“John Wesley v. Self Help Books: Salvation” based on Jeremiah…

August 30, 2015February 15, 2020
by Sara Baron

There are two MAJOR examples of God’s salvation in the Hebrew Bible. One is the Exodus story, when God saves the people from the bondage of slavery in Egypt, and they move into the Promised Land. The second is found in the story of restoration, when God acts to save the people from bondage of slavery in Babylonia and they return to and restore the city of Jerusalem in the Promised Land. There are big stories, narratives which play out in big and small ways throughout the entirety of the Bible. Both are salvation. God saves the people.

Our text today is text of promise, that was given to the people while they were in exile, and slavery (the second time), promising salvation, healing, wholeness, return, and restoration. The words are gorgeous. The promise is uplifting. And, history tells us, it was fulfilled. The people returned. They wept with joy, the nation did not die off after all.

What I cannot figure out, given this profound history and foundation, is how the heck we got from salvation being about God’s acts in saving the people – together- to something that I’m told is called “personal salvation.” (I seriously had to look this up. I tried calling it “individual salvation” because that made sense to me as a counter to “communal salvation”, but Google soon informed me that people don’t say it that way.) Personal salvation is the most anti-Biblical, and anti-God idea I’ve ever heard. I say this recognizing that it has been a significant theme in Christian history for most of Christian history. And, furthermore, that when I say “significant” theme, I should probably admit “this is what most people think Christianity IS.”

Nevertheless, I’m holding firm. The idea is an atrocity. From what I can surmise, it goes like this. “There are good people in the world and there are bad people in the world. Good people follow God’s rules, as defined in the Bible. Bad people don’t. God, like a human parent, punishes the bad people for being bad and rewards the good people for being good. Therefore, because of mistakes made on earth bad people will suffer for eternity while good people will enjoy the presence of God in heaven for eternity. The utterly unclear line the sand between good people and bad people is drawn by God and is thus fair. After-all, the rules are the rules.”There is also a variation, rather popular, that suggests that the difference between good people and bad people is “declaring your faith in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior.” Salvation, in this understanding is the act of being picked as one of the good people.

I was raised in a rather “normal” United Methodist Church in the suburbs. By the time I went to seminary I had separated myself from the “Good People Salvation” narrative by focusing on God’s nature as love. I would say at that point that if “nothing can separate us from the of of God (in Christ)” then no human action or inaction would be sufficient for God’s condemnation. Therefore, I surmised, I was a “universal salvationist.” When I got to seminary and people were talking about “salvation of all creation, of the entire universe” I was GENUINELY confused. However, I was also embarrassed because I was sure that all of my classmates were better Christians that I was, and knew more than I did, and I kept my mouth shut. (Most of them had double majored in religion and philosophy, and my math major didn’t initially feel like a good background for seminary.)

After a few days though, it all seemed to clear up. Of course salvation is about this life! What a silly idea to think that all that is, all this wonder of creation, all the depth of this life are insignificant!!! And of course it isn’t limited to humans – creation is more than just humans. God’s work to heal and bring wholeness – God’s work with us to more creation into more completion – would apply to everyone. I had thought I was supposed to think salvation was about afterlife, but having another option felt like freedom. Salvation as healing, as wholeness, as God’s work in the world to move creation to completion just made more sense! I haven’t looked back, other than with some horror.

Five years ago, I read John Shelby Spong’s “Eternal Life: A New Vision (Beyond Religion, Beyond Theism, Beyond Heaven and Hell.” I remember it being rather painfully slow for the first 2/3^rd and then like an brain explosion for the final 1/3^rd. I’ve recently looked back at the book and I actually marked the point of transition with a note in the margins that says “start of new ideas.” These five years after I first read this book, it is no longer all that shocking, and now it is a lot more convincing.

The new ideas section started with this, “Perhaps the personhood we have ascribed to God is really our own, projected onto God. God might then be conceived not as a being, but as the process that calls us into being; not as a person, but as the process that calls personhood into being.”¹ For those who studied math in excess like me, this sounds like the first time I met a “function.” My textbook didn’t seem to describe it ways that made sense to me, but I finally figured out that the function is “what you are going to do to the variable.” It is the process. This seems to me like the suggestion that God is function, the process, and we’ve been confusing God with the output.

