Tag: Jesus

“We Are the Church: Render to no person evil for evil. Strengthen anyone fainthearted. Support anyone weak. Heal anyone afflicted” at Westminster Presbyterian Church  

On October 15, 2023, Rev. Dr. Tim Hart-Andersen, Senior Pastor at Minneapolis’ Westminster Presbyterian Church, delivered the sermon, “We Are the Church: Render to no person evil for evil. Strengthen anyone fainthearted. Support Anyone Weak. Heal Anyone Afflicted,” which was the fifth of his final seven sermons before his retirement at the end of October.

Scripture

Leviticus 19:9-18

“‘When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Do not go over your vineyard a second time or pick up the grapes that have fallen. Leave them for the poor and the foreigner. I am the Lord your God.

 “‘Do not steal.”

“‘Do not lie.”

“‘Do not deceive one another.”

 “‘Do not swear falsely by my name and so profane the name of your God. I am the Lord.”

 “‘Do not defraud or rob your neighbor.”

“‘Do not hold back the wages of a hired worker overnight.”

 “‘Do not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block in front of the blind, but fear your God. I am the Lord.”

 “‘Do not pervert justice; do not show partiality to the poor or favoritism to the great, but judge your neighbor fairly.”

 “‘Do not go about spreading slander among your people.”

“‘Do not do anything that endangers your neighbor’s life. I am the Lord.”

 “‘Do not hate a fellow Israelite in your heart. Rebuke your neighbor frankly so you will not share in their guilt.”

 “‘Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.”

Matthew 7:1-5, 12

“Do not judge, or you too will be judged.  For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”

“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?  How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”

“So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.”

Sermon[1]

“The scripture passages for today were selected months ago, when we knew we would be marking the completion, or near completion, of a major capital campaign at Westminster. We could not have known then what would happen this week in other parts of the world.”

“It’s a bit jarring, frankly, to juxtapose our celebration with the suffering of so many. But we are the church, and we are made to face and live into the chaos of the world, carrying a message of hope, and so we do that this morning.”

“The Sermon on the Mount, from which today’s gospel reading comes, opens with the Beatitudes, when Jesus says, ‘Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.’” (Matthew 5:4,5)

“This past week we’ve seen too much mourning among the meek of the earth. Children dying in Israel and Gaza, families grieving the senseless loss of the next generation to wanton violence, first from the terror unleashed by Hamas and now from the destruction in Gaza by Israel.”

“I had breakfast a few days ago with the interfaith clergy of downtown Minneapolis, including a Jewish rabbi and an Arabic Muslim imam. All of us have been to Israel and Palestine multiple times. No one wanted to talk about solutions or next steps or politics in what we know to be an extraordinarily complex situation. The room that morning was simply filled with sorrow, with an exhausted sadness at the endless conflict and loss of life, especially among the children.”

“’Render to no person evil for evil.’ That line from the weekly Charge and Benediction at the end of worship seems particularly apt this week.”

“Let us all pray for peace and advocate for justice in that part of the world where there is neither.”

“The Sermon on the Mount starts with the Beatitudes and ends, three chapters later, with the Golden Rule. It’s Jesus’ closing argument: ‘In everything,’ he says, summing up what he has just preached, ‘Do to others as you would have them do to you.’”

“Every major world religion embraces that same uncomplicated approach to human relationships. It’s an ethic for all ages, all places, all people. “Do to others what you would want them to do to you.” We all remember it, but few of us live it completely. It applies to our most  intimate relationships, and to our life in community and among the nations, as well.”

“The divisions that paralyze our public life today in America and haunt our culture could use a little Golden Rule sprinkled on them. How can we speak ill of other people and groups and assume the worst of them, when we would hope they not do the same to us?”

“Jesus doesn’t pull the Golden Rule out of thin air. He says that the prophets and the Law gave rise to this rule. He was clear on this point: show God’s love to others and God’s love will be shown to you. That ethic is embedded in the Holiness Code of Leviticus, a set of ethical commandments to God’s people:

‘When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest; you shall leave them for the poor and the alien: I am the LORD your God.’

‘You shall not steal…you shall not lie to one another…you shall not defraud your neighbor…and you shall not keep for yourself the wages of a worker…I am the LORD your God.’ (Leviticus 19:9, 11, 13)

“Those ancient words are reflected in our weekly Charge and Benediction in worship: Strengthen anyone fainthearted. Support anyone weak. Heal anyone afflicted.”

“It’s a simple directive for our life together: treat others as you yourself would want to be treated. Could there be a more basic commandment for human community, an ethic not limited to any one religion, but meant for all of us? It is the measure of what is right and good in life. What matters is not what makes us feel self-satisfied or vindicated or avenged, but what contributes to a world that is a little kinder and more just.”

“Westminster aspires to be a Golden Rule church. We’re committed as a congregation and as individuals – because when we go from this place we are, each one of us, the church in the world – to live in this world in ways that show the love and justice of God. That’s what our Westminster mission statement says. That doesn’t mean we’re perfect. Sometimes we fall short, which is why we include a time of confession each week in worship: we own that we don’t always hit the mark – and we are grateful that God’s grace always gives us another chance – always another chance, as individuals and communities.”

“For more than a decade Westminster has been working at creating a sustainable future for this congregation. And, speaking personally, I am glad finally to arrive at this Sunday. We’ve wanted to give those who follow us the wherewithal to continue to be a church working for a world whose worth is tested by how the most vulnerable among us are faring. A world where the meek might inherit the earth.”

“That’s essentially the purpose of the church: worship God with all our heart and mind and strength – and then take the goodness of God out into the streets of the city and nations of the world, not as self-righteous victors, but as realistic and humble followers of one who came not to be served but to serve.”

“We are the church. This is what we do. Whether as individuals or together as a community, we try to live with others as we want them to live with us. Our city and the world need to hear that, to see that, especially this week but only this week, to experience a willingness, among this community and others, to attend to others as we would have them attend to us.”

“Today we celebrate a milestone in our congregation’s effort to prepare this church for the next 50-100 years of being the church in this city. It was a strategic, long-term vision. When we began Open Doors Open Futures downtown Minneapolis was predicted to double in population, from 35,000 in 2010 to 70,000 in 2025. The residential population is now near 60,000. Westminster wanted to prepare for that growth by creating access and parking and a facility to enhance our ministries and welcome our neighbors.”

“It has taken Westminster 12 years of focused effort, most recently with the Enduring Hope campaign, to get to the place where the future of this community of faith is now wide open. Having spent half of my ministry among you on this project, this is a source of great joy for me.”

“It’s common these days to hear about the decline of religion in America, that the church is slowly slipping into irrelevance. A recent survey projected that within two generations Christianity will be the religion of fewer than half of Americans. (https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2022/09/13/modeling-thefuture-of-religion-in-america/)”

“Those macro-level studies and statistics do not tell the whole picture. Westminster and other congregations, large and small, aim to be Christian communities of meaning and purpose rooted in ancient biblical values that are as relevant today as they ever were: Render to no person evil for evil. Strengthen anyone fainthearted. Support anyone weak. Heal anyone afflicted. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

“There will never be a time when those ideals will not offer hope and direction for a more just and sustainable world. If the church becomes – as predicted – a minority voice, a minority presence in the future, so be it: we still have a good word, an important word, a life-giving word for a chaotic and suffering world.”

“I don’t panic in the face of dire predictions about Christianity because the Church is not merely a sociological phenomenon. We are not the religious equivalent of another voluntary organization suffering membership loss. We are the Church. We are the Body of Christ into which we will baptize little Leland Otto later in this service. This is the living community created and sustained by a love that will not let us go. Whether we’re in the majority or not, frankly, is irrelevant to how we choose to live as a community that follows Jesus.”

“Long ago the church got used to the idea of being at the center of it all, the center of social, political, and economic life in the West – first when Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity and the entire empire followed suit. Then in the rise of the power of Rome over many centuries. And in more recent times, with the ascendance of Protestantism.”

“We may be witnessing in our time the de facto disestablishment of the church from the center of privilege and control. And that’s ok – maybe even needed. But we do not lose heart: this is God’s church, not ours, formed by the Spirit at Pentecost and borne through history by the power of unconditional love not beholden to principalities and powers and cultures.”

“We have much to celebrate today, and even more to which we can look forward. Westminster has sought to open doors and open futures, to embrace hope that endures.”

“Together we’ve helped move the world a little closer to the justice for which God longs. We’ve helped build more than 300 units of affordable housing. We’ve made significant commitment to support children and young people in Black and indigenous communities, having listened to what they need most from us as partners. We’ve helped teachers in South Sudan educate thousands of girls. We’ve brought clean water to Cuba.”

“Strengthen anyone fainthearted. Support anyone weak. Heal anyone afflicted.”

“In a world where fear and animosity and injustice and violence seem to proliferate, both in our own land in other places, there is another way: Do to others as you would have them do to you.”

“To proclaim that good word is our mission as followers of Jesus.”

“Today we rejoice that God has called this church – this Golden Rule community of faith – to be a telling presence in the city for generations to come.”

“Thanks be to God.”

“Amen.”

Conclusion

This sermon appropriately rejects the frequent talk about the alleged decline of religion in America and the church slowly slipping into irrelevance. Instead, Tim points out that this is God’s church, not ours, formed by the Spirit at Pentecost and borne through history by the power of unconditional love not beholden to principalities and powers and cultures.

Indeed, Westminster has sought to open doors and open futures, to embrace hope that endures. Together we’ve helped move the world a little closer to the justice for which God longs. We’ve helped build more than 300 units of affordable housing. We’ve made significant commitment to support children and young people in Black and indigenous communities, having listened to what they need most from us as partners. We’ve helped teachers in South Sudan educate thousands of girls. We’ve brought clean water to Cuba.

Westminster and other congregations, large and small, aim to be Christian communities of meaning and purpose rooted in ancient biblical values that are as relevant today as they ever were: Render to no person evil for evil. Strengthen anyone fainthearted. Support anyone weak. Heal anyone afflicted. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

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[1]  Sermon, We are the church: Render to no person evil for evil. Strengthen anyone faint-hearted. Support anyone weak. Heal anyone afflicted, Westminster Presbyterian Church (Oct. 15, 2023); Bulletin for the Service, Westminster Presbyterian Church (Oct. 15, 2023).

Westminster Presbyterian Church: Rejection of Christian Nationalism

Westminster Presbyterian Church, located on Nicollet Mall in downtown Minneapolis and the eighth largest Presbyterian church in the U.S., is involved in many social justice ministries, including partnerships with churches in Cuba, Cameroon and Palestine, co-hosting an Afghan family in Minnesota and sponsoring the Westminster Town Hall Forum that presents prominent speakers on topics of social justice throughout the year.[1]

Scripture for the Day

The Scripture for the Sunday of this Fourth of July weekend was Matthew 22: 15-22 (New Revised Standard Version (updated edition)):

“Then the Pharisees went and plotted to entrap him in what he said.  So they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, ‘Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and teach the way of God in accordance with truth, and show deference to no one, for you do not regard people with partiality.  Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not?’  But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, ‘Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites?  Show me the coin used for the tax.’ And they brought him a denarius.  Then he said to them, ‘Whose head is this and whose title?’  They answered, ‘Caesar’s.’ Then he said to them, ‘Give therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s.’ When they heard this, they were amazed, and they left him and went away.”

The Sermon: “The Emperor is Not God”[2]

Rev. Timothy Hart-Andersen, Westminster’s Senior Pastor, delivered the day’s sermon.

“Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s and to God the things that are God’s.” 

 This morning’s scripture lesson shows the risk of intertwining political and religious authority in the time of Jesus. As we prepare to celebrate Independence Day, the text may teach us something about our own current realities. American culture has increasingly blurred the distinction between what belongs to the realm of faith and what belongs to the governance of the state.  

The religious leaders of his time were trying to entrap Jesus, testing his ultimate loyalty. Jesus had been preaching a gospel of impartiality and inclusivity, showing deference to no one. They were observing that. He was disrupting the hierarchies and prejudices of his time that decreed the elevation of some at the expense of others.  

In a quiet, rolling rebellion against the way things were, Jesus ate with tax collectors and sinners, encouraged children to come to him, welcomed and respected women, loved those considered unlovable, and generally ignored the social, economic, ethnic, national, and even religious ways the world stratified itself in that time.  

Jesus was exhibiting what the love of God looks like. He was living out the prayer he taught: thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. He was giving the church its mission. He was turning the world upside down.  

No wonder those in power were threatened. Jesus did not have a litmus test you had to pass to be deemed worthy. Those outside the circles of acceptability were simply invited in. That approach was compelling. People were listening. People were noticing. People were following. 

The Pharisees thought they would put an end to his growing popularity. “Teacher,” they said with mocking, feigned admiration.  

“We know that you are sincere and teach the way of God in accordance with truth, and show deference to no one, for you do not regard people with partiality. Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor or not?” (Matthew 22:16-17) 

Jesus knows what they’re up to. “Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites?” he says. “Show me the coin used for the tax.” (Matthew 22:19) 

He’s asking for a denarius, the silver Roman coin used at the time for payment of taxes to Rome. (You can buy one today on eBay for $555.) On one side of the ancient coin was an image of the Emperor Tiberius with the words, “Tiberius Caesar Augustus, Son o the Divine Augustus.”

