Many of us look forward to traditions in our places of worship especially at this time of year with Advent and Christmas right around the corner: Christmas nativities, special services, singing Christmas carols, fellowship opportunities, etc.  We like to participate in these things as a large community in our churches and we find meaning in the midst of these happenings…

When did religion become so interiorized?  Perhaps it is presumptuous in many ways to suggest this, but when did churches stray away from “What can I do for the body of Christ” to “What can the church do for me?”  “Church” has become less significant because it fails to fulfill “my” needs.  But the church is not about us first and foremost, but about God.  We cringe when we are asked to volunteer to help with church functions because we would rather go shopping, sleep in, go see a movie, or provide other excuses.  “I am so busy and so tired,” we like to say when it is perfectly acceptable to find other activities to do in the place of church functions.  We think, “Oh someone else will take care of it.”  We have somehow lost our passion for serving others whole-heartedly while we passionately serve ourselves when we get the chance.  Churches all over the world have become stagnant, ignorant, self-contained, lazy, hypocritical and unfortunately very judgmental all in the name of the gospel if these churches actually have any idea what that gospel entails.

Western churches like to talk, to listen to preaching on Sundays, see their friends, and go home.  Where is the gospel?  What about God?  To know the gospel is to participate in it.  Where is the action on the part of churches?! Sure, we give money, we come to worship on Sundays, talk the talk.  But are we walking the walk?  So many churches in the Dallas metroplex and still so many left unfed, thirsty, dying on the streets.  I am not sure we in churches have a grasp on the gospel of Christ.  I know many of you will argue that there are many things churches do to help alleviate poverty and address other gospel-related tasks, but before you finish let me just say that, “IT’S NOT GOOD ENOUGH.”  We need to capture some of the urgency of the early church: Christ is coming! Help people!  Look inside yourselves for passion to serve others.  This is the reason so many people are not attracted to churches!  If we want to see churches grow, then we need to live the gospel every day!  People do not shop for churches like they used to.  As a Generation Xer let me just say that my generation is more concerned with action rather than with preaching, with the heart of the gospel rather than arguments over female/gay/lesbian ministers, with inclusion of everyone rather than exclusion based on piercings, clothing, etc.  We like the heart of the gospel and are thirsty for it, but do not find it in churches on Sunday mornings.  What are we going to do about this?  How will we change to bring the gospel back and to make it relevant?

Heed these words from one of our neighboring and older religions:

“The Buddha…had little time for theological speculation.  One of his monks was a philosopher manqué and, instead of getting on with his yoga, constantly pestered the Buddha about metaphysical questions:  Was there a god?  Had the world been create in time or had it always existed?  The Buddha told him that he was like a man who had been shot with a poisoned arrow and refused medical treatment until he had discovered the name of his assailant and what village he came from.  He would die before he got this perfectly useless information.  What difference would it make to discover that a god had created the world?  Pain, hatred, grief, and sorrow would still exist…The Buddha had no time for abstract doctrinal formulations divorced from action…Religion is a matter of doing rather than thinking.”

Many of us are so threatened by change in the church because perhaps we may feel that change will effect the true meaning of the gospel.  But we lost sight of the gospel a while back.  We  get caught up in our religious traditions and become oblivious to the fact that we have lost our focus on what we are called to be and to do as Christians: we are called to be God’s hands and heart in the world…not just to listen to it on Sunday mornings, read unenthusiastically and in monotone as if it is a duty.  Worship is the place to begin – to express our passion for Christ and for others; to energize us for service; to keep our focus where it belongs.

Where do we go from here…?

How do we describe our love for God?  Listen to what Saint Augustine says in the Confessions – a riveting read I might add:

Not with doubtful but with sure knowledge do I love you, O Lord.  By your Word you have transfixed my heart, and I have loved you.  Heaven and earth and all thing in them, behold! everywhere they say to me that I should love you.  They do not cease from saying this to all men, “so that they are inexcusable.” But in a deeper way you will have mercy on him on whom you will have mercy, and you will show mercy to him to whom you will show mercy, for otherwise heaven and earth proclaim your praises to the deaf.  What is it then that I love when I love you?  Not bodily beauty, and not temporal glory, not the clear shining light, lovely as it is to our eyes, not the sweet melodies of many-moded songs, not the soft smell of flowers and ointments and perfumes, not manna and honey, not limbs made fro the body’s embrace, not these do I love when I love my God.

