Where has Jesus Gone?

The other day as I drove by a church I noticed one of the clever and witty signs that they love to put out front these days. It said something to the effect of “The Company You Keep Determines The Trouble You Reap“. At first glance, I thought “stupid but, sure, that makes sense”. About a second later it hit me like a ton of bricks: Didn’t the Pharisees say almost the exact same thing to Jesus, accusing him of hanging around with ’sinners’? Didn’t they demonize him and call him dirty and unGodly because of the company he kept?

The longer I think about who Jesus was and the harder I look at the Christianity that surrounds me here in America, the more I think the church is starting to look a whole lot more like the Pharisees than Christ.

When Did It Change?

I don’t think it’s a secret that I’m an anti-establishment soul. Red tape, processes, and administrative boards make me incredibly angry. So, maybe it’s this fact that causes me to view Jesus different than others might, but the more I look, the harder it is for me to believe that I’m seeing Him through a personal bias.

I’m just as tired as anyone of these “Radical Jesus” books and ministries and view points. There’s been a recent surge in pop-Christianity that has emphasized this Hippie Jesus, turning Him more and more into a drug-free Jim Morrison. So, don’t hear me supporting that movement with what I say here….but….

Jesus was a Radical. Jesus was anti-establishment. Jesus loved the unlovable and helped the untouchable. Jesus was angry with the traditions that prevented ‘regular people’ from worshiping God, and rejected the dogma of The Church at the time. Jesus derided the ‘personal improvement’ piety of the establishment and forgave those who were a miserable mess (telling them to simply be forgiven and go sin no more).

Where has this Jesus gone?

These days, I can’t pass by a church without hearing a message of self-improvement shouted from the pulpit. Many try and mask it by making them ’spiritual improvements’ or simply calling them something else. Improve your marriage. Improve your prayer life. Improve your financial situation. Improve your connections with people. Stop drinking. Stop doing drugs. Stop being gay. Stop having abortions. Stop voting for baby killers. Stop hating your job. Stop, basically, sucking at being human. You can be a good person. You can live up to our invisible standard. You can do it if you just stop sinning.

I hope we all understand how asinine that last paragraph really is. Because, guess what? We CAN’T stop sinning. We CAN’T improve ourselves. And we CAN’T be anything but a broken mess. All of us. Pastors. Homosexuals. Bible Teachers. Abortion Doctors. Small Group Leaders. Rapists. And everyone in between. We’re all broken and we’re all helpless…there’s nothing we can do to improve ourselves.

What does this mean? We need to stop thinking about ourselves so damn much. It’s not about us. Jesus made that clear. When he preached a message of “Lean on God because you can’t save yourself” that was pretty radical. That was pretty anti-establishment. Where has that message gone?

If I were a church

So, here’s the segment where I talk about how churches should change.

They need to start being honest with their messages. They need to honestly identify these sermons of self-help (which they call by many ’spiritual’ names) and jettison them.
They need to start preaching brokenness (see previous blog entry)
They need to start preaching the REAL Jesus. They need to stop preaching “suit and tie, Leave it to Beaver, become a better person” Christianity and start preaching “insane John the Baptist, congregating with sinners, knocking over tables in the temple, homeless, mystical, irrational loving, anti-establishment” Christianity. A Christianity that looks foolish because of it’s over abundance of grace, love, and trust, even when others don’t ‘deserve’ it.

But I’m not a Church. And I don’t want to be.

The problem is, I’m not a church. I’m not an institution. And I’m not going to get tangled up in the structure to try and change it. The structure IS the problem…we don’t know how to live as Christians outside of that structure. So, if I can’t/won’t change the structure, I’ll continue to chip away at it. Hopefully, as an archeologist does when uncovering history encased in rock, I’ll be able to destroy the rock without the treasure inside. Hopefully I’ll be able to slowly destroy the structure of American church while preserving the precious faith encased (and paralyzed) inside.

How?

The other day I saw a news report about The Tea Party Movement. (I’m going to offend people’s politics here, I’m sure, but…whatever.) They were described as a movement based on anger and backlash without any substance of their own. A politician (believe it or not) made a wise statement when he said “Anger is fine, but a government RUN by anger (if they were elected) is not a healthy thing”.

I immediately thought of my constant attack on the church. Are these blog posts and my frequent rants Tea-Party-esque in the sense that it’s a lot of anger without much substance? If I could actually change the structure, would I have any ideas based, not on anger, but on positive progress? If I could be a local church would I be more like the Radical Jesus or would I simply continue reacting negatively to the old ways that angered me so much?

I think it’s hard for me to answer because I see things more complicated than that. I think my solution would be to destroy the system completely and continue to work outside of it as an individual. The following of Christ shouldn’t be a systematic thing. If there’s anything that the Lost Radical Jesus showed us this is it. We should be striving, not to be a ‘good person part of a good system’ but to be a broken person leaning on God and trying to do our best to heal those around us. We should be more like that individual Jesus I see in the bible and less like the systematic church I see in America.

