More Than a Building

When you say “church” to most people, the image that pops into their mind is a building, often with a steeple on top.  We don’t have a steeple at Old Union, but “church” often means “church building” for us, just like everyone else.

It wasn’t always that way at Old Union.  For the first sixteen years of our church’s life we had no building at all.  Each Sunday the congregation met in a grove of trees beside a creek.  In bad weather they put a tarp over their makeshift pulpit.  That was it.  For the next nineteen years we worshiped in a log chapel at “Covenanter Woods” beside Fetzer Road before moving to our present location.  When that building burnt to the ground in 1905 our forebears built what is now the main part of our sanctuary; an addition in 1958 and our expansion in 2009 gave us the building we have today.

It’s ironic that the building has become such a major focus of our church’s identity, considering the fact that we had no building at all during those first years, and that the oldest part of our current building is only half as old as the congregation.  We focus a lot of attention on our building, whether it’s fund-raisers to pay off the mortgage, policies to make sure it’s being used correctly, or comments about its care and upkeep.

I have news for you: the building does not define our congregation.  Old Union didn’t become a different church when they moved from Straight Run to Covenanter Woods.  We didn’t change when the building burnt down, or when the additions were put on.  Brick and mortar, wood and glass do not make us who we are.

Over the last couple years a number of churches have left our denomination because of policy changes.  In virtually every case, issues over who gets the church property are the focus of the debate and final decision.  I’ve heard of some churches, and presbyteries, engaging in blatantly un-Christian activity to get or keep the church property.  That’s the kind of thing you do when your building is the most important thing about your church.

We can learn a few other things from Old Union’s founding generations about what matters in a church.  It wasn’t the building, but it also wasn’t the pastor: they had to share Rev. Williams with five other congregations in a time when travel was difficult.  It also wasn’t the music: they only sang the psalms, without an organ or any other musical instrument, in a style that by all accounts was far from inspiring.

The true identity of our church doesn’t come from its building, its pastor, or many of the other things that we think are so important.  Our church is defined by the quality of the fellowship its people share and by the mission that Christ has put before us.

Spend some time this month asking yourself: what makes Old Union the church that it is?  And what can I do to build it up?

Peter

Grabbing the Bible with Both Hands

In about eighth or ninth grade, I began a spiritual discipline of regular Scripture reading.  Throughout high school and college, it was a powerful mainstay for my faith as it developed and grew.  I didn’t discover powerful insights every day, but spending time daily (or almost daily) in God’s word helped me learn about and explore God’s place in my life and my place in his will.

Then I went to seminary.

Suddenly, the Bible was no longer a resource for my devotional life; it was an object of analysis and study.  I was taught to read the Bible in an entirely different way.  It was no longer simply God’s message to my heart; now I explored its historical setting, the literary forms that it contains, and a whole host of other “critical” skills.  Things that I had taken for granted were called into question.  Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and the other patriarchs were “eponymous folk heroes” who very possibly weren’t actual historical people.  The Pentateuch wasn’t written by Moses, but by a nameless committee called “the redactors” who pieced it together from at least four different sources.  Two or three different people wrote Isaiah.  Daniel didn’t write Daniel, John didn’t write John, and Paul didn’t write Ephesians.  I was taught not simply to read what the text said, but to explore the historical, literary, and social issues that underlie it.  I learned that the “unique word of God” was surprisingly similar to tales from other cultures of the time and region that we call myths.  I was getting to know the Bible in a new way and on a different level from how I had ever read it before.

In the process, something troubling began to happen with my daily devotional times.   When I picked up the Bible to discover God’s message for me, it had become an object for analysis instead of a resource for spiritual development.  Instead of hearing what the Spirit had to say to me, I could only hear the voices of my professors and seminary textbooks, pointing out the underlying tradition streams and historical nuances of the text.  My time with Scripture was no longer a spiritual retreat; it was a time for analysis and criticism.

It took me years to find my way out of this quandary, but it’s a struggle that many seminarians, and college students who take religion courses, encounter.  As my student pastor put it, “When I pick up the Bible with one hand to read it devotionally, my other hand knocks it away.”  Our devotional “hand” and our critical-thinking “hand” are at odds with each other.  One wants to pull the Bible into myself and identify fully with it.  The other holds it at arm’s length to examine like a rare fossil or exotic gem.

