Enchanted Community

BLOG. 12/3/14. ENCHANTED COMMUNITY? IS THE CHURCH ENCHANTED?

A few years ago I wrote a book entitled: Enchanted Community: Journey Into the Mystery of the Church (which gave this web site its name). I had sent the manuscript to a couple of venerable missionary heroes of mine, who had been friends and encouragers for a long time, … and asked their opinion. Their response was that they were excited about the book, but questioned the use of the word “enchanted” in describing the church. I readily admit that the word ‘enchanted’ has some connotations and carries some baggage that could cause some confusion.

But then … even though it may be a bit manipulative, it connotes that there is something magic at work, or something that makes it alluring that defies merely human explanation. I took the risk and gave the book that title. You see, if Jesus was so emphatic that his disciples were inadequate to carry out the mandate that he was giving them, until he had endowed them with the Holy Spirit, … or that it was necessary for them that he go away so that the Spirit should come, … or that they were to wait in Jerusalem until that promise was fulfilled, … then there’s something going on here that is not humanly explainable, something supernatural, something that is to empower them to accomplish the outrageous task of making disciples in every ethnic group in the world.

Paul will elaborate on this and make the picture even more awesome, when he describes the church as the dwelling place of God by the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 2:22). He will also tell his readers that the Spirit that indwells them is the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead (Ephesians 1:17-21). He repetitively reminds his readers that we are not those who walk in merely human ways—or in the ‘flesh’—but those who live by the Spirit. He will describe the fruits of that Spirit that is to be displayed in us, and which is the divine nature worked out in our human lives.

So if we take this seriously, and ingest the implications of this, … does that make the church ‘enchanted’ or weird, so humanly unexplainable? Or maybe we need to ask the question, does it make us totally eccentric (in the truest sense of that word), and as those who march to a different drummer? Why would Jesus insist that those who would follow him must lay down their lives, be willing to be executed if needs be, in order to follow him? Does that make discipleship hazardous to our health?

At his Caesarea Phillip affirmation of his role as the true Messiah of Israel, he then announces that upon that reality he is going to call out a community to implement his New Creation and that all the forces of the dominion of darkness will not be able to withstand his church. This is our calling. His church/ecclesia will liberate humankind from its attempts at autonomy in which they vainly seek to live their lives without God, and will, rather, set them free and give them a life that is abundant, that is self-giving, that radiates his divine nature.

But … such an understanding doesn’t fit so much of the institutional Christianity that we see in so many places, since so many church institutions are totally explainable in merely human terms, and don’t require anything supernatural, any power that comes from God alone, any fullness of the Holy Spirit. They’re merely ‘religious’.

Do I think that folk who inhabit many traditional church institutions, and profess to be followers of Jesus, have a clue about this? Probably not, but then such church institutions may not have much to do with the church that Jesus is building anyhow, and which church flies beneath radar, but which exhibits an enchantment that makes it a true mystery, and enticing to those still walking in darkness—not impressive sanctuaries and institutional paraphernalia, but authentic New Creation demonstrations—colonies of God’s New Humanity in Christ. It’s worth pondering.

BLOG 11/30/14. CELEBRATING: ‘CHRIST THE KING’ IS A GREAT REMINDER

In the utter trashing of the wholesome celebration Christmas by the retail industry, what with the gross consumerism that takes our culture captive from early fall, it might be useful to turn our focus to a liturgical celebration, or feast-day, that came late on the scene and is overlooked in most churches. In about 1925, the Roman Catholic Church instituted what was a new feast day for the annual liturgical calendar: the Celebration of Christ the King. It became the special celebration that concludes what we have come to know as the ‘liturgical year’. The liturgical year begins that series of special observances that we walk through during the year, which remind us annually of those benchmarks of our Christian faith that we dare not forget. It has been adopted by many traditions in the intervening years.

That liturgical year on this 2014 calendar begins today as the First Sunday in Advent. But last Sunday, November 23, was the Feast of Christ the King, even if in our obsession with Thanksgiving and ‘Black Friday’ and football games, and a gazillion requests for funds for good causes … nobody noticed.

So let me be a voice heralding that very (just past) feast day, that special day of remembrance and celebration. If one reads our New Testament documents on the significance of the coming of Jesus Christ, our much-overused word awesome simply will not carry the freight, it being of such infinite and cosmological significance as is the coming of Jesus into the world, and what was the universal impact of his life, death, and resurrection. Paul will state that all things were created by him and for him. Or again that he reconciled the world unto God by his blood. Paul also states that the whole mystery of the meaning of human history, previously hidden, is revealed in Jesus Christ.

