Scriptures: Psalm 27; Psalm 51; Matthew 5:1-10
I’m going to be talking this morning about some things that have been on my mind, but I have to tell you, have to warn you, that there’s a real good chance that none of the rest of you have been thinking about the same things I’ve been thinking about. In all honesty, I’m not sure why I’ve been thinking about these things, but I have, and my general rule of thumb is that it’s better for me to talk about what’s on my mind than to try to guess what’s on yours.
What I’ve been thinking about, for whatever reason, is the tension I feel between all the complexities, contradictions, confusions, paradoxes, uncertainties, and struggles that seem to be what my life is pretty much made of, and that seem to be pretty much what my faith is made of—the tension between acknowledging and embracing all those things on the one hand, but on the other hand acknowledging and confessing my desire and my need for a way of life, and of faith, that is simpler, less cluttered, less strenuous, less complicated, surer, cleaner, purer than the way my life or my faith is at the moment—or ever has been as far as I can remember.
I have always thought of myself as being pretty comfortable with complexity and uncertainty. I have always thought of myself as being pretty comfortable with a faith that is not a once-and-for-all given, that I have to continually be engaged with, and that I am always is the process of re-creating. The first sermon I gave at Sojourners (some of you may remember, others will not either because you weren’t here at the time or because you just don’t remember) was based on the Biblical story of Jacob wrestling with an angel—maybe even with God directly, which seems to be what Jacob thought was going on. One of the things I said at the time was that I had always identified with Jacob in that story, because I had always had to wrestle with my faith, that my relationship to God had not come easily and still does not come easily. What I wanted to communicate to the Sojourners who were there at the time was of course something about who I was and am, and what my approach to ministry, and especially to preaching, would be. I wanted to say…
That I am a person who experiences faith as a struggle and who will not, as a minister, try to pretend to be someone other than the person I am, nor will I expect other people as church members to be someone other than the person they are, and in fact that we need to hold each other accountable for not pretending, in church, to be people we are not, and that I will not in my preaching when I stand up here suddenly think of myself as the representative of “the Christian faith”, duty-bound to deliver an official version of Christianity (there are some who understand preaching in this way)
That I did not, do not, understand Christianity to offer easy answers to the important questions of our living, and indeed that many times what our faith does is point us to the right questions rather than give us the right answers
That I did not, do not, see preaching as the opportunity to make authoritative pronouncements about right belief and right action but that I dare to preach at all in the hope of making some contribution to the struggles we all have in holding and living a meaningful life of faith, and to help make the internal struggles of faith something that takes place not just inside us but also among us, that is to help them become a part of public discussion.
That what we have to share with each other are stories more than certainties
That faith is not something given, etched in stone, but is a living, growing, changing, fluid, process forged and re-forged out of our responding to the world around us, the word of scripture, the people of this community, and the work of the spirit within us
I was not nervous about how that kind of a message would be received at Sojourners, even though I didn’t know too many people at all and didn’t know anyone very well at that point. I was not nervous because I was pretty sure from what I read and heard that this was not a community that expected faith to be solid, certain, unquestioning, uncomplicated, or that would expect their minister to hold a faith or present a faith or pretend to a faith that was that way. Our documents say that “Sojourners connotes movement, fluidity, pilgrimage, inclusion of those who do not want set answers or rigid systems, but who, instead want to be in a moving, changing relationship with God, and with each other.” I was not nervous—not about that anyway—and I felt no need to apologize for who I was or my approach to the Christian faith. As I say, I was pretty confident that it was widely shared.
And I am not today wanting to apologize for that approach to the Christian faith. Not only is this who I am and who we are. It is, if not the only way to be Christian, a valid way to be Christian, a way of questioning, not so much a questioning of the faith but of ourselves, of our understanding and practice, a way of uncertainty, of unsettledness, of discontent, a way of listening, of seeking larger, deeper, truer understandings, a way of pilgrimage.
If we truly live the questions and don’t just assume that there are no answers and therefore stop asking the questions…if being willing to live with uncertainty does not mean just being lackadaisical…if being willing to listen is not the same thing as having nothing to say ourselves…if being open to new understandings and discoveries is not the same thing as having no belief…if honestly acknowledging our confusions as human beings is not the same thing as giving in to them…if we are truly on a pilgrimage and not just sort of randomly wandering our way through life, then this way of faith is one of integrity. I am not suggesting to myself, certainly not to anyone else, that there is anything illegitimate about it.
And yet…even this is not uncomplicated, because however much I am comfortable with a faith that is not all one thing but is many things, however comfortable I am with a faith that is filled with questions that have no simple answers, however much I am comfortable with a faith that struggles constantly toward new understandings, I am also not completely comfortable with all that comfortableness either. (This sounds like doublespeak doesn’t it?) To put it differently, even though that approach is all fine and I don’t want to back away from it, I am also hearing a voice calling me in another direction.
