For so long evangelism has been shackled to conversion only evangelism which brings to mind that verse about its converts being hell times 2.
Those of us for whom justice burns grew to despise conversion
evangelism, because of its lip service to mercy and justice and loving
one's enemies. I mean how many times can you hear the phrase 'God
changing the world one life at a time' and not despair for the
incapacity of millions of converts effecting any meaningful social
change? In fact, just the opposite has been happening. While the
number of converts increase, so too the number of children who die
daily from malnutrition world wide. How can it be that we who have
been told 'to feed his sheep' could make the world such a starving
place for so many?
And yet for those of us for whom justice burns, we can't escape the
charge that justice only evangelism can also make for followers who
are hell times 2. We can alienate those who won't subscribe to our
agenda even faster than any conversion evangelist, even without
resorting to threats as dire as 'burning in hell for eternity'.
Green evangelists aren't much better and those discipleship
evangelists can make spiritual discipline as invigorating as eating
dust.
Cultural evangelists make Sunday morning services like Entertainment
Tonight with Jesus break neck dancing down the aisle. Why talk about
the cross when it's a better North American fit for our Lord to be a
therapist?
Brian rightly states that the challenge is for us to be all five:
Conversion evangelists - those ever born anew,
Justice evangelists - those pursuing a just world which God makes
right
Green evangelists - those caring for it is God who cares for the
sparrow
Discipleship evangelists - expeditiously living both Jeremiah's lament
(see Lamentations 3:19-27) and the song of Isaiah (see Isaiah 26).
Cultural evangelists - story-tellers who can see God's story in the
world and tell it in ways the world can hear.
Needless to say, we can do only this in community.
Otherwise we as hell times 2.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
If Christ were to send a letter to our church...
In response to Brian Cunnington's reflective exercise: "If Christ were to send a letter to your local church...how do you think your church might respond to such a letter?"
In order of what I'd think most likely:
1. Mark the envelope 'Return to Sender'.
2. Mark the envelope 'No longer at this address'.
3. Do a handwriting analysis and render its content heresy because it's divisive and not what the pastor's preaching.
4. Burn it at the church reunion campfire while singing Kumbaya and consoling ourselves in the re-telling of our church's wondrous inception.
5. Read and conclude that it had been a bad day for Jesus and we were bearing the brunt of misplaced anger really meant for liberal churches and others outside the true faith.
6. Be really shaken and plead to be restored to our first love, even if we had to be dismantled myth by myth, stone by stone, dollar by dollar, idol by idol...
In order of what I'd think most likely:
1. Mark the envelope 'Return to Sender'.
2. Mark the envelope 'No longer at this address'.
3. Do a handwriting analysis and render its content heresy because it's divisive and not what the pastor's preaching.
4. Burn it at the church reunion campfire while singing Kumbaya and consoling ourselves in the re-telling of our church's wondrous inception.
5. Read and conclude that it had been a bad day for Jesus and we were bearing the brunt of misplaced anger really meant for liberal churches and others outside the true faith.
6. Be really shaken and plead to be restored to our first love, even if we had to be dismantled myth by myth, stone by stone, dollar by dollar, idol by idol...
When preaching becomes therapy
I have had the occasion of ministering to someone's 'felt need' and it
is intoxicating stuff.
It's enough to make me never say a discouraging word to anyone.
So when I was given a pulpit from which to speak, I widened my topic
to address the congregation's 'felt need' and boy that was really
intoxicating!
Some people cried and others came to me after to tell me how they had
never heard anyone speak so deeply into their lives before.
I was addicted to doing therapy!
And so the next sermon I preached included stories about my wife and
kids (where in the name of humility I'm typically the fall guy) and
unforgettable anecdotes. I could feel the congregation in the palm of
my hand, like a little lamb and I caressed them with the gentle words
of God's love and they opened their arms to receive it and the church
offering went through the roof and I was really addicted. GIVE ME THAT PULPIT!
