Our Swooping Spirit (Preached at St Paul's)

There won't be an audio version as this was not preached at Wellshire.

Scriptures: Genesis 1:1-5 and Mark 1:1-12

Jesus was a Jew. If that statement is not a shock to you, perhaps it should be. You see, most of the Gospel accounts and the entirety of the Old Testament were written for Jews, both religious and cultural. Even the Gospel accounts written for Gentiles were written for Gentiles who were very familiar with Jewish culture due largely to their geographic proximity and intermarriage. Most of what you read in your Bible, and certainly what we read today, wasn’t written for you.

Now, before you go telling Stan or Tom Sheffield that Brian came in here and told you the Bible isn’t for you, let me explain a little more. Stick with me, my story gets better. I want to be very clear that I am not saying that Jesus wasn’t talking to ALL of us, Jews and Gentiles. And I’m not saying the Old Testament is intended solely for the Jews or has nothing to offer us. On the contrary, it has just as much to offer us. However, for most of us, what is our first step in reading the Bible? We pick up an ENGLISH copy and begin reading. Beyond that, many, if not most of us will pick up a modern, American English translation.

With each new baby born at the church, they bring a care bag and in it is an illustrated children’s Bible. The assumption that my congregation thankfully makes is that as new parents begin to read the Bible to their little ones, it will be some time before even their favorite versions of it will be accessible to them. They need a version they understand.

I think we can all agree that none of us would go about assuming we could understand scripture without first understanding at least the language in which it is written. We either pick up a translation we know, or we seek to learn the language in which it was written. Can we all agree that this is common and necessary first step? Great! But this is a very bare minimum.

Next, we need a cultural understanding. Now, for many of us, we think of a difference in culture as being between different countries, or maybe even regions. But every group of people has a culture. Just think of the difference between grownup and kid culture. Think of the words you use now that cannot be defined in a few short sentences in a Webster-like fashion for a grade-schooler. We have this difficulty every year in the church when we try to retell the Christmas story. As an adult, you have cultural context for the story. For a child, any trip is a magical journey where your parents make all the arrangements, pack the bags and take you somewhere fun where you’ll be safe and happy. A trip is always a vacation and always all-inclusive. Why worry? For a child, a virgin is a young girl. There are no social implications. For a child, swaddling clothes are fancy garments for newborns, not magical cloth that soothes a baby in a way nothing else can. And a manger is a crib, not a trough. For a child, there’s not much difference between a shepherd and a Wiseman. They both wear a bathrobe and beard. They just get different hats and props.

And let’s be honest, for most of us as adults, we prefer to remain blissfully content in this version of the story most Christmases too. Why muddy the waters?

1 My son, if you receive my words

and treasure up my commandments with you,

2 making your ear attentive to wisdom

and inclining your heart to understanding;

3 yes, if you call out for insight

and raise your voice for understanding,

4 if you seek it like silver

and search for it as for hidden treasures,

5 then you will understand the fear of the LORD

and find the knowledge of God.

6 For the LORD gives wisdom;

from his mouth come knowledge and understanding;

We, as believers, are seekers of wisdom. It is a basic tenant of our faith, and emphasized with great enthusiasm in the Presbyterian tradition. And so, we approach scripture not as self-evident and obvious, but as wisdom from God in need of understanding and interpretation by the Holy Spirit, our help and guide. As Christians in the second millennium A.D., we must first acknowledge the deep chasm between us and the Jews from thousands of years ago. To read these passages without that first step is foolish at best and arrogant at worst. Too often, we read the New Testament without the benefit of the Old Testament. It’s like watching a third movie in a series having missed the first two. We don’t have the proper context.

Going back to the Christmas story, without the lineage and stories from the Old Testament, who cares about Joseph’s family tree? Without the prophecies of Isaiah, who cares if Mary is a virgin or in what town Jesus is born? Context matters. For Jews, these details provide authority and familiarity which we take for granted. The New York Times recently ran an article about a new book I picked up this week, The Jewish Annotated New Testament. It’s unique in that it’s compiled by Jewish scholars for Christian readers. They provide the cultural context of Jesus and his early followers for us today. This approach is vital to today’s story of the baptism of Jesus. Our lectionary schedule was carefully chosen by a group of ministers and scholars. It gives us some of the context we need. It’s no accident that we read the Genesis account today.

