There Is No Quick Fix: How Bad Theology Hurts People

Sermon: Proper 24 (29) Year C 2007

Community Church of Wilmette
October 21, 2007

There Is No Quick Fix: How Bad Theology Hurts People

I am angry.

And I find it difficult to step into a pulpit when I’m angry knowing
that the purpose of a pulpit, the truth-telling significance of the
pulpit, is to proclaim the presence of God.

Ann Coulter, the political instigator, has been in the news lately.
Once again the internet newswire is afire because of something she said
in an interview. Usually I pay this no mind. I don't have the time for
it. But this week I just couldn't let it go.

She made statements about Christianity that were untrue. She
insulted our Jewish brothers and sisters. She hurt people…and not with
the truth. Sometimes freedom and pain come together. But this was not
one of those times.

She said, “America would be better off if everyone were Christian.”
She said, “[Christianity] is a lot easier [than Judaism], it's kind of a fast track.”

There’s more that she said. She becomes very political very quickly, but I want us to focus on her theology.

I just don't know what to do when I hear words like this. I think
about our loved ones here. I think about Jewish spouses, of friends and
family who struggle with their faith because of what has been done, is
continually done, in the name of Christianity.

A friend of mine is known for saying “Bad theology hurts people.”

What Ann Coulter has said is bad theology.
Bad theology hurts people.
Good theology, however, saves lives.

This is why I am constantly striving after our own theological
language here at Community Church. We have to be able to speak
theologically. Theology matters. Doctrine matters. Scripture matters.
Exploring it is not ephemeral or a simple intellectual exercise. It is
a human endeavor with real, tangible results. It is storytelling at its
greatest. Lives are at stake. I know it sounds dramatic, but it is
true. And Ann Coulter understands this. That's what makes what she says
so difficult for me. This is how she can set me on fire.

She said, “America would be better off if everyone were Christian.”
She said, “[Christianity] is a lot easier [than Judaism], it's kind of a fast track.”

Christianity is not a fact track. Christianity is complicated. It
demands all of us, a total sacrifice. But this has never been easy for
people to embrace. Paul knew this. And I imagine he had this truth in
mind when he wrote to Timothy:

For the time is coming
when the people will not put up with sound doctrine, but have itching
ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own
desires and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander away
to myths. (2 Timothy 4:3-4)

Paul offered this statement in
his letter to Timothy. It should seem like familiar ground to us as
well. Paul is not so much predicting the future as he is stating what
is already afoot in Timothy’s congregation. This is a dynamic that has
always existed in human communities. We look for the quick fix. There
is always room for the snake oil salesman, the carpetbagger, the false
teacher, or the guru with the easy path to self-actualization. We look
for it. The same was true two thousand years ago.

Paul knew this and he wanted Timothy to remember something else.
He wanted to strengthen Timothy’s place, his sense of what is true.

But
as for you, continue in what you have learned and firmly believed,
knowing from whom you learned it, and how from childhood you have known
the sacred writings that are able to instruct you for salvation through
faith in Christ Jesus. (2 Timothy 3:14-15)

There’s an
interesting clue hidden in the Greek here in our passage. “Whom” is a
plural. It asks us to look back in the letter to when Paul encourages
Timothy in his struggles as a young leader in the church by reminding
him of the examples he had in his grandmother, mother, the apostle
himself, and many others. Community is what shaped Timothy’s faith. The
faith Timothy received is the blessing of those who had gone before
him, those who journeyed with him.

Ann Coulter wants to see more Christians. She is right that this is
an important part of our tradition. And that’s fine. That she later
equates the faithful with any one political party, manifesto, or
ideology is troublesome at best. No one party or political theory can
contain the vastness of the Gospel.

We, as Christians, are called to invite people into our tradition.
True. We are called to teach our children our tradition. Timothy was
the recipient of such a blessing. Paul wants him to remember this. We
are all the recipients of such a blessing. We are called to spread the
faith, to hand it on. We are called to bless and to be blessed.

