Davison's Doodle

Reasonable Oneness: Words for a Sunday

I will not be visiting congregations in-person this fall to ensure that I don’t bring Covid-19 from my part of Oklahoma to another part of the state. Digital worship has materialized as a primary form many of our congregations within the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) are keeping the sabbath together. Other cousins in Christian faith are doing the same. i don’t have the presentation skills to be a TV preacher, and I’m not trying to convince someone to make a decision about professing faith in Christ. I am trying to give the hearer or reader an idea to consider, an opportunity for self reflection, and encouragement for their journey in faith.

I’m always honored when I’m gifted the trust of the pulpit by a minister or elders of a congregation. This week I reworked some words I’ve shared in other settings. That may shock some readers, but it is not an uncommon practice for clergy to reuse their words. For me, sometimes I’m just adding a new coat of paint. Sometimes it is a complete renovation. I am a manuscript preacher. I need to polish my presentation skills, but I don’t foresee a time when I won’t have those words I’ve worked on, lived with, and have worked on me in front of me. Below is the text of my sermon. This text is missing my version of Jimmy Fallen’s “thank you notes” and other words of welcome from siblings in faith from Oklahoma.

---

Reasonable Oneness
Scripture Text: Romans 12

The story goes something like this.  In the first century BCE, a gentile asks two rabbis a provoking question.  “Teach me the whole Torah while standing on one leg.”  One rabbi is angered and hits the gentile with his measuring rod.  The second rabbi responds, “That which is hateful to you, do not unto another: This is the whole Torah.  The rest is commentary and now go study.”

Let us pray.  Open our ears and our hearts, O God, that our meditations, our words, and living are a reflection of our faith in You, who creates, who redeems, and who sustains creation and our lives.  Amen.

This morning I have reminders and a letter about “who we are.” But, as the old joke goes when you put five disciples in a room there are 8 opinions and 11 ideas.  This is a weakness when we think it means we don’t have to be accountable to one another.  And, it’s a strength when we respect the boundaries of covenantal community and hold ourselves accountable to community in our congregations and where we live.

Who are we?

The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) celebrates the spirituality that service and study embody when we paint a house, when we discuss how the way of Jesus is lived here in the 21st century, when we provide a meal for a grieving family or help a neighbor.

When the mountains quake or the ground shakes. When the wind blows home away. When rain floods, when fire scorches the land or human failings bring agony and pain, the spirituality of service and study show up locally through our hands, and through the work of Week of Compassion. We can love as God loves. We can and do respond. We can make justice happen.

Service and study strengthen faith and makes life meaningful.  As I’ve grown up in our little frontier movement it seems to me that service and study are a compass, a winnowing stick, and a Geiger counter. Sometimes it takes more than one of these tools to help us reorient, separate noise from truth, and measure our passion to remain grounded in the good news of God.

Disciples understand that Christian unity does not mean sharing the lowest common denominator of belief.  Christian unity means holding all who profess Christian faith to the highest standards of service in the world.  Unity, not uniformity, is the commentary that embraces a curiosity about our differences of belief.  You may remember the old saying that Disciples embraced as a compass: “In essentials unity; in non-essentials liberty; in all things charity.”  I don’t know if you’ve noticed it, but the only kind of unity our culture, and some cousins in Christian faith, can muster right now is transactional. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”  But, is that unity?  No.  It is a poor excuse for not doing the work of justice and equality.  

Unity is practiced and pragmatic. It happens when people of good will speak out for, and act on behalf of, the common good: for a local community, a Nation or a congregation.  That kind of unity could be described as reasonable oneness.  I wonder what is it about we humans, even those of us who follow Jesus, that we can only muster that kind of character, that kind of unity in crisis or tragedy or by having an enemy?

Who are we?

We are people who worship on Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday, or whenever we engage our community of faith seeking to hear and experience the gospel, the good news: 

that the Lord’s mercies never cease; 
that the Lord’s mercies are new every morning;
and that the Lord’s faithfulness extends beyond our ability to see in a mirror dimly and recognize the image of God in others as well as in our own face.

This morning, I have a portion of a letter from Paul, the Apostle, not Paul the Beetle.  The universal Church and many individual Christians throughout the centuries have thought of the Apostle’s words as “gospel truth” rather than commentary.  Maybe we should hear his words as a voice of wisdom or truth in his time that can inform our own experience anytime, and especially in pandemic time. 

A portion of a letter from Paul, the Apostle, to Christians everywhere: Romans 12 (NRSV)

The New Testament scholar Marcus Borg calls this portion of Romans the so what section as Paul moves from theology about God and Christ to what that theology means when put into practice in our living.  It is counsel about relationships, community, discipleship and being Christian that begins with be a living sacrifice, and “don’t be conformed by this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds.” 

