| The recent flap over the controversial statements and/or sermonizing by
Barack Obama’s long-time pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, will no doubt
convince many church people in America of the dangers of mixing
religion and politics. After Senator Obama delivered his speech in response to
the publicized sermon snippets of Rev. Wright, I heard and read a
number of political pundits praising the way the Democratic presidential
hopeful managed to turn political lemons into oratory lemonade. They
applauded his handling of this controversy, partly because he said, in
effect, that he doesn’t agree with everything his pastor says from
the pulpit any more than most Americans who attend a church don’t agree
with everything their pastor says or preaches (members of this church being
the exception, of course).
I thought to myself that Mr. Obama’s explanation would be so obvious and sufficient that he wouldn’t need to say much more than that to distance himself from his “controversial” pastor. But, he didn’t stop there. Most of us who heard the speech appreciated the honesty in Mr. Obama’s assessment that the legacy of racism, which Rev. Wright rails against, still haunts our nation and we must find healthy ways to address this issue rather than deny it. What I found instructive for us as the church in this political campaign hoopla is the assumptions that some people, or the news media at least, make about sermons they might hear in church. More importantly, what makes a sermon “controversial”. Most of us who read the Jesus story, particularly in the Gospel of Mark, can’t miss the point that Jesus created controversy and conflict in his preaching and teaching during his day. For all the effort that my childhood Sunday School teachers put into presenting me with a meek and mild version of Jesus, my reading of the Gospels tell me that Jesus incited opposing views about God’s plans for the world and disrupted the traditional religious and cultural notions about what it means to be God’s chosen people. Just this week I came across a new book entitled /Speaking Conflict: Stories of a Controversial Jesus/. The author notes that modern biblical scholarship is quick to point out that Jesus was a controversial figure in his own day. On just about every page of the four Gospels we can find stories about Jesus getting embroiled in controversies or coming into conflict with the guardians of society in the Judeo-Roman culture of first century Palestine. Some of these controversies were prompted by Jesus’ anti-temple behavior, some were prompted by his willingness to challenge the Torah religion of the Pharisees and Sadducees, some grew out of his call for allegiance to God’s new social order rather than to the Roman empire. Jesus’ entire ministry was surrounded by controversies that involved questions about divorce, keeping the Sabbath holy, embracing social outcasts, paying taxes, etc. Jesus’ devotion to a spiritual life that emphasized loving God and practicing a radical form of neighborliness constantly put him on a collision course with the dominant culture of his time. Some say that his confrontation with the power people in his culture is what got him crucified on a Roman cross. Fact is, the church has never escaped controversy in its long and sordid history. Charlie Packard, our seminary intern, is now teaching an adult Sunday School class series on theological turning points in Christian history, most of which were born out of some controversy going on at a particular point in time. And I had more than one seminary professor tell me before I ever became a pastor that if I was serious about following the way of Jesus I ought to assume that I would be “controversial” at times in my ministry. After 30 years in ministry now I realize that this is true simply because the values of love, justice, peace, and forgiveness that Jesus asks us to uphold are not the values that control most of the decisions or actions made by institutional leaders in our world. So, I expect that my theological or ideological views will be controversial not only among those outside the church, but, on occasion, among some inside the church as well. In thinking about controversies in the church today, let me end with what seems to me to be a controversial idea for most Christians in North America- the church is often more alive and more relevant in the world when we stir up controversy and agitate people about the values we claim to uphold as a nation and when we question those values from our understanding and experience with the Gospel we hear in Jesus Christ. I would rather be part of a controversial church rather than a church that is silent about values or issues on which we might not all agree. Lou |
