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August 19, 2007
I Can't Believe He Said That!
Isaiah 5:1-7, Luke 12:49-56
The scene is in Hell at the annual dinner of the “Tempter's Training College for Young Devils”. The guest of honor is Screwtape, a very experienced devil, who stands to give a speech to the recent graduates. C.S. Lewis, along with countless books of essays and theological apologetics and the well loved Chronicles of Narnia , also wrote a wonderful little book called, The Screwtape Letters . It is a book of advice, letters from a well healed and much respected devil to a young devil-in-training named Wormwood. These letters were first published in the Guardian newspaper in Great Britain in the 50's. Though written with tongue in cheek, Lewis takes aim at all sorts of cultural aspects of his contemporary post-War England…many of which are familiar aspects of our own.
One cautionary letter to Wormwood is written on the subject of Causes. “Any small coterie, bound together by some interest…tends to develop itself a hothouse mutual admiration…a great deal of pride…which is entertained without shame because the ‘Cause' is the sponsor….”
People in causes are fair game and ripe to be recruited, says Screwtape to his pupil. Let him begin by treating the “cause” as part of his religion. Then let him under the influence of partisan spirit, come to regard it as the most important part. Then quietly and gradually nurse him on to the stage at which the religion becomes merely part of the “Cause. ” Old Screwtape is suggesting that once you have made the particular cause or its manifestations, whether it be patriotism, gung-ho for battle or pacifism, right to life or freedom of choice, fundamentalism or liberalism, the end and religion merely the means to accomplishing it, then “you have nearly won your man, and it makes very little difference what kind of worldly end he is pursuing.” Provided that meetings, pamphlets, policies, movements, causes and crusades, matter more to him than prayers and sacraments and charity, he is ours – the more “religious” (on those terms), the more securely ours. I could show you a pretty cage-full down here. – Your affectionate uncle, Screwtape. 1
I have a hunch that there are many who call themselves Christians who know a lot about the “causes” that energize them, but are perhaps less clear as to the connection with the life of Jesus. These one note religionists are found in all faiths – the violent jihadists are one example as are the people who stand outside military funerals in the U.S. protesting the “Don't Ask – Don't Tell” policy of the Pentagon with signs that say hateful things like “God Hates Fags.” I know God hates a hypocrite, which is said over and over again in scripture, but there are few other references of this sort in the Bible.
There are also people who see Christianity as being basically a progressive peace movement – I could have easily been put into that group from time to time throughout my ministry. I guess that's why the saying of Jesus we read this morning, “Don't think I have come to bring peace – but a sword…” jumps out at you! “I can't believe he said that!” You just can't assume when Jesus is concerned. He is anything but predictable as any of the witnesses who knew him have attested.
When Malcolm X became a Muslim, he was told, “Don't eat pork.” In the book, On Being a Jew , the rabbi tells his secular Jewish nephew, who has decided to live as a Jew, that the first step is to “observe the Sabbath.” It is natural to have a few particular characteristics of a religion with which you can sum it up.
What do we say to someone who says to us, “I want to learn to live as a Christian”? 2 What would you say? Greg Jones of Duke University poses this question in an article in Christian Century, noting that most Americans probably answer with an equally unsophisticated response as “don't eat pork.” Does being a Christian mean 1) going to church on Sunday, 2) tithing 10% of what you earn, 3) believing that the Bible is the inerrant word of God, 4) proclaiming that Jesus is the Son of God? In the Book of the Acts of the Apostles the new religion is summed up with the observation: “See how they love each other.” What would you say? The truth is that we would probably all have some similarity in our answers, but just as likely there would be some variety in what we chose to emphasize.
Most Americans pretty much assume that Christianity is what they experience in a church on Sunday morning or watch on T.V., whether it be the Chrystal Cathedral or the 700 Club or one of countless other expressions – it is viewed uncritically and rarely examined with any depth. “Many of us are ill-equipped to respond to [a question about what it means to be a Christian] because we have assumed that anyone who's grown up in North America already knows the basics of Christianity.” It should be automatic. Consequently, says Jones in Christian Century , “In too many congregations we don't have structures and practices in place to help us teach and learn a Christian way of life [on an ongoing basis.]” 3
“And you call yourself a Christian!” I was recalling to someone the other day that one of my tasks in my first church in Albany, New York, was to be lookout in the parking lot which my office overlooked. We were right downtown on Capitol Hill in Albany, so the parking lot was prime space and often it was difficult to keep space open for church functions and meetings. Many, many times I had to ask people to leave and more often than not, their response would be, “And you call yourself a Christian!” As if being a Christian somehow meant that with total humility, we were to provide parking for anyone who wanted it in downtown Albany. “Somebody's got to be generous – it may as well be the guy who has what I want so I can have it instead.” It's like true Christians are “on call” to be the good guy whenever one is needed. They are brave, clean and reverent too.
