 Faith is the seeking response to whatever it is that human beings gesture at with the word “God.” There is a surplus of meaning in the human experience that moves our hearts to wonderment and gratitude. Monotheistic religions name this reality God; their spiritual traditions teach that the human quest for meaning is filled in seeking this One in whom we live and move and having our being.
Christians are those who look to Jesus and his way in the world to know God. We believe that the story of ancient Israel’s journey with God, and the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, is a reliable, essential witness to the mystery of God, and God’s healing power in the world today. To be Christian is to place our trust in this gospel — this “good news” — and to seek to live our lives shaped by this story. Christian Faith is a relationship of trust in God through Jesus Christ, lived in community in service to the world (church). At Los Altos United Methodist Church we invite you to live your life in the light of this Holy Mystery. We do so with open minds and welcoming hearts. Our faith is not about certain answers. An answer is a solution to a puzzle. Mystery is an inexhaustible question. Faith is about having patience with what is unresolved in your heart and learning to love the questions themselves.1 As one theologian has written, we are confronted by mystery in all the central affirmations of the Christian faith: the wonder of creation; the shocking humility of God in Jesus Christ; the transforming and healing power of the Holy Spirit; the miracle of forgiveness; the astonishing gift of new life in communion with God and one another; the call to mission; the Resurrection promise that evil and death are not the final word.2 These affirmations are the map to a journey with God left to us by Jesus and our ancestors in faith. Though at moments we may be confident in what we believe, we also acknowledge that God is bigger than one tradition or faith can encompass. In the Wesleyan tradition of Christian faith, we believe that to be “saved” is to know that you are a beloved child of God, and that there is nothing in life or in death that can separate you from that grace. Grace is knowing you are worthy of love, that you are enough. In the light of this love, we are called to honor the sacred worth and seek the welfare of every person that has breath. We also believe that the image of God is seen in the diversity of the world. At Los Altos United Methodist Church, we honor the dignity of difference. We cherish the sacred worth of all persons regardless of their gender, sexuality, age, race, or physical limitations. Each human being is uniquely beautiful. In Jesus Christ, we understand this is how God loves. To love as God loves: this is life. Salvation is a journey in the image of Jesus, a human journey full of failures and forgiveness, doubt and wonder. The first Christians were called the people of the way. This seeking way encompasses the whole of our lives, the whole of ourselves. When Jesus was asked about the meaning of life, he said, “to love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, and your neighbor as yourself.” At Los Altos United Methodist Church, we offer a full range of opportunities to journey together, explore our faith, and know the assurance of God’s love for us, as we seek to make a difference in the world God so loves. 1Ranier Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet. 2Daniel L. Migliore, Faith Seeking Understanding: An Introduction to Christian Theology (2nd ed.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), 3
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"Only the soul that ventilates the world with tenderness has a chance of changing the world." --Father Gregory Boyle As we made our way through the book of Ephesians this summer in worship, I found myself preaching a common theme: as a church, the spirit in which we do something is more important than what we accomplish. I am convinced of this. Charitable work, social justice advocacy, music education and performance, family services, can be accomplished by anyone. In fact, there are a host of organizations in our society providing these services at a higher capacity and competency than we are. This is as it should be. Our unique work, by God's grace, is the transformation of the human heart as a vessel of God's healing love. Wesley identified the presence of this spirit of gracefulness most often using Galatians 5:24: "the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, self-control." These "holy tempers" are the identifiable characteristics of Christian community. When these are replaced by perfectionist critique, complaint, and correction, a church becomes an institution like any other. Early in my years in ministry, I was derided by a colleague as I held fast to the conviction that congregational health is more important than growth. Sadly, that person burned out of ministry quickly. In our time growth is an idol; so is fear of "decline." A joyful, compassionate, graceful body, may numerically grow or it may not. The essential thing is a spirit rooted and grounded in the love of God. Such a community has a presence of infectious joy: we are quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to take offense. I worry when the first words I encounter at the close of worship is a complaint about a hymn, a misprinted announcement, or an incorrect date. I rejoice when