It was enough to make me never say an offending word to anyone even if it meant ignoring all the offensive things Jesus said. No way I was
ever going to say anything about 'God being a consuming fire'.
No wonder most of our congregations live with a Sunday School sized
god. Just the right size to make sure we never fear Him.
If we are ever to get beyond the Sunday Service as therapy, we its
therapists will have to get back to preaching again and leave the
therapy to Oprah and Dr. Phil.
We will have to sacrifice our addiction to being 'felt needed' for the
truth.
For many of us, it will be a harder addiction to break from than
heroin, requiring major detox i.e. repentance.
is intoxicating stuff.
It's enough to make me never say a discouraging word to anyone.
So when I was given a pulpit from which to speak, I widened my topic
to address the congregation's 'felt need' and boy that was really
intoxicating!
Some people cried and others came to me after to tell me how they had
never heard anyone speak so deeply into their lives before.
I was addicted to doing therapy!
And so the next sermon I preached included stories about my wife and
kids (where in the name of humility I'm typically the fall guy) and
unforgettable anecdotes. I could feel the congregation in the palm of
my hand, like a little lamb and I caressed them with the gentle words
of God's love and they opened their arms to receive it and the church
offering went through the roof and I was really addicted. GIVE ME THAT PULPIT!
It was enough to make me never say an offending word to anyone even if it meant ignoring all the offensive things Jesus said. No way I was
ever going to say anything about 'God being a consuming fire'.
No wonder most of our congregations live with a Sunday School sized
god. Just the right size to make sure we never fear Him.
If we are ever to get beyond the Sunday Service as therapy, we its
therapists will have to get back to preaching again and leave the
therapy to Oprah and Dr. Phil.
We will have to sacrifice our addiction to being 'felt needed' for the
truth.
For many of us, it will be a harder addiction to break from than
heroin, requiring major detox i.e. repentance.
Something more than its own welfare
‘Christ died for everyone so that those who receive his new life will
no longer live for themselves.’ (2 Corinthians 5:15) That’s why the
goal of the church has to be something other than its own welfare.
I have a pretty good feel for how hard it is to make my own welfare
something other than the goal - so I’m sympathetic as to why the
church struggles with the same.
But for as long as our own prosperity is the goal we deny the process
through which Christ’s new life emerges among us. The cross. The ‘not
my will but yours be done’ process. The ‘sell all you have, give to
the poor and then come follow me’ descent into divine consequence.
So then the question becomes - what is it about the missional church
that would make it any more inclined to dying to self-interest than
other expressions of the church?
The new frontier mentality is a plus. People concerned about their own
welfare aren’t likely to sail uncharted waters in the vague hope of
finding a New World. They’d just as soon stay at home.
Being committed to moving helps.
Have you ever noticed how many of the great commands of Jesus begin
with motion words? Words like ‘Go sell all you have’ and ‘Come to me
all you who are heavy burdened’ and ‘Go into all the world’ and ‘Take
up your cross and follow me’.
Going public as 'in going into the streets' helps. Many of us have
been shut in the closet of private spirituality for so long we’ve
forgotten how Christianity thrives in the open air, out in the big
wide world, where both rationalism and superstition abound, but where the voice of God is its only anchor.
no longer live for themselves.’ (2 Corinthians 5:15) That’s why the
goal of the church has to be something other than its own welfare.
I have a pretty good feel for how hard it is to make my own welfare
something other than the goal - so I’m sympathetic as to why the
church struggles with the same.
But for as long as our own prosperity is the goal we deny the process
through which Christ’s new life emerges among us. The cross. The ‘not
my will but yours be done’ process. The ‘sell all you have, give to
the poor and then come follow me’ descent into divine consequence.
So then the question becomes - what is it about the missional church
that would make it any more inclined to dying to self-interest than
other expressions of the church?
