Impressions: powerful enough to create reality

Last summer, on a hot day, Caleb and I needed something cold to drink. So we stopped in at a store and were faced with way too many choices.  Coke, juice, Gatorade … but we settled on a certain kind of green tea drink that we’d seen advertised on TV.  In the commercial it looked cool and refreshing and people smiled broadly and knowingly when they drank it.  Just the thing.  So we bought it, took it outside, and drank a refreshing mouthful.

It tasted like dirt.  We couldn’t believe it.  It was supposed to taste good … as seen on TV!  Who were we going to believe … the people on TV or our own taste buds.  So, rather than believe our own senses, we took another drink.  After all, TV would never lie … there had to be a problem with us.  We just weren’t tasting it right.

Nope.  Still tasted like DIRT.  Terrible stuff.  And to this day, we refer to it as “The Dirt Tea.”  Why did we buy it?  And why did we try to convince ourselves it tasted OK when it really didn’t?  Because ….

Impressions are powerful. “Image is everything”, and it’s used to sell everything from soap to cars.  “Image Consultant” is an actual job, sustained by public figures need someone to help them look and sound good under the media’s watchful eye.  Even though we all like to think we see through such things, we’re all very impressionable and are apt to form conclusions about whether something is good, bad, right, wrong, or worthwhile based on what we think we see and how image plays to our emotions, our hopes and dreams, or our desires.  Our impressions of things and people can say a lot more about us than the things or people themselves.  I saw a political cartoon in the States last year that illustrated this well.  Called “The Idea of Obama”, it showed how people’s prejudices, presumptions, or longings made them feel positively or negatively about that world leader … before he had actually done anything!  (Click here for a link to that cartoon, but please don’t take this as a political opinion for or against anything or anyone, nor as an endorsement of the website.  To me, the cartoon is a statement of the way we are in contemporary Western society.)

For you and me, as Christians in modern times, this kind of thing is a big deal.  Stop and think about how Christians and Christianity are portrayed and reported on in modern media.  It seems like there are a thousand reports of abusive, corrupt, or clueless Christians for every one buried-in-the-weekend-news report about believers who are actually doing good.  Human nature’s fascination with scandal and bad news is partly to blame.  But whatever the case, it seems like we’ve got to overcome people’s very negative impressions of the church, our faith, our character, and what we consider to be a message of good news and hope.  I see it often enough when someone finds out I’m a pastor.  It’s not unusual for people to awkwardly find a way out of talking to me, or I can tell that they become defensive or even hostile.  Somehow, they associate Christianity with something bad, something to be avoided.  It takes a lot of time to turn that around.

It’s not just others.  We Christians are sometimes short-sighted and gullible when it comes to image.  We’re vulnerable to those who seem to uphold things that are important to us with authority and style.  And so it seems each generation inevitably has to deal with cynicism and discouragement when some of these people are revealed to be less impressive than they appeared.  Or we feel crushed when some popular figure captures the public ear and portrays things we hold dear in a negative light.  Books are written, responses are made, but the impression has already been made and it’s hard to get people to listen.  A great example is The Da Vinci Code phenomenon of several years ago.  It was bad history and even worse scholarship.  Both secular and Christian journalists and historians pointed this out.  But how would those guys compete with a conspiracy theory and Tom Hanks in a movie?  So to this day I encounter people who are skeptical of Christianity “because they read The Da Vinci Code.”  They really believe the church is hiding some deep, dark secrets because of a secret plan to stay in power.

We modern Christians aren’t the first to deal with the power of image and impression.  Jesus himself had to wrestle his identity from those who wanted him to start a revolution and those who thought he might be in league with the Devil.  The Apostle Paul was distressed to find that some people who presented themselves as “Super-Apostles” had begun to influence a group of Christians.  They came off well, spoke impressively, and generally put themselves in positions of authority.  Paul wrote 1 and 2 Corinthians in response to their disastrous effect on the faith of those who followed them.  Apparently it was no easy task to get the church centered on Christ and genuine faith again, because he refers to other letters and visits to deal with it.  An Apostle who wasn’t glamorous (after all, he’d been beaten up and imprisoned a few times), who talked substance more than image, and who was transparent about his weaknesses so the attention would be on Christ and not the messenger … well, he just had a hard time competing against people who made such a good impression and who, with little effort, were able to call into question everything they’d been taught by a grisly, out-of-touch missionary like Paul.

I think we Christians won’t ever win the image wars.  In fact when believers try to do that, they often come up short, like someone who’s trying just a little too hard to be funny.  And in my observation, people whose belief in Christ is too attached to an impressive person or event are in a vulnerable place.  Inevitably, they will find that that person has faults, and the fire of an exciting moment dwindles down if it’s not fed with the substance of scripture, spiritual change, and daily work of following Christ.  Instead, I find that people who follow Christ for the long term are always people who see past impressions and image, who are looking for substance.  Because of that they can get past trials, disappointments, or difficulties.

Take it deeper:  How impressionable are you?  How affected are you by image or “the latest thing”?  Do you make it a habit to look and listen for substance?  To analyze the common wisdom and evaluate what’s being said, no matter who’s saying it or how they’re saying it?  Do you question your doubts (and doubters) as rigorously as you question your faith?  When something doesn’t strike you as quite right, do you try to pin down exactly why that is?  Whether our faith stands on a solid rock or shaky ground often depends on how we respond to images, ideas, and impressions and whether we can address the spiritual negativity of our times with positive, compelling responses.

