Stretching Backward, Straining Forward

1 Peter 2:11, Philippians 3:14, Amos 5:24, Matthew 6: 10

 

          “Breaking news! Tune in at six.” How often do we hear that? It’s just one of the catchphrases of our times. First there were stars. Then they became superstars. Now it’s not good enough or timely enough to get just the “news.” Now we must have “breaking news.” So how come if it’s breaking we have to wait ‘til six? Will it still be breaking then? Once it’s broken, is it downgraded to just news? Or history?  I mean, the minute it breaks, it’s history, isn’t it?

          That’s one of the troubles with living in the present. In one sense, we have absolutely no choice. The present is all we have to live in, and yet the minute we do, it’s gone. So now we need more breaking news. There really is no time for the present. We are hungry for what’s next, and yet we fail pretty miserably to be expectant about the future. In this CNN world, we move from one present to another without time for absorption of what it might actually mean. There are even commentators to tell us what we have seen or heard so that we don’t have to think; we can just get the gist of what happened and get ready for the next installment. This is the world in which we live as Americans.

          And yet, we Christians live in another world at the same time. We live in a world where we call on the past to help us define time. Our very numbering of years sets off our history as either before or after Christ’s arrival. Our God, who stands and lives outside time, broke in on us and inhabited time, and history clearly records that. Since Christ was resurrected on a Sunday, we changed our habits to make Sunday our day of rest, taking the first day of the calendar week and making it our last day of the week in practice. As Christians, our time revolves around a person, a man, who lived and breathed and carved out a block of time in the history of the world when he walked among us and ate and drank with us and taught us in real time, just as surely as D-Day or Independence Day or Bastille Day are real time. Even the Apostles Creed locates Jesus in time. It was the time of Pontius Pilate and Herod and the Roman Empire.  

          The church is a Savior oriented people gathered for the worship of that Savior who not only came and came in real time, but also promised to come again. So we look back often. We make it a point to remember. We do so in particular with our celebration of the Lord’s Supper as a sacramental reminder of not only what happened, but what is promised. We also look back through our observation of the liturgical year, from the epiphany to Pentecost, from transfiguration to Christmas, from advent to Lent. James K.A. Smith says that “the rhythms of Christian worship and the liturgical year stretch us backwards. They are the practices of remembering.” The Church is the chosen people of God who look back in order to look ahead.

          But we are far from done when we complete our exercises in remembering, for Christians are a people who use the past to remind them of the future to which we strain. Our Savior promised us that future; at least he promised it to those to whom he calls his people. 1 Peter 2: 9 reminds us that we Christians are “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession…” Peter is referring not to the Jews, but to us, Christians, those elected by God to populate his church here on earth and his kingdom when he returns.

          Christians are “tweeners.” We live with the knowledge created in remembering and in our traditions, but we do as Paul in Philippians 3: We “press on toward the mark of the prize of the upward call of God in Jesus Christ.” It is not enough to remember. Indeed, we remember only as a tool to instruct and to guide us to where Paul presses.  We look toward a future where the prophet Amos tells us that justice will roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream [Am. 5: 24]. We learn the Lord’s Prayer and we claim “thy kingdom come” as our marching orders and our hope, our expectation, for the future.

          Marking time. I used to mark time in marching band. Marking time is marching in place. In ROTC, I marked time on the drill field. Marking time is in one sense the practice of staying ready to move. It’s funny. I did all my marching before the military. I don’t think I marched ten steps while in military service. But the point is this: marking time is something that Christians are familiar with. Sometimes we have to mark time. We mark time by waiting for the Day of the Lord. We mark time while we pray for guidance, for illumination, for understanding. We mark time while our prayers are answered in God’s way instead of our own. Marking time for a Christian is like the Geico commercials. It’s what we do, because we are called to be ready. Three times in the New Testament we are warned that “the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night” [1Thes. 5:2-4, 2 Pet 3: 10, 11, Matt 24: 42-44].

          But marking time is only one piece of the Christian walk. There is so much more to the Christian life than marking time and waiting for the future. We are called to be followers of Jesus, to be his disciples, to be his hands and feet in a world that is so desperate to find its way. As Christians we look forward not only to the end of the world, but to the end of the world as we now know it. When we worship, we begin to experience what the writer of Hebrews tries to describe. We share in the Holy Spirit. We taste “the goodness of the Word of God and the powers of the age to come” [Heb. 6: 4, 5].

