May 2016 – Culture Encounter

What IS Culture Anyways?

THIS WEEK

This is the week we start our Culture Encounter series, and the first sermon is aptly named “Culture Encounter.” We will look at Paul on Mars Hill in Athens and learn from the story of Naaman, the Syrian Military Commander who has a powerful interaction with Elijah the Prophet of God. I’ll put the sermon in a upcoming post. If you want to take a listen to some of the material that helped me process through these verses, listen to this great sermon called, “A World Full of Idols” by Rev. Tim Keller.

I was thinking about the word “CULTURE” and I find that it is hard to define off-hand. We have a lot of words like this in our language. We all know what WISDOM is, but defining it is hard. In fact, it’s interesting to see how the Book of Proverbs in Scripture deals with this topic in the Hebrew language. Biblical Hebrew has very few words (under 4,000) and it struggles with abstract ideas. So instead of defining “wisdom,” in Chapter 8 the author personifies wisdom (as a woman by the way) and rather than explain what wisdom is, he shows us what Wisdom DOES. Good idea!

So good in fact, I will attempt the same (much more feebly and not at all inspired, of course) with the word “Culture.”

When I think of what culture does, my mind races to airports. In 1987, SRG Partnership, Inc. designed a carpet for the Portland International Airport that looked like this:

Over time, the carpet took on a life of itself, and has even inspired a line of clothing with the same pattern. When it was replaced a number of years ago, it led to period of mourning by some in the Portland community. The carpet was ugly, but somehow it had become a comfortable and recognizable part of the Portland Culture. How did it happen? It’s hard to figure out exactly how, but if we look at how airports use carpets, signs, architecture, and psychology, we can learn a little about what culture does.

If you ever go to an airport, your eyes are being assaulted with signs and clues about which way you are to walk, where you are to turn, where you are to wait in line. If you are thinking, “well duh, of course, I can read the signs everywhere,” understand that I am not talking about signs with words. There is a whole field of design that deals with way-finding. There are elements in the design of airports that help shuttle you along in the right direction, even if you can’t read. The 99% Invisible podcast has a fun episode about this topic called, “Walk this Way.”

The way the ceiling curves, the change of color or design in the carpet, the way the corridors are designed to give you a long range of sight, these all make you want to move along the path without thinking about it.

THIS IS CULTURE! Culture can be any number of things, but what it does is serve as the “design elements” in society that keep us moving in a certain direction often without us even realize we are following a path. This can be helpful… IF that direction is the RIGHT direction for us!

My mind goes to 2010 when I was travelling with my 1+ year old son. We had a LONG layover at Chicago O’Hare (little did we know we’d soon be living by O’Hare!) and I was looking for a place to play with my son and get out of the frenetic movement and commotion of the busy terminal. I couldn’t find ANYWHERE to do this until I made a conscious decision to buck the “signs” all around me that were subconsciously telling me where to go.

I looked up and saw a corridor that looked abandoned, and while everything in me felt a little wrong about going that way, I did. And I am so glad I did. NO ONE was in this hallway, and it had a ton of windows so my boy and I could look out and see buses going by. It had room for us to run and chase, and take turns pushing the stroller while pretending it was a race car. It was amazing! It was the RIGHT place for us.

Sometimes I think of Culture as pushing us down a certain road. It is full of both blatant and subconscious sign posts. Most of us follow along without thinking to some degree or another. But the question is, is the culture always leading me to the RIGHT place? The answer is often – NO!

This week in our sermon, we will explore what it means for Christians to engage our culture in a meaningful way, and a what opportunities can we find in our culture to share the love of Christ, and present a different set of “sign posts.” There are so many ways we can Encounter Culture, but at the root of everything is the love of Christ – Crucified and Risen from the dead – which leads us to WANT to walk a different way at times.

I’m looking forward to this week’s sermon preparation time.

And for the record. I think the old Portland Airport Carpet really is miserably ugly.

RECAPPING LAST WEEKEND

Here is the Sermon from Memorial Day Weekend that followed my last post “The Fire Within,” I take the same story of the USS Forrestal in another direction.

POST SERVICE NOTES: After the church service on Sunday, I spoke with a Navy veteran who was on the Sister-Ship to the USS Forrestal when the 1967 disaster occurred. He said their own ship had a fire in which 19 sailors lost their lives.

