Should churches discuss politics? by Rebekah Simon-Peter
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It’s on everyone’s minds. It’s all over the news. Millions of women took to the streets to make their voices heard. Should churches join in the political talk or not?
I say yes. The Bible is intensely political. Every prophet is risking their skin by talking truth to power. Every king weighs obedience to God against other concerns. Every temple, shrine and altar has political ramifications. The same with every war, skirmish and battle. Even the Sermon on the Mount is political. Love your enemies? Do good to those who hate you? Who do you think Jesus is talking about? Religion and politics have always been deeply intertwined. Jesus’ own life is an example of that.
This co-mingling didn’t end with the biblical era. The church, at its best, and its worst, has always been political. We’re at our worst when we imagine Christ is aligned with one political party or another. Or when we cut deals. Or when we trade faith for power. We’re at our best, however, when like MLK, we strive for the soul of the whole nation.
How to talk politics though, without causing further pain and discontent? Here are some suggestions to get you started.
- Start with ground rules that insure mutual respect.
- Don’t assume they voted for their candidate for the exact reason you didn’t. In other words, don’t assume the worst in them and the best in yourself.
- Plan to listen deeply for the personal stories behind the political passion.
- Assume they’re not all wrong and you’re not all right.
- Assume God loves you all.
To get beyond knee-jerk reactions means listening deeply. To the Bible, to the Spirit, to one another, to journalists and to the politicians who present these options.
This is far from easy. It requires us to be well-schooled in both our faith and in the issues at hand. It means digging into the Bible, our personal beliefs and the guiding principles behind legislation and policy. You’ve got to listen to more than sound bites to do that.
It’s worthwhile though. I believe engaging in these kinds of conversations keeps the church honest. It helps us determine if we are living our baptismal vows of using the power God has given us to resist evil, injustice and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves. And if we are appropriately loving our neighbor as ourselves. And if we are embodying love.
In the midst of the discussion, let’s not forget to pray. For ourselves. Our country. One another. And our leaders. President Trump needs our prayers and our love. At the same time, he needs our accountability and engagement. His success, and our success as a country — whether you voted for him or not — depend on that. We can only hold him and other leaders accountable, appropriately, if we are spiritually grounded, well-informed and speaking from love.
Rebekah Simon-Peter blogs at rebekahsimonpeter.com. She is the author of The Jew Named Jesus and Green Church.
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Praying for the president by Mike Slaughter
President-elect Donald Trump. Photo: Bigstock/actionsportsI urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people— for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. This is good, and pleases God our Savior….”[Apostle Paul, 1 Timothy 2:1-3]
On Friday January 20, Donald Trump became the 45th President of the United States. God’s word directs Jesus followers to pray for all of our leaders — and certainly that includes President Trump — his health, his heart, his family and a peaceful transition into the presidency.
Yet after such a contentious election cycle and amidst continuing, bitter divides, many may be struggling with where and how to begin their prayers — especially those who may have voted differently or consider themselves in opposition to Mr. Trump’s platform, nominees or campaign promises.
God’s word declares in Isaiah 55:11, “My word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire.” So, I am praying the scriptures….
Like the psalmist in Psalm 72 praying urgently for God’s endowment of justice on the king, I pray that through his presidency Mr. Trump brings justice for the poor (vs. 12a), health for the afflicted (vs. 12b) and rescue for all from oppression and violence (vs. 14).
I pray that Mr. Trump’s presidency will demonstrate love for the refugees among us, knowing that Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, Ruth, Daniel, Nehemiah and Jesus knew intimately what it meant to be a stranger in a strange land. “When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the Lord your God” (Leviticus 19:33-34).
Like King David, may President Trump shepherd the country with “skillful hands” and “integrity of heart” (Psalm 78:72). May he remember as he serves in the most visible position on the planet, that “the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.” “A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart” (Luke 6:45).
May all of us who identify ourselves as persons of faith join with President Trump over the next four years in carefully heeding James 4:10 — “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.”
Let it be so.
Mike Slaughter is the almost four-decade chief dreamer and lead pastor of Ginghamsburg Church and the spiritual entrepreneur of ministry marketplace innovations. Mike’s call to "afflict the comfortable" challenges Christians to wrestle with God and their God-destinies. His newest books are Down to Earth, The Passionate Church and The Christian Wallet.
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Is 'pro-life feminism' a contradiction in terms? by Kira Schlesinger
Women's March, Los Angeles. January 21, 2017 | Bigstock/bettorodriguesIn advance of this past weekend’s Women’s Marches around the globe, a controversy emerged between the official organizers of the march and a “pro-life feminist” group called New Wave Feminists, based out of Austin, Texas. New Wave Feminists had been accepted and listed on the March’s website as an official partner before a backlash a few days later caused the organizers to remove them. The mission of New Wave Feminists seemed to directly contradict one of the March’s unity principles, “open access to safe, legal, affordable abortion and birth control for all people.” This sparked discussion far and wide on whether one could claim to be a “pro-life feminist.”
Last year, several news outlets, including the Washington Post and Newsweek, declared that the culture wars were over, or at least dying out, but abortion is still a flashpoint, even among those who claim the label “feminist.” I wonder if the election results would have been different without one or two Supreme Court justices on the table and Roe v. Wade hanging in balance as many voters held their nose and voted for the anti-choice candidate.
Despite the prominence of abortion in our political debate, the abortion rate has declined 12% between 2010 and 2014, to its lowest before Roe v. Wade. While anti-choice advocates have taken credit for increased restrictions on clinics, the abortion rate has declined in states without restrictions, and the overall birth rate has decreased, pointing instead to better access to and use of contraception. Ideally, this is something both sides of the debate should celebrate, and many are.
The argument over “pro-life feminism” seems very much to be an argument over terms. I have heard many women identify as “pro-life,” by which they mean they dislike abortion, would not choose it for themselves (or think they would not choose it for themselves), wish to work for a world where mothers and the most vulnerable are supported, but also have no desire to make it illegal or punish women for it. In other words, they are personally and philosophically “pro-life” but not politically anti-choice. See also: Senator and former vice presidential candidate Tim Kaine.
Unfortunately, this is a prime case of labels dividing us, as many “pro-choice” individuals feel the same way. The label “pro-choice” is just that, in favor of women as moral agents who can choose to keep and bear an unplanned pregnancy or terminate it. Instead, anti-choice advocates propagate the lie that “pro-choice” and “pro-abortion” are synonyms, which only the most extreme voices claim.
While I consider myself “pro-choice,” I have read some very convincing arguments from “pro-life” feminists in preparation for a book I am writing, like those put forth by Dr. Sidney Callahan. I agree with some of the signs at this weekend’s Women’s March that abortion is a tool of the patriarchy. For women to succeed and be equal to men in a cis-heteropatriarchal capitalist system, we must be able to control and time when and if we bear children. This system tells us that our worth is in how much we produce, how much we make, and how high we climb up the ladder. This system is also in direct conflict with the better world of the Kingdom of God that Jesus preaches and initiates. In Jesus’ system, everyone is already of infinite value because they are made in the divine image of God and saved by grace.
I attended high school during a “teen pregnancy epidemic,” and we were warned that if we got pregnant, we would “ruin our futures.” In other words, to become a mother before we were ready meant that we would be unable to become successful, with success being clearly defined in capitalist terms by job title, house size, and car. If someone did end up pregnant, parents acted quickly to get it taken care of, lest the dreams they had for their children of Ivy League business school go down the drain.
The Kingdom of God defines success by other metrics. A truly feminist world should embrace the awesome, life-giving power of the female body to bear, birth, and feed children, while also recognizing that some women cannot and others are called to different tasks. Our success is not defined by the number of zeros on our paycheck but by how we treat and nurture the most vulnerable among us, the “least of these” per Scripture. Dismantling the patriarchy is not just good for women and children, but also frees men to be emotionally and physically involved in their families and their communities beyond “bringing home the bacon.”
Per Audre Lorde, the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. Access to abortion will never take down a patriarchal capitalist system. At the same time, as a woman with racial and economic privilege, I cannot ask more vulnerable women to bear the very real personal and economic burdens of their unplanned pregnancies in the world in which we currently live. I cannot shrug away the consequences of sexual violence or the realities of families who, with one more mouth to feed, would be pushed over the edge.
No, pro-life feminism is not a contradiction in terms, but it does express an ideal that we have not yet reached. We cannot legislate our way into this ideal society by making abortion illegal, which will only prevent safe abortions and puts the most vulnerable at risk. But by the grace of God, we will be led to work for a more just, equitable, and non-violent society. Perhaps it is no accident that Mary’s revolutionary song follows on the heels of the Annunciation, a celebration of the life-giving power of women as only a woman could birth the Messiah. It is a feminist anthem that coincides with an unplanned pregnancy. God has cast down the mighty from their thrones and has lifted up the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things and has sent the rich away empty. Revoke my feminism credentials if you must, but I’m with Mary.
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Christians and fake news
By Dave BarnhartBigstock/Kagenmi
The good old daysWhen I was growing up, watching or listening to the evening news was a ritual in many households. People would tune in to the broadcasts of one of several (three or four) possible local TV or radio stations. News reporters would speak to the camera in even tones in standard academic English, and people treated their pronouncements as true, even if there was occasionally some skepticism about how the news was reported. In comic books, Lois Lane and Clark Kent (Superman) are reporters who are committed to knowing the truth and uncovering injustice quickly.
My memory of this ritual of watching or listening to the evening news seems quaint to me now. In my lifetime, I’ve watched news evolve into 24-hour cable channels, talk radio and social media. News itself has become suspect in this new world, where the public are “consumers” and the number of clicks and advertising revenue generated are more important than the truth. No one is more aware of this than journalists themselves, who have spilled a lot of ink over the last few months trying to understand the rise and proliferation of fake news.
What is “fake news”?
The popularity of the term fake news is only a few months old. It gained prominence in October during the 2016 presidential campaign when, as Will Oremus describes them, “online entrepreneurs and pranksters” discovered they could make a quick buck by making up stories that sounded just plausible enough to spread virally through social media and get lots of clicks. Some of these included stories about the pope endorsing Donald Trump or about Hillary Clinton running a child-sex ring from the basement of a pizzeria (which, it turns out, doesn’t even have a basement). This last fake news story led a would-be vigilante to attempt to free the fictional child hostages. He took several guns to the restaurant and fired inside. Fortunately, nobody was physically hurt.
Fake news isn’t merely biased reporting or journalistic mistakes. There are plenty of mainstream and reputable media organizations, and even good journalists occasionally get bad information or fail to report accurately. But fake news is specifically designed to mislead or to create outrage in order to spread virally. Several websites in Macedonia were set up to make money from advertising revenue by spreading fake news.
An assault on the press
The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America declares that Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of the press. A news media that reports on the activities of government has often been referred to as “the fourth estate,” an unofficial check on the three official branches of government. Without an active and relatively trustworthy source of news reporting, our democratically elected leaders don’t have any accountability to the people they govern.
This is one reason politicians and reporters often seem to have an adversarial relationship. Who said or did what to whom, who was misquoted or taken out of context or who has a bias are all arguments that happen between politicians and news media. Politically motivated accusations that the media is biased are often described as simply part of the game.
But the rise and distribution of fake news through social media is a whole new way to undermine the public’s confidence in the media, even if the sources of fake news are discredited and even though fact-checking through the internet is widely available. In a world where so much information is available so quickly, how does one investigate whether their sources are trustworthy? Who even has the time? A saying often misattributed to Mark Twain is, “A lie can fly half way around the world while the truth is still putting on its boots.” The fact that this quote is fake (Mark Twain didn’t actually say it) is a great example of how true it is.
Viral spread and inoculation
While lies certainly had wings during the days of Mark Twain, today’s lies can spread instantly through the internet. We call things “viral” that spread organically as people have an emotional reaction to what they read and then quickly click “share” or “tweet.” Mate Gold, a political reporter from The Washington Post, says they “catch on like a flu in the winter, quickly passing from one person to the next, often with little regard as to whether the content is true or not.” A recent study from Stanford found that most middle school, high school and college students couldn’t tell a difference between sponsored advertisements, biased propaganda and real news.
One question reveals how badly we’ve failed at teaching critical reading skills and basic discernment principles. Elis Estrada, program manager of Washington, D.C.’s News Literacy Project, says that when he asks students where they get their news, many respond, “What is news?” “They don’t even know what it is,” she says. “The fact that we have to start there is really telling.”
The News Literacy Project teaches students how to read critically and to discern advertisements and propaganda from real news. Students learn practices such as looking for bylines, quotes, information from other sources and whether other reputable news outlets report the same story.
Critical reading and thinking can certainly be one way to inoculate against the viral spread of deliberate misinformation. Although some people like to paint all news media with a broad brush and claim “you can’t trust anything you read,” the fact is that there are good and widely accepted criteria for journalism.
The problem with indiscriminate skepticism about news media is that it actually makes us more gullible — not less. If we actually believe any source is as good as any other, we fail to develop common-sense criteria for discerning the truth.
Why we’re susceptible
Fact-checking and critical thinking alone aren’t enough to stop the viral spread of fake news. There are three important factors that affect our ability to fight back.
The first problem is something called confirmation bias. In short, confirmation bias is the tendency for people only to pay attention to news or facts that confirm beliefs they already hold. Confirmation bias is something that applies to all human beings, regardless of how open-minded we believe we are.
The second problem is the “echo chamber” effect of social media. Users of social media tend to connect with like-minded people who reinforce their beliefs and opinions.
The third problem is that even when presented with information that contradicts what we believe, we’re more likely to dig in and resist the new information. A recent academic study found that attempts to debunk bad information simply solidified people in their position. Journalist David McRaney summarizes the study this way: “When your deepest convictions are challenged by contradictory evidence, your beliefs get stronger.”
The only way to decrease our resistance to facts is to cultivate humility. We have to be willing to ask questions like, What would it take to convince me otherwise? Whose opinions or perspectives am I willing to hear?
The good news of Christian faith
There are several reasons the proliferation of fake news should be a concern to Christians. First, the prevalence of fake news means the good news of Christ that we share is less likely to be heard. Second, if we’re the ones sharing fake news, our credibility suffers and our witness is tainted. Christians who wish to share an audaciously good message about Jesus Christ can’t allow their witness to be tainted by sharing fake news or perpetuating the culture that feeds it. There are already plenty of people who believe that Christians are gullible and that the news we share is questionable.
News, of course, is central to Christian faith. The message of Jesus Christ about the kingdom of heaven is called “good news” or “gospel.” The Greek word for “good news” is euangellion, which is where we get the English word evangelism.
In contrast with news that relies on outrage and polarization to spread, the good news is about faith, hope and love: faith that though the wrong is often strong, God is still in control; hope that God’s purposes for redemption are working even in dire circumstances; and love that casts out fear and conquers our own sinfulness.
Be sure to check out FaithLink, a weekly downloadable discussion guide for classes and small groups.
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Aim for excellence, not perfection
By Joseph YooBigstock/Olivier Le MoalOccasionally it’s helpful to be reminded that “perfect is the enemy of good.” Sometimes our need to be perfect gets in the way of progress. We get so caught up in every little detail that it takes away from the purpose and goal.
“Good” is okay. Sometimes we have to be okay with “good.” But “good enough” can be a problem too.
While perfection can keep us from getting things done, “good enough” often encourages us to settle for less — and it can even make us lazy.
At times, it seems like grace helps create a culture of “good enough”; a culture of average-at-best work. Because. It’s church. There’s grace for me to mess up. It’s the same line of thinking as, “It’s okay if I go and do this. God forgives.”
In other areas of work, it’s usually expected that the boss will demand more if your work is mediocre. But in churches, many leaders are afraid to even use the word “expectations” for fear of scaring people away. As Michael Slaughter once said, “Churches have lowered the bar of discipleship for membership.”
In ministry work, some churches have lowered the bar of excellence for the sake of getting things done.
Some of us have settled for mediocre because we’re afraid to have expectations of our teammates and colleagues to do their jobs and do them well. And we may have settled for “good enough” because we don't believe it's consistent with grace for someone to ask us to try harder and do better.
But grace is never about us fighting to be less and do less. I always felt that grace helps us move —not to do more — but to be more. It leads us to be more like God sees us to be; it transforms us to be more Christlike.
