William A. Walker III

Page 20 of 24

“As it is with selfishness, or when a man is governed by a regard to his own private interest, independent of regard to the public good, such a temper disposes a man to act the part of an enemy to the public; or in all those cases wherein such things are presented to his view that suit his personal appetites or private inclinations but are inconsistent with the good of the public. On which account a selfish, contracted, narrow spirit is generally abhorred, and is esteemed base and sordid. But if a man’s affection takes in half a dozen more, and his regards extend so far beyond his own single person as to take in his children and family; or if it reaches further still, to a larger circle, but falls infinitely short of the universal system, and is exclusive of Being in general, his private affection exposes him to the same thing, viz. to pursue the interest of its particular object in opposition to general existence.”

Jonathan Edwards, The Nature of Virtue, 399-400.

I always like it when I can find quotes from theologians which whom I strongly disagree in many ways, but who nonetheless prove to be acutely insightful into certain other issues about which we can find agreement. Jonathan Edwards is just one such theologian. As I tried to tried to show in a previous post, Edwards argues that a properly Christian concern and outlook on society must be one that regards the public good before any private interest — even if that interest extends to one’s own family and friends. For support, Edwards grounds the above statement in the work and character of Christ and a doctrine of God’s goodness that commands self-sacrificial love — two theological pillars on which I too tried to rely. To pursue private interest in opposition to the good of general existence, in other words, is thoroughly unChristian. By saying this, however, I am certainly not suggesting that one political party or paradigm is necessarily inherently concerned with private interest to the detriment of the common or public good. Rather, I mean to call attention to this distinction in order to identify what might be a proper litmus test when considering our political decision-making and participation.

At the same time, it can hardly be overemphasized that this distinction must transcend the purview of electoral politics. For example, it might be cheaper for me to go to Walmart and buy whatever I need there instead of at a smaller, local establishment, or even a regionally based corporate business. To stop the discerning process at this point though would be to settle the purchase-preference question solely on account of my private interest. Now, someone might retort by saying that Walmart does serves everyone better by making products more affordable. Yes, well, that would be an example of extending my private interest to a broader circle just as Edwards acknowledges — but one that is not nearly broad enough. See, Walmart might appear to be helping lower-income families at first glance, but the more people we take into consideration across socioeconomic and national boundaries, the less defensible this argument becomes:

1. Walmart price gouges competitors and thereby oligopolizes and monopolizes the marketplace, which works against the equilibrium and perfect competition assumptions of efficient market theory — a theory upon which so much of our public and foreign policy is mistakenly based (at the international level, the effects are much worse, but I will touch on this in another post).

2. Walmart might not be providing fair compensation and benefits for its most dispensable, low-wage workers — precisely in order to keep its prices low. And this would not be a big problem save for the fact that Walmart is possibly the largest private employer in the world.

3. In comparison to its concern for the cost of its wholesale goods from suppliers, Walmart probably does not take into serious consideration where its products are made, the conditions in which those products are produced, and the well-being of the workers who produced them when deciding who it should buy from.

These factors change things and reveal the extent to which economic appearances can be very deceiving. The main reason for this example is not to criticize Walmart — though there is a need and a place for that — so much as to simply highlight how important it is for Christians to take this private vs. public distinction seriously in all areas of life if we wish to faithfully love our neighbor.

Theology and Politics: The Difference of the Christian God

By Bill Walker

On September 18, 2012

In Theology

I’m going to attempt to make a few blog posts over the next few weeks that address the subject of theology and politics, which I take to be timely right now especially as the election season is upon us. In doing so, I will try to outline in a fairly systematic way the theological justification for my positions on what are in my opinion the most important issues that have to be dealt with in the U.S. from a Christian and ecclesial perspective.

I take as my starting point an excerpt from Dietrich Bonhoeffer‘s later work. Obviously, there are those who would probably like to object to my beginning here instead of, say, with Scripture on the one hand or with the words of a more contemporary theologian who isn’t German, male, etc. on the other. In response to such objections, I would just say that I consider Bonhoeffer’s statement below to still be inspired by Scripture and very relevant to many contemporary political and theological concerns that extend beyond U.S.-eurocentrism. He is also someone that is well known and revered in a diverse range of Christian circles, and as such provides a broadly common ground from which to launch the conversation.

God lets himself be pushed out of the world on to the cross. He is weak and powerless in the world, and that is precisely the way, the only way, in which he is with us and helps us. Matt. 8.17 makes it quite clear that Christ helps us, not by virtue of omnipotence, but by virtue of his weakness and suffering.[1]

Here is the decisive difference between Christianity and all religions. Man’s religiosity makes him look in his distress to the power of God in the world: God is the deus ex machina. The Bible directs man to God’s powerlessness and suffering; only the suffering God can help. To that extent we may say that the development towards the world’s coming of age outlined above, which has done away with a false conception of God, opens up a way of seeing the God of the Bible, who wins power and space in the world by his weakness. This will probably be the starting-point for our ‘secular interpretation’. – Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison (p. 359-361)

For much of my life I’ve heard conventional apologists and preachers argue that what distinguishes Christianity from other religions is the Protestant emphasis on justification by grace through faith, not works. This is because all other religions are assumed to be primarily characterized by human effort to somehow reach or work toward God, or to earn God’s approval.

There are obvious problems with this, not the least of which is the sweeping generalization of the nature of all other world religions, which are quite diverse in and among themselves, just like Christianity — not to mention that the adherents in each are seeking very different soteriological ends (different views on what salvation is in the first place). Moreover, the so-called world religions have very divergent conceptions of what it means to be human and what the basic impediment is to abundant life. This has to be taken into account before we can speak so broadly about the Christian difference. Leaving that issue aside for now, however, the even bigger oversight of this perspective seems to be to the focus on salvation in the first place, which, when described in the way that was mentioned above (salvation by grace through faith), tends to focus entirely on what we get from God as opposed to who God is and what God expects from us as a result of what God has done.

More specifically, it overlooks what is in my view a most fundamental distinction that can more safely be made between Christian confessions and those of other faiths — namely, the belief that God was uniquely and fully present in Jesus of Nazareth. That is to say, whereas some traditions rightly stress God’s transcendence or otherness on the one hand, while others tend to speak more of an immanence or pantheistic nature of God on the other — if they speak theistically at all — the Christian tradition has always talked a lot about both, and it is because of the doctrine of God’s incarnation in Christ that we can do this.

This of course requires that, despite whatever we might want to say christological formulations, some kind of normative authority is maintained regarding the person and work of Jesus Christ, which is what distinguishes this view from many other more liberal or less orthodox positions that have arisen over the centuries. I am not particularly concerned about how exactly people use language to get at this incredibly mysterious and paradoxical notion of God dwelling with us as a human being — as long as the theological significance of the idea is preserved. Furthermore, it’s not that I’m trying to necessary defend the truth of the orthodox position as such either. Rather, I’m simply trying to convey this doctrine’s indispensability to the Christian faith and identity for the preservation of its uniqueness.