But perhaps the passage that is most familiar is this:

“Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the    form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:5-11 ESV).

Of course, and I am not denying that we should herald the centrality of Christ all the time, but I, for one, think that along with Nativity, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, Pentecost, and Trinity seasons and celebrations, that there is a strong call to ‘pull out all the stops’ at the end of our church’s year of remembrances, and extol Christ the King, and remind ourselves that everything exists by Christ Jesus and for Christ Jesus: “All hail the power of Jesus’ Name,” “Jesus, Name High Over all,” “Crown Him with Many Crowns,” “O Could I Speak the Matchless Worth,” “Join All the Glorious Names” … then bow in sheer adoration before this One whose reconciling, self-giving love is beyond the capacity of words to portray.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. … The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. … And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory …”

If that doesn’t deserve a very special day of remembrance, nothing does. May such a celebration be echoed every time Christians gather, but especially: put it on your calendar for 2015 (November 22^nd). Got it?

BLOG 11/23/14. THE LIABILITY OF BEING A PROPHET: VERY FEW LISTEN!

In my Blog on last Wednesday, I noted that every one of God’s people is to be equipped to exegete the cultural setting in which he or she lives—that is: to be a keen observer, or a prophet, within their daily cultural orb—in order to effectively incarnate the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ realistically and sensitively to that particular neighborhood, whatever that neighborhood may be: social, professional, geographical, chosen or forced upon us. Having said that, it is also true that the teachings of Jesus Christ and his Kingdom/New Creation are absolutely counter-cultural, and so can be very disturbing to the status quo.

At the same time, there do arise, from time to time, those eccentric prophetic voices that see the culture and diagnose the ‘dominant social order’ and confront it morally and ethically. Such were some of those Old Testament prophets, who saw the profanation of Israel’s calling in the purpose of God, and so challenged the nation and its leaders in colorful and unmistakable language that often got them imprisoned, outlawed, or killed. Yes, they did frequently have a vision of the future, as they spoke of what would result from Israel’s present course. Israel had been called to be a nation of priests, and to be a light to the nations … and they were dismally failing in that calling by being conformed to the patterns of the nations around them. They had forgotten their Torah. And … Israel had no ears to hear what the prophets were saying.

Skip down several millennia to our recent past, and take note that prophets who arise to confront the dominant social order take the form of unexpected persons, and they speak out when we are not expecting it, or from where we are not looking. There was the prophetic voice of Dietrich Bonhoeffer challenging the Nazi German’s attempt to co-opt the German church to Hitler’s advantage, and which only a small witnessing and outlawed church had ears to hear. Or there was a little known preacher in Montgomery, Alabama who challenged the prevailing racism with all of its obscene atrocities, … and when he was told that he was breaking the law, would proclaim: “I appeal to a higher law,” and began to quote their own ostensible reverence for the Bible back to them: “Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream,” i.e., he appealed to their Christian conscience. Most didn’t want to hear that. Or, there was John Perkins in Mississippi calling upon that racist popullation to be reconciled to God and to one another. John was a prophet, but primarily an evangelist who saw the social and political implications of the faith. Both King and Perkins being black preachers from the rural South, and who paid the price with those who had no ears to hear. But who listened to two black preachers?

Then there was the Viet Nam War, where our motives were so mixed, and which took such an awesome toll of the young lives of our service men and women, and which had so many horrendously and inhumane weaponry of all kinds. And who spoke out? A couple of priests: Daniel and Philip Berrigan, or maybe a New York City lawyer named William Stringfellow. These were branded traitors to the American cause, and regularly vilified. Few had ears to hear. They were prophetic voices that didn’t come from the establishment. Few listened.

Then last week, as our nation faces the huge humanitarian issue what with that mass of illegal immigrants, who finally speaks out and reminds this nation of its moral and ethical beliefs? Answer: The President of the United States becomes the prophet. He almost verbatim quoted Matthew 25:35-40 about: I was a stranger and you welcomed me … come you blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you. … as you did it to one of the least of these brothers, you did it unto me. Then, from Jewish sources, he reminded them that they were to welcome strangers, because they were once strangers. And there resulted all kinds of political anger. Question: Who has ears to hear a prophetic voice coming from an unexpected place?

