Troubled Spirit

WESTMINSTER PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
May 31st 2009
Pentecost Sunday
Rev. Mark R. Bradshaw-Miller
“Troubled Spirit”
Acts 2:1-11

At the very heart of Pentecost is the notion that God intends for the Church of Jesus Christ is called to be inclusive. Gathered in worship that day were folks for many different nationalities who spoke many different languages. The good news, on that day was heard in the mother tongue of each person gathered. There is no national language in the household of God. Today when we hear this we take it for granted, at least in theory. But in practice the history of the church has struggled with the realities of Pentecost.
What happens on this day is not the end of the story or the struggle, it is only the beginning. From the moment the Spirit of God shows up, trouble is brewing. The response to the “good news” on this day is that the people must have been drinking early and often. As the story of Acts develops, the response to the “good news” is to imprison and kill the messengers. In fact, the rest of the story is the chronicling of the struggle between those who have been in charge and these new people who are sharing the “good news.” It is a struggle between; clinging to the status quo, and a willingness to be open to the troubling Spirit of God.
The celebration of Pentecost is not a day for the traditionalists. For those who follow ritual law or who are well schooled in the established order, this is not a day of good news. The noise of so many different languages sounded like a rowdy bar. So the traditionalist responds by excluding the customs and practices of these new and different folks. It is not that tradition is wrong, in fact, the work of the “good news” is always tied to the tradition of God’s liberating action. But those who did not welcome these outsiders for who they were, the faith community who rejected the loud disruptive folks are part of a tradition which is now dead.
What I mean is that when the institutional faith community was confronted with the reality of really including outsiders, they decided the Spirit could not have meant for this to happen. The resistance from the insiders focused on ritual purity, worship style and types of food eaten at the church dinners. I am not making this up, consider the council of Jerusalem. Paul, Peter and the council join together to figure out what to about the new people that God had brought into their midst. It was not that the established leaders did not want to welcome the new folks, they just demanded that they act, and eat, and become like themselves. From Paul’s perspective, this denied the reality of Pentecost. At the end of the council the final decision was that the new people would have to have their own community to do things their way and the long term folks would have their own community to keep traditions pure. It was the first major rejection of the Spirit, but it would not be the last. The followers who rejected these outsiders cease to exist after a few years. It leads me to conclude that Spirit of God may be rejected, but the results are not promising.
While the arguments which brought about the council of Jerusalem are ancient history, the struggle is not. While we are no longer a faith community which excludes people based on race, we are not the fully inclusive church envisioned at Pentecost. I say this because given the ways of the Spirit, we never arrive. Instead, we simply try and keep up with the new ways the Sprit is at work. Or we end up clinging to the newest form of tradition because we like the certainty and security it provides at least in the short run.
But, I do know this: the Spirit is at work right here, right now. Let me tell you how I know. Those of us gathered right here are a group of folks the world says do not belong together. In a world where there are churches for white folks and churches for black folks, churches for rich and churches for poor, churches for educated and churches for uneducated, and churches for democrats and churches for republicans, we are a church where folks for all walks of life gather to worship and serve together and that tells me the Spirit is up to something. Do not get me wrong, we still struggle with the same thing our brothers and sisters at Pentecost, who first came in contact with the Spirit. We struggle to overcome our comfort with status quo and our ability to interpret the work of the Spirit. But in our journey to be faithful we have an important witness. We are here brought together by the Holy Spirit to proclaim the good news that God welcomes all people, including us! Everything else is just details – our committee work, our mission work, our worship must flow from this good news story.
The book of Acts could really be called the Gospel of the Holy Spirit. But when the Spirit is at work proclaiming the “good news,” the response is less than positive. The reaction against the good news comes from the surrounding culture as well as the established faith community. Rejection from all sides makes the work of evangelism seem less than exciting. So how this is all supposed to be good news? It is good news because the troubling Spirit marks an end to certainty around our established way of doing things, and replaces it with a certainty based in God alone.
The bottom line is that the church of God is called to be an inclusive, affirming and welcoming place for all people. Our bottom line is not custom or tradition or personal preference or institutional security. The bottom line is the powerful capacity of the one God; the Creator of all, the giver of life even to the dead, who brings a newness that meant, and means, jubilee for all people. Sometimes it helps to make it plain so let me do that. What this day of Pentecost means is that the good news is trouble for those of us comfortable with status quo in the institution or too comfortable with our culture. But this troubling spirit also has the power to set us free even from our own captivity to these things. So on this day, let us trust, deeply trust that we too can be set free and trust that the good news is really good. Amen? Amen!

