Jonah 3:1-5, 10 (The Ninevites repent)

Psalm 62:6-14 (“For God alone my soul in silence waits”)

1 Corinthians 7:29-31 (“the present form of the world is passing away”)

Mark 1:14-20 (“I will make you fish for people”)

Sermon

“Follow me and I will make you fish for people.”

Today’s readings are all about calling and being called,

speaking and being heard,

proclaiming good news and changing the world.

Let us start with Jonah.

Here was a man, who was serious about evangelism,

so serious in fact, that he worried about being too effective.

He didn’t really want God to forgive the Ninevites.

Ninevah was the capital of Assyria,

which had conquered Samaria.

So when God called him to change their hearts,

he refused.

Jonah turned around and fled, going in the exact opposite direction.

God brought him back to Nineveh to preach in the streets

and, when the people repented,

as they do in today’s lesson,

he sulked.

“I don’t really want them to be saved.”  Humph.

“I’d rather be dead.”

And yet God speaks back to Jonah,

saying that he loves the people of Nineveh,

created and cared for them,

and used Jonah to redeem them.

Similarly, last week, we heard about Samuel,

the young prophet,

whom God called to speak out against his master Eli.

Samuel didn’t even know what was going on,

and Eli had to convince him to be honest about his prophecy.

This business of calling and being called—

of speaking up when the Lord asks—

this is a tricky and dangerous business,

not for the faint of heart.

There is a word of truth that goes forth from heaven,

a word that genuinely changes those of us who hear it.

If you aren’t a little concerned about where that might lead,

perhaps you haven’t been paying attention.

God is calling us to change,

to step away from the easy, social, and biological way of the world,

into a new and different way of life.

It means not only change to ourselves, but changing others.

How do you feel about that responsibility?

About the ability to make people repent, change, turn?

The ability to make of them, and out of them, new people?

I have to say it frightens me a bit.

Sometimes it scares me that God might work this through me,

as though I were a puppet or tool…

On the other hand, I could be responsible for the change, myself.

In that case, what if I do it wrong?  Or not at all?

Neither option makes me comfortable.

Both, curiously, have made me more humble

and more compassionate.

I care for others and for myself

because I know we are becoming something other than we were,

something better and more real.

That God is acting in us.

And, as frightening as that might be,

it is also exhilarating and joyful.

To grow is to be alive,

and to be alive is to grow.

So I delight in that strange force of life that calls out to me

and calls out through me, to the world.

The psalmist praises this God,

this strange, magnificent force,

more powerful than money or fate,

stronger than nature or culture,

overcoming fear and intellect,

and in the end, even overcoming death.

“For God alone my soul in silence waits; …

God alone is my rock and my salvation,
my stronghold, so that I shall not be shaken.”

This supreme power of the universe calls out to us.

The reading from Corinthians is, perhaps,

a bit harder to understand.

It comes at the end of a long passage on marriage and celibacy,

on what it means to be in the world and of the world,

and how our relationships with out families

affect our relationship with God.

Paul wraps that discussion up with this line:

“For the present form of this world is passing away.”

The speaking of God’s words into the world has changed it,

is changing it,

will change it.

The wonderful thing about Anglicans

is that we appreciate God’s presence in all things.

We value the world as it was created.

We know it was created good.

And yet this also, is our challenge,

because, knowing the world is good,

we can be hard pressed to see how our doing anything,

particularly our speaking the good news,

can make a positive change in the world.

We don’t feel the need to convert anyone,

to “save” anyone in the evangelical sense.

So the Anglican concept of evangelism can be a bit anemic.

It needn’t be.

This word spoken in the world

is in us.

The world is good,

not in spite of us (as some reform Christians would have it),

nor independent of us (as some of us are tempted to think),

but through us.

The world is good through us.

You are part of creation – the noun –

but you are also part of creation – the verb.

Your life, your actions, your words;

all of these can be God breaking into the world,

reaching out to the poor and the suffering,

making justice,

building the kingdom.

Scary, isn’t it.

It is empowering to know we make this difference in the world,

and terrifying to be caught up in this wave of power,

sweeping over creation.

Which brings us to the Gospel.

“Follow me and I will make you fish for people.”

As usual, a slightly ambivalent metaphor.

Do you really want to hook people and sweep them into the boat?

Do you really want to yank them from the familiar?

Isn’t there death involved in there somewhere?

Just so.

But, after all, sheep and shepherds isn’t all that great an image either.

Or Kings and subjects.  Or masters and slaves.

Sometimes I think God makes the metaphors tough,

to keep us honest about how we interpret them.

The word of God is meant to shake us up a bit,

to think of things in a new and deeper way.

So let us unpack the fishing metaphor.

“Follow me and I will make you fish for people.”

When I hear this, I think of the deeps

I go to when I am afraid, or angry, or tired.

I retreat into myself.

The truest, fullest part of me

hides under the water,

hides in the safety

of habit

and politeness and correctness and niceness

and expectation.

Others hide in self-interest, or consistency, or dogma, or wealth.

We have thousands of excuses to pack away our inmost self,

where it will never see the light of day.

We all have closets and walls and defense mechanisms,

do we not?

And these things we pull over the tops of ourselves,

can grow deeper and deeper

until the light of the sun seems miles away.

Fishing for people means drawing them out of the depths.

It usually takes something bright and shiny,

something that doesn’t seem threatening at all,

but also a bit of a hook.

It takes a connection to the surface,

a discomfort.

And at some point you have to believe

that the fish is better off in the boat.

(Every metaphor breaks down somewhere.)

