“The Challenges We Face”

Scripture – Mark 11:12-19

Sermon preached by the Rev. Dr. Gregory Knox Jones

Sunday, August 18, 2024

 

As you probably know, Dr. Diana Butler Bass will be our Westminster Distinguished Speaker in September. She studies churches and analyzes the current religious scene. She writes about the profound changes Christianity is undergoing in the U.S. and she shares reasons why many people no longer attend church.

If you have read her book, Christianity After Religion, you probably remember the story she tells of walking into a popular coffee shop. The woman in line ahead of her said, “I’ll have a cup of coffee.”

The clerk replied, “Just coffee? Decaf or regular? Room for milk? House blend? Organic? Extra hot?”

You may have had a similar experience where a clerk offered you so many choices that your eyes began to glaze. Bass “had dinner with a coffee executive from a well-known chain and asked him how many choices were possible in one of his stores. He replied that there were eighty-two thousand possibilities for a drink from the menu.”1 Way too many choices!

In the past, going to church on Sunday was simply what most people did. As I am sure all of us are aware, that day has passed. Butler Bass points out that by the middle of the 20th century, we changed into a choice-based society, where people are driven by preference and desire rather than tradition and duty. In our day, we are constantly making choices. We choose which college to attend, what career to pursue, who will be our partner, where we will live, which causes we will support, what values we will hold, which leaders we will follow, and what beliefs we will hold. If you begin to list all the choices you face, it will make your head hurt. Butler Bass says that, in the 21st century, Americans make “more choices in a single day than some of our ancestors did in a month.”2

With the proliferation of opportunities on Sunday morning, people are faced with choices as never before. You made the right choice by being in worship this morning. But I am well aware that you could have chosen to sleep in, to read the Times, to watch television, to play pickle ball, to go out for brunch, to catch up on house chores, to shop, to go to the park, to read a book, to send emails, or to surf the internet for cat videos! You chose to come to worship and you are to be commended – unless it was simply the lure of the free ice cream after the service.

A key reason we morphed into a choice-based society is because certain institutions that were once highly regarded and spoke with an authoritative voice, influencing people’s behavior, are now weakened and not held in the high esteem they once were.

This is not something that has just emerged in the past 20 years. If we dial back to the sixties and seventies, the Watergate Scandal and the Viet Nam War undermined the trust citizens had in our government, and it prompted people to look at other established institutions with suspicion. Other scandals prompted Americans to distrust schools, police forces, and the church.

We discovered that some schools had passed along students and graduated them even though they were incapable of reading. Overreactions by police to Civil Rights demonstrators, Viet Nam War protestors, and later, the Rodney King beating, deteriorated public confidence in law enforcement. And it’s difficult to know where to begin with scandals involving the church. Some preachers ran off with money, others ran off with women. Some abused children and their superiors covered it up.

Then, we had what Butler Bass names “The Horrible Decade.” She demonstrates how the first few years of the 21st century were a disaster for organized religion. Immediately following the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, TV evangelist Pat Robertson was plastered all over the news when he declared that the attacks were God’s punishment on our nation. Robertson concluded that God was punishing us because too many Americans support women’s rights, gay rights, and the ACLU. I suspect everyone here shook their heads in disbelief at his conclusions. The media frequently lumped all Christians into one bucket and many concluded that if that’s what Christianity is about, they want no part of it.

Soon, the media and politicians began to blame religion for the attacks. They started referring to the terrorists as “religious fanatics, fundamentalist zealots, medieval crusaders and holy warriors.”3 I’ll never forget that someone posted a sign near ground zero that read: “God, save us from people who believe in you.”

Journalist Christopher Hitchens wrote: “People of faith are in their different ways planning your and my destruction, and the destruction of all the hard-won human attainments. Religion poisons everything.”4

The following year, the Roman Catholic sex abuse scandal broke. The Boston Globe ran a number of articles on five priests accused of abusing children. It exploded into an international story involving hundreds of priests and thousands of victims. Soon we learned that bishops had not only tried to cover up the abuses, but in many cases had actually protected the predators.5

It was also during this first decade of the 21st Century that many mainline denominations – including our own – were embroiled in nasty arguments over the ordination of gays. Westminster was on the right side of the struggle, but it was a sad time for our denomination and others. Many wondered why a large segment of the Christian church seemed determine to persecute people on the basis of their sexual orientation.

In the first few years of this century, conservative evangelicals were credited with a number of political victories. However, religious opinion poll takers began to notice the widening gulf between the conservative evangelical mix of religion and politics, and the values of younger generations, “particularly with regard to views of women, same-sex relationships, the environment, and issues of global poverty.”6

Since Bass wrote her book, there has been a rise in Christian Nationalism. This is a political movement that drapes itself in a twisted view of Christianity. At its core, it is the notion that the United States is a nation created by and for Christians. While that may at first glance have some appeal to those of us who follow Christ, it opens the door to discriminating against Jews, Muslims, Asians, people of other faiths, and people of no faith. As a follower of Jesus, I want his teachings to influence the laws of our country. I believe that would help us to build a more perfect union. However, discrimination is not a Christian principle. Many outside of the church read about the influence of Christian Nationalism on our political system and conclude that if that is what the Christian Church promotes, they want no part of it.

