The Glo-cal Church

The Glo-cal Church

As one entered our seminary chapel, you passed by a variety of things: a wooden sign saying “Quiet please—chapel in progress”, a little guestbook register that had been in service since Moses was young, a wooden stand with the day’s bulletin available, a place to store book bags, coffee mugs (truly a tool for classroom learning) and other items in hand, and a small table with usually a few flowers and a little wooden cross.

It took most chapel attendees about five seconds to walk past through the entranceway. Habit made this hallway overly familiar and without much pause to stop and look around. One day, I did take my time entering the chapel, and I noticed that there was a small note on the cross itself. Written in careful small letters, the note read, “This cross is fashioned from wood taken from a renovation of William Carey’s home.”

Unless you slept through seminary courses in church history, world mission class, or even Baptist history 101 (and many did get drowsy in one or all three), you would recognize the name of William Carey, considered to be the “father” of the modern mission movement. William Carey was a British Baptist living in a time when “missions” was not a concern for Baptists. Indeed, the theological view of many British Baptists of the 18^th century was that God did not need believers to spread the Gospel. Those who would believe would believe if God wanted them to do so. A crash course in early Baptist beliefs would be helpful to explain this, but the fact that this notion sounds odd and pretty bizarre to your ears means that William Carey’s appeal for Baptists to go forth with the gospel around the world worked. The notion of Baptists being mission-minded is just as deeply engrained in our Baptist spiritual DNA as our love for gallons, of water to baptize believers and the passion for a good potluck dinner.

Today we begin our month of offerings to support the World Mission Offering, benefiting the work of American Baptists through the Board of International Ministries. It is our way to make certain that our mission work continues a proud tradition stretching back to the era of persons like William Carey and Adnoiram Judson. American Baptists celebrate many good ministries around the world, and it is our responsibility and calling as First Baptist, Bennington, to support our missionaries and mission. Your mission board set a goal last year and the annual meeting approved that goal back in January, and now it is our opportunity to fulfill it. The 2007 goal for the World Mission Offering is $500, which will be joined together with the giving of other American Baptist congregations to be faithful to our common vision for a global mission effort. (And trust me, the folks in International Ministries depend on your faithfulness. Most of their operating budget is received through this annual offering.)

In my mind’s eye and with a good belief in the New Testament notion of the communion of saints above cheering us on, William Carey leans over the side of the heavens above, and says, “Go, First Baptist, go!” It might be taken at first as a word to make sure that we make that $500. (The tellers encourage your giving of paper currency. Those who give $500 in unwrapped pennies will be chased with a stick.)

I hope it is not fanciful thinking to imagine William Carey up there calling to First Baptist, “Go, First Baptist, go!” for more than just financial reasons. A good saint above would commend us to be good saints below, not merely giving to mission, but likewise becoming hands on in mission ourselves. Can we hear differently the words: “Go, First Baptist, go!”

American Baptist mission happens because of people saying “yes!” to the Great Commission to go forth and evangelize the whole world. The criticism of North American Christianity, however, has been that we have been supporting mission for so long (and certainly with great faithfulness) that we have forgotten how to do mission ourselves. We live in a mission field, indeed, what is called by American Baptist National Ministries as the third largest mission field in the world: right here in North America. Yet, when we hear the word “mission”, we think of what God is doing somewhere else. So, today, when we think of “mission”, can we start thinking of this idea: “First Baptist supports glo-cal mission”?

Glo-cal is not a word that you will find in Webster’s Dictionary or even in a good theological dictionary. It is a word that has been created to remind us that mission is “local” and “global” alike. Instead of thinking of mission as something that we fund elsewhere in the world, we turn things around a bit and say, “How do we do mission here as well as over there?” as well as “How do we live out our Christian faith in a way that is mindful that we are called to tend the needs not only of this congregation or community or nation, but to embrace the whole world itself”? These are tall orders, but I think that there is proof that “glo-cal” thinking is already being sighted in our midst:

The 2007 budget that was set for this year features our faithful and essential support of American Baptists. The line items also include historic giving to our region and community. Our mission budget is different this year, as it features increased giving to the Interfaith Food & Fuel Fund and the Coalition for the Homeless, an organization raising critical needs for those without shelter in our county. We also have new line items for the Bennington Youth Center and the Bennington County chapter of Habitat for Humanity. If you glance at today’s bulletin, you will see that we are nearing the goals for pledges to local (i.e. “this church” and her needs) and the building fund (which again is all about “this church” and her needs), but we are still needing to fulfill our covenant that is our annual budget to ensure that our mission giving to denominational, local, community, and other ministries, is met. We should not let our mission support be unduly lacking while attending to the necessary affairs of day-to-day operations here for this congregation.

