00:00:10.340 - 00:00:25.710

Yeah, yeah. One of the most memorable preaching lessons ever given, I think by the 20th century preacher, George Buttrick in an attempt to convince preachers to be relevant to their times. But Rick said

00:00:25.710 - 00:00:39.060

this, he said we would do well to remember that attendees at worship on an average sunday do not come to church sitting on the edge of their seats to find out what happened between the W sites and

00:00:39.060 - 00:00:57.470

the Ammonites. While such matters may be of great fascination to preachers, it is often not so with our listeners as much as I agree with, but trick I am taking the risk today. Of beginning

00:00:57.480 - 00:01:14.550

with just such a theme From a rather obscure text from the 12th chapter of Judges. So, stay with me folks. Gilead and Ephraim were in a great fight centering on reference complaint against Jeff of Gilead

00:01:15.230 - 00:01:30.900

that Jeff didn't ask for the help of the Ephraim . It's against their common enemy. The ammonites you with me, want me to repeat it. The fact is that twice in the last five chapters of

00:01:30.900 - 00:01:46.770

Judges, the Tribe of Ephraim had refused to help in similar circumstances. Of course, now that the Gilead Icts have won their battle, the f termites complained that they weren't invited to the party. They

00:01:46.770 - 00:02:00.360

even threatened Mcgillian sites, saying we will burn your house down over you and this leads to a civil war between the two tribes. Now, Ephraim is getting the worst of the battle and they decide to

00:02:00.360 - 00:02:13.040

head for home on their retreat, they come to the Fords of the Jordan river and to get home to get to the other side. Since there are no bridges, they must find good ford's places where

00:02:13.040 - 00:02:25.710

they can cross. The order has been given to Althea Gilead. Icts to slay any Ephraim eat on the spot, naturally, they go to the crossing places of the river to nab them. But the

00:02:25.710 - 00:02:40.670

problem is they don't know how to tell the difference between a man from Ephraim and one of their own . They all look the same. The problem is distinguishing friend from foe. It wasn't enough to say

00:02:40.670 - 00:02:57.040

in the common parlance of the century who goes there . It was then that the Gilead Icts remembered that the men of Ephraim had a particular accent, pronouncing some words differently than any of the other tribes.

00:02:57.210 - 00:03:10.790

The word shibboleth was a term that meant either river or green. You can check with your hebrew professors on that. So when a man from Ephraim fleeing for his life was apprehended by a man from Gilead

00:03:10.790 - 00:03:23.520

, he would be asked friend or foe and of course he would respond. He was a friend. Then came the test, All of you who have endured the study of Hebrew, know that one of

00:03:23.520 - 00:03:40.530

the more delicate aspects of the Semitic languages is the siblings. The fact is that the effort might simply couldn't pronounce shibboleth. The best they could do was Sibila. No matter how hard a poor soldier tried

00:03:40.530 - 00:03:54.320

, no matter how he twisted his tongue, the best he could manage was Civil F. And saying that he was killed on the spot. According to the text, 42,000 soldiers came to the Ford.

00:03:54.870 - 00:04:11.550

said civil f. 42,000 were killed. And you don't think the study of siblings is important. So now, you know what happened to the FM? It's the daily Diets, the ammonites and Jeff.

00:04:11.550 - 00:04:27.150

The judge wasn't that exciting. It's my purpose today to convince you that this obscure little story is actually contemporary. I know I'm supposed to pick a biblical hero. Jeff was among the judges of Israel.

00:04:27.160 - 00:04:40.320

His daughter was Professor Susie Parks Hero just a few weeks ago. The truth is that Jeff is not one of my heroes, but I choose him because quite unfortunately, he is the hero of too many

00:04:40.320 - 00:04:55.740

church people these days because he is the inventor of the shibboleth. The word shibboleth actually has an ongoing and very lively history. It actually became a bona fide english word. You can find it in the

00:04:55.740 - 00:05:12.930

dictionary. According to the dictionary, shibboleth is quote , any distinguishing practice which is indicative of one social or regional origin. It usually refers to features of language and particularly to a word whose pronunciation identifies its

