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When Being Right Is Not Enough Feb. 27, 2000 Douglas S. Long North Raleigh United Church You know how some things in life just sort of 'slip up on you?' … like a few extra pounds around the middle, life's transitions are sometimes gradual and almost seamless. I've realized one of those transitions over the past few months when my children, Jessica and Jordan, who loooove to be referred to in sermons… are beginning to make comments that are more thoughtful and far less childish in nature regarding the content on the service on Sunday mornings. Jordan took me on the other day… "You know, dad," he said… You were wrong in your sermon this morning." "Was I?" I responded. "Yeah, " he said… "You told the joke wrong." So… for Jordan… What really happened in The Garden of Eden: The untold story. One day in the Garden of Eden, Eve calls out to God... "Lord, I have a problem!" "What's the problem, Eve?" "Lord, I know you've created me and have provided this beautiful garden and all of these wonderful animals, but I'm just not happy." "Why is that, Eve?" came the reply from above. "Lord, I am lonely. And I'm sick to death of apples." "Well, Eve, in that case, I have a solution. I shall create a man for you." "What's a 'man,' Lord?" "This man will be a flawed creature, with many bad traits. He'll lie, cheat, and be vainglorious; all in all, he'll give you a hard time. But, he'll be bigger, faster, and will like to hunt and kill things. He'll be witless and will revel in childish things like fighting and kicking a ball about. He won't be too smart, so he'll also need your advice to think properly. "Sounds great," says Eve, "What's the catch, Lord?" "Yeah, well ... you can have him on one condition." "What's that, Lord?" "As I said, he'll be proud, arrogant, and self-admiring ... So you'll have to let him believe that I made him first ... So, said God… just remember... it's our secret ... Woman-to-woman!" Now as I said… my kids are becoming more thoughtful about the Sunday service and so last night at supper Jessica decided she wanted to play a guessing game. "You tell me the title of the sermon, and I'll try to guess what it's about." "OK" I said. "The title is… When being right is not enough." Well I can think of a couple of possibilities she replied… It might be about believing the right thing… but not doing anything about it. Though it may not be exactly what she was imagining… that's actually not too far off…. Let me explain. One of the more interesting problems beginning this community of faith, North Raleigh United, which points to one of the more interesting problems facing Christianity today, was how to advertise ourselves. You see, to advertise yourself you have to state your identity, and to state your identity is to distinguish yourself from someone else. And to distinguish yourself is to point out how you are different… Not to make the analogy too commercial but, in beginning this venture and advertising ourselves, it's not like there are no other communities of faith in the area. We haven't come in like a store that sells widgets when there are no other widget stores in town. You could probably get in your car and reach more than 100 other communities of faith within 1/2 hour from where we sit. It's not like we are a mattress company that exclaims the best mattress is found here or car dealership that proclaims we will beat all other offers. No, ours is a offering that invites people to come more like a restaurant perhaps… the food here is very satisfying. …which is not to say the food at all restaurants is poison. Still… distinguishing ourselves is a little tricky… because a part of what we're saying is that, for us, for whatever reason, the other restaurants just don't taste as good. I don't want to get hung up in this analogy but it could provide some good discussion for us at some point as we ponder how to offer who we are to others who are looking for a community such as ourselves. I may have told this story to some of you before… I can't remember… but anyway, it bears repeating. When I was the pastor of St. John's UCC in Burlington NC we were wrestling with how to advertise ourselves. You see, we were located on Mebane Street, a rather long and well known back street thoroughfare in Burlington, and there were other churches located on Mebane Street as well. Especially problematic was a church located many blocks away, but whose name was Mebane Street Church of Christ. Now our name was St. John's, but we were also sometimes referred to as the United Church of Christ on Mebane Street. They were the Mebane Street Church of Christ. The Church of Christ, theologically, is very fundamental and rigid, often not allowing instrumental music in their worship. Instruments are too worldly… and you wouldn't want to align yourself so clearly with things as profane as musical instruments. Well, we didn't want to be confused with a Church of Christ so we pondered as to how to alert people to the fact that we were not them. How could we get the word out. As it turns out, the problem was solved for us, because on the other end of Mebane Street, at the other end of the theological spectrum, The Mebane Street Church of Christ had decided they didn't want people to confuse them with us… so they took out a very large advertisement in the Burlington newspaper to proclaim that they were not to be confused with the United Church of Christ on the other end of Mebane Street. Closer to home, here in Raleigh, there is a particularly annoying advertisement that runs every week, and has for the past year… every week in the Friday Faith section of the Old Reliable… the N&O. If you are a follower of the section you have seen the ad. It has a line drawing of Moses with a couple of tablets, presumably the 10 Commandments, and the advertisement says… every week… never altered… Which of the following will most likely send a person to hell? There are four multiple choice options. Murder, stealing, adultery, and homosexuality. I refer to the ad as the 'go to hell Moses ad.' When I called the N&O about our ad with the babies on it I asked them specifically if they could place it beside the 'go to hell Moses ad." Twice they did. Now I admit that I am very tired of the 'go to hell Moses ad.' Primarily because it is there every week… and it communicates to people who read the paper a kind of 'christianity', that makes me nauseous. It proclaims every week, a 'go to hell God.' You don't know how many times I talk with people who say they want no part of the church because they equate the church with such narrow mindedness. …and it irks me that such poor theology can be so well funded. $200 bucks a week to advertise this misguided judgmental God. Every week. So someone got the bright idea… OK, I got the idea that we should devise an ad that played upon the 'go to hell Moses.' Ad for North Raleigh United…. And I began toying around with some ideas and I e-mailed those ideas to several of you about a week ago to see what you thought. Instead of saying "Which of the following sins would most likely send you to hell?" I used the same fonts and format and asked…"Which of the following would most likely cause a person to give up on the church?"
