2004 Renewal of Vows
Renewal of Vows Sermon 3/24/04
Sometimes I think it's a miracle that I stayed in the church at all, let alone became a pastor, and a bishop, if I think back to all the things good church folk have said to me over the years.
It wasn't really a miracle -- it was my mother, and the kind of Christian education she provided which was long on wisdom, and short on regarding adiaphora as law.
I can remember standing next to her in the narthex, not yet coming up to her shoulder, in my new and first pair of blue jeans while a long-time member of the church, who favored furs, said to both of us:
"Other members here seem to understand the importance of little girls looking like little girls in church, and wearing a nice dress and shoes."
And my mother said:
It seems to me that little girls might get more out of church if they wear comfortable clothes than if they are itching all the time or thinking about how pretty they look.
My mother never minced words -- throughout my adolescence, if it were possible to die from embarrassment, I would have died a hundred times at the things she said.
But on that day, she was my advocate and a pioneer in the new trend of casual dress in church. The lady in furs never did agree with us.
Then they said to him:
John's disciples, like the disciples of the Pharisees, frequently fast and pray, but your disciples eat and drink.
And Jesus said: Cut them some slack. We are rejoicing in one another's presence now, and they can do their fasting after I have left them.
The eternal incompatability of the old and the new, the tried and true and familiar way to do church and faith, and the new ideas that bubble up constantly -- some from the deep well of God's holy imagination, and some from the seductive champagne bottle of the world -- how can we tell the difference?
As we think together today about the vows that we have made, as we allow absolution to infiltrate and lighten our burdened spirits share life and forgiveness in the body and blood of Christ and bless the oil that will anoint and heal and commission, we might also ponder how our vows provide a dynamic connection between the old and the new, and how we are both the guardians of our tradition and the stewards of faithful change. We need to do both.
All three biblical texts today support the idea of the holiness of a new thing.
Isaiah talks about a God who does new things, and asks us to perceive them. Paul says that transformation is the way to discern God's will, Jesus says it's not smart to put new wine in old wineskins... we are called to be sure that our transformation did not end at our ordination, but that we take seriously the call to live in the tension between the old and the new, not clinging wholly to one or the other, but clinging to God who alone can enable us to distinguish between the piety and practices that truly reveal a living God, and those that do not let the light of Christ shine.
It is clear to us, looking back 2000 years from our vantage point in history and having so many sources to help us, (most recently the cinematography of Mel Gibson), so clear that Jesus Christ was a good new thing, and continues to be good and new in his living presence among us.
Apparently it was not so clear at the time, and when I think about that, it always makes me wonder about the present situation -- what new thing might God be giving us that we have missed? What have we discarded that is not truly old, but simply needs to be polished so that its value to us can be restored and seen more clearly?
It is not an easy task, and we can not do it alone. We can do it only when we stay closely connected to Christ, who continues to teach us and walk with us, and stay connected to one another -- the brothers and sisters with whom we live in this commitment to leadership in Christ's church.
And before I speak a little bit more about our vows, I want to say that I don't think it does any good to renew our vows if we do not commit to renewing ourselves as well.
If renewing vows for you means a renewal of commitment to workaholism instead of a deepening of faith, then I wish you had stayed home and taken a nap.
Times of renewal should be times of readjustment, so that the essence of the vow can be seen more clearly, free from the clutter of guilt or self-aggrandizement or inhuman expectation.
I decided that I wanted to make a few comments on the vows themselves, and was deeply gratified to discover that our vows fit well into the vision statement of the New England Synod... all except for "Giving Extravagantly" -- which just goes to show that there is inadequate support everywhere for a biblically appropriate theology of stewardship. If we hadn't avoided mentioning money in so many critical places, we might be more empowered to understand and address the deep spiritual danger that surrounds our prosperous nation.
(Luther attacks it head on in the Large Catechism in his explanation of the First Commandment...)
One of the first things that is addressed in our vows is the understanding that the church's call is God's call to ministry.
