What is true learning? Not addition.

A church person once told me that they attend church in order to learn more and "grow in their faith". When pressed on what they mean when they say "grown in their faith" this church person said to grow in faith is to be built up in the grace and knowledge of Christ.

Like creativity, growing in Christ is about subtraction.

That sounds like a great church answer. 

Of course we are looking to be shaped in the ways of Christ. But let us address something that maybe we know but forget.

Learning is not about addition↬. It is a common understanding that when we learn it is like just filling up a container (our brain) with more information and data. This is a big reason we want our children to go to college, so they can learn "more" because there is a sense of lack without that education. 

If you have attended any level of education and reflect on your experience, it is clear that leaning is about subtraction rather than addition. 

We do not come to school with a lack but with an abundance of "what we know to be true" and the challenge of education is that it asks us to not add to "what we know to be true" but calls into question "what we know to be true". Learning is, at its core, about subtraction. 

When we attend church, and if we are there to grow in the knowledge and grace of Christ, then we must be reorient ourselves away from addition and toward subtraction or (ironically) we will never grow.

*On a separate note, this is post #800!

Spiritual Journey? Not for me.

Perhaps the most common metaphor to discuss the idea of faith or life is the metaphor of a journey.

In the church we use this metaphor a lot. We discuss how your "walk with Christ is going" or express we are on the "spiritual journey" or the "journey of faith". Even sermons are critiqued on if the preacher "got somewhere" in their sermon. You may have "arrived on a mountain top" in your life as you were "marching to Zion" or "walked in the valley of the shadow of death."

It is a rich metaphor which makes it difficult for me to abandon. But it seems like the church must put this metaphor down and learn to embrace other metaphors.

Why?

Because the underlying assumption in the journey metaphor is that there is a destination. We walk by faith toward some goal or until we arrive at a destination. When we use the journey metaphor there is an unspoken assumption that we would not be on the journey without the destination. No one likes the idea of "meandering" or "wondering" - even thought these are words that fit the journey metaphor they are rarely invoked in a positive light.

We want to reach for the "highest goal" that we "might receive the prize." Because "when we all get to heaven what a day of rejoicing that will be".

The journey metaphor gives us a built in excuse to avoid religion all together if our lives are not moving toward the goal we feel we should be meeting. If our lives are not becoming better or if I "don't get anything out of it" then we are free, under the faith as a journey metaphor, to abandon religion and/or faith. Journey metaphor means that when we are not reaching the goal in a timely manner we have a crisis of faith and then we turn to the metaphor for some help in understanding only to find that everyone else seems to be suggesting that you are in fact being carried by Christ on your walk.

Finally, the metaphor of a journey is the fact that the primary actor in the metaphor is the individual. Not God or even the community, but the individual. We can be on a spiritual journey and not have room for God, which is fine for other religions but not Christianity.

To some the walk metaphor is comforting and I am glad that it is. However, for many people (this author included) this metaphor has too many problems to be held on to for much longer.

Do you have any suggestions?

Called to go sermon

Generally, creating a manuscript for a sermon is not something that I am used to. But due to a number of efforts to try to become a better speaker and writer and preacher and teacher, I am working on the discipline of manuscripts. Below is a manuscript that still has a lot to be desired. 

Today we begin a four part sermon series about God’s call in our lives. We will take four stories from Scripture that tell of someone receiving a call. We will then explore how that call story from so long ago impacts our lives. This week we will explore the call of Moses and how we all are called to go. Next week we will explore the call of the disciples and how we are called to follow. The following week we will explore the call of Abram and how we are called to be a blessing and the last week of the month will explore how we are called to be blessed by looking at the call story of Mary the mother of Jesus.

As we begin this series might we turn to God in prayer for guidance and illumination as we encounter the Scriptures.

Lord open our hearts and minds by the power of your Holy Spirit, that as the Scriptures are read and your Word proclaimed, we may hear with joy what you say to us today. May our response bring glory and honor to you. Amen.

Exodus 3:10-14

10 So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.’ 11 But Moses said to God, ‘Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?’ 12 He said, ‘I will be with you; and this shall be the sign for you that it is I who sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God on this mountain.’
13 But Moses said to God, ‘If I come to the Israelites and say to them, “The God of your ancestors has sent me to you”, and they ask me, “What is his name?” what shall I say to them?’ 14 God said to Moses, ‘I am who I am.’ He said further, ‘Thus you shall say to the Israelites, “I am has sent me to you.”’


Moses asks God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh?”

Indeed! Who is Moses? He is just a guy who got lost in a mountain looking for a sheep and stumbled onto a burning bush and kicked off his sandals.