Spong goes on to make sense of this new understanding of God:

“Human beings need to understand that we must reconcile the biological drive to survive, which is present in every living thing but achieves self-consciousness only in human life. With the creative thought, emotional feelings, and ability to love others even at the sacrifice of ourselves which are the things that self-conscious creatures alone can choose to do or to have. That is the challenge of humanity. It is in the recognition and reconciliation of this tension that we discover that the way to what human beings have traditionally called God is not through some external projection of our needs, but through entering the depth dimensions of the human experience. The divine we have always sought turns out to be a dimension of the human. Religion ultimately becomes not an activity in which we explore the meaning of God, but an activity through which we explore the meaning of the human.Religion is not a journey into the external deity, but a journey into the heart of our humanity, where we break out of our separation fears and enter the meaning of transcendence, oneness, timelessness, and finally eternity.” ²

When I read these words again, I squealed with joy! YES! YES! This IS what it is about! This isn’t what religion, especially Christianity has been, but it is what it CAN BE! He says later, “The more deeply I live, the more God becomes identified with my life.”³ and “The more deeply I am able to love, the more God becomes part of me.”⁴ This is the point where the radical and wonderful postmodern theologian John Shelby Spong intersects once again with the “merry little theologian” of nearly 300 years ago, John Wesley. Wesley, amazingly enough, rarely mentions afterlife but talks extensively of salvation. He speaks of it AS the process of letting God’s love grow in us into fullness. Or maybe we can go back to Spong’s words, “Jesus is not absorbed into the holy. Jesus is rather alive with the holy.”⁵ If so, then we are to do the same. “Our ultimate destiny was never to be religious human beings, as once we thought; it was simply to be fully and totally human.”⁶

The question then, is: what helps us be fully and totally human? As far as I’ve experienced it, there are two intersecting aspects to the answer. One is relational. We love each other into being, and no one becomes human or whole by themselves. We are communal animals, formed by each other. The second is relational too, but in this case self-relational. We are simply people, right? By our cultural myths we are composed of body, mind, emotions, and spirit/soul, but the greatest of these is mind! Yet we are not just our minds. To become fully and totally human is to live in our bodies, to listen to and care about our emotions, to pay attention to the needs of our spirits and find the way to feed them – and to help others do the same. For me, that’s easiest to accomplish through the process of Nonviolent Communication – shameless plug: stick around for the 2^nd hour on September 13^th and for an Adult Education series this fall. Learning empathy for myself and others is helping me become more fully and totally human.

The intersections of Nonviolent Communication and faith intrigue me and they seem to fit into one of Spong’s new definitions, “The task of religion is not to turn us into proper believers; it is to deepen the personal within us, to embrace the power of life, to expand our consciousness, in order that we might see things that eyes to not normally see. It is to seek a humanity that is not governed by the need for security, but is expressed in the ability to give ourselves away.”⁷

This full, total humanity, this way of living and loving with abundance for ourselves and others, is eternal in that it is so deeply connected to the divine. He says, “True worship has little to do with saying words of praise, but is rather identical with having the courage to be all that I can be. True worship is a process that suggests and celebrates the fact that the more deeply and fully I can be who I am, the more I will make God, understood as being itself, visible.”⁸ Others have suggested this before him, and it is a beautiful idea. Eternal Life can simply life with the Eternal One, opening up the possibility that the lives we live now, which are lived in and with God are united with eternity. And maybe even are a way of being open to the transition from this life to whatever comes next. He says, “For God is ultimately one, and that means that each of us is a part of that oneness. ‘My me is indeed God.” … I am finite, but I share in infinity. I am mortal, but I share in immortality. I am being, but I share in being itself.”⁹

Most self-help books are trying to help people become fully human! In that way they are terribly good. However, I don’t know that many of them pay attention to the intersecting human needs of relationships with self AND others! They’re focused on “personal salvation” thought about in new ways. The Bible is hyper focused on “communal salvation,” because we are only whole when we are whole together. Any time the balance is out of wack – too far to the individual and missing the communal or too far to the communal and ignoring the needs of the individual, we are not fully human. Salvation is the healing of the whole universe. All of us together and each of us individually. We participate by becoming fully human, and by giving ourselves to each other. To go back to Jeremiah, God promises,

“They shall come and sing aloud on the height of Zion,
and they shall be radiant over the goodness of the Lord,
over the grain, the wine, and the oil,
and over the young of the flock and the herd;
their life shall become like a watered garden,
and they shall never languish again.
Then shall the young women rejoice in the dance,

and the young men and the old shall be merry.
I will turn their mourning into joy,
I will comfort them, and give them gladness for sorrow.” (Jeremiah 31:12-13

God’s work is salvation – and it is beautiful!

