My wife made a comment today that I found to be pretty profound. She said, "We in the United States are as obese spiritually as we are physically." The comment brought me up short. I was blown away by the truth and the implications of the statement.
I have heard Christians in churches say so many times that they did not want to be in a church anymore, because they simply were not being fed. NOT BEING FED?!?! A statement like that speaks volumes on the kind of Christianity that person lives. The fact that so many Christians in the US have made that statement or have heard it spoken says quite a bit about our consumer, Western faith (or lack thereof) as well. You or me personally being fed in a church body is simply not the point. I am sorry to be so blunt about this, but as the pastor of a church, if you are a believer in my congregation, I don't care if you are not "feeling fed". The responsibility for your imagined malnourishment is with you, not me. Besides, a person who makes a comment like that is the person who is sitting in a pew every week feeding, receiving, and growing fat from consumption and inactivity.
In Matthew's account of the Feeding of the Five Thousand The disciples come to Jesus and tell him that the people are hungry. Jesus tells them, with a bit of a tone, it seems, "You give them something to eat." In John's account of the same story, Jesus tests the disciples by telling them to go buy food for the people. I find it interesting that they were unable to feed the people at all, and Jesus knew that. He is the Bread of Life. Only He was able to feed them, and only He is able to feed us now. It is also interesting that the Apostles did every kind of miracle that Jesus did on earth. One of them, Peter, even walked on water. The only miracle they did not do like Jesus was the feeding of a multitude. I believe that Jesus was asking them to do something outside of their capabilities, precisely to have them realize their limitations. Yet, in a way, they did feed the multitudes. They fed them in their celebrations of the Lord's Supper. They fed the multitudes with the Body of Christ. The point is that the people were not fed by the efforts of some pastor. The people are fed by Christ, himself.
I believe one of the main lessons of this story is often missed because of a misreading of the passages. Jesus constantly calls us to take up our crosses and follow Him. When we read this story, unfortunately many of us identify with the multitude. We see ourselves as part of the faceless mass of humanity, hungry and worn down. However, the Gospels make it quite clear throughout that Jesus calls us out of that. He wants us to be like Him. We are to be the disciples. As believers and disciples, how are we fed? We get our fill by doing the work of distributing the Bread of Life, the Body of Christ. There is always abundance! When we are finished there is enough left for each of us to have a basket! When we do the work of the Kingdom, it comes back to us.
Anyone who complains of not being fed in a church is useless in the work of the Kingdom. This is not to say that all churches are plugged in to the movement of the Spirit. Many are missing the boat. But, it is when we are actively participating in the advancement of the Kingdom through the sharing of the person of Jesus that we are filled to overflowing. Let's all stop sitting in our spiritual recliners and run the race that God has set before us! Anything else is gluttony.
Sunday, May 15, 2005
Thursday, August 19, 2004
What is Church?
"Whatever God's dream about man may be, it seems certain it cannot come true unless man cooperates." - Stella Terrill Mann ... FOUND AT "THE QUOTATIONS PAGE"
What are God's dreams for the Church? He seemed to think this whole thing was worth the trouble. In fact, I would argue that the establishment of His Kingdom through the Church was the specific mission He came to accomplish on earth. When the Spirit was sent to fill and empower us, it was God's intention that we would use the power of the Holy Spirit to build the Church. We were created to worship God and reflect His Glory. Human beings are hardwired to worship. Once we have any true experience of God whatsoever, we desire to worship God. If the experience is real, and we taste of His glory, there can be no choice. Anne Dillard once said, "I only know enough of God to want to worship Him, by any means ready at hand...There is one church here, so I go to it." We are in His likeness and image, an honor far beyond our worth, but one God chose to bestow in His lovingkindness.
However, there are two important realizations to address here. First, we must keep in mind that, though we are in His likeness and image, we do not come close to the power, glory, holiness, and righteousness of the Absolute. While He chooses to be intimate with us, what we undertake in our fumbling attempts at worship is no less than a journey or expeditional adventure toward the Absolute. He is, as Anselm expressed, "...that than which nothing greater can be conceived." We are embarking on something far beyond ourselves. Anne Dillard goes on to compare worship to an expedition to the North Pole. She sees our approach to worship as frightening and says:
What an incredible understanding of what church could and should be. Yet, with our tame services and fear of being found to be politically incorrect or insensitive to seekers, we have no care about how our worship pleases God. We approach worship like a fool grabbing the Ark of the Covenant as it slides off the cart. We do not have a reverence or awe for the Sacred anymore.
