October 31, 2021
Reformation Day / Lectionary 31b
Mark 12:28-34
Pr. Craig Mueller
YOU DON’T NEED TO CHECK YOUR MIND AT THE DOOR
A tee shirt I ran across: “Ten reasons for being an Episcopalian.” Here are a few of my favorites. You can believe in dinosaurs. Pew aerobics. Church year is color coded. Free wine on Sunday. All of the pageantry, none of the guilt. And then this one: you don’t have to check your brains at the door. We’re ecumenical though, and I think we could say those same things about being a Holy Trinity kind of Lutheran, don’t you?
Today is the big Lutheran day of Reformation. We put on the red. We sing “A Mighty Fortress.” Of all the days in the church year, Reformation is the churchiest. And of course, I don’t have to tell you that though God and spirituality remain popular these days, church is another thing altogether. More and more folks claim “no affiliation.” The pandemic didn’t help. Many of us got out of the habit of going to church, and now you don’t even need to literally “go,” you can watch online.
All of this certainly brings soul-searching for pastors and religious leaders. What is the purpose of church? Is our message relevant? Have we caved into culture? Or at the other extreme, is there anything unique about the church that is distinct from what other service or social organizations offer? Do some folks find more meaning, purpose, or community in yoga or twelve-step groups or political action groups? And do folks still equate Christianity with conservative politics and anti-science assumptions? Do they think they will need to check their brains at the door?
Then there are the questions. Martin Luther was plagued by his own unworthiness and how he could find a gracious, loving, forgiving God. All at a time when the church made salvation transactional. One writer, though, said that every five hundred years or so the church cleans out its attic and has a huge rummage sale. A time for new ideas, a time for transformation, a time for reformation. But this is hard. Because everything is changing and we’re not certain where this is all going.
In today’s gospel Jesus quotes the Jewish Shema about loving God with heart, soul, and strength. This teaching is central to both Jews and Christians. But Jesus adds loving God with our minds. We could say that Jesus ignited a reform movement in Judaism. Luther sparked a reform in medieval Christianity. How do we use our brains—our minds—to integrate modern knowledge with ancient tradition? Are we addressing and struggling with the issues before us today such as the climate crisis, racial reckoning, the growing hate among groups in this country, not to mention the overall sense of anxiety and fatigue that all of this brings?
It has been twenty years since 9/11. Much of the last five hundred years we have been haunted by the divisions within Christianity. Perhaps now the question is how we encounter one another across differences between religions. There is plenty of love talk in our gospel. Love God and love your neighbor as yourself. And love for us is usually based on emotion, rather than commitment.
The problem is we seem to be wired to need an enemy to hate, or at least define ourselves against. At first it was immigrants, then Germans in World War II, then communists, and now, as many notice, when there is not an outside enemy, we turn to each other. We try to find a new identity to scapegoat.
Or as James Alison writes: “Give people a common enemy, and you will give them a common identity. Deprive them of an enemy and you will deprive them of the crutch by which they know who they are.”
Some of us are reading and discussing a book called Jesus and John Wayne, a history of white evangelicals in this country and how this movement becomes connected to white nationalism. It’s easy to talk about loving and welcoming everyone, but quite another thing when it comes up against all the feelings we have for those on the other side of the political, social, and religious spectrum in this country. Too many things are at stake. Many of us carry baggage as well. One writer who grew up evangelical names that what he struggles with most about Christianity is what often comes across as Christian supremacy. A kind of Christianity that claims to have all the answers, and sees other religions as wrong, misguided, or evil.
In discussing war and the response to 9/11, a comment by this one writer stopped me in my tracks. He said that people don’t kill because they hate the other nation or religion or group. It’s more they that love their own people and nation. And they feel they have been wronged. Their religion and their country are threatened. Out of love they are trying to protect what they love. In this case, Christianity and America. But what they learn, by the dehumanizing the other, is hate. But does this have to be?
In the years following September 11, a mother was at the grocery store with her four-year daughter, Emma. Emma was intrigued when she saw a woman wearing a hijab. She had never seen anyone like this before. Emma asked her mother, “mommy, why does that woman have her head covered like that?” The mother paused, thought, and then answered: “Emma, you know how we eat bread and drink wine at church to show our love for God? That woman is a Muslim and that’s how she shows her love for God.”
Months later mother and daughter were at the mall and they noticed a group of women with hijabs. Emma blurted out, “look mommy, they love God.” The Muslim women heard it and didn’t exactly know what to make of the comment. But we hope that all of us could look at the world, and all the diverse people within it, with such open-hearted love. Love for our neighbor. Neighbors of different faiths, races, ethnicities, political persuasions, gender or sexual identities.
Such a vision could spark a new reformation. That is why I believe church matters. Religion matters. Where else do we hear this message? Living into such a grace-filled vision of the world is the mission of this community. Amid the anxieties and perplexities of these days, such a vision propels us into a future with hope.
“A Future with Hope,” is the theme of our 2022 generosity appeal for the next three weeks. Though bombarded with messages of fear, hate, and division, please join me in sharing and financially supporting a more hopeful message: a love that transforms the world, a grace that sets us free, a gospel that heals our wounds and mends the fractures all around us.
None of this is easy. Don’t check your brain at the door. Embrace the questions. Pray for an open mind and an open heart. Seek to love God and neighbor.
Are we on the verge of another Reformation? As church, let’s not miss the opportunity. The world is waiting.