We Live in Noah's Ark

Some food for thought for tonight from Telford Work:

In spite of all of their failings, "Our theological tradition is like Noah's ark: leaky, dark, smelly, confining, sometimes even oppressive. The alternative is free, light, fresh, open, - and fatal.
"What do we do on the ark? We muck out the stalls. We bail out the water. We fix leaks and try not to cause bigger ones in the process. We go up on deck to search for the land we've been promised - the back down to do the jobs on which our lives, all of our lives, depend. And we thank God for every new breath we take, even if every new breath carries a stench that 'could knock a yak flat.'"

For all of you who despair about the church, who think that Christians make Christianity unworthwhile, or who want to determine their own definition of what we should be doing because what they see God demanding of them is not good enough, perhaps there is some hope and encouragement in Telford's words. While the church is an imperfect glimpse of God's kingdom, it is a glimpse nonetheless, and it is the only one God has chosen to give to us.

Reaching the iGen/Millennial/Next Generation

I am blessed to pastor at a church that is aware of life cycles in churches and as a result is fully engaged in raising up younger leaders to continue to guide and participate in the church and God’s work in the next generation. Every aspect of our strategic plan seeks to identify and empower the leaders God brings to the church in these ways.

As we think about and empower young leaders, we share articles and research among the staff. This week, one of the articles was titled, “Storming the Castle: Reaching ‘iGens’ Means Breaking through Inflated Self-Esteems” by Scot McKnight. McKnight identifies two aspects of today’s young adult culture and two ways in which he believes we can break through these new challenges. Challenges: 1) Young adults possess inflated self-esteems and high levels of self-acceptance that are nothing short of castle walls protecting them from a need for God’s grace. 2) iGens are pre-moral, in the sense that they don’t really have a sense of sin or feel guilt. Solutions: A) Start with Jesus instead of the person’s sin and alienation from God. B) Create a community marked by justice, peace, love, and holiness to connect with iGens.

As an “iGen” (whatever that actually means) myself and as a pastor who works with them on a daily basis, I want to question some of McKnight’s reasoning and assumptions, without actually challenging his conclusions. Perhaps this deeper understanding can help us reach this generation in more fruitful ways.

Yes, we grew up in a culture of affirmation. Sports teams celebrated participation more than winning. Elementary schools resisted giving letter grades or teaching games where a person or team lost. We were told that we can do anything we set our minds to do. We believe that differences are acceptable, or perhaps even good, and we are less likely to believe that the way we do something is the right way to do it.

In addition, many of us grew up largely unchurched. Our parents are children of the 60’s and 70’s, and their attempt to encourage creativity or “allow us to make our own choices” meant that we often grew up in homes where rules were absent and beliefs were allowed but not formed. While not all of our parents raised us without rules and beliefs, and our parents’ generation is no more monolithic than our own, these are true characterizations of many of our parents. As a result, you may have a difficult time convincing us of our sin. We don’t even know what that word would actually mean, so we certainly don’t feel guilty about it.

In both of his characterizations of iGens, McKnight is absolutely correct. However, I object to his assumption that that previous methods of evangelism were the correct ones. Since the Reformation, preachers have often preached a gospel that proceeds something like this: God loves you, but you are a sinner [this assumes that you understand enough of Christianity to know what sin is]. You cannot please God, and your sin (and therefore you) angers God deeply. You deserve God’s wrath, and he is angry. You can never do any good to get to God (or heaven), and you are trapped in hopelessness and despair [or you are stupid if you don’t recognize this fact]. But there is good news. Jesus came to earth, lived a sinless life, and then died on a cross where God (specifically the Father, although often unnamed) put all of his punishment and anger for your sin on Jesus. So believe that Jesus died for you and rose again from the dead, and God will accept you into heaven.

Laying aside for a moment the NUMEROUS problems with this conception of the “gospel,” we need to understand that for 500 years we have been preaching this message largely to Westerners who are churched/Christianized. We only have a conception of original sin, human depravity, right and wrong, and our sin because God has revealed to us what I means to be holy. When Luther struggled with his sinfulness, he was firmly planted in the Catholic Church. When Jonathan Edwards preached “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” he was preaching revival in the Christian communities of New England.

