The Trash Trail -- FPC sermon excerpt

Landfills, recycling centers, and sewage treatment plants. They are not what you would call “scenic spots.”

But sometimes our spiritual health requires some serious trash-talk.

I grew up near a sewage treatment plant, not far from the city landfill in Bowie, Maryland. These sites were surrounded by woods, where my friends and I liked to play. When we would head out on a summer day, my mother would ask where we were going. We’d say, “The sewage plant.”

Yes, I had a charming childhood.

My point is that I know what these places look like. I know what they smell like. And now, in this season of summer travels to picturesque places, I don’t have any desire to visit them, see them, or smell them. But, at the same time, I know that they are incredibly important destinations for each and every one of us.

Fact is, we need to get rid of our garbage. This is true of both our physical trash and our spiritual refuse. On the spiritual side, Psalm 130 promises to help with the disposal of our iniquities — our sin, evil, vice, wickedness, and injustice. And a book called "Garbage Land" gives us insight into the elimination of our physical filth.

This is a fascinating work by a science writer named Elizabeth Royte. It bears the subtitle "On the Secret Trail of Trash." The book is one woman’s journey along the long and winding road of waste management, with visits to the final destinations of our old computers, soda bottles, leftover food scraps and bodily waste.

This is not a pretty picture. In fact, it stinks.

Tagging along with anthropology students who are performing a dig in a landfill, Royte finds that 40-year-old hot dogs look just like the ones you buy at the grocery store. Seventy-year-old newspapers can still be read. Even Cling Wrap still clings. Decomposition is not as fast or complete as we imagine it to be.

But the fact remains: We need to get rid of our garbage. This is going to be true whether we consume a lot or a little; whether we recycle our bottles or toss them in the trash. Each and every one of us produces waste, and for some of us the garbage is going to be more spiritual than physical.

We are sinners, after all — releasing a steady stream of toxic stew. We spew out gossip and insults, half-truths and lies, selfish manipulations and hurtful actions. Mix in anger and lust and greed, and you’ve got a serious sin management problem.

How can we safely dispose of all this personal, spiritual garbage?

Psalm 130 offers the assurance that God wants to save us: “O Israel, hope in the Lord! For with the Lord there is steadfast love, and with him is great power to redeem. It is he who will redeem Israel from all its iniquities” (vv. 7-8). The psalm reminds us that God loves us, and that he has taken decisive action to haul away our trash.

Saved by a Superman -- FPC sermon excerpt

An Almighty Father sends his son to Earth.

He puts him here for a purpose.

“They can be a great people,” says the father. “They only lack the light to show them the way. For this reason, above all — their capacity for good — I have sent them you, my only son.”

On Earth, the son fights hard for truth and justice. He displays amazing abilities and incredible insights, but sometimes he feels that his power is being drained out of him.

After a dramatic battle with the forces of evil, he is killed. But then he is resurrected and ascends into heaven. He returns in a second coming.

This is the story of Jesus, right? Well, yes, it is.

But it is also the story of Superman.

Visit the movies this week, and you will be dazzled by the sights and sounds of Superman Returns, the latest in a long line of television shows and feature films about the Man of Steel. You might see me at a showing this Wednesday, the day it opens. In this version, you’ll see his arms outstretched, as though he is being crucified. You’ll watch as he receives a wound in the side — like the spear-stabbing endured by Jesus. At one point in the movie, a bitter Lois Lane says, “The world doesn’t need a savior, and neither do I.”

But we do, Lois — we do!

“The Man of Steel is Back,” according to a headline in The Daily Planet. That news alone is going to move mobs into multiplexes, because as a nation we are crazy about our superheroes. Women want to be with them, and men want to be them. As comedian Jerry Seinfeld says, “Spider-Man, Superman, Batman … men don’t see these as fantasies, they see them as career opportunities.”

But the movie Superman Returns should also lure people into church, because this story can draw us deeper into the life of a true superhero named Jesus. He may not have super-strength and x-ray vision, but he’s got the power to save us.

Super Savior -- FPC sermon excerpt

They call him “Touchdown Jesus.”

He is 62 feet tall, rising out of a former cornfield in southwestern Ohio. Made of steel, fiberglass and Styrofoam, this statue of Jesus Christ has upraised arms, which make him look like a football referee signaling a touchdown. This mega-messiah, with arms and hands big enough to hold a dump truck, was erected by a non-denominational church along Interstate 75.

And here’s where the story gets interesting: Not long after the church had the statue erected, the highway suddenly became safe. There were 14 deaths in the two-year period before the sculpture’s appearance. Then there were none. The church’s pastor, Lawrence Bishop, told the Cleveland Plain Dealer, “Since that’s been up, there hasn’t been one wreck out there. We didn’t build it with that intent, but that’s what happened.”

So maybe this Jesus is a Super Savior. One who has calmed the storm of highway killings.

