The Full Gospel Anthem

by Jim McCoy

In Jesus Christ we have faith in the incarnate, crucified and risen God. In the incarnation we learn of the love of God for His creation; in the crucifixion we learn of the judgment of God upon all flesh; and in the resurrection we learn of God’s will for a new world. There could be no greater error than to tear these elements apart; for each of them comprises the whole. - Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Ethics

That early evening in Dillsboro was the kind that makes Smokey Mountain summer dusks famous. It was 1974 and I was singing with a resort ministry group. We had just finished an unforgettable feast of trout and country ham at the Jarrett House. Now the little church across the street was pleasantly filled to hear us. The evening could not have been more perfect.

We sang about the goodness of God and the beauty of God’s creation, about understanding ourselves to be persons of worth created in God’s image, and the wonder, mystery and gratitude such a perspective brings. The group’s rich, well-rehearsed harmonies conveyed these truths beautifully. Those in the audience smiled their approval as we sat down, everyone pleased that our message had gotten across.

The pastor stood up and announced that a touring choir from a Florida orphanage was at a service station next door. They were headed for Asheville, but their bus had broken down and could not be repaired until morning. The church folk responded immediately to the pastor’s request for the choir to sleep in the church and invited the children to present their program right then and there.

The 50 young people lit into a high-voltage program conducted by the large, red-faced director of the orphanage. They sang about the wiles of the devil, of the terrible wickedness in the world and of the rewards waiting for us in heaven. Between the songs, individual choir members spoke in graphic detail of the shocking abuse that had been inflicted on them. Through their sobs and heaves they cried that Jesus was coming soon to take us away from this hellhole of a world.

I’ll bet I wasn’t the only one who left Dillsboro that night deeply troubled over the diametrically opposed messages. Yes, economic station and life experiences affect our understanding, but is our faith in Christ that precariously relative?

That’s not a bad post-modern question to keep asking ourselves. But today, more than 30 years later, I’m struck by how these two experiences need each other to mutually deepen and correct. To avoid life’s harsh, raw side with its terrifying evil results in self-indulgently shallow religion that focuses on little more than the inner serenity of materially comfortable individuals. If the story of our identity has at its center a crucified God, we cannot avoid the hoary reality and language of sin and redemption. But to dwell only of life’s gross and sinister evil dulls one to the gentle, abundant gifts that arrive daily from an extravagant God who sends rain on the just and the unjust.

We cannot tear these elements apart. Somehow the resort ministry team and the orphanage choir must sing in harmony in order for the full anthem of the Gospel to resound. To do so, though, yet another note must be sounded.

Both summer dusk beauty and midnight abuse can ignore the staggering news that the re-creative power of God has already broken into the present time. Jesus’ life, death and resurrection are the dawning of a new creation. “When anyone is united to Christ, there is a whole new world (II Cor. 5:17, NEB). When we walk in the light of the resurrection, we give witness to the God whose love has invaded a fallen creation and who will bring to completion the redemption already begun.

Karl Barth says that the Gospel “is not a romantic report about awareness of God in nature.” Neither is it “a set of pious or moral maxims designed to straighten out the world” nor “a legalistic lament about the meanness of human nature.” Rather, “the Gospel is constituted by the mighty acts of God in history for the liberation of the cosmos.”

That’s a Song for all of us to sing!

(Originally published Tuesday, May 13, 2008)

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Beautiful Day

by Debra Dean Murphy
Today is a beautiful spring day in central North Carolina. The summer heat and humidity that will oppress us for weeks on end is not yet upon us. Recent rains have made everything green and lush. The azaleas are past their prime but the camellias are in top form.

It’s a beautiful day. It’s also the day that voters go to the polls to decide local, state, and national primary contests. Holding our primary as we do in the month of May, we’re not used to mattering much on the national scene. Party nominees are usually firmed up long before now. But you know that your state counts when the former President of the United States visits places like Louisburg, Lenoir, Elizabeth City, and my humble town of Apex.

But there’s a downside to all this attention (isn’t there always?). To matter this late in the process is also to experience the worst that politics can become. Instead of appealing to our better selves, the campaigns now exploit our baser instincts: our suspicion of difference—religious differences, especially and our vague, unarticulated fear of the other. And they encourage perhaps our worst tendency as the myopic Americans we are: we look at the global situation around us (politically, economically, socially) and end up feeling most sorry for ourselves.

All of this poses problems for Christians who want to be engaged in this historic election, since we believe that the Christian life is not about seeking our own security but about denying our comfort for the sake of those who suffer; that is, for the sake of Christ in the world.

It’s a beautiful day here in North Carolina. But it’s not so lovely in Myanmar today, where the level of death and destruction staggers the mind. You’d hardly know this, though, from the stingy coverage by the election-obsessed media. We’re having fun in the Tar Heel state, secretly thrilled to be in the national spotlight for a day, but people in places like Sudan, Iraq, Zimbabwe, and Congo (to name just a few) are not having a very good time.