This significance for me consists in least two very basic faith statements, which, getting back to the question of the Christian difference, are essential for understanding what makes the Christian identity special. First, there is the belief that, as Bonhoeffer says in analogous terms, God has solidarity (read shared nature and experience) with the human situation through Jesus; and secondly, that this solidarity is constituted by non-coercion and suffering for a redemptive purpose that gives hope and power in the face of sin and death. As a result of the witness in Scripture to these two aspects of divine action, the character God is revealed, and revealed in such a way that communicates God’s love for the world. Whether and to what extent God is sovereign in the world and is providential in all of history, more than merely present, sustaining and persuasive, is another interesting and important question, but the lesson I’m driving at that can be appreciated from both sides of the spectrum on this — from classical theism (God’s essence as self-sufficient existence) all the way to process theology (God’s dipolar, consequent and primordial nature) — is that God cares and is involved.

Some Application: Toward the Relevance of the Christian Difference for Faith in the Public Sphere

The final sentence of Bonhoeffer’s quote above makes reference to a “secular interpretation,” and this is the direction I’d like to go in next. Sin and salvation are rightly understood to a limited extent as pertaining to the individual and to life-everlasting, but more appropriately for our time and place as pertaining to the community and (secular) life in the present. This, I believe, is because our cultural context in North America is plagued by rampant individualism both in and outside of the church. In other words, from a Christian standpoint, we might say there are mostly two kinds of people in our society: Christians and non-Christians — and both groups are individualists. One way to understand the reason for this, as I see it, is simple: most people who claim to be Christian are more “American” than they are Christian. I will do my best to unpack what I mean by this in the next few posts.

[1] A brief disclaimer is in order with reference to Bonhoeffer’s claim that “the only way” God helps is through weakness, etc: in the larger context, Bonhoeffer is dealing with the extent to which modern scientific develops have pushed God further and further away as a need for explaining seemingly supernatural phenomena that occur in the world. Much like Paul Tillich does to some degree then, Bonhoeffer is circumnavigating this problem by suggesting that God should not be conceived so dualistically in relationship to the “natural” world. It would not be appropriate at this point, therefore, I don’t think, to conclude that Bonhoeffer is necessarily saying that God’s own nature is weak or powerless in and of itself. Said another way, it might be a stretch to infer from this that Bonhoeffer would have had affinity with more recent postmodern or poststructuralist theological projects, for instance (Caputo’s Weakness of God), or that he would have agreed with the claims of process theology regarding God’s providence.

Introduction to David Graeber's Debt: The First 5,000 Years

By Bill Walker

On September 13, 2012

In Ethics

I first learned of this title because my friend Stephen Keating was reading it in a book study with Barry Taylor. The introduction was enough to prompt me to pause and reflect. Below is a somewhat long excerpt, but well worth reading in full:

We chatted. She told me about her job. I told her had I had been involved for many years with the global justice movement – “anti-globalization movement,” as it was usually called in the media. She was curious: she’d of course read a lot about Seattle, Genoa, the tear gas and street battles, but . . . well, had we really accomplished anything by all that?

“Actually,” I said, “I think it’s kind of amazing how much we did manage to accomplish in those first couple of years.”

“For example?”

“Well, for example, we managed to almost completely destroy the IMF.”

As it happened, she didn’t actually know what the IMF was, so I offered that [along with the support of other U.S.-backed UN international institutions like the World Bank] the International Monetary Fund basically acted as the world’s debt enforcers – “You might say, the high-finance equivalent of the guys who come to break your legs.” I launched into historical background, explaining how, during the ‘70’s oil crisis, OPEC countries ended up pouring so much of their newfound riches into Western banks that the banks couldn’t figure out where to invest the money; how Citibank and Chase therefore began sending agents around the world trying to convince Third World dictators and politicians to take out loans (at the time, this was called “go-go banking”); how they started out at extremely low rates of interest that almost immediately skyrocketed to 20 percent or so due to tight U.S. money policies in the early ‘80’s; how, during the ‘80s and ‘90s, this led to the Third World debt crisis; how the IMF then stepped in to insist that, in order obtain refinancing, poor countries would be obliged to abandon price supports on basic foodstuffs, or even policies of keeping strategic food reserves, and abandon free health care and free education; how all of this had led to the collapse of all the most basic supports for some of the poorest and most vulnerable people on earth. I spoke of poverty, of the looting public resources, the collapse of societies, endemic violence, malnutrition, hopelessness, and broken lives.

“But what was your position?” the lawyer asked.

“About the IMF? We wanted to abolish it.”

“No, I mean, about Third World debt.”

“Oh, we wanted to abolish that too. The immediate demand was to stop the IMF from imposing structural adjustment policies, which were doing all the direct damage, but we managed to accomplish that surprisingly quickly. The more long-term aim was debt amnesty. Something along the lines of the biblical Jubilee. As far as we were concerned,” I told her, “thirty years of money flowing from the poorest countries to the richest was quite enough.”

“But,” she objected, as if this were self-evident, “they’d borrowed the money! Surely one has to pay one’s debts.”

It was at this point that I realized this was going to be a very different sort of conversation than I had originally anticipated.

Where to start? I could have begun by explaining how these loans had originally been taken out by unelected dictators who placed most of it directly in their Swiss bank accounts, and ask her to contemplate the justice of insisting that the lenders be repaid, not by the dictator, or even by his cronies, but by literally taking food from the mouths of hungry children. Or to think about how many of these poor countries had actually already paid back what they’d borrowed three or four times now, but that through the miracle of compound interest, it still hadn’t made a significant dent in the principle. I could also observe that there was a difference between refinancing loans, and demanding that in order to obtain refinancing, countries have to follow some orthodox free-market economic policy designed in Washington and Zurich that their citizens had never agreed to and never would, and that it was a bit dishonest to insist that countries adopt democratic constitutions and then also insist that, whoever gets elected, they have no control over their country’s policies anyway. Or that the economic policies imposed by the IMF didn’t even work. But there was a more basic problem: the very assumption that debts have to be repaid.

Actually, the remarkable thing about the statement “one has to pay one’s debts” is that even according to standard economic theory, it isn’t true. A lender is supposed to accept a certain degree of risk. If all loans, no matter how idiotic, were still retrievable – if there were no bankruptcy laws, for instance – the results would be disastrous. What reason would lenders have not to make a stupid loan?

“Well, I know that sounds like common sense,” I said, “but the funny thing is, economically, that’s not how loans are actually supposed to work. Financial institutions are supposed to be ways of directing resources toward profitable investments. If a bank were guaranteed to get its money back, plus interest, no matter what it did, the whole system wouldn’t work. Say I were to walk into the nearest branch of the Royal Bank of Scotland and say ‘You know, I just got a really great tip on the horses. Think you could lend me a couple million quid?’ Obviously they’d just laugh at me. But that’s just because they know if my horse didn’t come in, there’d be no way for them to get the money back. But, imagine there was some law that said they were guaranteed to get their money back no matter what happens, even if that meant, I don’t know, selling my daughter into slavery or harvesting my organs or something. Well, in that case, why not? Why bother waiting for someone to walk in who has a viable plan to set up a Laundromat or some such? Basically, that’s the situation the IMF created on a global level – which is how you could have all those banks willing to fork over billions of dollars to a bunch of obvious crooks in the first place” . . . [a related comment could be made her about the student loan debt crisis/bubble as well].