But thinking glocally is more than just line items and pledge giving. A glo-cal minded church dares to be hands-on in its mission. For the past month, the Adult Sunday school has gotten underway with twenty or so persons attending. We have been discussing the biblical call to serve and advocate for those who are in need, and as we read biblical texts, we are also hearing “reality checks” from our own congregants who are working to help those in need or congregants who are in need of assistance and advocacy. It is difficult to live in Bennington, find a decent paying wage or salary, and to make ends meet. It strikes me again that we cannot hope to be a church that is relevant unless we are aware of our unique calling to be the First Baptist Church OF, IN, and FOR Bennington, Vermont. And that would strike me as indeed a good reason to think of our work as holy and important work. Could we start calling ourselves “missionaries” as well—those who not only speak of the Gospel but also dare to live it in the midst of a people who are less inclined towards the Christian way of discipleship than they were in previous generations? Mission is not just “over somewhere else”. It is here, and we ought to be at the ready to be here in this mission field as well!

First Baptist has some excellent opportunities to start this journey:

(A) Spend time together as a congregation pondering your calling as a church. We have some significant opportunities between now and Thanksgiving to start listening for God and discerning what is necessary to move us closer to a vision for the future that is not just “good intentions on a page” but words that we seek to live by as we serve this community. I cannot stress enough the importance of each one of you being the critical part of what will make this congregation go forward. I’m just the minister. You are the people whom decide whether the story just repeats the last three decades of decline or if you dare to see clearly that new life and relevant mission is on the horizon. These next few Sundays are key opportunities for you to spend time learning from visiting guests like Sue Andrews, manager of the Food & Fuel Fund as she speaks about the unique issues that she encounters with those in need within our community as well as Dr. Anthony Malone, an Albany area pediatrician and American Baptist layman who has helped foster significant efforts by faith communities to help children and families in need. Then, we spend the rest of our “pre-holidays” time talking about the vision of First Baptist, stewardship, and most importantly, why you think this church has a future that God is calling us to bring about in the midst of this community.

(B) Take opportunities to ponder what our “footprint” looks like as a local church if we dare to be “glo-cal” in our outlook. American Baptists are a people who embrace the call to be Baptists in this country as well as part of the larger world. Over the past weeks, news of political strife and violence has come from the country of Myanmar, formerly known as Burma. American Baptists hear of Burma and think of the significant mission work of the Judsons with great fondness. (Perhaps some of you elder congregants remember reading the Judson biography To the Golden Shore.) Here is a critical opportunity for the needs of today to match up with the historic convictions of our tradition! Right now, the people of Myanmar need our prayers as their government seeks violent and coercive ways to quell the people’s right to protest. American Baptist churches are helping with refugee resettlement as Burmese come to this country to get away from the strife and establish a new life. Indeed, right now, American Baptists are calling for donations of up to $500,000 to meet the anticipated demand for dollars to be spent in helping these refugees, many of who arrive in this country seeking assistance. Our role as a small congregation is not settle for looking out for our church building or just this one community. God calls us to speak out for those in need and to offer assistance, regardless of a person’s identity or status. Our footprint as a congregation can be much larger, and it needs to be so, especially for the sake of those who are in great need and times of challenge and who are marginalized or oppressed! The Baptist World Alliance, a global group of Baptists, is calling out to churches, especially in North America, to become “global impact” churches. Is it time to adopt a new identity, not just as First Baptist “of, for, and in” Bennington, Vermont and move a step forward to being “First Baptist of, for, and in the world”?

(C) To be willing to receive, give, and be transformed by God. The spiritual life is not meant to be prayers, church attendance, and service to the “internal” life of a congregation’s governance and maintenance. The spiritual life is one of prayer, discernment, worship, and discipleship AND seeking to proclaim and enable God’s justice to be known in an unjust world. Whether it is poor families in Bennington or politically displaced Burmese families on the run from dire circumstances back home, it is all about doing God’s great mission, fulfilling Jesus’ great commission, and finding the Spirit, lest our desires and myopias lead us to the great sin of “omission” as we praise God and forget to tend these bruised and needful world.

(D) Ready to serve rather than waiting uncertainly. We can be a church that moves in the power of the Spirit, the same that fueled the ministry of Jesus and the mission of the early Church. Are you ready, First Baptist, to be more than a name on the street corner sign and more a sign on the streets of this community and this world that the gospel of Jesus Christ is here, drawn near, and ready to move into the mission field?

Parables as Protest Songs (Luke 16:19-31)

In this text, Jesus sets up a study in contrasts:

          A Rich Man, Dressed in purple, eating sumptuously in his mansion

--And--

          Lazarus, covered in sores, wishing for even table scraps at the mansion’s gate

The gulf between these two couldn’t be broader. The rich man is so rich that he wears purple, which doesn’t sound that extraordinary, but in the first century purple cloth was extremely hard to produce. A purple clad rich man was like someone in an Armani suit that cost more than most of us make in a month’s wages. Lazarus, by contrast, wears rags, the dogs who eat the table scraps that Lazarus longs for, trot out to lick his sores. The gulf between these two couldn’t be broader.

