mjtjmtaa

BREAKING THE RULE

On Sunday I told the congregation about the rule about preaching that I learned growing up. I didn't learn it in seminary. I learned it at the dinner table on Sunday when we sat down to enjoy this week's roast beef and talk about church that day. Sooner or later my dad would start talking about the pastor's sermon and he'd add, "The pastor was talking about money again today."

I would sit there wondering how a sermon based on the healing of the blind man or the parable of the sower had anything to do with money. I never figured it out, but I did learn a rule that has served me well for 36 years as a preacher: "Never preach about money."

Since I was preaching on the lesson from II Corinthians 8,however, I decided that the time had come to break that rule. I preached about money.

In that lesson the Apostle Paul was writing to the Christian community in Corinth to ask them to complete the collection they had started taking up some time earlier. The money was not for Paul. It was a collection for the Jewish Christian community in Jerusalem, a persecuted and poor group of believers who needed the help that the wealthy Gentiles could give. Paul had promised James, John, and Peter that he would take up such an offering, and he wanted the Corinthians to do their very best as a show of solidarity with the Jewish Christian community back home.

In this passage he spells out four basic principles to guide them in their giving, and I want to summarize them briefly here for our benefit as 21^st Century givers.

First, when we give, we give REGULARLY. That principle actually comes from the end of I Corinthians, but it is basic to his understanding. He instructed them to set aside money "on the first day of the week" for this offering. Doing this on the first day of the week accomplished two important goals. First, it linked the act of giving with the worship of God's people. Giving money is an important response we can give to the Word and the Sacrament we share each week. We should never have a worship service without providing people the opportunity to give an offering. Second, it reminded them of the resurrection of our Lord, which took place on the first day of the week. What Jesus did for us by dying and rising from the dead is the ultimate motivation for all giving.

Second, we give PROPORTIONATELY. That means we give from what we actually have, a real percentage of what we have available to give, and we choose what that percentage should be. The Old Testament "tithe" is not a New Testament principle for giving. Some of us may never be able to give 10% of what we have, while others can afford to give a much higher percentage of what we have. There is "fairness" in giving when all givers agree to give this way. Figure out what percentage of your income your customary offering actually is, and then set your "growth giving goals" based on that starting point.

Third, we give WILLINGLY. We do not give just to pay bills, and we certainly should not give because we feel guilty or afraid of some unspecified consequences. We give willingly in that we give out of our faith, hope, and love, not out of coercion. And when we begin to forget why we are giving, the decision to give becomes an act of the will and keeps us doing the right thing because we have chosen to do so willingly.

Finally, we give CHEERFULLY. The verse "Go loves a cheerful giver" comes from this same letter. We should feel good about giving to advance God's mission in the world. Our giving helps change people's lives and strengthens people's faith. Sometimes it feeds the hungry and provides shelter for the homeless. When we give our gives cheerfully, it affects others around us and encourages them to give generously as well. Cheerful giving is a product of a grace-filled heart.

In addition to spelling out these principles, I made some important comments about the funds we will be receiving soon from the sale of the property of St. Mark's Church in Ridge. I expressed two cautions. First, we must not use these funds to carry out projects we would normally take full responsibility for ourselves. Doing that would be, in effect, taking that money and giving it to ourselves. My second caution is to remember where the money actually comes from. It is not like winning the New York State lottery. It is a gift from the people of St. Mark's who gave up their life as a congregation after fifty years of worship, witness, and service in Ridge. They paid off their mortgage, and we are recipients of the legacy of their sacrificial giving over five decades. We should not say, "Now I can cut my pledge because the church has a new source of money," like some Christians do. On the contrary, we should honor their sacrifice by INCREASING our own personal giving in a spirit of matching sacrifice. By doing that the legacy will grow, and many more will share in the blessing.

So there it is. I broke the rule. But it never was a good rule, was it?

OUR “FATHER-MOTHER” IN HEAVEN?

Last Week we started using the new 40 Day Lenten Journey devotional books as part of our congregation's Lenten discipline. I really like this resource, and I'm excited about being able to work through it during the season of Lent this year.

Having said that, however, I must admit that I was a bit dismayed when I got to the reflection for Day 3 where the author asks the question: "Can we call God 'Mother?'"

What bothered me was not the question he asked, but the tired old argument that he gives for making God neuter. It never made sense before, and it surely makes sense now, especially in our contemporary egalitarian American society.

I'm not simply an old-fashioned male chauvinist, and the issue here is much more than just semantics. I raise an issue with the author simply because the words "Father" and "Mother" mean different things, and they cannot be used interchangeably. Fathers have a certain role in human families, and mothers have a different role. Even the process of conceiving a child bears witness to this fact.

