I heard it again. Tonight, I heard it again. I heard what I think is the most overused statistic that 'church folk' use to plea for the those in the flock to 'reach the world for Christ.' The stat? Polls show that a majority of Americans are open to spirituality more than they have been in for some time. It's true. The stat, I mean. Many folks are.
Why is it then that most people that quote this particular piece of info often follow it up with some statement about how the world needs Jesus or that we need to preach the good news to everyone in our de-Christianized society. I heard it spoken again tonight. That exact same stat with that exact same line to follow it. I found myself asking...what exactly does that mean? If I told you to preach the gospel or the good news, what does that mean?
People may be interested in spiritual things, but I'm sure they're NOT open to the pre-packaged answers that accompany our efforts to 'reach the lost.' I think the mainstream church has lost the ability to desire even to embrace the mystery of the gospel. Even our mystery is pre-packaged.
A few years ago, I had the opportunity to teach a world religions class, and the first thing I had the students learn were the major factors that make something a religion; one of the key components was mystery, that is to say that there are elements of a belief system that simply cannot be known. We haven't taught people how to be okay with mystery, or even more how to embrace it.
I think that folks are ready to explore the mystery of spirituality, and our church speak is confusing. Why? Because it sounds like an answer. There comes a point in time when we have to be okay with having frank and open conversation about matters of faith. Our doubts, fears, the things that make no sense...all those things and more. We are going to have to live in the tensions of human minds trying to articulate something that we simply can't.
We can only articulate what God is like. Anyone that has encountered the one, true, living God knows what god is like. The only ways we can begin to articulate the way that God is, is by emulating what God is like. It doesn't even really help, or at least it never helped me, to simply say that I'm 'messed up.' What does that mean? We all are. Messed up people don't need folks to reciprocate their wording. We talk about being 'messed up,' but we never actually say to what extent we're 'messed up.'
Not that we have to know that about each other. It's the mystery of our existence, our lives with each other, our lives as Christians that the world is interested in. How does my doubt and the things I don't get fit into God's redemptive purpose in the world? That's a mystery...
May we be a church that embraces rather than seeks to eliminate the mystery of God and God's church...
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