How do we keep from losing it?

You may have seen the clip of basketball player AllanIverson’s press conference about “practice.”  It’s worth searching up and reviewing (I’ve put one link Here).  In it, Iverson rants that everyone wants to talk about him missing practice (he uses that word over 20 times) instead of talking about the game.  Many people, once they got past the funny, criticized Iverson for thinking he was too good to need practice or too arrogant to work with his teammates.  But there was really something else going on.  Iverson was pointing out that, in a time when there was clearly something wrong with his team’s whole approach to the game and problems with how the actual games were being played, people were latching on to a relatively petty issue.  In his view, people were obsessing over a piece of protocol instead of focusing on the more significant issue of the game itself.

Whatever a person thinks of Iverson or that piece of sports history, I run into a lot of people who feel the same frustration when it comes to the whole question of the church’s struggle to speak the gospel to a post-Christian world.  Even the comments on the last page were starting to show it.  It’s evident there is a significant change in the culture’s receptivity to the gospel and an urgency to stay nimble so we can share Christ effectively.  But sometimes the greatest challenge is the church’s slowness to rise to the occasion.  Or maybe denial of a great need, or unwillingness to change.

It would be hard to find a church that doesn’t have some kind of missional statement – on paper.  ”To know Christ and to make him known”, or some other slogan.  Many churches have been dragged through tedious steps to articulating their mission and vision and identifying the steps and priorities that will help them fulfill it.  But that doesn’t guarantee that those things will become the actual driving forces in the church’s life or the leaders’ decision-making.

Tension between ideals and realities is a source of growth, leading to practical, continual change and course-correction.   It’s also a source of despair when there seems to be no passion for movement toward those ideals, and it’s made worse when all the effort and interest is in “practice”.  A lot of the church’s energy is used up on itself, like soldiers who drill constantly, but never deploy.  Or musicians who run scales and arpeggios, but never play through an entire piece of music.  Or like an emergency room with competent personnel who only inventory medicines and supplies … while unhealthy people are outside the doors.

I’ve been in churches where, though there was “practice” (the internally-focused stuff), the environment and mindset really celebrated “the game” and made it possible to do creative and effective things to make disciples, care for the needy, and to generally build the Kingdom (as opposed to maintaining it and providing religious services for those already inside).  And I’ve been in churches that seemed stuck in endless drills.  The funny thing is that on paper they were all the same.  But somehow some have a genuine interest and joy in shining their light while others have theirs under a basket – and don’t realize it because, to them, it seems so bright in there.

This would be a good place for a tangent:  why does one church end up engaging and another end up self-absorbed?  But that’s for another post.  The question here:  how do we keep from losing it?  How do we avoid despair about the church’s effectiveness in fulfilling the mission Christ gave it?  How do we avoid despair about our own faith in Christ, especially (thinking here of the last post) when the world seems uninterested at best and hostile at worst to the faith that means so much to us?  How do we avoid a kind of self-loathing born of so many hostile opinions and embarrassing inconsistencies.  I think I recall that, to a person, those who replied to the last post or to the Facebook version of it mentioned feeling heavy and sad when considering the state of things.  Once aware of the gravity of the situation, how do we find strength not only to get up and play the game, but to do it with joy and hope and confidence that Jesus shall reign and we shall overcome?

Is the solution more practice?  Is the problem that churches don’t worship enough or have enough small groups?  Do officers need to meet more?  Do they need clearer mission statements?  More programs?  Or should we take Charlie’s approach and just figure out a way to serve Christ without the involvement of the church (sort of leaving the team behind)?  Or should we go church hunting to find one that focuses on the right things?

“We do not lose heart.   We are perplexed, but not in despair …” (2 Corinthians 4.1, 8)

Last one to leave, please turn out the lights

Read this link to an article in the London Free Press (London, Ontario), along with the comments (which are equally significant) – also, read or join us in the comments-and-dialog section.  Some of the stuff there is more significant than the main post!

At the suggestion of my friend Charlie, I’m posting this link (originally it was on my FB page).  The hope is that it will get some dialog going.  So read the link’s article, then the comments page (they’re really more significant).  Then I’ve raised a series of questions.  This is significant stuff – I think that want bothers me most is that for all my FB friend who are Christians or “churched”, only two or three had anything to say about it.  I can’t tell if that’s because (1)nobody reads anything on FB unless it’s about puppies (2) Christians have nothing to say about a monumental sea change that affects everything we’re about or (3) they just hope it’ll go away.  It isn’t, so we may as well talk about it.

(My original opening comment on FB) This article from a London, ON newspaper is not overstating things.  This reality is even more pronounced here in BC.  We ought to consider what it means, why it’s this way, and what should happen. If you live in the US, well, you’d be kidding yourself if you think this is just a Canadian thing. By the way, the comments are as important as the article itself – please read them.

1.  Are Western Christians so wedded to the idea that ‘if you are right, you will be in the majority and be influential’ that we won’t be able to handle being in a true minority?

2.  Can Western Christians function well when they are not respected? At least on the surface?

3.  Though the negative comments get overwhelming, can you respond to them? Do you understand and really hear the underlying reasons, whether they are fair or not?

