God Help Us

God Help Us

A Sermon Preached by Bill Levering

at the First Reformed Church of Schenectady

on September 23, 2007

(sung) Our God our help in ages past; our hope for years to come.

Many of the slogans and catch phrases that crystallize Christianity are set to music, much like the idea of 'amazing grace' that we looked at last week. This week, we will look at the phrase, often spoken as a prayer, sometimes as exasperation. “God help us!”

Many, if not most of the Christians that I run into have a notion of how God operates in the world that is very immediate. Christians commonly think of God as assisting them mechanically in their daily needs. That God would see to it that a parking space was available to them when they needed it.

I must admit that this idea bothers me a bit. I want to give you fair warning however. If you are offended by the idea that God may not be in the business of insuring our individual prosperity, you may wish to leave now, before the offering.

God is not the tool of our selfishness.

Prayer or faith or favor does not mean that you are going to get treated any differently by the conditions of the world. Jesus noted that God “makes the sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.” (Matthew 5:45)

I admit that sometimes it appears otherwise.

The second lesson today from I Chronicles was a little slice from a genealogy that got a little attention five or six years ago. Bruce Wlikinson published a book called The Prayer of Jabez. It was a big thing. The contextual problem is that in this long list of names, only Jabez gets singled out for getting what he wants. Were these other folks not praying enough or in the right way? It was optimistic for the biblical writer to assume it was because of prayer. God's purposes are not under our control. Yet, this passage has become a focus for praying for prosperity.

Wilkinson’s book The Prayer of Jabez sold 8 million copies in 2001 alone. That’s a lot of books! A piece on the jacket promised it would "help you discover how the remarkable prayer of a little-known Bible hero can release God's favor, power and protection."

There was also a wide array of official "Prayer of Jabez" merchandise including key chains, mugs, backpacks, Christmas ornaments, scented candles, mouse pads, jewelry, and a framed artist's conception of Jabez himself. This may very well have turned out to be a story of prosperity, because at a minimum the story of Jabez was very financially helpful to Bruce Wilkinson. I must disagree with this idea that believing in Jesus will make us money. It is simply not how Jesus talks about things at all.

God does not and should not help us be selfish as individuals or as nations.

Listen to part of the "War Prayer," by Mark Twain, published after his death. "O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire. . . blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet!"

We need help all right. We need the help of humility. We need new habits of the heart. We are stubborn children stamping our feet for more candy.

The prophet Ezekiel understands what we need when he hears God say, "A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you, and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh."-

How can God help us? In general, God speaks to our hearts.

God is the helper of the heart.

Of course, I am not here to limit God. By definition God is omnipotent and can do whatever God wishes. But as I look at the New Testament, the words of Jesus and the experience of people who call upon God, I see that as a spiritual principle, God is the helper of our hearts, not the aid to our ambitions.

The standards and patterns of life that people who consider the nature of the divine figure out help us by establishing values that lift us out of the small orbits of our own whims.

The revelation of God in scripture comes to the community of faith. We become the body of Christ. God helps our heart by showing us that we are not alone. The presence of God in the world as Jesus is the highest sign and signal of God’s presence with us in all of our struggles.

God’s presence also comes to us in community by people gathering to discern what is holy or simply best. Especially in the reformed tradition, we gather together as workers with God to understand the working of the Spirit, to share discernment of what is right.

We are also helped by God in the very knowledge that we are not in charge of the world. As simple as it seems, to know that we are not God means that we don’t have to manage the world. We are not in charge. Our prayers do not regulate the flow of sunshine and rain. There is another power in charge of the nature of things. Relax. You are not in charge of the world.

God may not arrange parking spaces for us, but God stands with us as we search for them, as we cope with not finding them, as we celebrate getting one.

God helps by showing us hope.

Jabez was the name chosen for that baby because in Hebrew, the word sounds like pain. The prayer of Jabez is the prayer cried by his mother in pain. And we cry "When will there be an end to pain?" The answer is the miracle of Jabez, the miracle of birth out of the despair of relentless pain. It is not that Jabez made a bunch of money, but that out of excruciating pain came life.

We can also pray for help in the midst of pain.

• In the midst of mourning, we can pray for the healing of our hearts.
• In the midst of pointless and counterproductive warring, we can help each other remember the ways of peace and humility.
• In the midst of the politics of personality in our state, we can understand that God gives us the heart to care for each other.
• In the midst of more jails and less justice, more guns and less grace, we can call on God to help us remember that there is a kingdom of heaven within us, waiting to be born.
• In the midst of a Christianity determined to judge and exclude and use the name of God to justify classism and corruption, we can call upon the name of God that transcends our pettiness.

We can lift our eyes to behold a presence that is greater than our selfish mechanisms. A presence that is beyond life and death, powers and principalities, beyond things now present and things to come.

