« September 2007 | Main | November 2007 »

I'm a little late, and need to get the study outlined. I spent the day writing an op/ed piece for the San Diego Union-Tribune that I've just learned will be published, most likely in Friday's paper. It is relevant to these Scriptures because it was in response to the indefinite delay of opening up the Winter Shelter downtown. Many of those that we know from the Bread of Life count on such housing as protection from the winter elements.

It is easy to look at the failure of the SD City Council to open the shelter as scheduled with condemnation. Yet the passages bring the question back to us. To start with the Isaiah passage, and move to the Gospel as central, and then 2 Thessalonians as the end.

Isa. 1:10-20

While we tend to interpret the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah in sexual terms, the Genesis passage actually speaks of the lack of hospitality. What is it that they are doing? Who are they?

Discuss the significance of Israel as the elect here. The church has read Israel as a type of the church, not a nation-state or local government. What happens when we read this passage as a prophetic word for a congregation rather than a governmental agency of various levels? What is the positive call fo the passage?

Luke 19:1-10

Pastor Deron laid out a good setting for tax-collectors last Sunday. Jericho itself was a wealthy area about 15 miles out of Jerusalem. It is kind of like the Palm Springs of Judah -- believe it or not, studies have compared bones of this area to bones from Jerusalem and found that the life span in Jericho was substantially more because of weather and living conditions and the wealth of those who lived there. Why is it so offensive for Jesus to meet with Zacchaeus? What would be an equivalent today?

What comes to Zacchaeus' house that is the "salvation" that has come. What is the sign of this salvation? Why is this a sign of Zacchaeus' salvation?

2 Thessalonians 1:1-12

Describe the congregation in Thessalonica? Why does it elicit Paul's thanksgiving? What is a sign that they are being faithful? What is Paul's ultimate hope/goal for the Thessalonicans?

Maybe it might be good to discuss how Jesus' presence brings salvation to us and the relationship between the distribution of goods encouraged in Isaiah, experienced in Luke, makes a difference for the congregation in 2 Thessalonians. How might God make us worthy of our call?

Posted by johnwright at 4:31 PM | Comments (0)

We live in a day of wars and rumors of wars. The de-stabilization of Mesopotamia continues to threaten new outbreaks. Oil prices continue to climb. One wonders what would happen if, according to rumors in the press, the United States plan to bomb Iran would commence.

I finished reading the book by/about the Blessed Teresea of Calcutta, "Come Be My Light." It is profound at several levels; someone needs to do a Balthasarian type of study of her life as a type of first-order language of Christian theology. I recommend it to all. What I would like to do in light of this current situation is to copy Mother Teresea of Calcutta's letter that she wrote before the outbreak of armed hostilities in Iraqi in 1991. She addressed the letter to both George H. W. Bush and Saddam Hussein. Tragically, both parties ignored Teresea's wisdom. What she feared still goes on today.

2nd January, 1991

Dear President George Bush and President Saddam Hussein

I come to you with tears in my eye and God's love in my heart plead to you for the poor and those who will become poor if the war that we all dread and fear happens. I beg you with my whole heart to work for, to labour for God's peace and to be reconciled with one another.

You both have your cases to make and your people to care for but first please listen to the One who came into the world to teach us peace. You have the power and the strength to destroy God's presence and image, His men, His women, and His children. Please listen to the will of God. God has created us to be loved by His love and not to be destroyed by our hatred.

In the short term there may be winners and losers in this war that we all dread, but that never can, nor never will justify the suffering, pain and loss of life which your weapons will cause.

I come to you in the name of God, the God that we all love and share, to beg for the innocent ones, our poor of the world and those who will become poor because of war. They are the ones who will suffer most because they have no means of escape. I plead on bended knee for them. They will suffer and when they do, we will be the ones who are guilty for not having done all in our power to protect and love them. I plead to you for those who will be left orphaned, widowed, and left alone because their parents, husbands, brothers and children have been killed. I beg you to please save them. I plead for those who will be left with disability and disfigurement. They are God's children. I plead for those who will be left with no home, no food and no love. Please think of them as being your children. Finally, I plead for those who will have the most precious thing that God can give us, life, taken away from them. I beg you to save our brothers and sisters, yours and ours, because they are given to us by God to love and to cherish. It is not for us to destroy what God has given us. Please, please let your mind and your will become the mind and will of God. You have the power to bring ward into the world or to build peace. PLEASE CHOOSE THE WAY OF PEACE.

I, my sisters and our poor are praying for you so much. The whole world is praying that you will open your hearts in love to God. You may win the war, but what will the cost be on people who are broken, disabled and lost.

I appeal to you--to your love, your love of God and your fellow men. In the name of God and in the name of those you will make poor, do not destroy life and peace. Let love and peace triumph and let your names be remembered for the good you have done, the joy you have spread and the love you have shared.

Please pray for me and my sisters as we try to love and serve the poor because they belong to God and are loved in His eyes, as we and our poor are praying for you. We pray that you will love and nourish what God has so lovingly entrusted into your care.

May God bless you now and always.

God bless you,
M. Teresa, M.C.

From Come be my Light, pp. 313-17.

Posted by johnwright at 10:58 AM | Comments (0)

Humility is an interesting Christian virtue. It is not self-evident what it really means. Early Christians were accused of being "arrogant" and "proud" by those who were killing them., while Christians saw themselves as the very definition of humililty. "Pride" and "arrogance" become accusations to try to force a conformity to the particularity of a majority's social norms rather than the particularity of the norms given to us by Jesus Christ. No one accuses one today of lack of humility for asserting 2 + 2 = 4; it is not unusual at all to be accused of arrogance for asserting "Jesus Christ is Lord". Perhaps these are two different different types of claims; yet it highlights the struggle we have with maintaining the truthfulness of Christian convictions in a culture that one's to reduce them to "personal values," and therefore outside claims of truthfulness. Humility now is seen as a virtue concerning about the self in relationship to other selves -- a necessary internal quality that we need for "toleration" to allow the state to enforce the law. I'm a sinner; therefore I must tolerate your sin as well; if you or I get too far out of hand and violate the law, the state will take over. We think humility means to suppress our self-interest so that others might express their own self-interest in ways that are meaningful to them. Subtly we are formed by the politics of the world rather than that of the body of Christ. Our Scripture readings this week take us to humility as a Christian virtue, a quality necessary for the Spirit to sanctify us, rather than to make us tolerant. We are called to something much stronger than tolerance: love of enemy, doing good to those who hate us.

To hear our Scripture readings well with their calls to humility and repentance

Talal Asad, a social anthropologist, has a wonderful discussion of the medieval Christian concept of humility that I think can help us hear our Scriptures. Humility is crucial, not as a virtue to relate to other humans, but in relationship to God. It must be learned to receive the Sacraments properly (and in this, we could include Scripture study) in order to have the Spirit form us into people who might be entirely sanctified, ie, live fully obedient to God in Jesus Christ. Here is a quote from Asad as he explains Hugh of St. Victor:

"having disobeyed God through pride, man [humanity] is not obliged to subject himself to . . . material elements of the sacrament, which are by nature below him in the scheme of creation: 'there is no one, indeed, who does not know that rational man exists suprior by foundation to the mute and insensible elements, and yet when this man is ordered to seek his salvation in these, to try the virtue of his obedience, what else is this than that a superior is subject to an inferior?'" (Asad, Genealogies of Religion, pp. 155-56). Humility is necessary to receive the sacraments to form the will to obey God. Humility is a necessary virtue that leads to obedience. Therefore, "humiliation ensures that obedience as an act of the will is at once a precondition, a continuous accompaniment, and the ultimate objective of Christian rites restoring purity" (p. 157). Perhaps we can read our Jeremiah text, then the Gospel, and then to what seems an entirely "prideful" statement from 2 Timothy that is really an expression of humility.

Jeremiah 14:1-10,19-22

Given the devastation of the fires around us, the Jeremiah passage speaks deeply as it speaks of the natural disaster of a draught that the poor land of Judah experiences. In the passage, how bad are things? How does the passage in light of the position call for a "humiliation" through a confession of sin? What is God's response? When in the passage does God stop speaking and the voice of the confessor begin again? Why is it important to realize that "there is no healing in us"? How does relate to the hope stated at the end of the passage?

