The Why

I'll be honest with you, as much as I might wax nostalgic for the Camino, there were many days and many times that I was just seriously done with it.  But like getting a tattoo, or (so I hear) giving birth, you don't so much remember the pain when you like the result.  Probably more than anything it was the trials and tribulations of the journey that taught me the strongest lessons. This probably comes as no surprise to anyone, but you learn more from suffering and failure than you do from comfort and success.  I would like to spend some time looking at the troubles, and the things that break with regard to this thing we call the church.
If there's one thing that recent history has shown us in rather stark relief, it is that Christendom is failing or has failed.  Christendom is the union between the religion that began with the followers of Jesus of Nazareth, which was known as The Way, and the powers of empires and nations.  We probably should have recognized some of the unholy potential in this union rather early on (some did, but we usually did our best to shut them up). But we didn't, and we can't go back and change that, for better or worse, Christendom was what it was and did what it did, and in the big picture it certainly wasn't all bad.  Art, literature, and yes even science were shaped by the spiritual liberation of the the human soul from bondage to the old gods of blood and fire.  While it was by no means a sure thing, Christian theology allowed us to see ourselves situated in a world where a benevolent and loving God actually desired us to grow and move forward, "striving towards the goal," as Paul puts it, of union with Christ, which is union with the Triune God.  This striving forward beyond what we are now, is essentially the thing described in Genesis as the first sin: eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which was forbidden.
Christianity put all that to bed, all those ideas that God was intent on keeping us in our place. Except, to tell you the truth, that sort of freedom makes us kind of nervous, and honestly we probably shouldn't be given that sort of latitude to just run wild, so we set about tucking in some of those loose ends, and constructing a "safer" religion that gave us more certainty, and less... well less of just about everything else.
Enter the dawn of modernism: the renaissance, the reformation, the age of science, the industrial revolution.  In a few short decades we have gone from candles and gaslights to iphones and solar power.  We have gone from the steam engine to the supersonic jet, with such rapidity that we, I think, have a bit of whiplash.  The church is showing itself to be a casualty of this acceleration, and I'm not just talking about the much ballyhooed numerical decline and institutional stagnation that we see across the board, I'm talking about a failure of vision and purpose. We have become disoriented and we're making the mistake that many an inexperienced person makes upon finding themselves in this condition: we are lashing out in spastic and often illogical attempts at self rescue, and we are probably just making our problems worse.
You may think that I have an answer, but I don't.  Honestly, I'm as lost and prone to these mistakes as anyone.  I have staked my livelihood and my career on the institutional church, I do not want to see her fail.  If I had answers, I might be the pastor of a beatific congregation where everyone loved and forgave as much as they're supposed to.  If I had answers, I might know exactly what to do to make sure that we were always worshiping in a true and winsome manner that would absolutely magnetize anyone who came near it.  If I had answers, all my sermons would leave people challenged and inspired to follow Jesus better. If I had answers, I would never feel like I was just barely holding on and going through the motions.
But I don't have answers, I only have questions.  My question at this moment is, "what are we selling?" Because, as much as I wish it were otherwise, the church is selling something to an age of consumers.  I have railed against consumerism in the past, but I honestly wonder if we can expect anything else out of modern people.  They are born and raised into a world where they are constantly being sold something, and constantly in the mode of acquiring something, or more, or better somethings than they already have.  We are not only sold better things, but better bodies, better relationships, even better lives.  And the church, far from offering an alternative to this scheme, has just jumped into the mud and played along.
I'm going to spend the next couple of posts examining how this course of thinking leads us into mistakes about worship, about mission, and about our very community.
Let's start with worship.  I learned something very important about worship on the Camino.  I experienced many permutations of how human beings do this thing called worship.  There were bible studies and devotions with small groups sitting on the floor by candlelight.  There were discussions along the way that turned into religious and spiritual dialogue.  There were masses, formal liturgical events of varying levels of complexity, from a quiet vespers service to a full scale mass in the Cathedral at Santiago with a 700 pound botofumiere burning a couple hundred dollars worth of incense and swinging to the ceiling over our heads.  As novel as that was, by about the third time through, it can start to be old hat.
Let's be real here, if you can walk 500 miles to reach a cathedral and all the while have this vision of being at this particular place and time, and have that vision carry you through rain, heat, dust, soreness, crowded communal living, and constant moving, and then, the day after you arrive, at your second pilgrim's mass, be thinking more about how you wish you had a better seat than about the glory and beauty that had moved you to tears 24 hours ago (when you had a better seat)... well let's just say there might be a lesson to be learned here: we are never satisfied for very long.
It's a borderline miracle that anyone stays in a church very long, just based on the worship experience.  My more liturgical colleagues are probably saying, "see we told you so, that's why we keep it the same all the time, you can't win the novelty game!"  And my more creative and charismatic colleagues are saying, "see, that's why you need to always keep it fresh and find new ways to worship!"  They're both right.  You can't freaking win.  You will never make everyone happy, as long as they are bringing their same human brokenness into worship (which will be always).
Because so much of our identity as modern American churches is wrapped up in what we do for an hour or so on Sunday morning, we are fragile butterflies of the liturgical arts, always fluttering beautifully along, but always ephemeral and not very sturdy.  Even ancient prayers and practices cannot truly give us roots that will survive the drought of a soul that simply wants to be entertained and provided with a "good worship experience."  No preacher or musician can make you worship, it is not a passive experience.  And even when  you start to see the value in worshiping and taking responsibility for it yourself, you will still have dry times, times where you are too busy, or too angry, or too something to really allow yourself into that space.  There are times when the dust of the way clings a little too tightly for you to feel clean and in the presence of the Lord.  It's okay, there is more than one hour in your life, and more than one church you can enter, and indeed you may experience the same church differently at different moments in your walk. Always remember there is grace for your failures, otherwise you will quickly discourage and fade.
I think the best attitude to have is one of expectation, but not expectation that everything will be as you expect or like it to be.  Rather expect to see God somehow, someway, but remember that The Lord is rather averse to being predictable.  Be open to a surprise, stop always looking for the sure thing or the easy path, try something that's just between you and your God.  In a Presbyterian Church that could be something as simple as raising your hands during a song (you could even try it during a hymn and really confuse everyone).  You will probably feel like everyone is looking at you as you worship, and maybe they are, but the thought and the self-consciousness of that thought are simply warning flags.
Why are you here? What is going on in your soul? What exactly do you expect?  I found that asking myself these questions over and over again along the way allowed me to enter into the sacred places (the ones made with stone and the ones that are simply out there).
The honesty of giving unflattering answers is a sort of confession.
The ability to let go of those unflattering answers is the forgiveness.
What comes after is a place of grace, where you just might be able to worship in spirit and in truth.