New sermon series coming

If I told you Jesus was secretly married to Mary Magdalene, would you believe me? If I told you Jesus also fathered children, what would you think?

Most of you, I’m sure, would claim I must be mad. Some of you would accuse me of heresy and call my Bishop. Some of you would wonder if it could really be true.

If I dressed up such claims in a wildly popular novel, and claimed that though the story was fictional all the historical claims in it were true, then you would want to see the movie. It opens next month.

I read Dan Brown’s The DaVinci Code a couple of years ago. It is a very compellingly written story. I did not want to put it down.

It is also full of historical inaccuracies and claims that have no basis in reality. That should be okay since that is the nature of fiction.

Dan Brown’s bestseller has spiked attention to what are called the “Gnostic gospels;” a group of writings about Jesus that make claims that diverge widely from traditional history and Christianity. It seems even the History Channel is buying into Dan Brown’s version.

One of the traditional Christian responses to this movie would be to boycott it. We could raise a ruckus about how persecuted real Christians are these days. We could organize protests and picket theaters. All of which would achieve at best a yawn from the unchurched public and at worst guarantee an increased number of ticket sales.

What if, rather than whine or complain, rather than loudly condemn the whole lot of “them” to hell, rather than shake our heads with disgust at “the direction society is heading,” we engage the culture around us. What if we take up conversations with these millions of people who, for whatever reason, are interested in Jesus but not in the church?

For the next four weeks at the First United Methodist Church of McGregor, we will be dealing with how we as Christians ought to engage culture. Paul calls us to “make the most of every opportunity.” There are huge opportunities before us. Are you ready?