Do We Need Church?

From Richard Lischer's book The End of Words:
“I believe the church was included in the gift both as the instrument of peace and as the laboratory in which God’s people try it out.  You might say God’s free grace comes with a kit for experimenting with it." (p. 150)


I love the image.  The Christian life involves prayer, worship, and community life together in which we receive and practice grace--and the church is that community.  


This week, I ate lunch with a group of people.  During the conversation they were asked where they went to church.  They each replied with great passion that they were very committed to God and prayed all the time, but they felt no need for church.  “If I can talk to God on my own, then why do I need to go to church?”  Conversations about our "personal" faith, our "private" faith are commonplace, even in the church.  A question is raised.  Are we truly a Christian community, open to each other, sharing with each other, holding each other accountable, or are we a gathering of individual me-and-Jesus-Christians who just happen to hang out in the same space for a short time every week. 


If we are the first...individuals sharing the same place...then really, there is no need for church.  Proclamation to the me-and-Jesus-Christian could take place on podcast at their convenience, and we could all sleep in on Sundays.  But if we gather knowing we need each other in the deepest way--to forgive each other, to be forgiven, to challenge each other, to hold each other accountable, to reach out to those not in the community--if we need each other to explore our deepest spiritual questions and struggles--if we pray with and for each other and the world as part of our very life and breath...then, then we are community and we hunger for each other, we yearn for each other, we need each other.  Then, we can't say, "I can do spirituality by myself." 

You know, we'll never be perfect in community.  We will annoy the heck out of each other.  We will nitpick and fuss and sigh and shake our heads.  We will forget to be patient.  We will be patient to a fault and allow the work of God to be slowed unnecessarily.  But church is the experiment that God left for us--the perfection has come before, shown us what is possible and what we should strive for, and stays with us in the Holy Spirit while we are slowly transformed.  And God, through God's amazing gift of the church, becomes visible to the world in some strange inexplicable way. 

Above All, There is God...

We get awfully busy and tied up in our lives.  We get awfully technical about what we can and should be doing.  I just spent an afternoon being trained to do a capital campaign for a religious organization.  Not one word in the training concerned prayer or the work of the Holy Spirit.  We had our work cut out for us.  We had to be prepared and careful.  We could get the job done if we followed the formula and put some time in.

I have no doubt that we can do some of that...and I'm here because God called me to be here...which tells me I have a job to do in this work to be accomplished.  But...we are not the local organization up the street and we are a not divided people who function at one point in time as a secular people and at one point as a faith people.  We are people of God called to bring God to the world--whatever we are doing.

One person I spoke to explained to me that the afternoon was just the "technical" part.  Nope.  The "technical" part of living as Christian means knowing every minute of every day that God is in charge, that we are God's servants as well as God's children.  The "technical part" of living as Christian is that all we do is from God, all we have is from God, all others do and have is from God.  The difference between us and the rest of the world is that we know God's sovereignty while they may not.

A beautiful story in the New York Times this week gave me a new reminder of God at work in my world...in our world.  A surgeon who performs the Jewish bris (circumcision) as part of practicing his faith was asked to perform a bris for a couple's son after his death.  The words, repeated seven times to make the ceremony kosher, Above All, There is God...

In any situation, good or bad, extraordinary or daily grind, repeat to yourself seven time: Above All, There is God.  It puts the world into its proper place...because above all, there is God!

Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong....

In the Tuscaloosa News on January 18, Robert Bentley, newly-elected governor of Alabama said,

But if you have been adopted in God’s family like I have, and like you have, if you’re a Christian and if you’re saved, and the Holy Spirit lives within you just like the Holy Spirit lives within me, then you know what that makes? It makes you and me brothers. And it makes you and me brother and sister,” he said.

“Now I will have to say that, if we don’t have the same daddy, we’re not brothers and sisters. So anybody here today who has not accepted Jesus Christ as their savior, I’m telling you, you’re not my brother and you’re not my sister, and I want to be your brother.

Wrong...wrong...wrong...wrong!  First, if the Holy Spirit lives within you, all people are your brothers and sisters.  Jesus preached and died for radical INclusivity.  If Bentley will read his Bible, he should remember that the first Christians were, in fact, Jews.  If Bentley will read his Bible, he should see that never once did Jesus require that people "accept him as their savior" before treating them as brothers and sisters.  In fact, if Bentley will read his Bible, he should see that it was in the treatment of disenfranchised people as brother and sister that people were compelled to listen to Jesus' message of transformation--all are loved by God.  

