Creekside Church Sermon of July 20, 2003 "Making Sense Out of Nonsense" Mark 6:30-34, 53-56	Rev. David Bibbee
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I have never put a bumper sticker on any car I've owned. It's not that I have nothing to say about the issues that "sticker politics and religion" display. The main reason is that stickers are a mess to take off. I am an avid bumper reader, however, and though the messages on some are repulsive, others speak to important issues.

I saw one recently that I have not seen in years. Its message is just as timely now as when it appeared back in the mid- 70's, maybe even more so. It says: "It will be a great day when our schools will have all the money they need and the Air Force will hold bake sales to pay for their new bombers." Another message from this same era is more simple but so true: "If you can read this, then thank a teacher."

We owe a debt of gratitude to the teachers who have helped us on our way. We all have been under the tutelage of teachers. I suspect that those who have been out of school a "considerable" time, don't think much about education, at least not the formal aspects. But we never cease being taught, and most of the time we don't think about it. The world is a powerful educator. By virtue of living in it we are its students. We all are enrolled in the course called Life 101.

During the summers of my college years I worked in a glass shop with a guy named Don who said his education was better than the one I would have after four years of college. "I've gotten my degree from the University of Hard Knocks," he would say. It is true-- experience can be a good teacher. We can learn a lot by observing the world and the people around us. It was Mark Twain, I think, who said, "There is no person of such low estate that I cannot learn something from him."

In terms of methodology, the world is a great teacher, but it is the content of the teaching which concerns us. We had no choice about coming into the world, but we do have a choice about "how" we will live in it, and who's version of truth and reality we will follow. "We are in the world but not of it," the Apostle Paul said, which means we are not obliged to follow the masses down the wide and easy road. Instead, we follow another teacher down another road that is much narrower, and more difficult, but which leads to something great.

Let's go back now to Mark's gospel. Jesus had sent the disciples out two by two on a mission project. He wanted them to try their wings-- get a little experience under their belts for the much bigger task they would one day assume. Mark says they preached repentance, cast out many demons, and anointed many who were sick with oil and healed them. Elsewhere in the gospel, Mark portrays the disciples as rather dull, "slow to the draw" guys who weren't quite carrying a full sack of lunch. But in our text they have been successful, and are anxious to tell Jesus about their experiences.

Realizing their need and his need to get away from the demanding crowds, Jesus said to the disciples, "Let's get away from it all and find a nice, quiet place for some 'R and R.'" He knew such a spot. Unfortunately, others knew about it, too. When Jesus got off the boat he was immediately swarmed by the crowd. I think his response proves his divinity. Let me explain.

By nature I am an introverted person. I have to "push" myself to be an extrovert. I enjoy working with others, but I work best alone. I enjoy being with people, but there is a limit to how long I can be around crowds, then I go into my shell for a while. Had I been the one trying to get away from the needy throng and stepped off the boat to see all those people wanting more of me, my first thought would be, "Ohhhhh noooooo! Look, people, I've already put in a long day. Can't you just put your needs on hold till morning?"

How do I know that Jesus is divine? He looked at those people, exhausted as he was, and he had "compassion upon them" because they were like sheep without a shepherd. I'd be grumbling. Jesus ministered to them. But notice "how" he did it. He sat them down and began to teach. He didn't respond to their felt needs/ No healings/ No blessing babies/ No miraculous feedings until after the instruction. Later in chapter six, when Jesus and the disciples cross back over the Sea of Galilee and he is once again inundated, he performs many healings. But not here. It was a teaching moment.

Jesus was a healer, but he was primarily a teacher. The men he called to be disciples had to be taught. They didn't possess understanding and insight, necessary to share the gospel. They would be schooled in a new way of seeing the world, a new way of believing, and above all, a new way of living.

We must remember that no one is "born" a Christian. People used to think that one was a Christian by virtue of being born in America. There was a time when the values and ideals of American culture and the church seemed closer together. All a person had to do was "absorb" the culture to be a good person. Christianity was the same as good citizenship. But as Garrison Keillor observed, "Living in a religious environment makes no one a Christian any more than sleeping in a garage can make you a car!"

Christians are "made", not born. It is not caught. It is taught. There is nothing "natural" about Christianity. What Jesus taught about our relationship with God, with people, and with things wasn't simply peculiar.... it was insane.

"Forgive seventy times seven?

If someone strikes your right cheek, offer the left?

Blessed are those who mourn?

Blessed are the persecuted?

Love your enemies and pray for your persecutors?"

To the citizens of Rome, this was ridiculous. Official religion didn't look upon Jesus' ideas any more kindly. He told his fellow Jews, "I haven't come to destroy the Law, but to fulfill it." But it sure sounded like destruction, and Jesus was a wrecking ball!

There was nothing natural about the journey Jesus invited people to take with him. The sheep couldn't find their own way. They had to be taught. They had to unlearn the facts of life they had been given. They had to be taught a new story.

This brings us to here and now. "I love to tell the story of unseen things above..." the beloved old gospel hymn goes. But the question is not whether we love to tell the story, but do we know the story-- not just know the story-line of Jesus and the significance of his life; not just being able to recite it, but live it and breath it and take great care to effectively and creatively teach it to our young and old, and those who have never heard, or those who heard long ago, but have long since forgotten?

This week I received an e-mail from a woman named Kimberly Fischer in Tigard, Oregon who said her father's name is David Bibbee! After I came to, I read the rest of it. She had typed her father's name into the search engine and my name appeared. She's looking for information for a Bibbee family history. Her father, David, was from Ohio. Since I'm from Ohio she figured we must be related some way.... a good assumption since Bibbee doesn't appear as often in the phone book as Yoder does in the Goshen directory. Kim wants to learn about her roots. She wants to know who her people are. She wants to connect with people who share a history and have a story.

Marva Dawn says that a major reason for the isolation, loneliness, and collapse of our society is the absence of a meta-story. At one time we had a greater sense of belonging. We had shared ideals and beliefs. Traditional values were observed. Large numbers of families went to church. Now we're divided up into little tribes. Tradition is a bad word. We don't need the past. But what authority do people today look to when making important decisions? How do we decide what is right or wrong? To what source of wisdom do we appeal?

Years ago John Lennon wrote a song called "Imagine." "Imagine there's no heaven. Its easy if you try. No hell below us. Above us only sky. Image all the people, living life in peace..." His vision was a world of no country or clan or anything to divide us. The world would be held together by a vague thing called the "brotherhood of man." Some of his vision has become a reality. Religion is being replaced by something called "Sheilaism."

Robert Bellah is a sociologist who has written extensively on the impact of individualism in America. A woman named Sheila Larson described her faith to Bellah this way:

I believe in God. I'm not a religious fanatic. I can't remember the
last time I went to church. My faith has carried me a long way. It's Sheilaism. Just my own little voice.

Notice how often people say similar things. The voice of authority in their lives is their own voice. There's no bigger voice to beg to differ. There's no voice of God to challenge our little voice. How do you know how to live? Follow Angieism, Twigism, or Waltism.

"If felt in my heart it was the right thing to do. A feeling just came over me-- that's how I decided what to do," or "I just went along with everyone else. The majority has the right answer." There's nothing virtuous, courageous, or Christian about this. All those people who waited for Jesus by the lakeside were going through life following their own voices, and Jesus had compassion upon them.

Bemoaning the large number of youth and young adults that have left African American churches, a prominent black pastor has said, "I fear that we have the first generation of African American youth who are growing up ill equipped by the church for the rigors of slavery." We don't have to be black to understand what he is saying. There are scores of people, many who have grown up within the church who are ill equipped to handle the slavery of our culture.

Children are not born with hate. It is something they learn. Children are not born racists. They are taught to be that way. We are not born greedy, prejudiced, or violent. We must be tutored, in the subjects of money, sex, and power. Society is a great teacher, but not "our" teacher.

The oldest moral teaching of the Christian church is called the Didache. In the early church it was the instruction for converts who were preparing for baptism. Among the things it taught were:

You shall not kill.

You shall not have sex with other people's spouses.

You will not abuse young children.

You will not have sex outside of marriage.

You will not abort fetuses.

The Didache was an expansion of the first three of the Ten Commandments. It prohibited the things which were an accepted part of Roman culture. To the Romans, Christianity was nonsense. To the followers of Jesus, it was the only way to live. As Paul said in 1 Corinthians 1, "The word of the cross is folly (nonsense) to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God (sense)."

I like Will Willimon's suggestion about what we should teach in the church to the young and old: "We make Christians by telling them stories of bad little boys like Jacob who got saved anyway and about a Savior who came via a cow stable, and by showing them a cross and asking them to shoulder it, and reminding them, that some of history's best Christians spent time in jail."

Now and them sermons should contain statistics, so consider these: 1) A full 72% of people born in the U.S. between 1964 and 1981 are not involved in a Christian community. They are the spiritually uneducated. 2) Studying the attitudes of 1,150 people, researchers found that 66% of them agreed that a person should arrive at his or her religious beliefs independently of any church of religious group. 73% of those aged 18 to 34 agreed.

A person can certainly arrive at their own religious beliefs, but will they hold up to what life will throw at them? Will they tell you the truth, even if you don't like it? Are they based upon an authority greater than you own little voice or Sheila's?

This means we have a lot of work to do. There are habits and practices to brush up on and learn. Christians aren't in the business of learning neat ideas. We exist to put into practice those odd lessons Jesus taught us which make no sense outside the faith. We practice, practice, practice in hopes we will eventually get it right. We keep working at it till we understand that we are to reach out to more than our own. But to those flocks who have followed all kinds of voices to nowhere, and are ready and receptive to hear something different. And we have a good teacher-- the only one we need to make sense out of life and embrace the mysteries ahead of us.

The church office recently received a resource catalog from the Upper Room Ministries. On the cover is their mission-- the reason for their existence, and it is impressive:

Disciples made

Christians formed

Leaders developed

The church renewed

The world transformed

And guess what? It is not just "their" mission. It is ours, too!

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