Barry Dundas

Good Scriptures Going Bad

The past month my energy has been focused on one of the most challenging sermon series I have preached. Sometimes what seems like a good idea months in advance becomes incredibly stressful when it is time to live it out. The idea started when I came across a book by Bishop Spong called "The Sins of Scripture." If the purpose of a title is to get you to open the book, then it worked. The book became the catalyst for my January sermon series, "When Good Scriptures Go Bad: Facing the Texts We Use to Destroy, Control, and Distort God's World." Honestly, I am not inclined to stick my neck out on issues that I know will stir controversy. I would rather play it safe so that people will like me. This series has not allowed me to play it safe. I am fortunate to serve a church not only allows me to proclaim where I stand but is not afraid to stand with me. To see or hear the sermons you can find them on our church website at http://www.triumc.org/current_sermon_series.html. Each week an MP3 recording is posted after worship and streaming video by 10 PM.

True Riches

A few weeks ago I preached a sermon with the title "True Riches"  It was based on the parable of the dishonest manager found in Luke 16:1-13.  I had to come up with the title early and by the time Sunday came around it was not about true riches at all.  Honestly, I think the parable doesn't have much to say about true riches, but Luke did.  He has Jesus make the statement near the end of the passage, "If then you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches?"  I don't know if it was my research on this parable or the fact that we are in a season that is often centered on greed instead of "true riches," but I have been pondering our definition of wealth.  I read something interesting the other day by Elaine Bernard, director of the Trade Union Program at Harvard.  She writes:

One of the things I find very interesting in our current debates is this concept of who creates wealth. Wealth is only created when it's owned privately. What would you call clean water, fresh air, a safe environment? Are they not a form of wealth? And why does it only become wealth when some entity puts a fence around it and declares it private property? Well, you know, that's not wealth creation, that's wealth usurpation.

We often define our worth by what we claim as private property, how big is my house, how new is my car, how current are my clothes (my answers, not big, not new and never current).  A common question this time of year is what do you want for Christmas.  We then recite a list of things that are probably more wants than needs.  We need more things if we are going to believe that we are individuals of great wealth.  What would happen if we redefined wealth as that which is best for the world instead of what is best for me?  What if instead of asking for things we said what I want for Christmas is to make a difference, to stop contributing to global warming or to do something that leads to greater understanding in the world instead of more conflict?  What if we really believed that true riches are not something that we could ever buy or own, but only something we can give away?

Junk DNA

In Brian McLaren's latest book "Everything Must Change," he has a chapter called No Junk DNA.  He begins with a story of meeting a DNA expert on a plane and striking up a conversation.  The man was passionate about studying human DNA and explained that a common misconception is that much of the material contained in a gene is junk DNA.  His belief is that what many scientists call junk is just stuff we don't understand.  Their assumption is that the part which we don't understand must not have a use and is junk, but he believes there is no junk DNA.  After the conversation, Brian reflected how the scientist's comments were relevant to how we read the Bible.

The Bible's purpose, we assume, is to explain how to go to heaven, to legitimize certain religious institutions, to define in detail universal timeless truths, to provide a detailed timeline for the end of the world, and so on. But based on that assumption, there appears to be a lot of junk revelation in there, a lot of extraneous material about history, agriculture, economics, art, ethics, and other "earthly" things, extra stuff that doesn't really matter in relation to getting souls to heaven. So what might we discover if we become willing to question that assumption? Then we could test an alternative hypothesis: that the Bible instead is the story of the partnership between God and humanity to save and transform all of human society and avert global self destruction. Perhaps if we read the Bible afresh from this perspective, a lot of the supposed filler will suddenly come alive with new importance and meaning.

It is easy for me to agree with Brian because I connect with his theology and I agree with his hypothesis, but I also found his statement challenging.  Because of my theological bent, I find areas of scripture to be junk DNA.  It is not that I ignore them, but I cannot understand how they connect with my understanding of God.  Scriptures that describe a God who calls for genocide, that support slavery, that place women in secondary roles or describe a God who ends the world in a bloody battle don't make sense.  I just drop them into my junk drawer and focus on the scriptures I like.  Maybe I need to re-examine the sections of the Bible that give me the most trouble, not because I believe God supports genocide or injustice, but because their is a benefit from wrestling with that which is difficult. These scriptures were saved because they said something important to the people trying to understand the same God I worship.  They are part of the church's DNA that has shaped my life. If I choose to ignore them and label them junk than I my understanding of God is incomplete.

