Scripture: Matthew 4:1-11
Last week as part of the sermon I pointed out that the tree in the banner behind me that represents the life of our congregation has an image of Sojourner Truth inscribed in the trunk, at the heart of the life of the congregation. I posed a question: what else ought to be there? What other images, words, phrases, thoughts ought to be placed at the center of the congregation’s life along with Sojourner Truth.
It is possible that some people might have found this question a bit odd, maybe even objectionable. Isn’t Christ supposed to be at the center of a Christian church’s life? We do describe ourselves as Christian. We said our covenant just a few minutes earlier in that same service that we seek to “walk in the way of Jesus…” We don’t seek to walk in the way of Sojourner Truth, or anyone or anything else. Jesus is at the core…isn’t he? Aren’t we really going astray by thinking of other things that might be at the core?
It’s possible that some people were having thoughts along those lines last week, and if they were, I would understand and sympathize, and if no one was, I would have to wonder why not? I would have to ask myself: Isn’t there something wrong with this picture? A Christian church in which, when asked what ought to be at the heart of the church’s life, not a single person said Jesus? If that had been the case, I think it might give us reason to pause, but in case you’re wondering, it was not the case. Some people did have the thought that Christ ought to be in the center of us and wrote it down, and of course there is also the possibility that others had the thought but didn’t write it down.
However…I should say that this was not a trick question. I did not ask the question to see how many people would say that Jesus ought to be at the center of our life. I didn’t ask the question thinking that the “right” answer was Jesus and that we would just have this little test to see how many people would “get it”. I asked the question genuinely, no tricks, happy that Sojourner Truth’s image is in the tree and expecting that there would be a variety of responses as to what else should be there, as there usually are at Sojourners, and as indeed there were last Sunday. (By the way, at some point in the near future we will find a way to share what was written so that you will know what each other said.)
But I want to say a few words about why that question can and should be asked among us without the assumption that the only or best answer to the question of what lies at the heart of our common life is Jesus. Not that I think I need to convince you. It is possible that some people found the question questionable, or even objectionable. It is quite likely, I think, that most people didn’t have any problem with it at all. Maybe not everyone was into it, didn’t feel like having to fill out a card, didn’t know what to say, but didn’t think there was anything odd or offensive about the question. I want to articulate why, for me, the question is a legitimate one, and why, for me, many answers are legitimate, including but not limited to Jesus. I want to speak to that because it relates to some issues or concerns that are part of my spiritual life pretty much all the time but that I become particularly aware of at this season of the church year. In fact before I do anything else, let me talk for a minute about…Lent.
We’re already well into Lent you know. It’s been more than three weeks since our Ash Wednesday service here, and Palm Sunday is only two weeks from today. Maybe some of you have just on your own begun some Lenten observance. I will tell you honestly that I haven’t given much thought to it. I have been distracted by other things, various other things—no apologies, I just haven’t paid much attention to Lent yet this year—so far. I thought it would be a good thing to do before it completely passes us by—good for me personally, and good for us to focus our worship around Lenten themes for at least these few weeks in March.
The scripture for today is typically the one assigned for the first Sunday in Lent, and so I chose it for today to mark what I’m thinking of as the beginning of our Lenten observance at Sojourners this year. Frederick Buechner, pastor, novelist, theologian, writer on a variety of spiritual themes says that Jesus’ temptation was a time when he went off into the wilderness and spent forty days considering what it would mean to be Jesus. And he then comments that the forty days of Lent are a time when Christians are supposed to focus on asking themselves what it means to be themselves. I could interpret that to mean that I, Jim Bundy, am supposed to reflect on what it means to be Jim Bundy, that is, what God may have in mind for me specifically. That would be a good thing to reflect on for any of us—to reflect on our calling, what it is we are called to do and who we are called to be. Or it could mean that I am to reflect as a Christian on what it means for me to be a Christian, which is the way I usually take it.
There could be lots of approaches to Lent, but I am very often drawn by Lent to consider what my relation to Christ is. In my way of understanding this season that is what Lent confronts me with most of all. It is about a kind of spiritual inventory but not so much in the sense of asking me to take stock of my sins and repent and decide where I can make some changes that would make me a better person: spend more time in Bible study, eat less chocolate, whatever. It has to do specifically with my relation to Christ. Lent is after all a specifically Christian observance and invites us to follow Christ from the time of the temptations at the beginning of his public ministry through the early days of gathering the disciples, teaching, healing, large crowds, then increasing controversy, pointed exchanges, danger, suffering, death. Lent asks us to follow the story, but not just to listen to it but to ask ourselves—and I think it is very hard not to do this if we listen to it more than casually—to ask ourselves whether it is our story, my story, and in what way is this my story.
