God doesn’t test us

Published on by The Rev. Jason A Burns, Deacon1 Comment

Paul says “he was tested by what he suffered”. This is an important phrase, likely a phrase most of us would overlook while reading or immediately bring to mind Jonah or even Job, it certainly did for me. It caught my attention for two reasons, first because I had recently had a conversation, with a former student, about whether God tests us, but also because of my belief that an emerging ministry of mine is the reclaiming of our spiritual heritage as Christians. I want us to reclaim our vocabulary, I want us to stop dumbing down our faith and pretending that being a Christian is simple, that it only requires a passing belief in God, as if generally doing the right thing means we go to heaven when we die or if we follow all the rules as spelled out in the bible, we are good to go. Those versions of Christianity can be likened to our childhood beliefs about various mystical creatures, the ones that bring you presents for being a good little boy or girl. Those versions of Christianity are passive in nature, they are designed for one thing and one thing only, making people feel good!

            What I find strange is that the people who push feel good Christianity also push the idea that God tests us to make sure that we are true believers; my question is: if God is all loving why would they test us? That sounds like an abusive relationship to me, the kind where a partner runs their finger along the top of a door jamb to make sure they are clean and if not, look out. That’s not love, it’s control and it is the same as telling the faithful that they need to follow the rules or God will smite them. God does not test us; God does not cause us to struggle; God only creates and loves, and any story, any rule, any interpretation that indicates otherwise is just wrong. 

             You might be thinking that your deacon has gone off the deep end, but let me give you some context. Many Americans, many of our neighbors, are scared right now. Many are wondering if we are being tested by God, and you of course already know how I feel about that idea. So, if God is not testing us, then why does it feel like so many things are going wrong and how can we rely on God if they never seem do anything? Or for that matter, why should we? In short, God is never the source of anything that harms. In the story of Jonah, the classic God tests the faithful story, God simply asked Jonah to be his prophet and Jonah runs away. The way it is written it makes it sound like God then punishes Jonah until he repents, but that doesn’t make any sense. No one repents because they are punished, they repent because they genuinely feel sorry for what they did. What really happened is Jonah realized his error and then trusted that God would help. God did not trick Jonah into doing this, God did not send a storm to threaten Jonah’s life so he would repent, the storm just happened and it was Jonah’s realization that he had been rejected God that saved him. To put it another way, like Jesus, Jonah was tested by what he suffered. Jonah was afraid of what God asked him to do, so he ran away and in running away bad things happened to him, but in the end, God remained with him and saved him.

            The other classic story of testing is the story of Job. Job had bad things happen to him, and he remained faithful to God throughout and in the end, because of his patience and trust in God, all that he lost was returned to him. Jesus didn’t run away and very bad things happened to him, and in the end, God remained with him and not only saved him, but gave him new life.

            My takeaway from all of these contradictory stories is that whether we follow all the rules or not, bad things are going to happen and while it may feel like a test at times, I can promise you that it is not God who is administering the test, it is you. In the story of Job, it is the devil or Satan who is behind the horrible things affecting Job, and in the letter to the Hebrews Paul says that Jesus became flesh so that he could destroy the one who controls death, namely the devil. I am assuming that upon hearing the term devil or Satan we have all conjured an image of a red skinned pyromaniac with horns and furry legs, but that is not at all what Paul or the author of Job is referring to. The term devil comes from the Greek word diabolos, which means accuser or slanderer. To me, this changes things considerably, it means that in the story of Job it is slander and accusations that lead to his suffering and it is God who restores him and ends his suffering. It means that it was Jonah’s fear of doing what God asked that causes him to almost perish in a storm and it was God who saved him. It means that Jesus was tested by the accusations and slander of people who refused to accept what he was saying that led to his death, and it was God who restored him to life.

            You see, what this means is that we are the devils. We are the ones who accuse each other and slander each other. We are the ones who test each other, by making up rules, rules we know full well are impossible to follow and that truly have nothing to do with God. It is our need for a sense of control that causes us to be devils, we think that if we can point out the flaws in other people it somehow shows that we are more faithful, that we are in the right; but that is a fallacy my friends. The only test we have to pass is the one where we refuse to take the test, which is what Jesus did. He didn’t fight the accusers, he didn’t correct the slanderers, he let them have their say, he let them cast their stones, he even let them kill him. Why? Because he trusted God. He had faith that God would not betray him, even in death, and he was right. Which is why Paul tells us that “because he himself was tested by what he suffered, he is able to help those who are being tested.” We’re the ones being tested now, we are the ones who have been asked to love our neighbor unconditionally, whether we like them is an entirely different story. We are the ones who need to have mercy on the people who harm us and our loved ones, not because it is “the right things to do”, but because it is what it means to be a Christian, a follower of Jesus. The test is simple, will we continue to fall into the trap of playing by human rules or will follow Jesus’s lead and refuse to play, trusting that God is on our side?

            I am by no means implying that this is easy. It is not easy to watch others hate, or demean, or dismiss entire groups of people. It is not easy to listen as countless people, people who claim to be Christians, throw insults at anyone and anything that dares to think or act differently than they do. It is not easy to admit that we do the same, we do the same every time we dismiss them, every time we dismiss their beliefs.