The help we need most is a noble hope. This is the gift of God.

(sung) Our God our help in ages past our hope for years to come.

Justifying Ourselves

Justifying Ourselves

by Bill Levering July 15, 2007

You have heard dozens of sermons about the parable of the Good Samaritan. There are laws named after it. Its message is universal. But today, I want to look at the frame of the story, what is going on around it. There is another drama being played out here. The story that Jesus tells is within an exchange between himself and a lawyer. It occurs at an open Q and A that can be more exciting than any lecture. It was the rabbinic dispositional way of teaching. We get at the truth by investigating it, by asking questions, however cheeky. It was and is the Socratic method of teaching used by teachers and givers of children’s sermons throughout the world.

As any political reporter will tell you, the press conference question and answer period is the most exciting time. The reporter gets to ask questions that the speaker may not be ready for. The reporter can ask questions based on his or her assumptions rather than accepting what the speaker is presenting. A few months ago I was speaking at the Kiwanis club across the street and I decided not to give a presentation at all, but to move right to questions and answers. Folks didn’t seem to mind at all.

We love the children’s sermon because it so often involves asking children questions that may elicit cute responses. How many of you were the good students who were always waving their hand begging for endorsement. If you know the answer, the desire to be called on can be overwhelming. If you know the answer, it is your chance to be correct, to be smart, to be successful. Ooo, ooo, I know, I know! In the rabbinic and Socratic tradition, however, a good question is better than a good answer. Ooo, Ooo, I’ve got a great question!

The lawyer who asks Jesus questions in the gospel lesson today has some great questions. He begins with a stock question about Jesus’ main platform. What do I have to DO to win what God has for me? Jesus asks him a question back about what a religious lawyer would know best: Jewish law. “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” The lawyer’s answer is great. Right to the point, and often used even in our worship services as the summation of the law and the prophets. “Correct Johnny!” Jesus says.

And then the lawyer pushes Jesus a bit. Luke apparently thinks he was trying to be a smart-alek, because he says “but wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

It’s a great question. To whom does Jewish law apply? Just to Jews? What are the lines of our justice? Do we have to treat prisoners in our custody as if they had basic human rights? Are Palestinians due equal treatment? Do we have to give illegal aliens food stamps? If the person who hits me is a criminal, do I have to turn my other cheek? If my sheep is stolen by a Samaritan, whose law applies, his or mine? When someone declares that another nation is my enemy, are those people no longer my neighbors? “Who is my neighbor?” is a great question that may have more applications today than it did then.

But . . . Luke didn’t like the questioner’s motivations. Something else is going on. Luke sees a man using questions the wrong way. Luke calls into question the questioner. Now this is a good looking bright group of people. We are used to asking insightful questions as well. What would Luke’s comments be about our questions of God?

What do we have to DO?

Why do bad things happen to good people?

Do I have to believe in Jesus?

Where is a good parking spot?

Isn’t the bible irrelevant to modern life?

What do we have to DO?

How can I get my life back on track?

Aren’t all churches and denominations mere cultural artifacts?

What do I have to DO?

What questions do we have of God and what is our motivation for asking them? More importantly, what question would God as of us in return?

The question that Jesus asks the lawyer about the Good Samaritan does not have a clear answer. It is a Zen koan like what is the sound of one hand clapping. Only if you presume that neighbors are nice people, can the lawyer answer that the man from Samaria was the neighbor. Anyone who is kind is my neighbor and anyone who isn’t is outside the law?? The logic of this whole dialog does not hold up. But the story is not about logic and it is about more than the breaking of moral boundaries.

We approach God with the important questions of our life, as we should. The story in its largest context should cause us to look at our motivations in the interrogations we have of the divine. What tortuous strictures do we use to tie God down so that we can get an answer that makes us feel good? Why are our questions all about us?

Isn’t there a better question than “What do I have to DO to get to heaven?”

More importantly, God has a set of great questions for you. I wonder what they are? Here are most of the questions Jesus asks people in the New Testament. See if any of them fit.

What is your name?

Who are you looking for?

What is written in the law?

Do you see anything?

Who do people say that I am?

Who do you say that I am?

Do you love me?

What do you want me to do for you?

Whose likeness is one this coin?

Why do you bother her?

Why do you call me good?

Do you love me?

Why are you so afraid?

Why do you weep?

How many loaves do you have?

Which one is the neighbor?

Couldn’t you stay awake?

Why don’t you understand?

Do you love me?

You will always have many questions for God. More importantly, what question does God have for you?

Luke 10:25-37

²⁵Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” ²⁶He said to him, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” ²⁷He answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” ²⁸And he said to him, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.” ²⁹But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” ³⁰Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. ³¹Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. ³²So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. ³³But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. ³⁴He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. ³⁵The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.’ ³⁶Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” ³⁷He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”

Blessing in the Active Voice

Matthew 5: 1- 12

Luke 6: 17 - 26

Luke 6:17-26

6:17 He came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon. They had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases; and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. And all in the crowd were trying to touch him, for power came out from him and healed all of them. Then he looked up at his disciples and said: "Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. "Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. "Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. "Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets.