Of course, there may be other forces at work. About the same time that the statue appeared, the state of Ohio spent a million dollars to install a cable that runs down the median. This barrier is designed to prevent vehicles from crossing the median into oncoming traffic.

Says Jay Hamilton, the highway engineer who designed the barrier, “I honestly think that Jesus can perform miracles, but I don’t think the statue was the miracle out here. It was the barrier.”

Take your pick: Whether it was Touchdown Jesus or the state highway department, we can be thankful. Interstate 75 is now a much safer stretch of road.

The first letter of John also describes a Super Savior, but it doesn’t take a particular position on giant statues by the highway. Instead, John focuses our attention on the fact that our faith in Jesus turns us into children of God, and makes us members of God’s family. As children of the Lord, we are to love one another, love God, and obey his commandments. If we do these things, we are going to be given a surprising victory — “whatever is born of God,” says John, “conquers the world” (1 John 5:4).

Conquering the world. That’s even better than an accident-free drive on the Interstate.

A Father's Means and Opportunities

Fathers and criminals have a lot in common — both need a motive, a means, and an opportunity. With two teenage children in my house, I've been trying for years to perfect my technique, and have discovered that successful fathering requires not only intense desire, but also the right tools and the correct combination of circumstances. Now, with my daughter graduating from high school and preparing to head off for college, I’m acutely aware that time is short. If I am ever put on trial for being a father, I want to make sure that there is enough evidence to convict me.

I know that motives for parenting are going to vary, and some men are never going to feel a desire to be a good dad. But for those who share this impulse, the failure to complete the job is usually in follow-up, in the areas of means and opportunities. And so, in the language of crime investigation, here is a modus operandi for pulling off successful fathering:

Acquire the means. For so many of us, the means to a good life is money, and we concentrate on accumulating wealth for ourselves and our families. But in good fathering, the means to the end we desire for our children — competence as adults — may be a hammer, a screwdriver, and a wrench. As my daughter gets ready to leave town, I want to make sure she has the tools she needs to hang a picture, tighten a loose doorknob, and change a tire (as well as the basic knowledge of how to complete these tasks). I know of one father who gave each of his daughters a unique gift when they headed off for freshman year: A fully stocked tool box. While it might not have been their favorite present, I bet it was the most useful.

Grab the opportunity. When my 14-year-old son recently got a flat tire on his bicycle, he tried to repair the outer tire with glue, not realizing that the problem was a punctured inner-tube. I flashed back to my own father taking the time to teach me how to take a bike apart, remove the tire and tube, and patch the puncture — something I had never done with my son. And so I jumped at the opportunity to teach a simple skill, and together we assembled the proper tools, traveled to the cycling shop to buy a repair kit, and fixed the tire together.

The problem today is that so many of us are pressed for time, and we are outsourcing the simplest tasks of parenting. Sure, I could have thrown my son's bike into the minivan, and taken it to the cycling shop for a quick fix by professionals. But that would have blown a critical opportunity to share a skill, and would have left my son ignorant of basic bike repair. In the same way, unless I give my daughter the means to perform simple maintenance and repairs, she’ll go off into the world feeling helpless and overly dependent on others. Means and opportunities — these two simple words have become my Father’s Day conviction.

Get in the Box -- FPC sermon excerpt

Everyone, it seems, wants to get out of the box.

From corporate board rooms to church offices, the talk is all about escaping the walls that surround us and discovering broader visions and fresh perspectives. A leader who can “think outside the box” is considered to be a real winner.

But what happens when you get too far outside the box?

In the endless rush to embrace new ideas, too many groups have forgotten who they are and what they are supposed to do. Fast Company magazine (November 2005) warns us about organizations that have lost touch with their core identity, and have suffered in the process.

Consider Volkswagen of America. It once produced efficient “people’s cars” with plain interiors and simple mechanics. The Volkswagen Beetle was wildly popular in the decades after the Second World War, as millions of drivers fell in love with the car’s low price, high quality, and affordable running costs. But now, Volkswagen’s cars include a luxury sedan and an SUV.

And who has stepped into Volkswagen’s abandoned niche? BMW, believe it or not. Its Mini Cooper is the Beetle of the new millennium — simple, solid, and small.

The fast-food chain Hardee’s also stepped outside the box when it hired a half-naked Paris Hilton to eat a burger while soaping up her car in a TV ad. Did sales improve? Not at all. Maybe they should have built a better burger.

What’s the lesson here? I’m convinced that groups need to identify the one thing they do best, and let that core ability guide their decision making. At Fairfax Presbyterian Church, it’s time for us to get in the box — get in the box of being the church of Jesus Christ. It’s time for us to do what Jesus wants us to do, and do it incredibly well.

The first letter of John makes clear that our core ability as Christians is to love one another. We see this love in what Jesus did for us, when he laid down his life for us, and we act on this knowledge when we “lay down our lives for one another” (1 John 3:16). The sacrificial love of Jesus is more than a nice idea and a noble concept — it is, in fact, a pattern of behavior that is supposed to be displayed by us in action. “How does God’s love abide in anyone,” asks John, “who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?” (v. 17).

