Blessing All

Galatians 3:1-9, 23-29

 “Blessing All”

28 May 2017 St. Andrew’s Military Chapel Singapore

            Two weeks ago we explored the idea that there are no entry requirements to the church. In the passage from Acts Peter said that to place any requirement on someone to call themselves Christian other than the gifting of the Holy Spirit was to put an unnecessary yoke that wasn’t present at the start of the Church.

            Today Paul is telling us the same thing, but from a different perspective. He is placing this idea into an historical context with a present day reality. A long time ago God offered grace and salvation to one person based on his faith alone. Abraham. Our entire belief system comes from this welcoming of one person into God’s family.

            Now, to be fair there was a catch to God’s offer of grace to Abraham. He was blessed by God to be a blessing to all the nations of the world. Abraham was brought inside the family to bring others into the family. The founding father of our faith was instructed to seek out and bless the nations. He was given something for free and was expected to pay that gift forward. And so are we.

            Fast forward to Paul’s time and the issue he addresses in this letter to Galatia. The Galatians are excluding people from the fold by their reliance solely on the Law of Moses as the basis for calling someone Christian. Paul isn’t saying the law is no longer useful. The law is a guide for living that helps foster and strengthen individual and communal faith. It still plays that role today.

            Paul is explaining to the Galatians that the law isn’t the source of our faith. Christ’s resurrection shows us that our faith is rooted in God’s love throughout history, most concretely through the life of Christ on earth. Because of this there is no longer anything that is allowed to divide followers of Christ from each other. We are all baptized into Christ and thus we are all equal in Christ.

            And in our society that is so hard to accept. We strive to be better than the rest. We seek strength in numbers, in our likeness, in our solidarity to a common idea, common belief, common upbringing, etc. So, like Christians throughout the centuries we need frequent reminders that we are all in this together.   

What does it mean and what would it look like to have a world where the dividing lines of society don’t matter? Not that we eliminate all difference, but where difference isn’t a barrier. Where difference is celebrated and utilized rather than divisive and eliminated.

            Coming from the American Church, it can be hard to find those examples. Not just because those examples are rare on Sunday mornings, but also because American society tends to self-divide along all kinds of lines. It is said that 11am, the traditional church hour in America (and yes I know that has and will continue to change), is the most segregated hour each week.

            It is rare to find institutions and gatherings that reflect society. Most churches are overwhelmingly populated by one race, one socioeconomic group, or other single identifying marker that draws people to a particular congregation. Even schools in the States (public and private) eventually self-segregate despite some government intervention to have them reflect the societal demographics. Taking a look at school statistics on free or reduced lunch participants is eye opening.

            However, go to a sporting event and you’ll probably see a better cross section of society than what we see in our traditional institutions of society. Funny how Americans can cross all sorts of dividing lines over a game. Maybe sport is the one place we can go and forget about the burdens of society for just a moment and allow ourselves to be who we desire, not who society wants us to be.

            Do you find it a bit odd, society comes together more readily at an NFL or college football game than at a church?

            So, how do we make the church a place of no dividing lines where people come together over the commonality of being recipients of grace and love? How do we become the place longed for in the theme song from Cheers, “you wanna go where people know, people are all the same, you wanna go where everybody knows your name?”

            The first step is overcoming a fear of difference. Granted, the military does a pretty good job of helping to eliminate that throughout our intake training and the diverse workplace in which we find ourselves. But, we can always invite more into our lives allowing us to live a richer and fuller life full of new and stronger ideas and perspectives.

            Those of us in this building have a unique opportunity in our ability to travel throughout Southeast Asia with relative ease and minimal expense, both with work and on personal travel. We should be out there exploring strange new lands, meeting people with wildly different stories from ours who can show us ways to live and be joyful that we wouldn’t think of if we stayed in a bubble of first world comfort. I know my travels from Singapore the last two years have made me a better chaplain and person.

            Join a local club, interest group, gym, etc. Not only will your Singlish improve, you’ll receive grace and love from a community that is open to your difference so that you can see and feel how it would work for others to whom we extend the same hospitality.

            Read about the cultures you plan to visit or those whom you have already visited. This will give you a deeper insight into the culture you have interacted with because you will have an easier time relating to the writer because you have been there yourself. Additionally, it allows us to learn intricacies of a culture in a slow manner rather than the frying pan method we may encounter in our travels, which can get rather overwhelming in certain locations.

