Go out into the world...

It is interesting to look at the macro perspective of church history. About fifteen years ago it suddenly occurred to me that there has been seismic changes in the shape of Christianity about every 500 years. The church began as a rather powerless group of outsiders. Sometimes they were persecuted and at other times they were simply ignored as one among many sects that occasionally popped up in society. Then not quite 500 years into their history, Constantine made them the official religion of the empire. Suddenly they needed to respond to power and institutions from the perspective of an insider. Some think that was a terrible change for the church, but I think it was just part of the incarnation.

Then, about 1,000 CE, there was another seismic change when the East and the West split. Christianity was now following two separate streams — the Eastern Orthodox and the Roman Catholic communities. Westerners have only begun to rediscover in the last 50 years or so the rich spirituality reflected in our Eastern cousins.

Around 1500, the Protestant Reformation took place. As one church historian said, if the purpose of the movement was to reform the one church, it was a failure, because it released a spirit that soon fractured the Body of Christ into the thousands of shards that now exist. It began by following the rise of nationalism around the world but soon outstripped the states in splitting and resplitting, often over major issues that 50 to 100 years later no one can remember but the fractured community still remains.

Now we are 500 years later. What is happening now that is shaking the very roots of Christianity. While there are still pockets of either legal or cultural establishment of Christianity, for the most part the Body of Christ is being totally disestablished. Not only does the church itself have less and less power in the larger, more secular communities, but the structured church is even losing the loyalty of those who claim to be Christians. In this country we have two parallel phenomenons affecting the viability of the church. First came the mega church which has drained the vitality out of many moderate size churches. Now the megachurch seems to be topping out and a new movement is continuing to grow. We could call it the Believers and not Belongers. These are people who claim a deep spirituality and, in many cases, a loyalty to Jesus as the Christ, but they want nothing to do with the church as we currently know it.

As a good Presbyterian who believes in the sovereignty of God, my question is, “What is God doing?’ in this fourth phase of the 500 year cycle?

Forgiveness goes far beyond the demonstration of acceptance of one who comes to you. Jesus was very clear that his call was not just to love the faithful or even those who came to him but to reach out in a way that demonstrated the love of enemies. (Matthew 5:44)

Consider how the refusal to offer forgiveness not only affects the other person but also affects you. In many situations, the refusal to offer forgiveness is more damaging to you than to the other person. Jesus takes this one step further and suggests that it also damages your relationship with God. ” So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift.” Matthew 5:23-24 The acceptability of our worship is dependent on our being a community of forgiveness.

But then Jesus takes this a step further and puts the responsibility of our enemy on our shoulders as well. This is one of the scariest tasks for the church because it directly challenges the way of the world. It was in Jesus’ both declaring and living this radical forgiveness to the unacceptable that he became most threatening to the world around him.

Today we wrap up our experience at the Bible school and head out to San Cristobo for a day’s relaxation before we return to the states. Yesterday morning one of the mission workers at our morning devotion reflected on the contrast between his experience of church here in Mexico and what he experienced back home. Here, especially protestants like Presbyterians, find the center of their life in the church. They will walk for miles to a worships service. The elders will stand in an open truck in the wind and the rain to attend a session meeting. If you offer a vacation church school class, a hundred kids will show up.

I was helping a Mexican write a devotional the other day and he spoke of how when they build a church in their village, they will build it with stronger walls and a better roof than they have in their homes. The church literally becomes their sanctuary in what is a very fragile world for them. That is why they will walk for miles to attend a service or attend a meeting. It reminds me how much we have changed in the USA. For good or bad, the church does not receive the support of society. When we have a service of worship, it is in competition with many other options. In some ways it is healthy to understand that what we have to offer must compete with the other gods of our society. However, it is worth considering how we might offer a sanctuary for our people in a healthy way. There is a need for people to pull away from the pressures of life occasionally to remember who they are and whose they are.

It has been a good experience to be here for two weeks. There is much we can learn from each other.

When Adam came back from his bear game, I told him what I had done. He was still swigging his grape juice and he just looked at me. Finally, Adam, being Adam, said, “Did it taste good?”
I handed it to him and said, “Taste it yourself.” And since it was something to eat, he did. I, on the other hand, spent less time eating and more time thinking.
I now believe that giving it to Adam was really my biggest mistake. I was just trying to expand my knowledge so I could make better decisions. Adam, on the other hand, suddenly realized that he had actually done something that God told him not to do. That may have been the first time he ever thought for himself. He got this weird look on his face. “Jumping kangaroos,” he said, “We’ve got to hide or God is going to find this out and then we will reaaaaaly beeee innnn trouble. Quick get behind this rock. Then he had his second thought for the day. “Heh, you’re naked. Throw some leaves over you before God sees you.”
Well you know how it went from there. When you start hiding from God, God knows something is wrong. And as soon as God asked Adam, Adam blamed me, and I am embarrassed to say that I did implicate the snake. That’s what happens when you don’t take responsibility for yourself, you start blaming everyone else and then the whole world goes to hell.

I know what that male-created history says. God said you can eat of every tree in the garden except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. I, being the thinker, immediately wanted to know—Why Not! That’ what thinkers do. They ask questions.
You’ll tell me that it was the snake that started it. In a way it was. When I got bored because Adam was off exploring other parts of the garden, sometimes the snake and I would play this game of “what if?” We’d make up these questions to help us explore reality. One of us would say, “What if gravity reversed itself and everything fell up rather than down?” Or another one I liked was “What if hippopotamuses could fly. They’d have to learn to speak, at least to say, “Look out below.”
So one day we were playing what if and the snake said, “What if we ate some of that fruit of the knowledge of good and evil?” I’d never thought about that before. I told the snake that I thought God said something about dieing if we ate of that fruit. But then I got to thinking like we theologians do. Who is God? From my own experience I knew that God was not mean or cruel, so how could a little piece of fruit from God’s good creation result in our death. And the snake agreed.