Fasting: Not a Divine Diet Plan

WESTMINSTER PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
March 11, 2012
Third Sunday in Lent
Rev. Mark R. Bradshaw-Miller
“Fasting:  Not a Divine Diet Plan”

            We have been looking at different aspects of Jesus’ teaching from Matthew chapter six. But before Jesus talks about alms-giving, prayer and even fasting, he says this:  “Beware of practicing your piety.”  This passage has long been a rallying cry of the mainline liberal Protestant church.  But the passage is not about practicing your faith or even doing it in front of other people.  The entire teaching is about why someone would practice their faith.  Jesus says, “Beware of practicing your faith to be seen by others.”  In other words, the issue is the intention of our practices.  Jesus is warning about the trouble that can come when faith that is lived out with the hope of praise and recognition or even confrontation, controversy and political advantage.

            It is Jesus’ expectation that his followers will give alms, pray, and even fast.  Fasting is the strange practice which seems remote to many.  It is the one practice with which I find the most resistance.  Often before the words are out of my mouth people begin by saying, I have medical issues, I cannot fast.  Or, what is the point of that anyway?  With an eye toward full disclosure, fasting is one of the spiritual practices with which I have the most difficulty because of both of the reasons I have heard from others.  But instead of focusing on those issues, let me talk about the benefits and reasons why fasting could be a powerful practice for all of us.
            The essence of fasting is this:  Abstaining from something for a period of time to help gain perspective and deeper insight about the most important things in life.  It can be food, but it can also be a great many others things.  It might be watching television, talking on the phone, texting, or surfing the internet.  It certainly can be food and it could also be shopping or even sex.  But the giving up of these things for a period of time is only fasting if YOU choose willingly to do it.  If you are too busy to eat, that is not fasting.  If the money has run out before the end of the month, that is not fasting.  If your cable goes out, that is not fasting.  Or, if you feel compelled to do it simply because I say so, that is not fasting.  Though there is probably little risk of that last one.  Fasting is about stopping to gain perspective.   
            Last week, Flynn Park Elementary school practiced an all-school fast; not for religious reasons, but it was a fast nonetheless.  The fast they observed was “No Screen Week.”  No one was forced or compelled to join in the practice.  The hope was that students and families would use that time to be together more, or get outside and enjoy nature, or to read more, or anything but mindless hours in front of glowing screens.  For a generation being inundated by the glowing screens of phones, televisions, computers, game stations, and many others, it was an opportunity to break from mindless consumption.  From what I understand, the participation rates were extremely high. 
              At this point I could say something like, If a school that works hard not to acknowledge religion can practice fasting a church should be able to get over its resistance to the practice.  And while that could be fun, it would be the antithesis of the practice.  Fasting is not about compulsion any more than it is a magical act that will bring about a particular result.  But it can be a powerful tool that helps us gain perspective on what it most important.  That is why I want to invite you to participate in this practice this week.  But it is only an invitation not a demand or even a passive aggressive way of using guilt to have you participate.  Only you can figure out what you should abstain from for a week.  If it is food, please start slowly, a meal here or a type of food.  Maybe you will take the example of Flynn Park and abstain from screens for the week.
               Whatever you do… use the time you have to stop and reflect on where you are with your life.  Simply replacing one activity for another, that does not allow for reflection, is not fasting either.  So, for the next few moments I am going to invite you into a time of silence for us to reflect on what might make the most impact in our practice of fasting.  If you are drawn to this practice but would like to talk more, or gain a bit more guidance, please reach out to me and I am happy to work through this with you.  May this week be a time of insight and perspective for all of us, as we seek to grow deeper in our faith.  Amen!

      

Alms not Arms

WESTMINSTER PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
March 11, 2012
Third Sunday in Lent
Rev. Mark R. Bradshaw-Miller
John 2:13-22; Matthew 6:2-4
“Alms not Arms”

On January 17, 1961 – fifty-one years ago -- President Eisenhower gave a farewell address to the nation.  In that address the President talked about his concern about the growing power of the new defense industry.  Until that time, there had been no industry whose sole purpose was to make weapons.  His concern was that this industry would begin to be the tail that wagged the dog.  Political decisions would begin to be influenced by the industry’s need to grow its business. 

