This is a writing I did for our newsletter. Some people felt it was right, some felt it was too hard. What do you think?
"Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go. . . "
Matthew 14:22
The church is often described as a boat. A boat exists for a purpose - in this case to go somewhere on a mission with Christ.
We use many different words to describe the process of getting into the boat: "conversion," "new birth," "being saved," or simply, "deciding to follow Jesus." But however it comes to us, however our life changes, become real Christians means that we choose to become participants in Christ’s mission to the world.
There are many things masquerading as Christianity that are not real, but because they make us feel good, we may be led to believe we have the real thing. The real thing means that we let God change us and we actually follow the Way of Christ.
So we join the church. We get into the boat that is docked along the shore with a lot of other people. We get to know each other. We support each other. If we are lucky, we experience love in the community that we have never experienced before. The people in the boat become like a family to us.
It is so pleasant in the boat that it is easy to think that it is easy to confuse the boat with the mission of the boat. Sometimes we even confuse the boat with the Christ that calls us. Sometimes, in practice, we begin to serve the church-boat so much that we forget about the purpose of the boat. Sometime we even carry it farther and actually substitute the church for God in our worship.
When this happens the change is often so gradual that we never notice it happening. To us, we are still converted, still worshiping God. But we are actually serving the boat and have forgotten about the mission.
The boat, with all our friends and history in it becomes the most real to us. As a result we naturally act to protect the boat. The problem is that we still haven’t taken the boat out into the water.
When someone suggests taking the boat for a sail it threatens us. Why would we want to risk our boat or its safety on rough seas? Why would we ever want to do that when we can be a happy community that studies sailing in the safety of the harbor?
We don’t like people that "rock the boat." We not only don’t like them, we feel betrayed by them. They upset our safe place. They have betrayed the boat and therefore betrayed our "family."
In our anger and threat we forget the original purpose of the boat - to go on a mission to the world. It’s safer in the harbor where the boat is tied up, awaiting its journey. All our friends are there and the seas are calm. Anyone willing to join us (on shore) is welcome.
We have substituted the boat for both our mission. Woe be to the one who threatens our little boat. We will worship God, but only from inside the safety of our boat in the harbor.
The problem is that faith isn’t a material thing that doesn’t move or grow. Faith is an action. It is not something to be possessed, but something that acts. The church is not called to just be. The church is called to be a group of people on a mission.
That’s why real faith is often both dangerous and controversial. On the other hand, all the boats in the harbor never experience the joy of the seas. And scripture promises, when the seas get stormy, even then, we will find Christ among us in the boat of mission.
- Duane, with thanks to William Sloan Coffin Jr. and the friends in the congregation that have helped me see.
5 comments:
Really, I get this Duane. I think many of our choices, every day, are about maintaining the safety, comfort and familiarity of the boat that we've each crafted.
I am completely guilty of this.
The question that I cannot answer is why. Why has safety become the thing we are so focused on? What does it say about our world/culture/community/ourselves that we are so protective of what comfort we can find that we have become adverse to flying on faith through the heavens & skies. How can we be warriors who take necessary risks if we are afraid?
Sally:
Yeah, I think safety is, after all, a human virtue. I guess the question is one of balance and also of reading the time. You know, "for everything there is a season. . . "
But this is a time of mission, a time for, in your words, warriors. And no matter what it seems the living spirit of Jesus constantly pushes us beyond our comfort zones.
Margaret Wheatley says (I think I'm quoting her right), that the future will be made by those who are willing to live in the tension of chaos until the new emerges. So I like your flying metaphor.
Its about dialetics too I think, between the safety and the risk, as well as timing. Its not 50/50 like the yin and yang exactly, but one thing is primary and one is still real, but is secondary. Right now, in this social context, I think its time for the boat to leave the harbor and for some of us to actually try to live out the Kingdom.
Blessings. Join us. Nobody's perfect (yet!). I'm sure of this, we can only get there in community.
Thanks for including me in this "conversation." I think you named the elephant in the room quite clearly and fairly. Please excuse me for quoting myself and whatever other sources I stole from in addition to Bill Coffin (the real reason I'm sending this), but I relate to this very readily and realize how much easier it is to remain in my comfort zone. Last Sunday, in preaching on the Magnificat, I dealt with the difference between charity and justice and used the wonderful Coffin quote included here. Somehow the church has to help us find the strength and the courage to move out of our comfrot zones. I have always found that doing things with others in community makes it easier for me.#1 I know I'm not alone and #2 I have confidence I'll be with someone else who might know what to do when things turn ugly. Here's the quote, if it will paste in.
The culture I’ve grown up with gives me a constant message that the wealth and affluence I take for granted is normal, and that I have a right to feel some holy pride for my acts of charity. And why should I do more than that?
I’m not going to wipe out poverty, because, after all, Jesus himself said, “The poor you will always have with you.” So I have to remind myself that Jesus did not say that to justify the continued acceptance of poverty for anyone when there is luxury for others, because I realize how easily I get lulled into believing that my feeble efforts to respond to poverty are wonderful.
The Magnificat calls me to go so much further, to do what takes me way out of my comfort zone.
It calls me to actually use the privilege I have to leverage power in government places, to work with the poor for social change. Going to State House for Health Care Reform. MOA: advocacy.
James Forbes: “Nobody gets to heaven without a letter of reference from the poor.” That’s the challenge of Christmas.
The mystical part of me responds to Christmas with the response “O come, let us adore him” and is quite content to leave it at that, but a voice deeper within me demands that I hold that comforting vision of a holy infant so tender and mild in constant tension with the disturbing, unsettling and wildly hopeful vision of the Magnificat.
In 2002 right over in Lincoln at 1st Parish, William Sloane Coffin:
"Had I but one wish for all the churches in America today, I think it would be that they come to see the difference between charity and justice. Charity is a matter of personal attributes;
justice is a matter of public policy. Charity seeks to alleviate the worst effects of injustice;
justice seeks to eliminate the causes of it. Charity in no way affects the status quo
(which is why charity is so popular in middle-class churches), while justice leads inevitably to political confrontation. And I would hope especially that Christians today would see that compassion demands confrontation."
This sweet and harmless little baby nestled in Mary’s womb, whose birth brings us to our knees in adoration, is the same one who comes to bring us to our feet to march in the light of God for justice.
Through this child, God becomes like us so that we may become like him.
Just wondering why "United Methodist Church" or at least "UMC" is not included as part of the name of "Open Table of Christ."
Hi Duane, I like the metaphor of the boat / church / mission, and believe that I see the difference in the 3. But I can also see where they can be confused or substituted for one another.
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