God’s responds by saying that he doesn’t need to live in a house, and in fact what really matters is not the house David builds for God but the house God is making for David; not a house made of bricks or wood, but a dynasty. At the heart of Nathan’s message are two verses

“When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come forth from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever” (2 Sam 7:12-13).

This is God’s big promise: David and his descendants will be on the throne forever. But it’s also a strange promise if you know the history of Israel, because it wasn’t long after this that the people were exiled into Babylon, the temple was destroyed; and the promise seemed to be broken. So how can this be the most important statement in the entire Old Testament when only a few generations later it seems like it was all a lie?

Either God broke his promise, or the promise wasn’t quite what the people expected.

As it turns out, Israel discovered what was true about God only when it looked as if the promise were broken. When they were exiled in Babylon their God was not defeated; instead, God went with them into exile. 

We face the same critical questions today that the Israelites did in the exile. We are part of what is so often called the “declining church.” Something like 1-2% of mainline Protestant church members are leaving the ranks every year—often from death or apathy—and this decline has been ongoing for the better part of thirty years. That’s a massive exodus of people from the institutional church. You don’t need to be told this; you’ve lived it. This is the reality in Kittson County and Grand Forks and Minneapolis and Atlanta; it’s happening just about everywhere. The fastest growing religious group in the United States—for the first time ever—is the “Nones,” by which is meant those who claim no religious affiliation. The promise seems broken. The dynasty seems for all intents and purposes to be dying along with the institutional church.

So, is that really what’s going on here? Are we actually dying? For that matter, was the promise broken when the Israelites were sent into exile?

Everyday, our world bears evidence against the legacy of David; every day our world rejects Jesus Christ as the final heir to the throne. This never happens more these days than when our churches moan about decline; when we live as if there is not enough. We have so much to complain about—have you noticed this?—the economy, natural disasters, hunger, corporate greed, and everything else that is wrong with the world. Everyday we talk as if the world is going to hell, as if the enemy is secularization, politicians, economic policies and the like. Each and every day we are being taught to believe that the reign of David is over; that the promise that God makes to David is no longer applicable; that we’re living in an age of despair and hopelessness; that the good days are behind us.

The funny this is: nearly every generation feels this way. Nearly every generation has believed the world was going down the tubes and the next generation would be worse than the last. And yet, we’re still here. When we find ourselves thinking this is the worst of all bad times in the history of the world we have to get over ourselves and our simplistic perspectives.

God’s promise to David is no more broken today than it was in the exile. When the people of Israel were forced from their land they discovered that God did not reside in a house. Today, we are in a place to discover again that God does not live in the church building or in the things we do. The promise doesn’t mean more if we have a beautiful sanctuary or a run-down shack. That’s what Israel learns in exile. When everything physical that we value decays and dies the promise God made to us does not die with it; in fact, the promise is the only thing left. Why do you think the areas of the most vibrant faith in the world today are places like Sub-Saharan Africa, rural China and the poorest areas of Central and South America? Why does it always seem that the oppressed have the strongest faith?

Maybe it’s because we’re too comfortable; too brainwashed to believe that we’re entitled to a good life and that God is a nice idea for Sunday mornings.

Or for that matter, why do people listen more closely at a funeral than during Sunday morning worship?

Maybe because it’s the only time that the life-and-death nature of everything we talk about in worship hits us between the eyes. If that’s the case—if we can’t live as if worship and everything else that we do together as the people of God is important enough to impact our lives—then we’re not going to realize it when the death of the church is finally staring us in the face.

The death of the church is not today… but maybe it should be.

David does not realize the power of the promise until he has made the biggest mistake of his life, until he has slept with Bathsheba and sentenced her husband to death; only then does he discover that his sins have caused the death of his son. Yet, at the same time, David discovers that the promise is not broken because of his indiscretions. God will stick with him in spite of his selfishness and greed. That’s the promise we all have, and I suppose it’s why this is the most important statement in the Old Testament. We are God’s people, which means firstly that we are going to fall short of God’s expectations for us—we’re going to talk about things like declining numbers rather than Jesus; we’re going to concern ourselves with looking decent to the rest of the world rather than worshiping as if nothing else matters; we’re going to hang on tightly to what we have rather than giving away with abandon the gifts we have been given.

