Are we playing the wrong game?

I came across John Alexander's last book when I was unpacking and I set it aside to read again. I started it ages ago and never finished it (partly because the urge to edit it was so strong that I had a hard time letting go of that and just focusing on the ideas. But now that Rob Bell has inured me to this writing style, I'm hoping I'll be able to focus a little better. Besides, now it reminds me of John and brings back pleasant memories more than it stirs up the editor within me.) 

John starts right smack in with the good stuff and just a few pages in I've hit stuff I already want to write about. John compares the church to a baseball team and explains that we don't expect our favorite team to always be perfect, but we do expect them to be playing baseball when they're on the field. In the same way, we shouldn't expect our church to be perfect (it is, after all, made up of imperfect people), but we should at least expect it to be a church, a growing body of united believers achieving the full stature of Christ.

This is something that I've often tried to explain to people, but I feel like I've never explained it very well. John's analogy is quite good, though, and I'd like to share it, as he wrote it, here:

Don't misunderstand me. I'm not so much disturbed by the poor performance of us Christians as about whether we know what we're up to. Fans of the Chicago Cubs don't seem to mind too much that their team plays badly and drops the ball from time to time. But what if in the middle of a close game, the Cubs sat down in the infield and started playing tiddlywinks? Or eating lunch?

No doubt the illustration will prompt all kinds of supposedly entertaining remarks about the Cubs, but when the people of God forget what they're about, it's not at all entertaining. Dropping the ball is one thing. We all do that. I certainly do. And the most casual reading of 1 Corinthians or of Revelation 2-3 prepares us for churches to drop the ball. Often and badly. But it does not prepare us for churches playing the wrong game. Playing the wrong game is very odd. And very troubling.

In fact, it may be the most troubling thing I know--this gap between today's churches and the NT. But what's troubling isn't that churches fail. That's very NT. I don't expect Christians to leap tall buildings at a single bound. To catch every ball. To die rather than let Jews be taken to concentration camps. That is great when it happens, but the NT gives us little reason to expect heroics of ourselves or other Christians. Peter seems to have failed with some regularity. Besides I'm a pastor myself and have learned not to be too stunned by the sin and failure of the folks I pastor: after all, my own record isn't so great. It's God's grace that is great.

So, for example, I don't expect us to live up to the ethics of the kingdom as found in the Sermon on the Mount, but I do expect us to fail in such a way that those watching will know what we were reaching for, what we're failing at. I don't expect us to love each other as we love ourselves, but I do expect us to live in such a way that outsiders will be able to tell that loving each other is what we're about. 

So the problem isn't that we fail. Nor that we do church badly. It's that we're doing something else. We seem to be playing the wrong game against the wrong team at the wrong time. Not always, but pretty often. Maybe especially on Sunday mornings. 

 -- taken from John Alexander's manuscript version of the book that was, at the time, entitled Stop Going to Church and Become the Church (I think John talked about changing the title, but I don't remember what he wanted to change it to except that the focus was Love.)

 

What I've often wondered about is how we can expect the church to be playing the right game if we're not really talking about what game we're playing? It does come up in our congregation once in awhile, during Sunday School (which is poorly attended) or in a sermon. But there's not really any specific time set aside to talk about whether we're still playing the game or if we've gotten sidetracked with doing the wave around the stadium or dancing to the organ music. (OK, so I'm mixing a bit of hockey in here. But I suppose that's the point if hockey's not the game you're supposed to be playing.) I would expect discussions like this at congregational meetings but instead we often get sidetracked with what we spend on watering the grass or hearing reports on stuff that we pretty much already know. 

Of course, this brings up a favorite Christian catch phrase: intentional. But it fits here. How intentional are we as a church? I don't just mean are we, as individuals, thinking about what we're doing, but do we as a congregation communicate with each other on what we're all about and how we're doing in terms of going about it? I'd say that the congregation we're a part of glances across the topic now and then in a rather haphazard manner. How about yours? 

Memorial Day - What's the point?

Memorial Day has come and gone, but I wanted to reflect on a couple of posts that showed up in my Facebook feed over that weekend. My goal isn't to point fingers at specific people but to explore a connection that other people seem to see but that I'm at a loss over. Here are the two status updates that I am particularly referring to:

Thanks to those who courageously sacrificed their lives for us, pointing to the ultimate sacrifice given for us, Christ on the cross."

"What a Blessing to live in the USA- May everyone have a wonderful Memorial Day weekend and remember those men and women in uniform who fought to keep the Blessings coming from the Lord Jesus Christ!!!!!"