“[But] surely one has to pay one’s debts.”

The reason it’s so powerful is that it’s not actually an economic statement: it’s a moral statement. After all, isn’t paying one’s debts what morality is supposed to be all about? Giving people what is due them. Accepting one’s responsibilities. Fulfilling one’s obligations to others, just as one would expect them to fulfill their obligations to you. What could be a more obvious example of shirking one’s responsibilities than reneging on a promise, or refusing to pay a debt?

It was that very apparent self-evidence, I realized, that made the statement so insidious. This was the kind of line that could make terrible things appear utterly bland and unremarkable. This may sound strong, but it’s hard not to feel strongly about such matters once you’ve witnessed the effects. I had. For almost two years, I had lived in the highlands of Madagascar. Shortly before I arrived, there had been an outbreak of malaria. It was a particularly virulent outbreak because malaria had been wiped out in highland Madagascar many years before, so that, after a couple of generations, most people had lost their immunity. The problem was, it took money to maintain the mosquito eradication program, since there had to be periodic tests to make sure mosquitoes weren’t starting to breed again and spraying campaigns if it was discovering that they were. Not a lot of money. But owing to IMF-imposed austerity programs, the government had to cut the monitoring program. Ten thousand people died. I met young mothers grieving for lost children. One might think it would be hard to make a case that the loss of ten thousand human lives is really justified in order to ensure that Citibank wouldn’t have to cut its losses on one irresponsible loan that wasn’t particularly important to its balance sheet anyway. But here was a perfectly decent woman – one who worked for a charitable organization, no less- who took it as self-evident that it was. After all, they owed he money, and surely one has to pay one’s debts.

[I would encourage anyone to at least download the free sample for Kindle or Nook of this book and continue reading the introduction, which goes on to discuss other important historical factors such as colonialism and violence that set up many of these unequal international relations in the first place. Just as even in our country today with a history of slavery and Jim Crow, so too the social costs of exploitation, domination and discrimination around the world by US and European imperialism from many decades ago are still being felt and counted in the present.]

Upon reflection, I immediately thought of the, until recently, widely agreed upon forbiddance by the Church throughout history of lending money on interest (usury). In addition it makes me remember that line in the Lord’s Prayer: “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.” Moreover still, the microfinance movement came to mind, and in particular the non-profit organization called KIVA through which Whitney and I, and several of my friends and family members, make small loans to Third world individuals and small businesses. There’s so much to say and think about here, but I the biggest lesson and reminder for me is simply the importance of taking a global look at many of the issues during election season, when so much preoccupation tends to be with domestic and foreign policy from the viewpoint of U.S. prosperity and security interest alone, rather than from the view of humanity and the world as a whole – especially those on the margins whom Jesus called God’s most blessed ones, and whom we were likewise instructed by Jesus to be concerned about first.

Third World debt, the poor suffer in silence (zimdev.wordpress.com)

Church, Politics and Reconciliation: on whose terms?

By Bill Walker

On September 3, 2012

In Church and World

The nation-state is inclined to solve the crisis of pluralism [i.e., divergent individual wills and preferences about what is ‘the good’] by directing violence outward, toward other nation-states, but it is war that most especially reveals the particularism and tribalism of the nation-state. Though the Body of Christ is truly catholic and spans the globe, Christians have become accustomed to killing Christians and others in places like Iraq out of loyalty to the narrow interests of their country. The Church, on the other hand, has always claimed to be a universal, and not merely particular, association.

In practice, the Church is full of the world, full of what is not-Church. We hardly need reminding of the manifest sinfulness of those who gather in the name of Christ and his Church. In this light it is helpful to think of the Church not as a location or an organization, but more like an enacted drama; it is the liturgy that makes the Church. In this drama there is a constant dialectic between sin and salvation, scattering and gathering, Church” names that plotline that is moving toward reconciliation.

The Church may argue against the wisdom of a particular war, but if the model of “public theology” is followed, the Church is required to argue in “public” terms, accessible to the policy-makers, and thus must appeal to considerations of national security and the self-interest of the nation-state . . . [yes, but isn’t this just what we have to do?]

More interesting are those approaches that speak on the public stage but refuse to play bit parts in the tragedy orchestrated by the state. One such approach is exemplified by groups of Christians and others that have traveled to Iraq since 1991, bringing food, medicine, and toys, in violation of US law. Such groups refuse the tragic drama of threats to national security, and see the Iraqi people, suffering under sanctions, as the weak members of the body whom Paul admonishes us to treat as members of our own body (1 Corinthians 12:22-6). Nation-state borders are dismissed as unreal, artificial segmentations of the universal Body of Christ, in which all people made in the image of God are members or potential members in the universal reconciliation that Christ accomplishes . .

Another more quotidian example from the parish level may help to suggest how the reconciliation we enact in the liturgy can rearrange public space. I wa invited a few years ago to speak to a church group on the injustices of economic globalization. We talked about cheap labor is exploited for our benefit, about the Body of Christ that makes us one, and about the contradiction between the two. Some in the group suggested writing to our representatives in Congress. A more interest approach presented itself later when we learned of a cooperative of local organic farmers that markets its products through churches. People in my parish now buy directly from the cooperative once a month, and the food i distributed at the church. We have begun to know some of the farmers’ names and the specific farms from which the different products come. We know that the prices we pay ensure a sustainable living for the farmers. We have begun to short-circuit the global market in which we are accustomed to buying our food from strangers, blind to the conditions in which the food is produced. What is being created is a different kind of public space, a market that is not based on competition or the rational choice of self-interest, but on a just price and a community of producers and buyers who view each other’s interests as their own. The reconciliation that we enact in the liturgy every Sunday is breaking out of the walls of the church building, as it were, and forming a different, fully public, space. This is not a withdrawal from politics, but the enactment of the politics of reconciliation that we celebrate in the liturgy.

