Belief

WALK TO JERUSALEM: Orthodoxy

shelliwilliams Beatitudes, Belief, Change, JESUS, KINGDOM OF GOD, LENT

Scripture Text:  Matthew 5: 1-18
When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:  “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. “Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. “Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.  You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot. “You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven. “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished.

I’m no real Bible scholar but I think this passage is indeed the pinnacle of Jesus’ ministry.  This is the lynchpin, the place where it all comes together, and, sadly for this world and this culture, the place where Jesus’ message begins to turn away from an affirmation of what we do as “religious folk” to a calling to go forth and do something different.  This passage turns orthodoxy around.  Orthodox…what an interesting and misdefined word.  It has come to define the “accepted” beliefs of the church, the traditional views.  In essence, it has come to mean the opinion of the majority.  But history has shown us that that has often proved to be problematic.

Here’s a date for you:  April 15, 1947…on this day, 64 years ago, Jackie Robinson debuted with the Brooklyn Dodgers and, against all odds, broke baseball’s race barrier and made history.  But, like most history, he had help.  Just before he was signed, the pastor of Plymouth Church of the Pilgrims in Brooklyn had a visitor.  The visitor’s was Branch Rickey, already well-known.  They didn’t have a deep pastoral care talk.  Rickey just paced.  And the minister went about his work.  Then Rickey plopped down in a chair and screamed, “I’ve got it.”  “I’m going to sign Jackie Robinson to the team.”  There were warnings.  A well-known reporter said that there would be riots in the street on this day.  Rickey instead believed that all of heaven would break loose.  (Check out Signing of Jackie Robinson )

The point is that it was time for a change.  It was time for a new way of doing things.  “Orthodoxy” actually means “right belief”.  What  is “right”?  What does that mean?  You see, I think of myself as “orthodox”.  I’m actually extremely traditional, even though I think that word gets a bad rap.  I mean, regardless of all of the church growth movements that profess to have the “ortho-statistics” for churches, I love traditional worship (I mean, REALLY traditional!) worship.  Give me a robe, a processional behind a crucifer, and a couple of Latin chants thrown in for good measure any day against screens and a preacher doing some sort of skit as he blocks my view of the altar.  But, really, that’s not belief.  That’s just where God meets me. The point is, we all think of ourselves as “orthodox”, as right.  But right belief is this…the Beatitudes…the antithesis of this world.  It is a moving forward.  Hmmm!  OK, maybe I AM a “progressive”. 

One thing to note is that the form of these Beatitudes uses two verbs: are and will. Each beatitude begins in the present and moves to future tense. It is the “orthodox” way of thinking.  The move to the future tense indicates that the life of the kingdom must wait for ultimate validation until God finishes the new creation. The Kingdom of God moves forward.  It is so far ahead of where we are, it’s not even fully visible at this point!  In essence, it is the new “right belief”, the new orthodoxy.  It is a way of living based on the sure and firm hope that one walks in the way of God and that righteousness and peace will finally prevail.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer said this: Humanly speaking, we could understand and interpret the Sermon on the Mount in a thousand different ways. Jesus knows only one possibility: simple surrender and obedience, not interpreting it or applying it, but doing and obeying it. That is the only way to hear his word. He does not mean that it is to be discussed as an ideal; he really means us to get on with it.
The Beatitudes lay out a vision of a reversal of the world we know. Jesus calls us to a radical kingdom that is totally different than the world in which we live. And he calls us to “get on with it”.  Now don’t think that Jesus is merely laying out the conditions under which we would be blessed or prosper. It is rather a promise of a radical reversal, an upside-down (or right-side-up) world. It is a promise from a God that wants the best for us, a God that sees that we will indeed be blessed. That is the promise—a blessed relationship with God. So this is a picture of what that Kingdom looks like. It is the way it should be and the way it will be. The Beatitudes are meant to be descriptive rather than instructive.

So, where does that leave us?  We live in a divisive world, a divisive country, and a divisive church.  We all claim to be “orthodox”, “right”.  This is hard.  We walk a fine line between causing more division and proclaiming what we believe to be right.  Now, really, we need to realize that what we believe to be “right” does not make it “right”.  Maybe that’s our whole problem.  I keep hearing of person who profess to be “bridge builders”.  Well, that sounds really politically correct and all.  In fact, it even sounds attractive.  Sure, I’d like to join a bunch of bridge-builders, the peaceful ones, the ones who get along with everyone.  OK…here is the problem.  Where are you headed?  Bridges are not meant for permanent residence.  Are you going forward or backward, left or right, to the future or the past?  You have to CHOOSE!  That is the whole point of this passage that contains what we commonly call “The Beatitudes”.  You see, things are different.  (And if they’re not, this passage professes that they should be!)  What you think is, is not.  And that to which you’ve held so tightly is decaying away as we speak.  Orthodoxy has changed.  In fact, Jesus is the one that changed it!  “Right” belief has changed.  God did not come in Jesus with a message of “Great job, folks,  you have it altogether.  Don’t change a thing!”  No, the message probably reads more like, “You know, I love you more than you could possibly know.  But you are a mess!  Listen…come and see…there’s more to the story than you think you know!”

You know, until 56 years ago, women could not be ordained in the United Methodist Church. (And yet I still get assigned weddings that are upset because I am the wrong gender!)  And, as I said, the race barrier in major league baseball was not broken until 1947.  (But we didn’t have an African-American president until 2008.)  The truth is, things move very slowly.  So much for a reversal of the status quo!  And our churches still continue to exclude those in our midst who do not claim the “orthodox” sexual orientation.  I really don’t understand it.  Surely we know better.  Surely we understand that this depiction of the alternative way of being that Jesus depicted in The Beatitudes is not a pipe dream.  It’s really meant to happen.  It’s the vision of God that God brought into the world in Jesus Christ.  It’s the vision of the world that God holds for us even now.  It’s all the children of God in the whole Kingdom of God.  It’s called Shalom, or the Kingdom of God, or the Reign of God.

