New Buckets

Sermon for North Hill Adventist Fellowship

Sabbath, August 4, 2012

Texts: Matthew 9:17, Mark 2:22, Luke 5:37

Berry season lasts most of the summer at our house. Strawberries, then raspberries. Now, it's blueberries. In a few weeks it will be blackberry season.

To pick berries and pop them in my mouth requires no equipment, no container. But the minute I dream of sharing berries or putting some in the freezer, I must have a container. And, since my goal every year is to put 50 quarts of blackberries in the freezer, I give a lot of thought to containers. For several years I tried different bowls and kettles. Then I discovered the perfect container for picking. It's a blue enameled camp kettle with brackets on each side to which I can attach a strap that I sling over my shoulder. Using this bucket I have both hands free and I have complete freedom of movement.

The treasure is the berries. I'm not out there picking berries for the pleasure of carrying around my blue enamel kettle. I'm out there for the treasure hiding among the thorns of the blackberry canes. Still, the container is absolutely indispensable. And the right container is much better than all the others I have tried.

The proper container is rigid enough to protect the berries from crushing as I work around the vines. The strap allows me to forget the kettle while I'm picking and give full attention to the berries. The container to be small enough not to get in the way and large enough so I don't waste too much time transferring berries from my picking container to the large holding bowl. The treasure is the berries. But the bucket matters.

Curiously, even though I find my blue enamel kettle with its strap the perfect container for berries, my daughter uses something completely different. Her container has no strap. And it is definitely not a blue enamel kettle. What's even more curious is that in spite of the fact that I have not been able to persuade my daughter that a bucket with a strap is the best way to go, she picks faster than I do.

Religion is the bucket for spirituality. The bucket matters. What's in the bucket matters even more. Sometimes a new generation discovers a container that works better than dad's bucket, at least in their hands.

Recently I was visiting with a young man who grew up in the church. He attended Adventist schools. He went to Sabbath School and church every week. He participated in Pathfinders (the Adventist version of Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts). Then after he got out of college he discovered he could do quite well without church. He had a woman in his life he loved. He had a job that was interesting. He was healthy. He didn't believe everything he heard in the church of his childhood. But now he was thinking about having kids. He found himself wondering just what values, beliefs and practices from his childhood he still believed in. What did he want to pass on to his kids?

Flat out rejection of everything in the religion of his childhood would be silly. On the other hand he could not imagine himself simply stepping back into the old traditions, lock, stock and barrel. He wanted to keep what was true, beautiful, and helpful. He wanted to jettison anything that was faulty or out of date or counterproductive.

Our conversation got me thinking. Of all the traditions the church has embraced over the last 150-plus years which ones do we keep? Which ones do we modify? Which ones do we jettison?

Some people imagine that true religion should be changeless. Let's just do it the way Jesus and the disciples did. But Jesus himself emphatically rejected the notion of a changeless religion.

Consider this:

Once when John's disciples and the Pharisees were fasting, some people came to Jesus and asked, "Why don't your disciples fast like John's disciples and the Pharisees do? Jesus replied, "Do wedding guests fast while celebrating with the groom? Of course not. They can't fast while the groom is with them. But someday the groom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast. "Besides, who would patch old clothing with new cloth? For the new patch would shrink and rip away from the old cloth, leaving an even bigger tear than before. "And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. For the wine would burst the wineskins, and the wine and the skins would both be lost. New wine calls for new wineskins." Mark 2:18-22. (The same story is told in Matthew 9:14-17 and Luke 5:33-39.).

People observed Jesus' disciples violating some of the standard rules for devout religious living. Jewish religious practice had been worked out by rabbis over hundreds of years of intense Bible study and prayer. These practices were intended to help people keep in mind God's holiness and their special relationship with him. The goal of the rabbis was to ensure the people never again fell into the evil ways that had led to the destruction of Jerusalem and the banishment of the Jewish people to Babylong. The rabbis aimed to help live pure lives and obey all God's laws to the letter, so life would go well with them.

It is vital to understand that the traditions the disciples were ignoring had been designed to serve a high and noble purpose. The disciples' casual disregard for ancient habits was scandalous. The critics, the advocates of “high standards,” could not understand how someone like Jesus would tolerate such flippant disregard of holy tradition. One of the specific traditions ignored by the disciples was systematic fasting. What they were doing would be like a Muslim eating lunch during Ramadan or an Adventist bringing steak to potluck. To the critics it appeared to be crass secularization.

Jesus' answer to the critics: People at a wedding reception don't fast. They party. Fasting comes later.