Happy Thanksgiving!

BLOG 11/19/14. WHAT’S ‘PROPHECY’ GOT TO DO WITH ANYTHING?

In Paul’s algorithm of what are the necessary four components for the equipping of all of God’s people for their mature daily engagement in their ministry in the marketplaces of life (Ephesians 4), he obviously with intent includes prophecy. Have you noticed that prophets crop up all through the New Testament writings? Yet, it is another one of those words that we consign to those eccentric persons that we find, like in the Old Testament. They may come in colorful personalities, and yet they are critical to the accomplishment of the church’s work of mission. It is also true that the equipping for the work of prophecy doesn’t come in some isolated moment of meditation, but rather in being keen observers of the context in which we live and work.

In the discipline of missiology (the study of missions), prophecy would be something like: ‘exegeting the culture’ or maybe ‘cultural anthropology.’ In my own prayer disciplines I love the remote comment about “the sons of Issachar” in I Chronicles 12: “who understood the times with the knowledge or what Israel ought to do.” Anyone who has traveled abroad knows that it is critical to understand the cultural patterns of the nation, which we may be visiting. It is equally critical that the followers of Jesus not be oblivious of what is going on in the residential, professional, social, and cultural neighborhoods in which they have been called to incarnate Jesus in their New Humanity lives.

There are positive and negative components involved here. First, we need to discern what is taking place that is good and true and beautiful … what evidences of common grace are present, even in the most secular scenes, what quests for environment, beauty, justice, and relationships. These are those parts of the prophetic calling that we should seek first. Yet, behind the scenes we also know that we are in the midst of those, such as we have been, who are captive to the darkness in all of its evidences of meaninglessness, hopelessness, and screwed-up lives.

Simon and Garfunkel sang that: “The prophets of the day are written on the subway wall.” We often find the best understandings of what inhabits the hearts and minds and lives of men and women in unexpected places, like popular or folk songs, or maybe in poetry. I think often of T. S. Eliot’s poem The Hollow Men:

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar.

The colonies of God’s new humanity, if they are to be effective, should be quite intentional in helping each other become aware of the nuances of this piece of our equipping. We are the bearers of God’s love to real people, living in real neighborhoods, with real positive and negative qualities—they are not generic and depersonalized entities that we walk among, but real people. (If you want to give yourself a question to chew on, ask why brilliant Silicon Valley-types, and professionals of all sorts find their way religiously to: “The Burning Man festival. What are they looking for?) What forms your friends and neighborhood? God doesn’t love the world in the abstract, but in its colorful, existential, but often tragic, settings. “Seek the welfare of the city.” Prophecy seeks to understand this.

BLOG 11/16/14. EVANGELISTS: CONTAGIOUS CHRISTIANS

When Paul gives us the clue as to the equipping and formation of the church, he says that there are four necessary dimensions (and therefore ‘gifts’) that the ascended Lord gives to his church, and into which all are be equipped if they are to be part of the church’s life and witness in the world. As I wrote in the last Blog, there isn’t any such category as clergy, but there are those four gifts, and Paul doesn’t spell out anything other than that they are necessary components of equipping. Those four components are, then, critical elements in Bob Henderson’s alternative narrative for the church here in the twenty-first century. I did my ‘spin’ or interpretation of the teaching-shepherd last time … now let me now work on evangelist.

Use that word: ‘evangelist’, and what comes to the minds of most of us are the giant figures in the church’s story who were known at evangelists: Billy Graham, Dwight L. Moody, John and Charles Wesley—or go to Latin America, or Africa, or China and you will find other huge figures gifted in heralding the Christian faith. We should be profoundly thankful for such gifted folk. But … the reality is, and always has been, that the real work of evangelism is not accomplished by such larger-than-life public figures, … but by ordinary and modest and authentic followers of Christ who are contagious with their embrace of Jesus Christ, and are the demonstration of that same message to those with whom they have daily contact. That is why the Christian community is to see to it that all of Christ’s people are equipped to engage in their daily calling to be working heart of Christ’s mission to the world.

We are not talking here about zealous church folk hustling evangelistic propositions to their unsuspecting contacts, but rather by those who are the walking, talking authentic products of their new humanity in Christ. Yes, to be sure, each needs to be quite conversant with the life and teachings of Jesus, and quite personally convinced of him and converted to him. Each needs to be in awe of God’s love and extravagant purpose in Christ to rescue us from our guilt and meaninglessness and hopelessness and wasted lives. All of God’s people really need to cultivate the skill of listening carefully to their daily contacts, and of entering into conversation with them. This gift is not formed by hanging out in church meetings, but by our immersion in the daily life of our neighborhoods. We are to be those incarnations of the love of God wherever we may be.