I really think we are better off in relationship with one another.

I think we are better off with honesty, compassion, and dignity.

I think we are better off together,

with one another and with God,

than we are alone.

And let me be clear,

the boat is not Christianity, as wonderful as that is.

The boat is love –

a decidedly uncomfortable, immensely joyful state of being.

“Follow me and I will make you fish for people.”

I have been caught on God’s line,

and judge that one connection

to be more valuable than any other.

I have been drawn out of myself, into community,

and, as uncomfortable as that can be on occasion,

it is infinitely better than being alone.

And so I reach out,

so that the spark that enlivens me, may enliven you.

I reach out,

to find that that piece of God working in me

works in you as well.

The image and likeness of God,

covered by all the vanities of life;

that’s what I’m fishing for.

“Follow me and I will make you fish for people.”

Let me be as concrete as I can.

Each and every person you meet

has within them, a spark of Divinity,

a piece of God, acting in the world.

I beg you to pay attention for that spark.

Listen carefully, sometimes it shows up

in the most surprising of places.

The enemy.  The beggar.  The foreigner.

Listen to everyone you meet.

You cannot love those you do not know,

and you can never know those you have not heard.

When you see it, catch a hold.

Meet every kindness with kindness.

And meet every insult with kindness,

because only in this way can we draw out

those who hide in the deeps.

Love whenever possible.

We must be the connection for those who cannot feel the pull of God.

Take every opportunity to reach out to people.

We can be the lure, and the hook, and the line that draws people in.

Don’t forget that it is often the bright spark in your heart,

your truth, your joy, your compassion

that attracts the spark within others.

Don’t forget that it is your commitment

to love, to community,

to understanding God, and faith, and religion

that shows people how to live with God.

Don’t forget that it is your unmistakable presence, your genuine love,

through which God calls all people into the Kingdom.

And, of course, the most wonderful thing is that the line works both ways.

Whatever may happen,

never forget that the same love

that binds people to God through you

binds you to God through them.

Never forget that God is fishing for you as well.

And every loving soul is a fisher.

It is by fishing for people that we find ourselves caught up in the Kingdom.

“Why faith? Why god? Why goddess, for that matter? There’s no proof on either side of the spectrum… believer or non-believer. Why?”

Here was my response.  Best I could do on short notice.  I’d be happy to hear whether it works for you.

For me, it begins with a relationship; God is a person in my life, we talk, we laugh at each other’s jokes (God only laughs at mine when they’re funny – God’s are always funny, but often odd from my perspective).  Anyway, that’s the way the whole God thing works for me.  If one doesn’t have this experience, the why has a great deal to do with figuring out life.  It’s extremely important to me that religion is our response to ignorance, not our response to knowledge. Life is complicated and difficult, so I turn to wise, caring people now (a community of faith) and in the past (scripture and tradition).  Turns out there is a long history of wrestling with these questions.

Why am I alive?  What am I meant to do?  Can I change things?  Should I change things?  How should I change things?  Who’s in control?

Anglicans (including Episcopalians) admit these are tremendously challenging questions.  We think they need to be explored in groups with study.  Now we commit as a group to some common propositions – not because we think they are the only answers, but because a community requires a common language.  These are our answers.

We believe there is a God who is in charge.  (That solves some basic metaphysical questions about why something instead of nothing and makes a handy label for all sorts of transpersonal experiences, nearly universal values, and the personal experience of people like me.)   [Remember, though, we know that our answers are qualifying our ignorance rather than declaring Truth.]

We believe God created the world and loves creation.  (This puts us in a place where we can say existence is fundamentally good.  It justifies our use of reason as well.)

We believe people mess up.  (Does anyone doubt this?)

We believe God needed to do something to counteract the bad effects of people messing up.  (This insures that the world is fundamentally good, in spite of our issues.)  It also accounts for many people’s personal experience of Jesus Christ, God and human.

We believe God exists in and amongst us, that we’re not fully separate, but being alive has something profound to do with being Godly in some sense.  (It allows us to empower people by recognizing the power they already have, but also acts against individualism and holds people accountable.)  It also accounts for many people’s personal experience of the Holy Spirit.

Those aren’t just fact statements, they are principles and practices for how we deal with the world around us.  They play themselves out in particular activities that help us have healthy relationships with one another and with the God we perceive.  So we eat together, both regular and symbolic meals.  We pray using common prayers, not just on our own.  We create communities of common language and worship so that we can talk to each other about our experiences without having to explain every detail every time.  We celebrate people who seem to have managed well in the past (saints) and recognize how hard it is to do well in the present.  We have plans for when we mess up (confession/reconciliation) and for committing ourselves to messing up as little as possible.  We have plans for staying mindful of God and one another.

What amazes me most is that this works a surprising amount of the time.  Not always, by any means, but sometimes.  People seem to really communicate about these confusing issues of fundamental reality, meaning, and purpose.  People have a language to reason about how they deal with the questions.  People change for the better.

Why God?  It’s different for everyone.  For me, it makes sense of the person I talk to on a daily basis.  It provides an elegant unifying theory for my very pragmatic desire for order, meaning, and real values.