Finally, I was told last week that if I didn’t answer the question about “Would John Wesley drive a Prius?” then I’d be guilty of false advertising. Apparently, “It was just a good title” got me no where. I spent most of this sermon series thinking that John Wesley would drive a 20 year old Corolla because he’d want to save money to give away and he’d like the reliability, but I’ve changed my mind. Would John Wesley drive a Prius? No. He’d take the bus. It is more eco-friendly, it is more economical, and it is more relational. And, after all, this is a man who was famous for reading books on horseback. I think we can easily imagine what he’d do while waiting at the bus-stop. He’d read John Shelby Spong ;). (Amen)

1John Shelby Song Eternal Life: A New Vision (HarperOne: USA, 2009), p. 155
2Spong, 155-6.
3Spong, 161.
4Spong, 161.
5Spong, 167.
6Spong, 207.
7Spong 185.
8Spong, 162.
9Spong, 209.

–

Rev. Sara E. Baron
First United Methodist Church of Schenectady
603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305
http://fumcschenectady.org/
https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady

August 30. 2015

Sermons

“John Wesley v. Amazon.com: Blessing” based on Genesis 12:1-4 and…

August 24, 2015February 15, 2020
by Sara Baron

If
you spend too much time thinking about blessing, as I have done this
week, it becomes clear why there is a book called, “When Bad Things
Happen to Good People.”¹
(Which, if you haven’t read it, is a great book.) By dictionary
definitions, a blessing is “God’s favor and protection.”²
There are actually a whole bunch more definitions, as it is a noun
and a verb, used both for what we do and say and what God does… but
that’s the important definition from which all the others flow.
“God’s favor and protection,” or if you’d like, Wikipedia adds a
bit of nuance when it defines it this way, “A blessing is the
infusion of something with holiness, spiritual redemption, divine
will, or one’s hope or approval.”³
The root words that became “blessing” in English were the words
for “blood”/”mark or consecrate with blood” that eventually
got influenced in meaning because it was used to translated the Latin
word benedicere ‘to praise or worship.”⁴

This
seemingly sweet, gentle, kind, inoffensive little word has a lot
going on. It is reasonable to assume, including from Biblical
stories themselves that from ancient times, the concept of blessing
had a lot to do with: fertility (of animals, crops and people) and
winning at battle. All of which were life or death issues, to large
degree out of control of the people participating in them.
Therefore, they were looking for supernatural help along the way
to stay alive. Those who had many children, or got rich, or won
in battle were thought to be blessed.

The
Bible also contains a counter-narrative. While much of the Bible
says that God’s favor and protection made people healthy, wealthy,
and happy while God’s disfavor and lack of protection made people …
sick, poor, or dead… it isn’t the only perspective. The book of
Job offers a strong objection! So does Jesus. The Sermon on the
Mount claims that the poor, the hungry, and the mourning (etc) are
the blessed people. That’s counter to the basic understanding of
“God’s favor and protection.”

It
seems like there is a big debate happening, even within the Bible
itself, about the nature of God. One side is reflected in our
dictionary definitions, and it is far and away the more popular side.
It is the side of traditional theology, where God is understood as
being like a supernatural parent – punishing and rewarding children
as God sees fit. Many people will talk about things that happen in
life saying, “everything happens for a reason” or “God has a
plan” and when the things that happen are terrible things, they
explain that “God is teaching a lesson.”