Memorial Day, as I understand it, is an American holiday, made official in 1868 by General John Logan, in which we remember those who have died in the nation's service. When I look at the Department of Veterans Affairs page on the day, I see no mention of Christ, the cross, or even Christianity. In fact, from looking at that page, one might even get the impression that this is a day to honor and remember the death of any soldier who died in the service of the United States of America, no matter what their religious affiliation and no matter what their purpose was in fighting. 

So why is it, then, that someone might think the death of an American soldier, of unknown religious affiliation (if any), in some way points "to the ultimate sacrifice given for us, Christ on the cross"? If that is the case, then isn't any death, of any sort, by any person anywhere, also pointing to the ultimate sacrifice of Christ? Or is there something about Memorial Day that makes the death more pointedly Christian that it would be otherwise?

And why is it assumed that soldiers are fighting with the united purpose of keeping "the Blessings coming from the Lord Jesus Christ!!!!!" Didn't some soldiers fight because they were drafted, or because they wanted to end slavery, or to protect their economic situation, or because they wanted to go out and "prove themselves"? Or perhaps the poster on Facebook is trying to focus on the blessings the United States enjoys with the assumption that all of those blessings are directly from Jesus. If that's the case, did Jesus need these soldiers to fight and kill other people in order to maintain a divine system of giving blessings to the nation? Couldn't he have blessed the nation without the bloodshed? 

I do want to honor those who have died in the service of this nation of which I am a part. Whether I agree with the war in which they died or not, that in no way diminishes the extent of their sacrifice. But I want to honor their death because it was the moment at which something honorable, something lovely, something marvelous ended. Every life is valuable and the end of life should always be treated with respect and honor in recognition of that which is lost. But to intimately connect death in battle with the sacrifice of Christ, or the continued blessings bestowed on a nation, seems to only diminish the death of a soldier rather than to honor it. Is a person's death only to be honored if it can point to a spiritual sacrifice? Is a person's death only to be honored if it can mean more good things for me as a citizen? I believe the answer is "no" to both of those questions. 

"Sunday's Coming" Movie Trailer

Bwa ha ha! This is a great find by Scott (whose FB account I would link to, but that would reveal his last name, which points to yet another of the "Privacy? What's that?" policies of Facebook). 

If you don't think it's funny, then I'm guessing you've either never been to a church that's like this, or you're currently a happy attender of a church like this. ;-)

"Sunday's Coming" Movie Trailer from North Point Media on Vimeo.

The morning paper mentioned that there's a National Day of Prayer Task Force located in Colorado Springs. Since when has prayer required a task force?

Junk Album

First plant the sapling

"If you should have a sapling in your hand when they tell you that the Messiah has arrived, first plant the sapling and then go to greet the Messiah." 

-- Yochanan ben Zakkai (as quoted by Rabbi Nathan, Abot, 31b)

I came across this quote while reading Stuart Sacks' book, Hebrews Through a Hebrew's Eyes, and found it intriguing. Stuart used the quote to show that "the idea of Messiah's priestliness has not been part of Jewish thought." (page 54) I looked the quote up online and came across various other interpretations including the idea that the quote was indicative of a cynical attitude regarding the number of pretenders claiming to be the Messiah. 

I've never heard of Yochanan ben Zakkai before and I really have no idea where he was really coming from when he made this statement, nor do I have any sense of the context. But I really like the quote itself. 

In my mind, making a statement such as this points toward an understanding that the Christ is not coming to take us "away from it all," but he's coming to restore not only us but the world in which we live. 2 Peter 3:13 pops to mind in which the "new heaven and new earth" are mentioned. I would still plant the sapling not because I want to delay in seeing the Messiah face to face, but because I understand that the new Earth is a part of the plan. God is bringing about a restoration of not only our souls, but of our bodies, of the earth, of all of creation as well. 

I suppose I also like the quote because between Mary and Martha, I've always seen myself as a Martha. Martha would plant the sapling. Mary would throw it aside and run on to see Jesus. Perhaps Mary was the one that did right when she sat at Jesus' feet while Martha worked in the kitchen. But it was Martha who understood that Jesus could raise her brother, Lazarus, from the dead. Mary had already forgotten the bigger picture of who Jesus was. Planting the sapling seems to me to be an action based upon seeing the bigger picture. 

How about you? Would you plant the sapling or toss it aside at the news?

Introverts in the Church: Finding our place in an extroverted culture

http://barefootmeg.multiply.com/reviews/item/39
I debated about which site to put this review on. Since my cache of reviews is on the barefootmeg site, I decided to place it there and just throw a link up here for anyone that doesn't visit both sites.

Click on the link above to get to the review.