In this month’s Pastor’s Perspective, the Rev. Dr. Art Suggs reflects on a very profound Easter Sunrise Service he once attended.
Rev. Suggs writes,
“There is an event that took place long ago that I remember every Easter. It’s one of those stories easy to over- sentimentalize, kind of like the Reader’s Digest version of spirituality. But it really happened, and it touched my heart.
I had a classmate in seminary that I’ll call Mike. As with many of us, he was serving a small church on the side while we went to school. And that church had a tradition of having an Easter Sunrise Service held on the top of a little hill within a local cemetery. Unlike some churches I know, theirs was really held at sunrise.
Actually they were even more particular than that. They timed the service such that it began in the dark, and then right at the conclusion of the sermon, they would sing that old favorite by Charles Wesley, Christ the Lord is Risen Today. That moment was timed to coincide with the exact minute of sunrise, which someone looked up every year.
Even though I wasn’t a part of that church, I attended that service because I wanted to support Mike.
What had happened was this…”
Read the full story of this profound Easter Sunrise service — along with updates on the recent Lenten Music & Meditation Services, Jazz Vespers, and other UCC-FCC events, here:
Today I shall attempt the penultimate sermon in the series, Core Principles in the Bible, and the final sermon in the series will appear on Easter Sunday, Part VII, Fields and Meadows.
I’d like to start off today with comparing two brilliant men. One is from the 18th Century; the other is from the 20th Century.
In my comparison, I need to forewarn you that I will be using one inappropriate word. You will see later why I’m making this exception.
The first of the two brilliant men is Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In his final work, which he called Confessions, he imagines himself having “died and gone to heaven.”
But here is how this great and brilliant philosopher imagines the event: He approaches the heavenly gates with head held high, no bowing, no praise of God, no hint of fear. He has with him, of course, a copy of his Confessions, and as he enters through the pearly gates, all heaven turns toward him, setting aside their eternal praise of God to listen to Rousseau and hear his story.
Rousseau begins to speak to the heavenly host, with their attention no longer on God but on him.
“I have bared my secret soul as Thou thyself has seen it, Eternal Being! So let the numberless legion of my fellow men gather around me, and hear my confessions.”
He does mention them and what follows is what he calls his depravities, probably referring to any number of illegitimate children, all of whom he deserted.
“But let each of them reveal his heart at the foot of Thy throne with equal sincerity, and may any man who dares, say, ‘I was a better man than he.’ ”
Okay, so let us assume that good old Jean-Jacques Rousseau was an ego-secure fellow, having declared before the throne of God that no one who has ever lived was a better man than he.
Another Brilliant Person Is J.C. Becker in the Classroom with His Specialty, Apostle Paul.
Now let us compare Rousseau with another brilliant person.
Here I will choose the most intimidating professor I ever had. I mentioned him a few weeks back in another context. His name is Johan Christian Becker, a professor of New Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary.
I was recently reading an editorial by Michael Lindvall, pastor of Brick Presbyterian Church in New York City, and in it he described Becker, bringing back a flood of memories for me, and not only pleasant ones.
Here is his description, which is much better than I could ever do: ohan Christian Becker
“. . . was a riveting classroom lecturer, especially when the subject was the Apostle Paul. Paul was his specialty, and Becker had famously passionate convictions about the apostle. By the end of a lecture, Becker would have often ascended to a paroxysm of academic passion. He paced the dais in his classroom, his Dutch accent thickening as he became increasingly animated by some question of Pauline scholarship. He was convinced of his convictions and often rhetorically lacerated scholars who stubbornly held to what Becker considered patently absurd notions. He waved his arms and jabbed his index finger this way and that; his voice rose; his face reddened.”
(He never paid attention to the time, so every lecture would only begin to be concluded with the sound of the bell.)
“The sound of the bell drew Becker back to earth, and he would look out at the class and say in an even voice, ‘Then again, this may be all bullshit.’ ”
One scholar, Becker, knows full well that our grasp of truth, our deepest understandings, are all provisional. Our declaration of the truth should always be spelled with a small t. The other scholar, Rousseau, arrogantly throws down the gauntlet even in the presence of saints, angels, and God Himself.
My Question: What Are the Core Principles Found in the Bible?
What’s Up With Money (Wealth, Poverty, Camels Getting Through Needle’s Eyes) in the Bible?
I have had the experiences of being both poor and rich — never desperately poor, and never filthy rich. But I have had those feelings of being both poor and rich. I thought about that as I had fun preparing for this day.
Churches have had a fascinating relationship with money.
For example, were you to lift up your pew cushion, you would find, at least on most of the pews, written in pencil on the wood beneath you, the suggested donation for the place where you are sitting.
The cost ranges from five cents for the cheap seats in the back up to a dollar-fifty for the expensive seats in the front. What you got for that dollar-fifty must have had people in the bargain area thinking that persons occupying the high-priced seats must have been really pious.
Speaking of suggested donations, our Jewish neighbors had been depending for years upon a scheme that involved guessing your income based upon your profession. Soon after that, the fund raisers would send you a bill for your annual donation to the synagogue according to that guess. Inherently, this was not a good idea!
Complaints finally forced the financial gurus to end that practice.
All of Y’All, Come on up! Oh God! I Screwed It up! And I Practiced All Week!
Mega Churches. This one is The Willow Creek Church. (Image: Yelp)
When I think about the Bible and money, my first thought, and probably yours as well, goes immediately to television preachers.
They are masterful at it; they have it down to a science. How to use the Bible to get money. Billy Graham, may he rest in peace, was hardly the worst offender, but he was fond of saying, “You never see a U-Haul behind a hearse. You can’t take it with you, so you might as well give it to us.”
If you remember the movie Oh God (1997), there’s a wonderful scene in which God (played by the cigar-smoking George Burns) sends his emissary (the Christ-like John Denver) to the TV evangelist, the Reverend Willie Williams (played by Paul Sorvino), to try to get the good reverend to stop deceiving people.
So John Denver shows up at a worship service, and Reverend Willie is really cookin’ at this point. He is preachin’ up a storm, and he is workin’ the crowd as the time for the offering is at hand. In the style of an altar call, Reverend Willie exhorts the crowd to “Come on up! Come on up! All of y’all, come on up! And put into God’s hands . . . .”
Oh God! I screwed it up! And I practiced all week! [Uproarious laughter.] I’m sorry. You can’t know how humiliating this is to . . . . All right. Okay.
“Come on up to put into our hands what you would put into God’s hands so that then the whole world will be in his hands.” At which point, the organ and the choir all kick into a rollicking hymn, “He’s got the whole world in his hands.”
It’s choreographed perfectly, and the money is just pouring in. It’s a great scene. I apologize for messing it up.
What Does the Bible Say About Money? 8 Positive Parables and 3 Prosperity Gospels.
Gold, Francincense, and Myrhh. Photo courtesy of Arab America.
There’s the story of Zacchaeus (Luke 19: 1-10). It’s a pretty awesome story, a redemptive story. He’s a chief tax collector, and he’s short and rich. Jesus had dinner with him, and then received a lot of criticism for doing so.
A sidebar: The reason Zacchaeus is rich is because of the Roman tax policy, which is based upon the kind of community and its size.
The Roman government would tell the tax collectors how much you must collect, and you’ve got the authority of the Roman government and military behind you to enforce this collection. Then they tell you how much to collect, and whatever you pull in above and beyond that, is yours. I don’t know anybody who can resist that kind of temptation.
Having dined with his host, Jesus apparently persuaded him to repent, we’re told, and so Zacchaeus offered fourfold resti tution to all whom he had overcharged. Beyond that, he gave half his estate to the poor.
Mark 10: 17-22. Here is the story of the Rich Young Man.This is the one we heard for the scripture text this morning. The story recounted where this guy said, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” They had a bit of a conversation, but then Jesus told him something way beyond what he told Zacchaeus. He said, “Go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.” And then we’re told upon hearing that, his coun-tenance fell, and the Rich Young Man went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.
Caravan of dromedaries, Giza pyramid complex, Egypt. Photo courtesy of Jordan Busson, PD Wikimedia.
Mark 10: 25. The maxim of the camel and needle.We read that “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”
Another sidebar on this is that tradition has it that the eye of the needle is actually the smallest of the gates through the walled city of Jerusalem. It’s big enough to allow a grown person to walk through it. If you’re unusually tall, you’d probably have to stoop down.