Hearing Voices

In a devotion I read today written by Rev. Kate Moorehead taken from her book "Organic God," she briefly tells the story of John Nash, the brilliant mathematician who was the subject of the movie "A Beautiful Mind."  Here is what she wrote:

Nobel prize winner John Nash struggled with schizophrenia. When first diagnosed, he was treated with shock therapy and medication. But he found that this form of treatment destroyed his genius, clouding his mind. In trying to erase the voices in his head, he also destroyed all creative thought. It was only when he learned to live with these voices, not to silence them, that he was able to continue to work and thrive as a great mathematician.

Although I have seen the movie, which I thought was incredible, my initial impression was how different I am from John Nash.  I cannot imagine what he struggles with everyday.  After reading the devotion I realized how similar we all are.  We all struggle with voices every single day, voices saying things like, "you're not good enough," "you're not smart enough," you have failed," "you don't fit in."  These voices attempt to destroy who we are, but sometimes in our attempts to shut them out, we do more damage to ourselves or those around us.  In some mysterious way, this idea of living with the voices was freeing.  Maybe the secret to life is not trying to silence the voices of the world, but living among the voices, discovering the voices that are creative and life sustaining.  I am not denying that some of the voices are incredibly destructive, but I suspect that we can never silence them completely.  They just wait in the dark until an opportune time.  But when we acknowledge the voices and learn to live among them, they seem to lose some of their power and like John Nash, we are then able to hear a greater voice that becomes our true identity in life.

Biblical Interpretation

It came clear to me again this week how two people can read a Biblical story and hear two very different messages.  I showed Ryan Jones documentary "Fall From Grace" at my church.  It is an inside look at Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church.  Fred's claim to fame is showing up at funerals and other places with outrageous signs of God's hate for the world.  What I found interesting is the logic behind the picketing.  His family understands themselves as modern day Jonah's and the United States is Nineveh.  Jonah's message was repent or Nineveh will be destroyed in 40 days.  It is not a message of grace but one of God's judgment and wrath.  One of Fred's sons described their goal.  They intend to put this nation's lips to the cup of God's fury and make it drink.  Fred himself believes he is a modern day prophet but assumes that it is too late for this country.  What I find fascinating is that I don't read Jonah as a story about Nineveh's sin.  It is not about how bad Nineveh is or about their repentance because of Jonah's message.  It is a story about a reluctant prophet who couldn't care less about Nineveh.  Jonah doesn't want Nineveh to repent because he wants them to get what's coming to them, what he thinks they deserve.  In that way he was not so different from Fred.  Fred doesn't really want the United States to change, he wants it to be destroyed.  When I read Jonah's story, I don't hear a message about Nineveh but about Jonah's failure as a prophet.  God's disappointment with Jonah is because of his self-centeredness and lack of compassion.  He is so focused on his hatred for Nineveh that he cannot see God's bigger picture.  I guess I do agree with Fred, he is more like Jonah than he might ever imagine.

Word of God

Sometimes book titles catch my eye and I have to pick them up to see what they are about.  I guess that is probably the intention of most book titles, otherwise how would they ever get sold.  The other day I ran across a book called "The Sins of Scripture."  It is exactly the kind of title I am talking about.  When I saw the author was Bishop John Shelby Spong, I couldn't resist.  Not only did I pick the book up, I had to buy it.  In the first two chapters, Spong argues that he is a Christian and that he has a life-long love affair with the Bible.  You know he is about to make a controversial claim when he begins by defending himself, and here it comes.  Spong does not like the traditional phrase, "the Word of God."  Here are his exact words.

Perhaps the strangest claim ever made for any written document in history is that its words are or somehow contain the "Word of God." Such an assertion assumes that God is a very humanlike being who has the ability to speak to a particular people in a language that they understand and that God is intimately invested in the minutiae of human life...Similar claims have also been made for the sacred writings of other religious traditions, but Christians have never taken these "pagan" claims seriously. Somehow these claims coming from non-Christian sources are just too obviously absurd.

