It and Them

We haven't joined the mega church. But we still go there. Call it a senseless, fatal attraction. I desire its demise, or at least a general overhaul of everything it is; it seeks to assimilate us and our young. And I say "it" because, as with most institutions, this thing is bigger than people. It looms large over and above the collective of individual souls that are associated with the denomination/building/organization. And, as with most institutions, this is a dangerous scenario. When we hear about the "Body of Christ" we think of something greater and more able than any one individual, and we are often willing to hope that this body an even transcend the collective of individuals, that it can become something greater, something more, something powerfully spiritual. And I believe that sometimes it does. 

But the flip side of this is that, more often than not, the institution begins to become something more than the collective in terms of its power, but something very much less than the collective in terms of its spiritual discernment, compassion, and mercy. Imagine if the Pharisees had a well-managed childcare, fair-trade coffee and someone paid to manage graphic design...kinda like that. The system itself, the rules, the traditions, the regulations, the policies that govern the day-to-day running of the joint, take over. Heck, the money takes over, the desire for a good image, the longing to increase "numbers", the ensuing marketing campaigns. The thing runs itself, and the humanity gets sucked right out of it. And it becomes less. And you can feel that lack. It's enough to make you want to overturn tables and rage against the status quo...but of course, you're not exactly the Messiah and you'd probably bring your own self-interestedness into it and mess it all up...or maybe that's just me.

It's funny, because I get the sneaking suspicion that many in the church spiritual leadership feel exactly the same way. Maybe it's because I catch them sneaking moderately progressive theologians like Brueggeman, and N.T. Wright, and Campolo into their sermons. Maybe it's the subtle way they manage to almost say as much on the simulcast screens that I watch as I sip my coffee and settle into my uncomfortable chair. Maybe it's the look in their eyes as they cautiously navigate criticism by those who are heavily invested in the power structure of the institution, i.e. those with the power to end pastoral careers. Or maybe I'm delusional. Regardless, based on what they say, they're attracting a certain demographic of intelligent, critical, unconventional individuals, and they don't seem too upset by that. They seem--dare I say--glad that we are there. 

But the thing is, the newbies they're attracting aren't always joining up. We're not a generation that likes to fully submit to much, and swearing that we'll submit to a board of governing elders is, well, just a boldfaced lie. Add to this our--often fully warranted--wariness of alarmingly large institutions and you're going to get lots of young, vibrant, excited people that show up for a while, refuse to sign on the line (we think we'll lose our souls...I'm not saying that's rational, by the way), and then leave when we either:

A) Do what we do as a generation and become unsatisfied with anything's ability to fulfill us and shop around for something different (after all, we're very used to being marketed to at every turn).

B) Are rejected/feel rejected in any number of dehumanizing ways for violating often-superficial social mores, despite the fact that every sermon, every song, every message we hear speaks boldly to the opposite of the praxis of legalistic judgement and boundary-protection. 

C) Become infuriated watching spiritually vulnerable person after spiritually vulnerable person be cast out or driven off in this way while we become ever more deeply complicit in this creation of outcasts by our mere presence and our cacophonous silence.

Even if we did join the church, this doesn't mean we'd be able to affect much change. After all, we don't control the purse-strings and we probably won't for a very long time (if ever). Most of us still live in our parents' basements. Plus this thing is bigger than us anyway...bigger than all of us. It has the power to reject without compassion, to judge without mercy and to exert itself relentlessly in the name of God while doing the very things that Jesus was not-so-subtly against. The bizarre thing--the thing I really don't understand--is that I am still somehow drawn to it. At least, I'm drawn to the people inside of it. The people that seem to be thinking and loving and existing as people within it.  

It's not the "it", it's the "them" that gets my attention. It's the "them" that draws me inexplicably to the periphery and sometimes--oddly--to the center of this giant, bureaucratic thing. And "they" are lovely, and broken, and scared, and striving, and power hungry, and rejected, and self-righteous, and desolate, and vulnerable, and self-absorbed, and selfless, and legalistic, and compassionate, and infuriating and funny and--here's the really crucial part--longing. They are longing. Me too. Because we're people. And we happen to be people who recognize that we're not whole, that we need something more. 

I fear many of us (unconsciously) hope to find this something more in it. But lots of us know we won't. Because we're people. And "it" doesn't care about that. But maybe we'll find something more in us as the Body of Christ. Because we care that we're human. And God cares. And God will deal with Pharisees, and turn tables, and endure the wrath of the institution to save our precious humanity. And maybe sometimes we should too. Even if we're not members. 

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.