“My Generation and the Next!”

Psalm 71:1-9 and 14-18

¹ In you, O Lord, I take refuge;
    let me never be put to shame.
² In your righteousness deliver me and rescue me;
    incline your ear to me and save me.
³ Be to me a rock of refuge,
    a strong fortress, to save me,
    for you are my rock and my fortress.

⁴ Rescue me, O my God, from the hand of the wicked,
    from the grasp of the unjust and cruel.
⁵ For you, O Lord, are my hope,
    my trust, O Lord, from my youth.
⁶ Upon you I have leaned from my birth;
    it was you who took me from my mother’s womb.
My praise is continually of you.

⁷ I have been like a portent to many,
    but you are my strong refuge.
⁸ My mouth is filled with your praise,
    and with your glory all day long.
⁹ Do not cast me off in the time of old age;
    do not forsake me when my strength is spent.

¹⁴ But I will hope continually,
    and will praise you yet more and more.
¹⁵ My mouth will tell of your righteous acts,
    of your deeds of salvation all day long,
    though their number is past my knowledge.
¹⁶ I will come praising the mighty deeds of the Lord God,
    I will praise your righteousness, yours alone.

¹⁷ O God, from my youth you have taught me,
    and I still proclaim your wondrous deeds.
¹⁸ So even to old age and gray hairs,
    O God, do not forsake me,
until I proclaim your might
    to all the generations to come.

What is the Gospel?

          As many of you probably noticed, today’s sermon is entitled “My Generation and the Next!” In addressing this, I’m going to focus on what should be prioritized between different generations, and even eras, of Christians. And, relatedly, what should be left behind to its own context.

          This morning I would like to propose that the only thing truly, and unconditionally, warrants a transference to every generation. And, that is something called gospel. As many of you know, this a Christian slang word we throw around all the time. But do we really take the time to examine it, to think about it, to question it? Or, do we just take its meaning for granted?

 

The word “gospel” came about as an English attempt to translate the Greek words, euangellion: which means ‘evangel,’ ‘good news,’ or even ‘good message.’ Intrinsic to this idea, this word “gospel”, is the idea of release from the law. This can be really any kind of law or bond – pretty much any convention and or man-made structure by which human beings have been or can be bound.

So this “Good News” – this Gospel we talk about – has to relate to some sort of liberation. Whatever the Bible is trying to teach us, it has to do with a release from our bonds – whatever those bonds might be. Or, in other words, to be good news, the gospel must confront and do battle with bad news. The essence of Christianity, if it is truly a Biblical faith, is confrontation with the bad news of this world!

          As the great American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr stated, “The Gospel is in the business of comforting the afflicted, and afflicting the comfortable.” The good news of the crucified Christ is that liberation is available, that salvation is available, for those who are being crucified by events, attitudes, and evils that are almost always concealed beneath things that some consider to be good!

The gospel is not a once-for-all belief system, a full-blown an unchanging ideology, or permanent intellectual property of the church. To the contrary, the church is the product of the gospel. That is to say, it becomes the church as, and only as, it discovers gospel for itself again and again. We can only be the true church when we seek God in our context, because God is always speaking. And, responsively the church should always be reforming.

In the 1930s Heinrich Grueber, the dean of the Berlin Cathedral, found the voice of the gospel for his era and his context when he declared that, quote, “The gospel for today is that Jesus Christ was a Jew.” In doing so, he confronted the spirit of his age and the oppressive force of the Nazi regime.

The gospel does not give itself to us as something permanent, something we can possess and haul out of our religious pockets like a VISA card whenever we need it. We come to know it only when and as we hear it for ourselves, day after day, age after age, changing context after changing context.

We certainly have clues as to what the gospel will sound like: truth, compassion, justice, judgment, forgiveness, liberation, peace, hope, etc. The gospel will always be about “making and keeping human life [authentically] human,” as Paul Lehman put it – it’s about redeeming the essential goodness of creation, about saving the human species from its worst excesses! And this is where we find the essence of it. The cross will always be at the center of the Gospel!

It’s easier for Christians to preach the musts, shoulds, and ought to’s that everyone expects. But the real job of this faith, is to discern the needs of the time and to articulate the gospel in a way that’s relevant. And I should point out that relevance is not a gospel rock band, a coffee bar, or a food pantry. Those are all tools and methods that can be very helpful, but they are not relevance. A relevant gospel is something that will be a response to the bad news of the age.

When we read Ephesians 6, we hear the author speak of the “mystery” of the gospel. As it states in verse 19, “Pray also for me, so that when I speak, a message may be given to me to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains.” Each era endures its own set of chains, and the Christians of that time must discern and pray, like the author, for the message that best applies to their own time.