William Cavanaugh, “Politics and Reconciliation” in The Blackwell Companion to Christian Ethics

The two questions I struggle with in this kind of debate are not new and have been the subject of discussion surrounding Christian ethics for centuries; namely, whether in ethical and political decision-making to prioritize good ends or good means. I lean towards the former — mainly because I feel like, for example, saving lives is more important than keeping our hands clean or being overly concerned about the purity of our witness. As a progressive evangelical with both Baptist and Methodist affinities, I am also tempted to roll my eyes a little bit every time I hear the word “liturgy” or “sacrament.” But of course what Cavanaugh proposes here, and especially with the two examples given, is no mere cop out either. In short, I think this is a worthwhile debate to continue having, and he himself even admits that striving to influence public policy can be useful. At any rate, I’m grateful for his contribution to the discussion, and would really appreciate if more Christians would take these questions seriously rather than apparently settling for either the relegation of their faith to the private sector, a duplicitous citizenship in both the kingdom of God and world, or selling out more or less to the latter. I can’t help but believe that this is what many who strongly identify with the Republican Party (and Democratic… I just don’t see it there quite as much) are doing — at least to the extent that they seem to put hope in their partisan convictions, when it comes to the political realm and to public space (which basically includes or affects everything), more so than in the church’s responsibility to be a transformative enactment of God’s drama, as Cavanaugh says, of salvation for the world.

Bonhoeffer on the Question of Individual Salvation and the Church's Place or Mission in Society "Today"

By Bill Walker

On August 29, 2012

In Theology

Cover of Letters and Papers from Prison

There’s a great resource for Bonhoeffer quotes from his Letters and Papers that can be found here. I’m returning to Bonhoeffer right now somewhat in part because I’m teaching Christian Ethics, and he had a lot to say about this — about what it is and isn’t — but also because some friends of mine are reading through The Cost of Discipleship, and I’ve recently joined them to re-read it. Of course the tension between Bonhoeffer’s earlier and later work is somewhat glaring at moments, as can be seen below. The importance for me of these two particular quotes though is not so much that the words themselves have shaped me, but that some major elements of my on faith development and view of church, as a result of my experience and educational journey over the past few years, are reflected in them so well.

Hasn’t the individualistic question about personal salvation almost completely left us all? Aren’t we really under the impression that there are more important things than that question (perhaps not more important than the matter itself, but more important than the question!)? I know it sounds pretty monstrous to say that. But, fundamentally, isn’t this in fact biblical? Does the question about saving one’s soul appear in the Old Testament at all? Aren’t righteousness and the Kingdom of God on earth the focus of everything, and isn’t it true that Rom. 3.24ff. is not an individualistic doctrine of salvation, but the culmination of the view that God alone is righteous? It is not with the beyond that we are concerned, but with this world as created and preserved, subjected to laws, reconciled, and restored.What is above this world is, in the gospel, intended to exist for this world; I mean that, not in the anthropocentric sense of liberal, mystic pietistic, ethical theology, but in the biblical sense of creation and of the incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer – Letters and Papers from Prison

Our church, which has been fighting in these years only for its self-preservation, as though that were an end in itself, is incapable of taking the word of reconciliation and redemption to mankind and the world. Our earlier words are therefore bound to lose their force and cease, and our being Christians today will be limited to two things; prayer and righteous action among men. All Christian thinking, speaking, and organizing must be born anew out of this prayer and action…It is not for us to prophesy the day (although the day will come) when men will once more be called so to utter the word of God that the world will be changed and renewed by it. It will be a new language, perhaps quite non-religious, but liberating and redeeming – as was Jesus’ language; it will shock people and yet overcome them by its power; it will be the language of a new righteousness and truth, proclaiming God’s peace with men and the coming of his kingdom…Till then the Christian cause will be a silent and hidden affair, but there will be those who pray and do right and wait for God’s own time.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer – Letters and Papers from Prison

Hermeneutics and Praxis: Two Wrongs and a Right

By Bill Walker

On July 26, 2012

In Theology

Recently Christian Piatt made a couple of provocative posts on the Sojourners “God’s Politics” blog concerning Christian cliches that should not be used. Here’s one of them that’s a little tricky though:

The cliche was: “The Bible clearly says…” And here’s why Piatt said we should drop it:

First, unless you’re a Biblical scholar who knows the historical and cultural contexts of the scriptures and can read them in their original languages, the Bible isn’t “clear” about much. Yes, we can pick and choose verses that say one thing or another, but by whom was it originally said, and to whom? Cherry-picking scripture to make a point is called proof-texting, and it’s a theological no-no. Second, the Bible can be used to make nearly any point we care to (anyone want to justify slavery?), so let’s not use it as a billy club against each other.

I think this is a good point, but he kinda leaves us wondering what the heck we’re supposed to do if we’re not biblical scholars… which I’m not, so we may need more instruction on how to approach reading the Bible and truly beginning to understand its applicability for our present situations. And obviously, the degree of interpretative difficulty varies from passage to passage — as does perhaps the usefulness and even the authority of different passages for contemporary contexts — but here Peter C. Phan explains what the well-known Brazilian-Catholic theologian Clodovis Boff has said on this front. I’ve copied part of his explanation below. It might seem a little bit technical at first, but I believe its worth reading through:

Clodovis Boff’s Correspondence of Relationship Model for Interpretation of Scripture

As to the process of correlating the Scripture to our social location, Clodovis Boff warns us against two unacceptable common practices which he terms the “gospel/politics model” and the “correspondence of terms model.” The “gospel/politics model” sees the gospel as a code of norms to be directly applied to the present situation. Such application is carried out in a mechanical, automatic, and nondialectical manner; it completely ignores the differences in the historical contexts of each of the two terms of the relationship.

The “correspondence of terms model” sets up two ratios which it regards as mutually equivalent and transfers the sense of the first ratio to the second by a sort of hermeneutical switch. For instance, an attempt is made to establish an equivalency (the equal sign) between the ratio of the first part of terms and that of the second pair of terms: Scripture: its political context; theology of the political: our political context; exodus: enslavement of the Hebrews; liberation: oppression of the poor; Babylon: Israel; captivity: people of Latin America; Jesus: his political context; Christian community: its current political context. Although better than the “gospel/politics model” in so far as it takes into account the historical context of each situation, the “correspondence of terms model” is still unacceptable because it assumes a perfect parallel between the first ratio and the second.

In contrast to these two models, Clodovis Boff proposes what he calls the “correspondence of relationships model” which he claims is in conformity with the practice of the early Church and the Christian communities in general. In schematic form this model looks as follows: Jesus of Nazareth: his context; Christ and Church: context of Church; Church tradition: historical context; ourselves: our context. In reduced form, it looks as follows: Scripture: its context; ourselves: our context.

In this model the Christian communities (represented by the Church, church tradition, and ourselves) seek to apply the gospel to their particular situations. But contrary to the other two models, this model takes both the Bible and the situation to which the Bible is applied in their respective autonomy. It does not identify Jesus with the Church, church tradition, and ourselves on the one hand, nor does it identify Jesus’ context with the context of the Church, the historical context of church tradition, and our context on the other. The equal sign (:) does not refer to the equivalency among the terms of the hermeneutical equation but to the equality among the respective relationships between the pairs of terms. As Boff puts it, “The equal sign refers neither to the oral, nor the textual, nor to the transmitted words of the message, nor even to the situations that correspond to them. It refers to the relationship between them. We are dealing with a relationship of relationships. An identity of senses, then, is not to be sought on the level of context, nor, consequently, on the level of the message as such—but rather on the level of the relationship between context and message on each side [Scripture and ourselves in the reduced schema] respectively.” This focus on the relationship between the terms of each pair and the equivalency among these relationships rather than on a particular text of the Scripture to be applied allows both creative freedom in biblical interpretation (not “hermeneutic positivism”) and basic continuity with the meaning of the Bible (not “improvisation ad libitum”): “The Christian writings offer us not a what, but a how—a manner, a style, a spirit.”