So, do I have a solution? I think I do. But it’s a solution that exists outside of the local church. It’s wholy dependent on people disconnecting from the system and learning to Live Christ as individuals…so that solution looks different for everyone.

I hope, in some way, you’ll join me in this. Call out your local church on it’s self-help messages. Reject ‘button down’ Christianity. Embrace irrational love of your neighbors and personal responsibility for faith. As the famously over-used quote from Gandhi says: Be The Change You Want To See In The World (and, I’d add, ‘dont wait for the church to be that change). That’s the best I can do, in my own broken way, each and every day.

Print article

This entry was posted by Bob on July 14, 2010 at 10:21 am, and is filed under General. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

Josiah Ritchie

:) I figured you had a good answer to this, just from having read your other commentary. I appreciate your distinctions.
Josiah Ritchie

I agree with much of what you have to say, but the focus on living as Christ would have us live individually seems a point of conflict to me. The difficulty comes in hearing Paul say "don't give up gathering together". I'm not saying I think it must be every sunday morning or wednesday night, but I think this does point out that Christians acting faithfully must lean on each other. This is a difficulty missionaries run into when they go out alone or as a single family into an environment where other Christians don't exist. I personally have seen it. Frankly, I find myself dry of spiritual fellowship in the middle of church buildings sometimes. The power of this encouragement is something I've known before and yearn to return to, but at the moment don't have at the level I've had before because it somehow helps me to reflect the Christ I see in others more brightly.

The picture that comes to mind is a field of fireflies. When you catch one or two fireflies, stick them in a jar and bring them inside, they blink occasionally and look pretty, but if you let them go into a field of other fireflies, they blink and glow along with the rest in a beautiful display of God's creation and goodness. Their beauty is magnified through the presence of others. I feel like God in me is encouraged more fully through His glory in others around me, much like the fireflies.

Even our God is a triune God-ship and created woman for man because it wasn't good to be alone, even though God walked in the Garden of Eden with him. It seems to me it is important to God to be with us and for us to be with others.

So, now that I've built up a big argument, do I totally misunderstand you?

------------------
Here's context for the verse I referred to.
Heb 10:24,25 - "And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching."
Bob

Josiah,
I don't think you misunderstood me, I think I just said it poorly (those darn assumptions that you can read my mind and intentions) :)

In my mind, there's this very clear dividing line between the church and The Church (note the caps, if you get my drift). I don't think many other people see the distinction as clearly as I always do, but to me there's a massive difference today, in America, in 2010, between the local church and The Church (ie. the worldwide body of Jesus followers). This entire post is about the local church (as basically all of my posts are), it's not about The Church in a kingdom sense.

So, that being explained, I agree with you 1000%. If we give up meeting together as Christians (in the worldwide Church sense) then we're disobeying God and we're living unhealthily.

Conversely, though, I've come to believe that meeting together at a scheduled time in a mortgaged building led by a salaried staff under 501c3 status is not required by God and, in many ways today, is unhealthy and misleading. (when I find a local church that doesn't reflect this, I'll give it a shot)

So, I don't think we disagree on the point you bring up. Thanks for sharing!
Brett

Just out of curiosity, Jess...what is the passage/word that you're referring to? I'm actually studying to become pastor, and I'm working on my Greek right now (Hebrew hopefully will start in the next few months), and I'm always interested in new quirks in translations.

I could go into a whole discussion about the difficulty in translating things and how important it is to get back to the original languages, etc. but that's not what this discussion is about. =0)
jess makowske

Hmmm...
It is so interesting to me ,bob, that even after I have left the church I find your thoughts/words/ideas are still insipational to me.
Where has jesus gone?
Well I don't know that I have the answer and the reality is I am just starting to think about religion and church again. I do know that the things that we are discussing(leave it to beaver, and people not taking christianity into their own hands) that is the reason I am not apart of the church.
The moment it happened, the moment I felt betrayed... well it was the moment I learned that there was a swear word in the bible. Such a simple little thing. However, when the bible was translated it was taken out, translated differently (with less anger). I was shocked I had just spent 6 years teaching kids that EVERYTHING in the bible was true and right. That GOD wouldn't have allowed the bible to be anything but perfect. Then someone outside the church had shown me differently. If Pastor Paul had told me, Mr J, any of those godly people in my life it would have been fine. However I suddenly felt as though they were painting for me a picture that was unrealistic. All these things that I was to do or not do, all these things I was beliveing. It was all pushing me toward looking like a cookie-cutter image that the church has pulled from somewhere.

Where is Jesus?
Well I know where I would like to see him.

I would like to see him in the garden
I would like to see him talking to "those people"
I would like to see him at a gay club
I would like to see him involved in a real conversation with someone who was not a christian. NOT TO COVERT THEM, just to love them.

