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Learning for Life: Cultivating a Student Spirituality
Week 2
Why Bother with Church?
Mark Roeda ,
Former Chaplain at Ann Arbor Campus Chapel, University of Michigan
2.1 The Upside of Persecution
“If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.” (1 Corinthians 15:17)
Most of you are aware that many students will not only get their degree over the course of these four (or so) years; they will lose their faith. Some Christians argue that this occurs because campuses persecute the faithful. Instead of tossing them to the lions, universities force them to take courses in, say, Evolutionary Psychology or Queer Theory where godless faculty push an anti-Christian agenda.
But the fact is most students experience little outright hostility on campus. What most experience is indifference.
And maybe that is the problem. If persecution has an upside it is this: it implies that what you believe is significant. Indifference, on the other hand, implies that what you believe is irrelevant. Living amidst indifference does not so much call into question the truth of your beliefs as much as it calls into question whether they matter. It’s not that you question the possibility of resurrection as much as you question what difference it makes whether Jesus resurrected or rotted. No one seems to care.
The church exists to help us counter this indifference. It is a community which not only remembers and celebrates that the resurrection is true but that it matters In fact, it changes everything. It means that the stranglehold of sin and death has been broken, that there is hope in a world in which everything turns to rot. Worship, fellowship, and acts of service are ways in which the community live out that hope together. It’s how belief turns into lived experience. It’s how they begin to matter.
Finding a church is not easy. Our point here is simply to emphasize that it is necessary. You are not likely to make it on your own. The indifference is too overwhelming.
Prayer:
Lord God, bless your church. May all those whom your Spirit has gathered today in worship experience the reality of resurrection so that, regardless of the indifference or hostility we face, we may live with hope. In Jesus name. Amen.
Quote: “[The Church] exists . . . to set up in the world a new sign which is radically dissimilar to [the world's] own manner and which contradicts it in a way which is full of promise”-- Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics
2. 2 Work That Matters
“You shall remember that you were a servant in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.” (Deut 5:15)
As a student, it is remarkably easy to fill up your life with classes, labs, study groups, part-time jobs, organizations, parties, and occasional road trip. It is difficult to contain such things to six days of labor and work. You may be surprised by how often things conflict with, say, the time your church gathers for worship.
This illustrates the indifference discussed yesterday. But, as these various commitments squeeze communal worship out of your week, they do more than imply that the resurrection doesn’t matter. They impose their own versions of what matters. Depending on who is doing the imposing, what matters is getting good grades, getting ahead, getting hired, getting laid, getting drunk, and so on.
We like to believe that we determine what matters to us for ourselves. And certainly we play a role in that. We make choices. But, if these various organizations, institutions, and social groups have us running around from one thing to the next, can we really claim we have not adopted their version of what matters?
God says set apart one day a week. Devote one day to remembering what really matters. At least once a week, the church gathers to worship, to remember and celebrate resurrection. The God who created all things has sent his Son to redeem all things by defeating sin and death. This is what matters.
However, this gathering to remember and celebrate resurrection is not an end in itself. The point of it is to infuse the other six days with hope, to enable our work to matter as we participate in the redemption of all things.
Prayer:
Lord God, keep me from running myself ragged over what doesn’t really matter. Instill in me a commitment to gathering to remember and celebrate resurrection. In Jesus name. Amen.
Quote: “The great universities, the universities that educate a disproportionate share of the nation's future industrial, political, and judicial leaders, have a very hard time explaining the overall point of the education they offer.” -- Harry Lewis, Excellence Without Soul: How a Great University Forgot Education.
2. 3 Your Lack of Faith
“I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me.” (Galatians 2: 19b-20a)
By and large we are led to assume that faith means holding a certain set of beliefs as true. And, of course, faith does mean that. But leaving it at that can give the impression that being faithful is about our ability to keep from changing our mind about, say, who created the universe.
If this is our thinking, we will frequently find it difficult to roll out of bed on Sunday mornings and make it to church. After all, your set of beliefs will no doubt survive the occasional lazy Sunday morning.
But what if this whole faith business not about holding a set of beliefs but about trusting in God’s goodness and power above all else? In fact, what if that kind of trust was required for us in order to be saved?