Luke 18:9-14

As you read this passage, with whom does Jesus ask us to identify? Why is the text collector made just, made righteous (justified) rather than the Pharisee? To whom does the Pharisee primarily exalt himself in the passage and to whom does the tax collector humble himself? (This is easily missed in interpretation today that sees humility primarily related to tolerance of another). Who will do the exaltation of the humble? Why is confession of sin necessary to become just? How is it related to obedience?

2 Timothy 4:6-8,16-18

I read this passage last night at Bread of Life. The congregation there received these words in their power. Discuss the relationship between the statement of being "already poured out as a libation and the time of my departure has come" with the affirmations of victory. What is the relationship between the humiliation and the victory?

It is difficult to accept humility, even humiliation, as a virtue related to the purifying of our character by the Holy Spirit to permit obedience to God as revealed to us in Jesus Christ. How does humility help us in our worship of listening to Christ in the Word proclaimed and received in the Sacraments? How is humility related to our engaging in the works of mercy? What's the difference in engaging the works of mercy out of humility rather than the pride of achievement?

Have a wonderful evening! I pray that you all stay safe. Pray for those who are suffering, not only those suffering homelessness from the fire, but also those who daily live without adequate shelter in our area and in the world.

Posted by johnwright at 9:56 AM | Comments (0)

This is the last of the sermons for the series on the mission of the Church of the Nazarene in Mid-City. I place it on the web while fires are slowly getting in control to the north of my home and to its south -- unlike four years ago, we are not in the literal "line of fire." Evacuation, destruction of property, is a tragedy. It seems that the San Diego City and County officials learned well from the Cedar Fire of the past; all seems much more in order without the chaos. Maybe that's just my geographic perspective, however.

I know of at least one of my students who has lost a house; I deeply mourn. Yesterday was a long, grey day. To my knowledge, none of our congregation has been evacuated. I worry about Pastor Shawn's family who live in Ramona; I haven't heard back from him.

As always, I deeply appreciate you feedback to this series. I am reviewing a book today for the Wesleyan Theological Journal called, "In Search of the Catholic Spirit: Methodists and Roman Catholics in Dialogue" by David M. Chapman. I discovered that a British Methodist, Hugh Price Hughes, was the first to notice the historical continuity between the Methodist/Holiness movement and "the friars in the Roman Catholic Church." It is this understanding of our heritage (and by ours, I mean the Church of the Nazarene within the one evangelical, catholic, orthodox faith) that lies behind this sermon.

Genesis 32:3-8, 22-30

We are a pilgrim people – we live as strangers, aliens in this world as we look to find our eternal end in God. God has called us to this place as a pilgrim way-station, a place of care for the saints and hospitality to strangers. We ourselves are pilgrims, passing through this temporal world to our end in God; God calls us here with other pilgrims who make their way through this world. This is our work: to care for this place and those who pass through it. What does this take? Let’s look at the passage from Genesis this morning to see what it says for us in this place as we live as pilgrims.

Did you notice that Jacob was an alien, a sojourner, and a pilgrim? Jacob here confronts his past as weak, unprotected, and vulnerable. Jacob had taken advantage of his brother’s weakness; he had stolen from his father-in-law. Now Jacob is adrift. He’s caught in between. His goal is the land God promised him and his ancestors. Yet God’s promise seems irrelevant now. Four hundred men and his brother await him on the other side of the river. Jacob has no option to control the situation. Having lived as an alien, Jacob is caught without his green card with the fed’s immediately ahead.

What to do? Jacob goes off by himself – and wrestles with a man -- or is it God? The narrative strains with gaps. Such gaps often open in the world that pilgrim’s experience. By himself Jacob wrestles with another. The man touches Jacob’s thigh and it becomes dislocated. I’ve had arm’s dislocated, knee caps dislocated. It hurts; pain overwhelms the senses. Jacob experiences the dislocation of his thigh. He suffers. But more is going on in this text at another level. The man touches Jacob’s thigh. Jacob’s thigh. Need I speak of the male thigh in Scriptures, the thigh, for instance of Gideon as we read in Judges 8:30, from which 70 sons were born? From Jacob, from his thigh, the people of Israel come forth. Touching the thigh ruptures Jacob from his previous life to make a promise for the future. The dislocating touch of God – or is it a man? – opens a visible future for Jacob to become Israel. There is a promise in the man’s touch of Jacob’s thigh. The suffering Jacob now with a future hangs on to the man. Jacob makes a vow to the man: Bless me if you want to go. Jacob binds himself in a vow. He clings fully in his suffering to the man – or is it God?

The answer comes. God -- or is it a man? -- renames Jacob as a result of the vow. Jacob becomes Israel. Israel does not merely mean struggling with God; it also means God reigns. The rule of God becomes visible in the world as Israel, not Jacob. Israel: a person, a people living a vowed life to God bound in election and vow to God. God rules; Jacob is no longer Jacob; Jacob will be Israel. As God elects in the middle of the peril of the pilgrimage, God transforms the suffering of Jacob into a sign of God’s rule for Jacob has become Israel – God rules. Jacob is bound to God who has elected him with his words, “I will not let you go until you bless me!” Jacob vows to cling to the God – or is it a man? Jacob becomes Israel.

The passage screams with typological significance. Jacob becomes Israel through a vow, wrestling with God as an alien, dislocated and suffering. God’s rule becomes seen in the world through God’s election of Jacob now Israel after Jacob vows to cling to God until he is blessed. We hear in this story the story of the church through the ages – and today our story as well. The church in its history has forgotten that it is a pilgrim people – we’ve lived as Jacob. The church fights the temptation to belong, to find its true end in this world. We then lose a sense of our distinctive place and try to fill the space of the world, to seek influence in everyplace; we end up witnessing to nothing nowhere.

Yet during such times, people have drifted off and found themselves suddenly wrestling with God. They experience dislocation, suffering, but also election, promise. They learn that they have to cling to God in Christ by the Spirit if they wish to survive their sojourn. They vow themselves to God in response to God’s election. No longer Jacob, they become Israel. God through this group brings forth the church in its fullness into the world as Israel, persons who live to be a blessing to the nations.

Those believers who enter a vow as aliens to cling to God for a blessing remind the church how not to be Jacob, but Israel. They seek to Christianize Christianity; by their presence they urge the rest of the church not to lose its visibility by assimilating to the world. Historically these elect have entered special vows to God to cling to God. Pachomius in the East who brought Christians pursuing perfection in isolation together in witness; Benedict of Nisia in the West who wrote a rule and started houses of prayer, work, and mercy, pilgrimage way-stations, though out Western Europe. Time went on. When the church had fallen to the violence of the crusade and wealth, God raised up Francis and Clare of Assisi, who pursued holy poverty together in preaching Jesus Christ; the Society of Jesus, the Sisters of Mercy, Christians called to live in a special discipline together to pursue the perfection of love of God and neighbor to make the church, the new Israel, fully present, visible in the world, as Israel, not Jacob.

These movements of vowed Christians are not just movements in Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. An Anglican Priest named John Wesley started a people called Methodists together to live a vowed life of avoiding all evil, doing all good to the bodies and souls of humans, and observing the ordinances of our Lord. This people called Methodists moved to the United States, but soon learned to fit in. In 1861 they gave up their life as a vowed people. A Methodist elder Phineas Bresee, looked to renew the church by Christianizing Christianity in the late 19th century. Pastor Deron showed me how Phineas Bresee was very aware of this historical tie from the Franciscans to the early Methodists to the Church of the Nazarene. To join the Church of the Nazarene was and is to enter this vowed people like the original Methodists to pursue Christian perfection, the heart cleansed of sin and filled with love divine, the restoration of the fullness of the image of God in us. Congregations in the Church of the Nazarene accept the work to make the church fully visible in the world by participating in Jesus in the Word, the Sacrament, and the Works of Mercy through living as a vowed pilgrim people. We cling to God in Christ, dislocated from the world to live as Israel, not Jacob.

This is our heritage. Our heritage meets our need for this work. We must become vowed members of the Church of the Nazarene, vowed as a certain type of order within the church catholic. We must be a pilgrim people, called to care for a pilgrim way-station, vowed to personal involvement in the works of Mercy. God calls us to live our pilgrim life as Israel, not Jacob.

A vowed life? Isn’t that a little extreme? Give up our “freedom” to do whatever we like on the spur of the moment? We have to recognize that we aren’t free. We’re formed by a sinful world. If we are to find our true end in God, we will find it through our vow to pursue the perfection of the love of God shed abroad in our heart in our love of neighbor. If God is to make the church fully visible by the presence of Jesus in Word, Sacrament, and Works of Mercy, nothing less than a vowed life to the discipline of this local congregation for its members will do. We welcome gladly friends who will support the work around us; but from those vowed we need to cling to God in this common mission.