Is there any doubt that we could use a little renewing of our minds right now?

This is what “renewing your mind” sounded like when I was growing up.

Parent [looking frustrated]: “Why did you do that? 
Me [looking for any reason to not be standing there] “I don’t know?”
Parent:  “Did you stop and think about it first? 
Me: “Umm, no.” 
Parent: “Look, God gave you a mind and the ability to think so use it before you do something like that again.  You’ve been taught better than that.  Go to your room and think about what you did and how you will behave differently next time.” 

That is one of the conversations I carry in adulthood.  Which ones do you carry?  How are you renewing your mind to be reasonable in a culture that, presently, profits from being unreasonable?  How are you renewing your mind in a culture that rewards the unreasonable and the unethical among us?

The greek phrase translated, “spiritual worship,” can also be translated, “reasonable service.” Being a living sacrifice is “reasonable service.” That’s compelling because it challenges the current version of our extra-ordinary, most valuable player, me and my tribe, scarcity driven, red and blue, unreasonable culture.  It seems only tragedy or crisis prevails on our sense of right and wrong: “That which is hateful to you, do not unto another” or maybe, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” resonates better for you. Maybe this is what, “be a living sacrifice” means because somedays, most days, it can feel like carrying a cross.

Hard as it is to imagine, it is reasonable that firefighters and first responders show up when accident, crisis, or tragedy finds its way into life. Because that is what firefighters and first responders do on behalf of strangers they have never met.  You have witnessed it time after time with your own eyes.   Do you ever wonder if you are capable of doing extra-ordinary things?  If called upon, am I capable of following through on that CPR training I received?  Do you ever consider the reasonable things?  Could I let someone with 3 items in their arms go ahead of me in the check-out line when I have a basket full.  Reasonable things in pandemic time: masks and distance, take one mega pack of toilet paper instead of six, share instead of horde. One day we may hear the parable of hand sanitizer and toilet paper.

Reasonable service:

• Let love be genuine, hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good  
• Outdo one another in showing honour. 
• Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers.
• Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them.
• Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are.
• Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all.
• Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Reasonable service.  Yes, it requires some risk.  What do you suppose your neighbors find hard to imagine about your reasonable service?  What do you think non-believers say Christians do?

Paul, like the Christ he proclaims, says, change yourself.  Transform yourself and be Christ-like.  Show Jesus the Christ in your living as you interact with people everyday, and you won’t have to wait for the world to change in your 3 feet of influence.  Great!  But, what about the systems that organize our society? What about the systems.

What Paul and Jesus both leave out is, “It’s not easy.”  And in the context of these United States, right now, some days it seems impossible.  But, it is not impossible. Living as a follower of Jesus is a balancing act.  Paul calls it being a living sacrifice.  It was a balancing act for those who began this congregation and for the Christians in Rome to not conform, but to be transformed, to be counter-cultural in our living and not just our worship. 

Paul the Apostle and Paul the Beatle both agree that reasonable service has something to do with love. Be a living sacrifice. That is reasonable oneness, and I think that leads to hearing, maybe even seeing in a mirror dimly, what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God. 

The rest is just commentary.  Go and serve.  Go and study.

The Great Riddle

My congregational colleagues are serving in the traditional ministerial roles: teacher, preacher, prophet, and priest. During this pandemic time many have also become directors, producers, film editors, lighting specialists, sound engineers, and they are producing content, written and video, that is double what most would usually do in a year. Clergy are exhausted. I was gifted the trust of the pulpit last month at Disciples Christian Church in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. Providing some words for worship enabled Rev. Becker time away.

This sermon, The Great Riddle, seems appropriate for our context. For me, they are old words that I’ve shared during my time in ministry when gifted the trust to preach. They have changed a bit over the years, but given the strife in our Nation, and around the world, these words were the best I could offer. My apologies if you hear them in your setting someday.

---

I don’t know what you are carrying on your heart or in your mind today.  Two decades of dissonance has rend the fabric of commonality, civility, and factual narrative that holds our Nation together as we evolve to be a more perfect Union.  This divide has seeped into congregational life in unexpected ways and it matters not what religion one practices.  I don’t know what it will take to mend the cloth or which historical lesson can be the best teacher for such a time as this. Search your feelings and reach out with them, the best of them.  The work it yours to do.  The work is mine to do.

What I do know is that all of us come to worship on Sunday morning, Sunday night, Tuesday afternoon, or whenever we engage our community of faith seeking to hear and experience the gospel, the good news: 
that the Lord’s mercies never cease; 
that the Lord’s mercies are new every morning;
and that the Lord’s faithfulness extends beyond our ability to see in a mirror dimly, or recognize the image of God in others as well as in our own face. 

