“ Shalom for those who embrace Jesus’ way of wisdom.”
The 8th Sunday After Pentecost, July 6, 2008
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A sociologist at Rice University said “it’s not that Americans don’t believe in anything, it’s that they believe in everything.
Religion is 3000 miles wide, but it’s only three inches deep,” he said.
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Jim Wallis
The Rev. Jim Wallis is an evangelical Christian writer.
He’s also a political activist.
His writings are regularly published as op-eds in major media outlets.
He teaches a course in religion and politics at Harvard.
His books are widely read.
The one I know something about is God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It.
It was a best-seller.
His latest book is The Great Awakening. Reviving Faith & Politics in a Post-Religious Right America.
N.T. Wright
The Rt. Rev. Nicholas Thomas Wright is Bishop of Durham, in the Church of England.
He’s also the Canon Theologian of Westminster Abbey.
You never see his first two names in print.
It’s never “Nicholas Thomas” or “Tom.”
It’s always “N.T. Wright.”
In some ways, N.T. Wright is Anglicanism’s chief theologian, highly respected in most circles, a spokesperson for what is called “the quest for the historical Jesus”, the attempt at differentiating the mythology about Jesus from the history of Jesus.
Epistles and gospels
In Jim Wallis’ new book, he describes growing up in an evangelical church.
He says he never ever heard a sermon on the “Sermon on the Mount.”
You know, the compilation of Jesus’ sayings that encapsulate his moral teachings.
Blessed are the poor, those who mourn, the hungry, the meek, the merciful, blessed are the peacemakers.
Resist evil, turn the other cheek, do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
He never heard a sermon on any of that.
N.T. Wright suggests that Jim Wallis’ experience reflects a phenomenon on both sides of the Atlantic.
Much evangelical Christianity has based itself on the epistles (the letters of Paul, mainly) rather than on the the gospels, the narratives that describe what Jesus said and what Jesus did.
The gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are about God in public.
They’re about the kingdom of God coming on earth as in heaven through the public career and death and resurrection of Jesus.
The letters were written in the century following the first Easter.
The letters are not about Jesus.
Most were written to communities of new Christians in the Greek-speaking world.
Others were personal correspondence with individuals.
Many Christians rely more heavily on these teachings than they do on the teachings of Jesus.
Paul in need of a 12-step program?
This morning in Paul’s letter to the church in Rome we experience Paul’s anguish.
“I don’t understand my own actions” he says.
“I do the very thing that I hate.”
It’s not him who’s doing it, he rationalizes.
It’s the “sin” that is inside him.
Years ago, TV comedian Flip Wilson said the same thing.
“The devil made me do it!,” he would say.
(It became a phrase that caught on in popular culture around the country.)
But Paul takes it even further.
“There’s nothing good in my flesh.
The evil I do not want is what I do.
I see in my members (think ‘body parts’ or ‘bodily organs’) I see in my ‘members’ another law.
It’s at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin in my body.”
If anybody walked into my office today and said any of that to me, I wouldn’t hesitate.
I’d recommend therapy, some antidepressants, and maybe a 12-step program!
“The evil I don’t want is what I do.”
Just stop doing it, I say.
Some speculate that it was homosexual feelings that were troubling Paul.
In any case, it was something he couldn’t talk about.
Paul, according to tradition, grew up in what is now Turkey.
He was a privileged Roman citizen.
And he was a Jew.
(Nearly all of the first Christians were Jews, of course.)
He may have studied in Jerusalem.
He described himself as a Pharisee, one who was separated for a life of purity.
Believe me, he was one who knew the law, backward and forward, and he was clearly tortured by it, even after his psychic encounter with Christ on the road to Damascus.
It was his theology, I think, that has shaped Christianity through the centuries.
The legal dogma, cast in concrete.
The exclusivity (“our way” is the only way to salvation).
The requirements for membership.
It’s a different world we live in today: The Pew Report
But things are changing in our churches.
And not just “our” churches, but in most denominations.
A study by the Pew Foundation has just been released.
It details social and political attitudes of Americans.
While many Americans are highly religious, most are not dogmatic in their approach to faith.
Listen to this.
It’s fascinating.
A majority of adherents in nearly all religious traditions, including a majority of evangelical Christians, say that there is not just one way to salvation, and that there is not just one way to interpret the teachings of their own faith.
Researchers interviewed more than 35,000 adults in the United States.
Episcopalians made up about one-and-a-half percent of the respondents and we were included in the category of “mainline Protestant churches.”
Exclusivity
Most religious organizations in the U.S. have some sort of exclusivity clause.
In our church it’s baptism.
If you’re not baptized, you’re not a member.
But what they found is that most of the time the clause is not being invoked.
A sociologist at Rice University said “it’s not that Americans don’t believe in anything, it’s that they believe in everything.
Religion is 3000 miles wide, but it’s only three inches deep,” he said.
The Bible has long been America’s best-selling book, but almost half of U.S. adults say they never read it.
Lots of Americans say that faith is very important to them, but definitely not everybody acts on their faith publicly.
They’re not going to church.
Here are a few key statistics from the report:
Belief in God
More than 90% of Americans believe in the existence of God or a universal spirit.
Sixty percent believe that God is a person available for a relationship.
Twenty-five percent see God as “an impersonal force.”
Seventy percent say they are absolutely certain of God’s existence.
Twenty-two percent are less certain.
The one true faith?
Regarding life after death, Seventy percent of religious Americans say that many different religions can lead to eternal life.
A faith handed down once and for all?
Should religion adjust to new circumstances?
Forty-four percent of the faithful said no.
We should preserve traditional beliefs and practices.
Thirty-five percent said there should be “adjustments.” (Episcopalians are in this category.)
The word of God?
More than 60 percent of Americans view their religion’s sacred texts as “the word of God.”
Mainline Protestants, Catholics, and Mormons, however, are likely to say the Bible, although the “word of God,” should not be interpreted literally.
The Yoke of Christ is good news!
Even in places where religious denominations are not changing, the people in the pews are changing.
Roman Catholics in the United States are everywhere thinking for themselves.
Alternative spiritual practices are attracting all sorts of people in all sorts of churches.
Biblical scholarship is widely accessible, and the historical Jesus has been let out of the closet.
There’s no question about it.
The spiritual journey of a follower of Jesus has become way less complicated, way less draconian, much more lenient.
The religious way of life feels easier for many of us.
And I think that this is what Jesus wanted.
In the context of the words of judgment found in this morning’s gospel passage, Jesus promises rest and peace.
“Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
God’s ultimate aim is healing, and not judgment.
Jesus promises shalom, God’s peace, for those who embrace his way of wisdom.
Jerry Brooks
Sunday, July 6, 2008
Returned Saturday evening from California. Had a great day Friday. First lunch with Amelia -- almost seven months old now. Then lunch with Jenn outdoors in Berkeley. Amelia came along, but had already eaten.
