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Category: Ministry
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What’s Your Status Quo?
My teen and I watched the 2012 production of Jesus Christ Superstar last night and this morning. While I’m more a fan of the pre-2000 staging with the Ancient Israel/1970s clothing and vibe, this production hit me hard. It’s ultra-modern with the pharisees dressed like Wall Street barons, Judas and Mary Magdalene with dreads, Pilate looking like a power lawyer, and the crowds looking like escapees from the Occupy Wall Street movement, complete with backpacks and tents. Jesus wears an orange jumpsuit at the end, and the jail where they toss him has chain-link and razor wire with armed guards. There are hashtags and allusions to daytime trash talk shows (“Herod’s Song”). There are pictures of homeless people. The crowd holds signs that read, “Rome Lies” and “People Over Profits.” How incredibly fitting for this time of pandemic! It’s raw and gritty, and I cried at the end. This is my second favorite play, and I’ve seen it several times on stage and I own the 1973 movie version. I know how it ends, and I know how the story really ends. (Hint: It doesn’t end on the cross.) And still, I got choked up with tears in my eyes and my nose tingling like it does before I cry. This production hit me as all too relevant.
As we face weeks upon weeks of stay-at-home orders, we yearn for a time when we can get back to “normal.” I’m not sure I want that, though, because if this pandemic has shown us nothing else, it’s shown us what our “normal” selves are like, and it’s quite disgusting. People went insane buying up toilet paper, disinfecting wipes, bread, milk, and paper towels, leaving none for the elderly, the vulnerable, and those who work until 11 p.m. on the front lines of hospitals. I’ve heard reports of people going into stores and pouring filth out of their mouths at other customers and employees. Still others selfishly wanted their rights to go wherever they wanted–including church–but didn’t give a damn about the elderly saints they could unknowingly infect. In short, this pandemic showed us just how big of selfish assholes people can be. Is that what we really want to go back to because that was “normal”?
In the play, what irritates the elite corporate ruling class is that Jesus upsets the status quo. Even in the original staging, the ruling class is made up of the Pharisees, and Jesus was messing with their status quo, too. What does our status quo look like? If our status quo looks like pandering to the wealthy 1% in hopes they’ll drop some financial crumbs, then we’re worshiping the same financial gods they are.
But what if Jesus Christ is our status quo? What would that look like? I think it’d look like altruism. It’d look like selflessness. It would be Christ-centered so that even stresses and irritations wouldn’t make us act like hateful fools.
It would be Bible-based so we would always have the words to share a beautiful or encouraging heart thought. “I thank God for you and think of you with joy.” “God is present with you.” “God hears the fears of your heart today.”
Jesus as our status quo would also be ministry-focused. It would reach out to people with those kind words. It would deliver cookies to neighbors. It would drop some toilet paper off at the home of someone who’s two rolls short and three days shy of pay day. It would send the text or make that phone call that says, “How ya doing? I’m praying for you.” It contacts the preacher to say, “This is tough and you didn’t sign on to preach via live stream to an empty church, but I want you to know you’re doing a great job.”
So what status quo do you want to get to: The materialistic, selfish one where it seems like big business is controlling everything and minimum-wage workers should just shut-up and be happy with what they’re making? The one where vast amounts of pollution belch up into the sky and debris and trash turn blue waters into sludge? Or the status quo that reflects Christ, that nurtures small businesses, advocates for fair wages for these workers we’ve suddenly determined are essential, protects the Earth that sustains our lives, and actively and joyfully cares for those who need it?
I don’t miss the way we used to be, and I’m liking the way we are now. It’s my hope that we are able to grasp hold of how it feels to minister, how it feels to help, how it feels to encourage, how it feels to share, and how it feels to breathe clean air and carry that over into the new normal once this pandemic passes.
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Living in the Both/And
Is your life of faith looking more like an either/or or a both/and? We tend to think of our life as disciples of Christ as being more of an either/or. We either have faith that God is with us or we feel afraid. We either feel grateful or we worry about money to pay the bills. We either acknowledge our blessings or we feel anxious in the midst of a crisis.
Christian faith is not an either/or, though. What if you knew that it’s more like a both/and?
Perhaps you’ve read things like, “Faith is the opposite of fear” and felt wracked by guilt, thinking your faith isn’t very strong during times of fear and anxiety. Maybe you’ve heard someone say, “Trust in God and everything will be alright,” and you have wondered if you trust enough and if anything will ever be alright again. These are either/or statements. They don’t speak to the reality of what you’re feeling, what you’re struggling through. They also layer feelings of shame and guilt on top of very real human experiences of fear, anxiety, and crisis.
Faith is not the opposite of fear because opposites cannot coexist. For example, it cannot be both cold and hot outside. It cannot be both light and dark. One cannot feel both love and apathy for someone. Yet, faith and fear can coexist, just like rain can fall when the sun is out. It is possible to feel anxious and fearful even while enjoying devotion to and communion with God. God’s presence with us does not take away from the fact we are completely human. At the height of my anxiety, God was no less present than she had been before my anxiety began.