Bob, you and Linda are amazing. Thank you for continuing to be people that I look up to. I know that if it was not for you two and your example of questioning "the truth" and loving everyone, I would not ever consider christ-loving.

love from the canyon
J. Mamma
Bob

Good stuff here, Jess...thanks for sharing. Let me start by saying that in MANY ways I agree with you. The local church today misleads people into thinking Christianity is something it isn't. Church leaders often candy-coat God and faith into something it's not. Pastors often appease and ministry leaders dodge hard questions. That's the way it is and, honestly, that's the way the bible says it will always be.

But here's where I end up after acknowledging all of that: Am I going to let a local church and a bunch of fellow humans ruin the Perfect Christ for me? If Jesus was standing here talking to us, He'd tell you the truth about swearing in the bible. He'd be open about the problems with modern Christianity. And, yes, he'd be hanging around with 'those people', not with the overly pious in our churches.

So if I could give any advice from my experience it's this: Call the church and it's people what it is: broken. And realize that they don't speak for God in His perfect voice. The local church isn't God and neither is any pastor or pope. As long as we're following Christ and His perfect love, we can take everyone else with a healthy grain of salt (or doubt, or even questionable respect).

You're not alone in this Jess...we just have to be stronger and see Christ for who he really is despite all the smoke and mirrors that are put in lambs clothing.
Brett

Good stuff, here, Bob. I'm kind of disappointed in myself for not finding your blog sooner. Really nicely done. I wish mine was half as nice (or half as committed to).

As Liz stated, this is a pretty intense set of arguments to make, and it's refreshing to see that you're at least aware that these feelings may be coming from a place without very positive intentions. Although, I think that you're intentions certainly aren't questionable here.

I can definitely get behind many of the thoughts expressed here. Most poignantly, the idea that we as Christians don't know how to live the life Christ calls us to outside of the established church. When you consider that many Christians' idea of evangelism as leaving tracts in bathroom stalls or missions as paying some money to a missionary to travel to a country they've never heard of, it's certainly not far off. Even for someone who shares your thinking, it's hard for me even to think of ways to increase my personal witness without leaning on the church.

However, I will say that you can take comfort in the fact that many leaders in the "establishment" share your concerns. Often times in talking with pastors and leaders, they're increasingly frustrated with the fact that congregations expect more and more of the work in the Kingdom to be done by the pastors, as if "that's why we called them." They've set aside their own responsibilities in Jesus' commission, even within their own families, and delegated those things to the church (i.e. my role in passing the faith on to my children is to see that they go to church or parochial school so that they can teach it to them).

However, there is a level of extreme here that I think is a bit unwarranted. For example, how does "you can't save yourself" equate to being anti-establishment? Maybe I'm missing something here. Perhaps you can expand that idea.

As you said, the argument that Jesus was anti-establishment isn't a new one. And I see where people get that from. Jesus IS radical, to be sure, but radical does not necessarily mean anti-establishment. Realize that Jesus was born and raised in the establishment (Luke 2 - Jesus is presented to the priests in the temple and later explains to his parents that he needs to be in his father's house) and there are no passages that I'm aware of that set Jesus in ANY form of opposition to the established church. Understanding a little about the times of Jesus, it's likely that he was in religious instruction for much of his life. Additionally, Jesus was regarded as a qualified Rabbi by the others in the establishment. They spoke to him as such in their recorded interactions. Also, he chose and called followers, teaching them in the same way that the other established rabbi did. He taught on the mountainsides, yes, but also often in the synagogues and the temple. How could someone who is fundamentally anti-establishment live and work so well within it?

There are, however, MANY passages in which Jesus sets himself in opposition to the teachings and practices of those IN the established church. He doesn't rebuke the establishment, he rebukes the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the teachers and the scribes. Not for being Pharisees, Sadducees, teachers, and scribes, but for teaching and supporting the kinds of things they did. He didn't upend tables in the temple because tables, temples, merchants, etc. are evil, but because they were missing the point, and making a mockery of the temple that God himself set up. You forget that God called and set apart the priests and set up the temple and ordered the sacrifices and the festivals.

The point isn't the establishment itself, it's how it's treated, how it's used. The establishment needs to remove itself from the roles that have been thrusted upon it and help get them back into the hands of the people. It should be working to teach, encourage, and inspire Christians on to reaching the broken, as you say, by being broken, and helping them to find the savior that heals all brokenness, brings about resurrection in the believer and a new life and a new creation.

Awesome stuff, though, here, Bob. TBH, I think the church needs more people like you in it that are focused on finding ways to break out of the establishmentarian shell...to find, nurture, and release that precious faith in the lives of individuals as well as communities.
Liz

Pretty intense stuff here Bob. Still processing, but I was glad to see that you took a good look at your own intentions as well. It's pretty clear that you are striving to live what you preach. Thanks for the challenge to take a closer look at my faith and how to live it out daily, while still knowing that I won't ever stop needing the reminders!

Where has Jesus Gone?

When Did It Change?

Where has this Jesus gone?

If I were a church

But I’m not a Church. And I don’t want to be.

How?

Recent Posts

Recent Comments

Reads

My Stuff