I know denominations are poor excuses for representing the body of Christ, but as weak and poor as they are, they represent, to some extent, the energy and commitment the church must invest in the hard work of bearing with one another in the body. Otherwise, why would we take ordination vows promising to do that? Smaller, purer, fragments of the church appear to have an advantage here. They do not have to muster such energy or commitment. Leaving liberates them from that chore.
It is hard to be the church. When has it not been? We would all like some easier way. But our wealth, our vaunted “religious freedom,” our own considerably refined and cultivated resentments all encourage us to listen to our own “inner voices” rather than the voices of brothers and sisters in Christ. My howl of grief is not a howl of anger at those who have left. I do not blame them for leaving. There have been many times when that option has appealed to me too. Nor do I think my denomination, the PCUSA, is exempt from guilt here. A divorce is never the fault of one side only. And the PCUSA, in my judgment, has done many stupid and thoughtless and even unfaithful things in the past several years. But when has the church not done many stupid, thoughtless, and unfaithful things? Our ability to avoid such is not what keeps us united. Rather, it is Christ who holds on to his stupid, thoughtless, and unfaithful brothers and sisters that keeps us whole and makes of us a church. And it is that reality that made me want to howl at a meeting where that reality was not even acknowledged or called upon or celebrated through our tears.
March 12, 2014
Sometimes I think we come closer to genuine faithfulness not when we busy ourselves with urgent or even important matters, but rather, when we cultivate the power to ignore distractions. I confess that I find this very hard to do.
For example, when I am working on a lecture or a sermon, something will pop into my brain and I will feel as if I have to check my email right now to see if there is something to which I must respond. Simone Weil famously said, “Absolutely unmixed attention is prayer.”19 She notes further that that kind of prayerful attention is “so full that the ‘I’ disappears.”20 My prayer life, unfortunately, is not that full; there is still plenty of ‘I’ intruding, which may explain why checking my email is such a powerful temptation.
But I wonder if this problem is confined to my personal habits. I wonder, for example, if our church should not cultivate a certain indifference, or better, freedom, that would allow us to say from time to time: “We don’t know about that right now; we have no word from the Lord at the moment; we are going to have to struggle together a bit longer on that topic.”
Perhaps you think this is a cop out, another way of justifying not doing anything. “Not to decide,” a slogan from the days of protest in the 1960’s had it, “is to decide.” And it is true that far too often the church has stood by silently, when we should have spoken out. Why was the German church so silent during the Nazi era, or why were white Protestant pastors so late in seeing and proclaiming the gospel’s message for people, white and black, in the American South? Scripture knows of this failure as well: “Among the clans of Reuben there were great searchings of heart. Gilead stayed beyond the Jordan; and Dan, why did he abide with the ships?” (Judg 5:16f.) Indeed. God’s people have often missed making the critical confession when it has most been needed. I get that.
But I wonder if every issue is equally critical or equally as clear. I wonder if confessing the faith in the face of every concern that arises does not trivialize and diminish our witness. I wonder if we are so afraid of being found with Reuben and Dan that we readily address matters not out of faith but out of fear of potential embarrassment if we do not. Our words cover ourselves but do not bring much light or healing to the issue at hand.
There is something admirable, I think, about the monastic commitment to a rule of faith that allows the order’s life and worship to determine the shape of their particular witness. In the book, The Monks of Tibhirine, the distractions of the world of terror collide with the rule of stability of a Benedictine monastery in N. Africa. Interestingly, the presenting issue for the monks is not how to address the problem of terrorism, much less, articulating a theological response to it. The question they face is whether to stay or to go. As simple, and as difficult as that. In the event, the monks stay. The distractions of terror do not distract them from their mission of prayer and work, ora et labora. They focus their attention on God and on their life together, both as monks and as members of a community in Algeria to whom they minister. Their decision to stay cost them their lives. Christian witness will do that—not it seems to me, by getting on the right side of every issue, but by bearing witness, attentively, faithfully, joyfully wherever God has placed us.
We may debate about what that looks like—well and good—but we will only truly get lost if we lose our focus, our attention, on the One who has called us into the life of Jesus Christ. But for that, we will need the help of the Holy Spirit, for otherwise we will get lost in the ‘I’ that so eagerly distracts and has so many other agendas for us.
6. Bonhoeffer, Life Together, 37.
7. Bonhoeffer, “Protestantism Without Reformation” in A Testament to Freedom, 524.
8. “The Martyrdom of Saint Polycarp,” in Early Church Fathers, 152.
9. Father Christian de Cherge, “Last Testimony,” in First Things, August/September 1996, 21.
10. Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison, 228.
11. Weil, Gravity and Grace, 62–63.
12. Gerson, Washington Post, June 4, 2010.
13. Willimon, Currie Lecture on Salvation, Austin Seminary, 2008.
14. Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, 80–88.
15. Bonhoeffer, Life Together, 36.
16. Neuhaus, Freedom for Ministry, 120.
17. Alston, The Power to Comprehend with All the Saints, 68.
18. Barth, Church Dogmatics III/4, 67.
19. Weil, Gravity and Grace, 106.
20. Ibid., 107.
Chapter 3: Time and Preparation
September 16, 2002
There never is enough