But a camel? That’s tough. That would be a squeeze. A camel carrying stuff, saddlebags, possessions — no way.
Matthew 25: 14-30. The Parable of the Talents.This is where Jesus excoriates the man who hid his talent and didn’t invest it to collect interest. That story concludes with this verse. It’s one of the toughest verses. You don’t hear this one preached very often:
“For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.”
Despite dozens of admonitions to serve, look out for, and help the poor. This passage is generally understood to mean that the rich will use their wealth and their power and their influence to become richer. And the poor, with their lack of wealth, power, and influence, will become poorer.
Additional stories from Jesus include: the parable of the Ten Pounds (Luke 19), the parable of the Dishonest Manager (Luke 16), and the parable of The Rich Man and Lazarus (also in Luke 16).
Matthew 6: 19-21 (the Sermon on the Mount). This is perhaps my favorite from Jesus:
Treasure Chest. Pixabay.
“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
To be fair, I need to mention a subset of all the things the Bible says about money, and trust me, it’s a lot.
That subset has to do with what is called the Prosperity Gospel, and here are three of the favorites:
I Chronicles 29. You have to dig deep to find this one. Riches and honor come from you, and you rule over all. If you have riches, they came from God.
Ecclesiastes 10.“Feasts are made for laughter, wine gladdens life, and money meets every need.” Really? That’s in the Bible? It reminds me of that country song, “There are only two things money can’t buy — true love and home-grown tomatos.”
Psalm 112.“Praise the Lord! Happy are those who fear the Lord, who greatly delight in his commandments.” “Wealth and riches are in their houses, and their righteousness “endures forever.”
You see what happens if you put some blinders on, and you start looking at this collection. There are probably 20-25 verses just like this, so I chose three good ones. You can’t help but make this connection between wealth and righteousness, wealth and virtue.
Well, let me think about this for a minute. If I don’t have wealth, that means God is sort of looking down on me. Maybe I’m not as good or as faithful as I probably should be. Maybe I need to give more. That’s what my church tells me to do and to be more righteous in that way.
Otherwise I’ll end up being poor and wondering where God is.
The whole gospel is sort of a mess that way. You see, the problem with the Prosperity Gospel is that it’s just not all true. Portions of it are, but not the whole thing.
If you add up all the time Jesus is speaking about money, it’s more than when he’s talking about prayer! It’s more than when he’s talking about faith! It’s more than when he’s talking about heaven and hell, all combined!
I’ll Share with You Three Thoughts about Money — the Best I’ve Got.
Find out what The Three Things About Money (and the Bible) are – read the rest of the sermon Money and the Bible:
Next, we examined the Use and Abuse of the Bible in “Part II: A Hard Conversation.” Last Sunday was the Bible and Women in “Part III: Pink Smoke.” (Coming to the UCC-FCC web site soon.)
Today is the Bible and Homosexuality in “Part IV: Invincible Ignorance.” Next Sunday is “Part V: The Bible and Money.”
I’m having a blast with this series; it’s been a lot of fun, even though the subjects have been rather serious.
Let me start off with “Part IV: Invincible Ignorance,” otherwise known as the Bible and Homosexuality.
Back in the days when I was entering adolescence, junior high going toward high school, I had thirteen fish tanks that I took care of in a mini business. I raised all sorts of different kinds of fish and then sold them to local pet stores. They wouldn’t give me any money, but they would give me lots of fish food for my enterprise.
A Home Aquarium, by Aleš Tošovský. PD Wikimedia.
One of the ways to keep fish tanks clean is with snails that eat the algae. There are lots of different versions of aquatic snails, but my favorite is one that’s called an apple snail. It’s a bit of a misnomer because they’re not that big. They are more the size of a walnut, and they come in either dark brown or albino. They are air-breathers, even though they live their lives underwater. From time to time, they make it toward the surface with their long two-inch snorkel.
Hovering below the surface of the water, they send up their snorkel, breathe air for a while, and then tuck it in and go back down for more algae.
The apple snails are very prolific. They lay lots of eggs with hard little shells like an egg shell, but they’re more the size of a mustard seed. They lay 50 to 70 of them very often, so pretty soon the tank is crawling with all these little guys running around.
Pomacea – The Apple Snail, by Stijn Ghesquiere. CC-Wikimedia.
