Locked in a room with open doors
Commentary
About 25 years ago, Ernest Campbell, former preaching minister at New York's
Riverside Church, titled a volume of sermons Locked In A Room With Open Doors.
There is hardly a year goes by when I am not drawn to the sermon from which the
title of the book was drawn. In the sermon, Campbell covers the many things that hold us
back from going through the doors that God has opened for us -- the fear of the new,
worry, fear of the unknown. The assumption is that we ought to be able to go through the
doors that are open to us and that we should deal with what is holding us back.
Campbell's point is that while God has opened doors for us there is something about us
that restrains us.
Life often does feel like that. Often when I sit down to my computer I experience this. There always seems to be at least one more program or feature that I need to able to take full benefit of all that I already have. I always seem to be one more download away from bliss or total security. A full life is only an upgrade away. Often some dialogue box will come up with some reason why I cannot fulfill my heart's desire -- locked in a room with open doors! I am locked in: at least until I open the door of my computer store and go in to buy the needed update to my computer that will make all upgrades possible. I cringe at the introduction of the latest Microsoft operating system as I ponder what might be withheld from me as a result of failing to buy into all the new possibilities.
The assumption behind Campbell's words, written long before the massive introduction of computers and the internet, is that no one should stay put if they can avoid it. Given the times of social upheaval and challenge in which he was writing it was clear that one should march through any opening for increased justice and diminished oppression. On this score, Campbell was clearly right. However, in our time there is a case for those who do not go through all the doors that are opened to increased consumption and waste. Staying put and sticking with what you have may be as faithful a response as moving through all the doors that may be open to us.
Each of these texts make a case for remaining where we are without yielding to the temptation of dashing off in all the directions that might be open to us.
What saves the jailor in the Acts text is that Paul and Silas do not exit through the doors that are open to them. Indeed, their witness moves the jailor to open the door to a conversation about salvation. Staying in place has its merits. The heart of the message of the book of Revelation is in a sense, "Stay put, stay on message, and stay at it for Jesus is coming." Of course, the author is living in exile so there was not much alternative to staying put. The situation of the church today might not be all that different from the situation of John of Patmos. How do we stay at it and stay as a presence in the culture when the culture is less likely to affirm or even understand what we are about as a people of faith?
Despite Jesus' plea in the lesson from John that all his people be one, the ecumenical movement has fallen on hard times. It seems, in many ways, we have rushed through a door and crossed a threshold where churches have an increasingly hard time naming or even believing in a fundamental unity. Does Generation X see the same Jesus in the religious life of baby boomers? Can a megachurch member understand the faith life of those congregations with fewer than fifty in attendance on a Sunday morning? Have we crossed a threshold where we find lack of understanding and appreciation for the "varieties of religious presence" in our communities? One might even ask what kind of unity Jesus would pray for amongst Christians, Jews, Muslims, and other faiths. Have we crossed a threshold where we find it hard to hear and speak with one another?
The lectionary this Sunday invites us to consider whether some of the thresholds we have crossed have left us further from or closer to Jesus' intentions.
Acts 16:16-34
Certainly, there is no doubt that in this text Paul opens a door for the demon- possessed slave girl. Of course, in the process, he opens a can of worms, as well. However, it is not uncommon to find that a healing poses some serious challenges. Many families have grown dependent upon having a sick member whose illness the family has grown reliant upon to divert and distract them.
The late Edward Friedman, family therapist, told stories of his mentor, Murry Bowen, who found that the visit of family members to mentally ill relatives often made their sick relatives worse. He found that from time to time when one member of a family got better another member would manifest the symptoms of the same sickness. It seemed that a family needed at least one sick member to talk about, to blame for their problems, and to divert from doing the hard work of developing healthy patterns amongst themselves. Opening the door almost always opens up challenges in one form or another. It is hardly surprising that the reaction of the slave girl's handlers are less than enthusiastic.
How did Paul come to be such a font of blessing in this situation? We would like to think that this came about as a result of Paul's well-meaning, thoughtful, and faithful understanding. That is not the case. "Paul, very much annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, 'I order you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.' And it came out that very hour." The movement of the Spirit here does not wait for Paul to summon up the appropriate emotional correctness or theological soundness. This seems less than satisfactory.
