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Lectionary Scripture Focus - John 3 vs14-21 NRSV
And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God."
Reflection on the Lectionary:
A theologian and professor named Warren Quanbeck preached three sermons at the seminary where he taught. Each sermon was on a modern idol in the Christian faith. So the idol he identified in the first sermon was the church. The idol in the second sermon was scripture. And the last idol in his third sermon was the cross itself. When I heard those words this week from another Luther Seminary professor, my jaw dropped. What brave, amazing, and powerful things to say that can free us of the encumbrances these idols wield over our lives.
Topping it off, I stumbled onto Bill Maher’s 2008 documentary titled “Religulous” which is available on Netflix, and found myself spell bound the whole hour and a half. Maher’s premise for the documentary is that we have surrendered far too much of our hearts, minds, blood, souls, resources, and intellect to organized religion for far too long. And he makes his point very convincingly as he takes us face-to-face with faith leaders from several different religions.
One of the conversations I enjoyed most was Maher talking to a senior Vatican priest who labeled much of his religion as bunk and nonsense. My sense from the priest’s anger and dismissiveness of his religion is that it is much like my own. What I mean is that far too often we service the self-interests of our church institutions rather than service the things God needs done.
I can imagine there’s someone somewhere out in the world annoyed by that last comment and wants me to plainly spell out what I think God’s wants done. Well here’s a list for starters in terms of what God wants God’s love to accomplish through us:
· End human suffering
· Establish full and complete social justice for all persons
· Reconcile humanity and end its warring and greedy nature
· Return God’s earth and creation to sustainable health and well-being
· Prepare the world for God’s coming and God’s just and peaceable reign
I am convinced that if each and every one of us summons the courage for these tasks, rather than holing up in the comfort zones or safety zones we fantasize our religious communities or their edifices to be, things which cost us greatly to support and maintain, then we might just accomplish some much needed work for the common good. And when I mean the common good, I mean it not in the terms of the niceties and respects people pay one another in the pew on Sundays at church. I mean it in the sense of what needs to be done in the communities and neighborhoods where we reside so those become healthy for every living soul.
Perhaps there was no better example for me this week than during my usual visual field test that I have every six months at the eye clinic. At one point, the technician curiously asked me about the non-profit mental health and addictions organization I work for. I explained what we do and who we serve and that we’re focused on creating healthy community. She then asked if I was a mental health professional to which I answered yes. I also shared that I had been a minister and pastor for nearly eighteen years. My disclosures then took us to a much different kind of conversation than I normally have during the test as the woman shared her heartache quite openly about her son who’s on methadone and what it took for him to kick heroin and get to that point.
She went on to say how she secretly followed him around town to figure out from whom and where he was getting the heroin. She talked of one instance in the parking lot of a store near the main shopping mall in our community. Reportedly as she watched her son from a safe distance, the heroin supplier showed up. Not only did the supplier show up, but startlingly another ten cars suddenly arrived and buyers were everywhere trying to make quick deals with the supplier and be on their way. The woman spoke of taking as many photographs of people and cars and license plates as she could. She talked about how she had done this kind of thing on many occasions and provided the information to police. Soon she discovered there was little the police did with the information, mostly due to insufficient resources to follow up the leads she provided.
It’s here that I look at the huge amount of resources we expend creating comfortable houses of worship for ourselves, places that are often edifices and monuments erected to human ego needs, basically idols of one kind or another. I am left to wonder what those dollars invested more sensibly might be accomplishing for the community’s common good, for example more police officers. I then think of the incredibly beautiful and ornate cross I saw this week at a church which bore the likeness of Christ upon it and wonder if those dollars invested more sensibly in the community might have provided another unmarked police vehicle by which to track and build cases against the heroin suppliers in our community. And then I wonder that if the scriptures used to guilt us into these excesses no longer had power over us in the way they do, would we still choose to erect the religious idols that we do and expend precious resources on their behalf? Might we finally say that enough is enough? Might we try to find a much better sense of balance between representations of faith and the desperate needs of our communities? Might we instead be out in the community trying to find out where the next heroin deal is going down? Might we instead create enough disruption so that this poison never leaves the supplier’s hand but goes with these serpents to the local jail?
Sounds like a plan to me!
Brad Shumate, M.S., M.A., LMHC
Free of Encumbrance
Vancouver, WA
Email: brshumate@freeofencumbrance.net
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