
“Wesley v. Social Media: Sanctification”based on Romans 12
In
high school, a friend of mine remarked, “I think perhaps the
stories in the Bible show us the way that humans grow in
understanding God. We couldn’t do it all at once, so we have to go
through stages.” Or, at least she said something like that, it was
a while ago. We were in the midst of an intense year old Bible
Study, and we were trying to figured out why the stories in the Bible
often depicted God in ways that we couldn’t believe.
Her
thought has been with me while I’ve been bemoaning the inflexibility
of the church at large – both The United Methodist Church and The
Church Universal. Hopeful people have been approaching me over the
past month, delighted to be able to ask, “Hey, now that the Supreme
Court has made same-sex marriage legal in the whole United States,
the UMC will have to follow, right? Isn’t that great?”
It
would be great, if it were true. I’ve watched peoples’ faces fall as
I’ve replied that The United Methodist Church isn’t bound by US laws,
and that things aren’t going to get better in 2016, in fact they are
going to get worse. The nearly universal response has been, “Well,
then what WILL happen to the church?” My profoundly unhelpful
reply has been, “It will become less and less relevant.”
On
the hand, no one has ever come up to me hopeful about the fate of
Christianity, so I haven’t had to burst any bubbles there. That, in
and of itself, is sort of interesting, but interesting in a very sad
way. The Church has been The Keeper of a very specific set of
truths, a set that it decided and a set that it declared itself
protector of. Unfortunately, the set of truths that has been
protected hasn’t been allowed to grow, change, adapt, and become as
humanity has continued to develop. Truths that made sense before
germ theory don’t all work now. Truths that made sense before we knew
that our sun was just another star don’t all work now. Truths that
made sense before the creation of effective birth control don’t all
work now. Just as truth has been hardened and left to die in the
face of human knowledge, the closed cannon of the Bible struggles to
meet the needs of modern people. Now, most of you know, I have a
very strong love/hate relationship with the Bible, and I’m not ready
to throw it away yet! Yet, the Bible is full of stories of people
trying to make sense of life, of God, and of relationships. If we
want to continue to engage that process, it needs to continue to
reflect the struggles of humanity. Our Bible tells stories that are
said to range for about 1500 years, written down over the course of
700 years. But it stopped 1900 years ago. A tradition that stops
developing will die. A way of understanding the Divine that relies
only on ancient information can’t be relevant.1
This
church, and now I’m speaking very specifically, First United
Methodist Church of Schenectady, is one of the very few churches who
don’t need to cling to ancient understandings of God and the
world. As I’ve experienced you, you are a people eager to find more
meaningful ways of knowing, in particular to find ways to integrate
the knowledge you have of the world with the ways you could
understand the Divine Energy that binds us all together. This sermon
is the start of a 5 week sermon series entitled “Would John Wesley
Drive a Prius?” trying to consider how Wesley’s concepts, ideas,
and even just his words fit into our lives today. It is an attempt,
at the very least, to keep the nearly 300 year Wesleyan tradition
alive by dragging it into the 21st century.
The
word of the day is “sanctification.” Literally it means, “to
make holy.” As mentioned in my Spire Article this month, I would
give it a bit more flavor, saying “sanctification is the process of
becoming perfect in love.” John Cobb (famous Process Theologian
and United Methodist clergy person) goes a little bit less formal
when he says, “sanctification is spirituality.”2
But, surely, if we’re going to talk about John Wesley, we can let
him define his terms? John Wesley says that to be sanctified is “To
be restored in the image of God ‘in righteousness and true holiness’
(Ephesians 4:24).”3
Definitions
are nice and all, but we should probably start at the beginning.
John Wesley and others at his time shared a thee part understanding
of grace, which we can delve further into during the sermon on grace.
The key for now is that God’s grace (meaning God’s unconditional
love for us) is experienced in 3 different ways, depending on the
person’s relationship to God. “The grace that comes before”,
previenent grace, is God’s love for a person who does not know or
acknowledge God. Justifying grace is God’s love for a person as a
person comes to acknowledging God.4
Then, sanctifying grace is the way that God’s love works in and with
a person in from that point onward, and that process is called
sanctification. The end goal is perfection in love – to act out
the Love of God for each person in every word and action.
Sanctification
is the process of faith development that enables a person to become
ever more loving by connecting every further with love. Rev. Dr.
Carothers used to talk about the point of the church being “to
establish and maintain connections of mutual support in an ever
widening circle of concern” which I think is yet another definition
of sanctification, this time with an inherent communal bent. Now
that, I think, we have a clue what it is, the question is: does it
still matter??? Is this a term that reflects something relevant and
real in our lives today, or is a reflection of an argument from 300
years ago that has proven itself useless with time? At least for me,
the answer isn’t immediately obvious. Yes, growing in love is still
pretty much the point. Yet, it seems that the biggest questions are
around how that happens than if it should.
I
want to poke around in our text today for some clues from even longer
ago. Paul suggests that those seeking to live like Jesus needed an
open mindset in order to figure how how to act in ways that are good
and “perfect.” Hmmm. It requires humility, Paul says, and an
awareness that we’re interconnected and each of us are dependent on
the abilities of the whole. Paul then gives some specific
instructions. “Let love be genuine,” which is definitely lovely
although perhaps not particularly easy to apply. “Hold fast to
what is good; love one another with mutual affection, outdo one
another in showing honor.” The list goes on, but it is a very
tangible description of ways that people might act if they are
seeking to live in ever greater Love.