I subscribed to Aquarium Magazine, and sure enough there’s an article about these snails, with advice for people who want to breed them.
The article said just buy two. Don’t worry about whether they’re two boys or two girls. Being pre-adolescent, I perked up at this.
It turns out as I read further that, if you have two males, one of them switches. I don’t know how they make that decision, but if you have two females, one of them will switch. The article used a new word for me — hermaphrodites, meaning that they have the ability to be both, and they somehow make that decision. Well, I was intrigued by that. I didn’t know that could happen in some species.
High-school biology rolls around, and we learn about rabbits. They too have the ability to solve that problem. If you have just female rabbits, they can fertilize an egg with a blood cell. It’s called parthenogenesis, another new word for my growing vocabulary. If you have a bunch of girl rabbits and no males, all is not lost. The next thing you know, you still have baby rabbits coming around.
Later on in seminary, I read in the Greek text that a parthenos shall conceive and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. Parthenos is a virgin in Greek, and so parthenogenesis is when you are able to have babies and still be a virgin.
Open and Affirming Is a High and Holy Goal; Look Out for Half-Heartedness.
Once again, as the hormones began to flow, I was intrigued by these different options that are available in the animal kingdom. So now, a sermon on the Bible and Homosexuality.
In 2009, our congregation, First Congregational Church, became “Open and Affirming.” Almost nine years ago, we adopted this pledge unanimously, and it’s framed and out there in the hallway. (You’ll find that on our web site here.)
The Last Prejudice Is Homophobia; the Big Three Are Rooted in the Bible.
However, the prejudice against homosexuality is pervasive. It has been called “The Last Prejudice,” which, of course, nobody believes, but it is the third of “The Big Three,” racism, sexism, and homophobia.
Like racism and sexism, homophobia has its roots in the Bible. It’s easy to find, and there are five specific places.
Before your eyes blink over, I’m not going to deal with all five. However, I do want to list them so you know what they are:
A Sermon by the Rev. Dr. Arthur M. Suggs
on the Third Sunday of Lent, March 4, 2018
This is the third in the series of sermons on The Good Book. Here is the Rev. Dr. Art Suggs’ Pink Smoke sermon.
Four Brief Bible Passages from the New Testament
First of all, over in my left-hand corner, we have The First Letter of Paul to the Corinthians 14: 33-35:
“As in all the churches of the saints, women should be silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate, as the law also says. If there is anything they desire to know, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church.”
Also over in my left-hand corner, is The First Letter of Paul to Timothy 2: 11-12:
“Let a woman learn in silence with full submission. I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep silent.”
Now, over in my right-hand corner, we have The Gospel According to John 20: 18:
“Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, ‘I have seen the Lord’; and she told them that he had said these things to her.”
That’s the passage that makes Mary Magdalene the first apostle.
Also over in my right-hand corner is The Letter of Paul to the Galatians 3: 27-28:
“As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”
A small Bible printed by Robert Barker in 1614, belonging to St Mary’s Church, Datchet.
Here are four passages that reflect the tension within the Bible itself.
They remind me of an old W.C. Fields joke.
He was quite the reprobate, you know, and there he is, on his death bed, when a priest comes in and finds him leafing through the Bible. The priest asks, “What are you looking for?” And W.C. Fields replies, “A loophole.”
When I was in seminary in the early 80’s, women preachers were coming into their own, and in many ways, it was hard and not welcomed.
One of the spiteful remarks that went around among the men was that female preachers were like a dog walking on two legs. They don’t do it well, but you’re surprised they can do it at all.
I laughed at that joke back in those days, but I was raised sexist, racist, and homophobic.
Having reflected all of those beliefs in the early part of my life, I soon realized that did not comport with the likes of Cynthia Jefferts, associate pastor of the Nassau Presbyterian Church, or Barbara Brown Taylor, a guest preacher in the area from time to time, who were among the finest preachers I’ve ever heard.
Then as now, over 30 years later, they are still two of the finest preachers I have ever heard.
Cursory Readings of the Bible Reveal Strong Women
Continuing this series on the Bible, the topic for today, the Bible and women, is brought to you by a white male.
Actually, it’s strange that the Bible has been used to subjugate women.