          So we look around at our broken world and we long for the future. We turn on the “breaking news” and hear of the sickness of our times as people are robbed and murdered in their homes, moviegoers are shot in theaters, even worshippers are gunned down in church. We wonder sometimes if we do not live in a world gone mad where violence and selfishness is the order of the day.

          As Christians, we know that the answers do not lie on the six o’clock news. Nor do they lie on the lips of those politicians who promise us deliverance from such dysfunction if only we will trust them with our vote. As Christians, we know that the answers will continue to include violence and hardship and suffering and trials. Such is the way of the world and such it will remain until Jesus returns. So we echo the plea of John in Revelation crying “Come, Lord Jesus.”

          But there is other breaking news. There are stories such as the intervention with a terrorist on a French train last week by Americans Anthony Sadler, Spencer Stone and Alek Skarlatos, Brit Chris Norman, and French-American Mark Moogalian. We have all heard how they charged a terrorist and probably saved many lives. The world is full of these good and heroic stories, but seldom do they make “breaking news.” Most of us will not have to risk our lives. Most of us will just be called upon to be kind, to take time, to lend a hand. In doing whatever it is we are called upon to do, we help not only to preserve, but also to usher in, God’s kingdom here on earth. This is how we as Christians want to come to each and every day. We want to celebrate our opportunity to help, to be in concert with God’s will for us, to “taste the heavenly gift and share in the Holy Spirit.”

          So we stretch and we strain. We as Christians are a stretched people, reaching back into our history to discern that which Jesus teaches us by his life, death and resurrection. And we strain, as Paul did, pressing on toward the mark…the upward call of Jesus Christ. We are citizens not only of our country, but of a kingdom as old as creation, as perpetual as forever, and as new as the Holy Spirit in our hearts.

The Teacher

John 13:12-17

 

 

          School is back in session. Last week we blessed backpacks and school buses and teachers and students. We wished them well as they all set off for a new year of learning. Now that the learning process is officially underway again, it seems like a good time to ask why. Why do we send our children to school? What do we expect will happen? Well, of course, we send them to school to learn. But what is it we want them to learn and when they learn it, exactly what is it that we expect them to do with it? If learning is the object of teaching, then what exactly is teaching and what is its intended outcome?

         The Greek word for teacher is didaskalos (δίδασκαλσς). Jesus was called Teacher by his disciples and many others.  In the Gospels, Jesus was addressed directly about 90 times. Of all those occasions, he was called Teacher over 60 times. He didn’t have a college degree. In fact, he didn’t have a high school diploma or a GED. And yet he has been acclaimed as the greatest teacher in history and with good reason.

          In the gospels, Jesus uses a number of different methods to reach his audience. He realizes, as does any trained teacher, that people learn in different ways. Modern education recognizes many different learning styles or variations of them. Most educators agree that there are at least three or four main categories. There is visual. If you learn this way, you respond to pictures and charts and graphs, but you don’t much like listening to a long explanation. There is auditory. Auditory learners prefer listening to explanations over reading. There is kinesthetic. Lots of us are kinesthetic learners. We like to learn by doing and touching. We are hands on. Things make sense to us that way. Lots of times, we don’t much like school because everything is visual and auditory and we want to touch it. Last, but not least, there is a reading and writing style. As you might expect, this style does best in school.

          Jesus didn’t get any formal training on learning styles, but he sure seemed to be aware of their existence in his audiences. His teaching reflects that he used all the standard learning styles plus some variations on them.

          For instance, look at Matthew 6: 25.  Jesus is on a mountain, delivering the Sermon on the Mount. He tells the crowd there gathered to consider the birds of the air, the lilies of the field. He talks about how splendid they are adorned and uses that example to remind the crowd that God loves people much more than birds and flowers. Jesus used the visual learning style to make his point about trusting God in a way that people could relate to. In Luke 21, a widow deposits two small coppers in the offering plate. It is probably the last money she has. Jesus sees her action and remarks on her giving from the depths instead of from abundance. It is a visual lesson which needs no words to teach.  

