Schizophrenic Jesus

One of the places closest to heaven for me is Asheville, North Carolina. I spent six weeks there in the summer of 2016 that are as fresh to me as if they happened yesterday.

Haywood Street Congregation is a United Methodist church plant with a focus on reaching the poor and the homeless. Other people are welcome, of course, but there is a preferential option for the unhoused, just as God has this preferential option-- Jesus said he'd meet us in the hungry and the stranger.

After worship people lingered in the air conditioning and I lingered too, hoping to wander into conversation. There was a woman there whose name I can't remember. But I can hear her gravelly voice and see her ball cap covered in aluminum foil and duct tape. I introduced myself. She told me the government was spying on her through her microwave so she had to wear this stuff.

Quickly I realized she was a paranoid schizophrenic, afraid of so many people and places that could spy on her, capture her, hurt her. I listened as closely as I could. There was a loud hum of anxiety inside of me, too. How could I talk her out of this paranoia and confusion? She was talking so quickly it didn't seem like I could possibly get a word in edgewise. But I kept listening as closely as I could. Minutes flew by, and I realized I'd been listening to her for almost an hour. 

What seems obvious to me now hit me with profundity in that moment: There was no way to fix her mental illness. No way to stop her from thinking the government was after her. Perhaps a good psychiatrist or therapist could, but I was neither of those things. 

So I told her the only thing I knew to say, that could possibly reach through the paranoia-- God loved her and was with her in the apartment that scared her so much and God would never let her go. That Jesus had a lot of scary moments in his life and Jesus knew what she was going through and she was not alone.

"I don't trust many people," she said, "but you listened to me. I think I can trust you. Thanks for talking to me."

It hit me that it was not my job to try to fix her. Simply listening to her, loving her, pointing to the true Savior and Healer, was my role, and that role could accomplish plenty. 

In her hospitality and trust she saved me from my own delusion that I could fix or save anybody. She taught me the real role of ministry (paid or not) is love and listening and pointing to Jesus. She saved me from the guilt and shame that often plagued me when I was not able to fix all the situations I thought I should. I met Jesus in her that day, and I think of her often, and I hope and pray she is blessed and safe and knows Jesus is living in her. 

That's why I have to keep making friends with the poor, the unhoused, the hungry, the differently abled. That Christ in distressing disguise saves me. I think that's true for the whole church, too. 

Three Hazards of Butts & Bucks Church

Wow. It has been a long time since I've written anything here. But it's time to get back to pondering out loud in the public space of the Internet, in part to keep practicing my writing and thinking skills, and in part in case it may in some way be helpful to someone else. 

So here is what I have been thinking about today. 

In the United Methodist Church, and in many mainline Christian denominations, we have an obsession with butts in pews and dollars in plates. In the UMC we measure these things with statistics every Monday morning. We fill out an end of year report quantifying our statistics even more. We are held accountable for growing attendance and money, and if we don't we are deemed ineffective. I'm most familiar with the Methodist part of Christendom, but I'm sure there are similar things in other denominations. It is an affliction of modern American Christianity. 

After nearly seven years of professional ministry, I've finally begun to grasp with the Spirit's help, how toxic the obsession with numbers is. Of course, we should reach out to new people. You'll never hear me say the church should go be an insular country club. But the way we reach out needs to be purified from this dangerous butts & bucks obsession. Here is a list-- ironically enough, numbered-- of what this obsession does. 

1. Number driven ministry poisons our motives for reaching out to others. It teaches us to begin to see others as numbers to pad our ecclesial stats and as a means for institutional survival, rather than as human beings whom God loves no matter what. It teaches us to love with ulterior motives rather than the pure motive of simply loving as God does, unconditionally. And I think many people can sense intuitively when they are being viewed as a means to an end of growing a church rather than a person to befriend, a human in the image of God whose very presence reveals God's glory. 

Judicatory officials, Christian writers and thinkers, and other kinds of church leaders sell the dream that clergy can save the church by improving these numbers. Not all of them, of course, but many do. They implicitly put clergy and church leaders who will join in that effort in the role of savior. We will save the church by growing these numbers. Of course, that's all wrong. Christians need to become humble enough to be thankful for the work of God and to continue loving the world as Jesus did no matter what the "results" are.

We need to trust God is at work and be content in that, even when the church is not the hero in the story. Maybe praying with that person on the sidewalk having a mental health crisis won't lead to that person coming to our pews next Sunday, but it helped them encounter the Spirit in a new way and planted a seed of God's love that will grow for a few weeks, months, or years before they'll come worship on Sunday morning. Maybe that friend we invite to church won't come right away, but they are slowly becoming more open to the Holy Spirit because they see in you a person at deep peace and they slowly begin to want that for themselves too. That isn't a failure. We aren't the Savior, Jesus is, so we entrust our work to Jesus. 

This obsession with numbers teaches us hurry and impatience, working hard to grow these stats as quickly as possible. Following Jesus teaches us to be patient with God's slow work, as Jesus frequently describes the work of ministry as planting seeds-- and everyone in that agrarian society knew seeds don't become trees overnight. 

2. Butts & bucks obsession crowds out spiritual formation and prayer. These things are simply a poor return on investment, timewise, if your only goal is to grow numbers-- both corporately as a congregation and individually as a Christian or pastor. Silence in the worship service, sharing of joys and concerns, corporate prayer, are neglected in many worship services as not entertaining enough for keeping butts in those pews. Of course this only gets us further away from God. 

3. Focus on numbers keeps us from speaking prophetically. In John 6, Jesus gives what the disciples call "a hard teaching" about the need for Christians to feed on his body and blood. It's a beautiful but gruesome passage as Jesus literally says we need to gnaw on his flesh. I think he's speaking about the Eucharist as well as the reality only Jesus can accomplish the healing and transformation we all need. But after Jesus says that hard teaching, many disciples quit (John 6:66). 

Jesus was moving too quickly, right? He should have been more of a centrist, focused more on unity, kept people at the table.

Of course, that's true if your only motive is growing numerically. But Jesus also wanted to talk turkey about tough things, and some people didn't like it and they left him. If we are going to follow Jesus, as Christians we sometimes have to say challenging things that may offend and push others away. In fact, Jesus says, "Woe to you when everyone speaks well of you" (Luke 6:26). 

Today the hard teachings of Jesus probably aren't the Eucharist, though. (In part because we don't value the Eucharist enough to find it controversial.) They might be matters of racial justice, LGBTQ liberation, criminal justice reform, welcome of the refugee and immigrant, care for the poor, etc., etc. But God is the business of transforming this world to look more like heaven, and sometimes participating in that work offends others, and sometimes we have to choose between joining God's work or chasing butts & bucks. 

Butts & bucks church bears a much closer resemblance to capitalism and big business than to Jesus' ministry which frequently lost followers who were frustrated by his demands to eat his flesh, drink his blood, welcome tax collectors and sex workers, and carry a cross. It looks more like manipulation and marketing than the work of the God who loves people unconditionally and patiently. It looks more like the hurry of the world than the slow work of prayer. 

I am in the process of allowing the Spirit to detox me from butts & bucks thinking. It is difficult because it is the water American Christians swim in. But every time I pray, I think I get a little closer.