Sermon: The Church Under Repair

First Presbyterian Church, East Moline, IL

October 26, 2025, Reformation

Psalm 46; Jeremiah 31:31-34; 

         Romans 3:19-28; John 8:31-36

 

 

The Church Under Repair

 

Today we are celebrating the anniversary of the Reformation.

Of course this is not strictly correct. We are celebrating the anniversary of one particular branch of the Reformation, or more precisely yet, one key event in one particular branch of the Reformation – an event which, to be sure, may not have happened quite precisely in the way it is often depicted, and which (if it happened that way) happened more than five hundred years ago this coming Friday, not today.

But, to keep things accurate: it was on October 31, 1517, that Martin Luther, then a young-ish German monk assigned to teach classes on scripture at the University of Wittemburg, first promulgated his ninety-five theses, or arguments, on the corruptions of the church and the need for reform. The theses were definitely sent to his superiors at the Vatican; popular lore also says he nailed a copy of those ninety-five theses to the door of the church at Wittemburg, as depicted in a number of popular paintings, though more concrete documentation of that event is not so easy to come by.

It would not, contrary to some portrayals of the story, have necessarily been a scandalous thing to do to use the doors of the church for such a purpose; in a still-rather-medieval town like Wittemburg, those doors were quite possibly a virtual bulletin board for the town, and Luther’s biggest difficulty might have been clearing a space to post his own rather substantial document. 

The corruptions charged by Luther included such practices (under the guise of raising funds for building projects) as the selling of indulgences, something that smelled way too much like buying forgiveness of sin to Luther. His theses enumerated scriptural and moral arguments against that and other practices and called for a sweeping reform of the church to eliminate such corruptions.

Luther was a pretty unlikely candidate to trigger such an upheaval; much of his adult life had been consumed with nearly crippling self-doubt, he being convinced that he could never be good enough for God. The supreme irony of Luther’s career is that the study of scripture his new teaching vocation demanded of him had the effect of convincing him, ultimately, that he was right; of his own efforts he never would be good enough; a passage like today’s reading from Romans (as well as several others from that book) showed him that he was saved not by any work or effort of his own, but only by the great gift of God’s grace. So liberated, Luther found the nerve to bear witness against the all-powerful church even at the cost of his own excommunication, and thousands of others found similar courage to follow into something new and unknown,

Luther does teach us a lesson, one applicable even to us modern Christians; things don’t change if we don’t speak up. Whether perpetrated by church, corporation (an entity unknown to Luther, of course), or government (or by the thoroughly unholy alliance of all three), injustice and corruption aren’t simply going to go away by themselves. Followers of Christ are obliged to bear witness – to speak out – against those injustices, no matter how pervasive or powerful, and no matter how much it costs us our standing in our community.

Let me repeat: followers of Christ are obliged to bear witness – to speak out – against injustices, no matter how pervasive or powerful, and no matter how much it costs us our standing in our community. Otherwise we’re fooling ourselves. After all, the word “protest” is embedded in the name “Protestant.” It’s in our spiritual D.N.A., so to speak.

Of course, Luther’s “reformation” was not the only one that took root in the church during this period. John Calvin was all of eight years old when Luther promulgated those theses, but by 1536 (at age 27) he produced his monumental theological treatise Institutes of the Christian Religion, which became a bulwark of the branches of Protestantism that bear the term “Reformed” in their names, as well as our own Presbyterian tradition via Calvin’s Scottish admirer John Knox. The work of Ulrich Zwingli and others also played a role in Reformed theology: the Second Helvetic Confession found in our own Book of Confessionsis a Zwinglian document. The Anglican Reformation would take root some decades later, and Methodism would evolve out of that tradition about two centuries later under the leadership of John and Charles Wesley. In short, the Protestant Reformation was no one-time thing. 

Sadly, no branch of the Reformation can claim any innocence of its own corruption. For many centuries Lutheranism drank far too deeply of Luther’s own anti-Semitism, which long outlived him and was useful to the Nazis in their consolidation of power in twentieth-century Germany. The theological extremes of Calvin and Zwingli (predestination comes to mind) were easily twisted into harsh and destructive theologies that we are only now coming to grips with.

Calvin might look at passages such as those from Jeremiah and John as evidences for the sovereignty of God – the absolute freedom of God to do as God wills, unbound by any theological or other bind. It is ironic that his descendants have preached some of the most oppressive theologies against that sovereignty, claiming God to be “bound” to send person X to hell or give you great riches if you just say the magic scripture and pray the magic prayer. (I exaggerate, but not as much as you think.) Where such preachers seek to bind, the scripture found in John points to quite the opposite – “if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.” It resonates in such doctrinal ideas as the “priesthood of the believer”, the idea that every person is both free and responsible to minister to one another in the name of God and to, in the words of 2 Timothy from a couple of weeks ago, to present himself or herself to God as “a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly explaining the word of truth.” It’s an idea that every Protestant tradition somehow manages to claim as unique to itself. 

In fact, the history of pretty much every reformation is one of taking such words of scripture and, often after a good start, failing to live up to them. Hence Calvin’s famous instruction that the church was to be “reformata et semper reformanda” – “reformed and always being reformed”; to be brief, we are – or always need to be – under repair. Being composed of fallible human beings, churches will fail and must be constantly challenged to return to the scriptures and to be under the charge of the Holy Spirit to reclaim our calling, in order to live into whatever challenge might await God’s church over, say, the next five hundred years or so.

If we take today’s reading from Jeremiah seriously, we are under the watchful care of an all-sovereign God, a God who yet in the midst of such sovereignty and power knows us, and places in each of us nothing less than knowledge of God, writing on our very hearts.

If we take today’s psalm seriously, we have in our God a strong fortress, a “bulwark never failing” in the words of the famous hymn we sang earlier. We are never abandoned by God no matter how much we abandon God. 

If we take today’s reading from Romans seriously, we know that despite our deep sinfulness, we are preserved and redeemed by Christ, who is faithful to be the mediator of divine grace even unto death on a cross – a death that could not in the end keep him.