Perfection is a burden that no one should be asked to carry. However, I feel it’s perfectly okay — necessary, even — to demand excellence from everyone on our team. To refuse to settle for average or “good enough” and to let our work truly honor and glorify Christ.
We shouldn’t be afraid to hold one another accountable to make sure that we all follow through in what we’re supposed to do. And when we inevitably mess up and fall short, that’s when grace should take over: bringing healing and encouraging us to get up and try again.
And — as much as many of us don’t want to talk about this — sometimes the grace-filled thing is to part ways with integrity.
Let’s not settle for less. Let’s put joy, pride, love and grace into our work so that all that we do will bring honor and glory to Christ.
Let’s not aim for perfection; let’s aim for excellence, making sure we’ve given all we have and done all we can.
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7 reasons to use seat back cards
By Richard RogersBigstock/cendecedIf you want to maximize participation in electronic giving, a seat back (or pew pocket) card is an essential tool for your church. These laminated cards should be double-sided and fit in the small pocket in the back of each seat or pew. The idea is for people who participate in electronic giving to place the cards in the offering plate during the offering, then the cards can be pulled out and placed back in the pocket for services the next weekend. Here are seven reasons why the use of these cards is essential:
1. Provides a way for people to participate in worship through the offering when they aren’t using cash or check to make their gift. This is no less important than participation in the music, prayers, reading of Scripture, taking sermon notes or receiving Communion.
Image courtesy of Horizons Stewardship2. Helps parents be intentional in the discipleship of their children as they participate in the offering. If you’re going to teach your children the importance and blessing of tithing, you should plan to model it for them!3. Is there any worse way to end a great worship service than with empty offering plates or buckets? In churches where I am a guest, mostly I’m wondering why they even bother passing them.
4. Great visual aid for the pastor as they refer to giving options before the offering and then place theirs in the plate or bucket as it begins to be passed.
5. Great visual aid for a family who is sharing a stewardship testimony that includes how electronic giving has helped their family prioritize this area of discipleship by having the tithe drafted from their checking account each week or month.
6. Using the QR code on the back is an easy way for someone to participate with a spontaneous gift when the Holy Spirit prompts them.
7. The QR code is also a great tool to assist an individual in setting up recurring gifts, which are a foundational strength of your electronic giving initiative.
This post was first published on the Horizons Stewardship blog.
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A Catholic theological disagreement Protestants should listen in on
By Clifton StringerSt. Peter's Basilica and Square in Vatican City. Photo: Bigstock/SopotniccySometimes, one can gain perspective for thinking through one's own problems by listening in to how others are proceeding in light of analogous problems.
The point of this post is just to direct the attention of Ministry Matters' readers to a conversation which may offer relevant insight. Many Ministry Matters readers are Protestant Christians of one stripe or another, and in particular a significant number of Ministry Matters readers are Wesleyans generally and United Methodists in particular.
It will come as no surprise to United Methodists reading this that we're faced with challenges to our common life. The prospect of institutional or gradual schism, of one type or another, looms large as a significant possibility, if not as an inevitability.
So, I'm directing our attention to the beginning of a theological argument or conversation or dialogue — really, an argument in the best sense of the term — between two important American Christian writers. The situation about which they argue concerns the possibility and actuality of living in Christian unity in the midst of sharp doctrinal or practical disagreements.
What interests me about these writers, Gerald Schlabah and Rod Dreher, is that both have a set of commitments and a personal journey involving difficult discernments which make their conversation both deeper and more illuminating than many such arguments. I hope that they will be helpful as a kind of mirror for Ministry Matters readers, the United Methodists in particular. Really, inasmuch as the issue is about the grounds and possibility of being united with others in Christ and in one Church, the issue goes to the heart of of the character of Christian unity itself — of its possibility, and of its actuality in one or another manifestation of Christ's Church.
A bit about the two writers' journeys, and why I find them so interesting:
Gerald Schlabach is a Mennonite who has come into full communion with the Roman Catholic Church, without ceasing to embrace much or all of the Mennonite way and conviction about the shape of the Christian life. Schlabach now teaches Moral Theology at a Catholic university, yet is married to a Mennonite pastor, and is one of the founders of Bridgefolk, a group of Catholics and Mennonites who gather to enrich their Christian discipleship by benefiting from the riches of each others' traditions. Thus, Schlabach is what is sometimes called an "adult convert" (though 'convert' is a theologically problematic word here) to Catholicism, yet, unlike many, he continues to have meaningful engagement with and be shaped by the spiritual resources of the Mennonite tradition. He has chosen, in a sense, both/and rather than either/or. Schlabach is the author of the important book Unlearning Protestantism, in which he argues that breaking fellowship with other Christians when we discover disagreements with them is at the root of many problems Protestant and Catholic Christians experience today. A lay Benedictine, Schlabach sees the Benedictine commitment to local community amidst disagreement as a model for the Church's continued communal existence in fragmented and polarized times.
Rod Dreher himself has a certain stake in the way the tradition of Benedictine monasticism is helpful for the Church today. Dreher was raised United Methodist, and converted to the Roman Catholic Church. He was and is a successful journalist and conservative writer, and was very committed to a vision of Catholic orthodoxy resonant with the pontificates of Pope St. John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and the Catechism of the Catholic Church. As a journalist, he researched and covered the Catholic sexual abuse crisis in an in depth way. The depth of corruption in the hierarchy, and the desolation of the abused, led to a crisis of faith. (Dreher has written about this crisis publicly.) In its aftermath, he has continued on as a Christian by becoming Eastern Orthodox. In addition to writing books, Dreher writes regularly for The American Conservative.The context of Schlabach and Dreher's argument is Dreher's forthcoming book about something Dreher has been talking and writing about for years, namely "The Benedict Option." In brief, the Benedict Option recommends that Christians in America (Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox) focus on intensifying and communally fortifying the orthodoxy and faithfulness of our own churches and parishes, in a way analogous to the way the monasticism inspired by St. Benedict preserved civility, learning, virtue, and Christian culture through the barbarism of the Dark Ages.
It seems to me like the argument between Schlabach and Dreher has obvious pertinence to the opposition many United Methodists (and indeed Protestants generally) experience between 'universality/inclusiveness' and 'faithfulness/orthodoxy', whether each of those is conceived in a conservative/traditionalist or liberal/progressive way. Big question: Are the unity of the Church and the orthodoxy of the Church always tragically at odds? If not, how not?
Here's Schlabach's argument explaining and criticizing Dreher.
The Virtue of Staying Put
What the 'Benedict Option' Forgets about Benedictines
Gerald W. Schlabach
In recent years the term “Benedict Option” has been circulating in certain sectors of the U.S. Catholic Church. For a Benedictine oblate such as myself, this should be a welcome development. After all, the charism of Benedictine monasticism, with its emphasis on faithfulness to flesh-and-blood local communities formed in prayer, liturgy, discernment, and mutual service, can remind all Christians of a basic truth—namely, that no policy we propose for society, no change we seek in the larger culture will be credible unless it grows from the embodied witness of Christian life together. As Gandhi put it, we must “be the change we seek in the world.”
So the Benedict Option, which on the face of it simply calls for an intensification of our commitment to such local communities and to Christian formation, should not be controversial. Yet the phrase has become a rallying cry for something else. Rod Dreher, a prominent blogger at the American Conservative, began promoting the rudiments of the Benedict Option more than a decade ago in his book Crunchy Cons, and will explore it in-depth in an upcoming book on the the subject. The basic proposition is this: American society has become so antagonistic toward Christian values that faithful Christians should turn their primary attention away from the public square, with its fruitless policy debates and doomed culture wars, and instead focus on building local communities, sheltered from the hopelessly fallen larger culture, where Christian values and practices may survive.
To be sure, one does not have to embrace such a dire diagnosis in order to take up a Benedict Option; while only a few Christians will ever play prominent roles in public affairs, many more will find themselves following the Rule of St. Benedict whether they know it or not, simply because their vocation is to witness to the way of Christ by serving their neighbors in ordinary daily life. Nor does a pessimistic reading of the signs of the times, concluding that Christians are losing the culture wars, necessarily dictate retreat. In a recent speech, Philadelphia’s Archbishop Charles Chaput observed bleakly that “the America of the Founders is dead because we killed it,” yet went on to dismiss calls for a Benedict Option in favor of Augustinian duties to the City of Man as well as the City of God.
There is no doubt, however, that many who currently advocate for the Benedict Option do envision precisely this kind of retreat. What’s troubling about such advocacy is that too often it overlooks what is most Benedictine about the Benedict Option, and not, in fact, optional at all: the imperative of all Catholics to stay together, both in global communion and in face-to-face relationships, even when those relationships are hard. In fact the provenance of the term “Benedict Option” offers at least some hope that it might actually fashion a meeting ground amid U.S. culture wars, rather than yet one more point of contention. The idea behind it traces to philosopher Alasdair Mac-Intyre’s magisterial diagnosis of what he considered the incoherence of modern philosophy, and its corresponding failure to guide society toward any real vision of the good. In After Virtue (1981), MacIntyre posited that we are living in a dark age governed by barbarians, and would do well to stop trying to shore up the imperium; instead we should invest in new forms of moral community while we “await another—doubtless very different—St. Benedict.”
Interestingly, MacIntyrian localism has not aligned neatly with standard left/right polarities. Yes, some Catholics and former Catholics such as Dreher (who was raised as a Methodist and converted to Catholicism before finally joining the Orthodox Church) promote the Benedict Option out of dismay over issues such as same-sex marriage or alleged federal encroachments through Obamacare. Yet among the first and most prominent voices citing MacIntyre’s call were Catholic students of the Methodist ethicist Stanley Hauerwas, who were animated by a left-leaning critique of war, militarism, and American empire. From that circle emerged one of the most notable examples of groups prompted by MacIntyre and inspired by St. Benedict in fresh ways, the New Monasticism movement among young Evangelicals. When Dreher asked one of its leaders, Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, what others can learn from the patron of historic monasticism in the West, Wilson-Hartgrove bluntly replied that “Benedict saved me from the Religious Right.”
In any case, the question of whether the Benedict Option necessarily entails a retreat from public matters depends not so much on what we are leaving or resisting in doing so as on what we do once we go deeper into our locales. Withdrawal into self-selected enclaves of the like-minded is hardly a countercultural action in our polarized society, as Bill Bishop has demonstrated in The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America is Tearing Us Apart. What is countercultural in the United States today is attempting to stay in relationship with people who don’t share our views. Yet it is important to do so, and especially for Christians. Only by listening hard and differing charitably in face-to-face relationships can we develop practices and virtues in which attention to building up local communities can nurture robust public engagement. Such communities and those who speak for their moral commitments may then do so with integrity because they have grounded their work and witness in what we might call proof-of-concept living.
This way of living is the Gospel imperative that Benedictine monastics actually follow, through the particular disciplines that flesh out their vow of stability. What makes Benedictines unique among religious orders is precisely this vow of stability and the practices it entails for monks as they commit to living the rest of their lives in one place, within one community. Whatever other spiritual practices they may have developed (liturgy of hours, lectio divina) or borrowed (Ignatian self-examination), monks in this tradition embrace community life itself as the most basic of their spiritual disciplines. Continuing to live together with people whom one cannot simply “unfriend” exposes self-deceptions and wears off uncharitable rough edges like nothing else.
Unique as the Benedictine vow of stability may be even among Catholic religious orders, something about it is necessary for all Catholics. Indeed, I view the practice of “stability writ large” as the very genius of Catholicism itself. Unlike participating in other forms of Christianity, being Catholic necessitates a refusal to leave in protest when the going gets tough, or to start a new church, or to shop around for another identity, or to bandy about threats of schism. In this sense, to leave Catholicism in favor of another high-church communion such as the Eastern Orthodox is fundamentally a Protestant act. It’s my view that Protestants themselves will need to unlearn those tendencies if they hope to build sustainable Christian communities in the future.
WHEN I MADE THESE arguments in Unlearning Protestantism: Sustaining Christian Community in an Unstable Age, I did so as a gift to my Protestant and neo-Anabaptist friends, though I also hoped I might buttress loyalty and respect for tradition among liberal Catholics. Little did I imagine that loose talk of schism and sneering disrespect for the pope might increasingly come from conservative quarters. New York Times columnist Ross Douthat may be more restrained than others in the conservative Catholic blogosphere, but even he channels its vitriol with jabs at the “ostentatious humility” of Pope Francis and dark warnings that Francis is the “chief plotter” in a conspiracy to change Catholicism that could eventually lead to schism.
We live in a culture profoundly shaped by Protestant individualism. In this culture, abandoning institutions is the default strategy for protesting and remaining untainted by injustice. So perhaps no one should be surprised that such “habits of the heart” (to use sociologist Robert Bellah’s label) have migrated and displaced the Catholic genius for staying put. Douthat himself ably diagnosed these individualistic habits in his 2012 book, Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics—and endorsed the Benedict Option as a possible response. And well it may be. But it needs the Benedictine imperative lodged firmly inside it. A Benedict Option will never help reduce or even slow the sorting-out into enclaves among Catholics if it serves as just another battle cry in our culture wars. The option will only be truly Benedictine, and deeply Catholic, if it accepts the Benedictine imperative to hang in there with one another, and in communion with the global church, even—and especially—when that requires healthy, honest conflict.
Lacking this imperative, the option of resolving church conflicts by departing from communion becomes all too tempting. Yet that is precisely what appears to be happening when Dreher cites concrete examples of families and communities embracing the Benedict Option not only because they are disillusioned with American culture, but because they are disappointed with the Catholic Church in America. And reassurances that the Benedict Option need not imply complete withdrawal from the public square are hardly convincing when they issue from those whose disaffection with other Catholics, or even the church itself, suggests an even more portentous withdrawal.
Consider what could happen if we were to fully embrace the Benedictine imperative—which actually is just the Gospel imperative to love our neighbors even when they are in some ways our “enemies.” Liberals sympathetic to the anxieties of parents raising children in a confusing world would have to recognize the legitimate need for boundaries and tradition, while conservatives who deepen face-to-face relationship with those in troubled marriages and with the abandoned and divorced would find it harder to dismiss the idea of allowing remarried Catholics to receive Communion as merely a surrender to the sexual revolution. Liberals opposing militarism or gun culture or anti-immigrant sentiment might find themselves framing alternative policy proposals as ways to enhance true security, while conservatives who oppose abortion might give greater attention to the economic conditions and welfare policies that would make it easier for struggling women and couples in crisis to imagine continuing a pregnancy. And over time—who knows?—sustained interpersonal engagement might make it possible to drop the scare-quoted categories of “liberal” and “conservative” altogether.
Apart from the larger implications, each of us would necessarily begin to eschew the temptation to hunker down in our gated thought-enclaves and tweet out our arguments like hand grenades tossed over the walls. Instead we would treat disagreement and conflict in ways appropriate to the prudence and charity that the practice of the Benedictine imperative teaches. We need the Benedictine imperative, in other words, not as a last resort “after virtue” or after any other surrender, but as a first resort on the way to virtuous and civil Christian discourse. We can redeem the Benedict Option by embracing and practicing the Catholic stability that Catholics themselves have too long taken for granted.
About the Author
Gerald W. Schlabach is professor of theology at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota and author of Unlearning Protestantism: Sustaining Christian Community in an Unstable Age (Brazos Press).
Here's Dreher's reply.
Boundaries and the Benedict Option by ROD DREHER
Prof. Gerald Schlabach, a Catholic convert and Benedictine oblate, has published a critique of the Benedict Option in Commonweal. I’m grateful for his attention to my ideas, and I will respond to his article between quoting sections of it. He writes:
There is no doubt, however, that many who currently advocate for the Benedict Option do envision precisely this kind of retreat. What’s troubling about such advocacy is that too often it overlooks what is most Benedictine about the Benedict Option, and not, in fact, optional at all: the imperative of all Catholics to stay together, both in global communion and in face-to-face relationships, even when those relationships are hard.
This is his basic line: that Catholics should stick together no matter what, because that’s the Benedictine thing to do. Nowhere, though, does Schlabach address an obvious question: what does one do when one’s parish (or school, or other Catholic community) teaches or practices something seriously contrary to the Catholic faith, as authoritatively proclaimed by the Church’s Magisterium? (Christians from the Orthodox and Protestant traditions face their own versions of the same question.)Buried in Schlabach’s position is the assumption that being a member of the religious community is the ultimate goal of the Christian life. If that were true, it wouldn’t matter what one believed, as long as one stayed in community. But if one believes that the purpose of the Christian life is to grow in holiness, and to do so in community, then one has to know when the community no longer promotes holiness, but something else. And one has to know when the gap between holiness and what is taught and practiced in one’s local parish (or other community) is so great that one has to break communion.
