It Takes A Church...

Which Kind of Community?

In his most recent blog post, Fuller Theological Seminary President, Richard Mouw, offers some perspective on the struggle within many churches today regarding being "seeker sensitive" vs. "traditional".  Both Reformed and informed, Mouw draws upon the work of Robert Bellah for a better description and more insightful question: "Should we attempt to be communities of interest or communities of memory?" 

That is to say, which is more important: restructuring churches to appeal to the outsider who is searching for God and responding to the missional opportunities and challenges present in the culture or insuring that churches remained focused on the liturgical, doctrinal and sacramental elements that keeps the church anchored in it's core beliefs and practices?   

Mouw, drawing on John Calvin no less, answers (with characteristically Mouwian wisdom): We must focus on both. I won't restate what Mouw writes so well here, but I will make another point that I want to spend more time on in the days ahead:

If this is so, (as I believe it is) then once again, the challenge of church leadership is inherent in the complexity of serving a community with (supposedly) unchanging core convictions in an (absolutely) ever-changing world.  In the phrases of some leadership experts, the church must be both "built to last" and "built to change" at the same time.

Personally, these thoughts come out of an experience I am having of moderating a task force in our Presbytery that is working on restructuring the goals, and systems of our Presbytery to fulfill our long stated vision to be a "missional presbytery."  As my colleagues and I talk together about the inherent conflicts when deeply held "competing values" are at the core of a community, we find ourselves searching for ways to articulate and formulate a path for transformation of our Presbytery and our churches to better equipped to face the challenges of our changing culture without losing the "soul" of what makes a church, well, a church. 

Somewhere amidst the "both/and" of our ecclesial identity and the hard choices that we must face in expressing those identity markers for the sake of the world is our mission. 

And in my next post, I'll offer some thoughts that have been milling around in my head since I visited a big group of Maine Methodists last fall.

The Same But Different...Creation and New Creation.

In Surprised by Hope, N.T. Wright says, in the first century, “resurrection meant bodies.” (p. 36)

While this was not considered unusual for most of human recorded history (especially those who didn’t believe in resurrection), it seems to be for many of us today (especially for those of us who claim most passionately to believe in resurrection).

For most the last 2000 years, Christians collected relics, protected bones and worried whether God could sufficiently re-created someone out of ashes burned in cremation.  Today, our problem tends to be the opposite.

We think that everlasting life is simply about souls.  Some kind of spiritual stuff that exists eternally (really only the Greeks, eastern religion and Mormons believe that officially) and is injected into bodies who someday will “shuffle off this mortal coil” (But for an interesting take on that phrase from Hamlet, and how most of us confuse what it means, see this  vs. this)

But much of this confusion is actually alleviated when we reconsider the scriptures.  In the scriptures, the ultimate hope of Christians is not that we are going to have our souls sent to heaven when we die to live there eternally, but that “if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.”  (Romans 6:5)

And many, many times, we can read passage like this and come to exactly the wrong conclusion.

To use a different example to make the same point: The old beautiful King James Version of the Bible says in John 3:16, “whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  The him, of course, is Jesus and the good news we are told is that our life will be “everlasting.”  But think about that for a second.  Is that really good news?

Quite frankly, an eternity of the life that most of us lead is not offering much.  Would you want most of the parts of this life to be everlasting?

Everlasting taxes and traffic
Everlasting debt and disappointments,
Everlasting pimples and problems,
Everlasting insecurities and inhibitions,
Everlasting war and worry?
(Would you even want ever-lasting sermons and worship services?)

If life simply lasts forever and it is not changed, then what value is that?

But the Greek word behind the KJV’s everlasting is far more than "never-ending”. The word denotes more of a unique, imperishable, quality.  The everlasting life of God is not only life that lasts forever, but life of a different kind which is available now and lasts forever.  In short, it is this life…transformed and made new.  It is created life, re-created  (2 Corinthians 5:17, Romans 8:18-24).

This is what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:42-53, as he describes the new resurrected life, concluding this part of the argument in v. 50-52: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For this perishable body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality.

And when that happens, Paul writes, death will be defeated.  Not the triumph of the soul, but the transformation of the whole of a human into a being who now lives in the new creation.  (“We are saved not as souls, but as wholes,” Wright says, p. 199).  A being that is like the being-Jesus after he was raised from the dead, “Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we will also bear the image of the man of heaven” (1 Corinthians 15:49).

This leads us to better understand that resurrection is not resuscitation.  It is not just a continuation of this life.  To be resurrected is not to be revived after flat lining.  So Lazarus, who had been dead for three days wasn’t literally resurrected in John 11.  He was resuscitated.  He was given back his current life.

