May 2, 2004
By Jack Price

The 2004 Princeton Seminary Forum for Youth Ministry is titled:  Longing for God: 

Youth and the Quest for a Passionate Church.  It says:

Young people long for God and for a church that embodies the passion of God, who was willing to die for them.  In their search, young people too often come to the church, find it wanting, and move on. 

Many young people, and even those not so young, want a God they can believe in and a faith they can give themselves to passionately. 

I think our culture overuses the word “passion” today – overuses and under appreciate what it really means.  What does passion mean?  If you drive along I-70, you might think it has something to do with adult books and movies – pornography parades as passion. 

If you are a sports fan, you might think that passion is what it’s all about – the very definition of sports.  You always hear about a passion for excellence and a passion to win.  Many of us feel passionate about the successes and failures of our favorite sports teams.  We are passionate about our work, our hobbies, and our families. 

Passion is more than the excitement of “game day,” “first date,” or a rock-concert.  Passion is the drive to practice even in the rain.  It is the deep desire to love another even in the most trying circumstances.  It is the commitment to integrity and

growth all the time.  Passion is the feeling that your life consists in what you are doing.

            Passion is a religious word as well.  It refers to the last days and events of Jesus’ life.  In particular, it is what he did and what happened to him from the time of the Last Supper to the time of his death on the cross.  The passion story culminates with his death and those final words:  “It is finished.  It is accomplished.”

The passion story was probably the very first part of the gospels to be written.  It has been interpreted throughout the centuries of Christianity.  There have been Medieval passion plays, the monumental choral works of J. S. Bach based on the Passion according to St. Matthew and that according to St. John, and the

20^th century theater piece Jesus Christ Superstar. 

Mel Gibson’s movie The Passion of the Christ has burned across the American culture – immensely controversial and immensely popular.  It’s popularity has been due in part to the controversy, much of which may well have been contrived to achieve publicity.  More than that, however, its success comes from its portrayal of a Christ who

willingly suffered brutally and died horribly for love of us.  Techniques of modern

cinematography have brought that suffering powerfully and graphically before us.  The passion story is the core message of the Christian faith:  of a Christ who loves us passionately, a Christ who points beyond himself to a God who loves us passionately. 

Regardless of how you feel about the movie itself, and there are a wide variety of feelings about this movie, it invites our passion with regard to faith.  This is what the

Princeton forum on youth ministry is trying to say.  The issue with Christian faith today is not the passion of God or the passion of the Christ.  Where we struggle is with the passion of the Christians.  Passion is the root word of compassion, the heart of faith itself.  In the travails and trials of our lives, God cares for us passionately.

Our New Testament text this morning is a text of great passion – of intensity,

of pain, and of deep joy.  It was read in part earlier.  Listen to its entirety and

hear its passion.  (Rev. 7: 9-17)

Christians at the end of the first century and into the second suffered greatly at the hands of the Romans.  In large numbers, they were imprisoned, tortured, and horribly executed.  The book of Revelation is not an attempt to predict events of some far distant end time, but rather to encourage the believers of that age that, despite the overwhelming power and evil of Rome, the ultimate power in the universe was the power of God and of God’s Christ.  The vision portrayed in Revelation is a glimpse

into the meaning of God’s kingdom:  of heaven in the present age.  It is a powerful confirmation that those who suffer and die in the cause of Christ not only will not have suffered in vain, they will have found the very key to heaven itself. 

I celebrate the excitement, energy, and enthusiasm that many are finding regarding Christian faith in some contemporary books of historical fiction.  The DaVinci Code has inspired a great deal of interest in the feminine aspect of God and has provided a sense of hope that the Christian Church’s long tradition of male dominance may well be of more human than divine origin. 

The immensely popular Left Behind series have likewise excited a generation of people in terms of God’s role in the world and the importance of faith.  I found renewed excitement and enthusiasm for my own faith journey, as a young person, through a similar effort of eschatological fiction in the early 1970’s.  What I discovered is that the enthusiasm has remained long after I no longer accepted the theological foundation of that writing. 

The theological foundation of the Left Behind series is at best suspect.  Unless the focus of our faith as Christians moves away from what God will do to get the believers out of the world and punish the non-believers, we may well miss the cosmic battle for the world that is taking place here and now.  There is a conflict in which we are involved, like it or not.  We are the current generation to fight it, but it has raged for many centuries and, very likely, ours will not be the last to fight it. 

The battle is joined against the powers of evil that control so much of our world.  The expression of that struggle, within the cultures and societies of humanity, shows itself through the wars that now rage, the injustice that continues to be practiced, the

division of people through race, religion, wealth, and social status.  This is a battle that

takes place first within the life of each and every human being, and then in communities of people.  It is the struggle of good vs. evil, love vs. hated, inclusion vs. exclusion, and justice and mercy vs. repression and violence. 

It is the great battle of which Revelation speaks.  We cannot afford to divert our attention from the reality of this conflict now, today, in our lives.  Each of us is on the front line.

