Christ and Culture, Revisited: H. Richard Niebuhr Shapes the Church

29 May 2011

                Last week, I promised a series on church identity. We will be contemplating our collective identity, who we are as a church, a congregation of a particular tradition in this particular place and time. Our state legislature’s decision, to have a state-wide discussion on the meaning of marriage, brings a religious war to our state. Those who want us to pass a constitutional amendment to define marriage claim that they have God on their side. We will be challenged to defend our identity as Christians, as people of faith.

                I think it will be helpful for us to revisit H Richard Niebuhr’s 1951 work, Christ and Culture, in which Niebuhr describes five distinct ways churches view the relationship between their God and the world in which they live.

                1. Christ Against Culture
                2. Christ Of Culture
                3. Christ Above Culture
                4. Christ and Culture In Paradox
                5. Christ Transforming Culture

The first is to see the arch of history as a sure steady march toward the kingdom of God. This is one of the “Christendom” models. One example of Christ  against Culture might be the dogged determination of late 19^th century Americans to conquer and Christianize the west. Ignoring the genocide of the first nations, they saw only good in the spread of military outposts, white settlement, railroads, and protestant missions in the west. It was believed to be the nation’s “manifest destiny,” as inevitable as the march of time.

The second way of viewing the relationship between Christ and Culture, the Christ of Culture, is very like the first. If the Church with a big C can do no wrong, then as long as the Government (big G) is Christian, it can also do no wrong. Christ and Culture are one; or, Christ and the agents that govern and order culture are one. I believe the so-called “Christian Identity” movement belongs to this model. (King James I of England, among other monarchs, was devoted to this model of seeing the world. That’s why our people had to leave!)

Christ above Culture (the third way) is pretty much the straight Lutheran “two kingdoms” way of seeing the world. It is a dualism: this world is a fallen world, marred by sin, prone to wickedness, and the Christian is called to live in the fallen world but not to be of the world. The church and her people must obey the worldly authorities, even if they are wrong; and trust in God to receive the church into the perfected kingdom of God when this world has passed away. Unfortunately, this makes a false idol out of obedience, and renders the church impotent against injustice. If you have ever wondered why so many good Germans did nothing to stop Hitler, consider the power of believing that obedience to earthly authority is required by God.

Christ and Culture in paradox describes the way many minority sects see their place in the world, including those who were disappointed last weekend when they were not taken up in the rapture. This is a model of belief common to Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and other minority religionists: They believe that they alone are God’s chosen, they alone are pure, they alone will be saved.  Their lot in life is to endure this world while Christ and Satan battle it out, to preserve themselves and as many as they can reach (which is why they feel no regret in knocking on your door and interrupting your dinner—they are doing this to save you), to remain pure, and to persevere in the faith.

Saving the best for last (what author would lead with the climax?), Niebuhr describes another way, seeing the role of Christ, and therefore the church, as the transformer of culture. The world is created by God and it is good, but incomplete, and through Christ and the church God is transforming this world from one glory to the next. Culture is not something to be for or against, culture can be a means for positive transformation, or stasis, or regression.

 Niebuhr is one of ours, by the way. A United Church of Christ theologian, who was raised in the German Evangelical antecedent church; who, like me, was a graduate of Elmhurst College and Eden Seminary.

Seeing Christ as the transformer of culture invites the church to be the same. Just as Jesus challenged the way the Pharisees and the Romans saw the world, we are invited into a critical analysis of our ways of seeing the world. And just as Jesus stood against domination, we are invited to challenge the dominant belief systems that oppress some and elevate others falsely.

God is great, and we are not. God is God, and we are not. Throughout the ages, people have tried their best to understand God, but our understanding is limited by our relatively short span of life and our relatively tiny brains. But over the vast expanse of time we have learned, as a people, we have grown in understanding. God is at work through wisdom, through understanding.

The more we know about the world, the more we learn about each other, the more we learn about God.

H. Richard Niebuhr, 1894-1962, helped to shape the church that we have become, and helped us to see who we are in relation to others, to our predecessors in the faith and to those with whom we share our journey now. He helps us to give voice to our identity as a transformed and transformative church.

As we prepare for our statewide discussion on marriage (a statewide discussion on God, the universe and everything), I hope Niebuhr’s Christ and Culture will help us understand where others are coming from, when they talk about their understanding of God. And I hope this provides all of us with the courage to be who we are as a church, and to stand up for what we believe to be true and just. There is much transformative work to be done.

                Thanks be to God, who is still speaking, still transforming the world with love and justice. Let us join in this transformational work.

We are the We, We Think They See: Building, Sharing, and Celebrating Our Identity

This is a long title for a short sermon. It’s a spin-off of a memorable couplet from a study of human development, which typifies the adolescent stage of self-consciousness:

“I see you, seeing me. I see the me I think you see.”

In some sense, we never leave adolescence. Even as adults, we often consider what others might see when they look at us. (I see the me I think you see.) Every morning, each one of us selects clothing to put on, to give others a clue about who we are. Sometimes in a formal way, if I put on a nurse’s scrubs, or a police officer’s uniform. Sometimes more subtly, as when I put on a necklace made by our children. Perhaps a macaroni necklace that shouts out “I am a mom.” I put on my identity every day.

                You can see that as individuals, we each seek to cultivate an identity. But we also seek to build communal identities. David Crum has been helping us think about our identities as families. In our family wellness program last week we talked some about how we identify what we value, as a family. We may not think of it in psycho-social terms, but we do have a folk expression that confirms that we tend to see families as identifiable units: “The apple never falls far from the tree.”

                We also have an identity as a congregation. During worship this summer, I will invite us to think about our identity as a congregation. We will be building, sharing and celebrating our identity within the context of worship, in order to share our identity beyond this building and these grounds. I hope that we can help each other build a positive self-identity as a congregation, as a church community.

                Today, we take an important step toward building our identity. Expressing gratitude for one another is an identity builder. Our gratitude identifies our values. We give thanks for that which we value. Today we identify ourselves as a congregation that values individual achievement and individual service. We value music, we value the dedication of those who show up for rehearsal every week. We value the years of study and practice that are the making of musicians.

                We identify ourselves as a people who value education. We value those who teach, and those who learn. We value the sacrifices that families make for their children’s education.

                We identify ourselves as a congregation that honors the rhythms and seasons of life. In recognizing our teachers and musicians at the end of the Church school term, we release them from service, for a time of “Sabbath,” a sabbatical season of rest, that they may return to their labors refreshed, or, that they may return to a different field of service.

                A sabbatical is not the same as a vacation. Jan Kurtz is about to go on sabbatical from Central Lakes College. But we know she won’t be using the time to sleep in, wear her pajama’s all day and watch old movies on TV. At least not for long. Sabbatical is a time to be renewed by a change in routine. It is a time to turn one’s attention to something new.

As we approach the summer season, I ask that it not be a vacation from attending church, please. But let it be a season of entering church with a light heart. Knowing that you don’t have to come early for choir practice or stay late to teach or attend Sunday school or Forum. Come to be refreshed and inspired. Come to be renewed. Come to look and see one another and God and the earth in a new way. Come to help each other build, and celebrate, and share who we are as a congregation. Come, and build one another up in love.

God to Earth: It Gets Better

15 May 2011

Psalm 23

                The 23^rd psalm is the one we read for comfort. It’s often read at funerals, gravesides, or bedsides of those who have died. Dwelling in the house of the Lord “forever” as the old Revised Standard Version reads, is often thought of as “going to heaven when you die.” But in the new version it reads “my whole life long.” What’s up with that?

                What’s up with that is access to older manuscripts, and further study of the language and the context. What’s up is a maturing of the interpretation.

                It is not for the next life only that we hope. God assures us, time and again in scriptures, that it gets better. Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes in the morning. (In another psalm.) Joseph is betrayed by his own brothers, sold into slavery, sent to prison on a bad rap, but God uses it all for good. He is freed, enriched, and he lives to make peace with his brothers.

                Naomi and her daughter-in-law Ruth are widowed, childless, and impoverished, but they persevere in faith and become grandmother and mother to the royal house of David.

                Israel is led into exile, but God restores and returns their children to the land.

                That is the gospel, the good news that carries through the Hebrew scriptures and into the Greek New Testament. The life of the apostles as recorded in the book of Acts is not without danger, not without suffering, but time and again there is rescue and restoration.