Until one night, everything changed. Lazarus died of malnutrition and neglect. Buried by the local authorities in an unmarked grave, the ones reserved for John Doe’s and other unknown paupers.

The rich man died, mourned in a grand fashion by his household and in many social circles, a big write-up in the local paper with a good size headline.

Yet, everything changed….

The rich man finds himself no longer reclining at table without a care in the world. Indeed, the temperature is rather warm to say the least.

Lazarus finds himself in the bosom of Abraham, without a care in the world, and you couldn’t ask for a better place to sit back and relax. Even a song comes to mind,

Rock-a my soul in the bosom of Abraham,

Rock-a my soul in the bosom of Abraham,

Rock-a my soul in the bosom of Abraham,

Oooo, rock my soul!

The temptation is to focus on the happy fate of Lazarus, resting up there in the sweet bye-and-bye. Usually, the greatest sin committed against parables is turning them into little morality tales. Some of the parables become enshrined in over familiarity or worse, tamed by sentimentality. Parables are meant to be fairly unruly, the ornery and earthy stories of humanity being its usual fallen self, and the observant listener discovering how God is the midst of this fractured world where the downward spiral of a prodigal boozing it up on his dad’s dime still finds inexplicable grace back home or a despised Samaritan is the valiant “hero” of the otherwise horrific story of a man getting beaten and left for dead.

The story of Lazarus and the rich man is part of Jesus’ vision for what the world is like when God’s reign is fully known. In some ways, the parables are like the protest songs of the 1960s, where musicians spun lyrical visions of a world where humanity takes leave of war, injustice, and other destructive practices. Protest songs became anthems for a generation trying to see beyond the turbulence of the 1960s, the words and tunes working their way into the soul of a country that lost itself in the struggles and problems of an era of failed policies and bad politics.

The critique of a culture gone awry is likewise found in the midst of the parables of Jesus. The rich man has forgotten much of what matters in life. He gorges on food, not even stopping once to toss a scrap to Lazarus. His unbridled consumption is reprehensible and also familiar. Perhaps Jesus would tell the story a little differently today, telling of a rich man who consumes everything, all the while dressed in red, white, and blue. Lazarus is the victim of a lifetime spent in a country that left the child Lazarus behind, told the adult Lazarus he made too much on a minimum wage to qualify for benefits, a wage that presumed a cost of living about three decades out of touch with reality. Lazarus cannot find a soup kitchen or a shelter that will take him, as there are no funds available. Lazarus has no health care, because he has no rights to it. Lazarus is ignored generally, though if spotted, he is considered part of the economic blight of the area. As far as the society that honored the rich man was concerned, Lazarus was something rather than someone.

Yet, the parable gives Lazarus his due. Bill Herzog, a gifted scholar of Jesus’ parables and our fellow American Baptist, looks at this parable and points out something that most would have overlooked. Bill walks you through the basics of interpreting the texts, then he points out a sly subtlety. As the rich man is in despair as he receives his fate in the afterlife, he cries out for Lazarus to help him. Bill remarks, “The rich man’s recognition of Lazarus exposes his hardness of heart. Lazarus was not just a nameless, anonymous beggar at his gate; the rich man knew his name. Whatever his sins may be, the rich man was not blind. He saw and knew Lazarus…..” (Parables as Subversive Speech, 123) Lazarus goes without any dignity in the here and now, yet he is named and the rich man (who could be the Bill Gates or Warren Buffet of his day) is never named. Despite all the riches and power, the rich man is nameless in the parable.

Cry out to Abraham for mercy, cry out to Lazarus for relief, for all that he could try, the rich man finds himself hearing the admonition, “Didn’t you listen to Moses and the prophets?”, which is to say, “If you did not catch that God cares for those who are downtrodden, for those who are vulnerable, for those who are marginalized, you didn’t listen that well at all…”

The Bible You Didn't Grow Up With (Amos 8:1-12)

The Bible You Didn’t Grow Up With

I begin the morning with a confession. I grew up in American Baptist congregations in Kansas where the practice was to go to church about three times a week: Sunday morning, Sunday evening, and Wednesday evening. That was essentially hearing two sermons a week and at least one bible study conducted by the minister. From this rhythm of church, church, and more church, I became acquainted with the stories of Abraham, King David, the parables, and the writings of Paul. The sermons talked of the virtues of living the Christian life and the avoidance of sin and the varied paths toward perdition. It was a formative experience for me, and I still continue to draw upon the foundations of those years of sitting in not so comfortable pews, a Bible balanced on my knee, and my mind taking it all in.