This message was incredibly effective. It brought people to their knees in repentance. You can remind people who understand what God desires that they are guilty. Convincing non-Christians who do not understand sin that they are guilty might be the wrong way to approach them – this message had been far less effective in unChristianized areas. There, the gospel spreads through life lived together, as God reveals himself to the people by bringing his Kingdom into their midst. We do not travel to Asia and assume that they already know that they are sinners and are looking for a way to be reconciled to God (or if we do, we are incredibly ineffective and most likely quite damaging!). Instead, we approach these people in relationship, love them, and life in God’s Kingdom in their midst. Over time, they encounter God and learn what it means to be holy.

I want to suggest that we approach this generation more like the peoples in our mission fields and less like our Christian grandparents. While our parents’ generation often walked away from the church in which they had been raised, they often chose not to raise this generation in the church. If today’s young adults don’t believe “anything” or understand their own sin, perhaps we need to remember that it was their parents’ generation which taught them to believe that no beliefs are necessary and there are no limits on their actions. We are reaping the fruit of our own actions. We have created the first unChristianized generation in American history.

This is where McKnight has everything right. We should be starting with Jesus when we reach out to young adults, not because they believe that they are perfect like Jesus (they don’t by the way), but because we should ALWAYS start with Jesus. Our attempts to tell a gospel message that make Jesus tangential to God’s work are perhaps more unfaithful than we realize. We just didn’t understand that in the midst of another paradigm that we called the gospel because it was effective in bringing those who knew the story to repentance. The Father reveals himself to us through the Son by the power of the Holy Spirit. Without Jesus, we have NOTHING to preach. We also present a compelling vision of the Kingdom of God, a kingdom of justice, love, peace, and holiness. The Kingdom is not an evangelistic tool to reach this generation; it is our reality as the people of God. The Spirit has drawn us into this new community. When we live this new life, it will always be compelling. When our communities do not look this way, we need to be reminded (like Israel of old) that we are saying formless words which God does not honor because our lives are not lived in obedience to him. When we live in God’s Kingdom and share the news of Jesus, we will find that this generation is transformed by the power of God.

John 17:20-26 - Jesus Prays for His Followers

John 17:20-26

²⁰"My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, ²¹that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. ²²I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: ²³I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. ²⁴"Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world. ²⁵"Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. ²⁶I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them."

Tomorrow is the day we remember Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the work he did to bring reconciliation to the people of this country. It is the day marked out to specially recall the transformation that was brought to our country through his leadership of the Civil Rights Movement. But Dr. King was not just a leader of a movement. He was a pastor who believed that all humans are created in the image of God, worthy of dignity, and loved by God. And he had a vision for the world that was different from the reality that was, because he had the vision and hope of God. The day before he was assassinated, Dr. King preached a sermon where he said that he had seen the Promised Land, and he knew that his people would get to the Promised Land. Dr. King was living in a time where division and hatred were the reality of his life. Yet God gave him a vision for what could be, so Dr. King had seen the promised land of God, where all people are treated like the children of God that they are. He had seen the same vision as Christ in his prayer for his future disciples.

It is the end of Jesus' life when he prays this prayer, and he is fully aware that he will die soon. And what Jesus prays for us is that we will be perfected or completed as one in the love of God. He could have prayed anything for us. Jesus could have prayed that we would stand strong under temptation, or that we would not face the hostility which would take his own life. But Jesus does not pray any of those things that he might have prayed. Jesus prays for our unity.

It seems like such a strange last prayer, but then as we remember all of the things we have heard Jesus say and do over this past year, his prayer doesn't seem so strange. From the very beginning we learn that "the Word," that is Jesus, "was God," and that "the Word became flesh and made his home among us" and that "no one has seen God except God the One and Only who is at the Father's side" from the beginning and "has made him known." To those whom Jesus revealed the Father, "he gave power to become Children of God" and he commanded his "little children" that they were to "love one another" just as Jesus loved them.

