Leslie D. Weatherhead, the great British preacher who served many years at City Temple on Holborn Viaduct in London, told the story of the elderly gentlemen who sat on the benches near the church trading stories. As one might expect, in addition to the good old days, a popular topic of conversation was their aches, pains, and ailments. "I have heard that such-and-such a clinic has a very effective regimen of treatment for this," one fellow would say. "Well, I understand that Dr. So-and-So is very efficacious in dealing with this particular ailment," another would counter. But the conversation stopper would always be the same: "Well, I'll tell you what did it for me." It's hard to beat the story of the personal cure.
I begin with this story because it so clearly parallels the remarks we find from Peter (or his disciple writing at a somewhat later time in his name) in today's lesson when he says, "We had been eyewitnesses of his majesty." It also parallels Eugene Peterson's somewhat free translation in The Message, "We saw it with our own eyes." I use this story because I think it captures the essence of the attitude with which both are told. We all know that conversation stoppers are sometimes used with a sense of superiority, as a kind of "can you top this?" Someone shares that they are going to see The Lion King in Philadelphia and their conversation partner feels the need to respond, "I saw the original production in London," or "I have seen the show five times." What good purpose has been served? This neither opens dialogue, nor adds anything to the conversation.
As Christians we are often guilty of this when there is an opening for spiritual dialogue, perhaps about a controversial issue or an area of personal hurt, and we either respond with a conversation stopper — "Well, that's not an issue in my church" — or by muddying things up with some confessional jargon — salvation, sanctification, or ossification — that closes rather than opens dialogue. I assume that in Dr. Weatherhead's illustration, the old guy continued with helpful information about what cured him that might very well have a life-changing effect on his companions. In our lesson, a kind of valedictory address from (or in the name of) Peter, the word of personal witness is used to encourage hearers to put their trust in Christ rather than the "cleverly devised myths" mentioned in verse 16. Many scholars feel that 2 Peter is the very latest New Testament document reflecting a situation in the church and the world strikingly similar to this opening decade of the twenty-first century.
Peter, in my reading at least, is addressing issues both inside and beyond the Christian community. In verse 16, which introduces today's reading, Peter says, "For we did not follow cleverly devised myths," that clearly could refer to a whole host of religious teachings that were floating around the ancient world. Then in 2 Peter 2:1, immediately following our reading, he warns, "But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you.…" We have here the perennial pair of threats to Christian teaching, in the words of Charles Wesley's hymn, "And Are We Yet Alive," we are always confronted by "fightings within and fears without."
In the final quarter of the last century, it was widely noted that there was a resurgence in all things spiritual and religious. It is now commonplace to point out that for many people the term "spiritual," as it came to be used in the 1990s, very specifically meant, "not in any way associated with organized religion," as in the talk show mantra, "I am not a Christian/Jew/church-goer, but I am a very spiritual person." Some of these individuals have formally affiliated with a "new religious movement" such as Scientology or the Unity Church, while others have simply adopted some practices perhaps using crystals or adopting feng shui. But for most, it has simply meant turning to an eclectic assortment of sources by which to seek their own spirituality.
If you don't know what I mean, visit the "religion and spirituality" section of a Barnes and Noble bookstore. This is nothing new. In every generation there have been those who have turned to philosophies, therapies, self-help methods, and lifestyles to become enlightened. Indeed, this was the "good life" the ancient Greek philosophers sought. This is the threat from without, what our lesson calls "cleverly devised myths" (1 Peter 1:16), which originate not with God but with "the human will" (1 Peter 1:21). For the most part this "not a church-goer but spiritual" segment of the population is utterly disinterested in what is happening in the church and so in that sense we could say are not a direct threat to the Christian community. I have yet to hear of a church board wanting to invite John Edwards to channel a recently deceased member. Yet, even if not a direct internal threat, the enormous increase in people devoted to these spiritual paths does pose a challenge: Why do people not see the Christian community as the logical place to seek out "the good life"? Why does the population at large not perceive Christians as those who have seen what the "good life" is "with their own eyes"?
During the same last quarter-century, George Barna and his mentor, George Gallup, and all those who measure such things, noted a continuing decline in what could be called "Judeo-Christian religious literacy" among those who claimed to have attended worship within the past week, even as that percentage of the population held more or less constant. Pundits and church leaders have not tired of fretting over such data and insofar as they have spurred improved Sunday school curricula and expanded adult Christian education programs it has all been to the good. But there are some factors that have not received adequate attention.
First is the fact that a growing number of those who worshiped in the past week did so in a mosque, temple, or shrine: They are simply not part of the Judeo-Christian tradition. If the percentage in worship is holding constant, then the fraction in church and synagogue is obviously decreasing. Next is that when it comes to reporting religious activity there are good reasons based on solid scholarship to believe that Americans lie a lot due to the cultural pressure many still feel as citizens of "a Christian nation." When some tell the pollster that they were in worship during the past week, they are really reporting their guilt because they "know they should have been." Interestingly, we find the opposite in places like the United Kingdom and Scandinavia where not only is church attendance not culturally expected but is almost viewed as aberrant. There, folks tend to under-report their religious activity.
It seems to me that the final factor is that many churches today have deliberately veered away from biblical or confessional teaching. For years I, in chorus with other teachers of college Bible survey courses, bemoaned decreased biblical literacy. Why didn't people pay more attention in church, Sunday school, and youth group? More recently, I have become aware that I had it wrong. The truth is that in recent decades there has been an explosion in thematic preaching and teaching which, while drawing on scripture for illustrative material, is neither textually nor doctrinally based. I have been aware for some time of many large and successful congregations where there is no traditional "scripture reading" as part of the service but, if the scripture passage is incorporated in the sermon, it is simply a different presentational strategy.
It was only a few years ago, while reading assignments from beginning theology students, that I finally discerned a recurrent theme: The churches in which these students were raised did not use scripture as a basis for preaching, but had sermons that were thematic, generally in series, what one student described favorably as "tips for successful Christian living." So there might be a series on how to have a happier marriage, a series on financial success, or a series refuting Dan Brown's The DaVinci Code. Sure scripture was part of these sermons, but not the basis.
So what? The "so what" is that scripture, particularly if systematically studied, takes us places that we would rather not go. It challenges us with the ancient witness to a God whose ways have always been different from humankind's inclinations. Peter could have been speaking for the whole canon of scripture when he wrote, "So we have the prophetic message more fully confirmed. You will do well to be attentive to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place ..." (2 Peter 1:19).
What I am talking about is not a fundamentalistic approach to scripture, closely examining every tree while ignoring the forest. But Peter's words caution us that ignoring the eyewitness accounts of scripture may well leave us in that dark place without the light. Ron Starenko has summed up the problem well: "Our spirituality, which derives from our own strivings, is a failure. World peace eludes us, world hunger widens, universal greed and lust for power remains our nemesis. Our personal biographies reveal our dark side. What else is that than our godlessness — ‘godlostness'? The human experience is God's judgment on our narcissistic dreams. God's judgment is to leave us in the dark."1
Let's consider a concrete example of what I am talking about. A favorite topic of such thematic preaching is money, and isn't that a favorite topic for most of us? Take a few facts, albeit a little out of context. First, it is often pointed out that Jesus talked about money more than any other single topic. Depending how you count, if that isn't true it is practically correct; the Lord talked about money a lot. Next, in his inaugural sermon in Luke 4, Jesus quoted Isaiah 61, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor...." Third, did not Jesus teach in John 10:10, "I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly"? And finally in Mark 10:29-30 Jesus says to Peter, "Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the good news, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age — houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields ... and in the age to come eternal life." When you put these together you come up with a very attractive package.
As I prepared this sermon I had before me, the text of a message preached to an American congregation about fifteen years ago that combined these and other texts. Here are a few things the preacher told his congregation:
... when things are done God's way in a society or an economy prosperity will follow. ...