Answer: It doesn’t. God’s love lives in those who see a need, and respond with help.

Our world is in desperate need of a church that puts love into action and makes it real. Like customers looking for a good burger or a simple, solid, small car, there are people all around us who are searching desperately for a community that actually practices what it preaches.

"Balancing Acts" Author Talk at Politics and Prose

I'll be doing an author talk and book-signing at the Politics and Prose bookstore, 5015 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20008, on Saturday, November 18, 2006, at 1:00 p.m. There will be a short presentation on my book "Balancing Acts: Obligation, Liberation, and Contemporary Christian Conflicts," followed by plenty of time for questions and discussion. All are welcome.

"Balancing Acts" in USA TODAY, May 8, 2006

Whether the issue of the day is an abortion ban in South Dakota or gay marriage in Maryland, conservatives and liberals tend to retreat to their respective corners and gird themselves for battle. But since most of these controversies have religious roots, I'm convinced that our constant focus on political positions is misguided. It is more instructive to see these conflicts as an ongoing struggle between "obligation-keepers" and "liberation-seekers."

Obligation and liberation are the two major spiritual themes that animate life in America today, and most people align themselves with one of these attitudes. One group focuses on the obligations of religious life and seeks moral clarity, while the other tends to see religion as a liberation movement and stresses God's love for the oppressed. And though you might assume that obligation and liberation are synonyms for conservative and liberal, red state and blue state, they are really new fault lines that cut in unexpected and revealing ways through each camp.

President Bush is a classic obligation-keeper — pro-life and pro-traditional-family, with a strong focus on moral clarity. His approach to faith goes back to God's original covenant with Abraham, whom God promised to make fruitful if he will walk before God and be blameless (Genesis 17:1-2). Bush supports laws banning gay marriage and partial-birth abortion and uses his position to stress the importance of religious obligation and personal morality.

Bill Clinton, on the other hand, is a liberation-seeker — determined to help people in need and protect freedoms such as gay rights and abortion rights. His style of religion can be traced back to Moses and the exodus from Egypt, in which God liberates his people from the oppression of Pharaoh (Exodus 3:7-8). Clinton sees the political profession as a way to answer a call from God to help people, and his focus is on freeing people from captivity, discrimination, injustice and poverty.

Conservatives and liberals do not remain trapped, however, on opposite sides of the obligation-liberation divide. In a time of war, conservatives tend to focus on the liberation of oppressed people. Before the invasion of Iraq, I discussed the morality of war with members of Fairfax Presbyterian Church in Fairfax, Va., where I serve as pastor. After I preached a sermon on the exodus, I received an e-mail from John Warburton, a member who spent a career in the Air Force. "I believe that God expects us to help people who are oppressed," he wrote. Referring to the exodus, he pointed out that God allowed many Egyptians to be killed at the hand of Moses, and Warburton stressed that "the Egyptian rulers were somewhat like the leadership in Iraq. Their people were oppressed."

But the liberals in my church responded by stressing the obligation of non-violence. The invasion could not "by any stretch of the imagination be reconciled with the teachings of Jesus," said Esther Elstun, a George Mason University professor. She based her opposition on a strong sense of obligation toward the teachings of Jesus and considered the invasion un-Christian and un-American, which is why she said backers of the war preferred to use "such contemptible euphemisms as 'pre-emptive strike' and 'regime change.' "

Because obligation-keeping and liberation-seeking can lead to surprising political positions, they are vital to understanding the intersection between faith and politics — in congregations and in the larger community. There is a liberationist lilt in the conservatives' anti-big-government, anti-tax arguments ("It's your money, you should keep it"), and an obligationist tone in the liberals' desire to preserve government social programs and a progressive tax code ("To whom much is given, much is expected").

A balancing act between these two themes can open up possibilities for discussion and help people to see themselves and their opponents in a new light. And because most of us feel a desire to embrace certain forms of obligation and liberation in our own lives, these categories can serve as a common language for dialogue across the political spectrum. With regard to same-sex marriage, for example, it would be productive to explore not only how gays and lesbians can be liberated from discrimination, but also how they might be recognized as obligation-keepers in their monogamous relationships. In the ongoing immigration debate, there should be more talk about how charity toward undocumented workers can be balanced with clarity about immigration laws.

Whether the issue is presidential politics, war, taxation, homosexuality or immigration, we need to find ways to combine respect for obligation with an understanding of the need for liberation. Because conservatives and liberals tend to have stakes in both categories, our nation's political polarization might actually shrink as people work together to reconcile the competing demands of these two spiritual truths.

Henry G. Brinton is pastor of Fairfax Presbyterian Church in Fairfax, Va., and author of Balancing Acts: Obligation, Liberation, and Contemporary Christian Conflicts.

Find this article at: http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2006-05-07-faith-edit_x.htm