Blessings in the Active Voice

Jesus must have been a great preacher. The gospel writers remember his style and content quite clearly. They remember the settings of his sermons: preached from a boat, on a mountain, on the plain. Like any good speaker, Jesus apparently repeats some of his best material. I imagine the disciples may have even rolled their eyes a bit at hearing some of the same things over and over again. But they remembered. The passage from Luke we just read is the beginning of what is called the Sermon on The Plain. Matthew records what is called the Sermon on the Mount and it begins with some of the same elements. What we call the beatitudes. They are like the passage from Luke we just heard, but a bit more extensive:

[3] "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

[4] "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

[5] "Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

[6] "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

[7] "Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.

[8] "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

[9] "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

[10] "Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

[11] "Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.

Blessing in the passive voice.

The two sermons are different in many ways and the beautitudes are different, but today I’d like to focus on their similarities. Specifically, how they both are in the passive voice.

Now, when I was in school, if you used the passive voice (the egregious error of the passive voice, as my English teacher Mr. McLain would say) you were marked down. The passive voice is a cagey way of saying something happened without saying who did it. “Mistakes were made” was Ronald Reagan’s famous way of talking about errors in Iran in his 1987 address before congress. Things aren’t quite clear when you use the passive voice.

Sometimes the subject in the passive voice is assumed. We assume in the beatitudes that God is the one doing the blessing. Jesus could very well have said “God is blessing the poor.” But he didn’t. He said “Blessed are the poor.” Now Jesus is a cagey character. He often says things to get us thinking. In this stump sermon, delivered at least twice, he chooses very carefully to use this passive voice. Perhaps he is suggesting something more than just God is doling out sweet rewards to certain classes of people.

What if the active translation of these blessings has to do with us? What if we are the forces behind this blessing business?

We are called to bless.

We believe God works through us. We believe we are the body of Christ. The resurrection appearances of Jesus say over and over and over “Feed my sheep.” Jesus is all about serving others through us.

Yet when we read the beatitudes, we are like lottery ticket holders waiting for our number to be called, listening for the category that most includes us so that we can be assured of our blessing, our winnings. Even Matthew, who writes later, takes Luke’s edgy ‘blessed are the poor” and makes it into the innocuous “blessed are the poor in spirit.” Thanks goodness. That surely must mean me. Or the mourning. I do that. I’ve certainly been hungry. Yep. The beatitudes are really all about me. Me. Mimimimi. My personal blessing religion. No?

The Greek word used in the beatitudes for blessing when used in its active form in the New Testament is all but once used with us as the active agent. Later in the same sermon, Jesus says, “bless those who curse you” using a different word form.

We are so eager to be on the receiving end of the divine gravy train that we have failed to hear our responsibility here for all these years.

The Beatitudes are NOT the announcement of the divine lottery winners, but a job description. A job description for all of us together. If any one of us felt the burden of this completely, it would be overwhelming, but Jesus delivers this message to the crowds, the church, to us. This is not one of the special teachings for the elite few. This is the message for the masses. It takes a village to bless. Let’s walk through the beatitudes in Luke and see what this might mean.

Bless the poor, for theirs is the kingdom of God.

This means not blaming to poor for being lazy or having bad study habits or whatever. What is the best thing that would happen to the poor. What would God do?

Does God love poor people more? Many theologians have said yes to this question. Does this mean we are suppose to love or bless poor people more? Could be. Blessed are the poor may be our call to arms rather than God’s loving one child more than another. Blessing the poor may require us to know their names, or at least their condition. How exactly does a family of three live on $50 a week? In Nigeria, how exactly does a family of eight live on $50 a year?

Bless the hungry so they will be filled.

Remember the beginning of one of the feeding miracles. The disciples come to Jesus looking to send the hungry people away. He tells them “You give them something to eat.” (Mark 6:37) We are the blessors and the blessees all at once.

This means collecting the cans and living modestly and designing a way of living so that hunger is a thing of the past. Bread for the World is a great cooperative religious program that gets at the substance and cause of poverty all over the world. Our denomination is an active and enthusiastic sponsor of their work.

Bread for the World, U2 singer Bono, and others have joined together in the “One” campaign to provide “fair trade, debt relief, fighting corruption and directing additional resources for basic needs education, health, clean water, food, and care for orphans . . . at a cost equal to just one percent more of the US budget.” This is a way we bless the hungry.

Bless those who weep now, so that they might find the time of laughter.

Weeping is a necessary part of life, but not a part that needs to last forever. There is a time for everything. As Steven ministers know, we walk with people in their grief. Shawls and brownies are all a part of our mutual caring that Christ calls us to.

