Seeing and Believing

sermon by Carrie Eikler
Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26
Heritage Series Week 1: Believer's Church

“What a difference six months make. “At the Detroit auto show in January, General Motors was selling its idea of a greener cleaner Hummer” according to a New York Times article this week. For those of you who don’t know what a Hummer is, it is a boxy SUV that can ford rivers, climb boulders, and churn through mud unlike any other SUV. It is an intimidating, gigantic machine. And…it gets 10.7 miles to the gallon. Now this might not have been a problem back in 2002 when gas cost around $1.35 per gallon. But now…

So what has happened to G.M. in the six months since the unveiling of the greener cleaner Hummer concept? Well, on Tuesday, Rick Wagoner, G.M.’s chief executive, announced that the company was shutting down four truck plants and thinking about unloading Hummer…totally getting rid of it. And you don’t need to be an economist, or an automotive expert to understand why. With gas teetering at the $4/gallon mark it is obvious. What used to be fuel for not only our cars, also powered our insatiable need for mobile independence. And now that fuel has hit record dollar costs, it has forced Americans to reexamine decisions we had once taken for granted. And with a waning economy, the bottoming out of the mortgage market, and costs of everything we buy going up, while the value of our dollar gets weaker and weaker, something is definitely going to change in each of our lives.

When gas first hit $2 a gallon, then $3 a gallon, economists were skeptical that the increase prices would affect driving habits. They speculated that perhaps it might have long term effects—folks might purchase more fuel efficient cars the next time they buy, but they doubted it would have any short term effects, you know, those things that affect our lifestyle, what we do on a daily basis. They didn’t think at $2 or $3 a gallon people would give up driving for walking, or biking, or using public transit, or even driving less. I spoke with a woman named Maria at our own Mountain Line Transit system this week. A survey they conducted some years back revealed that folks in the Morgantown area said that at $2.50 a gallon, they would consider mass transit. At $4.00 a gallon, they would consider carpooling. But at $5.00 a gallon, people definitely would be pursuing either option: rub shoulders with folks on a bus, or other co-workers as they squeeze into shared transport.

Dennis Jacobe, chief economist at the Gallup Organization in Washington D.C., reflects that “as the price of energy rises, the first thing people try to do is maintain their standard of living” and the first thing to sacrifice is the habit of saving, something Americans have never been very good at doing in the first place. As the magic number for fuel flirts with $4, even histting $4.10 this weekend at some places here in Morgantown, it threats to possibly go to $4.50, $5, who knows how high. It looks like the short term changes, those lifestyle changes, what we do on a daily basis, might be going into affect, according to Jacobe. Public transit has seen a dramatic increase in ridership, people are taking fewer weekend trips, some folks are even walking!

With these prices I guess I’m surprised to see as many of you here this morning. We may need to begin a church carpooling system to help with these lifestyle changes!

No doubt, our habits are being changed by what we see happening around us. But what we see isn’t just the dollar amount going up on the signs outside the gas stations. We see our wallets getting thinner, or our bank accounts getting smaller as we pay more for our independence. Hopefully we are also aware of the effects on family and personal sanity due to long commutes, and traffic jams, and green spaces being covered by concrete. We know the costs aren’t just monetary. What we see, what we experience, changes us. And when it gets to the tipping point, those possible long term changes come crashing into our laps, not simply things we will attend to later, but realities that demand to be seen and believed, right now.

The gospels are filled with people who were faced, in very dramatic ways, with the tipping point. The three stories today all show the power of Jesus touching, healing, convincing, inviting, showing a new reality. A paralytic healed. A white collar criminal engaged. A bleeding woman blessed. A dead girl resurrected. The healing—the tipping point—for these people is probably obvious. The focus of the story is on them and Jesus, after all. But I think there is more going on in the scriptures than we may take away at first glance. There are many more people involved: lurking in the shadows, peeking around the corner, hiding at the hem of someone else’s robe.

So who are these other people? Well, to being with, Jesus saw the faith of the friends who brought the paralyzed man, and the scripture implies that on these grounds, because of the friends, Jesus was able to heal. The Pharisees, when confronting Jesus about sitting with tax collectors and sinners, had their first engagement with Jesus in the gospel of Matthew, and coaxed from Jesus words we would be wise to contemplate “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.”

And let’s not forget the crowds. They are part of the story too. After Jesus heals the bleeding woman on his way to tend to the daughter of a synagogue leader, he meets flute players, accompanying a dirge sung by mourners. They didn’t believe it when Jesus said she was only sleeping. But he took her hand, and she got up. We can imagine that the dirge turned into joyful shouts of thanksgiving and awe, and we are told that “the report of this spread throughout that district.” And there are crowds around the man who was paralyzed. After the man stood up, the crowds saw it, they were filled with awe, and they glorified God.”

I love it when crowds are involved in a story because often, that’s where I find myself in the story. This might be the case, because generally when I come in contact with the holy it’s not because I have had a huge miraculous healing take place, or drastic transformation. Rather I often am touched by the Holy by witnessing something that leaves me in awe. That compels me to shout out, turn my dirge into whoops and hollers, to say to others, “Haven’t you seen what I have just seen?”

Could it be that in simply seeing we are changed? Could it be that being witness to death and corruption, and being witness to healing and blessin we too are touched by Christ? I can only imagine that these are ripe moments for the deepening of our faith, for hearing the call to join the one who heals, who turns things upside down, to learn to touch as he touched. Just by seeing, by witnessing, we may reach the tipping point where our lives are changed and our paths take new steps.

