What if I Told You? 5/20/12

And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church

and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. 

Matthew 16:18

By this everyone will know that you are my disciples,

that you have love for one another.

John 13:35

You might have seen something posted on Facebook recently called “10 Reasons I Left the Church.” I’m not sure who wrote it and now there are so many variations around it’s impossible to tell.  Some of the reasons included:

1.      I left the church because my questions were seen as liabilities.

2.      I left the church because sometimes it felt like a cult or a country club and I wasn’t sure which was worse.

3.      I left the church because I felt like I was the only one troubled by stories of violence and misogyny and genocide found in the Bible, and I was tired of people telling me not to worry about it because “God’s ways are higher than our ways.”

4.      I left the church because I wanted to help people in my community without feeling pressure to convert them to Christianity.

5.      I left the church because when we talked about sin, we usually talked about sex.

6.      I left the church because I believe the earth is 4.5 billion years old and that humans share a common ancestor with apes which I was told was incompatible with Christian faith.

7.      I left the church because one day, they put signs out in the church lawn that said, “Marriage = 1 man + 1 woman” and I knew the moment I saw them that I never wanted to come back.

8.      I left the church because there are days when I’m not sure I believe in God, and no one told me that “dark nights of the soul” can be part of the faith experience.

When I first read these reasons I cringed as I remembered some of my own past painful experiences in churches.  I’ve attended church all my life and believe me, I can understand why people would leave church due to some of these reasons.  But I also felt a deep sadness and sense of frustration because church, as I have come to know it, is none of these things.  And yet the perception continues. 

[excerpt from “Why I Love Jesus But Hate Religion,” by Jeff Bethke]

What if I told you, Jesus came to abolish religion?
What if I told you getting you to vote republican, really wasn’t his mission?
Because republican doesn’t automatically mean Christian,
And just because you call some people blind, doesn’t automatically give you vision.
If religion is so great, why has it started so many wars?
Why does it build huge churches, but fails to feed the poor?
Tells single moms God doesn’t love them if they’ve ever been divorced
Yet God in the Old Testament actually calls the religious people whores
Religion preaches grace, but another thing they practice,
Tend to ridicule Gods people, they did it to John the Baptist,
Cant fix their problems, so they try to mask it,
Not realizing that’s just like sprayin perfume on a casket
Because the problem with religion is that it never gets to the core,
It’s just behavior modification, like a long list of chores.
Let’s dress up the outside, make things look nice and neat,
Its funny that’s what they do to mummies, while the corpse rots underneath,
Now I ain’t judging I’m just saying be careful of putting on a fake look,
Because there’s a problem if people only know that you’re a Christian by that little section on your facebook
In every other aspect of life you know that logics unworthy
Its like saying you play for the lakers just because you bought a jersey

What if I told you that I agree with the gist of this video?  There is too much hypocrisy and judgment and arrogance in Christianity; that it is too often a slavish devotion to this institution called the church rather than a heartfelt response to Jesus.

What if I told you that many of my friends have long ago given up on the church?  They think it’s crazy that I, a woman with a wife who likes martinis and art films is actually an ordained minister.  They wonder why I support the religious body that has beat me over the head with its Bible and its cross. 

But what if I also told you that I love church? I don’t think Jesus came to abolish religion, only the insincere, hypocritical practice of religion.  After all, Jesus was, himself, religious.  He attended synagogue, he recited Psalms, he hung out with devout Jews as well as gentiles and he loved them all.  Jesus, in my opinion, didn’t come to start a new religion.  Jesus was a Jew who seemed intent on reforming Judaism.  The church came after Jesus.  It evolved because of people like Paul who were inspired by what they knew of Jesus.  And I think Jesus still calls his followers into community.  You can’t practice Christianity in isolation.  Christianity is inherently relational.  “Where two or three are gathered, there I am in the midst of them”  (Matthew 18:20).

The problem is that there is so much in the church that I do not want to have to put up with – like Qur’an burning, homophobic pastors, and general disregard and mistreatment of the most vulnerable in our society, like the poor, the mentally ill, refugees and immigrants.  It’s no wonder that I and so many others are like the pop singer Prince – we want to be a persons formerly known as a Christian.  The church has done some embarrassing things in its day and I don’t want to be associated with a lot of it.  And wouldn’t it be nice if we could just get rid of all the trouble-makers, all the people that mess things up.  But that's when it gets tricky because I include myself in that big category of people who, at times, fail to truly follow Christ.  

But in the church, we’re stuck with each other and that’s a good thing really.  In the church, humanity is way to close at hand to always look good.  Humanity is as close as the guy singing off tune sitting next to you in the pew.  It’s as close as the fidgeting toddler and the mother who doesn’t realize the he’s driving everyone crazy.  It’s as close as the woman sitting next to her who grieves that she’ll never give birth to a child and eyes that cranky child with envy.  It’s as close as the woman who just barely crawled out from under her depression long enough to get herself to church today and wonders if there’s a place for her here.  It’s as close as the imperfect preacher who hopes her sermon offers enough for that listener she sees who is so thirsty for a word that he leans forward for absolutely anything.  It’s as close as the teenager who walked to church alone and who finds a complicated worship service in which everyone seems to know when to stand and when to sing except for him – but even so, he gets caught up in the beauty of something bigger than his own invention.”  (paragraph adapted from Lillian Daniel’s article, You Can’t Make This Up:  The Limits of Self-Made Religion.) 

Since the beginning of time, human beings have worked together and feuded together and just goofed up together.  They come together because Jesus came to live with these same types of people.  And thousands of years later, we’re still trying to be Christ’s body.  We are the only body he has now.  And we are charged with a sacred duty to carry on his work in this world he loves.

And so, what if I told you that I love the church, imperfect as it is and I’m not ready to give up on it?  A future without church is bleak because the church I know is a loving, supportive family; a place where I join with people who care about the same things I do, like working for justice, being a friend to the outcast, feeding the poor, being a voice for progressive Christianity to balance out all the voices spewing hate and ignorance who almost exclusively claim to represent Christianity.  I know I am a happier, healthier person better able to serve the world because of the church. 

Our humble prayer today, as we gather in this church and on behalf of those who gather in churches everywhere, is that Christ will be a bright light in our hearts and in church so that we might truly proclaim Christ’s love for all.  For it is by this love that everyone will know that we follow Christ.

Amen.