                These have been discouraging times. It’s was a hard winter. So many of our friends have been ill. There is so much pain. Natural and unnatural disasters; and nasty, wedge politics. But I have found strength in music. I don’t know what I would do if I couldn’t sing along with the collection of tunes on my laptop that I have entitled “Good for the Soul”-- a mix of blues and Motown and roots music. In order to share the solace of music with others, I have begun posting an occasional “Song of the Day” on my Facebook page.

While looking for a new “song of the day” for my Facebook page, I came across Broadway’s response to the Trevor Project. In response to last year’s suicides of young gay Americans, the Trevor Project seeks to promote a message of hope.

                It gets better, better better… It gets better, better, better, The pain will let up, let up, let up, If you fall just get up, get up, get up, Oh, cause there's another way. It gets better, better, better, The world gets lighter, lighter, lighter, So be a fighter, fighter, fighter, Oh, just live to see that day.

                God works in mysterious ways. The message of the gospel bubbles to the surface in all kinds of places. This is the message that God has been trying to get through to us for millennia: It gets better. This is the message immortalized in the stories of scripture and the songs and psalms of the faith: it gets better. This is the message of resurrected Christ: It gets better.

                God knows life is hard. Jesus knows, life is hard. Look what Jesus went through (that’s what Peter wrote in his letter), look what Jesus went through. Look what lengths the powers that were in charge went to, to silence the word of hope: they crucified him. But even death cannot stop the word.

                Do not be weary. Don’t give up. It get’s better. Amen.

Some Astounding Women

8 May 2011

Today’s gospel: Luke 24:13-35

                Mother’s day is not a church holiday. But, growing up in Illinois, almost Iowa (right on the border), it was a big church-going holiday. It was the day you pinned an orchid corsage on your mom, and your grandma, and you brought them to church, and then took them out to brunch. It was second only to Easter Sunday in attendance. I know, it’s hard to believe, here in Minnesota, where mother’s day is usually eclipsed by the Sunday of Fishing Opener.

                Because my expectations of the day were shaped by geography, when I first came to Minnesota I had a bit of a culture shock. My first year in Fergus Falls, I suggested to the Christian Education Committee that the Sunday School children could sing to their mothers in church on Mothers’ Day. “Why?” the chairperson responded, “Nobody’s going to be there.”

                They were as puzzled with me as I was with them. They were astonished that I could be so clueless.

                Which is seems to be the attitude that the disciples took, when they spoke to the stranger on the road to Emmaus. You are coming from Jerusalem, and yet you haven’t heard about what happened? What’s the matter with you?

                They seemed to have the same dismissive, incredulous attitude toward the women disciples. They reported that the women had ASTOUNDED them. The women went to the tomb, but the body wasn’t there, so they came back with this wild claim that they had seen angels, who told them that Jesus was alive. Naturally some men went to verify the claim, but they didn’t see any angels, or Jesus.

                Those astounding women. Talking crazy-talk!

So I’ve been thinking about astounding women this week.

I received an e-mail notice about a union gathering this week, and that made me thing of an astounding woman named Mother Jones.[1] It’s not just a magazine, you know. The magazine was named for an actual person, Mary Harris Jones. She was a mother, once. But her husband and four children all died of yellow fever, in Memphis, in 1867. Then she moved to Chicago where, four years later, she lost everything in the Great Chicago Fire.

But from the ashes of her grief, she was reborn. She got involved in the labor movement, and worked for the abolition of child labor. She organized the United Mine Workers. Coal miners and their families called her “the miner’s angel” She called the miners as “her boys.” This bereaved mother became the mother of multitudes, she became ‘Mother’ Jones. Her detractors called her “the most dangerous woman in America,” which is hard to believe. In her photo, she looks more like Granny Clampit than, well, anyone who could be called “dangerous.”

She perhaps is best known for, “Pray for the dead, and fight like hell for the living.” It is one of my favorite quotations, because it really sums up the Jesus message. Following Jesus is not about the next life, it’s about sharing with God in the creation of the Kingdom, where justice and righteousness reigns. Pray for the dead, fight like hell for the living. That’s one astounding woman.

Of course, being a UCC clergywoman, another astounding woman that comes to mind is Antoinette Brown Blackwell,[2] the first woman ordained by a major denomination in the United States, in 1853. When she nine years old, she joined the Congregational Church, and as a young woman began to feel that she was called to be a minister. So she went to Oberlin College, in Ohio, one of the few colleges that would admit women. She wasn’t allowed to earn a degree, but she was allowed to attend classes. After completing the coursework, she was called to be a pastor of a small church in South Butler, New York.