The new frontier mentality is a plus. People concerned about their own
welfare aren’t likely to sail uncharted waters in the vague hope of
finding a New World. They’d just as soon stay at home.
Being committed to moving helps.
Have you ever noticed how many of the great commands of Jesus begin
with motion words? Words like ‘Go sell all you have’ and ‘Come to me
all you who are heavy burdened’ and ‘Go into all the world’ and ‘Take
up your cross and follow me’.
Going public as 'in going into the streets' helps. Many of us have
been shut in the closet of private spirituality for so long we’ve
forgotten how Christianity thrives in the open air, out in the big
wide world, where both rationalism and superstition abound, but where the voice of God is its only anchor.
The church and temptation
Sadly the temptations Jesus resisted in the desert, we his church have
not.
OT Israel were not the only band of God's people given to adultery and idolatry. We too have slept with the enemy to gain this world's riches. Whereas Jesus would have rather starved to death than use his divine privilege to overturn his utter dependence on God's word; we have twisted God's word to our advantage at the expense of the world's starving. We have embezzled the food that belongs to the hungry by clinging to the stones of our institutions and property. Whereas Jesus refused to succumb to supernatural theatrics to win the world over, we think nothing of prostituting ourselves and God's truth to gain the world's favour. Whereas Jesus resisted the devil's offer of all the kingdoms of this world; we have repeatedly jumped into bed with the devil in his various disguises of power - Emperor, Superstar, Merchant Extraordinaire.
I heard a minister recently take issue with those who criticize the church. If his point is that those who criticize not be arrogant, his point is well taken. Arrogance only makes the critic twice as bad. But if his point is that the church - especially the prosperous contemporary church - is not that far off from where we should be, I vehemently disagree. In my humble opinion, we have exchanged our birthright of sharing in the hunger of God's poor for affluence and privileged social standing; we have not resisted the power brokers of our time to 'get behind us Satan'. We have chosen patriotism over Christ's kingdom, self-sufficiency over his cross, convenience and superficiality over perseverance and prayer.
Fortunately, one other temptation Jesus has resisted, is the temptation to give up on us. 'I am with you always, even to the end of this age', he says. But let's not mistake his loyalty as though he's indifferent to our current condition. 'Repent or I will spit you out of my mouth', is also what he says.
not.
OT Israel were not the only band of God's people given to adultery and idolatry. We too have slept with the enemy to gain this world's riches. Whereas Jesus would have rather starved to death than use his divine privilege to overturn his utter dependence on God's word; we have twisted God's word to our advantage at the expense of the world's starving. We have embezzled the food that belongs to the hungry by clinging to the stones of our institutions and property. Whereas Jesus refused to succumb to supernatural theatrics to win the world over, we think nothing of prostituting ourselves and God's truth to gain the world's favour. Whereas Jesus resisted the devil's offer of all the kingdoms of this world; we have repeatedly jumped into bed with the devil in his various disguises of power - Emperor, Superstar, Merchant Extraordinaire.
I heard a minister recently take issue with those who criticize the church. If his point is that those who criticize not be arrogant, his point is well taken. Arrogance only makes the critic twice as bad. But if his point is that the church - especially the prosperous contemporary church - is not that far off from where we should be, I vehemently disagree. In my humble opinion, we have exchanged our birthright of sharing in the hunger of God's poor for affluence and privileged social standing; we have not resisted the power brokers of our time to 'get behind us Satan'. We have chosen patriotism over Christ's kingdom, self-sufficiency over his cross, convenience and superficiality over perseverance and prayer.
Fortunately, one other temptation Jesus has resisted, is the temptation to give up on us. 'I am with you always, even to the end of this age', he says. But let's not mistake his loyalty as though he's indifferent to our current condition. 'Repent or I will spit you out of my mouth', is also what he says.
When the main thing becomes the main thing...
This morning I had a glimpse of the other side - of what the main thing looks like when people take hold of the main thing.
It had me shuddering for more.
