Wesleyan Quadrilateral

Here is my message from Sunday. The text was John 16:12-15:

For the past five weeks we’ve been talking about what it is that we as Methodist’s believe, of some things that are unique to Methodism or to a Wesleyan perspective, coming from the founder of the Methodist movement John Wesley. We’ve talked about a Wesleyan understanding of grace, about person and social holiness, about our understanding of the sacraments, and last week about evangelism, and today we move onto how we read and interpret and understand scripture. Now there are many ways that we can approach scripture, and many different reasons for reading scripture, but if we are to take scripture seriously, then we have to be serious about how we take scripture, which has a definitely unique perspective when it comes to the tradition we have inherited from Wesley.

Now some people will often argue that they don’t interpret scripture, they just read it and understand what it has to say, or as the simplistic saying is “the Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it.” Except it doesn’t really settle anything, because first of all the Bible is not like the Apple user’s agreement that we just scroll to the bottom and click “I agree.” And second is it’s impossible to read scripture without interpreting it, and that’s not even to deal with the reality that an interpretation itself is already being given to us because it’s being translated, which involves and enormous amount of decisions that have to be made that can convey one idea over another. But, we do the same. I will read scripture differently than you. I read it differently as a married man with children, then I would if I was single without children. I read it differently as a middle-class white American, then if I was poor in the developing world. I also read it differently than I did 20 years ago, and know that in 20 years it will also be different. It’s just natural to do these things, and we have to be cognizant of that so that we can know our default understandings and where we might be blind to some things. And we can also see different things depending on what it is that we are thinking and doing., and let me give you just one example.

Evangelical

Here is my message from Sunday. The passages were Acts 2:1-21 and Matthew 28:16-20. It was Pentecost Sunday:

In 1910 a series of pamphlets began to be published, focused out of the Presbyterian Church and Princeton Theological Seminary, it was entitled The Fundamentals, and sought, in their words to state “the fundamentals of Christianity.” Those who subscribed to the ideas being presented in these pamphlets began to be referred to as fundamentalists, which is where that term comes from. But, fairly recently, as these things go, as the term fundamentalist began to be applied to other groups, like fundamentalist Muslims, or those who subscribed to a very strict idea of a religion, with little to no wiggle room to believe other things, and the desire to blow things up to prove their rightness, Christian fundamentalists began to change how they referred to themselves, rejecting that term, and instead calling themselves evangelicals, which, in my opinion, has sort of corrupted that word, and the rest of the church really needs to try and reclaim it from simply meaning fundamentalist. Now it’s not that fundamentalists didn’t also have overlaps with evangelicalism, because they did, but evangelical had meant much more than what it tends to mean now.

And so when I say that the Methodist movement was part of the evangelical movement that doesn’t mean what we tend to think it means currently, instead it was about, much as we’ve talked about already when it comes to Methodist beliefs, about a lived religion that not only sought to make the believer’s life better, to bring about personal transformation, and then from a Methodist perspective to bring about a transformation of the world, but that also sought to spread that message to the world. Or as John Wesley would say, “to spread scriptural holiness across the whole land.” And so, as we already heard, Wesley said that there was no think as private religion, or only personal religion, that it had to be social, and that also entailed spreading and offering the good news to others, and that gets back to an original understanding of being evangelical.

Social Holiness

 Here is my message from Sunday. The text was Luke 10:25-37:

When people find out that I’m a minister I never know what to expect. Often people will project onto me whatever they think about the church, for good or for ill. Those on the right tend to instantly assume that I’m a fundamentalist, and those on the left tend to instantly assume I’m a fundamentalist. But it can lead to some interesting conversations, interesting being in all its connotations, although sometimes people don’t want to talk anymore once they know what I do. I was having a conversation once and when they found out I was a minister they then asked one of the inevitable follow-ups which is what denomination, which is part of the reason for this series on Methodism so that we can be able to say what it is that makes Methodism unique, which is not always the easiest thing, but his response was not what I expected.

He said “I grew up a Methodist, but I stopped going when they began to be interested in social justice issues,” and my response, which was definitely not what he expected, and maybe not as pastoral is it should have been was “really, you were around in 1908 because that’s when the Methodist Church published the Social Creed which laid out the church’s position on many social issues.” Although I didn’t say this part, the Social Creed called for, amongst other things, the end to child labor, safety standards for industrial workers, a six-day work week for everyone, and a living wage. Now my response to this gentleman certainly didn’t further the conversation, which was part of my hope, honestly, and it wasn’t actually fully accurate because the Methodist movements concern with social issues goes back much further than that. In fact, it goes all the way back to the beginning.