Nonetheless, the kingdom of God will be unmoved by our mistakes, irrespective of what we do to try to push Jesus out of our lives. The promise God makes remain resolute. When we get bound up in statistics and polls and politics and church polity the first thing we forget is Jesus. God’s promise to David can be that reminder for you: nothing will separate you from the love of God; not anything you hear on the news; not anything your neighbor tells you in hate; not anything you tell your neighbor in return.

This is the good news of God in as tidy a fashion this side of the New Testament. That is why this may be the most critical statement of faith ever made before the coming of Christ. It’s a promise worth living into today.

Amen.

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[1] Interpretation: First and Second Samuel. John Knox Press: Louisville, KY; 1990, p. 259.

The Death (and Resurrection) of American Cycling

The following is a joint-Playing Rooky/Land of 10,000 Losses post.

On a cool October day, cycling in America received the death sentence. Not when Lance Armstrong was indicted by a grand jury; not when USADA filed its "Reasoned Decision;" not even when they stripped him of his Tour de France wins. American cycling as we knew it died with the announcement that Nike was cutting ties with the now-former Tour de France champ. The days of watching Armstrong cruise up the Champs-Elysees, sipping champagne, are now no more than a distant memory, tainted by EPO, and the greatest athlete of the first decade of the 21st century has been fully disgraced from the sport that gave him fame.

Cycling as we knew it in America is no more.

But then again, cycling was never much of a sport over here. Even with Armstrong dominating the Tour in a way that had not been seen since the days of Bernard Hinault and Eddy Merckx the sport was never a top ten favorite among an American public that was more interested in tennis, golf, NASCAR and skiing. Even bowling and bass fishing were on ESPN, which cycling could never claim. Yes, the American public cheered for Armstrong year after year in the same way they cheered for the obscure Olympic sports whenever an American rose to prominence. Cycling was little more than Greco-Roman wrestling in the American conscience, and in truth it was understood even poorer. Ask anybody off the street to name a cycling race other than the Tour de France and you would get blank stares. Nobody cared.

That's because cycling is the most niche of participant sports. Almost nobody is a fan who doesn't do it. Can you imagine being a fan of poker without playing yourself? It's the same with cycling. You have to do it to enjoy it. You have to ride in groups or in races to understand the strategy of racing in the pro peloton and the psychology of the riders who sacrifice their chances for the sake of the team. The shallow understanding of cycling that most Americans have has died with Armstrong's legacy, because the public cared only for victories and a character who exemplified everything that we love: defeating a heinous disease (cancer) by beating foreign pros at their own sport on their own soil. The details weren't as important as the meta-narrative--the story that lifted Armstrong to mythic heights.

That legacy is dead, and we could mourn that. We could give up on cycling altogether. Some will, I suppose, but they are the ones who didn't see this coming. They're the ones unaware of drugs in cycling and therefore oblivious to the ways that the sport has been changing in the last five to ten years. If you think the change after the steroid era in baseball was dramatic, then welcome to cycling's brave new world. This is a new sport, still stained by doping, but being reinvented almost daily by a foreign fan-base and media that are fed up both with the dopers and the excuses. It's a sport with teams like the USA's Garmin-Barracuda that are founded on the principle of clean cycling--even while being run by former dopers. There are stains--it will take some time to clean up--but things have changed.

