The Priesthood of All Believers

You might have already discovered that the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) has a rather elusive identity. However, there are some key features common to many of our congregations. So even though our theologies might differ (wildly at times) and our worship services may be unrecognizable from congregation to congregation, we Disciples have traditionally held to a long-standing Protestant principle: “The Priesthood of All Believers.” What ever could that mean? I'm glad you asked.

Martin Luther, that famed Magisterial Reformer from the 16th century (not to be confused with the civil rights leader from the 1950's and 60's), wrote many impassioned and contested works criticizing the Roman papal institution (i.e. “the Church”). He famously denied that ordination was a sacrament, and in so doing gave over the “priesthood” to “all believers.” Now that doesn't sound so revolutionary to us, but remember that Martin Luther lived in a time when the priesthood carried special privilege (the Pope, Bishops, and Monastics were of a different spiritual class). Because of that, lay members of the church could not participate in preaching, presiding over the Eucharist, or other liturgical functions. Martin Luther challenged this in the following way:

The pope or bishop anoints, shaves heads, ordains, consecrates, and prescribes garb different from that of the laity, but he can never make a man into a Christian or spiritual human being... In fact, we are all consecrated priests through Baptism, as St. Peter in 1 Peter 2[:9] says: “You are a royal priesthood and a priestly kingdom,” and Revelation [5:10], “Through your blood you have made us into priests and kings.”
(Three Treatises, Martin Luther, 12)

Relying on Scripture (Luther advocated sola scriptura, or “Scripture only”), he leveled the playing field, so to speak, for how we think of pastors and laity. Over time, the laity were empowered to take part in the ministry of the church in new ways: presiding over communion, reading from the Scriptures, and offering prayers.

The “founding fathers” of our denomination, Barton W. Stone, Thomas Campbell, and Alexander Campbell, all furthered this Protestant principle. Ministers were not just those who occupied the pastorate; rather, everyone was called into ministry through baptism. This open stance toward ministry paved the way for the incorporation of women into the diaconate and eldership in many of our churches, as well as the active involvement of lay members in Sunday worship.

What is important to recognize about our Protestant and denominational heritage is that pastors, although they have a peculiar office and function, are not spiritually better than anyone else. Our individual callings may take us to different places, but all Christians are called to minister. For some that will be through church offices, for others that will be living out the gospel in our daily lives as faithful disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ. Wherever we find ourselves, may we remember our part in that great ministering priesthood encompassing all those who profess the life-giving message of Jesus Christ.

Weightlifting

The Olympics are in full swing. How many people here have seen at least a few minutes of the games this year? That's not too surprising, I don't think, considering some 70 million people tuned in to NBC to see the opening ceremonies. But for all the excitement of the Olympic games, many of the competitions go fairly unnoticed. And one of those sports is weightlifting.

Now when I think of weightlifting I often think of gigantic, muscle-bound athletes with veins popping out of their biceps. But, if you were to pass some of the Olympic weightlifters in plain clothes, you would find some pretty regular looking people. People who don't seem to be national or world champions. And after thinking about it, that kind of makes sense to me, because I've seen the super-human strength of some pretty regular people on occasion. The person who comes to mind first is my mom: she never lifted on record, but I can testify to her super-human strength. She put that on display for me one afternoon after I welcomed my new baby brother home from the hospital with a bite on the cheek. My 120 pound mom promptly broke a wooden spoon over my rear-end in one swing.

And we might all have similar stories of close-encounters with regular people demonstrating super-strength (Though I hope you weren't the same kind of participant I was). But a thought we might entertain this morning is that maybe most of these Olympic athletes are regular people, regular people who manage to do extraordinary things. And that's precisely what makes them so inspiring. They are, in so many ways, just like you, and just like me.

One regular person I read about was Melanie Roach. Melanie is a 117 pound woman who seems, at first glance, pretty normal. She is a wife, a mom for three children, and she owns a small business. But she is also, now, an Olympian. And the road that brought her to Beijing was pretty incredible. Melanie was a 2000 Olympic hopeful who missed the games in Sydney because of a back injury. After leaving weightlifting and mothering three children, she returned to the sport at the age of 33. She underwent back surgery and a whirlwind recovery before winning the first spot on the US Women's Olympic weightlifting team.