We read these two passages in chronological order today. A Jew in the time of Christ would have grown up hearing the creation account in worship over and over again. When they heard these words from Mark, they very likely heard it with Genesis ringing in their ears. They might have heard it like this…

The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God

To begin with, God created the heavens and the earth.

“Behold, I send my messenger before your face,

who will prepare your way…” AND ‘Prepare the way of the Lord,

make his paths straight,’

The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep.

I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.

And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

In days long before TV and movies, when art was not commonplace, the visuals in the minds of the Jewish people would be recollections from stories told in Temple and around the hearth at home. To hear about God’s spirit descending like a dove as Jesus came out of the waters would have recalled the doves sent out by Noah as the waters receded… and God’s spirit breathed into Adam, the first human being. And even the phrase Holy Spirit may have recalled specific passages for them. That phrase is only found in the Hebrew scripture three times, twice in the same passage of Isaiah, the prophet who attests to the coming of a Messiah most often.

Turn with me for a minute in your pew Bible to Isaiah. Psalms is in the middle, followed by Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon and then Isaiah. No rush. I’m not timing you to report back to Presbytery on how quickly y’all find it. Isaiah 63, about verse 7 through 13 or so. Spoiler alert. If you’ve never read any of the Gospels, this is gonna give it away for you, so just cover your ears and your neighbor can nudge you when it’s over.

I will recount the steadfast love of the LORD,

according to all that the LORD has granted us,

and the great goodness to the house of Israel

that he has granted them according to his compassion,

according to the abundance of his steadfast love…

Surely they are my people…

And he became their Savior.

In all their affliction he was afflicted,

and the angel of his presence saved them;

in his love and in his pity he redeemed them;

he lifted them up and carried them all the days of old.

But they rebelled

and grieved his Holy Spirit;

The prophet goes on to speak about God as… “the shepherd of his flock,” who, “put in the midst of them his Holy Spirit…” and concludes talking about the “horse in the desert” whom God guards and keeps safe. And of course, where does Jesus go after his baptism? (Wait for answer) That’s right, the desert. The author of Mark was familiar with these scriptures. He was writing to people who were familiar with them too. When we read this passage in Mark with the words of Genesis and Isaiah ringing in our ears and the images of creation and prophecy flashing in our minds, we read the story of baptism afresh. May I read it again?

1 The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

2 As it is written in Isaiah the prophet,

“Behold, I send my messenger before your face,

who will prepare your way,

3 the voice of one crying in the wilderness:

‘Prepare the way of the Lord,

make his paths straight,’”

4 John appeared, baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins... 7 And he preached, saying, “After me comes he who is mightier than I... 8 I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

9 In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. 10 And when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. 11 And a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”

12 The Spirit immediately drove him out into the desert.

Is that maybe just a little bit different? You’re practically a first century Jew! Now we can start to get it like those early readers of Mark. You see, the last time God sent his swooping Spirit into the world, he was creating the world. It hovered over the waters. It was a part of the creative effort, the new thing God was doing. And now here comes the Holy Spirit… skydiving right into the middle of this baptism of Jesus in the Jordan. For Mark’s first readers and now for us, we know it’s time to buckle our seat belts, to prepare for something big. When the Spirit swoops, when the Spirit flies, when the Spirit descends, God is rolling up his sleeves. He’s about to get creative and it could get messy. The last time God did this, we got the cosmos and produce and sea monsters. Everything changed.