If we take today’s reading from John seriously, we are free. Free, that is, in Christ – we are freed from sin, freed to continue in the words and work of our Savior, free to know the truth. 

None of these were new at the time of all those reformations. All of them are as old as the scriptures those reformers fought to put in the hands of followers of Christ and to teach and preach. It’s fair to say, though, that perhaps those ideas had faded a bit from the church’s collective memory and needed to be refreshed. The same is true for us. It’s on us – all of us – to reclaim all of those legacies, as well as the legacy that give us our name “Protestant.” It’s time to speak up. After all, a little reformation now and then is a healthy thing.

For a legacy, and for the ongoing repair of that legacy, Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

Hymns (from Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal): #275, A Mighty Fortress Is Our God; #329, God Is Our Refuge and Our Strength; #---, O hear this word today

Sermon: Always in Need of Being Reformed

First Presbyterian Church

October 27, 2024, Reformation

Mark 12:28-34

 

Always in Need of Being Reformed

 

 

October 31, 1517 is commonly reckoned as the day on which a young monk named Martin Luther nailed a document to the door of the cathedral in Wittemburg, now part of Germany. The document outlined ninety-five “theses” or arguments against what he saw as corruptions in the established church of his time. Even amongst the many other documents or broadsides likely nailed to that cathedral door, this one did get attention, and the established church did exactly what you’d expect; set out to discredit and then disfellowship Martin Luther. Nonetheless his arguments caught on with many, some from genuine theological or ethical concern, others from political expedience. Eventually most of Germany and other northern reaches of Europe took on Lutheranism as their establishment church. In later years differing reformation movements broke out in France and Switzerland and later in England and some in a handful of other places; the former of those is the tradition from which our own Presbyterian denomination was born (after a side trip though Scotland).

Some observers have suggested that this is something the church goes through every five hundred years or so. About five hundred years before the Reformation (and these numbers are extremely approximate) was the Great Schism, when the eastern and western branches of the church separated, resulting in the traditions we know now as Eastern Orthodox and Catholic churches. Five hundred years before that, give or take, came the fall of the Roman Empire with which the church had become closely intertwined, ultimately progressing over many decades to the great reform of the church initiated by Pope Gregory. (You might say things moved more slowly then.)

Even rudimentary ability at math will tell you we’re right in that 500-year-give-or-take window following the Protestant Reformations. With all this in mind you’ll not be surprised to hear that more than a few observers of the church are suggesting that it is due for reformation, if not right smack in the middle of one already. To be fair, it’s hard to blame folks for that suggestion, as the state of the larger church these days is frankly low-hanging fruit for its critics:

Ø  A large segment of the church has disintegrated into little more than an appendage of a political party. 

Ø  A large segment of the church more closely resembles a media/entertainment empire than an agent of mission or worship.

Ø  A large segment of the church, in the face of evident decline in membership and finances, has taken up the mantra of “survival at all costs,” again without regard for mission or worship.

Ø  A segment of the church (perhaps not so large) resorts to social outlets and “gatherings” without much commitment or challenge.

Ø  And a segment of the church has basically given up, resigned to playing out the string the same way they always have.

Ø  To be sure, these characteristics overlap and intermingle across all reaches of the church.

And that’s just the church in the United States. We’re not even getting into what challenges the global church faces.

What has any of this, you might ask, to do with today’s reading from the gospel of Mark? Perhaps everything, if we pay attention to what question is asked, and how it is answered.

Since last we left Jesus in Mark 10, a lot has happened. Jesus and his newly-enhanced crowd of followers have entered Jerusalem (that thing we celebrate on Palm Sunday), and Jesus has disrupted the commerce surrounding the Temple. A fig tree got cursed. Jesus has since been under siege from one group or other of the religious elite of Jerusalem, putting up with “gotcha” questions and attempted rhetorical trappings. Jesus fended them off with some straightforward traditional answers right out of the Torah, some debunkings of the questions themselves, a parable about wicked tenants overthrowing their landlord that was clearly directed at those religious authorities, and probably a few facepalms – you know, that gesture that happens when it’s all you can do not to exclaim how ridiculous or just plain stupid someone else is being. 

One of the scribes has been observing the humiliation of his fellow scholars and perhaps wondering if he truly wants to be affiliated with them right now. He cuts in with the most basic question possible: “Which commandment is the first of all?” Jesus’s answer, far from being radical, is about as Torah as you could get, directly citing what we have in our Bibles as Deuteronomy 6:4-5. There are two interesting additions here: Jesus adds the phrase “with all your mind” into the mix, which likely pleased a scholar of the law, and added a second commandment from Leviticus 19:18; “you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” The scribe agrees, sounding out his agreement even that loving neighbor as self “is much more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.” Jesus’s semi-cryptic answer, “You are not far from the kingdom of God,” ends not only that conversation but the whole trap-question campaign – “no one dared to ask him any question.” 

As cryptic as Jesus’s last comment might have seemed in that instant, it’s not so hard to figure out in context. Think back to chapter 10 two weeks ago and the rich man who went away sorrowing when Jesus told him to sell all his stuff, give the proceeds away to the poor, and follow Jesus. Think also of Bartimaeus, later in chapter 10, who “immediately followed him on the way” after his sight was restored (and was presumably among the crowd that had accompanied Jesus into Jerusalem; we'll get to him next week). The difference, you’ll remember, was in the doing. We get no indication at all of how this scribe responds; Mark’s account moves on quickly to more teaching, and we never hear of the scribe again – after all, we are just three days before Jesus’s crucifixion. 

The implied challenge before the scribe is, I submit, where a modern impulse towards reformation might be centered. How much of what the church does and says and clings to in today’s world and across this country can’t be reconciled with those two greatest commandments? How much of the behavior of the church or its members across this country looks at all like loving God with all one’s heart and soul and mind and strength, and loving neighbor as self? 

You know what? I’m going to give our denomination credit. The PC(USA) is trying. It might not always be clear or effective, and you can be sure not everybody is on board, but with such efforts as the Matthew 25 initiative, there is at least the attempt to act upon that commandment about loving neighbor as self. It is, at the least, not going away sorrowing over the call to give up our possessions.