So often our love does not look much like Jesus'. We refuse to forgive our friends. We judge our own families. We take advantage of others. It is the way of the world. Our society is consumed with our wants and our goals. We step on others to force our way to the top. It is survival of the fittest, or perhaps just survival of those most willing to destroy those who get in their way. Denny said last week that it is not religion that causes division. He is so right. It seems to be our fallen human nature. We are so consumed with ourselves that we can't life our eyes from ourselves to see God or our neighbor standing right in front of us.

We live in a fallen world. From our time in the garden, we have chosen to be our own gods, and when we do that, our plans and desires are the only ones that matter, and we fear everyone else because they might take away the things that we view as our rights. So we become people who don't look much like Jesus' prayer for his followers. Our world becomes one that doesn't look much like God's plan.

Unfortunately, we are too often those people who perpetuate division or hatred, or look the other way when we see it. The reality can be so discouraging. Catholics and Protestants kill each other. African-American and Anglo classmates are refused service at a restaurant because they don't serve Black people. An African-American church refuses to join with an Anglo church for worship, or even for their annual meetings with the denominational leaders. An upstanding leader of a church joins the Ku Klux Klan, watching for Native Americans, Latinos, and African-Americans who might enter the building. Catholics and Orthodox are told by other Christians that they are not Really Christians, and they turn around and say the same things about Protestants. People who don't like drums in church say that people who do are worshipping the devil, and people who want to put art in church say that those who don't care more about tradition than about God. We don't always look very unified.

But just because we don't look like the people Jesus calls us to be does not mean that we give up that hope. WE who have heard Christ's call and seen his redemption and healing work in our own lives should recognize God's call to reconciliation. From our first rejection of God in the garden, God has been at work drawing all people to himself and to one another. He called Abraham from among the nations, so all peoples would be blessed through him. He used Rahab to tell the story of God's acts in Jericho, and both Rahab and Ruth the Moabite end up as ancestors of Jesus. God sends Jonah to Nineveh in Babylon so Nineveh will repent of their evil ways. And Christ comes to earth to set us free - free to know and love God and participate in God's life, and free to love others instead of fear them

This story of life shared with God and with others is the story of the whole Bible. It should not seem so surprising that this is Jesus' prayer for us after all. "I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as I am in you and you are in me ...that they might have been perfected as one." That is a pretty impressive prayer. There is only one God, and the Father and Jesus are both completely God, and yet they are somehow distinct. But they dwell in each other, so that what one of them does, they have both done. The fellowship of the Trinity, of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is somehow one of complete submission between the three persons, but which does not require any of the three to be lost in the process. Complicated, I know, but also beautiful. The God who calls us to be a part of God's life and who dwells in us fully understands what it means to be communal - to share life together. Our God is about relationship and love.

This is the God who comes to make his home among us as a baby born in a manger, all so we will know God because God can make God known to us. This is the God who calls us children. There aren't many conditions there - to those who received him, he gave the power to become children of God. As God's children, God dwells in us. That is part of what makes Jesus' prayer so amazing. Just as the Father is in the Son, God - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - is in us. Just as the Father and Son are one, we are one with all other humans who believe that the Father sent Jesus and receive him.

But it still gets better. Jesus reveals the Father to us, so God's love might be in us. This is not new. Jesus told us earlier that he was giving a new commandment, that we love one another just as he has loved us.

Jesus doesn't seem to leave a lot of space for our divisions. IF you receive him as God sent by the Father, you are his child. Which means all of those people that we have our church disagreements with, those people who are too liberal or too conservative, too black or white or red or brown, too Republican or too Democrat, too poor or too wealthy, too _____________, you fill in the blank. Those people are your brothers and sisters, whether you like it or not, whether you would have chosen them or not. This is God's family and you are in God's house, and all of God's children should be treated like the children of God they are.

I know that this is a big task, to live as one. Jesus seems to know it too, so he makes it his last prayer. But we don't get to make excuses for our divisions. Jesus is in us, in all of us, and Jesus is revealing God to us. And the Holy Spirit lives with us and in us. And we live in Jesus. All of us. In that same incomprehensible way that the Father, Son, and Spirit can be three in one, Jesus' many disciples can all be in the one God. We all live in him. There is after all, only one God | one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one Father of all.

