What’s the Point? Take Two.

What is the Church’s mission?  What is the point?  Why aren’t people inclined to come running to the Church as part of their spiritual quests?

The big question facing so many of our congregations in particular is ‘Why are there very few young families with children?”

One of the most revealing books I’ve read in recent years is “UnChristian” by David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons of the Barna Group.  Their research into the perceptions common among those people, outside of the Church, ages 16 to 29, is revealing.  Certainly others have looked at it and interpret the basic facts differently.  But what they have to share is worthy of thought and reflection.

Here is the summary slide from the UnChristian powerpoint:

Outsiders, age 16 to 29 perceive the Church to be:

Antihomosexual                                               91%

Judgmental                                                        87%

Hypocritical                                                         85%

Sheltered (old-fashioned,

       out of touch with reality)                       78%

Too political (especially right wing)           75%

Proselytizers (insensitive to others,

                not genuine)                                      70%

 

If this is true, and my experience inclines me to believe it is, we in the Church have a problem attracting these young people and their children.

Not many people wake up in the morning and say, “Where can I take my children so that we can all learn to be more anti-homosexual, judgmental, hypocritical, sheltered and out of touch with reality, beholden to right wing politics, and insensitive to others and only concerned about ourselves.

I presented this information to a group of Church folk and the response they had to it actually confirmed every aspect of these perceptions.  And it only took a couple of minutes.

So if our mission has something to do with spreading God’s message of love and forgiveness, we’ve got a problem.  The problem of course is that  either we are not loving and forgiving, or we have a very poor public relations department.

The only way we can change is to acknowledge how we have contributed to these perceptions, beg God’s forgiveness, and begin to live our lives in a manner that reflects the message of Jesus.

“What’s the Point?”

I recently underwent inpatient treatment for alcoholism, addiction to Ativan, depression, PTSD, and, for good measure, an anxiety disorder thrown in as well.  In the weeks since I’ve discovered a new community in the Alcoholics Anonymous groups.  I have rarely experienced anything of community outside of the Church, so this is a new venture for me.  I am learning much.  I have experienced grace in a way I haven’t experienced it in all my years in the Church.  And I’m convinced that we have much to learn.  My first thoughts are about Mission and Purpose.

When people hear the words “Alcoholics Anonymous”, or AA, there is incredibly wide knowledge about AA’s mission, its purpose.  It is simple.  It is clear, so clear that even a drunk reclining in a gutter knows it.  AA helps people stop drinking.  Period.  “Each group has but one primary purpose—to   carry its message to the alcoholic that still suffers.”  (Tradition 5)  The only criterion of membership is a desire to stop drinking.  And the most important part of remaining in sobriety is by helping others.  Finally, this purpose is rooted a very real need in the world.  If no one wanted to stop drinking, AA would cease to exist.  If science ever devised the magic pill that would enable an alcoholic to drink normally, AA would have lost its reason for being.  As it is, day after day, alcoholics around the world wake up to the reality that they are powerless over alcohol and their lives had become unmanageable.  And so they turn to AA.

What’s the point?  What’s the purpose?  Does the path work?  Is there a real need?

What is the Church’s mission?  Can we state it with clarity?  Does the world outside the Church know what our mission is?  And does our mission respond to real issues in the world and in the lives of those outside the Church?  Most important, does what we have to offer to the world work?

When I consider the Church’s mission I have found great meaning in 2 Corinthians 5:17-20.  We are agents of reconciliation.  Is that the point?  Is that why we follow Jesus?  Is that why the Church exists?  Let’s suppose it is.

Does the world know and understand that?  When people and nations struggle with conflict, violence, and all forms of discord that are destroying their lives would they turn to the Church to find reconciliation and peace?

Certainly we could argue that there is a clear need for reconciliation in this world.  Animosity runs rampant.  Families are divided against themselves.  Our human community has been divided against itself for not just centuries, but millennia.  Reconciliation is clearly something the world needs.

But are we any good at it?  Here is where the Church fails miserably.  If people come to the Church wanting to be reconciled, desiring nothing more than to live in peace with one and all, and to become part of a loving community—they will be disappointed.  If I turned to AA in hopes of stopping drinking and arrived at the local meeting room only to find everyone there passed out in a drunken stupor, I would quickly turn elsewhere or give up hope altogether.  But isn’t that the experience of many who come to the Church?  How can we who are so divided against ourselves possibly engage the world with any credibility as “agents of reconciliation”?

What’s our mission?

Does it address a real need?

Do we offer a credible solution?