At the same time, we can trust in God while we’re struggling. Our trust won’t take away the struggles. I have a friend who suffered through months of frustrations and anxieties following Hurricane Florence. Another friend, also a faithful Christian, recently felt the painful loss of her beloved sister. Crises still come to the faithful. Sometimes all we can do is allow the cries of our hearts to speak the words we can’t and in the midst of the storm pray earnestly, “Help me believe more. Help me trust more.” It’s not that we don’t believe or trust enough, but we want the reassurance of doing so even more, and we have faith that only God can give this to us. And still, we talk to God. Still, we listen.
We are living in the in-between zone of both/and. We are living in a time when people are genuinely worried about having money to pay next month’s bills even though they are praying and having daily devotionals with their families. There are people who are faithful disciples of God who are very sick. Their families are praying earnestly for their healing even as they feel sad about missing them and worried about their health. This is the reality of the Christian life in this world — an endless tension between our kingdom-oriented hearts and our physical and emotional selves. This is an okay place to be. We’re all here, if we only admit it. And God is here with us, giving us his endless love and grace.
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Ministering in the Darkness
It’s been four weeks. Four weeks without church groups. Four weeks without in-person Bible study. Four weeks without the camaraderie of soccer. Four weeks without socializing face-to-face. It feels like much longer.
It’s been four weeks of suspended plans and dreams. It’s been four weeks in which trip planning has given way to saving in case we need that money later. It’s been four weeks of hearing conspiracy theories and people foolishly saying, “I’ve got more faith than I have fear. I’m not afraid of getting sick!” That’s all well and good, but what about the people they could unknowingly infect? Love for others needs to be our driving motivation, not fear for ourselves.
It’s also Holy Friday. It’s the day we Christians remember the supreme sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross. It’s the day that God’s love found its ultimate fulfillment as Jesus died to overcome death for us. This is the day we remember Jesus’ example of sacrificial love. So I ask, if Jesus can sacrifice so much for us vulnerable, sin-wracked humans, why are we griping so much about sacrificing our conveniences for the safety and health of others, especially our brothers and sisters in Christ?
This time of social isolation is trying, most definitely, but it gives us new opportunities to reach out in different ways. I have found that I am being more intentional about giving positive words, whether they are delivered in person (from ten feet away, of course) or online. It’s not that hard to be encouraging. It only takes ten key strokes to type “Great job!” We are all called to minister, to reach out, to love. There are ways to do this from our homes:
- Instant messaging or texts to tell someone you’re thinking of them, or, better, to ask, “How are you doing?”
- An email to reach out and let someone who loves you know how you’re doing.
- Snail mailed notes to say, “I just wanted to say hi.”
- Phone calls or vid chats to connect. (This is especially important for grandparents.)
- (I saw this idea in a group) A serial story that you snail mail to children or grandchildren. Imagine the heart bonds formed from sharing something from your history!
- Encouraging words on a social media post.
I encourage us all to minister in our new and different situations. It’s hard, but it also has the bonus of taking us out of ourselves for just a few minutes, which gives us a few minutes of not feeling anxious or fearful, and that peace is valuable.
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Absolution
We made a mistake, my daughter and I. Actually, I’ll take the lion’s share of the blame and the responsibility. My daughter thought it was her fault and felt absolutely horrible, despite my telling her, “Sweetie, it was my fault, not yours.”
“But, but…” she began, going on to tell me what awful thing she felt she’d done.
“I made the choice. I could’ve chosen differently. That’s on me. I absolve you of any wrongdoing.”
“What does ‘absolve’ mean?” she asked me.
She should’ve known what my response would be. “Dictionary.” She didn’t want to look it up, so I switched tacts. “What do you think it means?”
“I don’t know. To take a burden from someone?”
That stopped me in my tracks. No, absolving doesn’t mean to take a burden from someone, but . . . Absolving means to set free or acquit someone. Following the etymology of the word further, it means to loosen or untie. Jesus absolves us of our sins. Through the cross, Jesus set us free – acquitted us – from our sins. Jesus took the burden of sin from us, so to a degree, my daughter understood the word perfectly.
While it doesn’t work etymologically, this idea of absolution taking away the burden of our sins speaks to me. We sin, and the guilt of that weighs us down. Sometimes, though, we put “sin” on ourselves that isn’t our burden to bear. We feel like we’ve sinned when we’ve just been human, when we have felt sad, anxious, or worried. These aren’t sins, though.
So now I absolve you. If you feel like you have sinned because you are feeling depressed, fearful, or anxious in these trying times, I’m here to tell you that God doesn’t agree with your assessment. Sure, you have some sins going on, but your emotions aren’t part of them. How about giving that particular burden to Jesus and accepting the grace to be human?
“Come to me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28, NIV).
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