a sermon preached by the Rev. Dr. Tim W. Jensen
at the First Religious Society in Carlisle, Massachusetts
Sunday January 30th, 2005
It's so nice to see so many of you back in church this morning, after last weekend's amazing snowstorm. And for those of you who weren't here last Sunday (which is basically all of you), we had a pretty amazing time. Like Woody, I was trained to believe that "the church never closes" -- that no matter how bad the weather may be, someone (by which is generally meant the minister) should always be here to open the doors and turn on the lights and feed the flock on Sunday morning. But after this last round of blizzards, I've also come to see the wisdom of the other side of the question, which is that "church will always be here" too -- and if the weather is so severe that you feel like you're taking your life in your hands to venture out, please don't...because we'll still be here the following week, and the week after that and the week after that.
As some of you know, I was actually scheduled to exchange pulpits last weekend with my colleague Jennifer Brooks, who is now the settled minister on Nantucket. This is something we'd been talking about for a long time, and planning for about a month, mostly so that Jennifer could have a Sunday off without having to worry about writing a new sermon; but on Saturday morning we both looked at the forecast and decided not to press our luck, not because we were worried about making the journey, but because neither of us were sure that we would be able to get back, or even whether there would be a congregation for the other to preach to when we each got to where we were going. And in retrospect that turned out to be a wise decision (and neither of us had to worry about preparing a sermon anyway). But it's not always easy to find someone to cover for you when you live on an island and need a Sunday off, and having lived on Nantucket myself for two years, I understand what that's about. In many ways, it's these small collegial courtesies that bind us together as a religious movement: as much as our denominational structures, as much as our shared values and beliefs, as much as our common history, it's the little things like watching out for one another and helping out in times of need that create a faith community. Mutual Care, Consultation, Admonition, Participation, Recommendation and Relief: these are the "six ways of Communion" described in the Cambridge Platform of 1648, which is the historical document on which our own congregational polity is (I suppose I should say) penultimately based -- since ultimately the Platform itself looks back to Scripture for its basic principles. But pulpit exchanges fulfill four of the six (Care, Consultation, Participation and Relief), and potentially touch on the other two (Admonition and Recommendation) as well.
Here in Carlisle, we had a much easier time of it than they did on Nantucket. The scripture says "wherever two or three are gathered," so with half-a-dozen we actually had souls to spare. Myself and Molly, Bryan and the twins, and Tom Lockwood (who had signed up to be the greeter)...so except for the choir (which was scheduled to perform in Lexington last Sunday anyway), we were fully staffed and ready to go...(except that I was going to have to lead the singing!) We shoveled out a path to the front door, then came inside and put the kettle on. I preached a brief sermon of one sentence: "Thank you all for coming out and God bless us every one" (basically, the same sermon I preach every week, only with fewer illustrations); then we cut up the coffee cake that my housekeeper Joanne had baked for the visiting minister, and settled in for a great conversation about old movies, and EMT training, and (of course) the Welcoming Congregation, which I want you to know we got all worked out in about ten minutes, with the twins and I mostly listening.
I won't try to recreate that conversation, since one of the things I've learned over the years is that often times the process of having the conversation itself is just as significant as the outcome. But I do want to remind people that, when all is said and done, that the process of becoming a Welcoming Congregation is NOT about how any of us individually may feel personally about what other people may or may not do with one another privately; it's about how we, as a community, can best affirm publicly our shared belief in "the inherent worth and dignity of every person." It's about how do we practice what we preach, which I know (as a preacher myself) is not always the easiest thing to do.
But I'm optimistic, and I'll tell you why. It's because I believe that despite all the various opinions I've heard expressed on the subject over the last several months, our hearts are basically in the right place on this issue. I suspect that all of us know people who are gay (and nowadays most of us even know that we know them) -- friends or colleagues or family members -- and I simply can't imagine that any one of us would want our own loved ones NOT to feel welcome in this church. It's simply unimaginable. So it's really not so much the goal, as it is the best path to the goal, that is the topic of conversation. And I also know that there are some people who prefer a broad and general statement like "All Are Welcome Here," and others who feel that we need a more precise and specific statement of welcome at this particular moment in history. And this is a little trickier. As a writer, for example, I've been taught to prefer precision over vagueness, yet I also can appreciate the evocative power of a strong, universal declaration. What I don't understand is why it has to be one or the other, and why we can't have one of each.
Let's face it, statements like this are a dime a dozen. And as I'm sure you've heard me say many times before (and will doubtlessly hear me say many times again): the one great advantage of talk being cheap is that we can afford to do a lot of it. And if we talk politely and use our indoor voices, the only price we really pay is the opportunity cost of not moving forward as quickly as we may like, which will hopefully be recovered through less friction and fewer wrong turns down the road. Finding just the right balance between action and deliberation is never easy; and at some point we do indeed have to move forward, hopefully all together and in the same direction. But in the meantime, we need to weigh the difficulties of having this conversation against the consequence of failing to have it, which are potentially quite profound indeed.
But that's not really what I want to talk about here this morning. What I really want to tell you about is another pulpit exchange that took place right here in Massachusetts over 175 years ago. At one AM on the morning of Saturday May 31st, 1828, the Reverend Henry Ware Jr., age 35, one of the principal organizers of the American Unitarian Association and minister of Boston's historic Second Church located on Hanover Street in the North End, departed the city by stagecoach bound for Northampton, (which was at the time Unitarianism's western-most outpost), in order to fulfill a preaching engagement he had made there with the minister of that newly-organized Unitarian congregation, his brother-in-law the Reverend Edward Brooks Hall. It was (naturally) a dark and stormy night, and at some point in his journey Ware became exposed to the elements. He arrived in Northampton late Saturday evening both greatly fatigued and soaked to the bone, and suffering from a persistent cough and difficult breathing. After passing "a very uncomfortable night," and "notwithstanding the continuance of these symptoms," Ware "went into the pulpit" the next day and preached both the morning and the afternoon services. Still no better the following morning, Ware ignored the advice of those around him (who encouraged him to remain in Northampton and rest) and resolved instead to return to Boston. He took some medicine (probably some form of narcotic), and set out for home, traveling by horseback in the company of a friend. They made it about 25 miles before they were obliged to stop for the night. At this point Ware's "powers of endurance had been taxed to the utmost, and he went to bed completely exhausted, with every indication of an approaching fever." On Tuesday morning he reluctantly agreed to summon the local physician, who diagnosed "severe inflammation of the lungs" and prescribed both bleeding and other "active treatment" (I hate to think what that might have been) which soon reduced the patient "to a state of extreme prostration."
In the meantime, Ware's companion had continued on to Boston in order to inform both his family and the church of Henry's illness. Henry's wife Mary, then seven months pregnant, set out immediately to join her husband, while the members of the Standing Committee made arrangements to hire one of Ware's young protégés, the 25-year-old Ralph Waldo Emerson, to fill the pulpit at Second Church until their minister should recover his health, at a salary of $15 per Sunday. But Ware never really did recover his health, so the following spring the Proprietors of the Second Church in Boston did what any responsible religious society would have done in those days: they voted to hire Emerson as Ware's permanent assistant, and then, in the hope that fresh air, good food, and the Italian sunshine would do for their minister's health what a summer in Worcester and a winter in Brookline could not, raised an additional $1000 in order to send Henry and Mary on what turned out to be an 17 month long European tour.
When the Wares finally returned to Boston in the summer of 1830, Henry formally resigned his position at Second Church in order to assume new duties as the Professor of Pulpit Eloquence and the Pastoral Care at Harvard, a position that had been created specifically for him in his absence. The following spring he published a thin devotional manual titled "On the Formation of the Christian Character," in which he described the purpose of the religious life as "giving your heart a permanent bias toward God." Written during his recuperation in Europe, and a best-seller in its day, The Formation of Christian Character went through 15 different editions, and was popular among both Unitarians and more traditional Christians alike. Even Henry David Thoreau owned a copy (and we know how he felt about buying what he could just as easily borrow).
Emerson likewise was intimately familiar with the contents of Ware's little book, and the two men continued to remain friends throughout their lifetimes, despite the eventual divergence of their ideas. Emerson was apparently never really that comfortable in his ministry at Second Church. An eloquent preacher but an ambivalent pastor, and the orphaned son of a minister who had grown up in his grandfather's parsonage just down the road from here in Concord, Emerson felt both forced into the ministry by the weight of family tradition and yet constrained by the limitations of the profession as well. He eventually resigned his position at Second Church in 1832, ostensibly over a disagreement with the Standing Committee about whether or not to continue to celebrate the Lords Supper, but in reality in order to be free to travel to Europe himself, and to begin a new career as an author and lecturer.
Emerson's first book, Nature, was published in 1836, and in many ways mirrors the same devotionalist perspective of Ware's little volume in its concern for ethics and practical morality, while at the same time representing a much more spiritual -- even mystical -- attitude toward God and the Natural World than Ware would have been comfortable with. Two years later, when Professor Ware's students at Harvard invited Mr. Emerson to address their graduating class on a refulgent summer evening in the chapel at Divinity Hall, the subsequent controversy over Emerson's assertion that "the soul knows no persons" nearly split the Unitarian movement permanently into two wings -- one liberal Christian, the other Transcendentalist -- and in many ways it was only the respect which both groups shared for their former professor that kept the two sides in dialog with one another.
Emerson sincerely believed that the principle theme of his Divinity School Address: that it was the task of the minister to acquaint men and women "firsthand with deity" -- was simply a restatement of Ware's own ideas about giving the heart a permanent bias toward God. What he failed to appreciate was how profoundly most Unitarians of the day were attached to the idea of a personal God. Even when they described God as a "spirit," (which they often did) they also clung to the metaphor of God as a loving parent, and of human beings as God's children. For Henry Ware Jr, the difference between faith in a personal God and a belief in some sort of Emersonian "Oversoul" was the difference between "the condition of a little child that lives in the presence of a judicious and devoted mother, an object of perpetual affection, and of another that is placed under the charge of a public institution, which knows nothing but a set of rules...." "[T]ake away the Father of the universe," he wrote, and "mankind becomes but a company of children in an orphan asylum." Our 19th century Unitarian forebearers argued about Emerson's "latest form of infidelity" for an entire generation. But in the end, it was their ability to lift up the things they agreed on, rather than stubbornly focusing on the points of disagreement, that allowed Unitarianism to move forward -- west from Northampton to exotic, faraway places like Meadville Ohio, and St Louis Missouri, and eventually even San Francisco California, all within that same generation.
I also find it interesting to note that 175 years later, here at the beginning of the 21st century, Ralph Waldo Emerson's name is a household word, while Henry Ware Jr. is all but forgotten except by a few historians like myself. The Second Church where they both preached is essentially out of business -- after a series of mergers and relocations, in 1972 it eventually merged one final time with Boston's original First Church to form the First and Second Church in Boston. In fact, of the three Unitarian Churches that occupied Boston's North End in Ware and Emerson's day, only one is even still standing -- the so-called "New North" church (also on Hanover Street) -- and it's beautiful Charles Bullfinch designed meeting house is now occupied by St. Stephen's Catholic Church, which is best remembered as the church where Rose Kennedy used to worship. (I did check to see whether the Archdiocese of Boston might be putting it up for sale, but apparently it's a keeper). And here in Carlisle, we still celebrate the Lord's Supper once a year -- on Maundy Thursday -- which I'm proud to say makes us one of the few remaining holdouts in the entire denomination.
But the larger point is this: times change, and unless churches learn to change with them, they eventually become irrelevant. But even as we learn to change with the times, we must also remember to hold on to the things that are truly important: things like our belief in the inherent worth and dignity of every person, and the importance of giving our hearts a permanent bias toward God, and acquainting ourselves firsthand with Deity. Thank you all for coming out. And God bless us, every one.
Sunday, January 30, 2005
Sunday, January 16, 2005
STILL STRIDING TOWARD FREEDOM
a sermon preached by the Rev. Dr. Tim W. Jensen
at the First Religious Society in Carlisle, Massachusetts
Sunday January 16th, 2005
Of all the things that can and have been said about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, there’s one thing in particular that is patently untrue. Regardless of what you may have heard or been told elsewhere, there is absolutely no truth whatsoever to the rumor that Dr. King was, in fact, a Unitarian Universalist without knowing it. Yes, it’s true that he wrote his doctoral thesis at Boston University comparing the work of the relatively obscure Unitarian theologian Henry Nelson Wieman with that of the far more famous Paul Tillich; and also that his philosophy of non-violent civil disobedience was inspired to a large degree by an essay by Henry David Thoreau...but don't be fooled. Dr. King was a Baptist minister, a man whose political sympathies and social conscience were directly informed by his understanding of the Christian faith. And this faith both inspired and empowered Dr. King to change the way that Americans live with one another, and in the process earned him a form of immortality in the hearts and minds of individuals like myself, who have grown up in a society shaped by his vision of social justice and his dream of racial pluralism.
But as some of you here will undoubtedly remember, Martin Luther King Jr. has not always been held in such high esteem. During his own lifetime he was often viewed with suspicion, and even outright hatred, by both his enemies and sometimes even his friends. He was accused (and not without cause) of sexual immorality and also (with much less cause) of being a communist sympathizer. He was spied on by the FBI, frequently a target of both personal vilification and physical attack, and spent more than one night locked up in jail for "offenses" that today many of us would applaud. Supporters of the Civil Rights Movement likewise sometimes grew impatient with his philosophy of non-violent resistance, -- at times some of them even referred to their leader as “Martin Loser King” -- while others simply resented that so much public praise and adulation should be directed at a single individual, when so many others had also sacrificed and put their own lives on the line. For thirteen years -- from his public leadership of the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott at the age of 26 to his murder in Memphis a few months after his 39th birthday, Martin Luther King Jr. was, for many Americans, the public face of the Civil Rights movement. And in the years since his death, his image and reputation have essentially become iconic of that profound moment of historic transformation in American Society.
