Sermon from Sunday, October 12, 2008 on Becoming an Open And Affirming Church

Fundamentals, Not Fundamentalism

I have fielded a lot of requests for transcripts or recordings of this past Sunday's sermon. Mike, our fearless High-Tech leader, is out of town for a few weeks, so there will be some delay in the posting of the podcast of the sermon (eventually available, as are most of my sermons, at http://wbccucc.blogspot.com). So, in the interim, here is an ever-so slightly cleaned up transcript of the sermon.

It begins with three readings from the Revised Common Lectionary for the day:

Exodus 32:1-14 When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered around Aaron, and said to him, "Come, make gods for us, who shall go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him."
Aaron said to them, "Take off the gold rings that are on the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me."
So all the people took off the gold rings from their ears, and brought them to Aaron. He took the gold from them, formed it in a mold, and cast an image of a calf; and they said, "These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!"
When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation and said, "Tomorrow shall be a festival to the LORD."
They rose early the next day, and offered burnt offerings and brought sacrifices of well-being; and the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to revel.
The LORD said to Moses, "Go down at once! Your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have acted perversely;
they have been quick to turn aside from the way that I commanded them; they have cast for themselves an image of a calf, and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it, and said, 'These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!'"
The LORD said to Moses, "I have seen this people, how stiff-necked they are.
Now let me alone, so that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them; and of you I will make a great nation."
But Moses implored the LORD his God, and said, "O LORD, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand?
Why should the Egyptians say, 'It was with evil intent that he brought them out to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth'? Turn from your fierce wrath; change your mind and do not bring disaster on your people.
Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, how you swore to them by your own self, saying to them, 'I will multiply your descendants like the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.'"
And the LORD changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people.

Philippians 4:1-9 Therefore, my brothers and sisters, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord in this way, my beloved.
I urge Euodia and I urge Syntyche to be of the same mind in the Lord. Yes, and I ask you also, my loyal companion, help these women, for they have struggled beside me in the work of the gospel, together with Clement and the rest of my co-workers, whose names are in the book of life.
Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you.

Matthew 22:1-10 Once more Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying:
"The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son. He sent his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding banquet, but they would not come. Again he sent other slaves, saying, 'Tell those who have been invited: Look, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready; come to the wedding banquet.'
But they made light of it and went away, one to his farm, another to his business, while the rest seized his slaves, mistreated them, and killed them. The king was enraged. He sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city.

Then he said to his slaves, 'The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy. Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.' Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both good and bad; so the wedding hall was filled with guests.
"But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing a wedding robe, and he said to him, 'Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?' And he was speechless. Then the king said to the attendants, 'Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.' For many are called, but few are chosen."

Our sermon this morning is Fundamentals, Not Fundamentalism. Our readings this morning are all pretty fundamental. In our Gospel reading you heard a story of an invitation that went out in this parable from Jesus. The invitation went out to everybody who was already a part of the faith community...all who were the Chosen People – all who were Jewish – to come to this banquet. And the banquet was Christ. And many, during his life, refused to come. So he said “open it up to everybody.” And they did open it up to everybody, and many came, and there was much rejoicing.

Then we get to this confounding part in Christ's story where someone who was just pulled off the streets was there at this wedding banquet, and he's chastised for not wearing a celebratory wedding robe. And it sounds unfair, as most folks aren't walking down the street wearing a wedding robe. But remember, this is a parable. You have to treat it like the story it is. You have to dig a little deeper.

What are we really talking about? We're talking about someone who was invited into a faith that wasn't really theirs to begin with. Much like just about anyone Christian. We didn't start out Jewish. We were grafted onto this tree with this God. This parable speaks to anyone who was invited into this faith, accepted the invitation, came in and enjoyed the blessings, but who didn't change in any noticeable way: Came right in and kept right on with the same attitudes and prejudices they'd always had... came into the feast of Jesus Christ and showed no external evidence at all that they had embraced anything life-changing at all. And Jesus tells this fable as if to say: “those people who refuse to redress their crimes or correct their misconceptions – the ones who won't make the least little change to show gratitude for this free gift they are given – are not going to be a part of this banquet.”

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In the Epistle reading from Philippians, Paul is heartbroken because two of the women with whom he started up that church – two who rolled up their sleeves and labored side by side with him – were having some kind of argument that was splitting the church. And so he appealed to the others of this faith community: “help these women get along.” He doesn't address the exact issue and say this one's right, this one's wrong. He is not searching for some empirical truth that will shut one of them up. Instead, he says: “find a way to help them put this behind them, end the conflict and recognize any disagreement as petty compared to the greater task of serving Christ.”

So we've talked so far about two fundamental points of a healthy Christian faith:
1.not carrying in your own prejudices and fears when you enter this new life, and
2.not using your faith as a source of conflict and strife.

And then we have that reading from Exodus, which is as fundamental as it comes for our faith. THE GOLDEN CALF.

Now most of us have a Cecil B. DeMille image of that calf...with some woman sensually polishing it with her long, dark hair, while all the loin-clothed, movie lot extras dance and grind around her in a state of debauched arousal. We also naturally equate gold with money. No. No. No.