And sure enough, the Spirit swoops in, descends on Jesus, and everything changes again. Jesus challenges those in power, speaks for the voiceless, frees the oppressed, loves the lowly and… calls us to the same. And for many of us, we jump ahead! When does the Holy Spirit show up again? When does it rush in, ushering in change once again? At Pentecost. At Pentecost, we get the message that all this stuff, the message of God moving in the world through all of history, and of the life, death and resurrection of his son with whom he is well pleased… that’s for ALL the world. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

Here, this week, we are in the midst of an exciting new time. We have been witness to this new thing God is doing, sending his son into the world. As you encounter the lectionary in the coming weeks, you will be witnessing the ministry of Jesus Christ, his life, his teachings, his example. The original readers of Mark had no birth narrative. This baptism is the beginning of his story. What they did have was the story of God moving in the Old Testament… in creation… in prophecy. As you hear the stories of Jesus this year each Sunday, hear them anew. Listen to them as the believers of the Early Church. Read them with context of the Old Testament, the Jewish scriptures. Try to understand them in a new cultural context. Ask Stan. Try a book like this Jewish Annotated New Testament or Rabbi Jesus about the Jewish life and teachings of Christ. Try to feel the excitement and wonder and familiarity of a people infused with the tradition and history of a God moving in history.

This Sunday, prepare your hearts and minds for the story ahead. Prepare your imagination and your heart for the story God wants to tell you this year. Prepare a highway into yourself and be ready for the Holy Spirit to swoop right in. Hallelujah, Amen.

Green Day

These tips from www.consumerenergycenter.org were taken directly from Forbes top list of Energy myths… (with the exception of correcting some of their misspellings)

Myth: Temp Kept Constant Saves Energy Over Raising And Lowering It
Why would you want to heat your house while you're at work, or while you're cozy cuddled up in your down comforter? Keeping your thermostat at a constant temperature is a waste. If you're at home during the day, set it to 68 degrees. At night, turn down the thermostat to 55 degrees. Every degree you lower to on your thermostat between the 60 and 70 degree range, lowers your heating costs by 5%.

Ceiling Fans Don't Work During Winter
We all know heat rises. But what if you could pull it back down to where you’re curled up on the couch wrapped up in your Snuggie? Most ceiling fans have the ability to do that. Reverse the switch on your fan so the blades blow upward. It forces the heat back down to thaw you out on a cold winter day.

New Windows = Significant Cost Savings
Replacing single pane windows for energy star rated dual pane windows will save energy. That energy savings, however, is a function of the size and number of windows in your home, their orientation and overhangs, and the location of your house and the climate zone you are live in. This typically amounts to a small fraction of your total energy use, and given the expense of replacing windows, there are typically much more cost effective ways to reduce your energy bills.

Green Day

This website hosts video that was shot during Expeditions 28 and 29 aboard the ISS from August-October of this year. I could not imbed the video because the original had a terrible music overlay. Visit the following site for the footage with a much nicer instrumental music track: The Earth's Auroras.

Green Day

Over 180 million tons of nitrogen fertilizer is used each year by farmers and rancher worldwide. Much of this nitrogen ends up in our rivers, lakes and oceans, leading to huge colonies of algae that kill other aquatic life. A new tech, known as Forage Boost, could replace all current use of nitrogen fertilizers, particularly large farming operations. The 30 microbes in Forage Boost can replace naturally occurring microbes lost in overfarming and can increase productivity by 20%. With runoff reduced by over half, watering needs (and costs) go down too. At about $40 a gallon, this could be one of the biggest agricultural breakthroughs in decades.

Green Day

Four young women at Harvard had an inspiring idea based on existing technology and proven business models. Motion captured as energy is nothing new, neither is consumer model of buying a product that you take home while the proceeds purchase one for someone else in need (see companies like Tom's shoes). The inspiration came when these four students linked a need with a solution that fit existing cultural structures. What do people in the developing world need? Power. What do they all have in common? They play soccer. In fact, over half of the 265 million soccer players globally live in the developing world.

So the students invented a soccer ball that could store the energy used in a game in a battery that could then power an electrical device. Two hours of play time can power and LED light bulb all night. The "s0ccket ball" has the feel of a traditional ball with only 6 ounces of extra weight. For more information, see their website or the videos below.