It requires a very special sensitivity to bring religious values to bear in the political arena. Without this sensitivity, the results of such activity all too often reek of demagoguery, rather than reform. And it all begins with an understanding of the nature of power, and the rationale behind our constitutional separation of Church and State. Governments govern by the Power of Law. And in a democratic society such as ours, this power is legitimized by the consent of the governed--it is structured by a social contract, the Constitution, and must apply equally to all: the majority and the minority alike. The people elect representatives who are responsible for monitoring and enforcing these laws, and these representatives are accountable to the people for seeing that the rights of all are protected. At least this is what I was taught in my high school civics class. But the bottom line when it comes to the Power of Law is the Power of the Police, and if you break the law, if you violate the social contract, if you steal something or murder someone or refuse to pay your taxes, you can expect a visit from a armed officer of the law, who will use all the means at his or her disposal to compel your conformity to the social contract.
But the power of Religion and of the Church is of an entirely different nature. The power of the Church resides in the authority of its traditional ethical teachings, and in its ability to persuade or influence people to follow them. As the etymology of the word reveals, "religion" is that thing which "binds us again" to our higher moral and ethical obligations as human beings. Its authority derives from its ability to inspire, which is why, for example, if you decide at some point that you no longer wish to contribute financially to your Church because maybe you don’t like the person who is in charge or what’s going on there, no one is going to show up at your door with a warrant and a pistol and handcuffs. The worse the Church can do is send someone around to listen to your concerns, appeal to your better motives and maybe convince you to change your mind.
Now I know there are some who would say, cynically, that governments govern at the point of a gun, while churches maintain themselves solely through the power of guilt. But these sentiments reflect only the underside of moral and legal authority, which are perhaps best understood simply as the Power to help make us Good, and the Power to prevent us from being Evil to one another. And they are not simply two sides of the same coin. The fact of the matter is that the power of the State and the power of the Church are radically different from one another, both in their nature and in their effect; and they are fundamentally incompatible when mixed within a single institution. When Churches attempt to give their moral influence the power of law, we end up with things like the Spanish Inquisition, or more recently, Prohibition; while when Governments assume for themselves the moral authority of religion, we find ourselves with situations like the McCarthy witch-hunts, or on military Crusades in faraway corners of the world, sometimes even "destroying" a country in order to "save" it.
Perhaps in a perfect universe, this tension between Church and State would not exist. Perhaps with perfect leaders: wise, just, compassionate, decisive...the need for a Constitutional separation between Church and State would disappear. But I suspect that in such a world, the need for Churches and States and perhaps even leaders themselves would also disappear. And, of course, this is far from being a perfect world. And despite frequent claims to the contrary, our leaders are far from perfect leaders. We need the protection of the Rule of Law to keep us from exploiting one another. And we need Religion to help us become more fully human. The existence of each helps to correct the abuses of the other; and in their proper relationship, allow us to move hesitantly forward toward what we hope will be a less IMPERFECT world.
In many ways, it is precisely because human beings are at once both political and religious that we have insisted on this strict separation between the powers of the Church and the powers of the State. The separation between religion and politics, or even between spirituality and patriotism, can never be so tidy. It almost goes without saying, but one's political sympathies will inevitably be influenced to some degree by one's religious values, and I do not see how it can be otherwise, regardless where you may fall on the spectrum between liberal and conservative. Thus the issue of Leadership, of wielding power within institutions, becomes critically important. For in the absence of perfection, the best we can hope for is sensitivity and judgment, and an honest and humble recognition of the limits which our imperfections place upon us.
Leadership itself is a vague and imperfect art. Most times it is thrust upon us, through no fault of our own, as part of our institutional roles. Let me explain what I mean by this. This afternoon when you are home watching the Patriots play the Colts, you will notice that every time the teams line up for a play, it is the Quarterback who calls the signals. The Quarterback has this power by virtue of no reason other than being the Quarterback; and the issue of how the Quarterback got to be the Quarterback in the first place, or whether this is the first-string Quarterback or the back-up Quarterback or perhaps even the punter substituting for the Quarterback has absolutely nothing to do with the way that power is distributed there in that moment at the line of scrimmage. The authority resides within the role. And this is true of institutions as small as a family. Your mother is your mother simply because she is your mother, and not necessarily by virtue of any special qualifications for the job. Within that role she is charged with certain responsibilities, and from that role, draws the authority to meet them.
Within an institution like government, an individual who wields power by virtue of role is generally known as a bureaucrat. And since bureaucrats are hardly the most popular kinds of people within a democracy, there is a tendency for the people to look elsewhere to fill the highest leadership positions. Specifically, we look to individuals with "charisma"--who wield power by virtue of their personal "gifts." Once again, these gifts are not necessarily related to one's ability to do the job. Rather, they reflect one's ability to pretend to perfection: the force of one's personality, the ability to inspire loyalty or to project a certain image, the strength of one's Will, and the willingness to muster the required resources to impose that will upon the rest of the world. Charismatic leadership is glamourous and seductive, wild and untamed; it undermines entrenched bureaucratic power through its ability to work outside of established channels, and to gather power directly to itself. At its worst, it is simply the Power of Law unto Itself; and thus it reveals itself as the power which corrupts, and when held absolutely, corrupts absolutely.
There is yet a third kind of leadership which can be seen in contrast to either bureaucratic leadership by role or charismatic leadership by personal gifts, and this is what I like to think of as prophetic leadership by virtue of personal faith and example--the kind of leadership exemplified in the life of Martin Luther King Jr. It is the leadership of the power of religion unto itself, of altruism and self-sacrifice, of the SURRENDER of the Will to some higher value or ideal. This type of leadership wields power by empowering others, and through its willingness to stand as a witness to what is right, rather than as a force which bends others to its will. A prophet is someone who speaks on behalf of others, and prophetic leadership attempts to inspire each of us to our highest potential, while deepening the level at which we approach our existence in this world. And it is not dependent upon any resource but truth, and the willingness to follow that truth wherever it may lead.
The society which Martin Luther King Jr prophetically envisioned has yet to come about. There is still plenty of poverty, racism, and oppression in America; there is still plenty of injustice and prejudice to go around. But the society which King confronted has all but disappeared, at least in the mainstream of American life. We live today in a fundamentally different nation than we did a half-century ago; and while there are still those who would like to turn back the clock, I feel confident that deep in their hearts most Americans still believe that the way to the future lies forward, and that we will never return to a system of American apartheid. Old Jim Crow lies a-moulderin' in his grave; and for most Americans at least, the content of one's character truly has become more important than the color of one's skin.