Sometimes a simple reversal of the equation brings some insight. In this case, annoyance becomes the occasion for opening some doors, which is often a lot better than annoyance being the cause of doors closing. My computer gives anger, frustration, exasperation, and infuriation, as synonyms for annoyance. When things get to that point options for better days begin to close. Certainly, as Paul is portrayed in scripture he is capable of annoyance and all its potential synonyms. Things that are normally negative, beyond the positive of merely venting, are turned into a positive when directed at the demonic. The reader wonders why it took several days for Paul to get to the place where he could lay down the order to the demon to come out of the girl. Was he afraid of being misunderstood showing an interest in the future of a slave girl? Certainly, doors remain closed when our fears of being misunderstood so overwhelm us that we do not say what needs to be said. Perhaps he had to sort through just who he was angry at.
Do we find it a lot easier to be annoyed with people? Are we trying to fix them when we should be using our emotional energy to create an environment in which the demonic can just pour out of them? It is easier to wallow in being annoyed, feeling sorry for ourselves, and blaming God for putting all those frustrating people in our path? It is certainly a lot easier than directing our energies toward casting out the demonic. How often have we stood in the way of what could be done to open doors? It took Paul a while of staying put before he could open any doors.
The net result of what did happen is that Paul and Silas found some doors opening to them, only they were behind jailhouse doors. Knowing that Paul is a Roman citizen, it seems strange that Paul does not play the citizenship card to stay out of jail.
It seems that the plan here is about these doors being open to the ministry of Paul and Silas. Prison is open to them and open to what God is doing. The Lukan author makes it clear that the prisoners were listening to them singing and praying. The faith gains credibility in this scene precisely because the privilege card is not played. Indeed the book of Acts is the story of a church that gains credibility with the least and the most vulnerable. Paul will play his citizenship card but not to get out of jail but to get to the magistrates so that they apologize to Paul and back off.
This must have been quite a sight for Paul's fellow prisoners and surely lifted his credibility in their sight. Acts reminds us that Peter the first, the original disciple, stayed with Simon the tanner when he was in Joppa. Of course a tanner was a dirty filthy occupation that was on the low end of the career tract in the ancient world. One wonders if the current churches, mega and mainline, see their plans as measuring faith development in terms of credibility with the least. Have we crossed a threshold that separates many of us from the original plan?
Of course, there is the miraculous earthquake that throws open all the doors and releases the prisoners from their chains. It is a different story for the jailor whose career and life are on the line if all the prisoners escape. Paul and Silas choose to stay put in jail locked in before open doors. One can easily make the case for rushing through the open doors. Certainly this miraculous escape mechanism would be quite an impressive tale to be told in the ancient world.
If Christianity is to be about a magic faith moving from one miracle to the next then dashing through those open doors would be the thing to do. But Paul and Silas are held back by the ethical and moral dimension of the faith. I am reminded of Mahatma Gandhi who refused to hurt the British war effort in World War I because he enjoyed the benefits of living under the British Empire and therefore he had a responsibility for its defense. There are some thresholds that should not be crossed because in the long run they violate what we should be about. Sometimes we should be locked in a room with open doors.
Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21
"Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they will have the right to the tree of life and may enter the city by the gates." This is the promise of the book of Revelation -- those who have had their robes washed can enter into the "Holy City, The New Jerusalem" God is bringing about. Revelation 21:25 makes very clear that those who long to enter the gates to this new order of things find that these portals are never closed.
Nevertheless, I don't know a pastor of any theological orientation for whom it feels that way. In every typology of churches there is always the classification that names congregations as mules, cats, or some other creature that is hard to corral and heard. A random sampling of most pastors tends to show that a disproportionate number of them have wound up serving these churches. I know the feeling, yet a caveat is in order here. There is great danger in identifying our pet projects and ideas as the portal through which folks must pass in order to enter the kingdom. We run the risk of being every bit as much a gatekeeper as some of our less progressive and more recalcitrant members. However, the doors are never closed to what kind of wisdom and learning God might bring out of our journey with people who just cannot seem to bring themselves to look at life through our lens.