Let’s say, for example, that you are a white Christian attending a church in the Deep South during the Civil Rights years. The pastor routinely delivers sermons defending white supremacy and denouncing “outside agitators” spreading a heretical “social gospel,” (that is, Christians from outside the South working for civil rights). Most of the congregation agrees with the pastor. But you do not. You deeply do not. You have told your children not to take what their pastor says seriously, that he is wrong about racial matters. Nevertheless, it is clear to you that the pastor is not going to stop, and that he really does speak for the sense of the congregation.
What do you do? If you are a Catholic, and this was a Catholic parish, you might be able to find another parish where this kind of preaching didn’t go on. You would be obliged by the church’s teaching, though, to go to mass. In the end, if you could not find another parish, you might have to suffer through the pastor’s immoral teaching, if only to satisfy your Sunday obligation. You would take what comfort you could in knowing that Christ is really present in the Eucharist. That might be a solution, but it would exact a tremendous cost on you and your family. You would be a member of that community only formally.
If you were a Protestant under this scenario, you would probably leave that congregation. If all the Protestant congregations in town were preaching white supremacy, you would be justified, I would think, in not worshiping with them on Sunday, but instead doing some form of worship at home with your family. That’s what I would do if I were a Protestant under those circumstances. Teaching racial supremacy as a Gospel value, especially in a place like the Jim Crow South, is such a profound and wicked violation of authentic Christian teaching that I could not in good conscience dignify it with my presence, nor could I have it taught as truth to my children by religious authorities. I think it is that important. Don’t you?
Now, there are other issues that are so fundamental that to treat them as if belief in them were optional for Christians is impossible. I would hope that all Christians reading this can agree that the case in the United Church in Canada right now, in which an atheist pastor is trying to keep her pulpit, in the name of inclusion and diversity, is absurd. Denying the existence of God and/or the divinity of Jesus Christ ought to be a deal-breaker for Christians when it comes to their pastors. If not, then you are in no way worshiping Jesus, but rather you have made an idol of the community.
Take the principle of the atheist pastor and work back from that. If you concede that a parish or congregation has a right and even an obligation to dismiss a pastor who denies something so fundamental to the faith as the existence of God, then you have drawn a line laying out the bounds of the community. All communities built around ideas have boundaries. They have to, to know who they are. If you do not believe in Jesus Christ, you are not a Christian. That’s an easy one. There really are differences in belief that ought to be tolerated for the sake of charity, but to believe that there is nothing that should cause one to break with a congregation, or to support expelling others from the congregation, is untenable.
Here’s something happening right now in a Catholic parish in Providence, RI, that illustrates this dilemma. Michael Templeton, the music director in the church, is a gay man who formally married his partner in a civil ceremony. The pastor of the parish dismissed him from his job as music director. Excerpt from the (ridiculously biased) story in the Providence Journal:
Glen Beattie, who came to St. Mary’s in 2008, waved goodbye to the altar Sunday as he headed out the door. “Bye church,” he said, sadly. If Templeton isn’t welcome, Beattie, also a gay man, doesn’t feel safe, either.
Templeton, 38, echoed this idea in an interview last week. He grew up Catholic, and has been in music ministry since he was a teenager. He’s dedicated his life to translating Scripture into song, he said.
“This is about a real statement on who is welcome and who is not,” Templeton said. “About who should feel safe and who shouldn’t.”
Templeton’s firing comes after Pope Francis released Amoris Laetitia, or “The Joy of Love,” which outlined a different path for the Church. Instead of casting out people that haven’t strictly aligned themselves with the Church’s belief system, Catholics should invite them in.
Bishop Tobin has taken a different approach. On Friday, he issued a statement saying he had “no choice” but to dismiss Templeton.
“Any person who holds a ministerial position in the Church, as an employee or a volunteer, is expected to live in a way that is fully consistent with the teachings and faith of the Church,” Bishop Tobin wrote. “If an individual deliberately and knowingly enters into a relationship or engages in activity that contradicts the core teachings of the Church, that individual leaves the Church no choice but to respond.”
Many St. Mary’s parishioners don’t agree. One woman, who has been attending church there for 40 years but did not want to give her name, said she’s thinking of leaving the religion altogether.
“This isn’t right,” she said with tears in her eyes. “This isn’t what being a Christian is.”
There is a very important issue at stake in this controversy — something important to both orthodox and progressive Catholics in the congregation. Bishop Tobin does not say that Michael Templeton is unwelcome in the church. He is saying that Templeton cannot serve as a lay minister within the church if he chooses to publicly defy Catholic teaching in such a significant way. The weeping woman quoted at the end has a very different idea of what being a faithful Catholic means — so much so that she may leave not only the parish, but Catholicism altogether over it.Is Prof. Schlabach willing to tell Templeton and his supporters to suck it up and stay in that parish? Maybe he would. But for them, this would be a huge sacrifice, it seems to me. Yet orthodox Catholics in the parish would conceivably also be making a big sacrifice if the church’s leadership saw it as a matter of indifference to allow someone who publicly denied the Church’s teaching on such a core issue to remain in a position of authority in the parish. And the orthodox Catholics have Catholic teaching on their side, regarding the moral and theological gravity of Templeton’s choice.
The point is simply this: one way or another, people within that congregation would have to make a big sacrifice to remain part of it. Both believe that the situation with Templeton embodies a core Christian truth, one that is not optional. The Roman Catholic Church also has a means of determining what truth is regarding this matter. The application of it to a particular situation is a matter of discretion, certainly, but the truth of the thing is not up for debate. Not for Catholics, anyway. Those who do believe that the Church’s teaching on this matter is wrong, or at least optional, are, in the eyes of orthodox Catholics, substituting a lie for the truth, and leading people away from holiness. And those progressive Catholics who believe otherwise, like the weeping lady, no doubt believe the same. One side or the other is going to have to accept what they see as a grave injustice to stay in that congregation.
Should they do so? Perhaps. But it’s a big deal, and it’s the kind of thing Schlabach does not address. The Benedict Option, broadly speaking, is for Christians (Catholic and otherwise) who see Christian orthodoxy besieged on a number of fronts, and who want to live out a communal life with other Christians who agree on fundamental beliefs, and who want to live them out together.
More Schlabach:
Interestingly, MacIntyrian localism has not aligned neatly with standard left/right polarities. Yes, some Catholics and former Catholics such as Dreher (who was raised as a Methodist and converted to Catholicism before finally joining the Orthodox Church) promote the Benedict Option out of dismay over issues such as same-sex marriage or alleged federal encroachments through Obamacare. Yet among the first and most prominent voices citing MacIntyre’s call were Catholic students of the Methodist ethicist Stanley Hauerwas, who were animated by a left-leaning critique of war, militarism, and American empire. From that circle emerged one of the most notable examples of groups prompted by MacIntyre and inspired by St. Benedict in fresh ways, the New Monasticism movement among young Evangelicals. When Dreher asked one of its leaders, Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, what others can learn from the patron of historic monasticism in the West, Wilson-Hartgrove bluntly replied that “Benedict saved me from the Religious Right.”
Well, yeah, and bless them. I admire and respect the radicalism of what the New Monastics are trying to do regarding community life, and thought about whether or not I should include them under the Benedict Option umbrella, for purposes of writing my book. I have benefitted in particular for Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove’s book on stability. I decided in the end not to write about them in the book not out of disrespect, but because it seemed to me that they do not have a commitment to Christian orthodoxy as I understand it, and as the people I’m trying to reach with the Ben Op book understand it. I recommend that you take a look at the dialogue JWH and I had about this issue. Prof. Schlabach has argued for same-sex marriage. That puts him outside of Catholic orthodoxy, and Christian orthodoxy. And this is not an issue on which we can agree to disagree as a matter of ecclesial discipline. Certainly we can agree to disagree and still remain friends. I’d say that at least half of my friends support same-sex marriage, and I love them no less for that. I hope they feel the same way about me. But as a matter of what is taught within the community of the Church, this is a bright, clear line, though not the only one (abortion is another, and so too, in my view, is racism).
More Schlabach:
In any case, the question of whether the Benedict Option necessarily entails a retreat from public matters depends not so much on what we are leaving or resisting in doing so as on what we do once we go deeper into our locales.
Right. As will be perfectly clear when The Benedict Option is published next year, I do not argue that orthodox Christians should withdraw entirely from public life. I do argue, however, that we should, as MacIntyre counsels, “[turn] aside from the task of shoring up the Roman imperium and [cease] to identify the continuation of civility and moral community with the maintenance of that imperium.” What we should do instead is focus on “the construction of new forms of community within which the moral life [can] be sustained so that both morality and civility might survive the coming ages of barbarism and darkness.”
This requires not just some form of withdrawal from the mainstream — as the New Monastics are doing in their own way. It also requires going towards something good. And it requires sharing the goods we find in our own community with the rest of the world, insofar as we can do that without compromising the integrity of our faith. I have no problem at all with Ben Op Christians running for public office or otherwise being engaged with the wider community. My contention is that it is more important to focus on building up the local Christian community — but that is merely a matter of priorities. The Benedictine monk doesn’t turn his back entirely on the outside community. He couldn’t do so without violating the Rule of St. Benedict‘s command to show hospitality to visitors and pilgrims. But he can only show true hospitality to the visitor if he has made a priority of prayer and communal life according to the Rule. In other words, Benedictine hospitality is not the point of the Rule, but flows naturally from the virtues inculcated by the practices of Benedictine community life — practices that can only be carried out in relative isolation from the world.
Schlabach builds his essay around the Benedictine vow of “stability” — that is, the mandate that when a monk makes his final profession and becomes a Benedictine, he is bound to remain a part of that same monastery’s community until the day he dies, barring exceptional circumstances. Schlabach says:
What makes Benedictines unique among religious orders is precisely this vow of stability and the practices it entails for monks as they commit to living the rest of their lives in one place, within one community. Whatever other spiritual practices they may have developed (liturgy of hours, lectio divina) or borrowed (Ignatian self-examination), monks in this tradition embrace community life itself as the most basic of their spiritual disciplines. Continuing to live together with people whom one cannot simply “unfriend” exposes self-deceptions and wears off uncharitable rough edges like nothing else.
This is true, and I have been told the same things by the monks I interviewed. However — and this is a crucial point — I suspect it would be unthinkable (at least for the Norcia monks) to keep in community a monk who openly and persistently denied Catholic teaching, and/or the Church’s teaching authority. Chapter 23 of the Rule prescribes excommunication (being prohibited from receiving communion) for lesser faults:
If a brother is found to be obstinate,
or disobedient, or proud, or murmuring,
or habitually transgressing the Holy Rule in any point
and contemptuous of the orders of his seniors,
the latter shall admonish him secretly a first and a second time,
as Our Lord commands (Matt. 18:15).
If he fails to amend,
let him be given a public rebuke in front of the whole community.
But if even then he does not reform,
let him be placed under excommunication,
provided that he understands the seriousness of that penalty;
if he is perverse, however,
let him undergo corporal punishment.
For heavier faults (Chapter 25):
Let the brother who is guilty of a weightier fault
be excluded both from the table and from the oratory.
Let none of the brethren join him
either for company or for conversation.
Let him be alone at the work assigned him,
abiding in penitential sorrow
and pondering that terrible sentence of the Apostle
where he says that a man of that kind is handed over
for the destruction of the flesh,
that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord (1 Cor. 5:5).
Let him take his meals alone
in the measure and at the hour
which the Abbot shall consider suitable for him.
He shall not be blessed by those who pass by,
nor shall the food that is given him be blessed.
If, after all these attempts at correction, a monk persists in the error, the Rule is unsparing:
But if he is not healed even in this way,
then let the Abbot use the knife of amputation,
according to the Apostle’s words,
“Expel the evil one from your midst” (1 Cor. 5:13),
and again,
“If the faithless one departs, let him depart” (1 Cor. 7:15)
lest one diseased sheep contaminate the whole flock.
“Stability,” then, is not an absolute value in the Benedictine life. The Rule advises progressively stronger measures to deal with someone obstinate, and also advises the abbot to be quick to receive back a penitent. But if someone persists in error, he must be disfellowshipped, because to do otherwise would sow disorder and disease within the entire community. Does the professor know better than St. Benedict himself?Schlabach:
Unlike participating in other forms of Christianity, being Catholic necessitates a refusal to leave in protest when the going gets tough, or to start a new church, or to shop around for another identity, or to bandy about threats of schism. In this sense, to leave Catholicism in favor of another high-church communion such as the Eastern Orthodox is fundamentally a Protestant act.
Well. I am going to assume in charity that Prof. Schlabach is being unintentionally snotty here because he does not know the circumstances surrounding my departure from Catholicism. If he cares to inform himself, he could start here. I left Catholicism not because I was protesting anything, or seeking another identity, but because after a long period of spiritual agony over the abuse scandal, I found that I had lost my ability to believe in Catholic Christianity. As I have said in this space many times, that was the most painful experience of my life, even more painful than losing my sister and my father. I would not have chosen it for anything. That said, let me suggest that my decision to leave Catholicism when I could no longer affirm that everything the Roman Catholic Church taught was true shows a greater respect for the teaching authority of the Roman Catholic Church than that of someone who rejects that authority when it conflicts with what he prefers to believe, yet continues to teach theology and Christian ethics at a Catholic university. More Schlabach:
Lacking this imperative [staying together no matter what], the option of resolving church conflicts by departing from communion becomes all too tempting. Yet that is precisely what appears to be happening when Dreher cites concrete examples of families and communities embracing the Benedict Option not only because they are disillusioned with American culture, but because they are disappointed with the Catholic Church in America.
Wait, what? If faithful orthodox Catholics feel the need to establish Benedict Option communities in whatever form to help them live more faithfully Catholic lives in communion with the Catholic Church, what’s wrong with that?
Schlabach suggests that if liberal and conservative Catholics were more tolerant of each other, they could learn to work together, and maybe quit thinking of themselves as liberals or conservatives. That’s a nice thought, but it applies political reasoning to theology and morality. Politics is the art of managing the common life of a community. Politics in any community depends on shared agreement on basic principles. Liberal democratic politics are by nature flexible, because they accept the individual as the basic political unit, and focus primarily on establishing procedures for allowing the community to govern itself while maintaining respect for individual liberty. You become an American by virtue of your birth, or if you are a naturalized citizen. There is nothing you can do to lose your American citizenship, aside from renouncing it. It is an essentially different thing than membership in the church.Christianity is a revealed religion. It proclaims non-negotiable truths, first principles that must be affirmed for membership in the community. Where the line gets drawn depends on your denomination, but no Christian church can say that everything is up for grabs, or that truth is determined solely by the majority vote of the congregation. There may be a Protestant church that operates that way, but to the best of my knowledge, even the more liberal churches affirm that there are some truths that are non-negotiable, at least in principle. In the Order of St. Benedict, as we have seen, there is a mandate to expel persistently heretical or persistently disobedient monks from the monastery. Some churches have procedures that exclude people from the church entirely, but normally, excommunication only means that Church authorities have declared that a particular sinner is barred from receiving communion until and unless he repents.
My point simply is that it is untenable to think that churches can be run as secular political organizations. You can’t say that pro-choice Christians can say that abortion is morally permissible because the fetus is not a human being while pro-life Christians hold that abortion is a grave offense involving the taking of a human life — and the two sides can resolve their differences by concluding either a) that they should meet halfway, and agree that abortion is wrong only some of the time, or b) that abortion is a matter on which Christians can agree to disagree, because it’s not ultimately that important. In secular liberal democratic politics, people within a polity tend to find a way to split the difference to accommodate everyone. Churches can’t operate that way, because their telos is fundamentally different. The only way that principle could be said to apply to a church is if the telos of the church was not to proclaim the truth and disciple the congregation in living that truth out, but rather to keep the congregation together for its own sake.