What will save the world, however, is not any one of us…any number
of Christians. It is God who will saves. The scriptures, the stories,
and the doctrine of the church repeat again and again that it is God
who saves. In the end, it is God, not we, who save. We are no more than
the vehicles of God’s grace, instruments of God’s peace, and
evangelists of God’s good.

I think of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King from Atlanta, Bishop Desmond
Tutu of South Africa, Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador, Dorothy
Day of Chicago and New York, Mother Teresa of Calcutta...Good theology
saves lives. There are so many wondrous examples of good theology,
sound doctrine, put to work. The fruit of the Holy Spirit are then
revealed. People are led from slavery into freedom. The poor receive
love. The silent are given voice. Paul wrote:

All
scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof,
for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who
belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work. (2
Timothy 3:16-17)

What will help the world, help to show
God’s love to all the peoples of the world, is if we Christians live
into our own traditions, our own stories…allowing them to change us
first. We cannot amass traditions that leave us stagnant, unchanged, we
cannot accumulate for [our]selves teachers to suit [our] own desires.
These stories and traditions are meant to change us…slowly, and
inexorably into disciples. We are meant to wrestle with God and one
another and, in the end, seek a blessing.

This is what we encounter in our passage from Genesis. Jacob is in
trouble with his brother. He’s in real trouble. He expects to die. He
expects his family to be killed in a single act of familial vengeance.
This is the context of his encounter with God. He wrestles with God in
the night. He struggles with what to do. It is a stalemate of sorts…and
Jacob will not let the angel go. The angel blesses Jacob, but not
without leaving a mark. Jacob is changed, wounded, and yet made whole
and is able then to reconcile with his brother. There is no vengeance.
There is peace.

This is why at communion you will hear me mention this story…”Those
who wish to strive with God as did Jacob in the desert…are invited to
this table.”

She said, “America would be better off if everyone were Christian.”
She said, “[Christianity] is a lot easier [than Judaism], it's kind of a fast track.”

Scripture is full of stories of wrestling with God. There is no
simple list of things one must do to “be Christian.” The Christian
journey is anything but simple. It is anything but a set of rules, a
series of hoops to jump through. And we are the children of Judaism.
Coulter should keep this in mind. We are the adopted children. Christ
may have come to fulfill the Law, but we are adopted, grafted into the
vine.

She said, “America would be better off if everyone were Christian.”
She said, “[Christianity] is a lot easier [than Judaism], it's kind of a fast track.”

18:2
[Jesus] said, "In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared
God nor had respect for people. 18:3 In that city there was a widow who
kept coming to him and saying, 'Grant me justice against my opponent.'

18:4 For a while he refused; but later he said to himself, 'Though
I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, 18:5 yet because this
widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not
wear me out by continually coming.'"

18:6 And the Lord said, "Listen to what the unjust judge says. 18:7
And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day
and night? Will he delay long in helping them? 18:8 I tell you, he will
quickly grant justice to them. And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will
he find faith on earth?" (Luke 18:2-8)

We have to take heart. We have to cry day and night.
We must have faith…
…faith that our God is not an unjust judge, fickle, shallow or cruel.
Justice is coming. Peace and reconciliation are coming. We must have
faith enough to wrestle with God, to wrestle with one another.

I must wrestle with Ann Coulter. The work of the Gospel is too
important for me not to. The work of loving the world is too important
to my own salvation for me not to. I must love her.

She is a Christian. I have no doubt of this. I question her theology
and the conclusions she articulates. This is true. And she sets me on
edge. There is no doubt. But wrestle we must. Our shared salvation, our
blessing in God, depends on it.

I expect no less here at Community Church. I expect us to wrestle. I
expect us to seek one another’s blessings. To do this is to live into
the story. But we must first tell the story.

We must constantly return to the story, the Gospel story. It is, after
all good news, the tale of a journey with God, and the invitation we
have all been given…

…to reveal God’s love to the world.

We must tell the story…again and again. We must remind one another
of our stories. If we want to love our Jewish brothers and sisters, the
Buddhists, our Muslim cousins, the agnostic, or the atheist, then we
must wrestle. If we want peace, we must wrestle.

America would be better off if we wrestle.

And there is no quick fix. There is no solution but God’s grace.

Praise God.

Amen.