Yet "Injustice anywhere," as Martin Luther King wrote from his cell in the Birmingham City Jail, "is a threat to justice everywhere." And not just injustice, but ignorance, prejudice, intolerance and hatred threaten all of us for whom liberty and a “free and responsible search for truth and meaning” are deeply-felt religious principles which form the foundation of our personal ethical standards and moral values. Whether we wish to admit it or not, we live within the interrelatedness of One World: in King’s words "an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny." Martin Luther King Jr. recognized this, and he also recognized the power of Truth, boldly witnessed and proclaimed, to sweep away the injustice and repression which so often lurks in the unlit corners of such a world. This power is primarily, although not exclusively, a religious power; it is a power which is often purchased with the blood of martyrs or "Witnesses" (as the word means in Greek), who through the courage of their convictions find the strength to Stride Toward Freedom even in the face of overwhelming odds, whose lives become a testimony to their faith in the essential decency of human kind, and the ultimate authority of Goodness over Evil.
It is a power which is not threatened by our diversities, but which draws its strength from our more fundamental unity. It is a transformative power, a transcendent power -- a wholeness which calls us to a greater holiness. Not the holiness of "holier than thou," but rather one which recognizes that "there, but for the grace of God, go I" -- that is to say, a holiness which is rooted in one's sense of connectedness to all things, and the humble recognition that we are, each of us, so tiny, and yet so precious, in the eyes of the Infinite Absolute.
For all his many shortcomings, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. exemplified these values, this holiness. He understood that the prelude to direct action was the discipline of self purification -- for evil is powerless when confronted openly by honest men and women. But he was also not afraid to go to where freedom was not, and say "I am for it" -- and for this he deserves to be honored, and even idolized I suppose; not only through our admiration of him and the things he accomplished, but through our imitation as well, as we too endeavor to Stride Toward Freedom still, in our religious lives, and as citizens of a single community of humankind....
at the First Religious Society in Carlisle, Massachusetts
Sunday January 16th, 2005
Of all the things that can and have been said about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, there’s one thing in particular that is patently untrue. Regardless of what you may have heard or been told elsewhere, there is absolutely no truth whatsoever to the rumor that Dr. King was, in fact, a Unitarian Universalist without knowing it. Yes, it’s true that he wrote his doctoral thesis at Boston University comparing the work of the relatively obscure Unitarian theologian Henry Nelson Wieman with that of the far more famous Paul Tillich; and also that his philosophy of non-violent civil disobedience was inspired to a large degree by an essay by Henry David Thoreau...but don't be fooled. Dr. King was a Baptist minister, a man whose political sympathies and social conscience were directly informed by his understanding of the Christian faith. And this faith both inspired and empowered Dr. King to change the way that Americans live with one another, and in the process earned him a form of immortality in the hearts and minds of individuals like myself, who have grown up in a society shaped by his vision of social justice and his dream of racial pluralism.
But as some of you here will undoubtedly remember, Martin Luther King Jr. has not always been held in such high esteem. During his own lifetime he was often viewed with suspicion, and even outright hatred, by both his enemies and sometimes even his friends. He was accused (and not without cause) of sexual immorality and also (with much less cause) of being a communist sympathizer. He was spied on by the FBI, frequently a target of both personal vilification and physical attack, and spent more than one night locked up in jail for "offenses" that today many of us would applaud. Supporters of the Civil Rights Movement likewise sometimes grew impatient with his philosophy of non-violent resistance, -- at times some of them even referred to their leader as “Martin Loser King” -- while others simply resented that so much public praise and adulation should be directed at a single individual, when so many others had also sacrificed and put their own lives on the line. For thirteen years -- from his public leadership of the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott at the age of 26 to his murder in Memphis a few months after his 39th birthday, Martin Luther King Jr. was, for many Americans, the public face of the Civil Rights movement. And in the years since his death, his image and reputation have essentially become iconic of that profound moment of historic transformation in American Society.
It requires a very special sensitivity to bring religious values to bear in the political arena. Without this sensitivity, the results of such activity all too often reek of demagoguery, rather than reform. And it all begins with an understanding of the nature of power, and the rationale behind our constitutional separation of Church and State. Governments govern by the Power of Law. And in a democratic society such as ours, this power is legitimized by the consent of the governed--it is structured by a social contract, the Constitution, and must apply equally to all: the majority and the minority alike. The people elect representatives who are responsible for monitoring and enforcing these laws, and these representatives are accountable to the people for seeing that the rights of all are protected. At least this is what I was taught in my high school civics class. But the bottom line when it comes to the Power of Law is the Power of the Police, and if you break the law, if you violate the social contract, if you steal something or murder someone or refuse to pay your taxes, you can expect a visit from a armed officer of the law, who will use all the means at his or her disposal to compel your conformity to the social contract.
But the power of Religion and of the Church is of an entirely different nature. The power of the Church resides in the authority of its traditional ethical teachings, and in its ability to persuade or influence people to follow them. As the etymology of the word reveals, "religion" is that thing which "binds us again" to our higher moral and ethical obligations as human beings. Its authority derives from its ability to inspire, which is why, for example, if you decide at some point that you no longer wish to contribute financially to your Church because maybe you don’t like the person who is in charge or what’s going on there, no one is going to show up at your door with a warrant and a pistol and handcuffs. The worse the Church can do is send someone around to listen to your concerns, appeal to your better motives and maybe convince you to change your mind.
Now I know there are some who would say, cynically, that governments govern at the point of a gun, while churches maintain themselves solely through the power of guilt. But these sentiments reflect only the underside of moral and legal authority, which are perhaps best understood simply as the Power to help make us Good, and the Power to prevent us from being Evil to one another. And they are not simply two sides of the same coin. The fact of the matter is that the power of the State and the power of the Church are radically different from one another, both in their nature and in their effect; and they are fundamentally incompatible when mixed within a single institution. When Churches attempt to give their moral influence the power of law, we end up with things like the Spanish Inquisition, or more recently, Prohibition; while when Governments assume for themselves the moral authority of religion, we find ourselves with situations like the McCarthy witch-hunts, or on military Crusades in faraway corners of the world, sometimes even "destroying" a country in order to "save" it.
Perhaps in a perfect universe, this tension between Church and State would not exist. Perhaps with perfect leaders: wise, just, compassionate, decisive...the need for a Constitutional separation between Church and State would disappear. But I suspect that in such a world, the need for Churches and States and perhaps even leaders themselves would also disappear. And, of course, this is far from being a perfect world. And despite frequent claims to the contrary, our leaders are far from perfect leaders. We need the protection of the Rule of Law to keep us from exploiting one another. And we need Religion to help us become more fully human. The existence of each helps to correct the abuses of the other; and in their proper relationship, allow us to move hesitantly forward toward what we hope will be a less IMPERFECT world.
In many ways, it is precisely because human beings are at once both political and religious that we have insisted on this strict separation between the powers of the Church and the powers of the State. The separation between religion and politics, or even between spirituality and patriotism, can never be so tidy. It almost goes without saying, but one's political sympathies will inevitably be influenced to some degree by one's religious values, and I do not see how it can be otherwise, regardless where you may fall on the spectrum between liberal and conservative. Thus the issue of Leadership, of wielding power within institutions, becomes critically important. For in the absence of perfection, the best we can hope for is sensitivity and judgment, and an honest and humble recognition of the limits which our imperfections place upon us.