Why faith?  Because almost all good in life comes from trusting people and trusting in people.  No, not trusting all people in all things all the time, but trusting the right people about the right things at the right time.  “No man is an island.”  (That was written by an Anglican, BTW.)  Faith in God is a more complicated question, that really only comes up once you’re already talking to one another.

http://www.thelarsengroup.com/2011season/guests2011octdec.html

For many, this seems obvious, but in a particular way.  They recognize the value of mutual support and, therefore, think of the Church as a group of people helping one another.  Whether the key element of their faith is behavior, belief, or belonging, they see the Church as a group of people who support one another in that endeavor.  They reinforce, both encourage and discourage, people in particular actions and ideas by defining the in-group and the out-group.  The in-group includes those you can depend upon for the right help and you, in turn, have a responsibility to them.  “You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.”   More commonly, you agree with me and I’ll agree with you.  You help me out – financially, socially, materially – and I’ll help you. 

It works wonderfully well to create an environment of love within the group – and thus, teaches love beautifully.  You have clear examples of right behavior and right thought, because everyone on the inside has them.  And the best examples can be held up for people to emulate.  Love becomes clear precisely because it manifests in our relations to other members, but not to outsiders.  Look, I’ll give you this taste of favor, and you, if you’ll just join the group, can enjoy that kind of support perpetually.  Many cults make a drug out of this kind of inclusion.  You get the high, you get hooked, and you cannot stand the thought of losing approval and support.  It works.  It works because the affection you experience is real, and a profoundly deep human need.

Alas, this type of love may not be true love. (An interesting argument for another time.)  It is reciprocal love, and therefore conditional.  Conditional love presents problems for Christians because Paul and Jesus both speak so ardently against it.  Just as God loves us in spite of anything we might do, so we must love one another, in spite of all impediments.  Conditional love produces genuine interest, affection, and concern, but only for those who meet the conditions.  [Conditions commonly include baptism, being born again, subscribing to a creed, or behaving appropriately.]  The down side comes when we look at members of the out-group.  If you aren’t a member, then the obligations, the entitlements of love fall away.  Members must ask the question: “why haven’t they joined?”  Clearly the outsider must not want to part of the community of “love,” they say.  They must not, then, deserve that love.  It’s a nasty train of thought, but terribly common.  When love becomes a property of the in-group, outsiders necessarily lack love.  And no, that’s not really love.  So love, much like clear thought and openness, cannot be a good definition for the Church, or any group; it automatically downgrades outsiders to haters (or fools or bigots).

Both liberal and conservative Christians are guilty of this type of thinking.

Conditional love means love for members at the expense of hatred or apathy toward outsiders.  It blinds us to the faults of anyone who agrees with us and the merits of those who do not and, as such, makes it harder to learn the important lessons in life.  We are, however, conditioned by evolution to think in this way.  Favoring the in-group means that people like us will be more successful, both in business and in reproduction.  Groups of mutual support make it possible for in-group members to outcompete others.  You can see this in any church that provides housing, medical care, job searching, any number of services for members – or for people they want to become members.  Once again, it’s not a bad thing.  It can represent genuine interest, affection, and concern.  But it represents them to a limited population, and with somewhat of an ulterior motive.

Many modern Christians have responded to this sort of conditional love by trying to reconstruct Christianity without the social capital aspect.  They want a church defined by right belief or right practice.  They want church to be solely about what you think or do, and not about your relationship with others.  Once again, both conservatives and liberals fall into this trap.  For conservatives, there is often a move toward certainty, both intellectual (scriptural inerrancy, dogma) and behavioral (moral rigor).  They want the Church to be a collection of people who are right regardless of whether they love one another.  Liberals on the other hand fall into the trap of making Christianity abstract rather than concrete, intellectually (e.g., process theology) and morally (relativism).

Jesus said that we would be known “by our love,” presumably for God, for one another, and for outsiders.  Jesus goes out of his way in the Gospels to speak of love for the outsider – the widows and orphans (outside economically), the outcast (outside socially), and prisoners (outside legally).  Modern people perceive the hypocrisy of conservatives who love one another but not outsiders (right now gays and the poor would be common outsiders).  They also see the vapidity of faith that doesn’t lead to some form of concrete behavior and belief, which brings us back to social capital.

I don’t know if I’m using the word in the most common sociological sense, but I’d like to highlight the parallels between social and financial capital.  Social capital, like economic capital, increases the more it’s used.  The circulation of capital produces more, because so much of it has to do with trust.  Like, money, social capital represents (though is not identical to) worth.  We can really talk about an abundance, or lack, of interest, affection, and concern for one another within communities and within the world.

So often church leaders want to improve their community by fixing the intellectual or behavioral norms without looking deeply at what makes for real love.  That’s the measure.  What increases love for God (which overflows into love of people)?  What increases love between members (which may or may not overflow into love of outsiders)?  What increases the love of all and each?  It’s a terrible balance, because interest in one person often means not taking the time for interest in another.  Supporting one can mean disregarding – or even taking away from – another.  And there is no way to do the math on any commodity other than love itself.  No way to simplify by enforcing a belief or a behavior.  You genuinely have to look into the hearts of your community, your congregation, your family and ask, is there love there?  Does it overflow?

I have a challenge in my life.  I find love in Christianity.  I think that the words of Jesus, the scriptures, and yes the tradition of the church is soaked in the love of humans for God and for one another.  I believe that to be the central message.  And yet so many Christians practice conditional love, and so many Christians practice abstract belief that I despair at times that I will ever be able to deliver the central Christian message without unpacking all the distrust brought on by my co-religionists.

I cannot tell you what Jesus taught.  I can only show you.  I can only do my best to instill love into communities and individuals, to draw them out of themselves so that they too manifest worth through love.  Do they have inherent worth?  Yes!  Of course, but just in the same way that a potato has calories.  It doesn’t mean something until it comes into contact with something else.  It takes an act of will to love.  It takes listening, understanding, and helping others to generate real value in the world – real social capital that can be spent and redeemed.