Is it possible? Can such a congregation exist in this world? Oh yes, it can and it does. I could tell you stories of the folk who’ve learned to live this way in local Churches of the Nazarene that I’ve encountered in their simplicity and beauty.

Yet to show you this is possible, the image that has come to me is the Missionaries of Charity begun by the Blessed Teresa of Calcutta. A small Albanian woman, Gonxha Bojadijevic left home at age 18 to enter a life of prayer and service as a nun far away in India. On September 10, 1946, at age 36, she had a mystical encounter with Jesus Christ: “I heard the call to give up all and follow Him into the slums – to serve Him in the poorest of the poor” (p. 40). Years later, she reflected to her vowed sisters: “Jesus wants me to tell you again . . . . how much is the love He has for each of you—beyond all what you can imagine. . . . Not only He loves you, even more—He longs for you. He misses you when you don’t come lose. He thirsts for you. He loves you always, even when you don’t feel worthy . . . .
For me it is so clear—everything in MC exists only to satiate Jesus. His words on the wall of every MC chapel, they are not from [the] past only, but alive here and now, spoken to you. . . .Why does Jesus say ‘I thirst’? . . . “I thirst’ is something much deeper than just Jesus saying ‘I love you.’ Until you know deep inside that Jesus thirsts for you – you can’t begin to know who He wants to be for you. Or who He wants you to be for Him” (p. 42).

Teresa ended up on the streets in Calcutta, first alone, then with one other. After a year a congregation of ten women lived as pilgrims, caring for other pilgrims at pilgrimage way-stations God have entrusted to them: “The Particular End is to carry Christ into the homes and streets of the slums, the sick, dying, the beggars and the little street children. The sick will be nursed as far as possible in their poor homes. The little children will have a school in the slums. The beggars will be sought and visited in their holes outside the town or on the streets. To be able to do all these—the Sisters must learn first to live real interior lives of close union with God—and seek and see Him in all they do for the poor.” (pp. 341.

Such a task requires a complete surrender to God in Christ: “As each sister is to be a victim of Christ and do His work, she will understand what God and the Institute expects from her. No half measure—We must give to God all or nothing and keep up that total surrender – cost what it may” (p. 38).

The Missionaries of Charity recognize themselves as pilgrims called to engagement in the world to find their end in God. They care for others whom they recognize as pilgrims, some not long in this world. They set up a unique pilgrimage way-stations, The Nirmal Hriday, the Home for the Dying: “The sisters will use every tenderness and love for those who are leaving this world—so that the love of Jesus will attract them and make them make their peace with Him.—They will pray near the dying and make sure that the priest is called in time.—If the person has not got anybody—the sisters will prepare his or her body for burial” (p. 347). A person had to offer themselves to God in Christ to be made nothing so that God could be everything. In the vow adequacy to the task ahead meets the need for personal sanctification.

Mother Teresa was about Jesus, finding the presence of Jesus in Word, Sacrament, and the works of Mercy to the poor. The presence of Jesus in Word, Sacrament, and Works of Mercy, meeting Jesus by satiating his thirst as a pilgrim people, called to a particular pilgrimage way-station, living as a people vowed to cling to God in the works of mercy so that God might make us visibly present in the world as Israel. God has yet to call us to the poorest of the poor. But to fulfill our work here, we require the same depth of faith in Jesus Christ, the same seeking God’s holiness, God’s perfect love, the same fleeing from all sin, even the sin most deeply embedded in the recesses of our hearts.

This is our mission. We live grasped by the love of God in Jesus Christ through faith, letting the Spirit bring forth hope and love, living as a pilgrim, caring for a pilgrim way-station, vowed to the Works of Mercy for the salvation of our souls, to satiate the thirst of Jesus. This is a life that really is life. Listen to a sister speak of Mother Teresa: “She seemed to delight in you. It was not something of charity that was burdensome, which destroys the dignity of the poor, but it was something that she delighted in . . . . You had the sense that she considered it a privilege to do this” (p. 336).

Don’t resist God’s call. Stop wrestling and cling to God. Come to Christ’s presence in the Eucharist. Be part of this pilgrim people, called to this place, vowed to the works of Mercy in order that we might live as Israel, not Jacob, in this world.

Posted by johnwright at 10:50 AM | Comments (0)

Last week was so full. In a space of four days I gave 4 extra lectures/presentations. They were fun to do, but left the week a bit breathless. I didn't get time to blog Bible Study, nor even to record the third sermon in my series on the Mission of Mid-City.

Saturday evening we met in a new practice -- a gathering for a pot-luck meal and preparations for Sunday, including a prayer service. Gaelan Gilbert led it, drawing from an older liturgy in the Book of Common Prayer. As we prayed, I was reminded in those prayers how simple, but relevant those prayers were to us. The prayer service prayed our mission for us.

In the sermon I try to develop the significance of place -- place such as Bethlehem, the place where Christ comes forth. Bethlehem takes on a typological signficance for Christians through Jesus Christ. Bethlehem becomes whereever Christ is fully present in the Word, Sacraments, and Works of Mercy. I hope that God uses these petty words to drive us all deeper into the particular places where Christ is present.

Called to a Pilgrim Way-Station: A Place for Hospitality along the Journey
Ruth 1: 1-19

This is the third week in a series of sermons on the mission of this congregation. The first week I shared the foundation, Jesus Christ, our Lord. In a world of consumerist spirituality, we participate in God through Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, who is present in the Word, in the Sacraments, and in the works of mercy. Last week we discovered that in a world where we are taught to belong, we are pilgrims, sojourners, aliens, engaged in this world with our end in God. This week we need to get more concrete what it means for us to live as pilgrims, people who don’t belong. In a world that teaches us that our faith allows us to detach ourselves from a particular space, God has called us here to care for the needs of the saints and show hospitality to strangers. We are a people to whom God has granted responsibility for this pilgrimage way-station and those who pass through and into it.

To say that place matters for our Christian pilgrimage sounds weird. Surely Christianity is a universal faith. Place doesn’t matter. We don’t belong; we’re pilgrims, right? Yet pilgrims, among all people, know that place matters. You don’t think place matters, talk to our Nuer brothers and sisters. They know that San Diego is not “natural”, but very particular, very strange. Pilgrims don’t belong to the place where they are in their journey. Pilgrims know that all places are particular, that there is no universal place – a general place that unites all places. They recognize the importance of the particular places that God gives them for rest where they might receive needed hospitality, care for bodies and souls, as they make their way to the end, the goal of their journey. It seems to me that we might find ourselves in the reading from the Book of Ruth today, a reading that emphasizes the importance of place for Christian pilgrims.

Place as the emphasis in Ruth? That sounds just bizarre. I wonder why? We live in a world that teaches that place is not significant, especially for living the Christian life over time. We’ve learned that we have to detach our lives from any particular place so that we might be accessible to a global market, career advancement, with no lasting moral ties to anyone. The market place is universal, abstract, not local and particular. By denying the particularity of place, all might supposedly belong, be absorbed into the producer-consumer cycle that continuously repeats, going no where.

This shapes how we think about the life of local congregations. We want to abstract them from particular places. Congregational settings become like Walmart – once you’ve been in one, you’ve been in them all. Place doesn’t matter; the services offered matter. Particular places might have some oddities to attract us – like old, decaying orange carpet, but such is seen not tied to a place, but to an ambiance that is the product being peddled. Faith in Jesus is lived out by an abstract, interior faith, not a loyalty lived in a messy concrete and stucco building that roaches seem to like to inhabit.

How different from the story we read in Ruth. The story begins in Bethlehem, a place which housed a nameless, voiceless woman earlier in Judges 19. Her body became raped and dismembered, a cause to incite Israel in a civil war. Food shortages in Bethlehem send Elimelech and Naomi on the road; they are pilgrims or refugees, trying to survive economic hard times. They travel to Moab. Their sons marry, only to have death take Elimelech and the two sons. The women become pilgrims, persons who do not belong according to the rules of the social system, are left in dire straights.

Place matters. Naomi recognizes it. “Go home, return to your people in Moab. The Lord’s hand has turned against me – go home, go where you belong.” But Ruth refuses to belong. “Where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people and your God my God.” Ruth will live out her life in the place with Naomi as a pilgrim. She will live and die as a stranger – but will live in the meantime worshipping Naomi’s God, the God of Israel. So they go to Bethlehem, a home that is no longer home. They go as people who no longer belong, but as pilgrims together, aliens looking for a place to find hospitality amid their journey. Weak, poor, unwanted, they travel to a particular place in hope of finding hospitality there.