My faith tradition challenges me to practice radical inclusivity--even Muslim terrorists are children of God, loved by God.  God's heart breaks at the violence they enact, but God's heart is breaking listening to the Gov. of Alabama as well.  Peter and Cornelius are a great example of this call to live in God's radical, inclusive love.  (Grab that Gideon Bible and read Acts 10)  Peter learns "that God shows no partiality..."  Our call is to witness to the love we have experienced--Jesus death shows God's love for all the world, not just for those who "believe" in Jesus.  Those who "believe" and those who have experienced God's love and are compelled to share that love.  It is in no way about those who are "in" judging those who are "out."

"The believing Jews who had come with Peter couldn't believe it, couldn't believe that the gift of the Holy Spirit was poured out on 'outsider' non-Jews, but there it was..." (v. 46)  I'm sure Bentley would argue that Cornelius became "Christian," as a result of the interaction, and that supports his position of become-Christian-then-you-are-in, but Peter interacted with Cornelius as "clean" before he was "Christian."  The very act of being together--something that would never happen between Jews and Gentiles--was the proclamation of Jesus' gospel...the good news that all are loved by God.  Living that radical love to even the most unlovable is the power of the message.

If the news quoted me...
I am adopted into the family of God.  So are you.  Whether or not you know it, you are loved by God.  I will do my best to reveal God's love in the way I accept you, respect you, serve you, pray for you.  I won't always be perfect, but the God that loves us both will embrace us in our imperfection and re-create us every moment of every day until God's Kingdom is complete.  

Connectional Church

I took the youth to the beach this weekend (thank you Martin Luther King!).  We had the privilege of Sunday school and worship with WInter Park Presbyterian Church in Wilmington on Sunday.  On the way down we talked about what it meant to live together in Christian community and how that is different from school or work communities.

We lived and practiced Christian community with each other, recognizing the unique feelings of the commitment to trust each other, to listen to each other, to support each other, to pray for and with each other, and to know there are communities all over that commit to the same thing.  We don't do it perfectly, but we do it knowing that God has come to be with and for us, and we will always try to live in a way that is with and for others.

And, we played a boatload of Catch Phrase...

Keep them in your prayers...

Tragedy hit with the shooting of a congresswoman form Arizona and the death of 6, including a child.  The newscaster on NPR encouraged listeners to "keep them in your prayers."  And we all will...or we all will say we will.  Perhaps all of us will lift a prayer for them, for their families...and I find that interesting.  As of May 2009 in a Pew survey, only about 40% of us attend worship at least weekly (or say we do).  Now certainly we can pray without attending weekly worship, but I wonder what God thinks.

American behavior reflects belief in an interesting God.  God is to be turned to in times of tragedy.  God rescues people personally from train wrecks, plane crashes, or tornados...especially tornados.  God is on our side in war and definitively against our enemies.  God punishes people who live lifestyles we don't agree with (OK, not really when we ask him, but when something bad happens to them, we credit God).  And most typically, we invoke prayer to God in times of tragedy.  "Our prayers are with you."  "We'll be praying for you."  "We encourage you to keep the victims in your thoughts and prayers."

So, if we are making a movie about a "good person" and need a foil, we get a Jesus Freak.  If something bad has happened and we need a band-aid, we get encouragement to "pray."  So what kind of God is this? Is what we want a God-in-the-box that we can take out when we need something, then put away, out-of-sight, out-of-mind while we live our "regular" lives?  Is God someone who doesn't want to be bothered with us on a day-to-day basis, but wants to help us feel better or reward us occasionally when God feels like it or we manage to get God's attention?  Is God our own personal giant gavel, pounding order back into a disorderly world?

And how do we know who this God is anyway?  Do we learn about God from a church?  from our neighbor?  from the movies/television/radio evangelist?  or do we just function out of a vague set of assumptions that have coalesced from different kinds of exposure over the years?  Is our God one part television, one part crazy Aunt Bettie fundamentalism, one part occasional Sunday school with a friend, and one part Christmas and Easter service?

The Presbyterian tradition teaches that if we want to get an authentic glimpse of God - if we want to know who God "really" is, and not just the coalesced version that suits our collective whims and needs - then we cannot do better than to grab our Bible (it's that best-selling book on the shelf that few actually read), go to church, and together with others, struggle with the texts and listen to what God wants to teach us.

I want us to pray for the victims of this tragedy, as well as all others who suffer.  But I want the prayer to grow out of a consistent relationship with God every day, and not a pop culture quick fix for what ails us.  Because, real prayer doesn't fix others, it changes us, so that we become a part of the healing that God works in the world.

Jesus Freak...

Family gets to spend time together during the holidays.  No exception this year.  All four kids were home for the holidays.  Didn't leave much time for blogging.