This was not the first time that President Eisenhower spoke about his concerns.  In the first year of his presidency, he gave a speech called the Iron Cross.  He said:
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, and the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.
As a veteran and a general, Eisenhower could not be dismissed as a “lefty-radical.”  He had a deep and abiding faith in God and a clear-headed understanding of the relationship between war, business, and how that relationship could lead to decisions about war being made by those who would profit from war.  His understanding was clearly impacted by his faith.  He is the only sitting president to be baptized while in office.  The president was evangelized into the Presbyterian Church.

On April 4, 1967, six years after Eisenhower’s farewell address, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave a speech at the Riverside Church in New York City.  In that speech he took a public stance in opposition to the Vietnam War.  Using strong theological language he denounced the three evils of “racism, extreme materialism and militarism,” which created the conditions which led to the war in Vietnam.  The connections he made simply put a fine point on what President Eisenhower had said only a few years before.  But Dr. King was criticized and even dismissed as a communist. 

Time has not made us wiser at all.  The warning left by Eisenhower continues to be ignored.  The rise of military contractors – many of whom are modern day mercenaries – now outnumber our combat troops in Afghanistan and Iraq and they cost the nation more than a fully equipped army.  I have done some research on how the money we have spent on the war in Iraq could have been used in others ways.  To date, we have spent 800 trillion dollars on the Iraq war alone.  To help put that in a little better perspective, the amount of money we spend in one year on the war could have done one of the following things domestically: 5.2 million children in poverty could have received healthcare; or 150,000 elementary school teachers could have been hired; or 1.3 million Head Start slots for children could have been opened.  1.3 million more Veterans could have received medical care from the VA, or 2.1 million people in poverty could have received healthcare.  So when we hear that there is no more money for social programs and that taxes must be raised, do not believe the hype.  We do not have a cash flow problem, only a problem with priorities.  President Eisenhower was right.

I know that when faced with these numbers it is easy to get lost.  I cannot really imagine a million let alone a billion or 800 trillion.  Those numbers, even when broken down further seem remote.  So, let me bring it closer to home.  If we were to take only the first congressional district of Missouri instead of the entire nation, it would mean just in our congressional district alone we could have done one of the following.  And this is just with the money we spent in one year on the war.  We could have provided healthcare for 7700 children or 3700 adults.  Or, it could have gone to add 314 school teachers in the city schools or 2500 head start program slots for children so they could get a leg up in the education process.  Or, it could have gone to give 2300 military veterans VA medical care.  That is what it cost us locally for just ONE YEAR!  The costs of war, while now hidden from most Americans, run far greater than the cost per gallon of gasoline.  But as a people of faith, we cannot, in good faith, ignore or remain ignorant of the costs.

By now it may seem like a stretch to say this sermon is not a political speech.  But despite sharing those numbers and the words of Dr. King and President Eisenhower, it is not built upon partisan ideology.  All I have pointed out is that war and economics are intimately intertwined.  Honest politicians and economists from across the spectrum have and will admit this is true.  But this sort of talk is often uncomfortable.  And, when we talk like this, it is easy to be dismissed, discounted and ignored as a fool or worse.  Brazilian theologian Dom Helder Camara summed it up well when he said, “When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why they are poor, they call me a communist.”  It is not partisan or political unless we consider what Jesus did in the temple when he drove out the moneychangers as political. 

It might seem strange to make that jump; maybe even seem like I would have to stretch things to make that case.  But that is because the cleansing of the temple story is part of a bigger story that is not often discussed.  It was Passover and at the time of Jesus and a rather large enterprise had grown up around the required sacrifices.  The temple and its ritual practice had spawned an economic engine which mirrored the oppressive and exclusionary practices of the Roman economy.  In fact, the economy of the temple and the military of Rome were walking hand in hand.  The occupation of Jesus’ day meant his actions would absolutely be interpreted as political by those in charge.

In Jesus’ time, the religious leadership had given concern for the most vulnerable in society a back seat to their concern for the status quo.  Practical politics dominated the thinking of the religious leadership.  Jesus came along and turned their whole world upside down.  It was not the animals and the money changers that angered Jesus but the use of God’s house as the ideological foundation for the exploitation of the poor.   It is much easier to interpret this as a passage about money in church.  Unfortunately, the historical setting makes that a misguided interpretation.

