The past couple of months have been full and challenging. I have spent much time in prayer and study seeking to find God’s will concerning a great ministry opportunity. Since early spring I have been struggling with allergies. During this time I have also been reading the New Testament book of Matthew very slowly and deliberately.
On top of it all, just recently, much has been happening in the life of the church I serve. It has been challenging, confusing and sometimes heartbreaking. All of these factors have come together and conspired to cause me to deal with a crisis of faith. Before you panic about me or for me, let me say that I consider it a good thing. We must revisit the foundational principles of our lives on a regular basis if they are to remain strong enough to be foundational. It is not a crisis about my faith in God. I am sure God will be relieved to hear that I still very much believe in Him. This crisis of faith is about my faith in us – the human factor. I am having my doubts about us as individuals and us as we make up the church.
I believe it is important for me to consistently ask myself questions. Difficult questions that demand honest answers. Just over 35 years ago I was working at the Iowa State Training School for Girls. We had all kinds of girls and they were very difficult, very delinquent girls. One day (My guess is it was a bad day.) I asked the Clinical Director, a good friend, Jeff Hanover, “Do we ever succeed with any of these girls.” He just smiled his little enigmatic smile and said, “Occasionally. And that’s good enough.”
Lately I have been asking myself that same question in a slightly different form and context. Does being a Christian make any difference in our lives? Does the church really impact people’s lives and bring dynamic and real change? Are we making any difference – really? Sure, in some cases. But are those results as rare as they sometimes seem? This is a rather frightening question for me to ask at this time of my life. I have invested about 40 years of my life in the church. What if the answer is “No”? Will that mean that I have, essentially, wasted my life?
As I struggle with why it is that so few people seem to consistently grow spiritually and hang in there for the long haul, several answers come to mind. I am sure there are more but these just pop to the front of my mind.
1. It is back to good old Theology 101. There is a God and you aren’t it. Push comes to shove, when it comes right down to it, we either think we are God or at least act like we are God. For example, we pick and choose our way through the scriptures deciding which ones we believe or will pay attention to. The ultimate authority in life, or at least my life, is me. The things in scripture that cause us discomfort or would call for a change in lifestyle are to be ignored or are bent, folder and mutilated until they are unrecognizable.
Since I have been studying the words of Jesus in Matthew for the past couple of months and since I am beginning a sermon series on some of what Jesus had to say, let’s check this out this theory by looking at some of the words of Jesus and then by doing the good American Christian thing. Pray? No. Meditate? No. Do something about it? Are you kidding? Of course not. Let’s vote.
Matthew 10:34-39 “Don’t imagine that I came to bring peace to the earth! No, rather, a sword. I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law—a man’s worst enemies will be right in his own home! If you love your father and mother more than you love me, you are not worthy of being mine; or if you love your son or daughter more than me, you are not worthy of being mine. If you refuse to take up your cross and follow me, you are not worthy of being mine. “If you cling to your life, you will lose it; but if you give it up for me, you will save it.”
Oh, oh, relationships and deep commitment. Jesus has really stuck his foot in it this time.
Okay, let’s vote.
˜All who think this may be in the Bible but Jesus really didn’t say this raise your hands.
All who think He said it but I can just ignore it raise your hands.
All who think Jesus said it but you don’t really care raise your hands.
All who believe Jesus said this and are willing to embrace this truth and allow it to change your life, raise your hands.
Gosh, this is fun and easy. Let’s do another.
Matthew 6:19-24 “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. “The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is sound, your whole body will be full of light; but if your eye is not sound, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.”
Money and stuff. Can you believe it? He is messing with my money and my stuff. That just isn’t right. That was a mistake.
Okay, let’s vote.
All who think this may be in the Bible but Jesus really didn’t say this raise your hands.
All who think He said it but I can just ignore it raise your hands.
All who think Jesus said it but you don’t really care raise your hands.
All who believe Jesus said this and are willing to embrace this truth and allow it to change your life, raise your hands.
This is great. How about one more round?
Matthew 5:31-32 “It has been said, ‘Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, causes her to become an adulteress, and anyone who marries the divorced woman commits adultery.”
Ouch, that’s gonna leave a mark. I am divorced and remarried. Let’s skip the voting on this one. I guess I already have.
But you do get my point, don’t you? We are just making this up as we go. We each fervently worship with deep adoration and commitment a god we have made in our own image. My god may not like you but he/she/it is absolutely crazy about me and approves of everything I want to say or do.
2. As Jesus so eloquently expressed in the story we call The Prodigal Son, before we can come to God we must come to ourselves. A difficult task made almost impossible because, at our inner core, we tend to be dishonest with ourselves. It is a thing the psychologists call rationalization. Who I am or what I am doing is okay in my particular situation because… This is an especially dangerous problem for Christians since we of the church wrap our rationalizations up in religious language which makes it almost totally irrefutable. I call this God-talk or VRG (Verbalized Religious Garbage). The saddest and most dangerous thing about this God talk is that, in most circumstances, the person doing the talking really believes the crap he or she is saying. With the straightest of faces someone will come to me and say something like, “I am not being spiritually fed here and feel like God is leading me to another church.” What can you say to that? What I would like to say is, “I would have felt better about you leaving if you had simply said, ‘I have a long history of wandering from church to church to church. I usually last between 2 and 4 years at a church before I lose interest. In the past I have usually made up some religious blaa blaa as an excuse for leaving, but your ministry has so impacted my live that I now see it is my pattern and my problem. So, thanks for everything. But my attention span has come to an end and my time is up so I have to get going.’” So, believing in God doesn’t profoundly impact our lives because we are not honest enough to come to ourselves.
3. It is too hard. Change is difficult; it is uncomfortable. Learning to do some things and live in some ways that do not come naturally to us is difficult. Some philosophers have put forth the theory that Christianity is for the weak and listless. On the contrary, it is for those strong enough to take on the challenge of life-long change; of consistently and constantly going against the flow. The American expectation is that life should go well, be easy, make me happy, meet my needs and if something does go wrong, someone should pay. It is no wonder that Christianity isn’t playing well to this crowd. Could it be that the lives of the faithful are not changed because the faithful are lazy?
4. We are willing to settle for Good Enough. Life isn’t great, but it is pretty good. I am comfortable and comparatively happy and isn’t that what life is all about? My life may not be counting for much, but things are going smoothly. It is like we get our lives in hand and we think we are in control and decide to leave well enough alone. Or, we may not like how things are going but we are afraid to mess with it for fear our finely balanced mess will spin completely out of control or blow up in our faces. Besides, I am living the cultural norm – the good life – the American Dream. Everyone I know says that I am living the good life and who am I (Or who is God) to say anything different? I may not be living and experiencing the life God intended for me, but what I do have is good enough.
So, as I think it over, it may very well be true that very few lives are deeply changed and profoundly impacted by the presence of Christ and the implementation of His teachings. And that may just be the way it is. Perhaps I need to just accept the truth Jeff shared with me those many years ago and be satisfied with that. Some is better than none.
Copyright © 2010, William T. McConnell, All Rights Reserved.
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