In which I completely lose my cool… and discover discernment at the other side.
I have just about had it with the traditional church, at least as I’ve experienced it. It is infested to its core by moralistic, legalistic, fenced-in, inward-looking, self-righteous, holier-than-thou, shallow, incurious, arrogant, bombastic, patronizing, sneering so-called Christians. I find I am coming full-circle in my journey from my adolescence, and am left with much the same feeling of hopelessness in looking at the cultural Christianity that has undermined the authenticity of the church’s witness to the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
The last time I was here, I apostated in disgust. This time… is going to be a bit different.
*takes a deep breath*
HOW DARE YOU.
Jesus, God incarnate in human flesh, the living WORD of God suffered the ultimate in indignities, humbled himself by virtue merely of His descent to be confined by this rude fleshy body and be held in thrall by its demands. When he was hanging there, bleeding and dying, on the cross, they shoved a sponge on a stick, soaked in vinegar and covered in feces (they used these to clean the bottoms of patrons of public wastehouses), into his face and mouth. He died, with the taste of SHIT in his mouth as His last impression of our race, and yet with that mouth and nose covered in filth, his last words were of forgiveness!
YOU DON’T DESERVE IT.
None of us do. The very best we can accomplish in our lives is equivalent to the filth shoved into Jesus’ mouth as he hung on the cross, and that we should take some sort of perverse pride in our sinful lives and accomplishments is an abomination and does violence to everything Jesus taught. Your self-promotion at the expense of others is not only sinful, but works directly against the progress of the Gospel!
YOU ARE AN AGENT OF THE ENEMY.
When you put your comfort above the love of the sinner, you assist the enemy. When you shoot a dark look at or whisper about a woman dressed less conservatively than befits your self-righteous notion of modesty, you create an environment of unfriendliness towards the sinner and you become a stumbling block, the Enemy’s favorite kind of Christian. You are the equivalent of the Pharisee and Scribe, against which Jesus pronounced woe after woe. You are the self-declared healthy for whom His salvation IS NOT MEANT. Remember the invective he poured on them? YOU VIPERS! YOU POISONOUS BROOD!
YOU ARE NO BETTER THAN THE WORST SINNERS IN HISTORY.
To break even one commandment is to break them all. You are guilty of sin, or you are not human. If Charles Manson were paroled by some miracle, and walked into our church, he should be accepted as an equal under God and should not only hear the Gospel of Salvation by Grace through Faith in Jesus Christ preached but find it LIVED BEFORE HIS EYES. The same goes for the couple living together in sin, or the porn addict, or the homosexual, or that guy that dresses and talks funny that the kids like to make fun of, or JESUS. If Jesus Christ returned and walked into our church, would He find the vision He left for us? Would he?
WWJD IS NOT A CLEVER MARKETING SCHEME.
What WOULD Jesus do if he walked into our church? Would he sit quietly, nod His head at the appropriate points during sermon, sing the songs halfheartedly and go through the motions unobtrusively? Would He find His gospel preached and lived before His eyes? Or would He find an atrophied, dead, cynical, skin-deep church without conviction, profession without possession? He certainly wouldn’t find an honest appraisal of His teachings. We’ve stripped out the offensive bits. They tend to split congregations, after all, and that’s bad for the building fund and the execution of the lofty but rarely-biblical vision of the church. No… Jesus would not be silent. That’s not the Messiah we have in the Word. That’s not the Christ He is. The fact of the matter is that…
JESUS HAS ALREADY PRONOUNCED DOOM ON THIS CHURCH.
Many will come before him and say, “Lord, Lord,” presenting their resumes of accomplishments in His name, talking about all of the lives changed by their efforts and He will turn from them saying, “I never knew you, depart from me…” The sad and terrifying fact is that there are a multitude of Christians who have never made it past profession and baptism. Their journey ended there, fell flat, and never developed into discipleship. If we allow that cycle to continue, what worth are we to Him? If we, who know Jesus and feel the depth of our unworthiness for His Grace, do nothing to solve the problem, how great is our failure! Worse, how great the failure that allowed over the last several generations this calamity to occur. Generations of cultural Christians completely lost, forever. The tragedy is unspeakable.
DISCIPLESHIP IS NEITHER EASY NOR COMFORTABLE.