Two caveats need to be applied here. Other commandments don’t go away. Jesus doesn’t dispose of the law with this statement, even if he does assign a hierarchy to it. Loving God and neighbor comes first. Any one thing, anything at all that puts us in a position in conflict with loving God and neighbor needs to give way, no matter how righteous it might seem or might have been intended to be. 

The second caveat applies to the whole idea of reformation itself. One of the earliest quotables from the Reformed tradition – the branch we come from, that is – is the catchy Latin phrase ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda. It commonly gets mistranslated as “the church reformed, always reforming.” That’s a problem, because reformanda doesn’t really translate as “reforming,” but as “being reformed.” Grammar fans understand the difference, hopefully. Is the church acting, or is the church first being acted upon? From whence comes the initiative for being reformed, as opposed to merely reforming? 

Whether or not the church is truly entering (or amidst) a season of reformation depends tremendously upon this understanding. Given some of the behaviors and characteristics noted earlier, it’s not unfair to wonder whether much of the church has at all, at any even remotely recent point in its history, engaged in the simple yet profoundly challenging exercise of waiting upon the Lord. How often does the church or its leaders simply read scripture, instead of hunting and cherry-picking passages to prop itself up or denigrate its chosen enemies? How often does much of the church or its leadership, instead of praying for a lot of smiting of those chosen enemies or for the appointment of judges who will do what they want, simply pray “your will be done”? How often does the church love the Lord our God with all our heart, all our soul, all our mind, and all our strength? How often does the church love its neighbor as it loves itself?

Any 500-year upheaval, any new reformation in the church will almost inevitably have to be preceded by a season of listening. Listening to God. Listening to those neighbors. Listening to the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick, the imprisoned. Listening to those who aren’t white, or male, or straight. Listening to those who know what it means to be under somebody’s heel, and who have too often seen the church propping up that somebody instead of lifting up the oppressed. 

And all of this goes not just for the larger church, but for the individual church too. Without such a season of listening, of being in scripture and in prayer, and of making ready for and seeking the prompting of the Spirit, no church is going to come out on the other side of this pandemic time or this post-uprising time with much of a future, or even much of a reason to go on. There’s a challenge for everybody and every church, from the smallest family church to the largest megachurch. 

Let us pray, let us listen, and let us await being reformed.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

Hymns (from Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal unless otherwise noted): #624, I Greet Thee, Who My Sure Redeemer Art; #---, O love your God with all your heart; #275, A Mighty Fortress Is Our God

Sermon: The Church Under Repair

First Presbyterian Church

October 29, 2023, Reformation Sunday

Psalm 46; Jeremiah 31:31-34; 

         Romans 3:19-28; John 8:31-36

 

The Church Under Repair

 

It was just six years ago that Protestant churches marked the five hundredth anniversary of the Reformation.

Of course this is wrong. It was actually the five hundredth anniversary of one particular branch of the Reformation, or more precisely yet, one key event in one particular branch of the Reformation – an event which, to be sure, may not have happened quite precisely in the way it is often depicted, and which (if it happened that way) happened five hundred years ago Tuesday, not today (this particular part was also true six years ago; Reformation Sunday fell on October 29, just like this year). Still, five hundred was a big round number, and quite possible to ignore.

But, to keep things accurate: it was on October 31, 1517, that Martin Luther, then a young-ish German monk assigned to teach classes on scripture at the University of Wittemburg, first promulgated his ninety-five theses, or arguments, on the corruptions of the church and the need for reform. The theses were definitely sent to his superiors at the Vatican; popular lore also says he nailed a copy of those ninety-five theses to the door of the church at Wittemburg, as depicted in a number of popular paintings, though more concrete documentation of that event is not so easy to come by.

The corruptions charged by Luther included such practices as the selling of indulgences (under the guise of raising funds for building projects), something that smelled way too much like buying forgiveness to Luther. His theses enumerated scriptural and moral arguments against that and other practices, and called for a sweeping reform of the church to eliminate such corruptions.

Luther was a pretty unlikely candidate to trigger such an upheaval; much of his adult life had been consumed with nearly crippling self-doubt, he being convinced that he could never be good enough for God. The supreme irony of Luther’s career is that the study of scripture his new teaching vocation demanded of him had the effect of convincing him, ultimately, that he was right; of his own efforts he never would be good enough; a passage like today’s reading from Romans (as well as several others from that book) showed him that he was saved not by any work or effort of his own, but only by the great gift of God’s grace. So liberated, Luther found the nerve to bear witness against the all-powerful church even at the cost of his own excommunication, and thousands of others found similar courage to follow into something new and unknown,

Luther does teach us a lesson, one applicable even to us modern Christians; things don’t change if we don’t speak up. Whether perpetrated by church, corporation, or government (or by the thoroughly unholy alliance of all three), injustice and corruption don't go away by themselves. Followers of Christ are obliged to bear witness – to speak out – against those injustices, no matter how pervasive or powerful, and no matter how much it costs us our standing in our community.

Let me repeat: followers of Christ are obliged to bear witness – to speak out – against injustices, no matter how pervasive or powerful, and no matter how much it costs us our standing in our community. Otherwise we’re fooling ourselves. After all, the word “protest” is embedded in the name “Protestant.” It’s in our spiritual D.N.A., so to speak. One of the inserts in your bulletin offers an example from just sixty years ago, in which a Presbyterian leader was called upon to do exactly that, no matter the penalty he would face. He spoke up, putting himself at some risk to do so (though not nearly so much risk as others had already faced). 

I'm lifting some words from Father Shannon T.L. Kearns, a frequent guest in this pulpit, to say that being Protestant should be defined as speaking up at what's wrong, and what's more, doing something about it. Kearns speaks of "active advocacy," work in which the church reaches out and speaks out and does not sit passively to the side hoping the marginalized and people of the world might stumble upon us. That's been the call all along, no matter how much the church gets it wrong.

