Maturity

Holy Man, Earthy Man

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'Wellies are stripey for a reason' by Dan FoyReaders of this blog know that I write about down-to-earth subject matter. More than just about anything, I hope to see the Kingdom of God increasingly oust the kingdom of this world (and its chthonic ruler).

But it strikes me as odd that so many of us American Christians, as much as we assimilate the world’s methods of operation and thinking, still erect sacred/secular divides. Many of us think nothing of spending an entire weekend browsing for yet more stuff at the local mall, but should anyone talk of helping the world’s poor find economic justice, that poor soul gets branded as a minister of the “social gospel” or part of some sect of Christianity somehow gone to theological seed.

I guess I don’t understand the hypocrisy of the typical heavenly-minded suburban Christian loading up her shopping cart with pre-Black-Friday deals that only tie her to the world, then having her say, “You’re taking your eyes off Jesus if you talk about fighting for people’s jobs.” Talking about earthy truths somehow can’t be viewed as having any relevance to the Church’s ultimate mission.

Yet I can’t read the Bible as some kind of gnostic document that imagines the physical world doesn’t exist. Most of the Law consists of bringing truth into the everyday earth-bound problems people faced. I can’t read the compelling tales of the early Church in action and not see that right away they’re addressing the down-to-earth problems of simple people. So the Hellenists complain that their widows aren’t getting the same attention as the rest. Do the apostles blow them off as social gospel advocates or worldly advocates of taking one’s eyes off Jesus to stare at the mundane? No, they do something about the problem.

Hey, I can pray for hours on end if need be, but come Wednesday night, I still must take a garbage can down to the curb. I can’t pretend while in some spiritual swoon that I can just forget about paying my taxes. As much as Jesus might love me, I’d still wind up in jail for tax evasion. And I’m sure that instead of being immaterial, those cold, steel bars would feel plenty solid in my hands.

Jesus didn’t think it was too smart to build one’s house on sand, and I’m sure His hearers agreed, even if they didn’t initially get the deeper spiritual point being made. That parable of the heavenly world makes sense only because Jesus tied it to the earthbound world. In fact, Jesus perpetually ties the spiritual and secular together. He Himself embodies the dissolving of the sacred/secular divide. He is the God Man.

I’m sorry, but when I hear people superspiritualizing Christianity, disconnecting it from its dust-laden incarnation, it makes me want to scream. I don’t get how people can spend all weekend in church, pray and read the Bible for hours on end, drop Jesus into every conversation they have with the lost, yet somehow think it’s too worldly to consider helping the down-and-out neighbor family get their car fixed.

I’m making no apologies: I’ll expose that kind of hypocrisy every opportunity I get.

It’s not enough to think we’ve got our vertical relationship (with God) down pat. We’ve got to get the horizontal one (with people) fixed, too. And being horizontal means that we graciously fix the problems here on this skubalon-encrusted world—and we do that fixing in Jesus’ name armed with Holy Spirit power.

As we go into the week of Thanksgiving, just what are we thankful for? God knows that I am thankful for Jesus and all He did for me and for you. I’m thankful as all get-out for every spiritual truth God surrendered His Son to live and die for. I’m thankful that Christ embodies all that I can every want or need. But I’m also thankful for the wooden roof over my head and the clothes in my drawer. I thank God for the flesh-and-blood woman He saw fit to give me and the little package of snips, snails, and puppy-dog tails that is my son. I thank Him for the land outside the four walls of this house, land that provides us food, and reminds me in its tree-pounding woodpeckers, slimy-cool salamanders, and sky-tickling walnut trees that God is Creator and King of All.

And I thank God that He saw fit not to take me up to heaven in a fiery chariot the second I placed my faith in Jesus. He has a mission for me here. Sometimes that mission will include helping a lost person find his way to salvation in Christ. Sometimes that mission will find me pounding a nail in the frame of a house destined for someone who couldn’t afford a home unless Christians like me stepped in and made it possible. It means I get to pray on behalf of a brother. And it means that the prayer I pray may be that this brother and his wife find more opportunities to get away from the kids so they can get wild in the sack without interruption. It may even mean my wife and I watch those kids to make that possible.

I can be a holy man of God by being an earthy man of God. There is no distinction:

But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.
—2 Corinthians 4:7-10

Church, this week, manifest Jesus to someone else. And do so any way that seems right by the Holy Spirit’s leading.

I’ll be taking the rest of the week off from blogging. See you all here on Monday the 26th. May our Lord bless you abundantly this Thanksgiving.

What the Other Guys Taught Me

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I talk a lot about intrachurch community here at Cerulean Sanctum, but not as much about the kind of community that spans denominations. Today’s post rectifies that lack.

