Tuesday, December 16, 2008
The Church Is Called To Be Better
Mark Roberts has been blogging about what it means to be church and recently he looked at the empathy implications of I Corinthians 12:
Many would argue that the church way is not a better way, but given that this follows God's example, I would tend to take God's judgment on what is good over "many." But how often we fail at this particular part of our calling. We tend to dispense solutions like a pharmacy dispenses pills. We have three steps for this and ten steps for that and more books on the other than there is shelf space in the Christian bookstore.
What seems to be short in the church is people that are willing to crawl into the quicksand with me, or, frankly, I with them. What would a church look like where we crawled into the muck together rather than dispensed solutions?
I am not entirely sure, but I think "messy" would be one adjective that could readily apply. Maybe we need to let messy happen....
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As Paul wraps up his discussion of the body of Christ, he states: “If one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it, and if one part is honored, all the parts are glad” (1 Cor 12:26). For those of us who want to be empathetic, this sounds like good news. According to God’s design, we will feel the pain of those who hurt and the joy of those who are honored.Put another way, the church may, in the end, "fix" things, but it is decidedly non-therapeutic when it does so. What doctor would willingly and knowingly share a disease with a patient? The therapeutic model calls for us to "rise above" the problem, but the Christian church model calls for us to wallow in it. In the therapeutic model, one throws a rope to the person trapped in quicksand. In the church model we jump into the quicksand with them, and struggle together to get out.
But there is a double downside to this kind of empathy. First of all, we should note our calling to suffer along with those who suffer. The text doesn’t say anything about making them feel better. Surely other biblical passages call for encouraging and helping people in need (1 Thess 5:11-14). But in 1 Corinthians 12 we are told to feel genuine empathy, to hurt with those who hurt. This can be much harder than merely giving aid and comfort. It requires really knowing people. It demands the opening my whole heart. It means that I will feel pain when those around me feel pain. Sometimes I’d rather just cheer people up and be on my merry way. But that’s not how God has designed the church as the body of Christ.
Many would argue that the church way is not a better way, but given that this follows God's example, I would tend to take God's judgment on what is good over "many." But how often we fail at this particular part of our calling. We tend to dispense solutions like a pharmacy dispenses pills. We have three steps for this and ten steps for that and more books on the other than there is shelf space in the Christian bookstore.
What seems to be short in the church is people that are willing to crawl into the quicksand with me, or, frankly, I with them. What would a church look like where we crawled into the muck together rather than dispensed solutions?
I am not entirely sure, but I think "messy" would be one adjective that could readily apply. Maybe we need to let messy happen....
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