Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, from a blurb on the back of Michael Gorman's Reading Revelation Responsibly:
"Sometimes I think there are only two kinds of Christians in America: those who've never read Revelation and those who read almost nothing else."
John Wesley, from his Explanatory Notes:
"The Revelation was not written without tears; neither without tears will it be understood."
On the Sunday before Christmas in 1930, Dietrich Bonhoeffer preached at a German church in Cuba while on holiday there. Here's an excerpt from his sermon, as quoted in the biography Dietrich Bonhoeffer 1906-1945 by Ferdinand Schlingensiepen:
It is probably correct to say that each of us who has looked around a bit in the world perhaps finds it particularly strange to be celebrating Christmas this year. Before our eyes stand hordes of unemployed persons, millions of children throughout the world who are hungry and miserable, people starving in China, the oppressed in India and other unfortunate countries, and in everyone’s eyes we see despair and perplexity. And despite all this, Christmas is coming. Whether we want to or not, whether we are in the mood for it or not, we must hear once again: Christ, the Saviour, is born … (DBWE 10, 589)
Take away China; insert North Korea or any number of other places. Take away India; insert Syria, Mali, or any number of other places. Or maybe even just set aside starvation and oppression and look at the overwhelming violence in our world. The violence of unmanned American drones, the violence of Israelis and Palestinians, the violence of the pursuit of nuclear weapons by those who don't have them, the violence of flexing those nuclear arms by those who already do have them, or the violence of a young man with a gun against a handful of adults and twenty bright-eyed elementary school students. Just as easily as Brother Dietrich did in 1930, we can claim that it is awfully strange to be celebrating Christmas this year.
In the presence of so much hunger and pain, fear and isolation, resentment and revenge, there is plenty of cause for cognitive dissonance this season. And yet here is Christmas nonetheless: a light, a stable, a baby. Joy. Peace. Hope. Love. God coming to earth in all the power and glory of helplessness and poverty. Here it is, ready or not. So no matter what you do or how you feel, allow yourself to be confronted today and this whole season with the material fact of Christmas, the fact that unto us is born this day a Savior who will be for all people.
So for all the broken and weary, all the hungry and afraid, all the angry and hurting, and especially all the people who are under the impression they aren't invited: may we all come and seek his peace against our world's turmoil. Amen.
From the Editor's Introduction to Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, Volume 1: Sanctorum Communio:
When Bonhoeffer says, "the church [Kirche] is Christ existing as Gemeinde," this does not mean that an institution calling itself church defines where Christ is communally present. On the contrary, it is not a church organization that defines Christ, but Christ who defines the church. In other words, it is precisely where, and only where, 'Christ-exists-as-Gemeinde' that we find the 'church' (Kirche).
Now that's an interesting test for ecclesiality.
A few weeks ago I went to a forum for everyone who holds a formal leadership position (mostly members of the myriad of committees) in the Texas Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church. The conversations were mostly interesting and fruitful, but I did notice one recurring theme that I found disappointing: most of the discussions of what it meant to be missional - a popular buzzword at this and other recent conference gatherings - were aimed primarily at how to get more people to come to our churches. The watch-word of the day was, "Why?"; indeed, that's the watch-word for the next four years in our conference. But the big "Why?" question that remains unexplored is why are the most interesting things we can think about to make our churches more 'missional' basically directed towards getting more 'butts in the pews'? We would be much more interesting and much more faithful if we concerned ourselves a little more with how we send our members out into the world than how we get more members in. And then, when we do actually get new members in the body, we can actually invite them to join us in doing something other than just expanding membership.
Then last week I went to our conference United Methodist Women's fall festival, where I was invited to lead a 'focus group' about how that storied ministry could better reach out to youth and other young people. But most of the ideas that came up and generated excitement had to do with sometimes creative ways of getting youth and young people to one way or another come to their 'circles' or their churches. The thought was that if we could just get more young people to come to us, then we might be able to figure out what to do with and for them. Ideas included inviting local teens who like basketball to come play basketball on the church grounds, or to come to a free community meal and stick around for Bible study. I pointed out that these attempts at outreach were really more like 'in-reach', and challenged them to think about ways they could go out and meet youth on their home turf. Someone commented that youth who come to in-reaches like those listed above probably feel really awkward, and we made the connection that in legitimate outreach it would be the church who would have to surrender home field advantage and meet youth where they already are, and thus bear the bulk of the discomfort.
Also within the last month, as if to remind me that this is not a distinctively Methodist problem, at an ecumenical, community-wide gathering the preacher's basic message was that Christians need to be more bold in their faith. How? By inviting their friends to church. Now hopefully when people come to church they hear Good News about God's great love and mercy, and about his bottomless grace. And hopefully when people come to church they hear the story of how God's love came down to save the world. But the teachers and preachers responsible for sharing that News and that Great Story in the context of a church worship service aren't the only ones allowed to tell people these things. Wouldn't it be so much more interesting if we encouraged Christians to really own and live out their faith among their friends and neighbors? And wouldn't their friends and neighbors be more likely to find the story of God and humanity more interesting if they initially heard about it from a peer instead of from some professional stranger who has no idea who they are? And think about this: if you hadn't heard this Story and didn't know this News, wouldn't it just seem odd to get invited to a place where the central activity is to sit and listen to a guy tell you that you need to invite more people to that place?