Tiberius, the ruler in the time of Jesus, was the offspring of one considered a god. The coin symbolizes the divine right passed on through the royal lineage to each Roman Emperor. To pay the tax with that coin was, in effect, to worship Caesar. 

“Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor or not?” the Pharisees ask Jesus. The response of Jesus is not only clever; it’s also instructive for us. 

“Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s,” Jesus replies, showing them the image of Tiberius on the coin. “And to God the things that are God’s.” 

With that, Jesus deflates the attack of the Pharisees. What more can they say without betraying their own religious insincerity? They’re in a convenient alliance with the occupying foreign regime that allows them to retain their religious authority in exchange for tamping down the claims of their tradition, which would challenge that occupying force. 

Jesus and the Pharisees both know it is idolatrous to consider other gods. “Hear O Israel,” they recite in their prayers,  “The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.” (Deuteronomy 6:4-5) 

To suggest the Roman emperor is competing with the one God denies the monotheism of Hebrew tradition. It is blasphemy. On the other hand, to imply that paying taxes to Caesar is politically acceptable runs counter to the proud instincts of Hebrew nationalism. They were trying to implicate Jesus one way or the other. 

The Pharisees opposed the Roman tax in principle, but they did not go so far as to resist paying it. They were working both sides, trying to adhere to their religious tradition and avoid arrest by the Romans – all while hoping to rid themselves of the troublesome preacher from Galilee.  

Jesus calls them out for confusing their ultimate allegiance with daily political realities. No wonder they slink away. They had trapped themselves. 

Some have found in this ancient account a biblical rationale for the separation of religion and state. But that’s not Matthew’s intent here. At this point in the gospel, he wants to highlight the growing efforts to frame Jesus and eliminate his expanding influence. The noose is drawing tighter. The betrayal is coming. Matthew has no interest in proposing an abstract political doctrine about religion and the state. That would come many centuries later in the writings of Thomas Jefferson. 

How can we understand today the response of Jesus long ago to the challenge, the testing, of the Pharisees? We can take it at face value, as a clever way for him to wriggle out of their grasp: The coin has the Caesar’s face on it. It belongs to him. Give it back to him. Case closed.  

But there’s more. 

Jesus could have stopped with the emperor’s image on the coin, but instead he goes on to add the line about giving to God what belongs to God. The Pharisees hadn’t mentioned God, hadn’t asked about what belongs to God. But Jesus brings God into the picture because some religious authorities had begun to confuse living within a particular political system as a way to practice their faith – in the politics of that time. 

The emperor’s image is on that coin. That’s a political fact. In contrast, however, comes this unstated counter theological claim of Jesus: God’s image is imprinted on every human being. 

Jesus brings God into the picture to make a subtle but decisive point: the emperor is not god. He wants to differentiate between political authority – an earthly reality that comes in many guises – and the power of God, which is something else altogether. God’s sovereignty cannot be equated to worldly authority. It should not be attached to any particular political system. The reign of God is that of Creator over Creation. God is “the Potentate of Time,” to quote the old hymn, the Alpha and Omega of history, the beginning and the end. 

In our time, when many are tending to conflate religious and political authority, Jesus reminds us: the emperor is not God.  

As we celebrate the 4th of July this year, let us remember that this nation was created by people fleeing religious persecution. They were leaving political systems in Europe that claimed the divine right of royal rulers, where religion was established, and the church was one with the state. The emperor, the royal ruler, was divinely ordained. Those fleeing England and France and the Netherlands wanted to break from that old way and enjoy freedom in the practice of their religion, unencumbered by interference from national political institutions. 

Let us also not forget the irony and hypocrisy that those fleeing persecution in one land instituted brutal systems of persecution in another. One person’s freedom and economic enrichment came at the expense of another’s loss of ancestral homelands, or another’s enslavement and generational impoverishment.  

The high calling of “liberty and justice for all” was not fulfilled at the start of this nation, and it has yet to be attained in this imperfect union. There is work to be done in our great national experiment, and it is hubris of someone if they think they have it all figured out. We have a lot of listening to do, a lot of learning to do, in this church and in other places wanting to build a better nation. 

Some of that work has to do with the place of religion in the landscape of America today. 

The first amendment to the U.S. Constitution begins like this: Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion. The founders of our nation wanted to ensure that no religion could ever be conflated with or commingled with the national political identity. The emperor is not god; god is not the emperor.  

But today that view is eroding among some. 

“Christian nationalism,” says Paul D. Miller, professor at Georgetown University, “Is the belief that the American nation is defined by Christianity, and the government should take active steps to keep it that way…Christian nationalists assert that America is and must remain a ‘Christian nation’ – not merely as an observation about American history, but as a prescriptive program for what America must continue to be in the future.”[3]

A survey done earlier this year by the Public Religion Research Institute concludes that 10% of Americans, or 33 million people, are adherents of Christian nationalism, and another 19% are sympathetic to its views. Of those 29% of Americans, two-thirds are white evangelical Christians. [4]

Another survey finds that more than half of Americans have never heard of Christian nationalism. It’s time to pay attention. [5]

The National Council of Churches is concerned enough that it recently issued a warning about Christian nationalism. “Theologically,” the Council says, “Christian nationalism elevates the nation, or a particular concept of the nation, to a role closely aligned with God.” Jesus would not be pleased: the emperor is not god. [6]

“In its more militant forms,” the statement continues, “Christian nationalism encourages its adherents to believe they are battling the forces of darkness on all fronts…This mindset of embattled righteousness is applied to the perceived enemies of the state…and true believers are directed to employ any and all means, even undemocratic and violent ones, in order to win political contests. In this quest for political power, Christian humility is lost, as is the message of God’s love for all humanity.” 

As we celebrate the founding of America this week, we are summoned to advocate for our nation’s democracy – which is being challenged not from a foreign foe, but from our own neighbors who have distorted the gospel of Jesus and made it into a political movement that wants “to equate the reign of God with their vision of America.”  

I know that sounds harsh, but this is happening in America today. 

And we are also called – all of us – to support and tend to a care for the witness of the Christian Church in our time. As the National Council of Churches says,  To assume that Christianity mandates a particular political agenda is to overstep constitutional bounds and to claim divine sanction for the priorities of a few.”  

In spite of these concerns, which can frighten and perhaps overwhelm us, we do have much for which to be grateful in our nation and to acclaim this Fourth of July. We have freedom of religion. We can practice what we believe by worshipping together and joining those of other faith traditions and people of goodwill to work for a better, more just America. 

 We can follow the Jesus we meet in the gospels by standing with the immigrant and with those pushed aside by the cruelties of our time. Compelled by our faith, we can do our part by listening, and learning, and growing in our understanding of how we might serve God by bringing healing to individuals and communities, and to the earth itself. 

This Independence Day we can celebrate that the nation has made progress on many fronts in the struggle to undo historic wrongs and create new opportunities. Yes, we have more work to do. Yes, more listening to do. Yes, we will have to pay closer attention to what our neighbors are saying. Because we have the chance in our time to ensure that every American, no matter their creed or circumstance, has rights equal to every other American.  

That would be something truly to celebrate. 

 In the words of Langston Hughes, the great Black poet, 

 “O, let America be America again—

The land that never has been yet—  

And yet must be— 

the land where everyone is free”  [7]

May it be so.

To God be the glory. 

Amen.

Reactions

As a Westminster member, I thank Rev. Hart-Andersen for delivering this most timely sermon on the Fourth of July weekend to remind everyone that “Christian nationalism” is contrary to Jesus’ gospel and that all of us need to do more to make this the land of the free.

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[1] The church’s website contains more information about the church and Rev. Timothy Hart-Andersen. In addition, this blog has published many posts about Westminster. (See List of Posts to dwkcommentaries—Topical: Religion.

[2] Sermon, The Emperor Is Not God, Westminster Presbyterian Church (July 2, 2023).

[3] Miller, What Is Christian Nationalism?, Christianity Today (Feb. 3, 2021).

[4]  Shimon, Poll: A third of Americans are Christian nationalists and most are white evangelicals, Religion News.com (Feb. 8, 2023).

[5] Smith, Rotold & Tevington, 45% of Americans Say U.S. Should Be a ‘Christian Nation,’ Pew Research Center (Oct. 27, 2022).

[6] National Council of Churches, The Dangers of Christian Nationalism in the United States: A Policy Statement of the National Council of Churches (April 20, 2021).

[7] The cover of the bulletin for this service contained a longer extract of the Langston Hughes poem, which was written in 1935, and the complete text is available on the web. (Hughes, Let America Be America Again.) Mr. Hughes was an American poet, social activist, playwright and columnist form Joplin, Missouri as well as a leader of the Harlem Renaissance. (Langston Hughes, Wikipedia..)

 

 

Minneapolis Westminster Presbyterian Church: Presbyterian Principles: Truth is in order to goodness   

On May 7, 2023, Rev. Dr. Timothy Hart-Andersen, Senior Pastor of Minneapolis’ Westminster Presbyterian Church, delivered the second of three sermons on Presbyterian Principles.[1] This one focused on “truth is in order to goodness.”

Scripture

John 3: 16-24

 “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.”

 After this Jesus and his disciples went into the region of Judea, and he spent some time there with them and baptized.  John also was baptizing at Aenon near Salim because water was abundant there, and people kept coming and were being baptized.  (John, of course, had not yet been thrown into prison.)

Sermon[2]

We’re on the second Sunday of a three-part series exploring what are called The Historic Principles of Church Order. They were adopted by the Presbyterian Church more than two centuries ago. Our forebears set out to build Christian community on these basic tenets of faith. The principles served – and still serve – as the foundation of the values we hold dear and which we embrace as followers of Jesus.

We may be tempted to dismiss a set of ethics adopted in the late 18th century as anachronistic or irrelevant. But give them a chance and it becomes clear they still speak to us. Last week we looked at this historic principle: God alone is Lord of the conscience – meaning that in the mind and heart of a Christian, God’s love is the ultimate guide for how we live.

Today we look at another assertion upon which our Church stands: Truth is in order to goodness. When I first read this in our denomination’s constitution many years ago, I didn’t understand it. It refers to one thing that follows another. To say truth is in order to goodness means that goodness results from following the truth. Truth leads to goodness.

Could any old-time principle be more appropriate for our time today, when lies and illusions abound in our public life, and mendacity doesn’t even bother to masquerade? Could any principle be more apt for our time than this one? Truth is in order to goodness. 

When Jesus was before Pilate, only hours before his crucifixion, the Roman governor was probing him, trying to learn who he was, and the motivation for what he did. Jesus finally tells him,

“For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.” (John 18:37)

As followers of Jesus, we ought to be known as those who belong to the truth, who refuse to follow falsehood. If we belong to the truth, our lives bear witness to what is good and honest, right and just. Our actions and our integrity point others to the truth.

But how do we know what is true? “The great touchstone of truth,” according to those 18th century Presbyterians, is “Its tendency to promote holiness.”

By “holiness” they meant life that reflects the love and righteousness, the light and justice of God.

Our forebears went on to declare, “No opinion can be either more pernicious or more absurd than that which brings truth and falsehood upon a level.”

Truth is in order to goodness.

Jesus couldn’t agree more: “You will know them by their fruits,” he said. “Are grapes gathered from thorns or figs from thistles?” (Matthew 7:16)

A few years ago, we chuckled at the notion of truthiness in our political and cultural ethos. That was then, and this is now, and it is no longer a laughing matter. With new technology the world of “alternative facts” has scaled up beyond anything we could ever have imagined. To quote Dorothy, “Toto, I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.”

In an interview this week, Dr. Jeffery Hinton, known as the “godfather” of artificial intelligence, was asked about the benefits and risks of AI. AI, he said, can be a force for astonishing good.  “Would you rather see a family doctor that has seen a few thousand patients or a family doctor that has seen a few hundred million patients, including with the same rare disease you have?”

A benefit of AI.

But, as we have been hearing a lot these days, there’s a deep shadow side to AI. At a recent UN conference on the risks of technology, a participant said, “AI can bring with it a host of unintended consequences. One of the most pernicious could be AI’s ability to spread misinformation at a pace and scale not seen before.”

Pernicious is the very word Presbyterians used 235 years ago to describe bringing “truth and falsehood upon a level.” It carries the connotation of malevolence. The use of this technology – not the technology itself – can be detrimental to our life together, even sinister.

Dr. Hinton recently left Google to speak out about the threats in the use of the technology he spent decades developing. The first danger he cites is “the risk of producing a lot of fake news so no one knows what’s true anymore.”

This has gone way beyond a mere press conference where someone claims something we all know to be false, and it begins to spread by people repeating and believing it.

Jesus was acutely aware of the power of what is true. “You shall know the truth,” he said, “And the truth will set you free.” (John 8:32)

But in an age when unregulated and unrestrained technology can easily be used to spread that which is untrue and present it as gospel – and I use that word intentionally – we will soon lose our freedom.

If truth is in order to goodness, when much of the world is filtered through and controlled by AI can we even know what is true?

By ourselves we cannot stop the malicious use of technology, but we can be careful with it and check its veracity when in doubt. We can use technology to verify the accuracy of technology. We can discern what is true and decide what we will do about it – even if that truth is painful or difficult to face in our personal lives, in our families and our relationships, in our city and nation today, and in its history. The truth can be hard to hear, but you and I, we are bound to pursue it and act on it.

