Gerge Bush - My Neighbor

I think if all on both sides would take a breath and "love their neighbor as their self" the conversation could be more edifying.

Do those who would deny the President the honor of his title ever consider the responsibility of the office. You want to call him George Bush then maybe you should think of him as George Bush, your neighbor. Yep, he is just a man, feet of clay just like us. Just a man with the weight of the nation on his shoulders.

Have you ever noticed how the Presidency quickly greys the hair of those who hold it? Have you ever imagined what it would be like to have to make the calls he has to make. It's easy to say he should have done this or he shouldn't have done that from the stands while he is in the game. Meanwhile, we as citizens of this nation, to a large degree, collapse under the weight of trying to maintain our marriages, control our spending, parent our children, pastor our church, do our job. But we know how George Bush screwed up and how we would fix it or not fix it and throw up our hands and say revolution happens. Yeah it happens and people get slaughtered. Yep, whatever he does people are going to die because of it. Every decision he makes foreign or domestic affects the course of a nation and the world. Any of us want that responsibility? Those who sign their name or those without the courage to even do that? If you think you do, don't forget in order to get there you have to first open your whole life to a microscope focused on your moments of greatest weakness.

George Bush is just a man. One I don't always agree with. One who might have gotten elected to an office beyond his capabilities. One who may be stubborn. Or maybe the other group of citizens is right and he is a man of conviction, protector of our nation, Harvard MBA, etc. It doesn't really matter, nor does it matter that he sought the job. All that matters is that when I think of him as George Bush, my neighbor, and love him as myself, I feel the weight on him, share his pain, carry the hate spewed toward him. It breaks my heart.

Better for me, to think of him as the President and give him the respect due his office. Disagree if I want, that is the right I have, but I for one will maintain civility and aim my criticism at the office. Because, George Bush is my neighbor and I love him.

Religion, Politics, Life and Death

I've been thinking alot lately about religion and politics. Perhaps more aptly styled faith and futility. I find it harder and harder to reconcile the faith I espouse with the politics of patriotism. Don't get me wrong, I love my country and yet do not really expect it to behave in a Christian manner. Government interests and Christian interests only coincide when expedient to the reigning political system. Clearly, Christ recognized this in advising that we "render unto Caesar what is Caesars and to God what is God's"

I don't dispute that a government's job is to protect and defend. However, I am coming to realize that the Christian response is perhaps the way of redemption rather than revenge. Perhaps we are called to address violence with nonviolence, hate with love, death with life. Even facing certain death, Jesus declined to incite a rebellion.

I always have thought that the death penalty was justified in some cases. The more I think about it the more unsure I am. As Christians we believe none are beyond redemption. Can we really know who God will use? David was and adulterer and murderer. Moses slew a man in anger. Paul presided over the stoning of Stephen and others. This is not to suggest that actions do not deserve consequences. Consequences are a part of the natural order and learning does not happen without them. However, we can protect society with life imprisonment and still act redemptively. This would also seem to be a wiser course given the demonstrated abuse of the process by prosecutors as well as the cases overturned by scientific evidence.

These issues and others and their troubling implications make the following observation of the blogger, Rick from Philadelphia, resonate with me. Rick says, "Personally I don't have the guts to follow Jesus, so I sometimes settle for being a Christian".

Rough Week

It's been a tough week in the Narthex. Silly turf wars masking issues of real importance. Simple programming questions give rise to questions of temperment, call and competence. Have we become so PC that simple direct questions are percieved as fighting words?

Sometimes church is simply exhausting. So many people looking to be slighted in everything. Are they really so insecure? Perhaps.

Striking the balance between accountability and love. Do you express your anger at the moneychangers in the temple or turn the other cheek. Makes one wonder about the wisdom of worrying about spoiled church people when we should be seeking out the marginalized like our Lord Jesus. Then again, it was the marginalized and the children? Should I go to the mat over the children's ministry? Do the difficulties the youth have with community stem from years of inadequate ministry to children?