The Folly of Kingship

Ascension Sunday

Rev. Mark R. Bradshaw-Miller

Acts 1:1-11; Ephesians 1:15-23; Luke 24:44-54

(This Sermon was preached from the Balcony)

It has taken me a long time to be fully comfortable celebrating Ascension Sunday. For some of you that may seem like heresy and for others you might just be asking: “What is Ascension Sunday” Or “Why does it matter?” If all goes well, by the time we are finished we will at least attempt to engage these concerns and questions. With that hope, let us start at the beginning.

Today is Ascension Sunday. If you look at the church calendar closely, or if you were at this week’s Presbytery meeting, you will be quick to point out that Ascension Day was actually on Thursday. But since we do not have many Thursday evening services we move the celebration to today. Today’s scriptures we make it abundantly clear that this celebration is a commemoration of the Ascension of Jesus to the right hand of God. In the stain glassed window behind me is a beautiful depiction of this event.

I am standing in the balcony this morning to make sure we spend some time engaged with this beautiful window. The Ascension window is not an attempt by the artist to do an exact rendition of Jesus’ ascension into heaven. If you look closely there are other folks who were not actually present on that day. What were the reasons for this? I cannot speak to the motivations of the artist. However, I do believe that the artist intended to go way beyond a simple retelling the story in order to make a larger theological assertion.

The theological underpinnings of this widow go well beyond reasserting the central tenets of the orthodoxy found in the Apostles Creed. After all, Moses was not present at the ascension but there he is in the upper left corner. So why all the extra people in the picture, what is happening? It has to do with what are known as the enthronement psalms. Part of the theology steeped within this celebration is not only the assertion of the location of Jesus, but that Jesus is also divine. This is why; the patriarchs and matriarchs are included in this picture all worshiping Jesus at the center. On this day we proclaim: “Jesus reigns over all!” Jesus takes his place at the throne and becomes King Jesus.

It is on this point of which I have had some trouble. Not with Jesus as king or divine, but with the ascension itself. On this day, we celebrate Jesus leaving us on our own. Now I know there is the promise of the Holy Spirit, but we should not be so ready to skip over the days in between, the days when we are left on our own. Life has a way of creating followers who are functional agnostics who are at risk of giving lip service to faith. I say this because too often, if we are really honest with one another, we live as if we have been left on our own. As such, we ought to name that so we can come to grips with what living our lives in the absence of Jesus can mean.

Acting in this way, living our lives as if Jesus is some remote figure in history or in heaven, is not something for which I would chastise anyone. The reason for this actually brings us back to this ascension window. But not just this window in fact, my issue is with most images of the ascension. The problem I have is not so much with the doctrine but with the artistic renditions. In most of these windows, the figure of Jesus has little or no expression. When I look toward the face of Jesus all I see is someone who is not particularly interested in me or anything else which is happening. In truth, I find that the Jesus who was revealed to us in scripture and the Jesus ascending into heaven here do not seem to be the same person. The Jesus of scripture cared for the widow and the poor, welcomed tax collectors and sinners and offered compassion in ways the religious community did not. The Jesus I see in most ascension art seems too removed to notice what happens in daily life. So, if I get a choice between the detached Jesus and the Jesus who cared so deeply for us, I am going to go with scripture.

