Life Together

Hope for the Church: living in the tension

September 4, 2014 — Leave a comment

I just finished a series on Christian Community held at a midweek service in the church I currently serve. I began this series in a weird place. I found it ironic that I was tasked with this series, seeing as- and I began my first sermon with this- I was having a hard time not losing all hope in the institutional church. Those are not words you expect to hear from your pastor. I began this series in a raw, vulnerable place, and finished it in a different raw vulnerable place- a place of realignment and perspective.

The frustration and struggle is very real for many people; I discovered this in a brand new way as I was vulnerable in front of a group of people. Week after week — in person and via email — folks shared how they too are struggling. When you are hurt, it’s hard to forgive; it’s hard to trust again. The church’s people have done plenty of hurting. When a place of redemption and new life is mixed with hypocrisy and classism, one wonders if faith in God would not better be guarded in isolation. When the world around us is fractured by racism, and abuse of wealth and power, why would we voluntarily hang out in a place that’s no different?  It’s hard to be vulnerable time and again and try to be a part of a community that rejects you and that doesn’t listen to you.  Many feel this way.

But Martin Luther, during the Reformation, was aware of the failing of the church. He said, “Farewell to those who want an entirely pure and purified church. This is plainly wanting no church at all.” So here’s what my problem has been: I have very high expectation of the church and Christian community; I believe God does. Furthermore I believe that God mourns our action and lack of action. Much like the incarnation – God becoming man – the birth of the church is a miracle – a work of God. The church is not an institution: it is a body, a family, a holy and living temple that God created. It is different; it’s unlike any kind of community. It’s called to destroy these aforementioned divisions, to welcome the outsider, to keep one another accountable to love and good works, to encourage one another in the hardest of times, and to continue growing together more like Christ.  Love cannot exist in isolation- it demands another, God or sister/brother. I have experienced these aspects of life together, for which I am thankful.

And yet it is made up of individuals who are still growing, who are still learning, who are still leaving behind that which is not of God, and who are welcomed and still part of the church in the meantime. If we all had to wait to be part of this fellowship when we were perfect, there would be no fellowship.

The church will never be perfect as long as I’m a part of it. I will fail you. I will hurt (hopefully not on purpose) you. You will fail and hurt me. I’m broken; we’re broken.  So there’s this place where we are called to be and there’s where we actually are. We live in that tension. In that tension Christ is patient with us — merciful, forgiving, and longing for reconciliation. He doesn’t let us stay where we are, but the fact that we’re still in existence demonstrates long-suffering patience! Who are we to offer each other any less?

We grasp on to hope — not in ourselves, but in Christ. And when our fingers are tired from the grasping, and our muscles ache from the tension, we let others grasp for us for a while… and maybe later we’ll exchange places. The place of perspective where I have arrived once again is that whether I encounter the beauty or the smelly mess of community, that I must keep my eyes fixed on Jesus. In Jesus is where my hope is found. In Jesus I find my center. Can you imagine if the church consistently lived with Christ as its center?  I pray I find Jesus in my sisters and brothers — so that we can hold tight to hope together- the hope that calls us forward to what we’re called to be, not a passive hope that resigns itself to what it is .  God has done the hardest work, thankfully, and is our hope and assurance while we work on our task.

“And so, dear brothers and sisters, we can boldly enter heaven’s Most Holy Place because of the blood of Jesus. By his death, Jesus opened a new and life-giving way through the curtain into the Most Holy Place.  And since we have a great High Priest who rules over God’s house, let us go right into the presence of God with sincere hearts fully trusting him. For our guilty consciences have been sprinkled with Christ’s blood to make us clean, and our bodies have been washed with pure water.  Let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep his promise.  Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works.  And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near.”
-Hebrews 10:19-25 NLT

I often sing these words from the old hymn, but they’ve taken on new meaning for me.

My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
But wholly trust in Jesus’ Name.