Leadership itself is a vague and imperfect art. Most times it is thrust upon us, through no fault of our own, as part of our institutional roles. Let me explain what I mean by this. This afternoon when you are home watching the Patriots play the Colts, you will notice that every time the teams line up for a play, it is the Quarterback who calls the signals. The Quarterback has this power by virtue of no reason other than being the Quarterback; and the issue of how the Quarterback got to be the Quarterback in the first place, or whether this is the first-string Quarterback or the back-up Quarterback or perhaps even the punter substituting for the Quarterback has absolutely nothing to do with the way that power is distributed there in that moment at the line of scrimmage. The authority resides within the role. And this is true of institutions as small as a family. Your mother is your mother simply because she is your mother, and not necessarily by virtue of any special qualifications for the job. Within that role she is charged with certain responsibilities, and from that role, draws the authority to meet them.
Within an institution like government, an individual who wields power by virtue of role is generally known as a bureaucrat. And since bureaucrats are hardly the most popular kinds of people within a democracy, there is a tendency for the people to look elsewhere to fill the highest leadership positions. Specifically, we look to individuals with "charisma"--who wield power by virtue of their personal "gifts." Once again, these gifts are not necessarily related to one's ability to do the job. Rather, they reflect one's ability to pretend to perfection: the force of one's personality, the ability to inspire loyalty or to project a certain image, the strength of one's Will, and the willingness to muster the required resources to impose that will upon the rest of the world. Charismatic leadership is glamourous and seductive, wild and untamed; it undermines entrenched bureaucratic power through its ability to work outside of established channels, and to gather power directly to itself. At its worst, it is simply the Power of Law unto Itself; and thus it reveals itself as the power which corrupts, and when held absolutely, corrupts absolutely.
There is yet a third kind of leadership which can be seen in contrast to either bureaucratic leadership by role or charismatic leadership by personal gifts, and this is what I like to think of as prophetic leadership by virtue of personal faith and example--the kind of leadership exemplified in the life of Martin Luther King Jr. It is the leadership of the power of religion unto itself, of altruism and self-sacrifice, of the SURRENDER of the Will to some higher value or ideal. This type of leadership wields power by empowering others, and through its willingness to stand as a witness to what is right, rather than as a force which bends others to its will. A prophet is someone who speaks on behalf of others, and prophetic leadership attempts to inspire each of us to our highest potential, while deepening the level at which we approach our existence in this world. And it is not dependent upon any resource but truth, and the willingness to follow that truth wherever it may lead.
The society which Martin Luther King Jr prophetically envisioned has yet to come about. There is still plenty of poverty, racism, and oppression in America; there is still plenty of injustice and prejudice to go around. But the society which King confronted has all but disappeared, at least in the mainstream of American life. We live today in a fundamentally different nation than we did a half-century ago; and while there are still those who would like to turn back the clock, I feel confident that deep in their hearts most Americans still believe that the way to the future lies forward, and that we will never return to a system of American apartheid. Old Jim Crow lies a-moulderin' in his grave; and for most Americans at least, the content of one's character truly has become more important than the color of one's skin.
Yet "Injustice anywhere," as Martin Luther King wrote from his cell in the Birmingham City Jail, "is a threat to justice everywhere." And not just injustice, but ignorance, prejudice, intolerance and hatred threaten all of us for whom liberty and a “free and responsible search for truth and meaning” are deeply-felt religious principles which form the foundation of our personal ethical standards and moral values. Whether we wish to admit it or not, we live within the interrelatedness of One World: in King’s words "an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny." Martin Luther King Jr. recognized this, and he also recognized the power of Truth, boldly witnessed and proclaimed, to sweep away the injustice and repression which so often lurks in the unlit corners of such a world. This power is primarily, although not exclusively, a religious power; it is a power which is often purchased with the blood of martyrs or "Witnesses" (as the word means in Greek), who through the courage of their convictions find the strength to Stride Toward Freedom even in the face of overwhelming odds, whose lives become a testimony to their faith in the essential decency of human kind, and the ultimate authority of Goodness over Evil.
It is a power which is not threatened by our diversities, but which draws its strength from our more fundamental unity. It is a transformative power, a transcendent power -- a wholeness which calls us to a greater holiness. Not the holiness of "holier than thou," but rather one which recognizes that "there, but for the grace of God, go I" -- that is to say, a holiness which is rooted in one's sense of connectedness to all things, and the humble recognition that we are, each of us, so tiny, and yet so precious, in the eyes of the Infinite Absolute.
For all his many shortcomings, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. exemplified these values, this holiness. He understood that the prelude to direct action was the discipline of self purification -- for evil is powerless when confronted openly by honest men and women. But he was also not afraid to go to where freedom was not, and say "I am for it" -- and for this he deserves to be honored, and even idolized I suppose; not only through our admiration of him and the things he accomplished, but through our imitation as well, as we too endeavor to Stride Toward Freedom still, in our religious lives, and as citizens of a single community of humankind....
Sunday, January 9, 2005
IF YOU FEAR CHANGE, LEAVE IT HERE
a sermon preached by the Rev. Dr. Tim W. Jensen
at the First Religious Society in Carlisle, Massachusetts
Sunday January 9th, 2005
[extemporaneous introduction]
I've been thinking quite a bit here lately about how much the meaning of the word "Red" has changed just in the course of my own lifetime. Nowadays to be a "Red" apparently means to be a socially-conservative Religious fundamentalist who typically resides in either the South or the Midwest, and for whom "moral values" was the most important consideration in the recent election. Which is, of course, vastly different from what it meant to call someone a "Red" when I was young(er). Back then (as I'm sure all ya'll already know), "Red" was slang for Communist, or perhaps by association, communist sympathizer (or what some today might call a "liberal") -- the radicals who invented Social Security, and not the ones who want to "privatize" it.
And I was delighted to discover (when I got to be of an age when I could appreciate what it meant) that I actually have authentic Reds on both sides of my family tree. The first was my mother's Uncle Al Glotzer, a New York Jew and fiery young Bolshevik back in the days when that actually meant something, who at one point even traveled to Turkey to consult the exiled Leon Trotsky on an obscure point of Marxist ideology, and was pressed into service as one of his bodyguards. And the other was my father's uncle, "Big Bill" Baldwin -- a minor Wobblie in the forests of the Pacific Northwest who was eventually blacklisted by the timber barons, and forced to eek out a living working in the underground economy as a shade-tree mechanic.
Of course, by the time I was old enough to appreciate what they had done, you would never have been able to tell by looking at them. My uncle Al was a semi-retired court stenographer who split his time between his rent-controlled Manhattan apartment and his modest place on Martha's Vineyard; while my uncle Bill turned out not to be my uncle at all: we learned at his death that he and my Auntie Lala had been living together "without benefit of clergy" for nearly half-a-century, not because "Big Bill" was ideologically opposed to the bourgeois institution of marriage, but because Lala knew that her own mother (my great-grandmother) would never have approved of her being married to a Red! And since Bill had apparently not filed an income tax return in all those years either, his estate turned out to be a real mess -- although I did inherit a box of rather interesting books, including a big bundle of Robert Ingersoll tracts and a hardbound copy of Edward Bellamy's utopian classic "Looking Backward."