Personal Holiness

Here is my message from Sunday. The text was John 14:23-29 and 1 Peter 1:13-23:

On May 24, 1738, John Wesley recorded in his journal “in the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death." And thus, was what has become known as Wesley’s Aldersgate experience, where his heart was strangely warmed. And as we heard in the introduction to singing O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing, his brother Charles had had a similar experience three days before on May 21. I can’t imagine that there wasn’t just a little bit of jealousy on John’s part surrounding that reality. And so, as we remember that experience, and Charles’ on what has become known as Heritage Sunday in the United Methodist Church we continue in our series looking at beliefs that are unique to Methodism and move onto the idea of personal holiness.

Now personal holiness in and of itself is not very unique, but we do have some unique takes on it. And before we dive into those, it’s also important to give some context to the Aldersgate experience so that we can better understand what comes before, during and after that shapes Wesley’s thinking about personal holiness, conversion experiences as well as the acceptance of God’s salvation, or God’s saving grace given to everyone, including John himself, as well as you and I. Last week I talked about John and Charles coming to the Georgia colony in 1736, which didn’t end really well for either of them. On the boat trip over, they encountered a major storm and while the Wesley brothers, and others, were fearing for their lives, a group of Moravians, who were the first protestant church, coming into existence in Eastern Europe fifty years before Martin Luther. Who were on their way to the colonies for religious freedom, and rather than being terrified of the storm, they were instead praying and singing praises to God. This had quite an impact on John, and he began to wonder about his faith, and began to explore even more other religious movements beyond the church of England. But one of the things that the Moravians told him, as did the leaders of some other pietist movements, was that he needed to have a dateable conversion experience. That without that he was not a true Christian, and he was also told that unless he was absolutely filled with joy all the time that he also wasn’t a true Christian. Some of these groups were then ones that would deny him communion because they didn’t think him Christian enough to receive it. Johnj would write, as he was headed back the London, “I went to Georgia to convert the Indians,” a task at which he failed miserably, and then writes “but who shall convert me?”

Sacramental

Here is my message from Sunday. The text was 1 Corinthians 11:23-26 and Luke 3:15-17, 21-22:

In 1736, John Wesley and his brother Charles came to the colony of Georgia, having been invited by James Oglethorpe, the founder of the colony, to preach to the English and native populations. When they arrived, they found things to be different than they had expected, and Charles returned to London after just a few months. But John decided to stay and began to fall in love with a member of his congregation by the name of Sophia Hopkey. Although most people expected them to get married, through a series of miscommunications, Sophy ended up marrying someone else, whom she had apparently also been seeing. As you might imagine, John was a little less than pleased, and when she showed up to church John took the opportunity to publicly rebuke her and then refused to serve her communion. This caused quite a stir, and her husband brought charges against Wesley for defamation. And then it gets even worse because not only was the judge of the colony known to be an ill-tempered despot, but he also happened to be Sophy’s uncle and allegedly bribed the grand jury to make sure that charges were brought. Wesley rightly reading the tea leaves decided to leave Georgia soon thereafter. And that story becomes important because later Wesley himself will also be denied communion, although then it will be because he was not considered to be a true Christian, which will impact Methodist theology on the sacraments.

We continue in our series on what Methodists believe. And while I said last week that we were only going to look at stuff that was unique to Methodism, rather than all our beliefs, that’s not really true for today, or not fully true, because there are some things that we believe as part of the sacraments that are broader than just Methodism. When it comes to the sacraments, we, along with most Protestant churches practice two, communion and baptism. That stands in contrast mainly against the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches which have seven sacraments. Protestants practice just two because during the protestant reformation Luther said he sought to follow only those sacraments in which Jesus participated and also commanded us to do. And while a lot more could be said about that, I’m not going to, so we can get into beliefs about baptism, which could be its own message as well.

Amazing Grace Times Three

Here is my message from Sunday. The text was John 3:14-21:

Today we begin a new series looking at what we as Methodists believe. And more specifically things that we believe that are unique to Methodism. This series is really based on the fact that one of the questions I get asked the most by people from outside the church is what is it that Methodists believe that make us different from other denominations. After all, if we believed the same thing as others there would be no reason for us to be separate. And I know that some of you have gotten the same question, and so this is to help all of us be able to articulate who we are. Now one caveat is that we are not going to be talking about everything, especially where there is overlap, say about the trinity or the resurrection, more orthodox positions, because even if there are slight differences, they aren’t big enough to answer that question what makes Methodists different. And we begin today with the thing that is definitely unique to methodism and that is our understanding of grace. I know many people who have become Methodists specifically because of our idea and practice of grace, and that includes several ministers who have converted as adults. But before we get into the weeds of what that means, a little bit of background and context.

