Another take on the "its foreign" comment. What we know is that when we practice rightly and regularly, God somehow works through that to grow our faith, grow our trust, grow our spirit. (What "rightly" is is for another column.)
What we grow into, however, is foreign to our culture, our times, even sometimes, our friends. What we grow into is a lifestyle that says we will pause in our gift buying/giving/opening, our family time, our parties and traditions, we will pause to worship.
Christmas Eve worship at our church is a service of lessons and carols, reading texts that reflect God's saving work on our behalf through the ages...culminating with the birth of Jesus which holds the ultimate promise of salvation and redemption for us. By salvation and redemption I am not talking about fire insurance to keep us out of whatever "hell" we think we might end up in...but the salvation and redemption that Jesus modeled when he brought people together, shared wealth and opportunity, ended judgment and condemnation by humans toward humans, showed who God is and what God wants of us--namely to "do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with our God."(Micah 6:8, Matthew 23:23 for same idea)
But these are foreign languages, foreign ideas to a culture that seeks personal fulfillment and happiness as its highest power with power, status, and money--especially money--as means to this end. What-works-for-me drives our very beings. To understand the texts of the lessons and carols requires some familiarity with the biblical story. Many people sit quietly through the first readings, waiting for the "good stuff" --i.e., the nativity story that has remained in the public eye through political fights over nativities in government locales, movies, and ubiquitous nativity sets available for purchase...(and to prove how ridiculous that has become, check these out.)
But the meaning of the nativity story has been shadowed as well. The scandal of the nativity was not that a child was born "who was to be called Son of the Most High." That happened all the time in the first century. The scandal was that the child was dirt poor, laid in an animal's feeding stall, born to an unwed mother. The idea that the power to change the world started (and ended, for that matter) in the most powerless position imaginable took people's aback. How is that possible? And even today, we wind up ascribing magical powers and unimaginative powerful status to a poor, itinerant prophet/preacher whose message of radical equality and full humanity inspired the powerless and enraged the powerful. Ever seen a nativity full of fleas, animal poop, half eaten hay, and a scratch-and-sniff that evacuates the room?
The fundamental message of the nativity is foreign. It's message that requires a lifestyle that is foreign. It demands not our happiness, but our submission to God, God's Way as seen in the life of Jesus. (Interestingly, happiness is often a by-product, but not always.)
And that leads to one more opinion (hey, it's my blog, after all...). I think many churches have co-opted the "Way" of Jesus into the way of the culture. Joel Osteen comes immediately to mind...all those churches that feed into the stereotypes of those outside our doors--judgmental, narrow-minded, self-centered--and they do seem to be the ones in the public eye. I often ask "Have they read the gospels?" Perhaps I should ask "Have they studied the gospels? Because, especially if you understand the stories in the 1st century context in which they originate, you see the radical, demanding message that Jesus actually brings--a message that is completely opposite the stereotype.
There are so many churches out there, of all denominations, that understand this radical, demanding message. Some are large, some medium, some small. None of us get it exactly right...the human tendency toward judgment, narrow-mindedness, and self-centeredness is really strong. We all get sucked in sometimes. But that why we worship. It taps the power of the community working to interpret and follow the Way. We keep each other accountable; we support each other in the effort to follow. We focus our lives and our time and our resources on the Source of our life.
And really, this is a new move to an old "Way" for many of us. We shouldn't have lost our way, but the growth and subsequent power of the church in America helped us forget. As we live in a downturn, we look carefully at what and who we are called to be and do. We, with God's help, right our course.
Want to take a trip to a "foreign" country without leaving home? Maybe a faith journey is on your horizon for 2012. Visit churches. Listen carefully to what you hear. Spend time in the education classes and Bible studies. Ask hard questions and if you don't get answers that are challenging and, perhaps, disturbing, move on and keep asking. Go churches you've not thought to visit. When you find the hardest message of grace you've ever heard...stay and practice. If not, try another. God will bring you to a community that needs your gifts and will nurture your soul while calling you to nurture others.
Think you have no interest in "church" as you think it is now? Think its a great idea if only it was what it should be. Then join us in this foreign practice, this foreign life. Come in and find out what the Way is and help make the church community what it is called to be by the poor, powerless, itinerant preacher whose message and lifestyle changed the world.
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