Being a follower of Jesus is a lot more than being nice-nice all the time, isn't it? If that is what one thinks it is, no wonder it is sometimes sneeringly regarded as a boring way of life. Yet, sometimes that is the way we think of our congregations. We are a group of people who are always nice to each other in church where the boat is never rocked, at least intentionally, and everybody assumes consensus. If something is controversial, well we just don't bring it up!
In the early church it took some time and study to become a Christian. A seeker was invited to worship but not admitted to the sacraments until they had been baptized. Baptism was usually only offered after at least a year or two of walking the walk with the congregation of believers and learning the way of life. In the first centuries of the life of the Christian movement, it was a pretty dramatic step for one to commit them self to the challenge of living a Christian life. It could mean persecution and division of families and friendships…guilt by association was not unheard of.
Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! [Luke 12:51 (New Revised Standard Version)]
One way to understand this alarming sentence is to figure that Jesus has seen the divisive nature of his word at work already in the world. One commentator suggests that this passage just tells us what we already know to be true---faithful response to Jesus' message divides us from people, even people that may be very close to us. 4
I've come to change everything, turn everything right side up—how I long for it to be finished! Do you think I came to smooth things over and make everything nice? Not so. I've come to disrupt and confront! (Luke 12:50-51) In this translation, the message is perhaps a bit more accessible, though perhaps not any more welcome. Jesus is saying he has had it with “nice-nice.” It is time to put some teeth into the movement – to act with some mettle. He even gets to the hypocrite a few verses later when he says, come on, you are able to see the change in the weather when it is one the way, how come you cannot see the changes that God is ushering all around us? You are a fraud if you think there is ever a “standard way of doing things!” There isn't. Facing that, you see that the family is going to have disagreements from time to time.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the fellow who gave up his professorship of Theology at Union Seminary in order to go home to Germany during WWII understood just this. The German Church was acquiescing to Hitler's government at every turn, not questioning the disappearance of Jews or the order to place the Nazi Flag front and center in every chancel. Bonhoeffer returned from the safety of America to Germany to help found the “Confessing Church” which was a group of faithful German Protestants of all walks of life who realized that following Jesus meant things could not be smoothed over any longer. They reformed themselves in protest to the National Church and worshipped at their own peril. Many leaders of the Confessing Church, including Bonhoeffer, finally felt compelled to participate in the plot to kill Hitler.
Martin Niemöller, another pastor who joined the Confessing Church movement is the one to which the following poem is attributed:
They came first for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up. 5
Isaiah's love poem to the Vineyard Israel which we also read this morning, reminds us that God purpose has always been fullness of life for all of God's people and it is our stubborn resistance to the radical nature of that love which has gotten us in trouble since the very earliest days. God wants us to be different from the norm – and we just want to be nice and fit in with the crowd. God says, speak to injustice and struggle to live in righteous. God, it seems, has always expected more of us than we do of ourselves, and as disciples Jesus calls us to that recognition. Discipleship means being noticed, it means stepping forward, it means stirring things up.
If you come to think of it, what Jesus says in Luke about turning things over and stirring things up is not that unusual after all. For him, the Kingdom of God is always depicted as a fluid and forever challenging movement operating under only one constant and that constant is the Love of God – and the power of love to face all things, believe all things, and endure all things. All else will fade away, but that love never ends. Amen.
1 C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters and Screwtape Proposes a Toast , Macmillan Paperbacks Edition, 1959, pg. 35 Go Back
2 L. Gregory Jones , “ Learning Curve ,” Faith matters, Christian Century, August 07, 2007 Go Back
4 William R. Long, M. Div., Essay Web Site <www.drbilllong.com> Go Back
5 Often quoted poem by Pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984) this is the version inscribed at the New England Holocaust Memorial in Boston, Massachusetts. Go Back
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