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,
“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, 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]
“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]
‘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]
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.
[1]
All quotes about this speech are from http://www.christianpost.com/news/francis-chan-goes-into-detail-with-facebook-employees-on-why-he-left-his-megachurch-190136/
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