            I am sure several of you are asking yourself, right now, but how can I not dismiss or refute hatred when I hear it? To that I say, I never said don’t. We should absolutely reject hatred, misinformation, and cruelty. What we can’t do, is dismiss the people spreading those things, because if we dismiss them, if we assume that their beliefs are all that they are, then we have failed our own test. We have failed to follow the path Jesus laid before us, the path of peace and love.

            “Because he himself was tested by what he suffered, he is able to help those who are being tested.” But he can only help us if we are willing to accept the help.

Take the message of Christmas where it belongs

Published on by The Rev. Jason A Burns, DeaconLeave a comment

In his Christmas message, Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe said that Christmas doesn’t really begin for him until he hears “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us…” and as I prepared for this morning by reading over the lessons I understood, I think for the first time, what the Presiding Bishop is referring to. The joy of Christmas does not come from the virgin birth, from shepherds in their fields, from kings following a star, or from angels singing with the heavenly hosts. It isn’t about the beautiful decorations or the gorgeous music, it isn’t about the happiness of seeing and being with family, or watching our children open gifts from Santa. All of these wonderful things are byproducts of the fact that God lives among us.

            I know that many people get discouraged by the dwindling number of people who attend church on a regular basis. The truth is that the institutional church is in decline. Every metric by which we measure the health of the church shows us that fact. Some have predicted that the church will disappear within decades and maybe it will; but before we get too far ahead of ourselves and begin thinking about how St. John’s will be the exception or all the ways we can get more butts in seats, let’s take a minute to think about a few things.

            On Christmas eve we hosted 341 people, many of whom were visitors. Some of us might be thinking: “Well if they can come on Christmas Eve, why can’t they come every week?” but that is the kind of thinking that’s killing the church because that kind of thinking is about us and what we want, not about what the church actually is. As many of us know, the church is comprised of the people of God, as in all of the people of God, not just those who participate on Sunday morning. The church includes all 341 people who sat in this room on Christmas eve as well as the many people who didn’t; it includes the people who are fed from our kitchen; the people who use the showers and laundry facilities in our basement; the people who come to the monthly Taizé service; the children who are fed on the weekends because of the Weekend Nutrition for Northampton Students program; and the people who ask us to baptize and bury their loved ones even though we rarely see them between those two events. 

            In her book “take this bread” author Sara Miles says “…that impossible word, Jesus, lodged in me like a crumb….I had no idea what it meant; I didn’t know what to do with it. But it was realer than any thought of mine, or even any subjective emotion: it was as real as the actual taste of the bread and the wine. And the word was indisputably in my body now, as if I’d swallowed a radioactive pellet that would outlive my own flesh.” What Sara is describing is her first encounter with taking Communion. One day she found herself drawn to St. Gregory’s Episcopal Church in San Francisco, despite having spent her entire life avoiding religion, adamant that her atheistic upbringing was all she needed; yet here she was accepting the word, the living God, Jesus, into her life.

In 1978, Howard Thurman published a poem titled, The Work of Christmas, which points the way to how to be the church.

When the song of the angels is stilled

When the star in the sky is gone

When the kings and princes are home

When the shepherds are back with their flock

The work of Christmas begins:

To find the lost

To heal the broken

To feed the hungry

To release the prisoner

To rebuild the nations

To bring peace among others

To make music in the heart.

The conversion of Sara Miles is a Christmas miracle and her life is an example of God’s power manifested in the world. Something drew her to St. Gregory’s, something drew 341 people to this space on Christmas Eve, just like something drew all of us here today. That something, is the word made flesh, Jesus Christ and all of the people who were sent to prepare the way for his coming. John the Baptist was sent to prepare the people for the coming of the Messiah, for Emmanuel, God with us. The joy of Christmas rests in the realization that God dwells among us and it is our turn to be John the Baptist; it is our turn to prepare the world for the return of Christ; but it is also our turn to embody the spirit of God and be the church Thurman embodied in his poem, by finding the lost, healing the broken, feeding the hungry, freeing prisoners, rebuilding nations, and bringing peace to others. It is this work that draws people to God; it is the hope of being found, and healed, and fed, and freed that brings people to God. It is not our buildings, or our traditions, or our prayer book, or any other human construct that draws any of us to God; it is the presence of the Word, the Spirit of God, that binds us to each another and makes us the church that draws us. Some of us feel drawn to the institutional church, but most people don’t and that reality is quickly becoming clear as more and more congregations close their doors. The future of the church does not rest in the pews, it rests in the hearts and minds of the many people who feel connected to God, and it is time that we let go of the idea that they are going to warm our pews more than twice a year, and take the message of Christmas where it belongs, among the people, the church.

The apokálypsis of Emmanuel, God among us.

Published on by The Rev. Jason A Burns, DeaconLeave a comment

Happy New Year to you all! Today is the first day of the church year and with it we begin the long march to Pentecost. Over the next 6 months we will, once again, endeavor to understand the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ and what those events mean for ourselves, our community, and our world. There was a time when Advent was treated as a season of penitence and repentance, similar to that of Lent, but we have since discerned that Advent is more for reflection and anticipation. So here we are, once again waiting, watching, and anticipating; but for what do we wait? For what do we watch? What are we anticipating?

