A TIME FOR DECLARING

Joshua 24:14-18
Mark 8:27-28

September 29, 1985

John M. Buchanan
Fourth Presbyterian Church, Chicago

"To be or not to be: that is the question." -It. is also the most celebrated
line ever written.for the stage. It is from Hamlet, a powerful drama of
passion and grief, in which the playwrite addresses the most profound human
question, whether life is worth living in a world of tragedy and sorrow.

At one point Hamlet laments: ".,.God! God! How weary, stale,
flat and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of this world!"

The intriguing idea in the celebrated line, however, is that one decides
whether or not to live: that you and I have the awesome capability and .
responsibility of deciding to be or not to be.

Our best art, literature, philosophy and psychology confirm the idea. The
late Paul Tillich. wrote a book which spoke to a generation of seekers under
the title The Couragé to Be. Professor Tillich said: "The courage to be is
the ethical act in which man affirms his own being..." (P.3) Rollo May, in
a book on creativity, reminds us from the point of view of the psychological
disciplines, that our identity as persons is the product of the choices we
make. Acorns become oak trees and kittens become cats automatically: no
decision need be made. "But" says Rollo May, "a man or a woman becomes fully
human only by his or her choices...People attain dignity and worth by the
multitude of decisions they make from day to day." {The Courage to Create,
P.4/5)

That idea, that you and I decide to be, is a major Biblical motif. Adam and
Eve become human when they start to make decisions, even though the first ones
turn out rather poorly. From beginning to end, Old Testament to New Testament,
individuals "become" in moments of courageous decision. People in the Bible
confront their destiny,as it were, in the form of God's call, God's summons to
them -- to Abraham to go on a-journey, to Moses to return to Egypt, to the
people to leave their bondage, to David to be King, to Jeremiah to speak the
Word, to James, John, Simon and Andrew, to leave fishing nets and follow.

And in the response, in the decision to obey those people become the people
God created them to be.

We've heard all those stories from childhood: unlikely tales of forbidden
fruit and talking serpents; of Pharchs and task masters and plagues of locusts
and frogs of all things; of amazing escapes through the sea and forty years
lost in a wilderness; of marching armies and walls that come tumbling down at
the sound of a trumpet.

~2-

Back when we heard them first they were mildly interesting stories, but remote,
bizarre even. If you've ever tried to catch one small frog, after he escaped
into your second grade classroom, you will forever smile when reading about
Cairo, knee-deep in frogs.

4nd then we learned the literary analysis of these stories, when a college
professor insisted that we read them -- "critically" ~- was the word he used.
We had to acknowledge that the Pentateuch.is not an NBC Decumentary, but
rather a fragmented, ragged collection of family folk tales handed down across
a thousand generations, with all the literary characteristics of a serialized
Soap opera. And about the time we are ready-to put these stories back up on
the top shelf, between A Child's Garden of Verse and the seldom used set of
World Books, something stunning happens. We begin to hear our own name in
these stories and our children's names, and our friends, and our church, and
our community, and our nation.

"That's me in there!" The word becomes flesh in the most remarkable ways.
That's you and me they're talking about, stumbling around in the wilderness,
grumbling and complaining about how nice we used to have it. That's us in
there, on a journey to some promised land called maturity, wholeness, person-
hood, having to learn on the way to trust God. That's us in there; yes, peering
hopefully across the rooftops for some Bathsheba to help us deal with our mid-
life crisis: or running for our lives, in cold terror, from some Jezebel: or
sitting in the rubble of crushed dreams and crying "Why me, O Lord!"

The people in the Bible are called, named and sent by God. Along their way,
at every junction, they have to make decisions. The message is that their
identity, their emerging personhood and nationhood as God's people is being
hammered out, forged, as they decide. This morning, in the tight, little
sequence we heard as an Old Testament lesson Joshua, near the end of his life,
calls. the people together and puts it to them directly.

"Choose this day whom you will serve:- the gods your fathers
used to serve, or the gods of the Amorites...as for me and
my house, we will serve the Lord..."

"Choose this day when you will serve," which meant, of course,
‘"Ghoose this day who you will be."

So it was with another group of travelers, centuries later, more-or-less follow-
ing a teacher from Nazareth, sometimes with high intentionality, but mostly
hesitantly, reluctantly. Mid-journey, near a place called Caesarea Phillipi

a time for decision-making, for declaring, happens.

‘Who do you say that I am?" he asks, and one of them responds,
"You are the Christ."

And what follows shows that the identity at stake here is not his at all, but
theirs. The question of the moment is truly: "Who are you? Who will you be now

-The issue this places before us, therefore, is not what it seems at first. It
is not so much the correct name for Jesus, the best theological formula by which
to describe our belief about him, as it is our identity, our decision to be

~3-+

men and women who believe in him, follow him, live for him. We would learn
the importance of that difference from the world if we listened very long.
The world has never cared much about our intramural theological disputes.
Those medieval theologians arguing about how many angels can dance on the
head of a pin were doing what Christians do too much of, namely excited about
irrelevancies, There is more than a little prophetic truth in the’ subway
graffiti, “Christ is the answer: beneath which someone had scribbled with
galvanizing, unarguable honesty, "What's the question?"