The start of a New Year is a natural time for people to think about Change. It's part of our culture: this is the season when we gaze back retrospectively at where we've been, or look forward in anticipation of where we are headed, and if we don't like what we see, we resolve to change. Of course, contemplating change is a whole lot easier than actually changing for real, because there's always a price to pay for change, which brings me to the title of today's sermon: "If You Fear Change, Leave It Here." This was the small, hand-written sign taped to the tip jar in the espresso cafe in Eugene, Oregon where I used to go practically every day when I was finishing up my doctoral dissertation. I really liked this sign, because it struck me as just the right combination of subtle tweak to my self-consciousness about being such a strong creature of habit, as well as a clever reminder that there was something tangible I could do to break out of my own little self-absorbed world of dissertation writing and (in a small way at least) contribute toward changing someone else's life for the better. If you fear change, leave it here. Those seven little words were worth an extra twenty cents a day, or about a dollar a week, for the employees of the cafe who made my tall double non-fat latte every morning. Perhaps not a whole lot in and of itself. But when you multiply by the number of people who, life myself, visited that cafe on a near-daily basis, it starts to add up in a hurry.
We all have different reactions to change. Some people are so change resistant that even the slightest disruption of their familiar routine is enough to upset them profoundly, while others routinely like to shake things up just for the excitement of doing things differently for a change. But most of us, I suspect, are somewhere in between -- we appreciate the novelty of an occasional change of scene, while at the same time feeling nostalgic about the familiar things we hope will never change. And of course, not all changes are created equal; there are also various levels of change, some of which feel more disturbing than others.
For example, many so-called "changes" are merely superficial, or on the surface. The appearance changes, but not the real essence of the thing itself. Superficial change is sometimes compared to "rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic," but I'm not so sure this is really fair. Not every little bump in the night is a collision with an iceberg; sometimes, if all you want to do is get out of the wind, or maybe get a better tan, rearranging deck chairs is a perfectly good response. Furthermore, the notion of the "tipping point" suggests that sometimes small, incremental changes which improve quality in key areas, or a few select new additions which enhance what one is doing already, can often create a ripple effect which extends well beyond their immediate impact. And likewise it is also quite possible to attempt dramatic, sweeping changes which never really get beneath the surface of a problem, and often end up creating more problems than they solve.
The real secret to creating meaningful, effective, substantive change is to focus on changing attitudes as well as behavior. It is so much easier to do things differently when you have also learned how to see them differently, and this improved perspective -- a "changed mind" -- is not only the first step, but also the most important step, in creating truly significant changes in one's life, or in an institution, or even in society itself. Of course, not every new idea is a good one, and not all change is for the better. Yet generally speaking, the more expansive one's perspective, the easier it is to distinguish the good ideas from the bad ones. When we allow meaningless details to distract us from looking at the bigger picture, or a false sense of urgency to prevent us from taking a longer view, we end up running the dual risk of changing things that don't really need to be changed at all, while shortsightedly failing to change the things that will truly make a difference in the long run.
Which brings us at last to the most difficult, most challenging, and perhaps most frightening thing about change, which is the frequent failure to recognize that some form of change is not only necessary, but inevitable. The only thing constant in life is change. And yet, it also so happens that the more things change, the more they remain the same. And between these two truisms is the daunting task of distinguishing between reactive or reactionary change, which typically struggles to resist changes in the larger environment by reinventing the past as a bulwark against the future, and adaptive or progressive change, which attempts to anticipate these larger changes and respond to them in fresh, creative and innovative ways.
I want to change the subject here slightly for just a moment, and say a word or two about some of the changes that are taking place in the Church. And not so much this particular church, but rather "the Church" in general, beginning with the evangelical church, the "Red" church. Evangelical Christianity is no longer just the warm, fuzzy, feel-good religion I remember from when I was a kid. And who knows? -- maybe it never really was that way to begin with. But it seems to me that the Good News about redeeming lost souls through the power of God's love has taken on kind of a hard edge of late, and perhaps even developed a bit of a mean streak to go along with it. It's become more aggressive, and discovered a fondness for throwing its weight around in order to get its own way. The so-called traditional "mainline" churches, on the other hand, at times seem to have lost touch with many of their historically sources of inspiration: the Social Gospel, Liberation theology, the Civil Rights movement. As its membership has grown relatively older, and dwindled in absolute numbers over the past quarter of a century, the Mainline church has started to look inward, attending to the needs of its own remaining members and their children, and to the maintenance and preservation of its property and facilities, rather than attempting to save the world by serving humanity in a spirit of compassion and Social Reform.
In addition to its new-found political agenda, the Evangelical church has continued to explore new and dynamic forms of public worship, to develop strong, innovative teaching ministries, and to pursue its traditional evangelical emphasis on making new converts and "winning souls for Christ," together with more generalized missionary efforts intended to transform society and reshape it along "Christian" lines. Meanwhile the Mainline churches have, for the most part, continued to cling to their traditional forms and methods of worship and education, as if by preserving practices that are in some cases centuries old, they are somehow "keeping the faith" as well; and have often shied away from even the appearance of attempting to impose their own views on others, in the name of religious pluralism and freedom of belief.
These are all just generalizations of course, drawn from the research of those who study this sort of thing for a living. There are plenty of exceptions across the board -- exceptional churches who buck the trends and make their own rules, who embrace change rather than reacting against it, and take advantage of the opportunity to shape their own futures rather than clinging desperately to the past. They know that things are going to change whether they want them to or not, and have decided to change their own attitude about the need for change in order to become part of the cutting edge rather than one of its victims. So I thought I'd wrap up here this morning simply by talking briefly about three of the most common "attitude changes" within exceptional Mainline churches that have helped transform them into vital and dynamic spiritual communities for the 21st century.
The first of these is something I know some of you have heard me talk about on other occasions, and that is transforming an existing spirit of Fellowship to a broader spirit of Hospitality. Most churches see themselves as friendly places, and most of them are...for the people who are already part of the community. But often good intentions go astray: churches put up signs or even run advertisements declaring that "all are welcome," but then when someone new actually shows up at the door they are basically ignored (so as not to put any undo pressure on them), and then if they do decide to stick around anyway, they are quickly assigned to a committee, asked to make a financial contribution, and then carefully monitored by the more "experienced" members of the congregation in order to prevent them from attempting to make any changes to "the way we've always done it here."
It's such a common phenomenon that I could probably take this same sermon into just about any church in the country: Methodist, Baptist, Catholic, Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Unitarian -- it doesn't really matter -- and about half the congregation would be thinking "that's just what happened to me." And of course we never hear anything at all from the ones who decided NOT to stick around. But a Spirit of Hospitality intentionally seeks out newcomers, and invites them in as guests. People are greeted by name, and made to feel welcome just as they are, regardless of whether they really "fit in" or may eventually become active members of the congregation. The subtle distinctions between "insider" and "outsider" are minimized or eliminated; perhaps more importantly, the primary question of the day becomes "what can our church do to make our guests feel more at home?" rather than "what can these newcomers do for us?" A Spirit of Hospitality is not about church growth. Its about making sure that people who are seeking something different in their lives can find what they are looking for.