A faith that comes from the Holy Spirit is not content with stellar church attendance records. It is not content with just doing what you tell yourself is your best and shrugging at failure. It is not content with superficial Bible scholarship, halfhearted worship or cosmic-candyman-ism. It does not tolerate idolatry. It does not tolerate lapses into sin without great pain and self-chastisement. It does not tolerate pride, which leads to a great many sins. It is, in other words, anything but easy or comfortable.
…
I have lost my patience, reached my wits’ end. I have hidden my faith, my longing for deep discipleship and fellowship with similar Christians for long enough. No more. I’m tired of smiling benignly at the patronizing platitudes of people warning me away from the battle for which I have been chosen. I’m through quietly gritting my teeth and squirming when grave, uncorrected error occurs before my eyes.
Henceforth I will gladly and with love in my heart shame publicly any man or woman, in my church or elsewhere, that objects to outreach, to changes in structure of worship and presentation of the Gospel to be more authentic, to the aggressive and offensive presentation and living of the Gospel in which I engage and will encourage others to engage, to any effective means of growing not just converts but disciples of Jesus Christ, to the arming of those disciples with the deeper truths of the Gospel and sending them out to minister to a culture desperately in need of a Savior… on the basis of their ease or comfort. You will find in me a ready and able apologist, and a willing opponent. If I have to be the thorn in the side of this congregation and the greater Christian community, I shall. I will preach shamelessly the uncomfortable truths of Jesus’ ministry and His salvation. It is here I have been led by my God. It is for this that I am convicted and called. May the Lord fill me with His strength for this task, and arm me appropriately.
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One thing I should note, before I stop and go to bed… My church is not alone in its affliction, and is certainly not devoid of faithful, committed disciples of Christ. Many in my Sunday school class are good, deeply committed disciples of Christ. It would seem, however, that they are outnumbered and shouted down far too often. Recently they’ve been asking for volunteers for council positions. I think I may volunteer for a couple or at least lend my voice. Perhaps I can be the short, pugnacious Paul of this church. Perhaps we will simply be ostracized and cast out to find another congregation. Even if so, it won’t stop the Lord’s anointed work, if I’m right and this is what I’ve been called to do. This blog will go on, I will continue to pursue theological education and personal discipleship, and I will continue, with the help of the Holy Spirit, preaching the truth.
Next week I’ve been asked to teach Sunday school. The background scripture is Psalm 51. More here as I discern where God wants me to take those ideas (it’s a song of repentance) with this group. For now, sleep.
“YOU ARE AN AGENT OF THE ENEMY.
When you put your comfort above the love of the sinner, you assist the enemy. When you shoot a dark look at or whisper about a woman dressed less conservatively than befits your self-righteous notion of modesty, you create an environment of unfriendliness towards the sinner and you become a stumbling block, the Enemy’s favorite kind of Christian. You are the equivalent of the Pharisee and Scribe, against which Jesus pronounced woe after woe. You are the self-declared healthy for whom His salvation IS NOT MEANT. Remember the invective he poured on them? YOU VIPERS! YOU POISONOUS BROOD!”
Thank you, I needed to hear that.
I dunno why this came out last night. I just got SO MAD.
Seriously, I lost it. I sat there talking to my wife about her spiritual growth. She has subconsciously associated the dirty looks and unfriendly behavior of some in our church with her own bible study, as though she’s going to find the same thing in there from Jesus. It’s stunted her growth as a disciple, and… I mean, it makes me FURIOUS.
I would stand in front of the congregation on Sunday morning and deliver a longer version of this sermon (with biblical references supporting) with no hesitation. It’s a message that desperately needs to be heard across the traditional evangelical spectrum.
Like that ridiculous, but accurate, line from Fight Club. You’re not your khakis. You’re not your superlative attendance record. You’re not your unreachable standards of morality, and you’re sure as hell not your own savior. You’re not your friggin’ television ministry, building fund or your record giving to foreign missions.
You are HIS.. not yours. As Bonhoeffer famously said, the call to discipleship is a call to your death. Death of me and rebirth of shared life in Jesus.
All mankind are image-bearers of God. We are taught to love them in an unlimited fashion. Sometimes love has to take the form of admonition, but most often it is Jesus’ tender acceptance and forgiveness. How can they believe they can be forgiven if Christ’s own people cannot forgive them?
We have grown fat, complacent, selfish and greedy in our nice, big, opulent church buildings. I wonder, and sometimes wish I could find out, what would happen if it all went away and we were left with nothing but Jesus.