The world isn't asking the theological questions. No, that's not true.

The world isn't asking the theological questions in the theological language
with which we are comfortable. -That's. the point of the text, Jesus, by re-
directing the question forced the disciples to move from theological discussion
to personal decision-making. "What are people saying about me?" That's the
theological question. What did Tillich say? What does Barth say on the sub-
ject, or Hans Kung or Rosemary Reuther? The pursuit is important and inter-
esting. But it can be neutral and safely intellectual. "But who do you say
that I am?" To believe in Jesus Christ is not to give intellectual assent to
ideas about him; it is to follow him. It is to trust him, bank one's life on
him, acknowledge his Lordship over the entirety of life, obey his cail, do
his will, follow his teaching.

Professor Harvey Cox of Harvard Divinity School, in his recent book Religion

in the Secular City, observes: "Arguments about the significance of Jesus

have always been political as well as theological. .The various titles and
interpretations of Jesus -- Messiah, Son of Man -- were not invented in seminars
but came out of a contentious and conflict-ridden human history.” (P.234)

Cox argues that Western Christianity has intellectualized the Gospel by .trans-—
forming every important issue into a question of doctrine. When Jesus invites
people literally to put their own lives on the Line by asking them who they think
he is, we turn it into a discussion of Christology. Cox argues convincingly,

as do all the "liberation" theologians, that in the Third Worid, a religion

that confines itself to keeping its doctrine orthodox, and ignoring the aspir-
ations of the poor, the hungry, the oppressed —- will not only be regarded as
irrelevant, but more often than not will be seen to be part of the system,

the structures responsible for oppression.

"The argument about who Jesus was" Cox asserts, "is also about who he is."
(P.235) The Christian issue is the matter of discipleship: . not. what beliefs ..
we hold in that corner of our mind reserved for transcendence, but what -deci-
sion we make in the secular sphere which express the Lordship of Jesus Christ
and thereby our identity as his disciples.

Our neo-Evangelical brothers and sisters are reminding us that Christianity
begins with a personal response to Jesus Christ: that at the center of it

all is an intensely personal encounter with God's love for me, and the accept—
ance of that love as it has been expressed in Jesus Christ: in the commitment
to be his man, his woman, forever. We need an occasional reminder that there
is passion here: heart and soul and tears and great laughter: that this is
no simple intellectual arrangement; that without the passion our faith becomes
brittle, fragile, unimportant. That is a reminder we Presbyterians need. . But

—-4- -

there is more than passion. "Passion must be harnessed" Frederick Buechner
told a class of seminary graduates. "...the power that stirs the heart must
become the power that stirs the hands and feet because it is the places your
feet take you to and the work you find fer your hands that finally proclaim
who. you and who Christ is." “(A Room Called Remember, P.147)..0 ©

‘Jesus, it appears, wanted more than private, personal acceptance of the salva-
tion he offered. He wanted bodies, lives. "Believe in me" means "follow me,
live with me, Live for me, love me by obeying me.”

The essence of being a Christian in this, or any, age is declaring one's
allegiance by following where he leads and working for his Kingdom. Its
essence is the opening of one's life to direction by him. That's the rub.
That's the essential conflict between Christ and culture: between the demands
of the Gospel and the very simple human propensity to do what I want when I
want to do it: to get everything one can while the getting is good.

Qur culture, in fact, brazenly suggests that our true identity, our selfhood,
will be discovered as we do our own thing, not someone else's thing. Indivi-
dual self-actualization will result from “getting in touch with my own needs,
living my own agenda, etc."

When that spiritual equation is set in the context of, and begins to be one

of ‘the philosophic motives of, a market economy, the resuits are dreadful.
Adam Smith's ideas about a free market, by the way, were devised originally

as a.way humankind might alleviate poverty. Matthew Fox, at Mundelein College,
suggests that we are educated daily to become compulsive consumers...walking
garbage cans, espousing the philosophy *I buy, therefore I am’." The former
head. of. NBC and Curtis Publishing, Matthew J. Culligan, says that if our
economic system fails it will be because "the principle compulsion of most
‘people running American business today is to make short-run profits. "The
disease', he declares ‘is greed'." (M. Fox, A Spirituality Called Compassion,
P.193,196) , ,

A Today Show feature a few weeks ago explored the incredible array of choices
Americans must make in the marketplace and the energy we are willing to invest
in the process. A critic suggested that 119 different department store brands
and shades of lipstick, and 17 kinds of catfood on the supermarket shelves is
a trivialization of our culture. The apologist, on the other hand, applauded
the range of choice -~- "Isn't it great," he said, “a mark of the individualism
which is possible in our culture compared to others."

