Faith on the Off-Beat
August 24, 2008
David Brubacher
Text:
Exodus 1:8-2:10
Romans 12:1-8
Introduction: I have always liked things to work. As a young boy I remember struggling with a gate on my grandfather’s farm. The gate dragged on the ground because a major support piece was broken. Things like that frustrate me.
Talk about frustration! As I was getting ready to work on this sermon, I was having difficulty with our computer. That is a real test of my emotional and, dare I say, spiritual endurance. So I took a walk out in the garden and picked a few tomatoes. I was better after that.
The reality is that I can do something about fixing a gate. Computers are another story. One of my fondest memories is working with my grandfather to fix or build new gates on the farm. I am sure that is where my love for woodworking began, or at least it was affirmed there. I took great delight in the process of fixing and building, but in the end I was also delighted to have a gate that worked. In my work as a finish carpenter today, I take pride in hanging a door that swings and latches properly.
This sermon, however, is not about the intersection of my work as a carpenter and my Christian faith. That is next Sunday’s sermon. As I began pondering the sermon for next Sunday I realized that my journey of coming to faith, at least a faith that I could own, had parallels to my liking things that work. In some respect this sermon fits between my earlier sermon Faith Outside the Box and the one I will give next Sunday.
As I have told bits of my life story, you may recall that I grew up in the Old Order Mennonite context of Waterloo County. Until my early teens our family belonged to the group of Mennonites that drives black cars. As much as I appreciate many parts of my upbringing, in coming to a faith that I could own, I had some questions, like why did we drive black cars?
You can image my amazement when the primary scripture text used to answer that question appeared as one of the lectionary readings for today. Romans 12:2 states “Do not be conformed to this world….”. As you heard in the reading, the text it goes on to talk about transformation. But I only recall hearing about the “not conforming” part. The answer went something like this, “We drive black cars to show that we are not like the world.”
After a while the answer did not satisfy me. I don’t think my issue was living according to a different value system than the “world.” If I was to state my objection in today’s terms it would be whether we should drive vehicles that burn fossil fuels.
I grew up with a very strong sense that being a Christian means not conforming to the world. Yet at the same time there was great social and spiritual pressure to conform to a particular understanding of what it meant to not conform to the world. Being different was not good. To a degree I still feel that when I am with extended family that remains in this faith tradition.
In case you are wondering, I do accept that tradition as an expression of faith, as long as it is by considered choice. The late Rod Sawatsky, former president of Conrad Grebel University College, once said, “Christian faith is always incarnated in culture – why not the culture of the Old Order Mennonite community?” My being with you today in the role that I am suggests that I eventually came to a faith that works. But in the last decade that has become a more live question for me again.
Fixing gates or walking with people to discover a relevant faith, are equally satisfying for me. If working with my grandfather led me to become a carpenter, then walking with people in discovering a practical faith enabled me to hear a call to congregational ministry. I must confess that, initially, the satisfaction came more in giving answers that worked for me. In my slow learner fashion I discovered that my answers did not necessarily work for others. Today my delight is in the journey: meeting people where they are at and journeying together with God.
Along the way I have come to recognize that my personality tends toward conforming. Yet for myself and in walking with others, I have learned that what makes faith work often comes from outside my set of assumptions.
Lights went on for me the other Sunday when Al Armstrong gave his presentation on jazz music. He talked about jazz being structured on the off-beat. The sound and mood that comes on the off-beat is unique and connects with people in unique ways. For many people this is music that “works” and connects their inner being with outer realties in the world. I believe a Christian faith that works connects our spiritual being to the realities of the world in which we live. I have titled this sermon, Faith on the Off-Beat.
The scripture texts being considered today highlight such a faith. At first glance we might wonder what the story of Moses as a baby and Paul’s consideration of conformity and transformation have in common. Thematically, they have nothing in common. Yet each in its own way gives voice to the rich and powerful activity of God in human history. In Exodus, both the future of Israel and God’s plan for humanity were threatened. By God’s grace Moses was spared.
In Romans 12, Paul begins to outline an appropriate human response to all that God has done, is doing, and will do for humanity. In Paul’s shi
ft from theology to ethics he suggests how Christians might align their lives with the activity of God in the world.
For me, both texts represent a faith that works. A faith that works must not only work for me. At the very least it must have the well-being of others at heart as well.
In the story of Moses an unlikely cast of characters collaborates to become partners in God’s redemptive activity in the world. In the Egyptian context the decree of Pharaoh was the predominant social structure. To inhibit the growth of Israel as a people, the Pharaoh first ordered the midwives to kill all the baby boys born to Hebrew women. When that order failed Pharaoh issued another decree that all little boys born to the Hebrews be thrown into the river Nile.
