Unless you change and become like children
Author Howard Friend, in his book Recovering the Sacred Center, recommends the exercise of describing the church as persons - complete with identities, stories and histories. When I was reflecting on that recently, this scripture and poem came to mind.
Matthew 18:1-5
At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, "Who is the greatest in the kin-dom of heaven?"
He called a child, whom he put among them, and said, "Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kin-dom of heaven. Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kin-dom of heaven. Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me."
Recovery
Children survive.
They just seem to be built to survive almost anything.
The pain of loneliness, war, crime, rejection, being ignored, being abused, being smothered, being used, predation, exposure, abandonment, over-protection, - these are just some of the things children endure.
But to do so requires they develop tools - most of them facades - fake faces.
It is these false countenances and big walls that, as adults, keep distance between us.
They protect the "us" we can't risk showing the world, the identities we forget exist as time moves on.
We show the safe "us", the ones that can't get hurt, because they're not real.
But hurt we do.
The void manifests as we become emptier.
And then, eventually, it dawns on us - being an adult isn't about being safe - it's about being real.
It's about risk.
It's about re-finding GOD.
Yes, eventually we realize - if we can't be honest with each other - how can we trust anyone including GOD.
So eventually we learn to set aside our facades, to show our soft underbellies, to expose our pain and doubts, to look longingly for GOD.
We find GOD's been there the whole time - waiting for us.
We allow GOD to fill the void with joy.
Welcome back to being a child - now we're ready for GOD.
Now we can survive anything.
It would seem entirely appropriate to substitute "churches" for "children". Churches, individually and collectively, have suffered from all manner of painful experiences and developed protective facades to enable them to survive emotionally, usually by allowing them to gloss over the painful parts of their history. Not so much different than individuals.
Churches in the U.S., just like in much of the West, show signs of being somewhere in the process of recovery. Unfortunately, many times it seems as though we're stuck in the denial stage. We worry about becoming insignificant and dying, and we frantically try to find the world's solutions to the situations that leave us insecure and afraid. But we fail to recognize that it may be our own facades - our fake faces - that make us irrelevant.
We develop tools to deal with our insecurity - business models, marketing plans and consumer driven assortments of programs - worldly models to solve a numbers problem. It seems we're still stuck in blaming everything and everyone else - in denying our own complicity in the plight we face.
We are not yet at the stage where we can trust God completely. And so we trust only ourselves. Doesn't it seem childish to believe that WE, humans, can plan for the survival of the church? Doesn't it seem spiritually immature to think that, by copying the practices of a flawed political and economic strategy, WE will become the saviors of the church? Hmmm - doesn't the church already have a savior?
Maybe it's time to stop and be childlike - to be meek. By the way, that word in Greek doesn't mean mild and diminutive - it means confidently humble and gentle. There's strength in this meekness.
Perhaps the church should have the strength to ask simple questions like who and what we really are called to be. Is survival of the institution as we know it the most important concern we should have? Maybe we should examine ourselves honestly - dare to expose our soft underbellies - to be truthful with the world and ourselves.
And risk - risk being the church God intended. Risk, in a foolish display of passion and commitment to Jesus Christ, allowing God to provide the plan and security while we simply worry about loving God and our neighbor at least as much as ourselves.