Rise Up, O Church of God!

A challenge to churches to rise up to their calling

Often a friend of mine tells the story about when his wife became a Christian, "She started reading the Bible in Genesis and began to get bogged down. I told her to skip all that and start with Matthew." Sometimes I wonder if his wife ever got horribly confused to begin reading the story three-quarters of the way through. It would be like reading The Magician's Nephew first on your initial reading of The Chronicles of Narnia. Yes, you would see how Narnia began, but the significance of many seemingly arbitrary pieces of the story would be lost on you until you read the rest of the series.

I've wondered if my friend's wife ever went back and read the old covenant parts of the Bible. Are there things that still seem puzzling or arbitrary to her—even now—because she is missing so much of the story? Sadly, I don't expect the church to have taught enough from that first chunk of Scripture for the connections to be made. Nor do I expect, with a husband battling cancer and two high-energy children, that my friend makes the effort to figure out the Old Testament on her own. She has been told it is difficult to understand, that it is boring and outmoded—why devote what little time she does have to something like that?

Many churches across America do Christians a disservice with these well-worn lines. From implying that—or saying straight out—"The Old Testament is boring," to playing only upbeat closing songs, churches are defrauding their members. They are giving people the Instagram version of God, His word, and the set-apart life. Too many churches focus on the sentimental aspects of God's character, read mostly the New Testament or “practical” Old Testament books, drive worship by emotion—rather than emotions by worship and thanksgiving—and offer no place of refuge, silence, and healing.

Real life in a fallen world includes cluttered minds, broken hearts, and deep sorrows. We cheapen words like “grief” and “tragedy” through hyperbole and overuse, and so have no language to lament with those who experience tragic loss when it comes. How does the church help people who are grieving? Pointing hurting people to professional counselling is good and loving, but what about training up a body of wise, kind, and honest counsellors to help one another? Churches could teach people truth—the good, the hard, even the ugly; they could teach people the value of life, the good of life, and what weather-all-Hell's-darts love looks like in daily words and actions.

What if churches taught God's story from the beginning? Then people would know how catastrophic the Ffall was; would see its sinewy hands reaching long fingers out into every part of God's story that it could; would see how desperately God's people tried and failed—and tried harder and still failed—and how utterly wretched they would always be until the promised Messiah came. Then we might understand why the Incarnation was so monumental, pivotal, in the narrative—because after bondage, struggle, failure, and darkness, the Light dawned, the captives were set free, and God's people were given a Saviour who would succeed. We might see that the Cross truly is the crux of the story, and that our lives and times flow directly out of that turning point in history. We might begin to understand that God is making all things new, which means this earth as well as human beings—and what we do now matters for eternity in a way that keeps us from being apathetic Nihilists.

What if churches allowed silence in their worship—no background music, no mere twenty seconds to pray silently—but minutes of silence to enter into the presence of God? What would people do if they had to be still—no phones, no talking, no noise to distract their minds? Would we come face-to-face with our mortality, with grief, with our own brokenness, with the overwhelming grace of God which is deeper than all our vilest sins? What if there were no distractions to console or ease our minds? Would we have to stand naked before God in wretchedness and let him begin to heal us?

What if churches regarded their enemies as a threat? "The only thing which consoles us for our miseries is diversion, and yet this is the greatest of our miseries,"1 said Pascal. Diversion—distractions and amusement—are where we seek solace for misery, and irony of ironies, we are made miserable by diversions. They drag our attention from the God who is there—present with us in every moment—putting our minds on what we don't have or making us feel emptier than when we first reached out for those glittering distractions.

Aside from the distractions we choose on our own, we are constantly occupying a space where spiritual hosts of wickedness rule and war. "For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places."2 What if churches reminded us frequently that we are in a battle; that we must take up the armour given by God; that we must seek refuge in God; and that we must use the word of God as a weapon on the battlefield of our minds, wills, and emotions?

In short, I am issuing a challenge to churches to rise up and take their calling seriously. Be ekklesia "called out ones". Don't be like the world or use its gimmicks—be a training ground for saints, helping us to be holy and presentable to God through Jesus Christ. Let the word of God—old covenant included—order the teaching, not the speaker ordering God's word to do as He wishes. Let us seek lament and silence and raucous joy in turn in worship. Remind us that our enemies are active and that we need protection and proaction. Teach us the truth, and pray for us to speak it with fierce boldness and tender love. Oh that we would see Jesus!

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1. Pascal, Blaise, Pensées (Public Domain, Project Gutenberg) 49

2. Ephesians 6:12 (NKJV)

We Are Still Trees

A rook's coarse cry rends the snowy hush of this pearl-grey afternoon. On my desk awaits a piece of crusty, warm, homemade potato bread - liberally spread with butter. My thoughts turn to the brisk walk I enjoyed this morning...