          In that same Sermon on the Mount and other sayings covering Matthew 5-7, in Jesus’ Upper Room discourse in John 13-17, in all the parables, Jesus is teaching in an auditory learning style. The scripture from Matthew tells that he “opened his mouth and taught them.” His disciples and followers listen to him. His words will not be written down for many years, yet when they are recorded by the evangelists writing the gospels, the power of those auditory moments is recorded into written form for others to read and respond to.

          Jesus wasn’t big on just talking the talk. He walked the walk too. The gospels are laden with events where Jesus was hands on. His mighty acts and deeds and his miracles speak beyond words to the proofs of what he said. He turned water to wine, healed the sick, the blind, the crippled, the paralyzed, even the dead. He disappeared from crowds and walked on water. He even died on a Roman cross and was resurrected. Some would call that kinesthetic teaching; others relational or experiential. Whatever label you assign it, Jesus did it and did it like no one else in history. Some educators now call this “social learning,” learning by watching someone else do the job.

          But Jesus wasn’t just a kinesthetic teacher, he wanted kinesthetic learners. So he sent the disciples out. In Mark 6: 7, Jesus sends the disciples out in pairs. He gives them authority to heal and heal they do. In the fourth chapter of John’s gospel, Jesus and the disciples are in forbidden Samaria and Jesus has the encounter with the woman at the well. Then, for the next two days, John tells us that Jesus and the disciples stayed and labored among the people; that the Samaritans believed, not because of the woman’s testimony, but because of what they heard for themselves. In the tenth chapter of Luke, Jesus sends out not the twelve, but another seventy-two, also in pairs, throughout the region. He gives them authority to heal and heal they do. On their return, they report to him that “even the demons are subject to us in your name.” This is kinesthetic learning on turbo. In the past, we would have called it on the job training, or interning. In their book Teaching the Faith, Gary Parrett and Steve Kang call it “engaging our hands and feet.”

          Now, what’s all this about? In the beginning, we said that we wanted to find out what teaching was and what its intended outcome would be. Well, maybe we found out what teaching was, at least some of the ways that it occurs. When it comes from what we hear, we label it auditory. When it comes from what we see, we call it visual. When it comes from what we touch, we call it kinesthetic. All of it is learning. God just builds us differently. If our wiring is different, then sometimes a good teacher has to use a different switch to turn us on. Jesus was all that and more. Jesus wasn’t just a master teacher; he is the Master himself.

        Why did Jesus teach? He didn’t do it just to hear himself talk. He did it for a reason. He wanted us, his children, to learn, and what he wanted us to learn was who he was. Back in Luke 10, when the seventy two returned home with the news of casting out demons, Jesus told them this: “…do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”

          The intended outcome that Jesus sought in all his teaching to the disciples, to the people, to the crowds, to the religious leaders and to us, is that we will come not only to know him, but to take his message to all with whom we come in contact. In the thirteenth chapter of John, Jesus takes teaching perhaps to its highest level when he allows his disciples to experience him and his selfless love. He does so by washing their feet, an act of total humility. It is visual, kinesthetic, even auditory as the disciples most assuredly gasp at this unselfish act. And then Jesus tells them why. “You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet…If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.”

        That’s teaching, Jesus style! And that’s why he did.

Walking Wise

Ephesians 5: 15-20

 

 

          We have been talking a lot these last months and weeks about the church. We have talked about what is wrong with church leadership at its highest levels. We have talked about our core beliefs and how they have been subject to erosion. We have talked about the Holy Spirit and how both we and the church need to be guided by that spirit. We have noted how much things seem to have shifted and how relativism seems to have crept into our religious system, our Christian values.

          Today, let’s take time to look back at the early church and specifically, some of the things that set it apart as a model for us to follow.  We can use as our example today the church at Ephesus. Paul wrote to the Ephesians while in prison, probably in the early 60’s AD. He loved this church. It was a template for everything right about Paul’s ministry. In the first chapter of the book, Paul addresses them as “the saints who are in Ephesus and are faithful in Christ Jesus.” He goes on to say that he has heard of their faith in the Lord Jesus and in their love toward all the saints. Ephesus is one of Paul’s success stories.

          In the first part of chapter five, Paul talks about how believers were darkness but now are light. He encourages us to walk in the light, to use the light of God to expose the darkness of sin. Now in today’s passage, we turn to another metaphorical contrast. As Paul used darkness and light to contrast the way of the world with the way of God, so now he does the same thing with wisdom and folly.