Just a cursory reading reveals that you have in the Old Testament Eve, whose name actually means “life.” Yet here is the mother of all living humans.
There are the wives of the patriarches, all of whom were forces to be reckoned with: Abraham had his Sarah, Isaac had his Rebekah, Jacob had his Leah and Rachel. You have the books of Esther and Ruth, the stories of brave and faithful women, their wisdom and their leadership.
Saint Sophia, Almighty Wisdom, by Nicholas Roerich. Roerich Museum, NYC.
And then there is the mystical text, found in Proverbs, regarding what is now called the Lady Sophia. The way the story is told is that you have God working with Wisdom, and Wisdom is entirely feminine. The Lady Sophia, or the Hokmah in Hebrew, represents feminine energy working with God in order to create all that exists.
Prominent Women in the New Testament
In the New Testament, you have stories such as Lydia in Acts 16, a seller of purple goods, basically a professional businesswoman, who was very involved in the early church in a leadership capacity.
There is Phoebe, recounted in Romans 16, referred to as having significant titles as adelphe, a brother and sister in Christ. She was called a deaconos, from which we get the word deacon, except, at that time, the word also meant leadership in the sense of preaching and teaching, also with the elders. Furthermore, she was called a prostasis, what we would call a patron, a benefactor.
In other words, she was a material supporter and establisher of the church.
Holy Women at the Sepulchre, 1611-1618, by Peter Paul Rubens. PD Wikimedia.
We also have the story of Priscilla and her husband Aquila, also found in Romans. The pair preached, taught, and established churches, and “risked their necks” for the early church.
These were some of the prominent ones mentioned in the New Testament, but beyond prominence there are two women who were venerated, the two Marys.
Venerated Women of the New Testament
You have Mary, the mother of Jesus, given two titles that are the highest the church can confer, the highest of all, well beyond the title of pope. Mary the mother is exalted in the Eastern church, to use their word, called theotokos, God bearer, the mother of God, and she is also given the title of the First Theologian because of her pondering the nature of her child.
Then you have the other Mary, Mary Magdalene, given the title of the First Apostle because she was the first one after the Resurrection sent out to bear the news of Jesus’ life after death. In addition to that title, Mary Magdalene was in all probability the wife of Jesus.
Except for the possibility of Mary Magda lene being the wife of Jesus, all of these women are recognized throughout the Old Testament and the New Testament.
Christ in the House of Mary, Martha and Lazarus, Jacopo and Francesco Bassano, c. 1576–77.
Alas, there is one detail that eclipses all of that history, one that for some reason is seen to be of greatest importance. And that detail is Jesus’ choice of twelve men for his disciples.
Never mind that he traveled with an entourage that included not only the twelve but additional men and women, but no matter, the disciples were all men.
The interpretation of that was slam-dunk proof, Q.E.D. (quod erat demonstrandum). Thus and therefore and henceforth, yea unto the end of time, the church shall be ruled by men only.
Featured Image Credit: The Bible used by Abraham Lincoln for his oath of office during his first inauguration in 1861. PD image by Michaela McNichol, Library of Congress.
In this month’s Pastor’s Perspective, the Rev. Dr. Art Suggs reflects on a recent visit to the Tiffany Mosaics Exhibit at the Corning Museum of Glass.
Rev. Suggs writes,
“The Tiffany Studios had produced three different versions of The Last Supper (1897-1902), and the way they depicted the scene was somewhere between Leonardo da Vinci’s famous fresco and the painting of the same scene by Bartolomeo Carducci (1605).”
“Then Tiffany adapted the scene even more … Preserving tradition, Judas’ head is the lowest of them all … downcast … looking depressed. But what caught my attention was that his halo was drab as opposed to golden and glowing, and it was without his name.”
The Last Supper, circa 1897-1902, Tiffany Studios, Frederick Wilson Designer.
“In other words, here is a person that can and should be forgotten. There in the museum I just stared at Judas’ visage in the mosaic, thinking about what it means to be forgotten.”
“But here’s the other arresting detail…even Judas had a halo. Yes, it was very dull and in desperate need of polishing, but he still had one.”
“It’s important to remember. During Lent we remember the story of Jesus. We all remember lost loved ones, keeping photos or objects of theirs to constantly jog our memories.”
“It is important for us to remember, for in the mind of God none are forgotten.”