She didn’t stay in parish ministry long, but became part of the lecture circuit, preaching against slavery and for women’s suffrage. She married the brother of Elizabeth and Emily Blackwell the first women physicians in the United States, and she became the mother of five daughters. While raising her children she continued to write and publish articles on the cause of women’s rights.

Some astounding women are not famous at all. I have become familiar with one astounding woman through the writings of her son Ron Buford, a regular contributor to the Stillspeaking Daily Devotional, which you can have delivered to your e-mail box every day. Ron Buford is the guy who took the Gracie Allen quote, “Never place a period where God has placed a comma,” and built a promotional campaign around it.

[After Gracie’s death, her husband, George Burns, found a letter in her desk, that said, “Dear George, never place a period where God has placed a comma, Love, Gracie.”]

Ron has written several devotionals in which his mother “Queen Dorothy,” features prominently, and I want to share part of one with you. Ron wrote:

  As a kid, I remember coming home one weekday evening to the smell of fried chicken, fried corn, greens, cornbread, candied yams, homemade peach cobbler. Oh my! The best china and silver were stacked on the table. I asked Momma (whom we affectionately called Queen Dorothy behind her back):

  “Who’s coming?”

  “Just us,” she said.

  “Why the food and fine china?” I asked.

  And as only Queen Dorothy could say, “Because we are the most important people to ever sit at this table. . . . Now set the table, boy.”

  Wow! Momma knew Jesus’ sense of “now.”  Even  in those improving but still-troubling times of lynchings, church bombings, riots, marches, student protests,  assassinations of our political leaders, my Dad’s humiliations as a Black man, and our not being able to live or go just anywhere in town.

  That evening, we said grace over an extravagant meal in the spirit of Martin Luther King, who said, “I may not get there with you, but I’ve been to the mountaintop and Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory of the Coming of the Lord.” Past, present, and future sat at our table that night, and when I remember it, I taste all three . . . . seasoned with Momma’s lesson from Jesus: Love the people in your life . . . right now.[3]

I’m sure we can all remember some astounding women in our lives. Women who delivered good news to us. Women who worked tirelessly to create a little paradise on earth. Astounding women, through whom we have come to know the grace of God.

                Let us give thanks to God, for all these astounding women. Amen!

---

[1] http://www.americanswhotellthetruth.org/pgs/portraits/Mother_Jones.php

[2] Barbara Brown Zickmund’s article on ABB can be found at ucc.org

[3] Stillspeaking Daily Devotional for January 19, 2011. Read the whole devotional, and sign up for a daily e-mail at ucc.org.

Let's Talk About Justice

Introducing to his intent to co-sponsor an amendment to our state’s constitution, our state senator said to his interviewer: “We want Minnesota to have a conversation on this.”

                We at First Congregational had the conversation, when we were preparing to become an “Open and Affirming” church. In November, 2000, we approved our Statement of Openness and Affirmation which includes a pledge to support “relationships and families based on the Christian principles of love, justice, fidelity, trust, and mutual care.”

                We have celebrated the marriages of several couples whose unions are not recognized by the State of Minnesota, and in our eyes, as well as in our church records, these couples are married.  We look forward to the day when all our families can live without fear of discrimination.

                The introduction of an anti-marriage amendment (and I believe that is the only proper description of an amendment that would seek to shrink the definition of marriage) threatens our families. Once again, some of our families will be placed in the spotlight, and required to defend their right to be who they are. I can only imagine how dispiriting the prospect of being under such constant pressure.

                Again, remember our Statement of Openness and Affirmation:

We commit ourselves to oppose discrimination and prejudice in our attitudes, our personal relationships, and our congregation. We will seek justice and advocate redress of the wrongs committed against sexual minorities in our local community and in society at large.

                It is not enough to be a safe haven, a sanctuary for GLBT folk and their families. With all our might, and with faith that God will provide us “courage in the struggle for justice and peace,” we can participate in the transformation of our society. We can change the things that must be changed.

                Our state senator has called us out. He wants us to have a conversation about marriage. Let’s give him a conversation. Every day, every night, let’s give him a conversation. Let it be patient, and kind, and persistent. Let our hearts be aligned with Jesus’ heart.