The responses I received from those of you I surveyed were interesting, and though a several of you were thrilled with the approach, one even encouraged me not to stop with four obstacles to church going but to consider adding others such as… sanctified intolerance, institutional bigotry, mass hysteria, clerical infallibility, there's more… Maybe, continued this response we should include unleavened density, scarecrow lack-a-brania, Baby Doc Compassionate Conservatism, and Father Knows Best Paternalism. I think you catch the drift. In truth, my first listing had included narrow-mindedness, and bigotry, but, to be honest, that sounded more than a little judgmental on my part. …which was the crux of my hesitation. I think several of us were struggling with how our message would play, how arrogant it might come across, how nose in the air judgmental it may feel to those on the other end of the theological continuum. There is a fine line between confronting bad theology and letting the public know that one group who calls themselves the church doesn't speak for everyone who is in the Church… there is a fine line between proclaiming the God of love and practicing the God of judgment. In truth, the advertisement we were considering didn't feel very loving… because it wasn't. …which is why I sought some feedback. Many of you picked up on the problem immediately. Lamar Caldwell finally helped me find a balance between saying to anyone reading the Faith section… "We can't agree with this group about God " while maintaining a more positive spin on the Gospel ourselves. This approach hinged on changing the question from a negative one… 'which of the following would keep you from…' …to a positive… 'which of the following would renew your hope for the church.' Ahh, my shoulders lighten just by asking it in this way… Not what is life condemning… but what is life affirming.. Not what is oppressive and guilt inducing… But what is freeing and empowering. (We're back in the Garden!! … and back in business.) Here's the way the ad came out Friday… It was, by the way, on the same page as the 'go to hell Moses.' Which of the following would renew your hope in the church?
I think the rest of the ad, inviting all to come and hear Jimmy Creech next week implied a few other values more explicitly as well. Love made central. Easy to say… but more difficult to embody. One of the earliest sermons I preached here from this music stand, was the on the centrality of love. It is something I believe we need to continually remind ourselves of. Our covenant certainly affirms its place:
There is an acid test in authentic Christianity. It models itself after the one who upon being tortured and executed prayed… Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." The acid test is love. We are called as a Church to embody deeds of love because we worship a God who is love. Interestingly, the consequences of following this God of love has led us to invite Jimmy Creech to be with us next week. I can say to you that Rev. Creech is one of the most loving persons I have ever met. His gentle demeanor, his often soft spoken voice, his very persona expresses a loveliness that is remarkable. But such love invites controversy and we encounter people everyday who find a love this encompassing threatening. It is possible that we will have a person or two in attendance next Sunday who come because they sincerely disagree with us on these issues. How do we treat such personalities? If our actions are void of love, we have missed the message we are preaching. I don't expect there to be protesters next week but let me say this… should someone arrive who objects to our understanding of God , if we fail to love that person too, we have not upheld our covenant. We have not practiced the love we preach. Last Sunday evening our youth were watching and then discussing a portion of the documentary "Eyes On the Prize" which chronicles the Civil Rights movement in America. They had seen a portion which so explicitly and abhorrently exposed the suppression of one race by another. Remarked some of the youth… "If I had been there I would have wanted to physically fight the bigots… but if I forced them to my way of thinking, if I shot at or hosed down or physically threatened them... how does that make me different from what they were doing? How does that bring an end to the fighting and oppression?" Which was, we observed, exactly the message of Martin Luther King, Jr. Violence begets violence… and the only way to break the spiral is to practice non-violence. Hate, too, cannot be overcome by hate, nor intolerance by intolerance… No we must love, people of the loving God… we must love especially as we proclaim the social expression of love is justice, even as we proclaim the status quo is woefully wrong on a number of scores… we must make our proclamations in love. Now I know this isn't always easy. There is nothing the world loves more than a Jerry Springer episode in the church. I heard several stories this week from the ministers I was with in Princeville of church meetings gone awry… deacons duking it out in the aisles… elders pouncing on each other in the vestibule… I'm not sure how the topic turned to such things but it did and moved into a 'That's nothing, I was at a church once where…' flow. The early Christian community struggled with the same issues. There was division shortly into the venture into being church. Leaders were divided over who should be accepted. Doctrine divided. Some followed Peter, others Paul, others lesser known leaders of the early Church… The history of the church is full of similar divisions… Wycliff, Hus, Luther, Calvin, Zwingli… all proclaiming a different spin from the other… there were even, in one stretch of church history, competing Popes… And while this division in undeniable… the acid test… well, hear the words attributed to the Apostle Paul when he wrote to the Church in Corinth when it was struggling with who was best among them … who was the most gifted… who was right and who was wrong… I paraphrase the text… "You know," said Paul, "I could be as right as right can be, and I could express that rightness with the eloquence of Shakespeare… but I fail to love in the process… I might as well be banging incoherently on an out of tune piano." … I could sell my house, move to a developing country and give the money to the poor. I could take my paycheck and always make sure 51% goes to charity, or that 51% of the funds of my church extend to ministries beyond its walls, …I could give up my life for a just cause… but if I have no love while doing so… my efforts are wasted. Even less… counterproductive. Real love is patient and kind, not boastful, doesn't preach we are better than them, and, (the New English Bible says), …and real love keeps no score of wrongs. Love is as difficult and challenging to live continually as anything we will ever attempt. …Which is why we can never stop trying… even as we realize we will not obtain that high goal on this side of the great divide. Being right is sometimes not enough. No my fellow strugglers, the acid test is love. Amen. |
Contact Doug Long at (919) 844-6661 or
send e-mail to: doug@northraleighunited.org |