To return to the question from last week…about what lies at the center of our life as a church…we could each ask the same question of ourselves: what lies at the center of my faith, my life? With regard to the church I would expect and hope that some of us would answer that Christ ought to be at the center, but I would also say that that’s a good answer only if we know it’s not a final answer. In fact it only gives rise really to more questions. Because of course there’s more to being Christian than saying the name of Christ, and saying the name of Christ, even loudly and often, does not make a person a Christian. And it may be, though this is a little more difficult, that not saying the name of Christ, or at least not saying it very loudly or often or confidently, does not make you not a Christian. If Christ is at the center of my spiritual life, it is not enough for me to say just that. I need to go on and ask myself: Who is this Christ that I am believing in or wanting to follow? Are believing and following the same thing? Where does Christ touch me? What does he say to me? What does he call me to? What does a Christian life look like to me? Simple questions like that.
We live in a time—I guess we humans have always lived in a time for the last 2000 years or so—when the public face of Christianity is not always loving. It is important for Christians, people who do have Christ at the center of their lives, or who want to, or who are moving in that direction, to make clear what it means for them to be followers of Jesus the Christ. The name is not enough. And that’s one reason we also need to use other images, words, phrases, notions, ideas to describe what we want to be at the heart of our common life. For this community of Christians, walking in the way of Jesus means…That’s one reason to put things other than Christ at the center, to flesh out what we mean more specifically by “walking in the way of Jesus”. There’s another reason too.
It recognizes that there are those among us who do not have Christ at the center of their spiritual lives and maybe never will. It says that in this community of faith where we make the simple, daring, difficult claim that we are trying to walk in the way of Jesus, that we also want there to be a place for people who are not so sure about the Christian church, or Christianity or Christ, that we want there to be a place for people who understand their spiritual journey in a different way from trying to walk in the way of Jesus, that we want there to be a place for people who aren’t sure what their relationship to Jesus is or for whom this is just not the most important question, that we want there to be a place among us for people not who are anti-Christian but who may be non-Christian, and that we want to welcome such people not as potential converts to Christianity but as companions in the spiritual journeys that we all make separately but that at the same time we all are engaged in together.
Is it possible for a congregation to be sincerely desirous of being Christian in the best way it knows how and at the same time truly inclusive of those who do not necessarily see themselves as Christian, and again inclusive meaning not just that we want the presence of non-Christians as people who with a little patience we can convert into Christians but that we respect and appreciate the varying kinds of spiritualities there may be among us on their own terms. Is it possible to be focused on being Christian and not so focused on being just Christian at the same time? I hope it is, because I believe we need each other.
There may be some people here this morning who were made a little anxious or uncomfortable even by the sermon title, thinking that a sermon titled Christ at the Center may make too many claims on behalf of Christ or take too much for granted about where Christ ought to be in a person’s life. Do we just assume that Christ ought to be at the center of everyone’s life? Is this going to be a sermon that says your soul is in peril if Christ is not at the center? You probably know I’m not going to say that, but the title might sound like it is leaning in that direction—toward urging everyone to be more Christ-centered. I hope there were a few people who were uncomfortable with the sermon title, just as I hope there were a few people who wondered where Christ was in the mix of things that might be at the center of our life. We need each other. We need people among us whose spiritual lives are not oriented around Christ to keep our Christian faith honest and open, to keep our Christian faith from being smug or self-satisfied or taken for granted. As Christians we are not threatened by but indebted to non-Christian perspectives and we are better off for having those other perspectives as part of our common life. At the same time, we need, the world needs, I need among us people who want little else in their spiritual life than to try to be good Christians, even though they know they may never reach that goal, people who are not all caught up in a lot of questioning and struggling and wrestling with what the Christian faith is and what we are supposed to believe and whether we can believe it, but who have just set out to follow Jesus the best way they know how and are doing a pretty darn good job of it. We need such people. I doubt that I need to argue that at any great length. Simple, faithful, loving spirits are too few in our world and they challenge and bless all of us.
For some of us this is not just a matter of embracing different kinds of spiritual journeys, different kinds of faithfulness within the church. It’s a matter of embracing those different parts of ourselves. At least it is true for me. There is a part of me that struggles with the Christian faith, that feels like I am standing on the outside looking in, sometimes that wonders whether I want to be on the inside, and that recognizes that I don’t always have Jesus at the center of my life. In fact, only the most saintly Christians among us would be in a position to say that Christ is always at the center of their lives, and paradoxically the most saintly among us would probably be the first to say that Christ is not always at the center. So there is the non-Christian part of me, and I want not only to be gentle with that part of myself but to value it and embrace it as part of who I am as child of God. But for me, there is the Christian part too. Not that I’m much good at it, but there is a part of me that wants to put Christ firmly at the center of my spiritual life and that sometimes succeeds. And I want to embrace and deepen that part of myself too.
In fact, Lent calls me to do that, to pay attention to that part of myself that wants to put Christ at the center, not so much as a matter of reaffirming my faith but as a matter of letting myself be confronted again by questions, such as: “What does it mean for me, concretely in my life, to walk in the way of Jesus?” That is a question that is not going to be answered definitively in the next three weeks. But that doesn’t make it any less urgent. Amen.
Jim Bundy
March 6, 2005