Jesus is the one who stood between a woman who was about to be stoned to death, and the men who held the stones and had “the law” on their side. Jesus is the one who disregarded the boundaries that were supposed to separate him, a good Jewish rabbi, from “the unclean”—children and women and sinners and tax collectors. Jesus is the one who looked out at a hungry crowd and told his disciples, “You give them something to eat.”

“Wait” you might be thinking, “Should the church be involved in politics?”

I absolutely agree that the church shouldn’t be a tool of any king, party, or candidate. But living the faith has social, economic, and political consequences. Having decided to follow Jesus, we must be ready to accept the consequences. The consequences may include irritating our relatives who disagree with us. Some of us can avoid the consequences by being silent, others do not have that luxury.

But the rewards of discipleship are far greater than the consequences. Because when we follow, we receive the joy of being part of the body of Christ, transforming the world.

Minnesota is going to have a conversation about this. We must be ready to talk about justice.

Jesus Without Borders

Text: John 20:19-31

                 “Do not be afraid!” That is what we heard last week, when we read the Easter gospel, “do not be afraid!” Do not be afraid, the angel said to the women at the tomb, I know you are seeking Jesus, who was crucified, he is not here, he has been raised, as he said he would be. Now go, and tell his disciples.

                And as the women named Mary ran to tell the disciples, Jesus himself met them, and said to them, “Do not be afraid!”

                It is the gospel message again and again: the scripture resounds with the message: Fear Not! For I have redeemed you. I have called you by your name, you are mine. You shall not fear the terror of the night or the arrow that flies by day. Do not be anxious about what you will eat or drink or wear, or about where you will sleep. The Lord is your God. No fear! Do not fear, even death cannot harm you.

                On that Easter day, where were the twelve? Hiding. For Fear.

                Fear has a terrible effect upon the body, mind and soul. Fear triggers that fight or flight syndrome, and the disciples, apparently, chose flight. The brain chemistry of fear is pretty simple: in preparation for flight or fight, the body redirects its energy from the cerebral cortex, where we do our reasoning, to the brainstem, the center of the autonomic processes—to keep your heart beating and your lungs breathing.

                William Sloane Coffin once said: "As I see it, the primary religious task these days is to try to think straight....You can't think straight with a heart full of fear, for fear seeks safety, not truth. If your heart's a stone, you can't have decent thoughts--either about personal relations or about international ones. A heart full of love, on the other hand, has a limbering effect on the mind."

                A heart full of love has a limbering effect on the mind.

                A head full of fear has a hardening effect on the heart.

                Those twelve disciples, filled with fear, set a boundary around themselves and the rest of Jerusalem. They hid behind the walls of the house, hid behind locked doors, for fear. They didn’t get the message, that Jesus lives, because their hearts were hardened and their minds closed by fear.

                But the good news is, Jesus knows no boundaries. He never did in his lifetime. He was always crossing the boundaries. People complained that he didn’t respect the boundaries that they saw, between the righteous and sinners, between Jews and Samaritans, between men and women and children. In his resurrection, he certainly wasn’t going to let any wall keep him from his people. He came to save them from their fear. He came to send them out from their hiding places, with his message of forgiveness.

                In the United Church of Christ, we believe that God calls us into the church to accept the cost and joy of discipleship. One of the joys of discipleship is knowing that we are God’s beloved children forgiven, loved and free-- and so is everyone else. Among the costs of discipleship are the consequences of living that truth. It is not enough to pray for a world in which children live in peace and safety, and everyone has enough to eat. We are called to live the way we pray. Sometimes, that means putting our bodies between the victim and the perpetrator of violence. Sometimes that means ignoring the boundaries that are supposed to divide us. Sometimes that means literally giving people something to eat.

                Not everyone can do that. Not alone, anyway. That is why we have Justice and Witness Ministries in the United Church of Christ. Justice and Witness Ministries helps local congregations by keeping us aware of the poor, the hungry, those who are victimized around the world. This Sunday, Justice and Witness Ministries is calling “Immigrant Rights Sunday,” to draw our attention to the struggles of immigrant families and to the human rights crisis on our southern border.

                Even though we don’t live on that border, we can listen and learn, and advocate for justice. So I encourage you to listen and think with an open heart and mind. Do not give in to fear. So much of our political dialogue is frenzied with fear. Listen with love, listen with faith that banishes fear.

[Sermon preached May 1, 2011.]