Yet I do love a certain light, a certain voice, a certain odor, a certain food, a certain embrace when I love my God: a light, a voice, an odor, a food, an embrace for the man with me, where his light, which no place can contain, floods into my soul; where he utters words that time does not speed away, where he sends forth an aroma that no wind can scatter; where he provides food that no eating can lessen; where he so clings that satiety does not sunder us.  This is what I love when I love my God.

If you would like to familiarize yourselves with the music that we are using for worship here are some music renditions.

The intellectual Christian academe in the post-modernist, post-industrial places in the world wonder why their faith seems to go stagnant in growth.  Why would people not believe what we do?  The answer…because it seems distant…it’s not tangible…it’s not real.  If we believe it so much where is our vitality in worship and in service?  Where is our passionate expression of faith:

Are we just going through the motions – the liturgical habits we inherit from our traditions?  Where is our passion, where is our love and expression of faith?

When I was in seminary, I remember a friend of mine writing a sociology of religion paper on the “Gospel According to Bob Dylan.”  It was outstanding!  Dylan does not always seem to be cognizant of his lyrics at times, but on many occasions they seem to echo the words of the Scriptures – perhaps because of the familiarity with the text or things he’d heard in passing.  I don’t know.  But at various times, songs of his catch my ear – sure, because of the tune, but also because of the relevance of the words.

This song, “The Times They Are A-Changing” grabbed my attention the other day and really spoke to many of my concerns for the present, my concerns as a servant of Christ.  A song of protest for the rooted-”Protestant” that I am.  While Dylan was perhaps protesting anti-civil rights activists, parents who did not understand their hippy sons and daughters during the sixties, government laxity…I find myself protesting stagnancy and perceived “normalcy.”  “The times, they are a-changing” is not a song title, but a declaration humanity can count on.  Biologically, socially, religiously, philosophically, methodically, epistemologically we are always changing.  Epistemology has to do with how we know things.  And I mention this in particular because as a follower of Christ and fairly humble person who accepts the fact that no one can fully understand God, knowing who and what God is and does always changes with the times.  A “traditional” (a word which has somehow become equated with “stagnant” and “same”) understanding of God defies our very roots as “Protestants” who take seriously the mystifying words of Scripture and our very nature as human beings that constantly change with time and experience.  If we acknowledge that Scripture transcends time then why should we be afraid of discussing various interpretations of its words?  Just when you think you’ve got the “right” interpretation of a particular text, God may surprise you.

Look for lines that sound much like Ecclesiastes in this song or the spot in verse 2: “The loser will be later to win…” and how it echoes Mark 10:31.  This song is a call for action, a call from normalcy and stagnancy to see truth and act accordingly – “the times, they are a-changing.”

This seems like an awful lot of effort to make a commercial.  But the little 4-minute video is excellently made and has a great message of perseverance.

- Michael Card

Jesus looked so weary
from the worries of the day
But the look on His face lighted
when the children came His way
Before He could reach out to them 
and join them in their play 
His grown-up adult followers
told the kids to go away

Let the children come
Don’t dare drive them away
And then the kingdom comes
Hear the holy, foolish things they say
The springtime of their life decides
the adults they’ll become
So let the children come
Please let the children come

The golden gift of childhood
Last a lifetime if you try
The simple trusting faith they hold
Keeps scholars mystified
And so the Lord adopts us 
as His daughters and His sons
The Kingdom is for Children
So please let the children come

Let the children come
Don’t dare drive them away
And then the kingdom comes
Hear the holy, foolish things they say
The springtime of their life decides
the adults they’ll become
So let the children come
Please let the children come

Amen…