Sunday, July 24, 2005

Missing Church

I stayed up again with my waning mom all night until about 4:30, when I could no longer keep myself awake, and since my little sister told me that I was too loud making coffee the night before, I just ended up giving dad the wee morning watch. I woke up in time to swap roles with Jill so she and Grace could take grandmom in to the first baptist church. I think it’s the first time in a while she’s gone to her own church. It didn’t really feel like Sunday out here in the country—in the city and in my normal routine I’m much more aware of what day of the week it is, and since every day this week has been the same except for the different faces come to visit, it kind of had me lost in a land without time. And I wasn’t really feeling lonely until I started thinking about missing my Sunday with my friends, my church.

The boys and I walked down into the woods for some time with God. We read Psalm 27 and 45 and then had a time of solitude. We looked at this scripture:

When I consider your heavens,
The work of your fingers,
The moon and the stars,
Which you have set in place,
What is man that you are mindful of him,
The son of man that you care for him?
You made him a little lower than gods
And crowned him with glory and honor.

Psalm 8:3-5

And I asked us all the same question. Why is God mindful of us? Why does he visit us? Why does He care anything about us?

We each went our own ways for a walk through the woods to think about it. My path delivered a curious looking spider with a huge, beautiful web, a bird’s nest since abandoned, some bumble bees visiting flowers, a spring-fed creek with catfish, bass, and perch, and lots of ants and beds. I thought about all these things. God created the moon and the stars, huge systems, a big earth (which is actually very small in the grand scheme of things), and rules nations, continents, perhaps even worlds. But He is mindful of us.

The boys and I kicked around the idea that the way the Psalmist asked the question seems a backward way of looking at God and at us. The spider’s purpose is not the web. The web is actually for the spider—it provides not only a home but a way to eat as well. The same goes for the birds and their nest—the nest was only necessary until the birds grew up and flew away. The flowers made good pollen and nectar for the bees, and the water was a good home for the fish. We wondered if it wasn’t more true that God thinks small. God thought of the ants before the mounds, the bees before the flowers, the birds before the nests, the fish before the water, the spider before the webs and the trees, and me before my house, my community, my church, my state, my nation, my world, my sun, my universe.

It seems to be more reasonable to think in terms of a big God who has got important things going on—a universe to run, planets to spin, stars to govern the skies, and all that—and an insignificant me. And apparently it is to everyone else, too. People need to fit into nations, states, organizations, races, tax brackets, religions, and other systems. But God, I think, is not this reasonable. Ephesians 1:4 tells us that God chose us before He created the world, and then He created the world around us. Wow. And it seems to me that without His perspective on this we will always abuse people and His other creatures.

It even affects the way we attempt to worship Him. In fact, the abuse got so bad that one time Jesus got really testy with the religious rulers by breaking the law on the sabbath, and then He refused to apologize for doing it. The disciples were walking along on a Holy Day and picking and eating grain as they walked through a field. The religious crowd objected on the basis that what they were doing was technically working on the legally restricted day of rest.

One Sabbath Jesus was going through the grainfields, and as his disciples walked along, they began to pick some heads of grain. The Pharisees said to him, “Look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?”

Jesus’ reply was basically, “So what?”

He answered, “Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need? In the days of Abiathar the high priest, he entered the house of God and ate the consecrated bread, which is lawful only for priests to eat. And he also gave some to his companions.”

Then He said something amazing.

Then he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath."

Mark 2:23-27

Ouch! for them. Yay! for us. We weren’t made for all the junk, all the religion, all the structure, all the government, all the civilization, all the bigger and more important things—they were made for us, for our good, just like the lands and the seas and the birds and the bees and the flowers and the trees were created before us and for us. And that is the extent of their claim on any of us. Are they working together for us or not? If not, then they can be casually dismissed. They were made for us, and not we for them.

Do I overstate? Apparently the attitude of the religious people inflamed Jesus to the point that He waited for another Sabbath day to lash out at them even harder. This time He walked into their Sacred Assembly, stood a guy up, and healed him right there in the middle of their deal—another act that was against the law on this day that was created “for man”.

He looked around at them in anger and, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts, said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was completely restored. Then the Pharisees went out and began to plot with the Herodians how they might kill Jesus.

Mark 3:5-6 (emphasis mine)

So thinking back to my original question, “What is man that You are mindful of Him?” it’s not unreasonable at all for the synagogue ruler to demand, “There are six days for work. So come and be healed on those days, not on the Sabbath.”

But if people were supposed to behave themselves and find their place in the system, somebody forgot to tell Jesus. Or He chose not to listen. Actually, I think He was listening to another voice, the voice of Truth speaking in His own heart, rather than in the seats of power. And to do this is not anarchy. In fact if we ever want to correctly understand how everything works together, how the universe and all of reality fits together, we must completely change our view from outside in to inside out, like God thinks, like Jesus acted.

“The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.”

But all this is just me rattling off thoughts that are so plain to me, brought to the surface as I experienced church as solitude with God this week instead of church as community. I much prefer church as community, for it is there that the life of Christ is best lived—together, in the art of one anothering. And so today I was missing my friends, my church, more than I have ever imagined missing any church.

A friend I know only through the internet asked me a while back if the awesome dialogue several of us were sharing online was basically church. He asked, “Aside from not being with each other physically, isn't this all church needs to be?” And he was right about the simple and casual flow of lives submitted to Christ weaving and intersecting each other’s stories being very much “church.” But I thought about our virtual community a lot, and gave this reply:

A thought about what we’re sharing here being true church. I love this, and I hope to continue it. But if I didn’t really give myself to some people right here, I would miss out on their smell, the feel of their bodies as I hugged them, the deep looks into their eyes as something painful or profound or hilarious was shared, the laugh until we hurt as someone tripped or did or said something goofy, the fun of finishing their half-eaten hamburger, the ache in my heart when I heard about their latest wound or setback and the quality of their voice as they tried to share it, and the joy over the latest victory for one, for all. What I’m saying is that you guys are filling up my mind, but my soul longs for the careless touch as surely as Mary’s did when she perfumed Jesus’ feet with her hair. I would say that this is not sexual but is sensual, and very intimate.

Coming off a week with my mom slowly losing her breath to cancer and merely being with loved ones, I have again remembered the power of careless touch. Tongues have stilled, prophecies have ceased, and knowledge has passed away. Everything large and important and reasonable seems irrelevant and provides no answers. But in the still small rooms where ominous clouds suffocate out all understanding, loving touch has never failed us, and never will.

No comments:

This song is resonating with me. It's in my heart and has found my voice. I admit to being a Christina Perry fan. I've been known to...