When Jesus was resurrected, he was given a new, fully eternal life that was both consistent with who he had been, but was also different.  His body bore the scars of his crucifixion, he could eat fish and touch his disciples, but he also could appear in locked rooms, was unrecognizable without faith, and disappeared at a moment’s notice.

It was the same body, but different.  Like a seed is both same and different than the plant that it produces (1 Cor 15:37).  And like the way that we humans change out every physical bit of us, every atom and molecule over a period of seven years or so.  As Wright writes, “I am physically a totally different person now from the person I was ten years ago.  And yet I am still me” (p. 157).

And that “still but transformed me” in the “still but transformed world” is what the hope of the resurrection and promise of the new creation is all about.

(For more on this see, Wright, Surprised by Hope, pages 159-163: “Rethinking Resurrection Today: Who, Where, What, Why, When and How”)

Eastertide, Resurrection and Mission

In one of his recent books, Bishop Tom Wright bemoans the one-day celebration of Easter. After such a long Lent, he says, we need days of "morning prayers and champagne" to celebrate the magnitude of the Resurrection. Mark D. Roberts agrees (though I have never heard him suggest the champagne) when he writes about recapturing of the liturgical tradition of Eastertide.

And both of these friends have convinced me to spend some time lingering in the wonder of the Resurrection.

Eastertide, the 50 days following Easter until Pentecost is the perfect time of the year to linger in the wonder of the empty tomb.  During this time, we can sing the Resurrection hymns that we couldn't quite fit into the Easter services.  We can ask some hard questions without worrying about putting a damper on Easter dinner.  Like, what does the resurrection mean? 

Jesus is risen, therefore, there is life after death?
Jesus is risen metaphorically in our hearts but we all know not literally, therefore, the world is fresh with possibilities?
Jesus is risen, historically, and factually, therefore we know he is God?
Jesus is risen, therefore...we should go to church once or twice a year?

And even more significantly, we can plumb the most important theological question about the resurrection: "So, what?"

    If Jesus is risen, then what does that have to do with me?  Is it only something about Jesus or about the "afterlife"?  Or does the resurrection mean something that has to do with this world and this life?

In Surprised by Hope, Wright (who argues persuasively and in scholarly depth for a literal, historical, bodily resurrection of Jesus) asserts that the bodily resurrection when clearly understood leads inexorably to the church's mission.  Indeed, the mission of the church is to implement the victory Christ won on the cross and revealed in the resurrection.  But until we understand what resurrection meant to the first Christians, we'll never understand what it is supposed to mean, for present-day Christians, and through us, the world whole world. "Once we get resurrection straight, we can and must get mission straight." (p.193).

So, for this Eastertide, I want to spend some time lingering in the wonder and hope of the resurrection, so that I might better understand the call and hope of the church's mission.

Note: At SCPC, starting tomorrow evening, I will offer a four-week discussion of Surprised by Hope on Wednesday evenings in the Sanctuary, at 6:30.  On Sunday, the theme of our Worship services will be "Easter Faith"  and we will celebrate receiving 25 junior highers' confirmation of faith and entering into membership.  Then, starting on the first Sunday of April, I will begin a four-week series on 1 Corithians 15, called "Wholly Saved", which will take us through Eastertide.  I'll blog along with those themes here. 

And what did the first Christians mean by "resurrection" anyway? 
 

Kingdom, Cross and Resurrection: The Hope of All

Readers to this blog and members of my church know that I have been reading and recommending, N.T. Wright's newest book Surprised by Hope. On Wednesday evening, I will be starting a four-week discussion of the book at SCPC as a way of providing a kind of tutorial for those who would like to read it and discuss it.  Surprised by Hope is challenging, provocative, and really, really helpful for those of who truly want to understand the practical relevance of our Christian hope. Like all books by Wright, it is a thoroughly biblical treatise.  But it also demonstrates a pastoral sensitivity and a prophetic urgency for those of us who have relegated the resurrection to nothing more than a guarantee for believers to gain heaven when we die. (For an excellent article by Wright that introduces these themes see this.)

Recently, I was fortunate enough to spend a couple of hours with Bishop Tom and confessed to him, that I have struggled through the years with figuring out what the atonement has to do with the Kingdom of heaven.  As I told him, " A few years ago it dawned on me that I can preach the kingdom right through the gospels, but when I get to Good Friday and Easter, but then I lose sight of the Kingdom in the cross and then empty tomb."  I told him that a good deal of my reading of his material has been to try to solve this problem. Thankfully this book and the scholarly book behind it (The Resurrection and the Son of God) have helped me bring Kingdom, Cross and Resurrection together. 

And my Easter sermon this year, is my first real attempt at doing so, publicly.  In the weeks ahead, I will be blogging on these themes as I lead my church through a long "Eastertide" reflection on "The Resurrection, the Kingdom and the Hope of All."