I attended a prayer meeting involving Christian leaders who work among the poor - pastoring urban churches, leading social agencies. It was as if I had been transported into the book of Acts.
There was a 28 year old - a mere kid spiritually speaking - who had intentionally moved into one of Toronto poorest communities to 'mobilize the neighbourhood for Jesus sake'.
Over the past 4 months what has mobilized is a group which meets every morning for prayer. It includes new immigrants from Iran and India and Ethiopia - many of whom came here as Muslims, but are now 'on fire for Jesus'. He admitted that their theology is 'loose' but the stories he told of miraculous healings, visions in the night had me confounded as to why him and not me. Sorry bad confession to be making but it did 'arouse me to envy'...
I'm old enough to realize how complicated life gets and tend to think of faith as equally complex. But then I see people - typically new to the faith - doing 'foolish' things, things which strike me as naive, impulsive and self-defying, with prayer as their only resource, running at complete odds to either fiscal or numerical certainty.
And while I am confounded by the impossibility of it all, they are dancing like kids in the rain! The kingdom of God is flowing and they’re getting drenched!
Help my unbelief Lord.
And squeeze the complex camel I've become through whatever it takes to join them.
It had me shuddering for more.
I attended a prayer meeting involving Christian leaders who work among the poor - pastoring urban churches, leading social agencies. It was as if I had been transported into the book of Acts.
There was a 28 year old - a mere kid spiritually speaking - who had intentionally moved into one of Toronto poorest communities to 'mobilize the neighbourhood for Jesus sake'.
Over the past 4 months what has mobilized is a group which meets every morning for prayer. It includes new immigrants from Iran and India and Ethiopia - many of whom came here as Muslims, but are now 'on fire for Jesus'. He admitted that their theology is 'loose' but the stories he told of miraculous healings, visions in the night had me confounded as to why him and not me. Sorry bad confession to be making but it did 'arouse me to envy'...
I'm old enough to realize how complicated life gets and tend to think of faith as equally complex. But then I see people - typically new to the faith - doing 'foolish' things, things which strike me as naive, impulsive and self-defying, with prayer as their only resource, running at complete odds to either fiscal or numerical certainty.
And while I am confounded by the impossibility of it all, they are dancing like kids in the rain! The kingdom of God is flowing and they’re getting drenched!
Help my unbelief Lord.
And squeeze the complex camel I've become through whatever it takes to join them.
Part-time preacher that I am
Part-time preacher that I am, I am now thoroughly disillusioned with almost every word I have ever preached.
I’ve been preaching to make Jesus look good so that people might admire him even more than they do...so they pray more, so their faith might be lifted.
I have said lots about Jesus being the way to God, but next to nothing about Jesus the way God expects us to behave.
I have said lots about our having a saving faith in Jesus but little about how faith working by our love saves our neighbour.
I have said lots about how Christ has brought ‘healing and salvation to the world through his woundedness, suffering and death’ but nothing about our bringing ‘healing and salvation through our woundedness, suffering and death.’
I’ve said lots about Jesus having walked among us, but next to nothing about Jesus walking in our shoes having crucified our ambitions and self-interests so he can bust out of our shell to love those on the street.
You can see my homiletical shortcoming - I have majored in belief as it pertains to Jesus but not in belief as it pertains to the way we live. I have detached belief from behaviour killing any possibility of Jesus being seen in us. From now on, I am going to preach about the church’s being a counter- cultural, enemy loving, anti-greed, power refuting, total social re-make.
As a part-time preacher I should be able to get away with it. I am in a position where I can offend. It’s not my job that’s on the line. Sometimes I think that when a full-time preacher gives up his pulpit for a week, it should be to someone who has had rocks thrown at him like Jesus or Paul.