For Catholic Christians, at least, there is a way to resolve these differences: by seeing what the Roman Catholic Church has authoritatively taught based on its magisterial interpretation of Scripture. This is essential to what it means to be a Catholic. To say that moral truth is determined by the individual Christian is, well, Protestant, or if not Protestant (because many Protestants deny this), at least not Catholic. It shouldn’t have to be necessary to explain this to a trained Catholic theologian, but we live in interesting times.
And so we return to MacIntyre’s basic observation: that in modernity, we have fewer and fewer shared sources of authority to which we can appeal to resolve our differences. I don’t know enough about the various Protestant traditions to say, but one great advantage of Roman Catholicism over Protestantism, at least in theory, is that Rome settles doctrinal conflicts authoritatively. Based on my reading of his Commonweal article, Prof. Schlabach does not recognize Rome’s authority except in an advisory capacity to the individual, which is no real authority at all.
That may well be an unfair judgment on my part, in which case I invite correction. It really is a difficult and complex question, trying to figure out how far one can go in disagreeing with Church teaching and practice without violating the boundaries of what one must believe to be a Catholic (or, more broadly, a Christian). There is a tension there that can be creative and constructive.
But a tension there is, and the boundaries can only be stretched so far. Take the example of St. Dismas parish and school in this anonymous piece from First Things. I happen to know who the author is, and the name of the actual parish and school that he’s talking about. Read it, and tell me how on earth that parish and its pastor, and that school, have anything but the faintest thing to do with Roman Catholicism. The Benedict Option is for people like the author of that essay, who believe in what the Roman Catholic church teaches, and who want to live authentically Catholic lives, and want and need other Catholics, and Catholic families, to share that pilgrimage of faith with them. They’re not going to find it at St. Dismas. And there are small-o orthodox Christian in every faith tradition who find themselves in similar situations.
I appreciate the opportunity to have these conversations in public. These issues are important, though I look forward to being able to discuss them when the book is published, so the fullest expression of my thinking about the Ben Op is available for public scrutiny. It is irresponsible to say, “Peace, peace” where there is no peace. There should not be any reason for people to feel the need to take the Benedict Option within their own religious tradition. But that is not the world we live in, and we ignore the facts at our own spiritual peril — and our children’s.
I'm happy to engage in the comments with anyone who would like to discuss these things.
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Is spiritual formation important? By Jill M. Johnson
Bigstock/ChristianChan
I recently attended a spiritual formation retreat and met a man who was kind, helpful and a lifelong Christian. He wasn’t excited about attending the retreat, but he did so at his wife’s request. After five days of biblical and contemplative teaching, prayer, worship and times of silence, we debriefed on our experiences. For me, the event had been affirming, illuminating and transformative. He was rather indifferent about the week. He said, “You know, I don’t really think I need to change. Me and my false self are doing just fine.” His comment was slightly tongue-in-cheek, but only slightly. He was perfectly content to live his life the exact same way he had for the past 60 years, with the occasional delivery of a pie to his neighbor as his nod to Christian practice.
Contrast that to another man I met who engages in centering prayer twice a day, goes on silent retreats several times a year and studies Scripture daily. Both are good men, yet one is intentional about spiritual growth while the other isn’t. I’ll never know how Christians can follow the same teacher while journeying on different roads. But I also will never know why some seed falls on rocky soil and some seed falls on good soil (Matthew 13:3-9). What I do know is that following Jesus isn’t supposed to be easy (Luke 9:23-24). It’s in our nature to be anxious, self-centered and distracted. We’re not naturally inclined to grow in the likeness of Christ, who was trusting, self-giving, and attentive. It takes practice.
In my role at my church, I oversee a spiritual formation program called Alpha, a review of the basics of Christianity. Many who take this course have attended church their whole lives, and while they might know about God, they don’t know God. As they proceed through the course, their spirits take on a new shape, formed by the life-altering revelation that they’re not alone in this universe. They begin to understand there’s an indwelling presence that is for them, not against them. We call this the “head to heart drop.” Spiritual formation, the emptying of ourselves to be filled with new life, isn’t comfortable, but it does lead to a kind of abundant life we could never have generated on our own. In the Gospels, we read story after story of people being radically changed after meeting Jesus. Likewise, our only response to a genuine encounter with the Divine is transformation.
Spiritual formation defined
Before stating what spiritual formation is, we should define what it isn’t. We’re not talking about personal development or motivational theories as described in resources of the self-help industry. What we’re talking about is an approach grounded wholly within the context of a belief in our utter dependence upon God, who was made manifest in Jesus. So what is spiritual formation?
Gravity, a Center for Contemplative Activism, is an organization that offers spiritual resources to those involved in service and activism by rooting social change in contemplative spirituality. Founding partner Phileena Heuertz defines spiritual formation as “a process whereby we adopt practices that help us deepen our openness and receptivity to God’s presence and action in our life.” Heuertz engages in and teaches practices such as centering prayer, breath prayer and lectio divina as avenues for spiritual formation. She believes spiritual formation is vital for living into the highest ideals of our faith as taught by Jesus, ideals such as loving our neighbor as ourselves, loving our enemies and boundless forgiveness.
Richard J. Foster authored one of the best-known books on spiritual formation, Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth. He also founded Renovaré, a Christian nonprofit that provides resources for spiritual formation. Renovaré’s website defines the term as an active process and “a journey through which we open our hearts to deeper connection with God.”
Dallas Willard is a professor and author who collaborated with Foster on The Renovaré Spiritual Formation Bible. In the article “The Making of the Christian” in Christianity Today, Foster and Willard were interviewed and asked about the difference between spiritual formation and discipleship. According to Willard, “spiritual formation is character formation” establishing the character of Christ in a person. “Everyone gets a spiritual formation. It’s like education. Everyone gets an education; it’s just a matter of which one you get,” he said. Willard thinks the concept of discipleship is still important but that it has lost some of its meaning in today’s world. He argues that on the theological right, discipleship is just about training people to win souls; and on the left, it’s about social action, but both leave out character formation. In the same interview, Foster emphasizes that spiritual formation isn’t about behavior, rules or belief systems. If you have multiple verses memorized and can answer certain theological question correctly but you’re full of bitterness or pride, you’ve missed the concept of spiritual formation. The goal isn’t perfection, Willard states, but rather “learning to do things that Jesus is favorable toward and doing it out of a heart that has been changed into his.”
Engaged disciples
In the book Spiritual Formation: Following the Movements of the Spirit, Catholic priest Henri Nouwen divides spiritual formation into seven movements, connected to different stages of our lives. In the early part of our lives, formation moves from opaqueness to transparency and from illusion to prayer. In our mid years, we move from sorrow to joy, from resentment to gratitude and from fear to love. In our later years, mature spirituality moves from exclusion to inclusion and from denying to befriending death.
Churches have a stake in encouraging spiritual formation. Church consultant Dr. Phil Maynard believes the nationwide decline in church attendance is related to practices that support membership over discipleship. In order to embrace spiritual renewal and foster engaged disciples, churches should “shift their thinking and practices from fellowship to hospitality; from worship as an event to worship as lifestyle; from ‘serve us’ to service; and from survival mentality to generosity.” This is accomplished by pushing church members out of their comfort zones into paths of spiritual growth.
How to engage in spiritual formation
Foster’s Celebration of Discipline elaborates on practices he believes are for everyone, not just spiritual giants. These practices invite us to move from a life of superficiality to one of depth, freedom and abundance. According to Foster, inward disciplines include meditation, prayer, fasting and study. Outward disciplines include simplicity, solitude, submission and service. Corporate disciplines include confession, worship, guidance and celebration. To be clear, practicing these disciplines doesn’t earn us favor with God, nor should we participate in spiritual formation to impress others. The goal is to equip us to live in the presence of God.
In her book Sacred Rhythms, Ruth Haley Barton says the desire for a deeper level of spiritual transformation is key to connecting to and recognizing God in our lives. She encourages silence, lectio divina, taking care of our bodies and examen (a prayerful review of our day) as ways of feeding our soul and fostering intimacy with God. There’s no one right formula to practicing spiritual disciplines. Christians should feel free to engage in those methods that have the most meaning for them and produce spiritual fruit in their lives.Be sure to check out FaithLink, a weekly downloadable discussion guide for classes and small groups.
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Love In A Big World: Worldview
By Tamara FykeBigstock/pavelkubarkovOn Monday, January 16, 2017, we celebrated the life & legacy of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.; on Friday, January 20, 2017, we observed the inauguration of the 45th President of the United States, Donald Trump. In this historical week, what do these two leaders have to teach us?
I can hear some of you muttering, “I don’t have anything to learn from THAT man!”, perhaps referring to one or the other of these political figures. There are strong opinions on both sides about race, class and power. But do me a favor and just consider this for a moment.
These leaders serve as a mirror, reflecting the best — purpose, determination and perseverance — and the worst — fear, anger and failure, of our country and ourselves. Ultimately, they are revealing our worldview.
Our worldview is the way we look at life and people. You have probably been asked this seemingly simple question before: is the glass half empty or half full?
When we look at the glass as half empty, we are pessimistic, expecting the worst. When something bad happens, our response is “It figures.” We sound like Eeyore from the Hundred-Acre Wood. However, if we look at the glass as half full, we are optimistic, expecting the best. We do not deny the reality that bad things happen to good people, we just see the bad things as opportunities for growth…like Anne from Green Gables.The other day in the midst of a large group conversation about race, poverty and compassion, a friend posed this question to the group leader, “When you look to the future of our nation, are you optimistic?” His response echoed the words of King David, “I am hopeful.” Psalm 39:5 (CEB) says, “Oh, I must find rest in God only, because my hope comes from him!”
We cannot always control what happens in the world around us, but we can control our response to the situations we face — our worldview which, in turn, shapes our words and actions as well as those of others around us, especially our kids. I choose hope! How about you?
Together let’s Love In A Big World!
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This Sunday, January 29, 2017Fourth Sunday After the Epiphany: Micah 6:1-8; Psalm 15; 1 Corinthians 1:18-31; Matthew 5:1-12
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Lectionary Readings
Sunday, 29 January 2016
(Courtesy of Vanderbilt Divinity Library)
Micah 6:1-8
Psalm 15
1 Corinthians 1:18-31
Matthew 5:1-12
Scripture Texts: Micah 6:1 So listen now to what Adonai says:Sunday, 29 January 2016
(Courtesy of Vanderbilt Divinity Library)
Micah 6:1-8
Psalm 15
1 Corinthians 1:18-31
Matthew 5:1-12
“Stand up and state your case to the mountains,
let the hills hear what you have to say.”
2 Listen, mountains, to Adonai’s case;
also you enduring rocks that support the earth!
Adonai has a case against his people;
he wants to argue it out with Isra’el:
3 “My people, what have I done to you?
How have I wearied you? Answer me!
4 I brought you up from the land of Egypt.
I redeemed you from a life of slavery.
I sent Moshe, Aharon
and Miryam to lead you.
5 My people, just remember what Balak
the king of Mo’av had planned,
what Bil‘am the son of B‘or answered him,
[and what happened] between Sheetim and Gilgal —
so that you will understand
the saving deeds of Adonai.”
6 “With what can I come before Adonai
to bow down before God on high?
Should I come before him with burnt offerings?
with calves in their first year?
7 Would Adonai take delight in thousands of rams
with ten thousand rivers of olive oil?
Could I give my firstborn to pay for my crimes,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”
8 Human being, you have already been told
what is good, what Adonai demands of you —
no more than to act justly, love grace
and walk in purity with your God.
Psalm 15:(0) A psalm of David:
(1) Adonai, who can rest in your tent?
Who can live on your holy mountain?
2 Those who live a blameless life,
who behave uprightly,
who speak truth from their hearts
3 and keep their tongues from slander;
who never do harm to others
or seek to discredit neighbors;
4 who look with scorn on the vile,
but honor those who fear Adonai;
who hold to an oath, no matter the cost;
5 who refuse usury when they lend money
and refuse a bribe to damage the innocent.
Those who do these things
never will be moved.
1 Corinthians 1:18 For the message about the execution-stake is nonsense to those in the process of being destroyed, but to us in the process of being saved it is the power of God. 19 Indeed, the Tanakh says,
“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise
and frustrate the intelligence of the intelligent.”[1 Corinthians 1:19 Isaiah 29:14]
20 Where does that leave the philosopher, the Torah-teacher, or any of today’s thinkers? Hasn’t God made this world’s wisdom look pretty foolish? 21 For God’s wisdom ordained that the world, using its own wisdom, would not come to know him. Therefore God decided to use the “nonsense” of what we proclaim as his means of saving those who come to trust in it. 22 Precisely because Jews ask for signs and Greeks try to find wisdom, 23 we go on proclaiming a Messiah executed on a stake as a criminal! To Jews this is an obstacle, and to Greeks it is nonsense; 24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, this same Messiah is God’s power and God’s wisdom! 25 For God’s “nonsense” is wiser than humanity’s “wisdom.”
And God’s “weakness” is stronger than humanity’s “strength.” 26 Just look at yourselves, brothers — look at those whom God has called! Not many of you are wise by the world’s standards, not many wield power or boast noble birth. 27 But God chose what the world considers nonsense in order to shame the wise; God chose what the world considers weak in order to shame the strong; 28 and God chose what the world looks down on as common or regards as nothing in order to bring to nothing what the world considers important; 29 so that no one should boast before God. 30 It is his doing that you are united with the Messiah Yeshua. He has become wisdom for us from God, and righteousness and holiness and redemption as well! 31 Therefore — as the Tanakh says — “Let anyone who wants to boast, boast about Adonai.”[1 Corinthians 1:31 Jeremiah 9:23(24)]
Matthew 5:1 Seeing the crowds, Yeshua walked up the hill. After he sat down, his talmidim came to him, 2 and he began to speak. This is what he taught them:
3 “How blessed are the poor in spirit!
for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs.
4 “How blessed are those who mourn!
for they will be comforted.
5 “How blessed are the meek!
for they will inherit the Land![Matthew 5:5 Psalm 37:11]
6 “How blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness!
for they will be filled.
7 “How blessed are those who show mercy!
for they will be shown mercy.
8 “How blessed are the pure in heart!
for they will see God.
9 “How blessed are those who make peace!
for they will be called sons of God.
10 “How blessed are those who are persecuted
because they pursue righteousness!
for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs.
11 “How blessed you are when people insult you and persecute you and tell all kinds of vicious lies about you because you follow me! 12 Rejoice, be glad, because your reward in heaven is great — they persecuted the prophets before you in the same way.
John Wesley's Notes-Commentary: Micah 6:1-8
(Read all of Isaiah 6)
Verse 1
[1] In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple.
I saw — In a vision.
The Lord — The Divine Majesty as he subsisteth in three persons.
His train — His royal and judicial robe; for he is represented as a judge.
Verse 2
[2] Above it stood the seraphims: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly.
Stood — As ministers attending upon their Lord.
Seraphim — An order of holy angels, thus called from fire and burning, which this word properly signifies; to represent either their nature, which is bright and glorious, subtile, and pure; or their property, of fervent zeal for God's service and glory.
Covered — Out of profound reverence.
Verse 3
[3] And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory.
Cried — Singing in consort.
Holy — This is repeated thrice, to intimate the Trinity of persons united in the Divine essence.
Glory — Of the effects and demonstrations of his glorious holiness, as well as of his power, wisdom, and goodness.
Verse 4
[4] And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke.
The posts — Together with the door itself. Such violent motions were commonly tokens of God's anger.
Smoak — Which elsewhere is a token of God's presence and acceptance, but here of his anger.
Verse 5
[5] Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts.
l am — I am a great sinner, as many other ways, so particularly by my lips. I am an unclean branch of an unclean tree; besides my own uncleanness, I have both by my omissions and commissions involved myself in the guilt of their sins.
Have seen — The sight of this glorious and holy God gives me cause to fear that he is come to judgment against me.
Verse 6
[6] Then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar:
Flew — By God's command.
A coal — Both a token and an instrument of purification.
The altar — Of burnt-offering.
Verse 7
[7] And he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged.
Laid it — So as only to touch my lips, and not to burn them; which God could easily effect.
Lo — This is a sign that I have pardoned and purged the uncleanness of thy lips.
Verse 8
[8] Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me.
Who — To deliver the following message. The change of the number, I and us, is very remarkable; and both being meant of one and the same Lord, do sufficiently intimate a plurality of persons in the Godhead.