I realize that there are many wounded souls who suffer continually from having had abusive or absent fathers. There are both males and females who have this past. But it is also true that there are many others who have suffered abuse from overbearing or neglectful mothers as well.

In either case, the negative examples should never make the positive use of the word inappropriate. On the contrary, one might argue that when we pray "Our Father . . ." we are addressing the very One who is the True and Loving Source and Sustainer of all human beings, the incomparable Father who should be the model for all human fathers everywhere.

To suggest that we re-write the Lord's Prayer to make it more politically correct for contemporary Christians is outright silly. Where does the revising of the "Lord's" Prayer stop? Should we change the word "heaven" into something else? How about the word "kingdom?" That's a rather male-oriented term also, isn't it? And do we really want "God's" will to be done? Shouldn't we also have a say in what God's goals might be?

I've been on a diet for almost a month now, and I have excluded bread from the menu. I suppose I could leave out that part of the prayer or perhaps I should substitute "low carbs" when I say the prayer each day. And, while I'm at it, I think the forgive part could be whited out, without comment.

And I while know that temptations are not a good thing and should be avoided, my sinful self wonders what I might be missing out on.

I understand the concern the author raises. I wish that he could also understand mine.

A LETTER TO MY SON – IN RESPONSE TO THE QUESTION “WAS JESUS A SOCIALIST?”

[Tim sent me an article entitled "Biblical Basis for Liberal Politics" by David Chandler (Originally published in the Tule River Times "Left in America" column.)]

Greetings Tim,

I really appreciate having the opportunity to dialogue about this.

In the article you sent me, there is a lot that is right. It would be especially right if it were written as a sermon for a Christian congregation who confesses their faith in Jesus Christ as Lord over heaven and earth. Christians (along with the Jewish people) have always been sensitive to the needs of the poor, the oppressed, the hungry and victims of any social injustice. There is a lot more that could be said about these things from the Bible, and I am sure the author is choosing just a few things to keep the essay short and readable.

Where we have a struggle as Americans is that we have from the very beginning of our nation simply assumed that the principles of capitalism that evolved long after the time of Jesus. Adam Smith, a Scottish philosopher of the 18^th century, developed theories about how to create wealth. He was a Deist, not really a Christian, and his views were based on the rational arguments of philosopher David Hume. They looked at the world as having been designed to function in a certain way, with wealthy people (who already existed) using their wealth in business (investing) rather than simply keeping it for themselves. Their assumption was that such investments would have beneficial effects that would help everyone in the community by making industry possible and rewarding people who worked hard (the Protestant Ethic promoted by Reformer Jean Calvin and practiced by our founding fathers, the puritans in New England) thereby increasing productivity in a mercantile-based economy and making goods available to a greater number of people at lower costs. (Not exactly a trickledown theory, but . . .)

In Jesus' day this type of economic system simply didn't exist. Much of the economy was based on a system of bartering agricultural produce, trading animals for crops, etc. Since God was the Producer and Provider of all these things, it was taught in the Old Testament and understood among the Jewish community, that such things should be shared with others, especially the less fortunate, widows, orphans, sojourners, who did not have the means for providing such things for themselves. "We take care of our own people," might be a way to describe the ethical system they followed.

Now when Jesus came along, he preached the coming of the reign of God over all the earth. In a world where everyone believes that God is a King who freely provides for all his subjects, it is imperative that all of God's subjects freely share their possessions with others who needed them. This communal-ism was practiced by Christians in Jerusalem in Acts chapter 2, where people sold everything they had and distributed the produce to everyone according to their needs. Incidentally, this is one of the biblical foundations for the writings of that son of a Lutheran pastor in Germany named Karl Marx.

Greed is considered one of the seven deadly sins in the Church. Requiring people to pay interest on money Christians lent to each other was strictly forbidden during the Middle Ages by the Church. That, in fact, is one of the reasons Jewish families became wealthy bankers during that period of history. Borrowing from Jews and paying interest to them was NOT included in the Church's prohibitions, so people who had excess cash would invest it with Jewish bankers who would in turn lend the money out to Christians in exchange for interest, which they would subsequently pay to the original investors minus a reasonable fee for their services. The Jewish people were a sort of "middle" class in that system initially.

In fact, it was because the Pope had required certain archbishops to contribute money for the building of St. Peter's in Rome during the 16^th century (which they borrowed from Jewish bankers at a price) that the Pope decided to authorize the Archbishops to sell indulgences to Christians so they could repay their loans with interest (while making a fair profit at the same time themselves from such sales). That is what led to the 95 Theses and the Lutheran Reformation.

