They'll Know We Are Christians By [You Fill in the Blank]

One of the closing songs we sang a few weeks ago at church was the classic "They'll Know We Are Christians".  The song is certainly biblical in its message and context, remains contemporary  in any age of the church, and has not suffered the same notoriety associated with other oldies such as Kumbaya.  And we know the way the song goes, paraphrasing as it does from John 13:35...the world (they) will know that we are truly followers of Jesus by our love.

Sadly, however true and biblically sound the song may be, I found myself thinking as we sang it that the practical reality of our witness in the world has been badly tarnished and the words seemed empty to me.  It is no longer true that the world knows that we proclaim to be followers of Jesus by the demonstration of our love.  They know we are "Christians" by our judgment, by our enforced isolation in our little enclaves, by our separation from the culture around us, by our dogmatic lecturing on a handful of issues, and by our legislative initiatives.  I always heard that it was very difficult to get a Christian to explain what they were for, but that they were never at a loss to explain what they were against.

How did we ever stray that far from the new commandment given by Jesus Himself as He faced the ultimate giving of Himself in love for the world He had created and now intended to deliver from futility and darkness?  The theme of love is scattered throughout the writings of the Apostle John.  Besides the recording of Jesus's words in his gospel, John writes " We know that we have passed from death to life because we love..." (I John 3:14; "Beloved let us love one another, for love is of God, and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God..." (I John 4:7);  "Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another..." (I John 4:20); and  "Now I plead with you...not as though I wrote a new commandment to you but one which we have had from the beginning, that we love one another..." (II John 5).  You get the picture.

Church tradition speaks of John in his latter years, and consistently indicate that he was a broken record, always exhorting his audience, "My little children, love one another."  When pressed as to why he preached the same sermon over and over, it is recorded in that tradition that he replied, "Because it is the commandment of the Lord, and if we can attain only this one thing, it will be enough."  Perhaps in this Christmas season we need to be reminded that the entire message of the season is one, ongoing demonstration of the love of God towards the world He created, and then perhaps we can lay aside not just the sin that so easily besets us, but the prejudice and the doctrinal arguments and the righteous judgments that most easily beset us, and then let us run the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who exhorted us above all to love.  

The Turn of the Cycle, First Sunday of Advent

Once again the cycle turns and I find myself at the beginning.  And as I sat in church on the First Sunday of Advent I recognized that the Jews, and then the Christians, had it right when they formed their calendars.  There was always what I would call a secular calendar marking time based on days and cycles and seasons, and there was a second calendar, a sacred calendar, marking time based on the presence and action of God in the work of deliverance and reconciliation.  Despite this dual marking or remembrance of time, we tend to order our lives by the secular calendar with seasons bracketed by holidays, vacations, deadlines, paychecks, appointments, retirement, and dozens of other mile markers.  And that calendar, the secular one, tends to be so filled up that it's easy to forget the sacred, the spiritual ordering of our minds, hearts, and souls that should somehow be more real and meaningful.   The world moves on, year after year, but even as it does God is still at work, still present.  And it should be the sacred calendar that brings us back to the underlying reality of what is true and right in our lives.

That is why I begin each year by buying a new calendar book, one that is formatted to fit the secular year from January 1 to December 31, one that has all of the pre-printed reminders of things the publishers feel we ought to be aware of.  Some are useless; for instance, why give me four years of important dates reminding me that New Year's Day is on January 1 each year.  Some are bizarre; who did lobby to get Administrative Professionals Day started and put on the calendar?  And a few are useful; for instance, knowing when Canada Day was would have prevented me from visiting the Canadian side of Niagara Falls on that day with all of the other thousands of Canadians.  But what I do with this new calendar is immediately pencil in the liturgical calendar for the year, placing the dates and seasons that have to do with God's work within our world, and, by extension, God's work within my life.  Thus it is I find myself back at the beginning of the old, old story with a full four weeks until the end of the secular year.  And it is my hope that I receive the story fresh and new as it begins its retelling, and that I find my own life once again woven into its context and storyline.

True, but....

I recently heard a radio preacher use the word antinomy.  It must be a technical word because I have never heard it used in the way he used it.  I am familiar (from my Christian Reconstructionist days) with the word antinomian, meaning someone who rejects the binding nature of the law of God (for a variety of different reasons), but the sense in which it was used on the radio was closer to the definition I found in Merriam Websters dictionary...."a contradiction between two apparently equally valid principles, a fundamental and apparently unresolvable conflict or contradiction."  The speaker was referring to some of the mysteries we commonly hold in our study of the scripture, free will versus divine sovereignty, God is love versus the wrath of God, created in the image of God versus total corruption, and others like those.