Psalm 15
(Read all of Psalm 15)
Verse 1
[1] LORD, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? who shall dwell in thy holy hill?
Who — Who shall so dwell in thy church here, as to dwell with thee for ever in heaven?
Verse 2
[2] He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness, and speaketh the truth in his heart.
Uprightly — Loving, and serving God, and loving his neighbour not in word only, but in truth; and this constantly.
Worketh — Makes it his business to do justly, to give to every one his due, first to God, and then to men.
Speaketh — His words and professions to God and men, agree with the thoughts and purposes of his heart.
Verse 3
[3] He that backbiteth not with his tongue, nor doeth evil to his neighbour, nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbour.
He — He that doth not speak evil of his neighbour.
Neighbour — That is, any man.
Nor taketh — Into his mouth, doth not raise it, neither spread or propagate it; or believe it without sufficient reason.
Verse 4
[4] In whose eyes a vile person is contemned; but he honoureth them that fear the LORD. He that sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not.
Vile — An ungodly man.
Honoureth — He highly esteems and loves them, though they be mean as to their worldly condition, and though they may differ from him in some opinions or practices of lesser moment.
Sweareth — A promissory oath.
Hurt — To his own damage. As if a man solemnly swear, that he will sell him such an estate at a price below the full worth; or that, he will give a poor man such a sum of money, which afterwards he finds inconvenient to him.
Changeth not — His purpose, but continues firm and resolved to perform his promise.
Verse 5
[5] He that putteth not out his money to usury, nor taketh reward against the innocent. He that doeth these things shall never be moved.
To usury — In such a manner as is contrary to God's law: of which see otherwise, Exodus 22:25; Leviticus 25:36,37, etc.
Reward — Or, a bribe for him who hath a bad cause.
Moved — He shall abide with God here, and when he dies be for ever with the Lord.
1 Corinthians 1:18-31
Verse 18
[18] For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.
To them that perish — By obstinately rejecting the only name whereby they can be saved.
But to us who are saved — Now saved from our sins, and in the way to everlasting salvation, it is the great instrument of the power of God.
Verse 19
[19] For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.
For it is written — And the words are remarkably applicable to this great event. Isaiah 29:14
Verse 20
[20] Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?
Where is the wise? etc.-The deliverance of Judea from Sennacherib is what Isaiah refers to in these words; in a bold and beautiful allusion to which, the apostle in the clause that follows triumphs over all the opposition of human wisdom to the victorious gospel of Christ. What could the wise men of the gentiles do against this? or the Jewish scribes? or the disputers of this world? - Those among both, who, proud of their acuteness, were fond of controversy, and thought they could confute all opponents.
Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world — That is, shown it to be very foolishness. Isaiah 33:18
Verse 21
[21] For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.
For since in the wisdom of God — According to his wise disposals, leaving them to make the trial.
The world — Whether Jewish or gentile, by all its boasted wisdom knew not God - Though the whole creation declared its Creator, and though he declared himself by all the prophets; it pleased God, by a way which those who perish count mere foolishness, to save them that believe.
Verse 22
[22] For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom:
For whereas the Jews demand of the apostles, as they did of their Lord, more signs still, after all they have seen already; and the Greeks, or gentiles, seek wisdom - The depths of philosophy, and the charms of eloquence.
Verse 23
[23] But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness;
We go on to preach, in a plain and historical, not rhetorical or philosophical, manner, Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumblingblock - Just opposite to the "signs" they demand.
And to the Greeks foolishness — A silly tale, just opposite to the wisdom they seek.
Verse 24
[24] But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.
But to them that are called — And obey the heavenly calling.
Christ — With his cross, his death, his life, his kingdom. And they experience, first, that he is the power, then, that he is the wisdom, of God.
Verse 25
[25] Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
Because the foolishness of God — The gospel scheme, which the world judge to be mere foolishness, is wiser than the wisdom of men; and, weak as they account it, stronger than all the strength of men.
Verse 26
[26] For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called:
Behold your calling — What manner of men they are whom God calls.
That not many wise men after the flesh — In the account of the world.
Not many mighty — Men of power and authority.
Verse 28
[28] And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are:
Things that are not — The Jews frequently called the gentiles, "Them that are not," 2 Esdras vi. 56, 57. In so supreme contempt did they hold them.
The things that are — In high esteem.
Verse 29
[29] That no flesh should glory in his presence.
That no flesh — A fit appellation. Flesh is fair, but withering as grass.
May glory before God — In God we ought to glory.
Verse 30
[30] But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption:
Of him — Out of his free grace and mercy. Are ye Engrafted into Christ Jesus, who is made unto us that believe wisdom, who were before utterly foolish and ignorant.
Righteousness — The sole ground of our justification, who were before under the wrath and curse of God.
Sanctification — A principle of universal holiness, whereas before we were altogether dead in sin.
And redemption — That is, complete deliverance from all evil, and eternal bliss both of soul and body.
Verse 31
[31] That, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.
Let him glory in the Lord — Not in himself, not in the flesh, not in the world. Jeremiah 9:23,24
Matthew 5:1-12
(Read all of Matthew 5)
Verse 1
[1] And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto him:
And seeing the multitudes — At some distance, as they were coming to him from every quarter.
He went up into the mountain — Which was near: where there was room for them all.
His disciples — not only his twelve disciples, but all who desired to learn of him.
Verse 2
[2] And he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying,
And he opened his mouth — A phrase which always denotes a set and solemn discourse; and taught them - To bless men; to make men happy, was the great business for which our Lord came into the world. And accordingly he here pronounces eight blessings together, annexing them to so many steps in Christianity. Knowing that happiness is our common aim, and that an innate instinct continually urges us to the pursuit of it, he in the kindest manner applies to that instinct, and directs it to its proper object. Though all men desire, yet few attain, happiness, because they seek it where it is not to be found. Our Lord therefore begins his Divine institution, which is the complete art of happiness, by laying down before all that have ears to hear, the true and only true method of acquiring it. Observe the benevolent condescension of our Lord. He seems, as it were, to lay aside his supreme authority as our legislator, that he may the better act the part of: our friend and Saviour. Instead of using the lofty style, in positive commands, he, in a more gentle and engaging way, insinuates his will and our duty, by pronouncing those happy who comply with it. 3.
Happy are the poor — In the following discourse there is, 1. A sweet invitation to true holiness and happiness, verse 3-12. Matthew 5:3-12. 2. A persuasive to impart it to others, verse 13-16. Matthew 5:13-16. 3. A description of true Christian holiness, verse 17; chap. ii,12, Matthew 5:17; Matthew 7:12. (in which it is easy to observe, the latter part exactly answers the former.) 4. The conclusion: giving a sure mark of the true way, warning against false prophets, exhorting to follow after holiness.
The poor in spirit — They who are unfeignedly penitent, they who are truly convinced of sin; who see and feel the state they are in by nature, being deeply sensible of their sinfulness, guiltiness, helplessness.
For theirs is the kingdom of heaven — The present inward kingdom: righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost, as well as the eternal kingdom, if they endure to the end. Luke 6:20.
Verse 4
[4] Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.
They that mourn — Either for their own sins, or for other men's, and are steadily and habitually serious.
They shall be comforted — More solidly and deeply even in this world, and eternally in heaven.
Verse 5
[5] Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.
Happy are the meek — They that hold all their passions and affections evenly balanced.
They shall inherit the earth — They shall have all things really necessary for life and godliness. They shall enjoy whatever portion God hath given them here, and shall hereafter possess the new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.
Verse 6
[6] Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.
They that hunger and thirst after righteousness — After the holiness here described. They shall be satisfied with it.
Verse 7
[7] Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.
The merciful — The tender-hearted: they who love all men as themselves: They shall obtain mercy - Whatever mercy therefore we desire from God, the same let us show to our brethren. He will repay us a thousand fold, the love we bear to any for his sake.
Verse 8
[8] Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.
The pure in heart — The sanctified: they who love God with all their hearts.
They shall see God — In all things here; hereafter in glory.
Verse 9
[9] Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.
The peace makers — They that out of love to God and man do all possible good to all men. Peace in the Scripture sense implies all blessings temporal and eternal.
They shall be called the children of God — Shall be acknowledged such by God and man. One would imagine a person of this amiable temper and behaviour would be the darling of mankind. But our Lord well knew it would not be so, as long as Satan was the prince of this world. He therefore warns them before of the treatment all were to expect, who were determined thus to tread in his steps, by immediately subjoining, Happy are they who are persecuted for righteousness' sake. Through this whole discourse we cannot but observe the most exact method which can possibly be conceived. Every paragraph, every sentence, is closely connected both with that which precedes, and that which follows it. And is not this the pattern for every Christian preacher? If any then are able to follow it without any premeditation, well: if not, let them not dare to preach without it. No rhapsody, no incoherency, whether the things spoken be true or false, comes of the Spirit of Christ.
Verse 10
[10] Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
For righteousness' sake — That is, because they have, or follow after, the righteousness here described. He that is truly a righteous man, he that mourns, and he that is pure in heart, yea, all that will live godly in Christ Jesus, shall suffer persecution, 2 Timothy 3:12. The world walways say, Away with such fellows from the earth. They are made to reprove our thoughts. They are grievous to us even to behold. Their lives are not like other men's; their ways are of another fashion.
Verse 11
[11] Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.
Revile — When present: say all evil - When you are absent.
Verse 12
[12] Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.
Your reward — Even over and above the happiness that naturally and directly results from holiness.
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The Upper Room Ministries
PO Box 340004
Nashville, Tennessee 37203-0004, United States
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A LOVELY WALK by Raquel Mull
Micah 6:1-8
I am in a covenant relationship. My husband and I have been married for sixteen years. I will grant you that many others have been married for longer than that, but one thing I am reminded of in this relationship is that we do not always communicate well. It is not that we are not talking; we just don’t talk at the same rate or exchange information in the same way. Part of our difficulty lies in the fact that he is male and I am not.
Often, when I have been thinking about an issue or problem, I forget that my husband has not been privy to my thoughts. He comes in from the garage and I, in my haste to share my latest understandings or hopes or plans, bombard him with words—and forget to mention the subject. He listens, trying to understand me, and finally says, “What is the subject? What are we talking about?”
In the book of Micah, the Lord is more structured and methodical. The Lord tells Israel everything that is on his mind. The Lord gives exact, historical details of what he has done for them. The Lord reminds the people how God has never left them, not one time. The Lord brought them up out of Egypt, redeemed them from a life of slavery, gave them leaders, and protected them! There is no question of the Lord’s presence and action in their lives.
Yet the nation Israel has forgotten they are in a covenantal relationship; they have gone astray and not repented. The Lord demands their loyalty and love; they are estranged from the Lord. God reminds Israel of the Lord’s saving acts that they may again enter into right relationship. The Lord reminds them of what has been done on their behalf and how they thrive when they follow the Lord’s ways.
The Lord understands the people. God knows that they will try to make him happy, and that they will try to do so in ways that they have been told are wrong. The Lord recognizes the traditional burnt offerings and also the unacceptable offering of the firstborn as attempts to return to the Lord. How many times have the people been told not to imitate the abominable practices of the Canaanites who sacrifice their own children? The people just forget; in their desire to reestablish their covenant with Adonai, they show they still have attachments to heathen rituals.
I see faint reflections of these dynamics in my covenant relationship with my husband. I do not doubt that my husband loves me and wants me to be happy. What I do doubt sometimes is his memory. I think I have been perfectly clear in my feelings and desires. I have even been overwhelming in providing details on how to load the dishwasher or where to find the thermometer. He doesn’t get it. He can’t find it. I go to the closet and pull out the thermometer from exactly where I said it would be. I know he looked because the closet is in slight disarray; he tried to please me. But the next time I need the thermometer, he will have to ask where it is again. My husband also has a tendency, like the Israelites, to make up for his shortcomings with gifts and generosity in small things. If I really needed a thermometer and he couldn’t find it, he would go out and buy, not one thermometer, but at least two! “I wasn’t sure if you wanted a digital readout with batteries or if you wanted an old-timey one, so I got both!”
Israel began by offering year-old calves and upped it to thousands of rams, rivers of oil, and finally the firstborn. They wanted to please, even offering what they did not have the authority to give.
Drawing from my own experience of male and female approaches to life, it seems as if Israel was more masculine than feminine in its approach. Men are generally more concerned with plans, processes, and solutions, while women tend to focus on emotions and relationship. Israel wanted to know what to do; what should the plan of action be? (I am applying some observations to the text here, not attempting to stereotype the sexes.)
Generally speaking, women want to discuss problems more, get more details, and relate personal history as to how they would feel if someone hurt their feelings or did not seem to appreciate what had been done for them. It is a valid problem-solving procedure. They relate what would make them feel better and apply that knowledge to the problem at hand.
Often, men, once they understand a problem, want to take action to solve it. They don’t ignore emotions and relationships but focus more on action than feeling. This is also a valid approach to problem solving. In the biblical scenario we are exploring, it is the approach Israel takes— Israel takes action to solve the problem of its broken relationship with the Lord.
The answer the Lord gives Israel is perfect—short, concise, and full of action verbs with emotional connections. As such, it addresses both masculine and feminine understandings and priorities of action and relationships. The Lord tells Israel exactly what to do, what to love, and how to walk! Do what is just. Love kindness. Walk humbly.
Today, as New Testament people, we may think that these requirements have been replaced by the cross. Yet, as long as injustice, poverty, and oppression exist in our world, we need to be reminded of the Lord’s words. Do justice. Love kindness. Walk humbly.
Three small phrases perhaps, but they carry the weight of the Torah and the New Testament alike. O mortals, human beings, why should we try to offer more than what is asked for when, even now, we cannot give the minimum the Lord has required?read more-------
WORSHIP ELEMENTS: JANUARY 29, 2017 by Joanne Carlson BrownFourth
Fourth Sunday After the Epiphany
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SERMON OPTIONS: JANUARY 29, 2017
PLAIN SPEAKING
MICAH 6:1-8
God has a complaint—what is sometimes called a covenant lawsuit—with the people of Israel. Micah becomes the voice through which this charge is leveled. The specific nature of the wrongs committed is not verbalized here, except in an indirect way: God asks the people, through Micah, what God has done wrong. In other words, God is asking rhetorically, "What have I done to lead you to separate yourselves from me?"
God's question is answered with another question, this time the formulation of the prophet on the people's behalf: "With what shall I come before the LORD,/and bow myself before God on high?" (v. 6). Then follows a list of liturgical acts, ritual options that traditionally function either to please God in worship or to appease God for sin committed: burnt offerings, calves, rams, oil, and—more farfetched—a firstborn child.
Here we are, then, with two questions—God's and ours. The dynamic sets up a distinct vacuum, begging for a declarative sentence, something to be spoken definitively rather than asked as a question. Verse 8 fills the void logically as well as in a literary sense: this is what you need to do. Then, in plain speech, what is good to do and be is elaborated: do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with (or live in communion with) God.
I. Do Justice
The word justice is intended to mean more than merely "getting even" or "making others pay for what they did." Justice in Hebrew scripture has a far more comprehensive meaning: the restoration of balance, the righting of relationships, the application of fairness to all things. Justice is not a deal struck but an atmosphere engendered within a community. In that sense, it is close kin to the richly laden Hebrew word shalom. What does the Lord require? That we do justice.
II. Love Kindness
Kindness (alternately, compassion or mercy) is as plain and pedestrian a virtue as any. Not a day goes by that any of us would not have occasion to exercise kindness in some way—small or substantial. The kindness of a banker may spare a family about to be foreclosed profound heartache and misery; but the same kindness can bring a flower in a little child's hand across the street to the widow on the porch swing. For Micah, the size of kindness is immaterial; what is essential is that it be there when called for. And one thing more, and this makes all the difference: that kindness be loved. Not merely the exercise of mercy, but the love of mercy. Not merely the doing of a kind act, but the appreciation of the deed. Not merely saying the helpful word, but meaning what we say.
III. Walk Humbly with Your God
The rare Hebrew verb for "to walk humbly with" is difficult to translate clearly. But something like "to live in communion with" gets the point across. To walk humbly with God must mean, then, among other things, to get our minds and hearts around the notion that the Other is also with us. God, who creates us, gives us breath, and receives us at our death, also walks with us through every step of life.
Humility, then, is not really about learning to keep our mouths shut at dinner parties; it is learning to recognize holy ground when we see it until eventually we come to understand it's the only kind there is. (Paul R. Escamilla)
SEND IN THE CLOWNS
1 CORINTHIANS 1:18-31
The Broadway play A Little Night Music was never considered much of a box office success. But one bright result of the play was a song that became a hit: "Send in the Clowns." Some have suggested that that song expresses what it's like for Christians to be sent into the world. We appear peculiar to a world that lives by a different set of values.
In a circus or a rodeo, clowns create a shift in theme; they change the subject. After the breathtaking danger of the flying trapeze, a lion tamer, or a bucking bronco, clowns enter to remind us of our purpose—to be entertained. Much like Shakespeare's Falstaff, they produce a break in the action just when we were caught up in the drama of the moment.
Just so, it is our nature and calling as Christians to remind people what we are here for: to know and glorify God. And like the clowns, our message changes the subject and often seems silly and out of place in a world that is caught up in another purpose: satisfying self.
Paul made the same point in 1 Corinthians. He wrote that on the world's wise-foolish continuum, Christians and non-Christians are on opposite ends. The world looks at that continuum from one side and sees Christians on the foolish end. But the scale on God's side is reversed, so that Christians are the wise and the world is foolish. From the perspective of the crowd, rodeo clowns look silly in comparison with the brave and strong cowboys, but from the perspective of those who work in the rodeo, clowns have the sanest job in the arena—to protect the lives of the cowboys who put themselves in danger. What makes Christians so different from the world?
I. Christians Bear a Different Life Message
Paul wrote that it is the message of the Cross (v. 18)—through weakness we are made strong (2 Cor. 12:9-10). It is a message that is the inverted image of the world's philosophy. But the church looks at the cross and empty tomb of Jesus and knows that when we are crucified with him, we will be raised. What looks like defeat today will be victory tomorrow. What is a photographic negative, on which black appears as white and white appears as black, will soon be a beautiful picture.
II. Christians Face Persecution in the World
Jesus promised such opposition (Matt. 10:22; John 15:18-20). The message of the Cross was a stumbling block and foolishness in Paul's generation (vv. 22-23), and it is the same today. It is a stumbling block because people, like the Jews of Paul's day, still want a king with worldly power to wipe out their enemies and grant then prosperity instead of a Savior to die for their sins. It is foolishness because people, like the Greeks, still prefer to find wisdom through their own ingenuity rather than let Christ forgive them of their utter failure and give them his wisdom (v. 30), with the result that they boast in the Lord and not in themselves (v. 31)
III. Christians Call Attention to Their WeaknessThat God May Be Glorified
Paul urged the Corinthian Christians to consider their humble background (vv. 26-27). Christians are to remember and even emphasize that they were saved not by their own goodness or intelligence but by God's grace (1 Cor. 15:10 ; Eph. 2:8-9). It is not that Christians cannot be very capable and brilliant people—the most intelligent thing someone can do is to come to Christ—but we have a spiritual humility that causes us to emphasize what God has done, not what we have done.
We know that we are also weak, but we have found that his grace is sufficient in our weakness (2 Cor. 12:9) , and that is what we share with the world. (N. Allen Moseley)
HAPPINESS IS A CHOICE
MATTHEW 5:1-12
God wants you to be happy. A mentor of mine in the ministry was fond of saying, "Some people get enough religion to make them happy, while others only get enough to make them miserable." Jesus wants you to be happy. "Blessed are you," Jesus says. "You are blessed with the choice of happiness because you are mine." This is "family talk." Jesus gathered his disciples to teach them while the crowd was allowed to "overhear."
I. Happiness Comes from a Christlike Life
This is where we preachers usually try to put words in Jesus' mouth and fill the air with admonitions of "ought" and "should." "You ought to be meek!" "You should be merciful!" That is not what Jesus is saying. Jesus is pronouncing a blessing. (Isn't it amazing how much light the Bible throws on the commentaries?) Jesus is saying, "You who have responded to my call with your faith are blessed. Because you are mine, you have the ability to choose a certain kind of life." When you make this choice, wonderful results can happen.
II. Happiness Comes from Our Inheritance
Here Jesus walks us around the inheritance we have as God's children: "Blessed is the one who acknowledges the personal need of God, for God shall reign in the heart. Be happy when you feel deep sorrow over wrong, for God's Spirit will be at your side. You will know joy as the relinquishment of your life to God's guidance and discipline molds you to receive what God has already promised. Blessed are you when the dissatisfaction in your life drives you to search after God's nature, for you will be satisfied. Oh, the blissful joy of the one who gives forgiving and healing love. You will receive what you have given. The joyful heart is yours because your singleness of purpose conditions you to see God. God's children are those who stand in the gap between forces of opposition, making peace to be more than the absence of hostility, but the presence of love."
In his book The Cost of Discipleship, Dietrich Bonhoeffer asks, "Is there any place on earth for such a community? Clearly there is one place, and only one, and that is where the poorest, meekest and most sorely tried of all men is to be found—on the cross at Golgotha. The fellowship of the beatitudes is the fellowship of the crucified."
Even when you participate in the fellowship of the crucified, even when you are persecuted, even when you are a victim, you have the choice not to accept a victim mentality. Jesus has reversed the world's values. He blesses the so-called unblessed of society. He blesses the poor, the brokenhearted, the captives, the prisoners, and the grieving (Isa. 61:1-3; Luke 4:18-19). As God's child, you have the choice to accept God's blessing and to bless others. You can take initiative, choose beforehand how to respond in any situation. As Fred Craddock says, "We are no longer victims; we are Kingdom people."
Said the wealthy woman to the disabled young man at the door, "Sure I'll buy your magazine to help you through college. Possibly by education you'll overcome your condition, although I'm sure it colors everything you do." "Yes, ma'am, it does," he replied, "but, thank God, I can choose the color." (Gary L. Carver)read more-------
WORSHIP FOR KIDS: JANUARY 29, 2017 by Carolyn C. Brown
From a Child's
From a Child's Point of View
Gospel: Matthew 5:1-12. The Beatitudes is one of those familiar passages which adults often think children ought to learn, but which children have little chance of understanding without significant adult help. First they must explore the meaning of blessed. If "blessed" is paraphrased as "happy," that happiness must be defined and differentiated from short-term, shallow satisfaction. Then they need help wading through each verse, many of which are abstract descriptions of human activity followed by somewhat vague promises. Here is one paraphrase suitable for children:
Happy are those who are gentle,
for they are in charge in God's kingdom.
Happy are those who grieve,
for God will comfort them.
Happy are those who obey God,
for God will make them leaders.
Happy are those who wish for fairness for everyone,
for their wish will come true.
Happy are those who forgive others,
for they shall be forgiven.
Happy are those who put being a disciple first in their lives,
for they will know God personally.
Happy are the peacemakers,
for they will be called the children of God.
Happy are those who are mistreated when they do what God wants,
for the kingdom of heaven is theirs.
You will find happiness and peace deep within you
when you are teased or mistreated,
or when others tell lies about you,
because you are my disciples.
You will be happy because you will know
that you are one of God's people,
and God's people have often suffered.
Old Testament: Micah 6:1-8. The courtroom scene in verses 1-5 requires knowledge of covenant theology and events in Old Testament history that children do not yet possess. Read this for the adult biblical scholars.
The question and answer in verses 6-8 offer more to children, but need an introduction to explain the practice of offering animals, farm products (the oil is olive oil, not petroleum), and even children as sacrifices. Because children hear about such sacrifice from the vantage point of a child rather than that of an adult, children often are offended and frightened by these references. They can't imagine that a loving God would demand such a thing, but they worry that God might ask their parents to demonstrate their loyalty by killing them. They need to be reassured that the writer shares their views and that God has never and will never suggest such a show of loyalty. In fact, Micah's point here is that God is not interested in gestures like animal or human sacrifice. What God wants is for us to treat each other fairly and with love.
Epistle: I Corinthians 1:18-31. Few children will follow the reading of the text with its references to Greek wisdom and Jewish love of signs. But the point the passage makes about what is strong and weak—or what is wise and foolish—is critical to their response to the teachings in the Old Testament and Gospel passages. All children are encouraged to be wise and strong. Paul reminds them, along with the people at Corinth, that though God's rules may seem like foolish rules for sissies, they really are for the strong people.
He illustrates his point by pointing to Jesus' crucifixion. Tied up, whipped, and crucified, Jesus—and God—looked weak, while the Roman soldiers and the religious leaders who wanted Jesus dead looked strong. But it turned out that Jesus was stronger. Similarly, though it looks as if demanding and getting your own way is stronger and wiser than giving up what is rightfully yours in order to take care of others, it turns out that the latter makes our life together happier.
Psalm: 15. While children do not catch the exact meaning of the psalmist's questions about God's hill and tent, they do catch his meaning: "Who is qualified to come near to God in worship?" A child's paraphrase of the answer:
Those who obey God,
who do what is right,
who tell the truth,
who say no mean words about others,
who do nothing mean to their friends,
who refuse to tell bad stories about other
people,
who cannot be tempted by wicked people,
who respect God's people,
who do what they say they will—no matter
what,
who do not share just hoping to get some-
thing back, and
who will hurt others in order to get a gift;
People who do these things will always be safe
with God.
Watch Words
Do not use the word beatitude or speak of the Beatitudes without explaining what they are. Also explore the meaning of blessed. Many children use "bless" only in reference to a prayer before eating or in response to a friend's sneezes.
Let the Children Sing
The third verse about right and wrong makes "This Is My Father's World" a good general praise hymn for the day.
"What Does the Lord Require?" with its repeated chorus, which even the youngest can sing, is based on Micah 6:8. Other choices include "Lord, I Want to Be a Christian" (to which you could make up new verses related to today's theme), and "We Are Climbing Jacob's Ladder."
The Liturgical Child
1. Use Psalm 15 as the Call to Worship: The leader asks the questions (vs. 1); the congregation reads the answer (vss. 2-5a; and all read the conclusion (vs. 5b.
2. Create a responsive prayer of confession based on the Beatitudes. The worship leader states the beginning of each Beatitude ("Blessed are the . . ."), then describes how we fail to live in that way ("but we prefer to . . . ."). the congregation's response to each confession: "God, forgive us" (or sing the first line of the Kyrie).
3. Invite the children to come and sit with you at the front for the reading of the Gospel. Once they have arrived, point out that Jesus often gathered his disciples around him just like this, to tell them how they were to live. Briefly introduce the format of the Beatitudes before reading the lesson; after the reading, thank the children and send them back to their seats.
4. In prayers of petition, pray for God's foolishness for whatever situations, groups, and individuals have specific need of it. Include family situations, such as sharing a room with a baby sister or doing all the chores no one wants to do, as well as community and global situations.
5. Address Psalm 15 to the congregation as the Charge just before the Benediction.
Sermon Resources
1. Create beatitudes which reflect the secular values in our culture, and compare them to those of Jesus. For example:
Blessed are the winners, for they are the only ones who count. (This is especially good at Super Bowl time and during local sport championships.)
Blessed are the well-dressed, for everyone will deny their style.
Blessed are those with the best toys, for they will always have fun.read more
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let the hills hear what you have to say.”
2 Listen, mountains, to Adonai’s case;
also you enduring rocks that support the earth!
Adonai has a case against his people;
he wants to argue it out with Isra’el:
3 “My people, what have I done to you?
How have I wearied you? Answer me!
4 I brought you up from the land of Egypt.
I redeemed you from a life of slavery.
I sent Moshe, Aharon
and Miryam to lead you.
5 My people, just remember what Balak
the king of Mo’av had planned,
what Bil‘am the son of B‘or answered him,
[and what happened] between Sheetim and Gilgal —
so that you will understand
the saving deeds of Adonai.”
6 “With what can I come before Adonai
to bow down before God on high?
Should I come before him with burnt offerings?
with calves in their first year?
7 Would Adonai take delight in thousands of rams
with ten thousand rivers of olive oil?
Could I give my firstborn to pay for my crimes,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”
8 Human being, you have already been told
what is good, what Adonai demands of you —
no more than to act justly, love grace
and walk in purity with your God.
Psalm 15:(0) A psalm of David:
(1) Adonai, who can rest in your tent?
Who can live on your holy mountain?
2 Those who live a blameless life,
who behave uprightly,
who speak truth from their hearts
3 and keep their tongues from slander;
who never do harm to others
or seek to discredit neighbors;
4 who look with scorn on the vile,
but honor those who fear Adonai;
who hold to an oath, no matter the cost;
5 who refuse usury when they lend money
and refuse a bribe to damage the innocent.
Those who do these things
never will be moved.
1 Corinthians 1:18 For the message about the execution-stake is nonsense to those in the process of being destroyed, but to us in the process of being saved it is the power of God. 19 Indeed, the Tanakh says,
“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise
and frustrate the intelligence of the intelligent.”[1 Corinthians 1:19 Isaiah 29:14]
20 Where does that leave the philosopher, the Torah-teacher, or any of today’s thinkers? Hasn’t God made this world’s wisdom look pretty foolish? 21 For God’s wisdom ordained that the world, using its own wisdom, would not come to know him. Therefore God decided to use the “nonsense” of what we proclaim as his means of saving those who come to trust in it. 22 Precisely because Jews ask for signs and Greeks try to find wisdom, 23 we go on proclaiming a Messiah executed on a stake as a criminal! To Jews this is an obstacle, and to Greeks it is nonsense; 24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, this same Messiah is God’s power and God’s wisdom! 25 For God’s “nonsense” is wiser than humanity’s “wisdom.”
And God’s “weakness” is stronger than humanity’s “strength.” 26 Just look at yourselves, brothers — look at those whom God has called! Not many of you are wise by the world’s standards, not many wield power or boast noble birth. 27 But God chose what the world considers nonsense in order to shame the wise; God chose what the world considers weak in order to shame the strong; 28 and God chose what the world looks down on as common or regards as nothing in order to bring to nothing what the world considers important; 29 so that no one should boast before God. 30 It is his doing that you are united with the Messiah Yeshua. He has become wisdom for us from God, and righteousness and holiness and redemption as well! 31 Therefore — as the Tanakh says — “Let anyone who wants to boast, boast about Adonai.”[1 Corinthians 1:31 Jeremiah 9:23(24)]
Matthew 5:1 Seeing the crowds, Yeshua walked up the hill. After he sat down, his talmidim came to him, 2 and he began to speak. This is what he taught them:
3 “How blessed are the poor in spirit!
for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs.
4 “How blessed are those who mourn!
for they will be comforted.
5 “How blessed are the meek!
for they will inherit the Land![Matthew 5:5 Psalm 37:11]
6 “How blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness!
for they will be filled.
7 “How blessed are those who show mercy!
for they will be shown mercy.
8 “How blessed are the pure in heart!
for they will see God.
9 “How blessed are those who make peace!
for they will be called sons of God.
10 “How blessed are those who are persecuted
because they pursue righteousness!
for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs.
11 “How blessed you are when people insult you and persecute you and tell all kinds of vicious lies about you because you follow me! 12 Rejoice, be glad, because your reward in heaven is great — they persecuted the prophets before you in the same way.
John Wesley's Notes-Commentary: Micah 6:1-8
(Read all of Isaiah 6)
Verse 1
[1] In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple.
I saw — In a vision.
The Lord — The Divine Majesty as he subsisteth in three persons.
His train — His royal and judicial robe; for he is represented as a judge.
Verse 2
[2] Above it stood the seraphims: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly.
Stood — As ministers attending upon their Lord.
Seraphim — An order of holy angels, thus called from fire and burning, which this word properly signifies; to represent either their nature, which is bright and glorious, subtile, and pure; or their property, of fervent zeal for God's service and glory.
Covered — Out of profound reverence.
Verse 3
[3] And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory.
Cried — Singing in consort.
Holy — This is repeated thrice, to intimate the Trinity of persons united in the Divine essence.
Glory — Of the effects and demonstrations of his glorious holiness, as well as of his power, wisdom, and goodness.
Verse 4
[4] And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke.
The posts — Together with the door itself. Such violent motions were commonly tokens of God's anger.
Smoak — Which elsewhere is a token of God's presence and acceptance, but here of his anger.