But
along with Job, and the Sermon on the Mount, and the rest of the
minority report, I think these concepts of God are outdated and
unhelpful. Spong names it this way, “We once saw God as the prime
mover in the issues of sickness and health.”⁵
“We once saw God as the source of the weather, and we interpreted
drought, floods, storms, hurricanes and tornadoes as expressions of
the divine will.”⁶
“We once thought that God led our nation into battle, defeating
our enemies or, if our faithfulness to this God had been badly
compromised, allowing us to taste the Divine wrath in defeat.”⁷
“Yet I do not define God as a supernatural being. I do not
believe in a deity who can help a nation win a war, intervene to cure
a loved one’s sickness, allow a particular athletic team to defeat
its opponent, or affect the weather for anyone’s benefit.”⁸

That
seems to reflect the beatitudes and Job in terms of understanding
God. In this conception, God’s favor or protection aren’t
particularly meaningful concepts. That’s good news! If God plays
favorites, I’m not impressed. If God protects only some, I’m not
impressed, and if God is protecting all of us, God is a lousy
protector. I’d like to propose an alternative definition for
blessing, one that I think fits the Hebrew Bible lesson today.

Abraham
is told he is chosen, favored, uniquely blessed. But in the same
thought he is told that the reason he is blessed is so that he can be
a blessing. It is through him that all people in the world will be
blessed! Blessing, then is a useful sort of thing. It is a
contribution to the goodness of life, not just for one’s self, but
for the good of the whole.

Now,
the good of the whole is something called the Kin-dom, and most
scholars agree it is the whole point of Jesus’ ministry and the
ministry of the followers of Jesus since his death. The Kin-dom is
the time when all people will have enough to thrive! There will be
deep peace, and wholeness, cooperation, connection and love. The
Kin-dom is when all the people treat each other as kin, and no one is
outside the circle. (If you haven’t heard about this before, you
may be more familiar with the words “kingdom” or “realm of
God”, the choice to just use kin-dom is the choice to take out the
hierarchy from the old language. It may also be important to note
that the traditional language is that the kin-dom is “breaking into
the world” meaning that it is here in moments and in parts, but
coming in completion.)

My
proposal is that a blessing is anything that is being used for
building up the kin-dom. So a blessing might be a great book or
a wise teacher, a profound work of art, a gentle smile in the midst
of a hard day, a fantastically fun song, a time of prayer, a
challenge, a coat, or a cup of coffee – for example. That is, many
of the things that have traditionally gotten labeled blessings still
get to be under the new definition. It is just that we don’t think
we have “blessings” because God loves use more, or protects us
uniquely or functions like punishing and rewarding parent. Instead
we are freed to pay attention to the many wonderful things in life
that can be profoundly useful for ourselves and others in making the
world more fair, equitable, just, wonderful, joyful, healed, and
whole.

Now,
it seems like time to get around to John Wesley, who is quite famous
for getting into a huge fight over blessing. I’m amazed, frankly,
that enough people cared about this to make an international argument
happen, but I apparently lack sufficient angst over it. John Wesley
developed a concept of “second blessing.” It worked like this:
the process of coming into relationship with God is a blessing itself
but the process of becoming loving like God is was a SECOND blessing.
Wesley suggested that these could be instantaneous experiences or
long-term growth experiences. The first was justification, the
second sanctification. If I’m being honest, he thought of the first
part as coming to know your sinfulness and experiencing forgiveness
for sin and the second as learning to sin no more.

People
were SERIOUSLY upset by this. Having done the research on their
arguments, I’ve concluded that it REALLY doesn’t matter. While
believing in the capacity of people to grow deeper into love and let
love and grace define their lives is important, defining how and when
this process happens just … doesn’t.

I’m
more interesting in examining if the word “blessing” here. If we
use the traditional language, if blessing is God’s favor, and coming
into relationship with God is a blessing, then only those whom God
favors are in relationship with God? (And God has favorites, and you
can identify them because they’re the ones who proclaim a
relationship with God.) That’s circular argument spun so tightly as
to make my head spin.

What
would it mean if God chose some people to have faith and others not
to? What would it mean if only some of us were favored with the
chance to become more loving? God’s protection and favor equate to
favoritism, and in essence blaming the victim!

To
make it worse, there are supposed to be two blessings in this. OYE.
But, if we remove the bad theology from the definition of blessing,
and try out the new definition, things change. If blessings are
anything being used for the building up of the kin-dom, then
certainly relationships with God and deepening love are blessings.
It doesn’t make the argument about the timing and order matter, but
it does justify the use of the word!