When I was getting ready for a wedding on Sunday afternoon, a young man in his Navy uniform and his dad pulled me aside to talk more about the Forrestal. They weren’t members of the church, or even in our church that morning, but they had heard about the sermon already, and were wanting to share their own ideas about the Forrestal and Iowa. It’s amazing how these travesties stick with us, and even if we weren’t there, we need to TALK about them.

The Fire Within

In 2000, I was blessed to spend the entire summer at The Naval Education and Training Center (NETC) in Newport, Rhode Island. Our barracks were right on the water (funny how often this happens in Navy life) and most days I would take a slow jog around parts of the base. My favorite path took me past a couple of decommissioned ships, an aircraft carrier and a battleship. Since most of my runs were in the dark of the early morning or after nightfall, I wasn’t able to read the names of the vessels.

It wasn’t until I was able to run by these two ships in the daylight that I read the names. The Battleship was the USS Iowa, and the Carrier was the USS Forrestal. This totally changed my relationship with these two vessels I had run by a dozen times without noticing.

Both ships carry with them horrible stories of loss. In 1989 the Iowa was the site of the largest ever peacetime Naval disaster in US history. When turret #2 exploded, 47 sailors were killed. 47. Think about that. 47 sets of parents notified that their child was no longer going to call home or visit. And this during peace-time.

The Forrestal was in operation in the Gulf of Tonkin in 1967 when a chain of horrible events led to fires that raged for hours. An electrical surge caused a rocket to launch from a plane on the deck. That rocket tore a hole in the fuel tank of another aircraft. The resulting fire spread to explode a pile of freshly delivered 1,000 lbs bombs on the deck In the end 161 sailors were injured, and 134 perished.

I could never run by those floating monuments to pain and suffering again without thinking about the fires that once raged within. My relationship was changed because I learned the names of the vessels. I was filled with a mixture of sadness for the losses and gratitude for the service of those brave sailors every single time I would see them – once I learned the names.

This got me thinking about my own relationships. How much would our relationships change with the people around us if we simply stopped to learn names? That guy you see at the supermarket every week, get his name. The mom that picks up her kid from school at the same time you do, you know, the one you smile at when you comment on the weather? Get her name.

Names matter. And more than that, knowing names leads us to know a person. I guarantee you, if you ask someone to share their name, a conversation will almost always follow. You will get to know the fires that have raged within, and maybe share some of your own. But whatever the stories are, you will never be able to encounter that person again without thinking more deeply about them as a whole person. Knowing a name leads us to know a person. Knowing a person leads us to a deeper sense of knowing their story. Knowing a person’s story fundamentally changes the way we see them and can lead us to a deeper sense of respect for them.

In our culture where communication is so terse, so chained to devices, so utilitarian, simply stopping to learn a name can be a counter-cultural revolution.

There are fires within that we’ll never see unless we say something like, “Hi, I’m Matt, what’s your name?”

Why Culture Encounter? Why not Counter-Culture?

I recently read a book called Joining Jesus On His Mission by Greg Finke.
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It’s a short book and an easy read (double win for the busy church-worker). The book has a lot to offer in the way of ideas to chew on and practical tips for reaching out to the people around us with the love of Christ. It really boils down to making an effort to notice the people around you, and try to see what needs the Lord has put before you in your every-day life.

Reading this book has inspired me to write a summer sermon series with the same name as the blog Culture Encounter. Each week we will be examining different aspects of our current culture and seeing where we have a chance to engage people in a meaningful way with the words, and heart, and life of Jesus Christ. We aren’t trying to be contrary, but as Christians, we realize we have something substantial and eternal to offer the world in place of the disposable, and shallowness that we see all around us.

I will post the sermons here starting in June, and will also use this forum to get feedback, share further ideas, and the “WINS” we all experience as we walk this road together. Thanks for joining us!

Rev. Matt Hoffmann

www.standrewsparkridge.org

Pharisee’s Dilemma – When Cultures Encounter

This is a Sermon I first preached December 9, 2009. It came from a desire to see things from the viewpoint of those whom John the Baptist was blasting on the shores of the Jordan. It looks different from the other end of the fire-hose.