Oh no he is not. In case you and apparently even Moses forgot, Moses is the adopted son of a former Pharaoh who was raised by the court of Pharaoh after being saved from the river by the daughter of Pharaoh.

Who is he to go to Pharaoh? Who is he not to go to Pharaoh? He is among the few people in the known world who could actually go and request an audience with Pharaoh.

Because of his life, knowledge, access and position Moses might have been the only person at that time who could have gone to Pharaoh. And perhaps it was because of all this that God called Moses to go to Pharaoh.

Perhaps one could argue that Moses was called because he was the only one who could do it.

Moses was the only one who was equipped with the gifts and graces and talents to go to Pharaoh for this task. Moses did not have an apprentice or an understudy. As far as we can see in the story, Moses was the only option God had. There was no plan B.

Later in Exodus, 4:13, Moses asks God to send someone else. But there is no one else that can do what Moses can do. There is no one else. This might explain why in the very next verse it says “the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses.” God had not plan B. It was Moses who would lead the people or the people would remain enslaved and the status quo would be unaltered.

If we were to skip ahead to the moment when Jesus is ascending and he calls the disciples to go into the world proclaiming the Gospel, Jesus did not have a plan B. There were not some other disciples just waiting in case the original group did not respond to the call. No, either these disciples were going to spread the Good News of Jesus Christ or the Good News would not be spread.

Either Moses will lead the people or the people will not be lead out of slavery.

There was no plan B.

When we are called by God to go, friends we must understand that there is no plan B. Either we go, or the status quo is unchanged.

There have been many painters in the world who have painted any number of pictures and images. But the fact of the matter is there is only one Starry Night. (Show image on screen). Vincent Van Gogh was the only one with the exact gifts, graces and talents to paint this. Starry Night was either going to be painted by Van Gogh or it was not going to be painted at all. Fortunately for us, Van Gogh heeded the call and painted.

We ask little children what they want to be when they grow up. Recently Gavin, one of our children, told me that when he grows up he wants to be a ninja. And we smile at this answer, but perhaps we ought to be laughing at the question.

What do you want to be when you grow up is not really a question that Christianity asks. In fact in the early 15th century, Christians actually made up a word in order to express a better question. Rather than asking children what do you want to be when you grow up, Christians would ask, (quod est vocatione) “what is your vocation?” The word ‘vocation’ comes from the Latin vocatio which means - a call.

Christians recognize that we are called by God to do something for Kingdom of God not just personal fulfillment. We understand that people should not have jobs but that people should live into their calling. Moses had the job of a shepherd but his calling, his vocation, was to lead people from slavery. You and I may have jobs but we also have a calling. Jobs can be fulfilled by any number of people, but callings are only fulfilled by the one who is called.

Christian Theologian Frederick Buechner (Beek-ner) said that our vocation is where our greatest joy meets the world’s greatest need.

So I ask you, what is your vocation?
Where is God calling you to go?
Where is God calling Saginaw UMC to go?

May we be like Moses, and come to embody our vocation from God; to go into the world and live faithful lives living out our calling. May we be like Moses who had the courage to risk his job in order to seek his calling. May we come to embrace the reality that God has a call on our lives, that you are gifted and graced to live into that calling, that no one else in the world will be able to respond to God’s call but you, and may you come to discover there is no plan B.

We are God’s plan.

I love change! (As long as it is not happening to me.)

It is one of those things that as life goes on change happens. People get married, jobs change, people get older, graduations, births, anniversaries, going back to school; change happens because that is life. An odd thing about change is how much we all live with it everyday but many people are insistent that they do not like change. This just is a crazy thought. People like change otherwise there would be no growth in life.

There is that story that is told every year in the UMC about this time. There was a minister who asked a congregation who was in numeric decline, "how may of you love your grandchildren?" Every hand went up. "How many of you would give your money to ensure your grandchildren did could have what they needed." Again, hands raised. "How many of you would sacrifice everything you had for the sake of your children's life?" Hands up. Finally the minister asked, "How many of you would be willing to have different music in worship to ensure your grandchildren felt free to worship here on a Sunday morning?"

One hand went up...

So let us be honest with ourselves, we all love change, as long as it is happening to someone else.

This stands in direct conflict with the Gospel which says we are to die to ourselves, we are to be transformed and resurrected, we are to change so that it is not our will but God's will that be done on earth as it is in heaven. Again, Christianity is not about beliefs it is about living a way that being in this world that builds trust and that can only happen if we ourselves are willing to change.