Simply put, the Church corrupted the teachings of Jesus, and capitalism replaced communal-ism (if it ever really existed in feudal society) but at the same time provided the financial resources that subsequently led to the Industrial Revolution etc.

Socialism, as Jesus taught it, was a normative practice for people who understood that they were living under God's Sovereign Rule. In God's Kingdom, that's the way we are to do things: "Love your neighbor as yourself."

Having said that, however, there is an enormous difference between what that means and the idea of encouraging a government consisting of fallible and sinful human beings, to force people using the threat of imprisonment and violence, to give up possessions they themselves worked for and then taking those possession (minus a small "administrative overhead fee" of 20-50% to pay for all the tax collectors, the police, the courts, the government, the jails, etc required to collect and re-distribute that money and to administer and manage systems such as health care programs and other forms of social welfare assistance). Christians should be in favor of
creating a social system built on the love of God and neighbor in which I work hard so I can freely and generously provide for the needs of my "brothers and sisters," as well as strangers. In fact, in some small, "symbolic" ways this is what we do at Hope with our food pantry, adopt-a-family programs, blood drives, etc. We could do a lot more, but certainly not less.

In one sense, in such a world, there would not be any "middle class" at all. In fact, there would be only one class, and all would share equally in it and wealth would continue to increase and produce a higher standard of living for all.

As Christians, however, we do confess our belief in original sin: that by nature all of us turn inward on ourselves and away from God and neighbor, grasping and keeping everything we can hang onto. It was Cain (who killed his brother Abel in Genesis) who asked: "Am I my brother's keeper?" His assumption was "no," but God's intention was clearly "Yes."

We live out our lives in what Luther called "two kingdoms." The "Kingdom on the Right" is that of Jesus as described above. The "Kingdom on the Left" is the one that God created to establish just laws and governmental systems to manage and constrain the behavior of sinful human beings, enforce God's Laws, and maintain order. Both Kingdoms exist side-by-side, and we believe as Christians that we live in both. But when society naively overlooks or denies the reality of Original Sin or the necessity of living by faith as followers of Jesus Christ in a society based on love of God and neighbor, or when we live in a society where the Christian understanding of God's reign is not universally accepted, it may not be possible to enforce the voluntary ethic of love for neighbor.

So, to complete my thought, Jesus DID proclaim a kingdom where social justice, harmony, peace, love, and mutual sacrifice and submission are coming into existence. That kingdom will come, just as we pray for it every day in the Lord's Prayer. Government should create just laws and provide for the needs of those who are marginalized or victimized by greedy members of society and foster a culture of love and sharing wherever it is possible. In my opinion, however, it is just too unreasonable for us to believe that by allowing government to rely on the threat of force and the use of violence, that such a government run by human beings will be able to transform the stubborn hearts of sinners. The most we can hope for is that Christians will have the courage to prophetically proclaim to society that those who are most needy must be cared for and protected (which the Church has actually been doing now for some 2,000 years) and will denounce the unbridled greed that exploits weak and poor people and destroys their dignity and independence. (see below for some quotes).

Pray for President Obama.

Love, Dad

DISCOVERING OUR FUTURE AS A MISSIONAL CHURCH

    As I think about my future as a pastor, my thoughts are always around the subject, "What does God intend to do through our church here in Selden, Long Island?"

    I ask the question in that form because I hope to be able to spend several more years serving as the pastor of Hope and because I want those years to be as productive and powerful as possible for the Kingdom of God.

    I suppose I could settle back and say to myself, "Hey, Rich, you've got only five or six years until retirement (or less, if I wanted to retire early), so take it easy and enjoy the fruit of your 25 years of service at Hope."

    But the problem I have is that I am more excited right now about what God is doing and intends to do among us than at any other time in my ministry. For me it's almost as if all the years up till now were meant as a time of preparation rather than a time to prepare sail off into the sunset.

    I recently attended the Allelon Summer Institute in Hamilton, Ontario because I saw a chance to start learning some new things about ministry. The overall subject was called the "Missional Church," a term that is being used more and more by people who are on the leading edge of how the Church engages our culture and community with the good news of God's kingdom.

    A "Missional Church" is one that asks itself two basic questions: "What is God's mission in our world?" and "What does God intend to do through us, in our time and in our community, as His people?" Speaking of the church in this way is to suggest that it is time that we begin looking at what we do and ask ourselves, "How can we as God's people get beyond being simply a 'provider of religious goods and services' and begin to mobilize our resources to actively bring the gospel out to others who dwell beyond the walls of our 'sanctuary'?"

