The Body

I want you to know that I really do love you Church.  Honestly I can't say I love Jesus if I don't also love you, because you are the body of Christ.  But sometimes you're ugly, sometimes you're mean, sometimes you just plain don't get it and I have to hold on to those moments where what God sees in you actually shines through and you're beautiful despite it all.
It's hard to watch someone you love fight cancer, and I feel like that's what's happening right now, at least in the manifestation of Church that looks most familiar to me.  The cancer is, as I have indicated, self-interested and self-involved consumerism. It's weakening the Body to the point of death in many cases, and in some places appears to have entirely taken over, making positive thinking and prosperity into a god of sorts, or on a different tack, establishing rules, regulations and heavily slanted moral principles into a god of another sort.  It's either about what makes me feel good, or what makes me feel superior, and some even manage both at the same time.
Where's my proof? How can I say such things? Who am I to judge?
I'm no one, and I really have nothing to back up what I say other than observations and probably too much reading.  But I have been on this road, one way or another, all my life.  I have seen the way things work behind closed doors, and I have watched you.  I read the things you write, and I listen to the things you say.
You seem angry.  And believe me, I understand anger, I have been angry a lot in my life, but what I have learned about anger is that it is based in fear.  I never wanted to admit that to myself when I was angry, but it is totally about fear, fear of losing something you think is valuable, fear of being left behind, fear that things will change and you will not like the changes, fear that your safety will be put at risk.  These things all make you angry.  It doesn't matter where you vent your anger: liberals, conservatives, fundamentalists, LGBTQ people, Planned Parenthood, President Obama, Donald Trump, ISIS, Atheists, humanists, communists, capitalists, socialists, the list goes on, we're just too darn angry with someone or something, and that means we're afraid of those things.  Dodge that truth if you will, I will not be angry at you, or afraid of you... well at least I'll try.  Why will I try?  Because God is always telling people not to be afraid, and that love casts our fear, and yes I suppose that is somewhere underneath that whole love your enemies thing.
I used to think that there was such a thing as righteous anger, but increasingly I see that going bad more often than not.  I mean the righteous part goes out the window.  Sure we want standards, sure we don't want anarchy, that's all true, but I'm not talking about throwing the baby out with the bathwater here, I'm talking about taking the love thing a little more seriously and strenuously than we do.
I think part of the problem that we run into nowadays is that we want to jump into tackling really big problems before we master small things.  We want to tackle poverty before we learn how to really be generous.  Example: starving children in Africa break our hearts but we refer to starving children (or maybe rather their parents) in our own neighborhoods as moochers and takers.  We want to tackle injustice before we learn how to put others first.  We want to protect "innocent lives" before we have really wrestled with the notion of our own interdependence and see how closely we are connected to each other, innocent and guilty alike.
We want to tackle racism, but honestly we would rather self-segregate into our own little groups, not just by race, but also socio-economic class, like political philosophies, age, favorite sports team, you name it.  And yes this happens in the Church, why else do you think we have thousands of denominations across the globe?  Why, in a fair sized town or suburb, do we have dozens of churches of all different sorts, most of which are struggling to attract enough people to keep the doors open?
Let's face it, we have competition in the form of secular humanism that doesn't have anywhere near the handicaps that we play with, mostly because we haven't learned to control our anger.  I used to know a guy in college who was a pretty decent basketball player, had a good shot and could handle the ball a little, but he had a terribly short fuse, if you hassled him too much he would get mad and start to take risks and put up bad shots.  If he was calm and collected, you definitely wanted him on your team, but if someone got under his skin... forget about it.
The secular world makes few demands on people, they can sleep in on Sunday, or go golfing, or go to the kids soccer game.  It gets your money by giving you things you actually want, like cars and vacation homes, and it never demands that you sing songs you don't like, except when that odd Justin Beiber song gets stuck in your head.
So, given the competition, I go back to my original question, what are we selling?  Are we selling anger and indignation? That's not as silly as it sounds, anger and indignation actually sell pretty well, see Trump.  Are we selling some sort of promise of prosperity and blessings?  That sells too, but it puts us in a sticky place vis-a-vis the teachings of our crucified Lord, who doesn't have much good to say about worldly wealth.  Are we selling spiritual enlightenment?  Well, how do we deliver on that promise?  By inviting people to our little gatherings to sing whatever songs we sing, say whatever creeds we say and listen to one of us talk about stuff that you or we will probably never put into practice?
I'm sorry, I'm starting to sound angry aren't I? See how easy that happens. It's a real problem when you're supposed to be about Good News and love casting out all fear.  Repentance really is an ongoing process, not a one off solution.  Learning to love God and walk the way is the task of a lifetime, which is why a lot of this reads like I'm going in circles: because I am.  I'm not perfect, neither is the church I serve, neither are any of the people that will ever walk through it's doors.  We're not even the best at anything we do.  Charity and service?  Most other non-profits can beat us at that game, because we have to spend money on a big fancy building and keeping the lights on, and paying professional clergy and administrative staff and because most of us are busy with other things.  Being a haven for those who are struggling and broken? Honestly these days the 12 steps programs do that better than us.  Nobody ever got the stinkeye for coming to an AA meeting in ripped jeans and a dirty t-shirt.  A community that brings people together? There are just oodles of groups you can join that do more fun things than a church.
So why? Why do we do this?  Well, for me it is because of what Ecclesiastes says over and over again about the various aspects of life: it is all "vanity and chasing after the wind."  Worship, mission and the community of the church are the only antidote for that, but they are camouflaged to look like they are subject to the same futility.  You can come to church and experience nothing, or you can encounter God, there really is no guarantee though.
Maybe you're fine with vanity and chasing after the wind. Lots of people seem to be.  For me though there's something about Jesus and the Good News of the Gospel that won't let me be satisfied with that.  That's why I go to church, because I need to, and I suppose that is why I also have a hard time "selling" it, because I don't think it should be sold.  On most days I feel like I would be doing people a favor by just letting them be rather than introducing them to this Way that is going to infect them and not let them simply go back to their every day vanity and chasing after the wind.  Perhaps that makes me a poor evangelist, add it to the list of things I do poorly.
All I can do is go back to the fact that I love God, because I am loved by God. I follow Christ, because, somehow or other I am in Christ, and where he goes I must go also.  For all her flaws, the Church is where Christ shows up, and so here am I.