And so this congregation has sought to be God’s blessings to people in grief in the hospitality that so many show after services. Daniel’s warm and deep ministry is a reflection of our corporate understanding of how important it is to care for one another. To love one another as Christ has loved us.

Bless those who are hated.

Rosa parks wasn’t always celebrated in our land. It wasn’t always safe to talk about how invading Iran may not be a great idea. People were beat up for suggesting the war in Vietnam was short-sighted.

We need to bless the prophets of our age, even if we disagree with them. Perhaps especially if we disagree with them. Pray for your enemies. Bless those who persecute you. Sound familiar? So let’s make this injunction clearer. Bless people you hate.

Blessings are for you too.

Now I know that life has not always been kind to you. I know that each of you need some blessings in ways no one else but God will ever understand.

But unless we together contract to bless each other, contract to act out the blessings of God, our faith is too self-serving. If you love children, you can understand the concept of sacrificing your needs for the greater needs of someone else. Putting kids through college or even putting kids in shoes often requires that someone go without something. And yet those sacrifices of love are their own blessings. The rewards of love live in the heart and are the true blessings of God. The rewards of love live in the heart and are the true blessings of God. It is the true kingdom of God.

When people sneeze, it’s common to say “God bless you.” I suggest to you this morning that the Godly response is also, “Can I get you a tissue?”

This is all good news. This is not just another list of commands, it is the real hope of how the world can be. When blessing is how we act, then we will rejoice in that day and leap for joy. Hot diggity dog.

Go Deep

Go Deep

This Sunday is particularly important in the American liturgical calendar. It is the Sunday we celebrate the triumph of good over evil, of truth over untruth, of the ultimate victory of the righteous. I mean of course that this is Super Bowl Sunday.

One of the most thrilling plays that we will wait for; one of the plays known in backyard games and college playoffs, is when the quarterback gets in the huddle and in whatever code is used, looks intently at a receiver and says “God says, “Go deep.””

It means that the quarterback will throw the ball far and true deep down the field. Fans will be thrilled, situations redeemed, careers rescued.

This drama will be played in the midst of what is often a grinding sport of men smashing into each other and being carted off the field. It is the drama of our lives, because our lives often feel like a wearing tension of and unending series of runs up the middle.

Life is often tedious and religion irrelevant.

Most people have lives of grinding regularity. Their waking hours are filled with repetitive tasks and few real challenges. Most interpersonal relations stabilize into a steady state of habitual actions in which conflict and caring takes very predictable forms. We are people of habit who put on our pants one leg at a time because of the way pants and legs are made.

In this life of cycles and circles, there is a dim understanding that there must be more. And so we reach for the divine, the not us, the holy other, the prophetic perspective on who we are to take us to a new, livelier place.

We skim across the surface of what looks like monotony. The deeper waters are rich and alive, however. I enjoy scuba diving and will go wreck diving in Malta with my father in law in just a few days. Off the Florida keys I have been diving in John Pennecamp state park. This completely marine park is a sancuary for the reefs and is off limits to fishing. You will find in its depth colors and darting fascination you wouldn’t suspect from the surface. You will also find in its depths a statue of Jesus that was sunk there many years before called “Christ of the Abyss.” Christ of the Abyss is a 8 1/2 foot, 4000 pound bronze sculpture of Jesus Christ that stands in 25 feet of water off of Key Largo, Florida. Jesus has his hands outstretched, reaching up, waiting to be discovered by those who look beneath the surface.

The church has often been irrelevant in our search for deeper meaning. Paul Tillich, in the beginning of his systematics says that religion, for the most part, has been “answering questions no one ever asked in language no one can understand.” It is not unusual that people have given up on the church. We are caught up in committees and structures, fighting battles the culture finished years ago. We still fight about full participation for gay and lesbian people when it is a fact of life for most of our culture.

Peter Hears the Call

Like Peter, we are trying to get on with the business of life and watch in amusement as the church does its thing. Peter, like most of us, is fatigued and skeptical. Like us, he has been fishing in the dark for many fruitless hours.

Clarence Darrow was quoted as saying his favorite bible passage was from Luke 5:5, "We have toiled all the night and have taken nothing." For all his accomplishments, he felt his efforts were often fruitless. History judged him differently.

The call to dedication did not come to the early disciples in the cloistered halls of some worship center. The call came to them in the midst of the frustrations of their normal life. The people who built and rebuilt this church after its fires were people who faced the dedication required by the events of the day in the midst of the complexity of their lives.

The unusual suggestions of God have to do with how we go about the regular business of our life. Jesus spoke to the fishermen disciples through their very vocation. “Put out into deep water.” The fishermen thought they knew better than this holy guy. They knew the fish weren’t biting. They were at least polite, of course. With much eye rolling and perhaps a nudge to each other they followed Jesus suggestion with only a mumbled protest. Jesus calls them to have faith and fish where the big ones are. He calls them to expect great things.