Fine snow blew from every direction. Stinging my eyes, settling on my nose, eyebrows, and hair, it filled my very soul with vibrant life. Along the paths I tread were birds, birds, birds: a flock of  three dozen robins, a brace of red-shafted Northern flickers, a downy woodpecker, and (my favourite) a pair of nuthatches. Drawn by the chatter of birds, I turned into a quiet cul-de-sac, enjoying the view of fast-falling snow upon tall golden grass. Next to that avian sanctuary a line of snow along the trunk of a pine tree caught my gaze. A fir, slanted at a forty-degree angle from earth. How had I not seen it before? 

I paused my forward motion to drink in the sight, to ponder this tree's perseverance. Like other trees, it grew straight and up. Unlike other trees, it did so at an angle, rather than perpendicular to the ground. Some hardship or radical impact had drastically changed the course of this pine, yet it remained a tree, growing as it ought.

This gave me pause to think on my own life, and the lives of several of my friends. We do not pursue life at the pace of forty-plus hours a week, an MA or DPhil, spouses and children, or numerous other things many consider the mark of a 'normal' person. We pursue the good life from a different angle.

We study both books and persons not for a diploma, but for the sake of challenging our minds and hearts. We work as a means to keep our lights and heat on, to put food in our cupboards, yes. But we also see work as an end itself, something to be enjoyed; whether it is the work that gives us the funds to put bread on the table, or the work of making the bread to put on that table. When we do not have spouses and children of our own, we learn instead to enjoy the time spent with married couples, children, peers, and those older than we. Being gracious is a continual refining process. Opening my home, pantry, and heart to others takes effort, but the rewards are bountiful. 

 My friends and I are humans, cultivating life, growing as we ought: toward God, with others,  while stewarding the gifts (physical, mental, emotional) given by Providence. Though we desire and seek things that other persons do, we are often seen as 'not normal', because we seek those things differently. We desire friendship, enjoy Beauty, find work cathartic,  want to enrich our minds, etc., like any healthy human being ought. Yet those of us who undertake to live fully are seen as stumps, as compared with growing trees.

The fact is, we are much like that fir tree, growing upward and in a linear direction, but at an angle. We are still trees, still growing as we were designed to grow. Our position relative to the ground has simply changed due to hardship or a radical impact... But we are still trees.

~ Johanna

Trajectory...

Happy those early days! when I

Shined in my angel infancy.

Before I understood this place

Appointed for my second race,

Or taught my soul to fancy aught

But a white, celestial thought;

When yet I had not walked above

A mile or two from my first love,

And looking back, at that short space,

Could see a glimpse of His bright face;

When on some gilded cloud or flower

My gazing soul would dwell an hour,

And in those weaker glories spy

Some shadows of eternity;

Before I taught my tongue to wound

My conscience with a sinful sound,

Or had the black art to dispense

A several sin to every sense,

But felt through all this fleshly dress

Bright shoots of everlastingness. 

       O, how I long to travel back,

And tread again that ancient track!

That I might once more reach that plain

Where first I left my glorious train,

From whence th’ enlightened spirit sees

That shady city of palm trees. 

But, ah! my soul with too much stay

Is drunk, and staggers in the way.

Some men a forward motion love;

But I by backward steps would move,

And when this dust falls to the urn,

In that state I came, return.

'The Retreat' ~ By Henry Vaughan 1621–1695

  Have you ever "felt through all this fleshly dress, bright shoots of everlastingness"? For a moment we see through a veil of rain into Heaven. We trace the golden light of a sunbeam back to its source: not the sun, but the One Who said that the greater Light should rule the day.

Moments flash upon us where we see through the curtain of temporal things into the world of the eternal. We see 'bright shoots of everlastingness' and have hope that this universe is not all there is. We have hope that our drunken souls will be sobered, and that we will make progress along the way.

Vaughan writes of travelling back to the time before his tongue could drip with sin, or before He walked far from his First Love. However, his last stanzas reveal that all he ever does is stagger backward like a drunkard. He hints that regression is not truly the right direction.

We cannot go back to some golden age, in our own life or in the world. We will not be 'returning to the garden of Eden' as I have heard even pastors declaim from the pulpit. No, we will be brought forward. God began man in a garden, but when we look at the trajectory of the Story, we see that he ends in a city. Not a city like we have ever known, however. This will be a city with a  River of Life, with trees whose leaves are for the healing of the nations (Rev. 22.1-2). We will be made better than we ever were. There is no retreat, only forward motion for us.

~ Johanna