Another World

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday May 24, 2009, the 7th Sunday in Easter.

Acts 1:15-17, 21-26
Psalm 1
1 John 5:9-13
John 17:6-19

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen

There is something tempting about escaping from the world. The travel industry and the real estate businesses know this. They spend millions to lure us to take luxury cruises where our every whim is met, to enjoy even fractional ownership in condos at the shore, to buy a second home on the mountains where we can leave our real life pressures behind. The want to leave it all behind is as old as scripture.

Religious faith may intensify the desire for escape from the world. Having glimpsed a vision of what is holy and good, the human spirit may hunger not for the promised splendor of luxury resorts, but for a community and a way of being that avoid the clamor and conflict of the world. The history of Christianity is filled with stories of such arrangements: monasteries, convents, reform movements, communal living, utopias, and retreat centers; small groups centered on prayer, study, and piety. These efforts attempt to create a space unencumbered by the world that allows for a fuller realization of a faithful, holy life.[1]

It appears that the desire to live apart from the world arose in the community addressed by John’s gospel. By the end of the first century, as conflict with the authorities increased, the members of John’s community were understandably attracted to a life of faith that would disengage them from the powers that were opposed to the gospel. How good it would feel to retreat into their own group, to recall the stories of Jesus, to sense his presence in their meals of bread and wine, to enjoy each other’s supportive fellowship, and no longer have to defend their beliefs and practices to a hostile world.

This reading from John’s gospel can be read as a sermon addressed to this desire for a more ingrown life in a separate world, another world of the Lord. The wisdom of this sermon, delivered as the instruction of Christ, is this; it provides an alternative to retreat from the world without giving into the pressures of the world. Again and again, we read that Jesus and his disciples “do not belong to the world,” that is to say the world’s claims do not shape their identity, faith, and values.

But at the same time, Christ is crystal clear that there is no escape from the reality of the world. He says, “I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves.” Christ speaks to them in the same world where they live and where they will find joy “in themselves” or in equally valid translation, “among themselves.” Yes they can be a community and yes, they can find joy in that community; but no, Jesus never abandoned the world and the community which is his body is not to abandon the world.

Jesus makes this point over and over. “I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one. They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world.” Instead of retreat from the world, Christ offers an alternative that can empower the community to live in the world without succumbing to its values and pressures. They are to stay in the world under the protective care of God. They are to live amidst all the knotted complexities of the world without getting themselves entangled.

The holiness they might have hoped to achieve by escape from the world is to be found not through disengagement but through the action of God and immersion in God’s word. “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is the truth.” Christ recognizes their desire to be holy but reorients the direction of their yearnings, turning them to the truth of God’s word that is revealed here in the person and work of Christ and the writings of scripture that are revealed in the here and now of God’s good creation.

This plea to remain in the world rises as Christ prays, “As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. “Sent into the world,” the exact opposite of getting out of the world, is key. In one clean, clear verse Christ reminds the church that the pattern of his own life was not escape from the world but engagement in the world, with all of its distorted powers and pressures.

John’s sermon is a strong argument for remaining in the world, addressed to a community that for good reason is exhausted by the world and ready to be done with it. We too live in a world that where we are exhausted with the world’s ceaseless corruption, and frequent feelings of despair over the inability to make a difference.

Who hasn’t returned from vacation looking tanned, rested, and ready to go, still with the mildly nagging thought, “Why can’t I feel like this all the time?” Perhaps the feeling we get after vacation isn’t supposed to last all of the time. John’s gospel would certainly be in accord with this.

Harley Davidson hasn't always had the kind of success or appeal it enjoys now. Harleys were the cycle of choice of the outlaw biker since before the first great biker melee, the July 4, 1947 Hollister biker riot.[2] Because of this bad press and a flood biker films produced from the 1950’s through the 1970’s; Harley chose to distance itself from this image.

But as quality Japanese imports and poor domestic product flooded the market, Harley Davidson stumbled close to bankruptcy. It was well into the 1980’s before the company leadership embraced the hard-core biker group that was showing incredibly faithful brand loyalty. To ward off the invasion of the Japanese bikes, Harley made a final, desperate bid for survival by focusing on its legendary connection with rebelliousness, sheer vitality and off-the-wall lust for the elemental life.

The strategy worked. Harley saved itself by embracing its outlaw image. Hog riders and cycle lovers want to see themselves as being part of another world no matter the role they play in the 9-to-5 as lawyers, accountants or business leaders. They feel unashamed and unabashed as they strap on their leathers and rumble off on their “Milwaukee monsters” to Sturgis.