The
precedent for sanctification is in this text, as well as in others.
As we will continue to see, John Wesley’s ideas are solidly based in
scripture. Obviously, continuing to grow into greater love is a
great description of the goal! The goal of of faith development, or
human maturing, or progress, or church or whatever you want to call
it. We’re aiming to continually grow into a greater capacity to
love. The question is HOW we do so! Wesley had answers for that
too, called the means of grace. In updated language, his answer was
that we become more loving by a combination of 4 balanced factors:
personal spiritual development, communal spiritual development, by
living kindness in our individual lives, and by seeking justice in
our communal lives.5
The idea is that if any of the 4 were missing things would get out
of whack.
The
problem, of course, is that these categories still leave a lot to be
desired in terms of definition.
There are particular examples of each of them, i.e. for personal
spiritual development the traditional list includes, “reading,
meditating and studying the scriptures, prayer, fasting,
regularly attending worship, healthy living, and sharing our
faith with others “ while for communal spiritual development
it is, “regularly share in the sacraments, Christian
conferencing (accountability to one another), and Bible study”6
This
is the place where I think it is reasonable to break with tradition.
While nothing is necessarily WRONG with the lists as given, they also
aren’t particularly RIGHT. They don’t really reflect the ways that
things have changed over the past 300 years or so, and I don’t know
that they really make space for us to have a different understanding
of God than was normal then. If you were here in January, you might
be thinking, “but Sara, you preached on this in January and said
the lists were fine!” I did. I don’t anymore. Thinking about
growing in love today, with a particular Jesus flavor, those are not
the lists I would make. Um, a stagnant understanding of God and the
world is dying, so its OK if I change my mind?? 😉
I’m
approaching sanctification from a new angle now, one that I’ve never
looked at it from before. It comes from the continuing education
I’ve done this year and the books I’ve been reading and what has been
working in my attempts to become more loving. Right now, it seems
that the task of becoming more loving in the world requires finding
ways to love the parts of myself that hard hardest to love: making
peace with their existence, listening to their wisdom, growing into a
fuller sense of myself by being all that I am all together at once
instead of trying to hide away parts of myself. It sounds a little
bit like Paul’s body metaphor brought back to the body! Perhaps
that’s a big piece that’s been missing from traditional
understandings of growing in love – it isn’t about jettisoning
pieces of ourselves because they are “bad.” Rather, it is about
learning that love applies to all parts of ourselves and all parts of
others, and figuring out how to learn from all parts what love can
be! In finding ways to accept myself as I am, I make space to do the
same for others, and to let go of the fear that comes as I see pieces
of others that I haven’t accepted in myself. Please note though,
this is an idea that is still in development.
Another
thought on 21st
century sanctification comes via John Cobb who points out that in
Wesley’s writing “entire sanctification is depicted not as a
continuing state but as a matter of moment by moment life.”7
That is, it breaks in a moment first. We don’t become entirely more
loving all at once. But there are moments when we manage to act in
love and then with time and practice they come more frequently. This
means we can practice growing in love in even the most mundane of
21st
century activities. That is, when we tween or text, facebook post or
snapchat, instagram or linkin, or EVEN just if we talk to each other
for a moment face to face, we have the chance in that interaction
with other people to have a moment of sanctification. We just need
to have a moment when all we act out is love, and it is allowed to be
brief! It can be sort of instant gratification. John Wesley didn’t
think of that though 😉
There
isn’t a sermon talk back today, but I’d like to hear what really has
worked. If you are willing, however you want to get back to me,
would you let me know: what has helped you grow in love in your life?
And what has broken open barriers that were previously closed to
love in your life? We can learn from each other,, and that would
lead us all down the road to Wesley’s probably not outdated concept
of sanctification. May it be so! Amen
1 None
of this is a quote. But my thinking was clarified by reading John
Shelby Spong’s “A New Christianity For a New World” which is a
truly fantastic text that finally put into words many of the issues
I’ve been freed to struggle with since coming to this church. And
my clarified thinking via the book made it seem important to
footnote for two reasons: 1. Attribution is appropriate and 2. Read
the book!!! And if you’ve read it, talk to me about it!
2 John
B. Cobb Jr, Grace and Responsibility: A Wesleyan Theology for
Today (Abingdon Press:
Nashville, 1995), p. 100.
3 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), p. 33.
4 This
is a heck of a soft-pedal. We’ll get to it in a few weeks.
5 For
the geeks who want to know more, from
http://www.umc.org/how-we-serve/the-wesleyan-means-of-grace
Works
of Piety
Individual
Practices –
reading, meditating and studying the scriptures, prayer,
fasting, regularly attending worship, healthy living, and
sharing our faith with others
Communal
Practices –
regularly share in the sacraments, Christian conferencing
(accountability to one another), and Bible study
Works
of Mercy
Individual
Practices –
doing good works, visiting the sick, visiting those in prison,
feeding the hungry, and giving generously to the needs of
others
Communal
Practices –
seeking justice, ending oppression and discrimination (for instance
Wesley challenged Methodists to end slavery), and addressing
the needs of the poor
6 ibid
7 Cobb,
111.
______
Rev. Sara E. Baron
First United Methodist Church of Schenectady
603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305
http://fumcschenectady.org/
https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady