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"A Reality-Based Faith"
Luke 12:22-34
A Sermon preached by The Rev. Douglas M. Donley
September 30, 2001
University Baptist Church
Minneapolis, MN
In this time of turmoil and chaos on our national and international scene, reality has changed for us. We fumble in the dark wondering what our new world will look like. We try to put together pieces of what our old world looked like. Was it reality that we were living? Or was it fantasy? The line between reality and fantasy have blurred over the past many years.
Astute watchers of the media know that the popular media does not give the entire, balanced story. Buried in the back pages of the newspapers was the story that the pictures of the middle-eastern people cheering a the destruction of the World Trade Center were at best a small minority view and at worst a decade old and taken from file footage. But they were spun as a major part of the world’s point of view. The cynics around us say that the media can manipulate facts to create a reality they want, which may be antithetical to the truth.
In the 80’s, right after congress denied funding to the Contra terrorists who were trying to destabilize the Nicaragua government, the nightly news lead with the reports that Nicaragua had invaded Honduras. Funding was restored to the Contra terrorists whom President Reagan called "freedom fighters". A year and thousands of lives later the State Department admitted there was no invasion. But since it was on TV, we bought it hook, line and sinker.
As Christians, we need to look beyond the spin doctors and get a hold of a reality-based faith. This is often at odds with the popular culture. Just like Jesus was at odds with the popular culture of his time.
Since reality was too difficult and too depressing to sell to the masses over these past few years, we have been inundated with reality-based TV shows. You know the shows: The Mole, Big Brother, Fear Factor, Temptation Island. And on October 11th, a month after reality hit us with a bang, the third installment of the so-called Reality-based TV show Survivor begins. I didn’t watch much of it the last two times. I landed on it briefly while flipping the channels and I was intrigued. But what intrigued me most was the way our country was riveted by this show.
We all know the strategy, "outplay, outwit, outlast" which is a lot like, "out-cheat, out-lie, out-betray." It was simply a drama played to supposedly secret cameras. It was reality according to the producers who left plenty of staged reality on the cutting room floor. I wasn’t real clear about what bothered me so much about this show. That is until I started looking real closely at how people interpret the book of Revelation. Looking at the end-times pervades our culture, even if it is below our consciousness. Our interpretation of Revelation’s depiction of the end-times is all tied up in how we see ourselves living or surviving in this new millennium.
You see, there are plenty of people within Christendom who take the millennial destruction outlined in the last few chapters very seriously. Chief among these are a group of people called the premillennial dispensationalists. Try to say that one three times fast. Their basic belief is that the world is going to get progressively worse. Wars and rumors of wars will happen until it culminates in the great tribulation. But before this happens, the faithful Christians will be raptured (taken up into the sky with Christ) so that they don’t have to endure the tribulation. The rapture is based upon on a literal reading of one verse in the fourth chapter of II Thessalonians. Am I jogging any freaky childhood church memories? This is the line of thinking espoused by John Darby, Cyrus Scofield, Dwight L. Moody, Pat Robertson, James Robison, Time LaHaye, Hal Lindsay, Billy Graham, Jerry Falwell and millions of others across the world. It is very popular. Revelation plays right into their hands. There is no gray area. You are either saved or you are not. And since the world is spiraling down, social reforms are kinda like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. For the extremists, social justice programs are a waste of time because it makes you lose your focus upon your own personal salvation. If you’re saved, you’ll be raptured, end of story.
This is in stark contrast to those who believe that the world is evolving to a better place, that humanity has the capacity to feed all its people, has the resources to find new forms of energy that do not damage the environment, has the ability and wisdom to protect the environment so that our children’s children will have a place to live and thrive; has the capacity to find new ways to put away violence and live reconciliation—that Jesus calls us into right relationships with all others and is very concerned with this
world. This is the belief of the likes of Menno Simons, Walter Rauschenbush, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and a great number of the Liberation Theologians. It was also the belief of Karl Marx and the Star Trek series. We can evolve beyond our propensity for self-destruction and live in right relationship one with another. These people rely on the ethical writings of the prophets and Jesus in the Gospels.
Looking at the world from the perspectives of the Premillennialists and the others, you have two very different tactics of survival. To be perhaps overly simplistic, the Premillennialists say that the only thing that matters is your own personal salvation. The others emphasize how we get along with one another as a sign of our salvation: how we bear the fruits of our faith in our life’s work.
Okay, so here’s the rub. Survivor is a premillenialist show. It assumes the worst about humanity. It assumes that humanity is going on a downward spiral. It assumes that we will all be betrayed in the end and all that really matters ultimately is your own individual survival. It’s kill or be killed. It’s me first. It’s my salvation and to hell with my community. In fact, community is only a convenient way to get what I want, my own cool million, a metaphor for salvation AKA survival. On Survivor, each tribe needs to pull together to accomplish often absurd tasks. You do your community thing trying to help each other out, but in the end, those same people that you helped are obligated to stab you in the back. The tribal council meets and you vote off the weakest link. Good-bye. There is a veneer of civility in this form of reality, but when the comforts are pulled away, we will act like animals in a fight for survival. It’s how the system works. This is the real world according to part of Hollywood.
Our congregation has experienced this over the decades. We did all the things to be in community with each other and with other congregations. But we offended the larger Baptist community. Some would say we betrayed them. In the 20’s this church building was built to house the Minnesota Baptist convention. But when that convention demanded that we give up our soul freedom in order to toe the line on creationism and we refused, we were no longer deemed worthy of housing the Minnesota Baptists. They might have voted us off the island then, but ever since we have had temporary immunity. Even now there are competing alliances that are conspiring to snuff out our candle because we dare to welcome everyone to this church regardless of their age, class, sex, physical or mental ability, sexual orientation or even mood Tribal councils have been held in many denominations and the result has been that the trouble makers get thrown off the island. This is a sick system. I guess it’s not the worst thing to be voted off an island if the island is sick, and yet we mourn the sickness that creates more victims.
Today’s Scripture gives us a real-life plan for survival. It says don’t be anxious about your life. It says don’t worry about who is out to get you. What you need to worry about is that you are doing God’s work. If you do God’s work, people will be out to get you. We know this, as our congregation has felt betrayed by the very churchly institutions which we love, because we choose to follow and stand by those who follow God experienced in a community made up of outcasts. But God says to us when we enter into this kind of ministry, "Don’t be anxious about your life. Remember the lillies, remember the ravens (not Baltimore), remember your work. Seek ye first the "kindom" (kin-dom as in community as opposed to kingdom which implies more of a hierarchy)
of God, then all these things will be yours as well."
God goes on to say, don’t worry about your possessions, be they the cool million at the end of Survivor or your roller-coaster portfolio. The scripture says, give to what you believe in, for where your treasure is, there will be your heart. It’s another way of saying, seek ye first the kin-dom of God. And you will have a clear vision for yourself. When you do that you not only survive, you thrive in unimaginable ways.
In spite of the heartache that comes from fearing a potential vote out by our so-called Christian community, we have found among ourselves a new sense of what it means to be Christian Community. It means looking out for one another and refusing to succumb to the violence of the demonization of your enemies.
Christian Community means protecting everyone.
Christian Community means people living lifestyles typified by nonviolence. There are two goals of nonviolence. First is your own personal spiritual transformation and the second is the transformation of society.
Christian Community, at least the way I see it, means that there is no room for voting one off the island. That is the real world to me, at least the one that Christ instills in us to set us free. Jesus said, "you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free." But we know when we live by that truth the world sees us as odd.
There are two kinds of reality today, now that our world has changed. On the one hand there is the military build-up, poised to fight terrorism, a term people have an easy time rallying around, but a hard time identifying. This quest to end terrorism must be successful ,but how do we do it without becoming what we despise in our enemies? Since we can’t demonize those we cannot see, we demonize those who dare to raise questions about the policy or wear turbans.
The other kind of reality is the ground zero reality: where stodgy cab drivers and jaded self-centered New Yorkers are pulling together to dig through the rubble, support grieving families, eschew bigotry and hatred. Strangers are helping strangers. Children across the country are collecting their pennies for the Red Cross. Blood banks are flooded with donors. People are shifting their priorities and holding each other a bit closer.
I think in the real world all that really matters is community, because you only find God in community.
I look at this community at UBC. I have seen God through the things we have done here.
I have seen God granting salvation as week after week we lift each other up in prayer during our worship services, echoing the longings of our hearts.
I have seen God in this community as we celebrate birthdays and light candles ring bells and remember those who have passed on.
I see God as we struggle to know how to respond in the midst of this international calamity that besets our nation.
I see God as our community seeks to understand other faith traditions and unpack the violence that has been done in the name of God and religion.
All of this is reality-based faith. This is the stuff that might have ended up on the cutting room floor of hot-shot producers. But we have tried our best not to betray one another. Sadly, we have not always been successful. When we betray one another we mourn, forgive and try to move on.
The survival of Christian Community is based upon reality, not fantasy. It’s based upon real life. It’s based upon struggling along with God for a new community based upon love and mutuality.
I have my own fantasy based upon my concept of reality. I dream of the day when the contestants on Survivor really embraced true community. I imagine them voting the producers off the island and splitting the million bucks instead of resorting to character assassination. We have seen glimpses these past weeks of our country trying to live a different reality. Might we be willing to help create a world built on welcoming instead of creating outcasts?
Sisters and brothers, we seek reality-based faith.
One that can move mountains.
One which calls us to be all we can be.
One that will endure whatever challenges arise.
One that will be fulfilling and inspired by God in us all.
One that lifts us up and encourages us to the highest plane of Godliness.
That’s what we seek here.
The reward for that kind of survival will be better than any cool million.
It is the everlasting and ever-present knowledge, comfort, experience and inspiration of God.
We seek a reality-based faith which will make us survive and thrive.
We seek not first the cool million but the kin-dom of God where we experience life, love, community and ultimately salvation. Amen.