What I mean by this is that today is a day when we need to give ourselves permission to relish in the best of what is meant about the accession. The same Jesus who welcomed outcasts and sinners and offered compassion IS the same Jesus who ascended into heaven. And this doctrine matters, this day matters because it says that the love, justice, welcome for all people, and compassion found in Jesus is at the heart of the God of the universe. Now I know, there has been some distrust in some circles over this day because if feels like we are trying to escape the troubles of the world. But trust me, I do not believe a faithful celebration of this is day is not escapism. Just so long as we do not spend all our days looking up into the heaven’s waiting for Jesus to return. But knowing our community, I know that this is not something for which we are at risk.

Instead, we need to be encouraged to give ourselves permission to look up to the heaven and trust that Jesus is still on the throne. In the midst of our daily struggles; to make ends meet, or to bring some portion of misery to an end, or to humanize soul crushing systems in our city, or to struggle against the despair all throughout our community, we need to be reminded to look up once in a while. By doing this it will help to keep us from finding ourselves in the depths of despair. When all our work may seem in vain, look up! Looking up, at least once a year, reminds us that the ultimate work for justice and righteousness does not depend upon our action alone. Jesus is not remote and distant and uncaring about the suffering of the world and neither are we. This is good news. We are not alone, Jesus is still on the throne, and on this one day we are not only allowed to, but really need to spend some time looking up. We have not been left alone so once in a while, look up and remember who has the last word. By allowing ourselves the comfort of ‘looking up,’ it will only help us ‘keep on, keep’n on” in the mist of the struggle to be faithful. So when despair is knocking at your door: Look Up! When hope seems lost: Look Up! When you don’t know which way to turn or when your work seems in vain: Look Up and remember! Amen? Amen.

Friends of Jesus

"Friends of Jesus" I John 5:1-6; John 15:9-17
Rev. Mark Bradshaw-Miller

Fear and guilt are some of the most popular tools for social control. This is not a new or particularly insightful statement. After all we are well schooled in these tools. From the Cold War song: “Duck and Cover” to the advice to stock up on duct tape, the voices of fear, while sometimes helpful, are prolific and not always what they seem. These truths are as old as human kind but often come into conflict with the teachings of our faith.

Jesus teaches and leads in a different way, a way based on love. And this different way is not about social control but about freedom. Unfortunately, the history of Jesus’ followers shows that we have too often used fear and guilt as tools for institutional enhancement. I do not believe this has happened because we think Jesus is wrong. Instead, the way of being a friend of Jesus, following the way of love, is rather difficult. The simple truth is that to sustain a movement on love is a lot harder than one based fear and guilt.

To hear that Jesus calls us to love one another is so cliché that to say it puts us at risk of not being heard. I think that is why, in the midst of these passages, Jesus changes gears to talk about calling his followers friends. It does not make it an easier teaching, except in our ability to grasp the concept. It is a bit easier to ask how to be Jesus’ friend, than to wrestle with; what it means to love.

We cannot walk away from hearing these passages and not know that God is love. It is also clear that our love of God, or better, the proof of our love for God is how we love God’s children. This too is not news. However, instead of focusing on the commandment to love, followers of Jesus have spent a lot of time deciding who is included in God’s family. In this way we can put a fence around the love of God. From my perspective this is nothing more than a waste of time. But even if we do spend time sorting out the family of God, Jesus makes it clear we are to love our enemies so there is really no way around the commandment to love. But once again, the history of the church is a witness not only to God’s faithfulness, but also to our attempts to figure out ways around the commandment to love. If we want to know the depth of our love for God we can find illumination in those whom we find unlovable. This exercise of defining those we find unlovable is rather difficult and makes the commandment to love an ideal never to be reached. Fortunately, Jesus start’s us out with friendship.

