Wet

It was really wet in New Orleans.

Given the dryness we had left and the barren wasteland to which we returned, that may be the understatement of the year for me.  In comparison to the arid desert occupied by most of the heartlands right now, New Orleans was awash in water, cups overrunning with God-given, life-causing, world-cleaning rain.

Which is as good of a metaphor for the church as I can probably come up with on my own.

Our church verges on barren wasteland these days, slithering along a wilderness of enmity and over-heated division, the façade of our tradition cracked like the bed of a dried out slough, our Spirit rustling dryly like so much drought stricken corn stalks.  Here and there, amid carefully irrigated plots there are green shoots of good work and community and life, but mostly our gaze is cast over a brown and dying field as we mourn the loss of profit and hope that the insurance will get us by a little while longer.

It could not have been more different in New Orleans. 

There I saw the Spirit as a mighty rushing wave, a church so filled with life and hope and promise that it sank under God’s grace even as the streets filled with his rains.  There were no bows to tradition, no respectful singing of standard hymnody, no desire to save the dying but only a desperate plea to sweep clear what was already dead that God might wash in a new day, a new church, a new faith.

They did not stand and sing, this new church, they danced and screamed and jumped and wept for this new Spirit.  They did not pray to save the church, they prayed to save the lost and the poor and the broken and the oppressed and the forgotten and the lame.  They did not reach out their arms to embrace the long tradition of their elders, they reached out to embrace those who had been shut out by that tradition, the different, the unusual, the new, the needful. 

They looked upon the limits of the church as it is and stretched for the church as it was and always should be.  The church of Jesus as he was and always will be, the friend of the friendless, the welcome of all, the feeder and healer and comforter and raiser of dead.  The man of grace.

And the Spirit rained down hope on them.

It is, theologically speaking, the nature of life as it follows the cross.  All things must die that God may raise them up to new life.  But it is a different thing, in all truth, to see God’s hand at work in real time, to be invited to hand over our dying selves to him and allow new life to soak fully, completely.

It was a great celebration of the church, this irreverent dance on its tomb, a reminder and a promise of what faith is at its best and what it will surely soon be once again, a faith turned away from the preservation of the church for the preservation of the stranger next door.  And the baptizer God, watching the next generation, rowdy, restless, audacious, loud, opened up his heavens and let the water pour down.

Which is why it was really wet in New Orleans.

Preservation Hall is a place dedicated to, well, preserving the great tradition that is New Orleans Jazz.  Having birthed this most American of music forms, for five decades it has kept, taught, played and lived some of the most beautiful and jubilant music in the world.

You would not know it to look at it.

It is a small room in an old building, barely big enough for 40 people, and most of them standing.  The ceiling is bare timber, caked with the grime of years of neglect, the walls crumbling and dingy, the lighting poor, the benches worn and uncushioned, the floor scoured smooth and dark.  A few mis-matched old kitchen chairs stand at the front of the room next to an ageless piano. 

There are no neon lights to announce its presence, no great hallway for its entrance, it does not occupy prime real estate or offer valet parking.  There is no red carpet. 

It is no sight to see.  It doesn’t even have a bathroom.

But, oh the music. 

The musicians saunter into the room for a humble but heartfelt introduction.  They are, in fact, giants of jazz, sitting in spaces previously occupied by great historical figures, humbly clad in white short sleeve shirts and thin black ties.  The rich joy and love they have for this music rings out from every riff and sparkles on each improv.  It is pure music in its most absolute form, devotees filled with the grace and beauty of sound, here for a small time to sing, clap, dance, and be glad for the God who must love us very much to give us such wonderous noise.

It is exactly the opposite of what the church has become.

But it is, I think, what the church may yet emerge to be.

We build for ourselves vast temples to our religion, we play complicated and intricate theological compositions of doctrine, we create powerful and vast empires to wield power and command attention.  We occupy large and public space and blare loudly the symphony of our kingdom building endeavors.  We are grand on the outside.

But dying on the inside.

