Is This the Church?
Is this the Church?
Thomas a Kempis:
Thomas (3:30) reminds his brothers that God is the comfort of those who struggle and suffer but he notes: You can plead your own cause whenever you have a mind to. But often in the past, I’ve noticed you like to spend what I consider an indecent interval searching for relief in a variety of other venues and avenues. There’s some titillation in each, no doubt, but not a lot of tintinnabulation. That is to say, here a clink, there a clink, but no one clear tone.
A rather colorful translation but he gets the point across.
It is all too easy, when we feel that we are struggling and dealing with all kinds of problems, to seek first of all a human resolution to the difficulties. It is just that sometimes taking the path of human resolution seems to be more comforting, more reassuring than placing our problems in the hands of God. Afterall, sometimes his resolutions can seem to take a long time and we become impatient. Also, sometimes I do not like his was of resolving the difficulties.
When other human beings are involved the human in me wants blood, want revenge, wants the other person to suffer and feel the full brunt of my anger. But of course that is not the way of the kingdom. We have a God who died on the cross to end that kind of human evil. Jesus preached a message of forgiveness, healing and reconciliation and that is the way of the Kingdom into which we are called. But it does not quite have the same feel about it as drawing blood!
I suspect that this is where we need to be looking when we ponder why the mainstream churches struggle to gain traction in the modern world. Maybe it is because it does not see the message of the Gospel being lived out in the lives of the believers. What we preach and say is not the way we live in public. When we read the story of the Acts of the Apostles we are told that the communities looked at the Christians and observed: see how they love one another. The way of life they saw being lived out by the Christians was so attractive that they flocked to the Church to be baptized and to have a share in what was on offer under God. Is that so today?
Thomas brings us back to a fundamental point of discipleship. We need to relearn what it means to trust in God and to place our lives in his hands. We cannot search for relief and meaning in the circumstances of our lives and cannot seek to model the world according to our own expectations and then turn around and say we are disciples of Jesus Christ. We either live the message we proclaim or we doom the Churchs to continue to shrink and decline.
Thomas goes on to ask why the brothers and sisters go on worrying about what’s going to happen in the future? Such worrying will only lead to tears. He encourages them to believe that each and every day has miracles of own and we would be better off discovering the miracles of God that are at work in our lives and in our world rather than being overwhelmed by the pain and sin that seems to abound.
Rather than allowing ourselves to be dazzled by the Enemy we would be better of believing in God. For the disciple it is better to be exercised by adversity than entertained by prosperity. In diversity we need God. In prosperity we feel that we can afford to move him to the background and get on with things ourselves.
Is this the Church?
Jurgen Moltmann, the main subject of my Doctoral thesis writes: I am free and feel myself to be free, when I'm recognised and accepted by others and when I, for my part, recognise and accept others. I become truly free when I open my life for others and share it with them, and when others open their lives and share their lives with me. Then the other person is no longer a limitation on my freedom but the completion of it.
That is such a difficult and challenging insight and in some ways I wish it had not been said. What it seems to do is to tie my freedom and my personal development into my life with others.
- How free am I prepared to allow others to be?
- How willing am I to open up my lives and allow others in?
- How willing am I to enter into the lives of others and show them great love and respect, giving to them the freedom to be themselves?
That is all very Gospel stuff and very, very demanding.
Imagine if this was a way of describing the kind of community we had grown to be. People could come to our communities to be upheld, affirmed, loved, healed, restored, forgiven and we would welcome them as they were. More than that, we would see in the other, the completion of ourselves, we would see all of them as being gifts of God to bring God’s work of creation to completion in me.
- This is exactly what is proclaimed in the creation story of Genesis.
Adam was created as a creature in need of an Eve. This is not just about gender, though that is a significant part of it. Adam requires someone to complement who he is and without the radically different “other” in his life, he remains incomplete. In the story before chapter 3 we are shown an idyllic world where “the other” is not seen as a threat but as a gift essential for the adam to be fully alive.
- This is made clear for us with the advent of sin.
Until Adam and Eve ate the apple, they were comfortably naked and without shame. Once sin appeared in their relationship they felt the need to be clothed. This is not about shame but about self protection. The clothing represents the need for protection against the other. Prior to sinning they had no fear about being exploited or abused. Now such sins were a real possibility. Covering up was the equivalent of the introduction of a protective barrier between the man and the woman. Now the unthinkable was a real possibility. Adam could look at Eve and see her as an object to be exploited for his own satisfaction. And so Eve puts on clothing to protect herself.
What Moltmann is talking about is what is possible in Jesus Christ and the way of life of the Kingdom. Not that we can walk around naked but that if we truly were a community of disciples of Jesus Christ we would know what it was like to be free. We would not need to protect ourselves from each other as the other person in our lives would be more focussed on helping us grow in freedom than in exploiting us. We would be living the same way and so the world changes.
A community that could live in this way would be a community that would have a message of great vitality to offer the world, an antidote to the absurdity of modern living where the individual is seen as being self reliant, self fulfilling and in need of nothing but what he can himself create and provide.
Psalm 4: A David psalm
When I call, give me answers. God, take my side!
Once, in a tight place, you gave me room;
Now I'm in trouble again: grace me! hear me!
[2] You rabble—how long do I put up with your scorn?
How long will you lust after lies?
How long will you live crazed by illusion?
[3] Look at this: look
Who got picked by God!
He listens the split second I call to him.