Being a friend of Jesus is about following in the path he set out for us: Forgiveness, inclusion, mercy, and restoring relationships. When Jesus calls the disciples to be his friends, it is a call to follow in this way. To be faithful witnesses, to be friends to the world in the way Jesus has called us to be friends is not easy. That is why we must actually practice. When we gather into community it is an invitation to practice faithful friendship with one another. Doing this means that we will have to move away from the ways that seek to manipulate and control, in other words, away from the tools of guilt and fear. To become friends we are called to practice mercy, love and forgiveness so that when we leave here we will know what to do.

Real friendship, like love, is easier said than done. In fact, I read somewhere that practicing these skills of friendship is harder than mastering the history of Western Philosophy. But this is what we are to be about. Whenever we gather together, for worship, in committees, in our mission work, in all our relationships in this community our highest aim is practicing the ways of friendship. Our focus should be: Mercy, love, and forgiveness. And if we are honest, we will admit that these practices are always necessary whenever two or more people are gathered together. In other words, we will have plenty of opportunity to practice these skills whenever we gather together.

The simple truth is that the work of God’s church, Westminster Church, is about being friends with God and with one another. This is not to be taken overly simplistic. Practicing, mercy, loving one another and forgiving one another are the hardest and most important calling of the friends of Jesus. This is our calling as friends of Jesus, being friends, real friends with one another in this place and throughout our lives. This type of friendship is one which is never satisfied with just scratching the surface. It is a friendship which can support us no matter what we face in life.

As a community of faith we could build our number and grow on the tried and true ways of fear and guilt. Know, I know that we are not particularly practiced in the ways of fear. However, I do know that we Presbyterians can turn the ways of guilt into a fine art. But if we are truly honest, that is not the type of community for which we hunger. It is my hope that today we can repent and then refuse to play theses games and instead seek to follow Jesus. I would much rather be friend’s together, practicing the ways of mercy, inclusion, love and forgiveness. That is the community for which I hunger. What sort of community shall we seek to be? Let us seek to be friends of Jesus. Amen? Amen!

WESTMINSTER PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
May 10th 2009
Sacrament of Baptism
Fifth Sunday of Easter
Rev. Mark R. Bradshaw-Miller
“Prevention from Baptism”
John 15:1-18; Psalm 22:25-31; Acts 8:26-40

