Care For Your Soul: Part 2
A version of this post was originally shared with leaders of the Ohio River Valley district via email on September 4, 2020.
A deepening concern has come over me. Last week I talked about succumbing to false teaching. Some of the false teaching has led to a loss of faith in our God. People will say that it is a loss of faith in institutions, but that is not the way it is manifested. Institutions are run by people. Who doesn’t lose trust in them from time to time? We especially lose faith in institutions when the announced mission is not the mission they keep. We have lost trust in institutions that say, “All are created equal,” but then they live out of different mission: one of exclusion and marginalization. People mistrust the Church when it says, “Open Minds, Open Hearts, Open Doors,” but instead of experiencing a community of mutuality, a place of exclusion is experienced. A place with insider language and social barriers that cannot be breached, unless a change of heart comes from within the institution - in this case the Church.
When we lose faith in institutions and the people who run them, people go inward. A trust in human wisdom and power rather than the Spirit of God is the hallmark of a soul in trouble. This inward thinking is evident in some of our congregations.
In recent weeks, both Dr. Allen and I have experienced a number of truly sad local church experiences. Verbal abuse from leaders and members of congregations towards pastors, constant whining that the church is not serving the needs of the member -- right now! Pastoral leadership is not doing “what I want” without any notion of God language or seeking the Holy Spirit or the Presence of God in decision making. Do we really believe in God anymore? Or, do we just believe in ourselves? Do we believe in eternity, or just relativism?
These are important questions to answer and maybe now would be a good time for some personal reflection. This self or group centeredness is a real threat. Persons continue to contact the district office regularly complaining about our “Call to Action” regarding race and our care, respect and encouragement to return to worship in the safest possible ways by following CDC, White House, and Governor DeWine’s guidelines. I hope you read in News and Notes the Governor’s personal letter to faith organizations.
Agency has been given from the very beginning, in our Conference, for each local context to meet the needs of both your church’s membership and to be engaged in social witness in your community. Leadership has been clear to call us all to action regarding the destructive forces of racism in our country and asking each of us to listen and learn and then act towards the arc of justice and equity that cannot be obtained in a “Me” centered world. The anger and the me first attitudes indicate that there is a God sized hole in the hearts of some of our people that only God can fill. Please ask God in, that is, if you still believe in God!
On the other hand, some really awesome things are happening in the Ohio River Valley District. In one of our local congregations, the pastor organized a 3 X 3 socially distanced basketball tournament. The teams of three were made up of a police officer, a youth from the neighborhood and a leader/member of the church. In other congregations, both pastors and laity are leading small group studies on race and culture. Book clubs, sermon series and more are part of the landscape of conversation and concrete actions and this is happening all around the district.
Some of our people have marched in prayerful witness. Others have made masks, been trained as contact tracers through their local health departments, and assisted with food insecurity by serving in church food pantries or some other ministry in the community. More than one of our churches is holding outdoor worship services in their parking lot, kind of like a drive-in theater.
At one of those churches, a couple in a neighboring house adjacent to the church was able to listen in from their deck. They heard a compelling message of Christ and His forgiveness. No one would guess the next part - the couple was having marital trouble. The message of Jesus brought transformation and reconciliation to their lives. They have been living near the church for years and no one has ever knocked on their door to invite them. When the invitation was given to accept the Grace of Jesus over the loudspeaker in the parking lot - a message intended for the people parked in their cars - the couples' life was changed. They accepted Christ. Their life is changed.
Change. We are completely surrounded by change.
Looking closer, we know that all humanity in all times and places has been surrounded by change. However, in our highly electronic world, change comes faster and faster. Our two pandemics have come to us in such a way. In the last two weeks we sadly acknowledge yet another tragic series of shootings, some in our own region and in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Some of the deaths have been at the hand of citizen against citizen and at the hand of the police, another shooting. But what are we to say of these things? It is a call for systemic change. Major sports figures and teams are going on strike calling for change. People are calling on both political parties to announce a plan to end systemic racism in our culture. Violence must be turned into reconciliation, but how do we do that in in a “shoot first and ask questions later” society?Whether you are shooting a gun, your smart phone, your email, your Twitter, your snail mail or your mouth, it doesn’t really matter. Once the words, texts, emails, letters and bullets leave their weapon of choice they cannot be retrieved. They forever change the landscape of our heart and make it harder for us to hear and practice the love of God.
It is the lack of practice of the love of God in some circles that I am most concerned about; there is a pernicious anger and restlessness in the souls of many that needs to be attended to. Earlier, I shared a paraphrase of the French Mathematician and Philosopher Blaise Pascal. Here’s the whole quote. It comes from a work late in his life titled Pensées and was first published in 1670.
What else does this craving, and this helplessness, proclaim but that there was once in man a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace?
This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there the help he cannot find in those that are, though none can help, since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words by God himself. ("Pensées” Pascal, Blaise New York; Penguin Books, pg. 75, 1966)
Pascal in his writing talks about the restlessness of the human soul when it is centered on the wrong things, that is, when it is not centered on God. I am concerned that I am seeing this more and more in some of our congregations, the lack of spiritual language of serving the Lord, the exclusive use of “Me” and “I” language.
I’ve been doing ministry for a long time. Ministry is my great love, my vocation and my call. Part of my call to action regards spiritual formation. The response to both pandemics and these devotions and some of the responses that I have experienced demonstrate a shallowness in faith. In the last weeks, some of our pastors and their families have been the subject of callous and vicious verbal abuse, threats and other such unsavory acts. Such actions have one commonality: FEAR. And the FEAR has been made manifest in the Gnostic heresy of groups like QAnon, the KKK and the way they manifest racism, sexism and fear. All point to spiritual shallowness.
Last week I reminded us of the Wesley Means of Grace, the spiritual practices to care for the soul and the need to sharpen the churches' witness in the world. Wesley had a great way of helping people stay accountable in the way he would often greet people. “How is it with your soul?” he would say. We need to bring that back. How is it with your soul today?
CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION:
Ask: How is it with your soul?
Read: 2 Corinthians 2: 1-10, 16-18
Consider these questions:
When was faith most real to you?
How did your faith change?
In what ways could your faith be enhanced by some new practices?
What are the practices that you need to put into place so that you faith is growing?
*The painting featured in this post is Festival of Lights, John August Swanson, 1991.