Archive for July 2009
egotistical religion: when the method contradicts the message
A quote from comedian John Cleese from Monty Python fame :
“I think that the real religion is about the understanding that if we can only still our egos for a few seconds, we might have a chance of experiencing something that is divine in nature. But in order to do that, we have to slice away at our egos and try to get them down to a manageable size, and then still work some practiced light meditation. So real religion is about reducing our egos, whereas all the churches are interested in is egotistical activities, like getting as many members and raising as much money and becoming as important and high-profile and influential as possible. All of which are egotistical attitudes. So how can you have an egotistical organization trying to teach a non-egotistical ideal? It makes no sense, unless you regard religion as crowd control. What I think most organized religion—simply crowd control.”
I rarely do a lot of ranting via the blog – and God has slowly worked down a lot of bitterness in me. So this is not so much a rant against the church, but an acknowledgment that the world sees the disconnect between the message and the method [medium]. We think we can use whatever means to communicate the Gospel… as long as it goes out. But our method is contradicting our message and everyone knows it.
It’s in line with what John says in his Gospel that the Word was God… the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us [1:1,14]. Jesus wasn’t just communicating a message – he was the message. He embodied the message – how he lived, who he was, his identity, his purpose, his being was as much the message as the words that came out of his mouth.
We need to recognize how our method is contradicting our message… and begin to repent and reform.
following the footsteps
I always crave to hear about my parents’ history… how they ended up where they are at. And whenever I ask them questions like, “How did you get together?” or “Why did you make this decision?” it’s always followed by a very short and undescriptive response. Did they not want to share the foibles and failures it took to get to where they were? Were they just tired? Maybe it wasn’t the right time for a long story?
So whenever I get to hear the inner workings of how things came to be in my family, I get very intrigued. It happened more with my Mom as I grew older – she was willing to share her mistakes, her reasoning for things, the things she learned along the way. And I’m so grateful for that… so much of what she shared continues to pour life into me today.
But my Dad is a different story – not so much that he doesn’t want to share, but that he likes phrasing everything into a lesson. Which is good in some cases, but belaboring in others. And often we remember and learn the most when we’re able to peer into the heart and mind of the person who’s sharing, learn from where they went wrong or right and begin to live that out in our own lives. We just don’t learn as much from static propositional statements [note to preachers].
So Dad and I were talking and the topic was his decision to go into the food science – he studied at UC Davis at the urging of my grandfather to prepare to take over the family fishery business. It’s funny, but my life would be very different right now had my Dad been in the fish business and thus moved back to Taiwan. I would definitely be a Chien-Ming Wang fan for sure.
when living really means dying
Most days I’m steamrolling through… trying to “get’er done”, keep the truck moving and not stop until we get to the “prize”. I’m caught up in that pursuit most days. It’s fueled by a passion for Jesus. But I’d be lying if that higher-octane stuff wasn’t mixed in with some low-octane, dirt-filled selfish ambition to prove to the world that I’m amazing at what I do. That one day an edifice to my glory would be erected in my honor to my great accomplishments in this world. I’m no less perverted than the OG’s planning to build their tower in Babel.
My friend and I were talking about Dieter Zander recently and I asked him what’s going on with him. He was one of the first guys in North America to leave a “successful” megachurch career because he realized that there was something achingly missing. I wasn’t in tune with all his whereabouts, but he had written one of the first books about reaching Generation X people and had been slowly moving to smaller and smaller communities, rediscovering what a spiritual family really ought to be. Last I heard he was trying to start house churches in San Francisco and was no longer bent on doing the Sunday church thing. We’ve never met, but he has always been a passive role model.
I found out through my friend that Dieter had suffered a stroke in early 2008. And since then he hasn’t been the same – has not been able to resume any sort of normal ministry life. And it’s been a slow rehabilitation to just being able to speak and function normally.
Recently he had a party – a party to grieve and let go of the “old” life and embrace the “new” life. People came to share about his impact in their life. And I can imagine it being as bitter sweet as can be. He analogized it this way, “I feel like I’ve taken off my old coat, and put it down, and I’m putting on a new coat. I felt sad going to the party, like I was wearing my old coat, still wanting to do ministry the way I have for 25 years … same old familiar way. I put my coat down. It’s a transition to what’s next.”
I was talking to Sarah about it and it got me a little choked up… to have to die to something you’re not ready or wanting to die to… but you have to. It’s like having something ripped out of your hands. We experience it in small ways in a lot of things. But with something like this, it’s much more encompassing. And when it gets taken from you, you have a choice to keep dreaming of what it was like in the old days and remain in this constant state of bitterness. Or you can embrace what has come and begin looking at life from the new set of eyes you’ve been given.