            One thing I should have done a long time ago for the chapel is to partner us with a local congregation that has English speaking pastors for a pastor exchange program where we can have a unique and Asian theological perspective here in the chapel on a regular basis. Asian theology is born from the unique challenges and history of this area and it can help us read the Bible in new and exciting ways while also allowing us to practice hospitality to someone quite different from us. I’m currently working to make something like this happen.

            When we work to incorporate these small steps into our lives, we’ll expand our welcoming spirit even more while also strengthening our theology and avoid the stumbling block that Paul addressed with the church in Galatia.

You can listen to sermons from St. Andrew's Military Chapel here.

Why Remember?

Every month I write a small piece for Navy Region Singapore's newsletter The Merlion Star. As I prepared for this month I couldn't help but remember an amazing speech given by the then Australian High Commissioner at the 2016 ANZAC Day Remembrance Service. It highlighted a different, and I think correct way of remembering loss as a nation. So on this Memorial Day, I offer it here in this space as well.

Greetings,

At last year’s ANZAC Day ceremony here in Singapore Philip Green, the then Australian High Commissioner, spoke about why Australia and New Zealand annually remember a day of defeat in Gallipoli. He said it was a day in which Australia and New Zealand “gained a sense of nationhood and identity with a new self-consciousness that arose from a moment of national crisis.” He also discussed the importance isn’t just what a society remembers but also how society remembers events. For Aussies and Kiwis, the rituals of ANZAC day helps them “reflect on [their] shared history and learn from it. These rituals provide an atmosphere for reflection, a way of reimaging our past and its connection to our present.”

He highlighted that ANZAC day is an “active and changing way in which we configure the past, understand the present, and imagine our future. How we do it matters to our collective sense of self, and the collective sense of our futures.” There is also a tradition of welcoming more people into the remembrance and into the story of ANZAC so that other societies can learn from a shared remembrance. Those of us who have attended an ANZAC Day can attest to the power of such a shared remembrance.

This month, Americans take time to pause and reflect on those we have lost in our wars over the last 200 years. Unfortunately, commemoration of that day in America has become associated more with the beginning of summer and the end of the school year rather than a time of reflection and remembrance. As we make plans to spend the long weekend on holiday in various countries throughout Southeast Asia, let us spend time remembering not just those whom we have lost in our wars, but also on the nature of war and ways in which each of us can work to lessen the need for war.

How we remember those who have sacrificed for us matters a great deal. If we remember through travel and commercial spending, then society defines the sacrifice in those terms. If we remember with honest and sober reflection, followed by large gatherings of our community, then we can shape the communal nature of remembrance and honor sacrifice through thoughtful reflection and participation in the very freedoms people have sacrificed their lives to defend.

Blessings,

Chaps

What Entry Test?

Acts 15:1-18

 “What Entry Test?”

14 May 2017 St. Andrew’s Military Chapel Singapore

In 2011 Rob Bell the pastor of Mars Hill Church in Grand Rapids Michigan, wrote a book entitled Love Wins in which he outlined differing views of salvation. He was careful in the book to not choose one specific view over the others, just emphasizing that God’s love would win in the end. He made the comment that even in the face of any objections someone may have to the view that everyone gets to heaven, it is ok for a Christian to long for that universalist view.

Based on the reaction within certain theological circles, you would have thought that Rob Bell went on a murderous rampage. One pastor took to Twitter with the words “Farewell Rob Bell.” People questioned Rob Bell’s theology with some harsh words. The tone of the reaction to his writing was of a nature that I think Christ would have spoken out against.

In October of 2016 popular Christian blogger, writer, and television personality Jen Hatmaker was quoted in an interview describing her views on a wide range of subjects, including some political topics. The interview broached the topic of gay marriage. She described how gay couples are in congregations and are going to need marriage support and parenting help. They will find those inside or outside the church. According to her, “Not only are these our neighbors and friends, but they are brothers and sisters in Christ. They are adopted into the same family as the rest of us, and the church hasn’t treated the LGBT community like family. We have to do better.”

One large Christian bookstore chain banned the sale of her books. Something that was in their right to do, yet I question the action. Christians are to act with grace towards everyone. Actively taking away part of a person’s ability to earn a living seems the anthesis of grace.

The hate that came from Christians on the internet in response to her comments was astounding.