With good news in our hearts and on our minds, I invite you to hear familiar words from the gospel of Mark.

One of the scribes came near and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, he asked him, ‘Which commandment is the first of all?’ Jesus answered, ‘The first is, “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.” The second is this, “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” There is no other commandment greater than these.’ Then the scribe said to him, ‘You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that “he is one, and besides him there is no other”; and “to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength”, and “to love one’s neighbour as oneself”,—this is much more important than all whole burnt-offerings and sacrifices.’ When Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, ‘You are not far from the kingdom of God.’ After that no one dared to ask him any question.

Mark 12:28-34

When I was 14, I bought something called a Rubik’s cube.  If you don’t remember or have never seen one of these kid’s toys, the Rubik’s cube has one color on each side. When you mix up the colors there are supposed to be ways to work the cube to get the colors back to their right places.  It is one of those things that is meant to educate, to stimulate the mind, to frustrate you to a point where you begin to think how you can take it apart or remove the color stickers and then put them back in the right place.   

For about a year, back when I was 14, the Rubik’s cube was the fad that anyone, no matter your age, would join.  I do everything I can to stay away from fads, but I bought a cube because it looked like an interesting challenge. And there were 8 year olds on the school bus who could work it in less than 5 minutes no matter how jumbled up the it was.  I couldn’t do it.

A person could buy a cube, take it out of the package, and carry it around finished if you wanted people to think you had the ability or the secret to work cube.  But, there is always that day when you are alone and think, “How hard can this really be?”  There is that frightening day when someone or a group of friends sees you with the cube and asks, “Show us you can do it.” “Show us how to do it.”  There was even a hint book you could buy to help work the cube.  I joined a club to help me get faster at working the cube.  To work the cube you had to put in the time.  You had to look at it, handle it, twist it, and risk the frustration of not getting it right the first, second, or hundredth time.  It was up to you, or you could just carry one around right out of the package already worked for you.

When I read the parables in Mark, and in the synoptic siblings Matthew and Luke, I think of the Rubik’s cube because it is a good image for the word riddle.  What is a riddle?  The dictionary defines a riddle as:

“A question stated so as to exercise one’s ingenuity in answering it or discovering its meaning.  Any puzzling question, problem or matter.”

 “Riddle.” https://www.dictionary.com/browse/riddle?s=t accessed June 22, 2020.

At the website, Just Riddles and More, riddles are explained like this. 

“Riddles are brain teasers.  A riddle is not generally answered by a fact or information found in a reference book.  A riddle often uses misdirection – some of the words are there to get you thinking about something else.”

https://www.justriddlesandmore.com/

So let’s try a few this morning to get our brains firing.  These are considered classics and though a couple of them may remind you of children’s jokes, they confront the mind to think in three dimensions instead of conforming to the one or two dimensions of our culture.

What animals keep the best time?

A: Watchdogs

What does an invisible person drink at snack time?

A: Evaporated Milk

Where is the ocean the deepest?

A: The Bottom

At night they come without being fetched, And by day they are lost without being stolen.

A: Stars

The beginning of eternity
The end of time and space
The beginning of every end,
And the end of every place.

A: Stars

Two words, my answer is only two words.
To keep me, you must give me

A: Your Word

I hear the parables that Jesus told as riddles.  Think about it, so often Jesus began, “You have heard it said but I say to you . . .”  Here comes another teaching story, a parable, a riddle.

A wealthy person, someone who has benefited from the tax laws, systems of government, education, and has many possessions, asks the teacher one day, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”  The teacher responds, “Do you know the commandments?” The person responds, “Know them, I have kept them and lived by them since the days of my youth.”  The teacher replies, “You lack one thing, sell your possessions and give it to the poor.”  The person leaves crying, shouting, and wondering, “What is the greatest of all the commandments?”

The parables recorded in the gospels are the stories where Christians should spend our time.  We need to be wrestling with the teachings of Jesus because that is how one learns a way of faithful living.  It is how we experience what the way of Jesus means, how this way leads to Truth about God, and how that Truth leads to meaningful life; even eternal life.  

It is the place to dwell if you want to know what it means to live for Jesus or live like Jesus or if you want to know how to be Christ-like.  The teachings of Jesus are the place where we begin to figure out what our discipleship means in this time of history.  Many of the divisions in the Church are based on a reverence given to the thinking and writing of the Apostle Paul, and early Church leaders from the 3^rd and 4^th century BCE.  Their ideas and faith shaped early Christianity, created the creeds, and brought an order and orthodoxy, “right thinking,” to a religion seeking a place in the world.  Those ancient ways and thinking continue to shape Christianity today. Sometimes with a voice of wisdom, but most often with a shouting vote of “No.”

