Several years ago, I was in a pretty serious relationship, so I bought a condo and got engaged. I had been a semi-homeless, wandering derelict for quite a while, but figured if I was really going to get married we ought to have a place to live. I certainly didn't mind living under a bridge and eating macaroni or ramen noodles every night, but was convinced this was probably not conducive to a healthy family life; at least that was what most members of society were telling me. We eventually broke off the engagement (a good thing for both of us - more on that later), which made my roommate quite happy at the time, because it meant he got to stay. I still had a pretty spacious two bedroom condo; it seemed like a waste of good living space for only two people, especially after traveling around the world for many years and seeing so many people suffering from a lack of shelter. So I began to say "yes" to anyone looking for a roommate or place to live. Since then, my condo -- and my life -- has stayed pretty full. Lessons are best learned in community with others, I think.
It's been amazing for me to see how many people, even in our "great" country, are desperately in need of permanent housing or even a place to spend a night. I've never advertised or recruited anyone; most of my roommates have come to me through random life situations or through the "referral" of friends. I think our American culture has promoted individualism to the point where it is even looked down on as "weird" to be living in community, especially in a multi-family situation. My condo has become known as the Holly Oaks Hostel; I get approached often with requests from well-meaning Christians for friends of theirs going through tough times - whether it be financial issues, marital problems, job re-locations, or even just good ol' derelicts like myself who need a warm, dry place to rest their weary head. I'm usually over-booked; I've learned to challenge my well-meaning Christian friends (who are usually married) with: "Why not your place? He's your friend! You've got a lot more room than I do!" This usually makes them uncomfortable - I usually get "that wouldn't be practical" as a response. Sadly, our culture has labeled it "weird" for married people or people with families to provide extended hospitality to others in a bind, causing many to be deprived of one the greatest joys in the Christain's life - extending hospitality to someone in need. I've had multiple couch surfers, people living on my recliner, people renting floor space, people wanting to rent out the back balcony.... I actually had a "waiting list" for my couch for a while. Admittedly, there have been some sticky situations, but overall, the experience of being a "slumlord" has brought me great joy, taught me a lot about hospitality, and brought many new friends into my life.
One of those friends was a guy named Brian. He'd been through some tough times - lost a job, been evicted, lost his car, and was in a bad relationship. He really just needed a new start and some time (and a place) to get his feet back on the ground - a married couple from my church asked me if he could stay at my place for a while. For all I knew, the guy was an ax-murderer, but I had a vacant couch, so I said "sure". I'm not the most out-going person in the world, but within about three days, we became good buddies - he was just that kind of guy.... you met him, you liked him. He moved out a long time ago, but to this day I am still envious of his natural ability to meet people and become close friends with them. Complete strangers - everyone from convicts to celebrities - wanted to trade contact information with him and hang out with him within about thirty minutes of meeting him. You'd want to be his best friend, too.
He wanted to go to to the church where I was going at the time. He'd already met some people from it at a big "tent revival" held here in Dallas and - quite naturally - had become good friends with them. He didn't have a car, so he rode with me every week - a drive that was about twenty minutes each way. To this day, I can't remember who or when or exactly what started it, but we officially began the fantastical (debatable) organization known as the Pharisidical Council. If you are of the type that can get offended when religion is flippantly discussed, I'd suggest you stop reading this blog right HERE.
At some point, during some theological argument on the drive to church, we both declared ourselves Pharisees (in memory of the ones during Christ's earthly life), and decided that the only way to properly defend our arguments was to convince each other and those around us at church that we were indeed more righteous than everyone else around us. Everything was said and done "tongue-in-cheek", but it got pretty bad. It started out with bringing bigger Bibles ("The bigger the Bible, the bigger the Christian!") multiple Bibles ("Two Bibles equals twice as righteous"), dressing up to look extra-righteous, and getting to Sunday school super early and sitting on the front row each week, so everyone else could be in awe of how righteous we were. It escalated quickly to wearing sun glasses and covering our faces with "veils" so we wouldn't be blinded or blind others with the shekinah glory coming from our faces - obvious evidence that we had been in the presence of the Lord that morning before church. We would scream "unclean!" when a non-council member would bump into us, because they were obviously less righteous than us. We threatened to start dressing up each week for church like cardinals or even in papal vestments (we never did) and walk around the church blessing people with the sign of the cross and holy water the way the pope does. We even had a skit worked up: On Brian's week to lead Sunday school, he was going to teach on divorce (a dicey subject in our modern day church), coming down hard on all the remarried divorcees as adulterers... Jonathan Edwards style. At the apex of his condemnation of all the divorcees as adulterers, I was going to stand up, tear my priestly robes, scream "hypocrite!" and chase Brian (he was divorced) out of the room, stoning him with pencils and erasers the whole way down the hall. This never happened either; he decided to teach on "blessed are the peacemakers" instead. I'll stop with that, for fear anyone reading this blog will write me off as a complete heretic -- but these ideas were only the beginning. Let your collective imaginations run wild. Brian lived with me for eight months, and for about thirty minutes every Sunday on the way to church, we plotted and schemed and invented new methods, new skits, and new one-liners that we would use to try to convince others that we were more righteous than those around us, including each other. Brian, being pretty witty, would usually come out on top with the most creative phrases and ideas, but being a true Pharisee I would always refuse to humble myself and admit defeat. I probably laughed more each of those Sunday mornings in those thirty minutes than I did the rest of my week.