Pharaoh’s decree may have been the law of the land but it proved powerless over those whose faith was structured on the off-beat. The mid-wives and the mother and sister of Moses lived by a faith that was not subservient to the decree of Pharaoh. Choosing rather to align their faith with their understanding of God’s action in the world they demonstrated great courage and stood against the injustice of Pharaoh’s rule.
If the midwives and Moses’ family were symbols of courage, then the princess was an agent of God’s grace. Even though her father issued the decree that all young Hebrew boys be killed, she knowingly let Moses live. The meeting of courage and grace, as it so often does, created an off-beat that powerfully shaped the faith and action of each character in this drama. From a Judeo-Christian worldview, it also shaped the history of God’s action in the world.
Romans 12 builds on Paul’s understanding of God’s action in human history, culminating in the death and resurrection of Jesus and active presence in the Holy Spirit. An appropriate Christian response, Paul offers, is to present one’s body as a “living sacrifice.” Body, in this context, means the whole being. To simply offer the physical body in some pattern of dress or other physical signs of devotion is not enough. Nor does Paul envision some spiritualized theology held in a corner of one’s mind that has little or any connection with the world in which we live. Paul calls for an integrated response of the whole person.
I see in Paul’s offering the structure of a faith that beats on the off-beat of the values of the predominant social structure. Set your standards for living not according to the values of the kingdom of Rome or modern Western society for that matter, but according to the Kingdom of God. “Do not be conformed to this world,” yes, “but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God….”
I see the concern here as twofold: that Christians should be thinking people and that how Christians think matters. Paul’s primary concern is the blind following of a set of social values that are inconsistent with the values of God’s Kingdom. That happens in overlaying the values of our Western society with a thin veneer of Christian theology and spirituality. It also happens when religious groups set their own measures of nonconformity and then expect uncritical conformity.
A personal moment of transformation came when I understood God was active in the entire world, not just my little corner of the world, and that God was calling me to be a part of God’s action in the world. Transformation as I both understand it and have experienced it is a dynamic process. It unleashes something far greater than the sum of that which comes together. Learning that I could think for myself gave me a faith that I could own.
How we think and what we think are equally important. The root of Paul’s conviction is that God’s activity as experienced in Jesus and manifested in the Holy Spirit has the power to change lives. A step of faith aligning ourselves with what God is doing represents a transformation of how and what we think. Paul calls Christians to be people with a world-view that beats on the off-beat of society. For me, that is a faith that works.
Where do we see examples of this kind of faith at work today? Let me suggest two books. The first is CPT’s self-published book 118 Days. The book tells the story of the 118 days of captivity of the CPT workers in Iraq and the tragic death of Tom Fox. I commend the book as a clear and prophetic example of faith on the off-beat.
A second book is Tom Sine’s The New Conspirators. Sine is a futurist and a prophetic voice from the outside, to the Mennonite Church. Thirty years ago, he wrote The Mustard Seed Conspiracy, where he sought to unleash fresh imagination for the church in reminding us that that Kingdom of God is like a mustard seed, the smallest of all seeds when it is planted that grows to be the largest of all shrubs. Sine is consistent in calling people to abandon a Christian faith whose primary value system is based on the societal values of the time.
In the new book he gives voice to what he calls a new generation of conspirators who have caught the vision of doing something really small for the Kingdom of God. These people are in the church not because of what the church can do for them but for how the church can prepare people to become active in what God is doing in the world.
What is perceived as a faith that works by these folks is not the same. Sine identifies four streams. An emergent stream looks at global reality and Christian faith through fresh eyes. They say God did not reveal a systematic theology but a storied narrative that captures the reality of God. There is appreciation for the good news of Jesus being filled with mystery and wonder to inspire new ways of being present with God.
A missional stream comes from the academy with mature scholars challenging primarily traditional churches to focus more outwardly on mission and to rediscover their calling as “God’s people sent into mission.”
A mosaic stream embraces multi-cultural and multiracial embodiments of being church. Diversity is seen as essential to being the church. It is said, “You cannot call yourself a church if you are all the same.”
Finally, the monastic stream consists of people committed to pursuing spiritual practices in the midst a regular middle class life. One voice offers, “The world does not need more words, not even more ‘right’ words. The world needs more words made flesh. The world needs more people to live the good news incarnationally, in a way that can be seen, heard, and handled.”
Conclusion: Each of these streams has in some way inspired me over the last decade. You can expect to hear more of this kind of thinking in my sermons in the time that I continue with you. Secondly, and I think more significantly, these voices in various ways are also reflected in the hopes and dreams that we have named for TUMC in our visioning exercise. May the Holy Spirit continue to inspire us to partner with what God is doing in the part of the world where we live and work. AMEN.