God is love.
1 John 4:8
Dear Friends in Christ,
Years ago at another church an active leader in that parish told me that I was “fundamentalistic.” I think he made up the word. I asked, why did he say so? He replied that I always read scripture in worship and quoted and explained it in my sermon. I said, didn’t my predecessor engage scripture? He replied, “No.”
The Global Church is many things, and our church is many things, but if it’s not a place to explore scripture, I’m not sure what we’re doing. And depending on whether you think the current wave of folks using scripture to injure, assault, and exile others began centuries ago, in 1970, or just this year, knowing our Bible is essential to knowing God’s messages about love, justice, compassion, healing, and eternity, and the heart of our identity.
Indeed, the reason I use the salutation that I do in this note each month is based in John 15: it is good to be friends together, and all together to be friends in Christ. This calls us deeper, and to all the bits about love, justice, compassion, and more.
What brings this up? Several of us are reading the book Separation of Church and Hate during May. And the author, John Fugelsang, argues that the heart of Christianity is Jesus’ vision of being good, sharing good, and hearing the message from God that we are good. (OK, there’s more but this is a short column.) And that’s not what he sees in many places lately. What he sees, even in very, very high offices, is scripture being used to dominate, deny rights, and even destroy others. And then he writes this: “Much of the time, these people don’t really know the Bible all that well. And they are 100 percent counting on you not knowing the Bible all that well.”
Are we inspired to become fundamentalistic? Well, maybe.
First, if you’d like to find a way to read this book together let me know. Second, there is a Zoom offering uniting several churches to study the book Thursday nights in May. Third, are there scriptures used or mis-used in the media that you would like to study as a parish? Fourth, are there others not in the media that you’d like to examine? And, where do you find the time to “know the Bible” as you long to do?
May is a busy month as Confirmation continues, we enjoy our Women’s Tea, celebrate our Children, prepare our mission and ministry budgets for the year beginning July 1, continue our outdoor space examination, nurture our Stewardship effort (we need you…), walk to support housing the homeless, and on and on. Maybe we’ll even pause for Memorial Day. So there is a lot going on. And it is important to all Friends in Christ, everywhere.
To me little of it makes sense without hearing Jesus’ words to heal the sick, welcome the exile, work for peace, feed the hungry, and build a prayerful, passionate, powerful community knowing that we don’t have to do any of this on our own. So I invite you to do something simple (unless you’ve done this already). Read Psalms 22, 23, 24 in order. Five minutes. What do you see? Read Matthew 25, three minutes, what do you discover? Read the Beatitudes in Luke 6 (two minutes). To whom is he speaking? Extra credit: read Mary’s Magnificat in Luke 1: 46-55. Notice anything new? In twelve minutes you can learn the heart of the Christian claims. More extra credit? Read Hosea in the Hebrew Bible. Or, let me know if you’d like to read Separation of Church and Hate together.
A recent article in National Catholic Reporter called mis-use of the scripture to defend domination or war “blasphemy.” A Rabbi calls it “desecration.” I called it sinful in a sermon. Other people just tune out, which is understandable. Except that this is our faith, our mission, our joy and delight. It’s our Bible. Or, rather, it’s God’s word and way to plant the seeds of love and hope in any heart or home or assembly. Fundamentalistic is sounding pretty good.
Peace,
