On Eastertide

I am still relatively new to the practice of observing the Church Year and worshipping in a congregation guided by the Revised Common Lectionary. As a Baptist of Southern Baptist heritage I was largely unaware that there were seasons through which the Church progressed each year; actually I was only aware of Advent, and that was because the Catholic church in town placed these massive oil candles in the churchyard during that time of year.

Ever since Dr. Terry York presented the tradition of the Church Year and the cycle of the Lectionary to me in his Christian Worship class, though, I’ve been increasingly convinced that such a rhythm of life and such a connection to the world-wide Christian communion is not only within the scope of my Baptist principles but also may help my generation of Baptist pastors move our congregation beyond the Fundamentalist/Moderate controversy on which we teethed.

My congregation’s practice of observing the Church Year has recently taken us into the wilderness of Lent with our Lord. During these six Sundays our congregation has taken great pains to concentrate on our need for God’s sustenance and provision. We have called out our sins and meditated on our sinfulness. We have concluded that we are in need of a Savior, for who can rescue us from this body of death? We journeyed, painstakingly, agonizingly, slowly toward the Cross.

We intentionally neglected the joy of Easter, a joy we know would come. We knew that the tomb would be empty, that the Lord would at last defeat death and open for us the path to eternal life. We ignored that as best we could, though, so as to know our need and our thirst for that Lord and for his Life. We seemed to be surrounded by death, by prayers of renewal and by songs of lament.

Easter came - oh Glory did it come! We sang; we SANG! We sang old Baptist hymns and Handel’s “Messiah.” We read John’s account of the resurrection and we prayed amidst the chirping of birds and the palpable new life of spring. We worshipped.

But then Easter ended.

I went home and scattered plastic eggs for my toddler to find; I ate lamb with my Greek family members; I napped. But after all of that I had to pack my bag and prepare for another week of reality. This time there was no Lenten restriction to help me hunger through the day - all was resurrected joy and consummation.

The Church Year calls this time “Eastertide.” The seven Sundays after Resurrection Day form a happy antithesis to the Lenten season: whereas Lent is denial and despondency, Eastertide is joy and astonishment and the heavy exhale of a people who no longer fear death. The Church Year makes Easter the hinge, the high-water-mark of the story of Jesus and of all Christian life. We have the tough, long slough to the Cross before and the downhill road back to Emmaus from the empty tomb.

The passages for Eastertide are the other side of the Easter story, too. Suddenly we find bold, testifying disciples where cowards had recently stood. We read of the Hebrew Scriptures being understood in light of a new revelation of God through Jesus Christ. We see the Church being born after preaching that this same miracle-working, Kingdom-proclaiming Jesus had been raised from the dead.

Easter did in fact end. The event that we celebrated last Sunday was one single moment in history. But the consequences, the fallout from that miraculous day take more than one sermon or Bible study to work out. Here, here is where we begin to “work out [our] salvation with fear and trembling.” Here, in Eastertide, is where we begin to understand our new, re-created, forgiven identities in Christ.

I think of this season of Eastertide as a return from exile. In the first chapters of Ezra we read of the return of the Babylonian captives to Jerusalem. Can you imagine the joy that spread throughout the community when word came down from Cyrus that they could return home? What a celebration! They were showered with gifts and money and good things with which to re-establish God’s Temple and their society. What a critical, hinge moment for the Exiles.

Ezra recounts that there was a great celebration once the Exiles returned. There were special offerings and festivals and sacrifices. Soon, though, people noticed that there was no foundation upon which to rebuild the Temple. The celebration had to be modulated and actual work had to begin. If the Exiles were to truly be reunited with their God, they would need to understand and address the consequences, the fallout of their return.

This is the season for Christians to address the cosmic, eternal, and ultimately personal meaning of Easter. This is the season to not only confess sin, but to deal with it. This is the season to no longer point out the rubble of former temples; this is the season to clear the land and build upon the One Foundation.

So, to borrow from the artist Bastille, “where to we begin? The rubble or our sins?” Let’s get to work. It’s Eastertide.

On the "Mississippi Religious Freedom Restoration Act" of 2014

Sometimes politics is, well, just politics. In the American system of government there often come times when politicians need to make sure everyone sees them doing something, even if the something they accomplish is repetitive, moot, or pointless.