Revelation makes clear that if there is a block to entering the New Jerusalem it is internal rather than external. It seems that in our age we have plenty to come clean about if we are to enter the new order of things. The outer garment in which we have wrapped our faith needs a good soak in cleansing water. I bristle at those who see in the cross primarily a vengeful God sacrificing his only son in an orgy of blood sacrifice. My faith is not wrapped up in such an interpretation. Yet, the text says there is a blessing in immersing one's robe in some cleansing. I need to be immersed into the world of those who bring to the cross the experience of being abused.
This passage suggests that a clean, refreshed feeling is a precursor to entering through the gates that are never shut. Often in church we take that to mean primarily a cleansing of our sins. But we can be so dirtied in church that we feel so unclean as to be inhibited from marching right through the open gate. If you are a parent of a child and you are holding down two jobs, insufficiently parented because your parents were holding down two jobs, and you are dealing with a child pumped up on food additives -- you don't need to be shamed for your lack of skill in handling your child when they become a nuisance. How do we leave people refreshed enough that they can enter through the gate that leads to the New Jerusalem? Many parents have an accumulation of blood, sweat, and tears trying to fight the good fight with their children.
"The Spirit and the bride say, 'Come.' And let everyone who hears say, 'Come.' And let everyone who is thirsty come. Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift." While that is what the spirit and the bride say, we often have devised ways that say, "come but see footnote at bottom of the page." "Please come as long as you are very much like us and do not tip the balance of our comfort zone." We need to come clean as to how, even despite our best intentions, we have become frenetic gatekeepers of gates that do not need keeping for they are always open.
John 17:20-26
Do you feel yourself freezing up and going into shut down mode when you hear this kind of language? One can certainly feel doors closing when we hear much of the language of the gospel of John. This gospel both invites us with such language as John 3:16 and puts us off with language that seems to suggest that Jesus is the only avenue to gain access to heaven because he is "the way the truth and the life." I approach this gospel in anticipation and dread for it seems to have been the source of as many doors closing as hearts opening.
Yet, Jesus' prayer is his petition that all will be able to see his glory. In his narration of Jesus' life, John makes clear that this prayer has been answered in church experience. In the first chapter he tells us that, "the Word has become flesh and lived among us and we have beheld his glory." Of course, in the gospel the glory can only be apprehended in light of the cross. Yet, it seems that there are certain events that illumine the meaning of the cross just as the cross illumines their meaning. In the opening chapter of the gospel John the Baptist, on seeing Jesus, proclaims, "Here is the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." Whatever else we may say of the cross it clearly must be about taking away the sin of the world, not adding to it. Any understanding of the cross that adds to the sin of the world cannot be legitimate.
The medieval crusaders' understanding of the cross as something in the name of which one must do battle is far from the glory that takes away the sin of the world. Neither can one simply find affirmation of the cross in the notion that the glory of the cross is in just taking it. There is no taking of abuse that can appeal to the cross as something glorious. This seems to be the fundamental error of the Mel Gibson movie, The Passion of the Christ. The ability to take it and be able to come back for more seems to run through many of his movies. Perhaps there is a glory in that, but not the glory of the cross.
Jesus' prayer is for the fundamental unity of the church to be found in its comprehension of Jesus' glory. Clearly, in the gospel, that glory focuses on the cross, yet that understanding must arise out of a correlation between the cross and the events of Jesus' life. When that happens, doors open to the taking away of the sin of the world.
Application
Ernest Campbell, in his sermon, "Locked In A Room With Open Doors," gives a laundry list of what the locks are in people's lives as they face the opportunities that surround them: worry, hatred, fear of the new. "The enemies are not all out there. Some are on the inside. It is so easy to fall into the habit of blaming our unrealized selves on outside forces. The mood of the day might well be caught up in a paraphrase of one of Shakespeare's better known lines, 'The fault, dear Brutus, is not in ourselves, but in our systems that we are miserable.' " Yet, what is on the inside also pushes us to needless activity.
What prompts feverish actions and all-too-frenetic activity on my part is: a mentor pastor that I do not want to let down, plain old-fashioned guilt, the inability to handle silence, and general anxiety as to what is coming next. These texts challenge me to consider whether in the next phase of my life I should yield to my drives or consider that it is God's plan for me to stay put, whether in my frenzied activity I have become a gate keeper, and whether I seek to justify my theology more by action than reflection.
