#then the Bible tells how literally all of the early Christians sold all their possessions and donated the money

[durn3h]

One of the most interesting things about religion to me is that so many people don’t even see the mental gymnastics they are doing to try and shape the biblical texts into a framework that is acceptable in the modern day and it comes out looking like something that none of the authors would have approved of.

[charlottemadison42]

On Good Omens and Faith

Here follow personal thoughts on what Good Omens has meant to me as an Exvangelical. There’s a lot of healing & hope here, but it gets a bit dark first, as worthy stories do.

CW: I wasn’t badly spiritually abused in church, but I’ll be discussing things that are spiritually abusive: purity culture, sexphobia, queerphobia, abortion, mild self-harm, failure to treat mental health appropriately, ableism -- plus the special ways church authority makes all of these especially hard.

I’m personally an atheist but this message is not an argument against faith itself, rather against the specific subculture I grew up in. If you are a person of faith you’re welcome here.

I grew up in the American Evangelical subculture of the 80′s and 90′s, in the Keith Green/DC Talk/Left Behind/Veggie Tales era. I got saved at a Carman concert in sixth grade, and re-pledged my faith just to be extra sure every year at summer camp and youth group retreats.

This upbringing is not unusual. Doesn’t make me special. But its effects were real.

I’m finally engaged in a reckoning with it, in the “I should maybe talk this over with a support group or therapist” sense. I was a worship leader and youth leader at a Vineyard church when I left my faith abruptly in 2007*. It took me ten years to tell my family and friends that I was an atheist. For that decade I didn’t think about it -- but when I confessed to my loved ones two years ago, the processing began in earnest.

If you came up Evangelical, you already know how literal our belief in angels and demons can be in certain strains of the church. Until I was 26, I believed they were real entities genuinely and invisibly at war all around me. The End Times were real and we were in them. The Antichrist was whatever high profile democrat could be weaponized at the moment, the Rapture was nigh, and Armageddon was imminent (which explained why tension kept building in the Middle East).

My church community regularly discussed friends and neighbors’ problems in the language of  demon possession or harrassment: depression was a demon, addiction was a demon, promiscuity was a demon. I was part of casual and formal exorcisms and the occasional healing. No holy water, but there were hours of fervent prayers and tears, speaking in tongues and anointing with oil. It’s like a fever dream looking back at it now.**

Shout out to my other teens and tweens of the Frank Peretti era, forbidden from reading books of fantasy any later than Lewis or Tolkein -- Xanth was forbidden, Hogwarts was demonic. We were given instead (retrospectively) horrifying books about spiritual warfare, Christian takes on historical fiction, and end times fantasies. But they weren’t sold as fantasy to us, it was all real. Adults in positions of power confirmed it over and over. Narnia might be allegory but This Present Darkness supposedly illustrated spiritual truths.

I remember telling a trusted church teacher at age 10 or 11 that sometimes I would get scared at night, in the dark, and feel a palpable terror that kept me awake. They told me with no hint of comfort, “That means a demon is visiting you and sitting on your chest, trying to oppress you with fear so you will sin. Don’t wake your parents or read a book, instead you should pray or read only the Bible until the demon is compelled to leave, either by an angel or the presence of God.” This adult was affirmed by amens and mm-hmms.

I took this teaching to heart. I also understood, by implication, that if the bad feeling stayed with me then I was praying wrong -- that no angel would rescue me that night. I knew that my fear as it compounded in the dark was itself a sin that made God harder for me to reach.

These are not things that should be told to children.

Then there were the prophecies. (read more if this resonates with you, if not I’ll clip it here so I don’t take up your whole screen)

Anyone could prophesy in most churches I attended. Dreams were prophecies, visions were prophecies, vague feelings were prophecies. (That gave nightmares / being hormonal / being really hungry an awful lot of sway at Bible study.)

I had a woman prophesy over me weeping, with her hands buried in my hair, that she felt overwhelming grief for my future child. I was 23.

