Sermon for Sunday, January 9, 2005  

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE CHRISTIAN TODAY?

By

Rev. Dr. Harvey C. Martz

Scripture:  II Corinthians 5:17-18

 ¹⁷ So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! ¹⁸ All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation;

You have probably read some of the same articles I have this week: Christian preachers and Muslim imams saying that the Asian tsunami was sent by God; they said it was an act from an angry God. Some of the Muslim leaders have said that God is punishing people because they were not good enough Muslims, they were not obeying all of the laws of their religion so God sent this terrible tragedy to teach them a lesson.

It is the same fundamentalist claptrap that we heard three years ago from Jerry Falwell after September 11 when he blamed that tragedy on feminists, gays and the ACLU. Fundamentalism, whether, Muslim or Christian, has a common theme.

I have also placed another article on the foyer table which takes a more reasonable approach and quotes a pastor in Sweden who says that there are still accidents and random tragedies in our world, that these are not sent by a vengeful, judgmental God, and that God is always there to work through our compassionate responses and to comfort and strengthen us.

But this notion that God is behind everything that happens is so pervasive and I believe deeply wrong. It is a common perspective often heard in funerals where there has been a bad accident. The person officiating at the funeral for Chris Sewell a few weeks ago, the Littleton resident killed when a fugitive was fleeing the police, said at that funeral that Chris’ death was part of God’s plan and that God does not make mistakes. Someone else at the funeral three weeks ago of the young woman killed in a plane crash near centennial airport said that God must have taken this woman because God wanted to give her a pair of real wings.

I confess that I cringe when I hear some of those well meaning but, in my opinion, destructive images of God, and I flinch a bit when people think that this is what Christianity is all about-a God who like a cosmic puppeteer is deciding who will get cancer next or who will die in the next car crash. And I can see why so many people are members of what one scholar calls the “church alumni association”, people who may have grown up with some church experience but have rejected some of the shallow or harmful things they were taught and believe they can no longer use their brains and be part of a faith community, or who see some of the narrowness that religion can foster in people.

Marcus Borg is a professor of religion at Oregon State University and teaches religion to undergraduates. He is also an internationally known scholar and writer and Jesus expert and his books have sold hundreds of thousands of copies. He says that half of the students in his college classes on religion had had no church experience ever and he asks those students to write about their impression of Christians. And he says always when he does these five adjectives show up consistently: Christians are perceived to be literalistic, anti-intellectual, self righteous, judgmental and bigoted.

Now, I can see why some people would think that because I think I have seen those attitudes also when some ministers are covered in the media. But I don’t believe you are like that and I don’t think I am like that. But there is enough reason for people who have had not positive experiences with church to see those behaviors.

And if I look at what some of the representations of Christianity are around me, I must confess that if that was all it meant to be Christian that I would have to count myself out. The Left Behind series of books has now sold over 60 million copies of books and tapes, and the premise of the books is based on, I believe, a false reading of the book of Revelation. The premise is, in the words of one writer, this: “that God wanted to damn everybody but he was able to be satisfied by the bloody crucifixion of his own son who was quite innocent and therefore a particularly attractive victim. So now God only damns to eternal punishment those who don’t follow Christ or have never heard of him.” That statement is really not much of a caricature of one very popular form of belief that passes for Christianity.

What does it mean to be a Christian today?? Does it mean Jesus is coming back soon and he will destroy all the Jews and heathens and will take all Christians up into heaven-abandoning their cars in the rapture of course- where, in heaven, they can see the bloody destruction of this evil planet? Or does being saved mean that God has some good things in store for us right now and that God wants to use us to make this world a more caring and just and compassionate place?

Does it mean being obsessed with gay persons as inherently evil or becoming as welcoming and compassionate as Jesus was with all people?

Does being Christian mean dividing the world between “us and them” and feeling self righteous because we are surely not like “them”, or does it mean learning from Jesus the virtue of humility and refusing to talk about the splinter in someone else’s eye before we deal with the log in our own eye?

Does being Christian mean treating women as inferior and not capable of true leadership particularly in faith communities or does it mean seeing all of us as partners and equals as Jesus and Paul did in the Bible?

Does it mean seeing the earth and the environment as dispensable and things to be exploited because Jesus is coming back soon, or beginning to care for the environment and the earth because God in Genesis 1 has instructed us to do that?