More Fruitful Days

By Bill Walker

On July 7, 2012

In Ethics

I ya man have come to know
The movement looks strong
From reading the scriptures
I know we ain’t wrong, no
Jah Jah people work together
We help out one another
And we ain’t got no time to lose
Must teach the ignorant truth, so

More fruitful days
That is what the people need
More fruitful days, ah yeah

Can’t wait for promises of salvation
It’s time to free our people
With a promise of some dignity
Rise up and heal the situation
Hear you call, yeah, yeah
Rasta people must face our destiny

More fruitful days
That is what the people need
More fruitful days
Time to heal the hurtin’
More fruitful days
Seeking out the righteous
More fruitful days

Them a build their conspiracies
With no justice in sight
You just can’t keep fillin’ up the youth
With all those dirty lies
It’s about healin’ people
Healin’ the people
Healin’ the people

I tell ya straight
If we take the time
You know, we will see
That to tell the youth the truth
Is the only remedy

More fruitful days
That is what we’re fightin’ for
More fruitful days
Time to heal the people
More fruitful days
Seeking out the righteous
More fruitful days
It’s about healin’ people

And mashing down oppression
And rights in this ya nation
And seeking out the righteous
And teachin’ right the children

Precarious Life: On the Invisible and Ungrievable

By Bill Walker

On July 4, 2012

In Ethics

I was shocked, recently, and seriously saddened by humanity’s potential depravity and estrangement from God, as I read the first few pages of Michelle Foucault’s Discipline and Punish, which gives a terribly graphic account of a public torture and execution episode in Paris in the late 18th Century. It just absolutely blew me away to be reminded that soon-to-be, so-called “modern,” “developed,” or in cruder and more ironic terms, “civilized” nation-states used to do this kind of stuff to people – truly indescribable evil that reminds of Ellie Wiesel’s story from Night, which takes place in the Nazi concentration camps of Auschwitz and Buchenwald, when the tragedy is told about a child being hanged while others are forced to watch, and someone asks, “where is God now?” “Here he is,” another replies, “hanging on these gallows.”

If we haven’t felt this anguish at some point – really felt it – and carried for at least a moment the weight of the world in our minds and on our hearts, then I do not think we are prepared to do theology, to be the church, to love and serve others, or, in sum, to live the Christian life. It can and perhaps should bring us to tears and to our knees – for a time. I believe human beings also have potential for great good, but ignoring or being ignorant about the bad is perhaps the fastest way to fail at achieving the good.

But alas, our society does not let us grieve, for it tries so hard to keep suffering invisible – especially the suffering that we as a country have caused others and ourselves in recent times. Foucault makes this argument as well about the function of the prison system, even to the point of saying that the modern life itself is a prison without walls. Out of curiosity, for example, I have listened to a dozen or so sermons in the past year by pastors in a variety of churches, given on September 11, 2011 – the 10-year anniversary of the attacks – and only one of them even thought to mention to Iraqi death count since the U.S. invasion. And in that one case, no further comment was made about it – their sermon was still a reflection on how we must learn to forgive – ten years later mind you, and over 100,000 dead Iraqis later. I’ve expressed my discontents about this elsewhere, so I won’t say anymore here. Rather, as I was preparing to deliver a sermon myself for the weekend before July 4th, I wanted to stress the relationship between the invisible and the ungrievable, as indicated by the title. This important reality was better underscored and uncovered for me by Judith Butler in the following passage which I believe is worth quoting at length to conclude:

Indeed, the graphic photos of U.S. soldiers dead and decapitated in Iraq, and then the photos of children maimed and killed by U.S. bombs, were both refused by the mainstream media, supplanted with footage that always took the aerial view, an aerial view whose perspective is established and maintained by state power. And yet, the moment the bodies executed by the Hussein regime were uncovered, they made it to the front page of the New York Times, since those bodies must be grieved. The outrage over their deaths motivates the war effort, as it moves on to its managerial phase, which differs very little from what is commonly called “an occupation.”

Tragically, it seems that the United States seeks to preempt violence against itself by waging violence first, but the violence it fears is the violence it engenders. I do not mean to suggest by this that the United States is responsible in some causal way for the attacks on its citizens. And I do not exonerate Palestinian suicide bombers, regardless of the terrible conditions that animate their murderous acts. There is, however, some distance to be traveled between living in terrible conditions, suffering serious, even unbearable injuries, and resolving on murderous acts. President Bush traveled that distance quickly, calling for “an end to grief” after a mere ten days of flamboyant mourning. Suffering can yield an experience of humility, of vulnerability, of impressionability and dependence, and these can move us beyond and against the vocation of the paranoid victim who regenerates infinitely the justification for war. It is as much a matter of wrestling ethically with one’s own murderous impulses, impulses that seek to quell an overwhelming fear, as it is a matter of apprehending the suffering of others an taking stock of the suffering one has inflicted.

In the Vietnam War, it was the pictures of the children burning and dying from napalm that brought the U.S. public to a sense of shock, outrage, remorse, and grief. These were precisely pictures we were not supposed to see, and they disrupted the visual field and the entire sense of public identity that was built upon that field. The images furnished a reality, but they also showed a reality that disrupted the hegemonic field of representation itself. Despite their graphic effectiveness, the images pointed somewhere else, beyond themselves, to a life and to a precariousness that they could not show. It was from that apprehension of the precariousness of those lives we destroyed that many U.S. citizens came to develop an important and vital consensus against the war. But if we continue to discount the words that deliver that message to us, and if the media will not run those pictures, and if those lives remain unnameable and ungrievable, if they do not appear in their precariousness and their destruction, we will not be moved.

– from Judith Butler, “Precarious Life,” in Radicalizing Levinas

Strength in Weakness, Riches in Poverty: A Sermon on 2 Corinthians 8:7-15

By Bill Walker

On June 30, 2012

In Sermons

2 Corinthians 8:7-15

8:7 Now as you excel in everything–in faith, in speech, in knowledge,
in utmost eagerness, and in our love for you–so we want you to excel
also in this generous undertaking.
8:8 I do not say this as a command, but I am testing the genuineness
of your love against the earnestness of others.
8:9 For you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that
though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his
poverty you might become rich.
8:10 And in this matter I am giving my advice: it is appropriate for
you who began last year not only to do something but even to desire to
do something–
8:11 now finish doing it, so that your eagerness may be matched by
completing it according to your means.
8:12 For if the eagerness is there, the gift is acceptable according
to what one has–not according to what one does not have.
8:13 I do not mean that there should be relief for others and pressure
on you, but it is a question of a fair balance between
8:14 your present abundance and their need, so that their abundance
may be for your need, in order that there may be a fair balance.
8:15 As it is written, “The one who had much did not have too much,
and the one who had little did not have too little.”