we share the experience of simple, quiet joy: then stale coffee, served on year old out-of-season napkins will quench thirst as if drawn from a well of the water of life. It is a people's gracefulness and tenderness that speaks the word: welcome. I suggested Sunday, another way to approach this same point. The number of our days are short, where should our best energy be spent? Wesley gave a remarkable sermon on the subject that is nearly a compendium of his teaching about the church. He describes our work in the church in concentric circles. The center is the love of God and of every life that has breath. Shaping this love in the grace of God -- moving outward (see diagram)-- are the "holy tempers", acts of mercy, acts of piety, then our membership in the church itself (I put administration here too). We should be increasingly "zealous" for that which lies closer to the center. I leave you with Wesley's words and invite us into a conversation in the weeks ahead on how to live them in our work together. "For instance, all that truly fear God should be zealous for the Church; both for the catholic or universal Church, and for that part of it whereof they are members . . . At the same time they should be more zealous for the ordinances of God; for public and private prayer, for hearing and reading the word of God, and for fasting, and the Lord's Supper. But they should be more zealous for works of mercy, than even for works of piety. Yet ought they to be more zealous still for all holy tempers, lowliness, meekness, resignation: But most zealous of all, for that which is the sum and the perfection of religion, the love of God and [humanity]." (From "On Zeal" by John Wesley) -- Rev. Mark F. Sturgess, Los Altos UMC Newsletter column, August 23, 2018  In the summer of 1944, Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote the following from his Prison Cell. (1)
"I discovered and still am discovering right up to this moment that it is only by living completely in this world that one learns to have faith … By [in this world] I mean living unreservedly in life’s duties, problems, successes and failures … In doing so we throw ourselves completely into the arms of God, taking seriously, not our own sufferings, but those of God in the world — watching with Christ in Gethsemane. That I think, is faith: [that is repentance]; and that is how one becomes a human being and a Christian." Bonhoeffer would shortly be executed for his participation in a plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler. Bonhoeffer is the exemplar of a reading of our tradition that I have been attempting this Lent. If indeed, in Jesus Christ we are meant to see the life of God, then the Christian path is not an escape from this world to a better one among purer people; rather, to be truly alive is to follow God into the midst of the world we have. Along with Bonhoeffer and others, I do not understand the death of Jesus as a substitutionary sacrifice of a perfect human to satisfy the wrath of an angry God. Rather in Christ’s suffering, I see the life of God made vulnerable to us in solidarity with the world. It is a great mystery, but if our faith is true, God has chosen to hide God’self in the midst of compassion for the world God loves. (1) This quote and this reflection is inspired by Douglas John Hall, Waiting for the Gospel: An Appeal Dispirited Remnants of the Protestant ‘Establishment’  One young adult from my congregation has continued to practice her faith by becoming involved in a bible study group at her university. She is having difficultly, but remaining in conversation with her friends. She attests to the deep truth of the opening chapters of Genesis — as do I — but not the historical fact of the narratives. Her friends are unconvinced: if Adam and Eve didn’t really exist, then the Bible can’t be true. It is my hope that their friendship will be more important to their faith than the argument. It is not a dispute easily solved.
When discussing Scripture these days, it is most often not the text which is at issue, but our underlying, unexamined assumptions about what the text is. As I suggested in my last post, this is the case with modern “conservatives” and “liberals” alike. As faithful Christians we all agree that the Bible speaks of truth, but truth in our time — in a trajectory beginning in the mid-16th century — is clearly understood to be “facts”: historical, scientific, certain knowledge. I have been privileged to be in ministry with highly educated sophisticated readers, PhD’s of all varieties, voracious readers. Yet Bible study is often difficult, if not held in suspicion. The importance of searching the scriptures as a means of grace — of encountering the One who is truth — has been lost in our mainline churches. It was not until half-way into my twelve years of ministry, that I came to understand that the problem in reading the Bible (on the left and right) was much deeper than I realized. In any other context, a talking snake would be a clue that we are reading some genre of literature other than history or science. We would not discredit the writer or the text. We would simply read it differently. We might even read it well, if led by a good teacher. If Genesis 3 were approached as a classic piece of literature in a book not called the “Bible,” we might easily discover that this truth telling narrative is a powerful testimony to the consequence of our lack of humility (in aspiring to