Good, Smart, Christian Folks

It has become quite clear to me, in the course of the last week, that I hang out with a bunch of very good and very smart people.

I assume that most people who go to graduate school would say the same thing, but I can't help but think that I have been particularly blessed by being surrounded by so many people who deeply love the church, who have been blessed with great intelligence, and try to join these two things in spite of the many forces that try to keep them apart.

Last Tuesday I had coffee with my friend Josh where we tried to figure out how to be good and faithful truth tellers in incredibly difficult and sensitive pastoral situations. Later that night I had dinner with Heather, a committed Christian activist, to discuss how seminary and faith interacted with relationships and vocation in a terrible job market.

This is only in one day, and doesn't count the dinner Erin and I had with Ben and Laura as we discussed our respective ventures in the academy and the church, as well as bookshelf construction. In the surprise of the night Laura actually declared that I sounded quite pastoral.

Erin and I have been discussing how to read the Bible while reading Eugene Peterson's Eat This Book during Lent. I get the chance to speak frequently to my friends out in the ministerial wilderness across the country, and it is not uncommon after these conversations to think how lucky I am. That was the case after praying over decisions of the Cabinet with Lance.

I am in the process of saying a long goodbye to my Atlanta community. I will leave in June to head back to Tennessee and know that I will make new friends and meet new colleagues in ministry, but they will have big shoes to fill. I hope to find a way to stay connected with these people who have blessed and shaped my life, because quite frankly, I know I'll need their voices and wisdom to hold me accountable and to help me be the most faithful disciple and pastor I can be.

Public Accountability

So, I went to Zesto's yesterday, taking the boss out for a big night on the town.
While we we waiting for our ice cream, the lady behind the counter asked a customer a question.
"Are you OK?", she asked a young woman, who presumably had been at Zesto's for quite some time.
"I mean, he's had his tongue down your throat for about two hours. I just want to make sure you can still breathe."
Amazing.

When Bad Things Happen to Bad People (Genesis 9)

The gauntlet was thrown down. A friend of mine, a thoughtful scholar and colleague, devoted to the past, present, and future of the United Methodist Church threw down a challenge. Search the deep recesses of your mind, he asked, and remember the last time you heard a sermon on Original Sin in a United Methodist Church. Original Sin, that famous or infamous doctrine, that emerges from the beginning of the Bible and haunts us today with its shocking bad news – that somehow despite being wonderfully made in the image of God that all of us, every single one of us, is completely and totally distorted. That no matter how good our intentions, no matter how well we mean, that our wills are curved to sin and fall out of relationship with God. John Wesley, the founder and shaper of our particular way of being the Church, said that our tendency to sin is so great, that the result of Adam and Eve’s sin in the garden is that we have lost the image of God within ourselves. The point of our Christian lives, the one thing needful and the one purpose of our being, is to regain the image of God that we lost.

It shouldn’t really surprise us that most of can’t remember too many sermons focusing on Original Sin. This awful reality, confirmed every morning in new newspaper and every night on the 11 o’clock news, isn’t an idea likely to grow your church. People aren’t flocking to hear their preacher tell them how bad they are, the wretchedness of their wills, and the corruptness of their very existence. Although there are some churches and some denominations who train preachers to pound their congregations into submission every Sunday morning, we Methodists like to talk about more pleasant things, like faith, and hope, and love. A friend of mine named Ellen, a bright and faithful Christian who went to a church bent on convincing her of her sinfulness put it this way – Ogle, I’m tired of hearing every Sunday how awful I am. A comforting and life-affirming doctrine it isn’t.

God, is turns out, in our Scripture passages this morning isn’t in a real life-affirming mood. While we tend to view God more as a grandfather and grandmother, wrapping us in a warm embrace, God really hasn’t been in a mood for hugging. Human beings, the highlight of God’s creation, have not quite turned out as God had planned. While God created us, both male and female in God’s image, things went awry quite quickly. Instead of creatures living in harmony with God and each other, human beings rejected God. They horded pieces of the creation, they lied, they cheated, they stole, and most egregiously, they murdered. The stench of the earth rose up to high heaven - God was angry, God was remorseful for even beginning this project. God was so sorry at the people and the world that had distorted his good creation, that God wanted to start over. God was going to wipe out every human being and every animal on the earth. Things would be better, God thought, the next time around.

And if there’s anything we know about this God, about the God who created the world from chaos, is that God doesn’t do small-scale. When God wanted to start over, God did it with water, gallons and gallons of cleansing and chaotic water, water that was unpredictable, uncontrollable, and unwieldy. Noah, somehow, found favor with God, for some reason God thought well of Noah, and chose to make Noah the person he would start over with. You know the story, Noah, his wife, and his sons built the ark, with all the animals, two by two, and waited out the flood for 40 days on the ark God commissioned them to build.