The exercise for us here I think would be to hear these words imagining that we are the Corinthians and Paul is writing to us. I don’t know exactly who the Macedonian churches would be in our case on whose behalf Paul is asking for an offering necessarily, but we can still listen to this letter from Paul as a modern-day encouragement and request to a church like ours to be faithful in the grace of giving, especially since we too have been given so much. Paul’s plea to the church in Corinth in this second letter comes after his summary of the difficulty that the Macedonian churches are in, as well as his description of their attitude toward their situation as one of overflowing joy and rich generosity despite their impoverished condition. They’ve asked for help so that they might also participate more fully in service and ministry to God and to others as a church. Paul then goes on to affirm the church in Corinth for their own excellence in faith, speech, spiritual knowledge, and their intention to be an earnestly and eagerly giving church.

If he were talking to us, he might mention some of the good things we do. In addition to sharing and fairly leasing our building to other churches, we open our doors to anywhere from 25-30 different support and recovery groups during the week. Our apportionment money goes through the United Methodist denomination to disaster relief, theological education or a college scholarship fund for minority students. We also fulfill a mission to the community through Family Promise, the Santa Clarita Food Pantry, Santa Clarita winter homeless Shelter, COSROW and the work with domestic violence, Monday night Tutoring, Military Boxes, the Million Meals Marathon, the Have a Heart to Help Campaign – this is a lot, and we need to remember what all we do and talk about it often so that people know how we give and serve. Paul is a great example of a pastor, teacher, and church leader who comforts the afflicted and distressed people whom he loves, and yet is also not afraid to challenge, strongly urge or even rebuke those same people and churches that he loves when they get too comfortable.

As a church, I think it’s safe to say we’ve had some true successes in the past year and have done very good things (burned mortgage, growing and improving programs, and as the most recent circuit rider announced, we received a matching fund from the district that will go a long way in helping us to make some much needed safety improvements to our property.) Now, it’s a well-known lesson in coaching in sports that oftentimes teams are most vulnerable and susceptible to stumble just after having great success. I remember how good the Oklahoma City Thunder looked after their first game in the NBA finals against the Heat, and yet the Heat went on to win the rest of the games. Or maybe you watched the Stanley Cup when the Kings were up 3-0 against the Devils, and it looked like things were all down hill. It seems this lesson might also be applied to life in general, and to church life in particular. Perhaps it would be good for us then, to hear Paul right now saying to us and cheering us on, “well done friends and fellow followers of Jesus, servants of the Gospel, citizens of God’s Kingdom, but don’t forget what you started and to what you were called!”

I want to take a minute to comment just briefly on the Gospel reading for today as well, which we didn’t look at, but I think this is worthwhile because of how it happens to sort of highlight and illustrate exactly what Paul is saying in 2nd Corinthians I think. In Mark, building on last week’s story about Jesus calming the storm, if you remember, this time he heals a sick woman and raises girl from the dead, two seemingly similar incidents, and they are related, but the woman with the hemorrhage who touches Jesus’s cloak and is healed, is certainly an outcast in society and considered ritually unclean. She is destitute and severely marginalized, forbidden to participate in routine religious ceremonies or worship in the Synagogue/Temple. The young girl, however, appears to be the child of a well-to-do and respected man, Jarius, who is probably connected to higher and inner circles in society, and yet both desperately need Jesus – just as both the Corinthian and Macedonian churches do in Paul’s letter — if the Corinthians are like Jarius and the Macedonians are like the sick, outcast woman. It is as if Mark says, by sandwiching these two stories together, worldly favor does not guarantee true security; nor does a lack of it keep us from God’s mercy and love in the face of suffering and death. God’s favor and healing is with both of them. Jesus meets both of them right where they are.

Which gets back to Paul and the parallel he draws between what God does in Jesus and what we are called to in return to do as a church. It reads: “8:9 For you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich.” I entitled the sermon: “Strength in Weakness,” or “Wealth in Poverty,” which is a lot like Paul’s words in 1st Corinthians, chapter one, when he says in verse 27, “God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong.” Upon hearing these words, maybe the famous Philippians 2 hymn comes to mind which I think is worth reading: Paul says:

3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in
humility value others above yourselves, 4 not looking to your own
interests but each of you to the interests of the others.
5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as
Christ Jesus: For though being in very nature God, he did not
consider equality with God something to be grasped [or used to his own
advantage],

7 rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!

This is a theologically dense hymn, for one thing. It tells us about the incarnation — how God is with us, that is, how Jesus has the authority of God, shares God’s nature, and yet fully embraces the challenges and trials of human existence. This is Paul’s central thesis: that God in Christ becomes poor for our sake and we are to do the same for the sake of others — individually and collectively! But several other themes follow, if you notice. First, Not giving out of coercion but out of joy, willingness, eagerness, and sincerity. Secondly, Giving what one is able… that’s a bit vague though isn’t it. It all depends on what is meant by “able”, right? I mean if you don’t have a million dollars, you can’t give a million dollars. I’m reminded of a quote by C.S. Lewis on this matter. he says, “I do not believe one can settle how much we ought to give. I am afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare.”

So focusing now on the church specifically since that is what Paul was doing, what does this giving mean for us? Well, remember we’re saying strength in weakness, wealth in poverty, and so forth, but poverty here is also kind of ambiguous. Does poverty mean, oh there aren’t enough people in attendance on Sunday giving enough money to pay our bills? That might be a bit too shallow of an understanding of poverty. Instead I suggest we conceive of poverty in terms of a willingness to engage the poor, work with them, not just for them — embracing poverty itself in some sense, whether that’s through giving or better yet just investing in and serving alongside of those who are poor, dignifying them as fellow human beings.

But giving is still good, and the way that Paul is envisioning the Corinthians church is more like that of a living body – a unit – than as a building, and this has powerful implications for how we think of ourselves too. Instead of thinking about church as something separate from ourselves that we give to, which is kind of the conventional assumption, doesn’t it make more sense, and isn’t it more biblical to imagine that we, together as a church, give to others. The tithe takes on a whole new meaning in this case. One United Methodist Church I know of in Austin, TX, embraced this and took it to another level by challenging themselves to strategically work toward being able to give half of what they take in away each year to other ministries and other needs in the community and abroad.