Each of us has a job! Our job, as ambassadors of the Gospel, is to pray that God will guide us to our voices. Not our own voices, but our voices as they are best utilized by the God who saves us. We don’t need to be silent, but we need to find better words – more appropriate words. We need to find alternative ways of being the church and other ways of comprehending the central tenants of our faith.

The mystery of the gospel must be as an aspect of its essence. Like the mana of the wilderness, it defies containment, and rots when it is bottled up. Gospel is new every morning, and must be gathered each day anew. It is fresh and God-breathed for the needs of different generations.

As a result, I can confidently state that a Biblical faith is a thinking faith. So why would I say this? It’s simple really. If we’re going to pretend to have any sort of answer for our world, and for our world’s problems, then we collectively need to think about how we can find a gospel that applies to the needs of our world.

          When we claim that gospel is the lifeblood of the church, then, it is claimed simultaneously that theology belongs to the essence of the Christian community. By theology I do not mean dogma, doctrine, or Bible reading, but rather an engaged reflection and discourse on the meaning of the gospel. Seriously, when you sit down with your fellow Christians and talk about the meaning of the gospel you’re doing theology!

          Each and every one of us is situated in context. Our faith stories are just that – stories that relay the movement and work of God in our lives. But that’s exactly it! Christianity can easily devolve into a plethora of personal beliefs, preferences, and feel-good clichés. But that’s not real Christianity. Faith delves into what is beyond ourselves. It searches for God’s voice and not our own. It finds God’s message for us.

As Anselm of Canterbury famously argued, “faith is not content to be; it contains within itself an innate drive to comprehend what it believes.” This is what Protestantism has tried to foster. Not a simplistic, and often times superstitious, set of doctrines laid down by a church hierarchy but a genuine drive and movement encompassing the whole church, not just a conversation among the theological elite in some isolated ivory tower, but a quest for understanding rooted in something incredibly populist – the body of Christ as a whole – involving people from multiple generations and backgrounds. People coming together to pray for the coming of God’s message to God’s people.

 

Our New Struggle:

What Came Before:

There was a time when the religious mood to capitalize on the “anxieties of fate and death” was more effective. The fear of hell and the promise of heaven were conceptions that shaped generations. As many of you have heard, my great-great-grandfather used to run up and down the isles while he preached; and, attached to his stockings were little bags of sulfur. The intent was to make his hearers smell hell!

We now live in an era where the secular majority conceive of heaven and hell as material of humor more than of earnest meditation. And yet, this very same secular majority face problems that are perhaps even more devastating and unnerving than the ancient person’s prospect of a short life with no chance of upward mobility!

We may live longer; we may be kept healthier and better fed; we may be able, even with relatively little money, to enjoy experiences that are entertaining in a manner inconceivable to our great-grandparents; but when it comes to the purpose of it all we are in most instances far less content than were our more physically circumscribed forebears.

Many of the people seated in this room can attest to the changes our society has experienced. On our visit to The First Baptist Church in America we learned that that particular congregation had gone without music for over one-hundred years after its founding! And, when music was first introduced, nearly half of the congregation left in protest to the change. It’s easy for us to look back and laugh, but how often do we find ourselves tied to commitments that take us beyond what the gospel is really about? Probably far too often.

There are three main recurrent human anxieties that religions try to address: (1) fate and death, (2) guilt and condemnation, (3) emptiness and meaninglessness – with varying degrees and emphases on each. In each era, all of these are felt and experienced, but history has shown us that in each era one tends to dominate.

          An Age of Despair:

I believe that, we now live in a society gripped by an anxiety that suspects that there is no purpose in life; and so, either moves from one diversion – one opiate – to another, or finds itself in despair. Or in other words, theme number (3) emptiness and meaninglessness.

It is easy to see the quest for entertainment and Cortisol-laced highs throughout our society’s obsessions with food, sex, tourism, technology, and an almost endless list of other mind-numbing escapes. It’s as though we need a break from ourselves. It almost seems as though we are desperately trying to ignore is our own sense of dread. If this is true, we are living in a society that is extraordinarily repressive.

What part of ourselves, of our natures, are we hiding from our own consciousness? Pascal once quipped that the trouble of the world can be found in the inability of individuals to sit quietly in a room for fifteen minutes! So let me ask you, to what extent do you find yourself going to great lengths to avoid introspection, or in other words, when’s the last time you sat alone quietly?