A statement by the national church 40 years ago, in 1983, says,  “As Presbyterians we believe there is…no way to disconnect faith from practice. What we believe is reflected in our actions, both individually and corporately. Acceptance of untruths as truth is harmful…The truth of a particular idea is often revealed in the way it leads people to behave…Time is a test of truth.”

Truth is in order to goodness, sometimes over a long stretch of time.

The New York Times columnist Tom Friedman spoke this past week at an event here in town sponsored by World Savvy, a wonderful national education non-profit headquartered in Minneapolis. Friedman commented on the credo of the founder of Facebook Mark Zuckerman: move fast and break things.

Friedman countered: “In a speeding world, that which happens slowly is more important than ever.”

The three things such a world needs, he said, are self-motivation, the discipline to engage even when so much can be done for us, without our engagement; access, the capacity to get and use the technology; and, character.

Friedman focused on that last point, character. He named a number of “slow-moving” experiences that teach empathy and kindness and help create lasting, healthy community. At the top of his list was Sunday School – and he didn’t mean what happens only in churches; at this very moment, over at Temple Israel they are teaching in the synagogue what they call Sunday School.

People of faith instinctively know that slowing down helps us and our children see and listen and discern more carefully. Prayer slows us down. Music slows us down. Quiet slows us down. Every Wednesday evening people gather for mid-week worship in Westminster Hall that includes 5-6 minutes of silence together. It never seems long enough.

God rested on the seventh day in the Creation story and wonder at all that had been made. The Creator needed to stop and see the truth of all that beauty – and then pronounce it good. We are told to honor the Sabbath because human beings lose their way when they go fast all the time. Truth gets in when we slow down – and truth is in order to goodness.

We don’t often think of Jesus as having a focus on truth in his ministry. He healed, he taught, he loved those reviled or feared by others, he welcomed those excluded, he prayed, he listened, he gave his life for others. But what does all that have to do with truth?

It has everything to do with truth.

Jesus said, “I am the way the truth, and the life.” (John 14:6)

With his own life, Jesus points to the truth, truth with a capital T and the smaller, everyday truths at the core of our faith, that you and I try to live every day: that love is greater than fear and compassion stronger than hate, that dawn will follow even the longest night, that mercy leads to forgiveness and grace heals brokenness, that hope gives courage to seek justice against all odds. that we are not alone.

I John asks a simple question: “How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help? Little children, let us love not in word or speech but in deed and truth. And by this we will know that we are from the truth.” (I John 3:17-19a)

We who follow Jesus are from the truth. We belong to the truth. That means how we live is not some random accident, controlled by some force outside of us, but a direct result of holding fast to the truth that God is love.

“We are persuaded,” the Presbyterians said long ago,,“That there is an inseparable connection between faith and practice, truth and duty. Otherwise, it would be of no consequence either to discover truth or to embrace it.” (PCUSA Book of Order, F-1.0304: Historic Principles)

Truth is in order to goodness.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.

Reactions

These Presbyterian “principles served—and still serve—as the foundation of values we hold dear and which we embrace as followers of Jesus.” “God’s love is the ultimate guide for how we live.”

“To say ‘truth is in order to goodness’ means that goodness results from following the truth. Truth leads to goodness.” “The great touchstone of truth [is]the tendency to promote . . . life that reflects the love and righteousness, the light and justice of God.”

Dr. Jeffrey Hinton, an expert on Artificial Intelligence (AI), says AI “can be a force of astonishing good,” such as enabling an M.D. to see medical results of a disease in vastly more cases. On the other hand, AI risks “producing a lot of fake news so that no one knows what’s true anymore.”

Tom Friedman, the New York Times columnist, says the world needs (a) self-motivation or the discipline to engage with the world; (b) the ability to get and use the ever-changing technology; and (c) character, which is shaped by “slow moving” experiences that teach empathy and kindness and help create lasting, healthy community. A prime example of such “slow moving” experiences is Sunday School in churches and synagogues.

“With his own life, Jesus points to the truth with a capital T and the smaller, everyday truths at the core of our faith, that you and I try to live every day: that love id greater than fear and compassion stronger than hate, that dawn will follow even the longest night, that mercy leads to forgiveness and grace heals brokenness, that hope gives courage to seek justice against all odds, and that we are not alone.”

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[1] Previous posts about this series of sermons:

The Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), dwkcommentaries.com (May 11, 2023); Minneapolis Westminster Presbyterian Church: Presbyterian Principles: God alone is Lord of the conscience, dwkcommentaries.com (May 12, 2023).

[2] Rev. Dr. Timothy Hart-Andersen, Sermon, Presbyterian Principles: Truth is in order to goodness (May 7, 2023); Bulletin, Westminster Presbyterian Church (Minneapolis) (May 7, 2023).

 

Minneapolis Westminster Presbyterian Church: Presbyterian Principles: God alone is Lord of the conscience     

On Sunday, April 30, 2023, Rev. Dr. Timothy Hart-Andersen, Senior Pastor at Minneapolis’ Westminster Presbyterian Church, delivered his first of three sermons on Presbyterian Principles. This one focused on ”God alone is Lord of the conscience.”[1]

Scripture

1 Corinthians 10:23-32

“All things are permitted,” but not all things are beneficial. “All things are permitted,” but not all things build up.  Do not seek your own advantage but that of the other.  Eat whatever is sold in the meat market without raising any question on the ground of conscience,  for “the earth and its fullness are the Lord’s.”  If an unbeliever invites you to a meal and you are disposed to go, eat whatever is set before you without raising any question on the ground of conscience.  But if someone says to you, “This has been offered in sacrifice,” then do not eat it, out of consideration for the one who informed you and for the sake of conscience—  I mean the other’s conscience, not your own. For why should my freedom be subject to the judgment of someone else’s conscience?  If I partake with thankfulness, why should I be denounced because of that for which I give thanks?

 So, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God.  Give no offense to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God.

Sermon[2]

Corinth in the first century was a busy commercial hub, a cultural crossroads, a Roman city, part of the empire, teeming with travelers, immigrants, sailors, outcasts, merchants, soldiers, impoverished people, wealthy citizens, free and enslaved persons, Greek-speakers, Latin speakers, Jews, practitioners of a wide variety of religions.

Archaeologists have found there more than two dozen temples and shrines to a veritable smorgasbord of gods of the time. One early traveler reported that right next to the Roman Forum in Corinth was a “temple for all the gods.” (J. Paul Sampley, The New Interpreter’s Bible, vol. X [Knoxville: Abingdon Press, 2002], p. 773-774)

Corinth, like our city and our nation today, was trying to live peacefully within the pluralism of the time – but there’s always potential for trouble when people of different religious traditions live together. Don’t we know that.

The fires in two mosques in south Minneapolis this past week – one of which was in the former Oliver Presbyterian Church building on Bloomington Avenue – are the latest examples of attacks on houses of worship in this city. During Passover Temple Israel was targeted by vandals who spray painted anti-Semitic slurs on the building. A third mosque was hit by vandalism two weeks ago.

We denounce these assaults and stand in solidarity with our Jewish and Muslim neighbors. An attack on one faith community is an attack on all faith communities.

We don’t know if that level of conflict was present in first-century Corinth, but from the Apostle Paul’s letters and other sources we do know the people in that ancient city struggled to live peacefully in a religiously plural society.

Paul walked into those challenges when he arrived in Corinth around the year 50 CE. He was newly converted from Judaism to the Way of Jesus and sensed a call to establish new churches among the Gentiles of the eastern Mediterranean. He was coming from Thessalonica and Philippi where he had already planted churches. Paul spent a couple years in Corinth and then left when things weren’t going well for him.

We’ve just listened to an excerpt from a letter Paul wrote to the church he had established in Corinth. Given their religiously diverse context, they were working hard to find their way. They were worried by some basic issues – especially, it turns out, about what to eat. Most of the meat in Corinthian markets had been sacrificed to idols, and the new Christians feared if they ate it, they would be violating rules of their faith and running afoul of the believing community.

They were struggling with temptation, after all, they wanted to eat, and with conscience – they thought it was forbidden. Paul assures the Corinthians. “Eat whatever is sold in the meat market without raising any question on the ground of conscience,” he says.

“If an unbeliever invites you to a meal, eat whatever is set before you without raising any question on the ground of conscience. But if someone says to you, ‘This has been offered in sacrifice,’ then do not eat it, out of consideration for the one who informed you, and for the sake of conscience—I mean the other’s conscience, not your own.” (I Corinthians 10:25, 27-29a)

Paul is trying to walk a fine line here, to find balance between sticking to one’s own religious beliefs and living in a world where many do not share the same convictions. He shows, frankly, a surprising degree of flexibility here. Good for Paul! At a point earlier in the letter in another passage about eating, he tells the Corinthians that if his eating meat were to cause a someone to stumble, he would become vegetarian. He was that serious about accommodating those of other traditions.

Paul listens well. He adapts his response to the situation with grace, rather than falling back on religious regulations. He’s trying to model his life after the life of Jesus, who showed no partiality.

“So, whether you eat or drink,” he says, “Or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God. Give no offense to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God.”

Paul uses the Corinthian conundrum as more than a lesson in eating responsibly. For him it’s a metaphor for how to live peaceably with our neighbors. Where do we draw the line in our behavior toward others? How do we make moral decisions that affect more than only ourselves? How can I live with my own convictions and let others live with theirs – and stay in community with them?

Long ago Presbyterians recognized this very challenge, the challenge of respecting freedom of conscience in a complex, pluralistic world. In 1788 we adopted a set of defining principles of church order that became the foundational building blocks of life in the Presbyterian Church in this land. Westminster was established in Minneapolis only 70 years after their adoption. From the beginning through today, our congregation’s ministers and lay leaders have been guided by these tenets of life in the church – our ecclesiology: how we will be and do church. (In 1788 the Presbyterian Synod of New York and Philadelphia adopted these principles, now in the PCUSA Book of Order: F-3.01)

At issue for the Presbyterians, not unlike the Corinthians, was how to allow freedom for believers within the bounds of the faith of the Church. The principles – now nearly 235 years old – have stood the test of time. Today, especially in a period of deep division, distrust, animosity, suspicion of those outside our circles, and embrace of prevarication, principles such as these are important reminders that our faith gives rise to certain concrete values. Those values guide us in our life together, both in the church and in the world.

Over the next three Sundays we will explore three of what our denomination’s constitution calls “The Historic Principles of Church Order.” Today we look at the first: God alone is Lord of the conscience. (Book of Order, F-3.01)

Those words did not originate with American Presbyterians in the late 18th century. They were borrowed from the Westminster Confession, written by Scottish theologians, and adopted by Presbyterians from Scotland meeting in Westminster Abbey in 1640. Our church’s name honors that history.

This first foundational principle is embedded in a longer sentence:

“That God alone is Lord of the conscience and hath left it free from the doctrines and commandments of (people) which are in anything contrary to God’s Word, or beside it, in matters of faith or worship.”

Presbyterians have always sought to balance the binding of conscience by the Word of God with individual responsibility when it comes to faith:

“Therefore,” the church’s constitution declares, “We consider the rights of private judgment, in all matters that respect religion, as universal and unalienable.”

That’s a lot of fancy 17th century wording that means, simply: No one can tell another person what to believe. Each of us has the right – indeed, the responsibility – to decide for ourselves. Presbyterians recognize that at the heart of Christian faith is not a set of rules imposed from some authority beyond us. Frankly, it might a little easier to follow Jesus if what that means were spelled out in a list that we could simply check off, but that’s not how we do our Christianity.

Christian faith is not a set of rules imposed from some authority beyond us, but a relationship each of us has with God in Jesus Christ and with our neighbor. Relationships are living, dynamic realities; religion based on fixed rules depletes faith of its life. Dietrich Bonhoeffer said Christianity is not a religion, but a relationship. Faith is a living, breathing relationship, not a set of fixed declarations we must obey. Think of our own personal connections and our life in community – the healthiest ones are based on relationships, not rules.

Paul could have said that under no circumstances should food sacrificed to idols be considered off limits because avoiding such food would give credence to idol worship. But instead, the Apostle shows how a Christ-like ethic works: if the food in question is considered holy by a person of another religious tradition, don’t eat it out of respect for that person’s conscience, setting aside your own conscience.

Paul is reminding the Corinthians that the goal of Christian living is to honor God and neighbor. It’s as if he were saying, God alone is Lord of the conscience and hath left it free from the commandments of people which are in anything contrary to God’s Word.

All theology in our tradition begins and ends with the sovereignty of God, but the sovereignty of God has eroded over time. Today it has been supplanted by the sovereignty of self. The 16th century Westminster divines had no intention of displacing the Lordship of God with a freewheeling Christianity tethered to nothing other than the whims of one’s own heart or mind.

Much of what seeks to pass for Christianity today is little more than self-driven ambition seeking power or privilege or prosperity, or anger propelled by fear that sees the other as someone to condemn and exclude, with a cloak of religiosity draped over it.