On Christ the solid Rock I stand,
All other ground is sinking sand;
All other ground is sinking sand…

Amen.

stained-glass-still

Not a scepter but a hoe

May 28, 2014 — Leave a comment

Methodist blogs have become the new tabloids.  I’m sorry for adding my one other one to the Enquirer frenzy.  I promise I will not post pictures of celebrity bishop-babies (whatever those are).  I do however want to address some things that came out of my ‘Why Church?’ post last week.  (Have I mentioned I’m not particularly fond of writing blogs?)  I told you I’ve mourned and cried for and over the church —  Archbishop Oscar Romero said that “There are many things that can only be seen through eyes that have cried.”  I doubt I’m entirely done crying; as long as you and I are part of the Church she will be imperfect, and as long as pride exists there will be division (I don’t think it a coincidence that Jesus prayed for our unity in the final hours of his life).  Yet there are rumors of hope to which I hold onto stubbornly.

Last week’s post received some interesting comments.  Most folks who commented to me resonated with the heaviness in their own hearts, and some shared their fears with me.  Others had not even thought of some of these things.  One comment I read expressed a broken heart over the deception of young, new leaders like me — that one was my favorite.  For the record, I promise you that God (through friends and other) calls me out on things almost on a daily basis, but no, I am not perfect.

A note from a young man who is soon to begin his studies at Duke Divinity School, in response to my blog:

“…I am having a hard time trying to capture how I feel as an up and coming pastor in the UMC.  I get the sense that very soon I’ll have to make a very explicit proclamation (one way or the other) regarding homosexuality, and it be forced to be this “you’re either with us or against us” sort of proposition. That is my fear, I don’t truly know how likely it is.”

I write because I’m inspired by the third way that Jesus exemplifies and that Steve Harper talks about seeking, in his book For the Sake of the Bride.  I struggled (sometimes bitterly) with my approach and understanding of Scripture for a decade, and I still feel like an elementary school student at times.  I sympathize with the seemingly silent, middle majority.  I ache for the private messages that express fear.  I simultaneously respond strongly to issues of injustice, so I seek a different route, but not an easy one.  Thus far in my life, struggling with things has been one of the biggest forms of growth.  Struggling is good! (And not fun!)

I’ve lost count of the times I’ve read Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s ‘Life Together‘ — a short book I think all Church-people (not the building kind of church, by the way) should read… more than once.  Here’s a quote from the book that I’ve been pondering for a while now:

“Just as surely as God desires to lead us to a knowledge of genuine Christian fellowship, so surely must we be overwhelmed by a great disillusionment with others, with Christians in general, and with ourselves…. Only that fellowship which faces such disillusionment, with all its unhappy and ugly aspects, begins to be what it should be in God’s sight, begins to grasp in faith the promise that is given to it. The sooner this shock of disillusionment comes to an individual and to a community the better for both.”

This reminds me that living in community is not supposed to be easy; it’s always been hard.  Jesus’ words of loving our enemies have always been scandalous and challenging.  Relationships are hard stuff.  This is why a third way is difficult and scary — one where we don’t choose sides, one without ‘us’ and ‘them’ language — one that leads to self-sacrifice and a cross.   Admittedly this whole issue of schism seems somewhat overwhelming to us ‘little people,’ but I’m encouraged and encourage all to continue to impact our small circles of influence.

Finally, I love the Bernard de Clairvaux quote:  “Learn the lesson that, if you are to do the work of a prophet, what you need is not a scepter but a hoe.”  It has struck me differently this past week, however.  As I hear proclamations from on high that entirely dismiss reason and experience I cringe.  Don’t call yourself a prophet unless you have dirt under your nails, if you haven’t grabbed a hoe lately  and sweat through your shirt.  Don’t proclaim to me if you’re not heartbroken over contention, as you probably don’t deserve to be called a prophet.  If I see that you too struggle, that will be compelling.  That sounds an awful lot to me like Pharisaic tendencies that pray, “The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.”  May love and humility reign.

O God, we are one with you.
You have made us one with you.
You have taught us that if we are open to one another, you dwell in us.

Help us to preserve this openness and to fight for it with all our hearts.
Help us to realize that there can be no understanding where there is mutual rejection.

O God, in accepting one another wholeheartedly, fully, completely, we accept you, and we thank you, and we adore you, and we love you with our whole being, because our being is your being, our spirit is rooted in your spirit.

Fill us then with love, and let us be bound together with love as we go our diverse ways, united in this one spirit which makes you present in the world, and which makes you witness to the ultimate reality that is love.

Love has overcome. Love is victorious.

         –Thomas Merton

Not a scepter but a hoe