The problem of sin

From some reading I am doing...

Over time a web of exclusively self-centered acts builds networks of vanity, violence, oppression and delusion, and such iniquity is visited upon the children "to the third and fourth generation." Such sin, our shared negative heritage built up through many lifetimes, spreads like a cloud of poison gas, blinding us to the true mutuality and complementarity of life.

(Tilden Edwards, Living Simply through the Day)

Sums up the problem of sin and the human condition quite nicely. Worth pondering and considering what can be done about it... then taking some action that goes against this flow.

Thinking with the church

From the New York Times report on Pope Francis' interview with Jesuit publications:

Asked what it means for him to “think with the church,” a phrase used by the Jesuit founder St. Ignatius, Francis said that it did not mean “thinking with the hierarchy of the church.”

“This church with which we should be thinking is the home of all, not a small chapel that can hold only a small group of selected people,” he said. “We must not reduce the bosom of the universal church to a nest protecting our mediocrity.”

All denominations, as well as individual churches, should meditate on this simple truth. It might help solve some of the clergy/laity and hierarchy/local church problems with which Christianity is afflicted.

Snark: the new way to shame congregations

The United Methodist Publishing House launched a website in 2011 called Ministry Matters. There are blog articles, preaching, teaching and worship resources, a library (subscription required) and evangelism and outreach ideas. The site's tag line is "supporting Christian ministry with resources, community and inspiration." It says this about itself:

Ministry Matters is a destination site for all church leaders [emphasis theirs], both paid and volunteer, interdenominational and nondenominational. The site’s goals are threefold: to equip, connect, and inspire people in ministry. While pastors will find much content designed specifically for them, other church workers, teachers, and leaders will find lots of helpful stuff as well.... Ministry Matters aims to serve Christians of many denominations—or no denomination at all!... 

The content comes from many different sources, some official, some not. Some are "big names" in the UMC world, and some not so much. The site is unevenly curated. Some articles hit a home run, most are at least mildly interesting, but a surprising number of entries just seem to be rants or vents. They are snarky, shortsighted, unhelpful, and—quite honestly from a lay perspective—rather insulting.

Posts like these are not uncommon on the site:
How to rid your church of young people
10 ways to remain 'favorite' pastor

Ministry Matters may say it is a "destination site for all church leaders," but articles like these go right for the jugular of the laity. In what way is this "helpful stuff"? It seems instead just another tired example of the thinking that the problems in churches are primarily the fault of the backwards, ignorant, selfish people in the pews.

Once again, I'd love to see the day when clergy and laity actually talk to each other and serve together. How about it?

Search me, O God

Psalm 139 is one of the "biggies." In it, the psalmist talks about the God who knows everything about him, inside and out. He expresses trust in this God and a willingness to be searched, known and corrected by him. The psalmist's goal is to live in fellowship with him.

This psalm is so familiar to us—the part about being known before birth, God knowing when we sit down and rise up, knowing what we will say before we say it, not being able to get away from God. And of course, the praise to God who knows us so intimately.

We marvel at this psalm and use and pray it all the time.

But—do we really want to invite God to search us and know our hearts, test us and know our thoughts? Do we want Him to see if there is any wicked way in us... and then correct us and lead us in the way everlasting?

When I think about Christian leaders I've known who have gotten off track and done damage to themselves and their churches, what they have in common is that they got away from Psalm 139—they did not keep in mind God's searching and purifying role in their lives. Perhaps they believed they had already ordered their lives and had been "good to go" for some time. They believed their own PR, or made their own plans believing these were God's plans, or they saw themselves as God's chosen ones whose thoughts and ideas were always the right ones. They weren't open to the counsel of others or to God's correction.

When we read and pray Psalm 139, we should do so with a full understanding of what the psalmist is saying. What does it mean to be open to God searching your motivations, reaching down into your soul, and showing you what He sees there? What does it mean to ask Him to dredge things up and then lead you on His path?

This is a psalm to sit with and contemplate for a long time before accepting what it teaches and incorporating it into your life. It is not a psalm to be taken lightly.

We will so order our lives

There's a promise of commitment congregations in my faith tradition make whenever someone is baptized. This statement is designed to remind everyone that the growth and living out of the Christian life is nurtured in community. The commitment we, the congregation, pledge at baptism, reflects a understanding that, day in and day out, it is the example of other Christians that helps each of us see what the faith is all about.

The commitment promise opens with the phrase, "With God's help, we will so order our lives after the example of Christ that..."