It takes a pulpit to craft a people. Which means what’s coming from the pulpit has to change. Forgive me for decrying the preaching. But what a misshapen self- absorbed people we have become and there is more than just one part- time preacher to blame. As congregations we’ve got the Jesus died in our place part of the gospel. What we’re missing is the part about our dying for Jesus; a threat to the existing ‘powers and principalities’ the same way he was. We have forgotten that part of his invitation to come and die with him, to carry our cross as he carried his, to be worthy of such a cross because we are as contrary as he is to the way things are.
The upside is that most preachers get it. For them, looking through old sermons is like wading through pablum. Their congregation should be overflowing with teachers but instead there are infants warring in the pews. Their congregation should be stirring the pot but instead they are leaving the pot be. Their congregation should have be making inroads among peoples of differing faith, cultural and socio-economic groups, but instead they vigorously keep to themselves. TIme to move from pablum to chili. The kind of spiritual food that when it passes through the body is likely to offend, even as it inspires the kind of action whose signature is courage, creativity and love.
I’ve been preaching to make Jesus look good so that people might admire him even more than they do...so they pray more, so their faith might be lifted.
I have said lots about Jesus being the way to God, but next to nothing about Jesus the way God expects us to behave.
I have said lots about our having a saving faith in Jesus but little about how faith working by our love saves our neighbour.
I have said lots about how Christ has brought ‘healing and salvation to the world through his woundedness, suffering and death’ but nothing about our bringing ‘healing and salvation through our woundedness, suffering and death.’
I’ve said lots about Jesus having walked among us, but next to nothing about Jesus walking in our shoes having crucified our ambitions and self-interests so he can bust out of our shell to love those on the street.
You can see my homiletical shortcoming - I have majored in belief as it pertains to Jesus but not in belief as it pertains to the way we live. I have detached belief from behaviour killing any possibility of Jesus being seen in us. From now on, I am going to preach about the church’s being a counter- cultural, enemy loving, anti-greed, power refuting, total social re-make.
As a part-time preacher I should be able to get away with it. I am in a position where I can offend. It’s not my job that’s on the line. Sometimes I think that when a full-time preacher gives up his pulpit for a week, it should be to someone who has had rocks thrown at him like Jesus or Paul.
It takes a pulpit to craft a people. Which means what’s coming from the pulpit has to change. Forgive me for decrying the preaching. But what a misshapen self- absorbed people we have become and there is more than just one part- time preacher to blame. As congregations we’ve got the Jesus died in our place part of the gospel. What we’re missing is the part about our dying for Jesus; a threat to the existing ‘powers and principalities’ the same way he was. We have forgotten that part of his invitation to come and die with him, to carry our cross as he carried his, to be worthy of such a cross because we are as contrary as he is to the way things are.
The upside is that most preachers get it. For them, looking through old sermons is like wading through pablum. Their congregation should be overflowing with teachers but instead there are infants warring in the pews. Their congregation should be stirring the pot but instead they are leaving the pot be. Their congregation should have be making inroads among peoples of differing faith, cultural and socio-economic groups, but instead they vigorously keep to themselves. TIme to move from pablum to chili. The kind of spiritual food that when it passes through the body is likely to offend, even as it inspires the kind of action whose signature is courage, creativity and love.
If there was one word for the church...
If I could give you one word, that word would be 'GO'.
Go to where the people are.
Go to where the needy are.
Go to the people nobody else is caring for.
And there in life's margins - among the broken and disillusioned -
expect to find God there and hear what he'd have you do.
The prevailing word among most churches is 'build it and they will come'. It might make for a good movie but it is the antithesis of Christ's command to 'go and find the lost and rescue them'.
The prevailing word in successful churches is 'settle down'. Settle down in your office and write a good sermon. Settle down in your Board meeting and write a good strategic plan. Settle down in your renovated building and expect the seekers to come.
If the church is meant to have any seekers, them seekers are supposed to be us - us seeking first the kingdom, us seeking first his will, us seeking first the lost and broken and hurting and abandoned, us going out into the alleyways and the dingy rooms, among the forgotten lost in institutions of care - the mentally ill, the elderly, those in homeless shelters.