They came to Bethlehem. Maybe you know the story. These women have skills, not skills from belonging, but survival skills, skills of the weak, how to live when one is not in control. They find a way to eat in Bethlehem; Ruth learns how to beg. On a threshing floor, under Naomi’s guidance, Ruth finds a way to survive as an alien, a pilgrim. She lives her life in Bethlehem as an alien – and from her, from her sojourn in Bethlehem, King David comes forth. From Ruth’s sojourn in Bethlehem, ultimately Jesus Christ comes into this world by another wandering woman, Mary. God brings forth God’s Word, born to a female sojourner in Bethlehem, just like his ancestress Ruth. God brings forth the redemption of a world, not in no place or any place, but in Bethlehem, the place where Ruth sojourns.

Can we find ourselves as Ruth? As Mary? Could we understand this place as a type of Bethlehem, a particular place whereby God brings forth God’s Word, a place to which God calls us as pilgrims in witness to the world? In the early days of this congregation, we didn’t think that we would ever have a place. Dr. David Whitelaw spoke of us as the wandering tabernacle. We moved from place to place, always on the move. This place had once been the University Avenue Church of the Nazarene, before a famine hit City Heights – the city cut off the neighborhood as I-15 was constructed. The building was turned over to an Apostolic Temple congregation. Years later they sought to move, and they offered the place to Dr. Ron Benefiel with a right of first refusal. We had no money; no means to care for it. We rented it for a year through a donation given to Ron, to give him a chance to raise money, to see what God had in store.

In the first several weeks, a man died of a heroin overdose on the sidewalk after shooting up in the rest room. I remember Robin, a prostitute, who would drop in for our bible studies to see if we might have some way of assisting her. Eddie Spaghetti, a Viet Nam vet who had lost his legs in the war, who begged and shot up in the area – and eventually was killed after being run over by a truck on University Avenue while begging. Aliens, strangers. God began gathering other congregations to the building from various places throughout the world – a Nazarene Spanish-language congregation and Cambodian congregation meeting in a nearby house. The Nuer soon joined us as well. We were approached by several Haitians in the area who had been meeting as a Church of the Nazarene that we didn’t even know. Ron worked with Point Loma Nazarene University to establish an urban center to give students first hand interaction with other aliens. The San Diego Coalition for the Homeless came in, Amity, a rehab group, rented space. Amani Kuumba, an African American college, joined us, the only African American college west of the Mississippi. After a year, Ron had miraculously raised a working budget and $250,000 and the Multicongregational Board purchased the building. God gathered a pilgrim people to this place – a pilgrimage way-station.

The neighborhood has continued to evolve, gentrifying, people processing in and out. The congregations have stayed to care for this place. Pastor Anthony’s family literally lived out of the building for several months when he lost his job as with a security company. We once had sewage backups for 6 out of 8 Sundays in a row in the middle of Sunday services until we discovered that plumbing had been placed into an old pipe that didn’t go anywhere. Many in the area don’t have what the US government calls “papers” – some of the children that have come to Sunday School have been placed in foster homes after their father or relatives had been deported. God has brought to us – and taken – persons like Crazy Mike and Bear, pilgrims on this earth just like us. I’ll never forget when Mike brought all the pennies that he had received from weeks of his work, begging at the ramp off I-15.

The Word has been proclaimed; the Sacraments celebrated; works of mercy have taken root in this place – Jesus Christ has become and becomes visibly present through the weak pilgrims that gather here. Our worship of Word and Sacrament continues in this Sanctuary – and it is a Sanctuary, not an auditorium or gymnasium. When it rains, we provide a refuge for those without shelter from the rain. Meals are served for those who live downtown through our congregation that meets on Tuesday nights at the Salvation Army. Friendships with members from other congregations slowly but deeply arise as we recognize that we too are aliens. Bread, produce, who know what else filters in and through the building for those who stretch to make it through the month, perhaps those who the government would capture and move against their will south across what they call a border. God provides here a small place of gathering and hospitality for pilgrims on their way through this age.

The place slowly shapes you by the Spirit’s witness. Of course, then you might discover that you don’t belong other places. When you see the world from a pilgrimage way-station, the rest of the world looks strange. The world seeks to belong to the world rather than find its end in God through Jesus Christ. It’s being immersed in the local, the particular place, this particular place through which God brings forth the virtues of perfect love of God and neighbor in us.

A pilgrimage way-station takes wisdom; it takes work; it takes funding. It takes committed persons to this particular place, to make it work. Just think what it would take for the Missionaries of Charity to keep their Home for the Dying alive with love – the cleaning, the caring, the medical expertise, the funding, organization, the joining of the sisters’ pilgrimage with the pilgrimage of those who come as the presence of the thirsty Jesus Christ to them. It takes participating in the God who is Triune Love through the presence of Jesus Christ in Word, Sacrament, and Works of Mercy engaged in through repentance and faith. Like Ruth’s pilgrimage through Bethlehem, God the Father brings forth the presence of Jesus Christ by power of the Holy Spirit in the world.

We are a pilgrim people; we are called to care for this pilgrimage way-station, and in Jesus Christ, find our eternal home. I remember one Maunday Thursday, we gathered for our foot washing service. God had brought Buni Joseph to us, a beautiful man who had been trained to serve as a nurse in a refugee camp by the United Nations, but whose credentials weren’t recognized here in the United States. Buni was an alien, a beautiful, gracious, joyous pilgrim. That night he took the basin, and as he knelt to wash feet, he said, “I give God thanks for tonight I finally am at home. If I was in the Sudan tonight, I would be doing the same thing as we are doing here tonight.” Buni’s life had found its home as a pilgrim in God, most evident in identifying with Jesus Christ in the washing of feet. I don’t think I’ll ever be worthy of saints like Buni Joseph who live as pilgrims with a joy that transcends the hard conditions of living life as aliens. But maybe, through participating in this place, this very particular place, as a stranger, a pilgrim, God’s Spirit may so cleanse me that I can live my live in this world thankful to God for God’s goodness amid my sojourn here.

Posted by johnwright at 7:54 AM | Comments (0)

Last Sunday we spoke together about our life as a congregation, our lives plain and simple, spent as “A Pilgrim People.” To be honest, I had not looked ahead yet to this week’s readings, but I am fascinated at God’s providence in moving to the book of Ruth and, of course, Jesus still “on the move” toward Jerusalem in Luke.

It is tempting to think that pilgrims do not care about geography because they are on a journey. Yet pilgrimage is all about geography, about place and about the people one meets along the way. Pilgrims must recognize the differences of place, the importance of place as they live their fragile existence far from home.

It might be good to start with Ruth, move to the Gospel, and then to the Epistle for the bible study.

Ruth 1:1-19a
Plot out the characters and the movement in this section of Ruth and the economic status that accompanies the characters on the way. Why does Naomi become a “pilgrim”? Why does Ruth join Naomi on her pilgrimage and Orpah not? What is the role of “Bethlehem” in the story? Why do they end up in Bethlehem?
Luke 17:11-19
Notice all the movement in the passage. Who is going where, when in the story? Why does the place of the meeting matter? Notice that the leprosy had made Jews and Samarians joint pilgrims. Why would the political commitments of each other no longer matter to the lepers? To show themselves to priests would have meant that the Jews would head to a priest in Galilee, the Samaritan to Samaria – the healing happens in the “between” – the place of pilgrims. Why is thankfulness along the way before returning home important for “foreigners” who have met Jesus at an “in between” place?

2 Timothy 2:3-15

How does the author assume that he and his readers are pilgrims? What is the attitude towards suffering and hardship in this text? Why does the text seem to assume that it will take place? How does the text exhort us to remain “centered”? Why must he warn us as pilgrims to “avoid wrangling over words” at the same time exhorting us to “rightly explain the word of truth”?

I can’t help but read these passages with the book of Teresea of Calcutta on my mind. She was a pilgrim; she engaged her life satiating the thirst of the suffering Christ on the cross in the bodies of the poor; she enfolded there suffering into her suffering, and her suffering into the suffering of Christ as she built specific areas for the poorest pilgrims to live in their journey.