I have no child, and I harbored the secret at the time was that I didn’t want one -- a rebellion for me as a married woman. I feared she was prophesying an abortion in my future, and I was inconsolable for months at the damning choice that would visit me someday. (As of this writing at age 38 I’ve never been pregnant, for which I give all thanks to modern birth control.) I still wonder what happened to that woman’s child, or pregnancy, or perhaps her desire for a child, that this was her prophecy for me.

I heard much darker things prophesied over other people. I remember career changes (ill-advised) and marriages staying together (they shouldn’t have) and mission trips undertaken (that assuredly should not have been) because of prophesies.

Last, of course, I didn’t know it yet but I had many queer friends at the time. Some of them didn’t know it. We had no context in our small town -- and no corners of the internet to hide in and learn context, because the internet didn’t do much more than access our local library catalog at the time. I was told that demons sat on my chest to oppress me as a child, but I was shielded from understanding what a lesbian actually was until I was sixteen.

I remember feeling vaguely guilty when we prayed over this or that person in youth group, entreating God that they could resist their base urges. We prayed that they could choose a life of abstinence if they had to, rather than enter sexual sin and be cast out. I felt guilty but I still joined the circle to pray.

I’m sorry. I was wrong. Part of me knew it at the time. I wish I had listened to that part of me because that it was correct. There are fragments of my former faith I still treasure, but those prayers were rotten to the core.

Sidebar: Luckily that feeling of guilt bloomed quickly into rejecting queerphobic doctrine. By age 20 I decided I could only attend churches that did not preach homophobic takes on scripture from the pulpit, and that did not advocate/imply advocacy for any particular political party. The reason I mention this: if YOU are currently a person of faith in this position, uncomfortable with what you hear from your leadership, go find a church that’s queer-affirming, gives to the poor, and advocates for immigrants. Live in a conservative area? Create or join a home church. That’s what the early church looked like anyway. Don’t shrug off this responsibility. Shine a light.

Anyway. Several years later, I fell.

I had to step down from multiple church leadership positions in one day. My entire life changed in two months; marriage, job, home, friends, everything uprooted when I could no longer pretend to believe. I didn’t tell my family why everything fell apart, even as they let me crash their couches.

I had wanted to be a good believer. I read apologetics, the mystics, eschatology, theophostics. I taught and attended study groups, I took troubled teens out to coffee, I served the homeless, I waited til marriage. I was in church as many as thirty hours weekly. When I first felt my faith slipping I said “not yet,” and I read the entire Bible straight through twice, in different translations, while journaling through “My Utmost for His Highest.” Then, unsatisfied, I read and annotated the New Testament in interlinear Greek. I gave it my everything.

What could replace all that?

Time, it turns out. And freedom.

Freedom to not think about it was perhaps the kindest freedom. The constant labor of self-evaluation and thought policing that goes into Evangelical Christianity is exhausting. Letting it go of it felt like getting my mind back. Or owning it for the first time, since I never knew this freedom before. I had even been seeking counseling because I was hearing multiple voices in my head at once, all mine, often arguing. That problem vanished the hour I deconverted. I heard only one voice anymore, and it was my own.

For ten years I was free to just not think about it.

When I decided to remarry I realized that I didn’t want to explain to anyone why my ceremony would not include prayers or communion. So I told my loved ones at last that I was an atheist, a decade late. They received it graciously, and I’m sure they had known-but-not-acknowledged it for a long time. I hope they don’t worry about me or pray behind my back for my salvation. But if they do I can’t accept responsibility for it anymore.

Since that confession I’ve finally felt compelled to back at what all actually happened in church. It seemed so normal to me at the time. But wait, it wasn’t:

I exorcised people. I laid on hands for healings. I encouraged episodes of religious rapture, falling out, and speaking in tongues, and as a worship leader I knew the music cues to bring them about (yes, there are certain chord and tempo changes for that). I was present for prophecies that changed people’s lives and might have issued some myself, I don’t remember. I alienated people who didn’t fit in, whether because they were queer or just because they didn’t conform to church culture. I witnessed abuse and had no language to report it or even comprehend it. I hurt people. I was hurt.

I was told there were real demons in my room and I had to pray them away all by myself.