Does being Christian mean I can’t believe in science, that I have to think the earth was created 6000 years ago in six 24-hour periods, or can I believe that God is the creator and that God took a long time to create-three and a half billion years long-and that still is an awesome and miraculous thing to get my mind around. Do I have to throw out my reason and turn off my brain to be Christian or can I see science as another valid way to learn the truth?

Does being Christian mean thinking that people cannot know God unless they know Jesus, or can I see Jesus as the best revelation but not the only revelation of God?

Do Christians see God as an angry finger-shaking judge or cosmic policeman waiting to catch you, or do we see God as Jesus saw God-a patient, compassionate reaching out parent who accepts us where we are and helps us move beyond where we are?

The contrasts we just looked at are contrasts between what Dr. Borg calls the “old paradigm” or the old framework of being Christian and an emerging framework or paradigm for talking about our faith.

And he describes his own faith journey to illustrate: he grew up in a Lutheran church where the pastor was always shaking his finger at the congregation so Borg’s picture of God was God the finger-shaking judge. He grew away from the rather simplistic faith of his youth and childhood as he gained more knowledge but also learned that there were some more satisfying and helpful ways to talk about and understand faith. His approach has been important for millions of others in North America because he is often interviewed and quoted when news channels want to do specials on Jesus or on emerging forms of faith. I googled his name this week to look for some other articles and found 131,000 references to Borg. One source called him one of the greatest living spiritual teachers, and now that people know that our church is hosting him in March we are getting several emails a week from other places wanting to know details about how people can sign up.

The folks who were in the class this fall with Tam and me found his approach so refreshing and liberating. One person said this was the most important book on faith she had ever read. Others said that they had always believed these things and found it freeing that someone was finally expressing what they had felt for a long time.

In fact, what this book offers is what United Methodist preachers have been learning in seminary for the past 40 years; it is just that some preachers have been afraid to share this with some congregations.

The book says that if the old way of understanding faith works for you, that is great. If you find comfort in seeing the Bible as literally, word for word, accurate, and find it helpful to believe in a God who is “up there” somewhere instead of right here with us now, and believing that Jesus is more divine than really human, that is OK. Blessings on you! Borg is not trying to say people should be carbon copies of himself. But he says for others of us, millions of us, the old images just don’t work any more. And, he says, there are many ways to be a Christian-more than just the way you might have been brought up with or the way you see portrayed in the popular media.

In this sermon series and in your reading, you will agree with some things and disagree. You will find some parts helpful and other parts disturbing. I think that is a good thing. This can be a spiritual growth window for you, and it is a way for our church, particularly as we relocate, to state that being a United Methodist Christian is much closer to how Borg sees the world than to how Jerry Falwell sees the world!

Let me just lift up a couple of helpful concepts that we will deal with later on in more depth: the book says that being Christian is not really a matter of believing some things about Jesus. Being Christian is about having a close relationship with God, the God Jesus shows to us, and being changed by that relationship. If you are becoming a follower and disciple of Jesus of Nazareth, are you being changed by that? Is that change showing up in how you care for your body and health, in how you relate to your family and friends and co-workers? If some changes are not happening in your life and you are not becoming more Christ like, then you might re-examine how serious you are about this way of life called Christianity. It is a way of life, a path. The first Christians were not even called “Christians”. Do you know what they were called? They were called “followers of the way”, followers of the way of Christ-the way of humility, compassion, servant leadership.

One other notion we will look at more fully later on is the idea that there are some times and places in our lives when we can feel closer to God than other times. They are sometimes called “thin places”, events or places when the division between sacred and secular or our world and God’s world becomes very thin and we feel very close to God and to all that is sacred. People talk about the birth of a child as one of those times that is a thin place, when we feel like we are on holy ground. Or just looking at a new baby and seeing all the mystery and miracle and beauty and potential that is there. You will be able to identify some times when you felt particularly close to God, or some times when were certain that there is more to life than just the world visible around us.

The purpose of our sermon series is to help us feel that, to help deepen our faith, and to give us some new ways to see and talk about God.

I urge you to be with us every Sunday in worship because when we are doing our job well, worship is one of those thin places, music is one of those thin places. Or get a book and join one of the groups that is still open to new students. Or put on your calendar March 17-18 when Dr Borg is with us for the weekend.

If you do these things I promise you this new year of 2005 will be a turning point in your spiritual life and you will thank yourself for taking some new steps as a follower of the path of Jesus the Christ!!

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