In the rule of the Missionaries of Charity, there is a section on “The Home for the Outcasts of Human Society.” Here is what is written:

“There are those that are not wanted amongst the poor-the lame—the blind—the sick.—For them when the Bishop thinks fit—will the home be opened—and there the sisters will take care of their body and soul.—This of course is only for the little children.”

Does the work and vows of the Missionaries of Charity, establishing a place for the “outcasts of human society” help our imagination to hear these Scriptures today? Maybe it does not help at all, but I keep wondering who we would become if we would understand ourselves in the same way with a similar mission as the Missionaries of Charity.

Posted by johnwright at 8:10 AM | Comments (1)

I had hoped to focus a little more on my professorate responsibilities and reading and writing and revising today and tonight. Yet as I often find, God has other ideas. It ended up being a night of shock, suffering, and joy.

I was driving downtown to Bread of Life when I knew it was not to be a typical evening. Here is a letter that I have written to an ex-student who works in the San Diego City government -- I sent it, but it bounced back to me until I find the appropriate email address.

Dear ____:

It is with profound sadness that I write this inquiry to you. But since you offered . . .

Tonight I was driving down 8th Street to preach at the Salvation Army before our meal there -- the Bread of Life. I believe you occasionally dropped down there. As I approached the intersection at 8th and F (I believe), in front of Caesar's Cafe, I noticed a disturbance with two police involved. A large African American male had been placed on his stomach with this hands behind his back, and was crying out. He was either handcuffed already or the process was near its end. I was shocked as a Caucasian man sprinted over across the street and suddenly struck the man on the ground in the face with two full round house fist punches; I started to yell out the window, and then became additionally amazed as a white male policemen who was on the man's back, leaned over the man and punched his a third time with a full fist on the left side of the face.

I pulled over the car and ran over to the scene to observe, comfort the man arrested, and try to calm him while the officers emptied his pockets. I was told to keep away. I soon learned that the first man who had hit him was a plain clothed policeman. He told me that I didn't know what that man had done, maybe he was a murderer, that justified the use of force. I replied something to the effect that I didn't care; they didn't need to strike him in the face.

I stood to the side and asked for names and badge numbers, and continued to try to assure the arrestee that I was there. Eventually I was handed the names and badge numbers of the police involved in the arrest after they had placed the man in the squad car: Officer _____ (badge ____) was in plain clothes who ran up and first struck the man; Officer ____ (badge _____) was restraining the man, searching, emptying his pockets, and never struck him, nor talked at all to me; Officer _______ (badge _____) was the officer on the back of the man, handcuffing him and who leaned over to strick him from on top of him in the face after he had secured the arrestees hand by the handcuffs. I heard them as they were moving the man to the police car to make sure that the charged him with "resisting arrest." I did not see how he got placed on his stomach on the concrete sidewalk; I never saw his arms flailing or him trying to turn over. I did see him lifting his head and yelling about his innocence. Obviously I have no idea what precipitated the whole affair as I was not present.

I told the arrestee to cooperate, not risk more violence in the car; Officer _____ threatened to arrest me because it is supposedly illegal to talk to someone under arrest (I am checking this with a law student parishioner). Officer _______ instructed me not to jaywalk as he got in the car to take the arrestee to wherever he will be held.

I do not know the name of the arrestee -- I would like to find it out, if you could find it for me so that I could visit him in jail. The incident took place around 6:30 pm. He kept yelling, "Who did I supposedly beat up? I'm innocent; I didn't do anything". He looked to me for protection. Could you help me find his name and where I might visit him?

I am extremely uncomfortable at the event, both in its violence and racial component. Tomorrow (Wed) I plan to contact Rev. William Ardnt, a wonderful African-American pastor who has helped San Diego work through racial tensions before and is widely and justly respected. I do believe that the incident needs investigated. Those in the Salvation Army said that "it is getting worse" on the streets in how they are being treated by the police.

I would like to report the incident to the appropriate authorities. You have my permission to forward this email to the appropriate office in the City Government and the Police. I am a bit uncomfortable with this being kept an internal police matter because of the conflict of interest in police investigating their own.

I derive no pleasure in any of this, nor did I ask to be involved. I obviously do not know the whole story, but from what I saw, the ending of the affair was very, very ugly. I would deeply appreciate it if you could get back to me as soon as possible.

Peace,
Rev. Dr. John W. Wright
Senior Pastor, Church of the Nazarene in Mid-City, English-Speaking Congregation
Professor of Theology and Christian Ministry
Point Loma Nazarene University

After the squad car pulled away, I went the final blocks to the Salvation Army. This congregation is so kind to the Mid-City congregation and especially me -- when they saw it was me there to preach, they applauded. I told them that they'd better wait until they listen to me first. I first advised them not to give the police any grounds for violence, but to "go limp" if they have any encounters -- to not resist at alll, that this is the gospel. Then I preached from Ruth 1 -- how these transients were brought back to Bethlehem and from them God brought the salvation of the world to bear in Jesus Christ. I probably talked 20 minutes -- way to long. They applauded when I finished. They served chicken legs and thighs, cooked by David Crazythunder et al!, and a beautiful salad.

I left early, apologizing to go to the hospital where "Hankster the Prankster" had been admitted after staying for a week under the car of Mike Valentine -- God bless you, Mike! Hank is suffering from cellutitus (sp?) -- a disease that I am getting much too familiar with as it is the same disease with which Bill Hatcher suffers. A wonderful surprise was finding that Hank's nurse was an ex-student of mine. She actually had time to talk with me and Hank, go over the procedure that had been done that day, what would probably happen, correct his chart from mistakes about his residence, and line up communications with us for Hank's benefit. Hank takes care of the folk in OB, third picnic table from Dog Beach. I've known him about 6 years now, seeing him off and on. Let's pray that we can find Hank a place where he can care for himself as he has cared for others. I emphasized that he is going to have to do this now.

So, it's now after 10:00 pm. Papers remain to be graded; books to read. The adrenaline is passing through my system. It is hard to digest all that has gone on, and why God puts me in such situations -- I had been happy -- it's almost been two years since I was last threatened with arrest!

I continue to read through Mother Teresa of Calcutta's book. Her witness has much to teach me.

Posted by johnwright at 9:56 PM | Comments (2)

In the holiness movement in the 1960s and early 1970s, we heard much about not "belonging to the world." Often this meant for males not to grow their hair long and females not to cut theirs. With the raise of the church growth movement in the 70s, this discourse of not "belonging to the world" slowly and gradually declined. Instead we went to the social scientists to tell us how we might be appropriately like the world so that the world will become us. "Of the world but not in it," so to speak. Congregational life is seen primarily as a sociological reality now; theology might inform to support the sociology, but it does not cast the fundamental mission of the church.

When I went to Notre Dame, I encountered the work of John Howard Yoder and Stanley Hauerwas, as well as post-structuralist thought like Michel Foucault and Roland Barthes. Suddenly the joys of "not belonging to the world" became more evident to me. Then it struck me that this was also a theme in the doctrine of the church in Vatican II -- the church as the pilgrim people of God. Rather than a weird holiness or Mennonite or "Hauerwasian" them, I began to see this as part of the very grammar of the Christian life.

As we move onto the series of sermons on our mission, we turned yesterday to the theme that "We are a pilgrim people." I would be thankful for more responses like the very constructive ones from last week.

A Pilgrim People:
The End of the World as We Know It

Luke 17:5-10

A few months ago I read an interesting suggestion in an article on death, the environment, and spirituality. It suggested an economically, environmentally sensitive alternative to cremation or embalming. The author offered the idea that one be buried wrapped in a simple cloth, underneath a tree. Given the great commercialization of funerals and the environmental degradation that comes with mass production embalming, maybe that is a positive alternative. What struck me as interesting was the rationale given – one’s body could be turned back to the earth from which it came to contribute to the on-going thriving of the earth. Decomposition could transform the body into the on-going life of the whole of the earth. Human life belongs as a part of a larger whole of the earth at the deepest level possible. Life to life, the part continuously turned over to the whole. We live in a society that thinks that spirituality celebrates passionately this sameness of human life as part of the on-going chemical processes that we are. We are one with, belong to the deepest reality there is.

We are taught us that there is nothing more important than to belong. Our life has significance, so we’re taught, in life’s very materiality. The ultimate flourishing of human life occurs in this age; the economic, political structures of the world around us define the significance of our lives. Maybe there is some talk of the age to come. But it is curiously separate from our lives in this age, some balm if we can’t flourish in the world around us. The mission of a congregations alternates bizarrely between the physical and the spiritual, helping people belong to the world or at least cope with it, offering heavenly bliss to come after our life of belonging. God is the icing on the cake of belonging in this age. Jazzercise for Jesus; Bread for Live.