4.  So why didn’t cool contemporary approaches to worship, music, and so on give the gospel any credibility? Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for using current cultural language to communicate the gospel. But my generation, at least, had this notion that if we could break away from “dead” traditions and do church, ministry, and service in a more contemporary way, most of the barriers to faith would be taken away? Why didn’t it work out that way?

5.  Anyone who reads has seen this coming for a long time (go back and read some early Francis Schaeffer). Why and how did the church stick its head in the sand?

6.  Will cool, Mars Hill churches be the solution? Cool Rob Bell people? Recapturing the charismatic or Jesus movements? Being more intellectual? A return to the old ways (whatever that means)?

7.  Personally, I think those are all old wineskins (see Luke 5). If you don’t, argue with me. If you do, then give us some ideas.

8.  The comment from “African” is interesting. Do you think Westerners have no sense of need for God because of wealth, options, and the ability to control their destinies?

What do you say when people have had enough?

One of our church members at Woodgrove members is Native. Most of us Americans would say “Indian”, but the “First Nations” of Canada have done a lot to work together and retain a strong self-identity and a political power that Native Americans in the US have had a hard time achieving (at least to my untrained eye).  Of course, the First Nations represent a bigger proportion of the population than in the United States, too.

As you might know, one of the most depressing things about the North American Native experience is its experience with the church, the Body of Christ, the bringer of justice and light to the nations (re:  Isaiah).  I know it’s all too easy to judge history too harshly – time exposes all our flaws.  But, seriously, what were they thinking?  What kind of insane mission theory was behind the “Residential School?”

Here in Canada and in some parts of the US, these schools worked this way:  The government wanted to manage Natives with a view to expansion (that is, they wanted the land).  Treaties and negotiations provided a path, and the reserve system (like the reservation system in the US) served such purposes.  But the problem was Native identity, not just Native presence or land rights.  Family, “tribal” ties and loyalties, religious and social traditions, and language ensured that Native Peoples would always be “other people” when it came to the development of Canada as a distinct society.

So one of the strategies to modernize, “Christianize” (is that really a good way to describe sharing the Good News?), and integrate Natives was the Residential School.  In simple terms, the government provided funds and reinforcement, the church – usually the dominant protestant groups – provided the education and oversight.  Whether through manipulation (“your kids will get an education and a path out of poverty) or force, children were taken from their homes and brought to residential centres.  They were forbidden to speak their native languages (and punished if they did).  Brothers and sisters were separated, often never seeing each other.  Traces of their own culture were ignored or actively erased.  And along the way there was abuse – kids treated cruelly or sexually abused.  And all the while they’re being taught that God loves them, is gracious, and that Jesus brings forgiveness and hope.

Could you mix the messages any more than that?

It doesn’t take much to imagine where most Natives are with the gospel now (though there is a significant movement of First Nations Christians:  http://psalm121.ca/native.html, for example).  Most of them aren’t too keen on “the Good News” which has, for them, been associated with oppression.  It’s just one more thing European expansion forced on them as it forced other things from them.

Well, this isn’t a new story.  In fact, it’s a pretty high-profile discussion here in Western Canada.  It just got personal for me yesterday as I spent time with one of our members. In a nutshell:  she comes to church.  Her husband doesn’t.  She’s positive about the gospel and thinks it’s important.  Her kids don’t.

She didn’t go to a residential school (her father didn’t think girls needed to be educated).  Her husband did, and it left deep scars in the name of Jesus.  Read that last sentence again, really slowly.

He used to go with her, but now, in old age, the pain of that experience has come alive again.  “I’ve had enough religion.”

What do you say to that guy?

Or to the friend of yours who was abused by a priest or pastor?

Or to the missionary kid who’s home on furlough with her parents who are begging for money to fulfill the church’s great mission … seeing the cluelessness and incredible wealth of supporting, stingy, and barely-interested churches.  How do you tell her that it’s worth it?

Or the preacher’s kid who either can’t take another minute of living under the lens that made their parents either paranoid about “what someone might say” or whose vision of discipleship is stifling?  What will you say to that kid who, once out of the house, swears never to live –or believe -  like that again?

What do you say to someone who’s just found out his elderly mother has given a sizeable chunk of her money to the Christian ministry she watches on TV?  The one that basically teaches that faith = giving money to the ministry.

What do you say to a person who perceives that the pastor spends all his time with the prestigious and wealthy, and little with the poor and not-so-smart?

What do you say to the adolescent who, at that time in life when idealism is at a peak and faith is new, begins to grapple with the depressing difference between the ideals of the gospel and the way people really are in the church?  How will you tell her not to be cynical?

I’m not trying to depress you about the church.  Personally, think it accomplishes a lot more good than people give it credit for. Maybe that’s why the dark scenarios are so depressing – we know that a few smudges can ruin an otherwise beautiful painting.

I’m not trying to bring you – or me – any further down in a time when it’s easy to be down about the church.  But I am interested in thinking about how we can heal wounds we’ve inflicted instead of making them deeper or pretending they don’t exist.  What does it take to represent Christ well in this world?  What do we say to the people who’ve “had enough religion”?

Pondering

Is it good for Christianity when it’s “in power”?  Or is something lost when it’s too close to power?

Does Matthew 23.1-4 have anything to say about this?  Or Jesus’ time with the Samaritans?

How about Ephesians 2.11-22?  What does this imply about involving other cultures in the reconcilling work of Christ?  When we call someone to Christ, do we affirm their culture and history, or do we alienate it?  And how do we decide?