Care for someone, not for reciprocity, but for the sake of awaking caring within them.  Love your fellows, your friends, coreligionists, colleagues, and family, but never let that love be an excuse not to love others, not to nourish the spark of compassion wherever you find it.

As you meditate on the economy this year, think of this.  It’s in your power to stimulate the economy of caring.  Let us pray for a truly productive year.

In type 1 arguments, two people disagree on a matter, but agree on the means of resolving their disagreement.  “What was the color of the carpet in our old apartment?”  “What color is the star Betelgeuse?” “Who won the world series last year?”  We consider these to be questions of fact – because there is a consensus that the correct answer exists AND we have a way of determining it.  [pull out the pictures, pull out a telescope, google World Series.]  Such arguments come up frequently when the right resource is not readily available.

Type 3 arguments involve irresolvable differences. They usually involve matters of taste or historical arguments over some event for which there is no longer sufficient evidence. “Is Van Gogh better than Seurat?” “Did Shakespeare really write Hamlet?”  In this case, both disputants know that no definitive answer could ever be agreed upon, but enjoy pointing out the merits of their own case.  [Duh.  What's the point in saying otherwise?]

This leaves us with type 2: arguments in which no clear standard of truth has been agreed upon BUT at least on party feels there should be a standard.  Questions of faith and morals usually fall into this category.  “Does God exist?”  “Is there such a thing as a soul?”  “Is it okay to poison a cat?”  Once we start dealing with the murky area of type 2 arguments people start to have strong feelings.  [Yes.  Yes.  No!]  If we were sitting safely in type 1, we could agree on how to resolve the dilemma, but here we are arguing about whether or not someone has proof – usually completely ignoring the question of what qualifies as proof.

I would challenge you, next time you find yourself in a debate, to ask which type of debate it is.  If it’s a type 2, see if you can short circuit (or at least focus) the dispute by identifying what it would take to resolve the argument one way or the other.  In most cases I suspect that’s the fundamental issue at hand.

I know I have a terrible habit of making things complicated,

so here’s a quick summary of my faith.

God loves you.

God created you from nothingness

and upholds you in existence.

God desires your company.

An infinite and omnipotent being

made you whole-cloth as someone to talk to, to love, and to be with.

That’s a difficult proposition,

because you’re stubborn. (Well, we’re stubborn.)

God spoke through prophets, mystics, poets, dreamers, mathematicians,

artists, and countless others for countless centuries.

Some responded to God’s love, but far too few.

Why this is exactly, I don’t know.

I could say we fell, we were prideful, we were selfish, or whatever,

but I honestly don’t know what that means exactly.

It means we have trouble talking to God—whatever the cause.

And this is not surprising,

because we have trouble talking to one another.

We have trouble understanding and being understood.

So God became human,

to see what all the fuss was about,

to interact with us as we interact with one another,

to tell us the truth about God and creation in our own language,

to jump start us into right relationships.

And we killed him.

Again, I don’t know why exactly.

Oh, I can talk about selfishness, greed, and power.

I can tell you about the forces that go along with killing God;

I can tell you it’s in human nature,

But the why of it?  The brute force question

of human bloody-mindedness?

I just don’t know.

God did a surprising thing.

God did not take offense.

Shocking as it seems from our perspective,

God did not take offense.

And he returned to us.

And continues not only to teach, but to listen.

God is present in the world,

through creation—certainly and continually—

but also as a participant.

God cares so much to hear what you have to say

that he went through Hell to hear it—

God did not die to do something to you,

God died because of you

and returned for your sake.

And we have this promise:

that death will not get in the way—

not God’s death,

and not our own.

All of that is God’s gift to us,

not an exchange, not a sale, not a bribe or a contract.

That was given freely, and is given freely,

in our very existence.

That’s the Good News,

offered freely to all,

that no matter how bloody-minded you may be,

God made you, loves you, and returns to you,

no matter how dark things seem to become.

All of that, however, is not Christianity.

That is the truth that Christians profess,

but it is not the practice, desire, and belief of Christians.

It is what makes the world what it is.

It is not what makes us what we are.

That may sound surprising, but I hold it to my very core.

No.  What makes us Christians is not the good news,

but how we respond to the good news.

Some of us, seeing how much God loves us,

and seeing how much God loves even those we hate,

and hearing what Jesus had to say,

but more importantly noting what Jesus came to do,

choose to do something about the Good News.

We choose to talk to God,

who seems so bent on listening to us.

We pray.

We choose to listen to God,

who seems so bent on talking to us.

We meditate.

We choose to listen and talk to one another,

not just hold silent or spout words,

but to build the kind of relationships that mean something,

to be worthy of God’s attention,

and worthy of God’s presence among us.

We choose to help others talk and listen to God.

The prayers:

the formal words, polished by centuries of use

that help us to read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest

God’s message to us.

the informal words,

spoken only in places safe enough to bear our soul.

The practices:

the histories of God’s people,

lovingly kept for millennia in scripture and tradition;

the study of creation;

the regular practice of coming here to share in God’s love—

always present, but more meaningful somehow

when experienced together;

the life lived in community,

open to others, open to God.

The sacraments:

breaking open the most profound experiences of our lives

to see God peaking through.

That’s Christianity,

not the gift of grace in Creation,

nor the gift of grace in Jesus Christ,

but the gift of grace in discovering

that we can be God reaching out to us.

We are the body of Christ, alive in the world.

