Wednesday's thoughts

"A Word to the Wise is Superfluous"
The sermon represents a word I'd like to share with Pam Everhart since this will be the last time I can do that. Next Sunday Joel and Pam and I will be at Annual Conference in Grand Junction, and the 28th Pam is preaching in her final Sunday with us.

What I would like to say to her is the fundamental premise of the Christian faith that we are resident aliens. Our world is a strange place to us. We are in the world but not of the world as people of faith.

Wil Willimon and Stanley Hauerwas have written a book entitled Resident Aliens. They promote the idea that we are living in a world in which we are not altogether at home.

That idea wasn't original with them. They learned the truth of it in their understanding of the gospel.
This is what they wrote;
Here [in the sermon on the Mount] is an invitation to a way that strikes hard against what the world already knows, what the world defines as good behavior, what makes sense to everybody. The Sermon, by its announcement and its demands, makes necessary the formation of a colony, not because disciples are those who have a need to be different, but because the Sermon, if believed and lived, makes us different, shows us the world to be alien, and odd place where what makes sense to everybody else is revealed to be opposed to what God is doing among us. Jesus was not crucified for saying or doing what made sense to everyone. People are crucified for following a way that runs counter to the prevailing direction of the culture…

Do you experience a certain strangeness in the world that you know? Do you find yourself wondering why things are as they are and how to make thing the way they should be?

Do the values of the culture we are in seem at odds with the faith that you embrace as Christians? If so then we are seeing something that we should be seeing. How do we respond to it?

What do we do about it?

The book written by Edith Wharton that is directing my thinking is Ethan Frome. Ethan Frome lived in the town of Starkfield. It is described as a place where there was a "contrast between the vitality of the climate and the deadness of the community." It was a place where it was said, "Most of the smart ones get away."

In the 137th Psalm the words, "How do we sing the Lord's Song in a strange land?"

That is our problem and that is our challenge. We live in a strange land. We are resident aliens. We are in the world but not of it.

What advice do we give Pam as she leaves our church and moves to Central City? It is a strange land. Every place is somewhat strange. How do we sing the Lord's Song?

If you have thoughts about this write me at charlesschuster@fcfumc.net. If you are willing to share your thoughts click on the box below.

I look forward to hearing from you.


Charles (aka Chuck) Schuster