Belonging and Believing

Lisa Rzepka, June 19, 2005
Scripture: Jeremiah 20:7-13; Matt. 10:16-39

By God's providence I've been given the opportunity this year, as someone who doesn't preach every week, to preach both on Mother's Day and Father's Day. On these particular days the church wisely recognizes that not every one is a mother or a father, either by choice or by circumstance, so sometimes these days are referred to as "the festival of the Christian home" and "men of the church" Sunday. For some reason it was a wee bit easier for me to prepare a sermon on the 'festival of the Christian home'.

As you can imagine it's more of a challenge when you aren't a "man of the church". I have, however, for most of my life tried to understand men. God knows that -- more than some women -- I've been truly indoctrinated in the male world by my experience of sharing a household with four men of various stages of development. To the men: I try very hard, daily, to see things from your point of view…and when life starts to feel like a frat house I'm grateful I can commiserate with my next door neighbor who calls herself - man-cub-mom, a woman who also shares a home with four men in various stages of development.

I say this in jest because I believe men's stories may do very much to inform Matthew's difficult collection of sayings this morning. As you heard, they truly are difficult, what with wolves and hate and swords dividing families. Following in Matthew's gospel style where Jesus teaches and then tells stories and parables to explain his teaching, I'd like to share a story or two with you.

The first is about my friend's grandfather, Mike. Their family is originally from the upper northwest part of the country, and so, Mike worked in a saw mill. He was very good at what he did; sawing gargantuan trees into pieces of lumber and at one point he was offered a promotion to grade lumber. He turned it down - he didn't want the responsibility.

So Mike stayed on what they call "the saw" - which are huge pieces of machinery - taller than a person - that cut those gargantuan logs that are brought in from the mountains. Back in Mike's day the saw was a two man job, one person saws while another off-bears, or, guides the cut lumber. Sometimes the saws get hung up and the wood gets kicked back. That's why it's a two person job. There's not much you can do about it, except to be careful. So one Saturday morning a co-worker, a very experienced cutter, is cutting while Mike is off-bearing when the saw blade seizes up. The log kicked out and caught the co-worker in the face. Mercifully, they say he was probably dead before he knew what hit him.

Mike looked at his friend and shut the saw down. He called his boss in to take care of the body and Mike went home. On Monday Mike went to work and told them he wouldn't saw anymore. He was told that if he didn't saw, then he didn't work there anymore. So Mike left and never went back. To him it was just a job, and it wasn't worth risking his life.

Mike made sure his family had food on the table and a warm place to stay but he didn't care about much else. Mike wasn't afraid of work, he just wasn't interested in 'getting ahead'. He didn't seem to feel the need to get ahead. He enjoyed watching the sunrise, being out in the woods, hunting was a favorite pastime. He knew the name of every tree and every bird. And, that seemed to be all he wanted.

On their last hunting trip together Mike's son said, "Pop, I'd be scared to death to be where you are in life. You're fifty-five years old, and you don't have a thing to show for it. No security, no future. I'm not going to let that happen to me."

Mike didn't get mad. He just smiled and said, "You'd better hurry, son." Eight days later Mike died.

My friend's father tells that story now with a postscript. Now he says, "Pop was a smart man."

Jesus said: "I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother…"

Usually we hear this and we think it relates to great religious battles within families. For instance, a child goes off to college, 'really' finds Jesus, or something, and comes home to tell his parents they've gotten it wrong all those years. The church they've been going to isn't the way to salvation. And, that is the scenario for Matthew's community. They were still worshipping within the Jewish community but there was faction that identified Christ as the Messiah and as they struggled to define right worship, it split families apart. The strong and forceful tone comes out of that context. Jesus was not advocating the use of violence but describing the unfortunate division that happens when worldviews collide.