The work of undoing this mindf*ck (sorry friends of faith, that’s how it felt) suddenly turned urgent after being ignored for a decade. I can’t afford therapy, but thankfully Twitter chats and message boards and podcasts exist (thank you, @goodchristianfun​ and @exvangelical​).

And then -- out of the blue -- along came my own personal angel and demon, along with Frances McDormand herself. I watched it on a whim. (Actually no, David Tennant’s hair made me.)

Apparently Good Omens had a few things to say directly to my mindf*cked subconscious:

1) Are you scared of demons in a pathological childhood trauma way? Here, have a helping of this amalgam of your favorite Doctor and scariest ever Marvel villain tearing it up as the demon Crowley.

2) Does your mild bookish personality and respect for the culture you grew up in keep you reflexively deferential to authority, even as it gaslights you and hurts others? Enjoy some Michael Sheen as the angel Aziraphale.

3) Are you stuck still mentally assigning a male gender to the god you always claimed was beyond gender? Boom, meet Her in all Her ineffable wisdom.

4) Are you terrified of the End Times, both as a Biblical horror of childhood and as an adult who reads the f*cking news? Let’s fantasize awhile about a solvable apocalypse (because what would that even look like, yo).

5) Do you keep reflexively binarizing good and evil? Still giving in to the temptation to characterize humans as righteous or fallen, especially celebrities and political prospects? Spend some time on Our Side with Adam, the utterly human Antichrist, as he makes choices that matter -- some goodish, some baddish, all with mixed consequences, because that’s what humans do.

6) Do you need more queer love stories in your life? Yes you do. Yes. YES. Here it is. The good stuff. Whether it’s gay, trans, genderfluid, asexual, agender, metaphysical, whatever (I’m enjoying reading all these takes and more on AO3) it’s a hell of a love story.

Good Omens was a f*cking revelation.

I’m not sure why the show hit me as hard as it did in the Exvangelical feels. It’s not that it’s a perfect show, but it was the right thing at the right time for me, and it brought a truck full of dynamite to the excavation I was just beginning with a trowel and a makeup brush. I finished watching ep 6 and thought “why do I feel like I’ll be thinking about this every single day for years?”

And then I looked down, and lo and behold I had an open chest wound -- inside of which I found the banished memory of a child trembling and praying in terror in a dark room.

There was a lot that I forgot about in the ten years it took me to hike away from Evangelical life. It all came rushing back.

I had forgotten the sweat and cries during exorcisms and the heat of laying on of hands. I had forgotten fits of ecstatic tears of self-hatred and self-denial so strong they were almost blissful, as I sang and chanted mantras like “I am nothing, You are everything.” I had forgotten giving away ten percent of my income until I was 26. I had forgotten the constant mental effort of Being A Proverbs 31 Woman, about submission and complementarianism and feeling responsible to guard the virtue of men by never tempting them. I had forgotten the pressure to not even masturbate before marriage and to become a sexual athlete the night after.

I had forgotten the hours and hours of daily prayers. Every phrase was carefully carved in language my superego ran by my doctrine, to make sure no hint of rebellion ever bled through. I washed words of need and doubt and frustration from my mind so they could never slip between me and my Heavenly Father. I didn’t just want to hide thoughts God wouldn’t like, I would have cut them out with violence if I knew how. As a result I picked and ticced and cut and exhibited symptoms of OCD.

It hurt to remember all of this at once during a BBC Amazon Prime miniseries. It confused me. It confused my spouse. I looked at all these feelings, exposed and piled in a massive dirty heap -- and I spotted the straps I used to haul it around with me for decades. Who knew I could carry all that? The weight of faith?

But I don’t have to pick it up again. I had a new story to help me frame my story. I felt equipped with a flaming sword to face my past and a new syntax to describe the old ideas I'm ready to let go of.

I got to recast Heaven and Hell. I was invited to ask myself whether a cozy cluttered bookshop doesn’t beat them both hands down.

I got to reimagine angels and demons, good and bad, intentions and consequences. I was invited to live in the reality that we’re all of us humans in between, and that I’m probably still overinvested in the value of Good and Bad as yardsticks.

I got to reimagine western history. The show’s perspective of history is very limited and Eurocentric, but it’s also the version of history I was taught at an early age, which made the story a useful lens to deconstruct what I learned before I knew much about critical thinking.

