TRINITY SERMONS
Trinity Presbyterian Church
2200 N. Bell Avenue # Denton, Texas 76209
Rev. Craig Hunter
February 15, 2009
Learning a New Language
Scriptures: Luke 2:41-52; Proverbs 2:5-15
Our Scripture passage this morning from Luke's gospel is a familiar one, telling the story of Mary, Joseph, and Jesus' visit to the Temple. The image that Luke gives us of the Holy Family has consistently been one of faithful and dedicated parents, for whom their religious faith is an integral part of their identity. Thus, earlier in Luke's gospel, we saw them bring Jesus after his birth to the Temple for his dedication. Now, they bring him back years later as part of the Passover festival. Jesus stays behind, asking questions and giving answers, amazing the teachers and everyone else who heard him. He seems to have had a hunger for religious knowledge, a desire to grow in his understanding. Who knows, maybe he liked to show off a bit as well. One detects a bit of a smart-aleck in him when he responds to his parents question, "Child, why have you treated us like this? Look, your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety", with the reply, "Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?" If that isn't a common mark of a pre-teen, I don't know what is. I wonder which side of the family he got that from.
In any case, Jesus seems to have been the product of the Sunday School gifted program, or at least he would have been a candidate for such a program. He was reading way above his level, scoring top marks on the Advanced Placement Religious Studies test. Indeed, that seems to be one of the primary points Luke is making in this passage. He summarizes it in the last verse, "And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favor." In case you missed it, this is a direct echo of the verse that immediately precedes this passage. Following Jesus' dedication in the Temple, Luke wrote back in verse 40, "The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was upon him." Do you sense a theme, a thread, one of growth and development?
With this passage in mind, I have been wondering lately about us, I have been wondering about our own growth and development. Do we struggle with religious questions as even the young Jesus did? As we increase in years, is our faith stuck on auto-pilot, have we stagnated? What about you? If someone was writing a story of your life, what would they say about the growth and development of your faith these days? Would they be able to say, as Luke did, that you "increased in wisdom"? Would they be able to say, as the Proverbs author writes, that you sought wisdom like silver and searched for it like hidden treasures? What about the growth and development of your own faith?
I am a part of the Israel/Palestine Mission Network of the Presbyterian denomination, which consists of a group of about 40 or so Presbyterian pastors and laity, primarily the latter, from across the country. A few weeks ago, there was an online discussion about the next steps in our advocacy program. Emails flew back and forth. There was debate about strategy, about whether we should advocate for a one or two state solution to the conflict, about what policies we supported, etc. And as I read the emails, and thought about what was going on, I had what I believe was a minor epiphany. I sent an email to the group which included the following: "I feel that the church has a unique calling, it has its own language, so to speak.† It is different from the language of international law.† Let the human rights advocates speak in the language of human rights, let the international lawyers speak in the language of international law, and I think we should fully support them in their own particular languages.
But the language of the church is the language of theology, and should not be reduced to human rights or international law. What I think this means is that, more than anything else, the church must offer a theological critique of what is happening in Israel/Palestine. After all, if the church doesn't offer a theological critique, who will? Human rights advocates and international lawyers won't, that isn't their job, that isn't their language. Our vocation as a church is different from the vocation of human rights advocates - not necessarily better or worse or more or less important, but different."
I later went on to suggest some of the questions that a theological critique of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict should address -- What does the church have to say that is distinctively Christian? How does the fact that we are followers of Jesus Christ shape how we see the conflict? What idolatries are implicitly present in the conflict? I then attempted a very rough sketch at some answers. For example, Our Christian values teach us that the way of Christ is the way of inclusion, not exclusion. Therefore we cannot support policies whose fundamental basis is that of exclusion. Or, "As followers of the Prince of Peace, who did not bring peace by military might, we reject the idolatry of security, by which all is permissible if done in the name of security." I went on from there, the details of what I outlined could form the heart of another sermon, and I finished with the words, "I'm crazy enough to think that theology matters."
The response that my email elicited was mixed. Some seem excited by what I was suggesting, and wondered why theological issues hadn't been raised before. The former chairperson of the group said she had long been concerned with such theological issues herself, but struggled with how to proceed. Others seemed to react as if I were speaking Swahili. The language of theology seemed foreign to them, the idea that our advocacy should be rooted in our theology felt strange.
This example illustrates what I believe is a general phenomenon, which is that theology is a language that is unfamiliar to us. During our day-to-day lives in a predominately secular culture, we do not speak in God-language, and we would probably sound weird if we did. Even the word "theology" tends to put many people off, suggesting long-bearded men with eyesight failing prematurely as the result of reading too many books. Or perhaps for some here it suggests struggling to survive some of the difficult theology books I sometimes choose for our reading group. But theology at its core is nothing more than the attempt to relate our lives with our faith, the attempt to give expression in words to what God is doing in our lives and in the world. What is God doing in your life and in the life of our community?