Jesus blithely dismisses a couple hundred years of tradition by saying it didn't fit the present situation. Jesus agreed that fasting had a place in spiritual life, then blithely dismissed as inappropriate NOW. Jesus emphatically, unequivocally declares that religious practice, at least the one in question, was not eternal, it is situation dependent. Sometimes people should fast and sometimes people should feast. Life as Jesus lived it and taught it, included both fasting and feasting. Praying and partying.

Taking this as an example of a general principle, we should expect the ideal forms of religion to change over time. “Changelessness” is not a Christian virtue. It is rather a symptom of death.

Recently someone asked about my views regarding a particular religious practice. They observed a trend among Adventist young adults that troubled them, then said, “That's not the way we did it when I was young.” My response (in my head, not out loud) was, “What's that got to do with anything?” Then I repented—but only slightly. :-)

The fact that the church used to prescribe or proscribe a particular behavior is interesting information. It is not an authoritative guide to what we should be doing now. Religious traditions usually get started for very good reasons. So discarding tradition is not something to be done lightly. But sometimes change is the only smart and holy choice.

Catholics got caught in the rut of doing church in Latin. When they began using Latin, it was an innovation. They were moving from Greek—a language understood by fewer and fewer people—to the “English” of its day, the language most widely spoken. A thousand years later when no one spoke Latin except the intelligentsia, the church was still stuck using Latin. Most of the people understood not a word that was said.

Adventists got stuck reading the King James Version of the Bible and using quaint, out-of-date language in prayer.

Both Latin and “King James English” became the languages of worship for good reasons. And both were eventually replaced with something more modern—again for very good reason. Good religion, religion that genuinely connects people and God, will change over time. That's what Jesus taught. It's what he modeled. Changeless religion is a fossil, interesting to look at but dead.

Since we are followers of Jesus, we should expect that our religion—the forms and traditions, the doctrines and practices that express and nourish our spiritual life—will change with time and situation.

This is the plain meaning of Jesus' words about fasting and feasting.

Now to Jesus' words about wine and wineskins:

No one puts new wine into old wineskins. For the wine would burst the wineskins, and the wine and the skins would both be lost. New wine calls for new wineskins.

Jesus compares spiritual life to a liquid. He warns against the foolishness of trying to confine the vibrant life of the Spirit in the brittle structures of ancient tradition. When there is a vital surge of spiritual life, it will break established forms, always. We cannot confine the present work of the Spirit in the “ways we have always done it before.”

Just as surely, you cannot have a vital spiritual life without the sturdy forms of religion. New wine skins are flexible, but they tough and strong. Jesus does not argue for a formless, featureless spirituality. Jesus would laugh at people who say, “I'm spiritual, but not religious.” That is plainly impossible.

Religion is the form spiritual life takes. And religion is the container in which spirituality lives. We cannot dispense with religion. We can embrace healthier, more effective forms of religion. We can engage in religious practices that promote happiness, health, congenial relationships, service, stewardship of the earth, gratitude, responsibility, sweet relationships at home. Or we can embrace forms that erode and cripple the spirit. The choice is ours.

Spirituality is amorphous, fluid, volatile. For it to be effective in our lives, it must be contained, channeled. This becomes especially obvious when you think of communicating spirituality to children. You cannot teach little ones grand, abstract theology. Instead you teach them Bible stories. You tell them the story of the Prodigal Son and the Lost Sheep. We recite the story of the Good Samaritan and the Sheep and Goats. We teach children to say grace before we try to explain understand the concept of gratitude. We teach the do's and don't's of Sabbath-keeping before kids could possibly understand the value of rest and rhythm in life. We structure children's eating habits before they have any idea what the word “health” means. These structures, habits and practices are the essence of religion.

So my young friend's quest to figure out what he still believes, what traditions and practices from his childhood to retain and which to let go, and maybe what new traditions to create—this quest is right on. It is the wisest, best approach to religion for young adults. Don't dump the religion of your childhood. Don't copy it. Use it as a springboard for fashioning afresh a lively, effective religious life that will nourish your own spirituality and will shape and sustain your children as they grow.

Your children need you to fashion supple, tough wineskins to hold the precious life of the Spirit. Your children need you to take your blue enamel bucket with the strap or the Tupperware bowl or whatever container works and go gather a treasure of berries. Gather enough for now and enough for Thanksgiving pies and enough for cobbler next April.

The treasure in the bucket is worth finding the very best bucket. Your kids and your friends deserve the treasure you will gather.

Final note (for people at church and readers on the web): I invite you to submit lists of practices and beliefs that you have found helpful or detrimental. Or if a list doesn't work, send me your stories of how religion has helped or harmed you.