I suspect that many people who find themselves in this situation choose one hand or the other with which to hold the Bible, and ignore or cut off the other hand.  One choice is to repudiate everything we pick up from our academic study of the Bible.  We may write it off as an irrelevant distraction or react against it as an attack on our faith.  Those professors and egg-head scholars are just trying to tear the Bible apart!  We can seek to reclaim the simplicity and innocence with which I read the Bible in high school and college.  Another choice is to embrace critical insights and dismiss our earlier encounters with Scripture as foolish ignorance.  Maybe that was helpful when I was a youth, but now that I’m wiser and more mature I can put such childish things behind me.  In other words, we can either be intellectually dishonest, or we can turn our back on our spiritual heritage.  I can tie up one of my hands (either the devotional one or the critical one) and hold the Bible with the other.  But this is our challenge: how can we grab the Bible with both hands?

Before ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease) took away much of his manual dexterity, my brother was a highly skilled head and neck cancer surgeon.  Part of why he was so skilled was because he had taught himself to be ambidextrous.  He grew up right-handed, but discovered that some surgical procedures are very difficult to execute with the right hand.  After he learned to be adept with both hands, he could approach situations and be able to use the hand that made the most sense for what was in front of him.  In the same way, when we are able to grab the Bible with both hands, we are more adept at understanding it and what it has to say to us.

When my brother faced a particular situation in the operating room, he would decide which hand it made the most sense to use in order to accomplish whatever it was he wanted to do.  Because he could use either hand, he could efficiently and effectively do wonderful things for his patients.  In the same way, if we are skilled at using both of our “hands” when reading the Bible, we will be much more effective and successful at whatever we seek to gain from that time.

Grabbing the Bible with both hands is different from being a switch-hitter: gauging your approach the Bible according to the situation and then using the suitable “hand” to do it well.  It means that you use both hands, both your critical and your devotional self, when you engage with the text.  My brother used both hands to operate.  In a particular situation, it may make more sense to make the incision with his left hand, but he would still use his right hand during the procedure, to do things like set a clamp (or whatever else surgeons do during an operation).  When he stopped doing surgery because of the effects of ALS, he still had full use of his left hand.  But he was too wise of a surgeon to think that he could get the job done with only one hand.  In the same way, we who approach the Bible with both devotional and critical skills are able to “get the job done” better than if we did it with only one “hand” or the other.  But we need to keep in mind what “job” we are trying to “get done,” and make the decision about which hand should be primary.

It takes time to become ambidextrous and be able to grab the Bible with both hands.  At first, our two hands aren’t able to work well together.  One hand tries to pick up the Bible, and the other one slaps it away.  Our devotional attitude and our critical skills work at cross purposes with each other, and we are clumsier with the Bible than we were when we only held it with one hand.  But, as in most situations, time and practice help.  We learn how to read the Bible devotionally, with our critical insights helping us to discern more of God’s message for our lives.  We learn how our devotional relationship with the Bible enhances our critical analysis.  It takes time, and it takes patience.  But if we are hasty and impulsive, we end up being one-handed Bible-readers.

Hermeneutics is a philosophical discipline that explores how we can gain understanding from things that we read.  My two favorite hermeneutics philosophers both offer insights into how we can grab the Bible with both hands.

Hans-Georg Gadamer explained that when you  read a book, it’s like making a decision to play by the rules of a particular game.  You “enter into the world” of the text, just like a basketball player enters into the world of basketball when she decides to play the game.  Basketball creates its own little world with its rules, and you’re only playing basketball if you play by those rules.  You can’t tackle someone from the other who has the ball (that’s the world of football) and you can’t kick the ball down the court (that would be soccer).  When we held soccer practices in our church gym, the ball would occasionally go through one of the basketball hoops on either side of the gym.  It was a source of amusement when that happened, but it had nothing to do with the game-world of soccer.  When the basketball players got the ball through hoop, however, that was the point of the whole game.

Gadamer compared reading a text to playing a game because it only makes sense if you enter the world of the text you’re reading.  You can only appreciate the book it you set aside your objections to things that you think are silly or false about it; if you suspend your judgment about that world.  To pick a much less profound example than the Bible, the “Twilight” book series creates a world in which vampires sparkle in the sunlight, make treaties with werewolves, and fall in love with teenage girls.  In order to appreciate and enjoy these books, you can’t keep complaining that vampires, if they exist, would never act like that.  It’s like watching an action movie in which the hero should probably be dead or critically injured after what he goes through, but keeps going full speed without even a limp.  You can complain that “this could never happen!” but you can only enjoy the movie if you suspend judgment.  In the same way, we can enter the world of the Bible, a world that we understand more completely because of our critical analysis of it, by making the decision to “play by its rules.”

Paul Ricoeur described the process of understanding a text as the process of moving from a “first naiveté” to a “second naiveté.”  The “first naiveté” is the initial innocence we have about the book we’re reading.  This is how I read the Bible in high school and college.  I accepted at face value the world that it presented.  I entered its world, as Gadamer  would put it, without really understanding it or grasping the nuances of it.  To use another analogy, I was like an audience member at the magic show who believed that the volunteer from the audience actually was sawn in half and that the pretty lady really was changed into a tiger.  What Ricoeur calls “explanation” is the pursuit of discovering what’s really going on.  This is where academic-style critical study of the Bible comes in.  We become more savvy about what is being presented to it.  We question it, we dig deeply into it, and we learn more about the situation.  We learn more about the magician and know that somehow he’s tricking us.  We may even learn some of the secrets of the magician’s craft.  But then we can enter into Ricoeur’s “second naiveté.”  We can use the insights we’ve gained from “explanation” to have a richer, more informed appreciation of what the text is presenting to us.  Even if you know that there’s some trick to the magician appearing to make a freight train float in mid-air, you can still marvel at what he’s done.  Even when you know the historical-literary-social factors that underlie the composition of the Bible, you can still hear God speak to you through it.  And in fact, your awareness of these factors will help you hear God more clearly.

Institution or Kingdom?

What is a church?  It is a group of people that God has brought together, it is the body of Christ, and it is a place to worship and serve God.  Churches come in all styles and sizes, and each congregation has a unique witness and identity.  If one church tries to be “just like” another church, there’s bound to be disappointment and frustration.

But no matter what you think of our church (or of any other church), you need to make a fundamental choice about its nature:

Is the church an institution or a kingdom?

When we think of the church primarily as an institution, our focus centers upon issues that we find in other organizations.  We pay attention to the church’s resources: its finances, its building, and its officers and membership.  We want to be stable or growing, with a healthy budget, well-maintained facilities, capable leaders, and increasing attendance.  We look to the long-term health of the church: will it continue to exist in the future?  Do we have all the pieces in place that it takes for the church as an organization to continue to exist?  If we do, then we’re a successful church.

When we think of the church as a kingdom, however, we pay attention to other factors.  By calling the church a kingdom, we recognize that there is a King who is in control of the church.  We are the citizens of the kingdom and subject of the King, our Lord Jesus Christ.  Our role as citizens and subjects is to do our King’s will.  We trust that he sets plans in place and equips us with resources to fulfill them.  When we follow those plans and use those resources to fulfill his purposes, then we’re a successful church.

If you get an “itch” that things aren’t going right in church, the itch you feel depends upon your view of the church.  If you think of it primarily as an institution, then you start to itch if you think that it doesn’t have enough money or people or whatever else to remain viable.  But if you think of the church primarily as a kingdom, you get an itch when you think that the church isn’t fulfilling its purpose in God’s program.

It’s popular for many people to say that they don’t like “organized religion,” perhaps because they’ve been in contact with too many churches that viewed themselves primarily as institutions.  These are the churches that ask for people to give more money, attend more functions, and serve on more committees in order to keep the church going.  Institutionally-focused churches leave people cold because they become simply another demand upon busy people, without offering much in return.

There will always be an institutional aspect to the church.  We can’t fulfill the mission that God gives us if we can’t pay the bills and if we don’t have anyone willing to do the work.  But when the church is a kingdom, all these things serve the greater purpose of doing the work of God in our community.

Why Doesn't God Do Something? He Did, He Will

As our nation continues to reel from the horrific events in Newtown, Connecticut last month, it’s natural for many of us to ask, “Where is God in the midst of this tragedy?”  The answer to that question has everything to do with the holiday we just celebrated, and a lesser-known holiday that’s just around the corner.

A one-page newsletter message is hardly the place to delve into question about why evil and suffering exists in a world ruled by a loving, all-powerful God, even if I was bold enough to think that I had the final answer to this perplexing question.  But it is a place to remind us all about what God does in the face of terrible events like the deaths of children and school staff in a small New England town.