All of these stories share the same fundamental misconception about the kind of thing a church is. They all see church primarily as a place or an institution. If church is first of all thought of as a place or an institution, then people associated with that church will attempt to live out the church's mission within its geographical boundaries and institutional parameters. This is actually really comforting to such people, because it takes a huge load off their backs: they can think, "The church needs to do more _____," as if the church were some kind of reality external to themselves that they have basically no responsibility for. Or they can safely avoid risk, discomfort and awkwardness by staying within the safety and familiarity of literal and/or metaphorical church walls by doing outreach that is really more like what I've called in-reach. Or they can through inviting their friends to church take comfort in the idea that they are let off the hook for telling their friends the story of God's love for the world, because that's the preacher's job.
But the church is not primarily a place or an institution. The church is a people shaped by God's story and sent out to show and tell that story for all the world. If the church is more people-on-a-mission than place or institution, then when one realizes that the church needs to do something, they can't avoid a fair share of ownership of the problem and should thus be more motivated and empowered toward a change. If the church is more people-on-a-mission than place or institution, then risk, discomfort and awkwardness are things that all in the church will have to bear together as this people-on-a-mission bears God's love outside church walls to a hurting world. If the church is more people-on-a-mission than place or institution, then instead of the first 'evangelical' move being to invite people to come to a worship service at church, worship services can be about shaping pew-sitters into people who will go out and be the church for their friends and neighbors.
The primary point of church as place or institution is to get more people to come be members. But 'members' here is more analogous to members of a country club than members of a living body. But if the church was really that called out people-on-a-mission for God the Biblical metaphor of the living body of Christ (unified in its mission but diverse in its gift and activity) becomes a more sensible metaphor for our churches. And then, almost as if by accident, churches would actually have become the kind of thing worth inviting people to come and be a part of anyways - not just for a few hours a week, but in every waking moment of their lives.
After sharing with my pastor the results of a little two year 'experiment' I did, he asked me to type up a report to share with our Parish Council. I presented the following on Sunday, March 18. On a Wednesday night in February of 2010, I asked our youth a seemingly simple question: Who is Jesus? They answered with things like, “best guy in the entire universe,” “awesome,” “ultimate psychiatrist,” and “helps me play video games.” The most popular answer was “my best friend,” given explicitly by at least three youth before we all just kind of agreed that Jesus was all of our best friend. These answers all show that our youth had a generally positive impression of who Jesus is, which is good, but they are not particularly biblical, nor are they spiritually or theologically deep answers.
They also gave some standard, ‘textbook’ answers, but were unable to speak about them at any length. They said that Jesus is, “the Son of God,” “our Savior,” “Son of David,” “miracle worker.” These answers are obviously much more biblical and have some theological and spiritual depth to them, but further conversation revealed that our youth were unable to elaborate, explain or articulate what these answers mean or why they were significant for their day-to-day lives. Our youth seemed to be quoting “right answers” as if they were learned by rote rather than personally held convictions that they truly owned. The only possible exception was one girl who said that Jesus “saved my life by dying on the cross and forgiving my sins.” She said that in the middle of everyone claiming Jesus as their best friend, and right afterwards our conversation quickly steered back in that direction. But that evening I wrapped up our discussion by highlighting this answer, and wondering aloud why only one of them had given it.
Two years later, in February of 2012, I asked the same question again: Who is Jesus? Answers included “The Son of God,” “Savior,” “the only pure one,” “makes us whole,” “the one through whom God completes our lives and relationships,” “fills our emptiness,” “makes our lives whole.” But more importantly, our youth were able to elaborate on all of these answers, giving them much more color and demonstrating a deeper kind of knowledge. This time around they weren’t talking about Jesus as their best friend or psychotherapist, and they weren’t just rattling off textbook answers either. But even that wasn’t quite enough for them: the conversation pushed onward to what it looks like to follow him. “Jesus gave it all, so we should be willing to give it all...following Jesus looks like the cross.” “Following Jesus looks like love - Jesus on the cross is ultimate.” We had a real, substantive conversation about who Jesus is in which our youth demonstrated the ability to talk about Jesus at length, and in their own words!
Two years apart, same question, totally different conversation. The National Survey of Youth and Religion, conducted just a few years ago, found that while adolescents in the United States are eager to share their opinions on a wide range of issues, almost all of them are incredibly inarticulate when it comes to their faith. I am really excited to report that our youth are growing in this area. Don’t get me wrong - we’ve still got a long way to go. We’re learning to “talk the talk,” but that doesn’t mean much if we’re not also learning how to better “walk the walk.” But regardless I think our church has something to celebrate - our youth are asking great questions and they’re really seeking God as their Answer. We’re making some observable strides along the road from faith learned by rote to faith they can really own as truly and authentically their own - what some people call “sticky faith.” This can only be described as an act of God’s grace. And by God’s grace we’ll continue learning and growing together toward the kind of Christian faith that lasts.