 
Easter Sermon given at San Clemente Presbyterian Church, 2008
I must confess to you that I am not ready for Easter this year.  It has completely and utterly snuck up on me.  If you don’t believe me, drive by my house after the services and you will notice that my Christmas lights are still up. 

Thankfully, I don’t live in Marblehead or I am sure I would be the topic of many a Homeowners Association Meetings.  Some may think that I am making some statement about the Christmas spirit lasting all year. But my neighbors know better.  They commiserate with Beth about her lazy husband who isn’t very handy around the house.  Poor girl.  If you see her and mention this to her, be kind.  She probably hates that I am pointing this out, but it’s true.  I am not ready for Easter at all.

We turned the clocks ahead for Daylight Savings Time a month early this year and I have been sleepy ever since.  The schools are not even at Spring Break yet and I still have a lot more skiing I want to get in this year.  I am not ready for Spring, I am not ready for Easter and all week long, I have been feeling kind of guilty about it, actually. You see Easter is a big deal in our business.  In fact, it’s the biggest deal.  Heck, I even wear a tie. 

But I just haven’t been ready.  It kind of snuck up on me.  Then I got an email recently that at least helped me realize that I am not the problem…All this time, I thought this was about my lack of spirituality, or my mismanagement of my life.  But now I know that I am the VICTIM here.  Easter is the problem.  Easter showed up early. 

Did you see this email, too? Easter this year is the earliest that it has been since 1913, over 95 years ago.  Anybody here 95?  (Ok, you should have been ready, you’ve been through this before!)  But because of the way Easter falls on the calendar, it hasn’t been this early in almost a century and won’t be this early again until 220 years from now.  So most of us don’t have to worry about that, do we?  No one alive today has ever or will ever see it earlier than it is this year. 

So we can relax.  We can take down the Christmas lights tomorrow (I promise, honey, really!).  We can feel good about ourselves and blame Easter for barging in on our St. Patrick’s day party’s like guest that shows up when you are still in the shower.

This year Easter is the problem.  Except…

This is exactly the same as the FIRST Easter.  The first Easter came early, too.

"It is Finished."

If you were a Roman merchant in the first century and someone paid off a debt to you in full, you would have scrawled on the bottom of the debt sheet, "tetelestai."   But if you were a Jewish follower of Jesus, listening to him cry out from the cross, that same phrase (maybe in Aramaic), would have hearkened back to a Hebrew phrase from Genesis at the end of the sixth day:

"The heavens and earth were finished.."

In his little book, Christians at the Cross: Finding Hope in the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Jesus, N.T. Wright reflects on this double-entendre that may have echoed through the minds of those with ears to hear:

Now, on Friday, the sixth day of the week, Jesus has completed the work of redeeming the world. With his shameful, chaotic, horrible death he has gone to the very bottom, to the darkest and deepest place of ruin, and has planted there the sign that says 'Rescued'. It is the sign of love, the love of the creator for his ruined creation, the love of the saviour for his ruined people.  Yes, of course, it all has to be worked out.  The victory has to be implemented. But it's done; it's completed; it's finished.

Holy Saturday is the day that we sit in reflection of what Christ has done--that which only he could have accomplished--and listen for the invitation for what we are to do to implement Jesus' victory in every setting of life.

In the upper room, when Peter asked Jesus if he could follow him wherever he was going on that dark night, Jesus, knowing Peter's frailty said, "You cannot follow me now, but you will follow me afterward."  (John 13:36)

Today begins the "afterward."

Good Friday

Missional Must-Reading

Lately I have been in a number of conversations about the growing interest in what it means to be a "missional" church.  This is both exciting and, at times, exasperating as what was once a clear theological grid for refocusing the priorities of the church back to the Mission of God, has become a buzz-word that indicates many different and often contradictory things.  Christianity Today has a great article that both confronts and clarifies this confusion at exactly the right time.

"With so many variant views, the term missional church now needs something like an FDA label: Warning: Contradictory and conflicting views of the church inside."

I encourage my missional-minded colleagues to read this and then join the conversation over with the thoughtful and visionary folks at Presbyterian Global Fellowship. Conversation is a key missional strategy, and after spending some time with some great leaders of PGF yesterday, I am eager to be part of more conversations with them.

To that end, I want to enter the conversation about one of the key elements that is being overlooked, but thankfully is highlighted in the CT Article,

 
"Missions" should not be one church program among many, but the church's core identity as witnesses sent by God into the world. Missional Church authors were not merely "redesign[ing] the church for success in our changing context," or seeking a pragmatic "method and problem solving" approach to ministry. Instead, they sought to diagnose the cultural captivity of today's church, including its obsession with marketing and technique. More importantly, they painted a theologically rooted vision of the church as a community called to participate in God's mission in and for the world.

