Throughout the summer months, whenever we don't have a main article for The Tidings, we will be digging through our archives and including a Tidings article from a former Pastor of Holy Trinity. Today's article comes from Rev. Dave Snyder, who served our congregation in the 1990s.
Second Hand Religion or First-hand Faith??
During the long season of Pentecost the church of Jesus Christ is called to ponder the implications of the Pentecost Experience upon our lives and our churches and our world. How, specifically, is the Spirit of God renewing the face of the earth?. I would like to suggest that the Spirit (which is the mystery of God within us) renews the face of the earth when it blows through the lives of God's people and moves them from second-hand religion to first-hand faith.
I am indebted to Professor Marcus Borg in his imaginative and inspiring book entitled Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time for this understanding of the unique work of the Spirit. Borg points out that there is, a huge and important difference between second-hand religion and first-hand faith.
I would like to suggest three of the differences for you to consider during this season of grace we call Pentecost. First, there is the difference between worshipping Jesus and following Jesus. It is one thing to come to church on Sunday to sing the praises of Jesus Christ, who died and rose again. It is something else to follow this Jesus in a life which includes taking up your cross and laying down your life for the sake of the Gospel. Secondhand religion is con-tent with worshipping Jesus...first-hand faith involves following Jesus in a faithful living of the life of Christian discipleship.
Second, there is the difference between being hearers of the Word and being doers of the Word (see James 1:22-25). It is one thing to be an attentive listener (according to the. Apostle Paul, it is with a careful listening to the Word that authentic Christian faith has its genesis)...it is something else to put those words into practice...words like: love your enemy...forgive one another...sell all you have and give it to the poor then come and follow me. Second-hand religion is content to listen to the Word...firsthand faith involves the difficult and challenging work of making those words into a way of life.
Finally, there is a difference between being ministered to and being ministered through! Many people come to church in order to be ministered to. These are good, faithful, Godly people, but they are, essentially, religious consumers.
They search for a church where their special religious needs (and the needs of their families) will be met. And when those needs are no longer being adequately met (when they perceive that they are no longer "being fed") then they leave and find a new spiritual home. There are also many in the church who join the Jesus movement not to be ministered to but to be ministered through.
These folks understand that the purpose of the church is to reach out into the community and "make disciples of all nations", and that God wants to use us as instruments of God's redeeming and saving love to make Christ known in our community and to bring more and more people into the Kingdom of God.
For these folks, worship is not an end, but a means to an evangelical end (i.e. the equipping of the saints to do the work of ministry in the world). These folks understand that God does not feed God's people to make them fat ..God feeds us to make us food for a hungry world. These beloved people put into practice an ecclesiastical version of President John F. Kennedy's famous challenge in his first inaugural address... "ask not what your church can do for you...ask what you can do for your church".
The Spirit of God (which, as far as I can tell, is the same Spirit which raised Jesus from the grave on Easter morning) renews the face of the earth by gently but persistently moving God's people out of the church and into the world (just as the Spirit moved the apostles out of the upper room and into the streets of Jerusalem to proclaim the message of Jesus on Pentecost). And this gracious movement is the steady movement from second-hand religion to firsthand faith.
May the wind of God's Spirit continue to blow through our lives and through our Church during this Pentecost season...
Faithfully,
The Rev. Dr. David L. Snyder, Pastor
Published June 1997