Grace is a word we use a lot, but we never really define it. We just sang about god’s grace being greater than all our sin, so is grace then about forgiveness, or is something more. At the end of this message we’ll sing Amazing Grace, and the grace that that saved John Newton, and so is grace then about salvation? Is it about healing? Is it about relationship? And then there’s the fact that we call the prayer before a meal grace, and is that something entirely different? What is this grace thing all about? Great questions. There are several meanings of grace in scripture, although both the Hebrew and Greek words have a connotation of favor. In the Hebrew scriptures it’s about a sense of graciousness or goodwill. Think of Psalm 145 which says that God is gracious and full of compassion, so mercy is a part of this understand of grace.

Woman of Valor

Here is my message from Sunday. The passage was Proverbs 31:10-31:

Today we conclude our series on Proverbs having looked at anger, words, work, righteousness and money. There were several other things we could have also addressed, that we touched on some, like justice, prudence, obedience, happiness, marriage and relationships and what all these things tell us about God and faith. But we conclude with the one issue that really needs to be dealt with these days, and it was in fact the only theme that someone asked me to talk about and that is what has become known as the Proverbs 31 woman. The passage we heard this morning, at least for a portion of the church, has become one of the most used, and I would argue one of the most abused passages in scripture. Rachel Held Evans, a prophet that we lost way too soon several years ago, wrote in her wonderful book A Year of Biblical Womanhood, “In the [Fundamentalist] Christian subculture, there are three people a girl’s got to know about before she [hits puberty]: 1) Jesus. 2) Ronald Reagan, and 3) the Proverbs 31 woman… Wander into any Christian women’s conference and you will hear her name… [and] Visit a Christian bookstore, and you will find entire women’s sections devoted to books that extol her… [visit any] Christian College” and you will find guys wanting to date her and girls trying to be her.

The Proverbs 31 woman has been held up as the ideal woman. She has become the standard by which women, if they want to be biblical will be judged and the passage is sort of a checklist against women. And that’s all fine and good, if damaging, except for the fact that the portrayal here, or of seeing her as the ideal woman, has nothing to actually do with what’s being portrayed in the passage. And that’s on top of the fact that this being the model of the traditional and ideal woman doesn’t match the reality that what’s upheld as traditional as their image and role for women is very new. And so, I am going to propose an entirely different way of seeing and viewing the Proverbs 31 woman, that I believe is not only more authentic to the text, but also to the tradition of the passage. But I’m getting ahead of myself. First things first. Way back in our first message on Proverbs one of the things I said was that while proverbs are true, they are not always universally true. That is that different proverbs are true in different circumstances and so they will often contradict each other, such as we say that birds of a feather flock together but opposites attract. Both are seemingly true, even though they say the opposite thing. Similarly, proverbs can’t always be taken literally. We have to seek the truth of the message while not forcing them beyond what they are telling us, and when we try and read them as being literally true they tend to fall apart. So, we have to keep that in mind when we think about the image of this woman portrayed in Proverbs 31, that this is not a task list, a job description for the ideal woman, and to treat it as such as destructive to everyone involved, men and women.

Got Righteousness?

Here is my message from Sunday. The text was Proverbs 11:2, 4, 21; 12:10; 15:3, 25; 16:31; 17:15; 19:17; 21:13; 24:17-18; 31:8-9:

Righteous or righteousness are church words. Other than 80s surfers who would say things like the waves were righteous dude or anyone trying to describe Ferris Bueller because he is a righteous dude, and then other than talking about people who are self-righteous, that is they think more of themselves, or think themselves better than they should, we only use that term in church. But the problem with even talking about righteousness, or of being righteous in church, is the fact that it has different meanings and understandings at different times and places and in different settings. And so to really address it, as Proverbs does, we have to try and give it some definition so that we understand what it means in its usage so we can then understand what it means for us to try and apply to our lives as we too see to become righteous dudes and dudettes. After all, we are told that gray hair is a crown of glory, or as my wife calls them her wisdom highlights, and they are gained through living a righteous life.

