Scripture Lessons: Acts 17:22-31 and 1 Peter 3:13-22
Pastor: Rev. Kim P. Wells
“Billionaire and former tech mogul Bill gates predicts there will be almost no poor countries left in the world by 2035,” reports the Los Angeles Times. Gates goes on to “try to dispel what they say are myths about global poverty that hinder development. Poor countries are destined to stay that way, foreign aid is not helpful and saving lives leads to over population.” In the next two decades, desperately poor countries will become the exception rather than the rule, Gates wrote. The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation is the world’s largest charitable foundation. It has made $28.3 billion in grant payments since its inception 13 years ago. [Tampa Bay Times]
Gates’ philanthropy and his views about poverty are shaped by a story. It is a story about what can be done. It is a story of abundance. It is a story of generosity. It is a story of value for each and every life. It is a story of hope. It is not a story of gloom and doom. The Gates foundation is functioning from a narrative of promise and possibility.
Then there was the recent tweet from “Wheel of Fortune” host, Pat Sajak. “I now believe global warming alarmists are unpatriotic racists knowingly misleading for their own ends.” [USA Today] So, scientists working on climate change issues are unpatriotic? They are racists? They are self interested and in it for personal gain? How do you get to these conclusions? There has to be a narrative, a story, a world view that goes with this. I personally cannot imagine what it would be.
There are those who believe that natural disasters like the tsunami, the earthquake in Haiti, the mudslides in California, and all the other natural disasters that are befalling us are due to homosexuality. There is a narrative behind that perspective. It is a story of an angry God. A God of retribution and punishment. The assumption is that the existence of gay people is making God so angry that God is punishing humanity by sending these natural disasters. This is a narrative of a punitive God that intends a single stream of acceptable sexuality and religion and culture. And that story forms and shapes people in certain ways.
Our views on life, on culture, on religion, on society, our choices, behaviors, and attitudes, are all rooted in story. There is a narrative we accept that shapes who we are and how we act.
In the scripture we heard from Acts, the writer refers to the story he sees of the people of Athens. The writer sees the temples and shrines and inscriptions and knows that the people are very religious. So Paul tells the people of another God, of another religious option, of a God at the heart of creation and at the heart of each and every person. He then goes on to talk about how this God is revealed in Christ Jesus. Paul is giving the people of Athens another story. They will have to decide which narrative to give the power to shape their lives.
In the first century, the Jews of Israel were shaped by the story of God creating the world and calling it good. This God liberates the people from slavery in Egypt and brings them to a new land and gives them a new way to live together in peace with each other and other communities, tribes and nations. It is a story about care for the most vulnerable. But the people ignored the story and made up new stories involving other gods and justifying their violence, economic abuse, and self indulgence. Prophets tried to call people back to the original narrative and they were ignored. And so God’s dream remained unfulfilled.
Then with Jesus we get the old story with a new twist. God becomes vulnerable. God makes a sacrifice. God is the victim to show solidarity with all other victims and those who are suffering and to inspire transformation, mercy, and compassion. In Jesus, sacrificial, self giving love is embodied. Community is built on vulnerability and compassion and mutuality. There is no dominance or intimidation involved. No punishment. No retribution. No victims. No abuse. It is a story of ultimate love. Endless forgiveness. Unconditional grace.
This is the story that we have been given to form and shape our lives. This is the story which defines us. This is the story which guides and leads us in our actions, behaviors, and attitudes. We do not worship an unknown God, as the Athenians did. We worship the God made known to us in Jesus who served others and lived for others and gave himself to the life of the world.
When the story of Jesus shapes and forms us, we cannot accept the belief that gay people are causing natural disasters. That just doesn’t work with our story. Can we believe that all people can be fed and housed and clothed and educated and that poverty can be virtually eliminated? Yes. Because that is consistent with the Jesus story of universal love, generosity, and grace. God has provided a world that is good and is intended to take care of all life and all people. We are created in the image of a God that is giving, even self-giving, and so humanity has the capacity to be generous and compassionate. Because this is our character, there is the possibility that poverty can be eliminated. What Bill Gates says and what his foundation is working toward is consistent with our Christian story. We can accept that.
Our Christian story gives us a lens through which to view the world, the issues of the day, the decisions we must make for ourselves and for our society and world. We are not left adrift. We have a story to form and shape us. We have a story to tell. We continue the story of God’s redeeming love and add our stories to that great meta narrative.