It was as though an obscure minister came to an engineer who was trying to get a light bulb to work after thousands of trials and errors and said, “Have your tried a carbon filament?”

God’s Unusual Suggestions for Us

Jesus has suggestions for each of us and they call us to the deeper waters of life. They seem unusual only because we think we know better.

When the culture wants you to settle for mere comfort. God says, “Go deep.”

When your employer wants to take all your energy. God says, “Go deep.”

When your children want the easy answers. God says, “Go deep.”

When you’re down by 6 and there’s only a minute left. God says, “Go deep.”

When the people in your life are like things and things are like people to you. God says, “Go deep.”

When our country wants you to think only about short term gains and sacrifice principles. God says, “Go deep.”

When the chips are down folks are afraid to go deep, even in desperation. In the history of the Super bowl, the longest reception was 81 yards (Favre to Freeman – 1997), this season in the NFL there were 10 longer than that. We are afraid of the depths, afraid of being intercepted, afraid there will be no one at the other end.

Don’t be afraid. The depths will not crush you. Let us go together in this boat, the church, into deep water. Let us transcend the ordinary today and find God’s extraordinary presence in our lives.

Lord’s Supper as Going Deep

The elements of the Lord’s Supper that we are about to take are completely ordinary. We have eaten bread and drunk juice thousands of times before. Jesus dines with us in the midst of the ordinary and asks us to put our nets into the deep water again. We approach the table fatigued and skeptical, but Jesus continues to meet us here. After the teaching, after the work, Jesus comes to us in the ordinary actions of our life with the extraordinary suggestion that we go deep into the mysteries that bring us home.

Communal Love

1 Corinthians 13:1-13
If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.

If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end.

When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways.

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. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.


Communal Love

In the armed forces, as you may know, chaplains not only serve God, but serve as "morale officers" for the enlisted. It presumes that there is a thing called morale that is a general term for the feelings of a group. Chaplains presumably are to monitor these feelings and keep them high.

Our culture isn't very skilled with words about feelings and even less with feelings held by groups of people, but this is one example. When Jimmy Carter was president, he described a certain emotional tenor of the country as a "malaise."` When we attend football games, it's easy to see the spirit of supporters wax and wane given the success of the team. School spirit describes some feeling of enthusiasm that is expected of loyal students.
This morning we'll explore the idea of group emotions then consider how Paul might be getting at such and idea in his chapter on love, then we'll try to apply this to what it might mean.

Group Feeling

It's easy to determine the ideas of a group of people. They write them down in constitutions and creeds and policies. They teach their ideas to their children. They organize around ideas into political parties and religious denominations. They are often able to identify and articulate their ideas and how they differ from others. The ideas of these groups may even take on legal status as with the bylaws of a corporation.

The thoughts of the group obviously have influence on the individuals. "Group think" is a negative term coined in 1952 by William H. Whyte describing how the ideological culture of a group can shape the individual's perspective.

In an article in the New Yorker a few years ago, the editors quote Randall Collins who finds in all of known history only three major thinkers who appeared on the scene by themselves: Wang Ch'ung, Bassui Tokusho, and Ibn Khaldun. I have ten dollars for anyone who knows about any two of those people. The editors write, "Everyone else who mattered was part of a movement, a school, a band of followers and disciples and mentors and rivals and friends who saw each other all the time and had long arguments over coffee and slept with one another's spouses. Freud may have been the founder of psychoanalysis, but it really began to take shape in 1902, when Alfred Adler, Wilhelm Stekel, Max Kahane, and Rudolf Reitler would gather in Freud's waiting room on Wednesdays, to eat strudel and talk about the unconscious."

While it is obvious that we influence and share each other’s ideas, it is less clear how we share and influence each other’s feelings. We know that the attitudes and feelings of prejudice are learned from the culture and largely from the family setting, but generally, there is far less we know about the feelings of our social systems.

Intuitively, however, we know that a group can have a tangible emotional atmosphere. How many times have you walked into a room and felt tension, even when you had no reason to know of any. As a pack animal, we constantly send off hundreds of non-verbal messages that influence each other and result in a shared emotional experience.

Rational people may be uncomfortable with feelings in general or experiences that can’t be clearly reduced, so religious emotion may be discounted, especially in group experiences. I know a man very well who is the model of an intelligent, rational being, yet when he went to see the Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ, he was so overcome by the complexity of the feelings in the room, he passed out and an ambulance had to be called to the movie theater.

Emotions, personal or communal, are not easy to understand or control, yet they are of course, what makes life worth living. Who would want to reduce the exalted feelings we have in the midst of a big hymn or a perfect silence? In fact, I would suggest to you that a part of the important experience of First Reformed is the particular feelings of worship in this place, the big organ sound, the fine choir, and the emotional flavor of the people around you.

