Without a Home

I am not much like Jesus. I wish I was more like him. These days I do feel like I identify with him in one way.

The gospel describes Jesus as a man without a home.  We find him consistently sticking out like a sore thumb among the "people.of God."  He just didn't seem to belong... in the synagogue, in the temple, even among his own disciples.  Oh, he *did* belong there.  But he was light in the darkness.  He was the true Adam amidst men of dust. 

I am not the light in the darkness.  But I become more and more aware that I don't belong.  I'm not sure whether its because I am a difficult person or because I just refuse to follow the crowd around here.  Both are equally probable.  They are probably two sides of the same coin.  The fact remains that I am slowly coming to question if there is any place in the church - the church here - for me. 

It makes me sad.  Truth be told though, I am not sure what to do about it.  I have sought God.  I won't say with all my heart, because I don't think any human - least of all myself - is free of partial and false motives.  But my desire has been to know Him as He is.  It just so happens that the Him I know doesn't fit the Him that most people know around here. 

In the end, I must be true to the You I know, Jesus.  Help me to do that.  Even if I never find a home.  Be my home.

Man Of God

"Come meet this man of God."  These were the words of the search committee announcing the selection of a new Pastor of Worship.  Why did they trouble me?

The same words had been used to describe me before.  Did they trouble me then?  I think perhaps so.  I know me.  To call me a man of God more than anyone else has never seemed appropriate.  Was I jealous?  Perhaps, I don't have a ministry position right now, so that was a legitimate probability.  But it didn't seem the only or even the primary reason.

As I thought about it, it seemed like it was the selectivity of the statement.  "Come see this man of God.

Him.  Me.  Why are we "men of God?"  What is so special about me?  About him?  I don't like the way we elevate people in ministry.  I don't like it when its done to others. I don't like it when its done to me.  Don't get me wrong, it feels good.  It makes me feel valued and loved and... God help me... important.  But as I said, I know me.  I know they're feeding a fire that doesn't need any fuel.  Even the most insecure people don't need to have their pride coddled.  Speaking as one, many of us have enough fantasies, dreams and secret hopes for our own importance that we would never let see the light of day.  I do.  God forgive me, I do.

I need encouragement.  I need reassurance.  I need hope and love.  But the paradoxical curse of ministry is that the role we serve feeds our greatest temptation - our pride.  I am a man of God no more than any other follower of Christ. I recognize that many people see pastors and church leaders as representatives of God.  But I am not convinced that is a good thing.  We are all representatives of God to each other.

The prayers of a minister are no more effective than those of your brother or sister in Christ.  Neither should be the words of encouragement, the hand of consolation, the comforting presence.  There is no ranking by position in the Kingdom of God.  Granted, there are differences of gifts:  wisdom, prophecy, mercy, eloquence, discernment.  But there should be no more reverence for the human pastor than for the human janitor or dishwasher.  "The last shall be first," and all that.

That said, I understand words from the pastor, minister or other authoritative person will, in fact, be more comforting to some people because they are uttered from a position of authority.  I will not begrudge anyone that.  But as people in leadership, we should neither invite nor welcome such sentiment.  And I would go so far as to say that we should subversively counter those ideas by our counsel, our sermons and our transparent lives before others.  We should be constantly reminding people that we are no more holy, no less sinful, no more important than anyone else who loves and follows Jesus.

Canis Christianus

I once read that dogs run away to die.  I used to wonder why they would do that.  After all, I'm scared to death to die alone.  But I think humanity has some similar vestigial instinct in our compulsion to hide our pain.  Pain implies weakness; weakness generates shame.  I don't know if a dog feels shame, but I know how humans feel it.  I know both men and women have lied, stolen, murdered and died to avoid it.  Entire cultures have regulated behavior, morality and social rules based on fear of shame.  The church has at times relied on it exclusively.

I have often felt that the scriptures do us no favors here.  I have my suspicions as to why Martin Luther called the book of James an "epistle of straw."  "Count it all joy my brothers," says James, "when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance."  Here's my knee-jerk response to the esteemed successor of Peter to headship of the Jerusalem church:  Don't be such a prick.

Offended?  Yeah, well, me too.  That is, until I recognize that it's not the words of James that trouble me so much, but it is hearing them as platitudes from religious people that evoke this overpowering urge to wretch.  How dare you hurl scripture at me as if it were a balm!  Away with your inevitable, "I can do all things through Christ Jesus."  In the mouths and hands of the right people, even scripture can be venom.  You feed guilt with guilt.  Must I be ashamed even of weakness?  "Buck up boyo!  We've no time for your self-pity.  Don't harsh our vibe."

Other people's misery troubles us.  Keep your shit to yourself.  But if you dare to bother us with it, we're going to make damn sure you fix it - and pronto.  We love you too much to let that shit smell up this church.  We've got a kingdom to build, and nobody wants a shitty kingdom.