    Too often we have acted like we are the ones who should determine and define the mission we carry out. We often think that the community needs to come to us if we are going to serve them in God's name. But the truth is, as my friend Robin Greenwood always reminds me, it is not the church of God that has a mission but the God of mission who has a church.

    If that is true, then there's a big difference in the way we see ourselves and the mission we are engaged in. If we focus primarily on caring for ourselves and waiting for outsiders to come to us to receive the resources they need from us, we are missing the mission completely.

    Early in his ministry in Galilee, our Lord Jesus sent out 70 followers into the villages where he intended to go. They had a single task, to proclaim to all that the "kingdom of God has come near." Jesus had no building to invite people to, and there were no "programs" for them to offer people. Their job was simply to "heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy,
drive out demons." Jesus told them that it would be dangerous work, and they would not be welcomed by everyone, but those who did welcome them would indeed receive a blessing. They were to go as strangers into new places, ready to speak and do the work of God's kingdom, bringing his Shalom to everyone who would receive it. But if you look at what we do and how we connect (or not) with our community, that usually isn't the case, is it?

    We are all members of the Body of Christ, gifted by God's Holy Spirit for the work of ministry, and we spend the largest part of our daily lives living in the midst of a culture that is usually not very "God-friendly." But the truth is that even we, when it comes right down to it, do not often think too much about what God might be able to do through us for the sake of His kingdom. And even when we do come together as a body, very often it is for our own sake rather than for the sake of God's mission.

    I invite you to think, pray, and interact with me about this important question: "What might we do differently as God's people, both individually and corporately, if carrying out God's mission were our primary agenda as the church?"

    In coming days I will share some of my thoughts on this question. Please join me by sharing yours.

ON TO ONTARIO

In just a few days I will leave for a week in Hamilton, Ontario to attend a week-long Summer Institute offered by the Allelon Movement. I have signed up for two courses: "Mission-Shaped Groups - Structures for Missional Formation" and "Missional Church - Its Nature and Purpose." I will fly out toward Toronto, Canada on Sunday after worship so I can get to Hamilton, Ontario in time for Monday morning's first session at 8 a.m. .

It may sound rather odd for me to say that I am "going back to school" for a week, but it is something I have been thinking about for some time.

The classes will meet Monday through Friday, from 8 a.m. to noon and from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. and they are being held at "The Freeway," a church that is part of the "emerging church" movement that operates its own café that serves the public from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily. Look it up on the web at http://www.frwy.ca/

My reason for going to this Summer Institute is so I can become part of a "Learning Community" of church leaders from Canada and the United States, leaders who are actively involved in working with churches on the local level. The point of the Institute is to provide us with an opportunity to gather together with people who are "on the same wavelength" when it comes to working for the transformation of the church in North America.

There's a certain irony to this whole experience. As a pastor in the Metro New York Synod, I am already involved in a "movement" in the church that encourages us to "travel together" in the ministry of the gospel. That's actually what the word "Synod" means. It means, loosely translated, that we are traveling the "same way together" (Greek: "sun" = "same" and "odos" (pronounced "ho dos" = "way"). My experience for the past 20 years (at least ) since the formation of the ELCA Metro NY Synod, however, has not actualized this potential. We simply have not yet found a way as ELCA Lutherans to really walk the "same way."

It's really no wonder to me that we are witnessing the rapid decline of many churches in Metro New York. God intended that we should be in this work together, yet in truth we are not. We (pastors and churches) still work largely in isolation from one another, even though there is clearly more strength in numbers.

I believe that it doesn't have to be that way forever. That's why I'm making this journey and spending a lot of money. It won't be a vacation. In fact, if all goes well, it will probably require even more work from me (and you) as we begin looking for new ways to embrace the mission God is already carrying out among us. For some of us it will mean taking more time to study and pray together. For others it will lead into new areas of active ministry with people from outside our congregation. For all of us it will be necessary for us to grow spiritually.

So here is my "fair warning." Please keep me in your prayers and pray for our future together. I am excited about what God has done among us in the past, and I am eagerly looking forward to what God is going to do among us in the months and years ahead. There is so much God wants to do with us, and if we are open to the leading of God's Holy Spirit, we will see many new things emerge from within us.

THE FUTURE OF THE METRO NEW YORK SYNOD-A “TALE OF TWO SYNODS”

BISHOP OLSON'S WEEKLY WORD (from the June 17 MNYS E-Letter):

MNYS in the Future—Bishop Olson's Weekly Word

What will the MNYS look like in the future?