The lofty right of private judgement in matters of faith has been perverted in our time. It has descended into a maelstrom of assertions bearing little resemblance to the Word of God found in scripture and proclaimed in the words of Jesus preached by the Church. One cannot genuinely hold to the love of God and at the same time violate the image of God in other human beings by cruelty or injustice or contempt or gunfire. One cannot claim to follow Jesus and ignore how he lived and what he taught and whom he healed.

The exercise of individual religious liberty takes place within certain responsibilities. The foundational principle here is that God alone is Lord of the conscience. The competing claim rampant in our time is that self alone is the lord of conscience.

If we affirm that God is sovereign over all of life, we cannot simultaneously put ourselves at the center and shove God aside and push neighbor away, no matter how different they are or how much we fear them or how thoroughly we reject their politics. Paul’s experience in Corinth taught him that God’s image is present in every person, and, therefore, every person is deserving of respect and dignity and the fullness of their own humanity, their God-given humanity.

The Apostle can sometimes come off as narrow-minded or exclusive – especially toward women – but in Corinth, in this letter we read today, he shows a full grasp of God’s radical intention in Jesus Christ: to make love the essence of our lives, so that what we do or say – everything we do or say – is always considered by its impact on others and on the Other.

“Our own good,” one author says, “Is inextricably tied up with the good of all others.” (J. Paul Sampley, The New Interpreter’s Bible, vol. X [Knoxville: Abingdon Press, 2002], p. p22)

Ethics, morality, conscience – they’re all worked out in community, not in isolation.

Our world is desperate for a new way of life together. To proclaim that God alone is Lord of the conscience, as we do, is to declare that love alone is Lord of the conscience.

Love leads the way. It takes us to a theology of grace and hope. And that theology compels us to join people of other faith traditions and people of goodwill to work toward a culture of kindness and generosity, a politics of humility and compassion, a social order that is fair and just.

As those who follow Jesus, that is our work, and it begins anew every day.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.

Reactions

This sermon and its inspiration from 1 Corinthians deliver a very important message that was [and is] embraced by U.S. Presbyterians in the 18th century and today. “We consider the rights of private judgment, in all matters that respect religion as universal and unalienable.” In short, “No one can tell another person what to believe. Each of us has the right—indeed, the responsibility—to decide for ourselves. . . . One cannot genuinely hold to the love of God and  at the same time violate the image of God in other human beings by cruelty or injustice or contempt or gunfire. “

“God’s radical intention in Jesus Christ [is] to make love the essence of our lives, so that . . . everything we do or say –is always considered by its impact on others and on the Other. . . . [That] theology compels us to join people of other faith traditions and people of good will to work toward a culture of kindness and generosity, a politics of humility and compassion, a social order that is fair and just.”

“As those who follow Jesus, that is our work, and it begins anew every day.”

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[1] A previous post discussed the source of these sermons: The Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), dwkcommentaries.com (May 11, 2023).

[2] Rev. Dr. Timothy Hart-Andersen, Sermon: Presbyterian Principles: God is Lord of the conscience, Westminster Presbyterian Church (April 30, 2023); Westminster Presbyterian Church, Bulletin (April 30, 2023).

 

 

The Prayer Jesus Taught: “And forgive us for our debts as we forgive our debtors”   

On March 19, 2023, Rev. Dr. Tim Hart-Andersen, the Senior Pastor at Minneapolis’ Westminster Presbyterian Church, delivered the fourth of his five sermons on different passages of the Lord’s Prayer. [1] This sermon was on the following portion of the third sentence (in bold) of that Prayer:

“Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen. “

Scripture

Leviticus 25:8-12, 35-41

“You shall count off seven weeks of years, seven times seven years, so that the period of seven weeks of years gives forty-nine years. Then you shall have the trumpet sounded loud; on the tenth day of the seventh month—on the Day of Atonement—you shall have the trumpet sounded throughout all your land. And you shall hallow the fiftieth year, and you shall proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a Jubilee for you: you shall return, every one of you, to your property and every one of you to your family. That fiftieth year shall be a Jubilee for you: you shall not sow or reap the aftergrowth or harvest the unpruned vines. For it is a Jubilee; it shall be holy to you: you shall eat only what the field itself produces.”

“If any of your kin fall into difficulty and become dependent on you, you shall support them; they shall live with you as though resident aliens. Do not take interest in advance or otherwise make a profit from them, but fear your God; let them live with you. You shall not lend them your money at interest taken in advance or provide them food at a profit. I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, to give you the land of Canaan, to be your God.”

“If any who are dependent on you become so impoverished that they sell themselves to you, you shall not make them serve as slaves. They shall remain with you as hired or bound laborers. They shall serve with you until the year of the Jubilee. Then they and their children with them shall go out from your authority; they shall go back to their own family and return to their ancestral property.”

The Sermon[2]

 Along the way in this sermon series on the prayer Jesus taught I’ve heard from several of you eager to get to this particular petition. I have been eager, too. I’m glad we’re finally here. Of all the lines in the prayer Jesus taught, this one differs most in its wording among various Christian traditions, which can lead to a variety of interpretations. What was Jesus teaching here?

It’s complicated – and, lest we forget, the Apostle Paul reminds us that “All…have fallen short of the glory of God…. There is no one” – debtor, sinner, trespasser – “who is righteous, not even one.” (Romans 3:23, 10)

On that basis we could conclude that it’s of no consequence which wording we use; in the end, we all miss the mark, whatever the mark might be. But there’s more to the story. The different words we use come from the gospels themselves and from church tradition. The language we use matters, as we have seen in this series

One of the points in this series on the prayer Jesus taught is that language evolves. In that sense it is living. We should guard against the calcification of the vocabulary of our faith. Our spiritual practices – no matter the particular wording – always want to reflect the dynamic interaction with God that Jesus longs for us to have. And the words do matter.

And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.

The prayer Jesus taught appears only in two gospels, each with its own version of this line. In Luke Jesus teaches, “And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.” In Matthew, on the other hand, he makes no mention of sin: “ [(Luke 11:4} “And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors” – the version we pray at Westminster.  [Matthew 6:12)]

This is not a matter of a typo or confusion about someone’s handwriting. The Greek words here are quite distinct: “debt” is opheiléma, while “sin” is hamartia. The gospels writers chose their vocabulary with intention, leaving us to sort it out.

To add to the puzzle, the Greek word for trespass does not appear in either gospel version of the prayer Jesus taught, although it does show up later. Trespass makes its debut in the first full English translation of the Bible in 1526, done by William Tyndale, who got into trouble for doing it and eventually was deemed a heretic and executed in 1536. Tyndale’s Bible became widely popular and influenced the way English-speakers said the prayer Jesus taught. To this day, many Episcopalians, Methodists, Lutherans, Catholics, and others use “trespasses.”

The King James version, published almost a century after Tyndale, shifted back to the original Greek and used “debt” and “debtors,” and that’s where the Presbyterians landed and have been ever since. And forgive us our “debts” as we forgive our “debtors”. This is not random use of language. Jesus prays debts and debtors for a reason. In doing so, he intentionally introduces economic language into the prayer. When Jesus teaches about hunger in the prayer – give us this day our daily bread – he’s reminding us that people need to eat. Now when he speaks of economics, he’s reminding us another basic truth: that debt – not metaphorical or spiritualized indebtedness but simply not having enough money – can crush and impoverish people.

In our culture debt is a given for most of us. Capitalism is sustained by debt. Westminster gets this. We’re working hard right now in a campaign to pay off the congregation’s debt. As one Westminster member said, “Forgive us our debt, so we can pursue our mission.” If only the lenders were listening!

When we substitute “sins” for “debts” we miss the specific kind of forgiveness Jesus is aiming at here. Debt is unequivocally an economic term. Sin is a theological word. If we use sin, the wording seems directed to our private, individual behavior, as if Jesus were referring to my moral failings for which I need forgiveness, or my need to forgive wrongs done to me. That makes forgiveness a matter of letting go of personal offenses or owning up to my own immorality– which may be good to do, but it is not what Jesus is after here.

And trespassing has to do with crossing boundaries – a transgression that violates someone else’s property, which was a problem in 16th century England when Tyndale decided to employ that word. The language used by Jesus in the prayer as taught in Matthew, is concerned neither with property nor sin. It’s carefully intended to point toward economic realities. And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. By using this terminology, Jesus is taking forgiveness into the realm of systemic economic justice, which concerns the collective, rather than the individual. The prayer Jesus taught draws on a long tradition in Judaism of the hope for a Year of Jubilee. “You shall count off…seven times seven years,” Leviticus says,

  • “So that the period of seven…years gives forty-nine years. Then you shall have the trumpet sounded loud…And you shall hallow the fiftieth year, and you shall proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a Jubilee for you.” (Leviticus 25:8-11)

It’s an old dream, and the prophets of Israel never give up on it as a possibility, and neither should we. Isaiah speaks of Jubilee when he says,

  • “The spirit of…God is upon me, because…God has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor.” (Isaiah 61:1-2)

In her book Church in the Round, Letty Russell says the prophet’s vision here announces, “that memory of God’s future is already happening as the oppressed are set at liberty and the jubilee year arrives.” (Letty Russell, Church in the Round [Louisville: John Knox Press, 1993], p. 81)

The memory of God’s future is already happening, as Jubilee arrives.

That Jubilee vision gives rise to the incarnation. Jesus quotes the same lines from Isaiah when he preaches in his home synagogue at the start of his ministry. It nearly gets him killed because Jubilee threatens the exiting economic order and promises to change the way we live by upending the existing economic order.

  • “For it is a Jubilee; it shall be holy to you…If any of your kin fall into difficulty and become dependent on you, you shall support them…You shall not lend them your money at interest taken in advance or provide them food at a profit. I am the LORD your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt.” (Leviticus 25:12, 35, 37-38)

The Year of Jubilee as understood by the ancient Hebrew people and carried forward by the prophets if Israel and then enfleshed in the person of Jesus Christ, is to be the season when God’s intentions for human community are realized.

  • “If any who are dependent on you become so impoverished that they sell themselves to you, you shall not make them serve as enslaved people. They shall remain with you as hired…laborers. They shall serve with you until the year of the Jubilee. Then they and their children with them shall…go back to their own family.” (Leviticus 25:39-41)

Jubilee repairs the world. It offers a way for justice to be done, for relationships to be restored, for the broken places in society to be healed, for economic inequities to be eased. The prayer Jesus taught is a Jubilee prayer. It is a prayer for our time, especially in America, one of the wealthiest nations on the planet, “that devotes far fewer resources” to the reduction of poverty “as a share of its gross national product than other rich democracies.” (Matthew Desmond, America Is in a Disgraced Class of its Own; N.Y. Times, March 16, 2023)

Princeton professor Matthew Desmond says,

  • “Poverty is chronic pain, on top of tooth rot, on top of debt collector harassment, on top of the nauseating fear of eviction. It is the suffocation of your talents and your dreams. It is death come early and often.”

And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. The federal hourly minimum wage is $7.25, just over $15,000 a year, and that number has not changed since 2009. Minnesota’s minimum wage is $10.59 for large employers, which equates to slightly more than $22,000 a year. Today in our nation, 38 million people live below the poverty line, which is $26,500 a year. To pay rent and other bills, to purchase food, to support children, to pay for transportation – merely to survive, day after day, people go into debt, and that debt then holds them captive.

During the pandemic, in what became an unintentional experiment, the federal government expanded the Child Tax Credit and in six months child poverty was cut in half, to the lowest level in 50 years. In only six months. And with the monthly infusion of cash support for families during the pandemic, food insecurity was the lowest it has been in 20 years. Banks reported that their lowest income customers had a 50% increase in their account balances from before the pandemic. (https://www.vox.com/2022/9/14/23352022/child-poverty-covid-tax-credit)

We know how to do this.

“The hard part isn’t designing effective antipoverty programs or figuring out how to pay for them,” Professor Desmond says. “The hard part is ending our addiction to poverty.”

In the prayer Jesus taught he’s inviting us to imagine the Jubilee, where a resetting of economic priorities and a realignment of relationships takes place, and encumbered people are freed, land taken returned, crushing debts forgiven, and equity within the community begins to be re-established.

The prayer, especially with its economic implications, confirms Isaiah’s hope long ago, that someday we might be called “repairers of the breach, restorers of streets to live in.” (Isaiah 58:12b)

And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.

This line we pray so casually week after week is a summons to get serious, to get serious about undoing the harm inflicted by economic realities in our land on the most vulnerable among us. The prayer Jesus taught commits us, as we pray it, to the work of dismantling the very real, unjust disparities that exist in our world.

There is scant evidence that the Year of Jubilee as imagined in Leviticus was ever fully implemented, but that doesn’t mean we should stop praying for it.

In fact – and as far as I’m concerned this settles it – by using debts and debtors in the prayer Jesus taught, we are praying for the more just economic order that God envisions.

To God be the glory.

Amen.

Reactions

For a long time, I have thought that the correct version of this line was the one said by Lutherans and many other Christian churches that referenced “trespasses” and “trespassed” because those words, for me, connoted wrongs or sins. On the other hand, the words “debts” and “debtors” that we use at Westminster for me connoted legitimate economic transactions.