Forgive me, I just had an awkward moment

Thanks to all of you who’ve encouraged me to get back to the blog.  It’s good to know that it helps.  It certainly helps me to write it.

I’m supposed to be moving on to Mark 2, but before I do, I have to break and talk about forgiveness.  Forgiving other people, that is. I think I have to put these thoughts down before I can legitimately go further.  Not to do it would make anything else I put down feel …well, dishonest.  So I want to tell you that today I had an awkward moment …

I’d bet that everyone reading this knows forgiving others is necessary.  Jesus taught that we are to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us.  He taught that we have to forgive as often as we’re asked to.  The Apostles taught that forgiving is connected to experiencing the forgiveness we desire from God – without forgiving others, we really aren’t fully in touch with our own great need of forgiveness, and when we forgive, we know Christ better because we are being like him.

Not forgiving is a burden, a kind of slavery that binds us to someone who has hurt us, forcing us to re-live a hurt over and over.  It keeps us defined by others and restrained by the past.  So forgiveness frees us and helps us to appreciate the depth of God’s love and the way he bears with us in our own weakness.  It allows us to look forward, outward, and upward.

Lack of forgiveness also makes us harsh and kind of blind to our own failings, which is why Jesus said it’s hypocritical to notice the little things about others while overlooking the massive things that are wrong with us.  You’ll remember that he said it’s no good to notice the speck of sawdust in someone else’s eye if we have a log in our own.

Like I said, this is no news to you.  Most of us are striving for that, and struggling with it, too.

I’m thinking there are two reasons we struggle with forgiving. One is that we equate forgiveness with  ignoring that we’ve been wronged, sort of pretending it never happened (with the emphasis on “pretending”, because deep down we know something did happen that requires forgiveness.)  It almost feels like an injustice to forgive.  But forgiveness isn’t pretending something didn’t happen.  It’s acknowledging it did.  Only then can we gain forgiveness, and only then can we move forward.

Under Apartheid, terrible things were done as South Africa tried to assert white dominance.  One of the best things ever done in a society, in my opinion, happened when South Africa confronted Apartheid with its Truth and Reconciliation Commission during the Presidency of Nelson Mandela.  Instead of violence of retribution, there was an opportunity to acknowledge what had happened, both for those who suffered, and for those who had been involved in oppression or acts of violence.  That country avoided the full-on meltdown or uncontrolled retribution that would have been likely and were free to move forward as a more healthy society.  Both confession and letting go of revenge had to be very, very hard, but it saved a country.  And really, it probably saved a lot of individuals, too.

Lincoln’s decisions about Reconstruction and reconciling the South to the Union after the Civil War served the same purpose.  It was not a completely popular position.  Northerners didn’t necessarily want to let it go, and the South didn’t necessarily want to admit anything needed to be forgiven.  It took time (South Carolina didn’t celebrate Independence Day for may years after the War), but eventually, the Country reconciled.

So forgiving isn’t about pretending or ignoring.  It’s about acknowledging and determining to not to let the past hold us in slavery, wary, angry, seething, bitter, and hair-trigger in our reactions to other wrongs that may come our way.  It’s about the desire to love a brother or sister, however flawed, instead of sustaining an enemy.  It doesn’t mean everything is forgotten –quite the opposite.  But when something becomes a memory, it can no longer be a present reality.

It also doesn’t mean “everything’s OK”.  That’s dismissive, and it doesn’t really work.  In fact, sometimes sustaining forgiveness requires that people move on separately.  Things may get better over time, and friendship can resume.  But not always.  Sometimes forcing a kind of fake friendship is a spark that just keeps igniting the problem over and over again.

I also think forgiveness is hard because it’s embarrassing. We all know it’s embarrassing to admit that we’ve wronged someone.  We don’t want to think our actions were that bad.  We want to justify them or explain them.  We want to put the onus on the one we hurt (“They shouldn’t be so sensitive!”)  That we can all understand.  This isn’t the embarrassing part I’m talking about.

What I mean is that at some level forgiving feels embarrassing to us.  We feel sort of ashamed that we’ve harbored a hurt, that it got to us, that we were affected by it and couldn’t rise above it.  That’s why, sometimes, when someone does ask forgiveness, we awkwardly dismiss it, “Oh, don’t worry about it.  It was nothing.”  We’d like to think that we were “bigger than that”, so noble and mature we’re beyond being affected or offended by others.  We feel weak for having been hurt, sort of self-pitying, ashamed that another person has or had a kind of power over our emotions, our thoughts, our words.  We’d like to pretend we weren’t bothered by it at all.  That we were big enough not to notice.

But that’s an unhealthy kind of pride, a pretending in itself that makes us want to appear spiritually or emotionally tougher than we are.  So it can be very humbling to forgive, because it makes us see ourselves, fragile as we are.

Moreover, when we forgive at a personal level (though not necessarily at the level of social or legal justice), we then have to move on, to let it go.  And that’s hard, too.  Because when we don’t forgive we feel, somehow, more righteous than someone else.  They owe us.  We have one on them.  We like that.  This way, we get to tell our sad story over and over again.  We get the sympathy of others who shake their heads and says, yes, you were good and they were bad.  Who wants to let go of that?  Worse, who wants to admit they sort of like it?

And at the same time, who wants to admit they were a victim?  Or felt like one?  And isn’t forgiving, in its own way, a judgmental act, thinking ourselves innocent when we know we, ourselves have wronged others?