What is striking about this story of Noah, what is striking about the this piece of Scripture, is not that it names humanity as utterly sinful, because we all know that we are. What is striking about this story is not that God tries to obliterate creatures that conspire against the divine plan. What is most striking is what comes next, that God’s answer to the problem is not to finish the job, but to stop, and to make a promise. This premise, destruction of the world and all that is in it, is not a foreign one to readers or moviegoers. There are scores of movies, Independence Day comes to mind, when the earth is on the path to destruction and someone has to figure out how to defeat those engineering the destruction. Some force has to be defeated and someone has to do the defeating.

But that’s not what happens here. God stops the flood. It is the agent of destruction, God, who limits the destruction. The covenant between God and Noah, which we read earlier this morning, is a covenant that goes one-way. There is nothing in the covenant that Noah promises, God is the only one who speaks in this covenant. God promises never to do anything like this again. Never again will water cover the earth, separating humans and animals from one another. Never again, God declares, will I try to obliterate all of creation. Genesis records that God says in his heart that never again will I destroy every living creature as I did in the flood. Annihilation is off the table.

His name is Gary, and the more you get to know Gary, the more you begin to think that annihilation isn’t such a bad option. I met Gary in a large class at seminary, a class of about 140 people. If you surveyed the remaining 139, my guess is that at least 135 wouldn’t disagree with the sentiment. Gary suffers from high levels of anxiety, which leads him to act in ways that make you want to smack him. Gary argues with professors. Gary blasts other students in his class. Gary violates confidentiality. Gary is the student, and somebody’s parishioner, from hell. We’ve all got people like Gary in our lives, some of us have more than one of them I imagine, and they remind us that the fact that God takes annihilation off the table is no small thing.

This is why God’s covenant with Noah, and by extension us, is so astounding. Human nature, our propensity for sinfulness and wickedness, does not change after the flood. Our genetic makeup, our tendencies, our very way of life remain just as messed up, just as twisted, just as life-destroying and death-inducing as they were before. God does not promise not to annihilate humanity again because God has assurance that we will not act as horribly as we did before. No, as you all well know, we act just as stupid, just as sinfully, just as wickedly as those before us. You want wickedness, we’re your people. You want lying, we can do that. Cheating, the name Alex Rodriguez mean anything to you? Stealing – pick a CEO. Murder, watch the news. God limit’s God’s option, takes annihilation off the table, despite who God knows we are and despite what God knows we will do. God knows just who we are and just what trouble we will get into, and in this covenant, commits to be in relationship with us in spite of all that.

Because by taking annihilation off the table, God is committing to remaining in relationship with us. Relationships, as we all know, are incredibly hard work. To be in relationship with someone is to be committed to that person, regardless of how crazy, how mean, how difficult, and most importantly, regardless of how much they hurt you, damage you, and wrong you. Being in covenant with people, in essence being in relationship with some one, is about being vulnerable, about being open to being hurt and moving forward despite the hurt. By moving beyond annihilation, God has committed to being vulnerable, and all the hard work that this entails. In this covenant God commits to finding a new way to be in relationship, as those of you who are married know the phrase, for better or worse, in sickness and in health, in the good times and the bad times, until death do us part

God, being just, cannot abide or tolerate sin. Our relationship with God requires, even demands, holiness and justice. God is holy and just, and God’s willingness to remain in relationship with us does not mean that God turns the other way and ignores our sin. God will have to find a way to both deal with our sin and remain in relationship with us. As those of you who have been in long-term relationships, whether in a romantic or married relationship, or who have been friends with someone for a long time, know that God is not going to be able to remain unaffected by this commitment. God’s relationship with human beings will not be a smooth one, it will not be one without its share of bumps and bruises, or more appropriately, its beatings and betrayals.

This covenant, this idea, sort of makes you want to ask God if he knows what he is getting into. There are some situations, that you know are good for you, but you aren’t sure about for someone else. A good friend of mine faced a similar situation not too long ago. Josh had been dating his friend Emily for a long time. They met while working in a volunteer program and began dating soon thereafter. They first started dating long distance, but united in Atlanta, where Josh went to seminary and Emily started teaching. One day Josh finally came to his senses and asked Emily to marry him. Emily, in the upset of the Century, said yes. Josh responded the only way he knew how, with one of the best lines ever recorded in an engagement proposal. “As your future husband, I’m thrilled with your decision. As your friend, I have to say that I question your judgment.”

As one on the receiving end of this promise, I’m thrilled. As a human being, I sort of question God’s judgment on this one. By limiting his options, God is committing to something remarkable. Our sin will affect God. Our desire to break our relationship will hurt God. Our madness will malign God. This is not going to end well. No, this will not end well.

Genesis 9:8-17

8 Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, ‘As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the domestic animals, and every animal of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark. I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.’ God said, ‘This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.’ God said to Noah, ‘This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.’ ^{91011121314151617}