A Fourth Church Sermon by John W. Vest

April 20, 2008 | 6:30 p.m. Vespers

The Soul Bowl

John W. Vest
Associate Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church

Psalm 31:1–5, 15–16
Acts 7:55–60
John 14:1–14

From time to time, in sermons and elsewhere, I’ve joked about the frightening possibility of religious-themed reality television shows. The very prospect of combining the sensationalist drama and encouraged conflict of a reality television show with the inherently divisive nature of religion and the gravity of the life questions that faith traditions deal with strikes me as an obviously bad idea. I should have known that it was just a matter of time before my jokes became a reality. Sadly, I fear that day is here.

This week I read about a reality series called Gospel Journey Maui, which is being produced for DVD release by an evangelical youth ministry called Dare 2 Share Ministries. I read about this project with an ambivalent mix of interest and fear.

I actually find the premise somewhat compelling. The idea was to gather together seven young people, representing seven different faith traditions, and put them in “an MTV-style beach house” in Hawaii and guide them through discussions of six important questions about life and faith. The cast represented evangelical Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Mormonism, Seventh Day Adventism, Judaism, and some kind of religion apparently based on the Matrix movies. And here is the list of issues they discussed: the existence of God, the purpose of life, the multitude of religions in the world, the problem of evil, what happens after death, and, finally, who Jesus is.

Having not seen the final product yet, I remain ambivalent and more than a bit skeptical. I think bringing together people of different perspectives to talk about important issues like these is a great idea. I love interreligious dialogue, and I encourage it whenever I can. But I’m inherently skeptical when such a conversation is staged and facilitated by an overtly evangelical organization. The purpose of their ministry, and no doubt the purpose of this show, is to convert people to their brand of Christianity. I have trouble believing that this show will be interreligious dialogue for the sake of mutual understanding and growth. I suspect it’s an evangelistic tool meant to convince non-Christians that they are wrong.

And this bothers me. It bothers me because it is intrinsically arrogant and without humility. It assumes that we have nothing to learn from people of other faiths or people of no faith at all. It assumes that Christians—or more precisely, certain kinds of Christians—have everything figured out and that their main objective in life is to pass on this special knowledge to as many people as possible. It sets up people of different faith traditions as antagonists instead of partners. And if there is one thing our world doesn’t need more of, it’s antagonism.

When I’m not at work, I watch a lot of news on cable television. Even when I’m at work, I’ll periodically check the website of my preferred cable news network to see what the latest headlines are. Especially during this presidential primary season, I find myself obsessed with the latest developments and stories. I follow it like some people follow sports, paying attention to the wins and losses, learning all the stats and profiles.

The thing is, I’m encouraged to think this way by these news networks themselves. CNN has a regular segment called “The Ballot Bowl.” The idea is to show the candidates speaking in context, without interpretation or commentary, as they work the campaign trails. It claims a sense of neutrality, or at least some kind of unmediated, unfiltered, and spin-free look at the candidates in their political elements. But the subtext of the program’s title, “The Ballot Bowl,” complete with football-themed graphics, is abundantly clear: this is a competition. There is a winner and a loser, and the people involved are competitors, antagonists, perhaps even enemies.

How true it is that politics has become a competition or a game in our culture. After all, we call these presidential races. There is clearly a competition to see who can raise the most money and purchase the most advertising time. The so-called debates are less about substantive policy discussions and more about winning votes. And we’ve seen time and time again political colleagues become bitter rivals.

But is this the way it should be? There’s no doubt that politics is about winning and losing, but when human lives are at stake in the decisions we make, who are the winners and who are the losers? In the race to the finish line, who gets “thrown under the bus,” to use a cliché from our contemporary political discourse?

As my fears about Gospel Journey Maui indicate, some people play these same games with religion as well. Instead of “The Ballot Bowl,” we might envision instead “The Soul Bowl,” a competition to win the most converts, become the dominant religion, have the most cultural and political influence. Yet here again, we must remember that human lives are at stake in this game, which means that it’s not really a game at all.

Today’s gospel reading contains within it one of the most divisive passages in all of Christian scripture. Jesus says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.” Now, if Jesus had stopped here, there wouldn’t be much trouble. But the next line is the kicker: “No one comes to the Father except through me.” Throughout Christian history, zealous believers have used this line to draw a deep line in the sand: you are either with us or against us. It’s Jesus’ way or no way. Follow Jesus and you will find God; all other paths lead straight to hell.

This sounds rather harsh, I know, but this type of oppositional thinking is not uncommon in the Bible. Turn again to our Psalter reading for today, Psalm 31. You may have noticed when we read this passage earlier this evening that we were being quite selective in the portions of this psalm we chose to read. I didn’t make this choice; this is the Psalter reading suggested by the Revised Common Lectionary, the guide that many churches around the world use to select scriptures for Sunday worship. (For more information, see “The Consultation on Common Texts,” The Revised Common Lectionary, Abingdon, 1992).