It's Funny 'Cause it's True

So often, we say that comedy is funny because it's true. In one of my favorite movies, they say that politicians use lies to hide the truth while artists use them to reveal it. In an old black and white era comedy, Charlie Chaplin plays a barber who is mistaken for Hitler. In the end of the movie, he's put on international telecast to deliver a speech. The lie that is his mistaken identity leads to a speech that still rings true today. Truly, it's not very funny, and in some ways, it's ironic that it takes comedian under absurd circumstances to speak such words with sincerity. Thank you, Charlie...

- Watch MoreFunny Videos

Please Let Me Get What I Want

I love Christmas. I love Advent because it celebrates the anticipation, the giddiness, the hope leading up to the birth of Jesus. All too often in the secular world, it's a shopping season that anticipates everything else we are about to receive. This short video stands that idea on its head...

The track 'Please, Please, Please let me get what I want', was originally recorded by the Smiths, and has been rerecorded by emerging artist Slow Moving Millie.

Green Day

Very exciting fun invention for saving power in the third world. May be useful here too...

God's Big Bang

Today was Wellshire's first annual Faith & Science Sunday. We read from Genesis 1 (the Creation story) and Job (most of Chapter 38 and 40:1-2).

Listen to it here.

God's Big Bang

I’d like to tell you the simple story of how the universe started… To begin with, 13.7 billion years ago, the building blocks of everything that ever existed were packed into a space smaller than one hundred-billion-trillion-trillionth of a meter across. The universe entered the Planck Era, a time from that beginning up to one ten-million-trillion-trillion-trillionth of a second later. Gravity came into being, and by the end of the first trillionth of a second, the strong and weak forces and nuclear force, along with a seething ocean of quarks, leptons, antimatter and bosons. The entire universe got as big as our little solar system.

And after that first whole millionth of a second since that beginning, quarks turned into hadrons, and then everything turned into photons, and light was all that existed. And now the first whole second of the universe was over. 90% of everything in the universe turned into Hydrogen and the other 10% was Helium. And by now two whole minutes had passed. Then nothing much happened for 380,000 years before all the electrons everywhere combined with free nuclei and turned into every other substance we know about, from stars and rocks and rainbows to potato chips and pianos and politicians and porcupines. Did you understand any of that? Me either.

Those words I just read are excerpts from a wonderful 6 page article written by Neil deGrasse Tyson who won the 2005 Science Writing Award from the American Institute of Physics. Tyson is one of the most brilliant scientific minds in the world, with a gift for explaining the most difficult scientific principles in the history of time to school children on PBS shows and planetarium visits. Those words are his watered down version of how scientists think the universe came into existence.

Holly was going to read that version for the children’s sermon, but I talked her into the more kid-friendly version she used with flashcards. I imagine their reaction would not have been terribly different from the reaction God could have expected from a farmer or goat herder three thousand years ago, even if he’d watered it down as much as Tyson did. As a Christian, I am deeply thankful that the God I believe in was far more poetic than Dr. Tyson and far wiser when he breathed the words of our creation into the ear of the Biblical writer. I say this not to dissuade you from clinging tightly to an interpretation that God created the world in precisely six 24-hour days as we know them, but to offer you the concept that a loving and compassionate creative almighty God might have the same approach most loving parents do in explaining the difficult and often impossible to understand concepts of the world in an accessible and simple and poetic way.

The translation we read said “to begin with…” rather than the familiar, “in the beginning…” The Hebrew doesn’t actually use the word “the” here and so the less familiar translation leaves room for some of the mystery that surrounds creation, the same mystery that still plagues scientists. What existed before?

We believe in a God who laid the foundations of the cosmos, as he tells Job. And what greater feat of engineering is there than to determine the four forces of physics in under a trillionth of a second? We believe in a God who created absolutely everything, forming the universe from chaos. These beliefs are not contradicted by science, but rather science, also authored by God, lends us the tools for understanding the vastness of God’s majesty. Proverbs says wisdom will protect us, that God gives wisdom and that we are commanded to seek wisdom and knowledge. So God provides us with that which helps us to gain wisdom.