God could come down with mighty power and destroy all those who perpetrate such appalling crimes on the face of the earth.  We could each come up with a list of the dastardly people who deserve God’s wrath.  However, if all of these lists would be combined into one master list of people for God to smite, there would be precious few people whose names would not appear upon it.  Each of us, in one way or another, are guilty of contributing to the misery that fills this world of ours.

Or, God could simply wash his hands of us all.  He look upon us with disgust and leave us to our own devices.  To abandon us in this way, however, would require him to deny his own nature of love.  God delights in sharing himself with all those who will receive it.  To withhold his blessings would mean that he would no longer be the God that he is.

So, God did something different.  He came to share this difficult, sometimes heart-breaking life with us.  At Christmas we celebrate the fact that God became one of us: a human being in every like us except for our sin.  He suffered, he wept, he was hungry, and he felt the full range of emotion that we face.  In fact, while he was still in diapers (or whatever they used for diapers back then), an event every bit as gruesome as the murders in Connecticut took place in the village where Jesus was born.  A jealous king tried to use unsuspecting foreign dignitaries to track down the One whom he considered to be a threat to his authority.  In his savage desire to maintain his grip of power, he slaughtered all the baby boys of Bethlehem (Matthew 2:1-18).  The Christian calendar marks January 6 as the day when those foreigners, whom we know as the wise men, came to see Jesus.

The world was a ghastly, ugly place long before God entered it as the man Jesus.  It was brutal and nasty while he lived among us, and it continues to be cruel and wicked.  Each generation witnesses its own unspeakable crimes.  But, because of the God who has come to share life with us, we know that we endure it in his presence.  We seek glimpses of his glory in the midst of our sorrow and rage, and we fix our hope upon the final vindication and restoration of this world that he loves more than we can imagine.

Four Levels of Relationships

As Jesus shared the Last Supper with his disciples, he prayed that everyone who believes in him would be “brought to complete unity,” as the NIV translates it.  A better rendering of the Greek might be “so that they might be completed or perfected as one.”  However you word it, Jesus wants his followers to be united.  In fact, our faith and discipleship will be lacking until we reach that point of unity.  Of course, our unity is based on the saving work of Christ, and not upon our own feeble human efforts to try to get along with each other.  And yet, the Church is (and always has been) a collection of people who bicker, disagree, and sometimes even attack each other.  The perfect unity that Christ wants for us is far from complete.

I’ve recently read an article that describes four levels of relationship that people can have with each other.

1. REJECTION is the denial of any relationship at all.  We believe that the differences between us are so great that we have nothing to do with each other.  The barriers that separate us make it impossible for us to find anything in common with each other.

2. TOLERANCE means that we’re willing to put up with each other.  We’ll make space for others to “do their thing,” but that’s about it.  We won’t harm each other, but we won’t help each other either.  It’s the kind of relationship where you hold the other person at arm’s length and never really trust them or feel comfortable around them.

3. ACCEPTANCE is a big step toward the kind of relationship Christ wants among his disciples.  It means that we recognize one another and acknowledge each other’s value as a child of God.  We are willing to listen and learn from each other.  But it is still not the relationship that Christ truly desires; acceptance does not complete our oneness.

4. NURTURE goes beyond accepting and receiving from the other person.  In this final level of relationship, we actively seek out the other person.  A nurturing spirit drives us to cross the lines that lead others to rejection or mere tolerance, in order to share, serve, and sacrifice.  When we nurture another person, we defend them against attacks and abuse that others may direct at them, especially when the attackers are people who look and believe like us.

I invite you to reflect on the relationships in your life.  In particular, think about how you relate with others who are also followers of Christ, or who claim to be followers of Christ.  How do you relate to them?

• Do you reject them, and deny that you share a faith with them?
• Do you tolerate them, and put up with differences that trouble you?
• Do you accept them, and recognize that they are also part of God’s family and plan for the world?
  Do you nurture them, and seek to open your life to them in service and love?

Being a Faithful Member

If you are a member of Old Union Church, you took a vow to be “a faithful member of this congregation, giving of yourself in every way.”  The Presbyterian Church’s constitution explains that this vow includes “taking part in the common life and worship of a congregation.”  Are you living up to your promise?

First, are you taking part in worship at Old Union?  Like just about every other church, we’re happy if half of our members join us on Sunday morning.  Of course, other commitments and issues occasionally keep us from worship.  But where else would it be acceptable for only half the people to fulfill their promise?  Would your bank be content if only half their customers made their agreed-upon mortgage payments?  For some bizarre reason, we take our commitment to financial institutions more seriously than the ones we’ve made to the Lord of the cosmos who died for our salvation.

“Taking part in worship” means more than merely showing up physically.  It means that you come to church on Sunday prepared to get down to business.  Even before the service begins, you focus your heart and spirit upon the task ahead of you.  During worship you actively seek to be aware of the Spirit’s presence among us.  As we read and reflect upon Scripture, you open yourself to the ways that God wants to touch and change your life.  Through our hymns, prayers, and offerings, you present your entire being to the God we love.

Second, are you taking part in the life of Old Union Church?  Worship is the first and most important part of our church’s life, but it is only the starting point.  There is so much that happens, or could happen, in our church outside of the Sunday 11:00 hour.  If you are only coming to church for worship, then either someone else is carrying the responsibility for our church’s life that God has in mind for you, or our congregation is not doing everything that God wants us to do.

God’s desire for our role in his plans for our church is constantly changing.  Over time, the most faithful thing for you to do may mean stepping back from a responsibility you’ve had and making room for another person to fill that niche.  God’s will is dynamic and constantly changing.  However, when you move out of one role, it is so that you can move into a new one.  If you say that you’ve “taken your turn” doing something at the church, it means that now it’s your turn to do something else.

We live in a society that encourages us to think of ourselves as consumers.  It’s up to someone else to make things happen for us, so that we can sit back and enjoy it.  Whether it’s sports, movies, or even keeping the roads clear, we expect there to be someone to handle it…someone other than us.  The church is different.  God loves us enough that he wants each of us to take part in the wonderful things that he is doing.  If you’re not sure how God wants you to fit in, just tell him that you want to.  It won’t take long for him to show you.

Are You a Chicken or a Pig?

Once upon a time, there was a beautiful farm tended by the Brown family.  Farmer Brown was a hard-working, friendly sort of fellow with a close and loving family.  The animals of the farm loved them all, but they were especially devoted to his youngest daughter Susie.  Every morning she as she made her rounds from pen to pen to feed them, she greeted each animal with a cheery hello and a friendly pat.  No matter how cold and rainy and miserable the night had been, the animals knew that their mornings would start off bright and cheery because of her.

One morning, however, Susie did not come to the barn to feed the animals.  Her older brother Joe, who came to feed them instead, was friendly and kind.  But everyone missed Susie and wondered where she was.  Eventually the dog scampered down from the house with the news.  “Susie is very ill,” he reported.  “Mrs. Brown took her to the hospital in the middle of the night and is still there with her.  The whole family is very worried.”  The mood in the barnyard shifted in an instant as curiosity became concern.  Even though it was a bright sunny day, a heavy dark cloud of apprehension hung over them all.

The next morning, when Joe came once again to feed the animals, everyone saw the distress in his eyes.  It was apparent that he hadn’t slept all night.  A few minutes later, the dog arrived with more sad news.  “Susie is has gotten worse.  The doctors say that she will not get better without a special kind of medicine, but Farmer Brown does not have enough money to pay for it.”  As the news sunk in, the cow suddenly spoke up.  “I have an idea!” she exclaimed.  “Let’s put on a fund-raising dinner to pay for Susie’s medicine so she can get better!”

The barnyard suddenly filled with excitement as all the animals discussed the cow’s idea.  They were eager to be able to help the little girl that the loved so much.  After much discussion, the chicken got everyone’s attention.  “All the humans love a big meal at the start of the day, just like we love the food that Susie brings us in the morning.  I propose that we have a ham and egg breakfast.  I will happily supply the eggs.  Who will provide the ham?”

All eyes turned to the pig, who slowly and thoughtfully stood up in his pen and looked at the chicken.  “If you give eggs for the dinner,” he said, “you can go on as you always have,” he said.  “But my help means that I have to commit my very life.  But because I love Susie, I will do it.”  The barnyard fell silent as everyone realized the sacrifice the pig was willing to make.

Are you a chicken or a pig?  When you express your devotion and love to God, are you able to go on with life as usual?  Or does your commitment to him change everything about who you are?