Flash forward to college days, in the midst of religion courses. I graduated in 1997 with a B.A. in religious studies from Ottawa University, a denominational-affiliated liberal arts institution. Given the faith tradition of the school, every student attending the school was required to take one religion course. Most students approached this with the same glee as getting the notice for jury duty. I remember speaking with one of these students, who turned out to be a one-time attendee of church who no longer found much interest in the faith. “I don’t think Christianity has much to say about the poor of the world. Seems like most churches are big on keeping their steeples pretty, but care very little for their resources actually doing something. Why should I bother learning of a faith if it doesn’t do any good?”

If I was a little more versed at that point in life, I would have pointed to the strong tradition of Christianity represented in such figures as St Francis of Assisi, whose monastic way emphasized living a simple life while serving those in need, or Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., whose preaching dreamed of a more equitable nation, or any other host of ministers, missionaries, teachers, activists, lay leaders, and the list could go on.

But in that moment, I just fell silent. I knew all too well where this student was coming from. While we talked of saving souls in the churches I grew up in., there seemed to be an occasional emphasis on community involvement. Certainly, the churches saw themselves as pillars of the civic life of our small towns in Kansas, but to claim that the food pantry operated by the ministerial alliance was a key to faith might have felt a bit beyond the pale. We brought in our cans of green beans and fruit cocktail faithfully, but to talk of caring for the poor as a major tenet of faith sounded a bit strange to our ears. We might have called it “missions”, but very few would have thought of this sort of work as “discipleship”.

As I continued to take courses in biblical and theological studies, I discovered an entire dimension to Christianity that did not crop up in the life of the local churches that raised me. Indeed, I began to encounter the Bible with new eyes. Jesus was less a wise teacher dispassionately moving toward his fate in Jerusalem for the good of humanity, which was sort of what Sunday school left me with over the years. I discovered how Jesus moved in the midst of the common people, and his teachings carry a great deal of criticism of the culture, the politics, and the religious establishment of his day. I learned also that the prophets were not just sitting around predicting the Messiah. Instead, they were roaring about the failings of Israel in its covenant relationship with God. That calling to fidelity to God included the charge to care for the widow, the orphan, and the sojourner, to love your neighbor as yourself, and to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God. Crucial texts to reading the Bible, yet somehow these were roads less traveled in sermons and bible studies among those who raised me in the faith.

The prophet Amos is a good example of what the Bible talks about, if we can hear it. Amos lived in the midst of a time when things were seriously falling apart for the nation of Israel. Amos prophesied great travail and doom to come upon the people for they have forgotten their calling to be in covenant with God. The poor get poorer, and the rich get richer. Amos accuses that some people are exploiting others so much that it is like they are trampling all over them. Hmmmm…that sounds quite familiar even today.

The book of Amos might seem a little confusing and odd to the untrained ear and eye, but as you get into the backgrounds of the prophet and his context, you begin to encounter a world that is quite familiar. We live in a world where some folks are just written off, whether it be because of economics, social status, gender, sexuality, education, and the list goes on. You will find that the prophetic tradition of the Bible is not “past tense” prophecy but an urgent word still needing to resound in our justice impaired ears.

Amos is identified as a shepherd from Tekoa and tender of sycamore trees, yet his career as a prophet takes him from the hinterlands and into the heart of Jerusalem. I tend to think of Amos as a guy in flannel from the backwoods of Vermont, driving his pickup truck to town every once in awhile. He stands there at the Four Corners, while waiting for the light to change muttering about flatlanders and leaf peepers. If you talked to him, you would get an earful about the town of Bennington, the state of Vermont, and those warmongers down on Pennsylvania Avenue. It is obvious that he may not be around the halls of power much, but his observations are pretty spot on. Amos did not flinch in speaking his mind, even telling the king of his day that “your wife shall become a prostitute in the city, and your children shall fall by the sword, and your land will be divided up, and you will die in an unclean land while the nation is sent away into exile.” (At the next select board meeting when they ask for comments from the public, read this passage and see what happens….)

Amos’ prophetic work, however, was not just about the politics of the day, it was about the very soul, the moral fiber, that creates the political climate where the poor try to get their needs met, yet they are exploited at every turn. “You have turned justice into wormwood” (or “your idea of what passes for justice is rotten!”), Amos says in his prophetic work. Amos growls a bit, but he is speaking truth to power.

Amos is an oft-quoted book among those who are in the religious world working for social justice. It didn’t take too long into discovering the deep concern of the Bible for those in need without finding that Amos receives much attention. “Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” is one of the oft-repeated texts of Amos when someone asks what the Bible has to say about any host of social concerns.

At the same time, the book of Amos argues that God expects the people to do something with hearing the word, lest we too become like that rather sobering image of Amos where people stagger around, wishing they could hear the word of the Lord as everything turns to ruin. You cannot move forward as people of faith with just the words, beliefs, and rituals. You need to be connecting belief with action and more importantly, a faith that is compelled to recognize the suffering and pain in the midst of a community or nation and move decisively into the fray.