The lectionary editors have skillfully omitted the portions of this psalm that mainline Christians would probably find offensive today. We have no problem praising God and seeking God’s help and comfort. But what about verse 6: “You hate those who pay regard to worthless idols.” Do we truly think that God hates people who follow other religious practices and beliefs? Or what about verse 17: “Let the wicked be put to shame; let them go dumbfounded to Sheol.” Sheol is the ancient Israelite equivalent of what the Greeks called Hades. Do we really believe that God treats people this way?

This way of censoring the Bible in our lectionary is an issue worthy of its own discussion, a complicated discussion that needs to wait for another time. But you can see why decisions like this are made. You can see why Christians might feel ambivalent about speaking these words in worship. Yet those words still there, and we must somehow deal with them.

The dangers of this kind of divisive thinking are real. This week I read a column by Martin Marty that explores the anti-Islam rhetoric of Rod Parsley, the pastor of 12,000-member World Harvest Church in Columbus, Ohio (http://marty-center.uchicago.edu/sightings/archive_2008/0414.shtml). Parsley has taken this rhetoric a step beyond seeking to convert Muslims to Christianity. He has literally called for the “destruction” of Islam. As Marty points out, the only way to do this, of course, is to destroy every last Muslim in the world. In a world of religious-fueled conflict, is this the kind of thing we need to hear from Christian pastors shepherding 12,000-member flocks?

This evening we also heard a story from the Book of Acts. It was the concluding passage from the story of the stoning of Stephen. Stephen was an early Christian who was persecuted by some of the Jewish leaders of his time because they didn’t agree with the faith he was teaching and practicing. They felt pretty sure about what was right and what was wrong, sure enough that they were willing to kill for it. And so they did. They killed Stephen because he didn’t believe the way they did. They killed him, and they thought God was on their side.

We all know that today people are still killing other people, thinking that God is on their side. And lest we are too quick to condemn the Jews of Stephen’s day or the radical Muslims of our own, we must remember that Christians throughout history have done the same thing. Christians too have killed in the name of God, killed others who think and act differently than themselves. And we still do it today. No one can claim innocence in this regard. We are all implicated.

We haven’t yet resorted to physical violence, but the Presbyterian church today is tearing itself apart because we can’t agree about how to read the Bible. We can’t agree about how to treat gays and lesbians. And in these conflicts, some people think that they alone are right and everyone else is wrong. Everyone is sure that God is on their side. We can’t find a way to live together despite our differences. We can’t see past our differences and embrace our common cause.

“I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” I’ll freely confess that I find this famous passage troubling. It troubles me because no matter how you interpret it, it’s divisive and polarizing. It says, “We’re in and you’re out.” It troubles me because we have so clearly seen what this kind of thinking has done to our church, our nation, and our world.

In the search for a way beyond this impasse, many people in the church today have made use of an analogy from mathematics. In set theory, mathematicians speak of “bounded sets” and “centered sets.” A bounded set is a group of objects with clearly defined boundaries. A bounded set is defined by those boundaries. Imagine a field of dots surrounded by a circle. In contrast, a centered set is defined by relationships between the members of the set. The objects within a centered set are bound together through a common relationship to a central object. Imagine a field of dots somehow relationally connected to an object in the center of the field. (While many Christian thinkers have made use of this analogy, I believe it can be traced to missiologist Paul G. Hiebert in his book Anthropological Reflections on Missiological Issues. I have recently heard Nanette Sawyer use this analogy when discussing her work at Wicker Park Grace, an emergent Presbyterian church in Chicago.)

Or let me use a different analogy. Imagine a herd of sheep collected together and placed within a fence. That’s a bounded set. Now imagine a herd of sheep, not bound by a fence but following a shepherd. That’s a centered set.

At its best, that’s what Christianity is—a centered set, centered on God through Christ.

What are the needs of the world? Is it right belief? Or is it instead peace and justice and love? And if it is peace and justice and love, do we achieve that by putting up fences or by centering ourselves on that which leads us to peace and justice and love?

In this same passage from the Gospel of John, Jesus says this: “Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves. Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father.”

If we center ourselves on Jesus, we will do the work of God. And if we do the work of God, we’ll experience what Jesus called the kingdom of God.

Wouldn’t it be something if the church would quit building fences and erecting walls? Wouldn’t it be something if we stopped worrying about who is right and who is wrong? Wouldn’t it be something if instead of doing those things, we gathered here at God’s table and shared in a meal freely offered to all?

If we could do that here, imagine what we could do when we go out there, into the world.

Amen.