The English Puritans, for example, became a very prosperous people as a direct consequence of their faithfulness to the way of life and ethics taught in Holy Scripture, which they embraced because they loved and trusted the Lord.The English Puritans, for example, became a very prosperous people as a direct consequence of their faithfulness to the way of life and ethics taught in Holy Scripture, which they embraced because they loved and trusted the Lord.
Sell a piece of land and use the proceeds to support the Lord's work in the world, and you'll get one hundred pieces of land from him in return.… I think we are to believe (these promises) completely and build our lives on them....Sell a piece of land and use the proceeds to support the Lord's work in the world, and you'll get one hundred pieces of land from him in return.… I think we are to believe (these promises) completely and build our lives on them....
I know that at some point in the 1990s there were successful lawsuits against churches that preached such a message in combination with the sale of bonds that did not produce returns a hundredfold. (I do not mean to imply that this church was one of them; I don't know.) What does one do with such a message? One could go back and closely examine each of the texts quoted in its original context and see how much it supports the conclusions. For example, all you have to do is open the Bible to discover that in the quotation from Mark 10 a little phrase is omitted: "with persecutions." Jesus said one would receive a hundredfold return "with persecutions." How convenient to drop that phrase. Or the oft-quoted statistic that Jesus spoke so much about money.
Consider some of the passages where he addressed that topic: "No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth" (Matthew 6:24). "Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God" (Matthew 19:24). "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also" (Matthew 6:19-21). And as he chased some merchants from the temple, "It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer'; but you are making it a den of robbers" (Matthew 21:13). As instructive as it is to look at such passages, in some ways it is falling into the trap of looking at the trees rather than the forest.
Peter's approach is better. What have we seen with our own eyes through the lens of scripture? Have we not seen the incarnate Son of God born to peasant stock, displaced by a census, and soon enough on the run from the Roman authorities? Is it inconsequential that Jesus chose his disciples from the lower classes and lived as an itinerant with "nowhere to lay his head"? (Matthew 8:20). Or that Paul supported himself as a leather-worker as he preached the gospel? How about the big picture of Christian history (tradition on the Wesleyan Quadrilateral)? Have we not always understood those like Francis of Assisi to have more clearly understood the gospel than medieval popes with their armies and palaces? Why is the more expansive viewpoint exercised by the larger Christian community relevant? Because, as Peter said, "no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation, because no prophecy ever came by human will, but men and women moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God" (2 Peter 1:20-21).
This pseudo-gospel of success represents a very real twenty-first-century threat to the gospel from within and from without. It represents a kind of entrepreneurial free-market capitalism that, rather than being critiqued by the churches, has been adopted by them. Because the whole context of scripture, what we have collectively seen with our own eyes, is put aside in favor of teachers who suit our desires, as 2 Timothy 4:3 would put it. This is not just theological fretting. It really matters.
It matters because the God of scripture is not Santa Claus. The wish list is not always filled. And what of those who tithe, who "name it and claim it" but remain poor? Baffour Amoa, of Ghana, then secretary-general of the Fellowship of Christian Councils of Churches of West Africa, summed it up in a 2000 interview: This new theology ends up, no doubt unintentionally, being a "well-developed form of oppression," which "prides itself on keeping the psyche of people in captivity.... Those who say we are poor through our own fault and guilt speak from ignorance — if they knew anything of our history they wouldn't propound such cheap arguments." Amoa also wondered about the increased emphasis on material prosperity and the attendant rise in violence, corruption, and moral degradation in his region. Could it be, he wondered, if this was related to less emphasis in the churches on things like good behavior, love of neighbor, and respect for the Ten Commandments?
Toward the end of the New Testament era, the church was exhorted to remain faithful to the witness of the Lord Jesus Christ, a witness which the community had seen with its own eyes. It was a different set of values from those of the surrounding culture, which threatened to infiltrate the church. This was not a result of some blind conservatism. It was because it was perceived that the gospel of Jesus Christ was the light that could illuminate a darkened world. It is a message we still need to hear today. Amen.
1. http://www.crossings.org/theology/theolo319.htm.