The
new definition also makes space for the ritual of the shared
communion table as a potential blessing. It seems obvious to me that
the sacraments are meant to be blessings that build us up so that we
are blessings in the world. That is, they remind us of our identity
and purpose so that we can be useful for the building of the kin-dom.
I recognize that this is how things are “meant to be” and saying
that communion is a “potential blessing” was intentional. There
have been times in my life when receiving a little portion of a loaf
of bread and a sip of grape juice has filled my entire being with
wonder, connection, and grace. There have been a whole lot more
times, though, when bread and cup have been perfunctory. Most of the
time, the actual elements of communion pale in comparison the feeding
I get from being with the people I receive the gifts with. People,
it is clear, can be blessings. (And you don’t have to be perfect to
be one!) We are useful in building each other up, we contribute
toward the kin-dom when we treat each other as kin. This is a place
potential can become reality.

So,
Amazon.com, you ask? Well, I’ve heard people call it a blessing
because they really like getting things they order quickly. If they
are referring to “God’s favor and protection” in enabling
consumerism, that’s terrible! I’ll concede, though, at times, that
physical items can be useful for building up the kin-dom. John
Wesley’s second blessing versus amazon.com? I’m not willing to give
either one the win. But redefining blessing to empower us and
relieve God of undue insults? I’m giving that the win! Thanks be to
God for our blessings!! Amen

1 Rabbi
Harold Kushner.
2 Apple
dictionary. “Blessing.
3 Wikipedia
“Blessing” accessed on August 20, 2015.
4 Apple
dictionary. “Blessing.”
5 John
Shelby Spong A New Christianity for a New World: Why Traditional
Faith is Dying and How a New Faith is Being Born
(HarperSanFrancisco, 2001) page 22.
6 Spong,
22.
7 Spong,
22.
8 Spong,
3.

—————–

Rev. Sara E. Baron
First United Methodist Church of Schenectady
603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305
http://fumcschenectady.org/
https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady

August 23, 2015

Sermons

“John Wesley v. the iphone: Perfection”based on Matthew 5:43-48

August 17, 2015February 15, 2020
by Sara Baron

This
is week 2 of a sermon series entitled “Would John Welsey Drive a
Prius” trying to consider how Wesley’s concepts, ideas, and even
just his words fit into our lives today. The topic of the week is
perfection, and I figured that since the founder of the Methodist
movement wrote only one book, called “A Plain Account of Christian
Perfection,” I should probably reread it for the 5^th
time.

The
book is short, and it is on point. John Wesley affirms his long held
belief that by God’s grace and the process of sanctification, people
can be filled with love and nothing else while they are still alive.
He called the end point Christian Perfection. Believing that a
person could reach Christian perfection in this lifetime was, for
him, the defining characteristic of being a Methodist.

To understand, we need to look at the word perfection.

This is the explanation of
Steven Maskar of the General Board of Discipleship:

When
people hear Christian and
perfection together,
the word impossible
immediately
jumps to mind. This response is common because the meaning they hear
in the English word perfection
is that of the Latin word perfecto.
This term is the perfection of the gods. It means one who is
perfect in all regards – in thought, word, and deed. Human beings
are, of course, not capable of such perfection. But this is not the
meaning of Christian
perfection.

Wesley,
and others who addressed the doctrine, took the meaning of perfection
from the Greek words teleios and
teleiosis.
… Several
English words are today used to convey the meaning of teleios:
whole, complete, mature, grown-up,
perfect.¹

This
doesn’t mean that people won’t make mistakes. Wesley is clear on
that time and time again. Mistakes will happen no matter what, they
are the defining characteristic of being human. But acting out love
is still possible: and the love is both for God and humans. Wesley
even goes so far as to say that God primarily experiences love when
we share it with other people.

Now,
John Wesley’s book is not actually my favorite. (The stories I’ve
heard about him lead me to liking him more than I do from his book.)
I find most of what he says outdated, redundant, and/or offensive.
When he gets around to a point that is sort of awesome, which he
does, I’m generally too annoyed with him to give him full credit.
Luckily, Marjorie Suchocki loves the book. Marjorie Suchocki is a
lay woman who has been dean and theology professor at multiple UM
seminaries. She was a professor emeritus when I was at Claremont,
and she attended Claremont UMC where I got to be Program Secretary.
I think she’s brilliant, and I take what she says very seriously.
She added a theological reflection to the end of “A Perfect Love”
– a modern language version of Wesley’s classic – in which she
shares her opinion the first time she read “A Plain Account of
Christian Perfection.” She thought to herself, “Why, this is the
merriest theologian I’ve ever read.”²

I
want to give Marjorie a chance to convince all of us of how wonderful
Wesley’s book is, and how “merry” he is. It is only out of my
utmost respect for her that I can do this without sarcasm. She
points out that in Wesley’s view humanity is highly regarded namely,
“God creates humans for the sake of flourishing, of full
development, and this development tends towards God’s glory.”³
(Which is also Love.) She also point out that neither bodies nor
minds are denigrated in Wesley’s theology. “God the creator is not
gloried through our denigration, but through the wonder of who we
were created to be. God created us with minds, and calls us to
develop them to the fullest. We are to rejoice in our ‘mindedness’
and learn all that we can, pushing our abilities to the very
limit…. In short, a Wesleyan understanding of what it is to be
human considers our intelligence, emotions, and bodies all to be a
gift from God, and thus we honor God insofar as we gratefully develop
the gift as much as possible within our circumstances.”⁴

She
takes from his book an understanding of God that I can get behind,
“God
is a fountain of pure love – not abstractly, not philosophically,
not in isolated splendor. Rather, God’s very nature is to love, and
through loving, to elicit our own loving nature in return. Love is,
of all things, relational; and the God whose name and nature is love
is relational, through and through. Out of the depths of divine
love, God loves us; and we are most wondrously created because of
that love, and for that love, and toward that love.”⁵
Now, I read the same book she did. And when she points this out, I
can totally see where she gets it from, and how all the redundant
statements get to that point. However, I couldn’t get past my own
annoyance to see the wonder of what he was saying. Thank God for
cheerful theologians looking for the good in what others say!! (And
who maybe, just maybe, use their own brilliance to explain the
slightly less exciting perspective of others.)

Suchocki
has a few other significant points that she draws out of Wesley’s
little book: “The remarkable thing about Wesley is that he figured
God couldn’t be stopped by human recalcitrance.”⁶
and, “Consider the nature of sin in a Wesleyan world. If God
intended us to develop ourselves fully under the criterion of the
love of God, then sin is anything that works against that goal.”⁷
Now, we haven’t covered Wesley’s book as a whole, nor Suchocki’s
reflections on it, but we’ve done enough to be able to have a
conversation on the concept of perfection.

One
of Wesley’s favorite scripture passages to promote this topic is the
one we read today, although he had many, many others. It is an
excellent passage because in addition to actually using the Greek
word for perfection/wholeness/completeness the passage calls for it
to be in love. The passages pushes for more love than people would
naturally want to give, and Wesley does too! He really jives on this
passage, talking about doing good to those who would do you harm. He
pushes Methodists to show love outside of their own circles, and to
engage everyone as a beloved child of God, and he lived it too.

Personally,
I’m pretty fond of this passage as well. Many scriptures that name
enemies end up claiming that God will punish those who do us harm,
and that always sounds wrong. This one doesn’t. This one points out
that sun and rain are gifts for everyone, no matter what their
behavior, and that the love we share is to be as unbiased as the sun
and the rain. It is even specific! It calls out people for not
wanting to greet others who they don’t know or like. Apparently
humanity hasn’t’ changed all that much in 2000 years. The passage
calls out the people who follow the way of Jesus, and asks them to
behave with MORE love than those who don’t. The way of Jesus isn’t
just another way of living the same sort of life, it is a more
generous, more inclusive, more connected, more relational, more
loving way of life. Thus, it is harder and more rewarding!

Like
Wesley, I’ve seen people live out love. The pastor I interned under
let me follow him around like a puppy dog two days a week for two
years. I sat in every meeting he sat it, I listened to him talk on
the phone, and I listened to him when people interrupted him when he
was on his way to get something important done. I heard him speak to
the District Superintendent, the lay leaders, the staff, people who
were homeless, people who I knew drove him nuts, his partner, his
children, and those who said to him that he was outside of God’s
grace. Finally, near the end of him shadowing him, I asked him how
he did it. In every conversation I saw over 2 years he was
UNFAILINGLY patient, loving, kind, and gentle. He looked at me
surprised and said, “We’re supposed to treat people with the love
that God has for them!” I looked back at him and replied, “Yes,
of course we are! But none of the rest of us actually manage to do
it!”