The reality was we had created a microcosm, albeit an exaggerated one, of what church denominations really are. An Episcopalian missionary (who called his own denomination the "frozen chosen") put it best. He said, in his view, the main reason churches have broken away and formed new churches is this: When we read the Bible, when we pray, when we seek God with all our hearts and try to understand what it means to be Christ-like and live our lives the way he did and compare our life to His, the result is often so terrifying and so scary and so seemingly impossible, that we pull back, and resort to living and validating our lives and Christian walk by simply comparing ourselves to the other "Christians" around us. The Pharisees did it in Christ's society; the common Christian usually does it in ours (I'm guilty). We are called to be one, but most Christians in America define their identity not by Who they know or by what they do for the Kingdom of Christ, but by differentiating themselves from other Christians, usually based on certain doctrinal beliefs or by the church body they attend, or by a famous theologian they admire. Even Paul, Peter, and Apollos had to deal with this in their day. We make ourselves feel superior by pointing out our style of worship, what kind of songs we sing, or how good our respective clergy can orate. Our doctrinal statements often accentuate theological intricacies that define us from other churches or denominations, as if we're better than them due to the way we interpret certain Bible verses, or how often we take the Lord's Supper, or in the way it is served. We fight for and against pet moral issues in the public sector, like abortion and gay marriage, so that we can make ourselves feel good about our own righteousness compared to the un-churched heathens, since most of us that attend church haven't had abortions or participated in overtly homosexual behavior. I've seen many "pro-life" and "Marriage = One man + One Woman" bumper stickers on the back of fancy cars in church parking lots here in Dallas, but have yet to see a "feed the hungry" bumper sticker on the back of a Mercedes Benz. The point is, that we "Christians" are guilty of creating many different pseudo-Christian religions/sects that attempt to attract members by creating environments where we can validate our sense of morality by comparing ourselves to others in our society - both churched and unchurched - and providing the doctrinal statement/stance/rules to back it up. Pharisees in the 21st century, if you will - no different than the ones Jesus dealt with in His day.
I don't believe it was ever God's design for us (the church) to practice a religion. He wants a relationship, an intimate, loving marriage if you will, where we commune with Him in daily worship and live our lives bearing His image - showing and making His love and His glory known to others. The idea of being in such an abstract relationship makes many of us uncomfortable; we like our created religions where we can just check of our Christian responsibilities like a "to do" list. It makes our relationship with God much more comfortable and seemingly doable. I don't think God is ever impressed with this kind of "religion", especially when it is done in the name of Christ. Paul was the most righteous of Pharisees (in a check-list sort of way), but God struck him blind, and the rich young ruler walked away sad, shortly after telling Jesus he had kept all the commandments. They were both devout followers of God, a.k.a "religious", but neither had a loving relationship with Him at the time. Imagine how your significant other would feel if you just related to him/her with a check-list every day...."bought flowers/chocolates....kissed her...told her I loved her...told her she was beautiful...spent time with him...told him I loved and respected him) and then went in and checked it off a list posted on the fridge. I don't think she/he would find this very meaningful. Sure -- it's easier, but not real meaningful.
The point of all this is to say that, despite all the problems the church - the bride of Christ - has, I think our lack of oneness is the most egregious of all our sins as a corporate body. It was/is our job to show Christ and make Him known to a watching world. One of His last prayers before He was crucified was "I pray, Father, that they would all be one, as You and I are one, so that the world would know that you sent me." Does the world know this? Obviously not. If we work backwards in this verse, we can determine the cause of this failure. Welcome to the Pharasidical Council, where we "set ourselves apart" from each other.
I think when this life is over, when this world is gone, and we kneel before an infinite Creator and give an account of our earthly lives, He probably won't ask us where we went to church or how often we went. He won't really care what kind of music we sang, how we dressed each week, or to whom we traced the ancestry of our church leadership, or how good our preacher was, or even how much we knew about the Bible. I pretty sure this will all seem pathetically trivial at the time. Instead, I think He'll ask us if we knew His Son. I think He'll ask if if we fed and clothed our neighbors and gave them shelter when they were hungry and naked and cold.. I think He'll ask us if we visited widows, prisoners, and orphans and befriended the lonely. He'll want to know who we told about Him, and if our lives backed up His message of love, mercy, and grace. "It wasn't practical" won't seem like a very good excuse at the time. The Bible makes it pretty clear what was expected from Christ's followers during times of heavy persecution; I tremble about what this means for the church in America, with our freedoms and riches. We can start by being one in Christ. Enable us Lord. In Christ's name, Amen.
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