What I was Looking For

Every once in awhile I read something that resonates with me so deeply that I begin to wonder if the author climbed inside my head. This post is one of those. It so beautifully states how the author came to take the role of a cynic in the church and why that is a place of pain in light of our expectations of Christian community. Particularly, my heart broke ever so slightly at the last section:

"What I'm saying is that once there was a paralytic. And there were people who picked up the edges of the mat where he was lying and carried him through the crowds. In order for him to be healed, someone had to take on that weight. Someone had to haul him to the top of the roof, and lower him straight down through so that he could get to Jesus.

And before the Church is anything else, it has to be that.

People who see. People who carry.

People who will grab onto each other's sharp edges and lift."

In all those moments when I walked away from the Christian communities I'd known, the moment in which my heart felt shattered into an irreparable state, and I couldn't articulate what it was that was so heartbreaking, it was this. It was the fact that I wondered if I had taken the gospels too literally. I wondered if the stories of people carrying others, overlooking their shame and condemnation, and accepting them where they were had been written for another time. Because everywhere I went, I had to clear the hurdles of the expectations of Christian living before people would believe that I possessed a faith worthy of their investment. 

When I fell apart, becoming a spiritual paralytic, there was no one to carry me. My sharp edges were a burden too great to bear. As my struggles spiraled into a depressive grief, it was too much to ask for someone to sit in the ashes with me. Instead they visited briefly, peppering me with questions that would assign fault to me so that they would be justified in their lack of helpfulness. 

"Have you been doing your quiet time lately?" 

"How is your prayer life?" 

"Have you been reading your Bible?"

A laundry list of things to do that would supposedly fix me. Another burden that was placed solely on my shoulders. The problem is that when you can't walk, each of those burdens simply becomes another weight pressing you further into the depths of the dirt. Another question, another item to feel inadequate about. Another seed of shame and guilt sown in the depths of my heart. 

In those times I wondered what I had done wrong. I wondered if I had read the Bible incorrectly. Here I was expecting Christian community to be filled with the friends of the paralytic and instead all I encountered were the friends of Job. This must have been my fault. I must have made some mistake. My faith must not be as strong as theirs. I must not be right with God, whatever that means. 

But once again, as with so many times previously, this "help" only caused me to walk away. I couldn't find any way to heal when I felt like I was being introduced to a new sickness with each encounter. I wanted to put myself in quarantine until I could figure out how to find a place that isn't full of such pervasive condemnation. I could no longer walk and I was desperate for someone to carry me. When such help didn't arrive, I fell and when I fell, I fell away from those communities to which I thought I would always belong. 

In my darkest moments, I was looking for those people willing to carry me. Perhaps in many ways I still am. Brokenness makes you realize that faith is a state of shared community rather than one of personal devotion. We are all constantly carrying or needing to be carried. If we want to see healing, we need to take on one another's weight.

This is the Church: San Francisco Edition

Becoming a true sanctuary...

Credit: Jeanette Antal

In partnership with the Gubbio Project,  St. Boniface Church in San Francisco allows homeless individuals to sleep in their pews. 

"This sends a powerful message to our unhoused neighbors - they are in essence part of the community, not to be kicked out when those with homes come in to worship."

What is Christian Hospitality?

I have a friend whose mother married a fairly wealthy man and moved into a suburban (not so) mini mansion. The house is far more space than the two of them need. I assumed that the additional rooms would be used as guest rooms for the children and grandchildren. I was told that was a wrong assumption. Instead the rooms were converted for various uses such as office space, workout space, and a walk in closet. (Yes, an entire bedroom converted into a closet.) When family members come to town they get hotel rooms or stay elsewhere. However, she loves to throw lavish dinner parties. As a Christian, she claims that this is because she possesses the spiritual gift of hospitality.

I distinctly remember listening to my friend tell this story and thinking "I don't think that's what that means." How often are we guilty of trying to force terms to mean what we would prefer them to mean rather than confronting the reality of the sacrifice and humility they actually require of us?