They are changing in America as well. Nike's dismissal of Armstrong is the seminal moment in the history of cycling in the United States. The past has been cut. The future is one without yellow bands on the wrists. Things are starting to look different. Millions of Americans ride their bikes. More and more have  started to ride regularly, commuting to work, or using their two-wheels as part of a workout plan. Triathlon is second only to running as the fastest growing sport among American adults. We are riding their bikes as much as ever, and fans are turning out at races as never before. When Armstrong was riding there was hardly an American race of note on the calendar, but now there are two races with world class credentials (The Amgen Tour of California and the USA Pro Cycling Challenge) and a third (The Larry H. Miller Tour of Utah) gaining rapidly in popularity. There are more and more fans on those often dreary, cold summits; there are more fans still at destination finishes in Vail, Colorado Springs and Los Angeles.

Cycling will never be considered a major sport in America. It is not made for TV, for one. But let's not confuse the issue: cycling is popular; now more than ever. In my town of less than one thousand people in the middle of nothing but farmland, there are people riding their bikes past my house every summer evening: recreational riders, people riding for their fitness, kids learning how to pedal for the first time, and even the occasional cyclist like myself in spandex and bent low over the drop bars of a road bike. Cycling has never been so mainstream.

Today, the last visages of the Lance-era were put to death. It's about time those old days were drowned for good. Tomorrow is a new day. I welcome it, and I know I'm not alone. Tomorrow, somewhere around America, one hundred-thousand people will hop on a bike and the sport will be reborn anew. They won't care about USADA or the UCI; they won't have considered doping and they might not even know what the words "Time Trial" mean, but they will be part of cycling's new dawn. So it's been a mixed bag, Lance. We thought you would change the sport, and I guess in a way you did, but every resurrection requires a death.

Today, our sport is resurrected.

How Not to Clothe Yourselves with Love: A wedding sermon courtesy of the The Big Bang Theory

Text: Colossians 3:12-14

Note: This is a sermon I offered for my sister-in-law, Sam, and her new husband, Jim. I don't normally post wedding or funeral sermons, but this one is special and so I'm sharing it. The sermon is directed to the two of them and is only slightly modified for this blog format, so I apologize if it is hard to connect with this one. Such is wedding sermons.

So, let’s be straight about this from the top: this is an awfully tough sermon for me because not only am I a member of your family and not just the pastor, but let’s face it, Sam, you won’t tolerate some generic, lubby-dubby, full of fluff message. So, unfortunately, I have to actually say something substantive, which is sometimes difficult for pastors to do. Then, you selected Colossians 3 for your reading, which just about holds the record for most fluffy passage in all of scripture, and you dangled it in front of me as if to say, “Preach on it, Pastor Frank. I dare you. Preach on compassion and kindness and humility and meekness and patience. Preach on clothing yourselves with love.”

            Well, you know what? I’m going to do it, but, since you young ‘uns—like many your age—haven’t been going to church much lately, I think I’m going to need to translate Colossians from the Apostle Paul’s language into a voice you will recognize. So, today I’m going to enlist the help of Sheldon Cooper and friends from The Big Bang Theory to tell you what kind of clothing you should not be putting on. These are quotes of wisdom that you might recognize.

#1: How not to clothe yourselves with compassion, from Sheldon Cooper I quote: “If you don't mind, I'd like to stop listening to you and start talking.”

#2: How not to clothe yourselves with kindness—this time from Raj: “You have lost so much weight. That must have been difficult for you because you were so, so fat. Do you remember?”

#3: How not to clothe yourselves with humility—care of Sheldon Cooper: “Howard, you know me to be a very smart man. Don't you think that if I were wrong, I'd know it?”

#4: How not to clothe yourselves with meekness—again from Sheldon Cooper: “I often forget other people have limitations. It's so sad.”

#5: How not to clothe yourselves with patience—from Raj: “I couldn't find you guys, so I bought six new friends! Sadly, three of them are dead.”

And #6, and most importantly, how not to clothe yourselves with love—care of Howard Wolowitz: “If it's ‘creepy’ to use the Internet, military satellites, and robot aircraft to find a house full of gorgeous young models so I can drop in on them unexpected, then fine, I'm ‘creepy.’”