Tell the pastor he can't write his sermon in his office where the hurting people aren't. Tell the Board it's God's vision which drives the church, and that vision can only be clearly seen on the street where God goes before you.
The prevailing word among most churches is 'build it and they will come'. It might make for a good movie but it is the antithesis of Christ's command to 'go and find the lost and rescue them'.
The prevailing word in successful churches is 'settle down'. Settle down in your office and write a good sermon. Settle down in your Board meeting and write a good strategic plan. Settle down in your renovated building and expect the seekers to come.
If the church is meant to have any seekers, them seekers are supposed to be us - us seeking first the kingdom, us seeking first his will, us seeking first the lost and broken and hurting and abandoned, us going out into the alleyways and the dingy rooms, among the forgotten lost in institutions of care - the mentally ill, the elderly, those in homeless shelters.
Tell the pastor he can't write his sermon in his office where the hurting people aren't. Tell the Board it's God's vision which drives the church, and that vision can only be clearly seen on the street where God goes before you.
When the church is political...
The church is a political community where ‘chief among you are the least’, and judgment perpetually loses out to mercy. Her boundaries are not extended by the tactics of empire, technology or capital, but in her willingness to lay down her life for the forgotten, the refugee and anyone else level with her humility.
The church has all the zeal of the Zealot but without the sword, all the activism of the social revolutionary without the arrogance or the gun. She is a threat to the existing powers because she can’t be bought. Her authority is rooted in her powerlessness and her reliance on God’s help. Entitlements she defers to others, she is neither benefactor nor debtor other than to love as He loves. She becomes poor to enrich and honour the excluded, she shields the defenseless and speaks for those oppressed by power and greed. She is the prophet calling the world alongside her on her knees.
The church is an economic community making her home in the ghetto as among the rich, forgiving people their debts (yes I mean monetary ones!) and emptying herself that others have a home. She is the great wealth re-distributor, the proclamation of God's Jubliee.
Regarding world hunger she understands ‘God desires that no one perish’ and lives accordingly, sacrificially.
She chooses loss over gain, invisible in her charity and yet blessing the world.
She understands that among the reasons Jesus was crucified are political and economic and social ones. He died because he was contrary to the way things are.
Living as he did, she takes up her cross, prepared to meet up with the same fate he did. As he was contrary she too is contrary, mirroring his obedience, living to ‘share in his sufferings’ and his resurrection.
The church has all the zeal of the Zealot but without the sword, all the activism of the social revolutionary without the arrogance or the gun. She is a threat to the existing powers because she can’t be bought. Her authority is rooted in her powerlessness and her reliance on God’s help. Entitlements she defers to others, she is neither benefactor nor debtor other than to love as He loves. She becomes poor to enrich and honour the excluded, she shields the defenseless and speaks for those oppressed by power and greed. She is the prophet calling the world alongside her on her knees.
The church is an economic community making her home in the ghetto as among the rich, forgiving people their debts (yes I mean monetary ones!) and emptying herself that others have a home. She is the great wealth re-distributor, the proclamation of God's Jubliee.
Regarding world hunger she understands ‘God desires that no one perish’ and lives accordingly, sacrificially.
She chooses loss over gain, invisible in her charity and yet blessing the world.
She understands that among the reasons Jesus was crucified are political and economic and social ones. He died because he was contrary to the way things are.
Living as he did, she takes up her cross, prepared to meet up with the same fate he did. As he was contrary she too is contrary, mirroring his obedience, living to ‘share in his sufferings’ and his resurrection.
When the church is big...
Big box companies. Like GM.
Big Box stores. Like Walmart.
Big Box churches. Like Willowcreek.
When they’re flourishing it’s hard to resist the stampede.
But when they become cumbersome, too big to move one more step, one can hear the thunder of an avalanche.