Malachi 3:1-7; Luke 3:1-14

The day started for him just like any other. He got up early, before the sun would peek over Jerusalem’s proud stone walls. It took him a little longer to get ready than most people, because he was a Pharisee, and as a teacher of the Law of God, his fellow Jews expected him to look a certain way. It was a little tedious, but he did it for God.

You see, he figured his very appearance was a sermon of sorts for the common people. In the fine tightly woven cloth of his robes, people could be reminded of the neat and orderly life that God called them to live. He wore phylacteries, little boxes with scripture in them which he would attach to his left arm and forehead, which reminded him, and the people he saw, of the importance of God’s Law. Just to be sure people saw them, he made sure the leather straps were wide. His outer robe was especially nice. The tassels seemed a bit long sometimes, and some thought they were a bit showy, but he reassured himself that they were not there to draw attention to him, but rather to the Name of the Most Holy God. After awhile, he was ready. He looked good.

And with the rising sun, he stepped out of his home, and made his way to the marketplace. Oh how he love the marketplace, and to be greeted with honor and respect, and to hear people call out to him, “Rabbi!” (cf. Matthew 23:7). It was out of respect for God, he told himself over and over. But it still felt nice. I mean, after all, he had worked hard to get where he was. He had studied hard to be a Rabbi, and was at the top of his class. And after becoming a Rabbi at 30 years old, he distinguished himself again with his superior understanding of the Law, and devout lifestyle. His parents were so proud when he was invited to join the ranks of the Pharisees. The Rabbis of Rabbis. He thought his dad would start crying tears of joy a couple of years later when they learned that their son, the Pharisee, was invited to JERUSALEM to work and teach there. It couldn’t get any better than that!

But as the fog of his daydream lifted, he noticed that something was different in the market this day. There weren’t as many people calling to him. There weren’t as many people greeting him. In fact, the market seemed pretty dead, pretty empty. He tried to remember if there was something planned for that day in the city, but nothing came to mind. So he stopped and asked Josiah, a vegetable vendor, what was going on. “Rabbi sir,” Josiah offered, “I heard that many of these people were going out into the wilderness by the Jordan River, to hear a man preach. Some people say this man is a prophet.”

This was ridiculous! A prophet! There hadn’t been any prophets from God for about 400 years, since the days of Malachi. He tried to think about something else, but as he made his way through the town it was all anyone was talking about. He met up with the other Pharisees at the Temple. They had similar experiences that morning, and after a brief conversation, they figured they had to go and see what all this commotion was about, and who this prophet named John really was. So they left the city, walked past the city gates, and into the desert toward the Jordan.

It took awhile, and he couldn’t help thinking, “Why would ANYONE want to preach out here in the middle of nowhere?” But the people were going out to the desert in droves, “what WAS it about this guy?” He thought to himself. He tried to picture what he looked like, and how he dressed, and what he might be saying. But when they arrived with the crowd at the Jordan, he saw a man so completely opposite of what he had envisioned, he had to laugh… at first. “John’s clothes were made of camel’s hair, and he had a leather belt around his waist. He food was locusts and wild honey.” (Mt. 3:4). But shortly the laughter stopped.

John looked at this great crowd of people, and then lifted his eyes to the group of Pharisees who were standing proudly off to the side. With eyes blazing like Elijah himself and a voice raised with fiery passion he said, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” The Pharisees were speechless, burning with rage so hot that words could not express it. People don’t talk to Pharisees like that! Who did he think he was, in his beggars clothes and his locust encrusted teeth, to speak to respectable, honorable, proper leaders like they were? After all, they were children of…

And then, as if on cue, John raised his voice again, “Bear fruits in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘we have Abraham as our Father.’ For I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear god fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”

They had heard enough! And they began to ready themselves to leave. But as our Pharisee began to get his robes girded and ready for the long walk back, he noticed how John’s words moved the people. People were, “Confessing their sins (and), were baptized by (John) in the Jordan River” (Mt 3:6). Others were asking John how to respond to this message of repentance in their everyday lives. “What then shall we do?” As a Pharisee, he knew what advice he would give, turn to the 613 rules and laws of the Mitzvot! But John’s commands were so simple, “Whoever has two tunics is to share with him who has none, and whoever has food is to do likewise.” He then went and answered the questions of the Tax Collectors and the Soldiers that had come out to hear him. Again, such clarity and simplicity, “Collect no more than you are authorized to do.” and “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or by false accusation, and be content with your wages.”