Spong goes on to explore how this phrase is understood by Christians.  Some take it very literally as the inerrant, inspired words of God. In this view, to quote a verse of the Bible is to invoke the authority of God.  Others hear the phrase metaphorically.  It is a claim that every generation continues to hear God's voice through the reading of these ancient texts.  The problem for Spong as that the phrase, "the Word of God." carries with it the authority to justify any behavior within the church, even when it is evil.  Spong has not shortage of examples throughout Christian history and goes on to conclude,

To face this reality is essential for my integrity as a Christian, but it is not easy. My religious critics say to me that there can be no Christianity apart from the authority of the scriptures. They hear my attack on this way of viewing the Bible as an attack on Christianity itself. I want to say in response that the claim that the scriptures are either divinely inspired or are the "Word of God" in any literal sense has been so destructive that I no longer want to be a part of that kind of Christianity. (p. 18)

Now you can understand why he begins the book by defending himself.  I don't always agree with Spong, but his claims bring up some important questions within me.  Why do we call the Bible "the Word of God" when it does not make that claim for itself?  Does this understanding of our Holy Text give it the authority to justify evil?  Where does our authority as Christians rest if not in the Bible?  As a youth I remember being asked, "Do I believe that God had the ability to give us a book that contained everything I needed to know about life and salvation."  It was the kind of question that really only has one answer if I believed in God.  The problem is that it has become the wrong question.  My question is not could God create this book, but did God?

Getting Grace

I am preaching a series of sermons on grace which is sparking some interesting discussion.  The premise is that grace is one thing the church has to offer to the world and that the future of the church depends on how well we master grace.  The first few sermons have been on defining grace and experienceing grace.  A good friend sent me this question.

Is grace something God gives us, or is our experience of being graciously accepted our experience of God?

After responding rather poorly to his question, he explained himself further.  Here is part of his response.  It comes from a much longer e-mail so I hope that I do not take him out of context.  I think I am being faithful to his answer.

God IS! We experience love, forgiveness, generosity, kindness, joy, but what we are awakening to is the presence of God that already IS within us. As certain experiences awaken us we like to give the experience a name. It is like these experiences are electrical charges that draw their energy (meaning and significance) from the Power Source (God, Grace, Love, meaning, authenticity, Really Real Reality, etc.) that is the locus of the soul.

Grace already was there ready for your experience of selfless generosity, but what you actually experienced is IS-NESS; this IS is the way we are supposed to self-consciously live our lives.

His understanding of grace reminds me of Paul Tillich (a theologian I don't claim to understand) when he describes God as the Ground of Our Being.  If we want to find God then we don't look out there, but we go inward.  God dwells within us and is at the core of who we are, our authentic selves.  Karl Barth on the other hand tends to describe God as a self-revealing God.  What we experience or understand about God is only what God reveals.  Grace is not something that dwells within but is expereinced from the outside.  I know this is a simplistic description of a much richer theology, but I hope it gets at two different ways to view or understand God.

I still do not have a good answer for the question.  Is grace something God gives us or is it something that is awakend in us when we experience generous acts?

Transition

I have not posted for months.  It is easy to get out of the routine and the longer you wait, the harder it is to jump back in.  For the past three months, my whole life has been struggling to find a routine.  Since March, I have been living in transition.  While in Louisiana on a church work trip, I received a call from my District Superintendent asking if I would take a church in Salina, Kansas.  I knew the call was coming, and I am very excited about the new opportunity.  I believe God is leading me to this church at this time.  However, it doesn't really matter if this is a good move or a challenging move, it still put my life (and the life of my family) into a transitional state.  It is that uncomfortable place between the now and the not yet.  On the way, I have made some interesting discoveries about times of transition.  First, transitions or change may be a part of life, but it is never comfortable.  Even good change can create uncomfortable feelings.  I have watched this in action many times as I have tried to create change.  To experience the change in my own life is a different story.  Second, change is always expensive.  Financially we have spent plenty of money selling and buying a new home.  I am not talking about the cost of housing but all the little things you have to do to make the old house sell-able and the new house livable.  But financial expense is only a small piece of the cost.  Leaving friends and familiar surroundings is a painful process.  The third thing is what I hope to discover, that on the other side of the transition tunnel is light.  When we go through times of change, they are also times of growth.  My favorite theologian, Dr. Phil, likes to say, "If something is hard, it might be important.  The last three months have been hard on our entire family, but I believe on the other side, we will be better, stronger people. 