The opening of Episode 3 in particular f*cked me up. First Aziraphale lies to God and She vanishes, then Crowley starts poking holes in the story of the Flood, then at the Crucifixion -- I started breathing hard on my first viewing, experiencing a real physiological threat response. I was loving it, of course, but distressed panicky love.

The second time I watched it I realized what was happening: I was going back to Sunday School to revisit ideas I absorbed before I was fully sentient, and examining them in the light of fully formed adult secular morality. They look different from here.

When God withdraws Her presence from Aziraphale in the first few moments of Ep 3 as he prevaricates (well, lies) I remembered the one great fear of my faithful life: that I could sin a particular sin and as punishment I would be cut off from God’s presence. As a believer in the End Times, that meant the Rapture could occur at any moment and I might be rejected, be left behind to experience the Tribulation.

Now, from some remove, I realize that I always had one fear larger. It’s a thought I never allowed myself to entertain consciously. Good Omens unearthed it like a vein of flowing lava:

If the Apocalypse as my church describes it is real, how could God want it to happen? And if God does, is this a God I want to worship? If I don’t, but I’ll be damned for that, is my faith freely chosen?

Whose side could I really be on, in the End Times, if not Heaven’s or Hell’s?

These are not small questions.

I’m relieved that I answered them a long time ago for myself.

But even after the answering, there’s fallout; a million little knots to untie and ideas to unlearn. We all get to spend our lives doing this sort of archaeological dig through our childhood baggage, I suppose. My Stuff is certainly not unique. It’s just a lot. Same as everyone’s.

But once in awhile a story comes along and helps us with the process. A sharper spade, a better tool for the work. In my case, through Good Omens I received demolition-grade explosives. It gave me a framework, characters, and a personal shorthand to speed my own digging and contextualize what I find.

If your history is kinda like mine -- whether you’re still in the faith or not -- be sure to talk to someone about church stuff from your past. The weird stuff, the dark stuff, the things you did/people did to you that now seem “off.” Even if you’ve grown past the point of “mental illness requires an exorcism” there are still dangerous ideas buried like land mines in our moral matrices. Self-hatred, intolerance, fear of abandonment, fear that failure is damnation, presumption that “we’re” on the “right side” of everything and “they’re” not, fear that we the apocalypse Is Written by powers above and so we can’t change it.

I’m so happy I know a story with an Our Side now.

I’m so happy I know a story in which the true test of devotion to God’s Ineffable Plan is turning away from the dictates of Heaven and turning toward the World.

I’m so glad I met Aziraphale -- so like me, still seeking Heaven’s approval far too late in the game. I’m so grateful he found the courage to walk away, and I’m so glad I did too. I love that I know Crowley now, self-pwning lovelorn disaster demon of minor inconveniences and imagination and free will. I’m so happy Crowley was there to tempt his friend with questions from the start, and to receive him when he was finally ready to break away.

I’m so proud to know Adam and the Them and Anathema and Newt, inept humans trying their hardest against unstoppable cosmic forces, getting it right not just despite their flaws but through and because of them.

I’m so grateful I’ve finally managed to completely swap to female pronouns for God (thanks, Frances). I still love stories about Her, I still enjoy talking theology and religion. And after 20+ years of insisting God is above gender but masculinizing him, it’s about time I switch to thinking of God as Her for a spell to even things out.***

I’m so thankful for the nicest fandom I’ve known in ages and all the glorious queer beautiful amazing body-positive art and writing growing in this fabulous garden.

Confession accomplished.

CM

P.S. I might not have the time/resources you need to chat with you if you’ve had similar experiences or want to discuss. If you need help be sure to reach somewhere healthy to get it. If you witness abuse, online or in church or otherwise -- report it, block it, mute it, shut it down, whatever is in your power.

P.P.S. If you have words of rebuke for me from a churchy place, and/or critiques about gender or politics, sorry, don’t give a f*ck. This is my story to tell and I am secure in my spiritual status. I am free indeed.