God-like knowledge), and that shame emerges in the midst of alienation from God and one another. In other words, the text is not about ancient history, but about our relationship with one another and the One we gesture at with the word “God.” I have found it very difficult to move Christians to this way of reading, because when our understanding of truth and ultimate reality are at stake, as stated on edges of ancient maps, “Here be dragons.” A retired engineer once told me of a discussion he had with his college roommate. He pointed out to his roommate that the scientific evidence seemed irrefutable that the world was not created in seven days. His roommate punched him. It was not a rational reaction: it came unthinking from a place of deep fear and anxiety. The question and the evidence struck at the core of his world view and what he believed to be true. This is exactly what is at stake in our time about homosexuality and the bible. When our core understanding of truth and identity are at stake, a solution will not be arrived at by logical argument or parliamentary procedure. In fact, for most people I would suggest, the argument over homosexuality will be settled not in Scripture, but in coming to know and love a homosexual. The engineer I spoke of, will bring the psychological scar of his roommate's fist into every dispute over scripture. The scar was the violation of a relationship; the Bible, or a particular, brand of Christian will be blamed. Just as is the case for every man or woman who has been labeled a Sodomite, or told that God hates their very being. Not only do we approach Scripture with unexamined assumptions about truth, we also come to the text, with deep hurts, fears, and personal stories that will shape our conclusions, long before we pick up the text. In “Biblical Authority: A Personal Reflection,” the Old Testament scholar, Walter Brueggemann, makes a remarkable confession: “I have come belatedly to see, in my own case, that my [interpretive] passion is largely propelled by the fact that my father was a pastor economically abused by the church he served, economically abused as a means of control. I cannot measure the ways in which this felt awareness determines how I work, how I interpret, whom I read, whom I trust as a reliable voice.” (1) This leads Brueggemann to one of the most important observations about Biblical interpretation I have ever read: The real issues of biblical authority and interpretation are not likely to be settled by erudite cognitive formulation or by appeal to classic settlements, but live beneath such contention in often unrecognized and uncriticized ways that are deeply powerful … And if that is so, then the disputes require not frontal arguments … but long-term pastoral attentiveness to each other in good faith. (2) When our unexamined assumptions, and personal stories of hurt and hope are acknowledged and allowed to speak, our Christian conversation may truly become a source of healing. As Wesley contended, Searching the Scriptures and Christian Conferencing are means of the saving grace of God. But when we fight our battles by majority vote, I fear, little is accomplished beyond deepening our hurt. At General Conference there is much at stake, even in the debate on how we are going to debate. -- Rev. Mark F. Sturgess (1) Brueggemann, Placher & Blount, Struggling with Scripture, “Biblical Authority: A Personal Reflection” (Lousiville: Westminster John Knox, 2002), 23. (2) Brueggemann, Placher & Blount, 10.  As one of the 111 signatures on the "coming out" letter presented to the denomination this week, I am standing on the shoulders of others leading and advocating on my behalf. I have been given the gift of being a pastor who just happens to be gay. The least I can do this week is share my story.
In gratitude for my friends, family and colleagues who supported me, for the LA LGBT center's "coming out group" who helped me find my way, and for all those who speak for the outcast while people of faith remain silent ... A Coming Out Letter Life is a gift and far too short not to claim the life you have been given. When we lost our marriage, my wife and I were devastated. The apostle Paul, in one of his letters, says that human beings are like clay jars. The only benefit that I can find to being fragile pottery is the chance to have a long, good look at the pieces when we are broken. As I labored to put myself back together, I realized that there was a more obvious form to the pieces than I had been living. I am writing to tell you that I am gay. Since I was a child, I suppressed my primary attraction in life. There was no room in our culture for my homosexuality to be acknowledged, so I safely packed it away at the edge of my awareness. I lived my life well and as fully as I could. For that I am deeply grateful, but three years ago it fell apart. It is time now to fully claim the life God has given me. This is not a choice. I had been suffering, suffering for a long time: chronic anxiety, acute panic attacks, painful physical tension, self-loathing, toxic perfectionism. Many suffer these symptoms for different reasons; however, it wasn’t until I let the unacknowledged part of myself be my self, that I realized the burden I had been carrying. As early as kindergarten, I knew I was different. I blamed myself, made up for it by being the best little boy I could. As an adolescent, I was desperately lonely and didn’t understand why. I never doubted, for