This sermon, therefore, surprised and shocked me. It really is a radical call for upsetting the existing order of things. As Rev. Hart-Andersen said, “ Jesus is taking forgiveness into the realm of systemic economic justice, which concerns the collective, rather than the individual. The prayer Jesus taught draws on a long tradition in Judaism of the hope for a year of Jubilee. [After 49 years of normal or regular economic transactions, on the fiftieth year, as Leviticus says] you shall proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a Jubilee for you.”

This passage of the Prayer made me wonder whether  in Jesus’ days most people lived in small villages or towns where people knew one another and had limited financial dealings with one another and, therefore, would find it easier to forgive debts.

When, however, Jesus preaches this message at the start of his ministry, it “nearly gets him killed because Jubilee threatens the existing economic order and promises to change the way we live by upending the existing economic order.”

Moreover, given the contemporary size and complexity of financial transactions among different governments, international banks, other corporations and individuals, it is impossible for any individual or collection of individuals to forgive such debts and indebtedness. Moreover, today the U.S. is in the midst of a challenging threat to that international economic system with whether or not the U.S. federal government will increase the limit on its indebtedness.

Therefore, this line of the prayer for today’s world calls for the adoption and implementation of antipoverty programs all over the world or, as this sermon says, this Jesus prayer “commits us, as we pray it, to the work of dismantling the very real, unjust disparities that exist in our world” and creating “the more just economic order that God envisions.”

================================

[1] Earlier posts about this series of sermons: The Lord’s Prayer at Minneapolis’ Westminster Presbyterian Church (May 2, 2023); The Prayer Jesus Taught: “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name”  (May 4, 2023);The Prayer Jesus Taught: “Thy kingdom come, they will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (May 6, 2023); The Prayer Jesus Taught: ”Give us this day, our daily bread” (May 8, 2023).

[2] Rev. Dr. Timothy Hart-Andersen. Sermon: The Prayer Jesus Taught: “And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors” (Mar. 19, 2023); Bulletin, Westminster Presbyterian Church (Minneapolis) (Mar. 19, 2023).

The Prayer Jesus Taught: ”Give us this day, our daily bread” 

On March 12, 2023, Rev. Dr. Tim Hart-Andersen, the Senior Pastor at Minneapolis’ Westminster Presbyterian Church, delivered the third of his five sermons on different passages of the Lord’s Prayer.[1] This sermon was on a portion of the third sentence (in bold) of that Prayer:

  • “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen. “

Scripture

Luke 12: 13-24  (New Revised Standard Version)

“Someone in the crowd said to [Jesus], ‘Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.’  But [Jesus] said to him, “Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?”  And [Jesus] said to them, “Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.”  Then [Jesus] told them a parable: ‘The land of a rich man produced abundantly.  And he thought to himself, ‘What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?’  Then he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods.  And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’  But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’  So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.”

“[Jesus] said to his disciples, ‘Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear.  For life is more than food and the body more than clothing.  Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds!’

Sermon[2]

Our Lenten exploration of the prayer Jesus taught has prompted a lot of response. I’m hearing from many of you, which is great. It’s like a dialogue. That happens when we peel back layers of an essential and powerful part of our faith.

One church member told me he still remembers a sermon series on the prayer Jesus taught, delivered from this pulpit by Don Meisel more than three decades ago. Some have said they intend to continue using traditional language – Father, kingdom, thy, thine. Others say they are using altered vocabulary – Father/Mother, reign, realm, you, yours. Someone handed me a worship bulletin with her preferred terms penciled in above the scratched out printed words. Still others have sent prayers that follow the basic outline of what Jesus taught yet with entirely new wording.

We may hear these different versions in worship as we say the prayer together, and that’s fine. It won’t be the first time. Haven’t we all noticed when we say this prayer at a Minnesota wedding or memorial service, a little competition breaks out in the pews over debts and trespasses? We’ll get to that next week.

The 20-second spiritual practice called the Lord’s Prayer is important to us. The prayer Jesus taught is so deeply embedded in our consciousness and in our hearts that hearing it – just hearing it start – provokes a kinetic memory in the body; we want to fold our hands, close our eyes, and bow our heads. It’s intrinsic to our faith. Will Willimon, a retired Methodist Bishop and theologian, has said, “A Christian is…someone who has learned to pray the Lord’s Prayer.” (Lord, Teach Us [Nashville: Abingdon, 1996], p. 18)

I think that bar is a little low, and that how someone lives may, in fact, be a better indicator of Christian faith, but his point is that people who follow Jesus learn the prayer he teaches. And most of us learn it early in life. One of my favorite moments in worship happens when I hear a young voice saying the prayer loud enough to be heard over the rest of us.

Now we turn to today’s line from the prayer: Give us this day our daily bread.

With this line Jesus signals a shift in the prayer away from the opening words about the holiness of God and God’s reign to more specific, human needs. Several petitions follow in rapid succession, each with an imperative: Give. Forgive. Lead. Deliver. The urgent verbs of these petitions sound almost impertinent, so demanding of God as to be disrespectful. That Jesus would teach us to use such strong wording in our prayer indicates how much we can trust the one to whom we pray. God wants our authentic selves in prayer. A parent hears this kind of language from their child all the time – the demanding imperatives that parents deal with, God has to deal with from us in this prayer.

We have been watching the pronouns in the prayer. From the start Jesus teaches that we do not offer privatized prayer to “my” God. Nowhere in the prayer does the first-person pronoun appear. That’s true even when we get to these petitions, each of which is intensely personal – I worry about my bread, my debt, my forgiveness, my temptations I’ll worry about mine; you worry about yours. Those are all challenges in life you and I know about intimately, but Jesus does not want us to think of ourselves as facing them alone, in isolation from others. It’s not give me today my daily bread. Life doesn’t work like that. In the prayer, it’s our bread, our debts, our temptations.

In the film A Man Called Otto, Tom Hanks plays Otto Anderson. Following the death of his wife and his 4 4 retirement Otto feels that his world has ended. He slips further and further into isolation. He closes in on himself and cuts himself off from others. Otto’s neighbor Marisol tries to break through to him repeatedly, but cannot. Finally, she says to him, “You think your life is so hard and…you have to do it all on your own – well guess what? You can’t. No one can.”

The film follows the story of the neighbors surrounding Otto, helping him understand he is not alone and that no one can do life by themselves. Eventually they become a small community around Otto and bring him back to the land of the living. We cannot thrive in life apart from others.

Jesus communicates that truth when he teaches that we use collective pronouns when we pray, because life is not a private, isolated, atomized reality. We are created for community.

Give us this day our daily bread.

This phrase in the prayer stands out in the biblical Greek. Unlike the other petitions in the prayer that begin with a verb – forgive, lead, deliver – this line starts with a noun: bread. It reads literally something like this: The bread of us daily, give us today. Jesus focuses here more on the bread, than the giving of it. Daily bread. Bread daily.

As Jesus taught this line in the prayer his listeners, who knew the stories of the Hebrew people, would have heard an illusion to the “bread of heaven” that came down to the hungry Israelites as they escaped from enslavement in Egypt and wandered the wilderness. God provided manna daily, daily manna, and it sustained the people. It was only one day’s nourishment, and everyone received the same amount. No manna was wasted. No manna could be hoarded from one day to the next.

Jesus draws on that image as a way to teach us the difference between what is necessary for life and what is beyond sufficient. The parable of the rich farmer and his barns echoes the old story of the Israelites and the manna. When the land produces more than he could possibly consume, rather than share it with those in need, he decides to tear down his barns and build new, bigger ones to keep it all for himself. That way he can “relax, eat, drink, and be merry.”

Something like the American dream, isn’t it.

“’You fool,’” God says to the rich man in the parable, “This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves, but are not rich toward God…Be on your 6 6 guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” (Luke 12:15-21)

 Give us this day our daily bread.

It would be hypocritical for the rich man in the parable with his hoarded surplus of grain to pray this line in the prayer Jesus taught. How could he pray only for his own needs to be met and ignore those of his neighbors? That may help explain the placement of the teaching of the prayer Jesus taught in Luke’s gospel. The prayer precedes by only a few paragraphs the moment when Jesus tells the parable of the rich man and his extra barns, as if Jesus were saying, remember the prayer I just taught? This is what I was trying to communicate: we all need bread each day, and if you have more than enough, then share it.

 The writing of early Christians on this line in the prayer shows that the Church understood exactly what Jesus was aiming at here. The Didache, a treatise on Christian faith written in the second century, and one of the earliest non-canonical sources of the prayer Jesus taught, says this:

  • “Do not be like those who are prompt to open their hand to receive and prompt to close it when it comes to giving…You shall not reject the needy but will share all things…and call nothing your own. If you share the eternal goods, shouldn’t you share even more those that are in passing?” (Quoted by Justo Gonzalez in Teach Us to Pray [Grand Rapids, Eerdmans; 2020], p. 110)

Praying this simple line about bread can be costly. In fact, that’s true of the entire prayer Jesus teaches. We should sit up and pay attention when we offer it each week in worship. Frederick Buechner warns us about the prayer.

  • “We do well not to pray it lightly. It takes guts to pray it at all. We can pray it in the unthinking and perfunctory way we usually do only by disregarding what we are saying…To speak those words is to let the tiger out of the cage, to unleash a power that makes atomic power look like a warm breeze.” (Quoted in Will Willimon, Lord, Teach Us [Nashville: Abingdon, 1996], Epigraph)

Give us this day our daily bread.

To pray like that is to reject the culture of continuous consumption and instead learn to be satisfied with only what we need. This is a prayer and a commitment, a promise to help meet the most basic needs of others.

Pope Francis, elected pope ten years ago tomorrow, has written a short book of the prayer Jesus taught. “When we pray the Our Father,” he says, using the Catholic terminology,

  • “It would be good for us to linger a bit over this petition – ‘give us bread today’ – and to think about how many people do not have this bread. At home as children, when a piece of bread fell, my family taught us to pick it up right away and kiss it. Bread was never thrown away. Bread is a symbol of the unity of humanity; a symbol of God’s love for you.” (Pope Francis, Our Father [Milano, Rizzoli Libri; 2017], p. 74- 75)

Last year in Minnesota the use of food shelves skyrocketed by 53.5%. Jesus is teaching us here to rein in our consumptive impulses and simply pray for something to eat for others and for ourselves. To feed the hungry is a universal ethical imperative for the Church, arising from this line in the prayer. I’m glad to report that just this morning Westminster’s Hunger Ministry Team released from our resources more than $51,000 to several local food shelves, to do our part to help meet the need. (https://www.mprnews.org/story/2023/02/08/foodshelf-visits-jumped-nearly-54-percent-last-year-inminnesota)

Give us this day our daily bread.

Bread plays an outsize role in scripture. When we say this line, we are recalling the place of bread in the long story of the people of God – from the provision of manna in the wilderness,      to the breaking of bread as a sign of the first covenant, to the bread offered at Isaiah’s mountaintop feast, to the miracle of the loaves and fishes, to the words Jesus says as he breaks bread at the Last Supper, to the bread provided by Jesus at the resurrection picnic on the beach, to the eyes that open at the breaking of bread with the risen Jesus in Emmaus.

Even little Bethlehem, the town of Jesus’ birth, gets in on it: Bethlehem means house of bread in Hebrew.

With bread at the heart of the biblical story, it should not surprise us when Jesus says, “Í am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry.” (John 6:35)

Give us this day that bread, our daily bread.

This one short line in the prayer opens to us a world of meaning around the word bread. When we pray it, it takes us to the joyful feast of the people of God, where the breaking of bread is a sign of the new covenant, the promise of God.

Every time we eat our daily bread, whether at the communion table, at the banquet table, or at the kitchen table, we take it, and break it, and in that action, we remember the promise of God that all shall be fed.

To God be the glory.

Amen.

Reactions

This sermon was especially meaningful for me in its shifting to the imperatives for every one of us without “privatized” pronouns. It emphasizes that no one is alone and no one can live a life by himself or herself. “Jesus communicates that truth when he teaches that we use collective pronouns when we pray because life is not a private, isolated, atomized reality. We are created for community.”

This was recognized in a second century Christian treatise, the Didache, when it said, “Do not be like those who are prompt to open their hand to receive and prompt to close it when it comes to giving. . . You shall not reject the needy but will share all things . . . and call nothing your own. If you share the eternal goods, shouldn’t you share even more those that are in passing?”

And in our own time, Frederick Buechner, a deceased Presbyterian preacher, theologian and author, said: “We do well not to pray [the Lord’s Prayer] lightly. It takes guts to pray it at all. . . . To speak those words is to let the tiger out of the cage, to unleash a power that makes atomic power look like a warm breeze.”

This line of the prayer focuses on the basic food of bread, not on meat or cheese or a food prepared in accordance with a fancy recipe. And this line of the prayer focuses on a human’s daily need for the food.

I reiterate my suggestion that the communal  recitation of this prayer should be slowed down with a pause after every line  of the prayer to provide time for reflection.

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[1] Earlier posts about this series of sermons: The Lord’s Prayer at Minneapolis’ Westminster Presbyterian Church (May 2, 2023); The Prayer Jesus Taught: “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name”  (May 4, 2023); The Prayer Jesus Taught: “Thy kingdom come, they will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (May 6, 2023).

[2] Rev. Dr. Timothy Hart-Andersen, Sermon: The Prayer Jesus Taught: ”Give us this day, our daily bread” (Mar. 12, 2023); Westminster Bulletin for Service (Mar. 12, 2023).