I haven’t got that in me. Neither did Paul. But Jesus did—by the truck load. Not even agony and death on the cross could exhaust his trust in the goodness and power of God. And, because of this faith, our good and powerful God raised him to life.
The good news—or gospel—is this: that Jesus is our King, which is to say that he works not just on his own behalf but on behalf of his people. His death is ours, his eternal reward ours.
In short, it is not our supply of faith that saves us (thank God) but his. What saves you is not your personal capacity to hold a particular set of beliefs; what saves you is this inexhaustible trust that overflows the heart of Christ and, by the work of the Holy Spirit, pours into your own.
This is why the community of faith gathers: not simply to reinforce what they already believe but to open themselves to what is beyond what they ever believed possible. That’s why it gets up on Sunday mornings.
Prayer:
Lord God, I haven’t got enough faith in your goodness and power. Fill me with the faith of Jesus. In his name. Amen.
Quote: “Jesus' death on the cross is not an accident or an injustice that befell him; it is, rather, an act of sacrifice offered for the sake of God's people.” --Richard B Hays, The Moral Vision of the New Testament
2.4 Getting Your Fill
“I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me.” (Galatians 2: 19b-20a)
Yesterday's devotion attempted to make a clarification: we are not saved by our faith but Jesus'. It was Jesus' faith that overcame sin and death and reconciled us to God.
Jesus’ faith devoted him to his mission, a mission expressed in the prayer he taught us: "Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." In other words, Jesus' mission was and is to reorient a misaligned earth. All that is (hell) bent by shame, violence, fear and greed, Jesus works to reconcile to God. Jesus is determined that God’s goodness and power reside at the center of all things “on earth as [they do] in heaven.”
What happens when the faith overflowing Jesus’ heart pours into ours is this: we become driven by this same mission.
Reconciling all things to God is as ambitious a mission as they come-- especially if carrying it out involves the likes of us. In fact, as isolated individuals we are hopeless, which is why the Spirit, in the effort to pour Jesus’ faith into us, gathers us into these communities called “churches.” The primary task of these communities is hearing the gospel (i.e. how Jesus has secured the mission’s success through his death and resurrection) through words, sacraments, and deeds. They strive to become miniaturized versions of a reconciled universe. Through demonstrations of forgiveness, hospitality, and courage, individuals are aligned to God and, by God’s goodness and power, united with one another.
In other words, the Spirit gathers us into these communities to give us a glimpse of what Jesus believed was worth dying for. Then, fueled by the faith of Jesus and grounded in the hope of his resurrection, we go into the misaligned world committed to the mission of reconciliation.
Prayer:
Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Amen.
Quote: “The Holy Spirit is not a theological abstraction but the manifestation of God's presence in the community, making everything new.” -- Richard B Hays, The Moral Vision of the New Testament
2.5 Wasting Time
“Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God.” (Exodus 20:9)
Yesterday we said that the faith of Jesus manifests itself in us by igniting within us a devotion to the mission of Jesus. In short, we strive to see God’s “kingdom come, [God’s] will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”
Sounds simple enough. Problem is that you can take up the mission of Jesus without having the faith of Jesus. You can presume too much responsibility, believing that making the kingdom a reality depends on you—as opposed to Jesus.
Setting apart one day a week for holy rest can help to remedy this.
Rabbi Abraham Heschel’s wonderful book The Sabbath discusses how time exposes the limits of our powers. Time is simply out of our control.
Here, I’ll illustrate: Try to stop this next second from coming. . .
Okay, now, try to retrieve that last second. . .
We are called to work, to participate in the mission to reconcile all things. It is a grand calling, the grandest of callings. So work hard.
However, so that you do not assume it all depends on you, God says, “Rest.” One day a week, remember that Jesus secured the victory of the kingdom of God. It does not hinge on his death and resurrection and you. In other words, God is not sweating it out, wondering whether you will have all the time you need to accomplish what he has for you to accomplish. God, after all, is the one who creates time. He will not give you more to accomplish than he will give you time to accomplish it in.
In the midst of the frenetic rush of modern society, this is a fact worth celebrating. In fact, it is worth celebrating once a week—for a whole day.