When I think about candidacy committees and seminaries and the call process, I know that I believe that the Holy Spirit is active throughout, but I often wonder if the candidate standing before me really does. I trust in their integrity, so I have never leaned down and said:
Do you really, truly believe that?
But I have been tempted.
What I believe with all my heart is that internal call matched with the call of the church is a beautiful and trustworthy process of mutual discernment that serves our church well, and tempers the individualistic nature that Americans favor, especially Christian ordination-bound Americans who are quite sure that they are called by God to be a pastor.
The call of the church, as God's call, is a call into community -- and a promise to "Trust in partnership".
A pastor is ordained to the whole church, the whole partnership, not to the congregation, and our witness to the gospel is stronger when we remember that, despite the temptation to function as though Christendom was most deeply contained in our local congregation.
That's also why the goal of collegiality is more than a bishop's desire to see the pastors get along well.
Collegiality is another word for an attitude that takes seriously that we are called to work together, to gather and study God's Word together, to communicate and support one another in ministry, to cast aside Lone Ranger-ism, to resist stealing sheep, even when the sheep have convincing stories about the inadequacy of the other flock, to affirm, admonish and especially, listen carefully to one another.
We can be resources to one another, and also hold one another accountable for the preaching and teaching of the scripture, creeds and confessions in a careful Lutheran way, which is not constrictive, but enormously liberating.
One of the things that has been revealed very clearly by the enormous challenge of dealing with issues of human sexuality, is that there really in no consistently Lutheran hermeneutic for the study of scripture that is being taught and used by pastors in congregations across the ELCA.
Some of the ways that scripture has been explained to me over the last few months is decidedly un-Lutheran, running the gamut from literalism, with no concern for the role of our understanding of Christ in reading scripture, to a blasé disregard that sees scripture as useless for life in the real world.
Neither extreme is Lutheran, or, in my opinion, correct. I ask that you renew your commitment to studying and teaching scripture.
We will renew our vow to pray for God's people - "Praying Unceasingly" from our vision statement -- and that means privately, publicly and communally.
I believe that also means trusting in prayer -- rostered leadership are particularly vulnerable to being, as an author I read once noted, "functionally atheistic" -- we pray as though we expected help from God, and then we act as though we have to do it all ourselves.
And before your mind goes there -- yes, I have heard the advice to pray as hard as you can, and then work as hard as you can.
But there is a way of living in prayer that will equip us with the peace and wisdom to know when to work, and when to leave things in God's hands, and I pray that all of you will renew your commitment to live that way.
There is one vow that I think often goes unattended, though I don't think that we consciously ignore it.
"Will you give faithful witness in the world... ?" Not just in the congregation - but in the world.
It is quite easy to lose ourselves in the congregations -- sometimes it takes too many hours to give faithful witness there, let alone worrying about a witness in the world -- how often do we get out in the world anyway?
In this age of overwhelming secularism, and an urgent call to mission, the public witness of the church is a necessity if we want to live as the presence the God wills us to be.
Our vision statement calls for us to "Insist on Justice" -- and that is one of the most faithful ways to give public witness.
That kind of witness is an important bridge between the old and the new -- the call to do justice is a constant theme throughout the OT, and it continues in the love and work of Jesus.
When we put the work of justice for others ahead of our own needs both personally and in the congregations, then we are in the active process of transformation -- becoming what God calls us to be.
As Lutherans, we have a particular calling and skill to live in the tension between the old and the new, balancing Law and Gospel, clinging fast to the treasure of the Law while discovering how it is permeated by glimpses of grace, proclaiming the good news that fear and emptiness do not need to be the last word when we live in Jesus Christ.
The last word is always the cross -- we are on our annual journey there now, but, year-round, we are called to linger there for our reflection and conversation on the old, the new, and how God wants us to intertwine them in lives of faith.
May God grant you a renewal of mind and spirit, a gentle redirecting, if that is needed, affirmation if timidity is haunting you and a humbling, if you are too busy to let God help you.
And may the peace of God, which passes all human understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus,
Amen. |