The Prayer Jesus Taught: “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven”

On March 5, 2023, Rev. Dr. Tim Hart-Andersen, the Senior Pastor at Minneapolis’ Westminster Presbyterian Church, delivered the second of his five sermons on different passages of the Lord’s Prayer.[1] This sermon was on the second sentence (in bold) of that Prayer:

Scripture

Matthew 5:43-48 (New Revised Standard Version)

  • “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,  so that you may be children of your Father in heaven, for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.  For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?  And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the gentiles do the same?  Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

Sermon [2]

 Last Sunday we began our Lenten exploration of the prayer Jesus taught. During this season we want to awaken within us the meaning and power of this prayer that can too easily become merely a rote spiritual practice done over and over and over again.

We looked at the words hallowed be thy name in the first line and remembered that prayers are addressed not to ourselves or to others listening to us, but to the One who is Holy and Other. Prayer begins with praise of God.

We looked at the male language Jesus uses to name God and asked if it might get in the way of our praying to God because of evolving imagery for the divine and shifting use of gendered terminology. We explored other options for naming God. I received a note this week from a parent telling me that after last Sunday their four-year-old is now starting their prayers each night with “Our Mother, our Father…”

Language matters because it shapes our understanding of the world – and, as people of faith, it forms our view of the One we worship and serve. That’s true for children and adults, although it may be more difficult for those of us who’ve been using the same language for decades to make changes when we sense they may be needed. The prayer Jesus taught has wording so ingrained in us that we barely notice it as we say it. Occasionally on a Sunday I mouth the words to the prayer silently – not saying a thing – so I might listen to others, as if hearing it for the first time.

The one phrase in the opening line of the prayer Jesus taught that we did not look at last week is the reference to divine geography: who art in heaven. The wording intentionally distinguishes our location from God’s. The phrase acknowledges that we are on earth, while God inhabits a cosmos not bound by temporal or spatial parameters. This difference becomes more important in the second line of the prayer: Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

The wording here is not pushing us to think of heaven and earth as separate, competing realities. Jesus is not endorsing a dualistic view of humanity and divinity. On the contrary, he’s inviting us to do the opposite: to imagine that heaven and earth may be one and the same – on earth as it is in heaven – a truly far-reaching vision. It recalls the prophet’s imagination:

  • “The wolf shall live with the lamb,

The leopard shall lie down with the kid,

The calf and the lion and the fatling together,

And a little child shall lead them.” (Isaiah 11:6)

The prayer Jesus taught is an incitement to rebellion against the way things are on earth because they do not reflect the ways of heaven. Each Sunday we blithely say this prayer together, when its powerful and unsettling meaning should cause us to squirm in our pews.

Justo Gonzales says that when we pray this line, “What we are calling for is not so much a different place as a different order. It is a new order in which, as Jesus promises, those who have been last will be first.”

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. 

Some may chafe at the use of outdated terminology in this line. In another email I received this week someone said, “I struggle with…‘thy’ and ‘thine.’ Those (words) come across to me as over pious, kind of like the words Jesus warned his disciples against. Other than in Shakespeare, they just aren’t words I hear or use in my daily life.”

How true that is. No one talks like that anymore. The most common English version of the prayer Jesus taught does use the idiom of Shakespeare, which is not surprising, since the King James Version of the Bible, from where we draw this prayer, was written in 1611 – a few years ago!

We do not use such pronouns today, so why do they continue to appear in the prayer? Many recent versions of the prayer have shifted to the words “you” and “yours.”

The biblical Greek makes a distinction that today’s English cannot replicate when it comes to the second person pronoun. In English the word you is both singular and plural – which is a good argument for more of us starting to use y’all. The Greek term Jesus uses here is only singular to make it abundantly clear to his listeners that anyone praying this prayer is speaking to the one God who alone is worthy of our prayer.

 The traditional English wording tries to respect that by using “thy kingdom.” Its formality highlights the distinction in Greek, but it may not be worth making the grammatical point, especially if it introduces wording that comes between us and the one to whom we pray. If that’s the case, modern English would be preferable. Feel free to give it a try: Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. 

There are other challenges with this line. It echoes the male language of the opening words of the prayer with the word “kingdom.” The word rendered kingdom in our English Bibles translates the Greek basileia, which, ironically, is a feminine noun. We could follow the Greek and simply insert “queendom” in the prayer, but that may not resolve the issue.

Some are using the word “kin-dom.” Kin-dom has the advantage of no gendered reference, and highlights the familial nature of God’s hope for humankind.

Yet, the term kin-dom softens the political implications of the words of Jesus. He could have found terminology more expressive of family relationships, but instead Jesus leans into the political and chooses language that embraces the sovereignty of God within the human community.

There are other options for wording that capture the intent of Jesus to ground the hope of his prayer in our communal life together. The word “dominion,” for instance, refers to a political realm that could reflect divine hopes for human community. But to our ears dominion sounds a little too close to domination, and we do not want to pray for any more of that in our world.

The word “reign” might be the best alternative. It carries the political connotation Jesus wants and preserves the sovereignty of God. In fact, the two terms – reign and sovereign – are cognates. Feel free to try that alternate wording: Your reign come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. 

This line is the heart of the prayer Jesus teaches. It’s his personal mission statement. It names the purpose of the incarnation. It sums up the gospel. When the ministry of Jesus begins, both John the Baptizer and Jesus say that “the basileia of God” – the reign of God – “has come near.”

What exactly is the basileia of God? How do we describe the reign of God? Writing in the 16th century, John Calvin argued that one could not know the reign of God apart from the will of God and argued that’s why Jesus added to the prayer the phrase ‘your will be done.’ (Quoted by Justo Gonzalez in Teach Us to Pray [Grand Rapids, Eerdmans; 2020], p. 92)

Praying that God’s reign would break forth, then, is the same as praying that God’s will might be known. To know God’s will and to pursue it has been the calling of every follower of Jesus in every age, including our own.

In North Africa in the 3rd century Bishop Cyprian of Carthage wrote persuasively about the prayer Jesus taught, particularly this line. ‘The will of God,’ he said, may be seen in what Christ did and taught. This bishop’s words from 18 centuries ago about the prayer Jesus taught seem to be addressed to us in our time. To pray that God’s will would be done – which is what Christians pray every time they use the words Jesus taught – means, according to Cyprian:

“Humility in conversation;

steadfastness in faith;

modesty in words.

Justice in deeds;

mercifulness in works;

discipline in morals;

to be unable to do a wrong and to be able to bear a wrong when done;

to keep peace with all;

to love God with all one’s heart.”

(Quoted in Teach Us to Pray, p. 92)

Your reign come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. 

 

To pray as Jesus taught is to long with all our being that God’s desires would be implemented on earth as they surely are in heaven. Each time the prayer crosses our lips we commit ourselves, again and again, to take an active part in the inbreaking of God’s hope for the world.

If we really want to know what the will of God in heaven is, we need only read the words of Jesus and watch and learn from his ministry. Jesus spends a good deal of the Sermon on the Mount getting into specifics, about justice, about lying, about anger, about insults, about hypocrisy, about lust, about generosity, and so much more. The Christian gospels could be sub-titled, what the reign of God looks like on earth.

The parables of Jesus are another way to creatively tell what the will of God is. The stories about the mustard seed and the lost coin and the good Samaritan and the woman at the well all offer insight on the will of God for the human community. Every time Jesus heals someone it’s as if the reign of God has splashed down on earth. When Jesus ignores norms and expectations and incudes someone that others are rejecting, God’s will is done on earth as it is in heaven. When the sun rises on the evil and the good and it rain on the righteous and the unrighteous, we catch a glimpse of God’s ways on earth as they are in heaven. And

When Jesus says, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of God in heaven,” he makes it clear that the standards in his prayer for human relationships, whether personal or communal, are not the standards of the world.

All the words and deeds and stories of Jesus come rushing into view when we pray the prayer he taught. “Be perfect, therefore,” he says, “As your heavenly Abba is perfect.” As if that were possible.

Jesus has high hopes for us – but he knows, as do all of us, that we will fall short. A bit more modest approach might be: Help us, O God, to be as perfect as possible in our living so that we might reflect your will in heaven – however imperfectly – on this earth. 

The prayer Jesus taught is not to be taken lightly or glossed over. It is, after all, meant to turn the world upside down, and all of us with it.

Your reign come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. 

To God be the glory.

Amen.

Reactions

I thank Rev. Hart-Andersen for this and the other sermons about the Lord’s Prayer. He is correct that this Prayer “is so familiar we can easily glide by it without noticing.” Here are words in the Sermon that were especially meaningful to me:

  • Jesus wants us to imagine that heaven and earth may be one and the same. Jesus invites rebelion against the way things are on earth.
  • “Your reign come, your will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven” is Jesus’ personal mission statement.
  • “Reign” carries political connotation Jesus wants while preserving the sovereignty of God.
  • Bishop Cyprian of Carthage: the will of God may be seen in what Jesus said and taught.
  • Parables tell us what the will of God is.

Although it was interesting to hear about suggested changes in wording of the Prayer to address contemporary concerns about male-female issues, I do not want to see those changes.

I reiterate my suggestion that the communal  recitation of this prayer should be slowed down with a pause after every line  of the prayer to provide time for reflection.

========================

[1] Earlier posts about this series of sermons: The Lord’s Prayer at Minneapolis’ Westminster Presbyterian Church (May 2, 2023); The Prayer Jesus Taught: “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name”  (May 4, 2023).

[2]] Rev. Dr. Timothy Hart-Andersen, Sermon: The Prayer Jesus Taught: “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven,” Westminster Presbyterian Church (Mar. 5, 2023). Here is the Bulletin for that service.  Westminster Presbyterian Church, Bulletin (Mar. 5, 2023).

 

The Prayer Jesus Taught: “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name”       

On February 26, 2023, Rev. Dr. Tim Hart-Andersen, the Senior Pastor at Minneapolis’ Westminster Presbyterian Church, delivered the first of his five sermons on different passages of the Lord’s Prayer. This sermon was on the first sentence (in bold) of that Prayer:

  • ““Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen. “

Scripture for the Day

Psalm 96 (New Revised Standard)

O sing to the Lord a new song;
sing to the Lord, all the earth.
 Sing to the Lord; bless his name;
tell of his salvation from day to day.
 Declare his glory among the nations,
his marvelous works among all the peoples.
For great is the Lord and greatly to be praised;
he is to be revered above all gods.
For all the gods of the peoples are idols,
but the Lord made the heavens.
Honor and majesty are before him;
strength and beauty are in his sanctuary.

Ascribe to the Lord, O families of the peoples,
ascribe to the Lord glory and strength.
Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name;
bring an offering, and come into his courts.
Worship the Lord in holy splendor;
tremble before him, all the earth.

Say among the nations, “The Lord is king!
The world is firmly established; it shall never be moved.
He will judge the peoples with equity.”
 Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice;
let the sea roar and all that fills it;
     let the field exult and everything in it.
Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy
    before the Lord, for he is coming,
for he is coming to judge the earth.
He will judge the world with righteousness
and the peoples with his truth.

Matthew 6: 7-11 (New Revised Standard)

“When you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard because of their many words.  Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

 “Pray, then, in this way:                                                                                                           ‘Our Father in heaven, may your name be revered as holy.
 May your kingdom come.
May your will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.”

The Sermon[1]

“As people of faith, it’s good to stop from time to time and look at spiritual routines we do so often they may have become rote. The Lord’s Prayer is one such practice. We pray it in worship each Sunday, we say it at memorial services and weddings, at the end of church meetings. The Lord’s Prayer is so familiar we can easily glide by it without noticing.”

“Over the next five Sundays in Lent, we will delve into – and sometimes challenge – the Lord’s Prayer line-by-line, in order to re-engage with it as an essential spiritual practice, one used by Christians the world over – and sometimes misused. That’s the other reason why it’s important – even urgent – to spend time with the Lord’s Prayer in this season: it’s being used inappropriately, wielded at public events to cloak certain positions with a false veneer of righteousness.”

“The Lord’s Prayer has been shouted by protestors at anti-vax rallies. It’s been yelled at government hearings and at school board meetings. It was a rallying cry for those who assaulted the U.S. Capitol on January 6 two years ago. As the attackers entered the Capitol, the version of the prayer with “trespasses” was being shouted over a bullhorn. The irony was probably lost on those who heard it that day.”

“A similar hijacking of prayer in his time prompted Jesus to teach his followers how to pray.’“Do not be like the hypocrites,’ Jesus says of people flaunting their religion in public, ‘For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others.”

“Our Lenten engagement with the Lord’s Prayer is meant to rehabilitate it for us as a deep spiritual practice. We aim to re-discover the power of the prayer as an expression of Christian faith.”

“First, [a prayer] doesn’t have to be eloquent or a theological masterpiece. In fact, just the opposite. Jesus said as much. “When you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases as (some) do; for they think they will be heard because of their many words.”

“Prayer can be intimidating to some of us, as if we weren’t good enough or holy enough or learned enough to try it ourselves. Our Presbyterian emphasis on an educated clergy may be partly to blame here. One does not need to go to seminary to turn to God in prayer! From what Jesus teaches, we learn that God is much more interested in our authentic, honest, broken, needy, confused, thirsty selves than in some well-polished ecclesiastically approved work of art. It doesn’t have to be the blue iris. It could be weeds in a vacant lot.”