On the flip side, I think of my late grandfather. By many modern measurements of Christian Culture, he would not have been viewed as a "good Christian." He was Catholic. (strike one) He didn't speak openly about faith or lead his family in prayer or Bible study. (strike two). He cussed frequently and he hated Republicans. (strike three) But after his death, there was one thing that struck me in some of the stories shared. I heard family members and friends talk about he attitude toward others. My grandparents never had a lot of money they lived in a small house, mostly built by my grandfather, in a tiny town. When I go back and visit, I'm baffled as to how they lived in such a small space with two adults and four children. But when they were reminiscing about my grandfather, they spoke of the fact that even though the house was small and the table was cramped, if someone was in need, there was always room for one more. If anyone needed a ride to church, they would figure it out. He may have had little, but he always had some to share.

Recently I've been reading about the early church (100-499). I'm struck by the core idea that Christianity is a way of life and not an adherence to a specific doctrine. The author speaks of hospitality as being the major practice of Christians at that time.

"We tend to equate hospitality with parties and social gatherings or gracious resorts and expensive restaurants. To us hospitality is an industry, not a practice, one that summons Martha Stewart to mind more quickly than Jesus Christ. But to ancient Christians hospitality was a virtue, part of the love of neighbor and fundamental to being a person of the way. While contemporary Christians tend to equate morality with sexual ethics, our ancestors defined morality as welcoming the stranger.

Unlike almost every other contested idea in early Christianity, including the nature of Christ and the doctrine of the Trinity, the unanimous witness of the ancient fathers and mothers was that hospitality was the primary Christian virtue."

(A People's History of Christianity, Diana Butler Bass)

I can't help but think of all the times in the Gospels when Jesus speaks of the importance of loving God and loving your neighbor in the same thought. It's as if the two ideas are irrevocably connected. You can't truly be achieving one without the other. (1 John 3 seems to suggest that this is indeed the case.)

So what is Christian/Biblical hospitality? Is it free gifts for visitors at our church services? Is it cookies and coffee in the lobby? Is it the art of throwing the perfect dinner party and always having your house in perfect shape for one? Or is it this idea that the love of God is deeply intertwined with the love of others? Is it found in the way we think of and treat those our society considers the "least of these"? Is it found when we hold our personal possessions loosely and put the well being of others above our own? Is it when we weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice? Do we find the true meaning of hospitality in the moment when we realize that we are all woven into the same tapestry that tells the story of the love of God?

In all my years at a Christian college, there was a lot of time spent debating theology and the idea that right thinking would lead to Christian living. Although I understand their logic, I'm beginning to question that notion. Have we spent so much time trying to think correctly that we neglect to act in the way we should? Are we more concerned with convincing others that we are right than behaving justly towards them? Have we stressed the importance of telling others about God over treating them as God would have us do so? I think of all the years I wasted worrying about having the right answers for people when I needed to learn how to love them. A lot of modern churches talk about their ties to the early church, but I sincerely hope that we see a trend of more and more churches moving back to the ancient practice of true Christian hospitality. Can you imagine  how beautiful that would be?

This is the Church: North Minneapolis Edition

I obviously write a lot here about what I don't like in American Evangelical Culture and what I wish it would be. But I never want to give the impression that I'm only here to complain and that Christians in the US never get it right. Although the loudest and most visible in American Christian Culture often do not seem to reflect much of the beauty and humility of the life of Christ, there are humble servants rarely widely recognized that are striving to be examples of his love. Today I came across an article that told of a touching example of one church doing just that in Minneapolis, MN.

North Minneapolis Congregation Turns Over Church to Victims of Sex Trade

These two quotes in particular really struck me as embodying the heart of Jesus Christ:

"We are trying to be the church, not look like the church...Even if you don't want to hear anything about Jesus, I'm going to love you anyhow."

"What about those colorful glass church windows? For the right price, they could be sold with the proceeds going to Northside Women's Space. As an elderly church leader told her, Galloway says, 'Jesus would rather be walking with those women than in those windows.'"

Reading Too Much Into The Weather

Many of you may have seen a video of a girl who appears to be praising God's goodness for the devastation in Japan. I'm not going to repost it here for two reasons. 1. It's everywhere online these days. 2. I have good reason to believe that it is simply a melodramatic satire. But I believe we should find the fact that many people believe it to be genuine (I wasn't certain at first myself) to be troubling. Why would people so quickly believe something so absurd and callous?

I would be willing to argue that it is easier for some to believe that Christians might respond in such a manner because they have indeed seen them behave in such a manner in the past, in both minor and major instances.