++++++++++++++

*Re. Deconversion: Or rather, I had my faith zapped out of me in what turned out to be the truest rapturous religious experience of my life. It happened in a church service; I almost fell out and spoke in tongues with the tingling power of understanding that I was truly and finally faithless. It’s an interesting deconversion story if you're familiar with charismatic church stuff, ask me sometime over tea. It felt like this.

**Re. Exorcisms: Most disturbing was the regular practice of exorcising people who clearly needed professional help for their mental health. I was present when prayers against demons happened over cases of depression, manic depression, epilepsy and other seizures, addiction, schizophrenia, and psychotic episodes. My particular church did acknowledge the role of modern medicine, but felt that the true core of these issues was spiritual and that medication ultimately could not solve a problem of demonic infestation. Looking back now I shudder and weep to think that this happened, that I was part of it once, and that it still happens daily at churches everywhere. It can be unspeakably damaging to the people being prayed over. If this practice happens in your church, leave. If it happens at a church where you’re in leadership, end it.

***Re. God as She/Her:  I encourage you to find your own appropriate pronouns for God, whether you believe in Them or not. For me personally, still reeling from the Proverbs 31 upbringing, She/Her is very healing for now. But gender is a construct etc. etc.

[cruciformity]

Should believers follow early Christians and hold all things in common?

One of the readings at my church yesterday which we discussed in our Bible study was Acts 2:42-47 where Luke describes life among the believers:

"42 They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. 43 Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles. 44 All who believed were together and had all things in common; 45 they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. 46 Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, 47 praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved."

What struck me about this text was verses 44 and 45. The Apostles and believers held "all things in common" and specifically would "sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need". Acts 4:32-37 talks about this more and even gives an example involving Barnabas selling his field:

"32 Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common. 33 With great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. 34 There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold. 35 They laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need. 36 There was a Levite, a native of Cyprus, Joseph, to whom the apostles gave the name Barnabas (which means “son of encouragement”). 37 He sold a field that belonged to him, then brought the money, and laid it at the apostles’ feet."

In case there is any doubt about all things being in common meaning all and not some, the story of Ananias and Sapphira makes it deadly clear in Acts 5:

"5 But a man named Ananias, with the consent of his wife Sapphira, sold a piece of property; 2 with his wife’s knowledge, he kept back some of the proceeds, and brought only a part and laid it at the apostles’ feet. 3 “Ananias,” Peter asked, “why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back part of the proceeds of the land? 4 While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, were not the proceeds at your disposal? How is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart? You did not lie to us but to God!” 5 Now when Ananias heard these words, he fell down and died. And great fear seized all who heard of it. 6 The young men came and wrapped up his body, then carried him out and buried him.

7 After an interval of about three hours his wife came in, not knowing what had happened. 8 Peter said to her, “Tell me whether you and your husband sold the land for such and such a price.” And she said, “Yes, that was the price.” 9 Then Peter said to her, “How is it that you have agreed together to put the Spirit of the Lord to the test? Look, the feet of those who have buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out.” 10 Immediately she fell down at his feet and died. When the young men came in they found her dead, so they carried her out and buried her beside her husband. 11 And great fear seized the whole church and all who heard of these things."

The story presents a challenge to cruciform theology as it shows a wrathful God striking down the couple, a subject of an early post in this subreddit. I won't go into that topic here as I want to keep the focus on the subject of common ownership. This is a very troubling passage for those who reject that idea while simultaneously claiming to take the Bible literally and its lessons for all time.

What these Scriptural texts point to is that within communities of believers, common rather than private ownership was the norm at the time of the Apostles. Is this a lesson that should be applied now?

It would force us to confront our selfishness head on which is something I believe Jesus's death highlights. As I wrote previously here Christ "invites people to imagine a world in which they are no longer driven by selfishness but by love of neighbour where, as some versions of the Lord's Prayer put it, debts are forgiven "as we also have forgiven our debtors". He presents a utopia where the last come first, the leaders are servants to the population and the poor and marginalised have equal status to the rich and powerful with wealth not accumulated but distributed fairly so that noone is in need."

Are there any churches today in which congregants possessions are held in common? How have we come to organise so differently to the way the Apostles and early Christians did so? I would be interested in your thoughts.