If the present trend continues, in 10 years we may have as few as 175 congregations and a membership below 70,000 baptized.  We will be sustained by closings and investments but not by stewardship if the next generation is not taught as we were.

We will have reinvested to renew many transition congregations and thus look more like the New York population, but older.  The future of suburban congregations started in the 50's and 60's is uncertain: will they be the transition congregations of the 2020's or welcome the next generation to their pews and councils?

The economic trends seem likely to make suburban MNYS more distant from the boroughs and the steady flow of immigrants.  The synod is 2/3 dependent on grants and endowments now.  How long can we depend on the sales of our grandparents' houses of worship to sustain synod ministry?

These assessments are rather grim.  Is this what God has in store for us?  How can we envision or begin to predict our future apart from our past and present?  Here are some clues that give me hope.

After years of focus on public issues (read 9-11, urban transitions, same-sex acceptance, etc.), the synod could re-focus on the ministry and mission of our congregations.  Target the next generation and families wherever they live.  Create a synod youth ministry with staff.  Recapture the interest of early retirees for mission.  Innovate in welcoming post-modern, post-Christian "seekers." Revitalize worship, preaching and education—especially Bible study.  Make a difference in enough New York neighborhoods to attract attention.

We have come through a long period of turning outward from our Lutheran quietism to be a more public church.  Now it is time to re-focus on our constituents and the 200+ "local Lutheran mission centers," our congregations.

We can't do everything.  We had better do what we have done well.  Will the church arise in this age as the old social Gospel hymn predicts so confidently?  I believe we will. J

"The church of Christ, in every age beset by change, but Spirit led,
Must claim and test its heritage and keep on rising from the dead."

 

 

 

My Response on the MNYS.org Forum

As you know, I have spent a great deal of time thinking and working on the future of the MNYS. What you say is probably the likely scenario, but I have a different view about what we could do, by the power of the Holy Spirit.

I would love to see the Commission for Evangelical Outreach and the new Bishop and staff take very seriously the future of the congregations of our synod and use the next year or so to start a thorough assessment of and conversation with the leaders of our local congregations in groups based on local realities (proximity, size, historical relationships, pastoral ability and insightfulness, etc.) to see how the churches could be intentionally and missionally linked with each other.

In such conversations there would have to be a hopeful attitude rather than the "grim reaper" approach that was articulated at the Synod Assembly last month.

In other words, rather than saying "When the music stops, one of you will be eliminated," why couldn't we begin instead with the attitude: "God has given us a tremendous host of resources for God's mission, and we are all in this together, so let's prayerfully work together to find a way to use these resources in new ways to expand rather than contract the work of God in this local area"?

Specifically this might mean that the bishop might ask five congregations located in adjacent conferences but very near one another to work with him to form a serious coalition for mission that would bring together the ordained and other rostered leaders as well as gifted key lay leaders to create a single ministry leadership team that would work with the existing churches to creatively collaborate to develop new outposts for mission-- something they could not and would not even have even thought of doing without the bishop's strong insistent leadership. Now they would do many more things because they would now have a "critical mass" of leaders, people, and money that would free them up to work together.

After working, praying, and worshiping together, they might decide to adjust the worship times in the participating churches so staff members could be available in different locations on the same day (perhaps even more than one per location), and they might offer educational offerings in selected locations so people could come together in large enough numbers to make a positive environment for spiritual growth possible.

Activities that they do separately now could be combined or worked out together (a common newsletter, a common bulletin or bulletins, shared secretarial staff, and eventually even a common Council).

The key would be to have shared ministry rather than perpetuating isolated survivalist ministries.

We would have to retrain our clergy and our key leaders and make a commitment to plan mission and ministry together. We might even decide that our corporate efforts could be more effective if one or more facilities were converted to other uses or even sold with the income being designated for local mission.

I realize that as Lutherans we probably don't have the faith and the courage we would need to make this sort of realignment a reality, but in other countries and other faith traditions this is what has been going on for a decade or more. As Lutherans we think we know better than others, and we want to keep clergy employed and laity from getting too powerful, but if we could humble ourselves and listen to the Spirit, we could get back to doing God's mission work and stop retreating from the tremendous mission opportunity God is handing us.

Indeed, as Jesus said in last Sunday's Gospel, "the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few . . ." Some Christians hear those words as a challenge from our Lord, but sadly, many of us Lutherans hear those words and respond "You're right, Jesus, that's a real shame, isn't it?"

We can do better than that. God certainly wants us to.