A wonderful case on point is the recently ratified “Religious Freedom Restoration Act” that Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant signed into law on April 3^rd. This law, which ostensibly protects the free exercise of religion in the State from undue burdens levied by the government, turns out to be nothing more than a copy of the Federal law signed by President Clinton in 1993.[1]

The text of the law passed in Mississippi is vague at best:

 5)  (a)  Government shall not substantially burden a person's exercise of religion even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability, except as provided in paragraph (b) of this subsection.

       (b) Government may substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion only if it demonstrates that application of the burden to the person:

                        (i) Is in the furtherance of a compelling governmental interest; and

(ii) Is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest.[2]

The language of the bill (especially its early sections) is identical to the Federal law passed during the Clinton administration. Only the addition of “In God We Trust” to the State Seal of Mississippi makes this bill significantly different from what has been on the federal books for 20 years.

The Mississippi legislature passed a law that serves little purpose other than to gin up support for legislators from the already dominant conservative majority of the state. But this is what politicians do; they fight battles that make them seem like heroes to their supporters but that do little in the grand scheme of things for the state. I get that - it is the securing of political capital that can be spent on truly important issues and ideas in months to come.

So why all the angst over this bill? If the Act is merely a repeat of an already valid law, why are so many groups coming out in vocal support of or opposition to it?

This is a case of the clash between the political process in Mississippi (and everywhere else in America) and the evangelical-dominated church culture of the state. What was a symbolic action by the legislature was a “die on this hill” measure for some Christians, including a great many Baptists in the state.

The conflict came at the point in the bill’s life when it was introduced in the Mississippi Senate. In that young version of the Bill the term “burden” is defined as follows:

"Burden" means any action that directly or indirectly constrains, inhibits, curtails or denies the exercise of religion by any person or compels any action contrary to a person's exercise of religion.  "Burden" includes, but is not limited to, withholding benefits, assessing criminal, civil or administrative penalties or exclusion from governmental programs or access to governmental facilities.[3]

The troublesome clause is that anything that “compels any action contrary to a person’s exercise of religion” is considered a burden. This is certainly a bad definition, since it prohibits governmental recourse for anyone (which includes corporations since “corporations are people, my friend”) who denies services or refuses participation or work based upon their religion. It is this clause that deserved the ire of the LBGTQ community, the Jewish community, and any other group fearing discrimination by the overwhelmingly conservative Christian majority of Mississippi.

While this version of the Bill was being debated (it would be amended twice in its lifetime) the Mississippi Baptist Convention came out supporting it. Non-SBC pastors and Methodist ministers came out against this version of the Bill, too.[4] It is likely that these pressures to pass or kill the Bill did little to sway the legislature compared to the response from business leaders in Mississippi who removed their support for the measure so long as the controversial definition of “burden” was included.

Now that the Bill has passed in a form that is an uncontroversial as the Federal law already on the books, there is celebration from the SBC and pledges to repeal from the LBGTQ community.[5]^[6] But the thing they’re celebrating and demonizing ISN’T THE BILL THAT PASSED!

This is not a “we won, you lost” situation where the powers of Light and the advancement of the Kingdom of God defeated the hedonistic pagans of the darkness. Neither side won, neither side lost. This is just politics. But when the Christian community invests itself so heavily in the political process, a process that is designed to find common ground and to respond to the interests of the state, the outcome of this situation demand a celebration or a condemnation. We must chose sides and hold ground in such situations.

Unfortunately the Kingdom is the only thing not being advanced since Governor Bryant signed the Act. Instead we hear of Baptists crowing about “victory” as though anything was won or lost. Just like the politicians who have used Senate Bill 2681 as a prop in their campaigns to prove how conservative they are, the Baptists of our state are in great numbers claiming victory of some sort for truth or Jesus or something. A great many sermons will undoubtedly be preached on the great Kingdom win that the Act represents. Future campaigns to pass socially conservative legislation will remember this Bill as a victory and will use its success as momentum.

There is nothing to cheer about or mourn in the Act as it was signed, though. It is an empty statement that does not open the door to discrimination any more than the Federal law which it echoes. Any crowing or bemoaning at this point is purely political maneuvering.