I've been pondering Colossians 3:1–17 recently, that mysterious passage that talks about our new life hidden in Christ and what it should look like. There's a veritable laundry list of things to put aside and things to embrace:

To put aside: fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed; anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive language; lying.

To embrace: compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience; bearing with each other, forgiving each other; love, and the peace and word of Christ; gratitude; praise; wisdom.

When I think about the churches I have been part of and what beset them, when I look around at what the most prominent and vocal Christians in this country are known for, when I mull over what passes for Christian dialog on the Internet, and when I look at my own life, I see too many of the things we should put aside and not enough of the things we should embrace.

And then I wonder about the Christian witness in this world. Are we "so ordering our lives" or not? It seems to me that when the world considers our witness, it does not see enough of the example of Christ in those of us who go by his name. And those children and new believers that we are to bring up and nurture in the tenets of our faith? What exactly is it we are teaching them?

When we get caught up in endless "culture war" finger pointing at those who are not Christian and couple it with the intramural fighting that we've become known for, how is that "so ordering our lives after the example of Christ"? Who, exactly, is coming to know Christ this way—and those who are, what is it they think the life hidden in Christ is really all about?

When we build our churches around things other than those that mattered the most to Jesus himself, what are we teaching our children and new believers about what it means to be Jesus' disciples?

If we say "Christian" on the outside, but are filled with those things we are to put aside and exhibit very little of what we are to embrace, what good are we? When and where this is the case, the picture shifts from engaging in nurturing and building up people in the faith to assessing what kind of damage are we doing to them.

Pastors vs. laity. Laity vs. pastors.

At the end of 2000, I decided I needed to take a sabbatical from four decades in the United Methodist Church. When I walked away, I was worn out, burned out, jaded and angry, first from watching what happened to family and friends who served in the church, and then from what happened to me and people I grew to care about when we also served.

In 2013, as I weigh whether to rejoin the denomination, I'm uncovering a lot of old reminders of why I left. And they're making it hard to return.

At the top of the list of things I need to come to terms with if I return is the terrible chasm and disconnection between the UMC's clergy and its laypeople. It's the main reason I needed to take a break back in 2000, and things don't seem to have gotten much better in the interim.

The UMC is not alone in this regard. Many kinds of churches suffer from the uneasy relationship between clergy and laity. This recent opinion piece on the Alban Institute's website illustrates the issue.

Being a clergyperson, the writer sees the problem from the clergy's perspective. And that perspective is that the laity are sheep who are unreasonably dependent on, and have unrealistic expectations for their clergy. If only the laity would take more responsibility, be more mature, stop seeing the church in terms of what benefits them, and serve and welcome those who are on the outside, clergy tell each other, things would be so much better and we could really be church.

Then there's the counter perspective of the laity. They've seen clergy who do think their role is to have all the answers and the congregation's role is to follow them. They've been led by clergy who like being in charge with a more or less helpless congregation that they alone can lead. They've noticed that some clergy do not want to share power in the church with even their most mature members and will use their position to make sure that does not happen. They've been talked down to by clergy do not think people in their congregation even have ideas, or that if they do, that they are silly, or stupid, or "backwards," and certainly not based on what the latest church thinking happens to be. And they suspect some clergy enjoy feeling superior and "closer to God" than their congregants, and are more than happy to have a handy group of people to blame for things that do not work and problems that arise.

How do I know this? I am in the strange situation of having a foot in both camps. I went to seminary and am ordained, but I have spent most of my service in a lay capacity. I know how clergy complain to each other about their people, and I also know how frustrated the laity are with their clergy and denominational officials.

What I have hardly ever seen is an actual dialogue on equal footing between clergy and laity, where any of these kinds of issues are discussed and perspectives shared. Instead, each camp mutters about the other behind the closed doors of their own camps.

So let me say it here. Laity, you can be pretty immature, lazy and petty. Clergy, you enjoy the power and the feeling of spiritual superiority. And by the way clergy, you do hold most of the cards and you haven't played them very well over the years.

This is not just a UMC problem. It's a problem in all churches. We've got to figure out a way to work together, not at cross purposes. Things would be so different if clergy and laity were actually partners who had respect for each other, rather than people who see each other as problems and antagonists. Let's power share and responsibility share and honor our mutual and separate gifts. To get there, though, we first have to be willing to at least talk to each other. The time to start is now.

All in the family: recent observations in the gospel of John

If you would like to know what I learned about my relationship with God from a recent reading of the Gospel of John, visit my devotional website and read the posting "God is not my boss."