They brought home a movie for us to watch...Easy A.  I liked the movie, but must admit to extreme fatigue centered on the depiction of Christians in any kind of contemporary media.  The best descriptor...Jesus Freak.  The terminology fits the said "Christians."  They are judgmental and condescending.  Those who don't "fit" with their idea of "good" are excluded at best, condemned at worst.

In this movie and others in the genre, Saved to name one, the person(s) who are vilified by the Jesus freaks are the ones who actually live more closely "the way" Jesus taught.  They are accept the unacceptable.  They serve others.  They quietly live lives of honor and integrity while the Jesus freaks work on their perfection at the expense of all those around them.

How did this happen and why do we allow the myth to continue?  The movies are funny; the Jesus freaks do provide comic relief and great entertainment.  But, I can't find a consistent alternative view of what it means to be Christian in a public venue.  People only see the movies--they don't set foot inside the church community.  We don't speak publicly of our faith--it's between "me and Jesus."   Those who use faith to condemn people to hell in the name of Christ, to exclude the lowly and disadvantaged, to insist that only perfect people are allowed in the kingdom, insert your favorite irritant here, those people speak loudly and persistently about faith.  Frankly, if I am not a church-goer, familiar with Christianity only in an evening-news/movie-character way, I would tuck tail and run.

In my younger years, I lived out my faith in the "Jesus freak" tradition.  I was encouraged "not to yoke with unbelievers," to "be sure people know they will burn in hell if they are not 'saved'," to adhere to a rigid set of "beliefs" without question.  The older I got and the more I actually read the biblical text, the less I could justify that tradition.  I never see Jesus ask people what they "believe" before he shows the grace of God through healing or acceptance or meeting the most fundamental human needs.  The only time I see him questioning beliefs is with the religious peoples.  What I see of Jesus is living a life of "love."  In the first century, love was the action of reconciliation, peace-making, feeding the hungry, healing the sick, including and respecting all in the community and ensuring that all had the opportunity for life abundant. Life abundant was not just suffering through hell in this world with the promise that heaven would be great.  Life abundant was sharing, receiving, living with each other's pain and sorrow, putting God first--and then recognizing the joy and life that comes through that way of being in the world.

The "Jesus freak" traditions in Christianity certainly still exist.  They thrive.  The human condition seems to seek the sure, the judgment, the black and white...and especially the we're-in-you're-out" way of being in the world.  Jesus' way is hard.  It cannot be fully understood.  It is hard to explain.  It requires sacrifice.  It most often journeys through pain.  The Jesus freak tradition asked my mother to leave the church when she divorced my father after years of attempting reconciliation.  The Jesus way meant God walked with her every step of the way, weeping and holding her up, celebrating the reconciliation that happened in different ways, even though the marriage was not restored.

I practice my faith in a Christian church that works to live the Jesus tradition, not the Jesus freak tradition.  It is hard work.  It demands patience and prayer and choices to stay in relationship every minute of every day.  It is utterly joyful at times when the Kingdom of God breaks in.  We live in the promise that our attempts to live as Jesus lived will bring about that Kingdom more fully every day, whether we can see it or not.  There are troublesome passages that you can always quote that make Jesus look more like the freak side than the grace side, but looking at the whole witness, the patterns are clear.

If I had a mountain top from which you all could hear me, I would shout at you...I am NOT a Jesus freak.  I AM a Christian...one trying to live the way I see Jesus living in the biblical text.  I actually read and study the text, struggle with its difficulties, seek to listen to what God is calling me to do, and live my call in relationship to a community that keeps me grounded in the reality of life, in the difficulty of faith, and in the joy of experiencing the grace of that community and doing my best to share grace with them--and with the world around me.

If I had a TV show, that's what the Christian would look like.  If I had a movie, well, you get the point.  Just know this, Christianity as Christ practiced it is far different than we see in the media.  It's time we claim our real identity and stop cringing and hiding because someone who doesn't know what they are talking about defines identity for us.

The Christian flag?

I watched the news a couple days ago and people were voting on what flag to fly in a public space for the next year.  Hundreds of people--Christian people--voted to wave the Christian flag.  They waved little flags in their seats as they listened to debate and cast their votes.  I wondered what Jesus would think of these "disciples."  I'm sure good people were flag-waving, but I couldn't help but think that Jesus would call us on the carpet.  Have you fed the hungry today?  Have you served the poor?  Have you sacrificed something you want for the welfare of someone else, even someone who is undeserving?

Jesus didn't bring a flag and power to the world.  He brought service and God's love.  A bunch of metaphorical flag-waving goes on at Christmas...keep Christ in...war on Christmas...reason for the season...

It's an interesting question to ask.  Would Jesus have fought for the flag?

Merry Christmas everyone!