Too often, however, we make science and faith out to be so different from one another, even enemies. Science and faith share too much in common to believe they are so fundamentally different. They have their own language. They share the same potential to unify and divide, to heal and to harm. No other forces on earth have as much power to do both. At its best, faith can provide hope, healing and community, even peace. When twisted and perverted, faith can breed hate or violence, even war. At its best, science can bring people together and heal wounds and disease. And unchecked by morals and people of conscience, it can maim, harm and destroy beyond measure.

And yet, time and time again, science and faith have worked hand in hand, and helped one another, or even taught one another great lessons. The Catholic Church is more often credited with standing in the way of science, most notably astronomy. It was only recently, in 1992 that the Catholic Church officially acknowledged that Copernicus, and later Galileo, was right in claiming that the earth was not the center of the universe. But it is Pope Gregory XIII to whom we owe credit for our modern and highly accurate calendar, created by astronomers. The Church wanted Easter to remain fixed in the calendar, not slowly shifting later and later. Pope Gregory established the Vatican Observatory, staffing it with Jesuit priests who observed the night sky to determine a more accurate calendar. Thanks to him, Dr. Pholenz can now plan for Easter Sunday music well ahead of time each year, without worrying the Super Bowl will interfere.

Science has provided the discoveries and methods needed to save lives through medicine that is one of the greatest missions of the Church. The hospitals and clinics of every nation that people of faith build and operate rely on the science of medicine to carry out that mission. And science relies on people of faith who care about the sick and hurt to carry those means to the people in need. If ever there was an example of the Gospel lived out, it is caring for the sick, the partnership of science and faith.

Despite examples of God’s creation working together, we plead ignorance and continue to pit them against one another. We turn from our own disputes just long enough to weigh in on the larger ones. Believers pause from debates on economic and legal policies that affect the poor and arguments over ordination of homosexuals to disagree with scientists about the proof that God exists. Scientists set aside arguments over whether intelligent life can exist elsewhere in the universe or if we already found life on Mars to weigh in on the archaeological evidence of the life of Jesus or proof the Israelites wandered in the desert for 40 years. And we pretend that either of us can answer questions for the other. We pretend to be experts. Time and time again, scientists pretend they are evolved and believers prove none of us truly are yet.

Many Christians try claiming the Bible as a science text book, and fail to claim it as the inspired Word of God, gifted to us by a creative and loving redeemer who yearns most for us to be in right relationship with God and all of God’s creation. We lose something important when we forget that and I think we disappoint the one who created both science and faith. God is our creator, sustainer and redeemer. An understanding of God as creator does not discount a big bang or expanding universe as the method and mechanics of that creator. An understanding of God as sustainer does not discount evolution and extinction as being the tools of that sustainer. By arguing that God created and then never allowed for, planned for or guided changes in that creation, we theologically argue ourselves out of a sustainer entirely.

To limit the tools of God is to limit the creator and sustainer’s power. And for a people naturally inclined to limit God’s power as redeemer to our favorite in-crowd, we should think twice before we force God into a tiny creator/sustainer shoe box.

I stand here this morning, not before a panel of leading scientists (my apologies to any actual leading scientists here this morning), but before a community of believers, a people of faith. And as people of faith, to what calling are we charged? We are called to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, house the homeless, heal the broken and sick and visit the lonely no matter where they are and to care for all of God’s created world. In a world this full of hungry, naked, homeless, broken, sick and lonely people, a world we’ve done so much to neglect and to harm, we need all the help we can get to fulfill this command to love one another and this world as Christ did. So much that science has to offer can help us do just that.

