Rev. Amjad Samuel
Pentecost +13 Year A
Sunday, September 11th, 2011
Let us pray: For clarity in thought, speech and listening, we pray to you
Lord, so that we may understand and act in ways that bring glory to your
name, AMEN.
Today’s readings I feel are pretty simple to understand, do not pass
judgment on your brother or sister and forgive as you are forgiven. And
yes, if you don’t forgive as you are forgiven then be ready to be tortured till
you do forgive! I feel that is probably an accurate summation of how the
entire theological spectrum likes to think today!
You see we are living in an age in which we think that God should act and
be what we want God to be. This by the way isn’t any different from the age
of the New Testament. Almost every religious sect and order seems to have
that problem in the New Testament. While we are very familiar with
Pharisees, Sadducees and the like having problems with Jesus’ seemingly
non-conformist understanding of God, we seem to pay much less attention
to similar issues with the first Christians.
Paul takes this rigidity in holding on to this self understanding of God very
seriously. I love his words, “7We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die
to ourselves. 8If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the
Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.” These
are perhaps the most difficult words to understand and live by today.
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I feel, today, much like in the New Testament time, our pride seems to
come from our self-identification. So we are more concerned with what we
do; who we hang out with; what books we read; what agendas we support;
even what kind of choices we make for our diet, our environment etc.; than
who is it that we believe in; who is it that directs our life; who is it that
shapes our being. As a priest that I met recently so eloquently stated,
“today we are more concerned about ‘belonging’ than ‘believing’.”
Most people in church today can easily answer the question of what is it
that they belong to, that answer is very black and white across the
theological spectrum; but the answer to the question of what is it that you
believe often reflects chaos, ambiguity, and confusion. At times it begets
frustration to the point that a simple conversation about belief becomes
impossible.
And as I said, this is not a modern problem; this is quite an ancient
problem; just read through Jesus’ interactions with the various
communities: Moses taught this but your disciples do this… etc. Agenda
driven communities are not the product of an enlightened world, they are
the most primitive state of human condition. Paul has to deal with this
issue, just like Jesus did. Paul’s focus on why who eats meat and who eats
vegetables should not be a divisive issue for a community that is in Jesus
Christ is really his call to think through the issue of “belonging” over
against “believing”.
Paul wants his audience to focus on “believing” not “belonging”. You can
belong to what ever group you want to belong to that is not what matters.
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What matters is what do you believe in, and for Paul, even more precisely,
who do you believe in.
Paul’s concern is not social conformity or even non conformity. His concern
is belief. His theology is not challenged if you associate with this one group
or the other, or attend this speaker’s session or that, or this political rally or
that, or read this book or that; his concern is whether you believe in Jesus
Christ as the savior or not. You can argue over all nuances of the salvation
that he affords, even that is not an issue for Paul, the issue is whether you
believe or not.
So, when I look at the life of Jesus Christ it is very clear to me that his
ministry was not about conformity or non conformity. It was certainly not
about associations. That was not even the issue. His concern was belief in
that one creator God whose decision it is to love his creation out of limitless
parental love. Jesus’ ministry was to help us understand the relationship of
love; and more importantly, its source; and then, to extend that source
through that love to all of creation.
So today when I look at the church universal and find it quarrelling over the
issue of “belonging” in some way or the other, I find a great deficit of
“belief”. And whatever belief that we do articulate today seems to emerge
out of our issues of self identification.
For instance, I wonder, How many in the Church today would be
comfortable in saying out loud in the public square, “Jesus Christ is the
savior at whose name every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and
under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the
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glory of God the Father” or that Jesus Christ is the vine and we are the
branches, and without Jesus nothing that we do can bear any fruit?
I know it is easier for us to belong than to believe. Interestingly that was
the problem with the slave too! He did not wish to be sold out and belong
to another master. He was comfortable with to whom he belonged. He
pleaded his master to not make any changes to his state of belonging. Yet,
he had a huge deficit in believing that the master actually forgave him. He
could not believe that forgiveness was possible. So while he wanted to
belong he did not believe.
Perhaps we need to look at our selves too. Do we belong or do we believe?
In the last few weeks I have met people who have told me all about their
love for the church because it is a great community. In reference to 9/11
there is so much being said about belonging to an open and inviting
community, a nation that does not hate, refuses to live in fear, etc.; yet
there seems to be near silence about belief. In fact there is fear that any in
depth conversation about belief may fracture the community and the sense
of belonging.
May the work of St. Paul and that of Jesus himself help us believe and not
simply belong. Amen.
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