The very spirit of God is alive in us, as the church, the Spirit of God,

no doubt impossible without the creation,

impossible without the life of Jesus,

and yes, impossible without God working within us.

Love yourself.

God made you.

God listens to you.

God finds you interesting, and wonderful, and worthwhile.

Love others.

God made them too, and, I guarantee,

each and every one is worth getting to know.

Some people have trouble seeing God.

Some people have trouble hearing the good news.

Give them something to believe in while they figure out the rest.

Be good to them.

Fight the bloody-mindedness that somehow lives in each of us.

Love God.

Keep your heart and mind open to new and wondrous things.

God keeps giving us gifts and God keeps coming back from the dead.

Never make up your mind that God cannot be found,

that someone cannot be God to you,

or you to them.

Readings:

Isaiah 40:1-11 (“Comfort, comfort ye my people”)

Psalm 85 (“Mercy and truth have met together”)

2 Peter 3:8-15a (“The Lord is not slow about his promise”)

Mark 1:1-8 (“John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness”)

Sermon:

Being an idealist, I’ve always found Advent slightly frustrating.

It’s a season that can’t seem to make up its mind.

Are we celebrating the messiah who came?

Or anticipating the messiah to come?

We get readings about both in the lectionary.

Weren’t Jesus and Isaiah talking about the end of the world last week?

Isn’t that what Peter is talking about this week?

“But the day of the Lord will come like a thief,

and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise,

and the elements will be dissolved with fire,

and the earth and everything that is done on it will be disclosed.”

I’m pretty sure that’s in the future.

We get to the Nativity by the end of the season, don’t we?

“Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.

And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son,

and you will name him Jesus.”

I’m certain that happened in the past.  Maybe 2000 years ago…

And this week…

Well this week, we hear about John the Baptist – who came before.

“See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,

who will prepare your way;

What are we to make of all this back and forth?

It is both the end of the year and the beginning of a new one.

It is the same Jesus who came among us once and will come again.

I can preach a good paradox when I have to.

I’m not sure that’s where we want to go in the end,

but let’s start there.

Let us start with the paradox of John the Baptist.

Was he a Christian?

I think not.

I think he was a Christian in becoming.

A step on the path; leading up to, but not all the way there.

A fore-runner.

We get these hints in the Gospel of Mark.

John proclaimed the baptism of repentance, but was that real baptism?

Yes and no.

Jesus, he said would bring baptism of the Holy Spirit.

We even hear of some getting this second baptism in the book of Acts.

So we  have the baptism of John and the baptism of Jesus.

John had knowledge, but Jesus had truth.

John was righteous and holy, but Jesus was the God Himself.

We get hung up on questions of definition.

It has become rather popular to ask who is

and who is not a Christian these days.

Do they baptize right?  Do they say the creed?  Do they do good works?

Do they confess the truth?  Do they take the Bible seriously?

All good questions, and all slightly missing the point.

We are, most of us, Christians in becoming,

just as John was;

not entirely there,

but, with a little grace, trying.

I think we need to accept this ambiguity, this ambivalence,

just as we accept the ambivalence of Advent;

the already and not yet of it all.

If the messiah has come,

why is the world not perfect?

If the coming messiah will set right the wrongs of the world,

why has he not come?

We live in an in between time, just as John did.

We know part of the truth, or, as Paul said,

“For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face.

Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.”

In high school, I learned the Anglican response to

“Have you been saved?”

“I have been saved.  I am being saved.  I hope for salvation.”

And in seminary they put it a little more academically, as

“the already and not yet of Christianity.”

The old Eucharistic Prayer tells us:

Christ “made there by his one oblation of himself once offered

a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation and satisfaction

for the sins of the whole world.”

So does that do it?  Problem solved?  Death conquered?  Evil vanquished?

Yes and no.

We still sin

and yet we are coming to fruition.

We are ripening.

“The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness,

but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish,

but all to come to repentance.”

Aha!  There’s that repentance again.

Good enough for John, but not quite good enough for Jesus.

We come to repentance,

but God, in response, gives us new life.

God gives us the Holy Spirit.

We live as a people promised life, and living into it.

Were Jesus dead, that would be the end of it,

but we don’t believe that Jesus is dead;

we believe he died.

It’s that constant continuing life that allows us to see Christ in ourselves

and in one another.

It’s that constant and continuing life that makes me a Christian,

in relationship with a Jesus who was and is to come,

but more importantly, is now.

Look around you.

The person to your left: that’s Jesus.

The person to your right: that’s Jesus.

Your spouse, Jesus.

Your kids, Jesus.

Your friends, Jesus.

And yes, your enemies: Jesus once again.

But don’t stop there.  Even those people you don’ t even think about

(And most importantly, those we are unaccustomed to think about),

Jesus.

We did say Christ “made there by his one oblation of himself once offered

a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation and satisfaction

for the sins of the whole world.” (also 1 John 2.2)

“they are now justified by his grace as a gift,

through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 3:24)

It is not idolatry, blasphemy, or sacrilege to say that Christ works through us

(though it would be to say that Christ works only through us).

Christ is alive in the world,

in the church,

in us,

and in countless others.

In engineering, we’d call him a prototype,

the first and most pure example,

a proof of concept if you will.

But significantly, a prototype becomes more and more valuable, the more copies are made;

its greatest value is revealed in its legacy.

A single flight at Kitty Hawk – amazing.

Three hundred thousand aircraft in the world borders on miraculous.

One pocket computer is a neat toy.

74 million iPhones is a revolution.

So Jesus was a human being in Israel 2000 years ago.