New Testament scriptures say in several places that our ordinary lives should be such expressions of God’s new creation … that those observing us will see our good works and glorify our Father in heaven (Matthew 5:16), or that in a somewhat hostile setting our lives and conduct will be so respectful, of such imperishable beauty, our good behavior that when anyone asks for a reason for our hope, what ‘makes us tick,’ that we will be prepared to respond with a thoughtful, gentle and respectful answer (I Peter 3 in loc.).

The carrying out of the mission of God in the world is basically a movement of authentic new humanity men and women who are absolutely consumed with the love of God in Christ. They are also free from the fear of death so that they can be very bold—but their behavior must demonstrate the message. Nobody is looking for ‘religious hacks’ hustling membership in their church. But they are looking for some center, some authority, some hope, some creative source. What they don’t know is that they are actually looking for Jesus.

It is interesting that at the end of the Letter to the Ephesians, that Paul spells out the daily ‘armor of God’ that we all are to wear, and among the seven pieces of this armor are that we are to put on our feet “the readiness of the gospel of peace.” We’re to be ready to share such an awesome message of reconciliation with God. Then we are to take the sword of the Spirit, which is the spoken word of God. That makes us all daily evangelists. And … the armor includes our praying always, because the work of the evangelist is always impossible in merely human terms.

BLOG 11/12/14. CLERGY: AN ALTERNATIVE NARRATIVE

This could appear to be a self-contradiction on my part since I have worn the designation of being clergy for some sixty years – but I do not see any such ‘clergy’ category in the New Testament documents. Let me say it more plainly: ‘Clergy’ is not a Biblical category. O, to be sure, there are all kinds of leadership and leadership functions mentioned, but all appear out of the communities of discipleship as those who have proven that in some particular area of the mission of God, and the community’s life, that they have a significant contribution to make. All of God’s people are to be priests to one another. All are to be equipped for the work of ministry. All are to be engaged in the missionary mandate, which Christ gave to his church—to every follower, every disciple of his. To say, then, that a ‘clergy-dependent’ or ‘clergy custodial’ church is a very weak church, actually anemic. To refer to a church as: “Rev. McGillicuddy’s church” says, somehow that Rev. McGillicuddy has never come to grips with the true function of church leadership. Leadership is anything but that of an institutional custodian, who performs the rites and expected duties of a traditional church professional.

Our telling clue comes from Paul’s inclusion in his Letter to the Ephesians, that the risen Lord has given to his church four equipping gifts, which reflect the four dimensions needed to be mature in carrying out the missionary mandate, which he gave to his church. Paul hardly ever even describes how these gifts emerge, so one has to extrapolate—which is precisely what I am attempting here. (When I read some of the seminal works on new church planting, it is fascinating to me how these four dimensions seem to be part of the algorithm necessary.)

What becomes clear is that these gifts emerge within the community, and one of these gifts is the gift of pastor-teacher, or teaching-shepherd. The church is a community formed, after all, by the word of Christ, by his life, death, resurrection, by his teachings. So there will invariably emerge from within the community one or several who are quite well informed, and are also the mature demonstrations of what they are teaching. But as with each of the four gifts, the purpose is that they will equip those they are teaching to be teachers themselves. The faithful pastor-teacher will produce other pastor-teachers. Does that sound strange? Check out Paul’s word to his young apprentice, Timothy: “… what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also” (II Timothy 2:2), i.e. your goal is to reproduce yourself … or Hebrews 5:12, “By this time you ought to be teachers …”

Not only are these teaching-shepherds to reproduce themselves, so that the believers can be mother lodes of the word of Christ, so that they can teach and admonish one another (cf. Colossians 3:16) with all wisdom, … but so that the word of God can be formative and spontaneous in the mission of God—every follower of Christ should aspire to such maturity. Paul also does not talk of something he does not practice himself—which is where the praxis of the word of Christ comes into play. “What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you” (Philippians 4:9), i.e., the teaching shepherds are to be model practitioners of what they are teaching, and this is how they will be recognized by the community—how their gift will demonstrate itself. It has nothing to do with an academic degree, or ordination as clergy—it is an obvious work of the Spirit in a life that the community calls forth in its ministry of equipping all of God’s people for the work of ministry.

