the church non-conforming: a sermon from john 17

I had the privilege recently of being asked to preach at First Presbyterian Church in Salt Lake.  The new sermon series was on the Church’s relationship with the world, and the topic of the week was “non-conforming” from Jesus’ prayer for his disciples in John 17:6-19 [full text here].  I thought I’d share an edited version J

*****

I was about ten years old when my family started going to church.  It was a little non-denominational Christian church in the small town where I grew up, and on one of my first Sundays, someone gave me a pocket-sized copy of the Gospel of John.  As a ten-year-old I didn’t understand half of it as I read it, but that didn’t matter… I carried it around with me all the time.  As I kept leafing through that little Gospel and we kept going to that church, I learned very quickly that what Jesus mentions in John 17 is a large part of the reality of being Christian:

That we are in this world, but not of this world.

That the world would hate us because we don’t belong to it... but that we can “take heart!” as Jesus said, because he has overcome the world.

In other words, that we are a non-conforming people.

There’s something about being in relationship with Christ—being part of the Church—that should make us look and speak and act differently from the rest of the world.

I began to notice even at that young age that “non-conforming” could actually be pretty easy on the surface level.  I started listening to Christian music, found a Christian bookstore, made friends that went to the Christian school, and started buying those plastic bracelets that said “WWJD” on them (shout out to anyone who did youth group in the nineties).

I learned that I could surround myself with a distinct Christian subculture that would reinforce my new identity and keep me a little safer from the rest of the world.  And in many ways it did:  I had a great childhood and I loved my church, and I managed to avoid a lot of the drama of my teenage peers.  Still now, when I listen to Christian music or read John Ortberg or Tim Keller or C.S. Lewis, I am both refined and encouraged. 

Now, on the one hand, some people accuse Christians today of not looking much different at all from the rest of the world—and in many ways, if we’re honest, they’re right. 

On the other hand, we can stay set apart by insulating ourselves from the surrounding culture… staying safe from the temptations of the Evil One in the world… waiting faithfully under God’s protection until we, like Jesus, “remain in the world no longer.”

Unfortunately, the more I’ve come to understand this passage, the more I think that’s not what Jesus is praying for. 

As he prays, he knows that he’s about to be taken to the cross—that he will be crucified, resurrected, and ascend to heaven in glory—and he is clearly concerned about the ones he’s leaving behind… but why?  Because they’re still in the world!        

Thirteen times in these fourteen verses Jesus mentions “the world.”  The Greek term (kosmos) has a variety of meanings in Scripture, but here Jesus seems to use it to refer to that within creation that is broken… the systems and principles that are hostile to God, and particularly to the truth of Christ.

If the world is hostile to the truth, surely it will be hostile to the ones who believe in that truth—that Jesus is, in fact, one with God as he says he is. 

So Jesus prays for their protection. 

But we need to pay attention to who he’s praying for.

He’s with his eleven remaining disciples (after Judas peaced out at the Last Supper).  These are his friends, and they have been with him for three long years during his ministry.  But they didn’t all start out as friends… 

One of them (Simon) was a zealot—what we might call today a violent religious extremist, a fanatic.  Zealots believed that the best way to reestablish Israel was to physically overthrow Rome.

One of them (Matthew) was a tax collector—a sellout to Rome.  He was the one who would hound his fellow Jews for money to pay the Roman empire; and tax collectors were notorious for being shady and corrupt and holding money for themselves on the side.

Several of them were fisherman—blue collar, perhaps poorly educated, working class guys… the kind who hated both the zealots and the tax collectors.

Another one, Thomas, was a skeptic, who later wouldn’t believe any of the rest of the group that Jesus had been resurrected… and who could blame him?  Some of these guys hadn’t exactly been trustworthy to begin with. 

Three years may not have been long enough. 

And later, to top it all off, Jesus would call Paul, a Pharisee, to go into the world and share the good news with the Gentiles and be part of this group of apostles. 

So in today’s terms, we essentially have a violent extremist, a corrupt IRS employee, a handful of union factory workers, a cynic, and eventually a fundamentalist… all about to be left alone together without Jesus.  If you added a condo in southern California and a few dozen cameras you could have a hit reality TV show.   Heaven have mercy on us all. 