Medicine, psychology, technology and new methods and ideas can save people, improve quality of life and protect all God’s people and God’s creatures great and small. And don’t imagine for a moment that embracing the ideas and encouraging the people who participate in their discovery will fail to give purpose to the scientists who labor in their passions, nor show them the love of Christ. We are called to benefit from science and to benefit science. We have been given a great gift for understanding the world around us and to work toward the good of all. We are called to be thankful for that and to use that gift responsibly. Only when we are grounded in our beliefs and eager to learn can faith and science both reach their full potential. I encourage each of you to embrace faith and science, and to study both and to challenge both. Read articles, watch shows, ask questions, engage in debates, sure, but be a living example of someone who can live in both worlds: faith and science. Encourage your children, your friends and your peers to open their minds and open their hearts and remember that faith and science are not enemies, but both gifts from a God who loves us, a God who is creator, sustainer, and redeemer, who takes delight in his creation. Shouldn’t we take delight in it too?

A Hand Up for the Environment and the Poor

The Department of Energy hosts an annual Solar Decathalon in D.C. on the National Mall. One of this year’s most exciting entrees is Empowerhouse, a superefficient, solar-powered family home, built by a team of students from three universities in the Northeast. It is unique for a number of reasons, including its low cost and real-life feasibility. It will be moved after the competition to a neighborhood in Northeast Washington and become a home for a family from Habitat for Humanity and be a model for future energy efficient and green housing in the future for this organization.

This is the first year that homes will be graded on both their energy efficiency and attractiveness… as well as their affordability (in construction and purchase), moving the competition toward real-life application and not merely a concept that might provide ideas to the construction community. Last year’s winner was a house covered in solar panels, which produced more energy than the house needed. The problem… the house cost over $2 million.

One of the most attractive aspects of Empowerhouse is that employs “passive house” design principles, including thicker walls, insulation and air-tight design, even triple-glazed windows. They can reduce energy consumption by 90% compared to the average home and even 40% less than the average “high-efficiency” home. This reduces the need for expensive renewable energy sources on the home and the repair and upkeep of such systems.

As with energy efficient appliances, the upfront costs for Habitat are greater, but the long-range costs achieve the organization’s goals of making homeownership affordable in the long run. The cost of this kind of home is 10-15% more than Habitat for Humanity currently spends, but over the life of a 25-year mortgage, a family could save somewhere in the neighborhood of $60,000 to $130,000, a dream come true for some families.

The group behind Empowerhouse will host a conference in June of next year for Habitat for Humanity affiliates across the United States to share information about passive house design technology. This could mean a huge leap forward in green design and be a way for the organization to lead the way in giving a hand up to the poor and to the environment.

Why Men Should Not Be Ordained

Top Ten Reasons Why Men Should Not Be Ordained

(note: this blog is also sarcastic, please take the proper precautions against feather ruffling)

10. A man’s place is in the army.
9. For men who have children, their duties might distract them from the responsibilities of being a parent.
8. Their physical build indicates that men are more suited to tasks such as chopping down trees and wrestling mountain lions. It would be “unnatural” for them to do other forms of work.
7. Man was created before woman. It is therefore obvious that man was a prototype. Thus, they represent an experiment, rather than the crowning achievement of creation.
6. Men are too emotional to be priests or pastors. This is easily demonstrated by their conduct at football games and watching basketball tournaments.
5. Some men are handsome; they will distract women worshipers.
4. To be ordained pastor is to nurture the congregation. But this is not a traditional male role. Rather, throughout history, women have been considered to be not only more skilled than men at nurturing, but also more frequently attracted to it. This makes them the obvious choice for ordination.
3. Men are overly prone to violence. No really manly man wants to settle disputes by any means other than by fighting about it. Thus, they would be poor role models, as well as being dangerously unstable in positions of leadership.
2. Men can still be involved in church activities, even without being ordained. They can sweep paths, repair the church roof, and maybe even lead the singing on Father’s Day. By confining themselves to such traditional male roles, they can still be vitally important in the life of the Church.
1. In the New Testament account, the person who betrayed Jesus was a man. Thus, his lack of faith and ensuing punishment stands as a symbol of the subordinated position that all men should take.