A second important attitude change is the transformation of an existing culture of Conservation and Stewardship into a Culture of Generosity and Abundance. Conservation and Stewardship are about the responsible use of scarce and precious resources, which are assumed to be limited and therefore need to be strictly and frugally allocated. It's a zero-sum game, which borrows from Peter to pay Paul, and where there is never enough to go around. A culture of generosity and abundance begins with a different set of assumptions. It assumes that "where your treasure is, there shall your heart be also" and then asks people to put their hearts into the things they truly value most. Churches never have enough money to do everything they dream of doing, but they always seem to find the money to do the things they really want to do, or feel that they they must. A culture of generosity and abundance lifts up a vision of possibility rather than one of neediness, and then invites people to become partners to help create it. Which is not to suggest that resources are unlimited, or should be allocated foolishly. But often it is only our own sense of limitation that holds us back, and when we overcome that, we become capable of accomplishing together more than we ever dreamed possible.
The final important attitude change I wanted to mention this morning is the transition from an ethic of Faithfulness to one of Mission and Vocation. The ethic of Faithfulness is about remaining true to one's beliefs, and to the values of one's society or community of faith. And there is certainly nothing wrong with that, just like there is nothing wrong with Fellowship, or Conservation and Stewardship either. But an ethic of Mission and Vocation asks that you go beyond mere faithfulness to a discernment of what you personally have specifically have been called to do in this world, and then offers the encouragement to actually go out and do it. In other words, it's not really enough just to "keep the faith;" one also needs to "spread the faith," to put it to work to make a difference in your own life and in the lives of others. Call to mind again that wonderful verse from the letter of James: "Show me your faith apart from you works, and I by my works will show you my faith." But it's not really a matter of "showing off" -- rather, we bring our faith to life by putting it to work, and thus give our lives larger meaning in the process.
Adopting these kinds of changed attitudes isn't always easy, especially if the other attitudes are working just fine for you, and you don't really see the need to change. But I also hope that as you continue to explore these themes in the weeks and months and years ahead, that you will remain open and receptive to the possibility of real change -- some of it apparently superficial, some of it more difficult and substantial, and some of it quite possibly deeply profound indeed. Because the work of the church -- of this church, and every church -- is to change people's lives for the better. And that is certainly something that none of us need fear.
at the First Religious Society in Carlisle, Massachusetts
Sunday January 9th, 2005
[extemporaneous introduction]
I've been thinking quite a bit here lately about how much the meaning of the word "Red" has changed just in the course of my own lifetime. Nowadays to be a "Red" apparently means to be a socially-conservative Religious fundamentalist who typically resides in either the South or the Midwest, and for whom "moral values" was the most important consideration in the recent election. Which is, of course, vastly different from what it meant to call someone a "Red" when I was young(er). Back then (as I'm sure all ya'll already know), "Red" was slang for Communist, or perhaps by association, communist sympathizer (or what some today might call a "liberal") -- the radicals who invented Social Security, and not the ones who want to "privatize" it.
And I was delighted to discover (when I got to be of an age when I could appreciate what it meant) that I actually have authentic Reds on both sides of my family tree. The first was my mother's Uncle Al Glotzer, a New York Jew and fiery young Bolshevik back in the days when that actually meant something, who at one point even traveled to Turkey to consult the exiled Leon Trotsky on an obscure point of Marxist ideology, and was pressed into service as one of his bodyguards. And the other was my father's uncle, "Big Bill" Baldwin -- a minor Wobblie in the forests of the Pacific Northwest who was eventually blacklisted by the timber barons, and forced to eek out a living working in the underground economy as a shade-tree mechanic.
Of course, by the time I was old enough to appreciate what they had done, you would never have been able to tell by looking at them. My uncle Al was a semi-retired court stenographer who split his time between his rent-controlled Manhattan apartment and his modest place on Martha's Vineyard; while my uncle Bill turned out not to be my uncle at all: we learned at his death that he and my Auntie Lala had been living together "without benefit of clergy" for nearly half-a-century, not because "Big Bill" was ideologically opposed to the bourgeois institution of marriage, but because Lala knew that her own mother (my great-grandmother) would never have approved of her being married to a Red! And since Bill had apparently not filed an income tax return in all those years either, his estate turned out to be a real mess -- although I did inherit a box of rather interesting books, including a big bundle of Robert Ingersoll tracts and a hardbound copy of Edward Bellamy's utopian classic "Looking Backward."
The start of a New Year is a natural time for people to think about Change. It's part of our culture: this is the season when we gaze back retrospectively at where we've been, or look forward in anticipation of where we are headed, and if we don't like what we see, we resolve to change. Of course, contemplating change is a whole lot easier than actually changing for real, because there's always a price to pay for change, which brings me to the title of today's sermon: "If You Fear Change, Leave It Here." This was the small, hand-written sign taped to the tip jar in the espresso cafe in Eugene, Oregon where I used to go practically every day when I was finishing up my doctoral dissertation. I really liked this sign, because it struck me as just the right combination of subtle tweak to my self-consciousness about being such a strong creature of habit, as well as a clever reminder that there was something tangible I could do to break out of my own little self-absorbed world of dissertation writing and (in a small way at least) contribute toward changing someone else's life for the better. If you fear change, leave it here. Those seven little words were worth an extra twenty cents a day, or about a dollar a week, for the employees of the cafe who made my tall double non-fat latte every morning. Perhaps not a whole lot in and of itself. But when you multiply by the number of people who, life myself, visited that cafe on a near-daily basis, it starts to add up in a hurry.
We all have different reactions to change. Some people are so change resistant that even the slightest disruption of their familiar routine is enough to upset them profoundly, while others routinely like to shake things up just for the excitement of doing things differently for a change. But most of us, I suspect, are somewhere in between -- we appreciate the novelty of an occasional change of scene, while at the same time feeling nostalgic about the familiar things we hope will never change. And of course, not all changes are created equal; there are also various levels of change, some of which feel more disturbing than others.
For example, many so-called "changes" are merely superficial, or on the surface. The appearance changes, but not the real essence of the thing itself. Superficial change is sometimes compared to "rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic," but I'm not so sure this is really fair. Not every little bump in the night is a collision with an iceberg; sometimes, if all you want to do is get out of the wind, or maybe get a better tan, rearranging deck chairs is a perfectly good response. Furthermore, the notion of the "tipping point" suggests that sometimes small, incremental changes which improve quality in key areas, or a few select new additions which enhance what one is doing already, can often create a ripple effect which extends well beyond their immediate impact. And likewise it is also quite possible to attempt dramatic, sweeping changes which never really get beneath the surface of a problem, and often end up creating more problems than they solve.