Secondly, like a trip to the North Pole, worship cannot be done alone. People often argue that one can meet God under a tree. They can have a profound experience of God while alone. Yes and no. Yes, God in His infinite love and mercy can do whatever He wants, including spending time with one of us in the woods. However, we can only have a limited experience of God in that context. God, is by nature, relational. We cannot meet him, therefore, unless we are connected and in relationship. Just like we were create for worship, we were also created for relationship. The desire to stay away from church, or to be in an extremely large church, comes from our individualistic, capitalistic, American mentality that exalts above all the concept of individual salvation and a personal relationship with Jesus. We have thrown away the necessity of gathered worship. We can only have a full experience of the Living God in the context of the Gathered People. We can go only as deep with God as we can go with others. Churches grow large in the US, because they allow us anonymity and a lack of intimacy. Just like we cannot travel to the North Pole without a team of adventurers, however, we also cannot approach the unfathomable glory of God alone. The journey is just too dangerous.
So, first and foremost, Church is Communal Worship. It is the gathered people in intimacy with one another and in relationship together with the Father. How I long for a church service that is so dangerous, it requires safety equipment. We could all us a little more danger on a Sunday!
What are God's dreams for the Church? He seemed to think this whole thing was worth the trouble. In fact, I would argue that the establishment of His Kingdom through the Church was the specific mission He came to accomplish on earth. When the Spirit was sent to fill and empower us, it was God's intention that we would use the power of the Holy Spirit to build the Church. We were created to worship God and reflect His Glory. Human beings are hardwired to worship. Once we have any true experience of God whatsoever, we desire to worship God. If the experience is real, and we taste of His glory, there can be no choice. Anne Dillard once said, "I only know enough of God to want to worship Him, by any means ready at hand...There is one church here, so I go to it." We are in His likeness and image, an honor far beyond our worth, but one God chose to bestow in His lovingkindness.
However, there are two important realizations to address here. First, we must keep in mind that, though we are in His likeness and image, we do not come close to the power, glory, holiness, and righteousness of the Absolute. While He chooses to be intimate with us, what we undertake in our fumbling attempts at worship is no less than a journey or expeditional adventure toward the Absolute. He is, as Anselm expressed, "...that than which nothing greater can be conceived." We are embarking on something far beyond ourselves. Anne Dillard goes on to compare worship to an expedition to the North Pole. She sees our approach to worship as frightening and says:
Why do we people in churches seem like cheerful, brainless tourists on a tour of the Absolute?...On the whole, I do not find Christians, outside of the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of conditions. Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does not one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies' straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets! Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews!" quoted from The Contemplative Pastor by Eugene Peterson
What an incredible understanding of what church could and should be. Yet, with our tame services and fear of being found to be politically incorrect or insensitive to seekers, we have no care about how our worship pleases God. We approach worship like a fool grabbing the Ark of the Covenant as it slides off the cart. We do not have a reverence or awe for the Sacred anymore.
Secondly, like a trip to the North Pole, worship cannot be done alone. People often argue that one can meet God under a tree. They can have a profound experience of God while alone. Yes and no. Yes, God in His infinite love and mercy can do whatever He wants, including spending time with one of us in the woods. However, we can only have a limited experience of God in that context. God, is by nature, relational. We cannot meet him, therefore, unless we are connected and in relationship. Just like we were create for worship, we were also created for relationship. The desire to stay away from church, or to be in an extremely large church, comes from our individualistic, capitalistic, American mentality that exalts above all the concept of individual salvation and a personal relationship with Jesus. We have thrown away the necessity of gathered worship. We can only have a full experience of the Living God in the context of the Gathered People. We can go only as deep with God as we can go with others. Churches grow large in the US, because they allow us anonymity and a lack of intimacy. Just like we cannot travel to the North Pole without a team of adventurers, however, we also cannot approach the unfathomable glory of God alone. The journey is just too dangerous.
So, first and foremost, Church is Communal Worship. It is the gathered people in intimacy with one another and in relationship together with the Father. How I long for a church service that is so dangerous, it requires safety equipment. We could all us a little more danger on a Sunday!
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