SOURCE: By way of David Jones... Presented by David M. Scholer on February 20, 1998, at the Fuller Follies at Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, CA. David’s version was taken, with small modifications, from a November 24, 1997 internet communication from W. Ward and Laurel Gasque, who have long been champions of Biblical equality.

First Follower

Whether it's Jesus or a leader you admire, this video demonstrates a fascinating lesson about being and recruiting followers.

Spiritual but Not Religious

As church attendance drops in many churches across the US, we’re seeing a trend toward the “spiritual but not religious” category amongst Americans. Being of the younger generation and having my own issues with power and authority, there is a lot I respect about this stance. However, today I do want to challenge it a little with a few quotes and superbly written post by a UCC pastor. Fair warning, if you are SBNR (spiritual but not religious) and cannot handle small doses of sarcasm with your sunsets, I bare you no ill will, please take the opportunity to exit here: (intended to have a link to sbnr.org here, but it is now inaccessible due to being reported as a malware attack page).

Standup Comic Jim Gaffagan says he hates living in California sometimes because girls come up to him at parties and say, “Hey, I’m spiritual but not religious.” To which he responds, “Well, I’m not honest, but you’re interesting.” It’s not just girls in California, nor most of the residents of Colorado. LifeWay Christian Resources did a survey in 2009, in which 72% of millennials (18- to 29-year-olds) said they're "more spiritual than religious." According to a recent Barna Group survey only 21% of self-identified Christians believes that spiritual maturity requires a vital connection to a community of faith.

Christians and secular Americans alike seem to responding to the snobbery they perceive to be associated with that statement as much as to the snobbery of religious folks who look down their noses at church truants. The UCC is not at all known for their religious imperialism, but a recent brief post by Lillian Daniel, senior pastor of a church in Illinois, wrote is worth sharing in its entirety… (This is actually the passage on which I recently preached)

Spiritual but Not Religious? Please Stop Boring Me.

August 31, 2011
Matthew 16:18

"And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it."

On airplanes, I dread the conversation with the person who finds out I am a minister and wants to use the flight time to explain to me that he is "spiritual but not religious." Such a person will always share this as if it is some kind of daring insight, unique to him, bold in its rebellion against the religious status quo.

Next thing you know, he's telling me that he finds God in the sunsets. These people always find God in the sunsets. And in walks on the beach. Sometimes I think these people never leave the beach or the mountains, what with all the communing with God they do on hilltops, hiking trails and . . . did I mention the beach at sunset yet?

Like people who go to church don't see God in the sunset! Like we are these monastic little hermits who never leave the church building. How lucky we are to have these geniuses inform us that God is in nature. As if we don’t hear that in the psalms, the creation stories and throughout our deep tradition.

Being privately spiritual but not religious just doesn't interest me. There is nothing challenging about having deep thoughts all by oneself. What is interesting is doing this work in community, where other people might call you on stuff, or heaven forbid, disagree with you. Where life with God gets rich and provocative is when you dig deeply into a tradition that you did not invent all for yourself.

Thank you for sharing, spiritual but not religious sunset person. You are now comfortably in the norm for self-centered American culture, right smack in the bland majority of people who find ancient religions dull but find themselves uniquely fascinating. Can I switch seats now and sit next to someone who has been shaped by a mighty cloud of witnesses instead? Can I spend my time talking to someone brave enough to encounter God in a real human community? Because when this flight gets choppy, that's who I want by my side, holding my hand, saying a prayer and simply putting up with me, just like we try to do in church.


More resources on SBNR:

Beliefnet
More than one fifth of Americans describe themselves with this phrase. What does it mean?

CNN
Are there dangers in being 'spiritual but not religious'?

If It Feels Right...

The following excerpts are from a NY Times op-ed by David Brooks...

If It Feels Right ...

During the summer of 2008, the eminent Notre Dame sociologist Christian Smith led a research team that conducted in-depth interviews with 230 young adults from across America....

Smith and company asked about the young people’s moral lives, and the results are depressing.