It was so different than anything he was taught to say or believe. He had spent so much of his time telling people all the things they needed to do to make God happy with them. All of the rules that would bring them closer to God, and all the Laws that would distinguish them from other people as holier, and cleaner and more proper. And people tried hard, they really did. But this was something different. People weren’t hiding their sins from John. They weren’t keeping up appearances, or putting on a strong face. They were coming clean, they were spilling their guts, they were confessing their sins. And this caused him to second guess himself, “Why haven’t they been sharing this with me? Have I been missing something? I have some things I would like to get off MY chest! I have some things I would have loved to leave there with John on the banks of the Jordan River, and to have felt that cold water on my forehead and have my sins forgiven.

The other Pharisees were so enraged, that they kept spewing their anger all the way back to Jerusalem. But he was silent. He couldn’t stop thinking about what John had said. He couldn’t stop thinking about the call to repentance. He couldn’t stop thinking about all the sins hidden beneath his expensive robes, and tassels, and wide phylacteries. He had to wonder if this John was the one the Prophet Isaiah had written about so many centuries before. The one who would cry out in the wilderness:

‘Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight.
Every valley shall be filled,
and every mountain and hill shall be made low,
and the crooked shall become straight,
and the rough places shall become level ways,
and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’”

And if he were? Could it be that the Pharisees had misunderstood these words for so many years? He had always assumed, and been taught that HE, that GOD’S PEOPLE would have to prepare the way for the Messiah to come. That THEY would have to fill in the valleys, and take down the mountains in their lives, and straighten the crooked places and level the rough places in their hearts to see the salvation of God.

But John seemed to be saying something different. He was preaching that it was GOD, the MESSIAH who would come to do these things for his people. GOD would tear down the mountain barriers, and fill in the sinful valleys in our hearts, and straighten out the crooked lives, and level the rough places. “Could it be?” he wondered. Could it be so simple as repentance? Is that what the Messiah was going to come and do? Was the Messiah going to come and rescue people who didn’t deserve it, people who were wracked with sin, people who didn’t follow all the rules, and do everything right? Was the Messiah himself going to forgive, and restore, and reconcile his people to himself?

“It could be!” he thought. Malachi had actually said just that so many years before, “Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple… He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, and they will bring offerings in righteousness to the Lord.” The people would not purify themselves, God would do it. God’s Messiah would do it! The righteous offering of the people would be their repentance, and the Messiah would forgive.

This was Good News! But it wasn’t easy. He heard the other Pharisees talking and complaining, and plotting revenge. And he knew why. What John was saying about the Messiah was that the God’s Messiah was going to come and mess everything up for them. He wasn’t going to be concerned with their clothes, or their education, or any of the rules they took such pains and pride in following. People would no longer flock to them, and honor them like they used to. Their very way of life was threatened.

As he returned to his home, he carefully put his clothes away, so as not to wrinkle them. But deep down he wondered if he would put them on again the next morning, or if he would wear common robes, and head back out into the desert again. The sun sank behind the far wall of Jerusalem. He had trouble sleeping that night. The Messiah had broken into his life that day. He made him uncomfortable, He shook him up. What would he do when morning came? What would you do?

The Messiah has broken into your life as well. In some ways that make you uncomfortable and shake you up. He won’t let you go back to how you were without him. He calls you to be honest and confess your sins. He calls you to step out of hiding behind clothes, and status, and title, and to say, “Lord, I am a desperate sinner.”

But here he breaks into your life in ways so wonderful, words can’t truly express. He comforts you with a comfort that can only come from the One, from the Messiah, from God Himself. He breaks into your life in a manger, on a cross, from and empty tomb, with promises of his return. He loves you more than you can ever know. He forgives you fully and completely. He calls you away from every empty thing, to give you the fullness of life, and life eternal.

Every valley shall be filled,
and every mountain and hill shall be made low,
and the crooked shall become straight,
and the rough places shall become level ways,
and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’”

AMEN