Pastor's Notes

Spiritual. The word means different things to different people. It can have various understandings in different places and times. Studies and polls agree: many in our culture today identify as “spiritual but not religious.” In fact, this is the fastest growing group of people often referred to as “ The Nones”, as in no religious preference. The word religious, too, we see, can take on varied understandings.

What I often do see in many instances where the word spiritual is used whether inside or outside of church and the Christian faith, is that when one is being spiritual, the understanding is they are somehow being transported away from the life of this earth. In so doing, they hope to encounter an experience with God.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran pastor and a martyr for his role in a plot on Hitler’s life for which he was later hanged in a concentration camp, had something to say about those trying to find God by escaping the world. Bonhoeffer said, “Whoever evades the earth does not find God, they only find another world.”

It may be both helpful and healthful to take a break from life and the world from time to time. However we cannot evade the fact we do indeed live in the world and we are part of the world’s “stuff”. We contain many of the same elements listed in those 10th grade chemistry periodical charts; elements found in both living creatures and inanimate earthly objects like rocks.

In addition to those elements we also share in the joy and heartbreak of life and living. We are born and we die. We rejoice and we suffer. Like all God’s creatures and people we were created for life on this earth. The Garden of Eden was not some spiritual locale. It is specifically and geographically located in Genesis, smack dab near the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Adam and Eve were not called to escape it or spend their time there in prayer, but to till it and care for it. They were called, in other words, to live in it.

Spiritual is a good word. Retreat, solace, reflection, prayer, contemplation are valid and often necessary activities, or, in some cases, in-activities. Their purpose is not to escape, but to regroup so that we might re-enter that in which we are called to live and serve. We don’t need another world. We need our world to be a place where God’s children live as God calls us to live.

Faith is not to be surreal. We are not to somehow be able to get above or apart of life and live in some spiritual atmosphere. Faith is to be real. It is to engage and encounter, even at times confront life; it is to be used to relate to real people, navigate through real events, and live in real times and places.

That’s the wonder of the incarnation, God in human flesh. This too is where God is found. God chose to not be surreal and float around in some heaven in some spiritual body. God chose to be so close as to look us in the eye. God neither evades nor avoids earth. Faith calls us to do the same.

Most folks raised in the Lutheran Church who went through confirmation or catechetical instruction have at least some familiarities with Martin Luther’s Small Catechism. Luther realized most Christians in his day were ignorant regarding the basics of the Christian faith: the Lord’s Prayer, the Apostle’s Creed, the Ten Commandments, Sacraments, etc. The Small Catechism, written in question-and-answer form to be easily memorized, was intended for parents to teach their children.

Years later, recognizing the ignorance of 16th Century clergy regarding the same basics, Luther wrote….are you ready for this?…”The Large “Catechism. Its format was not question and answer, but a text, say one of the 10 Commandments, with greatly extended commentary too long to be memorized.

In many ways the church has used the Q & A form even in its speech concerning things of faith. For a long time this was, as in Luther’s day, a typical educational model. Though I remember having to memorize poems in 6th grade like “The Raven”, “Hiawatha” and “The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere”, memorization as an educational format disappeared many decades ago.

In the church, however, it still seems at times to be the norm. So often you and I and many Christians (most?) seem often to repeat rehearsed answers regarding faith, Jesus, and God. I wonder if we do this so we don’t have to take Jesus’ questions seriously?

So then, here is a question for you and me? “When is the last time you were questioned by Jesus?” That is, when is the last time we had to stop and think about some aspect of our faith or life because of something we heard or read that Jesus said? When is the last time we had to change our mind our attitude, or our behavior because of some question Jesus or our faith in Jesus posed to us?

Too often when something hits us between the eyes of faith we resort to our stored memory of rehearsed answers. The hard drive of our faith is not easily erased. In many ways it ought not be easily scrubbed clean. It is there for a reason. Yet, as with the best of computers, sometimes incorrect or even bad information has been stored. Jesus works to bring up and confront such information.

Occasionally at various kinds of gatherings we may see someone or several people holding up signs saying, “Jesus is the Answer?” There may even be some smart aleck with another sign asking, “What is the Question?”

Jesus is, for the Christian, an answer to much of the pressing questions we have about God. Yet as answer, Jesus often performs best as question. It is one thing for God to come to us in Jesus and show some of God’s hand to us in the life, teachings, works, death and resurrection of Jesus. It is quite another when some of all this also confronts us with a question about ourselves, about life, or about God, forcing us beyond our comfort zones and intellectual debate to wrestle with faith, and wrestle with God.

Rehearsed answers often serve to keep God at bay so God does not intrude upon us, our life, or our comfortable thoughts. Yet the God who also questions us in Jesus is the same gracious God we have known in Jesus. We need not fear the questions because we need not fear the God who asks them.

From fifth grade onward until we graduated from high school, John was a classmate of ours. John had failed 5th grade and had to repeat it. It scarred him a bit. From fifth grade on John used to tell us over and over how good he used to be at some sport, some activity, or some subject. At the time, even to a fifth grader like me, it seemed rather preposterous to be “washed up” at age 11.

