Exiles Real and Responsive Sunday, October 7, 2007 at 11:00 pm
This is a post about two exiles.
For those of you who couldn’t tell, I can have a decidedly cynical bent on the world. This is not in itself a bad thing, as the world needs people like me to put ground underneath the castles which others build in the air. (Not that I am incapable of building castles in the air, I just tend to talk myself out of it half-way through.) But this bent has gone unchecked lately, and become something emotionally and mentally damaging. I have my reasons for it, circumstances which have made it easy to slip into, but these are explanations and not excuses. Through cynicism a pragmatic and realistic view of life has degenerated into something bitter, and a bitterness which infects its carrier (me) and makes the relationships I have with friends more difficult.
This is my cynicism in response to the church, which I feel is founded and reasonable, and it is the first exile.
I think I have realized, at least in part, how I have been relating wrongly to the church, and how it is that I should be relating to the church. It begins first in dealing with reality: I may never have the sort of continual fellowship in a church that I desire. There is a sad irony that the leaders who cry that ‘church is about community’ are frequently the very ones with whom I find none. But I have been blessed to be able to find fellowship, though nearly always outside the institution of the gathering together of those who call themselves Christians.
I have approached church community with the question: what need is it that I can have met here? Don’t be mistaken: I do have deep needs for a community of believers. But I love the church, and this means I cannot approach her with this question in mind. I cannot ask where I will fit in or how I can be edified. I have to come to a church community with the question: whether or not I get anything out of it, what of myself can I give to the people here?
Some people fast from material blessings for the sake of remaining undistracted before the one who both gives and surpasses material blessings. Some fast from sexual intimacy for the sake of remaining undistracted before the one who gives and surpasses sex. And besides that it is good to fast from time to time to remember the giver, we all fast from these in a sense when we don’t have them, and it is our choice at those times to focus on our desires on our current lack or on our savior who, somehow, makes up for every lack. Like physical needs, and like intimate needs, community is a need. I may withdraw myself from this need for the sake of focusing on Christ, but when I find myself in the course of life without it, I can become upset with God or dependent on him. Unfortunately my response has typically been the former. This is a real need, and it hurts because it’s unmet. But do I really believe that Christ is sufficient to sustain me and bless me with himself? Yes, and I ought to behave as if I believe this.
This line of thinking, frankly, scares me. I don’t want to abdicate the primacy of my own desires – and more than that, I think my legitimate human needs – and instead serve the very people who are contributing to my difficulties. But there’s something wondrously Christlike about that, isn’t there? And that’s what makes me think this is the right approach to take. I am concerned about being myself in a desert and continuing to pour what I have to others already receiving blessings I don’t have. But that is not my business: my business is to love Christ’s beloved.
From here on out, my posts will probably be rarer and focused on other things: that is, trying more to be a blessing than simply ’self-expressive’. I cannot continue to focus on my problems (in my mind, of course, by causes external to myself) in my small forum on a corner of the web and not have it affect me in a manner counter to the change I am trying to produce. This means more posts coming from my journal – such as this one, modified and reduxed to a less personal degree – and more journaling period. It means a different focus and purpose for writing. It means finding in everything an opportunity for my words and actions to bless those around me indiscriminately – and this includes you, if you are reading this – in whatever small and, ultimately, insignificant way I am able.
And this is the second exile, concerning this blog: not to use what little I have simply for myself, but to live in honesty and truth with those close friends in my life, and then to take things like this and make them less about my own rants and needs. This will take some time, and I may disappear for a while as I figure it out. But it is, I hope, good.
About 7 years ago, following my move to Southern California, I found myself increasingly frustrated when it came to finding a community of believers that I could participate in. I dipped my toe into just about all of them and nothing fit. It was, to me, very closely resembling a desert experence. After a great deal of soul searching, prayer, etc., I felt like perhaps I had become too dependant on the church to provide for my spiritual needs instead of relying on the message of Christ.
The day I hit that realization was the day I quit my search for a church home. Instead I started forcusing my energies on what I could do as a believer for Christ (whatsoever you’ve done to the least…). I started volunteering for an organization delivering meals to shut-ins several times a week. I started volunteering at a homeless shelter a couple of times a month. Out of one of those came an invitation to join a small group of believers each week whose desire was to study the scripture honestly before God. There are 15 in our group. No one batted an eye when they found out I was gay, rather they accepted me as someone just like them, a seeker of God.
I told my dad recently that I don’t believe I’ve ever been as fulfilled in my faith as I have these past few years. It was when I took my focus off of me and placed it squarely on Him and ministering to the expression of Him in others that I found a radical change in my own life.
Anyway…sorry for the ramble. You kind of touched a cord with me.
Blessings!
j.
Ahhh… the church. She is that which Christ is sanctifying and has been doing so for a couple thousand years and at the eschaton she will be glorified (Eph. 5:25-27). Rather patient isn’t He? Even during the tragic times of the crusades, the middle ages, the Reformation, the 20th century reign of the televangelists He has not given up on her, though at times she seems more like a whore at the foot of Sinai worshiping a golden calf. Oh, that we would be more like our Savior and love her as much as He does! As a seminary gradate and ordained minister, who has been through many wars within even my own denomination, I assure you that I have plenty to complain about “he did that” “they did that to ME” and so forth. But in the end I ask myself, “Am I part of the problem or part of the solution?” If all I do is bitch moan groan and complain then I might find ourselves out in the desert looking to Egypt as a nice place to run to, but that would be the death of me (1 Cor. 10:1-6).
David…awesome thoughtful post. Thanks for your consideration. I always read your blog and it’s great to read because it’s so “real.”
I understand all of the feelings you identify. I think it’s interesting that you gave the analogy to fasting. I read a book of John Eldridge’s a few years ago and he talked about a similar idea…of taking a fast from traditional religion and how his spiritual walk was affected.
You might check out his works if you haven’t read them, check out The Sacred Romance, Waking the Dead, et al.
Blessings on the journey.
Well, I must say that this post has been a blessing for me indeed. I’m blessed to have read this because:
1) Although you’ve blessed and inspired me in some form for as long as i’ve known you, it blesses me to see you reach this point, as I know that it’s yet another stepping stone for you.
2) I’ve become very very involved in church over the past 3 months. I became involved because I realized that it was more important to focus outwardly than inwardly. I realized that perhaps things would feel differently if I didn’t focus so much on how MY needs weren’t being met. However, it shames me to say that at some point over the past few weeks I forgot this, and I became somewhat selfish and cynical. I forgot that it really isn’t all about me, but about Christ in me, and about using the gifts that he’s given me in and outside of the church. I’m disappointed in myself quite honestly, and I’m embarrassed about what I’ve taken for granted. But, i’m thankful for what you’ve written, as it was through your words that I saw the err of my own ways.
You know, that’s a beautiful thing, seeing the err in our own ways, because while we realize the ways in which we’ve missed the point, therein is hope in knowing that through Christ we can pursue a new direction, a new approach. That’s liberating. That’s Christ.
-Bryan
David,
I can really sympathize with some of the things you’ve mentioned about church. It seems like I’ve always had some trouble fitting in there among other believers. Matters weren’t helped any when I told my preacher this time last year that I struggle with homosexuality. His response was to pretty much avoid me for a couple of months and then to tell me I was selfish, irresponsible, and immature and that he had no desire to help me. So, needless to say, I’ve struggled a lot with going to church the last several months.
There’s a song called “If We Are the Body” and part of the lyrics discusses how Christians don’t always do the Christlike thing. “…if we are the body, why aren’t His hands healing, why aren’t his arms reaching,…” and so forth. It proves a good point that Christians don’t always follow Christ’s ways. We don’t always love our neighbors as we should. And that’s sad really, because when we don’t love others, we don’t represent Christ at all. We become a turn off to others, and can actually turn them off to Christ as well.
Great post, David. Hang in there.
Brandon
Yeah, I dunno who said it … but I like the line, “The church is a whore … but she’s my mother!”