Sermon-Christian Sourdough
Text-- Psalm 121, John 3: 1-17 and Romans 4:1-5,13-17
Written by Paul Van Antwerp, Peace UCC
February 17, 2008

 A survey as we begin: how many of you have John 3:16 fixed in your minds?

How many of you have known it since childhood?

Permit me a moment of self-indulgence. You see, John 3:16 reminds me that as a kid, every Wednesday, I used to put on a pair of loose fitting pants, clean the soles of my gym shoes and lace them up tightly. Then I’d hop in a car with my best friend and his mother and we would go to their church… where I was allowed run around in circles and get candy.

I was an “AWANA” kid. Have you heard of this? I had forgotten about it until these scripture readings for today brought it all flooding back. It’s a non-denominational group that provides church programming to youth from four to seventeen. It’s centered in suburban Chicago, where I grew up, and I guess I always thought it was a local program, but they boast 12,000 churches in the US, and based on their “club finder” there are 8 programs within twenty-five miles of my home in Duluth. It touts itself as having  “The best evangelism tools to reach unsaved children, youth and families”

So I know all of that now, but back then, I just knew we could run around and get candy.

I guess I also knew that the church was different from mine. My best friend’s family were Baptists, which meant they let their kids run around. I was Missouri Synod Lutheran. We…sat still.

An AWANA’s evening went like this. We’d gather, sing some songs, hear a short… “homily”—I guess you’d call it, then get together in smaller groups and try to memorize Bible verses. The more verses you memorized, the more awards you got. Then, finally, could we tighten our gym shoes, run around, and get candy.

It’s funny, because now that these verses have triggered it, I realize that I have very clear memories of this time and these experiences. I mean, I know Romans 4:5 and John 3:16—for as long as I can remember back in my life I could rattle those verses off to you. –I couldn’t tell you what they meant… but I knew them, like so many others bible verses. What’s funny is that I can’t tell you all the  passages I know--from what book and where--and because they were in the King James Version, I often hardly recognize them when I read the NRSV, but if you gave me the prompt—if you said “John 3:16”—(snap)—It’s there.  

That AWANA program was very much a part of my childhood. And it was religious programming.  You see, they believe (in their own words here) that the Bible is “supernaturally inspired, so that it is inerrant in the original manuscripts”, and that it is “a divinely authoritative standard for every age and every life.”  They believe that “Jesus is coming again personally, bodily and visibly to this earth to set up His kingdom.”  And they believe “in the bodily resurrection of the dead, of the believer to everlasting glory and the unbeliever to judgment and everlasting conscious punishment.”

You’d think, somewhere, that such a strong message would stick with me!

No. We did a lot of sit-down stuff,  I remember, and then we ran around and got candy.

—And it’s not that I was just a “clueless” kid. I mean, I have a lot of theological memory from those early days in the Missouri Synod. I know this because so often, in my present seminary study, I come face to face with those memories. And they are not just quaint childhood recollections, but foundational material that I have to face, head on.

What’s the difference? I mean, I enjoyed running in circles and getting candy far more than a church service, and those two religious activities split equal time in my life, Sunday or Wednesday. Why did one provide a base for my theology and the other a curious memory years later?

You see, in AWANA, I was stimulated, but not guided. The words were memorized, but not embodied. The Missouri Synod, for all of the faults I may find in the theology now, embodied their theology. They had strong values and they told you how to live in recognition of them. For AWANA, it seemed a “numbers game”… “memorize those verses… save the unsaved.” Sure, I learned more Biblical text there, and they had more children in their program by far, but they never taught us how to use it.

And I’ve been “using” that conservative Lutheran theology in every step of my spiritual growth. I described it a moment ago as “foundational material”, that is true, there isn’t a bit of my liberal Protestant faith that arrived without first going through that foundation. As much as I might disagree with it, I need to accept, and respect what I’ve learned, to understand what I need.   

