Sermon - In The Vineyard

Sermon preached on September 18 2011 at First Congregational Church of Tallmadge, Ohio, UCC.

R.E.M.

(Reprinted from the church newsletter of First Congregational Church of Tallmadge, Ohio, UCC)

The band R.E.M. officially retired this month, after 15 albums and thousands of concerts over more than thirty years.  They started as a group of friends from Athens, Georgia, became a favorite of the college scene, and then became nationally prominent in the 1990’s with songs like “The One I Love,” “It’s the End of the World as We Know It,” and “Losing My Religion” before fading from their peak of success during the past decade.

I’ve been a fan since I first heard them in the early 90’s and have seen them live three times.  Betsy and I last saw them in concert at Blossom about seven years ago.  I used to play their songs in a band with my friends, and I still listen to them when I’m working out.  I imagine that there are many other R.E.M. fans in this church, while many of you have no idea what I’m talking about.

I want to pay tribute, because here is a rock band who managed a long career of touring and writing music without scandal, without succumbing to the excesses of rock and roll temptation, and without wanting to kill each other.  They’re still friends.  They showed that you can be mature and kind, and also have a great time and be just crazy enough. 

They showed that you can write a thoughtful, hit song about how people struggle with religion and spirituality.  Hit songs don’t have to be shallow, and losing your religion doesn’t have to mean becoming a shallow person.  I’ve always thought that the alternative to bad religion is good religion.

Many people lose the religion of their earlier lives, because it was scary, judgmental, exclusive, or incomprehensible.  Sometimes religion is harmful, and sometimes it seems so harmless and facile that you wonder what’s the point?  All of these are distortions of the holy religion that binds us together with God and with one another.  I don’t know what the members of R.E.M. call their religion, but I’m thankful that they shared their struggles with honesty and integrity.

R.E.M., Thanks for the music, and may your retirement be blessed.

Honor Your Parents

Honor your father and your mother.  This is one of the commandments given by God to the Hebrew nation when they escaped slavery and were faced with the challenge of governing themselves.  The commandments they received were the basis of their society, because any society needs laws, rules, and norms to live by.  In the middle of our American culture of individualism, I think that we often mistakenly think of the ten commandments as commands directed at individuals.

“Honor your father and your mother” means more than the duty of each person to his or her parents.  It means that we are all responsible to honor the generation that has gone before us.  It is a collective responsibility, and it promotes the well-being of us all.  On the personal level, it means that I show love and support for my parents, and treat them with dignity.  On the collective level, it means that I gladly pay my social security and medicare taxes, for the support of many people I don’t know, people who may or may not have children who are able to support them.  Social Security and Medicare are, of course, governmental programs that are not exclusively religiously based.  They are programs that stabilize the national economy in addition to meeting individual needs.  But, from my perspective, they are also ways in which I fulfill God’s commandment to honor our fathers and mothers.

God’s work in Jesus Christ is to reconcile the world to God (see Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians 5:19).  Christ did not come for individuals, but for everyone.  And so we gather for worship on Sunday mornings in community, seeking to follow Christ together.

Biblical Reinterpretation

When Jesus taught his disciples about the Hebrew scriptures, he said that he had come to fulfill the law. And yet, he was often accused of breaking God’s law, as when he healed on the Sabbath, or allowed his disciples to harvest grain on the Sabbath because they were hungry. Both healing and picking grain were considered work, and the Sabbath is for rest, according to how the law was interpreted at that time. Jesus gave a different interpretation: that the Sabbath was made for people, and not people for the Sabbath. He emphasized different parts of the scripture in order to fit his time and place.

In his book Way of Blessing, Way of Life, theologian Clark M Williamson describes the Jewish tradition of halakha, which is “a process of interpreting and reinterpreting the law. Over time, old laws become irrelevant or fail to respond adequately to the voice of the vulnerable other in a new and different context. So each generation reinterprets its obligations. Halakha explicitly recognizes that God who gives the law also transcends it, and that no law is ever final. It is not fundamentalist with regard to the law.”

This is an important reminder to us of our heritage from the Jewish tradition and from the example of Christ. God’s law is made for human righteousness, and especially to protect the vulnerable. When God’s law becomes a barrier to wholeness, or when it is used as a club to hammer any group of people, then it is time for a faithful reinterpretation.

Sometimes we worry that we shouldn’t be in the business interpretation. We think that we ought to respect the words as they are written, and that any human interpretation is putting our thoughts above God’s. In fact, human interpretation has always been a part of God’s method of revelation. There is no such thing as a reading that is free of interpretation. Let us continue to interpret carefully, boldly, and faithfully.