‘Do you see all these things?’ Jesus asked. ‘I tell you the truth, not one stone here will be left on another, every one will be thrown down.’ (Matthew 24:2)
I like GM and Walmart. I love Willowcreek. I have done well because of them.
So if they falter, it won’t be due to a lack of buy-in on my part.
Baby boomer that I am, I’m easily swayed by BIG. BIG incomes, BIG homes, BIG dreams, BIG numbers, BIG market share...success for me is BIG. BIG numbers can’t lie, can they?
There is biblical precedent for distrusting numbers. The prophets never had numbers on their side. Nor did Jesus especially after saying that bit about eating his flesh and drinking his blood.
We belong to a kingdom in which a little child shall lead them, a kingdom which is a mere mustard seed compared to the kingdoms of this world. We are as small as we have to be to rely totally on God.
BIG makes for great museums as the great cathedrals in Europe attest to. They are beautiful to tour, their art is dazzling and there's the experience of stillness in walking their marbled floors.
But occasionally I would shudder as though overcome by a dark echo: ‘Think of all the bloodshed, all the strife that would have been averted if all the resources it took to build this place had been given to the poor.’
To me this is the issue. If BIG means 80 or 90 percent to run the church and the remainder to the poor...we’ve set our sights on something other than the Kingdom of God. Which means instead of God's commendation of ‘well done’, the question will be ‘why did you rob me?’
Big Box stores. Like Walmart.
Big Box churches. Like Willowcreek.
When they’re flourishing it’s hard to resist the stampede.
But when they become cumbersome, too big to move one more step, one can hear the thunder of an avalanche.
‘Do you see all these things?’ Jesus asked. ‘I tell you the truth, not one stone here will be left on another, every one will be thrown down.’ (Matthew 24:2)
I like GM and Walmart. I love Willowcreek. I have done well because of them.
So if they falter, it won’t be due to a lack of buy-in on my part.
Baby boomer that I am, I’m easily swayed by BIG. BIG incomes, BIG homes, BIG dreams, BIG numbers, BIG market share...success for me is BIG. BIG numbers can’t lie, can they?
There is biblical precedent for distrusting numbers. The prophets never had numbers on their side. Nor did Jesus especially after saying that bit about eating his flesh and drinking his blood.
We belong to a kingdom in which a little child shall lead them, a kingdom which is a mere mustard seed compared to the kingdoms of this world. We are as small as we have to be to rely totally on God.
BIG makes for great museums as the great cathedrals in Europe attest to. They are beautiful to tour, their art is dazzling and there's the experience of stillness in walking their marbled floors.
But occasionally I would shudder as though overcome by a dark echo: ‘Think of all the bloodshed, all the strife that would have been averted if all the resources it took to build this place had been given to the poor.’
To me this is the issue. If BIG means 80 or 90 percent to run the church and the remainder to the poor...we’ve set our sights on something other than the Kingdom of God. Which means instead of God's commendation of ‘well done’, the question will be ‘why did you rob me?’
Sin
I don’t know what to do with either the word or the concept of ‘sin’ outside the 2 commandments that really matter i.e. loving God and loving one’s neighbour. No doubt in some circles it may have to do with violating a dress code, or one drink too many, but there its use is too subjective and flimsy to be worth keeping.
Where it does apply, now as much as ever, is in identifying the things we do which hurt, malign, oppress, disavow, ignore, or convey indifference to our neighbour. When we do those things, we sin. To sin against our neighbour is to sin against God. Conversely to love our neighbour covers a ‘multitude of sins’ which experientially speaking may be the greatest freedom we can know.
Where it does apply, now as much as ever, is in identifying the things we do which hurt, malign, oppress, disavow, ignore, or convey indifference to our neighbour. When we do those things, we sin. To sin against our neighbour is to sin against God. Conversely to love our neighbour covers a ‘multitude of sins’ which experientially speaking may be the greatest freedom we can know.
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