Of course, Luther’s “reformation” was not the only one that took root in the church during this period. John Calvin was all of eight years old when Luther promulgated those theses, but by 1536 (at age 27) he produced his theological treatise Institutes of the Christian Religion, which became a bulwark of the branches of Protestantism known as “Reformed," as well as our own Presbyterian tradition via Calvin’s Scottish admirer John Knox. The work of Ulrich Zwingli and others also played a role in Reformed theology: the Second Helvetic Confession found in our own Book of Confessions is a Zwinglian document. The Anglican Reformation took root some decades later, and Methodism evolved from that about two centuries later under the leadership of John and Charles Wesley. The Protestant Reformation was no one-time thing. 

Sadly, no branch of the Reformation is innocent of its own corruption. For many centuries Lutheranism indulged too much Luther’s own anti-Semitism, which long outlived him and was useful to the Nazis in their consolidation of power in Germany in the twentieth century. The theological extremes of Calvin and Zwingli (like predestination) were twisted into destructive theologies that we are still coming to grips with.

Calvin might look at passages such as those from Jeremiah and John as evidences for the sovereignty of God – the absolute freedom of God to do as God wills, unbound by any theological or other bind. It is ironic that his descendants have preached some of the most oppressive theologies against that sovereignty, claiming God to be “bound” to send person X to hell or give you great riches if you just say the magic scripture and pray the magic prayer. (I exaggerate, but not as much as you think.) Where such preachers seek to bind, the scripture found in John points to quite the opposite – “if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.” It resonates in such doctrinal ideas as the “priesthood of the believer”, the idea that every person is both free and responsible to minister to one another in the name of God and to, in the words of 2 Timothy, to present himself or herself to God as “a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly explaining the word of truth,” an idea that every Protestant tradition manages to claim as unique to itself. 

In fact, the history of pretty much every reformation is one of taking such words of scripture and, after a good start, failing to live up to them. Hence Calvin’s famous instruction that the church was to be “reformata et semper reformanda” – “reformed and always being reformed.” To be brief, we are – or always need to be – under repair. Being composed of fallible human beings, churches will fail, and must be constantly challenged to return to the scriptures and to be under the charge of the Holy Spirit to reclaim our calling, to live into whatever awaits God’s church over, say, the next five hundred years or so.

If we take today’s psalm seriously, we have in our God a strong fortress, a “bulwark never failing” in the words of the famous hymn we sang just before the message. We are never abandoned by God, no matter how much we abandon God. 

If we take today’s reading from Jeremiah seriously, we are under the watchful care of an all-sovereign God, a God who yet in the midst of such sovereignty and power knows us, and places in each of us nothing less than knowledge of him, writing on our very hearts.

If we take today’s reading from Romans seriously, we know that despite our deep sinfulness, we are preserved and redeemed by Christ, who is faithful to be the mediator of divine grace even unto death on a cross – a death that could not keep him in the end.

If we take today’s reading from John seriously, we are free. Free, that is, in Christ – we are freed from sin, freed to continue in the words of our Savior, and free to know the truth. 

None of these ideas were new at the time of all those reformations. All of them are as old as the scriptures those reformers fought to put in the hands of followers of Christ and to teach and preach; those ideas had faded a bit from the church’s collective memory, though, and needed to be refreshed. That might also be true in our own time. It’s on us – all of us – to reclaim all of those legacies, as well as the legacy that give us our name “Protestant.” It’s time to speak up. After all, a little reformation now and then is a healthy thing.

For a legacy, and for repair of that legacy, Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

Hymns (from Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal): #610, O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing; #624, I Sing Thee, Who My Sure Redeemer Art; #329, God Is Our Refuge and Our Strength; #275, A Mighty Fortress Is Our God; #53, O God, Who Gives Us Life; #268, Crown Him with Many Crowns

Sermon afterthoughts: the "Get Out of Hell Free" card

 There's a lot of stuff to think about in Mark 10:35-45, and especially in that last verse. It's a verse that has been appropriated for the development of a theology of atonement, even substitutionary atonement, in a way that doesn't really work with the material Mark has given us here.

The sermon for this scripture explores this challenge to a degree. Much of that atonement talk hinges on how modern users ("modern" here applying to several centuries' worth of interpreters, not just us "modern" American types) apply a definition of "ransom" that doesn't really fit. The "ransom" in Mark's usage doesn't imply anybody getting paid for the release of those held captive, which doesn't fit with the notion that some price had to be "paid" for our release from sin, that price being Jesus's life in such theology. (Really, though, would not Jesus's resurrection somehow equate to a breach of contract in such a theology?) 

An awful lot (yes, there are two possible ways to interpret that, and both are valid) of theology has been spilt trying to fit this passage with other bits of scripture, such as some of the "suffering servant" verses from Isaiah, to flesh out this theology of a price to be paid. I'm not sure, though, that it's this bit of interpretation that causes the most damage. 

It's possible to be incredibly narrow in defining the word translated "life" in this verse. As noted in the sermon, the word in question (ψυχην, "psuxen") goes far, far beyond any definition of "life" that can be reduced to "not death." The word wants to embrace all the stuff of living, not just a biological definition of being alive. And this is the biggest problem for a lot of theologies out there.

Like John and James in this passage, it's easy to talk tough. When Jesus challenges their seating request, asking if they can really endure all the suffering he's about to endure, they have the cheek to respond "we are able." Were they counting on some kind of divine intervention to head off the very suffering and death Jesus had tried to teach them three times now? Were they just stupid? What is it? 

Like many of the January 6 insurrectionists, who are now sounding a lot less brave with prison time looming as a real possibility, one can't help but notice that these two brave-talking disciples have, later in this gospel, bolted and deserted Jesus by the time he is nailed to the cross. Eventually the book of Acts reminds us that James, willing or not, did eventually drink from this cup of suffering; he is noted as the first of the twelve to be martyred (of course Judas died first, but not a martyr's death). John apparently doesn't die such a death, but the tradition that he spent years in exile does suggest suffering did come his way. 