When we understand that, and when we live that unity in the world, then we get to be part of the work of Christ, revealing God to the world. When we live as one, when we treat our brothers and sisters with the love of God, the world sees God's glory in Jesus and believes that God sent him to redeem the world. When we live in unity, we live in direct contrast to the way the world expects us to live, and the way the world does live. They see that somehow the walls that people build get torn down in God's house and they realize that something bigger than just us is at work. We become God's witnesses.

But we already acknowledged that we have all kinds of divisions in the church. How do we live as one? It is true that we still follow Christ imperfectly. Although God has called us, although God lives in us and we in him, we are not yet fully the people whom God is transforming us to be. WE have been, and we are still being, redeemed. But we are not God's children, and we see glimpses and shadows of what will one day be in fullness. One day, we will see perfectly and will dwell in a place where people of every language, every tribe, every nation, and every denomination and worship style will worship around the throne of God. For now, we work for unity, and celebrate the glimpses of hope we see. Glimpses like Dr. King, who could say, in the middle of segregation and hatred, "I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal. ...I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. ...I have a dream that one day ...little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers."

Yes, glimpses of hope. Like Catholics, Lutherans, and Methodists sitting at the same table, and being able to walk away with a statement of the things that they all believe about God. Or the churches in India, many years ago, joining together to form one Church of India instead of many denominations. We see this hope every time someone assumes charity and love in a debate, believing first that their neighbor loves and follows God before believe that the person is crazy or foolish or evil. And we see this hope every time people worry less about being right than they do about submitting to the needs of their neighbors. We even see hope in the tragedies, like in Haiti, as we watch Free Methodist World Missions, Catholic Relief Services, International Orthodox Christian Charities, Presbyterian Disaster Assistance, United Methodist Committee on Relief, and Baptist Haiti Mission all work side-by-side to make sure that the people, all the people of Haiti, are taken care of.

We do have reason to hope, and we have reason to repent. While sometimes we live in unity, often we live in fear, hatred, selfishness, and brokenness. Ask God to reveal to you this morning where you have not treated your neighbor as God's child. When have you not viewed another with charity when you disagreed with them? When have you let arguments about God or personal preferences hinder your fellowship? When have you built up walls because of misunderstandings? When have you reacted to those misunderstandings with a refusal to forgive? Repent of those times this morning, and ask God to shape you into a person who brings unity to the family of God.

Time for personal prayer

{Play recording of prayer} Holy God, who calls the worlds into being, who calls us into Christ’s church, we thank you for the church that is our true home, for the mission of the church that is our true joy, and for the ministry of the church that is our proper task. We thank you for the ministry of the church in every place we go, for pastors and people who over time have named your name and lived your life. We thank you for the ministry of the universal church, for it’s steadfastness over time, for it’s faithful witness in the struggle for justice and peace and for it’s durable walk and caring ways. We thank you for the ministry to which you have called us, for the caring, eloquent, attentive ways in which we live it, for the nurturing church tradition that brought us to faith and called us to maturity, and for our families and communities that have prayed and believed and cared for us to this day and this hour. We thank you for the many ways of ministry that are faithfully practiced in praise of you out beyond our range of acceptance, for those more radical than us, for those more cautious than us, for those in traditions strange to us, for faith families who care in ways other than our own. We pray on this day, for all those who stand in need of ministry, for the sick and the dying, for the powerful who are bewildered, for the poor who lack so much we take for granted, for the brutalized who wait for relief. We pray your mighty Spirit upon us, that we may more fully engage our baptism, that we may accept the costs that belong to our life with you, that we may embrace the joys that only you can give. Move us beyond ourselves, our favorite clichés, our tired resentments, our worn habits to your newness. Make us light, make us ready, make us open, that we may become a resounding doxology through your passion and into your victory. We pray all of this in the name of Jesus crucified, the Lord of the church. Amen.