So you see why giving forgiveness can be hard.  Beyond the obvious issues of injustice, sometimes it exposes us to ourselves.  Sometimes we would rather forgo forgiving and “just move on” (whatever that means) because forgiving makes us feel vulnerable.  Fragile.  Affected by others, not independent and strong.

It’s funny.  Giving forgiveness produces its own odd temptations.  But that’s exactly the point.  Giving forgiveness forces us on an inner journey we might rather not take.

Like I said, today I had an awkward moment. Actually, I’ve had a few just like it in the last week or so.  Across a parking lot I saw someone I feel wronged me.  I’ve been very angry and bitter toward that person for a long time.  I was tempted to avoid eye contact, not even to acknowledge them.  And at the same time I sort of relished the idea of a confrontation.  As is common in those moments, an entire dialogue went through my mind.

But I waved (not very sincerely).  And then I laughed.  Not at the other person, but at myself.  Because in a flash all the stuff I just wrote passed through my mind and heart.  I realized that I was ashamed to admit that I need to forgive them.  I haven’t  “gotten over it”, and that’s embarrassing.  And I was humbled, because I know I’ve done my own share of wronging others – who am I to forgive anyone?!  Yet, it has to happen, and it’s in process, and I feel strangely free and able to move forward a little better.  And I feel a little more honest both with myself and with God.

No one’s asked me for forgiveness.  And they probably won’t in this situation.  But I need to forgive, certainly because Jesus says to.  But also to be a more honest Christian.  Honest , in that this creates integrity within me with the grace and forgiveness I’ve received because of Jesus.  Honest, in that it denies any idea I might have that I’m invulnerable and above this sort of thing.  Honest, in that maybe I’ll be a little less likely to brush off the things I do that wound others and require their forgiveness.

Well, that’s it for tonight.  I’m not sure how clear all this is to someone else, but I knew I’d have to put it down (and try to continue to live it) before I could blog anymore.

So there’s a kind of humility in forgiving.  Not only in letting your right to justice or justification or even revenge go, but in acknowledging that you’re woundable.  Doing those things, I’m finding, puts us in touch with the Forgiver and the Healer of Wounds.  It keeps what others might do to us from having more power than what He might do in us.

… forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another.

Forgive as the Lord forgave you.

Colossians 3.13

They had Today, now they have yesterday

This afternoon I went to church with my daughter and son-in-law.  They attend a church much like the one they and my other kids did previously in another city, and very much like the one my son and daughter-in-law attend now.  All three are made up mostly of younger people and the worship atmosphere is informal but serious, focused, and intense.  More on that later.

The church I attended tonight meets in an older church building.  It housed a Baptist church that was clearly, at one time, a large, thriving congregation.  There was a large sanctuary that would have probably seated five or six hundred people.  There had been an organ, a bell (there was a bell tower), tons of classroom space in a connected building three floors tall.  There was a gym, parking space.  Everything any congregation would need to support great ministry in a strong, mid-size city with a university.

But there were no pews.  The organ was dismantled.  The grand piano was out of tune and dusty.  There was no carpet, ceiling, and most of the walls had been stripped to the studs.  The church meets in a large room in the facility, not in the sanctuary.

What happened here?

From what I could gather from others, it had been a thriving church, but had dwindled to the point that the facility had been given to an area ministry to the poor, which had converted some of the space to meet its needs.  The congregation rents the room it meets in.

Again, what happened here?  How did a congregation that dated from the twenties, and obviously grown a lot and mattered a lot end up dwindling away?  Was it changes in the community, as people moved out of the neighborhood and chose more convenient locations to worship?  Was it a lack of vision to share the gospel with the changing neighborhood?  Were there some internal power struggles, or pastors that couldn’t connect?  Were they caught off guard by cultural changes, and failing to adapt the way they communicated or worshiped, did they just get eclipsed by other congregations with more compelling vision?  Did the congregation as a whole lose touch with upcoming generations, finally entering the tailspin of an aging congregation?

There’s no way for me to know.  It could have been any or (I suspect) any combination of these things.  But, given that I’ve just seen a church I served close down, I was pretty somber as I walked around.  My church, too, started with some kind of dream for building the Kingdom of God.  It got into a better building, had some meaningful ministry going on, but died.  In this case, in twenty years instead of eighty or so.

I don’t really have any strong conclusions tonight.  Maybe not for a while.  What is clear is that thought Jesus said the Church would prevail, no congregation has a guarantee of survival.  Think about the churches of the New Testament.  Most of them don’t exist anymore.  Some suffered under massive socio-economic changes in the Roman and post-Roman world.  Or as Islam swept through that part of the world, taking the place of a moribund “Christian culture.”  Some withered under poverty, pressure, lack of relevance, vision, or even climate change – even as the church grew in “uncultured” places in Europe and Brittan.  And now, in those places, we know there are plenty of cathedrals in ruins or that are sustained by the state, though they are poorly attended.  Statistically, the church grows in Africa and parts of Asia, but struggles in most of the places where, for its second thousand years, it was a vital part of life.

So what about the next thousand?

I know that the Church, and therefore, a church, survives on faith.  Specific, compelling faith in Jesus as the Messiah (see Matthew 16.13-28), not on its static “place” in the world.  It depends on a faith that passionately and radically wants reconciliation to God, and redemption from sin, self-protection, “security”, and what we think of as stability.