In all of that, though, considering that the actual Act as signed into law is as harmless as Clinton’s 1993 Act, it seems that it’s all just politics; good-old Mississippi Baptist politics.

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[1] http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/chapter-21B

[2] http://billstatus.ls.state.ms.us/documents/2014/pdf/SB/2600-2699/SB2681SG.pdf

[3] http://billstatus.ls.state.ms.us/documents/2014/pdf/SB/2600-2699/SB2681IN.pdf

[4] http://www.abpnews.com/culture/social-issues/item/28425-miss-baptist-methodist-pastors-oppose-discrimination-based-on-religious-freedom

[5] http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/02/us-usa-mississippi-religion-idUSBREA311ZZ20140402

[6] http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2014/04/02/mississippi_passes_anti_gay_segregation_bill_will_it_be_struck_down.html

A Meditation on 1 Corinthians 3:16

The Temple and the City

A Meditation on The Epistle Reading

The Seventh Sunday of Epiphany

1 Corinthians 3:16: Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?

Paul’s use of metaphor in this letter draws attention to the meaning of Christian community. The practices of the believers in Corinth were detrimental to the development of the fellowship of the saints and needed strong rebuke and correction by one of the spiritual founders of the congregation.

            One such image is the metaphor of the Temple: Paul describes the great building as having a foundation, which has been built upon by others. His desire is to draw the minds of the believers in Corinth to the then-standing wonder of the world that was the Temple in Jerusalem. He invokes the great tradition that understood the Temple as God’s location on Earth, the center of holiness and communication with the Divine. The Church, he says, is the new place where the presence of God is made manifest. It is in the community of the saints that God’s presence is experienced in the post-Pentecost era; therefore, anything that divides the holy community must be rectified and an emphasis placed upon preserving and extending the sacred community in Corinth.[1]

            Later in the Letter Paul employs a similar argument, but in this case (6:19) the temple is congruent to the individual’s body. This relationship between the Holy and the individual is highlighted to remind believers that whatever they do, whether in word or deed, all things contribute to the personal and communal participation in the Kingdom of God.

            The congregation, which in Baptist terms is a collection of professing, baptized believers, is then a two-fold Temple. On the one hand the community is the new Temple, the central location of God’s presence on Earth. On the other the individual is in relationship to God as a newly created and therefore differently-accountable person whose behavior should reflect that new status.

            The Temple in Jerusalem may not have been the first thing that came to mind for the Corinthian believers when they read Paul’s letter, though. It has been demonstrated that during the first generations after the resurrection Corinth hosted many temples to Greek and Roman deities, including the Emperor.[2] These relatively (when compared to the Temple in Jerusalem) small structures would have been everywhere in the city, standing as constant reminders of just how radical faith in Christ as Lord was for the Christians.

            Whether Paul uses a metaphor relating the community of faith to the Temple in Jerusalem or one calling the believer’s body a temple of the Holy Spirit, the preacher in me felt something stir when we read this passage this morning. If the believer (or the church itself) is the newly-fashioned Temple of God, then the both the exterior world of the faithful and the interior spirituality of the same must be in sync with what God would have us do and be. Clothed not in the ostentatious marble and gold and precious stones but in the humility and love of Christlikeness we are the presence of God in the world. We are not built as a Wonder of the World to which pilgrims journey to see and touch but are to go into the world and dot the streets and squares and turnstiles with little temples of the presence of Christ.

            And if we do just that, if we go and stand and bear witness to the fact that we are the temple of God and that the Kingdom has come and is coming, then we will have more than just a temple. We will have more than a network of fellowships; we will have made an entire city bearing witness to the presence of Christ. We will have fashioned the very City of God.

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[1] Richard Hays emphasizes the second person plural form of the subject “you” in this verse. Paul is not here suggesting that the individual is the temple of God (as he will in 6:19) but that the Church’s community of believers has become that place of God’s special presence on Earth, a presence that is not confined to the Temple in Jerusalem but extends from Jerusalem to the ends of the Earth. See Richard B. Hays, First Corinthians (Interpretation; Louisville: WJK, 1997): 56-8, 106.