Teaching-shepherds are equippers. They are a ‘resource’ for the community, but never the institutional ‘reason’ for the church. We’ve got to get over the notion of a clergy-centric church community. … And we need to keep in mind the other three gifts mentioned in Ephesians 4, and I’ll come back to them in future Blogs—they are all necessary for the equipping of God’s people for maturity and for their works of ministry

BLOG 11/9/14. JUST SAY THE WORD: ‘CHURCH’ … AND WHAT RESPONSE?

In the circles I operate in one cannot assume that there is any consensus on what that phenomenon called: the church really is, or what its purpose is, or of its significant role in the development of the very cultural tradition of which we are all heirs. It draws so many disparate responses—good, bad, hostile, confused, thankful, contemptuous, or maybe enormously grateful.

To some it is a religious institution that has been a significant part of the social fabric of their lives; to others it is a questionable community of bigots; to still others it is a mystery on the fringe of their consciousness that they can live without, thank you very much. It is a blessing. It is a contradiction. It is a community of hope and love. It is and has been a formative influence in the society’s quest for justice. It has been the scene of scandalous internecine conflicts. It has been the object of horrific persecutions with a huge number of martyrs. It has been the generous and compassionate sponsor of humanitarian agencies such as orphanages and hospitals for the poor.

It has been a subconscious puzzle to outsiders who have tried to understand all of those vast institutional edifices that dot so many of our communities, yet seem so disconnected. It has been an association that has left many burnouts and disappointed folk in its wake. It has been the expression of an authentic community of meaning and hope and love flowing out of one’s response to a person called: Jesus. It has produced anger in some, joy in others, and despair in still others.

All of the above, … and so much more.

So here we are after two millennia of what is known as: the Christian Era, … and here is the church. The church was initiated by a peasant-prophet by the name of ‘Jesus’, in a remote country occupied by the Roman Empire. Within a couple of generations it had permeated a good part of the known world, and after a couple of centuries was the dominant influence in the Roman Empire. And yet it was always so beautifully counter-cultural when it was formed by the teachings of this obscure person: Jesus. One has to ask: Why?

It has transformed cultures, created all kinds of humane and encouraging expressions, and yet it was made up of such a messy, wracked-out, confused, unlikely, and imperfect set of constituents. How did this happen? How does it happen?

Yes, and in these two millennia it has taken on an untold number of different forms … from those which have been housed in obscenely expensive, yet architecturally very impressive institutional edifices, … to persecuted and illegal colonies meeting in caves and catacombs, or in underground gatherings in hostile nations.

To even the most cynical inquirer, there must be something there to motivate all of this. The church must be much more that it appears at first superficial impressions. From the beginning, when you got two or three followers of Jesus together with his teachings of Jesus, there has been a bonding and a transformation and a power, a new kind of community is born. And, yes, there have also been embarrassing contradictions when its participants reverted to the thought and behavior patterns of the larger society from which they had come.

How does one explain all of this? Would the world be better off without the church? Or is the reverse true? What was Jesus’ intent for this community he was summoning? How is it intended to incarnate his teachings? What are the encumbrances that hide the basic intent of Jesus and render it simply a merely human religious society, which is the choice of certain kinds of ‘spiritual’ persons? Does a particular ‘church’ reflect the life and teachings of Jesus?

Those are the questions. But as one ‘wag’ so cleverly stated: “The most significant evidence of the divine nature of the church of Jesus is that it has survived its human leadership!”

BLOG 11/5/14. GOD’S NEW HUMANITY AND CULTURAL DIASTROPHISMS

Those of us who identify ourselves a being colonies of God’s New Humanity, and therefore aliens and exiles in our present cultural scene, do need to step back occasionally and take a prophetic look at the very neighborhoods where we live—both locally and globally—and discern the psyche of our cultural context. To assume that what may have been valid a generation ago, is still valid in not to be very realistic.

Our particular passage is a very exciting missionary context for us because a vast majority of the cultural assumptions of even the recent past simply do not exist. The word: diastrophism comes to mind. A diastrophism is that phenomenon that occurs when the subterranean tectonic plates shift and so cause earthquakes that obliterate or disrupt nearly everything that is on the surface. Cultural diastrophisms are often difficult to identify when one is living in the middle of them. But there are two that we need to remind ourselves of once again (and again, and again).