But those things are hard to come by and hard to give up.  So churches come and go.  When churches stop giving the right things and start trying to hang on to the wrong things, the things that come and go, they’re vulnerable.

Even the congregations my kids are attending aren’t immune.  They have significant money problems and are financially fragile.  A couple have internal conflicts, power struggles rooted in issues of power and control or resistance to challenge and change.  In their short lives, they’ve seen people come and go – come because they’re trendy and radical, go because someplace else is more trendy or stimulating.

People in missions will tell you that the first generation of a new church is dedicated.  People have come together around a clear, compelling faith in Jesus that makes them clearly different.  Initially, they bring others into the fellowship and to faith.  But in the second generation, things begin to change.  There are tensions between how the first and second generations see things.  By the third generation, there’s a real struggle to show how faith is transforming and powerful … and relevant.

All I know is that each of us and each of our churches only has today.  This time to do our best to worship, fellowship, and serve well in the name of Jesus.  If we lock in “today” it becomes “yesterday” before we know it.  And that becomes boring to some, precious to others … and isn’t the issue at all.  This is true for established congregations and emerging congregations.

I know that watching the church I served try to CPR out of a tailspin, only to die anyway, is the saddest, most tragic thing I’ve ever been a part of.  My point isn’t to tell the specifics of that story or trace the collapse.  It’s to remember that we’re all closer to collapse than we think if we lose touch with the life, the way, and the truth.

See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first. As has just been said:  ”Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts…(Hebrews 3.12-15 -  see the passage in context here.)

All we have is today, whether our church is cool or cultured, established or emerging, trendy or traditional.

Forgive my ignorance

In my city it’s not uncommon to announce their impatience with a small traffic mistake with their horn. I’m afraid I’ve “corrected” people this way myself. But more often than not, I’ll realize it was just an out-of-towner, uncertain or lost. Or a new driver, or an older driver, or someone with a lot of kids in the car, or even someone with a mechanical problem. I feel terrible – they didn’t know or couldn’t control what they were doing. They need me to cut them a little slack, just as I’d want if I were in their position. Ignorance isn’t the same as indifference or intention.

Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” (Luke 23.34)

Tonight, as this passage was read at a Good Friday service, my first thought was, “and neither do I.” I don’t know about you, but a good part of the time I don’t know what I’m doing. I make decisions and have reactions all the time that are ill-informed, wrong, and have really lousy consequences for myself or others … and ultimately for Christ, since these stupid choices may negatively affect how others see him. Even my [apparently] noble decisions can be terribly misguided.

Now I know there’s a big difference between Jesus’ depth of forgiveness and mine. But forgiven people are often changed people.

I also know that I, along with others, do a lot of things out of ignorance (see Acts 3.17-18). And somehow God continues with his purpose, in spite of, or even because of it.

Paul recognized the Lord’s patience with clueless people, including himself:

Even though I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man, I was shown mercy because I acted in ignorance and unbelief. (1 Timothy 1.13)

Meanwhile, Saul (who later went by Paul) was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples. He went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he found any there who belonged to the Way, whether men or women, he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem. As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”

“Who are you, Lord?” Saul asked.

“I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,” he replied. “Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.”

Saul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes he could see nothing. So they led him by the hand into Damascus. For three days he was blind, and did not eat or drink anything.

In Damascus there was a disciple named Ananias. The Lord called to him in a vision, “Ananias!” “Yes, Lord,” he answered.

The Lord told him, “Go to the house of Judas on Straight Street and ask for a man from Tarsus named Saul, for he is praying. In a vision he has seen a man named Ananias come and place his hands on him to restore his sight.”

“Lord,” Ananias answered, “I have heard many reports about this man and all the harm he has done to your saints in Jerusalem. And he has come here with authority from the chief priests to arrest all who call on your name.”

But the Lord said to Ananias, “Go!..”

Then Ananias went to the house and entered it. Placing his hands on Saul, he said, “Brother Saul, the Lord—Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you were coming here—has sent me so that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” Immediately, something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes, and he could see again. He got up and was baptized, and after taking some food, he regained his strength. (Acts 9.1-13)

On this Good Friday, I am thankful for a Savior who forgives ignorant people like me, who opens our eyes. And I recall that Mercy knows the difference between ignorance, indifference, and intention. And I am thankful.

To go deeper

When has the Lord been merciful to you in your ignorance?

How does the Lord’s mercy to you shape your mercy to others?

How do these passages speak to that: Luke 6.27-36; Mark 11.25

When people hurt or disappoint you, how do you tell whether they know what they’re doing or not? How does that affect your willingness and ability to forgive?

Those who run and those who walk

It’s Thursday night of Holy Week. My plan – my promise – had been to write something about Holy Week every day. I haven’t. I got busy, distracted, and tired.

It reminds me that I’m in the company of others who fell down on promises on Thursday.

Peter and the other disciples had promised to stick by Jesus to the death (Mark 14.27-31). But we all know it didn’t work out that way. While Jesus prayed before his arrest, they fell asleep (Mark 14.32-42). One came to betray him, and in the chaos of the arrest, they all ran away, one in such a panic he left his clothes in the clutches of the soldiers. One, probably Peter, tried to fight with a sword, but as predicted, by morning he denied even knowing Jesus. Most would hide in fear of being caught and tried for their association with Jesus.

Though we may want to scream “don’t run away”, I’ve never met anyone who is judgmental toward the disciples. We all see ourselves in them, falling away just as they did then. We’re not very good at the “stand up for Jesus” thing.

But that is the point of the cross. The gospel is that Jesus goes where we cannot bring ourselves to go so that we can follow later.

“Where I am going, you cannot come.” Simon Peter asked him, “Lord, where are you going?” Jesus replied, “Where I am going, you cannot follow now, but you will follow later.” (John 13.36)

I kind of think this statement means more than meets the eye. Yes, the cross and resurrection mean that we can follow Jesus by faith and arrive in his presence in paradise (Luke 23.43). But as I’ve mulled this over, when Jesus says, “but you will follow later”, I’m not sure he means just when we go to heaven. I think it also means that we will follow him in his sufferings – his rejection, his misunderstood and unappreciated intervention for our great need – and his overcoming in the resurrection in the course of our lives now. We will identify with him in these things not just in theory, but in practice, in real time, in the course of the journey of faith.

This is his promise, to follow him in a path of redemption (and the suffering that goes with it) and resurrection. And we do not have one without the other. In a very real way those who follow him find they are following the trail he blazed in sacrifice, redemption, and resurrection. Sometimes we will know something not just of the hope and victory, but also of the struggle of the journey of the cross and that our lives reflect the way of Christ, who did the Father’s will in personal sacrifice and in personal victory. Listen to how Paul puts it:

But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead. (Philippians 3.7-11)

Inevitably, we fail when it comes to “sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death.” At such times the idea of attaining the resurrection we long for seems remote and impossible. Paul goes on:

I have not already obtained all this, nor have I already been made perfect. I do not consider myself to have taken hold of it yet. (Philippians 3.12-13)

But with that humble acknowledgement of our erratic faith, we have this confidence:

I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. (Philippians 3.12 NIV)

I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus made me his own. (Philippians 3.12 ESV)

There are many barriers, both circumstantial and psychological, to the faith and faithfulness we want so badly to mark our lives. It is, at times, a hard road. At times we are painfully reminded that we don’t have a firm grip on it yet. But Christ Jesus has a firm grip on us. Our own Via Dolorosa is one of anxiety, difficulty, rejection, apparent failure, and stumbling under the weight of the cross, just as it was with the One who first walked that road. But as we follow him, falling and getting up again, we will also follow him out of the grave.

I’m not trying to excuse our failures.  I am trying to explain the significance of our struggles.  The ones we have when being in the grip of God puts us in a hard place, whether we run away, collapse, or get up and keep walking.

The strength of the cross and the resolve to walk the road is not our own. It never was. But it is a strength that is given to us, and we, too will complete the journey. Not on our own, but because we follow. Not because we hold on, but because we are held.

To go deeper:

In John 21.18-19, how is Jesus affirming to Peter that he will complete the journey he stumbled on earlier? What’s the key the competing the journey?

In what ways do you recognize that you have not taken hold of or “made your own” the journey of Christ?

In what ways do you press on because you see that he has taken hold of you?

What are your “bold desires” as a follow of Jesus? In what ways are you fragile and erratic, and even afraid in striving for them? When have you stumbled under the weight of the journey of the Cross?

How have you recognized that he has “taken hold of you” and will not let go?

Where are the tomatoes?

I saw an ad recently for an “amazing” hybrid tomato plant that grows to eight feet, producing “110 pounds of fresh tomatoes week after week” throughout the summer. Not bad.

I do know that if I forked over the $10, I would expect some tomatoes. That’s the only reason to grow the plant. They don’t make very pretty house plants.

This means it’s not so hard to understand this “active parable” in Mark 11, which he uses to prepare for several confrontations during Holy Week.

The next day as they were leaving Bethany, Jesus was hungry. Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to find out if it had any fruit. When he reached it, he found nothing but leaves, because it was not the season for figs. Then he said to the tree, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” And his disciples heard him say it. (Mark 11.12-14)

The fact that, from a botanist’s perspective, there wasn’t supposed to be fruit on the tree clues us in that this is about more than picking figs off a tree, not to mention that Jesus talks to the tree!

One clue to the meaning is in what comes next: the famous “clearing of the temple”, in which Jesus addressed the way the center of worship and faith had lost touch with its character and purpose. It had become an end itself, producing lots of activity, but no fruit.

It wasn’t the first time he ad used this kind of illustration:

Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree, planted in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it, but did not find any. So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, ‘For three years now I’ve been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven’t found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?’ ” ‘Sir,’ the man replied, ‘leave it alone for one more year, and I’ll dig around it and fertilize it. If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not, then cut it down.’ “ (Luke 13.6-9)

Jesus confronted a fruitless religious structure in his times. And in ours. Though we’re familiar with his impatience with Pharisees, priests, and others, we have to hear the expectations and warnings here for the church, the modern-day temple. It’s not hard. Churches can become fruitless, serving only themselves. Their structures can be self-centered and self-interested … but that’s not why they were planted.

Every church – every believer, for that matter – runs the risk of losing touch with its purpose. Selfishly guarding its life and routines, it serves no one. Its purpose become existence, not feeding. Like a fruit tree that bears only leaves, it’s dead weight, so much landscaping. But that’s not why it was planted.