          When I read Paul’s letters, sometimes I like to just pick out the verbs first. Look at the verbs in this passage: look, understand, be filled, addressing, singing, giving. Those are the “do” verbs. There are two “don’t” verbs: don’t be foolish and don’t get drunk. The verbs sort of set the stage for what Paul wants to church to see. He wants the church to use that illumination he has been talking about to find its way in the world.

         Next week, we send our children and grandchildren back to school. Some will be going for the first time, or riding on a school bus for the first time, or entering high school for the first time. For some parents, they will be without their child at home for the first time. The start of the school year is always a collection of first times. It is exciting and numbing at once.  There is a newness in the air even if you have been there and done that, for this time it might be different. It might be just what you hoped it would be. Whatever it is or isn’t, you have to step out to find out. It can’t happen at home.

          In the days of Paul, the church was as new as that first day of school. Those who believed the gospel still didn’t know how to act.

They were in the middle of defining all those first times of the early church.   They were the trend setters. They were helping the church take shape.

          And Paul says to the church at Ephesus: “Look carefully then how you walk.”  Understand the Lord’s will.  “Be filled with the Spirit…giving thanks always.” “Sing and make melody with your heart.” He gives some suggestions for how to live the Christian life.

          “Look carefully how you walk”, says Paul, “not as unwise but as wise.” He goes on to say that we should make the best use of our time. Time might also be translated as opportunity. Make the best use of your time, your opportunities. Why? Why is it so important to make wise use of your time? “Because the days are evil,” says Paul. The second half of the first century A.D. was an ugly time, especially for Christians. But then, the twentieth century was rough too. More Christians died in the name of God in the last century than any other in history. So when Paul said to the Ephesians that the days are evil, he really had nothing on us. We too live in evil days and are surrounding by a culture which says to look out for yourself and not for your neighbor.

          But what was Paul’s point anyway? Make the best use of your time and opportunities because the days are evil, meaning what? Perhaps Paul meant that if we walk in wisdom, we can actually do some good. We can lessen the evil around us. We can walk wisely in an age of folly. We can make a difference. 

          Paul warns us to not be foolish, to not get drunk. Sort of two sides of the same coin. You can be foolish without getting drunk, but you can hardly get drunk without getting foolish. Rather than just advising us not to get full of alcohol, Paul says in a wonderful twist on the concept of getting full, to get full all right, but on something else.  He says to “be filled with the Holy Spirit.” Paul loves the idea of Christians being filled; he just wants us filled with the right stuff. Remember that in Acts 2, on the day of Pentecost when the disciples were filled with the Holy Spirit, the effect on them looked like drunkenness. It was powerful. The Holy Spirit can do that. He does it today. For those of you who have experienced too much to drink, you may remember that at first, it is a real lift. In a little while, that temporary high is replaced with depression. Not so with the Holy Spirit. There is nothing temporary about that feeling and nothing depressing about it either.

          The challenge for the church today is the same as that which faced the early church in Ephesus. Understand the will of God and walk wisely through the world. In spite of all that appears to the contrary, it is a world in which the Holy Spirit can and does rule. Life in the Spirit makes life on earth a feast to be enjoyed rather than a task to be completed.

          This is not an admonition against drinking. It’s a warning against anything that takes control of your life besides God. Alcohol and drugs are the easy to spot enemies. It’s more difficult to deal with anger and jealousy and pride and all those subtle vices that take our lives apart a piece at a time. Anything when done to excess becomes its own god in our lives and will deflect us from living in the Spirit.

          It’s important to note that Paul calls upon the Ephesians to celebrate. The Christian life is not about being all serious and observing the don’ts. It's about celebrating the dos. Do walk wisely. Do God’s will. Do be filled with the Holy Spirit.  Do “sing and make melody to the Lord with your heart.” Do “give thanks always and for everything to God.” With all the do’s that Paul advocates, who has time for the don’ts.

          So it’s time to go back to school; time for new challenges, new friends, new teachers, new experiences. Do take God with you to school, whether it be elementary or middle or high or college or the school of life. Do take God with you on the school bus and to the classroom and to the cafeteria and to the ball field and the gym. Do take God with you in the car and to the breakfast table, even to work. Sometimes new can be intimidating, even scary. It will not seem daunting if the Holy Spirit comes along with you. Be filled and experience the joy of fullness that doesn’t stop.