What I think Mike's story may also reminds us is that things of this world, and making them priorities, also might divide families. Philosopher and writer Sam Keen calls it the "secular theology of economic man where work has replaced God as the source from whom all blessings flow." (Keen, 1992, 55) In his book, Fire in the Belly: On Being a Man, (which I keep on my nightstand) Keen goes on to point out that "something strange has happened to work and leisure over the last couple generations…The great promise of emerging technology was that it would finally set us free…and we could flourish. As late as the 1960s philosophers and sociologists predicted a coming leisure revolution…around the corner was a twenty-four hour work week filled with leisurely afternoons. The worst we'd have to contend with was 'leisure anxiety'."

But, as you well know, exactly the opposite has happened. Work is swallowing leisure - think blackberries and text messaging. You can practically take your office with you. The fast lane and giving your all to your career is a way of life. And, anyone who doesn't is - well - less than their full potential.

As work swallows leisure it isolates us - especially from significant relationships - not least of which is the family. Some of you might remember a time in the not so distant past when the emphasis in family life was not solely and primarily about economic provision? Being a provider isn't exclusively economic. There was time when both parents were around to provide for life's other needs and rhythms. In the process more time was spent exploring the ultimate questions. What is life all about? What holds meaning in life? Why are we here? Who is God?

Jesus said, "Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it."

"As human beings we can survive as long as we 'make a living' - but in order to thrive we need a sense of significance - one of lasting value." (Keen, 1992, 61)

That's somewhat the message my friend Jim's father was trying to get through to him. He always told him that everyone had to be tied to something. "The trick to living a happy and fulfilling life is to be tied to something that won't pull you down."

Jim went through a period where he experimented with all kinds of things. One day his dad sat him down and said, "Jim, the world is full of false saviors. I'm not saying you are involved with any of them, but drugs and alcohol can only help you escape troubles for a time. And for a time they may even make you feel good. But in the end, they are false saviors because they'll end up pulling you down and adding even more problems to your life. Jim's dad went on and on…for awhile giving advice when finally Jim said, "Dad, here you are warning me about all the things that will pull me down in life - it's absolutely depressing - your warnings are pulling me down!"

Jim's dad laughed, "I didn't mean to do that. I'm just trying to say that if you're going to tie your life to something tie it to God."

Jesus said, "it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of the Father speaking through you…What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light…"

But sometimes there isn't a father around to dispense wisdom. Preacher Fred Craddock shares the story of a time when Fred and his wife were on vacation in the Great Smoky Mountains of eastern Tennessee. They were at a little out of the way restaurant having a quiet dinner while communing with nature as they sat overlooking a wild and rugged valley. Their solitude was broken by a man of many years and a shock of white hair who ambled over to their table.

He was hard of hearing, rudely interrupting their peaceful dinner by asking noisy and nosy questions about twenty decibels too loud. When he found out Fred taught at a seminary he suddenly had a story about preachers. Without an invitation he pulled up a chair and invaded their space. Nodding out at the valley he said, "I was born back here in these mountains. My mother was not married, and the reproach that fell upon her and upon me wasn't pretty. The children at school had a name for me and it hurt - very much." In fact, he said, "During recess I would hide in the weeds until the bell rang. At noon hour I took my lunch and went behind a tree to avoid them. And when I went to town with momma, all the grownups would stop and stare at us. They'd look at momma and then look at me, and I could see they were trying to guess who my daddy might have been. Those were painful years."

But something big was about to happen. "I guess I was in the seventh or eighth grade when a preacher came to town. He frightened me when he preached and attracted me all at the same time. He caught me with his words, but I didn't want the people to catch me though, so I would sneak in just as he was getting warmed up. When he finished I would rush out. But one morning I got caught behind a bunch of women talking in the aisle, and I couldn't get out and I knew somebody was going to see me and say, "What's a boy like you doing in church?" Sure enough, a hand clamped down on my shoulder and whirled me around. 'Whoa boy,' the preacher said to me. He looked me in the face and I could tell he was trying to find the family resemblance. Finally he said, 'Well, boy, I can see it now…! I can see you're a child of…you're a child of…Wait now…and he kept staring me in the face. 'Yep!' he said. 'I can see it now! You're a child of…God There's a striking resemblance! He rubbed my shoulder and gave me a push and he said, 'Go on, boy! Go claim your heritage.'