Were the questions in the ancient times so different?

Why are we here?
What am I supposed to do during my life?
Why do bad things happen in the world, and why do bad things happen to good people, to innocent people so often?  
Whose prayers does God hear most?
What does it mean to be faithful to God? 
What does it mean to be called God’s children?

Our questions are similar, but our context, our experience of the world and in the world is very different.  Modern Christianity of all kinds has forgotten that people profess to be followers of Jesus, not followers of Apostle Paul or protectors of a medieval orthodoxy that would have us focus on salvation in heaven, rather than shape and live in justice oriented communities today. And dare proclaim, as Jesus did, the kindom of God in our midst.  “Is this heaven?  No, it’s Iowa.”  No, it’s Oklahoma, it’s Kansas, it’s Texas. It’s . . .

You help create this field of dreams, Disciples in Bartlesville, when you help, when you welcome as you have been welcomed, when you reach out, and when you speak up for the voiceless here in Bartlesville and the surrounding county.  The teachings of Jesus still puzzle us because we have spent too much time being Pauline Christians instead of disciples of Christ.

Today, we drop in on a conversation that Jesus was having with some people about taxes, government, and the teachings of Moses.  Not really a synagogue school class or a lecture as much as talking over coffee, animal crackers or donuts in the fellowship hall which we can’t do right now.  After listening for a while there is a pause in the conversation and someone in the crowd throws out a  question.  “Of all the commandments, what’s the most important one?”  I think this is like asking, “Who is supposed to yield at a four way stop?”

Jesus responds, “The Lord our God, the Lord is One.  Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.  And love your neighbor as yourself.”  Well, who wouldn’t agree with that?  

But another person presses Jesus for a fuller response before I can speak up.  “So I heard you say is, love God and love my neighbor as myself?”  “Yes,” Jesus responds.  “Is there anything you want to add to that Jesus?”   “No, understand that and you are not far from the kindom of God.”  That may be the greatest riddle ever told.  What kind of soil is needed for this good news to take root in the 21st century?

Prophets and artists have tilled the soil of humanity for centuries providing “hints” to work the great riddle.   

“Remember the truth that once was spoken.  To love another person is to see the face of God.”

A lyric from the musical Les Miserables.

That is a good hint to working the great riddle.

“My four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, from his “Dream” speech.

That is a good hint for working the great riddle.

Sometimes we look to our sacred stories in the bible and in our national history, and treat them as an answer book or a magic eight ball.  We want to ask a question, shake them up and get the answer.  That’s not what the sacred stories, religious or secular, are meant to be or meant to do.  They are reminders.  They are mirrors.  They are a glimpse into the culture, struggles, teaching, and worship of historical characters and ancient people who, without radios, cell phones, cars, computers or 24hr cable news channels, Facebook, Twitter, or other social media asked many of the questions we ask today about being faithful to God and living in community with others.  Those are real questions about living no matter your culture or how old you are or your time in history.  

You can have the stuff that says you are a person of faith.  You can even carry around the hint book, but being a religious and a spiritual person that follows Jesus is more than having people think you know the answer or aligning with a particular political party or putting on a label of liberal or conservative.  

I think it means working the great riddle every day: intentionally, purpose driven, mindful of those passing through our three foot circles and how we navigate the systems of society.

When we do that we proclaim the kindom of God.  When we do that we live as if the empire of God is in our midst in this space of worship, and out there in the sacred space of life where we bump into the image of God in the face of our neighbor.  

And someone will ask so I don’t have to, “Who is my neighbor?”  

The working poor, the homeless, the refugee, the hungry, the orphaned and widow, the oppressed, the people that believe just like I do. These are easy neighbors to claim.  It’s working the easy side of the cube.  

It’s those others, you know, that noisy neighbor, the obnoxious opinionated neighbor. The neighbor convinced my Christianity is too liberal and is destroying the church. The neighbor in the other political party, our neighbor who practices another religion or no faith at all. The neighbor standing against your civil rights.  The neighbor who is a fan of the team you cheer against.   Those neighbors scattered around the cube on the other sides.  That’s the greatest riddle working on us while we are working on it.  

I struggle with it every day as a follower of Jesus. When we read the gospels closely, we see that is how Jesus lived and struggled with people and systems in his time.  It’s not easy.  It doesn’t always feel good when you complete the cube.  And, you always are called to mix it up and start over.

Disciples Christian Church, may God bless you with ministry to do and Gospel to be today, and in the day’s to come.