Going beyond mere giving though, here’s another kind of example: The Jewish philosopher Maimonides said that the highest form of giving is to lend someone money with zero interest, to let them learn how to fish, so to speak, to create a job or small business for themselves, perhaps. This past week Whitney and I had the opportunity to attend a KIVA CITY Los Angeles launch party. KIVA is an organization that facilitates the lending of micro-finance loans directly between lenders and borrowers. You can create your own profile and send capital directly to people all over the world, but now they’re expanding even into U.S. cities like LA. One way we could participate in this amazing work is to allocate a substantial portion of our savings toward these kind of loans, rather than having it sit in a bank account earning low interest anyway — or in the stock market, where who knows what could happen… This is not to say we shouldn’t have savings or stock, necessarily — I have both. Rather it is one small way to remind ourselves to try and find our security in God rather than in money — and to invest in the Kingdom of God instead of the Kingdom of the invisible hand, free market, eternal growth and prosperity, etc…

Getting back finally to third point that Paul makes in the letter — and this is especially important if what I’ve said so far is a little bit overwhelming: Paul’s not interested in overly-burdening the Corinthians by asking them to give; rather he’s concerned about what he calls fair balance, or equality. And he mentions this twice — which is yet another sort of point of tension, because we’ve already been talking about strength in weakness and wealth in poverty, so we have to keep equality in mind as well. In other words, we’re not trying to just make ourselves totally poor and helpless. It’s just as much about attitude, which is why Paul says in Philippians 2 Jesus humbled himself and become obedient to God. Ok.

The goal is not to reluctantly consent or to be coerced but to eagerly and earnestly desire to find the strength in weakness and richness in poverty that comes from emptying ourselves and being filled with the law of the Spirit, which is love. We live by a different script, if you like, one that subverts the dominant narrative of consumerism and militarism, of fear about insecurity. We practice this by imitating Christ in our thinking and interacting with others. This requires giving up our desire for control, for approval and affection, and for security.

It is a life-long practice and spiritual discipline with no easy solutions, in the context of Christian community, in which we are empowered to let go of what some have called our emotional programs for happiness, our mechanical, false-self, and begin to more consistently live out of a place of authentic existence, in which we serve God rather than our own ego. This enables us to step out into the peace and freedom, giving us the courage to take risks for God. This peace and freedom also releases us from the urges to over-identify with certain ideas, groups, sports teams, political parties, national pride — and to find instead our deepest and truest sense of identity as children of God. This is where real power and strength in weaknesses is found. By impoverishing that which runs contrary to the will of God, we can in turn be enriched by what brings fullness of life — the strength and riches that come from God in our giving, even in weakness and poverty. Amen.

Acts 4 Sermon: "The Unfinished Story"

By Bill Walker

On May 31, 2012

In Sermons

Call to Worship

Creator of the universe,
you made the world in beauty,
and restore all things in glory
through the victory of Jesus Christ.
We pray that, wherever your image is still disfigured
by poverty, sickness, selfishness, war and greed,
the new creation in Jesus Christ may appear in justice, love, and peace,
to the glory of your name. Amen.

Intercessory

O God, your Son remained with his disciples after his resurrection,
teaching them to love all people as neighbors.
As his disciples in this age,
we offer our prayers on behalf of the universe
in which we are privileged to live
and our neighbors with whom we share it.

Prayers of the People, concluding with:

Open our hearts to your power moving
around us and between us and within us,
until your glory is revealed in our love of both friend and enemy,
in communities transformed by justice and compassion,
and in the healing of all that is broken. Amen.

Scripture

Light of the world,
shine upon us
and disperse the clouds of our selfishness,
that we may reflect the power of the resurrection
in our life together. Amen.

Centering Prayer:

Again, Lord Jesus Christ, we face the power of avarice.
Against the torrent of oblivion, we plead the blood of Jesus.
When we worry about survival and grasp for false security, remind us of the boy who shared his meal so you could feed the multitudes.
When we are tempted to store up treasure in savings accounts, help us to make eternal investments in your kingdom and trust your economy of love.
When we wonder who will care for us when we are old, give us elders to love and young friends to mentor in your way of abundant life.
Deliver us from avarice, that we might know the love that casts out fear and receive the gift of your provision through another’s hand.

The Believers Share Their Possessions: Acts 4

32 All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had. 33 With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all 34 that there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales 35 and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need.

“[O]nly if the form of Christ can be lived out in the community of the church is the confession of the church true; only if Christ can be practiced is Jesus Lord. No matter how often the subsequent history of the church belied this confession, it is this presence within time of an eschatological and divine peace, really incarnate in the person of Jesus and forever imparted to the body of Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, that remains the very essence of the church’s evangelical appeal to the world at large, and of the salvation it proclaims.” – David Bentley Hart

Let me share this devotional with you that I read this week:

THE CONTRAST BETWEEN early Church faith and Western contemporary “Christianity/Church-ianity” should amaze us. We have distanced ourselves so far from the Scriptures that we do not bear much resemblance to the first followers of Christ. Jesus’ first generation of devotees turned their world upside-down with their courage and sacrifice.

“Church-ianity” (or Christian culture) is when we get bored with God, and our life with Him is no longer dynamic and living. It’s going through the motions. It’s our limited vision. It’s our busyness with the unessential.

God’s activity amazes, astounds. It stirs passions worthy of life … or death. Are we looking for this kind of work? Or are we content with a pre-packaged, pre-digested church-ianity? These are mere shadows of what God wants to do in us.

To have a dynamic relationship with God is not a quick-fix program or formula. It’s a time-consuming process. It’s the constant plea: “God, there must be more about You, and there must be more about me!”
________________________________________
I entitled this sermon “the unfinished story” because, especially with just having celebrated Easter, it seems appropriate to ask, what now? Or what comes next? This passage in Acts, I believe, invites us to think of ourselves, as Christians, as the minor characters in a bigger story, on the stage of God’s drama, in which we’ve been asked to play a part – not as mere passive agents, but dynamic contributors to and co-creators of a new future that has yet to arrive, but that has been promised and definitively foreshadowed in the Event of Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection and that has been now inaugurated in the on-going communion of the Church. And we, as his followers, are the recipients of the instruction to be on a mission. This mission is God’s, first and foremost. God is the protagonist in the narrative, but we have a significant supporting role, I want to say – not in our salvation, individually, but in the remaking and healing of the world –a world that may even be literally on the path to destruction in a not-so-far off future. I think we actually capture this mission fairly well in our vision statement, which you all have their on your bulletin, and it reads:

“Because we choose to follow Jesus Christ, we gather together to nurture and empower each other, so that we can go into the community as the love of God.”

Where there is no vision/mission, the people perish, he said, quoting Proverbs 29:18. But we have a good vision/mission I want to say. But just having it written on our bulletin doesn’t make it happen.

We as the church are writing and enacting an unfinished story under Jesus’s lordship for the sake of the world. We proclaim the good news of his incarnation, life, death, and resurrection in our whole lives – not just on Easter or on Sunday – and not – especially not! – just in this building. We have a mission to lead – a mission of Jesus followership and reconciliation. And we are all ministers in this work of reconciliation in fact – as Paul tells us in 2 Cor 5.