Over the years now as I listen to my colleagues, I have noticed a trait similar to my classmate John. It seems in hearing pastors speak the older we get the better we used to be. Is this aging or is it insecurity? Or, perhaps, is it both? Maybe it is neither. Perhaps it is simply wishful thinking…wishing we were once good or better as through trials and experience we have learned how imperfect are we and our work.

All washed up at age 11 is one thing; washed up at nearly 70 quite another. Life does have a way at coming at us again and again. Like the waves of the sea pounding the surf or cliff, taking away a bit of sand or turf a few grains at a time, life has a way of doing the same to us. At times life is energizing, at times draining. Over time it has the ability to shape and change through forces positive and negative.

This is a place for faith to enter. Our Christian faith tells us we are not perfect. Our Christian faith reminds us God and God’s will is not held back by our stumbling and bumbling around. Our very faith has its roots in a dysfunctional family; Jacob stole Esau’s birthright and God went along with it. David was not always the best of role models and Peter wanted nothing to do with Jesus when times were at their most difficult.

If God could work God’s will with characters like these and more, God may be able to get God’s work accomplished through washed up fifth graders and forgetful seniors. Past accomplishments are nice, but hardly sustaining. We are more interested in who we are than who we were. Most people around us are also more interested in who we are currently than who we once were.

The hard fact is that decline is a part of life. We begin our decline in our early twenties. Things like hair follicles, etc. start to change and decline. It may not be obvious for another twenty years or so, but this biological process of aging begins far before we can recognize it. This too is where faith enters. We are defined by neither our decline nor our improvement. We are defined ultimately as we were in baptism by belonging to God and being a child of God. We have importance in God’s plan in all stages of our life. We have value at all ages of life.

Part of what grace does for us is put the past where it belongs: in the past. It’s effects may still matter, but it’s scoresheet in terms of our relationship with God does not. In the resurrection of Jesus, we see God is all about the present with a promise to be our God, the same merciful God, in the future.

Some cultures value older members of their group. They see a certain wisdom gained by experience. Some cultures instead cast aside those who have aged. I have read that at one time Eskimos would place the oldest person on an iceberg, supplying them with some food, and set them adrift every time a child was born. This story makes someone my age perhaps a bit grateful about global warming and the continued and rapid melting of ice!

However, life and the world seem better when all ages dialog and work together. All have a seat at God’s table with something to offer during dinner conversation. Let’s be glad for times and achievements past. Let’s be grateful for times present and continued opportunities to live, serve, love and be loved. Let’s learn some lessons from the past but leave it where it belongs; behind us.

I don’t remember who asked the question. I do remember it was a voice of irritation that asked, “Mr. Lieberman, why do we have to study history? It’s so boring!” Mr. Charles Lieberman, teacher of 10th grade American History, Weatherly Area High School, Weatherly, PA, responded in a non-defensive way and said, “We study history to learn about the mistakes of the past, so we don’t have to repeat them. We also study it to learn about the good things we did so we might have the courage to do them again. If we don’t do this, life certainly won’t be boring.”

Okay, maybe the last part of his response was just a tad defensive. As a person with an interest in history, I am quite concerned about the current attempt by many to edit out the difficult and, yes, downright evil parts of history. All nations have these. All need to study and discuss them.

Why is there a national Smithsonian Museum to the Holocaust (with an ELCA apology as Lutherans for Luther)? Why study the Holocaust? So it won’t be forgotten lest it be repeated. Americans always need reminding: the Holocaust happened in one of the more cultured nations of the world. It can happen again, anywhere.

Why does the past frighten us? Do we fear some of the evil in the past might somehow be buried deep within us? Human behavior and scripture would remind us: it is! Do you honestly think had you lived in Nazi Germany you would not have been a Nazi and would not have approved of the Holocaust? Few did anything to prevent it. Silence, even for safety’s sake is seen and understood as acceptance. The church had some heroic efforts in Nazi Germany, but mostly it’s actions and inactions were shameful.

We very much need to study the heroic deeds of 1776, the Emancipation, and so many positive parts of our history. We need to do so against the reality of slavery, Jim Crow, denial of women’s rights, and our own Holocaust spread over time with Native Americans. How can you and I understand who America is without studying it in its entirety? How can we understand, for example, native peoples in our country today without an understanding of their history and ours? How can you and I understand who we are as humans and as individuals with no reflection up our sins and sinfulness? How can we do something corrective about our nation’s sins and our own personal sins without study and reflection?

Ignorance is not bliss. It is simply ignorance. It is an openness to committing once again the same sin. While history can be misused by all people, its omission of misdeeds large and small is possibly the greatest misuse.

I remember in high school at basketball games we would chant: “We’re number one!” Sometimes we were, most times we were not. But we were still decent. We still had value and worth to the school, the small town, and each other. It seems we have a great need to be #1 in the world…the best nation and the best people. I have had the privilege to travel to 30 countries. There are a lot of good people and a lot of good countries out there. I have no idea who is best; neither do I care. I just want mine to be as good as it can be for all. As Christians we don’t have to be #1. We only need remember in baptism God said we were #1….for all time. It seems to me we can take it from there even confronting and then dealing with our own dark side. Maybe that is truly being #1.