Alternative Application
Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21. One approach that I have found helpful is to consider my own history with a text. I often ask myself whether I have crossed any thresholds in reflecting on a text through the years. Increasingly, I find myself pondering the questions I find myself asking of a text. Years ago, I would not have asked the question of whether a text helped to break or add to cycles of violence. As one who does believe very much that the rule of God is about justice, I have found myself asking, "Where is the shadow side of this kind of preaching?"
Increasingly, I find that I ponder how the text will impact on other faith traditions and how doors to new meaning might be opened through that conversation. These texts measure my pilgrimage in terms of prisoners released, people free to enter the New Jerusalem, and the glory that Jesus intends for his people.
Preaching The Psalm
Psalm 97
Bracketed by the language of praise, this psalm tackles an issue that does not much concern the church these days. For contemporary Christians in North America, idols are something out of teen fashion magazines or television shows where people embarrass themselves trying to gain the glitter of momentary fame. But for a biblical people, idolatry is -- or should be -- serious business.
Idolatry has to do with breaking covenant with God. It has to do with turning away from our sovereign creator God and giving our allegiance to other "gods." Idolatry, finally, has to do with our own infidelity to the one God of Israel, the God who comes to us in Jesus Christ. The worship of false gods or images is nothing new. From the golden calf (Exodus 32:4) to the Baal cults, to the Roman gods, and on into our history as a people of faith, we have wrestled with idols. The attraction, of course, is understandable. Idols can be seen, felt, and touched. Idols also tend to offer easy answers and quick solutions, and idols always lure us away from fidelity to the one God of Israel.
It's an easy thing to glance back through the lens of history and cast a judgmental eye on those who would worship statues or fertility gods or golden calves. But in reading this psalm through, the question arises. What are the idols to which Christian people succumb in these early years of the twenty-first century? Has the so-called post-modern age outgrown idolatry? Or has the contemporary community merely traded in the statues of old for new idols?
It can be said with little fear of contradiction that we contemporary folk do not sit in a place of privilege or freedom from guilt here. Idolatry continues in the church today, perhaps more so than in the past because no one wishes to address the topic. While it may not take the form of following after the cult of Baal, it does exist.
It might be a good exercise for a contemporary congregation to meditate upon idolatry and the forms it takes in today's churches. What are the idols? How do they lead us away from God? What are the consequences of contemporary idolatry? How might the church work its way back to fidelity to the covenant with God?
This, perhaps, is no easy task. But there are few that are more significant in terms of the future of God's church.
Life often does feel like that. Often when I sit down to my computer I experience this. There always seems to be at least one more program or feature that I need to able to take full benefit of all that I already have. I always seem to be one more download away from bliss or total security. A full life is only an upgrade away. Often some dialogue box will come up with some reason why I cannot fulfill my heart's desire -- locked in a room with open doors! I am locked in: at least until I open the door of my computer store and go in to buy the needed update to my computer that will make all upgrades possible. I cringe at the introduction of the latest Microsoft operating system as I ponder what might be withheld from me as a result of failing to buy into all the new possibilities.
The assumption behind Campbell's words, written long before the massive introduction of computers and the internet, is that no one should stay put if they can avoid it. Given the times of social upheaval and challenge in which he was writing it was clear that one should march through any opening for increased justice and diminished oppression. On this score, Campbell was clearly right. However, in our time there is a case for those who do not go through all the doors that are opened to increased consumption and waste. Staying put and sticking with what you have may be as faithful a response as moving through all the doors that may be open to us.
Each of these texts make a case for remaining where we are without yielding to the temptation of dashing off in all the directions that might be open to us.
What saves the jailor in the Acts text is that Paul and Silas do not exit through the doors that are open to them. Indeed, their witness moves the jailor to open the door to a conversation about salvation. Staying in place has its merits. The heart of the message of the book of Revelation is in a sense, "Stay put, stay on message, and stay at it for Jesus is coming." Of course, the author is living in exile so there was not much alternative to staying put. The situation of the church today might not be all that different from the situation of John of Patmos. How do we stay at it and stay as a presence in the culture when the culture is less likely to affirm or even understand what we are about as a people of faith?
