Community Christian Church of Springfield
Roger Ray, pastor
December 30, 2012 Christmas 1
Colossians 3:12-17
12As God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. 13Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 14Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. 15And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful. 16Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God. 17And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
The first Hindu temple in the United States was dedicated in 1977. Hindus were late coming to the United States but large numbers of Indians made their way to our shores in the late 70's and early 80's and it was then that their faith was met with a question they were not prepared to answer. Curious Christians in Sunday School classes, excited by the exotic presence of a new religion, politely asked, "What do Hindu's believe?"
They expected to be handed a holy book, like the Bible, and to be introduced to hymns, prayers and worship services and probably a story about an incarnation of God in human form. And while Hindus have such things, in fact, not just one of any of them but many gods, incarnations, texts and traditions but never in India had anyone demanded a list of beliefs.
To satisfy those who could only approach faith from that perspective, a list of beliefs was eventually formed but it would not prove to be very satisfactory, neither to inquisitive Americans nor to the native practitioners of Hinduism.
What I think might have surprised many of those Sunday school classes struggling to understand Hinduism is that early Christians would not have gotten their question very well either. If you had asked Jesus of Nazareth what he wanted people to believe he would likely have just stared at you. Paul might have had an answer but he wouldn't have spent much time on it.
The earliest name for Christians was "followers of the way." The word "disciple" means to be a student, an understudy of sorts. The question early Hindu immigrants could have answered that would have made more sense to them would be, "How are you Hindu?" or "What do you do?" That is the question that Jesus or Paul might have more likely been interested in answering.
The New Testament offers several bits of insight and guidance in what it means to live the Christian faith but interestingly, a lot of those passages have historically been read over with haste to get to the good stuff..... what you are supposed to believe to go to heaven.
When I was in seminary, a passage such as the one we read today from the third chapter of Colossians would most commonly be called a "holiness code" or a "household code." We didn't pay much attention to them. They didn't seem to be very theological.... They were more like what your grandmother might put into a needlepoint wall hanging than what we scholars were in grad school to discuss.
In grad school back in those days, we talked about orthodoxy..... we didn't generally approve of it but we knew what it was. The word I did not hear until years later, the word we should have been talking about, was orthopraxi. Orthodoxy is about right beliefs. Orthopraxi is about right actions.
Only in the last decade have I realized how irrelevant beliefs are when compared to practices. Now, granted, some religious practices are rituals.... Praying, going to temple, mosque or church. Some are reflective of a kind of scorched conscience... washing, refraining from sex, alcohol or meat. The purity practices often appear to be extreme and even psychologically unhealthy but if you pull back the wide angle lens a bit and listen to the life this holiness code is actually describing. We don't believe that Colossians is an authentic letter from Paul but rather this is how the church looked back on the founders of the faith and summarized their teachings. They tell us:
clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. 13Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 14Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. 15And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful.
This passage and many like in the New Testament ask the fundamental question about orthopraxis. It doesn't say that you have to go to church every week though I certainly appreciate those of you who do. It doesn't say anything about baptism, communion, confession or inviting Jesus into your heart. The concept of praxis is that by following a certain path, you draw near to God..... it is not be reciting a creed or participating in a religious ritual.... it is by showing compassion, by being forgiving, by loving others, tolerating their irritating quirks and celebrating their strengths. The question we really want to answer is not "what do you believe" but rather, "what do you do."
On the cover of each Sunday's bulletin we print our mission statement and the 8 points of progressive Christianity. We do this to be clear about who we are trying to be. And if you notice, the 8 points are not so much about beliefs as about praxis. We are somewhat more concrete than this passage from Colossians. We are trying to be specific in saying that we are concerned for the environment, for social justice and for tolerance among different races, sexual orientations and religions but we're saying the same things in principle, we're just fleshing out some details.
None of that is to say that I or we don't care about beliefs. I do. I teach Bible and religion in college classrooms and I assign papers and give tests and I expect to see well thought out answers that at are at least approximately what I have told them in my lectures and I'm not afraid to give bad grades to bad answers.
Bad beliefs can lead to bad behaviors and so I can be fairly adamant about things like:
God didn't write the Bible. Flawed people in ancient circumstances who had personal agendas wrote most of it and so you have to be careful in how you use it for guidance in modern days.
Evolution happened and is happening still..... except in Texas school books.
Women have all the same rights as men and they get to govern their own bodies.
Owning a gun is not a God given right.
God is not a Democrat or a Republican.
America is not God's chosen country and Israel isn't either.
Non-Christians don't burn in hell for eternity, not even your ex-spouse.
Homosexuality is not a sin and the shared life of consenting adults is none of your business no matter how dissatisfied you are with your own intimate life.
I could go on but I suspect that you have already gotten the point.
The decision to be a progressive Christian is not summed up in simply rejecting magical thinking and superstitious religious beliefs. As weary as most of us are with that Constantinian religion, just changing the way you think about such things doesn't have much of an impact on the world.
For us, meaningful religion is a transforming way of living, not just some kind of imaginary divine fire insurance. The real promise of being a disciple is that we can be changed, not simply in some mystical internal way but in the way that people actually experience us.
As we face the symbolic turning of the calendar to a new year, I encourage you to seriously consider what a New Year's resolution is really all about. Henry David Thoreau said, "I know of no more encouraging fact than that a person can elevate his or her own life by conscious effort." We are not victims of the choices made by our parents or the circumstances of our lives. We are not trapped in our prejudices, narrowness of vision or even our character flaws. We have chosen to live in a way.... to follow a praxis, to be disciples of a Jewish boy whose unknown date of birth is observed in this season of the year because we believe him to be the teacher of compassion.
A Hindu was once asked about the saying from John's gospel in which Jesus is reported to have said, "I am the way, the truth and the life." The guru replied, "Yes, I believe that because Jesus was the teacher of compassion and living a life of radical compassion is, in fact, the only way to God."