Life is passion, especially when you think about what’s at stake.  I am passionate about my life.  About 25 years ago, a young minister and his bride traveled to a training workshop in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, for young ministers.  Kathy and I were that young couple.  That trip was first time I had ever seen a palm tree in person (so to speak).  Actually it was a palmetto tree, but it was close enough for me.  The other thing about that workshop I remember is the personality and aptitude test we had to take.  One of the question was “What do you most want to be in life.”  There were multiple choice answers, and I selected, “to be a real person”.  It was kind of a silly answer, but looking back I think I was reflecting one of the great drives of many people my age -- to be a person of integrity. 

I still want to be a person of integrity and, though far from achieving that goal, I have a much deeper understanding of what that means for me.  Though I will never come close to a perfect record of living according to the full extent of the values I espouse, I now espouse and aspire to live in a value system that is much deeper, far clearer, and more true than I ever have in the history of my life.  In other words, I now am failing to live with integrity at a much higher level than I used to.   Passion is life and living is passion.

Prayer is also passion.  I am passionate about prayer, though that hasn’t always been the case.  One does not always get what one prays for, even really good things.  People still die.  Relationships still fall apart.  Businesses still go under and students still fail exams.  These realities can really challenge your theology of prayer.  One aspect of prayer that seems to be true consistently is that prayer does change the prayer – the one who does the praying.  Prayer has changed my perspective, many of my values, and certainly my attitude.  Yet, prayer that only changes me still seems less than satisfying.

Recently, I read something that has challenged my theology of prayer and has helped return a sense of passion to my prayers.  Theologian Rudolf Bultmann (Jesus and the Word, p. 185) wrote, Prayer is not to bring the petitioner’s will into submission to the unchanging will of God, but prayer is to move God to do something which [God] otherwise would not do.” 

What?  My prayer has the power to change God’s mind?  That seems almost heretical, yet it has the ring of truth.  For whatever reason, God chose to make us with free will in order to be co-creators.  It must be true, then, that God has chosen to make us partners in prayer as well.  Author Walter Wink (Engaging the Powers, p. 302) adds to this:

intercession … changes the world and it changes what is possible to God.  An aperture opens in the praying person, permitting God to act without violating human freedom.  The change in even one person thus changes what God can thereby do in that world.

We are partners with God in praying the new creation into this present age –

heaven coming to earth as a result of the intercession of people of faith.  There is passion in prayer as we join our prayers to those of the Holy Spirit already praying within us.  Be still to hear the Spirit’s prayer.  Respond with passion for there is a new world being born in our midst.

This is a challenging time to be the church of Christ.  Each age is challenging.  The early Christians faced persecution and death.  We face hopelessness, misdirected zeal, and many more questions than answers about the nature of this world and

how faith in God fits 21^st-century life.  

I am passionate about the church and, in particular, I am passionate about this church.  We are church in a time of great possibility.  I am passionate about this church

when it establishes missions of partnership with people in Guatemala, helping to help themselves, learning from them about God, and forming relationships in which to pray into being the new creation of God.

I am passionate about this church establishing missions of partnership with neighbors a few blocks away.  These partnerships have the capacity to transcend boundaries of race, socio-economics, and long-established habits.  These relationship are communities in which to pray into being the new creation of God.

I am passionate about this church worshiping in the Spirit, blending forms that are traditional and modern through which to pray into being the new creation of God.

I am passionate about this church exploring the boundaries and depths of Christian theology.  We are welcoming and affirming all in Jesus’ name.  We are growing disciples in Jesus’ name.  We are seeking integrity of belief and practice out of which to pray into being the new creation of God. 

I am passionate about this church in the practice of our freedom.  We are celebrating the joy of community even as we are recognizing that the cost of being Spirit-led is even more than the cost of being congregationally led.  In the Spirit, we pray into being the new creation of God.

On this day, we have recognized the renewal of membership for the coming year.  We have welcomed new, and not so new, members.  We have celebrated the refreshing of the faith journey of all God’s children.  Let the passion we share in faith, through prayer, and in community send us out to touch the world we will touch, with the passion not only of the Christ.  Let us touch our world with the passion of the Christians, with the passion of the church, in Jesus’ name.

Revelation 7: 9-17

⁹After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands.  ¹⁰They cried out in a loud voice, saying,

“Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne,

and to the Lamb!”

¹¹And all the angels stood around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, ¹²singing,

“Amen!  Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor

and power and might be to our God forever and ever!  Amen.”

¹³Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?”  ¹⁴I said to him, “Sir, you are the one that knows.”  Then he said to me, “These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”

¹⁵For this reason they are before the throne of God,

and worship him day and night within his temple,

and the one who is seated on the throne will shelter them.

¹⁶They will hunger no more, and thirst no more;

the sun will not strike them nor any scorching heat;

¹⁷for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd,

and he will guide them to springs of the water of life,

and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”