One of the most transformative books on my shelves at home, is A People’s History of the United States by the historian Howard Zinn. Zinn takes the well-known concept that official history is written by the winners. But behind the winner’s stories, are the stories and experiences of the many, many people who were the outsiders, or the outcasts, the marginalized, the disempowered. In A People’s History, Zinn unearths these stories, giving us a different take on what may have seemed like dead history. He gives us eyes to see what others had seen, experiences that the dominant story has forgotten. I think this may be one way to think about our foremothers and forefathers of our Mennonite and Brethren traditions. What did they see? What were they witness to that brought them to the tipping point? What was their $4 a gallon incentive to change their life in the church?

The dominant story at the time of our beginning as a church was one of war and persecution, intolerance and corruption, and a time for the misfits and the outcasts to emerge, our own faith ancestors. Europe had been in the throws of religious wars for decades, centuries. Martin Luther had begun what is known as the Reformation ultimately breaking away from the Catholic Church and formed the tradition of what is now known as Lutheranism, the first Protestant denomination. After that, others began breaking away as well, even breaking away from these newly reformed traditions. These different groups were “seeing” differently on certain theological matters such as communion, the power of Rome, and the importance of scripture versus actions. But the one thing these larger movements, in their difference, they did see eye to eye on, was baptism. Baptism continued to be a ritual that was conferred upon infants.

But baptism was more than a ritual of conveying grace on the child, welcoming them into the church family. At that time, in that place, Church and State were one. Baptism into the church also meant induction as a citizen, and all the responsibilities that go along with citizenship. So in the midst of religious wars fought by armies of the state, we can image it took a big step to ask the questions “How am I a Christian and how am I a citizen?” And, the question that still faces us today, “What happens when the values of being a Christian and a citizen clash?” Small groups in Holland and Germany, groups that would later become Mennonites and Brethren, were seeing that what was happening in the world around them, and what they read and believed from the word of Jesus were growing farther and farther apart. The tipping point had come.

So these groups continued reading the Bible, which was a fairly new practice since Bibles before the 16th century were few and far between, generally the possession of the priests, not a household staple for a largely illiterate society. But when you give people the power and the means to think for themselves, to engage the scriptures with their own eyes and hearts, it always seems to be a recipe for trouble…delicious trouble.

People began studying baptism and recognized that in the New Testament, baptism overwhelmingly was intended for adults, those who came to the faith though free will, not something done to the unknowing by consent of their parents. According to the letters of Peter the disciples were to go and baptize. Jesus’ ministry started with his baptism. They came to understand that baptism was something that people had to believe in, that the power of Christ in one’s life had to be experienced before taking on the responsibility not of citizenship, but the difficult responsibility of being a Christian.
So Mennonites in the 16th century and Brethren in the 18th century were vital streams in the movement called Anabaptism, meaning “re-baptized.” (and it should be noted that it is ana-baptism, “ana” meaning “again”, not anti-baptism, as is often misunderstood). Anabaptists rejected their early baptism and in secret, but in large numbers in some places, would enter the icy waters for baptism and defy not just church doctrine, but state control over their lives, and reclaim themselves as believers in Christ—a decision of faith, not just an assumption. And so began the concept of Believer’s Church, a body of people who chose a life of lived faith, not simply professed faith.

I appreciate Sarah Scotti-Einstein for bringing this turn of phrase to me, the tension between a lived faith and a professed faith. She recalled that one of the things that brought her into the Anabaptist tradition was the life of one woman whose faith radiated from her in everything she did, the way she spoke and interacted, the choices she made, the way she walked through life. It was a lived faith, no doubt daily filled with the struggle of responding to what she saw in the world and making choices based on her commitment to Christ. She was so inspired by this woman that she began writing down her life story, trying to compile the essence of this powerful woman’s faith on the page, to help convey that sense of power and commitment to others.

But Sarah found that she was failing miserably at attempting to record this person’s lived faith. She said, “When I tried to write it down, I recognized that it simply became a professed faith, a retelling of someone’s beliefs. The power of her life was not just words, but an active faith, a lived faith.”

That’s what our ancestors were doing. While baptism was the focus and the symbol that they resisted and wanted to reclaim, I think more deeply it was the tipping point of a Church that for too long had simply professed beliefs, and recited creeds, and killed in the name of Jesus. Granted, baptism in the United States isn’t a state necessity, and in fact, in a country where separation of church and state is the norm, it has no function regarding state or military in anyway. Some of the radical nature of adult or believer’s baptism has been lost. And yet, to constantly reclaim ourselves for Christian discipleship, for this to be a daily part of our lives is a sort of radical rebaptism. Because it means that we know that we must change.

Every day we see the world around us. Violence and warfare are parts of our lives, and if it’s not intimate, then we are certainly witness to it. Greed and hatred darken our own hearts, no matter how much we wish to deny it. Christ light shines on those dark parts of our soul, showing us the places that need to be filled, so we can see our own need. We see our tendency to be short with our loved ones, to neglect our spiritual lives, to forget what it means that we are beloved.

This is what we see. This is what we are witness to. Dennis Jacobe, that chief executive of Gallup I referred to earlier, said “When people see high gas prices and then see it rising several cents a gallon each day, …they have the psychological problem of not knowing how high it will go. When that happens, people start to adjust their lifestyle.” The first Anabaptists saw violence and exploitation of the church rising dramatically each day. Likely, they didn’t know when it would stop, how high the destruction would go. They stepped into the waters and said, “Enough. Things must change. I must change.” What do you see in your life that calls you deeper into faith? What are you witness to that brings you to a tipping point, keeps you searching for faithful response?

As we think on these parts of our lives and our world, maybe that’s how we stand in the crowds, perhaps reaching for the hem of some sanity, or playing a dirge because all our hope is lost. And in the midst of this, the voices come from the past, lowered through the ceiling… stepping out of the water, steadying us as we enter into the new day of Christ’s church, and a new life.