"CHURCHISM" IS A FATAL DISEASE

Jesus came to earth to save our souls... and it should give us great joy that God loved the world this much! And during his short ministry, Jesus spent his days...giving sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, and restoring men and women to their communities. Sight, hearing, restoration- these are things that ought to give us great joy! And what is more, Jesus also "stood up" for those who were vulnerable. He also stood up for the disenfranchised, invited outcasts to His table, told the truth to power, and kept the wine flowing at a community wedding. Joy upon joy. Jesus was completely immersed in words and deeds that gave people hope, new beginnings, new life, and, for the first time perhaps, the assurance that God loved them. Joy to the world! O God, How great thou art! Sing it loud. Sing of salvation! Sing of forgiveness! Sing of restoration... and of a joy that the darkness cannot squelch! According to Scripture, the wise men rejoiced when they saw the star and heaven applauds when a shepherd carries a single sinner home. According to Scripture, neighbors gather with joy when a widow finds a lost coin and a loving father throws a joyful bash when his prodigal son staggers home. Indeed. joy is mentioned 244 times in the Bible- and it is mentioned with victory, worship, blessings, even with suffering.

But then... the scorekeepers got involved and the controllers took over. They established rules on how people ought to worship and even who should be allowed to worship. It's hard to measure what is in a person's heart, so they begin to tally how often people attended service, how frequently they showed up at church events, and whether they raised their hands when volunteers were sought. Giving was measured on percentage terms, even though Jesus had noted that generosity is measured best by what people withheld. In many churches, people were expected to "stifle" themselves (to use Archie Bunker's words) and to gather in a quiet and ordered way. In time, men found reasons to disenfranchise women, and they set up committees to handle church "investments." And the "joy" slipped away. No one expected anyone to really be "born again," or to be a "new creation" during baptism. Devout church members did not welcome people who were not "like them," and they exchanged "WWJD" for "we've never done it that way before." What happened to the dancing? Where are the tambourines? And why are so many Christians so somber in a time when so many people need hope, renewal, transformation, and release from the chains that bind them ? Well, it's hard to say... but I suspect that it's because the church has lost it's way. Instead of being in the difference-making business, it has drifted into the status-quo business; instead of being in the business of giving, it has embraced the "savings and investment" business; and instead of being in the invitation business, the church has embraced either the entertainment business or the business of comforting one another.

In short, the church of Christ has forsaken its ministry and settled for a pattern of coming and going, and protecting what it has and who it is. It has a chronic disease that I call "Churchism"... in which which the same things happen again and again. The door is unlocked, the lights are on, the restrooms are clean, the choir is practicing, and somewhere in the building, a committee is meeting. The Sunday services go as they always have- the liturgists, the organist, the candle lighters, the money collectors, the time of sharing, announcements and praying, Scripture, and of course, the sermon. This is all good! We need structure. We need form. We need order. And loving one another is one of the things that the first church did best. But we also need to dream, and to intentionally ask "what would Jesus have us do"- and this juncture. We need to embrace the patterns that have become dear to us, but we also need to see what God has in store for us from this moment on. Is the Spirit moving among us? Has Christ showed up recently? Are our eyes open to God's new thing?  

The church leaders in Jesus' time did not find joy in the good news. They didn't celebrate the freedom that Jesus offered, and they never rejoiced when he changed a person's life- not even when he gave life! They didn't get it. They couldn't. To them, it was more proper to embrace tradition than possibilities. They couldn't accept a man who ate with sinners or sinners themselves (who were "unclean" physically, like the woman with the hemmorhage, or mentally, like being possessed, or unclean consistently because of the work they performed (like tax collecting, shepherding, and prostitution). Jesus challenged all of these rules, including the Sabbath restrictions, pointing out again and again that there is no rule against love, worship, healing, invitation, forgiveness, and other acts of grace. Whenever people quit dreaming and start controlling, whenever they are blinded by status quo... that they can't see what God is doing in their midst, whenever a church treasurer worries more about the balance than the blessing, whenever church elders come to believe that serving communion is a "job" or something they take "turns" doing, whenever workers who started early... begrudge the pay that the late arrivals get, whenever church leaders refuse to welcome the very people whom Jesus sent to them, whenever the way things "used to be" outweigh the way things "ought to be,"whenever people are ignored because they don't "fit in," whenever people ask how the worship was and aren't even thinking about the purpose of it... whenever you see things like these, you are seeing a church that has lost its way and the joy of the journey.

The question then is this: if Jesus were with us today... and offended our sense of propriety by bringing the wrong crowd to church with him, or if he did a good thing in the wrong way, or if he created a stir that threatened our church order, would we be filled with joy... or would we take offense? Which is the stronger- our sense of Christ, or our sense of church?



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