Even so, for an awful lot of human beings, giving up being alive is a far easier promise to make than giving one's life, particularly in the way Jesus gave his life, particularly in the way Jesus came to serve and not to be served. Being "manly" or "tough" or a "warrior" has become the default way of being "Christian" for an awful lot of men who claim that name. (Many, but not all, of such men are affiliated with church traditions that can be described with a five-syllable word starting with "e".) If you're willing to twist your brain enough I suppose that can be passed off as a kind of "service," but let's get blunt: there's nothing Christlike about it. 

Right there is a word - "Christlike" - that needs to be recovered and put to work a lot more than it typically is in the church of whatever stripe these days. In the current state of society, where the word "Christian" as adjective has been so stretched and distorted as to be nearly useless for anything meaningful, I still say it's worth breaking out "Christlike" in its place and seeing just how much of what we describe as "Christian" really measures up. 

Following a Savior who steadfastly refused to rack up power on earth loses its luster real fast for a great many people. Signing up for a fight sounds better. Even better is the promise of being "ransomed" - getting the great "get out of Hell free" card - without having to follow the example of Jesus, to give your whole life, your inner self, your soul, your everything. Talking as if your "salvation" is in the past tense is a lot easier and more fun than talking about your service, your following Jesus, as an ongoing everyday thing. 

Resist this. 

It might just be that the allure of the "get out of Hell free" card is the biggest problem with the misuse of verses such as this one. Anything that implies that the Christ-following life, or any part of it, is an over-and-done thing is a disaster for actual discipleship and Christ-following. And it's not just those e-word people that are the problem; all corners of Christianity, including the mainline, have severe problems grasping all this. 

The call is not to volunteer to die; the call is, like Jesus, to give your whole life, your inside and out life, all of you. And that goes on every day of your life. 

And that's really hard.

Ugh.

Dear Pastor: Hymns of human composure

Note: Between travel, some sickness, and the need for some time to step back and regather and reorganize, it's been a few weeks. Hopefully that's over with.

One of the great challenges in the history of singing by the people of God, in a way not confined to professionals or choirs or other select (typically male) voices, is the particular challenge of what was permissible to sing. It ended up depending on which part of the Reformation you found yourself living in.

Martin Luther was a pretty nasty person in some ways; his bitter animus against Judaism can't be ignored or brushed off as his being "a person of his time," having done too much damage by giving aid and comfort to antisemitic hatemongers for literally centuries now (and yes, the likes of Hitler would be included in that). For the subject at hand here, on the other hand, it can't be avoided that Luther was a major force for good in opening up the song of the church to all the people of the church. The creation of hymns as a song for use in the service of worship first flourished in the churches that followed after the Lutheran Reformation tradition. Indeed, Luther himself did contribute (wittingly or not) one of the major contributions to the early corpus of the chorale, the term applied to congregational songs in that early Lutheran practice.

On the other hand, Ulrich Zwingli, the Swiss reformer, was less of an encourager of music, although some scholars will contend that he was not the virulent opponent of music in the church that history has made him out to be. He was perfectly o.k. with busting up church organs, however, so he can't be a real good guy.

As is usually the case in these things, John Calvin ends up somewhere in the middle. He wasn't too much of a musician himself, but on a human basis (not unlike Augustine) he was fond enough of music to be suspicious of it. His complicated and evolving attitude about music was covered in a previous blog entry; for the moment the idea of interest is that churches of Calvinist background did not sing the kind of texts we would call "hymns," as in texts not from scripture. Texts from the Psalms were the primary stuff of singing, with a few other biblical texts, or canticles, thrown in as well. Mostly psalms, though.

This restriction doesn't endure forever. It is not too many years before churches under the Reformed tradition are starting to expand their repertoire to include what was called in the language of the time "hymns of human composure." The way was somewhat smoothed by the work of Isaac Watts and others, who wrote translations and paraphrases of psalm texts that were "Christianized," or filled out with references to the Messiah as Christians understood the term; where Christian reading and interpretation concluded that a psalm was referring to Christ, Watts went ahead and made the reference explicit.

Even those who were eager for such hymn texts could recognize that Watts was doing something different, though, and that phrase "hymns of human composure" gets tossed around by old-guard types as something that Christians should not be singing in worship.

Now I'm hoping you're seeing several reasons that this particular phrase - "hymns of human composure" - sounds a little strange or even downright weird as a reason to forbid congregational singing. For one, even if the hymns aren't of "human composure," at least one other thing in the service is going to be so humanly composed: your sermon. I mean, I know you're relying upon the Holy Spirit in your exegesis and study and preparation and writing and all that, but ultimately you're still the one who has to put it all together.

Another point of "wait, what?"-ness about this phrase is that, yes, the psalms themselves are of "human composure." Now here you get into potential conflicts about the interpretation of scripture and indeed the very nature of the writing down of scripture, but hopefully the handful of folks who actually read this blog aren't shocked by the idea that human beings actually wrote down the poetic texts that were collected into the book of the Bible we call Psalms. David may have created some of them (probably had a servant or someone else write them down, though); a Temple figure named Asaph appears to have written some; and there are a lot of them whose authorship is simply unknown. But people wrote the psalms in Psalms. So, to put it bluntly, psalms are "hymns of human composure."

Finally, exactly why is a "hymn of human composure" bad?

Hymns can do many things. A hymn of praise offers, well, praise to God. This is, of course, something we are instructed to do in scripture - especially a lot of those psalms that begin or end with the point-blank exhortation "Praise the Lord!" A psalm that teaches falls right in line with those oft-quoted instructions from Colossians 3:16 to "teach and admonish one another." The making and singing of hymns becomes an act of obedience to God, fulfilling not only what God calls us to do but what we need to do, what we must do because of the Spirit moving and leading within us, placing within us not merely the call but the urgent desire to worship God. In other words, inspiring us - even though we don't live in the era of the Psalms. Yes, it's true: divine inspiration didn't stop at the closing of the biblical canon, and that hymn has as at least as much claim to divine inspiration as your sermon.

Hymns of human composure? They're the best kind.

David was human, you know (sometimes painfully so).