Leonard Ravenhill, the great British revivalist (and one of the patron saints of this blog) was fond of wordplay. One of his favorite tricks follows:

“…that’s not the kind of message you’ll hear today in our religious abominations…er, denominations.”

As much as I love Ravenhill for his wit and spiritual depth, I’m not to the point of calling our denominations abominations. Fact is, I’ve learned a considerable amount from the denominations I’ve interacted with since coming to Christ.

  • From the Lutherans, I learned about Jesus (for the first time), grace, and the priesthood of all believers.
  • From the Assemblies of God, I learned about the power of the Holy Spirit for service.
  • From the Presbyterians, I learned about the authority of the Scriptures.
  • From the Disciples of Christ, I learned about holiness.
  • From the Methodists, I learned about fellowship.
  • From the Evangelical Free Church, I learned about the necessity of a Christian worldview.
  • From the Vineyard, I learned about evangelism through service and how to listen to the Holy Spirit.
  • From the Pentecostals, I am learning the depth and breadth of what Christ did for me through the cross and what that means for how I view myself and others.

If this makes me a “mongrel in the Faith,” then I’m a mongrel. In defense of mongrels, I’ll say this much: we aren’t prone to genetic diseases that afflict the purebreds, and we’re certainly not inbred to the point of weakness.

I learned all those different aspects of the faith from those different denominations largely because each denomination has found a handful of specific truths in the Scriptures that they latched onto and defended with tooth and nail. Even a black sheep gives woolSuch is the specialist aspect of Christianity today, but still. Someone defended truth and held it up as an example, even if it was just a small piece of a larger whole.
In truth, how can we not fall into these little groups? I’m not sure that such a division was inevitable when the Christian Church sprang to life, but I suppose the über-sovereigntist would argue that God planned it that way all along. We wouldn’t agree. I can see Ravenhill’s point. A fractured Body is a fractured Body.

Still, considering the tribal nature of human beings, I’m not surprised that we continue to fall into tribes of people who believe, look, and act like each other. That this also marks our churches should come as no surprise. We feel most comfortable in a community that looks like us. As for me, I’m thankful that I’ve been a part of enough Christian groups that don’t look exactly like me that I’m comfortable with a wide-variety of Christian experience. Even then, I’ll say that not every one is my exact cup of tea.

We need the proper perspective: heaven isn’t going to be tribal. I highly suspect that it won’t reflect our own idiosyncratic groups, but reflect the entirety of every tongue and every nation. The divisions won’t mean anything anymore.

All this brings me back to the great philosopher Rodney King who once said:

“People, I just want to say, you know, can we all get along?”

Well, can we?

As someone coming from a charismatic perspective, it always hurts to see fellow believers absolutely foam at the mouth and lash out with every verbal weapon they possess when it comes to the whole issue of the charismata working today. The worst part of that is the anger and accusations get leveled at people as opposed to ideas.

In any theological battle royale, people lurk behind every idea. So even if an idea is wrong, there’s still a person who holds it. For us Christians, that should matter more than it seems to.

When I discuss things with people who have ideas different than mine, I do keep up a mental fence to screen out ideas that violate Scripture. The difference is I still try to listen. Too many Christians out there stick their fingers in their ears and start screaming, “Nah, nah, nah, I’m not listening.” And that’s a darned shame.

So the Nazarene guy and I are not going to agree on the charismata. It doesn’t mean I treat him like crap. It also means he may have insights into a portion of theology and the practice of the Faith that I lack. But if we start gouging out each other’s eyes because our theology doesn’t align perfectly in every minute detail, then we’ve lost the real battle and let Satan win. And Satan gets too many wins nowadays.

I can’t imagine what my faith would be like today if I never experienced those other denominations. I wish true Christianity wasn’t as fractured as we’ve made it, but what it is, it is this side of heaven. I don’t see a reversal of that trend until the Lord returns.

This isn’t a call to ecumenism. I don’t support the current incarnation of the ecumenical movement because it gives away the farm in order to get the cow. That’s not wisdom and right fellowship. Some things about our Faith are givens (like the divinity of Christ and His salvific uniqueness), but I’m willing to listen on some of the smaller points.

Most of all, I’m willing to love my neighbor. Love overcomes a great deal, even mistaken ideals.

The “other guys” in that Christian church across the street have something to teach us. Are we listening?

Too Much

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{If you’re not in the mood for a mid-week rant, then skip today’s post. I apologize in advance…}

No milk. Time to run to the grocery store. Time to wonder what weird rip in the space-time continuum brings me to this other, oddly parallel town.