Louisiana Mission Trip 4

I am late writing tonight because of the KU game (a squeaker over Southern Illinois).  We were promised that it would be shown for us and the KU students that are spending their spring break in Buras, but like many of the services down here, the reliability is undependable.  In fact our second option was to watch the game online but that was denied as well.  Finally we gathered around a radio in a trailer and listened with great anxiety.  It was a bonding experience.  When the game was over, I went to upload my post and the internet was down.  Like I said, do not depend on services.

Our work today was similar to the rest of the week but two events stand out.  The first was when little Xavier (8 years old) got into some fire ants.  It was not a pleasant experience for him or all the moms that came running to help.  Finally we got him stripped down and calmed down.  The second was a side trip led by Pastor Gene and his wife Debbie to see some Louisiana wild life (besides the ants).   We drove all the way down to the end of the peninsula where we saw a huge pelican and about four alligators.  As we stood by the water, Gene explained how an alligator is fast enough to take down a dear who is getting a drink.  It made us wonder why we were standing so close to the water.  We also witnessed more of the devastation left from Katrina.  Large shrimping boats laying on their sides, a huge house boat that had been abandoned and more debris everywhere.  Gene explained how nice the area used to be.  Now it just feels like trash is everywhere.  We were also able to visit Gene and Debbie’s home, an RV that sets on the foundation of the former parsonage.  Debbie walked us around the foundation and told us where everything used to be.  Now they receive a small housing allowance from the conference that they are using to purchase the trailer.  What I find amazing is how positive they are.  Not only did they lose their house and their church, but all of their neighbors who had been their friends for the past 11 years.  Everyday we have been here, Gene has constantly talked about how blessed he is.  He must have a different definition for blessed then most of the world, at least the world I know.  It is hard to complain about anything when you spend much time with Gene and Debbie.

Tomorrow we will work in the morning and then start our long trek back to Kansas.  I would like to say that I will put a final post about the trip when I get back, but I know my personality.  It may or may not happen once I get back into my regular routine.  I will try.

Louisiana Mission Trip 3

Wednesday is always a hard day on a work trip.  The soreness of your muscles begins to set in, your body is simply tired from the work that you are not used to doing, and you start to miss the familiar surroundings of your home.  An additional challenge to this experience is the bug bites.  Most of us are covered and looking for comfort.  We were dragging a bit today, but that does not mean we didn’t get plenty of work done.  In spite of our first rain of the trip, we had five fires going at one time and continued to work on church construction.  Our biggest scare of the week was an unusual hissing that came from one of the fires.  We are not sure what was under the debris, but it was under pressure that was relieved by the intense heat.  No one was hurt, and after a few minutes the hissing stopped.  When the fire is out, we will have to do some detective work.

This afternoon I had a good talk with one of the former residents of Buras.  He no longer has a house here, instead he has a small trailer on his property.  The only thing that remains of his former residence is his car port.  He actually lives in North Louisiana but works down here in one of the oil refineries.  After Katrina, the oil refineries developed a new work schedule, seven on and seven off.  They set up barracks near the plant and now the workers are here for a week of twelve hour days and then off for a week.  Most of them don’t live in the area anymore.  The man we talked to travels seven hours to come to work.  Before the hurricane he had lived in Buras for 23 years.  He talked about how beautiful the area was before Katrina, a great place to live.  When they returned after the waters receded, pictures could not capture the devastation.  Everything was gray he said.  Most of the trees and plants had died.  Many people committed to rebuild, but now reality has set in.  This town will never be the same.  It had been the center of the parish (county for the rest of the country), but now even FEMA is considering abandoning the area.  Insurance companies will not insure property anymore, so why try to rebuild the town?  There is a sense of hopelessness here.  And yet I am reminded of the passage in John where it says that light came into the world and darkness could not overcome it.  The man I talked to today was amazed at the number of volunteers that have come to this community.  Each time they leave somebody else shows up, people from all over the country, some more than once.  There is plenty of darkness in this place, but it cannot overcome the light that is lives here through the presence of Christ.

It has been an exhausting day, but we are extremely blessed to be here.  We have come to realize how quickly are lives can change, that everything can be lost in a few moments, but even if we lose all of our possessions, there is still light.  The darkness cannot overcome it.