The Church should ask itself those three questions and answer with rigorous honesty.

Longing for Easter

                The only death you need ever fear is the death you already died in baptism.  What lies ahead is totally, and completely, the life you live in Christ.  And in Christ, there is nothing to fear. . . for as he was raised, so also are you.
                Preaching the resurrection was difficult for me this year, more difficult than most years.  I recognize the difficulty at anytime of preaching the great festivals of the faith.  As we hear of the Word made flesh in Bethlehem, of the cross and the empty tomb, and of the rush of the mighty wind and the tongues of fire, who are we that we can add to the witness of the centuries?  That’s my struggle every year at Christmas, the Resurrection of the Lord, and Pentecost.  What possibly can I add to the proclamation that has come down through the ages?
                But this year the struggle was even harder for me.  The struggle was rooted in the depth of my own experience.  On Christmas I brought communion to the home of my physician and friend who was dying of cancer.  Lent began with his funeral.  And Holy Week was marked with two more funerals.  In the midst of all this my own emotional struggles dating back to childhood paid another visit.  The result was total exhaustion and a profound feeling of emptiness in the days and weeks following Easter.  Good advice from caring people helped me to decide that some time off was not only advisable, but necessary.  And so, somewhat rested, I’m resuming the pace of ministry.
                Over the last few weeks I’ve been reflecting on the cross and resurrection.  One thought that overwhelmed me is that it is a whole lot easier to preach Good Friday while living in the light of Easter, than it is to preach the Resurrection while still walking through the darkness of Good Friday.  I love the theology behind the opening paragraph of this blog.  It is rooted in the conviction that death has already lost “its sting”, that we already participate in the new life of the risen Christ, and that we have been set free from all reason to fear.
                I wish that I could reflect on Good Friday like our parents and grandparents used to remember walking to and from school, you know, “uphill both ways in raging blizzards with five foot snow drifts”.  Would that Good Friday was a distant memory of a difficult time now past, and that our lives now truly reflected the new life lived in Christ, specifically, the risen Christ.
                But we find ourselves straddling these two realities.  By faith we live as Easter people basking in the light of the risen Christ.  And yet, this mortal flesh, indeed, “the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; ²³ and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.^[1] “  For me, life too often involves groaning inwardly for the redemption of my mind.
                I have struggled throughout my life with Dysthymia, i.e., chronic depression.  In another generation I would have been considered just one more melancholy Scandinavian.  I long to be able to wake up in the morning with the joy of Easter dancing in my mind.  Yet, there is that ever present cloud of the Good Friday world.  I watch the residents of our Memory Care facility next door struggle with their ever increasing cognitive impairments.  I see young and old struggling with conditions that are chronic by nature and simply won’t go away with the dawn of a new day.  And of course there is this world, still groaning in travail, still suffering as it suffered in Jesus’ day.
                And so we wait.  We wait as people of the Easter promise, and yet also, aware that this promise is for us still a future hope.  That hope, my friends, will need to suffice for now.

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^[1] The Holy Bible : New Revised Standard Version. Nashville : Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989, S. Ro 8:22-23

For this Christ died

⁸ For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— ⁹ not the result of works, so that no one may boast. ¹⁰ For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life. ^[1]

Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.^[2]

Imagine raising a child the way we have worshipped God.  Imagine if every conversation we had with our child was to begin with a focus on their failings, their inabilities, and their unworthiness.  That is the question that I put forward to my congregation this morning.  I’m questioning why every worship service must begin with a focus on our sinfulness, even wretchedness, as opposed to God’s goodness and the potential that is ours in Christ.

In our parenting we would consider a continual focus on our children’s failures to be, quite frankly, emotional abuse.  I have known parents who have done that.  The consequences are varied, but never good.  What is troubling to me is that if the beginning and end of our every conversation with God goes no further than our sinfulness and God’s forgiveness, we’ve missed something very important.

Christ did not die solely for the sake of the forgiveness of my sins.  No, the redemption of the world is NOT, is NOT, I repeat—just about  our being able to live as forgiven sinners.  For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life. 

We are a new creation.  We are what he has made us.  We are created (and re-created) in Christ Jesus for good works.  God intended from the beginning for this to be our way of life.

This morning I proposed to the congregation that we should begin our service with a different sort of confession.  Let’s start with Psalm 8:3-9.  And then, let the pastor respond with Ephesians 2:8-10.  Prior to beginning the Eucharist, I was handed a note from a parishioner that said “Pastor Dave, Start next Sunday with God’s wonders, not our sins!”  Another parishioner was not so delighted and informed me that he would continue praying that I would quit ignoring part of scripture.  Overall, though, the feedback on the sermon was very positive.  To focus on our potential in Christ Jesus, as opposed to our failures apart from Christ, struck a resonant chord.

