RELIGION AND ME.
I admit it: I go to church each Sunday morning, done that since I was 4 years old, when I lived in the Netherlands’ most northerly City, Groningen, a university town since 1614, now with some 30,000 students.
In the church there, in my fourth year I met my future wife, the daughter of the minister. I distinctly remember this! Yes, churches also have a beautiful social function!
In my 9 decades of church attendance, I have heard thousands of sermons. I do recall preachers pounding the pulpit to emphasize a point, but sermons? I can recall one, at a funeral: Psalm 116: God delights in the death of his faithful.
A better way
As a teenager I faithfully attended the Young Men society. We met after the evening service, where we, in turn, presented an essay on a Christianity-related topic: that taught me more than the ministers’ 40 minutes orations.
After arriving in Canada in 1951, I soon integrated within the rapidly growing Dutch diaspora. I became active in establishing Christian Schools on a local and provincial level, advancing the matter of Christian education in line with the Netherlands, where Christian Schools were state-financed.
In 1965 I became an elder in a large church. That was a move that backfired: a clash of personalities.
I struggle.
Sermons and Creation. What is God’s Word?
I am a fervent believer that Creation is God’s Primary and Direct Word: “God spoke and it came to be”, says Psalm 33:9. There also is that beautiful opening line of John 1: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” That Word was not the Bible: that Word was Creation.
Dr. Sabine Dramm, in her book introducing Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s theology, summarized his thinking in one line: “Specific to the Christian Faith is the perception of God and the world as one.” Makes sense: that’s how we honor great artists and thinkers.
Enter Stefan Paas.
Dr. Paas, professor of Missions at the Free University in Amsterdam, in his remarkable book, VREDE OP AARDE (PEACE ON EARTH), states that God’s saving acts relate to everything: body, soul, spirit, but also our entire vulnerable creation. In other words: there’s more to being a Christian than pure piety.
Piety? I confess, I am a pious person. I pray before meals. I read the Bible every day. I write a 500 words meditation, on the lectionary every morning after breakfast – have done this for 30 odd years.
But piety and searching the Scriptures is not enough. Being a Christian primarily includes observing the holiness of creation, loving God and neighbor in whatever form, myself, my fellow humans, all God’s creatures, great and small: they too are our neighbours!
But…
We have assumed that in a finite world, infinite growth is possible. That sort of automatic behavior has led to a situation where we no longer are in control: now the system controls us. Yet, God is telling us that Creation is holy. Exploiting it means expunging God. Church attendance – long travel, large parking lots, huge spaces to heat or cool – cause Climatic Heating. Now the church itself has become a mission field, needs a radical change, fully embracing a holy creation.
And sermons?
Where does the concept of sermon originate? Did Jesus initiate it? No. He always encouraged dialogue. Did the apostles promote this sort of monologue? No. What, actually, is the real meaning of the word “sermon”? It comes from the Latin word, Sermo. My Latin dictionary defines it as ‘conversation, serious discussion’. Augustine, a well-known early preacher, in his preserved sermons, encouraged constant interactions, applause, cries of approval and objections, and an intermingling with the audience.
Which begs the question: What is the purpose of the church TODAY? What is the purpose of Christianity at this late hour? What is mission?
Stefan Paas in his book writes, and I translate, “Mission is no longer an obvious spreading of Western civilization or the salvation of souls from a doomed creation, it is far more a fervent longing for the coming of the Kingdom of God at ‘the end of times’, in the true confidence that everything done in the name of the Lord somehow will find a place in that Kingdom”.
Those words have serious implications for the church which, before sending out workers or supporting ‘foreign’ missions, needs to evaluate its own thinking and reorient its own conception of the gospel. An excursion into a forest, under the guidance of a biologist, a ‘nature film’, is as important as an explanation of a bible passage, and, perhaps more relevant than a monological sermon. At the least, a sermon ought to be a dialogue, a ‘give and take’ conversation.
The contemporary ‘religious’ church is dying. Jesus himself pointed the WAY: (John 10:10), “I have come that you may have LIFE and that to the full”. Religion and church do not save: Full-time Life in Jesus and his creation does.