We have a lot of activities at our church. As one who tries to get youth events on the calendar from time to time, I quickly learned this. And many of our activities are good. And we of course have other churches meeting here too which is I think a wonderful thing. In doing many of these activities though, I just have this sense, that sometimes we miss the first clause of that mission statement, by getting a little distracted by the second gathering part. And if we look at that first clause, it’s easy to assume it, not talk about it as much. And yet EVERYTHING stems from it. Our activities and practices are a means to an end – namely, to testimony and transformation.

Last week we rejoiced in the hope offered by the resurrection and the new life it brings. I thought it was beautiful service. We talked about living into the love of God and seeing the power of the resurrection in our own lives. And this is a majorly important dimension to the Christian story – hope – hope and encouragement that because of God in Christ, death is not the last word, and we need not fear. This particular aspect of Easter though is primarily about that what we receive from God – that is, the promise of abundant life. We’ll call this the first dimension. We should also talk about how this promise is received from God, and what the response to receiving it should be. See there at least two other dimensions to the life of the church and to discipleship, that are pronounced and declared by the Gospel, both of which become especially noticeable in the book of Acts, and our text this morning points this out.

Repentance and belief correspond respectively, in other words, to the crucifixion and resurrection.

2nd dimension: The crucifixion in Luke-Acts, while having a variety of meanings, is a matter of convicting people of sin – people are being called to repent. The severity and offensiveness of sin is taken very seriously, which is something we should remember. The cross reveals the horror of what happens when people and governments seek their own way rather than that of God. That human beings could crucify each other – that’s about as bad as sin gets – it’s the worst of what happens when people oppress, dehumanize and dominate each other. The Romans achieved this. Add to the mix, misplaced religious zeal on the part of the Pharisees, and there you have it – the ultimate tragedy, and Jesus suffers the consequences of it – of both individual and social sin – something I mentioned the last time spoke at Sunday service. And we’re gonna discuss this more by the way tonight at Overflow – sin and its ugliness, contrasted with the beauty of godliness.

3rd dimension: The resurrection, on the other side: the testimony of the risen Lord is God’s validation of Jesus and give rise to the life and rhythm of the early church that we see in Acts. The resurrection animates, energizes and informs a new way of being in the world – for the sake of the world, and for each other, rather than for ourselves.

By it we know that Jesus is still incarnate in the world, in the body of Christ we call the church, made up of his disciples; and as the church, we are commissioned to be a sign, witness, and foretaste of God’s dream for creation. That is our occupation, which should lead us to ask the question: when our neighbors see us meeting here, and if they were to come in and watch or hear about what we do, would they see Jesus and the good news he brings to the brokenhearted and our hurting world? Would they get a feel for our hunger after justice? Would they notice that we’re living on mission?

Luke is signaling strong continuity between the life of the church and Jesus’s own ministry. Of course the God of Israel is the one that constitutes this continuity through the sending of the Spirit, which we’ll commemorate on Pentecost Sunday, but that Spirit of the Lord is here now. As was mentioned last week, the resurrection is indeed a victory, but it is also a new beginning. It’s everlasting while also leaving room for real possibility. There is a role for us. The story is unfinished. With the Spirit as our guide, with this picture from the early church as an example to follow, and with the commission from the resurrected Jesus as our inspiration, we get to write a new chapter in the story. And what does a story consist of? Conflict, Struggle – maybe even an uncertain resolution.

There is power in the new life of the believing community – a power that fuels our story – the kind of power that Jesus had in mind when he said, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another (Jn 13:35).

“As the Father has sent me, I am sending you” (17:18). The mission of the church grows out of the mission of Christ. Again, It is a continuation of what God purposed when God sent Christ on the mission of redemption. As he went, so also do we go. His mission determines the mission of the church and provides it with direction and motivation.

Which should lead us to ask further still, where was Jesus going? We don’t like to talk about this part, because he was going to the cross. Yes, the way of negation is being overcome, but the story lives on, and as disciples, we’re still summoned to die to ourselves, to pick up our crosses, and follow him. This is not just a message of consolation. Jesus didn’t just die to give you eternal security. He died so that you could live as he did without fear about a lack of eternal security. See sometimes, Church members aren’t interested in missional Christianity; that is, being sent out into the world to be salt and light. They want safety, not challenge; certainty, not risk.

To finish up here and to concretize this somewhat, I just want to mention a few of the key features or attributes of the early church and talk about two of them that – despite being a far-removed from our present-day situation – can nonetheless teach us a timeless lesson. And we shouldn’t romanticize the early church either – they had their problems too, but there’s a reason why Luke is telling us about these believers. It’s because they continued what Jesus started.

One of the marks of the church with unfinished story is :

Unity – not uniformity – churches can have unified identity and purpose while also celebrating diversity. cooperative, not competing. Interdependent, not self-sufficient. Communal, not individualistic (it’s a privilege!). Notice how much these values contrast the values of mainstream culture.

The slogan wasn’t God helps those who help themselves. That’s the slogan of the American dream. Does it look like the early Christians were concerned about accumulating wealth or securing their retirement? They found the strength in each other, and this what made them salty and luminous to the world around them. They weren’t trying to appeal and attract people, and yet they did appeal to and attract people, by being counter-cultural – not irrelevant to or removed from culture – notice the difference.

Unity also takes simplicity.

Simplicity – Some of you are going through the book by Adam Hamilton right now I think, on this subject, it’s funny, my uncle is a pastor in Texas, and he too is publishing a book with this same title in a couple of months.

simply put, simplicity is about removing excess wants, sticking to needs, and focusing on just the couple of things – not very many – that are most important in life. Certainly simplicity implies not leaving beyond one’s means, but it’s much more than that. Simplicity in the Christian sense, involves humility and kenosis, not just in attitude, but in materiality as well.

The church is called to have solidarity, in the same way that Christ did, with the lowly, and this is hard to do if you’re always living from a privileged place, economically and geographically speaking. Which is not to say there’s can’t be justice in suburbs, but we need to explore and think more about what this might look like.

Generosity – This one really need to reframed for us. Again, though, keeping it simple, generosity is not primarily about what how we as individuals between Monday and Saturday are giving treating other people and taking care of the poor in this case, in Acts – though that can be part of it – nor – and this is the important point – is about giving to the church. This talk kind of drives me crazy to be honest. We are not giving to the church. As this picture in Acts 4 perfectly illustrates. We are the church.

Theologically, the early believers considered themselves the righteous remnant within Israel. So Deuteronomy 15:4 would have been in their minds: “There should be no poor among you, for in the land the Lord your God is giving you to possess as your inheritance, he will richly bless you.”
____________________________________________________________________________

In closing, by affirming the resurrection now (not at the end of time), we as a church with an unfinished story are inviting people everywhere to join Jesus in his on-going mission of making all things new.

As Brian McLaren reminded this week on his blog, “It is good and right to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus on Easter morning, but even better and greater to choose to affiliate with it . . . so we can wholeheartedly participate in it and with it, so that resurrection keeps spreading until everything is healed and everything is new and all is well and all manner of things are well.”