The contemporary prophet William Sloane Coffin, Jr., always had some quip for his congregation, whether they be university students, churchgoers, or in the public square. Talking with Bill Moyers on the PBS show NOW, Coffin said, “It is one thing to say with the prophet Amos, ‘Let justice roll down like mighty waters’, and quite another to work the irrigation system.”

As I continue in the midst of parish ministry and especially here at First Baptist, Bennington, with the self-challenge that this congregation has given itself to transform and grow after years of stagnation and decline, I wonder if it’s time to start reading the Bible more intently and with a heart open to discovering what God is doing in our midst.

I think Amos would be a welcome prophet in our midst, as I listen in on the Bible study ongoing around the issues of children in poverty. The congregation is beginning to connect a few key issues together. We know that we live in a community full of challenges and in need of persons willing to be resourceful, compassionate, and catalysts for change. We are becoming aware of the challenges that many of our congregational households live with and know firsthand about “the system” being very often difficult to navigate. We know how slumlords rent substandard housing in our community. We know how difficult getting a wage-paying job that is livable for households. We know the difficulty of people dealing with stress, debt, and all manner of near-paralyzing frustrations. The Bible indeed says a lot about poverty, justice, and care for the marginalized. Our faith tradition as Christians is indeed rich with those who dare to “work out the irrigation system”, and perhaps it is now our day to move towards this as well, becoming prophets and irrigators of these mighty rivers being sent down by the God of justice, mercy, and peace.

If I had a time machine, I would love to slip back to that day in college and revisit the scene with the college student who said, “I don’t think Christianity has much to say about the poor of the world. Seems like most churches are big on keeping their steeples pretty, but care very little for their resources actually doing something. Why should I bother learning of a faith if it doesn’t do any good?”

I think I might have some thoughts on how to answer. But I’m curious to ask, How would you answer?

The Feast of the Found

When a household gathers around the table, there are certain customs that are observed. No elbows on the table, no leaning back in the chair, make sure you eat your main course with the right fork (if it’s that type of meal), say “please” and “thank you” when asking for something to be passed.

At the same time, there are little customs that also vary from household to household. During the summer months, my mother leaned more on getting out “the fine china” (aka paper plates) to save on the tedium of dishwashing in a hot kitchen. When a visiting teenaged niece said, “Would you pass the bread?” my rather reserved grandmother Hugenot threw a slice of bread clear down the table.

The one difficult task learning to set the table is how we sit people around the table. Table placement can be as refined as a little engraved placard at a wedding reception dinner, or it can be in deciding who sits at the head of the table at Thanksgiving. My own custom during childhood was to help set the table, thus ensuring that my special plate was right where I wanted to sit. (For the record, my special plate featured Ronald McDonald on a day at the beach with his friends Grimace and the Hamburgler).

The table can be a place of great hospitality and welcome, yet it can also be a place where table placement needs one of those negotiators like a police SWAT team has: able to negotiate with irrational people. In some families (well, most families, I daresay), you gather the family and just pray that Uncle Louie does not sit next to Cousin Hortense. The last time that happened (back in 1968), unkind words were exchanged, and suddenly, the mashed potatoes are airborne. (And have you ever tried getting candied yams out of the chandlier? Oh my….)

Jesus sits at the table with the Pharisees, and it is not as congenial a gathering as one could hope. Luke prefaces this long scene of Jesus interacting with the Pharisees with a rather telling note: “they were watching him closely.” There is a tension that offsets any thought of genuine hospitality. As for Jesus, he is aware of the tension, yet he continues to recline around the table, at ease with Pharisees as much as with sinners. (Of course, this was the habit creating the tension.) There are barbed questions tossed at Jesus that he has to keep on his toes to respond back with careful responses.

The Pharisees often get painted as easy-marks, ultra-orthodox fundamentalists for whom Jesus is the mercurial and artful foil. (One children’s song I heard years ago demonstrates the broad brush that the Pharisees are often painted with: “I don’t wanna be a Pharisee, ‘cause they are not fair you see.”) Odd, though, when you read Luke and find that Pharisees have a relationship that might be better described as begrudging respect. Luke speaks of the Pharisees as religiously devout types who keep asking Jesus questions, but they also have some friendly overtures at times. Luke’s gospel has Jesus eating among the Pharisees because he is in a crowd of folks that serve as the “religious right” of their day, but he seeks some common ground. Instead of seeking out where they differ greatly, Jesus speaks to the Pharisees about something they were deeply concerned about: living a life attentive to God. “There are no purely secular areas of life that can be fenced off from God’s demand,” observes a commentary on this passage. “All life is lived before God—on this point—Jesus and the Pharisees were at one.” (Craddock/Boring)