Perhaps your faith gives you a sense of meaning, purpose, and significance. If so, then that is cause to rejoice. But I would also have to ask you, whether you have taken the time to sit with other people’s pain. Have you empathized with this new spirit of the age? Have you thought about what your faith has to offer your friends who may be repressing their greatest struggles away – burying them under mountains of work, entertainment, pornography, substance abuse, or adrenalin inducing adventures? Perhaps it’s time to sit down you’re your Christian friends and have a conversation about these things. To learn how to share your hope.

Unfortunately, the arts have been much better at recognizing and address the despair of our age than our churches have been. Many of us here today will likely remember the films of neo-Noir period like Taxi Driver, Basic Instinct, or the works of Woody Allen or the Coen brothers. Those among us who are younger will recall the films of Quentin Terentino, Guy Ritchey, or even the show Madmen – please don’t spoil the ending for me. I’m only in season 4!

Needless to say, film has not been the only medium of introspection and reflection that finds itself wrestling this issue. In music, Richard Wagner famously composed operas that are mystifying to most ears and have, yet, influenced untold scores of musicians even among rock groups like Ramstein. Before Freud, Wagner delved deeply into the tensions of sexuality and anxiety, in essence embracing the end of what had been and in some ways foretelling what was to come in the 20^th century.

 

We as Christians, need to focus less on the question “why do we die?” and more on the question “why do we live?” It is in fact a repression and betrayal of Christian truth when the church continuously speaks to the well-rehearsed anxiety of guilt and condemnation. And, not only is it a sign of repression, but also laziness. It’s easy to point to Protestantism’s rejection of Catholicism or liberation from the law, but in focusing on those things too much we end up burying our heads in the sand up past our ears. For many Christians, our celebration of victories won in the past has in turn become our stumbling block. They have become our go-to distraction from the real tensions that cloud our new era – an era full of its own very different needs.

Echoing former victories over the fear of death or the crisis of guilt ignores the plight that millions are experiencing. The church in North America has, to a large extent, turned its back on those who have fallen into the nets of despondency. It is not accidental that Dante pictured the gates of hell standing under a sign stating, “Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.” If the church has anything at all, it’s a message of Good News to counter this Bad News!

A Way Forward:

 

The mission of the church in this next generation will be rooted in a desire to proclaim the gospel rooted in Christ’s call on Golgotha, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Christians who seek to be relevant to this new era have to enter far enough into the gloom to feel compassion and understanding for those who dwell in intoxication and distraction – who sooth uneasy hearts with opiates and highs.

The Christianity that relies either on entertainment or old victories will soon pass away. If Christianity is going to survive in North America within the 21^st century, it must pull its head up from the sand and charge headlong into the struggles of this new era. But if it’s going to do this, Christians must come to know themselves as participants in this new era. My great-great-grandfather repeatedly told my great-grandfather who in turn old my father that, “A good preacher will have a Bible in one hand and a newspaper in the other!”

The point I am making, lies in the fact that the gospel is always relevant. It is not something confined to the past struggles of history. The gospel, the good news, will free us and bring us the victory we need over this new trial – just as it did over the anxieties of (1) fate and death, and (2) guilt and condemnation. This is the mission of the North American church in the 21^st century!

We have all too often ignored the messages that so many others have seen. We have been oblivious to the zeitgeist, the spirit of the age, and instead relied on the remnants of a cultural heritage that is fading because no one remembers its justification or meaning anymore! Many practice their faith, simply because they think they should. My cry, my call, my commission to all of you gathered here today is to seek and explore. Help our youngest members find their way as they face this new challenge.

You, our older saints, you helped close the battles that started in earlier generations. You won the final victories in struggles that you picked up from previous generations. Many of you have likely struggled with what I have spoken of today. I do not believe that it is inaccurate to assume that the generation of the 1960s has not forgotten this monumental challenge. 

This struggle is not foreign to many of you I am sure. I imagine that many of our older members here today have seen the 1975 film, One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest starring Jack Nicholson. The film is ranked as the 33^rd most important film of all time.

In the film Jack Nicholson plays the patient Mac McMurphy. Locked away in a mental hospital located in Oregon, he soon finds himself in a battle of wills with the head nurse Mildred Ratched, played by Louise Fletcher. After a growing series of battles and frustrations, culminating in the suicide of his friend Billy, Mac assaults the head nurse – leading to a nearly fatal neck injury. In retaliation the psych ward gives Nicholson a lobotomy. Yet, this act inspires his friends to carry out his escape plan and escape the tyrannical reign of terror Nurse Ratched brings.

Many of you can serve this purpose for our younger generations. Help us find our way in this new era. Help us escape the memory of battles past and move on towards the ‘Good News’ for this new era – for this new epoch. Help us find our way, encourage us to explore, encourage us to think, relay to us your struggles and clues. Help us find empathy and understanding for those who are struggling with doubt and despair. Inspire us to reflect collectively to study collectively, to move together in order to find the message of the gospel for this new era.

Concluding Thoughts:

Perhaps, this sounds old fashioned, but I would like to encourage all of you to return to the scriptures with a newfound earnestness. It is all too easy to fall into a pseudo–Christian kind of humanism. Sociologists refer to this as “moralistic therapeutic deism.” A type of Christianity that centers more on the message of helping other people, or finding soothing help from a nebulous divine parent-figure who is present to make you feel good, but largely removed from the rest of your life. Unfortunately, this type of faith is all too indistinct, all too non–unique.

It allows us to stay static in a mindset that faith only calls us to help people with their material needs or strive towards a more just society. But, where, my friends, does this leave our faith? What makes it necessary? Our gospel is not obscured and buried in the language of the past; it is good and incredibly relevant to the problems of our day, but we need to come together and pray and search for the voice of God in this new era. I believe that it is time for us to return to the scriptures with new and open minds.

I believe that the Bible can apprehend our world with an almost Kafkaesque kind of judgment of human and religious assumptions. If we approach the Bible authentically, it will bring us to a point of incredibly healthy crisis.

We should not go to scripture in order to find our all too familiar wax-nose, something that can be twisted and turned in any way we wish, but we should actually let ourselves be taken in and shaken up by these writings. There is a river in the Bible; and, this river can carry us away from ourselves. If only we entrust ourselves to it, it can carry us away to the sea.

 

When we entrust ourselves to the study of scripture in community we are calling on the Holy Spirit to come to us, to bring us Good News, and for God to come and address us in the midst of our current context.

Augustine asked how mere humans can understand the things of the Spirit of God. To paraphrase he concluded that, “They must all understand what they can, [and say what they can]. For who can say it as it is?” Or in other words, when we search for the Spirit’s message to our world we will find a God who reaches out to us and delivers us. We do not do it on own accord but God himself has saved us and will continue to speak to us as the church. When we pray and listen, and study, and seek God’s voice in scripture earnestly we can find ourselves voicing the message of the gospel for this new era. We do not do it on our own; and, we will not achieve this if we bury our heads in the sand or fool ourselves with the latest marketing novelty, but you will find the message of the gospel for this new era if YOU earnestly seek it. God will not forsake those who proclaim his name!

 

This is exactly why we as Protestants cite the Bible as the highest human authority. What the Bible wants to say and tries to say cannot be said. Yet, it speaks to the unsayable in the highest possible way. This is a necessary and important thing for every generation to remember. The Bible’s testimony denies us the very status we long to claim, namely, the status of those who possess the Truth. We want control, and we want to set all other systems of thought aside as inferior, but the Bible denies us this right. It denies us the quintessential religious quest, the quest at the heart of the biblical story of corporate fall, the story of Babel! The Bible denies us the ability to master or control the universe through proximity to, or even control over, the master of the universe. We cannot control God. Our brains are not even capable of fully comprehending God.

In this ever present temptation, the temptation to think we have it all figured out, we forget that the Bible’s core message is that we can’t possess it! God cannot be possessed. Like the figure of John the Baptist in Gruenwald’s Isenheim Alterpiece, who is pointing to the crucified Christ, the Bible in all of its testimony is saying, “He must increase, I must decrease.” Truth cannot be said “as it is” because it is a living Truth, it is a person. Truth can only be stood under. Like John the Baptist, we only honor the Bible when we look in the direction to which it points. The Bible is a sign whose function is to point to Jesus, whose life, death, and resurrection point us to the God who sent him.

If we wish to find the Good News for the 21^st century we must follow that finger. We must follow the testimony of John the Baptist, of the scriptures, and of our forefathers. We must discern the spirit of our age and discover what the Spirit of God has in store for us here, and in the future. When we pray for the Spirit of God to refresh and invigorate us, let us take up the momentum of our past victories and honor them; but, not let them hold us back from discovering what new, fresh word the Spirit of God has for us, our children, and our grandchildren.

 

Times change, ideas change, the world’s needs change, but one thing stays the same. The image in that painting! Let us come together as a group of different generations and together forge a path and a message of hope that our youngest members will be able to carry into this next century, by earnestly seeking the God who saves us. By coming together to study and pray together. By prioritizing our faith more and centering our lives on the only thing that can bring real meaning to a sea of opiates and distractions.

          Christ has been with you in all your struggles, lost dreams, and even your lost innocence. He understands and cares. He bore the price of reconciliation and liberation. If you come together with me, and together as a community of prayer, the Spirit of God will bring us the message of liberation, of freedom, of salvation that we need to touch the broken hearts of a lost and chained generation.