"Cultural Christians" February 2, 2014

Micah 6:1-8 Matthew 5:1-12 There is an old Russian proverb about a factory where anything and everything was being stolen to sell on the Black Market. They could not keep track of what was being stolen by whom, because it seemed everything was being taken by everyone. So they posted Guards at all the Exits. First thing, a man comes through with a long coat and galoshes pushing a wheelbarrow heaped high with sawdust and wood shavings. The guard requires the man to take off his coat and boots and dump the sawdust, but finds nothing. Next day same thing, and the next and the next, this goes no for a year! Finally the guard stops the man and says listen, “I know you are stealing. You know you are stealing. I promise I will not turn you in, but tell me wearing your long coat and galoshes, pushing a wheelbarrow filled with sawdust and wood shavings, what are you stealing?” And the man says LONG COATS, GALOSHES and WHEELBARROWS. We live in a culture that has forgotten our purpose. The church too has been hijacked by accommodation to the values and priorities of the culture. We are surrounded by commercials to buy and sell everything, to trade and be constantly connected. There used to be a sight gag, in movies and television, of the person being so extremely wealthy as to have a television and telephone in the commode. Yet today, who among us does not have a cell phone? Last evening during the SU game with Duke, tonight with the Superbowl and Superbowl commercials, how do you take a break? Our own Niebuhr family had grandparents who were re-knowned theologians. While Rheinhold has the name everyone remembers, Gustav's Grasndfather, Chris and Jonathan's Great Grandfather, H.Richard Niebuhr published a monumental piece titled Christ and Culture. Niebuhr's treatise was about Historical Relativism, that is a $3 Graduate School Word meaning God does not change, But our understanding of God, our revelation, our ethics, the questions we ask about God, all are determined by our historic culture, our social issues. The point is not simply that the church today struggles with the values of today, but that everyone's values and priorities can be justified by their sense of God and their being righteous. H.Richard Niebuhr's theology is often used as the basis for what became Liberal Protestant Theology tolerating Religious Pluralism. Yet his own critique, was that the Liberal Social Gospel represented a God WITHOUT WRATH, who brought a PEOPLE WITHOUT SIN into a KINGDOM WITHOUT JUDGMENT through a CHRIST WITHOUT THE CROSS. Historical Relativism corresponded to Five Understandings of History and God: Christ AGAINST Culture, History is the story of the Faithful rising against a Pagan sinful world. Christ OF Culture History is the story of the Holy Spirit's development of humanity with Values. Christ ABOVE Culture History is lived under the Law, Reason, Gospel, for an afterlife with God. Christ & Culture in PARADOX where history is the struggle of Faith and Sin, we live in the Vortex between the Promise of God / and the Fulfillment of Salvation. Christ TRANSFORMING Culture where God ACTS and Humanity responds. Not about the future or past, but God here and now Calling Us to Respond. The point being, no matter how we understand ourselves in relation to God, there is GOD. Our Old Testament Lesson today from Micah is of a Prophet defending the rights of the Poor against the excesses of the Rich, in a time in which both Rich and Poor doubted the Existence of God, but who complained about the fairness of the world. Micah describes a Courtroom Scene, where Humanity is SUING GOD for not being Fair. All Creation, All the Universe sits as Jury, Listening to our Complaint. God sits at the Table of the Accused. Why is it that Good People Suffer? Why are the Poor Not Rewarded? If There is a God, If You Are GOD, Why is there WAR? Why do the Rich get Rich, the Poor Poorer? Why is there Sin? Why are the Chosen not Given a better Life? And God responds: What have I done to You? Answer Me! How have I wearied You? Answer Me! When you were slaves, when you were no more than property bought and sold by the Egyptians, did God not rescue you, not send you Moses, Aaron, Miriam, Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Princess Leia, C3PO and R2D2? Do you not remember when you were about to leave the Wilderness and enter the Promised Land, when King Balak sent Balaam to Curse you? Do you not remember that God caused Balaam's Ass to speak? Mr. Ed was a Television show, do you not recall that Balaam's Donkey forced him to Bless you instead of Cursing you? Do you not remember your own history and how God has entered in? And the people respond: “Oooops!” So, If God did these things for us, what is our freedom worth? How do we repay God for our Blessings, when we had accused God of cursing us? It is a farce, that we have made God's Command to Do Justice, Love Kindness Walk Humbly with God into a Bumpersticker! The Bible is not a Mystery Novel we can turn to the last sentence on the last page, and be assured how it all works out. Instead, when Israel recognized, When Humanity, When we stop and turn from accusing God for not being Fair, we are so caught up in our culture's values we ask: So what do we owe? A Burnt Offering? A Calf? 1,000 Rams? 10,000 Rivers of Oil? Our First Born? A few years ago, a couple came wanting their children baptized, and recognizing they were the same questions, they inquired about joining the Church. I met with them and described “We believe in God. We are called to share the resources of the Church with all wanting to receive. This is not our Table, the Table belongs to God. The Gifts of God for the People of God.” They responded “yes, but, what are your expectations for our pledge? How often do we have to come?” I replied, “We want you to want to come. We want you to feel generous, and whole, and respond.” They phoned a few days later to say, “they were not able, this cost too much. If we had said $10,000 they could have done that some how. But to have an open ended pledge of responding as you are able that was too much.” Doing Justice is personal. Not simply intellectual understanding, but having to act as we believe. Rather than blaming God, or our parents, or the Govt, or someone, Challenging the way things are. Loving Mercy does not come easily in our world. To love tenderly requires that we know confidently that we are loved, that we can be vulnerable, that we can risk seeing another person's suffering as ours. The Good Samaritan did not simply stop, he went out of his way to clean and bind the wounds, putting the victim on his own horse and paying for his care, no matter what it would cost. The father of the Prodigal and Elder children, realizing both had insulted and blamed the father, but his arms were big enough to welcome both inside. Mary and the other women standing at the foot of the cross as Jesus died, knowing that to be associated with him meant your arrest, and still 3 days later coming back. The woman with the Alabaster jar of oil, who did not simply pour out the least she had to, but broke it open to offer her anointing with everything she had, even drying his feet with her own hair. Walking Humbly with God is taking life as it comes, not as a Consumer, but living differently. There is a famous story of Footsteps in the Sand, in fact the story has become even more famous than anything in the Bible (?) But Answer Me, what if we realized not only that where there were usually two sets of prints ours and God, and in crisis there was only God carrying us... what if Walking Humbly With God we realized God was always there and only for our lifetime were we able to choose to walk with God? The Beatitudes, Jesus Sermon on the Mount is so complete, so personal and true, Jesus does not need a preacher to preach a sermon interpreting and applying his sermon. Except for us to know, that spoken in Aramaic, written in Greek, this was not in the Imperative of what we have to make out of the circumstance we are given. The Meek have to choose to inherit the Earth. But rather, where is English we have the Past, Present and Future Tense, in Greek there is the INDICATIVE, which is used when a statement or clause describes what is indicated, what is true that otherwise might have been hidden. That the Meek Will inherit the Earth, that is reality.