I remember giving a sermon some years ago. I don’t remember what it was about, but it must have been one of those sermons where I had wrestled openly with some scripture or some theological idea, because what I do remember even these many years later is the comment one of people in the congregation made to me afterwards. This was a man who was at least twice my age at the time. He sincerely looked to me as his pastor. I had learned to respect him and sincerely looked to him for wisdom in many ways. He didn’t say anything walking out in the greeting line that some churches have after worship, but we later found ourselves alone in a hallway for a few moments, and he said to me, “That was a very thoughtful sermon. It was a difficult subject and you did well with it.” He paused for moment and then said, “You know though, Jim, I guess I’ve always thought that Christianity isn’t so complicated as all that. Isn’t it basically pretty simple? Jesus said, ‘Love God. Love your neighbor.’ That’s about all I’ve ever been able to handle. It’s also what keeps me going.”
He didn’t mean it as a criticism exactly, I don’t think. I didn’t take it that way anyway, but more as reminder. And I have thought of that brief conversation often over the years. His words have served as a reminder to me often, and they came back to me this week again as I continued to muse over the Psalms.
The Psalms are certainly a complicated collection of writings, that is to say the faith they present to us is certainly a complicated faith filled with praise and lament, noble thoughts and quite a few shameful ones, struggles with feelings, struggles with how to deal with enemies, struggles with how to deal with God, all kinds of struggles. But then in the middle of Psalm 51 there is a verse that may be familiar to some of you: “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.” Create in me a clean heart, O God. I thought of that too this week. Some translations say, “Create in me a pure heart.” And then I thought of Jesus saying in the beatitudes, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” I don’t think any of this has to do with clean or pure hearts in the sense of being morally pure.
The call to a pure heart, the prayer for a pure heart has to do with something else. And I have been thinking about that something else this week. I have been thinking that I have a need to remember to try to make my faith more simple, without being simplistic. I have been thinking that I have a need not to abandon my questions but to find within them not so much answers as those few things that I am clear about and not to abandon those things either. I have been thinking that questions are not things that we live for—not answers either really—but beliefs and there are not so many of those beliefs that are able to give meaning and richness to our lives that they should be hard to keep track of. It ought to be fairly simple really in that sense. I have been thinking that I have a need somewhere in the midst of my struggles with God simply to know God, to be in God’s presence, to be bathed in God’s wonder. Psalm 27 says: “’Come,’ my heart says, ‘seek God’s face.’ Your face, O Lord, I do seek.” The Psalm could be speaking for me.
When I was choosing hymns for the service today, I remembered one called “There’s a wideness in God’s mercy.” I thought it would be a good choice, because I remembered that one of the lines in the hymn was: “If our love were but more simple…” That would fit in, I thought. The impulse for a love, a faith that is simpler and purer. Fortunately I double-checked the words to the hymn. In the UCC hymnal it reads, “If our love were but more faithful, we would gladly trust God’s word, and our lives would show thanksgiving for the goodness of our God.”
Hmmm. I was pretty sure I remembered the words correctly, but my memory does fail me sometimes. I went back and looked at the old Pilgrim Hymnal. Sure enough it read as I remembered it: “If our love were but more simple, we would take God at his word, and our lives would be all sunshine, in the sweetness of the Lord.” I can understand why the words were changed. I can almost hear the discussion. O.K. we have to make the language more inclusive. And then there’s this bit about our lives being all sunshine. That’s a bit much. No one’s life is all sunshine. Our lives would show thanksgiving. That’s good. But then even besides that, love is not simple. Sometimes there is nothing harder, if we’re talking about real love. Sometimes it’s not only hard but complicated. Nothing simple about it. How about if our love were more faithful. Yes, that’s better. Faithful. If I had been part of that conversation, I might have said all those things. I agree with all those things.
But then maybe I also need to hear the original version that holds out a hope for a love and maybe a faith that is more simple.
Is it not possible, for instance, to seek justice, knowing that every question of justice is complicated and has many sides to it and that we never do it enough and never do it consistently, isn’t it nevertheless possible to be purer in our pursuit of justice? Is it not true that we need to make this a less complicated, a somehow simpler aspect of our spirit? In one sense I think this may mean not allowing ourselves all the excuses. We are called to seek justice, no ifs, ands, or buts. But it’s not just that kind of severe purity, but the wish, the prayer that doing justice was something that came simply to us, that was spontaneously and whole-heartedly just, simply who we were.
And isn’t it desirable to want to love mercy, to practice compassion and forgiveness with less of ourselves in it, with less conditions attached to it, with less readiness to be distracted from it? Recognizing that it is not a simple thing—mercy, compassion, forgiveness—recognizing all the complications and obstacles, don’t I still wish to love mercy in some simpler, purer way. The answer is yes.
And do I not wish for the ability to walk humbly with God in a purer way as well. It is possible to be proud as we try to walk humbly with God. It is possible to continually remind ourselves that we can never know the will of God, and thus leave ourselves plenty of room for the exercise of our own will, which we can know. It is possible to marshal all sorts of arguments against other people’s certainties, overlooking our own certainty about how wrong others are. And so I pray to walk humbly, but not just in a questioning but also in a believing way. For me that would be a purer way.
I am thinking today that while I continue to value a way of faith that embraces uncertainty, doubt, and struggle, I also need to seek a way of faith that is simpler and purer. May God help me, I dare to say may God help us, in that search and may it be our prayer. Amen.
Jim Bundy
August 18, 2002