Such an account of life cannot account for the life and teachings of Jesus given to us by Luke, nor describe for us our mission as a congregation. Jesus’ life in this world finds its coherence only in his life as a pilgrim, a sojourner, an alien, passing through this world in return to the Father. Our Gospel reading today takes place in the context provided by Luke 9:51: “When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.” Jesus’ actions, his teachings on discipleship, his economics, all make sense only as Jesus, God the Son, found the end of his life on earth in the will of God the Father. We hear the end of Jesus’ journey in Jerusalem: “Father, into your hands I commend my Spirit.” Jesus lives his life on earth as a pilgrim on a journey back to the Father. His life, his ministry in this world finds its end, its significance, its meaning beyond this world in God.

What was this ministry? Jesus declared it in Luke 4: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has appointed me to bring good news to the poor. He sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Jesus engages his work in the world as a pilgrim passing through to return to the Father. Jesus makes all the difference in engaging creation because he does not belonging to the world, but to God – the difference he makes comes in obedience to the Father. As a sojourner, an alien, Jesus does not take his marching orders from situations within the world. Jesus lives in the world in obedience to the Father because, like the rest of creation, the end of Jesus’ life is found in God the Father.

Perhaps now we can hear our Gospel reading. “The apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith!" The Lord replied, "If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, `Be uprooted and planted in the sea,' and it would obey you. . . . When you have done all that you were ordered to do, say, `We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done!'” What happened to the kind, compassionate, warm, fuzzy Lucan Jesus? The disciples request sounds reasonable. Yet Jesus seems to reprimand the disciples. Jesus answers their concern in a way that they do not anticipate. What to increase your faith? Increase obedience.

Why? Maybe because Jesus knew that his disciples would want to belong, want to try and make a difference. Maybe Jesus heard the request as his disciple’s temptation to forget that Jesus’ commitment to the world only sustained its significance in light of his obedience to the Father. Maybe it was to remind the disciples that they too, like Jesus, are pilgrims, strangers, aliens, immigrants in the world, deeply committed to the world, but in terms of the world’s true end in God. We feel the social pressures to belong. We feel our loyalties shifted to categories given to us by a fallen world rather than those given to us by God. Jesus reminds us that the difference we make only arises out of the difference that God has already made in the world in the presence of Jesus. We participate in this difference as aliens, pilgrims in this world as we live in loyally to Jesus in order to find our end, our significance in eternal life in God.

We have to understand ourselves as a congregation that we are a pilgrim people. We have to set our face to Jerusalem so that we too, in confidence, can say “Father into your hands I commit my spirit.” Our enjoining the mission of Jesus to proclaim good news to the poor, release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, and to let the oppressed go free takes place not as an end in itself. We are pilgrims, committed to the journey where our life in the world cannot be separated from our end in God. Indeed, God takes the means, and elevates it, raises it and perfects it that we might find our end in God. We are, whether we want to acknowledge it or not, pilgrims traveling through this world to God. We don’t belong here. We are from God; we are for God. The Son became human so that in him, we might participate in God.

We are a pilgrim people. We quite literally are pilgrims, aliens, sojourners passing through. We’re mortal. This world is not eternal. Trying to belong fully to the world, we loose our suspension in God. We subtly deny the reality of death. Ironically, if death loses its significance, life does as well. Without death, there is no real distinction between life and death -- all life is death, and death life. Everything becomes merely a different phase of matter or spirit, a part of the One Whole that is ultimately nothing. If we lose death, we lose life for there is no life beyond this life, no end beyond what already is or will be. We merely become fertilizer for future trees or consumers and producers for the future economy or martyrs for the future existence of the state. We become caught in the endless repetition of the new and improved, so that we have nothing for which to live outside the present.

When all there is is the present, the present itself loses itself. By embracing the reality of our death as Jesus did when he set his face to go to Jerusalem, we recognize that we are pilgrims. All our life takes on significance, all life takes on significance, all creation takes on significance, because it has an eternal end in God. We can’t separate God from the world as if the world has significance to God – all the world bears significance to God because God is the creator of all from nothing. We can’t collapse God into the world as the meaning of the world so that the world becomes the end of God. We are pilgrims. As our end, God takes our lives, our actions, and raises them to an eternal significance in God’s own eternal Triune life of Love. As pilgrims, we don’t seek to make a difference; we seek obedience – and therefore we allow God to make the difference in the world as we participate in the Son, Jesus Christ.

We are all pilgrims because we are all mortal – we will die and find our end in God, one way or another. Here in this congregation we are also reminded that we are pilgrims by lives that move in and through – and sometimes even back to – this congregation. Many pass through on our ways to other places geographically. Olivia Roche. Deb Price. Tim Chung. Kim and Carey Charles. Dave and Anya Fernandez. Matt and Brenda Alexander. Ken Oakes. Norma Rossi. Jeff Blythe. Ben and Joelle Powers. Will Ryland. Theresea Luginbuhl. Bill and Erin McCoy. David Shellhammer. Monty. Justin Brown. Ron and Janice Benefiel. Brian Becker. Billy. Jason and Maya Evoy. Kelly Tirrill. Bill and Nancy Zumwalt. David Overholt. We are in a particular location and social network that brings human beings as a stop amid their broader pilgrimage.

Sometimes this movement of pilgrims causes us certain problems. We share the peace and are never really sure if we should know each other or not. It’s difficult especially if you come into the congregation without a social network. Yet we celebrate, we’re thankful, we enfold. We encourage you all to stick around, set up shop, so to speak here. But we send. We know that we are all pilgrims. We don’t encourage a careerism that cuts social ties by the transience that arises from living life to belong. For those who pass through, we too recognize that we are pilgrims as well for we share a common end by faith and hope and love.

When all we do is belong, we don’t need the skills of hospitality. Here we do. We practice hospitality along the way and accept the hospitality of others – necessary skills for pilgrims. As Christ engaged his life as a journey to Jerusalem, to commend his Spirit to the Father, we do too. We find a common end with all the saints in God. This congregation is a congregation of pilgrims. We don’t belong here, and those who move in and through us help us remember that important fact.

Third, we are reminded that we are a pilgrim people in that God has gathered us in this place with many who have passed from other places to join us here in this strange place. The stories that exist in this building are moving. Listen to Pastor Anthony speak of the conversation with his mother in response to accepting his call to the ministry. “But son, if you accept that call, Baby Doc will kill you.” “I know. “Go in peace.” Mr. Ky in the Cambodian Congregation who survived Pol Pot because he could prime the village pump; he and his wife losing two children to starvation from the work in the camp. Listen to Pastor Marcos Garcia of the Spanish congregation who has a PhD in New Testament from Fuller talk about the struggles of Latinos negotiating through various cultures in today’s world. Listen to fellow pilgrims from Africa who recognize that the American society to which we want to belong is so dangerous, so strange, so dehumanizing. A history of people that faces a society that threatens to steal their young adults by making them “individuals” outside their commitments to their families. We live with brothers and sisters who have been excluded from belonging, who don’t really want to belong, just survive as pilgrims along the way as they journey towards Jerusalem to find their eternal end in God.

We are pilgrims, aliens, strangers in a strange land. We must remember that the biggest difference we can make, the most effective response is to not belong, but to live in obedience in participating in the life of Jesus Christ, and therefore in God. No Jazzercise; no Bread for Life. We are about the Bread of Life – we seek as aliens, as persons living without green cards to participate in Jesus Christ through Word, Sacrament, and Works of Mercy as people God has drawn together on a common pilgrimage following Jesus Christ in the world.

One Sunday morning, eight years ago, the phone rang. Guttchuk Tut’s beautiful broken English was on the other side. We had been through many adventures with Gattchuk. He had been shot in his village; he played dead surrounded by the corpses of his brothers for several days before the government troops moved on. He walked from Sudan to Ethiopia, from Ethiopia to Kenya, from Kenya to Egypt, flew from Egypt to San Diego. He was a pilgrim, a sojourner. Seven months later we rejoiced with the birth of his daughter. He and Nyluak, his wife, taught us by how he cared for his “sons”, Robert and Charles, teenage war orphans, by accepting responsibility for them as their “father”.