Earlier this summer at the American Baptist biennial meetings, I attended an event sponsored by another Baptist group meeting at the same time. The afternoon program featured four leading ministers and scholars addressing the issues of faith and politics and the Baptist affirmation of the separation between church and state. Jim Wallis, editor of Sojourners magazine and author of the best-selling book God’s Politics, was a keynote speaker. I made a point of shaking his hand and thanking him for his work, which has been a formative influence for me over the years. Throughout his career, Jim Wallis has advocated for a church does not need control over the state to have its relevance and identity. This has put him at odds with some of the modern day Pharisees, yet Jim has always kept in dialogue with those who differ greatly from him. Jim enters into debates on CNN or the online blogs with some of the key players on the far right.

Jim Wallis asks questions that people just cannot argue against that well, like what are we doing about children in poverty in this country? How do we advocate for a more peaceable resolution to the war on terror? While the religious communities and denominations seem to be in an endless struggle over disagreements on divisive issues of sexuality, or bringing dogged blue and red state values to the pews and the pulpit alike to often schismatic results, folks like Jim Wallis step into the fray and ask if we are overexerting ourselves in efforts to “be right” about issues that are important and unmask how counterproductive the anxiety and angst around a handful of issues has eclipsed other issues that need a more focused society and faith community addressing them. Looking back at Luke’s gospel, with Jesus sitting in the midst of the sinful and the strict alike, we wonder where the church that reads Luke is to be found some days.

In the Gospels, Jesus has this wonderful habit of deflecting the contentious side of things by asking a question that seems off topic. While getting the questions about orthodoxy, he looks around the table and comments about the role of guests and hosts of such a meal. Just in our day, there were a variety of expected practices at work in hosting and attending a meal. The first century meal involved a variety of customs that revolved around honor and shame. As host, you wanted to ensure the maximum level of hospitality. Of course, a good meal was also a way of securing the gratitude and owing of favors from your guests. (This meal was not a “free lunch”; it has strings attached!) As guests, the invited attempted to play two games at once: not to sit in a seat that was above their place in the pecking order while hoping that the host would find favor with them and invite them to sit up closer. (Hence, the first documented case of the “power lunch!”) Jesus takes the banquet before him, and as the Greek wonderfully says, “he begins to speak parabolically” (Luke Timothy Johnson’s translation).

When Jesus spins a parable, he invites the listener into an imaginative type of thinking. Parables are tethered to the world we live in, like there once with a man with two sons, one good and the other one a bit on the “prodigal” side, or here, there was a host who threw a banquet for many guests. At the same time, we find ourselves also encountering a spin that disconnects us from the scripts that tend to run our world: the father welcomes back the prodigal unconditionally. Here, the script about the lives we lead and “the way things are” is subverted by this notion that hosts should give a “free lunch” and guests shouldn’t jockey for position or favor (a sort of “meek shall inherit the earth” type of lunch).

There is also a bit of barbed humor at work here. In suggesting that hosts invite guests who are unable to repay (a.k.a., reciprocate), Jesus names those who are among “the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind.” These persons are considered the least likely to be invited to a banquet like this, but more pointedly, in the religious worldview of the Pharisees, the Law that they studied and kept recognized these persons as defective or really low on the religious purity customs, which valued most highly the able-bodied (well, especially the male). The poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind had very little to give when the dominative religious script said otherwise. Inviting “them” (emphasis on the way this word is said is key!) was beyond the pale. Indeed, such an invitation was a waste of time.

When I was younger, I found myself spot-welded to the television on Thanksgiving morning. Any parade that has a huge inflatable balloon version of Superman or Kermit the Frog kept my attention. (And any parade that ends with Santa Claus quite simply rocks!) Appeals for help in the kitchen went unanswered, however, I did find it fascinating what happened as the morning’s preparation got closer to the actual lunchtime. My dad would lug in this board tucked away usually in a closet, sit it down, and then (well, at least in my elementary school age perception), he would tear the table apart with his bare hands!

It was a rare occasion to see the leaf of the kitchen table get put in. (Our dining room was too small for the expanded table everyday.) I asked Dad what he was up to, and he said, “I’m making room at the table.” It was the first time I had discovered that the table could expand more than you thought possible.

A lot of churches focus their energies on being good hosts to the usual suspects on the guest list. Many churches in decline have forgotten how to see, let alone, include new persons. Indeed, some churches are pretty cut and dried as to who can come and who stays on the other side of the velvet rope. The table has been set, and their names are not to be on the guest list. “Them” ain’t “us”, is their script, bad grammar and theology alike at work. Yet, sitting in their pew racks, or even clutched in the hands of the congregant, is the Bible with the gospel of Luke, with a Jesus who points toward a “whosoever will may come” type of Church.