And so the question surfaces: How does a woman like this not only find ways to overcome injury, the demands of life, and the anxieties of competition, but also does all that and then lifts on the Olympic stage?

This is the question we must return to. What does it take not only to endure difficult circumstances, but also to lift world-class weights?

Now I would love to tell you that Melanie's story has an ending quite like Michael Phelps or Dara Torres. But Melanie didn't take the gold. She didn't take the silver, nor did she take the bronze. Like many other athletes at the Olympics, Melanie Roach competed and did not medal. That being said, she did achieve a personal best, completing all six lifts and breaking the American record. I'd say lifting a combined total of 425 pounds is pretty good for a 33 year-old mother of three who weighs in at only 117 pounds. So even without a shiny medal and media glory, the feat that Melanie struggled to achieve brings us back to our question. How do we struggle through tough circumstances to achieve world-class goals?

I want to suggest this morning that lifting weight successfully requires passion. If there is one thing all the Olympic athletes seem to share, it is passion. Passion is vitally important because it is through passion that a goal can transform and make meaningful the inevitable struggles. I want to suggest this morning that we can struggle through some of the most trying obstacles for the sake of a world-class goal, for a world-important hope; and we can do that when we have passion. For Melanie Roach, the inevitable struggles included injuries, age, and many competing commitments. And Melanie, in so many ways, is just like the rest of us.

So today we are going to use the Olympic games and weightlifting to think through our faith. Analogies like this serve as a bridge of understanding, a way for us to use 21st century experience in order to illuminate our lives of faith. And there is biblical precedent for that, I think. Paul and other NT authors use athletic metaphors of their own time in order to encourage, exhort, and teach. In fact we saw how that might work with Kory's sermon last week.
In that sermon we touched on the Olympic theme by looking into our races of faith. Kory reminded us that faith is not a one time event; that the life of faith is more like a race of endurance than a sprint. What's most important is that our races are about finishing faithfully, not finishing first, thanks be to God.

This week we are shifting our attention from running to lifting. From enduring on foot, to enduring under great pressure. I hope you will be able to think with me about how Olympic weightlifting might inform and enrich our faith.

With that in mind, let's turn in our bibles to the Gospel of Matthew.

Matthew 11:25-30

What's going on?

Chapters 5 – 7 is the famous sermon on the mount

chapters 8 – 9 is Jesus in action, healing and traveling.

In Chapter 10 Jesus speaks about missions and sending out the disciples.

Beginning of Chapter 11 Jesus addresses issues of his identity and that of John the baptist.

He then issues two woes against unrepentant Galilean cities. From those woes we move into our passage this morning.

v. 25 “these things” being Jesus' identity and role.

This passage is very recognizable, many of you may be familiar with it. You may also be familiar with some popular interpretations of it. I want to isolate two of them. First, some will point to this Scripture to establish faith as something different from, and maybe antagonistic toward, intelligence. After all, Jesus is revealed not to the intelligent but to infants (who we presume are without education and a well-developed intellect). Second, many people point to, and find comfort in, an “easy yoke,” which is understood to mean a life with less trouble and difficulty. Now both of these responses to Scripture have their place. We should be cautious about the corruptibility of our intellect, and we should rejoice when we find moments of rest under an “easy yoke.” Unfortunately, there is a tendency, as with much of Scripture, to over-simplify. So I am going to try and resist over-simplifying here; I guess I will be under-simplifying, maybe “complexifying” if you will.

I want to focus on some other elements that might help us make sense of this passage in a different way. I think it is far too simplistic for us to leave the passage thinking that Jesus' message and identity is not for smart people. In fact, what is regrettable is that some people have taken this passage to command that one should not go to school, especially not attend college or seminary. As I am in Divinity School, I would disagree here.

So, I don't think Jesus is condemning the intelligent because they are intelligent. Nor is Jesus, in my estimation, calling us to be, literally, infants. The Greek word (nepiois) translated “infant” or “child” might be better understood in this passage as “little persons” or “insignificant ones.” And that makes sense, Jesus' ministry was aimed at those who were marginalized and left out of society at the time: women, the sick, prostitutes, tax collectors... all kinds of sinners. So the ones who received Jesus' message and repented were these “insignificant ones.” Thus, Jesus is thanking God for graciously sending him to those who may have considered themselves insignificant, and were definitely considered insignificant by the powerful, learned elite.