That morning, though, his words floored me: “I’m sorry Father John. I’m leaving to go the Salt Lake City this morning. Forgive me and let me go in peace.” What do you say? I forgave him, let him go in peace, and wept. Christmas day two years later, Robert and Charles sat in our living room when Gattchuk happened to call from Maine. I couldn’t understand a word that was said, but the joy, the laughter, the life that really is life for it arises out of a common participation in God through Christ, was profoundly evident to me, the joy of pilgrims at a brief stop together at a way-station.

I’ve lost contact with Gattchuk, with Robert and Charles too. Sometimes I wonder when we gather if they all might reappear. Yet I know even then, the life we shared here, we share in this world only for a little while. It bears great significance, however, for this life sustains its importance because of our common life in God yet to come. And then, sharing in hope for that eternal life in the fullness of human flourishing in God, we give thanks for sharing in this journey together within this congregation where we remember that we don’t belong here – we ultimately belong in the Triune God. As a congregation, and individually members of it, we are a pilgrim people. Let us participate by faith in food for our journey . . . the gifts of God for the people of God.

Posted by johnwright at 11:25 AM | Comments (0)

This coming Sunday we will reflect on our congregational mission as a "pilgrim people" or as
sojourners and aliens, or as a Congregation without a Green Card. It has been so engrained into us that a congregation is what is called a "civil society" within our world -- a voluntary group whose purpose is lived out for the benefit of the whole society like the Jaycees or the Lions Club or the 4-H. In such a setting, congregational mission becomes deeply divided into a distinction between "this world" and "the next world" -- we'll meet needs in "this world" in order to help people find eternal life in "the next world." The congregational mission in evangelical Christianity becomes a "bait-n-switch" -- bring them in for bread, then give them the sell for Jesus. We learn a dual citizenship -- switching back and forth from citizens of the culture to members of the body of Christ. We are of the world and of Christ in a back and forth movement that characterizes our lives.

This movement back and forth becomes a problem, as well as the fact that we can't see "the next world" and it seems to drain energy from the difference we can make in "this world." So we seek to move the "next world" into "this world" so that the "next world" becomes a depth, or inner dimension of "this world." "This world" sets the terms for our action and engagement by the congregation -- our ministry as a congregation helps us to become fully and completely and authentically members of "this world" because we know its inner meaning. We can take control of this world to help it most find itself in itself. Insofar as we are of Christ, we are of the world.

It seems to me that we have to situate ourselves differently to understand the Scriptures, even those for this week. As a congregation and individually members of it, we are the "pilgrim people of God" -- on a journey in this world, a journey that has its end, not in this world, but in God -- eternal life in God. As a people, we cannot collapse God into this world; we have to see how this world is made to be raised up by grace to become what it really is in God -- and how God became human in Jesus Christ so that we ourselves might become divine -- not by being "absorbed" back into God or nature, but through our eternal participation as creation in the joy that is found in God. We live in the world, but not of the world. We are citizens only of one kingdom -- the Kingdom of God that God has revealed for us in Jesus Christ and that God does bring forth and will bring forth as God will -- our job is to receive in faith by doing what we are commanded by the king whose kingdom is not of this world. Therefore, we live as "pilgrims" -- people passing through, using the gifts of God in creation for our and all creation's eternal enjoyment of God. This is the way of life of living between the times of Christ's incarnation and Christ's return.

If so, it shapes our expectations differently and our involvement. Obedience is more important than effectiveness -- although we believe that only obedience is ultimately effective, and therefore often what the world calls effective causes more problems than it solves. We encounter each other and strangers along the way as joint aliens. We don't have to take control, but are freed to live faithfully to what we are commanded.

Perhaps we could start with the Gospel reading, move to Habakkuk, and then to 2 Timothy for these Scriptures with these reflections in mind.

Luke 17:5-10

What is the disciples request of Jesus? Why might they think that this is Jesus' responsibility? If faith is "loyalty" or "allegiance" (or trust and obedience), how does this explain Jesus' response -- both immediately and in the story that follows. What is the point of the story about the slaves? Who does Jesus ask us to understand ourselves as? What is it the job of "slaves" to do?

Habakkuk 1:1-13;2:1-4

What is the time and situation of the prophet? What allows the prophet to persevere through this time? Who is God in the passage? What then is the "faith" in this passage that the just live by? Why does faith allow justice/righteousness?

2 Timothy 1:1-14

Notice that Timothy stands between the generations in this passage, from his grandmother and mother to those to whom he is called. As one in this "inbetween" generation, who does that help us understand the exhortations/instructions he is given? Why is Paul suffer? How is Paul "between the times" as well?

What sort of skills do we need, as well as inner characteristics, to live "in the world, not of it", to not live in control but in obedience? How does the image of a "tweener" or a "pilgrim" or "alien"/"immigrant" help us understand the normative life for the congregation here.

Have a wonderful evening!

Posted by johnwright at 11:07 AM | Comments (1)

On Sunday I began a four week sermon series on the fundamental vision for the Church of the Nazarene in Mid-City, English-Speaking Congregation. I'm calling it: "Living without a Green Card: The Congregation as Sojourners and Aliens." I have tried to preach without notes recently, but produced a written version of the sermon for my blog. Your comments are welcome!

Jesus Christ the Same:
The Mission of Mid-City and Encountering the Presence of Jesus Christ in a Secular Age

Amos 6:1-7
1 Timothy 6:11-19
Luke 16:19-31

It can be daunting to walk into the Church of the Nazarene in Mid-City, and even more daunting to stick around. Some find us very white, very young, very affluent, very unwelcoming because of a similar sociological background of those whom God gathers here. Others find us very diverse, very poor, very shabby, very unwelcoming because of the unfamiliar difference of our sociological background. Some find our worship very loose, very informal, very Protestant evangelical and decide that other places might serve their preferences; others find us liturgical, even too catholic for their tastes. Some who have lived within the congregation awhile have found the organization too fluid, unstructured, an organization characterized by a lack of authority. These quietly slip away. Others have found the leadership of the congregation authoritarian, controlling, even dictatorial and have left after expressing their moral disapproval. I’m now finishing the twelfth year of my pastorate as one of the founding pastors of the congregation. I recognize that all these perceptions are grounded in certain correct observations.

How do we move into God’s future? How do we move into the future with a vitality of mission lived in unity, constancy, and peace? Even more, how do we allow the Holy Spirit to call others into the mission, both by coming to faith in Jesus Christ and in nurturing that faith to the fullness of salvation in the entire sanctification of believers? I am convinced that the way forward is to look back to the sources of the faith, the historical sources that nurture us, till we find there, at the centre of our lives, at the center of all that is, Jesus Christ, for this Jesus is the same, yesterday, today, and forever.

Saying this might sound a little awkward. We live in a secular age. This secularity has seeped into our bones so deeply that we don’t even recognize it. We think that it’s natural rather than an act of human imagination that distorts the truth. We’ve learned as Christians that we can talk of a national God, an idol, but we can’t talk of the Triune God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit without sounding “intolerant”. We feel tempted to accept the formation that teaches us that adherence to the faith is done on the individual’s terms, not the terms set by the church in unity with the saints that have come before. We have a sense that like those around us that there’s no need to be part of local congregations with the regularity or sacrifice except as it meets our needs and our expectations.

But there is a deeper malaise of the secular that we feel. It seems that faith in Jesus Christ is just one option among others. We feel waves of doubt come over us; we learn to keep our faith private. We’re taught we should personally “experience God” rather than participate in God through Jesus Christ by repentance and faith. When we don’t see God present in the world, we fade into an agnosticism that eats at our bones. We think that we should be able to define God’s presence in the world as we want. When God doesn’t meet our expectations, we think God has a problem. We should be able to conjure God’s presence at our call to fit our expectations to serve our needs or our cause. We try to naturalize God’s supernatural presence.

The church has learned to adapt to this secular culture by learning to conjure a Jesus who will symbolize the presence of God in the world for any particular interest group. The church can compete in the world by making Jesus present to fulfill needs for individuals or society. Worried about ecology, global warming? First, you should be. We are creation called to care for creation as one’s made in God’s image. But wait! Here is a chance to justify the church amid the secular. Meet God in a spiritual Jesus in tune with Gaia, representing the relational flow that is God within history, a suffering history just like God suffers in environmental degradation. Jesus can represent the cause of your choice.