Despite Jesus' plea in the lesson from John that all his people be one, the ecumenical movement has fallen on hard times. It seems, in many ways, we have rushed through a door and crossed a threshold where churches have an increasingly hard time naming or even believing in a fundamental unity. Does Generation X see the same Jesus in the religious life of baby boomers? Can a megachurch member understand the faith life of those congregations with fewer than fifty in attendance on a Sunday morning? Have we crossed a threshold where we find lack of understanding and appreciation for the "varieties of religious presence" in our communities? One might even ask what kind of unity Jesus would pray for amongst Christians, Jews, Muslims, and other faiths. Have we crossed a threshold where we find it hard to hear and speak with one another?
The lectionary this Sunday invites us to consider whether some of the thresholds we have crossed have left us further from or closer to Jesus' intentions.
Acts 16:16-34
Certainly, there is no doubt that in this text Paul opens a door for the demon- possessed slave girl. Of course, in the process, he opens a can of worms, as well. However, it is not uncommon to find that a healing poses some serious challenges. Many families have grown dependent upon having a sick member whose illness the family has grown reliant upon to divert and distract them.
The late Edward Friedman, family therapist, told stories of his mentor, Murry Bowen, who found that the visit of family members to mentally ill relatives often made their sick relatives worse. He found that from time to time when one member of a family got better another member would manifest the symptoms of the same sickness. It seemed that a family needed at least one sick member to talk about, to blame for their problems, and to divert from doing the hard work of developing healthy patterns amongst themselves. Opening the door almost always opens up challenges in one form or another. It is hardly surprising that the reaction of the slave girl's handlers are less than enthusiastic.
How did Paul come to be such a font of blessing in this situation? We would like to think that this came about as a result of Paul's well-meaning, thoughtful, and faithful understanding. That is not the case. "Paul, very much annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, 'I order you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.' And it came out that very hour." The movement of the Spirit here does not wait for Paul to summon up the appropriate emotional correctness or theological soundness. This seems less than satisfactory.
Sometimes a simple reversal of the equation brings some insight. In this case, annoyance becomes the occasion for opening some doors, which is often a lot better than annoyance being the cause of doors closing. My computer gives anger, frustration, exasperation, and infuriation, as synonyms for annoyance. When things get to that point options for better days begin to close. Certainly, as Paul is portrayed in scripture he is capable of annoyance and all its potential synonyms. Things that are normally negative, beyond the positive of merely venting, are turned into a positive when directed at the demonic. The reader wonders why it took several days for Paul to get to the place where he could lay down the order to the demon to come out of the girl. Was he afraid of being misunderstood showing an interest in the future of a slave girl? Certainly, doors remain closed when our fears of being misunderstood so overwhelm us that we do not say what needs to be said. Perhaps he had to sort through just who he was angry at.
Do we find it a lot easier to be annoyed with people? Are we trying to fix them when we should be using our emotional energy to create an environment in which the demonic can just pour out of them? It is easier to wallow in being annoyed, feeling sorry for ourselves, and blaming God for putting all those frustrating people in our path? It is certainly a lot easier than directing our energies toward casting out the demonic. How often have we stood in the way of what could be done to open doors? It took Paul a while of staying put before he could open any doors.
The net result of what did happen is that Paul and Silas found some doors opening to them, only they were behind jailhouse doors. Knowing that Paul is a Roman citizen, it seems strange that Paul does not play the citizenship card to stay out of jail.
It seems that the plan here is about these doors being open to the ministry of Paul and Silas. Prison is open to them and open to what God is doing. The Lukan author makes it clear that the prisoners were listening to them singing and praying. The faith gains credibility in this scene precisely because the privilege card is not played. Indeed the book of Acts is the story of a church that gains credibility with the least and the most vulnerable. Paul will play his citizenship card but not to get out of jail but to get to the magistrates so that they apologize to Paul and back off.
This must have been quite a sight for Paul's fellow prisoners and surely lifted his credibility in their sight. Acts reminds us that Peter the first, the original disciple, stayed with Simon the tanner when he was in Joppa. Of course a tanner was a dirty filthy occupation that was on the low end of the career tract in the ancient world. One wonders if the current churches, mega and mainline, see their plans as measuring faith development in terms of credibility with the least. Have we crossed a threshold that separates many of us from the original plan?