            What The Big Bang Theory really tells us is that it’s simple to find examples of what love is not, of what commitment is not, of what humility and meekness and patience are not. Every day of your lives together you will be bombarded with examples, some humorous but many just depressing, of ways not to live. And, you know, sometimes Jim isn’t going to be kind or humble; sometimes Sammy isn’t going to be compassionate or patient. You are going to get a lot of advice about your marriage: just be this, be that, do this, do that, support one another, love—just love each other—and as well-meaning as all that advice is, your marriage will not be made by following paths that others have cut for you.

            What’s important is not the advice of your friends or family, my advice, or the Bible’s advice for that matter. In fact, what’s important is not what everyone here today says; what’s important is they are here for you. Most of these wedding guests—friends and family—thought the big commitment was going to be made between the two of you, Sammy and Jim, but if that were the only commitment that mattered we could have done that two days ago at lunch or over the phone weeks ago. The big commitment isn’t only between you two; it’s between the two of you and all of us who are here today.

As the two of you make this commitment to one another today you do not do it on your own; you are surrounded by people whose commitment to your success as husband and wife is unparalleled. Many of them are here; some of them are with you from afar. They aren’t perfect people; they don’t have perfect marriages; they don’t know everything… and some of them honestly don’t know very much. None of that matters. What matters is that they are here, behind you, supporting you, today and from now on in your lives together.

            If all of the scriptural witness around marriage could be summed up in a single line it would sound something like this: “You are not alone.” Today, you are not alone. But, you know what? You never were; you never will be. Kindness, humility, meekness—all of these things you will discover in the community of friends, family and loved ones who surround you now. In Genesis, God said, “It is not good that [the] man should be alone.” And from that moment on, none of us have been. We are all tied to one another; we are all in this together. A marriage does not succeed or fail solely because of the love that two people have; it succeeds or fails because the community either succeeds or fails to be there for it; to nurture it, to demonstrate everything that Paul tells us to value—compassion, meekness, kindness, humility, patience, love.

            So, Sam and Jim, you have a difficult and, yet, simple task ahead of you. Your job is to remember that you are not alone. Remember that a community of friends and family are standing behind you, ready to tell you when you are wonderful and humble and meek and kind, and ready to tell you when you are crazy. Sam, sometimes you are crazy. Jim, sometimes you are crazy.

Turn around and look at everybody here.

Each and every one of them is willing to clothe you in love and, more importantly still, to look you in the eyes when you think you are alone and tell you that you are crazy. Each and every one of them is ready to tell you you’re not alone.

That’s what we celebrate. That’s why we’re here. Thanks to be to God for Sam and Jim, may they never again feel as if they are alone.

Calves, Other Idols and Electricity

Test: Exodus 31:1-14

            On Thursday afternoon I was sitting in my living room, pondering the Israelites and their golden calf while also thinking about getting by without electricity. For us, that was a few hours; for others of you it has lasted a few days. We all have a baseline level of comfort that, when breached, can make us uneasy. When you take away a simple thing like electricity it becomes immediately obvious how dependent we are on all sorts of little things around us. Losing power is different from going on a camping trip. I love hiking, camping and generally getting away from electricity and technology, but those are occasions where I intentionally remove myself from those comforts of home. When the power just goes out I have a very different feeling—a “what on earth do I do now?” feeling.

            I think that’s pretty close to where the Israelites are at when Moses went up the mountain. There they are at Mt. Sinai, completely unsure what Moses is doing up there, and their sense of what is normal has been completely obliterated. There is no normal, no home, nothing to do now but wonder, “Where on earth do we go from here?” It may seem silly to turn from worshipping the God who led them out of Egypt, but that’s where they are. They’re confused.