The Craddocks were quite taken by the story and Fred asked the elderly gent, "What's your name?"

The man replied proudly, "Ben Hooper!"

It was then that Fred Craddock remembered his daddy telling him that Tennessee had twice elected an illegitimate bastard boy as governor, and how Ben Hooper had done the state proud. Ben Hooper gained his faith when a preacher told him he was a child of God.

Jesus said, "Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. And even the hairs of your head are all counted. So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows."

You are a child of God. Our most recent Presbyterian confession starts "In life and in death we belong to God". That is the backbone and basis of what Jesus is telling his disciples. Don't worry about what the world will throw at you - you are a child of God. It is going to be hard, but do not be mislead that you are lost in an impersonal cosmos full of conflicting messages on how to live, how to get ahead, how to make something of yourself. You already are something - a child of the living God - the ultimate provider. When all else is stripped away you and you leave this world, you belong to God.

Now I can stand up here and tell you this and Matthew wrote about it - and you can read it for yourself. But do you believe it? Believing it involves what William Sloane Coffin says is "the longest, most arduous trip in the world…the journey from the head to the heart. Until that round trip is completed, we remain at war with ourselves. (Sloane-Coffin, 2004, 126) Know in your hearts that you are a child of God.

These are the primary components of the Christian Life; belonging and believing. Belonging and Believing is expressed both individually and corporately, as we gather together. So, let's take a moment and think about gathering. Something sociologists have long asked is, "Where are the men of the church?" since historically women have been more present in church than men.

Some say, "Men are hard wired to riskier behavior, and less likely to embrace the religious concepts of delayed gratification." Others, along with Keen, say the culture has taught that 'real men' are men of action, they don't need a crutch, and church is seen as sissifying.

Here I would note, that by observation, Providence Church has a higher percentage of men in attendance than many churches. And in a military, action oriented environment that would give us cause to think about that last observation and specific cultures.

• In a Psychology Today write-in poll, a higher percentage of men than women listed Jesus as the ideal man. In fact, he was at the top of the men's list. (Keen, 1992, 256)
• In a random survey of 2000 men by George Barna (studies church growth and demographics) found that 85% of unchurched men were previously churched and have given up on organized religion, but not on God. He concluded that they want to know God, they just don't know how and haven't seen their peers figure it out.

Sociologists once again point to the pressures of work and the lack of leisure time as a reason men aren't in church. One pastor points out that some retired guys show up on Sundays because they get to golf during the week. The culture has also shifted in that there was a time when church was an expectation - not true anymore. Speculation about men's participation is that a personal touch is required to get men into church. There has to be a way to get to know them before you can expect to them to commit to more involvement.

This sounds strikingly familiar to what I learned in Atlanta about the Evangelism and the Emerging Culture. Like Barna's study of men, it's hard to get young people in church. And, it's not that young people don't believe in God, they do. But with all the other choices and pressures in their world, what difference does it make? What is a life of faith look like - how is it modeled? They need to experience a life of faith with someone - and for those of you who have children - you are that most important someone -but each and every one here counts too. Each and every one of us wants someone to share with us the transformational power of belonging to God and what it is to believe it. We want companions on that long journey from the head to the heart. We belong to God and Jesus modeled how much we need each other to really know it. Now a leisure revolution may seem a big leap, but think of the but think of the cultural revolution we could affect - men and women. Amen.

Brewer, H. Michael. "Fatherly Advice, Lessons in Life: Book of Proverbs: A Seven- Session Bible Study for Men."

Louisville, KY: Presbyterian Church (USA), Congregational Ministries Division, 1998.

Keen, Sam. Fire In the Belly: On Being a Man.

New York, NY: Bantam Books, 1992.

Sloane-Coffin, William. Credo.

Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004.

"Family Privilege," Emphasis: A Preaching Journal for the Parish Pastor.

19 June 2005, Vol. 35, Number 1.

© Copyright, 2005, Rev. Lisa Rzepka
All Rights Reserved.
Providence Presbyterian Church
Fairfax, Virginia