Dear Pastor: Music is not neutral

It's an old canard, one that gets perpetuated in multiple forums and classrooms, not just in theology but even in music history as well (I used to teach that, remember, so I'm not just talking through my hat): Of the primary reformers, Martin Luther was the music lover, while John Calvin was anywhere from absolutely opposed to music to downright suspicious (in the manner of his theological ancestor Augustine), and Luther enthusiastically embraced congregational singing while Calvin accepted it only begrudgingly.

You'll probably not be surprised, if you know how historical misperceptions get distributed, to learn that this is a dramatic oversimplification, if not an outright falsehood.

It is true that Calvin's musical acceptance was never as wide as that of Luther: he never did embrace purely instrumental music in the church nor the use of music as accompaniment (the churches that followed in his tradition got over that fairly quickly in the grand scheme of things) -- he was not the organ-destroyer that Ulrich Zwingli was, but he wasn't hiring organists either. "Hymns of human composure" weren't favored in Calvinist churches, instead words of scripture -- the Psalms in particular -- were the stuff of singing. And that singing was strictly a matter for the congregation -- choirs and soloists and such weren't part of the design.

Beyond that, though, Calvin's attitude about music in worship was not only as hostile as often portrayed, but also (gasp!) evolved over time; after a time Calvin even came to a place of some enthusiasm about monophonic (or unison) a capella congregational singing. As described by Jeremy Begbie, "when Calvin speaks of Psalm-singing as enhancing and enriching the experience of worship, it is implicitly the Sursum Corda that is in play -- the lifting up of our hearts in the power of the Spirit to Jesus Christ at the right hand of the Father, who is in our midst 'conducting' our hymns."*

Pretty powerful image for a supposed music hater.

*Note: the quote is from Begbie, Music, Modernity, and God: Essays in Listening, p.27. Begbie offers a fairly robust discussion of Calvin and music. 

The distinctive musical contribution of Calvin's churches to music was the metrical psalm, a unison setting of a poeticized psalm text sometimes known slightly derisively as a "Geneva jig" for the utterly danceable qualities of many of the tunes (something Calvin would not have approved of). The term "metrical" points to the degree that the psalm texts were not only translated into the vernacular language (French, in Calvin's case), but also then reconfigured into poetic metrical patterns that were fairly easy to set to music.

Another part of the creation of those psalm tunes was the degree to which they suscribed to ancient musical theories about the particular affective qualities of different modes, or scales of music. (Nowadays most music we know is either in major or minor -- the latter often being stereotyped as "sad"; older musics could be in many different scales, typically called modes, according to the pattern of whole and half steps by which these modes advanced from one pitch to another. Any more explanation and this blog might break into a music theory lecture, and I'm no good at that.)

Here's the thing: different psalm tunes created under Calvin's influence were composed in different modes in order to use the presumed affective qualities of the mode to reinforce the particular emotional (or affective) qualities of the psalm text being set. As much as gets made of Calvin's sola-scriptura attitude about the singing of the congregation, Calvin's very tunes were in fact making use of musical affect to "enhance" or "enrich" the text, and therefore the singing of the people, and therefore the experience of worship.

In ways that escape our modern ears, even Calvinist psalm tunes are "affective."

Here's the deal, pastor: music is not a neutral resource for worship. Music always favors one thing over another, namely itself. It demands attention. It must be heard and its particular affects or abilities or powers must be reckoned with, and indeed music mismatched to words can utterly overwhelm the words or uttery undermine them.

In the church, this is far more likely to be obvious or noticeable in choral music in worship. A humble text set to raucous music (or vice versa) can not only fail on its own but can wreak havoc (or whatever the opposite of havoc would be -- somnolence? lassitude? torpor?) on the entire service to follow. That's just one possibility. Even music well-matched to its choral setting can land with a clang if it is out of step with the rest of the service, to the point of the music and worship seeming to be part of two separate and unrelated events.

But these things aren't impossible to find in the congregational-singing part of worship either. It usually happens with the chooser of hymns (you, right, pastor?) starts to feel desperate and decides to throw something in to "liven up the service" without much regard for the text being conveyed or the context in which the hymn or song is placed. It's a virtual inevitability when the congregation's singing is employed primarily as a mood-setter, a program of emotional manipulation with no further design or intent to bring the congregation to an emotional high and then "settle it down" in time to hear the pastor speak.

(Of course, if you're the pastor of a congregation where that is the principal purpose of the congregation's song, let's be blunt about it; you're pretty unlikely to be reading this blog.)

Music as neutral agent in worship is like the square root of -1; imaginary. Music inevitably affects anything to which it is attached. That affect (and effect) may change over time, as what was once radical and daring becomes melted down and has its rough edges sanded off, but the music still is not a neutral actor on the text being set; it does something to that text.

Understand this, dear pastor, about this thing you are deploying in worship. It isn't a submissive tool. It isn't harmless. This is, of course, a large part of its power and, frankly, a large part of its appeal. However, this is also part of the real risk of music in worship, even in congregational singing.

Of course, if you're using a hymnal, there's a pretty good chance that the committee charged with compiling that hymnal included more than a few musicians and theological types who are fairly sensitive to the ways that music and words go together, or don't. At least in theory, very few hymns with such clash of word and music affect are likely to get through into the final collection. As far as music from other sources, I can't speak to those in any large-scale way.

Here is something really important, though; you probably reecognize this when you hear it. 

You probably can't articulate it in lofty theological or theoretical language, but you can tell when the music and the text are "off," or they "don't fit," or they're "out of sync" with one another. These are not rules made up by a secretive cabal of music theorists; they come from experience. Those experiences may be felt or perceived differently in different musics of different cultures, so don't go thinking your perceptions of what affect a music may have necessarily apply to, say, Indonesian gamelan music or West African drumming or Native American vocalizations. But your instinct, if you're listening with even a modicum of care, has a real good chance of being correct.

And for the sake of worship and singing, the lifting up of our hearts to Christ our Great Conductor, listen to that instinct. It may save your worship service.

His thoughts on music in worship were probably more complicated than you think.

Dear Pastor: A lesson from a psalm

Having spent a few weeks on some basic ideas about what kind of music a congregation might sing in worship, it seems like a good idea, dear pastor, to work from something concrete and think about the qualities for what we sing, at least as far as words are concerned. So let's look at Psalm 107.

