“The Future of Faith”                                                                October 31, 2010

Luke 18: 1–8                                                                           The Rev. Dr. Beth Braxton

“When the Son of Man comes will he find faith on earth?”

In last Saturday’s Washington Post “on Faith” section had an article that several of you in the church were discussing this week. “A special kind of healer is involved when the church itself needs saving” says the title. It was about St. Augustine Episcopal Church in southwest Washington that has dwindled to 28 members, but it was more about the work of a church consultant to help them look beyond the saving of an institution to the work of God’s particular mission for them. The article quoted Phyllis Tickle, who is writer/historian on the American church and has a year and a half waiting list as speaker for seminaries and church conferences on the concept of church. She is best known for her book, The Great Emergence, which talks how Christianity is changing and why. She says that every 500 years the church holds a rummage sale, that is, there is a big upheaval and overhaul of the concept of church.

Given today we are celebrating Reformation Sunday where almost 500 years ago, in 1517 Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses on the door of All Saints Church (also known as the Castle Church) in Wittenberg, Germany, it is appropriate that we look at the church in light of our scripture question: “When the Son of Man comes will he find faith on earth?”

It is important to note that Luther was objecting to church practices, particularly the sale of indulgences as a way of buying one’s way into God’s good graces. Luther’s intention was to question church practices, not to form a new church. Yet, all the Protestant churches formed out of the upheaval in the Roman Catholic Church at that time five hundred years ago. Luther’s action was definitely a catalyst for change.

I heard Phyllis Tickle speak at Virginia Seminary a few weeks ago; it was the second time I had heard her (the first time being at the General Assembly this summer). What I noted from her lecture this time was her emphasis on the rise of Pentecostalism, born in 1906, as the mainline denominations (of which Presbyterians are one) decrease. Pentecostals are the fastest growing church today, she said.

Also the work of Harvey Cox, noted religious scholar and Hollis Professor emeritus at Harvard, in his book, The Future of Faith, published last year (Tickle’s book came out in 2008) has similar conclusions. He has been known as a trend spotter in American religion. He says there is an essential change taking place in what it means to be “religious” today. Religious people are more interested in ethical guidelines and spiritual disciplines than in doctrines. The result is a universal trend away from hierarchical, regional, patriarchal, and institutional religion. (Our denominationalism I will add.)

He explains that that this recent move away from dogmatic religion is best explained against the backdrop of three distinct periods of church history: The Age of Faith - the first three centuries of Christianity, when the early church was more concerned with following Jesus’ teaching than enforcing what to believe about Jesus.

Then there was the Age of Belief marking a significant shift between the fourth century, when Constantine adopted Christianity for the Roman Empire and twentieth century when the church focused on orthodoxy and “correct doctrine.” Now the Age of the Spirit is the trend that began fifty years ago and is increasingly directing the church of tomorrow whereby Christians are ignoring dogma and … spirituality is replacing formal religion. (a la Phyllis Tickle’s note of the rise of Pentecostals). Religious people today are more interested in ethical guidelines and spiritual disciplines than in doctrines.

Well, one of THE disciplines of our faith is prayer. Our opening verse today says, “Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not lose heart.” Prayer is our on-going conversation with God, the almighty, the creator, redeemer and sustainer of our lives. Prayer is a way of life, of taking in all that Jesus has said and living it! The monk, Brother David said, “Prayer is waking up to the presence of God no matter where I am or what I am doing.” He follows another monk, Brother Lawrence who wrote that wonderful little book, Practicing the Presence of God. He notes that prayer is practicing the presence of God.

Prayer is silent time to listen for the Holy Spirit rumblings in our heart. Prayer Is the silence you fall into when you see something beautiful, a sunrise over the ocean, a newborn child, the brilliance of autumn leaves on a gray day.

Prayer as Frederick Buechner says is, “The stammer of pain at somebody else’s pain. The stammer of joy at somebody else’s joy…According to Jesus, by far the most important thing about praying is to keep at it.”