The Sturgis Rally seemed to try to feed from both sides of the hog trough. At The Roadhouse in Eureka Springs, there is a lithograph from the 1999 rally. On it you will see thousands and thousands of bikes parked shoulder to shoulder with the GEIKO Gecko selling insurance across the street from a local store selling vital motorcycle accessories like leather bikinis.[3]

True riders have little time for the new breed of bikers out there; the growing cotillions of polished and well-paid professionals who have discovered that while they were bred to be businesspeople, they were born to be wild. While they make a living writing legal briefs, they really live to ride. They clatter away on computers in their corporate cubicles, and want to be outlaws on weekends, riding the roads with cup holders for double-decaf cappuccinos.

Bottom line? At the soul of the Harley is a rumble and a roar, an outlaw attitude that is positively otherworldly. To be a true renegade rider, you've got to put your hope of hog heaven above everything else.

There’s a message for us here, whether we're bike buffs or not. Jesus, in his great prayer in John 17, hopes his disciples will be willing to be of another world, to strap on the leathers of a countercultural spiritual life. Herein lies the problem.

Although we are called to a radical Christianity, too many of us are practicing a pastel Church-ianity that has lost sight of its original vision. We've become a gaggle of weekend riders rather than the gang of road warriors Jesus refers to in the prayer of our text. Our primary identity is an outlaw identity; outside the law, that is, and inside God's grace.

On our way to hog heaven, we've got to strap on the leathers: jackets, chaps, gloves and other protective pieces - a rebel getup that the apostle Paul describes elsewhere as the whole armor of God: A belt of truth around the waist, a breastplate of righteousness, a shield of faith and a helmet of salvation. The early history of the church is nothing if not a gallery of outlaw Christians ready to rumble: Paul, Peter, James and John, Ignatius, Polycarp, Justin, Cyprian, Tertullian, Anthony, Athanasius and Augustine. These are not cappuccino Christians.

Fortunately, their breed still exists. The church has Chuck Colsons who work in prisons; Mark Yaconelli who, with a Lilly Foundation grant, is introducing teens to Lectio Divina at Sleepy Hollow Presbyterian Church in San Anselmo, California; Bart Campolo, an evangelist with a buzz cut and combat boots working with the homeless and fatherless in the crack-sophisticated ghettos of Philadelphia; John Dilulio, a Princeton professor who has created a new project to help teens escape the cycle of poverty, crime and drug abuse; Eugene Rivers and his Azusa Christian Community in the inner city of Boston.

Committed Christians have got to hang tough, and be Real Riders; not just the “wannabees” so disdained by die-hard hogsters. Jesus knows that this is not always easy, especially when he is not physically present to guide us or when evil threatens to throw us off course. The challenge is always to remember who we are and whose we are: citizens of another world, a breed apart.

In the end, it's a trip to be an outlaw: to live outside the law of human expectations, and inside the grace of God. Harley Davidson got it right when it discovered that hog riders are tapped into another reality, one that fills them with joy as they slip on their jackets and rumble off to Sturgis. We, too, are part of another world: the countercultural, convention-confounding kingdom of God.

Not to mention rowdier, and a whole lot more joyful.

Resources
Troeger, Thomas H., John 17:6-19 Homiletical Perspectives article. Feasting on the Word, Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary, Year B, Vol. 2. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, Editors. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2008, pages 547-549

Hog Heaven, http://www.homileticsonline.com/subscriber/btl_display.asp?installment_id=2692, retrieved May 17, 2009.

[1] Paragraph edited from draft regarding Utopia:
Ironically, the word Utopia gives us a clue that this life of perfection cannot exist on the earth as we know it. This English word has two different and opposite Greek renderings. One of these, the one we like best, means “good place.” Utopia is a good place where all is right in the world. The other, the one which brings the irony, means “no place.” In this rendering, Utopia is found no place on earth.
[2] Holister Bike Riot, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollister_riot, retrieved May 23, 2009.
[3] Honestly, it’s the print by the door to the deck.
This paragraph was edited from draft regarding the 50th anniversary rally:
The 50th anniversary rally in 2000 hosted an estimated 633,000 participants, who created almost 770 tons of garbage, records according to the organizers. The 2008 only had 415,000 attendees and generated just 543 tons of trash. The 50th anniversary rally also recorded record numbers of parking tickets, traffic violations, and drug arrests. Unfortunately, arrests for non-traffic-and-drug violations are on the upswing along with calls to the Sturgis PD, Meade County Sherriff’s office, and Emergency Room visits. (http://www.sturgismotorcyclerally.com/questions-stats/images/rallystats.pdf)