Church of Our Saviour

Something I’ve learned as a parent and full time youth minister is that no matter how often you tell a young person “do as I say and not as I do” they will invariably do as you do! The results – they end up becoming secular Protestants. They’ll eventually revolt and protest just about everything you tell them to do.

Have you ever wondered where the origin of the term “Protestant” came from? The average layperson usually responds that it comes from the religious protest against Roman Catholicism. That’s partially correct but more then half wrong. As a history teacher I’d have to give the answer a D+. Most of the Christian world divides themselves into one of three categories. Roman Catholic, Orthodox (which is really still catholic and in communion with the Rome) and then there’s Protestant.

Protestantism in its original context is uniquely German and belongs to the German Reformers who wanted to reform the Roman Catholic Church. They didn’t want to leave the tradition – only reform it. But we all know how anger can be driven by fear. The German reformers in their zeal so frightened their Roman Catholic brothers and sisters that the Roman Church decided they would have nothing to do with those North European upstarts. Out of their own fear and anger, six German princes’ wrote a letter of protest. They were upset that Rome made the decision not to even address their complaints. The rest, as they say, is history. The Roman Catholic Church seized on the letters and called those in opposition to the Church’s position on Doctrine “Protestants”. They were directly aimed at the German states. It was only later the term became a general definition. Even to this day, many of the Churches that spring from the German Religious tradition refute the term Protestant and prefer to be called Reform. Out of this tradition have come the rest of the Churches we know as “Protestant” – Baptist, Pentecostal, Disciples of Christ, the United Church of Christ, and many more. Even the Puritans, who sprang from the English Church, where influenced by the German Reform movement and decided they could not be a part of the Anglican Church but would be a part of the European Reform movement. While Anglicanism, developed in England, did see itself in the form of reformer, it categorically rejected the European notion that religion and religious practice was an individual matter. In this atmosphere of institutional religion versus individual piety, Anglicanism developed a middle way. Holding both in tension and fearing the radical tendency of both positions, the Anglican Church has worked long and hard to develop a stance that seeks to find middle ground between both. It is known as the Via Media or “Middle Way”. While the majority of the Christian world recognizes three faith traditions, religious scholars, understand there are really four distinct categories. The fourth is Anglicanism and the Episcopal Church here in America falls under that distinction.

For nearly two centuries the Episcopal Church identified itself in the “Protestant” category. Why did it do this? For two reasons. The first being that Rome decided that all Christian traditions who did not accept Roman Catholic Doctrine and forms of worship were in protest against the Bishop of Rome. The second reason is a little more complex but to keep it simple the Anglican Church in America after the Revolution was in fear of losing it’s place in America. We were a Church whose origins were rooted in the very country we had just separated from. Many of the Churches in the now freed United States had their origin in the Reformed Churches of Europe. These were Protestant Churches (as labeled by the Roman Catholic Church). It was not so long ago that the Pilgrims – Puritans had landed on the New England shore. By this time their courage and reputation were beginning to grow. Everyone admired their courage to leave England just like the current colonies did and everyone also remembered that they were “Protestants”. To keep our place in this new country we astutely play the political game of name recognition. So in 1789, at our First General Convention we let the rest of the country now that we may be Anglican in origin but we were going to be an American Church just like the rest of the Protestant Churches around us. The result – we became the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States. As time went by we forgot that our title was a political statement and many came to believe it was a religious testimony. – But nothing could be farther from the truth. In the 1960’s we came to realize this and in its wisdom the Episcopal Church of the United States dropped the term Protestant. The result of this transition has left us like the early reformers of the Church; many of our parishes and members are confused and scared. Out of this vortex of ambiguity has come fear, which has begun to drive anger: and many of these very faithful people have begun to operate from a position in what Walter Brueggemann calls a theology of scarcity . They are driven by what they fear is lacking and in so doing they have begun to shore up the walls to protect what they perceive is left. The fatal question in this type of thinking is how do we survive with what we have.