And just as I don't think Jesus is condemning the intelligent for being intelligent, I don't think Jesus is talking about how easy life will be either. A yoke, is a yoke, is a yoke; even though a yoke may be light (relative to heavier yokes), it is still a yoke. One that carries with it a kind of weight. Jesus is not inviting us into a yoke-free existence. We might be able to eat eggs yolk-free, but we can never live yoke-free. So instead of going without any weights, we are invited by Jesus to be a kind of weightlifter; we are invited to lift Jesus' yoke with him, as he is yoked to us. Why is that, though, why can't we get the yoke-free pass?

In the Jewish tradition, the word “yoke” was a way of talking about obedience and servanthood. And Jesus reminds us in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 6:24) that everybody serves someone, it's just a matter of who we serve. Thus, there is always a yoke. It's a matter of which yoke we choose to put on. Jesus invites the weary and the burdened into his service in order to become obedient to the will of God made known through Jesus. So on the one hand, with a Jewish connotation, “yoke” means a kind of obedience. On the other hand, the Greek word (zugos), which translates “yoke,” is one with imperial connotations. Jesus is calling people out of the taxing demands of Roman imperial obedience into a new Kingdom, one defined by justice, kindness, and humility (remember Micah 6:8?).

Jesus is also responding to the shackles, burdens, and weight of the religious elite who managed to burden many people with the demands of religious observance. On top of that, the religious system of Jesus' day also ostracized and marginalized the very people who they should have been serving. The poor, sick, and downtrodden were being treated as sinners and pushed out of the way. So Jesus called these very people into his service—the poor, sick and downtrodden, as well as the religiously burdened—so they might seek after the ways of God. But Jesus doesn't just call the poor, sick, downtrodden, and burdened into God's service, Jesus calls everyone. And it's here we should remember the first part of the passage, verse 25. Jesus is graciously revealed as Christ not to those who take pride in their wisdom and intelligence, for their self-righteous pride easily blinds them; rather Jesus is most easily seen by those who humble themselves and recognize their need for a different, lighter yoke.

Well what about this lighter yoke? The road of justice, kindness, and humility doesn't sound very easy, and it doesn't seem like we get a lot of rest. So what about rest and ease? What about the “lightness” of the yoke?

Ultimately, we are not invited out of our every-day lives into a life of ease. Instead, we are called into our every-day lives with a new purpose, with a new mission, obedient to a new Master. We are called to lift the weight of God's Kingdom, yoked to Jesus Christ. Our yoked existence to Jesus connects us to the work God began in Jesus. In other words, we are called to be weight-lifters, but now, with a different set of weights. These weights are those of the Kingdom of God. They are weights filled with the justice, kindness, and humility of Micah 6:8. And the people lifting them are pretty regular people, like you and like me; and so, like regular people, we struggle with all kinds of exterior things as well as the difficult task of lifting God's Kingdom into existence.

So our rest is not an absence of labor, for there is always something to do. Rather it is deeper, more “existential.” (A rest on the level of our soul, so to speak). I think St. Augustine, a 4th century Bishop from Africa, says it best as he addresses God: “You have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in You.” We can rest in the meaning and mission of God's Kingdom as we live out our lives yoked to our Savior Jesus Christ. The Kingdom of God is a world-class weight and a world-important hope. Christ invites regular people like you and me to lift this kind of incredible weight.

As we move from this morning's sermon to our hymn, to offering, and then to communion, may we be reminded of that lingering question I posed to us: “How do we endure difficult circumstances to lift world-class weights?” I want to suggest this morning we must be driven by passion. But the passion that drives us as weightlifters for the Kingdom of God is more than unbounded desire coming from the rest we find in the meaning of God's Kingdom, it is also the Passion of Jesus Christ. This is the Christ who yokes himself beside us, and whose Passion was one of suffering unto death on a cross. Yet this Passion has a mysterious ending, one not confined to capital punishment on a tree; no, it is an ending that inaugurates a great hope. For this passion ends in Resurrection and promises victory beyond death's horizon. When this Passion drives our weightlifting, it transforms all our every-day and most impossible struggles into meaningful labor for the Kingdom of God.