Sounds complicated, doesn’t it. Why not just start with a “clean slate”—why not just deny it any influence? Ignore it. Starve it to death. Say “Get behind me, poor theology” … I don’t think it works that way, friends. I’m here to tell you that our spirituality, our faith, doesn’t “change”—it “develops”. The plant that started from a sprout in window is the same plant that bears food at harvest. You change shape, but you never leave what you started with.

And that’s not easy for a lot of us to hear. Especially if we left a church family where we are no longer welcome. This is why I’m sharing it. 

 And it’s a lesson I’m reminded of, as I work through this text in Romans.  Now, this is not the easiest text, is it? Did you follow everything that was said up here? This is  a text, when it arrives in the lectionary,  that is easy for the preacher to set aside, saying “Ok, what do we have in John here?—Oh! It’s 3:16! That’s better.

But… I’m a seminary student… so here goes:   

Let’s get a few things clear here: Paul wrote in the midst of empire. Roman Empire, who’s influence, at the time, was felt throughout most of the “known world”. And let’s keep in perspective that we’re reading his work, here, in the midst of another empire—the U.S. Empire, who presence is also felt throughout the “known world”. Let’s also keep clear that unlike Paul, most of us here are on the receiving end of the Empire. Paul, a Jew, was not.  So we’re reading from the point of view of the powerful, while Paul’s writing from the margins.   

This letter was directed to Gentile Christians in Rome because Paul wanted them to accept the Jews returning from exile into his community of predominantly Gentile Jesus-followers. See, emperor Claudius banished Jews from Rome in 49, and after he died, they started returning. That’s the immediate context—it’s worth remembering that the Jews never were welcome in the Roman empire.

And Paul knows that the foundation of his new Jesus movement is in those struggling, but faithful—stubbornly faithful—persecuted people. One commentary puts it this way: “Paul is wrestling with how to honor his own Scripture in a way that leaves room for God to speak in new, seemingly unprecedented ways. God spoke before Torah. God spoke through Torah. God spoke after Torah. [And… as we like to say:] God is still speaking.”
 
It’s worth sharing this, not just to bore you, but because Paul is so frequently hijacked in service to the powerful. And if we don’t lift it up and study it, we lose our voice, we lose the text—because it is easy to approach this text, from the viewpoint of the dominant culture, the powerful, that have the arrogance to make bold declarations like the AWANA  group I mentioned earlier: —that what they have “is a divinely authoritative standard for every age and every life.”
 
Paul is looking forward, yes, but he wisely does not forget his past. What Paul is reminding his Gentile followers is that “you would have nothing, if it weren’t for these people. You don’t need to take the same shape, but you have the same foundation.”

And indeed, considering the impossible odds the Jewish culture faced, the fact that we have these texts and this foundation at all… really is a miracle. Do you know the god of Babylon? Of Assyria? Mesopotamia? I assume you know a little Roman theology from your literature classes—They all… paraded in with their empires and declared themselves “The divinely authoritative standard”.

Paul, understands this. He has his own standard, yes—we all do! But Paul understands something we easily forget… he does not to forget his roots.

--At least, this is what I’ve gleaned from current scholarship on Paul—invite me back to microphone in three years when it comes around in the lectionary again. We’ll see how perspectives on Paul have changed…  and we’ll see how the empire has changed…and how our church has changed.   

Friends, it will keep changing. I see it like a sourdough bread… -- “Christian Sourdough”--I’ll call the present form. --That’s what we’re serving up today in our liberal Protestant church. The bread takes shape in specific times and places, and we eat of it readily, but through all of the joy of the feast, we take care that the “starter”  is kept and nourished, so the next bread may rise.   

So? What’s the next sourdough look like? What denomination or religious title will our relations claim as generations pass? Oh, it will be different. You may hate it. But you can hope that they’ve learned not to look back at what you did and feel hatred. We pray that we may keep that starter going, however the bread of their life take shape.  And we will do it, not by playing the “numbers game”—not by gathering great numbers through the entertainment we provide, but by our ability to live out our values, embody our faith, and provide a strong foundation for the future.

God bless us in the work that we do. Amen.