The question you may be asking by now is, “So, what does this have to do with today’s Gospel and lessons?” The answer is division. This is about father against son, mother against daughter. The contemporary concept here is – us against the rest of the world. In what seems to be a stark reversal of all that Jesus has said about bringing peace, about reconciling the world, today we are given a large dose of judgment and a not so comfortable look at another reality of faith. “Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!” The history of the Christian Church and its many divisions would seem to support this statement. The fact that many water this down to mean faithful people verses the rest of the heathens does not make this any less tragic. To say this Gospel lesson is about believers and non-believers only is a copout. We are all members of this human race where choice and division does not discriminate.

This is not a comfortable Jesus we are presented with today. This is no Saviour who touches the meek and tends the sick. For the past several weeks we have encountered a Christ who has extolled us to face tribulation with courage and warned us of taking advantage of others in times of need. The Gospel today is not about us. Jesus in today’s text is talking about himself, about making choices and the real divisions that will cause. Today Jesus is speaking about judgment and to watch out for what we may take for granted. Today Jesus is speaking as a prophet.

Israel at the time of Jesus, understood there were two types of prophetic traditions. There were prophets who announced the final judgment by God on a people who rebelled against the covenant promise. Then there were the prophets who announced the inauguration of a new movement. There would be a new time when God would once again act graciously with the people. The current Bishop of Durham, noted theologian, author and speaker, N.T. Wright (some of his videos are in our own Washburn Library) demonstrates in several of his writings that we must see Jesus in a unique position to these two prophetic traditions. When Jesus is teaching and speaking as a prophet, he is doing so out of both positions at the same time. It is in this light we need to look closer at today’s prophetic pronouncements by our Lord.

Face it, we like the bad guy to get punished. A few weeks ago our Gospel text was on Jesus crossing Samaria and because they wouldn’t provide a place for him the Zebedee brothers, James and John, took it upon themselves to offer up a little retribution. They wanted to call down fire as a judgment for not taking Jesus in. Being honest, how many of us wouldn’t have liked to have seen them do it? The Samaritans were in the wrong – they deserved it. But in the first pronouncement by Jesus of judgment and calling down of fire - that fire and judgment doesn’t fall on the ones who deserve it but on Jesus himself. The blaze Jesus longs for, the fire that consumes and judges the world is the fire he embraced on the cross. God’s punishment for a covenant not kept was dealt on Jesus. This is part of the stark reality of our faith. Living the Christian life is not all music, potlucks, pie-in-the-sky comfy-Jesus-loves-me feelings. We too will be called to sacrifice in this life. We will be called to discipline, and obedience, and we will be called to let go those who will not understand us and if we must put up with the derogatory, mean-spirited remarks they will make about our choice of living.

However, in calling the fire of judgment on himself, Christ has also brought on the inauguration of a new movement, a new world, and we are a part of that world having received the fire of new life in the waters of Baptism. There is the good news of today’s Gospel. In Baptism, we have died to ourselves and been raised to newness of life. This has as much to do with who we are as well as what our mission is. Today’s Gospel is as much about who Christ is and in some of the strongest language what is expected of us.

We are called to be the body of Christ and for many that will bring a crisis of decision. As one preacher has put it, “…Jesus did not grab people by the throat and say, ‘You’re a jerk – and if you don’t get fixed you are in deep trouble.’ Instead, he offered himself; he spoke of the Father; he told the truth; he lived absolute integrity.

What the world saw in Jesus must now be seen in us. We are not called to reject others. We are faced with the very real possibility that ones we love and the world of family, friends, and acquaintances may reject us. Judgment, however, is God’s alone. Jesus engaged the world and we are called to do the same. We are not called to share good advice but new lives – lives transformed by Christ’s sacrifice and resurrection; lives being transformed by water and the fire of the Holy Spirit that blazes and burns in our very beings.

Church of Our Saviour has a choice to make. We can re-live history, we can become angry and fearful, find ways to separate ourselves and shore up our walls, to lament, cry, complain and fuss about the things we’ve lost or don’t like – or – we can celebrate our abundance. We have a choice. We can limit only those we feel are worthy to come to this table and operate out of a theology of scarcity or we can see the theology of abundance at work as we recognize there is not a single person here, out there, in the past or in this present day who is worthy to come to this table but by God’s grace who are all welcomed to receive its bounty. We have a choice.