Prayer:
Lord God, keep us devoted to the calling. Enable us to work hard and work faithfully, but keep us from getting lost in busyness. May we not reject the gift of rest. We are grateful for it. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Quote: “We should not speak of the flow or passage of time but of the flow or passage of space through time. It is not time that dies; it is the human body which dies in time.” -- Abraham Heschel, The Sabbath
2.6 Eye Contact
“When he was at table with them, he took the bread and blessed, and broke it, and gave it to them. And their eyes opened.” (Luke 24:17)
I had something in common with the woman I was sitting next to at a banquet. I had an adopted brother; she an adopted son and daughter. Our experiences, however, differed significantly. Her two children each suffered from Attachment Disorder. In other words, the neglect they suffered in their infancy shut down the part of the brain that enables us to form human bonds. As a result, they felt no more connected to their parents than, say, the mailman or some stranger passing on the street.
Trusting no one, they would continually concoct lies when it was to their advantage to tell the truth and steal when all they had to do was ask. They wouldn’t even make eye contact. It broke this woman’s heart. “Sometimes,” she said, “I would hold their face in my hands and say, ‘Look at me. Please, look at me. I’m on your side. I’m on your side.’”
We—you and I—have a problem with bonding. We don’t trust God. We lie to others, ourselves and God. We greedily grab and horde, as though God has not promised to supply what we need. We fear being alone and yet, if we allow our fear to dictate our behavior, that is exactly what we will be—alone, detached.
Whether the children of this woman can overcome their disorder I don’t know. We, on the other hand, need the church. We need to gather around the table of the Lord. It is there that God can take our faces, the faces of his daughters and sons into his hands and say, “This is my body, given for you. This is my blood, shed for you. I’m on your side. I’m on your side.” Come to the table, put your fears aside and make eye contact with the God who loves you.
Prayer:
Lord God, forgive me for running around as though I am detached and isolated and alone. Let me look to you with the faith of a beloved child. Amen.
Quote: “The primary entity of democracy is the individual, the individual for whom society exists mainly to assist assertions of individuality . . . What we call 'freedom' becomes the tyranny of our own desires. We are kept detached, strangers to one another as we go about fulfilling our needs and asserting our rights.”-- William Willimon and Stanley Hauerwas, Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony.
2.7 Sticking it out
“Remember the Sabbath to keep it holy.” (Exodus 20:8)
Tomorrow is Sunday. For some of you, this means another opportunity to “church shop.” I hope the service you attend tomorrow settles the matter. Even as you walk through the door, may you realize, “The search is over.”
That can be a lot to hope for. Searching for a church home can be long and frustrating. Around February it will be tempting to just give up, to figure it is enough to attend the weekly fellowship group in the Union and the Bible study on your floor. After all, you like those; you get something out of them.
Some circumstances would justify giving up. If, say, there are only three churches an hour’s drive from campus, and, one, as part of their worship, discharges firearms, the next drops acid, and the third sacrifices chickens and other fowl. Then, yes, bag the search. But, if there is a fourth option—even if it meets at are-you-kidding-me 9 am, sings feebly, and fusses constantly about offerings and expenses, please consider sticking it out there.
Here’s why: faith is a lifelong pilgrimage. After graduation, you will not have the fellowship group or the Bible study to sustain you on it. What you will have are churches—churches likely to be as barely adequate as the ones around campus. Bagging church now while you have alternatives (fellowship groups, Bible studies) will make bagging it easier when you don’t. And then you’ll have nothing.
One way to survive (maybe even flourish) in a barely adequate church is this: trust that, despite all appearances, there is something supernatural going on there. You might not have chosen those people, but God did. Somehow God is content, even pleased to draw those barely adequate people together and transform them into children of God.
Believe that and, over time, you might discover it to be true—about them and about yourself.
Prayer:
Lord God, help me find a church, one in which compassion and courage flourish. But, if no such church exists around here, keep me from judging too harshly the churches that are here since they are the work of your gracious Holy Spirit. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Quote: “Every moment and every situation challenges us to action and to obedience. We literally have no time to sit down and ask ourselves whether so-and-so is our neighbor or not. We must get into action and obey-- we must behave like a neighbor to him.” --Dietrich Bonhoffer, The Cost of Discipleship
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