LIVING IN THE IN-BETWEEN

Sermon for November 15, 2009

Scripture: 2Corinthians 4:1-15

You know by now that today is the “official” beginning of the last phase of the capital and operating funds campaigns that are being conducted this fall. By next Sunday we expect to have nearly all of the pledges for both campaigns, the operating funds campaign to support next year's budget and the capital campaign to support mortgage payments on both the church building and the property next door that we'll be closing on in the next month. A lot of people have put in a lot of work already on these campaigns and they are kind of important to the life of the church, so part of me felt that I couldn't really not say anything about the campaigns in the sermon this morning; I couldn't act like this isn't happening.

On the other hand, a lot has already been said. We've had congregational discussions going back really over the last several years about some of the issues involved. We've had brochures, letters, posters, newsletter articles, opportunities for small group discussion, and entertaining and heartfelt testimonials over the last three weeks. I have already contributed to the discussion in speaking and in writing. So another part of me was thinking that at this point there's really nothing more I need to say. Better to talk about something else this morning.

I had these mixed feelings, so at a recent meeting of the campaign cabinet I asked for advice. On November15 should I or shouldn't I be preaching on something related to the campaigns? They said…well, it can be in your own style, but yes, something about the campaigns would probably be good…at which point I realized that that wasn't the answer I wanted to hear. I had mixed feelings all right, but I really wanted the cabinet to support the part of me that felt enough had been said already and I didn't need to say any more. I wanted them to reassure me that it was OK not to be preaching on the campaigns today. And the reason I wanted them to do that was not just because there's already been a lot said, but because to be honest I don't like to talk about money. I just would rather not, and I guess I should have known better than to ask. If you might not like the answer, don't ask the question.

But I need to be more precise. It's not quite true that I don't like to talk about money. It's that I don't like to use pulpit time to make financial appeals—sales pitches—on behalf of the church. Talking about money is something different, and it's not exactly that I don't like to talk about money, but I do find it difficult to talk about money because it's complicated—the place money occupies in our lives, the way it's all tied up in our sense of who we are, the way it expresses or doesn't express who we are and who we want to be, the way it expresses or doesn't express what we value, the way it's tied up in our hopes and what we want out of life and in our most private and deep-seated fears and insecurities, how it makes us more free or/and less free, and what this all has to do with our relationship to God. There are lots of legitimate issues here, issues that deserve our attention, issues that are appropriate for preaching, and that I have preached on occasionally in the past, though perhaps not as often as the issues deserve. The subjects of money, wealth, material possessions come up in Jesus' preaching often, arguably more than any other topic. I know all this. I have no problem seeing money or material possessions as spiritual issues, legitimate and important topics for preaching.

But I find preaching about such things to be difficult, partly because the issues are by nature difficult; they go deep inside us and are matters for prayer as much as for preaching. They are further difficult because the tendency can be to have words come out sounding or being taken as moralistic, rather than as appreciative of all the feelings and values that are involved, and especially if the words are being spoken at a time when the church is trying to raise money. If that is the case, it is very hard to say anything that will not be taken as an appeal for money, fancied up and surrounded with a lot of theologizing perhaps, but when you get right down to it, an appeal for money. The church is a good thing. It needs money for this and this and that reason. The good thing for everyone to do is to contribute as generously as they are able. Nothing wrong with that message. But it does have a moralistic flavor to it, and it's not a very nuanced message. So it's especially difficult to talk about what I think we need to talk about in terms of money at the time of a capital campaign or stewardship drive. Almost any other time would be better.

But the cabinet said I should say something—in my own way, but something. And as I said earlier, a part of me agrees. I should. So I still feel pulled in opposite directions here. And that feeling is reinforced by the fact that I have a sense that as a congregation we are of two minds on all of this. Even putting theology and spiritual issues aside, as a congregation we recognize the need to deal openly, honestly, realistically, and responsibly with financial matters. Also as a congregation we are committed to certain values such as not letting financial matters crowd out what we really want to be talking about: faith and love and justice. And such as not communicating the message, no matter how subtly, that those who are not able to contribute so much as others might be are not quite as important to the life of the church as others might be. We want to do everything we can not to communicate that message.

Those last two values are, I would say, deeply important to us, and some of us would tend to emphasize those values, and others of us would tend to emphasize the importance of dealing with finances head on and some of us would hold both concerns about equally, and all of this comes into play at capital campaign and pledge time, and it leaves me still in a bit of a dilemma so far as what to say in a sermon. (I think I've talked on for quite a while now, given that I don't know what to say, don't you?)

Anyway, here's what I have come to realize. We are not going to solve or resolve this dilemma, not today, not any time. We are all going to live through these money raising efforts with whatever conflicting feelings we may have unresolved. We are going to acknowledge our unresolved issues around money. We are then going to go on to consider our personal situation, take account of our feelings about the church, make a judgment about the importance of having these additional funds for the church, and finally come to a decision about our pledge the best way we know how given all the things that go into making the decision. It's not a nice, neat, clear process for most of us, but we'll do it anyway, the best way we know how. So I should just give up on saying something that in any way pretends to resolve the dilemmas I have referred to. And other than acknowledging those dilemmas, including the additional sometime dilemma of being property owners and therefore building managers and trying to be Christian at the same time, other than acknowledging all of that, I think I will let what has already been said about these campaigns stand without further comment from me.

What I have also come to realize is that the presenters over the last three weeks have not focused on the details of the campaigns. What they have done has been much more like testimonials (and occasionally standup comedy) regarding Sojourners and what it means to them and why. It occurred to me that I could do that too; not the standup comedy so much, but I could follow the excellent example of Faye and the Kulows and Alan and offer a brief testimonial as part of what I have to say today. I actually have lots to say in the way of testimonial-type things about Sojourners. I figure I will be doing a lot of that toward the end of January when it comes time for summing up kinds of thoughts. But who knows what will be on my mind then, and some of that is on my mind now, and one of the things I have learned in my years in the ministry is that if there is something on your mind or heart, don't save it; say it. So here is just a small piece of what Sojourners has meant to me, a kind of a trailer for what I might have to say later on. Some of you have heard this before in one form or another; it sort of popped inarticulately out of my mouth at the newcomers meeting last Sunday, so it seems to be on my mind. In any case, here is what I want to say in my few remaining minutes this morning by way of testimonial.

I have been in the ministry for forty years, which means that for forty years I have been sort of solidly planted in the midst of Christian communities. But for every one of the forty years I have also felt myself to be living on the margin of those Christian communities and of Christianity itself. While being solidly planted in the midst of Christian communities, I have at the same time felt myself to be an outsider, standing on the outside and looking in—not just now and then but all the time. That has been the case in several senses, but this morning I'm focusing in on theology and matters of Christian belief, those kinds of things.

As many of you know, because I have said this to Sojourners on more than one occasion, I did not grow up Christian and I did not have some overwhelming experience that led me to be Christian. It was a long, slow process filled with a certain amount of intellectual questioning and emotional struggle, filled too with what I would now call prayer (though I might not have called it that at the time), filled with self-examination and self-doubt. It was a long, slow process partly because of all those things and also because I didn't want to make a half-hearted decision. I didn't want to say, “Yes, I guess I can live with Christian beliefs somewhat, pretty much, all things considered, on the whole, yes, ok, I guess I'll call myself a Christian.” If I was going to say yes to Christianity it would need to be with my whole heart. And it was. When I said yes to Christianity I was saying yes, this is who I am. This is who I want to be. Being Christian more fully is who I aspire to be. This is where I want to plant myself, in the Christian community. There is no kinda-sorta about it. This is where my heart is.

But saying all that does not mean that suddenly all the questions were answered, the struggle disappeared, the prayers were answered and I therefore no longer needed to think about what it means to be a Christian or even whether I am one. Saying yes to Christianity did not and does not mean, has never meant to me, that I stop living in tension with Christianity. Some things I believe I know would be considered heresy by many other Christians, and some things I believe I have a sneaking suspicion might actually be heretical, and in fact I struggle with the question of whether there really is any such thing as heresy or if there is whether it has any legitimate place in the Christian community, and even that thought—that maybe there isn't or shouldn't be any such thing as heresy—may itself be heretical.

Some things I don't believe I know would be considered by other Christians as absolutely central to the faith. If you don't believe this or that then you really shouldn't be calling yourself a Christian. Are there such things that if you don't believe them or are unsure about them, you are excluded from the Christian community, have no right to call yourself Christian? If so, what are they? And who gets to decide? And maybe ministers of all people ought to be clearer about such things and clear, absolutely clear, about their own beliefs, more so than I often feel myself to be. Even God, who is clearly central to Christian belief, who is central to my own being, who I have not lived a day without since saying yes to Christianity—and yet I continue to question what I can know of God, what I can say about God, whether I can say anything about God. God fills me with wonder and makes me wonder about God. God is as real to me as anything can be, and yet is beyond my knowing and imagining.

As is the case with our attitudes about money that I was referring to earlier, we find ourselves living with unresolved tensions, I do anyway, not only about money issues but in many areas of Christian life including our most basic beliefs. Paul uses different words and is talking about slightly different things but I chose the reading because he too tells Christians that it is our calling to live in the midst of unresolved tensions: “We have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power comes from God and does not come from us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed but not driven to despair; persecuted but not forsaken; struck down but not destroyed.”

In many ways Christians live amidst unresolved tensions, and we are probably best off if we don't try to pretend otherwise, or try to make tensions go away by turning a partial truth into the only truth. Sojourners as a community I believe recognizes that as people of faith we live in that state of in-between. We are never, for instance, just believers. We are believing unbelievers and unbelieving believers. In any case, my testimony is that you have made a place among you for a pastor who is pretty firmly grounded in the Christian community and the Christian faith, but who also has always felt more than just a little bit out of place in that community. You have made a place for such a pilgrim to feel at home, and I am grateful. Amen.

Jim Bundy

November 15 , 2009

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