Proper 8-C; June
30, 2013
1 Kings 2:1, 6-14
Psalm 77
Galatians 5:1, 13-25
Luke
9:51-62
In the early 1960s, there were two popular books by
then-young theologians. One was The Secular City[i],
which talked about how little American society seemed to care about religion,
or God, or the church – that we were moving into a “post-religious society.”
The other was The Suburban Captivity of the Churches[ii], which described
how Protestant churches had fled their cities of origin and had become captive
to the nice life of the suburbs -- the place where middle class values reigned,
where American choices were equal to God’s choices, where Jesus was secure, and
kind, and comforting. Indeed, the church itself was the place to be
comfortable, to be friends with people like “us.” This security allowed us to
be “nice” to “our neighbors” and of course we had chosen just who those
neighbors were. Looking back, we can see a dialog between these two books: one
of the reasons one theologian noticed that fewer people were taking the church
seriously and preferring a “secular city” to a religious world view was that
the church had become something that it was not supposed to become, something
that Jesus had never intended it to become: a safe place, an orderly place, a
place with no poor people, no conflicts, no challenges.
Well, some 50 years later, times have changed. Instead of
increasing secularization, society has become increasingly religious. Part of
the reason is the richness America receives from immigrants from all over the
world: Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus, Buddhists, and of course Christians from all
those places that used to be colonies. Soon after those books were published,
the 1960s and ‘70s erupted in times of great upheaval – and so people began to
realize that religious texts and faith were relevant – could provide guidance
in troubling times.
Ah but there is the rub – and perhaps the explanation to the
mindset of “the suburban captivity.” These biblical texts, these words and
stories about Jesus, are often themselves troubling. Jesus seems to be offering
us comfort at the same time he challenges us to leave everything that is
comfortable behind. No wonder people want the church to be a place of order and
calm; if we took this Jesus too seriously, what kind of trouble would we
invite?
The Jesus we encounter in this week’s Gospel is serious and
stern. We are not yet half-way through the Gospel of Luke, but already Jesus’
face is set toward Jerusalem, toward his confrontation with the powers and
principalities, toward his passion and death. Jesus’ mission is serious and
spare: he has no possessions, not even a place to call home. Whoever follows
him is required to take up a similar strict regimen: “Let the dead bury their
own dead” – the disciples are not even allowed the bare minimum of fealty to
their families – “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for
the kingdom of God.” If Jesus’ face is set toward Jerusalem, so then are the
faces of his disciples – and of all of us who even today consider ourselves
followers of Jesus.
In the 1950s and ‘60s, the story of Superman was popular,
and last night we saw the 2013 version. If the 1970s Superman was The Secular
City version, slightly detached and ironic, then this Superman takes us right
back to that decade where religious, political and social values all coincided.
Superman, the ultimate undocumented immigrant, is indeed the All-American hero,
very handsome, and very nice, and very sure that the power he so mightily uses
is in the service of peace, justice and the American Way – and although they
skirt the issue in the movie, they do make it appear that even God blesses his
deeds of power. In the movie, Superman spends the first 33 years of his life
getting ready for his big debut as the savior of the world.
Humanity has never had any shortage of “superman” types who
purported to be saviors of the world – empires, and armies, and strong men
abounded in the first century as in the modern era. But note that the Bible
does not use those images when it talks about what Jesus brings.
The passage we read today from Paul’s letter to the
Galatians reminds me of another text from the 1960s: “Freedom’s just another
word for nothing left to lose.” Remember that when Paul found Jesus, he lost
everything else: his status, his job, his comfort zone of being a Jew with
power to persecute others. Paul here recognizes that when he lost all those
things, he found freedom. He became a disciple of Jesus long after he knew that
following Jesus meant following him to his death. Biblical scholar Walter
Brueggemann, who reads these texts very closely, noticed that when you read
today’s Gospel and this passage from Paul together, as we do today, you see
that following Jesus does bring freedom but freedom
… of a very peculiar kind. It is not self-indulgent freedom,
but freedom that enhances the neighborhood. The sum of the new freedom is “love
of neighbor” …[iii]
Fifty years after the original Superman, do we really need
another muscle-bound hero? It seems that the challenges of our day call us to
be different kinds of freedom-loving heros – indeed, to be freedom-loving
neighbors, people who take the power and blessing which comes from following
Jesus to tie together our communities, to reach out to our neighbors in need.
There is one line I did like in the new Superman movie. Clark Kent’s earthly
father assures him that “he was sent here to make this world a better place.” I
agree with that. There is no better reason to be on earth than to work for its
transformation into the kind of place God created it to be. This suburban
church, which can capture us with its serenity and beauty, should be our
launching pad to go out and do that very thing.
[i]
Harvey Cox, The Secular City: Secularization and Urbanization in Theological
Perspective (1965), Collier Books
[ii]
Gibson Winter, The Suburban Captivity of
the Churches: An Analysis of Protestant Responsibility in an Expanding
Metropolis (1961), Doubleday
[iii]
Walter Brueggemann, “June 27: Discipleship is No Picnic,” A Cast of
Emancipated Characters, from Sojourners Magazine, June 2010 (Vol. 39, No.
6, pp. 48). Living the Word.
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