          Christians live in a counter-culture in the middle of the greater culture around us. The church is called to be the hands and feet of Jesus ministering to a world which will never know him  without us. It is a precious and wonderful calling. It can be scary, even dangerous, but it is meant to bring joy not only to us, but to all who hear the message with their hearts. When we see each other in the light of Christ, we pay no attention to social values. We see instead the dignity of every person.

          Let us follow the example of the early church. Wherever you go, whoever you meet, tell the story. And “sing and make melody to the Lord in your heart.”

Living Bread

John 6: 35-51

 

 

          The people of the Exodus are in the wilderness, aptly named the wilderness of Sin. The going has gotten tough and the newness has worn off. Now they are grumbling. Why did we leave? We had food in Egypt. Now we are dying of hunger. We should have stayed. They are only six weeks out of slavery in Egypt, but already they are grumbling and ready to throw in the towel.  They have decided for themselves what they want to do. They want to play God.

          God says to Moses: I’ve got this. I’m sending bread from heaven. You will call it manna. But listen. This is also a test; it is both a loyalty test and a faith test. Each day, I will send just enough to get by for the day, and if it is not gathered in the morning, it will melt. On the day before the Sabbath, I will send two days’ worth. If the people are loyal and faithful, they will be fine.

          The people gathered the manna, that is, most of them did. The ones that gathered it late found it full of worms and stinking. The ones that didn’t gather two days’ worth on the sixth day went hungry. There was something else remarkable. Those that properly gathered their two day portion found that it did not stink on the second day. Those that followed their own plan? You guessed it. They wanted to play God. Guess how that worked out!        

           God’s people moved on from the wilderness of Sin to a place called Rephidim, but they were out of water. You know the drill. Moses, why did you do this to us! God, why did you do this to us! We were better off where we were! Following God’s instructions, Moses strikes a rock and water gushes forth—enough water to sate the thirst of all the people. That’s roughly a million people who got something to drink that day.

          In the book of Exodus, the people of God are being shown who God is and who God isn’t. They are provided with food and water, the sustenance of life on earth. They have no reason to take credit, any more than does their leader Moses. They have God to thank for their lives and their full bellies. In the gospel of John, the crowds who come to hear Jesus are also hungry. He feeds the five thousand on a hill one afternoon and they follow him across the lake for more.

They remind Jesus that their forefathers received manna in the wilderness; literally, bread from heaven. They like being fed.

But Jesus tells them they’re on the wrong diet. They need to get rid of all those carbs and try the true bread from heaven.

          At first, Jesus’ words evoke a great desire in those who follow him. “Sir, give us this bread always,” they cry. But then, Jesus begins to explain. “I am the bread of life,” he says. “Whoever comes to me shall not hunger and whoever believes in me shall not thirst,” he says.  Jesus goes on to explain that this time, the bread that comes down from heaven is designed not just to get us through the afternoon or the day, but through the rest of our lives. This bread that Jesus described is bread of the Spirit. It will fill our hearts and our lives in a way much more important and lasting than the next meal.

          The people have trouble believing. Many of them know him as the carpenter’s son from Nazareth. Hardly a claim to fame, much less divinity. Jesus tells them not to grumble among themselves. Don’t you know he is remembering their ancestors doing the same thing in the wilderness of Sin and at Rephidim.  They grumble because they don’t want to be told what to do. They want to play God.

          This week I tried to play God. I call it playing Dad. Not a good idea with grown children, especially if you raised them to think for themselves. One daughter needed a piece of equipment, which I helped her to acquire. It immediately proved defective. She called to tell me of her plan to deal with it and I promptly tried to change it. Another daughter struggles with what she will do next in her teaching and mission. I gave her my thoughts and suggestions. A third daughter is on severe water rationing while her husband is away on deployment. I told her to come home. Want to know my batting average on those three decisions? 000.  I got absolutely nowhere. My advice wasn’t bad, but I wasn’t asked for my advice. I just wanted to play God. Guess how that turned out!

          We shouldn’t feel bad when we do this. It’s been going on from the beginning. Adam started the ball rolling and we’ve been going downhill ever since. We want to be God or at least play God. I really think God put it right in our DNA. After all, he tells us that we are made in his image, in his likeness. I don’t think he’s talking about our looks. We are like God.  We just can’t be satisfied with being like God. Too often we would rather play God. Too often it is hard to follow God. We would rather go our own way or take a detour and hope we end up back home without too much effort. No, we shouldn’t feel bad for our sinful nature. But we should change course and hand the wheel over to someone who can get it right.

          So Jesus offered all those would be disciples a taste of heaven. He was giving them a chance at living bread, the kind that never molds, never goes sour, never gets consumed. Jesus said to the crowd gathered at the sea: “Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died…I am the living bread…If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever.”

          The thing about Jesus, the thing about being made in his image, the thing about gaining eternal life, is that there is one thing we have to do. We have to believe. We have to believe that he is that living bread and that we cannot get there from here without him. In order to believe that, we are going to have to quit playing God and let Jesus be sovereign in our lives. “Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever,” said our Savior.

          John’s gospel tells us that many who heard Jesus that day found his message too hard, his direction too confining. Many who heard him that day turned back and no longer walked with him.  In fact, it was the beginning of a falling away that, in spite of all his signs and miracles, was to be the trend as Jesus continued his march toward Calvary. His own disciples, the chosen twelve, fell away as he got closer to the cross.

          Cindy and I talk a lot about all the gluten and carbs in our diet. As we age, we become more concerned with all the bad stuff we have fed ourselves over the years. She has tried a no carb diet before. She tells me that it’s really hard for a week or two, but then something new begins to happen. Once your body is cleansed, the things you used to crave become unimportant to you. What she describes ironically has to do with giving up bread, among other things. More importantly, I hear a metaphor for Jesus and what he offers us.

          What if we treated our Christian walk like a no carb diet? What if we just quit playing God for a couple weeks and tried to really turn it all over to him? What if we stayed on a strict diet of living bread for just a few weeks? I’m thinking that once it becomes a diet, we will feel so healthy that we just will not want to go back. Temptation will never stop coming, but it just won’t have the same effect.

          Think about it. Think about a life filled with living bread. Jesus gave us that option. He said to the people that day: “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all.”   The disciples hanging out in that upper room in Jerusalem the day of Pentecost found out exactly what Jesus had been trying to tell them. Although they had fallen away and had become scared and timid, they found their courage in a New York minute when the Holy Spirit came into their lives.

          This day, why don’t you decide to turn it up a notch? Why don’t you just bow your head and say a silent prayer. Why don’t you change your diet? If you invite the Holy Spirit in, look out, because if you are serious, he will come. Once he does, it won’t take long for you to forget the way you were before. You won’t even miss it.

          And Jesus said: “I am the bread of life…The words I have spoken to you are spirit and life.”

Preston’s Question

                                                      John 14: 27

 

 

          As you know, I normally color between the lines. That is, I see the sermon as a brief opportunity to remind myself and others of the gospel story. It cannot be told enough. It cannot be overemphasized. It is by far the most important message ever told. And so that is my concentration. But there are times, and today is one of them, when I feel compelled to stretch that fabric to deal with an issue that should be discussed. So forgive me if this message seems to stray. I believe by its end, it may yet find itself part of that gospel message so elemental to Christian beliefs. As this story unfolds, you will all know the players involved, but please realize they could be any of us. This was an exchange that is and will be taking place all over America is the coming months and years.

          The other day, I went over to visit a bit with a church member. We sat in rocking chairs on the front porch and just took a little while to catch up. I was about to start for home and he was taking a break from outside chores on a very hot day. While we were visiting, we were joined by another church member and his son, a curious and engaging fellow who will soon enter the 3rd grade. As we talked, the conversation began to split.  The two church members talked and I began to listen to my friend Preston. He had some questions he needed to talk about. Questions about creation and about dinosaurs and about time. It was a theological challenge to keep up.

          Things moved along and I felt that I was holding my own with Preston. Then his questions began to take a new turn. He asked me if it was okay that he had friends who were boys. He told me he really liked boys, that he really had a lot in common with boys and they were fun to play with. He asked me if that was all right. I told him that was of course all right. Then he said that he had heard grownups talking about boys marrying boys and girls marrying girls. He said as much as he liked boys, he didn’t want to marry one. He said that when it came to things like that, he liked girls a whole lot more. I assured him that not only did I think he had the right idea, but that I felt the same way myself.