But, Jen didn’t go quietly away when the controversy died down. She stuck to her guns and recently wrote on her blog about how the “burn of mob mentality scorched my heart into ashes.” What kind of church are we when people articulating an opposing view feel that from the church’s response to their thoughts and ideas?

The Christian marketing enterprise rose up against her in a concerted way. She writes, “This year I became painfully aware of the machine, the Christian Machine. I saw with clear eyes the systems and alliances and coded language and brand protection that poison the simple, beautiful body of Christ. I saw how it all works, not as an insider where I’ve enjoyed protection and favor for two decades, but from the outside where I was no longer welcome…My mind knows the difference between the Christian Machine and Jesus, but this year it feels hard to separate.”

Powerful words.  

What does it take to become a Christian? What are the minimum requirements?

How are we as Christians to deal with differences of opinion on theological matters? How do we engage with the secular, or non-church world?

Reading today’s passage we can see that these questions have been asked for as long as the church has existed. At the heart of the debate for the last 2000 years is the idea of who belongs and who doesn’t. Who is worthy to be called Christian and who has to sit outside?

Luke records this episode in Acts where there is an active debate in who gets to call themselves Christian. Is it the circumcised who follow the law of Moses or can any Gentile call themselves Christian?

Enter Peter, the rock of the church. The one on whom the church was built clearly addresses this controversy in the early church. After letting the leaders know that God had specifically told Peter he would be the one through whom the Gentiles would hear of Christ, Peter says those who are led to Christ through the Holy Spirit, have the same place in the Kingdom as those who directly come from the Jewish tradition.

He then asks a searing question, “Why are you putting God to the test by placing on the neck of the disciples a yoke that neither our ancestors nor we have been able to bear? On the contrary, we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.”

Seems the matter was settled 2000 years ago. So why do we still come up with reasons to keep people from Christ or distance ourselves from those who think and speak outside the box in which we place Christ? And why in the world does the church have to do so in such a hateful way? I’m sure it has something to do with human nature and the need for superiority over something or someone.

The disagreement wasn’t the problem in Peter’s day, nor is disagreement and difference of opinion the problem today. Our problem, and what Peter would sternly rebuke us for today, is the same issue he addressed in this passage: our desire to exclude rather than embrace and work with the different.

It’s in our best interest not just as an institution called the church, but as a body of fellow travelers who have sinned along the way to cast as large a net and welcome everyone we meet into this strange, sometimes dysfunctional, yet breathtakingly beautiful family. It’s our differences and how we work together through and despite those differences that gives Christianity its awe-inspiring beauty.

            Difference creates disorder and makes church messy and uncomfortable. Take our worship services each week here in Singapore. Sometimes you have to deal with a tone deaf pastor attempting to lead you in singing. Occasionally, there are children that are walking around the chapel who want to have conversations with their big friends during the message or prayers. I may bring up a topic, perhaps even this one, that causes discomfort or that you have a strong disagreement with based on your theology. All of that together is messy and can be frustrating.

However, we have committed to talking with each other, getting to know each other’s stories, listening with grace and compassion to differing voices, allowing ourselves to participate in a worship environment that is outside our comfort zone. And you know what, it really works. In these walls we take messy differences and weave them into a beautiful tapestry of compassion, caring, and love.

            Scot McKnight wrote a book about embracing the different as a primary aspect of naming oneself a Christian. He writes, “The church is God’s world-changing social experiment of bringing unlikes and differents to the table to share life with one another as a new kind of family. When this happens, we show the world what love, justice, peace, reconciliation, and life together are designed by God to be. The church is God’s show-and-tell for the world to see how God wants us to live as a family.”

            Frequently we hear of the church as a counter cultural place. This is a valid claim because we are different from culture in many ways. One of the more drastic ways that the Church stands against Western culture is in how we are welcoming to all. When we exclude those who are different from us we cease to be a holy body of Christ. What if our ability to embrace people of every different category we can imagine is the greatest evangelism we can offer the world?

The Church is called to be a patchwork quilt in the mindless march towards a monochromatic, bland world where everyone is expected to think, act, and believe the same thing. A place where you can be you and I can be me and we’ll all give and receive love because of who we are and not how we define ourselves. When we put that into practice each and every day of our lives we are following the words of Peter from today. And we’ll be well on our way to fulfilling Christ’s intention for his motely gathering of followers.

You can listen to sermons from St. Andrew's Military Chapel here.