Honesty is ugly, isn't it?  But there's a whole lot of ugly between here and there.  You can turn your back on it and pretend its not there.  You can sweep it under the rug.  You can build cathedrals over it.  It won't go away.  The alternative?  We can descend into it as Jesus did.  You can build Christ's church in the middle of it.  Where the love of Christ is, there is redemption - even if it's clouded by our own weaknesses.  God make me brave enough to go there with you.

In the end

Its ridiculous how trained I am to see myself in light of my accomplishments and failures.  I have far more of the latter than the former.  Ultimately, I have to resign myself to death.  Finally, I am a failure.  A beloved, miserable, pathetic excuse whom you never stopped smiling over for no other reason than that you are real, selfless love.  I keep wanting to be like you, but I'm lucky to make it five minutes without falling.  Thank you for loving me anyway.  Forgive me for faithlessness.  Help me to trust you at your Word - Jesus.  Make me able to incarnate that love to those around me.

Relevant

I suppose I'll have to reserve this blog for my frustrations, since the other blog is supposed to be constructive.

I opened my mail this morning to find a flier announcing another church launch.  It read:

"This piece of mail could change your life forever - Relevant Church"

Thankfully on the back it said, "Of course that is ridiculous."  However, I fear their teaser had already turned off anyone who might ever look beyond it.  Just after that, it read:  

"This piece of mail can't change your life, but we are excited to introduce you to something that can.  Imagine a place..."

Did you catch that?  Apparently this place can change my life.  

"At Relevant Church we believe that church should be exciting, meaningful, relevant and life-giving."

Big words.  A quick perusal of the advert revealed that what makes "Relevant Church" relevant are it's 

1.  "Engaging, powerful worship services (translated:  Hillsong music & dynamic speaker).  

2.  Programs for children from birth to 5th grade

3.  They accept you for who you are

Guess what?  Based on this information, the only thing that makes "relevant church" different from any other contemporary church in this area is it's glossy advertisement.  Oh wait, nevermind, it's not different at all.  We have more churches in this area than we have restaurants!  Why do we need another cookie-cutter church?  Bluntly, because somebody else wants to be in charge.

You know what I want?  I want a different kind of church.  I want an advert that reads like this:

"If you're looking for another church don't come here.  If you're looking for coffee, cool music and fantastic kids' programs... well, we have coffee.  There are better places out there for that kind of thing.  But if you want to love and be loved like Jesus, we welcome you to join with us in trying.  We hope to be good at that someday."

Irony

How ironic is it that all of us want so bad to be somebody, but to truly live for Christ we must live like nobodies.  I can't help but wonder how screwed up.we have it in organized religion, where the most.popular leaders are the somebodies.  Where we try hard to have bigger churches, more followers, more and bigger buildings and programs, more influence - as if that defined our somebodiness.  It all seems horribly topsy-turvy.  It seems like a power game.  I begin to think I want no part.of it.

All good things come to an end.  Even not-so-good things come to an end.  With that realization, I have decided that this blog must come to a kind of an end as well.  When I started it, I needed a place to speak.  I was trapped in a culture, a vocation and a church where I could not voice my thoughts without fear of repercussion.  God was doing something different with me, changing me, placing a different picture of Himself in my heart.  But to share that image with people close to me meant the possible loss of both my job and relationships with people that I cared deeply about.

Possibility became reality.  I did lose my job, along with 95% percent of the people I had considered my family.  I let out little bits here and there of what I believed God was teaching me about Himself and his Heart, thinking people would receive it well - or at least with respectful disagreement. It was met instead with a kind of fury.  So I turned to this blog as a place of healing and reflection over those years.

Now I have come to a different place - both in life and geography.  Much of the hurt is gone.  There is virtually no one to silence me, as I am no longer in a formal ministry position.  God has healed me of much - though I still carry some nasty scars and bruises.  And I have begun a new phase in my life where I am free to be who I am... though I think I will always be careful about revealing myself to people.

I find it unlikely that 2-3 people who ever read this blog will miss it, but I have decided not to renew the domain name dogmaeatdogma.com (it expires December 22nd).  I may still pop in and post here from time to time as it has become my diary of sorts. I never published much here (many posts were never published because I was afraid even you would think me crazy or heretical) but what you will find reflects my heart in its good and bad moments.  If you are some wanderer lost in the back roads of the internet and have discovered this page, I pray blessings on you and that you will encounter in Christ the God who is (despite the opinions of many religious people):

wild.  beautiful.  wondrous.  mysterious.  vexing.  limitless.  knowable.  unknowable.  reckless.  relentless.  shocking.  uncomfortable.  home.  peace.  hope.  selfless.  scandalous.  love.