Verse 5
[5] Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts.
l am — I am a great sinner, as many other ways, so particularly by my lips. I am an unclean branch of an unclean tree; besides my own uncleanness, I have both by my omissions and commissions involved myself in the guilt of their sins.
Have seen — The sight of this glorious and holy God gives me cause to fear that he is come to judgment against me.
Verse 6
[6] Then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar:
Flew — By God's command.
A coal — Both a token and an instrument of purification.
The altar — Of burnt-offering.
Verse 7
[7] And he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged.
Laid it — So as only to touch my lips, and not to burn them; which God could easily effect.
Lo — This is a sign that I have pardoned and purged the uncleanness of thy lips.
Verse 8
[8] Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me.
Who — To deliver the following message. The change of the number, I and us, is very remarkable; and both being meant of one and the same Lord, do sufficiently intimate a plurality of persons in the Godhead.
Psalm 15
(Read all of Psalm 15)
Verse 1
[1] LORD, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? who shall dwell in thy holy hill?
Who — Who shall so dwell in thy church here, as to dwell with thee for ever in heaven?
Verse 2
[2] He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness, and speaketh the truth in his heart.
Uprightly — Loving, and serving God, and loving his neighbour not in word only, but in truth; and this constantly.
Worketh — Makes it his business to do justly, to give to every one his due, first to God, and then to men.
Speaketh — His words and professions to God and men, agree with the thoughts and purposes of his heart.
Verse 3
[3] He that backbiteth not with his tongue, nor doeth evil to his neighbour, nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbour.
He — He that doth not speak evil of his neighbour.
Neighbour — That is, any man.
Nor taketh — Into his mouth, doth not raise it, neither spread or propagate it; or believe it without sufficient reason.
Verse 4
[4] In whose eyes a vile person is contemned; but he honoureth them that fear the LORD. He that sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not.
Vile — An ungodly man.
Honoureth — He highly esteems and loves them, though they be mean as to their worldly condition, and though they may differ from him in some opinions or practices of lesser moment.
Sweareth — A promissory oath.
Hurt — To his own damage. As if a man solemnly swear, that he will sell him such an estate at a price below the full worth; or that, he will give a poor man such a sum of money, which afterwards he finds inconvenient to him.
Changeth not — His purpose, but continues firm and resolved to perform his promise.
Verse 5
[5] He that putteth not out his money to usury, nor taketh reward against the innocent. He that doeth these things shall never be moved.
To usury — In such a manner as is contrary to God's law: of which see otherwise, Exodus 22:25; Leviticus 25:36,37, etc.
Reward — Or, a bribe for him who hath a bad cause.
Moved — He shall abide with God here, and when he dies be for ever with the Lord.
1 Corinthians 1:18-31
Verse 18
[18] For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.
To them that perish — By obstinately rejecting the only name whereby they can be saved.
But to us who are saved — Now saved from our sins, and in the way to everlasting salvation, it is the great instrument of the power of God.
Verse 19
[19] For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.
For it is written — And the words are remarkably applicable to this great event. Isaiah 29:14
Verse 20
[20] Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?
Where is the wise? etc.-The deliverance of Judea from Sennacherib is what Isaiah refers to in these words; in a bold and beautiful allusion to which, the apostle in the clause that follows triumphs over all the opposition of human wisdom to the victorious gospel of Christ. What could the wise men of the gentiles do against this? or the Jewish scribes? or the disputers of this world? - Those among both, who, proud of their acuteness, were fond of controversy, and thought they could confute all opponents.
Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world — That is, shown it to be very foolishness. Isaiah 33:18
Verse 21
[21] For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.
For since in the wisdom of God — According to his wise disposals, leaving them to make the trial.
The world — Whether Jewish or gentile, by all its boasted wisdom knew not God - Though the whole creation declared its Creator, and though he declared himself by all the prophets; it pleased God, by a way which those who perish count mere foolishness, to save them that believe.
Verse 22
[22] For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom:
For whereas the Jews demand of the apostles, as they did of their Lord, more signs still, after all they have seen already; and the Greeks, or gentiles, seek wisdom - The depths of philosophy, and the charms of eloquence.
Verse 23
[23] But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness;
We go on to preach, in a plain and historical, not rhetorical or philosophical, manner, Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumblingblock - Just opposite to the "signs" they demand.
And to the Greeks foolishness — A silly tale, just opposite to the wisdom they seek.
Verse 24
[24] But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.
But to them that are called — And obey the heavenly calling.
Christ — With his cross, his death, his life, his kingdom. And they experience, first, that he is the power, then, that he is the wisdom, of God.
Verse 25
[25] Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
Because the foolishness of God — The gospel scheme, which the world judge to be mere foolishness, is wiser than the wisdom of men; and, weak as they account it, stronger than all the strength of men.
Verse 26
[26] For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called:
Behold your calling — What manner of men they are whom God calls.
That not many wise men after the flesh — In the account of the world.
Not many mighty — Men of power and authority.
Verse 28
[28] And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are:
Things that are not — The Jews frequently called the gentiles, "Them that are not," 2 Esdras vi. 56, 57. In so supreme contempt did they hold them.
The things that are — In high esteem.
Verse 29
[29] That no flesh should glory in his presence.
That no flesh — A fit appellation. Flesh is fair, but withering as grass.
May glory before God — In God we ought to glory.
Verse 30
[30] But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption:
Of him — Out of his free grace and mercy. Are ye Engrafted into Christ Jesus, who is made unto us that believe wisdom, who were before utterly foolish and ignorant.
Righteousness — The sole ground of our justification, who were before under the wrath and curse of God.
Sanctification — A principle of universal holiness, whereas before we were altogether dead in sin.
And redemption — That is, complete deliverance from all evil, and eternal bliss both of soul and body.
Verse 31
[31] That, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.
Let him glory in the Lord — Not in himself, not in the flesh, not in the world. Jeremiah 9:23,24
Matthew 5:1-12
(Read all of Matthew 5)
Verse 1
[1] And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto him:
And seeing the multitudes — At some distance, as they were coming to him from every quarter.
He went up into the mountain — Which was near: where there was room for them all.
His disciples — not only his twelve disciples, but all who desired to learn of him.
Verse 2
[2] And he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying,
And he opened his mouth — A phrase which always denotes a set and solemn discourse; and taught them - To bless men; to make men happy, was the great business for which our Lord came into the world. And accordingly he here pronounces eight blessings together, annexing them to so many steps in Christianity. Knowing that happiness is our common aim, and that an innate instinct continually urges us to the pursuit of it, he in the kindest manner applies to that instinct, and directs it to its proper object. Though all men desire, yet few attain, happiness, because they seek it where it is not to be found. Our Lord therefore begins his Divine institution, which is the complete art of happiness, by laying down before all that have ears to hear, the true and only true method of acquiring it. Observe the benevolent condescension of our Lord. He seems, as it were, to lay aside his supreme authority as our legislator, that he may the better act the part of: our friend and Saviour. Instead of using the lofty style, in positive commands, he, in a more gentle and engaging way, insinuates his will and our duty, by pronouncing those happy who comply with it. 3.
Happy are the poor — In the following discourse there is, 1. A sweet invitation to true holiness and happiness, verse 3-12. Matthew 5:3-12. 2. A persuasive to impart it to others, verse 13-16. Matthew 5:13-16. 3. A description of true Christian holiness, verse 17; chap. ii,12, Matthew 5:17; Matthew 7:12. (in which it is easy to observe, the latter part exactly answers the former.) 4. The conclusion: giving a sure mark of the true way, warning against false prophets, exhorting to follow after holiness.
The poor in spirit — They who are unfeignedly penitent, they who are truly convinced of sin; who see and feel the state they are in by nature, being deeply sensible of their sinfulness, guiltiness, helplessness.
For theirs is the kingdom of heaven — The present inward kingdom: righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost, as well as the eternal kingdom, if they endure to the end. Luke 6:20.
Verse 4
[4] Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.
They that mourn — Either for their own sins, or for other men's, and are steadily and habitually serious.
They shall be comforted — More solidly and deeply even in this world, and eternally in heaven.
Verse 5
[5] Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.
Happy are the meek — They that hold all their passions and affections evenly balanced.
They shall inherit the earth — They shall have all things really necessary for life and godliness. They shall enjoy whatever portion God hath given them here, and shall hereafter possess the new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.
Verse 6
[6] Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.
They that hunger and thirst after righteousness — After the holiness here described. They shall be satisfied with it.
Verse 7
[7] Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.
The merciful — The tender-hearted: they who love all men as themselves: They shall obtain mercy - Whatever mercy therefore we desire from God, the same let us show to our brethren. He will repay us a thousand fold, the love we bear to any for his sake.
Verse 8
[8] Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.
The pure in heart — The sanctified: they who love God with all their hearts.
They shall see God — In all things here; hereafter in glory.
Verse 9
[9] Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.
The peace makers — They that out of love to God and man do all possible good to all men. Peace in the Scripture sense implies all blessings temporal and eternal.
They shall be called the children of God — Shall be acknowledged such by God and man. One would imagine a person of this amiable temper and behaviour would be the darling of mankind. But our Lord well knew it would not be so, as long as Satan was the prince of this world. He therefore warns them before of the treatment all were to expect, who were determined thus to tread in his steps, by immediately subjoining, Happy are they who are persecuted for righteousness' sake. Through this whole discourse we cannot but observe the most exact method which can possibly be conceived. Every paragraph, every sentence, is closely connected both with that which precedes, and that which follows it. And is not this the pattern for every Christian preacher? If any then are able to follow it without any premeditation, well: if not, let them not dare to preach without it. No rhapsody, no incoherency, whether the things spoken be true or false, comes of the Spirit of Christ.
Verse 10
[10] Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
For righteousness' sake — That is, because they have, or follow after, the righteousness here described. He that is truly a righteous man, he that mourns, and he that is pure in heart, yea, all that will live godly in Christ Jesus, shall suffer persecution, 2 Timothy 3:12. The world walways say, Away with such fellows from the earth. They are made to reprove our thoughts. They are grievous to us even to behold. Their lives are not like other men's; their ways are of another fashion.
Verse 11
[11] Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.
Revile — When present: say all evil - When you are absent.
Verse 12
[12] Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.
Your reward — Even over and above the happiness that naturally and directly results from holiness.
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The Upper Room Ministries
PO Box 340004
Nashville, Tennessee 37203-0004, United States
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A LOVELY WALK by Raquel Mull
Micah 6:1-8
I am in a covenant relationship. My husband and I have been married for sixteen years. I will grant you that many others have been married for longer than that, but one thing I am reminded of in this relationship is that we do not always communicate well. It is not that we are not talking; we just don’t talk at the same rate or exchange information in the same way. Part of our difficulty lies in the fact that he is male and I am not.
Often, when I have been thinking about an issue or problem, I forget that my husband has not been privy to my thoughts. He comes in from the garage and I, in my haste to share my latest understandings or hopes or plans, bombard him with words—and forget to mention the subject. He listens, trying to understand me, and finally says, “What is the subject? What are we talking about?”
In the book of Micah, the Lord is more structured and methodical. The Lord tells Israel everything that is on his mind. The Lord gives exact, historical details of what he has done for them. The Lord reminds the people how God has never left them, not one time. The Lord brought them up out of Egypt, redeemed them from a life of slavery, gave them leaders, and protected them! There is no question of the Lord’s presence and action in their lives.
Yet the nation Israel has forgotten they are in a covenantal relationship; they have gone astray and not repented. The Lord demands their loyalty and love; they are estranged from the Lord. God reminds Israel of the Lord’s saving acts that they may again enter into right relationship. The Lord reminds them of what has been done on their behalf and how they thrive when they follow the Lord’s ways.
The Lord understands the people. God knows that they will try to make him happy, and that they will try to do so in ways that they have been told are wrong. The Lord recognizes the traditional burnt offerings and also the unacceptable offering of the firstborn as attempts to return to the Lord. How many times have the people been told not to imitate the abominable practices of the Canaanites who sacrifice their own children? The people just forget; in their desire to reestablish their covenant with Adonai, they show they still have attachments to heathen rituals.
I see faint reflections of these dynamics in my covenant relationship with my husband. I do not doubt that my husband loves me and wants me to be happy. What I do doubt sometimes is his memory. I think I have been perfectly clear in my feelings and desires. I have even been overwhelming in providing details on how to load the dishwasher or where to find the thermometer. He doesn’t get it. He can’t find it. I go to the closet and pull out the thermometer from exactly where I said it would be. I know he looked because the closet is in slight disarray; he tried to please me. But the next time I need the thermometer, he will have to ask where it is again. My husband also has a tendency, like the Israelites, to make up for his shortcomings with gifts and generosity in small things. If I really needed a thermometer and he couldn’t find it, he would go out and buy, not one thermometer, but at least two! “I wasn’t sure if you wanted a digital readout with batteries or if you wanted an old-timey one, so I got both!”
Israel began by offering year-old calves and upped it to thousands of rams, rivers of oil, and finally the firstborn. They wanted to please, even offering what they did not have the authority to give.
Drawing from my own experience of male and female approaches to life, it seems as if Israel was more masculine than feminine in its approach. Men are generally more concerned with plans, processes, and solutions, while women tend to focus on emotions and relationship. Israel wanted to know what to do; what should the plan of action be? (I am applying some observations to the text here, not attempting to stereotype the sexes.)
Generally speaking, women want to discuss problems more, get more details, and relate personal history as to how they would feel if someone hurt their feelings or did not seem to appreciate what had been done for them. It is a valid problem-solving procedure. They relate what would make them feel better and apply that knowledge to the problem at hand.
Often, men, once they understand a problem, want to take action to solve it. They don’t ignore emotions and relationships but focus more on action than feeling. This is also a valid approach to problem solving. In the biblical scenario we are exploring, it is the approach Israel takes— Israel takes action to solve the problem of its broken relationship with the Lord.
The answer the Lord gives Israel is perfect—short, concise, and full of action verbs with emotional connections. As such, it addresses both masculine and feminine understandings and priorities of action and relationships. The Lord tells Israel exactly what to do, what to love, and how to walk! Do what is just. Love kindness. Walk humbly.
Today, as New Testament people, we may think that these requirements have been replaced by the cross. Yet, as long as injustice, poverty, and oppression exist in our world, we need to be reminded of the Lord’s words. Do justice. Love kindness. Walk humbly.
Three small phrases perhaps, but they carry the weight of the Torah and the New Testament alike. O mortals, human beings, why should we try to offer more than what is asked for when, even now, we cannot give the minimum the Lord has required?read more-------
WORSHIP ELEMENTS: JANUARY 29, 2017 by Joanne Carlson BrownFourth
Fourth Sunday After the Epiphany
COLOR: Green
SCRIPTURE READINGS: Micah 6:1-8; Psalm 15; 1 Corinthians 1:18-31; Matthew 5:1-12
THEME IDEAS
Who are the people of God? Not those with correct beliefs or worldly wisdom, but those who act with justice and compassion, who walk humbly with their God; those whom the world might call foolish because they choose to live kingdom values rather than worldly values; those who go against the status quo and work to bring about God’s beloved community on earth, here and now.
INVITATION AND GATHERING
Call to Worship (Micah 6, Psalm 15, Matthew 5, 1 Corinthians 1)
People of God, who do you come to worship?
We come to worship the one true God.
How will you worship?
Not with words alone, but by living lives
of justice and love.
Come, you who belong to God.
Come, you who are foolish in the eyes of the world.
Come and abide in God’s tent and in God’s heart,
now and forever.
Unison Opening Prayer (Micah 6, Psalm 15, Matthew 5, 1 Corinthians 1)
Loving God,
we come this morning
seeking to abide in your presence.
Open our minds to your spirit of wisdom,
that we may know how to live as your people.
Open our hearts to your spirit of truth,
that we may love all your people with a love
that speaks of justice, kindness,
and radical grace.
May this time of worship
be authentic and pleasing to you. Amen.
PROCLAMATION AND RESPONSE
Prayer of Confession (Micah 6, Psalm 15, Matthew 5, 1 Corinthians 1)
Far too often, O God,
we desire to look wise
in the eyes of the world.
We have not spoken truth with our hearts.
We have said and done hurtful things to our friends.
We have forgotten our true identity,
wandering into ways that are not yours.
We have lost the path of true worship,
focusing on form and words rather than deeds.
We have forgotten what true discipleship is.
And because of this, you have a quarrel with us.
