A Way of Life

John August Swanson: Festival of Lights

Hello to all my friends out in cyberspace! I shocked myself when I opened up Seedlings and realized my last post was four weeks ago. I have been on vacation, but not that long. One of those weeks took me up to the Presbyterian heaven known as Montreat, so blogging was far from my mind. Thank you for your patience – if you are still there!

               When I return to the pulpit this Sunday at Seneca Presbyterian Church, my thoughts will be focused on a new theme. Perhaps that theme can be summed up by the question: Is there a peculiar way of being Christian?

               I don’t mean peculiar in the sense of strange, though I understand completely how many non-Christians would characterize us in such a way. 
               By peculiar I mean distinctive, set apart, in the way the dress of a faithful Muslim woman sets her apart. Peculiarity can also be seen in the way Eric Liddell (Chariots of Fire), a competitive British runner in the 1924 Olympics, set himself apart when he refused to run in a race scheduled for a Sunday.  

               So – is there a peculiar, distinctive way of living the Christian life? The Apostle Paul would say yes, and does so eloquently in the 12^th chapter of Romans, our text for Sunday.

• Let love be genuine.
• Hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good.
• Bless those who persecute you.
• If your enemies are hungry, feed them.
• Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

               Many would argue, and rightly so, that Christianity has no monopoly on love or compassion.  Yet still I believe it is the way we are called to live out our faith. It may look like everyone else, but it is still a peculiarly Christian way of living.

               As we gather for worship in the coming weeks at Seneca Presbyterian, we will be exploring just how that can be true. We will use the concept of Christian practices, a concept introduced by Dorothy Bass and Craig Dykstra in their 1997 book Practicing Our Faith. The concept was unique then; it is foundational now. Foundational to understanding how Christians can live out the Christian witness in a world that is increasingly secular and increasingly prone to characterize all Christians by those given prominence in the media.

               A Christian practice is a cluster of activities, ideas, and images, lived by Christian people over time, which addresses a fundamental human need in the light of and in response to God's active presence for the life of the world in Jesus Christ. (From Dorothy Bass, “What is a Christian Practice?” www.practicingourfaith.org) I hope you can sense from that definition something of what makes a practice peculiarly Christian. It goes beyond what we do to why we do it, the confidence behind the doing, and the strength we have to persist in the doing.

               Over the coming weeks, we will put the concept to the test as we explore more deeply what it means to live as Christians in the world God is working to redeem. Please join us as we do, but if you can’t: watch this space! 

Abiding in Hope

As I prepare for the fourth week of seeing worship through its senses, I’m finding the sense of hope elusive. Is that because it conveys the sense of wishful thinking and pipe dreams? I hope I win the lottery. Or is it because it is so essential to life that it defies definition?

Dictionary.com defines hope as a feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best, which seems rather positive until you glance at the example: to give up hope. Other options go on to define the reason we have this feeling, the thing or person that gives us this feeling, or a particular experience of this feeling. The verb form continues to exude hope: to look forward with desire or reasonable confidence; to believe, to trust. Synonyms are expectancy and longing.

No wonder the Wednesday night seekers spent most of their time asking questions about hope rather than nailing it down.

• What is the difference between faith and hope?
• Which comes first: hope or faith?
• Can we have hope without faith?
• Can we have faith without hope?
• Does hope bring you to God, or must faith come first?
• Is hope faith realized?
• Is faith hope realized?
• Is hope unrealized a threat to faith?
• When faith deepens, does hope change?

I’ll stop before your head starts spinning too much. I think you get the point!

         Here’s the definition that comes to my mind: Hope is a longing deep within us that is not in our power to achieve yet will not let us go, for to be without hope is to be without life.

            The word hope occurs 149 in the Bible – at least that’s what my NRSV search brings up. Surprisingly, the occurrences are just about evenly divided between the Old and New Testaments. It tells me that hope in its greatest manifestation is theology and not psychology. Which brings me around to another inversion of sorts: worship must sustain hope; hope is not possible without worship.

            As we gather for worship this Sunday at Seneca Presbyterian Church, we’ll look at hope for our lives, hope beyond our lives, and hope for the world. It just may take us on a journey through all of scripture. I hope those who gather will leave with hope renewed!