The last sentence leads me to where I want to take up an aspect of missional theology that is already getting lost in what I see  are a number of false dichotomies ("attractional" vs. "missional"; church gathered vs. the "real church" scattered", to name two that I have heard repeatedly), but focusing on  this  radical  church-changing idea that flies in the face of the individualism that is the single-most influential idea of modernism: The COMMUNITY as the basic unit of mission.

But more on that next post.

PS.  I would encourage all who have been so inspired by recent missional writers to return to the roots of the movement by taking the time to read through this book and visiting this site, also.

Mayors and Pray-ers

This morning, I was privileged to speak at the Kiwannis Club's Annual Mayor's Prayer Breakfast in San Clemente.  Here is a manuscript of my remarks...

Mr. Mayor, City Council, members of Kiwannis, fellow San Clementeans, thank you for the privilege of being your keynote speaker this morning.

Allow me a pastoral shout-out to my friends from San Clemente Presbyterian Church.  That Community of faith has certainly taught me what it means to be good friends, neighbors and civic leaders.  They really are a Community for the community.

Will you also let me acknowledge the presence of my good friend, my cycling buddy, a member of my church, a veteran of three tours of duty in Iraq and the commanding officer of the 2 Battalion/ 5th Marines, preparing to leave next month for yet another tour of duty abroad, Lt. Col. Todd Eckloff.

While I am extending thanks, I would be remiss if I didn’t highlight the pastors’ fellowship in this town that is so remarkably generous, gracious and hospitable.  They know, far more than the Kiwanians or Council Members that I am the least worthy candidate to be giving this address this morning.  Because of my schedule and duties, I am almost never able to participate in their gatherings and planning sessions, yet I am always, always welcomed with open arms and full support whenever I am able to join with them.  Can I also just mention the tremendous leadership and service that is consistently offered to all of us from Pastor Ron Sukut.  Ron was the very first pastor in this town to welcome me to San Clemente Presbyterian almost 11 years ago, he was hands-on involved around the clock partnering with our church’s relief efforts during the wildfires last fall, and he continues to communicate, pray, serve and bless humbly and generously. Ron, you truly are the pastor of this town.

It is also a privilege to join with you in thanking God for the blessings of living in this town.  And indeed, like most of you I am sure, I consider it one of God’s greatest joys of in my life.

Last week I had the privilege of hosting and spending time with the wife of the Bishop of Durham of the Church of England.  She spent nearly a week here in San Clemente and Dana Point and just loved it.  When we were driving down the coast to go pick up the Bishop at the airport, she looked out the window at the sun glistening on the ocean and this women who has traveled the world, lived all over the world, lunched with the Queen and hosted dignitaries said to me, “If anybody lived here, I would guess they would never leave.”  To which I replied, “If they can help it, mostly they don’t.”

When a pastor moves to a new church, the religious term is that we are “called” by God to the new position and new place.  But when I first moved here eleven years ago, I was reluctant to talk about God “calling” me San Clemente.  For most pastors a “call” implies at least some sense of being willing to be  inconvenienced or possibly "suffer and sacrifice" for the Lord.  Depending on your perspective, you may be "called" to Fresno, or Fargo, or Fairbanks, but you aren’t “called” to San Clemente, you GET to go to San Clemente and when you do you consider yourself either very blessed or very lucky indeed.

This morning, I hope to express my gratitude for the privilege of living and serving here, by hopefully serving you through some thoughtful remarks.

So…

A priest, a rabbi, a parrot, a blonde and a seeing-eye dog all walk into a bar, and the bar tender says, “Is this some kind of a joke?”

Well, in a similar way following that opening, the question I want to pose may seem like one: What do politicians and pastors have in common?

Or to put it more accurately, What do people of faith and public officials share?

Or once more, What do Mayors have to do with Pray-ers? (And by that, I mean the people doing the praying and not the praying itself.)

This morning, I would like to venture a public answer to that question.

Another Lenten Devotional Suggestion

From Scot McKnight...Say the 'Jesus Creed' every morning and every night until Easter Sunday.

Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One.
Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul,
with all your mind, and with all your strength.
The second is this: Love your neighbor as yourself.
There is no commandment greater than these.

A Robust Gospel

The little gospel promises me personal salvation and eternal life. But the robust gospel doesn't stop there. It also promises a new society and a new creation. When Jesus stood up to read Isaiah 61 in the synagogue at Nazareth, then sat down and declared that this prophetic vision was now coming to pass through him, there was more than personal redemption at work. God's kingdom, the society where God's will is established and lived, was now officially at work in his followers. That society was overturning the injustices and exclusions of the empire and establishing an inclusive and just alternative.

Scot McKnight in Christianity Today

(HT: Mark D.Roberts)