One wonders if we really love the church anymore.  We are enamored of its power and importance, we lust to create in its image government and society, we strive and work and organize and evangelize and trumpet.  But we do not play.  We do not just sit down and play, in lowly surroundings, with joy and sweat, for the simple loveliness of grace itself, of mutual encouragement, of sharing with strangers, of old melodies made new and personal and distinct, of serving the lost and needy, of lifting up the forgotten and powerless, of the tunes and sounds that make us all one, forever and ever, amen.

In our search for purity we have become anything but.

But I heard it in new ways from new faces these past few days, I hear it now, the old familiar strains of the Jesus we used to know, him of kindness and forgiveness and feeding and healing, I hear it with personality that makes it seem both ageless and new all over.  I saw the joy of cheering faces and felt the tremendous spirit that only come from ones desiring neither fame nor fortune but just a chance to dance to God’s music in their own lives. 

Perhaps we do not love the church anymore.  Maybe we have lost the truth of its music.  But somewhere, in small doorways off beaten paths that tune is well preserved, and not just the music but the joy of playing it, of sharing it, of living it. 

May they play on and well indeed.

Of Bishops, Churches and Me

Sitting at table, eating a box lunch with fellow previously unknown Lutherans from across the state during the annual assembly of the Nebraska Synod the other weekend, the question was asked rather bluntly:

“What does the Bishop get paid, anyway?” 

To tell you the truth, I was a bit startled at first.  In most company, it’s not a very polite question to ask.  But I’ve heard it before, and some would say that it’s a fair question.  The Bishop’s salary is paid by offerings made to the Synod, after all, and just as the members of a congregation are entitled to know what they are paying their Pastor, so representatives of those congregations are allowed to know what they are paying the person who does the job of being the Bishop.

 Who does the job.  Get it?

 When you put it that way, you get right to the heart of the matter.

 The saying is sure: whoever aspires to the office of bishop desires a noble task. 1 Timothy 3:1

 Once upon a time a Bishop wasn’t thought of as a paid “employee” of anyone, but as an office ordained by God to care for his most holy possession, the church.  Once upon a time, we revered the office (if not always the person) of Bishop, its importance, it authority.  Once upon a time, being a Bishop was a noble task. 

Then again, once upon a time being a part of the church was kind of a noble thing, too.

Let us be certain.  The struggles of the church of our time are not simply a matter of divisive politics or theology or Biblical interpretation or hymnals or contemporary worship or even sexuality.  Rather, the problem is our relationship to the church, our love for it, our respect for it, our reverence for it.  Or lack thereof.  We are not THE CHURCH anymore, whether that’s our congregation or the great national body we offer our allegiance to.  We are a club, a mutual and temporary voluntary association which we like and care about and revere so long so it serves our needs, so long as it fits our schedule, so long as we like the people there, so long as it’s not too much trouble. 

The thing about clubs, of course, is that because we join them by choice, they have no true hold over us.  As long as we’re happy, we’re in, we’re engaged, we’re involved.  But when the good times end, so do we.  And when the rules are altered or the membership changes, we can be shown the door pretty easily, too. 

But the Bible has a different language for the church.  THE CHURCH is the bride of Christ, the one specially and particularly chosen to receive the gift of his love.  And, as in ancient times when weddings were arranged and couplings served a greater purpose than personal lust, God brings Christ and his church together for a most important calling, for the building of community and service to the world.  The Bible sees the church as an everlasting covenant, a relationship built to endure good times and bad, poverty and wealth, sickness and health, forever and ever.  Amen.

 Yes, even good times AND bad.   

So should we simply abandon the church because we have a disagreement with it?  In a world where leaving marriage is more commonplace than entering it, it’s no surprise how easily we make that choice.  But this is neither how nor why God gave us the gift of being his church, his holy bride.  He desires that we live fully and eternally in this most sacred of relationships.  How we treat his church is how we treat him. 

No, let us instead be related to the church even as Christ himself takes her as his bride.  Let us be faithful in all things, let us overlook her faults as Christ forebears our sinfulness, let us take her as she is just as Christ accepts us for ourselves, let us cling to her in love and hope. 

Let us renew our vows and once again be married to the church.