But what about the prayers that are not answered? The child is not healed, the son doesn’t come back from war, the divorce happens anyway, the pain does not stop??? Buechner says, Remember the crooked judge. Even if the worst happens, “keep on beating the path to God’s door, because the one thing you can be sure of is that down the path you beat with even your most half-cocked and halting prayer, the God you call upon will finally come, and even if he does not bring you the answer you want, he will bring you himself. And maybe at the secret heart of all our prayers that is what we are really praying for.”

“When the Son of Man comes will he find faith on earth?”

Will the next generation know the Son of Man?

Will our children know Jesus; will our children know the discipline of prayer? Recently I asked my son if he was praying with our grandson, teaching him to pray? My question feels even more urgent after reading an article this week entitled “Who’s Minding the Children?” by Lisa Mullen who is director for Children and Family Ministries of the Moravian Church. She brought to light some of my concerns. In her study she found that “In an effort to shape children’s values, advertisers spend about $17 billion a year and use the latest brain science. All of these people understand something that is very basic and logical, that if you own this child at an early age, you can own this child for years to come… companies are saying, ‘Hey I want to own this kid younger and younger and younger,” says Mike Searle, former president of Kids ‘R’ Us.

Yes, research suggests it may be possible to cultivate the brain’s neural pathways. Knowing this, creative, skilled marketing people are hard at work to teach children what to value, what to need, and where to belong. They spend billions studying children in order to instill in them a hunger that cannot be satisfied. What are we spending to help our children know the One who can satisfy every hunger!?

General Mills marketing executive Wayne Chiliti is unapologetic when it comes to targeting kid consumers. He says, “We believe in getting them and having them for life.”

“Advertising at its best is making people feel that without your product they’re a loser, and it’s very easy to do with kids, because they are emotionally vulnerable.” says Nancy Shalet, former president of Grey Advertising.”

Media critic Douglas Rushkoff speaks of the invasive, sustained, coercive strategies that advertisers use. He notes that the use of brain science to sell to kids is called ‘neuromarketing.”

Yet, doctors and counselors often see young people who are suffering from the fallout of years of this kind of marketing strategy. Recently a team of medical and mental health professionals and youth counselors asked, “What’s going on? Why are our waiting rooms filled with young people who are crying out, depressed, anxious, abusing themselves with dangerous substances, and at serious risk of violence and suicide?” After studying the latest brain research, human behavior, and social trends, they sounded an alarm in their report, which is titled Hardwired to Connect: The New Scientific Case for Authoritative Communities.

Children and youth, they discovered may be surviving but they are not thriving. They say it’s because human brains are “hardwired” for close nurturing relationships and deeper connections with religious communities. Wow! Our brains are hardwired for closer nurturing relationships and deeper connections with our faith communities!! Kids today need more of both.”

Our kids need nurturing relationship and deep connections with their church, not as an institution but as a community of faith, a community of people who pray and teach them to pray, who live the Word and teach them the Word, who love them and teach them to love, who give to them and teach them to give.

“When the Son of Man comes will he find faith on earth?”

Will he find a dwindling institution of consumers talking about Jesus? Or will he find a community of faith who lives Jesus? The fact is that the church is a paradox; we, Burke Presbyterian Church are almost a million dollar institution (Our ministry budget for this coming year is $941,000); like any other institution with staff to pay and light bills and phone bills to pay, and roofs and office equipment to repair and computers, Bibles and books to buy, AND we are the body of Christ as no institution, called to follow a God who taught forgiving love, to pray without ceasing, prayer for enemies, and hospitality to strangers and outcasts, the redemption of self-sacrifice!!

Like Zacchaeus, when we have 20/20 vision to see Jesus from our perches, (we know Jesus has 20/20 vision into our lives) when we let Jesus come to our house, when we open the doors of our hearts to Jesus, life is transformed! Giving becomes a way of life. Widows and orphans find justice and prayer is practicing the presence of God in everything every day!

The church may be changing; our institutions may be experiencing upheaval; reformation may be happening, but faith is alive! And the community of faith here at the corner of Burke Centre Parkway and Oak Leather Dr. is alive! When the Son of Man comes will he find faith at Burke Presbyterian Church? YES! Thanks be to God! Amen.