Mail Archive of the old Santa Clara Valley Lutheran Parish

I adjure you by the Lord that this letter be read to all the brethren. (Thessalonians 5:27)
Subject: belated devotion for the 13th
Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2011 17:59:37 -0700 (PDT)
From: David Bonde <pastorbonde@gmail.com>
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Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2011 17:59:37 -0700 (PDT)
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Subject: belated devotion for the 13th
From: David Bonde <pastorbonde@gmail.com>
To: SCVLP <scvlp@googlegroups.com>
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(from my newsletter for July)

If we don=92t want to grow, we don=92t have to grow.  If we don=92t want to
be disciples of Jesus, we don=92t have to be.  We can be a cozy little
religious club that sings songs we like, sits in the pews we want,
drinks coffee with the people we like.

We don=92t have to feed the hungry, heal the sick or proclaim the
Kingdom of God.  We don=92t have to welcome the outcast or love our
enemy.  We don=92t have to give the first fruits or share our abundance
with those in need.  (Well, technically God demands that we do all
these things, but we come from a long line of apple-eaters choosing to
go our own way, to be our own gods.)

We don=92t have to read the Bible.  We don=92t have to pray for the world
and those in need.  We don=92t have to gather for worship.  We can do
whatever we want.  But we cannot imagine that Jesus has any interest
in a religious club.  Pretty much everything he did was to shatter the
club mentality: healing on the Sabbath, picking grain on the Sabbath,
eating with outcasts and sinners, knocking over tables in the temple,
feeding the 5,000, talking with the woman at the well, raising the
dead =96 even eating with =93good religious people=94 like Simon the
Pharisee =96 all of it a stunning and powerful challenge to comfortable
religion.

Faith is comforting.  It doesn=92t comfort me in my prejudices.  It
doesn=92t comfort me in my self-righteousness. It doesn=92t comfort me in
my love of money, sex and power.  It doesn=92t bless the American way of
life or my preferred political party.  It does comfort me when I stand
beside the grave.  It does comfort me when evil seems to abound.  It
does comfort me when my faults get the better of me and I am convicted
of being an apple-eater.  It does comfort me when I am beaten down.
It lifts up the lowly, as Mary said, but casts down the mighty from
their thrones.

Christians throughout history have been very good about being a
religious club.  But what amazes me is that we keep telling Bible
stories, and those Bible stories keep getting lose and changing
everything.  Christians in this country used religion to support
slavery, but that troublesome story of God setting slaves free in
Egypt got loose.  The Renaissance papacy had a great thing going
selling forgiveness to an anxiety-ridden people, but Luther read
Romans and Galatians and suddenly the Bible got loose and changed
everything.  The period known as Lutheran Orthodoxy was very good at
getting God back in the box, and then along came people like Spener
and Hauge who dared to pray and read the Bible together and upset the
applecart.  (They put Hauge in prison, but that doesn=92t stop prayer =96
and then there are all those troublesome Bible stories of God opening
prisons.)

So we can be what we want.  But God is who he is.  And God=92s Word will
do what it does.  And with us or without us God=92s message will break
out and change things.  God doesn=92t care about religious clubs; he
cares about grace for those in need.

I suggest we follow.
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