[4] Complain if you must, but don't lash out.
Keep your mouth shut, and let your heart do the talking.
[5] Build your case before God and wait for his verdict.
[6] Why is everyone hungry for more? "More, more," they say.
"More, more."
I have God's more-than-enough,
[7] More joy in one ordinary day
Than they get in all their shopping sprees.
[8] At day's end I'm ready for sound sleep,
For you, God, have put my life back together.
I have always found this psalm to be a prayer of great comfort, more so over the last couple of years. It provides a background to our struggles and offers divine reassurance. It probably finds its setting in the temple, at the place of sacrifice. The innocent person who has been wrongly accused and is persecuted turns to God and has his rights restored through the grace of God. His solution is set out clearly: tremble. Give up sinning. Spend your nights in quiet meditation. Offer sacrifices in a right spirit. Trust in Yahweh. It is all there. All we need to deal with the perplexities of living in today’s world and today’s Chrisitan community.
The singer begins the psalm as his trouble rage around him. He is struggling now, he is still suffering when he turns to God in his need. He calls God the “God of my righteousness” indicating that in God he is innocent of the claims that have been made against him by ignoble men and women. This God of his is a god who takes up the cause of those who are oppressed and frees them from guilt. He acts against all unjust claims and accusations that have been laid by influential men of power, who have been corrupted by their own self serving agendas.
God does take sides. God takes the side of the innocent who has been wrongly accused, to the person who calls and who turns to God in their need. And so when he cries out to God as the God of my righteousness it is a cry of faith and a declaration of hope.
I like the Jerusalem Bible’s translation of verse 2: You people, why shut your hearts so long, loving delusions, chasing after lies! The persecution of the just usually involves the love of delusions and the building up of a case against the innocent man on a bed of lies. This is a common biblical theme, particularly among the prophets. Influential people, those who feel that their comfortable lives and positions of power are challenged and under threat generally turn on the innocent to protect themselves. To do this they need to blind themselves with their lies and so blinded are no longer able to find God in what they are doing. The psalmist accuses them of loving lies, of living the stories and rumours they have invented and of taking refuge in slander as a way of bringing down the just man ((see Kraus’s commentary).
Verse 3 is a warning: God showers grace upon the just man. They are warned that God listens to the prayers of the accused and will stand with them against their enemies. All they have to do is to look back over the history of Israel and they will observe the way God looks after those God has chosen and commissioned as God’s own.
It is then, in verse 4 that we have set our for us the way of righteousness. These are directed against the sinners, those who are persecuting the just man but they apply to everyone who seeks to be a disciples of Jesus Christ. If they wish to see God in their lives, if they wish to know the path of righteous living then they need to tremble: give up sinning, spend your night in quiet meditations. Offer sacrifice in the right spirit and trust Yahweh.
The psalmist presumes that this group are busy devising schemes about how to bring down the elect of God, how they can take advantage of him and ambush him. They are busy with this scheming and planning and are sullen with excitement (Kraus), so much so that they lose sight of God. They should be afraid. Very afraid for they have challenged the very righteousness of God. They are called upon to stop their lies, to remain silent and cease with their slandering. They should join with the one they have sought to malign and offer sacrifices to God with him. They must bring to an end their haughty ways and self serving manner and trust in God.
In verse 6 we are given an insight into what happens when men go down this path. They become restless, uncertain and in need of more and more plotting and planning. They do not fully trust the other members of their plot and are anxious about how they can return to a life of peace once again “Who will give us sight of happiness”? many say, “show us the light of your face turned towards us”. There it is. The way out of their dilemma. Instead of pursuing peace and fulfilment in the promises of men, turn to Yahweh for only in him is there to be found true happiness. It is when Yahweh’s face is turned towards us that we will know peace and we can only see Yahweh’s face if we have first of all removed ourselves from the darkness of sin. Their lives are dismal and fraught with frustration and isolation. They know they have done wrong but struggle with a way of being free. They are invited to follow the path of the righteous man and trust in a God who is righteous.
This is what is picked up in verse 7: Yahweh, you have shown us more joy to my heart than others ever knew, for all their corn and wine. What God offers is much more than could be found by staying with the rich and the powerful and indulging in what they have on offer. God’s joy is richer than the joy that comes from the table of intrigue. All earthly blessings vanish in the face of the gracious love of God.
Now we can see, in the final verse, what happens when one lives life in the presence of God. It is not that there are no longer any difficulties or that people will no longer unjustly persecute them. While all of that is going on, the just person knows peace, a peace that comes from finding security in God alone. They do not have to strike back. They do not have to try and force justice. They do not have to crush their oppressors. They leave their fate to God and once they have handed over their cause to God, they lie down in peace – and sleep comes. No matter how lonely they appear to be, how pressed on every side of their life, they know peace, for their safety comes from God.
It is God who is righteous, who gives to the lonely person, the person who is “repeatedly oppressed” (Kraus) loving care and support. In the New Testament we know that the ultimate gift of loving and support is Jesus Christ. This is God’s gift of salvation but it requires that we have God as our liberator and we do not try and work out our own salvation or look for salvation to come from other human sources.
I end with the Moltmann’s words once more:
I am free and feel myself to be free, when I'm recognised and accepted by others and when I, for my part, recognise and accept others. I become truly free when I open my life for others and share it with them, and when others open their lives and share their lives with me. Then the other person is no longer a limitation on my freedom but the completion of it.
Patmos Abbey
July 2010