In fact, is that where our identity is posited? Is the cosmetic counter or
the pet food aisle at the supermarket where we become fully human? Is it not
a vulgarization and a gross trivialization of both our great culture and our
potential as human beings, if it all comes to rest on choosing one cat food
out of 17?

There is an older, better truth than that. It is that in committing ourselves
to.something or someone other than ourselves that we truly become a human being.
There is something about our humanity that is authenticated and ‘celebrated by our

-. will, our choices, our courage to be. There is something high and holy in the

intentional life for others. . Jesus said it with elegant simplicity: “The
person who saves life will lose it. The person who lases his life for my sake

will find it."

-5-

That is what is at stake time and time again in those old stories in the
Bible. God calls and people have to decide. Joshua confronts the people

of Israel and. says ‘choose this day whom you will serve...Decide, now,. who
you will be.": It is what is at stake when Jesus asks the twelve who they
think he is. It is what is at stake in a particular way for the church today.

The Church of Christ is called to declare his Lordship. That is our purpose,
our mission. We cannot do it any longer in splendid isolation. A Session |
resolution on the Lordship of Christ is not likely to cause a ripple.on:-
Michigan Avenue. The world no longer arranges itself around.:our walls, as
it did in the middle ages, listening, watching, attentive. Today, we must
be Christ's church, radically involved with the world. Professor Cox calls
it "worldly spirituality" and writes: "The new spirituality is nurtured. by
a thythm of advance and retreat, of wading into the pain and conflict of the
secular realm-and repairing regularly into the sustenance of: solitude and. .-
of a supporting community.” (Op.Cit., P,210) PE a

Our being here is: an eloquent declaration. Roger Kennedy, Director of the
Museum of American History of the Smithsonian Institute, has authored a...
stunningly peautiful book of pictures and essays on American Churches... in
a chapter on Cathedrals he writes:. "A visitor to New York who stands on
Fifth Avenue between Rockefeller Center and Fifty Seventh Street can .see-.
that, in the glassy shadows of the skyscrapers, there lurks an older way...
of stating reality. There are two great churches that state that older:
way even amid that domain of high contemporary fashion -~ St. Thomas’ and

St. Patrick's.

Our presence here is a declaration. What we do here: - how we express our.
theology in behavioral terms is an eloquent declaration. When homeless
people are cared for, when the hungry are fed and the cold clothed, when
the anxious and afraid are comforted, and when the happy and whole.are
affirmed, the Lordship of Jesus Christ over all of life is eloquently:

declared.

This is Stewardship Sunday, and this is a Stewardship sermon. The issue.
is not simply money. Tf it were we could divide the budget by the number

of members and send everybody a bill. But the issue most certainly is money
in that your pledge to the church is one of those decisions on which you
make a declaration about the Lordship of Jesus Christ, and about who you are
in relationship to him.

This church isin mission because people before us deciared themseives and
gave generously, providing for the church's mission in their times and .ours
as well. We are still here in the glassy shadows of Michigan Avenue because
of them... We are able to be in mission here, however, to the extent that you
and I make our deciaration in our day.

The programs cost money. You will learn how much if you read the information
which will come to you in the mail.

The vital matter is the human question. Who shall we be? How shall we live?
How shail we use our resources? How shall we vote? How shali we live our
lives in ways that matter, ways that contribute something important? How

~6- we

"

shall we make responsible use of the life God has given us? The Gospel of
Christ is bold to suggest that his Lordship is relevant here: not just in
our minds where we struggle intellectually with truth and doubt. The Gospel
is bold to suggest that. our belief in him means we will listen to him in
matters of justice: that when we know about injustice and oppression we
will hear him at least as clearly as our political party's platform or our
corporation's profit and loss statement. To accept Jesus as Lord means
that. we will hear him when the hungry and homeless are at the door: that

we will hear his word: about loving enemies and being reconciled to those
with whom we differ -~ with at least as much attentiveness as we give anyone.
But the most. important point, the point we lose, is that our allegiance to
him in these daily matters of living is the way our personhood comes into
focus.- , :

“Who do you say that I am?" Every day becomes a time for declaring: and
the life we live, in families, work, play, struggle, in leisure, success
and failure -- becomes the place we declare who our Lord is and who we are.

The summons is to do that -- each of us -- this day and every day: now,

in the quiet. of worship, in private gestures of devotion and commitment,

in important decisions about Stewardship, and then in the world again and
again, as we give ourselves to the great adventure of living as his people.
Amen.

Praise to you,Lord God, for the gift of our selves. Praise to you, creator
God, for giving us the responsibility to become, to be, to will to live fully.

Praise to you, Lord of love, for gentle nurture: for calling us to be yours,
for prodding us and pushing us and leading us into fuller humanity.

Help us to see that in your service we become the people you want us to be:
that in giving we do receive: ‘that in loving the world and one another we

love you best and serve you most effectively.

Praise to you, Lord God: in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.