This is a joyous day which almost did not happen. In fact, the baptism of our two previous children almost did not happen either. This may come as a surprise but neither Karen nor I were particularly excited about the prospect of baptizing our children. It is a rather long story. But, before any of you get the idea of leveling the charge of heresy, let me explain.
It is a story which has very deep roots, roots which go back all the way to the beginning of the reformation. But instead of giving you a history lesson, I want to share why there was a time when we didn’t want to baptize our children. It was very simple really; we wanted them to be able to make the decision for themselves. We wanted to raise them in the faith, and then at an appropriate time, of their choosing, they would be able to respond to God’s invitation to follow Jesus when they were ready. This is not all that uncommon. Many of our brothers and sisters in the faith choose this path.
For many Presbyterians, infant baptism is simply a given, but I have not always been Presbyterian. I grew up in a church which did not baptize babies. Baptism was administered when a child and the community deemed it was appropriate. Being appropriate meant that a commitment to faith could be made. As I remember it, I asked to be baptized but was told I would have to wait. Shortly thereafter, we left that church and ended up in a Presbyterian church where I was finally baptized at age fourteen. So part of this resistance to baptizing our children came from my past experience. It is what I grew up with and like many others I am at risk of universalizing my experience. In other words, everyone ought to see the world like I do.
I have found that people can get rather passionate about baptism. The arguments or disagreements focus on the way in which the water is administered, from full immersion to sprinkling. They also focus on whether or not it is appropriate to baptism children. Out of custom, Presbyterians have generally gone with babies and sprinkling.
You might imagine that after four years in a Presbyterian seminary my objections to infant baptism would have been overcome. You would be wrong. In fact, to this day, even right now, I believe that we ought to seriously reconsider infant baptism. It may seem a bit late to have this conversation but stay with me before you think I have lost my mind.
At the time of the Reformation one of the arguments between different groups of reformers was over this issue. Those who baptized infants emphasized God’s grace which is not dependent upon human action. Those who would not baptize infants focused on the need to respond to God’s grace. While this explanation is a bit over-simplified, it does get to the heart of the issue. This argument is still alive and well today. But know this; my continual opposition to the baptism of infants has little to do with my choosing sides in this argument. In fact, I believe both sides have merit and fault, particularly when they become so entrenched that they are unwilling to consider the validity and faithfulness of the other side.
So; “Why am I still opposed to infant baptism?” I worry more than anything else, that it has become a social nicety. Something we are supposed to do. It becomes a time when we dress our babies in beautiful gowns, and focus on the cuteness of the baby. Of course, I am not biased. But lost in these moments is something bigger. When a community agrees to baptize a baby, they have promised to take on a great deal of responsibility. And I am opposed to any community not fully prepared and clear about the promises we all make when we witness a baptism.
When Karen and I have brought our children for baptism we have done so with an understanding and expectation that they will be raised by a faithful community seeking to follow Jesus. On the day when we commit our children to baptism we do so acknowledging they are no longer our children alone, but part of a much larger family. A family which would commit to teach them, to love then, and even to give them the occasionally look when necessary. But this is not just about our children; it is about all the children connected with our congregation. It is because of this reason that I both oppose and support infant baptism.
Confused yet? This is what I mean. I know that it does indeed take a village to raise a child. And the village that I want to help raise our children is a community of faith which takes the call to faithfulness and justice and inclusion seriously. So yes, I am opposed to infant baptism when it becomes a function of social convention. But I support infant baptism when the family and community of faith take this responsibility seriously.
In the waters of baptism we are claimed by the promise. But the salvation we have in Jesus is dependent upon our choice of the time and place. While I can talk about my own conversion experiences, I know that my salvation was taken care of on with the empty tomb. Deep in the fabric of our faith is the truth that we have been chosen by God. When we baptize infants, we are reminded that we are not the author of salvation and that we are completely dependent upon God for salvation. It is a powerful reminder that our adoption into the family of God is not something we choose. In a culture deeply wedded to a bootstrap mentality, this is powerfully counter cultural news.
By now you must be thinking: “Ok pastor, it is time for you to get off the fence and choose sides!” The good news is that we do not have to pick one way or another. The arguments around the right way seem a lot less important, and dare I say faithful, than the truth that in baptism we are brought into the family of God, saved by God’s love in Jesus. I believe that to be faithful we need to be less worried about the places of disagreement and more concerned with actually experiencing the Sacrament.
And for those who might have concerns about being faithful to our Presbyterian roots, let me say a couple of things. Within the Book of Order and the confessions, we are free to practice the baptism of infants as well as adults, and we should do both. We can baptism by sprinkling or by immersion, though I believe we should use plenty of water either way. But baptism is never done in private and it is always to be done in community when the scriptures are read and proclaimed. In other words, the way in which this sacrament is practiced is far less important than the need to go into the world and baptize in the name of God.
Being baptized marks us as part of God’s family. It is a sign of our engrafting into the true vine. It too marks us to live the commandment of love, even in the face of hatred. That means we are called to live and share the love of God throughout the world. That also includes the less glamorous ways we are often community. We are called to act in love in our committee work, and in our board meetings, and in our classes and when we head out into our homes and places of work. We are called to love all children as if they were our own, and we are called to love our enemies. Being marked by baptism, however it is administered and whenever it is done, is a much larger calling. Because of the enormity of this gift and calling, is it any wonder that the church throughout the ages has found itself arguing over the details of how instead of the reality of love? It certainly gives me pause. Amen? Amen!