We do not naturally feel drawn to such things because we have been drilled that there is absolute truth, that this absolute truth is knowable by revelation, and that this revelation is given to us in the written Bible.  Thus we have the common proverb "God says it, I believe it, that settles it."  But when God says, or does, or shows forth two things that in themselves are true but which are the opposite of each other, then we are forced into the mental and verbal gymnastics that fill even the best of commentaries.  And the argument that these are just two sides of the same coin is an analogy that falls short in my estimation, because anyone who has won or lost a bet on a coin flip knows that which side of the coin lands up takes precedence over the side that is down.  It is that very coin flip that has split arminianism from calvinism, or universalists from fundamentalist.

I don't have much more to comment on this, nor do I remember much of how the radio preacher dealt with the apparent antinomy he had in mind.  I merely think we would be better served if more of our teachers would dare to admit that they do not have a clue as to how two characteristically opposite truths can be true at the same time.  It would be much more honest than cobbling together a system of intricate verbal arguments that seem to me to be nothing but a house of cards waiting for a stray breeze to scatter them.  Let's accept the fact that our "professionals" cannot really adequately explain the tensions in Christian revelation and living to us, and let us seek to live our lives well in the moment, trusting to the one who holds our souls in His hand.

Short Term Missions

This past Sunday we had a report from someone who had recently gone overseas as part of a short term missions trip to Uganda.  Let me state up front that I am not a fan of short term missions trips, but it was refreshing to finally hear someone honestly assess the purpose of the trip.  The speaker simply said the trip was for us, implying that there was no long term strategy for Uganda that was worked out by the trip, but rather a sincere recognition that sometimes we need to get outside our comfort zone to fully realize what resources we have and the potential given to us.  This type of trip will never have long lasting impacts on the region of visit, but it can provide a return on the investment made within the person who attended.  An honest assessment,  but in my mind still misguided somewhat.  Here is where I am coming from on this.  If the trip was all about them, they should have paid for it.  Instead they solicited donations and scholarships from individuals and churches to underwrite a portion of the cost.  I don't care how people choose to spend their own money, but I do have this one problem with short term missions trips soliciting outreach money from my church....the money spent sending and accommodating the team is much better spent actually addressing the needs of the recipient population, and this can only be done by organizations working in country with local staff and resources.

Typical church missions trips that I have seen are usually a minimum team of 8 to 10 people.  If that is true, what the team spent to get to and from the location overseas, and for the expenses they incurred for the week or so they were in country, that amount could have paid for the nutritional program that the NGO I work with operates for a full year's period.  I cannot help but weigh in my mind the blessing and inspiration of 8 to 10 people over the intervention in the life of more than 1500 at risk children and mothers.  I think we need to be wiser stewards of how we invest the money of our congregations.

The Tradition of the Elders

There was some conflict in the Sunday church service for me.  It happened in this fashion.  The sermon was about how the "tradition of the elders" often put aside what the real heart of the commandment of God was intended to be, and that it was so easy to be doing religious things while totally missing the mind and will of God.  All well and good, but the opening prayer spoke of what the will of God was, and, according to the pray-er for the day, that was to fill up the church with people every Sunday and wasn't it great that the church was pretty full today.  And that's where the disconnect came in for me.  We speak (our pulpits speak) of what God requires of us in spirit and truth, but the average person in the pew seems to have a much different idea of what church is all about.  Attendance and tithing seem to be the measures of our spiritual maturity rather than sacrificial and humble service.  And how does that come to pass?  As evangelicals, lovers of the gospel, we have allowed the traditions of our elders to inform our spirituality rather than the Holy Spirit of God.  We substitute right doctrine, witnessing, cheerful giving, scripture reading, attendance at church, participation in church committees, and a thousand other good things to eclipse our relationship to the living God.  And this is what bugs me most.  I can see that transition clearly, but I don't have a clue how to turn it around and have it take hold of a church congregation in body and soul.

What does God require of us?  To do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with our God.  That has nothing to do with attendance at church or any other tradition or practice that we may have picked up along our journey.  In fact the practice of those examples of spirituality is more apt to occur in our lives outside the church rather than in one of our church gatherings.  Until then it seems as if our congregations will continue to emphasize things that are not necessarily bad, but things that just keep our focus away from things that could work eternal good in us.  Inherited Christianity can be a strong foundation upon which to build, or a cage that keeps us from liberty in Christ.  It's something I need to consider further before I can hope to have any answers.
      