This is Memorial Day weekend. It is a time remember those who have died in armed conflict throughout our nation’s history. No one likes war, least of all those who have fought in it. The one exception may be those who profit from it; who make money on supplies, material, weaponry, etc. They may actually like war because it feeds their greed. But the average person – Republican, Democrat, Independent, or other, or none – does not like war. And does not want our country to be devoting its people, and money, and resources to continual armed conflict. We don’t want our sons and daughters, our sisters and brothers, our neighbors and friends going to foreign lands to meet their end in armed conflict. People want peace.
In our culture, we have accepted the story that sometimes it takes war to make peace. We have accepted that there are times when the ends justify the means. We have been told a myth of redemptive violence. And we reinforce that myth by celebrating the nobility of war and those who serve. And we have let that narrative shape our thinking.
To question that story, to challenge that narrative is seen as unpatriotic and not just by an inane fringe. To challenge war as a strategy for resolving differences is seen as disrespectful to those who have died in armed conflict and to their families. After all, war was the path to freedom for this country and to the life we have today as Americans. To question the validity of war is seen as naive at best and traitorous at worst.
We accept this cultural narrative about war even though it conflicts with the narrative of our faith. Jesus was a pacifist, and his teachings tell us to love our neighbor as well as our enemy, and to turn the other cheek when we are struck. Our story tells of God’s universal love for all peoples. Then how can we endorse killing people who are God’s beloved? Despite this, churches around the country today will glorify war by glorifying the stories of those who died in war. There is cognitive dissonance in the Memorial Day remembrance. To accept both stories is to be like the Athenians worshipping many gods.
Tim O’Brien, from small town Minnesota, is a veteran. He served in the Vietnam War. After graduation from Macalester College and Harvard, O’Brien became a writer. Most of his novels and short stories address war and its aftermath for those who were involved. O’Brien has been awarded the National Book Award, the James Fenimore Cooper Prize for Best Historical Fiction, and in 2013 the $100,000 Pritzker Military Library Literature Award. And here is what O’Brien says about stories and war:
“A true war story is never moral. It does not instruct, nor encourage virtue, nor suggest models of proper human behavior, nor restrain men from doing things men have always done. If a war story seems moral, do not believe it. If at the end of a war story you feel uplifted, or if you feel that some small bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, then you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie.”
O’Brien reminds us of the power of story. And the power of the story of war that we have been told in our culture. And he challenges that story. Stories shape us and can make us good people and can make us do awful things as well, depending on the story. Our Christian story gives us a way to redeem the deaths of war through repentance and transformation of our warring madness. We are not hopelessly locked into our cultural story of war. We have a story of a liberating God who frees us from stories that deny the goodness at the heart of all humanity.
We live story. We are shaped by story. Our lives are narrative. And so we ask ourselves what story is shaping us? What story are we living? Are we being shaped by the story of Jesus? Are we acting according to the story of universal love and grace? Are our lives a continuation of the story of God’s unending love?
With the gospel as our story, we not only choose how to live and how to act, but we also choose the lens through which to see our lives and the world. This doesn’t mean that we are perfect. It does not mean that we always do the right thing. It doesn’t mean that there is always consistency between what we say and what we do. But it means we have an intention. A way forward. For the good of the world. For the good of others. For the good of the ourselves. And we have a way to deal with things when they do go wrong. When there are problems. When we do the wrong thing. When we make a mess of things. There is a way of reconciliation. Of healing. Of restoration. And of peace.
We have a story of redemption and transformation. For ourselves. For others. For our country. For the world. The writer of First Peter challenges his readers: “Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and reverence.” [1 Peter 3:15] Always be ready with the story. Know your story. Live by your story. And be ready to tell your story.
Last week on “Snap Judgment,” a weekly radio show, a woman tells the story of when she was 23 and her father, who was a pastor, got a phone call during dinner one night. As it turned out, the call was from a woman in the congregation with whom he had been having an inappropriate relationship. As this came to light for the pastor’s family, the woman’s family, and the church, it was decided that the pastor would tell the congregation that he was leaving and why during the worship service the next Sunday. Sunday morning came. The pastor and his family, including his wife, sat in the front pew. The congregation sang, “Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing.” The pastor got up to address the congregation. As his daughter tells it, he said, “‘Beloved, I stand before you today for the last time as your pastor. I have broken my marriage vows.’ He said he had lied to us, our family. He had lied to the church. But then, in this kind of strange pastoral move, he said, ‘But I didn’t lie about the good news.’”
The pastor had a story. And he knew that story. And in that story, despite what he had done, he knew that there was still a place for him. And he was still ready to live by that story. And he wanted others to trust that story as well.
Friends, let us not be afraid to live by the gospel story. A story not of an unknown god, but of a known God. A God of universal love for all people not just some people. A God of unconditional grace. A God of boundless forgiveness. A God of deep, lasting, and true peace. Amen.
Lakewood United Church of Christ 