          I don’t think he noticed, but I did. The other conversation had stopped. Everyone was listening to an eight year old explain what was normal. He wanted to know what the Bible said about such things. He wanted to do the right thing. I told him the Bible was pretty much right where he was and he didn’t need to change a thing.

         He doesn’t need to change a thing. But we do. Our culture has moved. It seems as if the earth has moved right under our feet. The Supreme Court of the land has legalized same gender marriage. Perhaps of even greater importance is the fact that as of this moment, same sex marriage has been sanctioned by such mainline churches in America as the Evangelical Lutheran Church, the Episcopal Church, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the Quakers, the United Church of Christ, both the Reformed and Conservative Jewish Movements and several others. According to a recent survey by the Pew Foundation, a solid majority of white mainline Protestants (62%) now favor allowing same gender marriage. A similar share say there is “no conflict” between their religious beliefs and homosexuality.

          Preston was worried that he might have to be careful about liking boys. He doesn’t want to send the wrong signal. He doesn’t want to grow up and marry a boy just because he likes boys as friends. A second grade teacher wrote in to Family Focus, a division of Focus on the Family started by James Dobson, and asked “Do you have material on how to explain same-sex marriage vs. traditional marriage to my students? I want them to hear the right perspective when it comes to what they are being taught in public school.” A mother wrote in and asked “What do I say to my children who are exposed to these ideas from all sides?”

          Preston has a good question. He has a strong family unit and a strong church family as well and Preston will wrestle with these issues and find the answers, but many, many children will not be as lucky as Preston. In America today, 1/3 of all children are being raised without a father at home; 11% without a mother. The American family as we know it is disintegrating. Fully 44% of our children will have only one parent to ask. That is a problem bigger than how to answer questions about sexuality and marriage, but that is a sermon for another day.

          What do you say to your children? They are already being exposed to questions that just a few years ago, you would never have dreamed would become part of the vocabulary of our society. The resolution of this issue by the high court is and will continue to impact not only our secular culture, but also our religious culture. Justice Scalia, in his dissent, said that the decision spells the end of democracy as we know it.

          Our secular culture has moved. A considerable portion of our church culture has also moved. It would appear that our little congregation will stand firm that marriage is between a man and a women, relying on bedrock passages of scripture that would seem to yield no other possible interpretation to us. While this is our interpretation based upon what we believe to be the plain language of the Bible, it is not the interpretation applied by many mainline Christian churches in North America.

          I’m not nearly as concerned for the churches of North America as I am for all the boys and girls out there who just want to know how to behave. They have a right to know, don’t you think? And if they have a right to know, they might also want all of us grownups to show them the way and tell them the truth. In light of recent events, those answers may not come as easily as they did not so long ago.

          But there is an answer. It is the same answer that it has always been when it comes to the way and the truth. Our culture may have moved. Our parent church may have moved. But God and the gospel he sent us are timeless and immoveable. I have an answer and so do you. I know the way and I know the truth and so do you. It’s Jesus. Jesus said “I am the way, the truth and the life.” His way was not popular, nor is it easy. But it is the way.

          Well, that’s all well and good, but what do we do with Preston? Does he have to be careful? What do we tell the Prestons of the world about their behavior? What do we tell them about family? We remain Christians dedicated to the core beliefs found in Scripture, but in our application and observance of those beliefs, we practice the Golden Rule. We can allow for the differences of the beliefs of others without falling prey to those beliefs when they clash with our Christian values. We tell them to play with friends, no matter what sex they are. We tell them that we are their family. We show them that the church, just as much as their own flesh and blood, is there for them, that we have time for them, that they can ask anything of us and we will listen and guide…and be guided by the Scriptures that God has given to us to read for ourselves.

          We can do one more thing for Preston and for every youngster who just wants to know. We can hold them and hug them and give them some peace from all the questions they face in a confusing world. How do we do that? We claim the promise of Jesus himself made to his disciples just hours before his arrest and crucifixion. Jesus said: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.”

          Jesus spoke to a troubled lot that night and the world in which we live has never found its way to real peace. Now, in the name of individual rights, our country and the North American church finds itself on the horns of yet another controversy, and this time it threatens to shake the unit of family to its very core. What else is new? Is this really so different? Every generation must decide anew whether it will carry that cross or whether it will just give in the demands of society. Christians do not march to the drumbeat of the world. We never have.

          Let not your hearts be troubled. He will give us not only peace; he will even provide the Way.