I suggest this one for a look for a few reasons: (1) it was today's psalm in the lectionary, so maybe you've noticed it recently (or maybe not); (2) it seems quite likely to have had a life as part of a liturgy, meaning worship was its home; and (3) even as only a text it might be said to have some fairly clear "musical" qualities that make it a good example to follow.

A quick breakdown: the psalm (and it's a substantial one) breaks down into sections: a prologue of sorts (1-3), which puts forth the principal theme of the psalm (the steadfast love of the Lord) and gives indication of what is to come -- those who have been redeemed by that love will come forward and tell their stories; those stories (four in all: 4-9, 10-16, 17-22, 23-32) of those who have suffered due to their own sinfulness or foolishness (made explicit twice, implied in the other two); and an epilogue (33-43) which further fills out those demonstrations of the steadfast love of the Lord and brings home that main idea in a firm and decisive conclusion.

The things that happen in this psalm text are, even with its substantial length, pretty strongly conducive to singing. One of the most helpful features is repetition. Note that in the four stories, there are two verses of text that exactly or very nearly exactly repeat:

Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he (delivered/saved/brought them out) from their distress (6, 13, 19, 28);

Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love, for his wonderful works to humankind (8, 15, 21, 31)

Put simply, repetition (used judiciously) helps people sing, particularly in the case of a long text like this one. Having those lines to which to return (set, most likely, to the same tune) becomes "home" for even the least confident singer. It also offers a possibility for a responsorial or responsive style of singing, in which a soloist may be assigned the lengthier parts of the psalm and the congregation might respond with the familiar repeating verses. Responsorial singing offers a means to take on larger texts without overburdening congregations, although it is possible to paraphrase such a text for full congregational singing (see Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal #653, "Give Thanks to God Who Hears Our Cries").

Another attractive aspect of the text is its vividness. The images offered in the text "pop" in a way that attracts the eye and mind of the singer. It also doesn't hurt when composers are creating music for such a text; an attractive text has a pretty good chance of provoking attractive music.

Perhaps the most attractive feature of this psalm is its directness and substance. No airy vapidities about God here (one of my main complaints about much modern song intended for church consumption); the psalmist is quite specific, even in metaphor, about just exactly what we foolish sinners have gotten ourselves into and how the steadfast love of the Lord has (delivered/saved/brought us out). The instruction is point-blank: let us thank the Lord, very specifically, for his steadfast love, for his wonderful works to humankind.

Here is a place where I do something I seldom do: praise that hoary old genre of hymn sometimes known as "gospel song" or "gospel hymn," depending on who you ask. Musically, I struggle to be kind; I have a rule that any tune that sounds like it should be played by a calliope probably isn't a good choice for a hymn tune, and many of the more commercial of those nineteenth-century products fall into that category. The texts, meanwhile, usually fail to be very communal, full of "I" and "me." However, there is one thing they do well, and that is to be very specific, even if the language is metaphorical:

I was sinking deep in sin, far from the peaceful shore,
Very deeply stained within, sinking to rise no more.
But the Master of the sea heard my despairing cry,
From the waters lifted me, now safe am I.
--"Love Lifted Me"

The hymn, even in its use of sea metaphor (shades of verses 23-32 of the psalm!), makes very clear that God's saving action in rescuing a "drowning" sinner is the object of the song. Even a more straightforward hymn of praise can be specific about the God who is object of that praise. After an initial verse of more general tone, a hymn like "O Worship the King" (GtG: TPH 41) gets specific:

O tell of God's might, O sing of God's grace...

The earth with its store of wonders untold, Almighty, your power has founded of old...

Your bountiful care, what tongue can recite?
It breathes in the air, it shines in the light;
It streams from the hills, it descends to the plain,
And sweetly distills in the dew and the rain.
(Weren't expecting a verse about God's care through creation, were you?)

A shorter song can be more general, but a hymn of, say, more than one stanza is going to need to offer some substance and particularity. And frankly, we are on stronger ground when that substance is rooted in the human experience of God -- how God has saved/redeemed/lifted/strengthened us -- rather than grasping at the inexpressible attributes of God that we will know only in glory. Has God worked in our lives? Then let us say (and sing) so. Let us bear witness.

For us Reformed types, metrical psalms (those poetically set for singing in our language) are a heritage. Singing psalms themselves is a perfectly good part of worship, and one that allows for a remarkable range of God's actions toward humanity, and humanity's response to God, to be a part of our sung worship. Those who would create texts directed towards God (there are other possibilities for hymn singing, hopefully to be discussed later) are often most successful when the song they create points us very clearly towards the work that God does in us and for us and through us in straightforward and direct ways.

In short, I am urging upon you, dear pastor, songs and hymns for your congregation to sing that have both meaning and substance. Such hymns and songs serve both the function of drawing forth the praise of the congregation towards God and the function of enlightening and even (horrors!) educating the congregation about God and what God does in and for and through us. And you can't ask for much more from congregational song than that.

Let's face it, that storm image (23-32) is pretty vivid...

Dear Pastor: You know why this matters, right?

Okay, pastor, it's good to know that you are singing when the congregation sings. Good first step.

Now you know why the congregation and its song, and the congregation participating in song, is important, right? Right?

Okay, then, let's review a few points.

Note: throughout this entry I'm going to refer to congregational song with the more specific term "hymn" or "hymns." Adjust according to your situation.

Hymns teach. Indeed, when hymns were first introduced into the life of the church, that was their purpose. The likes of Ambrose of Milan and other early church leaders found that teaching congregations (who could not, for the most part, read) biblical or doctrinal basics was a lot more successful when those basics were set to song. Hymns served a didactic function from early on.

Of course, Ambrose's flock wasn't singing those hymns in worship proper. that would have to wait for the reform impulses of the likes of Luther and Calvin. For Luther the singing impulse was fairly free; translations and adaptations of old Catholic texts, newly-written hymns (including a few by Luther hmself, one of which might be familiar), anything with theological substance that could be transmitted by singing was more or less fair game.

