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Monday, Sept 06
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Sunday, January 10, 2010
Acts 8:14-17 & Luke 3:15-17
Baptism of Our Lord
Craig Shirley
The Center of Life
It’s the common answer among the younger generation these days when someone asks about religious affiliation. “I’m spiritual, but not religious.” Have you heard that one?
What exactly does that mean? How does a “spiritual but not religious” life look? Is it prayer rugs in the corner of the bedroom, small shrines in one’s office? Or is it lively conversations about God and life over a cup of coffee or a beer with friends? Or is it a completely private conversation one has in one’s head because if you talk about religion at work or among friends or with strangers you will be branded as some kind of a crazy?
Unfortunately, I think for most people it is more a copout than it is a true explanation of a well thought out and lively relationship with the Almighty. It is a new way to say “I believe in some kind of a power beyond this world but I’m not sure what it looks like and don’t know how it affects me – and I really don’t have time to talk about it or think about it right now. I’m spiritual, but not religious.
As I said in a sermon a few weeks back, our Christian faith is not a spiritual faith, it is a carnal, fleshy one. God came to us as The Word, as Jesus - incarnate human being, born of Mary, born of flesh and blood. And so any expression of the faith that lacks embodiment in practices and habits of mutual accountability, is at the very least suspect. When there is true embodied faith, there will be interpersonal struggle, political maneuverings, triangulations and the general messiness of trying to be together to be the church. There will be opinions thrown around and people who are passionate about two completely different views of the same argument. There may even be blood spilled and lives lost – though I would quickly add that I do not advocate such response – either for world religious powers or for more local annual congregational meetings. But “without these kinds of real life struggles, and without being around people we don’t necessarily like or can’t find any special reason to admire, how can a spirituality be anything more than an occasional escape, or at best a vacation – quite literally, a “retreat?” How, in other words, can it actually redeem?” (Thomas James)
Sparks have been flying this week in the Minneapolis Star Tribune editorial column. Maybe you have been keeping up with the “discussion” which began when former Gov. Al Quie, a faithful Lutheran who is omnipresent at every Synod Assembly, wrote that the actions at the National Assembly this summer were “sprung upon” the few hundred members there who in turn made rash decisions for the whole church that do not reflect the feelings of the majority of the members on issues of sexuality. The next day, several people fired back by reminding the readers that this was not suddenly sprung on the constituency but rather was the culmination of more than 20 years of studies, discussions, votes and real battles in the trenches and that it was unfair and down right false to label the proceedings as such.
It’s hard to have your church lifted up in this way; publicly, in the newspaper, for all to see and read. It’s like having your family fight with your significant other broadcast on the evening news. Yet, this is a part of the “messiness” of being a religious as well as a spiritual person. And I wouldn’t trade it for all the monastic retreats in the world. It is the stuff of being the church in the world today – as painful as it may be to go through. I hope and pray that people everywhere see that, understand it and appreciate the necessary struggle that we are undertaking.
That having been said, I want to bring all of this back to the theme of the day, and that is Baptism. These two texts from the New Testament are both written by the same author; the writer commonly known as St. Luke. It would have been helpful this morning for understanding purposes, if we had flipped the order of the texts; hearing the gospel lesson first and then the reading from Acts. Because that is how Luke meant it to be understood, this missional life that Jesus’ baptism signifies. As Jesus was baptized in the Jordan, the voice of the almighty affirmed him as the only begotten son of God and the spirit descended upon him. From that point on, Jesus went preaching, teaching, healing and on to his own death and resurrection. But his disciples took up the cause from him, and the message of redemption went out into the whole world. “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth" That is what the Risen Christ told them.
In Acts, Peter and John are living out that edict. They have converted Simon, a Samaritan magician, and in doing so have opened up a whole new world of faith to a supposedly lost and condemned people. These verses remind us that baptism is baptism, not an empty rite. It has a central place in the community and its Spirit-led mission to Judea, Samaria, and the furthest reaches of the world, including Minneapolis, and the university and the Starbucks and The Bulldog Bar and all the other places in this world is central to why we do it. “For the individual, baptism is not simply or even primarily about getting in the door of the church and therefore somehow being magically qualified to receive spiritual gifts and privileges. Rather, it is about being received into Christ’s body in order to participate with it in a redemptive mission of witness and service, which is as broad in scope as Creation itself. It is about having your identity shaped and your needs defined in part by involvement with a community, which is in turn having its identity shaped and its needs defined by its involvement in what God is doing the world.” (Thomas James)
I love what one author said about this (Charles E. Brown). I chose to preach today from this spot in the sanctuary because, in a very significant way, it is the center of life – the center of all of this embodiment of the faith that I have been talking about. Charles Brown writes “The spirit makes it possible for us to assimilate and participate in the redemptive activity of God. In brief, within a few square feet in the church sanctuary
• God calls us by the spirit to profess faith in Jesus Christ:
• God baptizes us for work in Christ’s Kingdom:
• God feeds us on the spiritual bread of life and cup of salvation;
• God binds us in a unique social matrix where we becomes spiritual brothers and sisters in Christ;
• God unites us in the spiritual bond of marriage;
• God engrafts our children into the Body of Christ;
• and God launches us and those we love into an eternal destiny beyond our comprehending.”
We’re not just spiritual persons, we are religious persons and by practicing that religious expression, we embody the Christian faith and make it something real, and tangible and expressible – something that can be shared by people. Yes, there will be interpersonal struggle, political maneuverings, triangulation and the general messiness of trying to be together to be the church. But in doing so, we can test the spirits to see whether they are of God. Such transparency is difficult at times – especially when family arguments are played out in public ways in the newspaper and the press – but more than likely, it is in the end the work of the Holy Spirit.
In the recent issue of the ELCA magazine The Lutheran, John Mann – Luther seminary Chaplain, writes about all of this controversy we find ourselves in and analyzes it using family systems theory. He is responding to the stress that many congregations are feeling. He says “the solution [to congregational stress] isn’t spending MORE time and attention on dysfunctional brooding and anxiety, but instead LESS. Health is more likely to return as the whole system begins to focus on the mission. Moving forward is among the best solutions for congregations. It’s what Jesus’ disciples did after his tragic death and his glorious resurrection. The Spirit called them out from that upper room where they were hiding and out into the world, where they became “witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." “
“Learning to listen for the call of God to come to consciousness, learning to see and name the dark and evil spirits, learning to discern disunity, learning to promote peace and unity – these processes the believer welcomes by being attentive to the still, small voice moving within her which is that still small voice of God within each of us that moves us as believers from loneliness to solitude, from hostility to hospitality, and from the illusion of control to prayer. Then, and only the, can we be baptized with the baptism of our Lord. Amen
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