Of course, there is the miraculous earthquake that throws open all the doors and releases the prisoners from their chains. It is a different story for the jailor whose career and life are on the line if all the prisoners escape. Paul and Silas choose to stay put in jail locked in before open doors. One can easily make the case for rushing through the open doors. Certainly this miraculous escape mechanism would be quite an impressive tale to be told in the ancient world.
If Christianity is to be about a magic faith moving from one miracle to the next then dashing through those open doors would be the thing to do. But Paul and Silas are held back by the ethical and moral dimension of the faith. I am reminded of Mahatma Gandhi who refused to hurt the British war effort in World War I because he enjoyed the benefits of living under the British Empire and therefore he had a responsibility for its defense. There are some thresholds that should not be crossed because in the long run they violate what we should be about. Sometimes we should be locked in a room with open doors.
Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21
"Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they will have the right to the tree of life and may enter the city by the gates." This is the promise of the book of Revelation -- those who have had their robes washed can enter into the "Holy City, The New Jerusalem" God is bringing about. Revelation 21:25 makes very clear that those who long to enter the gates to this new order of things find that these portals are never closed.
Nevertheless, I don't know a pastor of any theological orientation for whom it feels that way. In every typology of churches there is always the classification that names congregations as mules, cats, or some other creature that is hard to corral and heard. A random sampling of most pastors tends to show that a disproportionate number of them have wound up serving these churches. I know the feeling, yet a caveat is in order here. There is great danger in identifying our pet projects and ideas as the portal through which folks must pass in order to enter the kingdom. We run the risk of being every bit as much a gatekeeper as some of our less progressive and more recalcitrant members. However, the doors are never closed to what kind of wisdom and learning God might bring out of our journey with people who just cannot seem to bring themselves to look at life through our lens.
Revelation makes clear that if there is a block to entering the New Jerusalem it is internal rather than external. It seems that in our age we have plenty to come clean about if we are to enter the new order of things. The outer garment in which we have wrapped our faith needs a good soak in cleansing water. I bristle at those who see in the cross primarily a vengeful God sacrificing his only son in an orgy of blood sacrifice. My faith is not wrapped up in such an interpretation. Yet, the text says there is a blessing in immersing one's robe in some cleansing. I need to be immersed into the world of those who bring to the cross the experience of being abused.
This passage suggests that a clean, refreshed feeling is a precursor to entering through the gates that are never shut. Often in church we take that to mean primarily a cleansing of our sins. But we can be so dirtied in church that we feel so unclean as to be inhibited from marching right through the open gate. If you are a parent of a child and you are holding down two jobs, insufficiently parented because your parents were holding down two jobs, and you are dealing with a child pumped up on food additives -- you don't need to be shamed for your lack of skill in handling your child when they become a nuisance. How do we leave people refreshed enough that they can enter through the gate that leads to the New Jerusalem? Many parents have an accumulation of blood, sweat, and tears trying to fight the good fight with their children.
"The Spirit and the bride say, 'Come.' And let everyone who hears say, 'Come.' And let everyone who is thirsty come. Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift." While that is what the spirit and the bride say, we often have devised ways that say, "come but see footnote at bottom of the page." "Please come as long as you are very much like us and do not tip the balance of our comfort zone." We need to come clean as to how, even despite our best intentions, we have become frenetic gatekeepers of gates that do not need keeping for they are always open.
John 17:20-26
Do you feel yourself freezing up and going into shut down mode when you hear this kind of language? One can certainly feel doors closing when we hear much of the language of the gospel of John. This gospel both invites us with such language as John 3:16 and puts us off with language that seems to suggest that Jesus is the only avenue to gain access to heaven because he is "the way the truth and the life." I approach this gospel in anticipation and dread for it seems to have been the source of as many doors closing as hearts opening.
Yet, Jesus' prayer is his petition that all will be able to see his glory. In his narration of Jesus' life, John makes clear that this prayer has been answered in church experience. In the first chapter he tells us that, "the Word has become flesh and lived among us and we have beheld his glory." Of course, in the gospel the glory can only be apprehended in light of the cross. Yet, it seems that there are certain events that illumine the meaning of the cross just as the cross illumines their meaning. In the opening chapter of the gospel John the Baptist, on seeing Jesus, proclaims, "Here is the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." Whatever else we may say of the cross it clearly must be about taking away the sin of the world, not adding to it. Any understanding of the cross that adds to the sin of the world cannot be legitimate.
The medieval crusaders' understanding of the cross as something in the name of which one must do battle is far from the glory that takes away the sin of the world. Neither can one simply find affirmation of the cross in the notion that the glory of the cross is in just taking it. There is no taking of abuse that can appeal to the cross as something glorious. This seems to be the fundamental error of the Mel Gibson movie, The Passion of the Christ. The ability to take it and be able to come back for more seems to run through many of his movies. Perhaps there is a glory in that, but not the glory of the cross.
Jesus' prayer is for the fundamental unity of the church to be found in its comprehension of Jesus' glory. Clearly, in the gospel, that glory focuses on the cross, yet that understanding must arise out of a correlation between the cross and the events of Jesus' life. When that happens, doors open to the taking away of the sin of the world.
Application
Ernest Campbell, in his sermon, "Locked In A Room With Open Doors," gives a laundry list of what the locks are in people's lives as they face the opportunities that surround them: worry, hatred, fear of the new. "The enemies are not all out there. Some are on the inside. It is so easy to fall into the habit of blaming our unrealized selves on outside forces. The mood of the day might well be caught up in a paraphrase of one of Shakespeare's better known lines, 'The fault, dear Brutus, is not in ourselves, but in our systems that we are miserable.' " Yet, what is on the inside also pushes us to needless activity.
What prompts feverish actions and all-too-frenetic activity on my part is: a mentor pastor that I do not want to let down, plain old-fashioned guilt, the inability to handle silence, and general anxiety as to what is coming next. These texts challenge me to consider whether in the next phase of my life I should yield to my drives or consider that it is God's plan for me to stay put, whether in my frenzied activity I have become a gate keeper, and whether I seek to justify my theology more by action than reflection.
Alternative Application
Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21. One approach that I have found helpful is to consider my own history with a text. I often ask myself whether I have crossed any thresholds in reflecting on a text through the years. Increasingly, I find myself pondering the questions I find myself asking of a text. Years ago, I would not have asked the question of whether a text helped to break or add to cycles of violence. As one who does believe very much that the rule of God is about justice, I have found myself asking, "Where is the shadow side of this kind of preaching?"
Increasingly, I find that I ponder how the text will impact on other faith traditions and how doors to new meaning might be opened through that conversation. These texts measure my pilgrimage in terms of prisoners released, people free to enter the New Jerusalem, and the glory that Jesus intends for his people.
Preaching The Psalm
Psalm 97
Bracketed by the language of praise, this psalm tackles an issue that does not much concern the church these days. For contemporary Christians in North America, idols are something out of teen fashion magazines or television shows where people embarrass themselves trying to gain the glitter of momentary fame. But for a biblical people, idolatry is -- or should be -- serious business.
Idolatry has to do with breaking covenant with God. It has to do with turning away from our sovereign creator God and giving our allegiance to other "gods." Idolatry, finally, has to do with our own infidelity to the one God of Israel, the God who comes to us in Jesus Christ. The worship of false gods or images is nothing new. From the golden calf (Exodus 32:4) to the Baal cults, to the Roman gods, and on into our history as a people of faith, we have wrestled with idols. The attraction, of course, is understandable. Idols can be seen, felt, and touched. Idols also tend to offer easy answers and quick solutions, and idols always lure us away from fidelity to the one God of Israel.
It's an easy thing to glance back through the lens of history and cast a judgmental eye on those who would worship statues or fertility gods or golden calves. But in reading this psalm through, the question arises. What are the idols to which Christian people succumb in these early years of the twenty-first century? Has the so-called post-modern age outgrown idolatry? Or has the contemporary community merely traded in the statues of old for new idols?
It can be said with little fear of contradiction that we contemporary folk do not sit in a place of privilege or freedom from guilt here. Idolatry continues in the church today, perhaps more so than in the past because no one wishes to address the topic. While it may not take the form of following after the cult of Baal, it does exist.
It might be a good exercise for a contemporary congregation to meditate upon idolatry and the forms it takes in today's churches. What are the idols? How do they lead us away from God? What are the consequences of contemporary idolatry? How might the church work its way back to fidelity to the covenant with God?
This, perhaps, is no easy task. But there are few that are more significant in terms of the future of God's church.