But on some level I admire bridge-builders.  They are those that play both crowds–the conservatives and the progressives, the establishment and the rebels, the pharisees and the disciples.  You see, all of us are right about SOMETHING.  But none of us are right about EVERYTHING.  Those bridge-builders can point that out.  The truth is, though, I’m probably too impatient to be one.  I want things to change.  I want the world to look like The Beatitudes.  I want the world to be what God envisions it to be.  But even bridges tend to decay, becoming weather-worn and rotten.  Life moves.  It moves fast.  And if you don’t keep walking, you’re no longer a bridge-builder.  You’re either in danger of falling fast into the underlying currents and being carried away into who knows where or you’re just someone that’s sitting in the way while people are trying to cross.  It’s better to keep moving.  After all, God is way out ahead of us.

OK, one more time…I really am orthodox.  I really do adhere to “right belief”.  I just think it’s a whole lot farther ahead than any of us imagine.  It’s a matter of doing justice, loving kindness, and walking humbly.  Oh wait, someone already said that!  In other words, our faith is measured not in “rightness” but in relationship.  Orthodoxy, “right belief”, is about relationship.  It is about welcoming all of God’s children to the table as the reign of God, the Spirit of the most holy, spills into our midst.  Emmanuel, God With Us.  Isn’t that the crux of the story?

But lynchpins are threatening.  They change the direction.  They change what we think.  They change the world.  They change us and who we appear to be to the rest of the world.  Up until now, everything has pointed to this-the announcement, the birth, the baptism, the calling, this…–as if this was the message, as if this was what the world needed, as if this was the way to the vision that God for us.  Now we wait.  We wait to see how the world responds.  And we turn toward Jerusalem…

So, in this Lenten season,  begin to live a life of reversal, so that as the Divine spilled into earth with the coming of Christ, the earth might become the vision of the Divine in you.         

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Just Sightseeing

shelliwilliams Belief, Doubt

Today’s Gospel Passage: John 20: 19-31

open hand When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” 20After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. 21Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” 22When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” 24But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. 25So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”

26A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” 27Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” 28Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” 29Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” 30Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. 31But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.

I love Thomas.  The truth is that I find a lot of my self in him.  First of all, I’m one of those that never seems to be at the right place at the right time.  I’m continually thinking, “why didn’t I think of that?”, “why didn’t I ask for that?”, or “why wasn’t I there for that"?”.  Thomas had missed the “first showing of Jesus”, perhaps because he was doing something wonderful but if he was like me, he was off being Martha somewhere!

And then he wanted proof.  I mean, don’t we all?  Perhaps we’re just afraid to ask for it.  But what if he didn’t care about proof?  What if he didn’t need to be certain?  What if he just needed to touch Jesus?  What if he just needed to know Jesus?

The truth is that “seeing” with our eyes is probably not all its cracked up to be.  Perhaps it even gets in the way.  And yet, most of us are really just “sightseers” as far as Jesus is concerned.  We want it to be right.  It’s even better if we can touch it and prove it and then go on with our lives.  But, either way, certainty is what we crave.

And yet, certainty is surely the downfall of our faith.  Why do we have to have proof?  Why do we have to be certain?  I’m thinking a little doubt never hurt anyone.  It makes you search and question and desire the Truth.  It even makes you want to touch the thing that you don’t understand.  And it will never allow you to just “go on with your lives”…in fact, no more sightseeing; you’ve really got to live there to understand.

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

 

Believing in Trust

shelliwilliams Belief, Imagination, Openness to God, Trust

“Trust” and “Belief” are interesting terms.  Are they the same?  If not, what is the difference?  We are told to “just believe”, as if that will make everything alright, as if that will somehow make us worthy or deserving of God’s attention.  What does that mean?  Believe in what???  Believing is an odd thing.  It moves us beyond where we are, beyond ourselves.  Believing in God means that we realize that God exists, that God is part of our lives, that we need God.  And yet, believing, in and of itself, means that on some level, we have systemitized our understanding of God (or, for that matter, whatever it is in which we claim that we believe).  Once we “believe”, we have in some way locked in our understanding of something.  So, for us God-believers, God has become our own doing, our own creation, our own imagining of how God works and who God is.  In some way, to say “I believe….” is to affirm, yes…to confess, yes…and to claim it as part of who we are, yes.  But saying those words also means that we have in that moment boxed God in to who we think God is.

Why can’t we just trust in God?  Why can’t I just trust in however and whoever God manifests Godself in my life?  God is God.  Why is that so hard to trust?  You see, when you get right down to it, God is not really something that can be defined, or systematized, or limited to my belief system.  Sure, God is comfortable and reliable and one on whom we can count to set our lives on track.  Thanks be to God!  But, God is also wild and unfathomable, unpredictable and imaginative and one on whom we can count on to throw our carefully-cultivated and perfectly-planned lives into a complete and unadulaterated tailspin.  Thanks be to God!

You see, there is a difference between believing in who you think God is and trusting in God who is.  God is beyond who we can imagine in our dreams.  God is beyond who we can claim as our belief.  And God is beyond what we have planned and cultivated and saved for the certainty in our lives.  God is God.  Nothing else.  Why is trusting in God so hard?  Because to trust in something, we have to surrender to the idea that it’s more than what we’re capable of conceiving.  Trust in God…and be surprised at what you find!  Trust in God…and find that in which you should have always believed.

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Picture:  Jerusalem, Israel, 2010