What is the problem with an idol? Simply this: It is an attempt by finite beings to contain the eternal in a nice, manageable package. Put God in a little, portable box, and stick God wherever you want to. You can move God over here. Don't like the view over here? Move God over there. And you can manipulate God anyway that serves you, shape God into any form that is agreeable to you. THAT is the sin of the golden calf.
Now we Christians don't have any idol like that nowadays, right? We don't have anything that we use to try to put God in our box, right? Nothing we use to say “God agrees with me and God is shaped like this,” right?

Hmmm.

Nothing in Christianity is turned into more of a self-serving idol than this book on the pulpit. We use our Bibles to spread more hate, more division and more oppression than any shiny cow statue could ever bring around. The Bible is our false idol.

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Once, long before I went into the ministry, I had a conversation with a gentleman in South Carolina who knew me as a Yankee, but not necessarily as a Christian. And he told me that he was almost kicked out of his church. He was the deacon in charge of scheduling weddings, and he was nearly drummed out of his church for giving a couple permission to marry there. The couple was black, and it says right here in the Bible “each to their own kind.” Black people shouldn't get married in a white church! It says right here in the Bible! THUMP!!

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One of my favorite authors is Dr. Eugene Petersen, who wrote a modern translation of the Bible called The Message. And he also wrote a few books for pastors that really strengthen clergy and give them cause for joy, hope and strength. He was raised by a single mom, a beautiful lady and Christian.

His mother was a missionary to the rough and tumble logging camps of the Northwest. Eugene and his mother would travel from remote camp to remote camp by sled, and she would sing and preach and lift up these men so far from home and civilization. She did this for years, and then suddenly it stopped, and she traveled no more to preach and teach.

It wasn't until years later that Dr. Petersen asked his mother why she stopped. And she told him of a group of men confronting her outside a camp meeting, opening their Bibles and reading “women, be silent in the church,” and “it is not right for women to instruct men.” And how many lumberjacks...how many men far from everything they knew and loved, didn't hear the Gospel because a group of self-righteous prigs lifted up their idol and went THUMP!!!

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How about a brand new Anglican bishop who, as he goes through his glorious installation, has to wear a bullet-proof vest under his beautiful vestments because there have been so many death threats from his fellow Christians? Gifted pastor or not, he's gay, and “it's an abomination,” THUMP!!!

This, my friends, is our golden calf. This beautiful, sacred series of writings that has so much in it about love, joy and how to be a living, loving child of God; and how to live and celebrate and share all the blessings that are ours; this, my friends, is what we use to put God in a box that we can control. This is what we use to dress up our same old prejudices and fears. This is what we use to come into the pews and not change a thing about ourselves. If we read this book and it doesn't scare us, rip out our hearts and challenge our prejudices and pre-conceived notions, then we aren't reading it deeply enough. If it doesn't give us the occasional headache, then it is nothing more than another lousy golden calf.

Now there are people in this very community who need God, love and a place where they can come and hear what is pure, honest, true and hopeful. And the reason they are not here is what we have done with and to this Bible. We are better than this.

You right now are sitting on a hill in a church that in 1834 – when the only support they had in this wilderness was the Presbyterian church – severed ties with that, their only lifeline to civilization back east because the Presbyterians refused to take a vocal stand against slavery.

You are sitting in a church that in 1893 – 26 years before women had the right to vote, and at a time when women were supposed to be silent in the church – hired it's first female pastor.

You are sitting in a church that, at the height of the race riots of the 1960s, traveled en masse into downtown Rochester to worship at an urban, African-American church, and then invited that same church out here to worship in these very pews with us.

This is our church. This is our scripture. These are not blunt instruments. The fundamentals of our faith are that we love our God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength; and that we love our neighbor as ourselves.

“And who is our neighbor?” as the devout, uber-religious man asked Jesus. Jesus answered that man in a parable in which he lifted up the most detestable of people to the Jew: a Samaritan. Who is your neighbor? The one you detest the most right now. The one you are most prejudiced against, uncomfortable around, fearful of right now is the one Christ points out as the person to love and accept. That is the one who should be here with us now.

Let's take off our prejudices. Let's not cast our prejudices, fears and short-sightedness on God. Let's love our neighbor. That is FUNDAMENTAL.

Now FUNDAMENTALISM is different. It is what we are trying to avoid. Fundamentalism is someone's interpretation of scripture that is only 150 years old. Our scripture is 2000-3000 years old. That OLD TIME RELIGION is NEW. It was a response to something called the ENLIGHTENMENT, when common people finally had their scriptures in a language they could read and began to apply their God-given reason and logic to Biblical thought, just as scholars, rabbis, prophets and priests had done for thousands of years. They had the power to read and discern and influence their own destiny. And some took it even further and said “wait, we can use these same principals to govern ourselves,” and our nation was born. And yet, there are those who would shut us down, using this same Word and saying, “No, it is not your reason. That is not our TRUTH!” And they claim “this is not what the Bible says,” as if the Bible had a mouth and vocal cords and as if what they were doing to it was anything but a bad ventriloquism act supporting their own prejudices.

Let us, my friends, not put words in the Bible's mouth, but, rather, faithful, prayerfully dig deep into all that is written here. With awe, and trembling, let's recognize who and whose we are, and, especially, WHO WE WILL WELCOME regardless of sexual orientation, economic status, race, gender or any other thing that we cynically, faithlessly use to bicker with our brothers and sisters.
That's FUNDAMENTALS as opposed to fundamentalism.