Who is Welcome at the Table of the Lord?

I have recently been doing some historical research into the concept of who is welcome to partake of the table of the Lord at communion after the topic came up at our last elder's meeting.  I was surprised that there are actually three defensible positions that exist in the church.  From most liberal to most strict they are as follows (and I simplify their positions for the sake of presentation because there are nuances to each of them).  Open communion allows anyone in the service who is saved to partake of communion.  Some churches say that those who love Jesus are welcome, or even just those that are seeking God may come.  Using this definition even sincere unbelievers can be included in the table.  Close communion is a middle ground, and restricts communion to those that are saved and baptized, and who are of "like faith and practice", meaning you believe the same things and practice your spirituality in roughly the same way.  In theory a Lutheran could probably come to an Episcopal table, but it is unlikely that a Baptist would (sacramental view versus ordinance).  Closed communion restricts the table to those that are saved, baptized and members in good standing of the local congregation or denomination, period.  So which is right?  Or as it was broached at the elder's meeting, which one is the correct "bible" position?  In theory that sounds good, but in practice it's not so easy to decide since parts of the church hold each of the positions and can defend their practice with Chapter and Verse.

I have practiced my Christianity under each of the three and what I am going to offer now is my own opinion based not on bible verses or even historic church practices, but on what seems to fit the Jesus that I know best.  I know that this may be grounds for immediate dismissal, condemnation for making God in my image and likeness and synthesizing my religion into what works for me.  But sometimes, just sometimes, the old formula "What would Jesus do" works better for me than dogma or doctrine.  And I think that what Jesus would do is say "Come to me all you who are heavy laden and I will give you rest."  He would choose to eat with open and profligate sinners and tax collectors.  He would break bread saying "I am the bread of life..." while giving it to any that had their hand out.  I don't think that He would have built a fence around His table but would have invited all to taste and see that the Lord and His graciousness is indeed good.

They say we are to worship God in spirit and in truth.  I have worshiped God in truth to the detriment of all else, making every exercise of my faith a division, an exclusion, a marking out, a drawing of lines and deciding what side I am on.  For now, I choose to worship God in spirit, and given the choice between living in truth or living in love, I will err on the side of love.  I for one, am not going to be part of the communion police, deciding who is saved, who is in good standing, who is truly walking in the light.  It's the Lord's table, I will trust Him to sort it out in the end.

The Vagueness of Spiritual Unity

Our church has been chugging through the task of calling a pastor for three years and is finally at the point of calling a settled pastor, in fact his first Sunday was just last weekend so you already know how this all turned out.  But I wanted to record my thoughts on the final dash to the wire because I think it is instructive.  The interim pastor used one of his last Sundays in the pulpit as an opportunity to begin what appeared to most everyone to be a sure-thing transition to a new pastor even though no formal vote had been taken at that point in time.  He preached on calling, and choice, and decision and culminated by urging the congregation to move forward in unity.  But what exactly does that mean?  You hear that call to unity everywhere in Christian circles, but hardly ever see it demonstrated in Christian circles.  What you see is judgment, exclusion, division, endless doctrinal debate, and condemnation (let's dust off that word anathema and put it to good use!).

Does moving forward in unity mean that everyone rubber stamps the selection committee's choice?  Does it mean that every congregational member agrees with the process and decisions that have brought us to this point?  Does it mean that we fully agree that this pastoral candidate is God's exact and perfect choice for our congregation in this time and place?  You can see where that type of preaching on unity can lead to.  The facts of the matter are that not everyone agrees with the selection committee (even they were not unanimous in their recommendation), the process of selection has been too long and flawed from the beginning because of a false sense of loyalty to the bylaws and a near absolute exclusion of the congregation, and after three years the selection committee turned up only one viable candidate, not hardly the clear direction that the church hoped for.  However, true unity recognizes that we, as a church congregation, have come to a point of decision regarding our future direction, and although each of us reads the tea leaves differently, we find ourselves constrained in our choices but still faced with the demand to choose.  And right or wrong, each of us had to vote our conscience with what we had at hand and then move forward together, supporting and not second guessing or complaining about the choice made, whatever side we fell on after the vote.  Real fellowship in the midst of disagreement, difference of opinion, and personal preferences, that marks the unity that must now keep us steady ahead.