But here’s what Jesus says, in verse 11:  “Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one.” 

These disciples are no longer of the world… because they have accepted who Jesus is and obeyed what he taught.  But they still need God’s protection… because hostility is a tough thing to break. 

Today our churches are full of people with different backgrounds: 

Some of us had loving childhoods, and some of us come from more difficult homes. 

Some of us are Republican and some are Democrat. 

Some of us are financially stable (perhaps even with significantly more than we need), while others may be living paycheck to paycheck—or with no paycheck at all.

Some of us are held down by systemic racism, while some of us get the benefit of societal privilege because of the whiteness of our skin. 

We have people who are old and young, male, female, and non-binary, gay and straight, loud and quiet, stubborn and easy-going.  

In all likelihood, we already know how difficult it is to be one, as Jesus as the Father are one… if such a thing is even humanly possible. 

But if this is what Jesus is praying for—this needs to be our goal.  This is how the Church will show the world that we refuse to conform to its hostility and brokenness. 

Right now the world is full of tribalism and mud-slinging and violence.  Especially with the internet and social media—people say things now that they would never say to another person face to face.  It is all too easy to draw ourselves into our own camps with people who think and act like us… and it happens even, and sometimes especially, within our churches.  Being Christian takes a backseat to other qualifiers.  We draw lines based on how liberal or conservative we are, which type of music we want to sing in worship, or even how we voted on church policies.  More than once I’ve looked at other Christians and resented them for giving me a “bad name.”

But Jesus seems very clear in what he says in John 13:  “By this everyone will know you are my disciples, if you love one another.”  “By this everyone will know you are not of the world… if you love one another.” 

It’s often about as easy as cutting off your own right hand.  But here’s why it matters:  

Just after this text in John 17, Jesus continues…

“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one-- I in them and you in me-- so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”

This is radical non-conformity. 

In his day, Jesus claiming to be one with the Father would have sounded blasphemous, and impossible.  Today—given the state of the world—it sounds just as impossible that people from different places, cultures, backgrounds, political affiliations, ages, genders, sexualities, and skin colors—that we all might be one in the same way that Jesus and the Father are one.  But THAT is how we have been called.  To one Body, in one Spirit, and one baptism… out of every tribe and tongue and nation… everyone who has received the word of Jesus and known in truth that he came from the Holy Father, the one whose name is over every name.

When zealots sit next to tax collectors who sit next to fisherman and skeptics and Pharisees and all of them have to figure out how to honor the oneness of God in and amongst themselves… to be brought to complete unity so that the world will come to know the one who was sent… that is the Church’s task. 

Jesus left the world, but he didn’t leave us alone.  We have been given the Holy Spirit and the truth of Christ, and they are powerful.  So I think it’s time we understand the Church’s non-conformity as less about who and what we stay away from, and more about who we dare to be near. 

[Photo credit: link]

aspiring to a wholehearted life

I just finished a book this afternoon for class.  [Class hasn’t actually started yet—our first meeting is tonight, but the book pulled me in and I couldn’t put it down.]  This book is called Toughest People toLove: How to Understand, Lead, and Love the Difficult People in your Life—IncludingYourself, by professor-pastor-counselor Chuck DeGroat. 

We all have tough people in our personal and professional lives (let’s be honest…) so when I saw this book on our syllabus for this quarter, my first thought was, Oh yeah… this is gonna be good.  And it was. 

The long and the short is that I still don’t know how to deal with the people whom I love dearly but drive me crazy—any more than they probably know how to deal with me in my crazy.

The truth is, we all have a little bit of crazy, and we’re all tough, because we’re human. 

But that was kind of the point:  dealing with each other well ultimately means dealing with ourselves and coming to terms with our own messy, annoying, glorious humanity. 

Take the following for example:

The other night I got so frustrated because Matt put a billion chopped onions in our homemade enchiladas.  I had found and followed a recipe in the past which we loved, and this time we decided to do multiple batches at one time because we’re lazy on weeknights and love easy leftovers… but I come into the kitchen, and we’re talking a massive heap of onions in the frying pan.  My immediate (and very verbal) response was to cite the holy grail of cooking texts that was the online enchilada recipe, and flush red over the fact that the onion-to-other-ingredients ratio was about to be massacred by my husband.  I went into a downward spiral about how my cooking decisions are never good enough, how he always wanted to change things, and how he wasn’t taking my desires into consideration.

None of this was true, of course.  He was only trying to be nice and help me make enchiladas.  And he happens to love onions.

The real issue is that I struggle to bend the rules.  I am far more comfortable with following recipes and controlling outcomes.  If I feel “ownership” of a task, I want it to go my own way.  I wanted him to cook how I wanted, not the other way around. 

I can be, apparently, a tough person.

The lesson here is one I’ve been hearing from a cascade of literary and pastoral voices over the last few years—Brené Brown, Thomas Merton, Richard Rohr, Ronald Richardson, and others…

They all seem to grasp the concept that part of being in healthy relationships with others is being in right relationship with God and yourself—experiencing what the Hebrew Scriptures call shalom, a deep and abiding peace and wholeness.   

Part of the problem in my relationships is me.  My life feels disorganized, my brain is fractured, my desires and aspirations are self-absorbed, and I drag around what DeGroat called a “long, invisible bag” stuffed with all the parts of myself I don’t like and don’t want others to see.  The bag gets heavier the longer I pull it around, and unfortunately it doesn’t get lighter without patiently airing out some of that dirty laundry.

I don’t want to do it.  I’d rather have you all think I’m perfect. 

But let’s be honest, “perfect” is boring.  And it’s fake.  The Greek word that we translate “perfect” in the New Testament—as in “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly father is perfect”—is telios, which (in my imperfect understanding) is similar to shalom:  complete, mature, whole.  It’s less about one ideal standard than all parts working in harmony.   

“Perfect” is annoying, because it’s what we can all pretend we want to be, but no one actually believes we are.  “Whole”—or “wholehearted”—is real and honest and a bit broken, but also somewhat put graciously back together.  And it’s relatable:

It’s the deep breath you get to take when you can admit your own mistakes.

It’s the glass of wine you can have on your couch with a friend with your feet up and your shoes off as you talk about the movie you loved or the work project you’re struggling with.

It’s the spattering sound you can appreciate when you look up from your phone screen and see that it’s raining outside.    

It’s that blog post you never thought you were interesting enough to write. 

It’s the realization that it’s okay to put up boundaries with people that try to claim a lot from you.

It’s the grace that we find in Jesus’ tender and outrageous mercy. 

Failing is okay.  Being honest with ourselves and others is okay.  Putting too many onions in the enchiladas is okay.  The moral of the story here is that my crazy is going to try my best to love your crazy, because beneath all of our collective crazy and deep flaws, our name is Beloved and God said that we are all “very good.”

the fate of the fig tree: a sermon for lent

I was invited to give the sermon for the third Sunday in Lent at our church in Seattle on March 24th.  The lectionary text was Luke 13:1-9.  I’ve edited it down for brevity, but here it is:

*****

In the season of Lent, the church remembers Jesus’ journey to the cross; and this week’s text in Luke takes place as a part of that journey—when Jesus travels from Galilee (where he began his ministry) to Jerusalem (where it will end).  The crowd opens the conversation by asking Jesus about some troubling recent events: 

“There were some present who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices”

…almost as if to say, “Did you hear about this Jesus?  Men from Galilee went to worship and Pilate had them murdered in the Temple.  What do you have to say about that?”

I have to admit, I’ve had some similar thoughts lately, things that I’d probably like to ask Jesus about if he were around…
Did you hear, Jesus, about the 50 Muslims who were killed in the shooting in Christchurch, New Zealand? What do you have to say about that? 
Did you hear, Jesus, about the anti-Semitic murders at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh.  What do you have to say about that?
Jesus, have you heard about the students who were shot in their classrooms at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School last year?  What do you have to say about that? 

And Jesus says, yeah… yeah, I know about that.  I know about the Temple.  I know about Christchurch and Tree of Life and the students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas.  I know about Sutherland Springs, and Charleston, and Orlando, and Vegas, and everywhere else.  I know.  Are you asking me if God had a hand in those things?   

The common understanding at the time was that God rewards those were righteous and punishes those who sinned—so if something bad happened to you, it must be a direct result of something you did wrong. 

“Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? …Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them—do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you.”

Jesus essentially says to them:  I know you want me to justify these things, I know it will make it easier to think that there’s a reason that they died, but I won’t… because that’s not how God works.  But he follows it up with an ominous warning: 

“…but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.”

Then he tells them a parable about a vineyard owner who looks for fruit on the fig tree growing in his vineyard, and after three years of finding nothing tells the gardener to cut it down so it won’t waste the soil.  The gardener replies:

“‘Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.’”

And we’re left with a cliffhanger… Does the owner listen to the gardener, or does he cut the tree down?  Does it ever produce fruit?

What is the fate of the fig tree?   

The crowd has just been reminded of two instances in which people’s lives were lost.  God’s doing or not, life is sometimes unexpectedly short.  And what Jesus seems to say in this text is:  repent, or your life too will be lost. 

Sometimes being faced with the reality of death is enough to get us to repent, and to start walking in the way of Jesus, because he gives hope of something more, something eternal.  And maybe that’s what this text is… a reminder that we often need to turn our lives around and start producing fruit. 

Now I have a confession to make:  I have a healthy relationship with Netflix. 

And by “a healthy relationship with Netflix”… I mean an unhealthy relationship with Netflix.

I watch too much Netflix.

But I discovered a new show a few weeks ago.  It’s a reality TV show where a group of five gay men (called the “Fab Five”) are invited to help makeover an individual’s life—hair, wardrobe, living space, diet, etc.  And one of the Fab Five is named Bobby, and Bobby grew up in the church.  He says he spent almost every day there as a kid, his family was very involved, and he loved it… but when he came out as gay as a teenager, his parents and his church completely disowned him.  They thought he wasn’t producing the right fruit and no longer belonged in the vineyard, so they cut him out. 

As I was reading this text after watching this show, it made me think:  Do we really have a God that’s like the vineyard owner?  Do we have a God who looks at us, and if we’re not producing fruit wants to cut us out?

On first read, Jesus seems to say, ‘Don’t worry—God doesn’t punish people for their individual sins… but if you don’t repent, you will be punished.’  The parable makes it very much sound like we need to fear a God that walks around the vineyard with an ax.  Many people, and many Christians, have read this text and have left thinking exactly that.  And it’s true that we genuinely believe that there are sins we need to repent from, and that orienting our individual lives toward God in Christ will help us produce fruit. 

But the fruit is not moralistic legalism, and the fig tree may not just be one person.

What I learned in studying this text this week is that the fig tree was often used as a metaphor for the people of Israel… as an entity, as a unit, as the holy body of God.  The prophet Hosea, for example, writes,

“Like grapes in the wilderness, I found Israel. Like the first fruit on the fig tree, in its first season, I saw your ancestors.”

I also found that fig trees were occasionally planted in vineyards to help prop up the vines.  So not only should they be producing their own fruit, they were also supposed to support the vineyard—they had a job.  And the people of Israel were given a job too.  In Genesis 12, at the very beginning when God establishes this holy, chosen people, he tells Abraham:  “I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great so that you will be a blessing… in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

God intended for this holy people to be a gift to the entire world, to produce fruit, and it was not happening.  As it turns out, it is so much easier to take what is good and try to wall it in with rules and customs and traditions, to clearly define who’s in and who’s out.

And why should God not be exasperated at that? 

Many years I’ve been waiting for you to produce fruit… I’ve given you space and soil and water and I haven’t found what I’m looking for.  My heart is for this vineyard, and I’ve planted you here to help it, and it turns out, you’re failing to produce the fruit that will bless everyone else.

What is the fate of this fig tree?

Photo Credit:  BiblePlaces.com

But the gardener… thank goodness for that gardener. 

We can still make this right, he says.  Let me tend to it, till around it, put some fertilizer on it… go to the cross for it.  Don’t cut it off just yet—it can still be a blessing to the vineyard. 

And the irony is that the owner and the gardener are the same. 

They both care about the fig tree. 

They both care about the vineyard. 

They both know that anything less than true repentance does not produce a people that embody the fruits that the Spirit of God seeks to bear:  love… joy… peace… patience… kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

That is our gift, our mission, to the world.   

And we’ve screwed up a lot.  The church at large and the church in America have had a hand in discrimination against the LGBTQ community, people of color, women, and many others… we’ve not always embodied these fruits. 

But we can.  The fate of the fig tree is left open for us.  We can repent and know that the gardener is still with us.  He’s tilling us and feeding us and bearing the cross for us… so that we can be the tree that produces the fruit of the Spirit of God for the world:  peace, joy, kindness, patience, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control… and love. 

“By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another”

– John 13:35

that time we marie kondo'd our condo

I’ve noticed a trend over the past few years, and that trend is this:  when I walk into our house and things are dirty and cluttered, it stresses me out. 

The formula is pretty simple really.  Clutter = stress.

I brilliantly figured this out by my own trial-and-error (also known as my ability to accumulate lots of stuff and inability to keep it all nicely put away).  But as it turns out, studies are beginning to suggest that this is actually a thing.  I’m not the only one!

As a bit of back story, we’ve lived in Seattle for almost five years now.  We massively downsized our belongings before we moved from Salt Lake (down from two bedrooms to one), but somehow we’ve still managed to accumulate more than our 515-square foot condo can handle.  And when a woman is expected to come home from work only to have to sit down and do grad school homework, a messy kitchen, cluttered coffee table, and overflowing books, craft supplies, clothes, etc. are not conducive to a focused study environment.  I’m telling you, emotional breakdowns have occurred over two-day-old dirty dishes.

And the truth of the matter is, I don’t want to be a person who owns a bunch of stuff.  Because when you have “stuff,” you have to have a place to put it all, and you have to take care of it.  I need more time to take care of myself and the people I love… not my stuff.  [Not to mention the fact that humans go through inordinate amounts of the earth’s resources to produce it all.]

Enter: The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up.

I found this little gem of a book at Costco a few years ago.  I had already come across a few blogs that had mentioned it, and was curious.  Long story short, I don’t necessarily endorse all of her philosophy around decluttering, but I have very much appreciated the idea that we maintain a “relationship” of sorts with our stuff—we interact with our possessions on a regular basis, they (ideally) support our lives, and they provide us with a sense of who we are as a person.  Therefore, we should only keep around those things which bring us joy.  I need my home to be a peaceful, restorative space.  As William Morris once said:

“Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.”

So at the beginning of this year, I got Matt on board to do some major decluttering.  We Marie Kondo’d our whole place (yes, it’s a verb.)  We didn’t do everything in the exact order she suggests, but we did pull all of our things in each category out at a time and went through them one by one—kind of like shopping, but from our own home.  It was brutal to see how much “stuff” we owned, but such a valuable experience!  We documented for proof (but mostly for fun).

We started with our books (my most difficult category)...

Our books "before"

Our books "after"

Then we moved on to board games (Matt's most difficult category)...

We pulled them all out onto the floor...

...and ended up with these on our shelves!

We tackled our clothes by pulling them all out onto the bed (which ensured we'd get through them by the end of the day)...

This was eye-opening... so many clothes in one closet

My side of the closet afterward

And we eventually went through papers, kitchen supplies, craft supplies, decor, and other miscellaneous things...

These were from grad school binders

A few things coming out of our kitchen

Having gone through the long process, I’ve seen several benefits:

1. We’ve gotten to the point where we’ve been able to put our condo on the market—yay! 
2. Because there is less in the house, it’s easier and quicker to clean. 
3. I get to look around my home and see only the things that I love. 

Don’t get me wrong… having to clean my house is still a thing.  Getting frustrated by dirty dishes is still a thing.  Not making my bed, or putting all my books away, or wiping down my table is still a thing.  (The words “life changing magic” were used rather liberally in her title, I’ve found.)  That said, I did start to wonder how our culture as a whole might change if we all decided to redefine what it is we “need” in our homes.

Would we be less stressed and more content?

Would we have more financial freedom?

Would we appreciate the things we have even more?

These things have started to become true for me.  And I honestly could part with more than we initially gave away, not to pare down for the sake of paring down, but because it leaves Matt and I free to own only the things we love.  Because at the end of the day, we have more than enough.