Dedication

One of my favorite Buddhist parables goes like this: There was once a great teacher who lead a school of meditation. Through her practice, people started to attain Enlightenment. This attracted more people, who attained Enlightenment. This was good until the teacher took in a stray cat.

The cat would weave in and out and distract people and soon no one was attaining Enlightenment. The students complained to the teacher. She tied a leash to a tree just outside the school’s doors and would put the cat out there when she started to teach. Soon, people started to reach Enlightenment again.

After many years of teaching, the teacher died. Many mourned her. But a student took her place and began to teach in her way, and many reached Enlightenment. Until one day, the cat died. No one was reaching Enlightenment.

The new teacher puzzled at this. Could it be her teaching? Could it be because she wasn’t as good as the deceased teacher? She asked her students. They complained bitterly and said, “How can we possibly reach Enlightenment without having a cat tied to a tree outside of our school?”

We can get dedicated to the wrong things. Sometimes in religion, we can let ritual take over. Somone way smarter than me once noted a difference between tradition and traditionalism. Tradition is the living faith of the dead. Traditionalism is the dead faith of the living.[1]

Tradition in the Buddhist parable would be the teachings that lead to Enlightenment. Traditionalism is having the cat outside the school. A cat tied to a tree has nothing to do with attaining Enlightenment. We can get dedicated to the wrong things.

In today’s scriptures, we read of the replacement for Judas. The disciples must have 12. That’s what their teacher had. Now that Peter is in charge, he leads the process to select Matthias to replace Judas. Is this tradition or traditionalism?

Let’s talk about who Judas and Peter are.

Judas tried to ruin the movement. He betrayed Jesus. So did Peter. Whereas Peter repented, Judas didn’t. The story told here in Acts is that Judas betrayed Jesus and purchased a field, perhaps to buy his way into a higher social class. Scholar Robert W. Wall points out, Judas’s choice of money over Messiah is a symbol of spiritual failure in Acts… “Instead of living like the rest and gladly sharing resources with others, Judas’ rejection of Jesus and his duties embodies the use of ill-begotten money for personal gain.”[2]

We see this before Jesus dies. When a woman pours expensive perfume on Jesus, Judas complains, “We could have sold that and given the money to the poor!” John 12:6 reminds us that “Judas did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it.”

This would be like someone who uses religion to get rich. Like someone who sounds spiritual but when a huge disaster strikes they are nowhere to be found; they don’t comment, they don’t open up their church, they don’t do anything.

Or it’s like someone who uses spiritual language to cover up their own nastiness. Like someone who quotes scripture all the time, but they are just covering something up and feeding their own ego.

Or it’s like Judas was only in it for the “likes” on social media. He saw Jesus’ movement attracting attention, and he’s thinking he can attract some of that market for himself. You see this all the time on social media. Someone with a large following writes something, and someone else comments with a link to their own blog and says “I said this about that subject before you did. I was into this before it was cool.”

Judas is not in the Jesus movement for the right reasons. And we’re seeing this today as well. In 1998 Franklin Graham condemned President Bill Clinton’s affair. He wrote, “The God of the Bible says that what one does in private does matter.”[3] Today, he’s defending President Donald Trump’s affair as nobody’s business. Is he preaching partisan politics?

Franklin is the son of the late Billy Graham who warned Christians to not to become too closely associated with one party or the other. Billy knew we can get dedicated to the wrong things, Franklin has forgotten this.

Jesus and the Bible are against adultery as a rule. Period. This applies to all political parties and even those with none. The question of trust Franklin raised in 1998 was the correct one. We need to trust our leaders and they should BE trustworthy people. We have to have trust as the foundation of any relationship. With a big name pastor like Franklin making such a reversal, it erodes the trust of the church. It says to those outside these walls that we’re not dedicated to our values.

Peter isn’t motivated by what motivates Judas. So what is Peter motivated by? Is this the cat thing? Like Jesus always had 12 disciples, so because that’s how we’ve always done it, we have to have 12? Is this traditionalism or tradition?

In the Jewish Tradition, 12 is considered a perfect number. It symbolizes the 12 Tribes of Israel. Jacob had 12 sons, and each tribe was named after a son. This continues from Genesis and is referenced throughout the Bible, even at the end as in Revelation 21:12, the New Jerusalem, which descends from heaven contains 12 gates made of pearl which are each staffed by an angel. Twelve is an important number!

Symbols are important to biblical stories because they provide theological markers for their readers. They are like touchstones. We are symbolic people. We can identify the logos of all our favorite brands. Logos mean something to us today just as they did back then. 12 is the logo for Israel and now the new church. What we are seeing today is the restoration of the disciples who will then restore the world.

Peter is looking to restore the 12. To tell the church that YES, Judas tried to harm our movement, tried to sell us out, but we won’t be sold out.
Not to the pursuit of wealth.
Not to the pursuit of fame.
Not to the pursuit to rule over others.
These are the very things Satan tempted Jesus with in the desert after his baptism! The very thing Jesus resisted, Judas fell for. And Peter was heading down that road, but he woke up, he saw his error and he was restored by Jesus! He was given a new task. He was told to tend the flock, to be the leader of the disciples and the early church. He was dedicated to the right things.

These temptations are still out there and a danger to the church. The temptation of wealth, fame, and control. Yet Peter is reminding the church of who they are and what they are about. I see myself as our church’s chief reminder. I’m here to remind you that we are about the restoration of our world. Of our community, of our nation, and of our world. That involves calling out the standards and reminding us of our shared ethics, not making excuses for moral failures.

I’m to remind us that when someone says they want to be spiritually fed, when’s the last time someone has fed you? We are fed by feeding others. I’ll provide you the menu of books, podcasts, movies, scholars, and even run programs here for you, but you have to show up. I can’t force-feed you, I’m going to remind you to feed yourself.

The church’s job is not to satisfy people, the church’s job is to change people. What does it mean to be a member of this church? It means to BE the church. To be dedicated to it’s virtues and mission, even when it’s not popular or will win us any points. To be involved. It is my job to remind you of that, not to do it for you.

This requires dedication. This requires knowing why we do something or have a certain committee or why we do what we do. We did a dedication this morning. It’s not really our tradition to do this, but it’s of the tradition that the family comes out of. When the family told me why they practice this tradition, I knew it wasn’t just a cat tied up outside thing. They have deep roots in the practice, it has great meaning for them. And we can learn something from the practice. To be dedicated to this child might remind us that we are dedicated to this place. That we are dedicated to one another. That we can sometimes betray that when we act like Judas and chase wealth, control, and power. Maybe this child will remind us to be dedicated to the right things.

The good news is that we are in the tradition of Peter and his story. That we will fail, but we can turn from our failures, learn from them, and seek to better the world through them. That is good news! Good news for both pastors and presidents and all disciples of Christ! God can use even our failings to bring us to a better place and a better world… I truly believe that. If we have a repentant heart and are dedicated to Christ and one another, anything… ANYTHING is possible. And if we’re not Peter, then we can be Matthias. He is never mentioned again in the story. I bet Matthias is fine with that because he’s just happy to be numbered among the disciples. Happy to go about the work of being the church, he’s not in it to be known.

We are to be about the mission and we can do hard things. Like building an addition. Changing the carpet. Changing hearts and minds. Turning lives around. Nurturing the youth among us and reminding ourselves to choose the living tradition of the dead and reject the dead faith of the living. That is our mission.

Works Cited

[1] The Vindication of Tradition: The 1983 Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities by Jaroslav Pelikan

2 New Interpreter’s Bible; Acts, Volume X, page 49

[3] http://www.charlotteobserver.com/opinion/editorials/article210896649.html

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