There were no cathedrals for the early Christians, though. There was only the arching spirit that drove their community.

Communal Love

In Chapter 12 of First Corinthians, Paul talks at length about the differing and needed gifts individuals bring to the body of Christ. But in the 13th chapter, he is well on his way to the transition of talking about the church as a whole. We usually hear this chapter in terms of our individual experience of emotion. We even twist it into use at weddings when the agape love here described is far from the romantic love celebrated.

American culture has taught us to think of all ideas and feelings in the individual contexts, but think for a moment about what Paul is after for the early church. He is all about the stability of the community, all about being the corporate body of Christ. The agape love he describes is not some feeling we have by ourselves in a corner, but the feeling we encourage in the community as an atmosphere.

Communal love is not the feelings we have for the community, or even for each other. It is the general emotional disposition that we share that becomes an infectious force in itself.
This may sound a little mystical, and perhaps it is. When we understand the feelings that we share that go beyond the sum of our emotional parts, perhaps we are approaching the realm of spirit. It may be that some of our spiritual language is a way of talking about the subtleties of personal and communal emotions.

But so what? How does this idea play out in our lives?

Loving as a Group

What would it mean to foster and develop feelings in our families and churches, specifically love?
Patience, for instance, as a component of love, is not only something practiced by individuals, but whole communities can conspire to be patient. One of the marks of a spiritual community is the way it treats unusual or annoying people. When we set a standard together of patience with folks who need love in a patient way, we form a tangible expectation that children learn and that others can sense.

Kindness is more than acts of graciousness, it is a felt attitude of benevolence that we can decide will happen in our midst.

Arrogance, rudeness, and stubbornness are qualities that we can challenge with the gentleness of love and firmly place outside the culture we establish as the body of Christ. We conspire, you and I, to create an emotional environment that is just as important as any doctrine, any confession, any policy. Policies will become charming history and creeds will look archaic rather quickly. As for knowledge, it will become obsolete. The attitudes of caring will continue to ripple out to the generations. Love never ends.

People were not attracted to the religion of Jesus because of the rigorous theology. In the early days, there simply wasn’t any. People understood and understand the emotional intelligence of humility and love. In his warmer moments Paul understands this. He understands that for all he talks about faith, something is more important. For all he dwells on hope, something is more important.

As a people of God, we will approach the divine to the extent that we can develop the culture of love. John wrote that God is love, and so by algebraic extension, God is patient, God is kind, God is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. God bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. God never ends.

May this God, this love be ours today.

Pre-emptive Forgiveness

“Pre-emptive Forgiveness”
Sermon by Bill Levering, preached at the First Reformed Church of Schenectady
January 21, 2007

People are likely to make mistakes.

Odds are, I am about to make a mistake. There are thousands of rules about grammar and word usage and chances are in the next few minutes, I will violate at least one of them. In fact, it is almost a certainty that I will make several mistakes.

Anthropologist Gregory Bateson wrote a book called the Steps to the Ecology of Mind that begins with a series of interactions with his daughter that attempt to portray, in simple terms some critical issues in human life. One of these essays is “Why do things get in a muddle?” His daughter asks:

[...] people spend a lot of time tidying things, but they never seem to spend time muddling them. Things just seem to get in a muddle by themselves. And then people have to tidy them again.

Bateson answers her by explaining, ‘it’s just because there are more ways which you call “untidy” than there are ways which you call “tidy.”’ He explained that there are far more places for her dolls to be out of place, than in the right place.

This is true across a broad range of issues in life. There are plenty of ways to be wrong, and only a few ways, often one, of being right. So, like this sermon, it’s almost impossible for any of us to be anything but incorrect many times a day.

Most married people understand this. Abby, my wife, has a clear idea about how an adult ought to act in the world. Now Abby is not a judging person at all, but I suggest to you that before breakfast is over, I have made several grave errors in her eyes. She may not say anything. In fact, she may forgive me completely, but the fact is that it isn’t long at all before mistakes are made.

Army people have long understood the right way, the wrong way, and the Army way. However we measure ‘rightness,’ it’s much easier to be wrong. There are many many wrong answers to the problem of 1+1. In an effort to experience the vast way in which we could be wrong about this, I’d like everyone to shout out an incorrect answer to the problem of 1+1. (shouts) I know that some of you said “two” just to be obstreperous, but, given the assignment, that would have been a mistake, so all is well.

God and Forgiveness.

If often seems as though our relationship with God is in the same terms. There are apparently a millions ways to get God mad. Many, many commandments, rules, and moral injunctions to break in all sorts of creative new ways.

One of the most popular exercises in confirmation classes I have run is the task of figuring out one act that breaks all the commandments at once. Young people who would normally have trouble engaging a set of rules become more animated when trying to break them. We usually end up with someone lying in court about murdering their parents on Sunday, . . . well, you get the idea.