a moment, your love for me. I had just never loved myself. Among the LGBT community, I am finally among people who are like me. They are extraordinary people. Being gay is a remarkable gift. Human beings, in all their complexity, imperfection and beauty are simply a miracle. Each of us is created in the image of God who is Holy, wholly Other. I now understand that difference itself is sacred, a sacrament of that divine otherness. For the first time in my life I am beginning to see that my value lies not in my ability to be the person others would like me to be, but rather in the unique beauty and complexity of my own heart, soul, mind and body. To use an Old Testament metaphor, the last three years have been all wilderness, but now, at least, I am standing on the shore of the Jordan. I can see my way across. On warm summer nights I swim naked in its waters. The water is good. I know that I am a child of God. Ancient Israel met God in the wilderness. As I have drawn closer to myself, I too have drawn closer to whatever it is that we gesture at with the word God. I am a better pastor, a better interpreter of the Bible. The New Testament, after all, is written by folks challenged to live their faith openly in a hostile world. I am Nicodemus, standing in the shadows, afraid to step into the light of day. I am the woman at the well, drawing water alone to avoid the judgement of her peers. I am the blind beggar, healed without asking for the gift or for its consequences. I am Lazarus. Once, dead. Now, called out to new life. Know that I am happy. Celebrate this with me. If you don't know what to say, begin there. - Rev. Mark Sturgess, Holy Week 2012  John 18:37 Pilate asked [Jesus], “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.” 38 Pilate asked him, “What is truth?”
“What is Truth?” Pilate’s question. Our’s today. The question, in the text, is rhetorical. Pilate is either being evasive or dismissive. It is the end of the conversation for Pilate. The reader and the church know otherwise, or at least we should. The truth is standing right in front of him. In the 4th Gospel — as the church has held ever since — truth is a person, the Word made flesh. In fact, Jesus does not claim here to be truth itself, but rather, Jesus is the one who makes God known. The words of the gospel point to the Word, the Word makes God known in order that we may “belong to the truth.” Using a bit of modern Evangelical language, the goal of the biblical testimony is that we may have a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ. Truth, then, cannot be reduced to objective “facts,” but is known and made known in our relationship with God and one another. This is an abstract idea, but attested repeatedly in Scripture. The evidence and measure of our relationship with God in Christ is how we treat one another. This is why — I suspect — in Matthew 25 for example, Jesus suggests that we meet him in the face of poor we feed, or deny him by ignoring the needs of the rejected and outcast. This is why — as I illustrated in my last post — hundreds of verses in the biblical text address how we treat one another, especially the least. The beauty of this simple, ironic scene from John, is its unveiling of our most fundamental confusion about the Bible. Truth is not about certain knowledge; truth is the One to whom we belong. For Christians -- I would argue -- the Bible is the word of God only in a derivative sense, only in the sense that it brings us into relationship with God through Jesus Christ. Truth, then, cannot be reduced to “facts,” no more than a relationship can be reduced to sentences. In my previous post, I listed the seven passages that are argued to condemn same sex acts as antithetical to the Christian lifestyle. In these “facts” we claim to possess the truth. Friends, we do not possess the truth, we belong to it. The truth possess us. This misunderstanding exists among modern liberals and conservatives, alike. Modern Liberals have attempted to burrow beneath the testimony and discover truth by the measure of our scientific, analytic reason. The question for liberals is “Did it happen? What did the original author really think and say?” Modern conservatives, in a parallel quest for objective certainty, freeze the text as if each verse were a “fact” given to us by God. Both ways of reading are dead ends. We do not possess the truth, we belong to God, and that belonging is evidenced in how we treat one another. Until we recognize that mistake, I fear we will never move forward as a church. I pray that as our General Conference ponders: “What is Truth?” that we observe Jesus standing before us, always standing before us guiding our way. -- Rev. Mark F. Sturgess  "Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all." -- Isaac Watts Maundy Thursday: March 24, 2016 With my forbears, I believe that Jesus of Nazareth was fully human, just like you and me. In this moment this fact is painfully clear. His death was terrible, and in that time its manner brutally common. Yet, I also believe that Jesus lived Divine Love purely, as fully and perfectly as any human can. He did not sway from the course of his mission to make present the Love of God for the world. His death was the consequence of his unwavering devotion to every soul God has made: the powers of jealousy, hatred and evil that exist within us have always found this way of living to be an unacceptable threat. Divine love is that love of which