Saturday, July 8, 2017

“Playing Games” - July 9, 2017



Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30


            Sometimes I wonder what Jesus thinks about the Church as we know it.  Part of me looks at what John says about Jesus going to the wedding at Cana and what all the gospels say about how he enjoyed sharing a good meal with his friends and sometimes with people who were not his friends, and I am sure that he would highly approve of such things as strawberry festivals and chili cook-offs and covered dish dinners.  I read about how, from childhood on, he made it part of his spiritual life to travel to festival holy days in Jerusalem, first with his family and later with his disciples, and I get the feeling he would understand why people go to Christian events like music festivals (I’m thinking here about Creation) or various youth rallies.

            But I can also imagine him looking at a church picnic and asking, “Why weren’t the neighbors invited?” or standing there in a crowd of thousands of people staring at a stage and thinking, “Are we here for God or for the music?” 

I can see him getting annoyed with folks like you and me, just not seeing the deep needs that people try to meet in terrible ways, turning to drugs – some of them chemicals that kill their bodies; some of them empty, time-wasting trivia that fill a vacant mind; some of them like the pursuit of wealth or power at any expense that kills their souls.  Matthew [9:36] says that
“When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.”
But I can also see him understanding the frustration that comes when, as many Christians do, we do our best to be faithful to the gospel and to share the good news in both word and deed and it seems to be to no effect.  He himself looked at the Holy City and cried.  He said,
“JerusalemJerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!”  [Luke 13.34]

            In short, I don’t think his reaction to us would be much different from his reaction to the people of first-century Palestine, who could be frustratingly confusing and totally impossible to please, but whom he loved totally.

“But to what will I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the market-places and calling to one another, 
‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance;
   we wailed, and you did not mourn.’ 
For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon’; the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax-collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.” 
[Matthew 11:16-19]

            The heart of Jesus’ ministry, and the heart of our own, is to remain faithful to the love of God in whatever way we have known it in our own lives.  The heart of it is to be genuine human beings, because we are genuinely made in God’s image, and genuinely forgiven when we turn away from that, and genuinely restored when we repent and turn back to God, and genuinely blessed when the Holy Spirit says, “Now we have a job to do for somebody else.”  In some cases it calls for some serious, get-real people with a hard-nosed edge.  In some cases it calls for someone who is the good cop.  Don’t think it all falls on you.  You may not be the one for a particular job.  On the other hand, don’t think there is not a role for you to play, because God is not wasteful and isn’t going to let your gifts go unused.

            There’s a man who lives in California whose name is Francis Chan.  Seven years ago he was pastor of a church that was up to an attendance of 5,000 people per week and he had just published a couple of bestsellers and was becoming sought-after on the lecture circuit.  Then he just left it, which confused a lot of people at the time.  Last week he finally gave an explanation, not to his megachurch colleagues, but to an audience of Facebook employees.[1]
"I got frustrated at a point, just biblically," Chan said ... "I'm going wait a second. According to the Bible, every single one of these people has a supernatural gift that's meant to be used for the body. And I'm like 5,000 people show up every week to hear my gift, see my gift. That's a lot of waste. Then I started thinking how much does it cost to run this thing? Millions of dollars!"
"So I'm wasting the human resource of these people that according to Scripture have a miraculous gift that they could contribute to the body but they're just sitting there quietly.” …
"I was like, 'God, you wanted a church that was known for their love. You wanted a group of people where everyone was expressing their gifts. … We're a body.’”
            God didn’t send Jesus into the world to play games, even if the game is called “Church” and his followers are racking up big points on the world’s scoreboard.  (In business they call them market-share and revenue.  In church we say “attendance and budget”, but either way, there’s a danger that what should be indications of faithfulness are mistaken for the faithfulness itself.)  Chan confessed what God was showing him:
“Wanting to hide from ‘that weird celebrity thing,’ he also realized that he missed the old Francis Chan — ‘that stupid kid who fell in love with Jesus in high school and starts calling everyone in the yearbook that he knew to tell them about Jesus because he was so concerned about their eternal destiny.’"
Jesus came so that people, in the Church and outside the Church, could stop playing the games that are so destructive to life here and keep us from its eternal fullness. 
Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” [Matthew 10:28-30]
The people Jesus was talking to when he said that knew what a yoke was, and how it worked.  It’s one of those wooden collars that puts two animals together to pull a cart or a plow.  It enforces a kind of teamwork that doesn’t always come naturally, but that ultimately makes the job easier on both animals and gets things done that could not be done alone, under the guidance of the farmer who put them together. 

            I actually think it’s kind of funny that Chan went off and started intentionally founding a bunch of small, intentionally non-mega churches, in fact house-churches.  In the speech he gave to the Facebook people he told them, like it’s some new discovery, what people in (and forgive me if I sound smug here, because I am) traditional churches take for granted.  Chan told the people last week,
"Some days I think it was a lot easier when I could just preach, go back and drive off in my car and leave all of them like I will today," he said to laughter among the Facebook employees. "I don't have to care for your issues, you know? … I'll never see you again.
"This is easy. But you have this circle here and you're in each other's lives and no offense, it's not this Facebook — I can just put up what I want about myself. That's kind of like the way church was. It's like let me just show you this one side on Sunday morning and let me just show you the best pictures of me and my greatest accomplishments.
"But when it's family, it gets messy. And you start finding out people's dirt. Just like you know about your brother and sister every Thanksgiving. It's messy because it's family. That's what Christ wanted. And so we fight for it. And it's been a blast."
I’m glad he’s realized that, although if he had just asked you or me, we could have told him.  At least, I hope so. 

            Yes, we drive each other crazy, but go ahead and just laugh about it.  According to the Bible, we drive Jesus to distraction, too, but he somehow still wants to gather us together, as a hen gathers her brood under her wings. 

            If only we are willing.


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