Part II: The Gospel of Matthew. Exploring the Shadow of Moses in Matthew's Portrait of Jesus

Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on 12 September 2013 3 Comments
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Question

I have enjoyed your books and essays and particularly enjoyed meeting you and hearing your recent lectures in Omaha, Nebraska. Many of your ideas resonate with me and make it possible for me to continue to consider myself a Christian. Something I struggle with, though, is how to continue to attend and receive inspiration from local church services. The services seem to have a lot of superficial, meaningless praise songs and seem to be focused on an external, supernatural God; those concepts just don’t work for me. I’m sure that in your travels, you have worshiped in many different settings. Have you found a way to get past things in church services you cannot agree with but still have a positive and inspirational experience?

Answer

Dear Jerry,

Thank you for your letter and your kind words. I enjoyed my time in Omaha, Nebraska, and am aware that there are at least two churches in that Midwestern city that I know I would be comfortable as a member and a worshiper. One is the Countryside Community Church, which is part of the United Church of Christ and the other is the First Methodist Church; both have gifted clergy leaders and a willingness on the part of the congregations to push the boundaries.

The problem you speak of about church services is one I fully understand. That is the result of a church that reads the gospels that were written in the first century; recites the creeds that were composed in the fourth century and uses worship forms that were created in the 13th century. I do not reject any of these sources that feed modern worship, but I do reject the temptation to literalize scripture, creed or liturgy. Many churches do not get beyond the assumption that the gospels capture the ultimate truth of God, that the creeds completely define the truth of God and that the 13th century liturgy is somehow pleasing to God. Once these concepts are broken, then I think worship has a chance to grow.

I do not feel a need to separate myself from the symbols of my Christian past, but I do feel the need not to be bound by them. The Bible is not the literal word of God. The creeds are not a girdle into which I have to force my flabby faith. The liturgy is not the music of heaven in which the angels join. All are symbols pointing beyond themselves to a mystery and a wonder that none of them can exhaust.

I love attending my parish church, St. Peter’s in Morristown, New Jersey, for five primary reasons:

1. Our rector, Janet Broderick, uses the sermon to illuminate contemporary issues and contemporary life as they are viewed through the symbols of our Christian past. Preaching is not meant to be bound to the world of yesterday.

2. There is a powerful sense of community in this congregation that is based not on human uniformity or the forced conformity to any ideas. It is based rather on the depth of mutual caring for one another. All of us give and receive of that caring. This congregation has within it members and couples who are black, white and Asian, sometimes in the same family. We have gay and straight members and have been magnificently served in the recent past by an openly lesbian priest, the Rev. Melissa Hall, who was married to her partner and they are the parents of an adopted child of Asian descent. Our focus is on the quality of people’s lives and not on the external circumstances of their humanity, which we accept comes in a variety of forms.

3. This church offers an educational component that challenges both the Christian tradition and the modern rejection of that tradition. A church without a significant adult education program will not endure. The Church school is run quite professionally by Dee Klicker, a former elementary school principal.

4. The music at this church is exquisite. This includes not only the adult and children’s choirs, but also the incredible talent of our young organist, Joshua Stafford. Music speaks to my soul, even as it transcends the boundaries of time and relates me to the holy.

5. This church serves its community in a wide variety of ways, making them a force for good. This church serves meals to the homeless every week. During Hurricane Sandy when our area was without power for close to a month, this church, which somehow retained its power, offered itself as a warming center to cold people and as a recharging center for computers and iphones. Ultimately, as the pain from that storm wore on this church began to offer meals, free of charge, three times a day for the duration of the power outage. These meals were prepared by community and church volunteers, who accomplished this task with donated food from peoples’ and restaurants freezers or purchased with donated money. The community came together in St. Peter’s Church.

Following the Newtown massacre, this church cooperated with the Morristown Police Department in a gun buy-back program and collected over 600 weapons, including assault rifles. These are just a few of the things that bind me so deeply and so happily to this church and to the Christianity it represents. I see Christianity lived out here with meaning.

I hope this helps.

John Shelby Spong

 

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