we are commanded, on Maundy Thursday — the Thursday of the command — You shall love. Human love is so often preferential: it is easy to love those like ourselves. It easy is to love those we are attracted to, those of our same opinions, skin color, sexuality, religion. The love made visible tonight is more than this -- though this love includes and perfects our own. It is treating every soul as a child of God, even our enemies. Every soul God hath made, is beloved, of inestimable worth. We do not come by this loving naturally; it wells up in our souls from some mysterious source that we gesture at with the word God. Christians, speak of this astonishing gift as grace: love unmerited, love unconditional, love divine. This is how I understand the wisdom my forbears taught me to proclaim: Jesus the Christ: fully human, fully divine. The Christ is Divine love made visible, the love that authors us. Yet tonight I must also admit that in the death of the flesh, its source, remains hidden to me. The philosopher Søren, Kierkegaard speaks of this mystery in a passage I have returned to again and again over the years. I share it with you as our final words tonight: Love’s hidden life is in the innermost being, unfathomable, and then in turn is in an unfathomable connectedness with all existence. Just as the quiet lake originates deep down in hidden springs no eye has seen, so also does a person’s love originate even more deeply in God’s love. If there were no gushing spring at the bottom, if God were not love, then there would be neither the little lake nor a human being’s love. ... Just as a quiet lake invites you to contemplate it but by the reflected image of darkness prevents you from seeing through it, so also the mysterious origin of love in God’s love prevents you from seeing its ground. … In the same way the life of love is hidden, but its hidden life is in itself in motion ... however calm its surface, is actually flowing water, since there is the gushing spring at the bottom — so also love, however quiet it is in its concealment, is flowing nevertheless. But the quiet lake can dry up if the gushing spring ever stops; the life of [Divine} love, however, has an eternal spring. This life is fresh and everlasting. No cold can freeze it. And no darkness can over come it, not even death. Jesus made this eternal ever flowing love visible in his life with us, for us. So, on this night, we are commanded to follow and do the same.  "And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road." (Matt 2:12)
"Religion acquires influence when it relinquishes power. It is then that it takes its place, not among rulers but among the ruled, not in the palaces of power but in the real lives of ordinary men and women who become extraordinary when brushed by the wings of eternity. It becomes the voice of the voiceless, the conscience of the community, the perennial reminder that there are moral limits of power and that the task of the state is to serve the people, not the people the state ... to paraphrase Kierkegaard: 'when a king dies his power ends. When a prophet dies, his influence begins.' When religion divests itself of power, it is freed from the burden of rearranging the deckchairs on the ship of state and returns to its real task: changing lives ... When religion becomes an earthquake, a whirlwind, a fire, it can no longer hear the still, small voice of God summoning us to freedom." -- Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Not in God's Name: Confronting Religious Violence (236-237)  "... he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly." Luke 1:51-52 "For the great and powerful of this world, there are only two places in which their courage fails them, of which they are afraid deep down in their souls, and from which they shy away. These are the manger and the cross of Jesus Christ. No powerful person dares to approach the manger ... Before Mary, the maid, before the manger of Christ before God in lowliness, the powerful come to naught; they have no right, no hope; they are judged ... Who among us will celebrate Christmas correctly? Whoever finally lays down all power, all honor, all reputation, all vanity, all arrogance, all individualism beside the manger; whoever remains lowly and lets God alone be high; whoever looks at the child in the manger and see the glory of God precisely in [God's] lowliness." -- D. Bonhoeffer, God is in the Manger (26)  "Behold I tell you a mystery ... we shall all be changed." 1 Cor 15:51 "The lack of mystery in our modern life is our downfall and our poverty ... We retain the child in us to the extent that we honor the mystery. Children have open, wide awake eyes, because they know that they are surrounded by mystery. They are not yet finished with this world; they still don't know how to struggle along and avoid the mystery, as we do. We destroy the mystery because ... we want to be Lord over everything and have it at out disposal. Living without mystery means knowing nothing of the mystery of our own life, nothing of the mystery of another person, nothing of the mystery of the world. It means taking the world [and other persons] seriously only to the extent that [they] can be calculated and exploited. Living without mystery means not seeing and even denying the crucial processes of life." -- Dietrich Bonhoeffer, God is in the Manger (18), edited, Italics mine |
AuthorRev. Mark F. Sturgess |
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