May 16th Sermon

One of the other things I thought about putting in this sermon, and didn't because I didn't really have time, is a reflection on a current debate going on in the child welfare community.

The American Pediatric Association came out with new guidelines around female genital cutting in America recently. For those of you who do not know, there is a tradition in many African countries of cutting off part of a woman's genitals, to varying degrees of severity, sometime between infancy and puberty (usually between 4 and 10 years old).  The operation is often immediately painful and dangerous, and usually permanently reduces or even eliminates sexual enjoyment.

In general, the APA's recommendations were uncontroversial-Female Genital Cutting is dangerous and unhealthy, and should not be done by American doctors, and families that want it for their daughters should be educated about its dangers.

However, at the end of these reflections, they mentioned the possibility that maybe a small ritual nick might serve as a replacement for more invasive surgery for families committed to following the cultural ritual, but aware of its dangers. 

This has sparked a great deal of controversy (some thoughts here) http://bigthink.com/ideas/20004, as you might imagine.

This is exactly the kind of question that I think it is most useful for Christians to talk about-are the potential benefits of exchanging a dangerous and painful operation for a purely symbolic action worth the dangers of increased social acceptance of what is a morally problematic action? How do we decide? Is this purely a cost/benefit analysis, that can be determined by testing if cutting increases or decreases with either course of action, or is it a philosophical question, best decided by our unwillingness to be complicit in a broken system?

What does it mean to demonstrate the love of Christ in this situation?


Acts: 16
We’ve been cruising through interesting passages about Jesus’ resurrection, and things of that nature since Easter, and now we’re at Ascension Sunday, and next week is Pentecost, so we’re beginning to turn our focus a very little bit from Jesus alive, and Jesus coming again, to the coming of Holy Spirit, and our work in the world today. Because of this, it seems particularly appropriate to be welcoming new members this Sunday, because ascension is a story about how we follow in Jesus’ footsteps, finding our way in the world without the most direct guidance. Looking at this text from the Book of Luke, the thing that I want to point out it that the disciples, are given a mission- “that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised” This, then is also our challenge, considering our calling from God, to go on, drawing on Jesus’ lessons, his teachings, but also making our own way, listening to the voice of the Holy Spirit in our own hearts, and finding out what it meant to be leaders, rather than just followers.
What does it mean for us to be independent agents of God, not just followers of an embodied savior that we can ask for suggests every time a new moral quandary comes up? We turn to scripture, and we are given a core outline-loving God and neighbor, and I can tell you with some confidence if it is proper to lie, kill, or steal, but more complicated modern issues-like say, what are the appropriate boundaries of genetically modifying the human body, and how should Christians make decisions about artificial efforts to induce pregnancy, these types of questions require a little more discernment.
These types of new questions are core to the work of the modern church, and of particular interest to those of us, like Collin, Anna, and Chris, who make a commitment to walk in the light of God in a particular faith community.
I think this is part of what is going on in the book of Acts, and the story of Paul and Silas’ adventures in Philippi, so I’d like to think through this scripture passage with you this morning, as we think about what it means to be imbued with God’s authority to preach to all the nations the good news of Jesus Christ.
Paul and Silas are traveling around the Mediterranean, talking with new Christians and spreading the gospel, and, as one might expect, having various adventures. Here in Philipi, where they met Lydia, a rich woman who became an important disciple, they soon ran into trouble. Paul and Silas are beset by an annoying woman, who proclaims them slaves of God, until Paul drives the evil spirit out of her, and her owners have him arrested, and thrown in jail, where he is freed by a miraculous earthquake, but chooses to remain in prison, so that the jailer would not be punished (or commit suicide), at which point the jailer, and all his family join the church. Simple enough, right?
So, what might we draw from this text for our own uses, as we think about being disciples?
The most popular interpretation in the commentaries I’ve read is that Paul here is working to help people in need. He casts out demons, just like Jesus, and saves this slave girl from the forced fortune telling that had been her lot in life. Then, when the crowd is riled up, he meekly submits to the authorities, acknowledging that violence is futile and attempting to work within the system. Then, he cares so much for the well being of his jailer, that he even refuses to leave the jail in an earthquake, because the jailer would come to harm if his prisoners escaped. As Paul says elsewhere, he is willing to be all things to all people, so that they might understand the universal love of God, he walks the life of Christian discipleship such that those in need are cared for and those in power are embarrassed.
But when I read this story to Rachel this week, she had a completely different reading of the text. Dear, would you mind?
So, Sam mentioned to me on Monday that he was thinking about preaching on the Acts text, and that it was a story about Paul’s ministry. I confess anytime the Apostle Paul is a major player in a Biblical story, my skepticism starts to creep in- ‘what is he going to do this time?’ I think. So I’m already a bit on the defensive. Then I hear Samuel read this story to me. And I expect Paul to do something to help this slave girl- find some way to free her, or grant her status or recognize her as a potential equal, a potential sister in the church. After all, she has been following him around for a few days, she seems like she might be an obvious potential convert to this new religion. Instead, Paul and Silas barge in and disturb the system, and they are punished because of how they have hurt the economy, and the economic interests of the owners of this slave woman. And granted, who wants these slave owners to receive their fortune on the back of this girl? But what Paul seems to completely ignore is that, before his intervention, this slave girl seems to have been of some status. Most slaves don’t have the freedom of movement to wander around the city following people, nor would her unusual shouting usually be tolerated in public. If this woman earned a good income, she likely would have been a prized possession. Once she was bereft of her abilities, what use was she to her owners? How might they have tried to make up the economic gap?
Paul, in a fit of pique-not some well thought out, reasoned intervention, chooses to destroy her talent, which very well may have been her protection from many worse forms of exploitation, but does not in any other way affect her social standing. She is not freed, she does not join the church and become a disciple, she is left behind. Paul and Silas are dragged before the courts for disrupting the peace and beaten-imagine what might have happened to our slave woman in a society with such a casual perspective toward violence?
Thank you-it is much more powerful in your own words.
So this is a little more tricky than I first thought.
Frequently, we face either decisions or moral perspectives that may be more complicated than they seem on first face, and Christians often feel compelled to insert themselves in the functioning of a non-Christian society anyway. Sometimes these decisions work well-I think child labor laws are a pretty good thing, for example- but sometimes they can go awry-giving money to the homeless can support alcohol dependency, giving free food in Africa can undermine local agriculture, Walmart, with its horrendous labor practices has increased buying power for many poor in rural America, and thus I think it behooves us as Christians to pay attention to the ways in which we push the world around us to change.
Arthur Paul Boers, one of my seminary professors loved to talk about ‘pastoral imagination’, which is the skill used when pastors find themselves in complicated, uncertain situations (probably of their own making) and are invited, considering God’s will and God’s word, to live as Christians in times of crisis. However, I think we all have the joy and the challenge of practicing Christian imagination-we get to unpeel the layers of social consequences of our actions, envision the effects of our relationships, sharing our wisdom with one another, paying attention to the stories we hear so that we might connect with the lives of the people around us, so we might live as people of the Gospel, sharing the good news. This is our calling, and our joy.
So I invite those of you who are joining the church this morning to pay attention to the challenges of discipleship, as we live in a world without easy answers.
But also-take comfort, since even Paul, after what may have been a serious blunder, beaten and imprisoned in the bowels of the earth, found God at work there when he arrived.
Amen