The first is that we have now essentially passed out of the era of Christendom, which began somewhere near the fourth or fifth century, when the church and ‘the empire’ became linked and somewhat interacted on one another. One could say (without too much hyperbole) that the ‘empire’ co-opted the church to its own advantage, which has come right down to us in the “God bless America” mantra invoked by politicians, and even ostensible church leaders. Christendom is no longer a serious factor in our culture. The vast church institutions that were once dominant are more and more ignorable. Those who are called ‘reverend’ and wear their clerical collars are no longer taken seriously—they are more of a curiosity and a ‘turn-off’ than respected voices in the community and its culture. To “go into the ministry” may be the surest route to irrelevance.

This cultural diastrophism has taken place primarily since World War II, and the post-Christendom and post-Christian culture is now solidly in place. It will become more obvious as we move into the immediate decades before us.

The other diastrophism is related, and has to do with the generational cultures. There are, speaking in broad terms, three major (and overlapping) cultures: the Boomers, which is that culture that was produced after World War II by the ‘Greatest Generation,’ and which, after their Woodstock moment, became those seeking to recapture the security of their parents’ world, and becoming even more conservative. They are the last generation significantly influenced by Christendom.

They were followed by Generation X, which as a generational culture was and is defined by a quiet cynicism, and who were able to look at Christendom with a bit of unabashed critical evaluation. Yes, it produced some mega-churches, but mostly it produced pioneers in the digital culture, that have been such a huge factor. They could take the Christendom church, or leave it. It was a commodity, not a formative influence.

Finally, we have the Millennial Generation, which may be the first generation that deals realistically with this post-Christendom and post-Christian culture. They are the innovators. They are the ones who can say: “Yes, the whole scene is screwed-up, so let’s find a way to fix it.” They are those, who when discovering Christ, become the innovators, and the spontaneous practitioners of the New Humanity. They are not at all wedded to the institutions of Christendom, but are finding ways to be the incarnation of their New Humanity in their geographical, social, professional ‘neighborhood’ in all kinds of forms. They become priests to each other. They become salt and light to their neighbors walking still in darkness. In this cultural diastrophism, this generation has emerged with refreshing creativity, and missional sensitivity to all those still captive to the dominion of darkness. They understand the incarnational dimension of the church’s calling. They are, to be sure, something of an underground movement, but a huge phenomenon. I find them most hopeful.

BLOG. 11/2/14. COLONIES OF GOD’S NEW HUMANITY: DE-FUSING THE CYNICISM

I have been fascinated reading the accounts of some creative new church plants, all over the country, by a bunch of innovative and perceptive folks seeking for a way to reach into this increasingly post-Christian and ‘cynical-about-the-church’ culture we live in (cf. Starting Missional Churches, edited by Mark Branson and Nicholas Warnes). I am fascinated because the context into which these church planters move resonates with what is so obvious in so much of the community that I see and know. The cynicism is especially true (and warranted?) with the younger generations, but also becoming inescapable to the old church veterans of my generation.

One of the guys writing (AJ Swoboda) tells the story of his engagement in planting a church in Portland, Oregon, especially rang my bell. Anybody who has been to Portland knows that it is a vibrant, colorful, and notoriously secular city. Swoboda’s off-hand comment was that they knew that if they were going to reach the weird people in that particular neighborhood, then they needed to recruit weird people to be part of the church plant. I love that. Do you know why? Because if, as Christians are described in the New Testament, we are “aliens and exiles” / “pilgrims and strangers” (I Peter 2:11), then—face it!—we are in the eyes of those around us: really, really weird.

Those church folk, who build ‘sanctuaries’ for themselves, where they can retreat and have church activities, and not have to be in contact and conversation with those cynical and indifferent folk ‘out there’ creates the church a totally ignorable entity in the experience of our neighbors. And, if all I knew about Christianity and the Christian church was what comes across in the media, and in the caricatures of the secular press—then I would be cynical too.

For years I have been a reader of an alternative press publication called: The UTNE Reader, which continually gives me insights into the world and thinking of all kinds of people from all over the cultural and intellectual map. There are remarkable insights, and creative proposals, that I have seldom encountered inside the institutions of religious Christianity. It has also made me aware that there are very real spiritual longings out there. There is quest for justice, a longing for authentic relationships, and a delight in beauty and the environment (to plagiarize insights from N. T. Wright). Don’t be fooled by all those younger adults tethered to the iPhones—there is a haunting desire for hope, and for acceptance, and for meaning in there somewhere.