We all struggle with these questions, to a greater or lesser degree. I have often witnessed this here at Trinity as the session has received new members or new elders. I always ask those who join about their faith journey, about what God has done and is doing in their lives. Many seem to struggle with those questions. I don't think they have had much practice with them.
This last Tuesday night was a further case in point. For those of you who weren't there, Tuesday night was our first committee night, when all the standing committees of the session met at the same time. I explained that each committee was given the task to develop a brief statement about the theological basis for their committee. For example, what is the Christian understanding of hospitality that forms the basis for the work of the hospitality committee, what are we doing when we worship, why are we called to be stewards and what witness to God should our stewardship make, etc. Obviously, these are not easy questions. I then went on to say that from now on, each committee would be expected to spend some time in every meeting in theological reflection about mission or stewardship or hospitality or whatever theological virtue was reflected in the committee's name. In other words, for example, if one has spent some time serving on, say, the hospitality committee, one should not only have helped arrange various baby showers and congregational life events, one should also have grown in one's own understanding and practice of Christian hospitality. One should at the end of some time of service be better able to articulate what Christian hospitality is, and how one seeks to practice it. The business of the church is not just providing for the communion elements or paying the light bills or arranging for the Joy offering, as important as those are, the primary business of the church is theological, it is helping us understand who and whose we are. If we are not growing in such understanding, if we are not like that young Jesus seeking to grow in wisdom, if our service doesn't strengthen our relationship with God, then we are wasting our time.
Tuesday night served to remind me how hard this task is. It isn't easy. For one thing, churches generally don't do a good job of teaching people how to think and speak theologically. My best friend thinks that this is particularly a problem in more liberal churches, and I am inclined to agree. Indeed, I suspect this is one reason for the general decline of mainline denominations -- we have failed to teach people to relate their lives and their faith in any deep and meaningful way. As a result, some leave the church for no church whatsoever, or for other churches that have very different theological values, but at least equip their members to articulate what those values are. Not having the tools to think theologically, people join churches because they have many children in the children's program or a convenient location or nice music. Not that there is anything wrong with those things, but the fact that theology so seldom enters into the equation is a concern. As a case in point, my father, a retired pastor, tells the story of a woman who served for many years as an elder in his church, only to leave the church after his retirement to become active in a denomination that denied leadership positions to women for theological reasons. It was a blow to my father, it made him wonder if the theology of inclusion he had been preaching for so many years had made a difference.
I think he was perhaps a bit too hard on himself. After all, if we haven't learned to think and speak theologically, it isn't only the churches' fault. While seminaries are moderately successful in teaching their students to think theologically, they are much less successful in teaching those students how to teach others to think theologically. And I suppose there are many who do not really care, there are many who, when it comes down to it, aren't willing to make the sacrifices necessary in developing theological proficiency.
Just because struggling to think and speak theologically is difficult, just because struggling to give words to our evolving relationship with God isn't easy, doesn't mean it isn't important. Indeed, quite the contrary, many of the most important things in our lives are the most difficult. Like raising children. Or following Christ. Or loving one's spouse. Growing in theological understanding means growing in one's relationship with God, it means growing in one's sense of identity, of who and whose one ultimately is. That understanding is important at all times, but especially in times of crisis, especially when fear and death and despair come knocking. During the course of my ministry, I have encountered many whose suffering in times of crisis has been exacerbated by the insufficient theological resources with which they have to confront it. Indeed, I have been such a person myself. A minor league theology doesn't serve one well in the World Series of Suffering. I am NOT saying that the more you grow in your theological understanding, the less you will suffer, but I am saying that when you do suffer, you would rather have a stronger sense of identity in Christ.
To put it in other words, I dare to believe that there is a connection between our theology and our praxis. As we grow in our ability to articulate our faith, we will grow in our ability to live it.
The image we have of Jesus in our text today, talking excitedly with the elders, is an image of what we as a church are supposed to be about. Indeed, it seems to me that in addition to being a smuggler's cove, meeting to strategize about how we will smuggle God into our world, in addition to being a hugging school where we come to practice our form, we are also called to be a foreign language school, where we grow in our ability to speak theology. It is a generalization, but I have noticed that those who are best able to articulate their faith are those who consistently engage in some form of Christian education. You see, as anyone who has studied a foreign language can tell you, and having formally studied eight I think I know what I am talking about, you don't learn the language overnight. Indeed, the process of learning the language is never finished, there is always more to learn. It requires constant practice, if you learned French thirty years ago and haven't used it since, it probably isn't worth much anymore. Furthermore, you can't learn a foreign language by yourself. You need to do it in community with others. And while listening to the language is helpful, there is no substitute for speaking it yourself.
Ultimately, though, all that work pays off. One learns to see the world differently. New relationships are formed. One learns to discern God's presence where one might have missed it before. And after all, isn't a deeper relationship and sense of identity isn't what we are about?