In the Judaism of Jesus’ day, there were rules and sacrifices to be made. The sin offering, for example, was an important offering made by observant Jews for sins that they may have inadvertently committed. The law had gotten so complicated, you literally needed lawyers to figure out what should happen when certain mistakes were made.

Jesus bring about a whole new way of dealing with these mistakes. Forgiveness. First of all, he forgives the people about him, even those who are murdering him. He broadens this and establishes a new ethic for forgiving each other. “ You have heard it said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth . . . . “ Most importantly, though, he is the instrument of our forgiveness with God.

Forgiveness is Jesus’ major theme. It is at once the hardest teaching to accept and the most important one to integrate into our lives. We are forgiven, we need to forgive. It affects international relations, criminal justice, marital relations, and institutional

I will be here for the life span of one of your pets. Hopefully, your only pet isn't a gerbil. In that time, I will talk to you about many of the dimensions of forgiveness, but in blatant self interest this morning, I’d like to address pre-emptive forgiveness.

Possible Upcoming Errors

We have established that I am about to make a mistake, but let me sketch the possibilities for you.

I may be too flip, or too serious.

I may not wear a tie when one is clearly required.

I may forget your name.

I may repeat myself.

I may forget your name.

I may be impatient or strident in my desire to change the world.

I may not care about something as much as you want me to.

I may begin to horribly split infinitives.

I may like someone you don’t want me to like.

I may be insensitive to a cherished tradition.

I may use a Presbyterian word when I should use a Reformed church word.

I may not call you back fast enough.

I may get too excited about technological toys.

I may speak in language that is too political or too religious.

I may spill coffee on your new slacks.

I may break your brother’s arm while playing squash.

For all these potentialities, I need your forgiveness. In fact, I need to know that you might forgive me even before I do anything, because I don’t want to live in fear. Now, I don’t intend to break your brother’s arm. Quite the contrary. But we have already established, as Paul said “I do the very thing that I don’t want to.”

For this boon, I promise to do my best to forgive you. Forgiveness is a street with many lanes. Just as those of you who are Republicans may need to forgive the fact that I am a Democratic, so I will forgive you for being Republicans.

All this warm talk of forgiveness between us may be fine in the abstract, but in application, it may be more challenging.

Future forgiveness.

The early disciples must have had trouble with this idea of forgiveness, because they come to Jesus looking for clarification and ways out of this crazy idea. They ask how many times do we have to do this and Jesus’ answer rather mocks the idea of counting at all. As it I could keep track of each time I forgave someone and then stop at forty nine or seventy seven. If there are literalists in the crowd, however, feel free to start the counter going now. Personally, I think Jesus is more complex and more interesting than a simple rule giver. Also, it would be counterproductive for him to just give more rules that needed forgiving.

The question the disciples ask implies action in the future. Unless they are remembering a whole series of events that need forgiveness, they are looking with trepidation into the future of forgiveness and wondering about its limits. Surely if people are obnoxious enough to make the same mistake over and over we don’t need to forgive them,

Of course an attitude of forgiveness can be corrupted and taken advantage of. But that is for another Sunday. The first word is forgiveness. Before we say, “yes, but . . .”, we need to say, “yes” to forgiving even as God has and will forgive us.

There is a great fear about talking about God forgiving us in the future. That it will somehow create sociopaths undeterred by guilt. But for people who are trying to find the holy, understanding that God will forgive us in the future gives us the courage to act in the world at all. We need no longer be cowed by complexity or muted by the chilling judgment of any church structure. In response to the overwhelming moral codes of medieval Roman Catholicism, Martin Luther’s disturbing breakthrough is, “Love God and do as you please.”

Forgiveness is a gracious attitude that is not just about the past. It extends into the future. It is an acceptance and a humility that seeks goodness in each situation.

Once we begin to nurture the attitude of forgiveness that goes beyond measurement, we can let go cherished wounds, we can begin to forgive ourselves even as we do something weak, begin to forgive God, begin to establish relationships of hope, not of fear. To err is human, to forgive - through God’s help - also human.

Our Misplaced God
by Bill Levering
October, 2006

Job is in trouble. His fortune, his health, and most of his family are lost. Much like the mayor of New Orleans, he sits on a pile of rubble and gets bad advice. Job's biggest problem is that he has misplaced God. 'Oh, that I knew where I might find him.'

Now, it's not unusual for people to misplace important things. Key, wallets, glasses. But misplacing God? This morning I'd like to look at our experience of misplacing things and see how it might help us in our relationship with God. We’ll look first at the misplacing and then at the finding.

Misplacing things is a maddening experience. First comes annoyance, then frustration, then anger at ourselves for being so stupid or so disorganized or so undisciplined. The meeting is starting in 15 minutes and I can't find the keys. I've looked everywhere once and most places twice. I've wracked my brains. I was in a hurry before any of this started, now it's an absolute panic. It's not that the important things in our lives get completely lost. We know they are around here someplace. Someplace. Some wrong place.

Most of the important things in our lives have a particular place where they belong. The remote control goes on top of the TV. We all know that. What happens to make the totems of our life mysteriously slip into inappropriate hiding places? Here’s what happens: we get distracted or we get lazy and put the remote down in the first place that is handy.

Just as we certainly don’t intend to put our glasses in the wrong spot, we don’t intend to misplace God, but it ends up happening. We have placed what should be at the center at the periphery. We have placed God under our needs for comfort and security. We have placed God in the freezer when God should always be next to our hearts.

Remember the pearl of great price? Jesus tells of a man who finds an incredibly valuable pearl and sells all that he has to invest in it. Imagine now that this man goes home and hides it someplace so well that he can’t remember where it is.

We have done this as a culture. We have placed subordinate values of punishment and security above Godly notions of forgiveness and redemption. As a nation established for freedom, we have forgotten where we put that basic idea now.

As individuals we have misplaced God. We keep the divine as a charming subset of our busy lives, an enrichment to the real curriculum of reading the trends, writing the checks and the rithmetic of greed.


The Problem of the Misplaced God

Important things misplaced become a crisis when they are needed. The keys can stay in the freezer for all we care until we need them to get to the meeting. God can stay in the wrong place until we suddenly realize we have put the divine in the wrong spot. Psalm 77 says, “In the day of my trouble I seek the Lord; in the night my hand is stretched out without wearying.”

It may seem for a bit that this is not our fault. I distinctly remember putting the keys on the dining room table. Who moved them? “My God My God, why have you lost track of me?” “Are you paying attention here?”

There are times when God seems to have misplaced us, but of course, we have misplaced God. When God is misplaced, we try to go it alone, to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps, to tough it out.

But just as the misplaced keys bring on a sense of anxiety and anger, so putting God out of sight and out of mind gives us only a sense of a “God shaped hole” as Salman Rushdie wrote: the central place that God is meant to occupy. When we lose important things we get a little disoriented, the rest of our life limps along, we are distracted and worried about the missing elements.

Perhaps you have not lost touch with God however. That’s great. Just take notes on the sermon for someone else in your family because most of us have had the experience of estrangement from the really good stuff, gradually losing track of what is most important.

In order to have billfold when you need it. In order to have God at hand when the problem or the joy arrives, we need to keep track of God.


How do we find God?

Let’s pound this analogy into the ground, shall we? How can the way we find our misplaced passport help us find our God?

Just as people loved to give Job advice, folks love to give advice to people who misplace things. Let’s look as some of it.

Where was the last place you had it? How many times have we retraced our steps, run through our actions in our head? So retrace your steps. When was he last time you felt close to God? Singing a hymn? Sing more hymns. In yoga class? Take more yoga. In conversations of faith? Talk more about God. Were you last closest to God in the middle of the night in a desperate prayer? Um. Buy a bigger car? No. Pray more.

Who else can help? I know that when I have put my cell phone in the wrong place, after about five minutes of looking, or after about 5 seconds of looking, I might shout “Abby! Have you seen my palm pilot?” There is something about a search that invites another perspective. “I think I saw it on the dryer!” She might shout. When we lose track of the divine, perhaps we should ask around. “Have you seen God lately?” Church is a good place to do this.

Where is it supposed to be? Wikihow is a website with short articles that tell you how to do everything imaginable. On their site they have several suggestions on how to find lost objects. One of them is, “Look for the missing object where it is supposed to be, or where it can usually be found.”

Hmm. Where is God supposed to be, or usually found. Isaiah says “Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near.” (55:6) If there is a place that God is supposed to be, I suppose that just might be worship. If God seems far off, trying visit the holy house more. It sounds like a joke, but I bet you know someone who misplaced their glasses right on top of their head. God is like that. Right where you might expect the divine to be. Waiting for us to sheepishly look in place that God has always been: everywhere.


The Finding is Worth the Looking

In the book of Jeremiah, God addresses the pain of people who have been moved en masse to Babylon. He tells people the pain of the Babylonian exile will not be for much longer. Jeremiah reports God’s benevolent availability: “For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you," declares the LORD” (29:11-14)

Sometime in the next few weeks you will lose something important. You will misplace keys, glasses, remote control, or something. As you are frantically looking about, stop for just a moment and consider if there is something bigger you should be looking for as well.

"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.

Seek ye first the kingdom of God and it’s righteousness. And all these things will be added unto you. Allelu Alleluia.

Sermon Starting

Welcome. I see that you are quite a web explorer. Check back here monthly for sermon updates, or get blogger to notify you when I post.