(Originally published Tuesday, May 6, 2008)

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Should I Stay or Should I Go?

by Jessie Shuman Larkins
When I read the Ascension texts for today (or this upcoming Sunday if you are in a Protestant tradition that celebrates the Ascension on the following Sunday), my tendency is to immediately jump to the conclusion of Luke’s report in Acts 1 when the angels appear to ask the disciples: “Why do you stand looking up at heaven?” I hear in this question an affirmation of my own need for action—the angels are telling those disciples to get on with it already. There is work to be done witnessing, proclaiming, releasing the captives, caring for the sick, and forgiving enemies, among other things!

We disciples have been charged with Kingdom work and we certainly aren’t going to accomplish it if we stand around with our heads in the clouds. I think of the Johnny Cash song whose lyrics critique its subject for being: “So heavenly-minded that you are no earthly good.” Don’t we so often allow ourselves to become pre-occupied with the “things of heaven” that we miss the opportunity to witness to the Kingdom of God on earth?

Many of us (pastors and laypersons alike) who maintain an ungodly level of busyness in our lives find that we justify many of our “doings” because they are “church things” without ever considering that much of our church activity might yet be lazy cloud-gazing and in-action. Looking at my own calendar, I cringe at the thought of adding “witnessing to the Kingdom of God through acts of justice and peace” to the already growing number of committee meetings and church activities.

Re-reading the Ascension texts, however, I discovered what is perhaps my (and my congregation’s) problem—it is those convicting little words “stay” and “wait.” We are guilty of jumping on the church band-wagon very quickly, assuming that whatever idea or activity is cooked up at church must be God-ordained and worthy of our time and attention simply because it is church and we are a heaven-bound people.

Do we ever, though, sit with our ideas and activities long enough to discern whether or not they are filled with the power of the Spirit OR whether or not they do truly witness to the Kingdom of God (as opposed to witnessing to our ability to plan events and sit in meetings)? I confess that I too often rush through my prayer time because I’ve got “things to do.”

Perhaps my best witness to the Kingdom is not in the doing but in actually taking my Sabbath day when it comes. Perhaps my congregation would discern with a bit of time in prayer (not the kind of prayer that asks God to ordain what we’ve already decided to do or the prayers we rush through in order to begin a meeting) that some of our events and activities do not point us or our neighbors towards the Reign of Christ.

Yes, we are a people called to action. We are a people that are called to go to the world with the good news of Jesus’ death, resurrection, and coming return in glory to eradicate the power of sin and death. Yes, we are called to get our heads out of the clouds and out into the streets where Christ’s reign is most powerfully proclaimed.

Yet, in all our action we must realize that it is action that is effective only when it is Holy Spirit inspired and charged by the power of God. The Kingdom to which we witness (not create) is God’s Kingdom and will not come about by our power. In all of our itchiness to get out into the world and “do,” perhaps the lesson of this Ascension/Pentecost week is hidden in those short little words, “stay” and “wait.”

(Originally published Thursday, May 1, 2008)

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Benedict and Jeremiah

by Debra Dean Murphy
Two very public, very controversial religious leaders have addressed the nation in as many weeks and the differences between them couldn’t be more striking. Pope Benedict, during his stateside visit earlier this month, spoke the truth about American Catholicism with equal parts commendation and critique. His humility and shy grace were evident in his speeches and sermons and in his carriage and demeanor (all of which was a little disconcerting to those who remember when his public persona—fair or not—was that of the rigid, humorless Cardinal Ratzinger).

Jeremiah Wright, on the other hand, has come out swinging. In a series of increasingly hostile speeches he has assumed the pose of the put-upon, the tragically misunderstood. At first he had a point: reducing thirty years of sermons to thirty seconds of incendiary sound bites was irresponsible and misleading and did serious damage to Wright himself, to Barack Obama’s presidential aspirations, and to the (multivalent) tradition of black preaching in America.

But now it’s hard to see much Christ-like grace and forbearance in Wright’s public bitterness and defensiveness. The Christian’s call to absorb the abuse of others is, of course, hard to practice in a culture shaped more by the raw lust for revenge than by the desire for reconciliation. But such a call is no less necessary for being difficult.

I think of Bonhoeffer’s insistence in Life Together on the “discipline of the tongue”: the skill, learned and perfected in Christian community, of knowing when to speak and when to stay silent. While the political pundits and TV talking heads will be preoccupied for awhile with the electoral implications of Wright’s recent words and actions (no silence from that crowd, alas), Christians have a unique opportunity to think deeply and talk honestly about what it means to practice the “ministry of bearing” (Bonhoeffer): to forgo the temptation toward self-preservation, and to practice instead the kind of suffering joy found only in bearing the cross of Christ.