Seeking God's path on the razor's edge of faith. You would think the path would be clear. Guide and direct me O Lord for my ways are not your ways but I seek to have your heart. Well I guess I wasn't alone in my crappy week. At least I'm not the pastor.

?

Faith?
Lost?
Found?
Don't Know!
Don't Care!
Afraid of it?
Afraid from it?
Empty?
Full?
Sad?
Satisfied?
Raging!
Ranting!
Running?
Hiding?
Finding?
Seeking?
Slow!
Stiff!
Compulsion!
Revulsion!
Obsess?
Confess?
Acquiesce?
Articulate?
Speculate?
Capitulate?
Bleak?
Bright?
Light?
Dark?
Lark?
Crazy?
Hazy?
Proud!
Loud!
Happy?
Glad?
Racing?
Chasing?
Embracing?
Self Effacing?
Displacing?
Loving?
Longing?
Lost?
Found?
Faith?
Don't Know?
Care?

How do we draw them in?

It seems to be the persistent question. Who are them? Why younger churched and unchurched folks of course. Why aren't they interested? Do they not know about us? Do they not care about the message? Should we publicize? Should we pray? Should we care? Is it really our concern? Should we just put the message out there? Are we really interested? Do we care about the message? Do we care about them? Round and round it goes where it stops nobody knows.

Maybe it doesn't stop. We have been doing religion as a species for thousands of years and still don't seem to have a clue. I mean three major world religions worshipping the God of Abraham and we have no consensus on ultimate questions and we often have been or are currently trying to kill each other. Maybe we should all take a Buddhist or Hindu chill pill.

Then there are the other of us who are so apathetic we probably shouldn't bother. Worse than lukewarm but not completely dead. Are maybe worse yo yoing from iceberg to flame thrower. What does it all mean, who has the practice right? Maybe nobody!

Ah! I feel better blow it into the blogsphere that's the ticket.

What if?

What if we all got on the slippery slope of the gospel? It occurs to me that we make our arguments and quibble over textual accuracy because the gospel itself is so uncomfortably clear. Jesus said "Follow Me" into a life of self sacrifice, utter surrender. Why because the kingdom of God is at hand. Well 2000 years later it doesn't seem to be here, but then again maybe it is at hand if we would follow. It is right there in our grasp.
Think about what could happen if everyone who calls themselves Christian would buy the whole program - total surrender and self sacrifice - the giant sucking sound would be the world as we know it sliding down the slippery slope into the vacuum created by when Christians empty themselves as Christ emptied himself. I think the slope is indeed slippery but the fingernails of self reliance and selfishness cut deep into the surface and the layers of dug in believers make it a bumpy ride for one individual to take. But what if? We all let go - I think we might just be in for one hell of a good ride.

Opposition to Appeasment

At some point to make the church better we will have to stop ducking, dodging, evading and pacifying grown people who know how to behave better. People who take offense at the drop of a hat and yet care not that they give offense. Why is it permissible for them to say they can't relate to our topics but not permissible for me to say I cannot relate to their whining. Why is it permissible for them to oppose an effort to grow our church by reaching out to the disenfranchised and others for no stated reason. Why must we unyieldingly adhere to their Wed. schedule when most working people can't attend. Who is telling them the young people are unhappy about this? It is the same problem that went ignored in the housing situation. Just as I said then it does not go away by ignoring or appeasing it. They could offer no spiritual justification for their actions then and offer no spiritual justification for their opposition now. ( I have not forgotten our exchange of emails on the topic -- and your contention that the faith position was not to act in the confidence that God would protect us from the consequences-- but you never understood that I was aware that the church could be put at risk as I am aware that such risk is exactly what Jesus called us to. Not with the promise that we would not suffer the consequence but rather the assurance that we likely would.) You defined your heart to a large degree when you confessed your desire to preserve UBC based on your 40? years here. And like most here you want to always point to good things we do as if that somehow justifies the blackness lurking at our core. It does not matter how many good things we do if we forsake the gospel to preserve our fragile self image. I still cannot shake the picture of our church denying refuge to some and not even being willing to consider it for others because we were protecting a building. God have mercy on us all.