First Baptist has a magnificent opportunity at hand. Learning how to be community-minded and more importantly, engaged in the community awaits us with the new Sunday school series on “Children in Poverty”. (We ordered two-dozen student guides for this study. I hope that the first thing that Lisa and Darcy say next week is, “We need to order more because we had too many people!”) It would take seeing your congregational transition process not as a way to “save ourselves” but to be a congregation daring to embrace the exhilarating call of the Gospel that says that the scripts that we live (or we think we have to carry out to have the “good life”) are rewritten by a narrative shaped by the cross. We are summoned to the Table of the Lord, not as hosts looking for something in return, not as guests looking for favor, but as those who bring our woundedness, our “less than”-ness, walking alongside others who might be otherwise “them” to “us” if this were life as we thought we were supposed to live it. Indeed, the Table is bigger than we thought at first, and the feast awaits those who come with hearts burning for God eagerly within.

With Heart and Eyes

It was at the end of a long day of Kansas Baptist meetings when I arrived at the small town hotel. I went over to the guest services area and hopped on the Internet to check email. I could not believe how slow the computer was, so I asked the front desk staff if the computer was having difficulties. “Oh, we haven’t updated our virus protection software for three months,” was the reply.

While my mind was reeling at the potential mischief that this computer and its multiple viruses might afflict upon my email, I heard another staff member, —he was a janitor—speak up. “I don’t use computers,” he said. “I want to get to heaven.”

That was a curious statement to say the least. If you have ever used a computer, you know that they can be bedeviling to work with, but of the Devil, huh? Therefore, I asked what he meant by that statement.

The janitor looked at me and said with all sincerity, “Computers are taking over the world. I don’t want the mark of the beast. I want to get to heaven.”

There are some versions of Christianity that take a dim view of the world. The janitor was a good soul, I am sure, but he apparently was part of the type of Christianity that emphasizes that the end times are upon us, and just about anything or anyone might just be part of the apocalypse coming nigh. I knew what he was talking about, because I grew up among people who thought that way. Books touting all manner of theories abound in certain Christian bookstores, identifying political figures (a study in partisanship or nationalism, generally), other religions (nowadays, it is in vogue to accuse Islam of just about anything), and various world events as signs of the end.

In my formative years in Kansas, I saw books on the shelves of certain religious bookstores that claimed without a doubt that the Communists were coming right on the anti-Christ’s heels. Later on, these books would move on to more middle eastern political figures, including Saddam Hussein, after the Cold War ended and the geopolitical situation morphed. The fall of the Berlin Wall, the ramp-up to the turn of the millennium, the tragedy of 9/11, and even little things like electronic bar codes on books and Social Security numbers seen as incontrovertible proof that something big is going down.

Even as an adolescent, I would read these books, and I kept thinking, “My goodness, these authors are deeply afraid of a lot of things.” Some of this fear is well founded, for indeed, the world is fraught with anxiety, upheaval, and the unexpected. The change of political landscapes can be a bane or a blessing (or a mixture of both). Tragedies happen on the personal and global scale. Turning to one’s faith for making some sort of sense out of the nonsense and senselessness of the world is important, but obviously, there are some ways that religion can be misinterpreted or myopically misread. Yet, the books sell, the AM radio preachers expound it, and some folks wonder, “do all Christians think this is true?”

This morning, we invite Jesus, through Luke’s Gospel, to step into the conversation. To the sub-culture of Christianity that sees the end times lurking around at every turn, I suppose Jesus just shakes his head a bit. His word about the end of things is this: “Fear not.”

It is an important part of Christian belief to talk about “the end”. We human beings are well aware that shaped by life and death alike. Our belief in Christ prompts us further to speak about life after death. Christianity affirms that the faithful will not be left to the dust. Rather, there will come a time when Christ shall return, and God will bring about “the promised end”. What brings this about or what happens I suggest we leave in God’s hands. For Christians who think about the end times a lot or for Christians who never give it much thought, it is inescapable that the biblical witness does indeed speak about “the End”. Some of these texts speak of great violence and evil coming to the world, especially the book of Revelation. Indeed, even Luke 12 contains predictions of strife and division. Nonetheless, I would argue that some Christians read the texts without a bigger picture of what these books are saying. What I read in the biblical texts is a profound sense of hope that this day is coming in God’s time and therefore, we are to live out a message of hope, not fear. The question posed this day is how to form a faith that affirms God’s intent to bring things into fullness without deviating into a set of beliefs that really have no acquaintance with a reasonably grounded Christianity.