Of course, most persons in this society are getting the life sucked out of them by the secular, what we call personal problems. Jesus can represent God as a personal God, a divine personal Trainer – one who helps us out in our personal needs that we experience in the world whenever we call. The congregation becomes a safe house, a place to balm your personal struggles and give you positive motivation to step back in the world after the kids have driven you nuts all weekend. In a congregation adapted to the secular, the big decision is to figure out which consumerist interest group that Jesus could best represent according to our values. God becomes trapped within what is all around us. We try to conjure a Jesus to meet the needs of the world around us as the secular world defines these needs.

Any Jesus that we make present is not the real Jesus. From the very beginning, we have rejected the route of the secular. We decided to plant a congregation because we think the Christianity is true. We do not think that Jesus merely represents God in the world. We confess that Jesus was God in the world, fully human, fully divine in one person, the very revelation of God. When one participates in the life of Jesus, we participate in the life of God. Suddenly all the world becomes intelligible in the depths of its truth, beauty, and goodness. If there is one commitment of this congregation, it is not to change the church to fit our desires, but to have involvement in the congregation change us by calling us to participate in Jesus Christ. We don’t make Jesus present in the world. God the Father has raised Jesus Christ from the dead so that by the Holy Spirit, we might participate in this Jesus. We participate in God by being where God has revealed Jesus to be as gift -- pure, holy, complete gift. We are saved by grace through faith, not by works, lest anyone boast. God calls us to participate in God’s own Life through the presence of Jesus in the world today in three places.

First, Jesus Christ is present in the Word of God read and proclaimed. Did you hear that passage from Amos this morning? “Alas for those in Israel who live a life of luxury – you will be the first into exile.” Who gives the right to talk so insulting to people like that? Do you remember what was said after it was read? “The Word of the Lord.” And then you all said, “Thanks be to God.” Why? God has given God’s Word; God gives us God’s Word in the Holy Scriptures. We take the Written Word of God, the Scripture’s seriously. We don’t divide worship into singing and teaching. Our worship falls in line with the ancient practice of the church and begins with the Ministry of the Word. The Word speaks to us now, today, sharper than a two-edged sword. We don’t conjure Scriptures; we don’t seek to make the Scriptures relevant, to conform to our lives. We open up our lives so that we may be conformed to the Scriptures as we find our lives in them – for they are the Word of God.
Scriptures are the Written Word of God as they testify to the Word of God, Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the Word made flesh, the One through whom all things are made, the revelation of God, the one who suffered, was crucified, buried, and rose again after three days and appeared to his disciples. We find the presence of Jesus in the Scriptures. We don’t worship a holy book, a fourth person of a fourfold God. The Holy Book points us to worship the Jesus Christ who has revealed the Father to us by the power of the Holy Spirit. God has sanctified this book through the Spirit to make the Word, Jesus Christ present as we live in its pages, as its language becomes our language, as we perceive the world as it truly is as revealed in its pages. To live in its pages means that we turn from this secular world in repentance and faith to find our lives as creatures of the living God, who made us and redeemed us in Jesus, who wishes to heal us from our sin and restore us to the fullness of God’s image that we see in Jesus. This is why we have Bible studies. We must immerse ourselves as individuals and a congregation into the Word of God because in this Word, we meet the gift of the presence of Jesus in the world.

But Jesus is not merely present in the Written Word. As the Word of God, Jesus Christ is present in the Sacraments. Our epistle reading today in 1 Timothy reminds us to “pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, gentleness. Fight the good fight of the faith; take hold of the eternal life, to which you were called and for which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.” We find reference to our baptismal confession of faith. In the baptismal waters we find the presence of Jesus Christ. We in baptism by faith you are buried and raised with Christ. For as many of you who are baptized have been clothed in Christ. Therefore there is neither slave nor free, Jew nor Gentile, male and female for you are all one in Christ. We find the presence of Christ in the consecrated waters of baptism into which we are called by faith. Baptism is not our idea, but our Lord’s, who commanded us to go and baptize and make disciples of the nations.
But baptism is not an end in itself. In baptism we participate in the mystery of the death and resurrection of Christ so that we might walk in the newness of life. Baptism is the sacrament of inititation, the end of the beginning into the Christian life. Baptism is the gate into the full worship of the church – the full worship that culminates in the Lord’s Supper, the Eucharist. Following the Ministry of the Word, we share in worship with the fount of all worship, the Eucharist. We do so, not because it’s a slick style for a new generation of seekers, but because we have been commanded to by Jesus. Jesus told us that he is present in the bread and the wine – this is my body broken for you; this is my blood shed for the forgiveness of the sins of many. Paul wrote, “Is not the cup of thanksgiving, the cup of eucharistia, a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ?” Christ is present in worship, not in moving music, as beautiful and good as it might be, not in hand clapping and arm raising, as meaningful, fun, and good as that may be. Christ is present in the elements of the bread and the wine as the body and blood of Christ by which we are made Christ’s body in the world. The presence of Jesus Christ is found in the Eucharist. In repentance and faith, we submit our selves to be formed to participate in Christ at His Table, to allow Christ to form us into his disciple there by the Spirit.
Is this Nazarene? Oh yes. In our Call to the Table, the oldest part of our Communion Ritual, we are told to take the emblems, and by faith partake in the life of Jesus Christ to your soul’s comfort and joy. The Church of the Nazarene was formed out of an annual Christmas eve Communion gathering led by Phineas Bresee. In the earliest Manual of the Church of the Nazarene, members were required to take the elements while kneeling, in reverence to Christ’s presence there. One finds in John Wesley the appeal to constant communion. One finds in the earliest documents of the church fathers the exhortation to Christ’s presence in the bread and the cup. In the Sacrament of the Eucharist in our worship God gives us the presence of Jesus Christ in the world.

Jesus Christ is present in the Word; Jesus Christ is present in the world in the Eucharist. We find Jesus Christ present in the world through personal involvement in the works of mercy. Our gospel this morning is moving. The rich man tries to find eternal life through ordering Lazarus, the destitute, around. The rich man never gets it; he never sees Lazarus as a human being, one created by God in God’s image, one loved by God in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Even amid his torments, he can’t get out of the perspective of the wealthy about the poor to see that here, in Lazarus, the redemption wrought in Christ has been made active. In Lazarus, the poor man, we see the redemptive presence of Jesus Christ in the world. He never personally interacts with Lazarus, never engages in works of mercy with or for him. He never accepts Lazarus as a gift from God for his salvation, but instead sees him as a problem. It is not Lazarus’ poverty that is a problem, but the rich man’s wealth. The rich man’s wealth has so perverted his sight that he cannot see what is real. He is left with the eternal torment that comes from the blindness of a calloused heart to see what life really is about. He can’t find the presence of Jesus Christ in the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, those persecuted for Christ’s sake.
Christ is present in works of mercy done. “When did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in or naked and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and come to you? Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to the least of these, you did it to Me.” The need here is to serve the hungry, thirst, naked, sick, imprisoned Christ in the bodies of the poor. It is not just for the rich, nor the middle class. It is for the poor as well – to serve Christ in the body of the poor. Christ was poor. On the cross Hee was hungry, thirst, a stranger, naked, sick, imprisoned. And he cried out – I thirst. We find the presence of Jesus Christ engaged personally in the works of mercy to the poor when we do so in repentance and faith. In the poor one finds the gift of God for the people of God. Works of mercy are not obligations one fulfills to make the world a better place; works of mercy are receiving the gift of the presence of Jesus Christ by faith, and opening oneself to be transformed by the Spirit of God to be made to love God and neighbor
.
Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, today, and forever. Our mission, as Ron Benefiel used to constantly say, is merely to be Christian – to participate in God through participating in the presence of Jesus Christ today. Our mission lies in participating through repentance and faith in the presence of Jesus Christ in Word, Sacrament, and the works of Mercy. As we participate in Christ in Word, Sacrament, and Mercy through repentance and faith, the Spirit will form us into the Body of Christ visible to the world; the Spirit will sanctify us wholly. Only when we are fully present to this Jesus, not as one consumerist option among many, but as the Way, the Truth, and the Light, can we live as a congregation, a gathered people, in the world. We find in our mission exactly what Benedict XVIth said in his encyclical God is Love: “The Church's deepest nature is expressed in her three-fold responsibility: of proclaiming the word of God (kerygma-martyria), celebrating the sacraments (leitourgia), and exercising the ministry of charity (diakonia). These duties presuppose each other and are inseparable. For the Church, charity is not a kind of welfare activity which could equally well be left to others, but is a part of her nature, an indispensable expression of her very being.”

Let’s confess in our faith together in Nicene Creed as God calls us to be made one at one Table with the Lord.

Posted by johnwright at 1:07 PM | Comments (2)