(Originally published Tuesday, April 29, 2008)

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How Can We Know the Way?

by Erin Martin
It’s become our routine. No sooner have I strapped my two year-old son, Elijah, into his car seat and started driving us on our way than my son pipes up from the back seat, “Hey mom, where are we going?” I always answer him very clearly. “We are going to the grocery store,” I say, or “We are going to the library.” To which Elijah always responds, “Hey mom, where are we going?” This kind of back and forth, repetitious toddler-talk used to frustrate me until it finally dawned on me that it was not as if Elijah hadn’t heard me or hadn’t understood me. Instead, like a child needs to do, Elijah needed to ask his question more than he needed to hear me give him an answer.

I think about my two year-old son when I read Sunday’s Gospel lesson.

Jesus is saying good-bye to his disciples, telling them exactly where he is going. He says to them, “In my Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to myself so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the place where I am going.” To which the disciples seemingly respond, “Hey, Lord, where are you going?” Thomas goes so far as to say to Jesus, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Considering that Jesus has just told the disciples that he is going to the Father, I wonder if this kind of repetitious “toddler-talk” didn’t frustrate Jesus so that he felt he had to repeat himself using the plainest terms knew how to use. “How can you know the way? I am the way, the truth, the life…” Like my son, I have to believe that the disciples heard Jesus. They probably even understood him. I just think they needed to ask their questions more than they needed to hear Jesus give them answers, and that is not necessarily a bad thing.

Isn’t that what Christian discipleship is, a life-long process of asking questions in the context of a community of believers where we question one another, “Where are we going? How can we know the way?” Recently, a gentleman who has been regularly visiting my congregation as a Methodist himself stopped me one Sunday after church. He had seen on our projection screen that the mission of the United Methodist Church is to “make disciples of Jesus Christ.” This gentleman said to me that morning, “I don’t think the mission of the United Methodist Church should be to make disciples of Jesus Christ. I think the mission of the United Methodist Church should be to become disciples of Jesus Christ.” I was immediately defensive. I thought to myself, “doesn’t he know that our mission is the Great Commission from Matthew 28!” Thankfully, I stopped myself and thought instead, “He is right.” The making of disciples only happens in our own becoming disciples first. Christian discipleship is an on-going process of our own becoming. We ought to always be asking one another, where are we going? How can we know the Way?

In his remarkable book, Jesus For President, Shane Claiborne includes an excerpt from a letter written from Aristides the Athenian to the Roman Emperor in 137 A.D. In the letter, it is clear that the early disciples understood the Christian life as a process of becoming, a process of devoting themselves to the Jesus Way. In taking on particular practices, the early Christians set themselves apart from life in the Empire. In this way, the Christian Way was remarkable. In his letter, Artistides writes:

It is the Christians, O Emperor, who have sought and found the truth, for they acknowledge God. They do not keep for themselves the goods entrusted to them. They do not covet what belongs to others. They show love to their neighbors. They do not do to another what they would not wish to have done to themselves. They speak gently to those who oppress them, and in this way they make themselves friends. It has become their passion to do good to their enemies. They live in the awareness of their smallness. Every one of them who has anything gives ungrudgingly to the one who has nothing. If they see a traveling stranger, they bring him under their roof. They rejoice over him as over a real brother…If they hear that one of them is imprisoned or oppressed for the sake of Christ, they take care of all his needs. If possible they set him free. If anyone among them is poor or comes into want while they themselves have nothing to spare, they fast two or three days for him. In this way they can supply any poor man with the food he needs. This, O Emperor, is the rule of life of the Christians, and this is their manner of life.

Over the centuries we have wandered quite a ways away from this Way. Finding our way back again begins in the asking of the question, “Lord, how can we know the way?”

(Originally published Sunday, April 20, 2008)

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Prayer Pet Peeves

by Debra Dean Murphy
Working, as I do, in low-church Methodism in the South, I’m called upon regularly, in a variety of contexts, to offer extemporaneous prayers. I also frequently hear others—both clergy and laity— pray “on the fly.”

Extemporaneous prayers can be as varied in substance and style as those who offer them, but I have to say that the longer I am in this setting where extemporaneous prayers are valued as “authentic” and “heart-felt,” while historic, liturgical, or other written prayers are subject to suspicion or seen as a crutch for the less articulate (how ridiculous), the more I long to retreat to a corner somewhere, cover my head (and ears), and pray the rosary.

(Praying with beads is a fairly new discipline for me but one that has breathed new life into old habits and assumptions about prayer).

One of the things that is often lost in ad-lib praying is eloquence, by which I don’t mean flowery phrases; there are usually plenty of those. By “eloquence” I mean the basic dictionary definition of the word: the art of using language with aptness; that is, with both intelligence (not cleverness) and with a sense of occasion and purpose.

Which is why, as Stanley Hauerwas once wrote, “the loss of eloquence in prayer is a moral loss.” But try telling that to someone convinced that the language of prayer (and of worship generally) must mimic the culture’s vernacular lest people tune out and turn off.

Why is it that we don’t trust the language of the liturgy—of the historic prayers of the church and of scripture itself—to do its transformative work? Why are we so anxious when we pray not to bore or intimidate—both others and ourselves?

(Originally published Thursday, April 17, 2008)

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