And so I know some of you want to know how to avoid getting gray hair, and therefore want to do the opposite of what we are about to discuss, and others who are coloring your hair, just know that you are covering up the indication of your righteousness. Now, just because you have grey hair does not actually mean that you are either wise or righteous, because Proverbs also wants to say, as the immortal Buck Owens encapsulated in a song, there is no fool like and old fool. And so it turns out that how you know if people are actually living lives of wisdom, or at least seeking wisdom, was by how they lived. But, just as a reminder for those who have been here for prior weeks, or as new information if you are hearing this message on proverbs for the first time, the book of Proverbs was written in order to instruct young men of the upper social classes who are about to embark into the world and entering into marriages and leadership positions to instruct them in the wisdom they need in order to be able to do the right thing, to live a righteous life, to pursue and come to know wisdom, who is personified as a woman. And that idea of doing the right thing is really important because as I said in the first message on this, while Proverbs is about wisdom, it is not wisdom for wisdom’s sake. It is about how we live in the world and it calls for us to be living it out, to be doing it, and that plays a critical role in our understanding of righteousness.

Got Money?

Here is my message from Sunday. The text was Luke 6:17-26  and Proverbs 10:22; 11:24, 28; 13:7, 11, 22a; 19:4; 22:2, 7, 26-27; 23:4; 27:23-24; 30:8b-9:

Most of us are familiar with the Beatitudes found in Matthew from the Sermon on the Mount, which is a series of blessings, including Jesus saying, “blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs in the kingdom of heaven.” Now we can compare that against the passage we heard from Luke, in which Jesus says, “blessed are the poor, for theirs is the kingdom of God.” Luke’s version is widely considered to be most likely be the original version of this blessing dealing with financial realities, whereas Matthew has spiritualized the blessing. In Luke’s gospel this emphasis also makes sense because of his emphasis on economics and the poor. And Jesus certainly talks about money and possessions and how they affect our relationship with God and with each other. Of course, Jesus is not the only person to make this emphasis. 

Scripture is full of guidance and teachings about it, and that, of course, includes what we just heard as some of the teachings from Proverbs. And again, remembering that the purpose of Proverbs is to instruct young men of a certain economic class about what they need to know if order to be productive in their lives, these economic instructions make total sense. Proverbs tends to have a fairly positive view of money and of wealth, as long as that wealth was not gained in illicit ways, such as by lying, cheating, stealing or unjustly, to name just a few. and, just as Jesus has a lot to say about money, and we ignore that at our own peril, so too does Proverbs have a lot to say about money, and so that’s where we’re going to be spending our time today, and unlike most of the time in which the preacher begins talking about money, you don’t have to hold onto your wallets.

Got Diligence?

Here is my sermon from Sunday. The text Proverbs 6:6-11; 14:23; 21:5, 25; 24:30-34; 26:13-14: 

In 1904, Max Weber, a German economist and philosopher, began writing what became his seminal work, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. It is considered one of the founding works in the creation of the field of sociology. Weber argued that it was the Protestant reformation which created the spirit of capitalism and drove the northern European countries to economic prominence because Protestantism imbued the idea that everyone was called by God to be productive in life, that all had a calling, and that the ideal was no longer to be secluded in the religious life, which eschewed things like making money, and instead the ideal became working hard for the community and for yourself, with all the benefits that came from that. Weber argued that in particular this was driven by the Calvinist belief in predestination, and since under predestination you didn’t know if you were truly saved or not, the only evidence might be seen in what happened in your life, and hard work and frugality were seen as signs of election, plus if you were gaining wealth it must mean that God was blessing you, and therefore another indication that you were saved. Now it could be argued whether Weber is correct or not in his analysis, but this idea of hard work has been tied to our understanding of labor, wealth and worthiness in America. That if you are poor, it must be your fault, at least to a degree, an idea we will come back to. And yet, some of our ideas about work go back much further than Weber. It goes back to scripture, and in particular, to the views, or at least some of the views found in the book of Proverbs. And so today we are going to be looking at some of the proverbs about work and laziness, or a more general term of diligence.

Now to help us understand these proverbs in particular, it’s important to remember the purpose of Proverbs which is to provide instruction to young men of a certain social position as they are about to embark into adulthood, meaning getting married and also assuming their proper role in society as leaders. And so while the proverbs may have been known to those of lower class, or day laborers, that was not to whom proverbs was primarily addressed. Additionally, as I said in our introduction, Proverbs is an overly optimistic book, and while it is not fully this way, it does at least give off the impression that if you do the wise things, and work hard, that good things will result, including wealth and success, and if you follow the way of foolishness that the opposite will result. That is if you do x, y will happen, and thus if bad things are happening, it is not because of outside forces, it’s not because God is punishing you for something, but because of what you have chosen, or not chosen, to do. And since one of the things that the teachings and laws want to do is to make sure first that there is a next generation and second that they will be protected and cared for, the proverbs can make a little more sense within that context.