How to defuse the cynicism? Simple. Do what those church planters, and so many who are serious about being the true body of Christ are doing: and joining Jesus in bringing light to those in darkness—move back into the neighborhood. Get out of your Christian ghettos. Go to the neighborhood events, to the coffee shops, and to the pubs. Create small colonies of God’s new humanity that actually incarnate Jesus’ passion for the very people who are cynical, often hostile, frequently broken, even psychotic—and yet (perhaps even unacknowledged to themselves) desperately hungry for an authentic demonstration of the very reality that Jesus came to inaugurate. Get into conversation and into identity with such, and in that context of mutual friendship, perhaps, begin to defuse the cynicism.

Actually, it is this for which Jesus Christ made us. Vast church institutions engaged in all kinds empire building, ecclesiastical personalities, and ecclesiastical controversies are one of the most tragic contradictions and subversions to Christ’s new creation. “I came to call, not the religious, but sinners to repentance (newness).” … Is that enough for starts? Defusing the cynicism begins somewhere near where their cynicism in contradicted by our authentic demonstration of God’s new humanity, and the colonies thereof.

BLOG. 10/29/14. EXCURSUS: REMEMBERING ‘ALL SAINTS DAY’

I hope the regular readers of these Blogs will indulge me an excursus from my regular thoughts (on: the church as ‘colonies of God’s New Humanity in Christ’) and allow me to offer some thoughts on the significant celebration that gets almost totally overlooked, what with all the ‘foofaraw’ over Halloween, … namely, All Saints Day (11/1/14).

Maybe it all began during my six years as pastor of the Canal Street Presbyterian Church in the colorful city of New Orleans, where All Saints Day is a public holiday, and folk go to clean up the multitude of above-the-ground burial sites, and visit the graves of relatives, take picnics along, greet friends, and essentially hang out in those very visible places. New Orleans is a city quite significantly formed by its strong Roman Catholic heritage (along with Voodoo, fabulous food, jazz, etc.). Our Presbyterian church house was just a few blocks from some of the major cemeteries so it was hard to miss seeing that annual observance. Then, later, my secretary for a decade was a devout Roman Catholic lady and would frequently bring me the missalettes from her church, which they used for daily mass. Being a ‘card-carrying’ reformed Protestant, I had never been exposed to all of the saints observed in the liturgies of the Roman Church, and began Googling them, and found all kinds of amazing Christian folk that the Roman Church had beatified into sainthood. Later I even bought a volume about all the numerous saints and read of their careers. Pretty awesome.

But then I realize that the vast majority of the faithful saints of the church over these two millennia have lived faithfully out of sight, and unrecognized except for those close to them in their day, and in obscure places. If I read New Testament scriptures correctly, all of God’s people are properly designated saints, i.e., those called by Jesus Christ to be part of his holy nation, so that Paul will address the Christian folk in Rome as: saints (Romans 1:7).

Unrecognized, hardly remembered, yet faithful in out-of-the-way places in the ordinary stuff of each day. I remember Thomas Gray’s Elegy Written In a Country Church Yard (1751), in which he was looking at an old cemetery in the church yard, and wrote: “Some mute, inglorious Milton here may rest, Some Cromwell guiltless of his country’s blood.” Yes, God’s new creation people have lived so often in obscurity, and under wretched conditions, and yet faithful to be salt and light as God gave them grace.

In my own life it has not been even primarily ‘clergy’ but, rather, modest, self-effacing, faithful followers of Jesus who have prayed for me, encouraged me, formed my life of discipleship, and without whom I’m not sure where I’d be or what I would be: my own father and mother toughing it out in the Great Depression in faith, modeling for me so much. Then there were those who were significant in the armed services, artisans, and mechanics, and salespersons, and physicians, … and especially my own wife, who not only was the most significant Christian influence, but who left behind a long legacy of those (primarily) young women for whom she was a “mother in Israel.”

So on this coming Saturday, which is All Saints Day, my practice will be to list in my prayer journal all of those saints, whom I can recall, who have been a blessing to me over these many years, and then pray that I may join their ranks and be such a blessing to those whose lives I touch. And I will sing: “For all the saints, who from their labors rest, Thy name, O Jesus, be forever blessed.” It is always a huge annual reminder to me of God’s faithfulness.