It’s not so much that these young Americans are living lives of sin and debauchery, at least no more than you’d expect from 18- to 23-year-olds. What’s disheartening is how bad they are at thinking and talking about moral issues.

The interviewers asked open-ended questions about right and wrong, moral dilemmas and the meaning of life. In the rambling answers, which Smith and company recount in a new book, “Lost in Transition,” you see the young people groping to say anything sensible on these matters. But they just don’t have the categories or vocabulary to do so.

When asked to describe a moral dilemma they had faced, two-thirds of the young people either couldn’t answer the question or described problems that are not moral at all, like whether they could afford to rent a certain apartment or whether they had enough quarters to feed the meter at a parking spot.

“Not many of them have previously given much or any thought to many of the kinds of questions about morality that we asked,” Smith and his co-authors write. When asked about wrong or evil, they could generally agree that rape and murder are wrong. But, aside from these extreme cases, moral thinking didn’t enter the picture, even when considering things like drunken driving, cheating in school or cheating on a partner. “I don’t really deal with right and wrong that often,” is how one interviewee put it.

The default position, which most of them came back to again and again, is that moral choices are just a matter of individual taste. “It’s personal,” the respondents typically said. “It’s up to the individual. Who am I to say?”

Rejecting blind deference to authority, many of the young people have gone off to the other extreme: “I would do what I thought made me happy or how I felt. I have no other way of knowing what to do but how I internally feel.”

Many were quick to talk about their moral feelings but hesitant to link these feelings to any broader thinking about a shared moral framework or obligation. As one put it, “I mean, I guess what makes something right is how I feel about it. But different people feel different ways, so I couldn’t speak on behalf of anyone else as to what’s right and wrong.”

Smith and company found an atmosphere of extreme moral individualism — of relativism and nonjudgmentalism. Again, this doesn’t mean that America’s young people are immoral. Far from it. But, Smith and company emphasize, they have not been given the resources — by schools, institutions and families — to cultivate their moral intuitions, to think more broadly about moral obligations, to check behaviors that may be degrading. In this way, the study says more about adult America than youthful America...

Charles Taylor has argued that morals have become separated from moral sources. People are less likely to feel embedded on a moral landscape that transcends self. James Davison Hunter wrote a book called “The Death of Character.” Smith’s interviewees are living, breathing examples of the trends these writers have described.

In most times and in most places, the group was seen to be the essential moral unit. A shared religion defined rules and practices. Cultures structured people’s imaginations and imposed moral disciplines. But now more people are led to assume that the free-floating individual is the essential moral unit. Morality was once revealed, inherited and shared, but now it’s thought of as something that emerges in the privacy of your own heart.

What have you observed?

Spirit-breathed

Presbyterians love the words Holy Spirit. We love the idea of it. We love to invoke the concept. We don't often try to nail down exactly what it is or what's in its job description. And in some way, I am very glad of that. We also like the concept of human imagination. And though we are perhaps more brave in our invocation of the term and concept and more apt to assign it certain tasks, we hesitate to nail it down either. And we cringe at the idea of defining the boundaries for the two, or where they may overlap.

The discomfort level rises among my more secular friends in trying to determine where humanity ends and divinity begins, particularly in the cretive process. And if there is a major difference between my more spiritual and more secular friends, it is who gets the blame when it all goes to hell (divine concept) and who gets the credit when the artist really nails it. Many pastors I know struggle to remember to let themselves get out of the way in the creative process and to remember they can take very little credit for good sermons and try not to shoulder too much blame for the bad ones.

Saw a fascinating TED Talk from the recent author of Eat, Pray, Love. She struggles with the same ideas in her creative process, although the concepts and vocabulary are new to her. Without the same ideas about how God or the Holy Spirit intervene in her work, she stumbles, sometimes awkwardly and sometimes beautifully to capture the essence of inspiration, blame, responsibility and reverance in ways that express her own experience and hope for others. I think it's worth watching to gain a perspective of one person's search for the relationship between the human and the divine in the creative process.