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| Where God Calls Will We Follow? Jeremiah 1:4-10
In this metropolitan area, each Sunday members of mainline congregations drive past young people walking a half-mile or more between their parked cars and the independent church where they attend worship. Meanwhile our own congregations are aging and reflect national trends of declining membership. What do those independent churches know that eludes us so in the mainline reformed tradition? Many of our local pastors in Presbyterian and UCC congregations feel overworked and underappreciated. Almost every church I visit complains about too few people to do the necessary work of maintaining the church. Formal complaints filed by church members against their governing boards or pastors are on the rise in almost every denomination, with people seeking a denomination’s legalistic process for resolving conflicts rather than direct engagement and prayer. Both the UCC and Presbyterians have programs to support church growth strategies, complete with lists of consultants, internet support, and in some cases grants and incentives. While being careful to acknowledge that focus on the survival of the church as institution is counter to the gospel message, both the Vital Congregations initiative in the United Church of Christ and the Transforming Congregations initiative in the Presbyterian (USA) have the hope that these efforts will produce increased members in local churches. There is much work for a church consultant like me – a non-clergy layperson, a former lawyer, whose call and ministry is to work with churches in transition. And I love my work – because I have witnessed what I believe to be the movement of the Holy Spirit among those congregations who move from a survival/growth in numbers mentality to one of deepening discipleship and seeking God’s call in the here and now of their present circumstances. Both the writers of Jeremiah and Luke are concerned with community and call – with a story larger than the individual characters in the drama. In Jeremiah we learn of the prophet’s initial resistance to his call with a plea of inadequacy due to age, and God’s remonstrance that even before Jeremiah’s birth God knew of his call as both destroyer and restorer. In Luke, we once again see Jesus demonstrating
the new relationship between the ancient laws and traditions and
God’s call to a radical freedom. As Jesus is teaching in the
synagogue, he sees this woman who most likely lives on the margin
of her culture. As a woman and a cripple, others may walk around
her without a glance, reacting with disgust or simply rendering
her invisible. In sharp contrast we have the synagogue leader, upset with Jesus’ actions, citing the expectations of the law and asserting his authority to interpret them. I feel some sympathy for this synagogue leader – after all, imagine inviting a guest preacher to teach and interpret the sacred texts and having Jesus do what he did. How can there be any order, any spiritual discipline, how will the needed tasks be accomplished, if people just take things into their own hands and act as they feel moved to do? Jesus does not wait politely until the service is over or quietly speak to an usher to go bring this woman to the pastor’s study so he can meet with her in private. No. He’s disruptive. He’s immediate – even rash. And he speaks and acts with authority and with no apparent thought about the consequences for his future. And so what might we take away from these two lectionary scriptures in Jeremiah and Luke? For me, they encompass an implicit warning not to be complacent about our relationship with God. In Jeremiah’s day such complacency resulted in Jerusalem’s defeat and the need for God to call the prophet Jeremiah to accept that his life, and the restoration of Jerusalem, would involve both endings and beginnings, destruction and creation. In Jesus’ day, complacency takes the form of the synagogue leader’s adherence to hypocritical practices which have lost their relationship to compassion and the spiritual grounding the laws were intended to support. Today, complacency takes the form of outdated models for what constitutes a good church member, fuzzy understanding of a pastor’s role, and a general absence of serious daily discipleship. Churches fail to do the work required to understand who we are as a congregation in a post-9/11 world. We continue to be surprised by the conflicts which arise in times of change, and are thus ill equipped to use the energy of such conflicts as powerful opportunities to further the church’s mission. We resist our calls as churches, and protest like Jeremiah that we are too small, too aging, have inadequate resources, and if only we could attract those young families. Too often we have become, as churches, bent-over and crippled, with vision limited by the burdens which we have allowed to weigh us down. Through leading church retreats I have come to understand the dynamics of the bent over church from many different perspectives. Using Walter Wink’s Transforming Bible Study I divide people into 2 groups. I will have one half of the retreatants walk around bent over for 5 minutes while the other half stand and seek to speak or interact with them Then they trade places. Those who first play the role of the crippled woman share that their world becomes so narrow – they really only feel comfortable sharing with others who are bent over as they are. Some feel isolated. Some feel shame. They are not all alike, these crippled individuals. Neither are our churches all alike. But many have limited their vision and traded duty for passion. Those who first play the part standing up find it awkward to relate to the bent over people who cannot look them in the eye. Very few find themselves going down on their knees in order to really relate to their crippled companions. Retreatants comment how easy it is to simply look over the heads of these bent over folks – to render them invisible. At one retreat those playing the crippled character agreed that it took great courage and risk to stand up and praise God even though it was “in church.” The church environment didn’t welcome such spontaneous changes in the worship format. After the church leader’s corrective words, they yearned to once again disappear into the crowd and not stand out in a clear declaration of freedom. The familiar and known bent-over posture suddenly had its appeal. Now that they were standing up straight, their relationship with everyone was different. Their congregation would never be the same. And neither would they. We in the church know that change is inevitable. We say we desire it. Yet too often our responses are like that of the synagogue leader – no we don’t want that kind of change, he/she didn’t even consult anyone and bring it to Council! When I think of RUC I wonder how we are doing in discerning our new identity. How might Jesus’ actions in the Luke story assist us in what I believe is still very much an unfinished process of clarifying a shared sense of direction and purpose. We were a church with an identity so intertwined with Community Ministries of Rockville that when Kasey left we had a double identity challenge. Not only were we confronted with discerning God’s call as Rockville United Church, but we were also confronted with a seismic destruction of identity. Our relationship with CMR will never be the same. We will never be the same. The church that was RUC is no more and no “fix-it” approach will supplant the need to discover and articulate our new identity and call. But here is Jesus, come into our midst, modeling
a new relationship to the past, teaching us about translating our
faith into discipleship. First, Jesus respects the traditions, the
roots of his faith. He wouldn’t be teaching at the synagogue
otherwise. Lastly, Jesus calls forth the woman, as God calls RUC, and proclaims YOU ARE FREE --- to be who you are. God is here, touching us, laying hands upon us. God sees us and knows us – and loves us. Will we respond as the synagogue leader – holding on to that which is known and familiar? Or will we recognize that change is inevitable and constant; that acting according to God’s call may lead to conflict as it did between Jesus and the synagogue leader? Will we learn to not fear conflicts but rather anticipate and equip ourselves to harness the energy of meaningful tensions and be propelled by that energy towards vitality and transformation? Will we let go of those activities or traditions which no longer support our new identity and call, allow various parts of ourselves to be destroyed, celebrate their demise, and name a new relationship? Will we take those necessary steps to deepen our spiritual understanding and to practice discipleship in ways relevant to a new age and a new century? Will we stand up straight as a congregation praising
God?
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God
Is Still Speaking www.stillspeaking.com |
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