[2] See David G. Horrell and Edward Adams “The Scholarly Quest for Paul’s Church at Corinth: A Critical Survey” in Christianity at Corinth: The Quest for the Pauline Church (eds Edward Adams and David G. Horrell; Louisville: WJK, 2004): 6.

"Bearing Witness" in 3 Minutes

One of my professors from seminary repeated two phrases that defined his ministry:

1) Don’t be dumb.

2) Be brief.

Although pastoral ministry is much more complicated than just these two rules they do capture the practical importance of how we manage our time with people. Don’t make dumb decisions. Don’t drag out sermons, funerals, hospital visits, or counseling sessions. If you can master these two simple rules, you’ll do well.

Part of the ministerial vocation (and the Christian identity) is to “bear witness” to the world that the Kingdom of God has drawn near to it. We announce the truths of the Gospel in our words and deeds, in our actions and in our non-actions. The church stands as a witness to the world that God is real, active, and desires the redemption of all people. The minister, wherever he or she goes, is to be the presence of Christ.

I’ve been able to practice “bearing witness” lately over the phone. It is no secret that my resume is available through both the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship database and the Mississippi Baptist Convention database of resumes for churches to download. I receive calls from churches in the South about twice per month. Usually the person who calls me is the Chair of the Search Committee. The Committee has just had their first meeting and the members have passed around resumes that they’ve downloaded from the CBF or MBCB databases. They see something they like on mine and put it in a pile of “contacts.” The Chairman then calls me to ask if my resume is still currant and if I would be interested in being considered for the Pastorate of their congregation.

Two things happen at that point. The Chairman tells me a little about the church, which often tells me everything I need to know about the congregation and how the phone call is going to end. Usually I get things like “we’ve had a problem with Calvinism” or “we need young families” or “we’re a very traditional church.”

The second thing I’ve learned to do is to be up-front with my two “deal breakers.” I tell the caller that I attended Truett Seminary at Baylor University, which is not one of the Big Six SBC seminaries like Southern, Southeastern, or New Orleans; usually this has been overlooked by the Committee in their quick survey of my resume. Secondly, I tell the caller that I am married to an ordained minister who works at a Baptist church in Jackson. I’ve learned that by being up-front with these two facts avoids their “inevitable discovery” later and questions from the committee.

When I tell the caller these two things I can usually discern a change in their tone. A bridge has been crossed, a mental box has been checked, or a light bulb has gone out. The brief, optimistic relationship I’ve made with the caller has changed.

They don’t call back.

There are several things going on here, most of which are beyond my intent in this post: going outside the SBC seminaries to the “liberal” seminary; implicitly supporting women in ministry (which is anathema to many Baptists); and the implications of the combination of these two facts, specifically my “liberalism,” which is actually an assumption of my spirituality and theology based on the “bogeyman” many churches have had painted for them.

My focus instead is the brief relationship I have with the caller. In the roughly three minutes it takes us to meet, share information about ourselves, and finally part ways I have an opportunity to bear witness to the Kingdom of God. These phone calls are the perfect time to follow my old professor’s advice: don’t be dumb, and be brief.

After so many calls over the last few years I’ve struggled with resentment over not being welcomed into a conversation with a church Search Committee because of my theological commitments. I’ve decided, though, that my 3-minute conversations with the movers and shakers of Baptist churches in the South is an opportunity to firmly, honestly, and confidently communicate my faith in who God is and what God is doing in Mississippi. It is a choice that I have to constantly reinforce, especially when the caller’s tone becomes so dismissive of me. I understand that I am probably more progressive than many SBC pastors, but I believe that if a longer conversation were possible these Committees would understand that I am not the caricature they assume me to be.

Our witness to the world includes our witness to other believers and to the organizations they represent. Even though we have significant differences on important issues, being part of the Body of Christ means that I must bear witness to my brothers and sisters, however briefly, that I am unwilling to let those differences prevent me from being honest, forthright, and kind.

Sometimes we cannot help but be brief, especially in the phone calls I’ve received these last few months. But it would be a gross violation of the ministerial axiom “don’t be dumb” to waste an opportunity to say, “I know we probably disagree, but I want you to know that I’m willing to sit and talk about our differences and similarities rather than to be cut off from you.”