“The second insight about prayer the poet [Mary Oliver]offers is this: just pay attention. Prayer requires that we stop long enough to turn to that which is holy, to wonder at what we cannot know but ache to comprehend. Jesus does this by withdrawing from others to find such moments. He goes up the mountain to pray alone. He advises us to go into our rooms and close the door to attend to the mystery. We will never fully grasp the one whose presence we seek when we pray. It is enough merely to pay attention.”

“The third insight Mary Oliver gives us is the function of prayer. It is not meant to produce things. It is not transactional, which is how some people use it: Give me this, God, and I’ll give you that. God is not interested in that approach to prayer. ‘This isn’t a contest,’ Oliver says, ‘But the doorway into thanks, and a silence in which another voice may speak.’”

“Good advice on praying, including the Lord’s Prayer, from the poet’s point of view: Don’t worry about getting the words precisely right. Instead, pay attention, and with gratitude move into the silence and listen.”

“The Lord’s Prayer is found in Matthew and Luke. The Matthew version, which is the core of the Sermon on the Mount, became the one used most widely in the Church.

“The prayer Jesus taught starts, as prayers do in Judaism, by addressing God. So often our prayers can be used to make points or are directed more at other people than to God. We say, ‘Sending prayers your way,’ to show support for someone, when it is God to whom those prayers should be directed. The simplest test of any prayer’s authenticity is this: does it speak in a way that lets God be God?”

“The Lord’s Prayer begins in a way that echoes the psalms of old:”

‘O sing to the LORD a new song.

Sing to the LORD; bless God’s name.

Hallowed be thy name.

Worship the LORD in holy splendor.

Ascribe to the LORD the glory due God’s name.

Hallowed be thy name.’”

“Prayer begins when we praise God’s name with adoration. Jesus chooses to name God ‘Our Father’ to start his prayer.”

“Using the word ‘Our’ places us with Jesus in praying to God. The first-person plural possessive pronoun signals that although this prayer may be said by an individual, that individual is never alone in offering it. Imagine the difference if it had begun, ‘My Father who art in heaven.’”

“Christian faith does not privatize religion and our prayers should not either. We might have a personal relationship with God through Jesus, but it is never singularly privileged. The prayer Jesus taught places us within the community of all those who address the same God every time we say it, together or alone.”

“The term Father appears in Hebrew scripture. Male references to God occur there, like that which we heard in the psalm today where God is called ‘king.’ And Father was used occasionally by Jews in their prayers and worship. But the way Jesus employed the term that day in his sermon on the hillside must have caused a murmur in the crowd.”

“He taught the prayer in Aramaic, not in the formal liturgical Hebrew a rabbi would use in ritual and worship of that time. Instead, he spoke in the common vernacular of that time. He used Abba for Father. That is everyday family language you would hear around the home. It’s the wording of intimate relationship between son and dad, and Jesus uses it repeatedly in the gospel, especially in Matthew.”

“Christianity listens in as Jesus teaches about prayer and hears Jesus using this wording for God repeatedly in the gospels. The early Church picks up where Jesus leaves off and embeds male language for God in its worship and creeds and teaching. This happens to such an extent through the years that, over time, God simply becomes male. Male language about God becomes the norm for worship in community or in individual piety and prayer. And over two millennia this language about God comes to ratify and solidify patriarchal power inside and outside the Church. A male God rules in heaven and men rule on earth.”

“But language is shifting, as it always does, in every age. In our time, gendered terminology is yielding to new ways of speaking not bound to old categories. That is true for the language of faith and for the language we use commonly among ourselves. How many times have you logged into an online meeting and next to the names of those on the call they have placed their preferred pronouns?”

“Language is not fixed; it is fluid and dynamic. That is certainly the case for today’s religious vocabulary. Our understanding of God and how we speak about God is evolving, and doing so in ways that may make us uncomfortable or cause us to feel as if we were losing our faith because the words have changed. This evolution can be especially threatening to those who cling to male domination.”

“We live in an era when traditional patriarchy is being challenged all the time – and patriarchy is defending itself. You may have heard Putin refer to a ‘spiritual catastrophe’ in the West in his speech this week.”

“’The Anglican Church is considering a gender-neutral God,; the Russian leader said, as if such a view of God would be a sign of inexcusable, anti-male weakness. /May God forgive them, for they know not what they do.’”

“The Anglican Church knows precisely what it is doing. They are trying to discern what language to use to reflect God’s inclusive vision of God’s own self and of the diversity of the human community. And Anglicans are not alone in wrestling with gender-neutral language about God. Presbyterians went through this thirty years ago.”

“We set up a national committee to write a Brief Statement of Faith. The group split over whether to use Father in referring to God. Some insisted on using the traditional term because it connected so deeply to their own personal faith. Others insisted on avoiding the term altogether because they had come to understand God in a broader way. In a compromise, they finally agreed on this line: We trust in God, whom Jesus called Abba, Father.”

“That satisfied those on both sides of the debate. That rationale can be used to make peace with continuing to pray the Lord’s Prayer by using ‘Our Fathe’ as a quote of what Jesus said, while avoiding male language to refer to God in our own words. And it makes room for more traditional wording, if preferred. That is essentially the approach Westminster uses in its worship.”

“The Roman Catholic Church addresses this issue in paragraph number 239 of its official Catechism, where it says, ‘God transcends the human distinction between the sexes.’ So far so good. And then it goes on to say: ‘He is neither man nor woman. He is God.’ We don’t mean to pick on the Catholics – and good for them for struggling with language around God – but it is evident there is more work to do. Using the logic of the Catechism, let’s try substituting female terminology and see what it does for our image of the Almighty: God transcends the human distinction between the sexes. She is neither man nor woman. She is God.”

.“Or how about, Our Mother, who art in heaven, hallowed by Thy name. Imagine teaching that prayer to our children, generation after generation. Imagine 2,000 years of that wording about God crafting our understanding of the Creator. Language matters. It forms our worldview. It shapes our consciousness and defines our human relationships. And it certainly molds our faith.”

“This is more than a pronoun problem. A church members wrote me recently, ‘I want you to know,’ she said. ‘The Lord’s Prayer is problematic for many women, and I doubt that is what Jesus would have wanted. After all, he was a revolutionary who bucked tradition.’”

“I couldn’t agree more. The Church finds itself today in the awkward position of having wording in its central prayer that some find off-putting, exclusive, or even traumatizing.”

“So how can those who need to, pray the Lord’s Prayer in a way that expresses the loving tenderness of Jesus toward God – son to dad – without using Father, or only Father? The term Creator is a possibility, but it doesn’t express a family-like relationship. No one refers to their parent as the Creator. The word Parent is another, but it, too, lacks intimacy. How do we find language that expresses the tenderness and love that Jesus shows in prayer, but doesn’t get in the way of our relationship with God?”

“Some have found it helpful to add Mother to the prayer. Our Father and our Mother, hallowed by your name. Feel free to try it. The point Jesus is after here is to use language in reference to God that expresses a deeply held relationship that is loving and tender and intimate.”

“As we will see through this Lenten series, the Lord’s Prayer is so central to our faith, and so far-reaching in its implications, that the worst thing to do would be to give up on it altogether or cede it to those who would misuse it.”

“Perhaps remembering [poet] Mary Oliver’s advice would be helpful here. When we pray, we should not let our language be a barrier between us and God. We will never get the words exactly right because we will never fully understand the One to whom we pray.”

“Instead, let us be mindful that, in the poet’s words:

‘This isn’t a contest

but the doorway

into thanks, and a silence in which

another voice may speak.’”

“To God be the glory.”

“Amen.”

Reactions

I thank Rev. Hart-Andersen for this and the other sermons about the Lord’s Prayer. He is correct that this Prayer “is so familiar we can easily glide by it without noticing.” The Prayer and this sermon remind us that our own prayers do not have to be eloquent or theological masterpieces and should be addressed to God and that God is neither male nor female.

I suggest that the communal  recitation of this prayer should be slowed down with a pause after every line  of the prayer to provide time for reflection.

=====================================

[1]  Rev. Dr. Tim Hart-Andersen, Sermon: The Prayer Jesus Taught: “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name” (Feb. 26, 2023).

 

My Call Stories

Here are my call stories in response to Rev. Tim Hart-Andersen’s  sermon,“What Is Your Call Story?,” which was the subject of a prior post.  

The sermon drew from the Bible’s account of Isaiah receiving a direct call from God and Zacchae’us having one from Jesus. I never had such a direct call and doubt that I ever will. Instead, as will be discussed, I have responded to various requests by friends and colleagues to do something that upon reflection were calls to service. Such requests often can lead to personal reflection and conversations with pastors and friends to discern whether there has been a call and what your response should be.

The title of the sermon suggests that each of us only has one call story. Yet I have had multiple calls to service and believe that is or should be a common experience. After all the sermon mentions the pastor’s father, Rev. Dr. Henry William Andersen, who had a strong calling to Presbyterian ministry, but upon his retirement from that ministry was perplexed for a while before he discovered a calling to retire and be a friend and counselor to other retired people.

In other words, vocation “implies a dedication to a certain kind of work or service over a period of time. A one-time effort probably does not count. On the other hand, . . . vocation does not necessarily require a lifetime commitment to doing a certain thing. Indeed, an individual’s circumstances change over time and what was a vocation for one period of life may not be appropriate for other period. Thus, an individual may have several vocations over time, some of which might be simultaneous.” [1]

Before I joined Westminster in 1981 I had no religious calls to service.

My Calls to Service

Church Leadership [2]

Shortly after I joined the church, I was asked to be an elder of the church. At the time I was surprised that the church wanted someone to serve in that capacity with such limited experience in the church, but I said “Yes” and now regard that as a call to service. This led to service on various church committees—Spiritual Growth, Evangelism and Global Partnerships, the last of which I chaired for ten years. In the process I learned a lot about these different programs and helped shape their missions.

This call was expanded by an invitation I accepted to join the Board of Trustees of United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities, an ecumenical Protestant institution, which I served, 1988-1998.

The Sanctuary Movement Lawsuit [3]

While serving as a church leader, I struggled with how I could integrate my new religious faith with an active legal practice as a corporate litigator.

The answer to that struggle emerged in 1985, when the senior partner at my law firm asked me to provide legal advice to a firm client and his church, the American Lutheran  Church (ALC), which was headquartered in Minneapolis and since merged into the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). The problem was to help ALC decide what it should do in response to the U.S. Government’s disclosure in a criminal case in Arizona that the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS and now the (Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE)) had sent undercover agents into worship services and Bible study meetings in ALC and Presbyterian churches in Arizona that were involved in the Sanctuary Movement.

The result was the ALC joined my denomination—Presbyterian Church U.S.A.—in suing the U.S. Government in federal court in Arizona over what we called “spies in the churches.” In preparation for that case, I had a trip to Phoenix to meet religious leaders involved in the Movement, including Rev. John Fife of Southside Presbyterian Church in Tucson, who in 1986 was convicted of harboring and transporting illegal aliens and served five years probation before being elected Moderator (the national leader) of my denomination. 

The courtroom work in this case was handed by two excellent lawyers—Peter Baird and Janet Napolitano of the Phoenix firm of Lewis and Roca (n/k/a Lewis Roca Rothgerber Christie)—and after a Ninth Circuit reversal of a judgment for the Government, the court in Arizona granted a declaratory judgment that the U.S. Constitution’s “freedom of religion” Claus of the First Amendment protected churches from unreasonable investigations. (Napolitano, of course, later became U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona, the state’s Attorney General and Governor and Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and now is the President of the University of California.)

Thus, I came to understand that my senior partner’s asking me to provide legal services to the ALC was a call to religious service.

Becoming a Pro Bono Asylum Lawyer [4]

Moreover, at the start of the Sanctuary Movement case, I knew very little about the Sanctuary Movement or refugee and asylum law or what had been going on in Central America. This led to my leaning about this area of the law through a refugee and asylum training program from Minnesota Advocates for Human rights (n/k/a Advocates for Human Rights) and then volunteering to be a pro bono (no fee) attorney for an asylum applicant from El Salvador. Simultaneously I engaged in research about the Sanctuary Movement and about what had been happening in that country. I then tried the case with an experienced immigration attorney in the Immigration Court in Minneapolis. As was typical at the time, we lost the case, but immediately filed an appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals in Washington, D.C., which enabled our client to remain in the U.S. with a work permit.

My Pilgrimage to El Salvador [5]

In 1988 I volunteered to handle another Salvadoran asylum case, which was more complicated. As a result, I decided to go to that country in April 1989 with a group from the Washington, D.C. Synod of the ALC through the auspices of the Center for Global Education of Augsburg University of Minneapolis. My purpose was to conduct investigations for this new case and learn more about the country and those objectives were accomplished.

The day we arrived, the Salvadoran Attorney General was assassinated with a car bomb. This produced an intensely tense and dangerous time in the country with her security forces with their automatic rifles stationed throughout the capitol.

Unexpectedly this trip turned out to be the most intense religious experience of my life and a major call to faith and service.

