Recently, a friend indulged me to summarize Christianity in a few sentences. That she was disposed to do so or that I managed so to do, I have yet to decipher which is the greater miracle.
My coup d’oeil of the faith is thus. Jesus envisions God as loving father. Jesus envisions himself as God’s child, his delegate to and for the world, his Christ. To be Christian means to put on the heart and mind of Jesus Christ, to act in and for the world as God’s presence. What does that entail? In Jesus’ words: I am the ambassador of good news to all in want, sent to bring ease to all who are dis-eased, dis-comforted, dis-comfited, to all deprived their fullness and full due by self or by society. To all I proclaim goodwill, the time of refreshment and re-creation! (Luke 4, translation is my own.) Does that entail going to Church? If church is a body of guidance and support to live out that vocation, yes. If it is not, the answer is no.
Being one disposed to expecting miracles and not finding myself disappointed, indulge me a descant on the above.
To be a Christian is to be Christ-like. How you get there is your journey. To them that find that heretical, schismatic, or in some way wrong, allow me to rehearse the Augustinian aphorism: Love God, and do what you will.
I do not with this statement intend to dismiss the need for spiritual direction. A journey without direction is usually a process of going around in circles. Spiritual direction and exercise are essential. They are, however, muchly ignored or unknown. Too often it is all too easy to think that because one recites all the prescribed prayers day after day, that one is growing in prayer, in listening to God, in becoming one with the heart and mind of God. Such may well be, by grace, the case, but in most cases, upon serious examination, one will find oneself not in spiritual training, but merely in a holding pattern, at best, moving along a conveyor belt, one would presume, one would hope, to heaven. Exercise reveals itself not only in the development some type of strength, some detectable advance in stamina and spirit, but also in some detectable expenditure, some blood, sweat and tears.
Too often is the confessional, in such places where it is the norm, not used for a steady application of spiritual counsel, but as a magic box for dispensing dispensations from some penalty. Too often do ministers forget that liturgy (including preaching) exists to literally publish, to make public, that which each member works on daily, one by one, and that a weekly public celebration cannot accomplish ex opere operato that which needs be acquired in each by devoted daily exercise and regular guidance. Too often are parish missions, where such still exist, not given individual and sustained follow-up. Too often is the cure of souls provided on an emergency basis and not as preventative medicine and promotion of healthful living. Too many ministers forget that the prime act of ministry is prayer and making people prayerful—in the most inclusive sense of that idea. Too many take the scriptures not as the ground of prayer in which to experience the heart of God, but as a series of formulae with which to beat the bounds of every action of life. Too many forget the Word of God is Christ, and that Christ lives for the sake of, for the love of, the world. Too many are concerned with “communications” and fail to recall that church is about holy communion, not the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, but about communion with God, and that that starts with stopping the devices of communication, the agendas and ideas, and waiting upon God in the silence of the heart, listening to God in the silence of his heart.
I do not expect anyone to embrace the Christian life and instantly become perfect. But the quest for perfection cannot be put aside as an ideal to keep in the back of the mind. It is a radical demand challenging every act and every moment. There can be no complacency here. En route, of course, it is never unreasonable to be kind. Were you to find yourself in some quandary would you not first want to experience mercy? So do to others. Of course, in so doing one may well be met with accusations of being fake or saccharine. Compassion can seem to be an uphill battle. Our iconography exhibits that. We talk of lifting up the cross, the cross upon the hill, about rising up, raising spirits, resurrection, ascending. Our spirituality contains an inherent acclivity. We ascend not to escape the world, but that we may more deeply plunge down (according to the Greek, baptize) into Christ’s self-effacing spirit and so open ourselves to the service of the world.
Church must be a centre of individual spiritual formation, public prayer, action and advocacy for the well-being and welfare of the world. If it is a lecture hall, if it is a performance hall, then it is something far lesser than it ought to be. If it is the ground upon which to build one’s own little kingdom, than it monstrously lesser than it ought to be. Yet, too often too many find church a series of overly protected fiefdoms, an auditorium with a weekly recital of the same show, the same talk. I have addressed the issues of teaching and celebrating in many of the letters previously posted. I now turn to the population of the institution in general. I am not referring to pew-people. The following questions are pertinent to every member.
Please note, I do not have any answers here. Everything that must happen is a matter of praxis. To be a Christian is always about residing in the heart of Love and facing the world as the agent of the Creating One, and the world is, in its every breath, a changing entity. Thus, I have only questions to place before myself and my fellows-in-faith. These questions expose the paradox, the perceptions and possibilities of being Christian. Every question speaks of the perceptions of others, posits the possibilities of an act and its intentionality regarding its altruism, its freedom, its self-centeredness, and so the paradox of our every act and intention as susceptible to accusation, to critique, to judgment, from within and without, as to where it resides within our innate funambulism of being at once “saint and sinner”. Yet, we need always, in some secret chamber wherein desolation and consolation are deciphered, to stop and ask why am I here, for God or for me, where is this coming from, from God or from me? We need always to ask not only what ought I to do, but why am I doing what I do. We need to evaluate not only the action but the intention. Can I walk away without regret knowing it is God at work, or do I need to be here to define myself? There is a solid, spiritual reason to the practice of plucking up clerics and religious and transferring them from place to place every few years. It must always be God’s work being done, not mine, God’s kingdom being established and revealed, not mine.
Too often too many find church too full of people they have no interest in being-with. Why are church people so repulsive? If you find the term harsh, I ask you find the term that is the opposite of attractive. Bland or neutral is not the answer. If one is not in the process of attracting others, what is one doing?
Some of us are too busy running things, keeping things going, keeping things on track and on schedule. Why? How many make themselves perpetually busy to cover themselves in a brume of piety, to hide from something hidden within, to compensate for some un-enunciated inadequacy, and so subliminally translate that fear of self or hostility against self into a fear of others, a hostility toward others?
Some of us are not busy at all. Too many in the church come to the church to relax, to relieve themselves of some moment of burden, to distract themselves from some wound they fear even God cannot heal. Too many come not for healing and life but for a dose of morphine and another moment of comatose quiet. Pain, deep pain, needs no explanation. The question is why are the rest of us not concerned enough to intervene?
Why do so many turn away from religion because they encounter among the “religious” so many without an ounce of empathy? Why do so many of us who acknowledge ourselves to be both sinners and saved, show so little real compassion for others? Why are so many of us not able or willing to stand in someone else’s shoes and to see life from another perspective, to let down our guards and simply embrace another with care and devotion?
Why do so many turn from our doors because they encounter not acceptance but judgment? Why do so many find so many of us fixated on a few lines of scripture, supposedly about the wrongness of a sexuality or sexual practice, and so oblivious to the plethora of lines in scripture about being loving, about forgiving, about not throwing the first stone and about leaving to God the role of judge? Why are so many of us comfortable beating others over the head with a Bible verse to save them, without asking ourselves what punishment for our sins did God rain down upon us? Are not all embraced by God? Why, if we are on a quest for God, do we not consistently use his means–simple, self-less, embracing love?
Why do so many of us who know ourselves to be loved, believe ourselves loved, not manifest that with gratitude and joy? Are we really accepting ourselves as loved and lovable? If we cannot approach another with care, consideration, kindness can it be we cannot find those qualities in our own life, in our valuation of self, in our faith, our trust, in God’s love for us?
Do we really believe love is patient and kind and that it—not self-righteousness, not anger, not the wagging finger–conquers? Do we kneel down in prayer to listen to God, or do we knell down to tell God what we want done? Do we, who claim to walk in God’s ways, really believe God humbles himself to bring healing to the world? How will anyone feel the love of God in the church unless someone in the church surrenders to the heart and mind of God and goes out and embraces him or her with humble, true and treasuring love?
Why are so many of these questions applied by so many outside the church to so many within the church about whom they are so not true? Why have we not the public image of our ancestors in Acts, the early Christians whose communal concern and care startled their neighbours? Why has the world grown so weary of Christ’s church? Why, to the world, does it seem we can do no right despite all our efforts to do good? Why does a culture that has grown out of the Christian faith desiderate greed and lust rather than goodness and love?
Why have we let dwindle those great resources for the welfare of the church and the world, the monasteries, nunneries, and other houses of relentless prayer? Why, when so many are seeking guidance through yoga, relaxation, centering, meditation classes, are we not hanging up outside our doors our shingle “Personal Training for the soul, by appointment”? Are we using our signage well? Is it sufficient to list Sunday worship services alone when there are so many more things we do? Should the cure of souls be removed from the administration of property? Should clerics be focused on spiritual guidance? Should out-reach, budgets and buildings be given over to the care of someone else? Are we sharing, joining, and using wisely our resources or are individual fiefdoms blocking the way?
Why are we so repulsive? Can we rise above all this? Can we consecrate the derision of the world in Him who was rejected? Can we hold valiant in hope? Can we shrive our sins, and strive on? Can we be sanguine in our witness before a culture that detests it? Can we blazon our icons in a world that more and more demands their sequestration?
I am not writing a draft for a communal examination of conscience. I am asking questions about how we operate, about how too many view us, and why they so view us. Our responses are crucial, more so than any organizational or budgetary plan.
Christianity is about people dealing with people, lovingly, creatively. This is where we start; this is where we finish. Incarnation is personal, the person of Christ, the place wherein God and man touch each other with deepest respect and compassion. Such is our vocation. It is personal to the core. It is of Christ. It is to be Christ, here, and now. Sunday services, masses and sacraments, preaching and singing exist to serve this, and to serve it well. If they do not do so, if we live in an age when they can no longer do so, we owe these sacred relics of our past a reverent adieu and must move on. Christ is not an institution or a ritual. Christ is a person. We are his body, the flesh and blood in which his spirit wills to be alive, in which his spirit wills to live in this world, for this world.
Spurred on by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, for decades theologians have been debating whether Christianity can be religion-less. There is no debating the issue. It can. Dare we be also? In this eldritch new world is this the format, the language, we need to use?