He died, but did not end in dying.

He returned and will return again.

And somewhere around 2.5 billion people are part of that –

if not more.

So, I think we can move beyond the paradox.

Advent is about what we have and don’t yet have,

about Jesus who was and is and is to come,

but we can think of that very concretely.

What is it you can only have by not having?

…

A gift.

I would challenge you to think of Advent as a time of giving and receiving gifts,

that wonderful occasion of acceptance,

when we delight in giving things away and receiving them –

not for the sake of ownership or reward, but for the sake of relationship.

It can be so easy to get caught up in having or not having

(I do it all the time).

So much in life can be enjoyed by realizing

that the important things take on value only when they are shared,

when they pass from one to another.

We are Christians, and this is where our wealth is,

in one another.

Think of Advent as a time of gift giving,

when God calls us to reflect on the gift given us in Christ Jesus.

It is not just a gift we received just once, long in the past.

(Although it is that, certainly.)

It is not just a gift we wait for longingly,

like a child shaking packages under the tree.

(Although it is that, too.)

It is a gift we are receiving,

and perplexingly, it is a gift that grows in value the more we share it.

Ask yourself,

“What do I have that would mean more if I gave it away?”

“What might I make, not for myself,

but for the sake of Jesus Christ in me reaching out to someone else?”

“What might I do, for the image of God seen in the face of another?”

That is participation in the economy of God.

That is a response to Jesus Christ, who died, but is not dead.

That is building the kingdom of God.

If that’s too general, let me be more specific.

I sit on campus every Wednesday with a sign that says,

“God bless everyone. No exceptions.”

I’m working to build a community of love among those faithful on campus,

a fellowship of understanding among those who cannot understand faith,

and humility, curiosity, and affection among all.

You too can build the kingdom of God,

with the gifts given you.

You have grace, joy, and faith.

You have understanding and wisdom and time.

You have one another.  All gifts.

This Advent,

find a stranger and give them the gift of your time;

they will become an acquaintance.

Find an acquaintance and give them the gift of honesty and compassion;

they will become a friend.

Find a friend and give them the gift of your silence;

listen to them and they will become a confidant.

I guarantee you will be far richer come Christmas.

The already and not yet is not God’s attempt to keep us on our toes.

(Well, maybe, but not just that.)

It is not simply a paradox and a frustration.

It is the very real experience of living the middle of a gift –

God’s gift to us,

and through us,

God’s gift to the world.

And so I would encourage you to look at things in this way.  The coming of the Kingdom of God meant one thing to ancient and medieval Christians.  It meant the power of the emperor or monarch would be subordinated to the power of the King of Kings, Jesus Christ.  Theologians took the most powerful thing around and said, “Jesus is like that, but more so.”  Living in the age of the “almighty dollar” – never more so than now with the Tea Party and Occupy movements – we think of economics as all powerful – market forces, supply and demand, productivity.  And I want to tell you, “Jesus is like that, but more so.”  I want to tell you that there is a Christian economy.

The hardest thing for people to understand about our faith is that it means radically reorienting the way we look at the world.  They want to know WHY we love.  They want to know the economic or personal or practical gain of worship and charity…  But that would be missing the point entirely.  Christianity means – fundamentally means – valuing property, and power, and glory for the sake of love and never the other way around.

We seek to love God and neighbor.  Full stop.

Heaven is not a reward, but the necessary consequence of life lived in unity with God and God’s children.  Orthodoxy, orthopraxy, ethics, and institutions all serve this one end, love.  We worship Jesus Christ, who had the power to conquer nations, command angels, have anything he could want.  He wanted us.  That value system informs us.  Jesus gave up everything else in the process of coming into friendship with every other human being.  At – one – ment.  Reconciliation.  Family.  We are one in God, through Christ, who did not see equality with God a thing to be taken advantage of, but humbled himself to be one of us.  Christ, who saw equality with us a thing to be reveled in, embraced, and fulfilled.

Even in our increasingly capitalist culture, we still view Christmas as the season of giving.  If all other meaning gets stripped away, that will still remain.  Giving can be profoundly counter-cultural.

Our economy tells us to get what we want.  Market capitalism carries the assumption that we will all be best off if we just pursue our own interests – our own goals.  I don’t doubt it can be very effective.  Alas, it also suggests that our goals should be selfish and material.  Capitalism measures value in dollars and the market tells us that each person seeking for themselves will result in a system that best serves the needs of all.  It isn’t so.

Jesus offers us another way – a gift economy, in which we give to others according to their need, rather than taking according to our desire.  This could, no doubt be done with a market – but somehow it never is.  The market is a wonderful mechanism for distributing power.  Alas, it is also a horrible incentive toward selfishness, an excuse to be apathetic.

Christianity provides no service.  It is recompense for nothing.  It has no cost.  Christianity is – at it’s best – a gift.  It is a gift of love from humanity to God, in worship, praise, and thanksgiving.  It is a gift of love from God to humans in a sacrifice and an offering of communion.  It is a gift of love from Christians to the world, as the love of God we feel bubbling up inside of us overflows in charity, compassion, and joy.  These three need not, cannot, must not be separated.

We know that the giving and receiving of gifts cannot be separated, for both are blessings.  Both draw us closer to one another.  As we enter into the season of Advent, I invite your prayers and meditations on this theme:  the economy of Christ.

His gift to us, through which and for which we are beholden to God.  We have not been bought.  We have been embraced.

Our gift to him, through which and by which we return the favor.  And by favor, I mean affection, grace, love.

Our gift to one another, freely offered in sacrament, service, and joy.

We give.  That is our nature and our calling.  It cannot be reduced to anything else, but must be accepted as what it is: our gift and our most fundamental being.

Anyone who tells you different, is selling something (and it ain’t Christianity).

Learning can be a difficult process and rarely more so than in the context of martial arts classes.  I regularly ask people to do things that they cannot do – either because they lack the skill or because they lack the ability (strength, speed, intelligence…).  I do confess that many of them look at me like I’m crazy.  “I can’t do that,” they say to themselves.  Before they learn better, they say it to me as well.  And perhaps you think I’m cruel to ask this of them, but it has an important point.  To borrow the words of Max Weber, “What is possible would never have been achieved if, in this world, people had not repeatedly reached for the impossible.”

I cannot stress it strongly enough; we achieve more than we knew we could by reaching beyond what we know.  Learning is always a matter of stretching ourselves, not just physically, but mentally as well.  First, we develop new muscles and new perspectives.  Second, we discover our limits.  But there is a third, and equally important aspect – we learn how to fail.  It is ever so important to get into the habit of trying more than we can accomplish, to constantly reach for more knowledge, more skill so that we learn not to be afraid anymore.

So much of life can be consumed by a fear that we will look foolish, or even be foolish, when the only way to wisdom is through foolery.  I don’t mean one should intentionally make mistakes; I mean that we cannot identify those mistakes until we place them out in the open where they can be analyzed, inspected, and consciously chosen (or discarded).

The subject comes up in the college classes I teach.  I can’t tell you how many students refrain from speaking because they worry that they will be judged by fellow students or by the teacher.  I encourage them to speak up; here’s why.  A stupid assumption, once spoken can be corrected, or at least addressed.  A stupid assumption held tightly and silently will stay with you for life.  The best and quickest way to learn is to find educated intelligent people and throw as much of your stupidity at them as you can in the hopes they will relieve you of some of it.

It’s been profoundly influential in my education, this realization that I need to engage if I want to grow.  Kathryn Shulz deals with the idea in her book Being Wrong.  I haven’t read it yet, but I did see her excellent TED talk.  “What does it feel like to be wrong?” she asks.  Does it feel bad? Of course not, it feels exactly like being right.  It’s finding out you’re wrong that hurts.  But that’s precisely what we want.  We want to discover that we are wrong about things so that we can come to know what’s right.

Practical knowledge operates the same way.  I start by trying to do something very difficult, maybe even impossible.  Of course, being me, I get the best head start I can.  I try to learn from people who already know.  I read, I study, but at some point I have to get my feet wet.  I have to try.  It was a great and profound shock to me to realize that, in most cases, I had to be bad at something before I got good.  I was a very bad martial artist for years (really), before I got good.  I was at best a mediocre teacher and flat preacher.  I was a poor scientist and an “enthusiastic” singer.  I had to go through that.  I had to fail.  I think I’m a pretty good teacher and preacher these days – though there is clearly a long way to go.  I’m a passable scientist and singer.  Some things I will never be great at, but I wasn’t even decent until after I was scarily bad – until after I’d gotten all the false starts out of the way.

Proficiency takes more than trying, of course.  Let us be clear.  Proficiency takes trying in the company of proficient and compassionate people.  That can be the rub, but it turns out proficient and compassionate people are not as hard to find as you may think.  (The trick is to ask what the available people are proficient at, rather than what you think they should be good at.  This too takes practice.)

A good community is one that will encourage you to try and fail.  A good community rewards you for the effort and accepts you in your failure – precisely because they too are constantly striving, constantly failing, and continually learning.  Beware of any group whose members think they already know fully, they already understand.  Those are the people who cannot learn.  If anything, I worry that I don’t push my students enough.

Nothing is more empowering than the realization that you can grow.  We have been conditioned to pessimism about ourselves, our communities, our nation, and our church.  We have been taught to believe that admitting failure is a weakness when it is our greatest strength.  Growth only comes from failure – repeated, frustrating, reorienting failure.

If you’ve ever wondered about the value of religion, it can only be this – to result in transformation.  I have no qualms in saying this.  Easy, comfortable, stabilizing religion is bad religion.  Churches that never make you uneasy cannot really be giving you the good news, because the good news involves growth.  It asks… promises… even demands the impossible, because you must start there.  Nothing less will do.  World peace.  Perfect love.  Economic justice.  Complete acceptance.  Unconditional forgiveness.  We haven’t the skill or the ability – yet.  And we never will unless we try the impossible.  We never will unless we make communities that reward people for being truly miserable at the hard tasks in life, because truly miserable is a step up from hopeless.  Bad performance is a step beyond no performance.  That’s exactly what the church should be about.

If your faith does not provide this, look for another one.  If your church does not encourage you to fail, change churches.  If you can’t find one, start one.  (Sounds impossible, right?)  Be awkward in faith.  Be stupid, foolish, and tedious, because that’s the first step to being smart, wise, and efficient.  The problems of life have solutions, if only we can admit that the silly assumptions of the present are only worth the time it takes to replace them with something better.  If only we’re willing to be truly honest about what we don’t know and what the options might be.

Take heart, have faith, and find the people who will help you on the way.

As to my own context, I’m 36.  I’ve spent 9 of the last 12 years working with people ages 18-25; I have been a college teacher or professor for 5 of those years, a resident tutor for 4, and a priest for 4.  To my delight (and occasional horror), I have lived, worked, and worshiped with 20 year olds since I was 20 myself.

As to research, the trends are somewhat conflicting.  Denominational church membership has dropped steadily since the 70s.  Overall church and synagogue attendance has likewise dropped.  Demographics appear to have stayed the same, with a decrease in church attendance between the ages of 18 and 29, but returning in the 30s and 40s.  Reports of personal spirituality and belief have not gone down, but participation in large religious institutions has.  That in mind, most of what I will say is anecdotal, for which I make no apology; evangelism happens on a person by person basis. I’ll be the first to say we should take all we can from the numbers and the surveys…and then go out and talk to real people.

So, back to the statement: “the current generation of youth and young adults (13-35) is vapid, shallow, and self focused.”  How would I respond?

1) “Vanity, vanity, all is vanity…and there is no new thing under the sun.” (Ecclesiastes 1)  I do believe that most, if not all generations are vapid, shallow, and self-focused.  Christians have long held that humans tend toward pride, so in this, I must agree.  People are indeed shallow and we all need help to find true meaning, healthy relationships, and an abiding love of God.

2) As my mother reminded me recently, every generation believes the next generation to be out of step, too focused on themselves.  It’s a generational hazard, for which there’s a nifty catch phrase, “the generation gap.”

But let’s get down to brass tacks.

3) Were it true that this generation was shallow, telling them that they are will make for very poor evangelism.  Those young adults who are already members will feel insulted, and those outside will presume you simply don’t understand them.  “Why should I join a religious group that thinks I’m a weak willed consumer who simply goes with the spirit of the age?”  Perhaps – just perhaps – if we could tell them exactly what their sins are, they would be inclined to join.  But this has not happened.  What I hear are critiques of music, participation, and depth.  Generation Y has produced profoundly reflective music (both spiritual and secular), join groups more than anyone in 20 years, and regularly looks at questions of life and meaning.  These critiques miss the mark.

Which brings us to the central issue:  is the current generation shallow?

4) I genuinely think not.  Americans who are 20 today were 10 when the World Trade Center fell.  They have spent half their life with the country at war.  They have brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers who live and die on the other side of the world for the American military.  Many have joined the military or plan to do so when they leave college.  Though they cannot remember the cold war, AIDS has been a reality all of their lives.  With the recent downturn in the economy, many of them are graduating college with dim prospects for finding a job in their chosen field.  The big companies like IBM and Boeing, that used to offer a lifetime of job security, increasingly hire part-timers and contractors so that they don’t have to pay benefits.  The Wall Street of the 80s and the Silicon Valley of the 90s no longer hold out offers of abundant work and ready riches.  Even the university system seems to be trying to phase out tenure.  They’ve been told that the country cannot afford to pay for their medical care and probably won’t be able to pay them social security.  If this generation does not believe in institutions, there is a reason.  If they do not plan for the future, it is because the future is so unpredictable.

And yet, this is not a generation without hope.  Reflecting on my own childhood, I must say, we were shallow.  Generation X dealt with no wars in our childhood.  We worried about stability and meaning in our lives, but the economy was good and the country rather self-satisfied.  I have found Generation Y to be far more interested in public service and far more proactive about getting it done.  While Generation X and the Baby Boomers (perhaps necessarily) spent time finding ourselves, Gen Y wants community.  They just don’t know how to find it.

And here, again, I don’t think it’s appropriate to blame Gen Y.  It’s the people 40 and up who insisted on deconstructing institutional authority.  It’s the relentless pursuit of personal gain in the 80s that led to isolated families and weakened social structures.  It’s the partisanship of the 90s and 00s that led to our dismal inability to rely on authority figures.

Is it, then, all doom and gloom?  By no means.  There is hope in the future – and in the present.  Baby Boomers’ trust in our ability to fix things, Gen Xers’ profound introspection, and Gen Ys’ heartfelt desire to rebuild a common society – these are amazing blessings that can lead to the formation of a blessed and functional church and society.  We cannot – we must not – blame this generation for the faults of the world.  We have to talk to them, find out what their genuine problems are, and see if there is anything we can do to help.  We must look to them for the solutions we cannot find within ourselves.  We must find Christ in them.

My advice to the church…  If your goal is to fill your pews, you’ve already lost the battle.  The church is not now and never has been about attracting members.  It’s about sharing the good news of Christ Jesus, who notably never joined a church or gave a tithe.  If your goal is to get young people to carry on the traditions you hold dear, you must find out why you hold them dear and share that love with the people you meet.

In the end, though, I wish neither of those things for you or the church.  If our goal is to build the Body of Christ, we must learn to have genuine conversations with young people, learn their language so that they can speak to us and we to them.  Because I do believe this generation has particular challenges.  I believe they lack character, discipline, and concrete religious practices.  They ask for help in critical reflection, the deepening of spiritual experience, and the building of community.  We have that to offer.

And we must listen as well, because we are the ones who let the church decline.  We are the ones responsible for a breakdown in common life and hope.  We are the ones who raised this generation.

No more “vampire church” (We’re dead and we need fresh blood to stay alive).  No more “Why don’t they like us?  Why won’t they join?”  And above all, no more whining about the inadequacies of the people who choose not to join.  That’s vapid.  That’s shallow.  And yes, that is self-centered.  We (and they) are the children of God.  We (and they) preserve and share the Good News of Christ Jesus, that God loves us so dearly that he became one of us, died on our cross, and still came back.  God loves us so dearly that she abides with us, and in us, and acts through us.

They (and we) bring the truth that we could not bear before.

Let us all, then, do the work of seeking and serving Christ in all people, and building the Kingdom of God with the bricks that are available.