There are other reasons that people have drifted away from the church or never had any connection. For one, family calendars bulge with activities, including Sunday morning sports events, so many people do not make time for church and their children miss out on opportunities to develop their spiritual nature. Second, when mom and dad both work, the weekends become the time to catch up on jobs around the house or to spend time with family. Third, we have become an entertainment society. Many unconsciously turn to entertainment to distract them from reflecting on profound questions. Fourth, we are an affluent society. We use our wealth to do new and exciting things which help to distract us from the search for a more meaningful life and the internal peace that comes with a life in sync with God.

And as if all of these forces were not enough to cripple the church, along came the pandemic. It struck a devastating blow. Churches closed their doors for months and many dropped their routine of beginning their week with worship. Those of us who are here, reestablished our Sunday routine. Whether we were compelled by a sense of duty or a yearning for community or we knew that this is the place where we can quench the thirst deep in our soul we reengaged.

This morning’s passage of Jesus cursing the fig tree and overturning the tables in the temple reminds us that institutional religion can get off course. The minor items of faith can become the majors and the core elements of faith can be sidelined. In Jesus’ day, the Pharisees had turned faith in God into a rigid system of specific practices that separated people into two distinct groups: the righteous and the wicked. However, the strict rules delineating between good and bad suffocated the Spirit of God, producing people who were not righteous, but self-righteous. Faith became a matter of pious talk and outward gestures and condemnation of those unlike themselves. The Temple religion of the Pharisees was not producing the fruit of God’s Spirit – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity.

The fig tree was a symbol of the Temple religion, where pious prayers and animal sacrifices had become the main event, rather than seeking justice and caring for the poor. Jesus pointed out to his followers that there was no fruit on the tree, only leaves. His cursing of the fig tree was the symbolic rejection of what the Temple religion had become. His overturning of the tables and his declaration that the religious leaders had turned God’s house into a den of thieves was the moment of confrontation.

How does this relate to the Christian Church in North America in the 21st Century? Many believe that the church has gotten off course. Faith has become a matter of right belief rather than right living; faith has become something outside of us that can be picked up on occasion and then set aside, rather than an internal force that drives our thoughts and actions. Many have come to believe that God created the world but now watches over it from a distance. God is not really involved with day-to-day happenings until I need God to solve my problem. But, perhaps we are in the midst of a new reformation when Christianity is changing. Perhaps we are moving from a time when Christianity focused on beliefs about God to an era when Christianity will become focused on an awareness and an experience of God.

Both as individuals and as a community of faith, we are called to live a Christ-like life in a secular world. Our challenge is to model a form of living that is compassionate, committed to justice and equality, respectful of people regardless of race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or economic standing, devoted to sounding the alarm on the urgent necessity of caring for God’s creation, faithful in reaching out to people in need, and dedicated to magnifying God’s vision of peace.

At Westminster, we have ministries that address each of these, but we cannot give in to the temptation to back off the pedal. Further, we must ask ourselves: What are we not doing that we need to be doing? How can we better communicate to people outside of Westminster the many ministry opportunities we provide? How can we draw more people under 50 into our community of faith?

We cannot be content with the way things are. People of faith should always be longing for a better self and a better society. Jesus revealed God’s vision for an abundant life and a beautiful world and beckoned us to lean into the vision. Are we ready to roll up our sleeves and to partner with God to make it a reality?

 

NOTES

  1. Diana Butler Bass, Christianity After Religion, (New York: HarperOne, 2012), p.41.
  2. Ibid.
  3. Ibid., p.77.
  4. Ibid., p.78.
  5. Ibid.
  6. Ibid., p.80.

 

The Prayers of the People

Randall Clayton

 

God of all nations, in love you created us, and in love you sustain us, teaching us what it means to live fully, and showing us by the actions of your Son, our Savior, how to love one another. Next to your love to us, we acknowledge that we do not always act as you would have us to act – our priorities sometimes get messed up, and despite our best intentions to follow we sometimes go a way that is not in accord with your desires. Forgive us and set us back on the right path; spellbind us once again with memories and knowledge of all your gracious acts so that we might live ever closer to the way you desire.

We are hungry, O God – hungry for acceptance, hungry for security, hungry for purpose and meaning. Fill these voids and teach us how we might fill these hungers in our church, community, and the broader world. Show us how we might better feed those who are physically hungry in our world – and give those whose closets are bare and stomachs are empty new hope for supplies of food to sustain their lives. Be present with those who are spiritually or emotionally hungry, with all who are hungry for human connection, and with those who are hungry for healing for body or spirit. Teach us to be signs of hope and healing in their lives.

O God, we are hungry for peace in our world, and yet, some days it feels as if peace may never come. We know of warfare in Ukraine, we know of the devastation that has killed tens of thousands of people in Gaza, we know of deaths of Israelis and Palestinians due to violent and hate filled acts. We are too familiar with gun violence that has killed in grocery stores, synagogues, places of entertainment, and in homes and the streets of our cities. O God, calm the warring madness that has taken hold of our world. Show us what we might do to make a real and lasting peace.

Knowing the speed at which our world has changed, be with this congregation as we seek to envision anew what you call us to become in the coming years. Be with our session, and our deacons, and our trustees. Guide their decisions and discussions. Fill them with your spirit.

Remembering the family prayer which Jesus taught we pray:

“Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever. Amen.”