So, what exactly is a reasonably grounded Christianity? One that deals equally with questions of “what is God’s future?” as well as “what is God doing today?” Many Christians who stress looking to the future tend to worry very little about “the here and now”. Our Lukan reading today points to a faith that is watchful without being so trigger-happy guessing and second guessing the mind of God. Instead of reading with fear the headlines of the day (bombings, natural disasters, political changes that seem foreboding to our own political sensibilities) as harbingers of doom, the Christian addresses these issues with a different frame of mind. Rather than succumbing to the gloom, the Christian responds to the invitation of the Christ into the midst of a chaotic reality, tending the wounds, responding to the needs, advocating for a better and safer world. We can proclaim God’s promise that God is working towards an Ending, but we should not expend our energies on fear-driven guesswork nor should we abdicate our present day callings while awaiting “the sweet bye-and-bye”.

The way that Luke talks about eschatology speaks to the faithful with the encouragement to be ready but in a far different way than the “waiting for the rapture” school of thought so prevalent in some circles. Jesus calls his disciples to a life that is expectant for God, yet also understands that God is expectant of the lives we live in the meantime! In the midst of these teachings, Jesus asks his disciples to consider carefully what they treasure. Just a few verses before in Luke (and last week’s reading), Jesus warns against greed. Now Jesus speaks to the responsibility of almsgiving. Live your life, but do not live clutching onto things. The spiritual path is paved by simplicity and giving to those in need. In the gospels, “almsgiving is defined as “to take care of the needs of the poor and the destitute”, but it is further named as “one of the characteristics which a disciple of Jesus should display.” (“Alms, Almsgiving”, New Interpreters’ Dictionary of the Bible, Vol. I, p. 106) In the midst of looking towards a future in the hands of God, we live a life that is still connected to the world, hands on, if you will.

One might take such advice when planning the annual budget of a congregation. Just think of how much we think about how to pay the light and fuel bills. Indeed, our first budgetary concern tends to be less about ministry and mission outside these four walls. We do good things inside these four walls, yet do we strategize for community ministry? We send money out to do mission, but we ourselves do not largely get “hands on” in mission. This fall, we are going to start some conversations that need to turn into game plans to get us out into the community. In early September, join the adult religious education programming, starting with a multi-week learning experience around dealing with issues around children in poverty, especially in our community. Then we will take some time in the latter part of the Fall to talk about a vision for ministry that helps us connect First Baptist, Bennington, to Bennington. We celebrate many great things this year at First Baptist, but now it is time to start engaging First Baptist in a new day for ministry.

Let me share with you the experience on Thursday attending Senator Sanders’ listening session the other day as persons in town, county, and state leadership raised concerns about the necessary needs of our little corner of the world. With the governmental and social workers weighing in on what was important, I kept listening to the statistics and thinking, “Where can First Baptist help?” There are many issues affecting the peoples of our towns and communities, yet there is an attendant paralysis evident in getting something concretely done about things. Yet reading Luke this week, I kept pondering the difficult issues discussed at the session as I walked down Main Street, then I saw the church steeple, and recalled the words of the One who summons us to serve this community: “Fear not!”

Luke’s Jesus presents a livable discipleship. So many of these Christian movements caught up in “end times” thinking often preach a strict discipline for their followers. The gospel of Luke, by contrast, offers this way of discipleship that is not about fear or anxiety but faithful and steady life with God. Keep in touch with the needs of this hurting world, yet keep waiting, as if with lamps trimmed and burning. Keep things in balance, and keep in touch with the reality of the present while faithfully believing that we are not consigned to an indefinite fate where the chaos of this world will be transformed by the one who says, “Fear not!”

Behold this morning’s bulletin cover. Drawn by a Christian from Latin America, this image illumines the scriptural text and the beauty of its meaning. See the joyful anticipation of the woman carrying the candle, as she joins others to watch out the window. Take into account the context of the artist, living in a country where poverty is rife, where political struggle is often violent and costly. Much of the world of privilege (i.e. our country especially) ignores the consequences of its drive for “more”. The lack of genuine and holistic almsgiving described in Luke’s gospel but less regarded in our practices as North American Christians has made this artist’s country part of the sadly named Two-Thirds world, recognizing that 2/3 of the world’s countries go with less due to America’s unbridled consumerism with two-thirds of the world’s resources. Yet, the artist captures the hope and the joy of this Lukan text, knowing the struggle in the here and now, knowing the difficulty of arriving at equitable and just solutions for these people. The artist prompts us to see in the joy where we know there is deep sorrows the vision of Jesus, who tells a struggling group of primarily peasant-class followers “fear not”.

The incredible word of this teaching of Jesus is that when the End comes, it ends not with “scary stuff”. While unexpected as a thief in the night, the End will not be the terrible last chapter, but the incredible experience of the Master returning home to find his faithful servants keeping watch. In gratitude, the Master calls them to have a seat and serves them a feast.

T.S. Eliot claimed things do not end with a bang, but a whimper. Some parts of Christianity claim it ends with scary stuff. Jesus looks around the table at the faithful, those who kept watch but also kept up with the world, and say, “Fear not, my little flock”. AMEN.