May that Passion allow us to lift the weights of God's Kingdom, and to find rest in the meaning and mission of God's call. Amen.

Christianity and Post-Modernisms

"Post-Modernism" is a dirty, dirty word... at least in some circles. Mixing Christianity and postmodernism can be as volatile as nitro glycerine. Many think such a combination is sure to result in a catastrophic destructiveness worthy of an apocalyptic-like resistance. They hope not to lose the true meaning of the gospel to philosophical infiltrations that dilute and destroy its message. In the most extreme forms of resistance, postmodernism is seen as anti-gospel, the manifestation of evil through corrupt and bankrupt thinking.

For others, postmodernism is as trendy as a "faux-hawk." It's the new way to talk about Christianity without looking like an old, out-dated religionist. It smells like a latte and tastes like candy... mmm. These people see a turn to postmodern expression as the saving Grace for the Gospel in our day and age. We need to update our outdated Gospel to the newest, most current version--the gospel i-phone, if you will.

Both popular forms of resistance to and adoption of postmodernism seem to be suffering from a pretty serious problem. This problem, I want to suggest, is a historic struggle known as reductionism. Since when has postmodernism ever been one thing (or, for that matter, "humanity," or "Christianity," or "rationality")? The problem is, as is so often the case, that we want to think of things much too simplistically--often causing us to talk past one another. What one group thinks postmodernism is, another group does not. Yet, they both talk to each other with similar terms, all the while thinking in vastly different ways about those terms.

So, for those who fear postmodernism, their concerns should be aptly noted. They most likely fear a kind of postmodernism, only one of the many postmodernisms out there. Those who radically embrace postmodernism too often think they are embracing postmodernism "en toto", as if they weren't rejecting other postmodernisms (which, I want to suggest, they are--but, unfortunately, that's not so trendy...).

So what do we do? Is postmodernism to be or not to be? Well that is a good question.

Postmodernism is a term we could use to describe a time period, cultural attitudes and behaviors, philosophies, and/or aesthetic theories. What about the many uses and manifestations of "postmodernism" should we be afraid of as Christians. Well, of course, it will depend on what you are worried about.

Some Christians are worried about relativism. Rightly so, I think. Is postmodernism most basically relativism? Well, yes... oh, and no. Once again, there are forms of postmodernism, which, some might argue, can lead to kinds of relativism. Now let's be serious here--is postmodernism the issue, or relativism (and, to complicate matters further, what kind of relativism)? Relativism is not something new that emerged in the 20th century and is only currently flourishing today. The threat of relativism is a historical one, a problem (or a solution some might argue) facing thinkers for millenia. For the interested lot, check out Pyrrhonian skepticism. So, if relativism is the issue (again, it may only be one kind of relativism that is really the problem), why demonize postmodernism? Oh yeah, reductionism...or, to be more precise here: equivocation.

What I'm trying to get across is that postmodern thinking is manifold and pluriform. There are many different kinds of postmodernisms, and, if Christianity should watch out for certain things, then it should watch out for those things in their various forms--always aware that it is those particular things (like relativism) and not postmodernism "en toto" that is at issue.

Other Christians think postmodernism is the answer for the outdated Christian message. Again, its a little more complex than that. Which postmodernism? Our "postmodern protestors" (oh the ambiguity of that phrase makes me smile) are aware, I think, of some issues which must be considered for their potentially destructive impact. Now these issues may not be only postmodern issues, but they seems to be finding contemporary expression in (at least) some postmodernisms.

So, what do we do? I think we first need to acknowledge that we have a lot in common, regardless of our "for" or "against" mentality when it comes to postmodernism. We are all children of postmodernism (by virtue of encountering it). We are all living in an age in which we are wrestling with questions that the modern age gave us. In that way, we can all call ourselves "post-modern." Next, I think, we need to specify what we mean when we say "postmodernism." Are we referring to cultural attitudes and norms for behavior, or are we talking about a philosophical set of ideas that will inevitably shape our faith? Once these issues are explored I think we can move forward with productive and, I hope, civil conversation (well, looks like I just showed my hand). And this procedure, I want to suggest, just might maintain that element of love so central to the gospel message (as I read it). I sure hope so.