Yes, the Kroger store transports me to some burg called Scooterville. Every row of the store has some person riding a battery-powered scooter up and down the aisles, that person grabbing the essential foodstuffs Man has feasted on since the dawn of time: Pop-Tarts, Twinkies, fried cheesecake, and countless other comestibles sure to give a pancreas a fit.

And from what I can tell, pancreases across this country are calling it quits. “No mas! No mas!”

In the last month, I’ve heard one guy after another tell me he’s wearing a CPAP mask at night and poking himself with syringes filled with insulin. Can’t breathe, can’t keep the blood sugar stable. It’s scary.

Now while it’s true that I turn 45 mere days from now, I don’t want to be staring that future in the face. So even though I’m healthy, I’m making some dietary changes.

This is not to say I’m obese like the drivers of the scooters that clog the aisles of my neighborhood Kroger. In fact, at 6′ 4″ and 217 pounds, I’m the lightest guy my height that I know. Most of the others are 235 and up.

I was pretty much a stick in high school and even then I wore pants with a 36 waist. I wear 38 today, but I highly suspect that a 38 today is not what it was twenty-five years ago. A tape measure around my waist says 41, but I’m still got plenty of room in the waist of my size 38 jeans, so something ain’t right.

I’ve got no gut to speak of, but the powers that be say you can’t have a waist larger than 40 inches or else you face a plethora of vascular and endocrine issues. Now the rule seems a bit off when you compare 6′ 4″ with a 40 waist with 5′ 9″ and 40, but we tall people are out of luck in plenty of other regards. (In other words, if your house was built before 1965, don’t ask me to come down into your basement.)

No matter how svelte I am compared with peers, I still don’t want to end up a diabetic having a machine breathe for me at night, so I’ve started a low-glycemic diet in the last week and have already seen good results.

Now I don’t want to seem judgmental here, but there’s no way to escape it: anymore, we’re a nation of fatties. When I have to walk around the end of an aisle to get past someone oozing over the sides of a scooter, something’s gone wrong. Fill every row with a massive rotundity piloting a 3-wheeler, and we’ve moved beyond wrongness into outright tragedy.

I think about this national corpulence at the same time I read that a Senate panel is investigating the bank accounts of a half dozen Pentecostal/charismatic televangelists. Just as some people’s bodies swell up like Violet Beauregard on a tour of Wonka’s, so too do these evangelists swell their own personal larders at the expense of the gullible and poor.

That the government sees fit to investigate when the governing bodies of those evangelists’ denominations sit like three chimps masking various sensory organs…well, I know a few folks who should be ashamed of themselves. And for once, it’s not government folks.

We talk about a lot of blind spots in the American Church here at this blog, but I’m not sure we’ve ever fully discussed our love of excess. Some of us love our preachers loud and larger than life. Some of us like a good 3-ring circus on Sundays. And if people can barely squeeze down the aisle to get to the altar to confess every sin known to man SAVE for rapacious gluttony, then that’s okay, too.

Only it’s not okay.

I’m not sure why we give this one a pass. Why do we tolerate excess in our churches? The only excess we should be seeking is an overflow of the Spirit of God, yet some of us donate money hoping to get more—and still more on top of that—because some Dior-wearing televangelist’s wife caked under fifty pounds of Mary Kay says so (because, as she’ll tell you, winter’s coming and nothing stops the frosties better than a Russian sable coat).The perfect metaphor We’re turning into sweaty-faced lard-buckets hollering about those damned liberals and their abortions, or those red-diaper babies selling America down the commode, yet we can’t pull ourselves away from the “Stuff Yourself till You Explode” brunch bar at the local Big Boy.

No, it’s not just the charlatan televangelist promising 21st century indulgences. It’s not just the human amoeba scrunched down in his scooter trying to use a grab stick to procure a family-sized bag of Famous Amos cookies from the top shelf. No, it’s those of us who think Jesus died to ensure us a good credit score so we can buy more crap than the guy next door.

So again, I ask, “Why do we tolerate excess in our churches?” Why do we tolerate pews filled with one Mr. Creosote after another? Why can’t we wise up to con-artists televangelists who take and take and take, all the while sporting their Patek Philippes for the slack-jawed to ogle? Why do we measure spiritual success in terms of how big congregants’ houses are rather than how large their hearts might be? Again, show me a church, when selecting a new elder, that’ll pick the humble guy who works in a convenience store over the preening captain of industry, and I’ll show you a church Smyrna would embrace.

Too much. Too stinkin’ much.

If we want to make a difference in this world, then we better live so we can say without irony, “Jesus alone is my satisfaction.”