Forgive us and help us live into becoming
the people you have created and called us to be:
people of justice and love and truth
and humility, and yes, even foolishness.
May we be fools for Christ,
embracing our true identity,
even in the face of the world’s scorn and derision.
Words of Assurance (Micah 6, Matthew 5)
God has called us and blesses us
when we live God’s ways and not the world’s.
God’s love embraces us
even when we fall short of what God desires
for our lives and actions.
Know that the God of blessing
loves and forgives us with a fierce tenderness.
And in so knowing, may our lives and souls
be transformed.
Passing the Peace of Christ (Matthew 5)
The God of blessing and love be with all of us.
We embrace God’s blessing and love.
Turn now and pass that blessing on to one another so that our community may be bound together
in love and blessing.
Response to the Word (Micah 6, Matthew 5, 1 Corinthians 1)
For the words of challenge,
for the words of blessing,
for the spirit of wisdom moving in our midst,
we give you honor and thanks and praise.
THANKSGIVING AND COMMUNION
Invitation to the Offering (Micah 6, Matthew 5)
We have been called to lives of justice, love, and truth. We have been blessed to be a blessing. Let us generously offer all that we are and all that we have to further this beloved community of love, justice, truth, and blessing.
Offering Prayer (Micah 6, Matthew 5)
O God,
you bless us in so many areas of our lives—
in places we often fail to recognize as blessing.
Help us have eyes to see and hearts to understand
the depth of your love and blessing.
Today, we give out of that blessedness,
dedicating ourselves to lives of justice and love,
giving all that we are and all that we have
to bring about your beloved community,
here and now. Amen.
SENDING FORTH
Benediction (Micah 6, Psalm 15, Matthew 5)
Those who live lives pleasing to God
shall not be moved.
Go now to embrace the kingdom values—
values of love, justice, and truth.
Go now with God’s blessing,
to live those values through the power
of our challenging, faithful, loving,
empowering God. Amen.
CONTEMPORARY OPTIONS
Gathering Words (Micah 6, Matthew 5, 1 Corinthians 1)
Come and hear the good news.
No matter what is happening in your life,
God’s blessing and love is with you.
Come and hear what God wants you to do:
live lives of justice and love and truth.
Come and get courage and strength
to be fools for Christ,
embracing Kingdom values
rather than those of the world.
We’re here, ready to listen, open to change,
expecting to be blessed by our time together.
Praise Sentences (Micah 6, Psalm 15, Matthew 5, 1 Corinthians 1)
Our God is a God of blessing.
Our God is a God of love and justice.
Our God is a God of wisdom and truth.
Living and loving in that spirit,
we will not be moved.
From The Abingdon Worship Annual edited by Mary J. Scifres and B.J. Beu, Copyright © Abingdon Press. The Abingdon Worship Annual 2017 is now available.read more
-------SERMON OPTIONS: JANUARY 29, 2017
PLAIN SPEAKING
MICAH 6:1-8
God has a complaint—what is sometimes called a covenant lawsuit—with the people of Israel. Micah becomes the voice through which this charge is leveled. The specific nature of the wrongs committed is not verbalized here, except in an indirect way: God asks the people, through Micah, what God has done wrong. In other words, God is asking rhetorically, "What have I done to lead you to separate yourselves from me?"
God's question is answered with another question, this time the formulation of the prophet on the people's behalf: "With what shall I come before the LORD,/and bow myself before God on high?" (v. 6). Then follows a list of liturgical acts, ritual options that traditionally function either to please God in worship or to appease God for sin committed: burnt offerings, calves, rams, oil, and—more farfetched—a firstborn child.
Here we are, then, with two questions—God's and ours. The dynamic sets up a distinct vacuum, begging for a declarative sentence, something to be spoken definitively rather than asked as a question. Verse 8 fills the void logically as well as in a literary sense: this is what you need to do. Then, in plain speech, what is good to do and be is elaborated: do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with (or live in communion with) God.
I. Do Justice
The word justice is intended to mean more than merely "getting even" or "making others pay for what they did." Justice in Hebrew scripture has a far more comprehensive meaning: the restoration of balance, the righting of relationships, the application of fairness to all things. Justice is not a deal struck but an atmosphere engendered within a community. In that sense, it is close kin to the richly laden Hebrew word shalom. What does the Lord require? That we do justice.
II. Love Kindness
Kindness (alternately, compassion or mercy) is as plain and pedestrian a virtue as any. Not a day goes by that any of us would not have occasion to exercise kindness in some way—small or substantial. The kindness of a banker may spare a family about to be foreclosed profound heartache and misery; but the same kindness can bring a flower in a little child's hand across the street to the widow on the porch swing. For Micah, the size of kindness is immaterial; what is essential is that it be there when called for. And one thing more, and this makes all the difference: that kindness be loved. Not merely the exercise of mercy, but the love of mercy. Not merely the doing of a kind act, but the appreciation of the deed. Not merely saying the helpful word, but meaning what we say.
III. Walk Humbly with Your God
The rare Hebrew verb for "to walk humbly with" is difficult to translate clearly. But something like "to live in communion with" gets the point across. To walk humbly with God must mean, then, among other things, to get our minds and hearts around the notion that the Other is also with us. God, who creates us, gives us breath, and receives us at our death, also walks with us through every step of life.
Humility, then, is not really about learning to keep our mouths shut at dinner parties; it is learning to recognize holy ground when we see it until eventually we come to understand it's the only kind there is. (Paul R. Escamilla)
SEND IN THE CLOWNS
1 CORINTHIANS 1:18-31
The Broadway play A Little Night Music was never considered much of a box office success. But one bright result of the play was a song that became a hit: "Send in the Clowns." Some have suggested that that song expresses what it's like for Christians to be sent into the world. We appear peculiar to a world that lives by a different set of values.
In a circus or a rodeo, clowns create a shift in theme; they change the subject. After the breathtaking danger of the flying trapeze, a lion tamer, or a bucking bronco, clowns enter to remind us of our purpose—to be entertained. Much like Shakespeare's Falstaff, they produce a break in the action just when we were caught up in the drama of the moment.
Just so, it is our nature and calling as Christians to remind people what we are here for: to know and glorify God. And like the clowns, our message changes the subject and often seems silly and out of place in a world that is caught up in another purpose: satisfying self.
Paul made the same point in 1 Corinthians. He wrote that on the world's wise-foolish continuum, Christians and non-Christians are on opposite ends. The world looks at that continuum from one side and sees Christians on the foolish end. But the scale on God's side is reversed, so that Christians are the wise and the world is foolish. From the perspective of the crowd, rodeo clowns look silly in comparison with the brave and strong cowboys, but from the perspective of those who work in the rodeo, clowns have the sanest job in the arena—to protect the lives of the cowboys who put themselves in danger. What makes Christians so different from the world?
I. Christians Bear a Different Life Message
Paul wrote that it is the message of the Cross (v. 18)—through weakness we are made strong (2 Cor. 12:9-10). It is a message that is the inverted image of the world's philosophy. But the church looks at the cross and empty tomb of Jesus and knows that when we are crucified with him, we will be raised. What looks like defeat today will be victory tomorrow. What is a photographic negative, on which black appears as white and white appears as black, will soon be a beautiful picture.
II. Christians Face Persecution in the World
Jesus promised such opposition (Matt. 10:22; John 15:18-20). The message of the Cross was a stumbling block and foolishness in Paul's generation (vv. 22-23), and it is the same today. It is a stumbling block because people, like the Jews of Paul's day, still want a king with worldly power to wipe out their enemies and grant then prosperity instead of a Savior to die for their sins. It is foolishness because people, like the Greeks, still prefer to find wisdom through their own ingenuity rather than let Christ forgive them of their utter failure and give them his wisdom (v. 30), with the result that they boast in the Lord and not in themselves (v. 31)
III. Christians Call Attention to Their WeaknessThat God May Be Glorified
Paul urged the Corinthian Christians to consider their humble background (vv. 26-27). Christians are to remember and even emphasize that they were saved not by their own goodness or intelligence but by God's grace (1 Cor. 15:10 ; Eph. 2:8-9). It is not that Christians cannot be very capable and brilliant people—the most intelligent thing someone can do is to come to Christ—but we have a spiritual humility that causes us to emphasize what God has done, not what we have done.
We know that we are also weak, but we have found that his grace is sufficient in our weakness (2 Cor. 12:9) , and that is what we share with the world. (N. Allen Moseley)
HAPPINESS IS A CHOICE
MATTHEW 5:1-12
God wants you to be happy. A mentor of mine in the ministry was fond of saying, "Some people get enough religion to make them happy, while others only get enough to make them miserable." Jesus wants you to be happy. "Blessed are you," Jesus says. "You are blessed with the choice of happiness because you are mine." This is "family talk." Jesus gathered his disciples to teach them while the crowd was allowed to "overhear."
I. Happiness Comes from a Christlike Life
This is where we preachers usually try to put words in Jesus' mouth and fill the air with admonitions of "ought" and "should." "You ought to be meek!" "You should be merciful!" That is not what Jesus is saying. Jesus is pronouncing a blessing. (Isn't it amazing how much light the Bible throws on the commentaries?) Jesus is saying, "You who have responded to my call with your faith are blessed. Because you are mine, you have the ability to choose a certain kind of life." When you make this choice, wonderful results can happen.
II. Happiness Comes from Our Inheritance
Here Jesus walks us around the inheritance we have as God's children: "Blessed is the one who acknowledges the personal need of God, for God shall reign in the heart. Be happy when you feel deep sorrow over wrong, for God's Spirit will be at your side. You will know joy as the relinquishment of your life to God's guidance and discipline molds you to receive what God has already promised. Blessed are you when the dissatisfaction in your life drives you to search after God's nature, for you will be satisfied. Oh, the blissful joy of the one who gives forgiving and healing love. You will receive what you have given. The joyful heart is yours because your singleness of purpose conditions you to see God. God's children are those who stand in the gap between forces of opposition, making peace to be more than the absence of hostility, but the presence of love."
In his book The Cost of Discipleship, Dietrich Bonhoeffer asks, "Is there any place on earth for such a community? Clearly there is one place, and only one, and that is where the poorest, meekest and most sorely tried of all men is to be found—on the cross at Golgotha. The fellowship of the beatitudes is the fellowship of the crucified."
Even when you participate in the fellowship of the crucified, even when you are persecuted, even when you are a victim, you have the choice not to accept a victim mentality. Jesus has reversed the world's values. He blesses the so-called unblessed of society. He blesses the poor, the brokenhearted, the captives, the prisoners, and the grieving (Isa. 61:1-3; Luke 4:18-19). As God's child, you have the choice to accept God's blessing and to bless others. You can take initiative, choose beforehand how to respond in any situation. As Fred Craddock says, "We are no longer victims; we are Kingdom people."
Said the wealthy woman to the disabled young man at the door, "Sure I'll buy your magazine to help you through college. Possibly by education you'll overcome your condition, although I'm sure it colors everything you do." "Yes, ma'am, it does," he replied, "but, thank God, I can choose the color." (Gary L. Carver)read more-------
WORSHIP FOR KIDS: JANUARY 29, 2017 by Carolyn C. Brown
From a Child's
From a Child's Point of View
Gospel: Matthew 5:1-12. The Beatitudes is one of those familiar passages which adults often think children ought to learn, but which children have little chance of understanding without significant adult help. First they must explore the meaning of blessed. If "blessed" is paraphrased as "happy," that happiness must be defined and differentiated from short-term, shallow satisfaction. Then they need help wading through each verse, many of which are abstract descriptions of human activity followed by somewhat vague promises. Here is one paraphrase suitable for children:
Happy are those who are gentle,
for they are in charge in God's kingdom.
Happy are those who grieve,
for God will comfort them.
Happy are those who obey God,
for God will make them leaders.
Happy are those who wish for fairness for everyone,
for their wish will come true.
Happy are those who forgive others,
for they shall be forgiven.
Happy are those who put being a disciple first in their lives,
for they will know God personally.
Happy are the peacemakers,
for they will be called the children of God.
Happy are those who are mistreated when they do what God wants,
for the kingdom of heaven is theirs.
You will find happiness and peace deep within you
when you are teased or mistreated,
or when others tell lies about you,
because you are my disciples.
You will be happy because you will know
that you are one of God's people,
and God's people have often suffered.
Old Testament: Micah 6:1-8. The courtroom scene in verses 1-5 requires knowledge of covenant theology and events in Old Testament history that children do not yet possess. Read this for the adult biblical scholars.
The question and answer in verses 6-8 offer more to children, but need an introduction to explain the practice of offering animals, farm products (the oil is olive oil, not petroleum), and even children as sacrifices. Because children hear about such sacrifice from the vantage point of a child rather than that of an adult, children often are offended and frightened by these references. They can't imagine that a loving God would demand such a thing, but they worry that God might ask their parents to demonstrate their loyalty by killing them. They need to be reassured that the writer shares their views and that God has never and will never suggest such a show of loyalty. In fact, Micah's point here is that God is not interested in gestures like animal or human sacrifice. What God wants is for us to treat each other fairly and with love.
Epistle: I Corinthians 1:18-31. Few children will follow the reading of the text with its references to Greek wisdom and Jewish love of signs. But the point the passage makes about what is strong and weak—or what is wise and foolish—is critical to their response to the teachings in the Old Testament and Gospel passages. All children are encouraged to be wise and strong. Paul reminds them, along with the people at Corinth, that though God's rules may seem like foolish rules for sissies, they really are for the strong people.
He illustrates his point by pointing to Jesus' crucifixion. Tied up, whipped, and crucified, Jesus—and God—looked weak, while the Roman soldiers and the religious leaders who wanted Jesus dead looked strong. But it turned out that Jesus was stronger. Similarly, though it looks as if demanding and getting your own way is stronger and wiser than giving up what is rightfully yours in order to take care of others, it turns out that the latter makes our life together happier.
Psalm: 15. While children do not catch the exact meaning of the psalmist's questions about God's hill and tent, they do catch his meaning: "Who is qualified to come near to God in worship?" A child's paraphrase of the answer:
Those who obey God,
who do what is right,
who tell the truth,
who say no mean words about others,
who do nothing mean to their friends,
who refuse to tell bad stories about other
people,
who cannot be tempted by wicked people,
who respect God's people,
who do what they say they will—no matter
what,
who do not share just hoping to get some-
thing back, and
who will hurt others in order to get a gift;
People who do these things will always be safe
with God.
Watch Words
Do not use the word beatitude or speak of the Beatitudes without explaining what they are. Also explore the meaning of blessed. Many children use "bless" only in reference to a prayer before eating or in response to a friend's sneezes.
Let the Children Sing
The third verse about right and wrong makes "This Is My Father's World" a good general praise hymn for the day.
"What Does the Lord Require?" with its repeated chorus, which even the youngest can sing, is based on Micah 6:8. Other choices include "Lord, I Want to Be a Christian" (to which you could make up new verses related to today's theme), and "We Are Climbing Jacob's Ladder."
The Liturgical Child
1. Use Psalm 15 as the Call to Worship: The leader asks the questions (vs. 1); the congregation reads the answer (vss. 2-5a; and all read the conclusion (vs. 5b.
2. Create a responsive prayer of confession based on the Beatitudes. The worship leader states the beginning of each Beatitude ("Blessed are the . . ."), then describes how we fail to live in that way ("but we prefer to . . . ."). the congregation's response to each confession: "God, forgive us" (or sing the first line of the Kyrie).
3. Invite the children to come and sit with you at the front for the reading of the Gospel. Once they have arrived, point out that Jesus often gathered his disciples around him just like this, to tell them how they were to live. Briefly introduce the format of the Beatitudes before reading the lesson; after the reading, thank the children and send them back to their seats.
4. In prayers of petition, pray for God's foolishness for whatever situations, groups, and individuals have specific need of it. Include family situations, such as sharing a room with a baby sister or doing all the chores no one wants to do, as well as community and global situations.
5. Address Psalm 15 to the congregation as the Charge just before the Benediction.
Sermon Resources
1. Create beatitudes which reflect the secular values in our culture, and compare them to those of Jesus. For example:
Blessed are the winners, for they are the only ones who count. (This is especially good at Super Bowl time and during local sport championships.)
Blessed are the well-dressed, for everyone will deny their style.
Blessed are those with the best toys, for they will always have fun.read more
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