00:05:12.930 - 00:05:29.050

speaker as being a member or not a member of a particular group. History has had lots of shibboleths . During the Battle of the Bulge, American soldiers used knowledge of baseball to determine if others were fellow

00:05:29.050 - 00:05:46.520

americans or Germans infiltrators in american uniforms. The Dutch famously used the name of the port town Scheveningen as a shibboleth to tell Germans from dutch because they pronounce it differently. During World War two, american soldiers

00:05:46.520 - 00:06:04.350

in the pacific theater would have suspects pronounced the word Lollapalooza because the japanese would pronounce the L's as ours . So you see a shibboleth is a test of authenticity, a test of who's in and who's out

00:06:05.640 - 00:06:27.350

As the dictionary also says it is a custom or practice that betrays one as an outsider. A shibboleth is a shortcut by which we discern who is an outsider, who's an insider who is us and who

00:06:27.350 - 00:06:44.200

is them. When I entered seminary, one of my first lessons was a lesson in bullets. Like many of you, I fully expected seminary to be a loving, accepting inclusive community. However, upon

00:06:44.200 - 00:06:58.860

registering, I was handed a little book that may sound familiar to you containing the names and photos of my fellow students, faculty and staff. It was commonly known in my day as the fundy finder.

00:07:00.140 - 00:07:15.730

There was you see a shibboleth that divided the campus . It was then that I had my first clue that some of my expectations of seminary were a tad off. This leads me to wonder how many Shiva

00:07:15.780 - 00:07:30.740

Shiva less Have I contributed to in 41 years of ministry. How many times have I drawn? How many lines have I drawn? How many tests theological or otherwise have I put in place to betray others

00:07:30.750 - 00:07:47.230

as somehow outsiders. It reminds me of a story that will be familiar to some of you, but it's worth repeating. This is the original version attributed to Eno phillips. Walking across the bridge. I

00:07:47.230 - 00:07:59.860

saw him in on the edge about to jump and I ran over and said, stop, don't do it. Why not? He asked. Well, there's so much to live for. Like, what

00:08:01.640 - 00:08:22.220

are you religious? He said, Yes, I said, me too. Are you christian or buddhist christian? No, me too. A catholic or protestant protestant. Me too. Are you Episcopalian or

00:08:22.220 - 00:08:45.160

baptist baptist? Me too. Are you baptist Church of God? Or Church of the Lord baptist Church of God. Me too. Are you original baptist Church of God? Or Reformed baptist Church of God

00:08:45.740 - 00:09:03.830

? Reformed baptist Church of God, Me too. Okay, are you Reformed baptist Church of God? Reformation of 18 79? Or Reformed baptist Church of God? Reformation of 1915. He said, Reformation

00:09:03.830 - 00:09:26.240

of 1915. I said, di heretics come and pushed him off the bridge. It's a funny story , but you know, it's sad when it's true . These are challenging times for the Church. You

00:09:26.240 - 00:09:37.160

know, the way we presbyterians do, things were always decent and in order for the most democratic denomination , I love that about us voting on issues. Isn't our problem? We do that pretty well.

00:09:37.240 - 00:09:52.840

What is our problem, However, is the way in which we draw lines through the church and the shortcuts we use to betray others as outsiders. I'm not sorry that we've struggled with the issue of ordination

00:09:52.840 - 00:10:07.640

and sexual orientation for over 30 years. We presbyterians have a long history of refusing to close the doors on the difficult and controversial issues the world faces not to wrestle with the tough issues, would be irresponsible

00:10:07.790 - 00:10:20.860

in a world that needs the church to join in its search for meaning and even lead it, as March Carpenter has said many times, I'm still sinfully proud to be a presbyterian. But we do worry

00:10:20.860 - 00:10:37.180

about this old church of ours, for from anywhere in the main line or even beyond. We worry about the shortcuts and the shibboleths, the divide God's house. I worry about the tests. We used

00:10:37.180 - 00:10:52.620

to decide who's in and who's out of the body . So let's get to the crux of the matter . What troubles me are those times when we use shibboleths as a test of who's in and who's out