I’ve seen churches thrive because they were fruitful (it’s not the other way around). I’ve seen churches die because they lived to exist. It happens all the time – when the main questions are “Are we served? Are we happy? Are we comfortable? Is this convenient?” things are on the way to withering. Usually everyone else can see that before we do.

The church – and Christian faith – is not sacrosanct. It has no innate value. Its value is in what it produces. And its life depends on it.

To go deeper –

When have you seen a believer or a church wither? To what degree did fruitlessness in character or ministry have anything to do with that?

How can you tell when an individual’s faith or a church’s focus is about “existence”? About pretty leaves, but no fruit? What’s missing that you would expect to see in people who have the presence of Christ within them?

Have you ever seen a person’s faith or a church’s life revive and become fruitful? What’s the path to that? How does that ensure the continued existence of faith, or of a church?

Jesus said, The Kingdom of God is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest seed you plant in the ground. Yet when planted, it grows and becomes the largest of all garden plants, with such big branches that the birds of the air can perch in its shade.(Mark 4.31-32 ) How does your faith, or your church, thrive and benefit others? How does God “dig around” to cultivate productive faith in you or your church? How long should he wait for that to happen?

Do you know what day it is?

This is weird. I forgot this is Holy Week. A friend mentioned it in casual conversation late last week, and I realized I wasn’t even conscious that the most significant week in the Christian year was coming up. Being out of ministry has removed me from the spiritual rhythms that have marked my life for a long time. My world has been about looking for a job and selling a house, and worrying about those things when I’m not trying to do something about them. With no worship services to prepare for, I’ve just lost touch and my life and thinking has been taken over more than I knew.

I really was sort of stunned when I realized I really didn’t know. But it was an eye-opener, too. I realized that if I, “the holy man of God” (that’s a joke – I’ll explain it some other time) can forget, maybe I need to remember that the next time I get exasperated with Christians who have a hard time keeping the things of faith at the center of their world. It’s clearly a challenge to keep the Lord at the center of things when there’s so much to compete for that space. And it’s also clear that we all need help keeping that space clear for him. For all my periodic griping about how useless a job being a pastor seems to be, I can see that one of the most important things a pastor can do for people is to keep reminding people to keep the right things at the forefront. Otherwise, they just get pushed to the back of the line and the bottom of the list.

I had to pause. How much of my focus on Christ has been more a focus on getting to and through the next worship service? It was humbling to see how I could lose touch when faith is not my “job”.

So out of this eye-opening (and head-bowing) experience, I want to try to write something every day this week relevant to the movement of Holy Week, which starts with Palm Sunday, the day Jesus entered Jerusalem.

Of all the Christian holy days, I’m probably most ambivalent about Palm Sunday. It’s a day when Christians sing triumphant worship songs about King Jesus. Just like the crowds who echoed an ancient poem by King David, written when the Ark of the Covenant, which symbolized the presence of God, was brought back to Jerusalem:

Save us (that’s “hosanna” in Hebrew), O God our Savior;
gather us and deliver us from the nations,
that we may give thanks to your holy name,
that we may glory in your praise. – 1 Chronicles 16.35

When they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks over it, he sat on it. Many people spread their cloaks on the road, while others spread branches they had cut in the fields. Those who went ahead and those who followed shouted,
“Hosanna!”
“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”
“Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David!”
“Hosanna in the highest!” – Mark 11.7-10

It’s profound, really. The same language of rejoicing and hope used to “welcome God back” to Jerusalem was being directed to Jesus of Nazareth. But I’ve always been struck that the people went from the highest praise for Jesus to shouting “crucify him” within a week. When they thought he was one kind of messiah, and when they thought he would be everything they wanted him to be, they were glad to support him. When they realized he is a messiah on his own terms, things changed.

That’s why I’ve always been ambivalent about Palm Sunday in church. We sing praise songs and talk about how great Jesus is. We don’t throw our coats down in front of him, but we do wear our Sunday best to church. And we may have the kids wave a few palm leaves and sing a special song, or the choir may process down the aisle. But I’ve always had this nagging feeling. “We don’t get it anymore than the people in Jerusalem did. We haven’t been listening any harder than they did to his message, his challenge, or his purpose. Do we really want to identify with “Palm Sunday”? Shouldn’t we be humbled, a little ashamed to offer such ‘praise’? Won’t our praise give way to anger and rejection, just like theirs, when he doesn’t meet our expectations or fulfill our agenda for him?”

My detachment and forgetfulness only underscores that. I can’t even remember to come to the party – and if I have in the past, how aware was I? How serious was I? And does that explain the speed with which I crash and burn spiritually when things don’t go the way I think they should? When the Lord doesn’t do what I want him to do the way I want him to do it? When faith costs something? When I feel Christ has let me down somehow?

So I’m careful with Palm Sunday. Because we know how the crowd’s “faith” devolved, I think it’s a day to humbly evaluate the content, the depth (or lack of depth) of our – my – praise and participation in the gospel. Jesus isn’t really riding on our praise and approval. Sometimes he’s showing up in spite of it, fulfilling a purpose for us and in us in spite of ourselves. He knows we don’t know what we’re talking about or what it means to welcome and receive him. And he comes anyway.

Our acclaim is important, don’t get me wrong. But it’s not essential. After all, told to silence his followers, Jesus replied that even if he did, the very rocks and stones would cry out with praise (Luke 19.35-40). He appreciates our support. But he doesn’t depend on it. I don’t think he even counts on it.

Thank goodness.