My last post talked about the role of division in our lives, how tension and conflict serve to remind us that we are not perfect, not always right, and not God. This is an important scriptural lesson that, unfortunately, churches have almost universally failed to grasp.
Churches tend to judge themselves by two metrics: how many people worship on a Sunday morning and how much money they take in. Some churches step beyond that, talking about mission towards their neighbors.
Division is viewed as the enemy of all these goals. Division drives people away, along with their donations. Conflict impedes cooperative ministry. Churches have been in the business of quelling division. “Make no waves” has become the mantra of the supposedly-successful church.
Is that a proper definition for “success” though?
One of the assertions I made in the last post was that without conflict, nothing changes. This is great for the people in power, but what about the people not being served—some of them even being harmed—by the status quo? Setting “no division” as the goal equates to silencing the voices of all the people our ministries miss or damage. It sets up the church as the Voice of God and everyone else as powerless. This is the opposite of scripture. Doing it in God’s name only makes it more ironic.
“Make no waves” assumes that the church exists primarily for itself and that it’s already perfect as-is. Neither of these things are true. A church isn’t supposed to prioritize its own existence over and against the lives of its neighbors. Nor can church communities claim perfection any more than the individuals within them can. Doing so is the same as saying they no longer need salvation or transformation through Jesus Christ. Why does the church even meet, then?
I, personally, have witnessed a disturbing trend towards dampening down and covering up division in the church over the last decade. Some things are “OK” to talk about: safe things that everyone will agree on, or at least consider not important enough to make a fuss over. Other issues we ignore, because we know in the back of our minds that we risk division if we bring them up.
It's time to ask whether the church is fulfilling its mission simply by existing. If we assume our own existence as the center of all things and the gifts we give to the world as by-products, we have already failed.

Ep. 34 - Jesus comes not to bring peace to the earth, but set it ablaze. Dave and Justin tackle a tricky lesson from Luke 12. Why do bad divisions happen to otherwise good people?
The Geek and Greek podcast is a show where two reverends talk honestly and clearly about faith, Christianity, scripture, and life. 
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​A couple weeks ago we read the famous (and famously difficult) passages from Luke 12 wherein Jesus says:
49 “I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! 50 I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed! 51 Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! 52 From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three; 53 they will be divided:
father against son
    and son against father,
mother against daughter
    and daughter against mother,
mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law
    and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”
For most of us, this is hard to understand. We’ve been taught about the Jesus who brings peace, who reconciles, who ends up feeling warm and fuzzy to us. The idea that God’s presence would cause division makes us uneasy.
Yet, how else could it be? If the world is imperfect—and I think all of us would admit it is—we cannot rest with a God who says, “Carry on, just as you are. This is fine!” That would enshrine the world’s imperfections as holy. That’s crueler than any argument could be.
Where there is damage, where there is danger, God must say, “No.” When God’s, “No” meets the world’s power, division arises.
Glossing over the need for division keeps the current power structure and policies in place without anyone questioning them. That’s convenient for the people who benefit from them, less so for people suffering under it.
In this way, division becomes a near-automatic byproduct of compassion. When something is wrong, we need to experience enough tension to be aware of it, and hopefully to change it. People outside of the power structure whose voices bring division aren’t threatening us; they’re reminding us who we were supposed to be.
We’ve lost track of the necessary role division plays in our lives. We stubbornly insist that where division exists, one side is right and the other is wrong. We want to lionize the side we agree with and vilify the side we disagree with. That’s not consistent with scripture or our theology.
We understand from God’s word and our Lutheran confessions that all of us fall short of perfection. Jesus Christ did not come to pat us on the head, nor to be the Holy Bouncer deciding who gets into heaven or not by reputation and works. Christ came as the Savior of those who were lost, mistaken, and could not save themselves.
Nobody is completely right. If we claim perfection, we no longer need a Savior; we have become our own god.
Even so, we do carry important truths. We can speak of dignity, blessedness, knowledge, love, and a thousand other gifts imparted to us. Each of us has A truth, valid and worth sharing. Nobody can claim to have THE truth, save God alone.
When our imperfect, incomplete truths grind against each other, division results. This becomes our safeguard against idolatry, the thorny poke that reminds us that we are not God.
The fire of which Jesus speaks is not a new code that we all can agree upon, it’s his death and resurrection which burns the very soil under our feet and upends everything we thought we knew.
We cannot greet this transforming fire by claiming we are perfect, or even right. We do not know what direction it will take us, or how it will change the world around us. We greet the Lord and our neighbors with this confession: “We do not know. We are not right. We dare not judge with finality.”