00:10:52.630 - 00:11:05.020

of christ? It troubles me. If we say if your understanding of scripture is different than mine, then you are not in christ. It troubles me . If we say if you are for the ordination

00:11:05.020 - 00:11:16.810

of gay and lesbian, candidates for minister, elder deacon, then you're not in christ. It troubles me. If we say on the other hand that we say the opposite, if you're not then you're

00:11:16.810 - 00:11:31.330

not in christ. Why does it problem? Because it's not true. In fact, the PCU essays , research services department did a study of those on both sides of that issue and found no appreciable difference

00:11:31.330 - 00:11:46.480

in their crist Allah jeez! In other words, one's views on the subject are not a worthy test of christian orthodoxy. When I was in seminary over 40 years ago, Dr James McCord, a native

00:11:46.480 - 00:11:58.360

Texan and longtime dean of this seminary was president at Princeton. He had worked hard to heal some of the divisions in the presbyterian church. And one time in a sermon, he said something that shocked me

00:12:01.040 - 00:12:18.670

, he said, given a choice between heresy and schism, that is between heresy and dividing the church . Which would you choose? And before anybody could answer, he pounded on the Pope, and he

00:12:18.670 - 00:12:39.220

thundered as only McCord could do choose heresy every time . If you are guilty of heresy, you are guilty only of wrong opinion. But if you're guilty of schism, you tear it christ himself theologically.

00:12:39.220 - 00:12:50.100

Did that mean that James McCord had a low view of orthodoxy, but he didn't care about theology. If you knew Jim McCord, you knew that nothing could be further from the truth. No, it

00:12:50.100 - 00:13:11.450

meant that he had a very extraordinarily high view of ecclesial ology. He loved the church. He loved the church too much to see it divided by shortcuts and shibboleths. He loved the church precisely because he

00:13:11.450 - 00:13:22.850

loved jesus christ. By the way, one of the things I found out, I guess it was a little after I left seminary. Remember that fungi finder, the little thing with the names and faces

00:13:22.850 - 00:13:37.990

like you have. I found out that jim McCord every night before he went to sleep, which meant it was after he read a book, would go through that book and pray in person personally for every

00:13:37.990 - 00:13:54.770

one of us that had a way of breaking down some lions in my mind, why should we love the church first? Because the church for all its failures belongs to jesus christ and because it belongs to

00:13:54.770 - 00:14:09.560

jesus christ, there are no them's and no buses couple of weeks ago Nadia Bolz Weber said this in a sermon, she's you know Nadia, she's the only minister I know that has made me tempted to

00:14:09.560 - 00:14:26.070

get body art. Listen to the audience, she said this, she said the reason there is no them and there really is no us. He is not because of some lofty self congratulatory, lived into

00:14:26.070 - 00:14:43.990

commitment to inclusivity and being nice. It's because christ has made it so God has taken all the domination and the borders and the boundaries and divisions among people and destroyed them by willingly taking all that sin into

00:14:43.990 - 00:15:05.710

God's own self in jesus, death on the cross and the defeating it all through the glory of the resurrection. So folks, it's time that we fire Jeff the as a hero, the inventor of the

00:15:05.710 - 00:15:20.500

shibboleth. Yeah, let me close with another piece from an Australian pastor. So the church is called to be the continuation of christ's activity on earth. Meeting the same needs be the economic, political,

00:15:20.500 - 00:15:37.360

societal, spiritual, medical and so on. But this mission demands unity, a unity of mission, but a diversity of gifts and strategies to get there . It requires nothing less than a total unity in

00:15:37.360 - 00:16:04.970

the Holy Spirit. We are through the power of the Holy Spirit. Ex zealots, ex tax collectors , ex conservatives, ex liberals, ex fundamentalists, ex Pentecostals, X evangelicals, we are christians And

00:16:04.970 - 00:16:23.060

we are one in Christ. If we are not then jesus strongly implies the world will not believe in word and deed, spirit and truth. We are to be people of one lord, one faith,

00:16:23.940 - 00:16:34.490

one baptism. Let us celebrate God breathe diversity, but let us use that diversity to be united in