Today’s passage from Luke’s gospel hints of the coming apocalypse; of the end times; of the end of life as we know it and then warns us to be ready. At first glance this is a pretty scary passage of scripture, we are not used to Jesus telling us to fear anything, but here he is saying “be on guard”; but before we get carried away let’s take a moment to remember that an apocalypse is nothing to be feared, and in fact the message here is actually one of Hope. The Greek word apokálypsis, from which our word apocalypse is derived, means to uncover or reveal something that is hidden, as opposed to our definition which is the complete and final destruction of the world. While semantically that is arguably the same thing, for now we are just going to focus on the Greek definition because Greek is the language Luke used when he wrote his version of the Gospel.

Another thing to be aware of is that this passage is taken out of its context, and is in fact the very end of a sermon Jesus gave while teaching in the Temple in Jerusalem, during which he described the hypocrisy of the scribes who do everything for show; he described the widow who gave all that she had to the temple; he speaks of the eventual destruction of the temple; he describes the persecution his followers will endure for the sake of the gospel; and then he describes the eventual destruction of Jerusalem itself. It is only at that point that we reach today’s passage, a passage that describes the return of Emmanuel, God among us. Jesus’s words are not a warning to fear his return, it is not a condemnation of non-believers and sinners, though that is how it is often viewed because for nearly 2,000 years that is what has been taught, but that version is wrong. It is wrong because it makes absolutely no sense within the context of everything Jesus taught and stood for. His entire ministry, as presented to us in four different books shows us that he never advocated anything except love. Does he talk about separating the sheep from the goats? Yes, he does. Does he talk about returning to sit in judgement? Yes, he does. Does he talk about the destruction of the world? Yes, he does, we just heard it. The issue here is not what Jesus may have said about these things, the issue is that we are failing to understand the broader context in which these things were said and taking that into account as we discern their meaning.

Theologian and Presbyterian pastor Wes Avram says that “Luke wrote with a deep and growing sense that Christian discipleship is a kind of living in between—aware of Jesus, waiting for Jesus, and coming to know Jesus for whom we wait in the midst of an eventful, unpredictable, even tumultuous world, waiting to stand before him, yet not always knowing where he is.” Dr. Avram’s words jumped out at me because in them I see what Jesus is describing in Luke’s gospel, not just in the little snippet we heard today, but throughout. Jesus is telling us that being his disciple is going to be hard. People are going to challenge us; they are going to persecute us; they are going to think we are crazy Jesus people and sometimes they are going to be right about that; sometimes it is going to feel like the earth is quaking; that the sun and moon, and stars are falling; sometimes the nations, the people of the world, are going to be confused and not know what is happening, and they will react viscerally to protect the things they believe are important. In short, the world is going to continue to be the world because human existence is messy, and chaotic, and scary and just because we find comfort in the idea of a loving God, that doesn’t mean that everyone does and it also doesn’t mean that we are always able to find God in the chaos. Which is why we have to ask where is Jesus in all of this? Where is Emmanuel?

The world in 2024 is a scary place for many people. Many fear that the values by which they define themselves and their families, are being taken away as western society opens itself to wider definitions of love and inclusion; and likewise, there are many who fear that the new definitions of acceptance will be undone. Some are using the power of government to oppress and destroy peoples they deem dangerous or simply in their way; just as there are people whose lives are destroyed by those actions, who want nothing more than to be able to live their lives in peace. Most people simply live their lives, doing their best to follow the rules and be a good person, but they too are afraid at times. They are afraid that they aren’t good enough or that their efforts are somehow not worthy. For many people, every day feels like the end times, like the apocalypse. This world, today, is no different than the one Jesus experienced, which is why his teachings continue to be relevant.

At the beginning of this I asked for what are we waiting and watching? Hint, we are not waiting for the birth of Christ or his resurrection. There is no need to watch, and wait, and anticipate something that has already happened. We need to watch for the presence of God among us; we need to wait for God to soften the hearts of those who cling to earthly power; and we need to anticipate the day when Christ will once again walk among us and reveals the full glory of the kingdom of heaven. 

As we begin another church year, as we wait for the return of Jesus, as we watch for and anticipate God’s presence among us, we must also cling to the knowledge that God never left and that the great revealing of which Jesus spoke may in fact be the knowledge that while we await the return of Jesus, God is in fact among us in spirit. God the Holy Spirit is in the hearts and minds of all. They are in the hearts of those who want to protect their sense of self; they are in the hearts of those who use the power of government for destruction and for good; they are in those who wish to simply live peacefully. What this boils down to is this: in our anticipation of the return of Christ Jesus, as we wait for the Holy Spirit to do their work, as we watch for the presence of God among us, we need to not lose sight of the message of the gospel, the message of love and forgiveness that Jesus embodied because it was and is this message that has and will continue to better the world, despite our best efforts to stop it, until the day when Christ returns. Amen.