            What the people demand of Aaron is something visible to hold their focus in light of their current predicament. It’s not so much that they want a different god than the one who led them out of Egypt; rather, they want a physical image of the true God. Aaron’s problem is that such an image is not forthcoming; God shows himself to Moses alone, not in idols to appease the crowd. They have to take it on faith that the road through the wilderness is led by a God they cannot see. Unfortunately, Israel does not yet have this kind of faith. It seems silly to create a golden idol and honestly believe it is a god. Clearly, God is not a calf, but then again, tell me we don’t do the same thing. How much physical stuff do we put before God? How much do we consider worship to be about the pastor or the building, the music or the liturgy? Those are the things that upset us, and though God certainly works through all of these they are no more God than that golden calf.

            In our lives we have a base level of comfort, and whether it’s the power going out, a wildfire, an accident, health concern, or something equally unexpected, there are many things that can rock that comfort. Those are the moments where the depths of our souls are bared and we are shown for what we really are. Last week I talked about what is right and what is easy; this is similar: in the face of trouble, do we build another idol or do we trust in the unseen.

            The stakes are huge. One of the things that gets lost in this story about the golden calf is that God nearly destroys the Israelites for their stupidity. This is not a fuzzy, lubby-dubby God willing to offer cheap grace; this is a powerful God who the Israelites are right to fall before on their knees and worship. This is a God willing to give it all up and start over with Moses. This is a God who demands obedience.

This scene really is remarkable. God proposes to Moses his intent to destroy the people and offer the promised future instead to Moses and his progeny alone. This is a ticked off God. And it is Moses who is the calming voice—the one who saves the day—yes, the very same Moses who came up with every excuse in the book why he should not be leading the people out of Egypt; that very same Moses intercedes before God to save the people from God’s own wrath. He asks that God remember the promises that God has made with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and in a line of thinking that should resonate with people up here, Moses adds in the line about what Egypt will say about the God who destroys his people. “What will the neighbors think?” he asks God.

Then, strangely, in verse 14: “The Lord changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people.”

(Breathe out.)

There’s part of us that doesn’t like that. It doesn’t square with how we understand God. There are these Greek terms that Christians like to use, even though they never occur in the Bible—omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, omnibenevolent—which mean respectively: all-powerful, all-present, all-knowing, all-loving. These terms do not describe the God who visits Moses, and since we believe in one God, and we proclaim that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is the same God that we worship today, this should tell us more about our misconceptions about God than anything else. God is beyond our knowing, so when we try to put God on the couch, perform a psychological analysis and slip the creator of the universe into categories of our own making, we are essentially doing the same thing that the Israelites did: we are asking Aaron to create for us an idol to worship. God doesn’t like that.

Thankfully, even when we make our idols we have an advocate. This story is Moses’ time in the spotlight. As much as he gets a lot of credit for parting the sea and bringing God’s messages to Pharaoh, the real moment of star-power in Moses’ life comes here on the mountain, talking God out of the destruction of his people. Honestly, Moses is only a little man in the scheme of things, but he foreshadows something bigger and better on the horizon. The conversation between Moses and God was not just a debate about the future of the chosen people; it was a preview of what comes to us in the New Testament in the person of Jesus Christ and the sending of the Holy Spirit into the world to live with us today. We still have an advocate—not Moses, but the Holy Spirit—who hears what we pray and intercedes on our behalf with God.

            There’s a reason that the first commandment chiseled on those stone tablets in Moses’ hands is what it is: “I am the Lord, your God, you shall have no other gods before me.” You want to know a secret about those commandments? We never get past the first. We get hung up on murder and theft and adultery, but none of us can be judged right by the first commandment of all. Each of us is building idols; we’re doing it right now, even in this worship space. We all want a golden calf; not the true God just beyond our sight. We all want glory; not a cross. We all want a god we can fashion, not the God we cannot control, who may, in fact, destroy us at a moment’s notice. “Too bad!” said God in last week’s reading, “You will be my people and I will be your God… and you have an advocate who is going to keep it that way.”

            Just as the Israelites didn’t deserve Moses, so we don’t deserve Jesus. We deserve to suffer for the idols we have made, and yet, God is willing to do something incredible, remarkable, and completely inhuman: he’s willing to change his mind.

            Thank God for that.

            Amen.