Calvin was more suspicious (maybe he has something in common with you?), fearing what he knew to be the powerful capability of music on the human psyche. To be fair, he was somewhat following earlier church teachers in this. Even so, Calvin found his way to the acceptance of music in the form of psalms. They were scripture, after all. And so the metrical psalms of Calvinist traditions became a back-door means of teaching scripture.

Fast-forwarding to more recent times, we are a lot more informed about how memory and learning work, and being able to encounter a text by singing it still has an awful lot of power for the singer, more so than straight-up rote repetition and memorizing. People learn what they sing; that is just human basics. It still holds that if you ask a congregation member what they remember of your average service, there's a very stong chance it will be something from one of the hymns.

Beyond the learning capacity of hymns, there is also the communal aspect of singing together. Singing together brings people together, more effectively than a lot of other possible activities. Again, we are able to learn a lot nowadays of just how powerfully making music together really does create unity on virtually a bodily level.

Of course, this doesn't mean the sound you get is necessarily going to be Carnegie Hall-worthy. It will sound weird at times, some folks will be off-key, and occasionally somebody might get lost. But so what? When the congregation is singing together, the congregation is being together, and you'll never convince me that the congregation being together is not important. You know it is. Singing is almost elementary as a step to a congregation being "body of Christ" in any kind of unified way.

But maybe the most important part of congregational singing and its place in worship is the deeply vital element of participation. Congregation members shouldn't be spectators in worship. Liturgy is, after all, not a spectator sport. It is a thing to do.

There are of course other means of participation in worship. Responsive readings are good. Prayers that place part of the words in the mouths of the people are good. Singing together? Real good. The degree to which "worship" is an active verb has a lot to do with how much the stuff of worship has a fighting chance to stay with the congregation.

This could go on longer, pastor, but that is hopefully something to think about for now. And do remember to keep singing.

The Year of Matthew 10:34

Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace to the earth, but a sword.
For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daugher-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one's foes will be members of one's own household. 
Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. 
Those who find their life will lose it; and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.

Matthew 10:34-39


(Reminder: evangelicals, you were told way back at the beginning of this blog re-reboot that this blog was not for you.)

I'm not sure how much this kind of thing gets beyond what might be called "church Twitter," but if you note much of that you are probably aware of the release of the "Nashville Statement" earlier this week. (Google it; I have no intention of propagating it further than it has already spread.)

The statement has already been torn apart in multiple fashions. Its attempt to situate an anti-LGBTQ+ screed in the church's historical belief is punctured here by some historians; other groups have offered point-by-point rebuttals like the Denver Statement (spearheaded by mainline-ish quasi-celebrity pastor Nadia Bolz Weber); pastors have noted its odd lack of scriptural foundation (no reference to the "six verses" or "seven verses" in particular); petitions have been signed and so forth and so on. It made for an active week on "church Twitter."

In short, many far more skilled and informed pastors and scholars and writers and other folk have debunked the content of the statement to a degree I cannot hope to match much less exceed. Go read. Inform yourself.

My intent here, on the other hand, is to argue that at least one part of the "Nashville Statement" should absolutely be taken seriously.

Article 10 of said statement is for some the most brash part of the statement, claiming as it does that "it is sinful to approve of homosexual immorality or transgenderism and that such approval constitutes an essential departure from Christian faith and witness," and that the issuing speakers "deny that the approval of homosexual immorality or transgenderism is a matter of moral indifference about which otherwise faithful Christian [sic] should agree to disagree." In short, you cannot disagree with the Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (the issuing group behind the manifesto) and be a Christian, according to the CBMW. Its president, Denny Burk (who seems awfully famous for reasons I cannot fathom), flat-out calls Article 10 a "line in the sand." It is meant to exclude.

OK, fine, I'm not part of your group.

As I have noted, this blog is addressed to my fellow dying mainliners, that twig of the church that others like either to belitte or ignore. The likes of the CBMW are certainly not under my authority to any degree. I, however, am not under their authority either, and frankly their orders do not apply to me. Trying to do my job and fulfill my call in the corner of the church I now occupy is enough challenge for me. I care about those persons, particularly those LGBTQ+ persons who are yet again being dragged through the slime by some particularly hateful pastors, who are directly harmed by the statement. The persons who issue such statements are irrelevant to me and have no place in my thought or theology, outside of the occasional sermon about those who get hung up on "statutes and ordinances."

Other mainliners do not share my indifference. The whole reason "church Twitter" gets all riled up is precisely because such hardcore evangelicals cannot resist rising to the bait when groups like this bleat out statements like this. Personally, my blood pressure couldn't take such regular "engagement" in such disputes, but it's not my place to judge them either.

What I do have to go on about, and be a little bit of a jerk about, is the degree to which mainliners tend to get fluttery about this to the detriment of being about our business of serving and following.

We have a lot to do: welcome to the unwelcome; care for those for whom nobody cares; proclamation of the gospel without bullying; non-stupid worship; presenting our bodies as living offerings and being transformed by the renewing of our minds and such work as that. We'd also be well-advised to get on with welcoming and loving those who are targeted by these occasional blasts from the would-be popes of evangelicaldom. Instead, we have this bad habit of getting obsessed with the ones doing the blasting.

I so wish we would grasp the truth of Matthew 10:34.

At the risk of trumpeting my own sermon, it's not about seeking to cause division. It is, however, also not about avoiding division, about being so cowed by those who come bringing the sword that we forsake our call to follow and serve. It emphatically is not about engaging in some kind of "let's not offend anybody" straddling that does nothing but shield the bullies.

It is about living in the light, living in Christ, living as if Jesus were going to show up tomorrow (after all, He just might), which only happens by living in love. If that means the sword comes, then the sword comes.

Cutting to the chase for us mainline types: our call as a people of God, as followers of Christ, is not enhanced by getting into these pitched battles with these militant forces of fundamentalism. It's not our call to fight that war.

Maybe our call is to be the medics, the ones who are called to extend ourselves out into the battlefield to gather up the wounded, to bring them in to safety and welcome them and care for them and even join with them in doing Christ's work in God's world.

Can we please get on with it?

Maybe we're called to be stretcher bearers in the church wars?