Preservation of any church is not our goal. Had Jesus taken the path of appeasement-there would be no Christian CHurch and we would be the unclean Gentiles exclude from the life and TEMPle of the chosen people. Can't you hear his response to complaints about our offensive topics-so much like his audacity in socializing with publicans and sinners- perhaps a simple retort -the topics are not to draw you.

The sad thing is that the leadership of this church insist on having dialogue like this one in the shadows and promotes the views of an undefined constituency. I am at all times prepared to give a defense of myself and my actions. You dare to rebuke me and when I respond asking you to earn the right to deliver that rebuke, you don't even address the issue instead lapsing into appeasment language again. The fact is that UBC will not get better until some of those older people muster the courage to stand up and look their friends in the eye and say you are just wrong and you know your position is indefensible.

Instead we continue to enable what I think and hope is a minority. Two things that did not escape me in the housing fiasco were 1)what really gave offense was taking the issue public by emailing the church after they ignored my private attempt; 2) they capitulated almost immediately when the light of day shined on them. Which tends to confirm my hope that the vast majority of the church do not agree with the shadow minority. I really wish we would just call a vote on one full Sunday Morning on the issues Sunday Night, Worship Style, Housing future evacuees. I earnestly believe in UBC and we could put all this whining and appeasing behind us and move ahead. Or if I am wrong and the darkness runs deeper then at least we would know and could go elsewhere to serve and to grieve the eventual demise of UBC.

Finally, it is not about who has more flaws. I am well aware of my many flaws-nevertheless-Jesus calls us in our imperfection. And I have an obligation to say to MY church leaders give account of yourself. Quit delaying and obstructing the gospel by appeasing those who give no account. Ask yourself why the leadership doesn't want me saying these things to the church as a whole. Why are we slinking around in the dark. What is there that Christ's church cannot look at in the light. The only answer is darkness because it cannot abide the light. So expect me to continue to call for courage from our leaders to stop appeasing naysayers. And ask yourself was the Christ you follow an appeaser of the institutional church? I think not.

Chilling

"Do not be too quick to condemn the man who no longer believes in God: for it is perhaps your own coldness and avarice and mediocrity and materialism and selfishness that have chilled his faith." Thomas Merton

Pretty chilling. Or at least it should be. We have all been told that we should be careful how we act because people are watching. Unfortunately, as Christians they are also watching Christ as He is reflected in us both individually and corporately. Wednesday Night we talked about Acts and the crisis in the identity of Jews created by the inclusion of Gentiles in the body of believers. The erosion of distinctions that defined a people. Immediately it ocurred to me that we have returned to our distinctions of race, denomination, and class. We cluster in homogeneous groups and erect cultural barriers to keep out those who are different. Maybe they are a mode of dress, a style of worship, a restrictive theology, etc., but they all act as a fence around our group.

These distinctions and our isolation contribute to the problem of our witness by assuring that those different from us are always watching from without not knowing us intimately. Thus we are judged strictly on what our group position is percieved to be. I am again compelled to wonder if this is why Jesus focused on making disciples rather than forming a church. The institution gives the imprimatur of authority to our actions, when in fact the authority lies outside ourselves or the institution. The gospel emphasizes God's grace in light of our fraility. I wonder sometimes if the church is even capable of projecting the gospel because as an institution it magnifies our corruptibility by giving credence to our distancing ourselves from the hard sayings of Jesus. Perhaps it is better that we maintain the vulnerability of the individual and forsake the safety of the institution.

One has to wonder at God choosing such imperfect messengers.