On
the off chance that Rev. Dr. Ed Hansen reads this sermon on Facebook,
I will admit for the sake of his humility that I’m not quite claiming
perfection for him. But I learned a lot about what it means to live
in love in those years of following him. He is an example for me of
how profoundly powerful it is when we seek to live out God’s love.
There are others, as well. Lots of them actually. In your unique
ways, almost of you have taught me as well (with the exception of
those I haven’t met yet… harder to make that claim before we meet.)
We can learn about love from all those we meet, if we are paying
attention to it, and around here it is even easy!

John
Shelby Spong, in his book “A New Christianity for a New World”
proposes that God is NOT a being (which is sort of a projection of
ourselves most of the time anyway), but rather the Source of Being.
He suggests that we consider God in new ways: “God is the ultimate
source of life. One worships this God by living fully, by sharing
deeply,”⁸
“God is the ultimate source of love. One worships this God by
loving wastefully, by spreading love frivolously, by giving love away
without stopping to count the cost.”⁹
“God is Being – the reality underlying everything that is. To
worship this God you must be willing to risk all, abandoning your
defenses and your self-imposed or culturally constructed security
systems.”¹⁰

Spong
is talking about God as I’ve known and experienced God. But, in
addition to what Spong offered, I would add a fourth: God is the
ultimate source of justice. One worships this God by seeking
equality and fairness for all people regardless of race, age, gender,
sexual orientation, country of origin, economic status, ability or
disability, language, health or sickness, annoyance or wonderfulness.
(You might be able to argue that Justice and Love are the same
thing for God, that because God loves all the people and seeks good
for all, that justice would follow. I’d agree, in theory, but in
practicality I want to mention it separately.) Spong’s theory is
quite different from many of the church’s historical teachings. It
refutes God as supernatural, as intervening in the world in physical
ways, as having favorites, or even of ensuring people’s safety.
Because of that, it frees us from old trappings and lets redefine
what it means to be people of God in more inclusive, prophetic, and
loving ways. Or, perhaps around here, it gives words and form to
what many of us already believed,

This
understanding, this perspective of the Holy One is both radically
different from what John Wesley wrote and EXACTLY THE SAME. It
boggles my mind how profoundly true both sides of this are. Wesley’s
understanding of God, in most ways, fits his 18^th
century context. So much of what he says is dated, and yet, he is
hyperfocused on this life. He is focused on making the world a
better place, on building the kin-dom of God, by guiding people into
the sorts of relationships with God that let love be built up in and
through them. His life and his writing are obsessed with helping
there be more love in the world in practical and real ways – ways
life food, shelter, heat in winter, clothes, and companionship. His
love wasn’t pie in the sky. It was practical, down to earth, and
extended to ALL the people.

John
Wesley’s understanding of God starts with God’s love that seeks
justice, and includes God’s enrichment of life. Without Marjorie I
might not have seen it, but he has some points that hold up as well
as the most radical of 21^st
century theologians. Oh, and the iphone? It is just a device that
is pretty close to perfection in the Latin version of the word.
Compared to the power of love, it doesn’t matter. Wesley for the
WIN. Love for the WIN. Thanks be to the Source of Life, Love,
Justice, and Being. Amen

1 A
Perfect Love: Understanding John Wesley’s ’A
Plain Account of Christian Perfection’
Modern Language Version and notes by Steven W Manskar (Discipleship
Resources: Nashville, 2004), page 10.
2 Suchocki p. 33 and 104.
3 Suchocki,
106.
4 Suchocki,
107-8.
5 Suchocki,
108.
6 Suchocki
110.
7 Suchocki
111.
8 John
Shelby Spong A New Christianity for a New World: Why Traditional
Faith is Dying and How a New Faith is Being Born
(HarperSanFrancisco, 2001) page 70.
9 Spong,
72.
10 Spong
72-73.

Rev. Sara E. Baron
First United Methodist Church of Schenectady
603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305
http://fumcschenectady.org/
https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady
August 9, 2015