In my last post, we looked at some of the inadequacies in what we’ve been taught about sermons. Today let’s explore another way to imagine them.
God flows into and through our world like an infinite ocean. Scripture is like the pulse of a wave in that ocean. When we read or hear it, we experience God’s motion. The impulse is not just about the water itself; the force of the wave and its effect on the surroundings demonstrate its reality. Those things are an inherent part of the story.
A good sermon will do a few things.

• It will point out the wave incoming, allowing everyone to see and focus on it.
• It will localize the community and describe how the community might experience it. “This one’s coming in from the left!”
• It will prepare the people to ride the wave wherever it pushes. This may not be the same for everyone on the beach. The wave guarantees that *something* is going to happen to each of us. It doesn’t say what.

A good sermon won’t direct the force of the wave, nor try to blunt it. Describing the way the wave affects the sermon-giver isn’t entirely adequate either. That’s like saying, “Everybody look at me surfing!” instead of concentrating on the ocean. The person delivering the sermon does the best they can to outline the wave, describe its force, and bless the people whom it propels on their journey.
The old, not-so-good sermon doesn’t do any of these things. The “just tell me what this means” sermon is like scooping up a pail of the water, carrying down the beach, and asking everybody to come and look at it. There’s a connection still; that is ocean water! But it’s defined, contained, and in possession of the sermon-giver. It doesn’t move, nor does it move anybody else. You’re just supposed to look at the pail of water and nod. If you’re especially good, you might get your own pail and fill it with water to show others. This isn’t faith, but repeating the mistake.
We’re not meant to gather inward, around a small pail of water, admiring the person who carried it down the beach to us. We’re meant to move along the beach, looking outward, getting pushed by the wave to new and more amazing things. Being together in faith doesn’t mean standing in a circle, pointing at a pail and saying, “That’s it!” It means admiring all the things God does with all of us and letting our faith life get expanded accordingly, as we move in different ways.
The advantage of the not-so-good sermon is that it’s easy to digest and clear. That doesn’t mean it’s right. We must always ask the questions, “For whom is it easy? And for whose sake is this being said?” Usually the answers are, “For the people who already think like the preacher.” One person’s simple answer is another’s bar to understanding.

Ep. 33 - Listen as Dave and Justin deal with their own stress then get lifted up in real time as the words of Luke 12 pour forth between them. Plus... Ear Moths!
The Geek and Greek podcast is a show where two reverends talk honestly and clearly about faith, Christianity, scripture, and life. 
Follow us at GeekAndGreek.com!

Listen to more Geek and Greek podcasts here: geekandgreek.com/

​As part of an upcoming Geek and Greek podcast, Pastor Justin and I talked for a while about the nature of sermons. People tend to think of a sermon as one “expert” giving a lesson to an audience about God or scripture.
They think this because the church and its leaders have either actively promoted this idea or allowed it to stand over the years. It’s convenient for the church and especially the Pastor. It gives the central speaker power: not only their own, but the power to speak with the Voice of God (which conveniently always sounds like their own).
This idea is also convenient for most church-goers. All the interpretation and struggle have already been done. They get the Word in a bite-sized, easy-to-consume chunk, wrapped up and ready to go like a burger at the drive-thru.
Three groups get left of this simple sermon equation.
The first is people who are naturally inquisitive, ornery, or just thoughtful. Questions—even honest ones—have often been seen as a sign of personal doubt, an affront to the pastor, or an insult to God. People who ask them have been shunned or abandoned, to the church’s detriment.
The second is people undergoing suffering or transition, for whom easy, simple answers don’t work. This marginalized 5% has to nod and pretend that everybody else’s easy lesson applies to them too, which requires burying their pain instead of sharing it.
The third is God! Could you reduce your relationship with any person important to you to a simple phrase or lesson? No doubt you could describe *part* of it that way, but saying, “Here is what this person is--in one, easy sentence--and none of you shall think differently!” discredits the person you are talking about. When does that person get to speak for themselves? When do they get to be more than you describe them as?
The way we think of sermons is inadequate. Next time, we’ll explore a vision for what sermons could, and maybe should, be.