[woodworkingpastor]

God’s call to Abram Genesis 11:27 - 12:9  September 16, 2018

Call to Worship

                                         © 2018 Lectionary Liturgies

Christ of the comfortable, you call us from security and sameness, down an unknown path which leads to God's heart:

          with trust, we would place our hands in yours, and follow.

Companion of our sleepless nights, you beckon us out of the shadows of our fears, calling us to bring our doubts and questioning hearts along:

          with humility, we would listen to those answers we do not            expect, or even understand.

Word which creates out of nothingness, you fill us with life where we see only emptiness, you would keep your promises when all ours lie littered on the ground:

          may your grace transform us into faithful disciples.

Brethren beginnings

We Brethren are Jesus-followers with the idea of “call” hardwired into our spiritual DNA.  And as is often the case with such things, our upbringing reveals itself in the stories we tell about ourselves.  You often hear Brethren talking about Alexander Mack and the first Brethren who were baptized; Christians who rejected the cold legalism and spiritual shallowness of the churches of their day and who went to the Eder River in Schwarzenau, Germany on an August morning in 1708 to be baptized as their answer to Jesus’ call to “Come, follow me.”

There is a tendency, however, to romanticize that story, as if Mack’s and the other’s baptisms weren’t any different from our filling the baptistery here in our sanctuary for baptisms.  The fact is, those early Brethren baptisms were different in their costliness.  What we don’t often talk about is how much those early Brethren gave up in order to answer the call of Christ that they sensed.

Alexander Mack was the son of a wealthy family who experienced a significant spiritual awakening in the early 1700’s.   In 1706—two years prior to his rebaptism—he sold his share in the family mill.  Being freed from the responsibilities of running the mill gave him more time to pursue this spiritual awakening, but it also caused a nearly irreparable breach with his father, who considered Alexander’s rejection of established church patterns to be a greater sin than the moral waywardness of his other son, George.

It’s difficult for us to understand how radical a choice Mack and these early Brethren were making.  Choosing to leave the state-sanctioned churches in their village and be rebaptized was literally against the law, and Mack’s commitment over the next two years to preaching on street corners, passing out tracts to workers coming in from the fields each evening, and meeting in people’s homes for Bible Study and worship often meant he couldn’t live in any town for long, and often had him at risk for imprisonment.  One time, in fact, he would have been thrown in jail, except there were no available cells—so he was told to leave town!

It was Alexander Mack’s commitment to be radically obedient to God’s call that significantly explains our existence as a church and defines our faith 310 years later. Our spiritual heritage teaches us to listen for God’s call—not necessarily a once-for-all-time call, but a call into an ongoing relationship of obedience and spiritual re-formation that lasts a lifetime.  It’s also why we place such an emphasis on the corporate spiritual practices of worship, study, prayer, and accountability to one another; these keep us grounded so that we might distinguish between what seems like a good idea and God’s call.  

Times when we sense God calling us can be exciting times, but they are not necessarily safe times.  God’s call can be disruptive and challenging—but it also has impacts that last for generations.

Abram is called

That’s what we see as God calls Abram in Genesis 12.  We want to carefully note that Abram’s call does not simply appear on the scene from nowhere.  This story is connected to what has come before.  If you followed the Bible readings this week, you might have noticed that not much happens between the Flood story and Abram’s call, with the exception of the Tower of Babel story.  Other than that, it’s mostly genealogy.  But while that’s not exactly stimulating reading, the genealogies of the Bible are the parts of the narrative that provide connections.  God’s activity is rooted in the lives of particular people, and it demonstrates a particular stability.  God is not just randomly bouncing around from here to there doing new things. Just as there was order in creation, there is order in redemption and reconciliation as well.

We also want to note how this passage helps us understand God’s call, because it might challenge some of our assumptions.  Genesis 11:31 and 12:1 reveal a bit of healthy tension over how God calls people.  

When we read Genesis 12:1 carefully—meaning we stop and think about it long enough to wrestle with the implications—we might begin to see the challenges involved in serving a God who calls:  “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.”  We can begin to imagine the impact this will have on everyone in Abram’s family.  “A valuable family member is leaving us behind; there will be more work for the rest of us.  Who will help us survive? Who will bury us when we die? Who will help protect us if another tribe attacks?”