As Lutherans we have focused so much on justification that the “new obedience of faith” and the relationship between faith and good works has often been totally ignored.  True, we are not saved by what we do.  We are saved for the sake of the work to which we’ve been called.  There is a purpose for which we have been saved.  Again, our Lutheran predisposition has been so leery of works righteousness that we often have failed to deal adequately with the new life that is ours in Christ Jesus.  Jesus says:  “Apart from me you can do nothing.”  Jesus does not say:  “You can do nothing.”

The bottom line:  If we focused on the potential that is ours in Christ Jesus, and all that the Holy Spirit can do through us, instead of this constant fixation on our sinfulness, might we discover that we can realize much more of that God given potential than we currently do?  It’s worth a try.

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^[1] The Holy Bible : New Revised Standard Version. Nashville : Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989, S. Eph 2:8-10

^[2] The Holy Bible : New Revised Standard Version. Nashville : Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989, S. Jn 15:5

The Atoning Work of Christ: “I can’t get no, satisfaction!”

2 Corinthians 5:18-19 (NRSV)

¹⁸ All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; ¹⁹ that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself,^d not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. ^[1]

                “Pastor, why does there have to be a ‘blood sacrifice’?  I’ve never understood how the shedding of one’s blood, could atone for another’s sin.  So we’ve sinned against God.  What good does sacrificing a sheep or a bull do?”  More to the point, was Jesus’ death necessary for our forgiveness, or could there be something else going on here?

                Can forgiveness be freely offered?  Or must there be some objective act of satisfaction in order to open up the possibility of forgiveness?
                I continue to focus my thoughts and reflections around the concept of intimacy with God and one another as the final objective of Christ’s ministry of reconciliation.  I must confess that the only way I can make sense of our relationship with God is to compare and understand how our relationships with one another work.
                Last month my wife and I celebrated our 34^th wedding anniversary.  There are a lot of things that go into a marriage that lasts 34 years, or a life-time for that matter.  Obviously, a great deal of love freely given and gratefully received is a wonderful place to start.  Another equally obvious thing is that for relationships to last and to grow in intimacy over the years there will need to be a willingness and capacity to forgive.  To put it differently, if you are going to insist on keeping score, there is going to be hell to pay down the road.
                In Christ God was reconciling the world to himself,^d not counting their trespasses against them.
The basis for intimacy, forgiveness, and reconciliation is in not keeping score.  It is not about retaining meticulous records of all the wrongs done and demanding some action to correct the wrong or compensate (make satisfaction for) the wrong done. 
                One of the things I learned about myself in the years past is that part of my psychological profile is distinctively “shame based”.  One dimension of that shame based profile is “to never bury the hatchet”, or more specifically, never forget a wrong as the day may come when you may need the ammunition.  This became particularly clear when I reflected on memories of hurts that I was preserving from the earliest days of my life and of my marriage.  Such a memory is an act of score keeping.  And as long as we continue to keep score, as long as the days of our lives are counted in terms of merits and demerits, forgiveness is not possible.
                Now if I was totally honest, I’d probably confess that within our marriage I have a lot more to be forgiven for, than I have to forgive.  But again, that is just another way of score keeping.  Would forgiveness be served if at the end of the day, my wife and I could look at each other and say, “OK, you have done this and I that, we’re even.  Let’s call it good.”  Or more to the point, if I were unfaithful to my wife, is there anything that I could do, any price that I could pay, that would merit her forgiveness and justify it?  Going back to the original question posed by my parishioner, if I sacrificed our family pet would that atone for my sins?  What about a child?  Does blood have to be shed in order for sin to be forgiven?
                In my example, if forgiveness were possible in that situation, it would only be possible as a free gift of grace, offered unconditionally because of the love that defines the relationship.  It would be a conscious choice on one person’s part of “not counting (the other’s) trespasses against them.”
                This I believe is the reconciling work of God in Christ Jesus.  It is about not counting trespasses.  It is about the Son declaring from the cross, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”  It is about God loving us unconditionally, in spite of ourselves.
                There is an old adage that “Love is blind.”  Loving intimacy is not blind, it just doesn’t keep score.

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d  Or God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself

[1]  The Holy Bible : New Revised Standard Version. Nashville : Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989

d  Or God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself