Mega Humble

I found myself in a mega church yesterday.  I wasn't there to engage in some covert and radical upending of social norms with a band of shoeless renegade prophets, I wasn't there to shout the words of Isaiah from the balcony, to overturn the tables of the moneychangers, to scandalize or rebuke.  Nope.  I was there so that my kids could go to Sunday school.  And I was there because I am once again willing to compromise my ideal of faith for the sake of having...something...anything, apparently.

Read Jeremiah, Hosea, Micah, Isaiah, anything Jesus said, and you can't possibly think that God thinks that this a a fantastic way of following Him. It's a compromise to culture, to wealth, to comfort and ease, to not quite letting go of the work of our hands...not all the way.  Anonymity, pretty clothes, loud music, simulcast television screens, coded numbers on the children...everyone crying out "Lord, Lord" with the most honest of intentions...and then driving luxury vehicles home to giant houses to complain about taxes or (less often, and more familiarly) driving second-hand cars home to small houses to complain about the cost of trendy kids' clothing.

We already live in a culture that demands compromise to greed, wealth, comfort, status, success.  I already struggle with intellectual elitism, fear of rejection (and the consequent masking of imperfections behind makeup, diminutive people-pleasing smiles, the best clothes I can afford, the ironic smirk that implies that I don't care that I can't afford better ones), desire to fit in (in suburbia, oh suburbia land that I loathe...but I blend in so beautifully, understand it so well).  The last thing I need is a church that, by it's very structure, institutionalizes this compromise (especially one so well-placed in the midst of one of the wealthiest communities in the area).

The thing is, I'm also operating in a state of new-found humility.  I'm in a position where everything else in my spiritual life has come to nothing.  The result of a couple of years of profound (mostly good) fellowship, a temporary and tenuous house church (that, when it was good, was really good), and a feeling of being drawn to something risky and profoundly different (not yet, but on the horizon) was, in its entirety, for me, some good friendships and a lesson.  The lesson was this:  idolatry is bad.

Oh, I know it's a major Commandment and all that, but I hadn't exactly realized what idolatry could mean, and how dangerous the immediate consequences could be.  In Life Together, Bonhoeffer offers two visions of community, one human, one spiritual.  The spiritual ideal of community, he says, is based upon truth.  Relationships in this community are in every moment mediated by Christ.  In a spiritual community we never encounter our brothers (and sisters) directly.  We see them through the mediation of Jesus, and we respond to them in kind.  In a human community, however, we encounter our brothers and sisters directly; we encounter them with all our desires, needs, desperation.  And we encounter them without Christ.

In [the spiritual community] naive, unpsychological, unmethodical, helping love is extended toward one's brother; in [human community] psychological analysis and construction; in the one the service of one's brother is simple and humble; in the other service consists of a searching, calculating analysis of a stranger.

Human love seeks direct contact with the other person; it loves him not as a free person but as one whom it binds to itself.  It wants to gain, to capture by every means; it uses force.

 And I am guilty of bringing as much human as spiritual vision and expectation to my little community.  I am prone to setting up a human image (a grasping, needy, life-ending image) of what (and who) God wants for me and then doing anything in my power (always subtly, quietly, stubbornly) to hold onto this image, to nurse it, to hold others captive inside of it (directly/unmediated), to bring out of them only the things I want to/expect to see, to protectively throw myself between these images and anything that seeks (mercifully, painfully) to destroy them.  And then when things change, vanish, fade abruptly (abrupt fading, because it is impossible, is always the worst kind), to give into despair.  How can I live without this thing (half gift/half self-constructed edifice)? Why has God abandoned me?  Woe is me, etc.  Very dramatic.

Anyway, I have been shown just what I'm capable of, and I have been convicted that perhaps I am (and thus the things that I do are) of more consequence than I'd like to admit.  I can destroy good things.  I can love pretty much everything else better than God and do it in God's name...a million golden calves and no real sacrifice.  I can get it wrong over and over again.  But I can also learn.  I can learn humility.  I can learn to put Christ as a mediator into my every encounter with my brothers and sisters.  I can learn that I don't have to (can't) be perfect...and neither does the Church, I guess.

And so I'll sit through worship songs chock-full of mixed metaphors and try not to grimace...or at least try not to make snide remarks (grimaces are involuntary).  I'll let some wealthy stranger teach my kids about how Jesus came for the poor.  I'll let Jesus enter into my passing encounters with the well-dressed crowds in the massive hallways.  I'll exchange my lofty and romantic ideal of faith, for the paltry, small, real faith I actually have.  Besides, my previously atheist daughter said that she "loves Sunday School 3000%" (3000%, because it is impossible, is always the best percentage) and is telling me about how Jesus came, and calls us to go, to the poor, the prisoner, the sick.  And the same worship group singing mixed-metaphors did a beautiful Litany of Humility which was challenging and eerily significant, all things considered.

For now, anyway, attending the massive anonymous entity that I'm hesitant to designate as "church" will be for our family a Sunday morning ritual. I will humble myself enough to allow that God might be willing to work through an imperfect monstrosity as much as he might be willing to work through me (another imperfect monstrosity). "Christian brotherhood," says Bonhoeffer, "is not an ideal which we must realize; it is rather a reality created by God in Christ in which we may participate."  Far be it from me to opt out of that reality, wherever it is to be found.

narrow the way

I'm reading Bonhoeffer's The Cost of Discipleship right now (okay, so I've been reading it on and off for the past year or so, but I'm reading it much more intentionally, now).  While their are some things I don't love about Bonhoeffer--his intense fondness for masculine pronouns, his complete Lutheran-y-ness--I find in his writing a balance to the postmodern theology in which I most often immerse myself.  While I comprehend the things of God best by considering that they are always viewed through an imperfect and subjective human lens, I also yearn for something concrete to hold onto, something to challenge not just my thoughts, but my actions as well, some sort of absolute directive that reflects the absolute truth that I know resides in God.

And so Bonhoeffer's super-Lutheran modernism saves the day.

Just the fact that he is willing to discuss the "narrow way," the call to "a life of extraordinary quality" puts him in a category of theology we just don't find these days.  The mainline/emergents call for action, but often leave us with the impression of God as a mystical and benevolent breeze, a fluffy puppy, or a shimmering rainbow.  The Evangelical movement would have us be perfect, while denying that any action is required of us, that God wants us to do more than just "behave" and "be careful."    Bonhoeffer, however, like a good modernist, mingles action and perfection in ways that challenge just about everybody.  Evangelize and face the enemy unarmed?  See weakness in others and refuse to judge them?  I feel like if Shane Claiborne and the Southern Baptist Convention had a baby, this is what might emerge:

To be called to a life of extraordinary quality, to live up to it, and yet to be unconscious of it is indeed a narrow way.  To confess and testify to the truth as it is in Jesus, and at the same time to love the enemies of that truth, his enemies and ours, and to love them with the infinite love of Jesus Christ, is indeed a narrow way.  To believe the promise of Jesus that his followers shall possess the earth, and at the same time to face our enemies unarmed and defenceless, preferring to incur injustice rather than to do wrong ourselves, is indeed a narrow way.  To see the weakness and wrong in others, and at the same time refrain from judging them; to deliver the gospel message without casting pearls before swine, is indeed a narrow way.  

It's humbling, really.  What we're called to is a near impossible task.  We aren't just called to "accept Jesus into our hearts" and force others to as well.  We aren't simply asked to seek justice and peace for people without addressing their imperfection and ours, without pointing them to the God that will redeem these imperfections.  Both of these things can be done.  Heck, we have mega churches full of people who are very good at doing them.  Bonhoeffer's description of discipleship is, however, a bit more daunting.  And following this narrow way is a bit like learning to steer a bike or a car without running it off the road (ask my oldest daughter...it's so hard when you're first learning not to end up smashing into the neighbor's car with your Disney Princess bike).  You can't focus on your immediate surroundings.  You have to look ahead towards the goal...towards the ultimate end:

The way is unutterably hard, and at every moment we are in danger of straying from it.  If we regard this way as one we follow in obedience to an external command, if we are afraid of ourselves all the time, it is indeed an impossible way.  But if we behold Jesus Christ going on before step by step, we shall not go astray.  But if we worry about the dangers that beset us, if we gaze at the road instead of at him who goes before, we are already straying from the path.  For he is himself the way, the narrow way and the strait gate.  He, and he alone, is our journey's end.

It's like yelling, "Don't look down!" to someone on a terrifying precipice.  They know the way is hard and the path is narrow.  We have to know that...we can't be delusional or we'll brazenly fall headlong into a gaping abyss.  But we can't focus on the narrowness of the way.  We can't look down into the darkness, worry about the winds or our sweaty palms or our shaking knees.  We have to keep our eyes on the master...adoring, trusting.  That's what disciples do.  That's how they follow...without hitting the neighbor's car.