I started to learn more about Archbishop Oscar Romero, who was assassinated while saying mass on March 24, 1980, because of his outspoken criticism of his government’s human rights violations. My group visited the beautiful, modern chapel on the grounds of a cancer hospital where he was killed. Across the street was his small apartment. No fancy archbishop’s palace for him. Another stop was at the capitol city’s Cathedral, which was still unfinished due to Romero’s refusal to spend money on the building while so many Salvadorans were being killed and persecuted. His tomb then in one of the transepts was very plain and covered with photographs of people and their written prayers. There were scraps of linoleum on the floor and plain wooden benches for worshippers. On the outdoor steps to the Cathedral women from COMADRES (Committee of Mothers of the Disappeared and Assassinated) with bullhorns were screaming protests against the latest round of repression by the government. Tears filled my eyes as the words of the Holy Communion or Eucharist echoed in my mind: “My body broken for you.” As a result, Romero became a self-appointed saint for this Protestant believer and I was overjoyed in October 2018 when the Roman Catholic Church canonized Romero as Saint Romero. [6]

Of the many other searing events of my week in El Salvador, another stands out. At the small Lutheran Church of El Salvador, we met an attorney, Salvador Ibarra, who was the one-person human rights office of the church. He spoke of his joy in his work even though such service put his own life at risk and thereby was calling me to continued work as a pro bono asylum lawyer.

Additional Pro Bono Asylum Work [7]

I accepted that call upon my return to the security and comforts of my office in a large law firm in downtown Minneapolis. I helped my second Salvadoran client to obtain asylum.

Thereafter until my retirement from the law firm in 2001, I was such an attorney for other Salvadorans, a young man from Afghanistan, two Somali men, a Burmese man, a young woman from Colombia and a Colombian family, all of whom obtained asylum and at least some of whom are now U.S. citizens.

Teaching International Human Rights Law [8]

In the Fall of 2001, after retiring from the practice of law, I audited the international human rights law course at the University of Minnesota Law School, which was taught by friends, Professors David Weissbrodt and Barbara Frey and by Professor Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, who became another friend. Thereafter David extended a surprise invitation to me to help them teach the course in the future. I accepted that invitation or call, and from 2002 through 2010 I was an Adjunct Professor at the UM where I taught the chapters on refugee and asylum law and U.S. federal court litigation over foreign human rights violations. Along the way I also learned a lot more about other aspects of this large area of law. I am grateful for this call.

Blogging About Law, Politics, Religion and History [9]

One of the reasons I had another retirement (this from teaching) was to research and write about law, politics, religion and history and stumbled onto blogging as a way to do just that. As a result, in April 2011 I started this blog.

My writing about religion has concentrated on the life and witness of Minneapolis’ Westminster Presbyterian Church. I have been enriched by reading the Biblical texts and sermons and then thinking and writing about them. I have come to see this as my way of doing evangelism by demonstrating how an intelligent person can have a religious, spiritual life, something I did not believe possible during my 24 years of religious and spiritual nothingness before I joined Westminster in 1981.

Another major subject of my blog is promoting U.S.-Cuba reconciliation, which grew out of my work on Westminster’s partnership with a Presbyterian-Reformed congregation in the City of Matanzas, Cuba, making three mission trips to the island and welcoming Cuban visitors to my church and city.

Thus, I have come to see blogging as another call that I have accepted.

Conclusion

I concur with Rev. Hart-Andersen when he said in his sermon, “ Christian vocation is less about a particular job and more about how we approach that job, less with what career we choose and more about the underlying purpose we sense in our lives and how that purpose manifests itself in whatever we do. . . . Being called to follow Jesus is a way of life, a pilgrimage on which we embark together.”

Or as noted Presbyterian pastor and author, Frederick Buechner said, a calling is “work I need most to do and what the world needs most to have done. The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” [10]

I am eternally grateful to have received, and accepted, these calls to service. My life has been enriched!

==========================

[1] My General Thoughts on Vocation, dwkcommentaries.com (Feb. 6, 2014). 

[2] Minneapolis’ Westminster Presbyterian Church, dwkcommentaries.com (April 6, 2011); My Vocations, dwkcommentaries.com (Feb. 23, 2014), 

[3] The Sanctuary Movement Case, dwkcommentaries.com (May 22, 2011) 

[4] Becoming a Pro Bono Asylum Lawyer, dwkcommentareis.com (May 24, 2011).

[5] My Pilgrimage to El Salvador, April 1989, dwkcommentariess.com  (May 25, 2011); Inspiration of a Christian Lawyer by the Martyred Jesuit Priests of El Salvador, dwkcommentaries.com (Dec. 14, 2014); posts listed in the “Archbishop Oscar Romero “ section of List of Posts to dwkcommentaries—-Topical: RELIGION.

[6] The Canonization of Oscar Romero, dwkcommentaries.com (Oct. 15, 2018). 

[7] See n. 4.

[8] Auditing the International Human Rights Law Course, dwkcommentaries.com (June 30, 2011); Teaching the International Human Rights Law Course, dwkcommentareis.com (July 1, 2011). 

[9] The Joy of Blogging, dwkcommentaries.com; List of Posts to dwkcommentaries—Topical: RELIGION. 

[10] My General Thoughts on Vocation, dwkcommentaries.com (Feb. 6, 2014). 

Westminster Presbyterian Church’s Challenge To Be Always Reforming

On October 8 Associate Pastor Sarah Brouwer preached a sermon entitled, “On the Road: Beginnings Are Good” at Minneapolis’ Westminster Presbyterian Church. Here are the Holy Scriptures for the day and extracts of that sermon.[1] Below is an aerial photograph of the new addition to the church and of Rev. Brouwer.

 

 

 

 

Listening for the Word

Readings of the Holy Scripture:

 Genesis 1:1-5, 26, 28, 31 (NRSV):

“In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, ‘Let there be light;’  and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.”

“Then God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.’”

“God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.’”

“God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.”

Luke 24:13-16 (NRSV):

“Now on that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him.”

Sermon:

“You may have heard this phrase among proud Presbyterians before: ‘Ecclesia Reformata, Semper Reformanda,’ the church reformed and always reforming. Even now, this latin phrase is a rallying cry for reformed people–a motto to remind us of who we are and who we intend to be.”

“Although we aren’t quite sure where it came from, it was written about quite frequently in the mid-20th century by theologian Karl Barth. Barth preached and taught during both world wars. He witnessed how the church, instead of being reformed, was conforming to anti-Semitism. Barth was considered theologically conservative, because he blamed more liberal theology for morphing God conveniently into the supporter of institutional agendas, like the Nazis. Barth fought for the oppressed through theology that was not popular during his time.”

“Barth was not a reformer for the sake of reforming; he didn’t insist on change for the sake of change. There was a global crisis happening, which the church became apologetic for, and Barth was called to respond. Throughout history, this church reformed and always reforming has sometimes been misused by people trying to obtain power, or exclude others. But, when reform  is legitimate and successful, it always seems to happen beyond the control or desire of the church as it is, and it usually has in mind those who have been left behind.”

“Now, here we find ourselves in 2017, at Westminster, a congregation right in the middle of yet another monumental shift. We believe that God is calling us to become more intentionally open and diverse, and responsive to the city around us. And because of an extraordinary gift, the project next door and the incredible mission opportunities with it are taking shape. Through the work of Open Doors Open Futures, and given our unique downtown context, and the juncture within the larger church and in our current culture, I am confident that none of this is coincidental. We stand on the precipice of large-scale change. It is upon us for a reason, and we have been called to the exciting task of deciphering what God is doing among us.”

“The disciples in Luke’s Gospel were at a critical turning point in their life, as well. It was Sunday, and they had spent the weekend grieving Jesus’ death. They heard the tomb was empty, but that was about it- they didn’t yet understand what had happened. Cleopas and another disciple were presumably making their way home to Emmaus, a walk that would have taken a couple of hours, leaving them plenty of time to recount the traumatic events of the last few days.’

‘The text says that as they were walking Jesus came near to them, but they were kept from recognizing him. It’s a strange turn of phrase. My educated guess says they weren’t the only ones on the road, walking home from Jerusalem that day, and they were in deep conversation, unaware of who was around them. But, let’s be logical here, they also weren’t on the lookout for a resurrected body. Their expectations had been foiled, and they no longer had a messiah who would usher in a new reign for the people of Israel.”

“This change in plans was devastating, and, as far as they knew, it put an end to their ministry. I can imagine there was a great amount of resignation between them. They had seemingly given up everything to follow Jesus–family members who counted on them had been left behind in pursuit of this religious radical named Jesus, now dead. And they were facing the facts of the situation. As Sarah Henrich writes, they had to ‘get real, grow up, and get back to work.’”

“As I read and reread these verses, where the disciples seem to have yielded to what they thought happened, I began to think about how hard it is for our own minds and hearts to be changed. We too can be in the dark about what God is doing. We miss resurrection, we move on with individual priorities, become resigned to the way things are, and we continue to hold on to biases that close our hearts. These disciples challenged me to consider: when was the last time I was truly changed?”

[I concluded that it was] “an intense seminary class in dismantling racism and bias. We met with some of the most diverse populations I’ve ever encountered, had some of the most difficult conversations I’ve ever experienced, and, it made me realize how much I didn’t know, how many biases I did and continue to have, and that it would be a lifelong pursuit not only to work on those biases, but to be honest and vulnerable about them and bring others along in doing it with me. I also learned an important lesson about ministry, which is that there is a difference between making change happen, and making space for God’s people to be changed.”

There “are, daily, new opportunities to choose how we will have our being in this world, and how we will posture ourselves–as individuals, and at this juncture in our history, as a community of faith. Will we continue on just as we are, using our new space to discuss our own opinions in the dark while the world clamors for good news and resurrection? Our reformation heritage, misinterpreted, can tell us that we alone are the change agents–that we are the ones with the lens that brings God into clearest focus. But Barth and Luther and Calvin would be the first to say that isn’t true; they weren’t the owners of change. They were reformers as a response to what God was doing in them, and what was happening in the world around them.”

As one of our elders recently observed, “as we open our doors to the future, is the expectation that Westminster will be a telling presence in the city, or is it, that God’s city will also become a telling presence to us?”

“The story of creation in Genesis always brings words of blessing, but it feels especially appropriate as change is upon us, and we find ourselves in the midst of a new creation. You see, our creation story begins in the dark, in what seems like the unknown. But even in these first verses we understand that God is intentional, there was never nothing with God, but always something, waiting until just the right time to be changed into what is good. God calling creation good is more than that. It is akin to outstanding. This is our beginning. And thus our beginning always has been and always will be beautiful.

“You and I, we come from a beautiful beginning. And we shouldn’t forget that. As the world continues to present itself as anything but good, we trust in a God who takes what is—death– and starts fresh, makes something new out of it, changes it, and changes even us. ‘The earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep.’ These things are not erased, but transformed. Creation reveals not just God’s capacity for change, but God’s desire for change that is good”

“In the last couple of weeks, in the wake of natural disasters, and another mass shooting in Las Vegas, I have sensed a collective numbing of our nation. What is happening around us often does not reflect the goodness of God’s creation. Staying in the darkness of our privilege, heads down facing the road like the disciples, feels much safer. But we believe in a creative God–one who speaks words and does not stay silent, who creates not because of ability but because of a desire to change, who does not allow the chaos of the formless void to pull us under, but transforms it and calls it good. This same God sent Jesus to walk alongside his disciples until they recognized him, and showed them the change they were capable of if they trusted in the power of resurrection.”

“We are capable of that kind of change, too. Change that starts within, that is deeply influenced by God’s world around us. In January, when we step foot into the space next door, my greatest hope and prayer is that we will not be the same people we were before. Who we were does not get left behind, but it does get transformed. That is our call. As reformed people. As God’s people.”

“What we are building next door is a sanctuary–a sanctuary for the city that is physically accessible, and spiritually open. And our worship discernment team has been working hard to imagine what kind of  worship will happen there. What they are creating will be good, in the best sense of the word. What has been most surprising and good about working with this group is how much we have all been changed by the process, and how our posture toward the world has changed, too. We are creating space for lives to be transformed by God. This worship is not for us, only, it is for the unchurched, the de-churched, the nones, the poor, the wealthy, the old and the young, black and white, LGBTQ, and whoever else is seeking the good news of the Gospel, and we don’t know yet who else.”

“I would like to think that if Barth had been asked what the next 100 or 500 years of the church were going to look like, his answer would not have been concrete. I’m sure he had his hopes for it–more justice oriented, more gracious and welcoming. But, as a true reformer he would have also known that even he could not predict what God would do, and how God’s people would be changed. He knew the future of the church depended upon a people who could look up from the road they were on. And as reformers of the 21st century, this is where we must begin, too. From creation to resurrection, from reformation and into the future, God’s people have made the most faithful changes when they have been open to God first changing them.”

“Beginnings can be mysterious and always start in the dark. But we also trust that beginnings are good, if we are open to what God is creating, changing, transforming and resurrecting within us.”

Conclusion

“The church reformed and always reforming” is a significant reminder for why I am a member of a Presbyterian church. It is a human creation, is not perfect and always subject to changes to meet new circumstances and to correct outmoded or erroneous ways.

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[1] The bulletin for the service and the text of the sermon are on the church’s website.