Roger Ray, pastor
March 25, 2012 Lent 5
Jeremiah 31:31-34
31 The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. 32It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt--a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. 33But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, 'Know the Lord', for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.
The word for "king" in Spanish is "Rey." The connection between "king" and my family name "Ray" had never been mentioned until the middle of this week when I visited the new community of El Parisia near Dairo in Nicaragua. Our friend, Mel West, had raised the money to build 25 little cinder block houses on a small tract of land next to the coffee plantation where the new homeowners work.
It was one of those deals of one hand washing the other. The Rainbow Network agreed to finance the houses and supervise the construction, the plantation owner agreed to donate the three acres of land, run a water line to the new neighborhood and build the raised sanitary latrines behind each house. Of course, latrines become absolutely necessary when you move 200 people onto three acres of land.
We had gotten title to the land, Mel and his connections in Columbia had raised the $100,000 necessary to build the 25 houses and they were ready for the families to move into but the plantation owner had reneged on his promise to run the water line into the neighborhood and build the latrines.
Keith Jaspers, the Rainbow Network founder, was visibly angered by this news and he wanted to go visit the rancher immediately to renegotiate the contract. Our Nicaraguan staff was desperate to avoid a confrontation between the employer of everyone in the community and an angry Keith Jaspers so they went out to strike the best deal that they could. We met with them the next morning and this was the compromise, the landowner would pay for the water line if we would pay for the latrines. The latrines would cost $3000.
Standing around people who wanted to move out of their mud and stick huts and into their new cinder block and tin homes, I said that we would pay for the latrines. Unlike the old outhouses we used to build, these set up on a concert base, you walk up three steps and open the door to, some would say, the majestic looking throne. Which is why, from that point on, Keith introduced me to the villagers as "El Rey de Latrinos", the "King of the Latrines." Which, ironically, is about as witty as Keith's humor ever gets.
But the important issue is the difference between saying that you will do something and actually doing it. I do not doubt that when the plantation owner was presented with the opportunity to have permanent homes built for his employees that would keep them more reliably in the area, that it was well worth the donation of land and a few thousand dollars of infrastructure. Once the time came to lay out the cash.... And, of course, the houses were built...... he was less motivated.
You folks do a lot both for Rainbow and for the homeless poor of Springfield but I sent out an email that night and before breakfast the next day, I had pledges of more than enough to pay for these latrines and more..... and what is more, as of this morning, I have pledges of over $6000 allowing us to provide the latrines for another housing project that is currently being started..... we're up to about 60 latrines now... I'll try to make certain that donors get photos of their own thrones in Nicaragua.
But it reminds me of that parable in Matthew 21 in which Jesus tells a story about a man who had two sons. He said to the eldest, "Go into the vineyard and work today," and the son said, "No, I will not," but later he thought better of it and went. The same father went to his other son and told him to go work in the vineyard and that son said the right thing, he said, "I will do it," but he never did. In any contest between what you say you will do and what you actually do, all that really matters is what you do.
That's a problem for religious folks. We have, for centuries, had a very profound and strong notion of orthodoxy, of believing the right things. And we believe those things with such vigor that there are times when Catholics have said that Protestants are not Christians and Catholics often say that Protestants aren't Christians and there are small, self-congratulatory groups of Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, the Church of Christ and some Baptists who are convinced that they are, in fact, the only ones who are Christians....
And then there is our little liberal outpost here on the edge of town and we may be the one unifying lightening rod of Catholics, Protestants, Baptists, the Church of Christ and all of the others who, very likely, agree that we are not Christians...... and as soon as I have a few free minutes I'm going to sit down and really worry about what they think.... But don't start holding your breath anytime soon.
We will probably never say the right things to satisfy our religious peers but as long as we keep doing the right things, then I think we're OK with God even if we don't have a lot of friends meeting under steeples in the Ozarks. I don't want to sound too strident about that but who needs the approval of churches in Springfield when you are a king with 60 thrones in Nicaragua?
Gandhi once said that "A religion that takes no account of practical affairs and does not help to solve them is no religion." The Christian religion, as it is based on the teachings of Jesus, is a religion of radical compassion, of great personal sacrifice in order to change the world, fighting against injustice and working for peace and mercy. The religion that evolved in the name of Jesus, is a religion of beliefs intended to magically get your soul into heaven and in as much as that is a religion that is personal, and in your head only, it is no religion at all.
The Marcus Borg book that many of us have lately been reading together, "Speaking Christian," discusses this crucial difference between Orthodoxy and Orthopraxy....The difference between having right Christian beliefs and have a right Christian practice, or life. Borg tends to say that our religion started out as a religion of orthopraxy, a way of life based on radical compassion, a religion primarily practiced among the poor.
Borg, as do many other religious historians, traces the change from orthopraxy to orthodoxy to the time of Emperor Constantine in the 4th century.... Saying that basically, the royal family took over the religion and imposed the creedal form of religion on the entire empire. In fact, I tend, in my own writing, to make the distinction between the teachings of the historical Jesus and the religion of Constantine though since the great majority of church folk in our day confess what looks pretty much like Constantinian religion, they don't usually like it when I say that.
And, to be fair, it isn't like there was one kind of Christianity for 300 years and suddenly there was another kind. There are things in the letters of Paul and in the gospel of John that push the scale towards orthodoxy and there are lots of things in the synoptic gospels and James that push the scale towards orthopraxy. We just know which side of the fence we are on.
But without ever arguing biblical interpretation or the theological debate between orthodoxy and orthopraxy, you don't need a posse and a 30 minute head start to know that the son who went into the vineyard and worked is the one who got it right and the one who said he would but didn't is not the hero of that parable.
And in El Parisia, there is no contest between the plantation owner who said he would build sanitary latrines and our faith community that is actually going to do it. I don't want to encourage hubris about this, I'm just trying to be real about what it means to practice our faith.
You have to be careful about what you take from the New Testament book of Acts as historical but there are seven times in the middle part of that book in which the author refers to the early church as "the Way." Christians were initially known as "followers of the Way." It wasn't a new set of beliefs, it was a way of living. The later church turned Christianity into a set of beliefs with some life style implications but I am convinced that the community of faith that was initially gathered around Jesus were people who chose a way of life that had some core beliefs.
The emerging church, the church that will likely survive the next century, is the church that is able to re-strike that balance and become again a church that is relevant because of the way that we live and not because of our set of doctrines, creeds and theology.
Our Old Testament lesson today is that familiar passage from the prophet Jeremiah who said that one day we'll stop teaching beliefs because people will actually live their faith. It isn't a matter of believing the right things, reciting the right creed, repeating the right magical incarnation..... it isn't about saying what you believe it is about being what you believe.
I'm not saying that people who focus on orthodoxy are just full of it, but I am applauding you for building the latrines to dispose of the... the refuse. Any double entendre you heard in that is entirely your responsibility.