So what do we do?  How is the church of Jesus Christ to respond in our own time dominated by the love of power and the orgy of greed?  If you have access to the powerful, then you must speak and work for larger change.  If you have access to your neighbors, share your bread.  In other words, do what you have the power to do.  And know you are far more powerful than you believe. 

As a follower of the one who fed the poor by showing them how to share and healed without requiring payment, we can never stand by the excuse that we do not have enough members, or enough money, or enough health, or enough…. The only thing which will keep us from living faithfully, and doing what we can with what we have, is giving in to the voice of cynicism.  We are the people of hope. Let our actions speak of this hope.  Our voices are needed, our actions are needed, and our love for God’s world is needed… now more than ever!  Amen?  Amen.

Teasures in Heaven

WESTMINSTER PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
March 4, 2012
Communion Sunday Meditation
Second Sunday in Lent
Rev. Mark R. Bradshaw-Miller
Mark 8:31-38; Matthew 6:19-21
“Treasures in Heaven?”

Some of you might remember the story of Carnegie Mellon professor Randy Pausch. He had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer with little hope of survival. What made him famous was the last lecture he gave which was later published as a book called, The Last Lecture. It is a book full of amazing lessons on living written by someone who understood the power of his own mortality. One such story was about the importance of people over things.

This particular story has the professor going to pick up his niece and nephew in his brand new convertible. The children’s mother, his sister –standing with his back to Randy begins to lecture her children about the importance of not making a mess in their uncle’s new car. As she is talking the children start giggling. Their mother turns around to see her brother – Randy – pouring a can of Pepsi in the back seat of the car. He was making it clear that it was just stuff. – He understood the importance of people over things. It is a powerful lesson on what truly is important in life.
Last week I had the privilege of being with over 600 teaching and ruling elders from Presbyterian churches across the country. The gathering at First Presbyterian Church in Dallas was focused on what will come next for our denomination. The conference, called Next, is about opening us up to what is essential to the life of the church, what matters most and what will we be willing to pour Pepsi on, with a smile. The good news is that folks know things are not going to look like we have always known and we can trust that God is not finished with us yet. The hard part will be the process of giving up our preconceived notions of how church is supposed to work and what is more important.

Churches across this country are faced with the same issue. In the 1970’s there was the belief that only liberal churches were going to be faced with decline. The thinking was that we just didn’t love Jesus enough or believe the bible. But guess what? We were just the canary in the coal mine. The Baptist churches – even the southern Baptist -- and the Catholic Church are all facing a crisis of leadership and membership that is simply walking out the door.

The churches which have come to grips with this great sea change realize that church is not about bringing people in to serve on committees. The churches which are thriving in this new era have one thing in common and it is not theology. They know who they are, they engage people in meaningful mission, they are engaged in ongoing learning and the membership has a deep ownership of the ministry. In other words, they understand about treasure in heaven.

These churches understand the role and purpose of being part of the body of Christ. So what does that mean? What is the calling of the church? Are we our buildings – our administrative structures – Roberts rules of order – our endowments – our theology – our movements for social justice – our history – our worship style – our cultural incarnations of doing church? The answer to all of those is no. To find out that those things are just stuff in the life of faith may bring joy or it may bring fear and sadness. But the truth is that it doesn’t ultimately matter – none of it ultimately matters.

The church is people who are witnesses to the transforming power of the gospel. That is it. That is all we should focus on. This is all we should get wound up about and it is all that we should spend our energy on. But what about our need to fill this committee space? Does it help do what is essential, if not, let it go. What about session membership or our favorite hymn or expectations for our church? If they led us in being transformed witnesses then great, if not, we have to let it go. And our calling in community is to help us remember this. So that when we forget what is essential and begin to grumble and murmur we have to look one another in the face and ask - is that the most important thing in the life of faith? Is that why Jesus died on a cross? The treasure is the gospel and when we stay focused on that – the other stuff will be in its proper place.

This is what focusing on treasure is all about. Picking up our cross, giving up something will be costly. But the church in every age has had to deal with change and the loss of our favorite certainty. Picking up our cross is going to cost us. It will cost us our favorite way of doing things. It will challenge our favorite prejudices and ignorance. It will cost us comfort and the little treasures in our lives that have become the foundation of our certainties. The good news is that when we finally open ourselves up to this truth we will open ourselves up to so much more life has to offer. When we are willing to pour Pepsi on our favorite treasure, we may just find new relationships and new life waiting on the other side. Amen? Amen!