These questions are certainly true in our day as well: “If I leave my job to enter ministry, will I make enough to support my family? If we approve a new ministry, how will we support the other ones?”

All of these life questions are fair and important.  They are vital ones in the context of more primitive, subsistence-level living where the only thing you can rely on to survive is your own strength and a certain amount of good fortune with the weather, and a family to help you accomplish these basic tasks. They are the types of questions that are important to persons whose primary vision is maintaining those things we already have. They are important, necessary questions; but they’re not the only questions we should be asking. It’s probably at least partly why John Philip Mack was so disappointed with his son, Alexander.  He was leaving behind established institutions in which many people found great value.

But both Abram and Alexander Mack understood that these questions are not the only questions that ultimately define our story. God’s call to Abram is one that invites us to look and move into an unknown future. Genesis 11:31 reveals that this is a family on the move.  We’re not told why Terah began the journey to Canaan, nor why he decided to stop in Haran. But one wonders if this is why God spoke to Abram—this family has movement in their bones, and God chooses to work through them so that people around them might be blessed. It’s important that we not lose sight of calling being more than a private event, its purpose is so that other people—the same kinds of self-centered, rebellious, sinful people that we just read about in the Flood story—might come back into right relationship with God.  Abram is called for the spiritual good of the world.

Being a people that understand call as part of our spiritual DNA reminds us that our faith is not stagnant.  God calls us to be on the move, always aware that calling comes with a purpose: to be a blessing to others.  Calling is not a special, elevated status that indicates we have “arrived;” there are always persons who need to hear the story, who need to be invited into the family of faith, who need a community to support them so that they might find healing.  It occurs to me to wonder if “calling” isn’t the perfect word for this.  Maybe things like Michael’s artwork for our Bible reading guide and John Bell’s anthem are more appropriate images.  We might consider God’s invitation as a summons—or even as a quest. “Come this way; you can never know at the beginning all you will encounter.  But do you trust me?”  

Even as our preaching text for next week jumps to Abram’s great-grandson Joseph, our Bible reading helps us recognize what both Abram and Alexander Mack discovered: God’s call is more about a relationship than it is a possession; it is more of a journey than a destination.

Our response

I will admit to always being drawn to photographs like this one used in our Power Point today, with a road, or a river, or a path that draws you into them.  Where does that road go after it disappears into the hills?  What might be around the next bend, over the next hill, and on the other side of the mountains?  Pictures like these extend a call of their own.

Abram’s summons fits wonderfully into a Brethren spiritual worldview, recognizing that God is real and alive and active and summoning us into an unknown future, with the only certainty being that God will be there with us. I hope someone has noted this Scripture and put it in the jar on the table in the entry way. How does God’s activity in this portion of Scripture inform our life?

For us today, what does it mean for you to walk down that road, to begin the quest, to say “yes” to God?  There is one thing I’d like you to pray about.  I’m not about to insist that what I will say is God’s call.  It might just be me, but I certainly want to invite you into the conversation.  The fall is a time of year when we consider stewardship.  It’s an important time to recommit to those basic parts of our faith commitment.  As a part of that, I would love for you to consider Sunday School.

One thing I have noted about churches is that a vital, active, growing Sunday School program is one excellent indicator of congregational vitality. Partly this is because Sunday School is about so much more than Christian Education: things like fellowship, prayer, and mutual support all happen there. We do well with Sunday School, but there is certainly room in each of our Sunday School classes for more to join.

The fall is a time of year when we think about our commitments to the congregation for the next year. Council meeting is coming, where things like the budget and the ballot will be of significant importance. But we should also think more broadly than this.  Earlier I noted that Brethren have historically placed great emphasis on corporate spiritual practices of worship, study, prayer, and accountability to one another.  

As you think about your own commitment to our congregation and how that will be expressed in 2019, where does Sunday School fit in with that?  Would you be willing to commit or recommit to a Sunday School class for the upcoming year? Might this be one way God is calling you to be a blessing to other persons?

Would you at least pray about this with me?