The real secret to creating meaningful, effective, substantive change is to focus on changing attitudes as well as behavior. It is so much easier to do things differently when you have also learned how to see them differently, and this improved perspective -- a "changed mind" -- is not only the first step, but also the most important step, in creating truly significant changes in one's life, or in an institution, or even in society itself. Of course, not every new idea is a good one, and not all change is for the better. Yet generally speaking, the more expansive one's perspective, the easier it is to distinguish the good ideas from the bad ones. When we allow meaningless details to distract us from looking at the bigger picture, or a false sense of urgency to prevent us from taking a longer view, we end up running the dual risk of changing things that don't really need to be changed at all, while shortsightedly failing to change the things that will truly make a difference in the long run.
Which brings us at last to the most difficult, most challenging, and perhaps most frightening thing about change, which is the frequent failure to recognize that some form of change is not only necessary, but inevitable. The only thing constant in life is change. And yet, it also so happens that the more things change, the more they remain the same. And between these two truisms is the daunting task of distinguishing between reactive or reactionary change, which typically struggles to resist changes in the larger environment by reinventing the past as a bulwark against the future, and adaptive or progressive change, which attempts to anticipate these larger changes and respond to them in fresh, creative and innovative ways.
I want to change the subject here slightly for just a moment, and say a word or two about some of the changes that are taking place in the Church. And not so much this particular church, but rather "the Church" in general, beginning with the evangelical church, the "Red" church. Evangelical Christianity is no longer just the warm, fuzzy, feel-good religion I remember from when I was a kid. And who knows? -- maybe it never really was that way to begin with. But it seems to me that the Good News about redeeming lost souls through the power of God's love has taken on kind of a hard edge of late, and perhaps even developed a bit of a mean streak to go along with it. It's become more aggressive, and discovered a fondness for throwing its weight around in order to get its own way. The so-called traditional "mainline" churches, on the other hand, at times seem to have lost touch with many of their historically sources of inspiration: the Social Gospel, Liberation theology, the Civil Rights movement. As its membership has grown relatively older, and dwindled in absolute numbers over the past quarter of a century, the Mainline church has started to look inward, attending to the needs of its own remaining members and their children, and to the maintenance and preservation of its property and facilities, rather than attempting to save the world by serving humanity in a spirit of compassion and Social Reform.
In addition to its new-found political agenda, the Evangelical church has continued to explore new and dynamic forms of public worship, to develop strong, innovative teaching ministries, and to pursue its traditional evangelical emphasis on making new converts and "winning souls for Christ," together with more generalized missionary efforts intended to transform society and reshape it along "Christian" lines. Meanwhile the Mainline churches have, for the most part, continued to cling to their traditional forms and methods of worship and education, as if by preserving practices that are in some cases centuries old, they are somehow "keeping the faith" as well; and have often shied away from even the appearance of attempting to impose their own views on others, in the name of religious pluralism and freedom of belief.
These are all just generalizations of course, drawn from the research of those who study this sort of thing for a living. There are plenty of exceptions across the board -- exceptional churches who buck the trends and make their own rules, who embrace change rather than reacting against it, and take advantage of the opportunity to shape their own futures rather than clinging desperately to the past. They know that things are going to change whether they want them to or not, and have decided to change their own attitude about the need for change in order to become part of the cutting edge rather than one of its victims. So I thought I'd wrap up here this morning simply by talking briefly about three of the most common "attitude changes" within exceptional Mainline churches that have helped transform them into vital and dynamic spiritual communities for the 21st century.
The first of these is something I know some of you have heard me talk about on other occasions, and that is transforming an existing spirit of Fellowship to a broader spirit of Hospitality. Most churches see themselves as friendly places, and most of them are...for the people who are already part of the community. But often good intentions go astray: churches put up signs or even run advertisements declaring that "all are welcome," but then when someone new actually shows up at the door they are basically ignored (so as not to put any undo pressure on them), and then if they do decide to stick around anyway, they are quickly assigned to a committee, asked to make a financial contribution, and then carefully monitored by the more "experienced" members of the congregation in order to prevent them from attempting to make any changes to "the way we've always done it here."
It's such a common phenomenon that I could probably take this same sermon into just about any church in the country: Methodist, Baptist, Catholic, Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Unitarian -- it doesn't really matter -- and about half the congregation would be thinking "that's just what happened to me." And of course we never hear anything at all from the ones who decided NOT to stick around. But a Spirit of Hospitality intentionally seeks out newcomers, and invites them in as guests. People are greeted by name, and made to feel welcome just as they are, regardless of whether they really "fit in" or may eventually become active members of the congregation. The subtle distinctions between "insider" and "outsider" are minimized or eliminated; perhaps more importantly, the primary question of the day becomes "what can our church do to make our guests feel more at home?" rather than "what can these newcomers do for us?" A Spirit of Hospitality is not about church growth. Its about making sure that people who are seeking something different in their lives can find what they are looking for.
A second important attitude change is the transformation of an existing culture of Conservation and Stewardship into a Culture of Generosity and Abundance. Conservation and Stewardship are about the responsible use of scarce and precious resources, which are assumed to be limited and therefore need to be strictly and frugally allocated. It's a zero-sum game, which borrows from Peter to pay Paul, and where there is never enough to go around. A culture of generosity and abundance begins with a different set of assumptions. It assumes that "where your treasure is, there shall your heart be also" and then asks people to put their hearts into the things they truly value most. Churches never have enough money to do everything they dream of doing, but they always seem to find the money to do the things they really want to do, or feel that they they must. A culture of generosity and abundance lifts up a vision of possibility rather than one of neediness, and then invites people to become partners to help create it. Which is not to suggest that resources are unlimited, or should be allocated foolishly. But often it is only our own sense of limitation that holds us back, and when we overcome that, we become capable of accomplishing together more than we ever dreamed possible.
The final important attitude change I wanted to mention this morning is the transition from an ethic of Faithfulness to one of Mission and Vocation. The ethic of Faithfulness is about remaining true to one's beliefs, and to the values of one's society or community of faith. And there is certainly nothing wrong with that, just like there is nothing wrong with Fellowship, or Conservation and Stewardship either. But an ethic of Mission and Vocation asks that you go beyond mere faithfulness to a discernment of what you personally have specifically have been called to do in this world, and then offers the encouragement to actually go out and do it. In other words, it's not really enough just to "keep the faith;" one also needs to "spread the faith," to put it to work to make a difference in your own life and in the lives of others. Call to mind again that wonderful verse from the letter of James: "Show me your faith apart from you works, and I by my works will show you my faith." But it's not really a matter of "showing off" -- rather, we bring our faith to life by putting it to work, and thus give our lives larger meaning in the process.
Adopting these kinds of changed attitudes isn't always easy, especially if the other attitudes are working just fine for you, and you don't really see the need to change. But I also hope that as you continue to explore these themes in the weeks and months and years ahead, that you will remain open and receptive to the possibility of real change -- some of it apparently superficial, some of it more difficult and substantial, and some of it quite possibly deeply profound indeed. Because the work of the church -- of this church, and every church -- is to change people's lives for the better. And that is certainly something that none of us need fear.
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