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Punching, & Red Pill Munching
Purging,
Punching & Red Pill Munching
by Timothy
Ringering
Wednesday, December 29th, 2004
Purge, Punch and
repeat... Purge, Punch and repeat
... Purge, Punch and repeat...
Four years ago, church
for me was a place where you purged
yourself of weekly sins through
really, really sincere worship (crying
guaranteed justification and full
atonement by the 3rd song) . Then,
you placed a small down payment
on God’s favor by tithing
an extra 5 dollars in the offering
basket (pressed down and shaken
together, baby!) . After that, you
marveled at out how witty and humorous
the sermon had been. Next, you stretched
a practiced smile across your face
in the lobby and patently quipped,
“Yes, I’m doing fabulous,
thank you! I’m blessed in
the city, blessed in the field!”
to whoever might inquire. Finally,
you punched your Christian club
card at the door and tore up MLK
Blvd so you could be home in time
for the football game at 1 o’clock.
Sure, church was a
decent thing, filled with really
decent people. All decent, and very
nice. But, as I think back, I remember
lots of those decent people attempting
to mask the same half desperate,
half hazy glazed look I had in my
own eyes. Somewhere beneath our
hazy glaze was a soul that wanted
to scream out a reformation cry,
“Is this all there is!?”,
“Is this what church is all
about!?” Except, that would
have awakened the parishioners and
cost a lot of demerits with the
Elders. So nobody screamed for reformation.
Was it all just a
Pentecost Afterglow?
But church had to
be something more than the weekly
purge sessions, plastic smiles,
and club card punching. There had
to be more than watching the same
10 people rededicate their lives
at the altar for the umpteenth time
that year. There had to be more
than the 90 minutes spent watching
the paid professionals do their
thing on stage, while everyone else
wondered what Paul was talking about
when he said “You are all
valuable parts of one body.”
There had to be more, right?
I’d read Acts
chapter 2 just like you. I’d
read about that little New Testament
community of people sharing their
lives, praying for one another,
shouldering each other’s burdens,
selling their possessions to make
sure no one had need, sharing meals,
joys and pains. Maybe all of that
mutual love was just a Pentecost
afterglow. I mean, these early folks
were continually devoting themselves
to the teaching of the Gospel, meeting
in one another’s homes, sharing
all things in common! How long could
all of that last?
And yet, the love
and grace in the tiny little community
could not be contained. Compelled
by the truth of the Gospel, this
community soon began to spill out
over the brim of Jerusalem, into
Judea and out to ends of the known
world. Soon, more communities began
to blossom all throughout the Roman
world like wild flowers in a junk
yard. The result: God’s glory
shone like the sun to the ends of
the earth. His name was famed among
the Gentiles and many came to saving
faith!
Now, I’m sure
they had their share of ego battles,
head games, and food fights. If
you live real authentic community,
occasional skirmishes are to be
expected, Pentecost afterglow or
not! But four years ago, trapped
in a foggy man-centered matrix,
I’d have taken a good old
fashioned, knock-down, drag-out,
early church food fight over the
blasé buffet of predictable
routines that my church experience
had become.
The Shallowing and
Narrowing Effect
Any time a church
becomes about the people in it alone,
it narrows and shallows. The vision
sadly narrows into the four walls
of the sanctuary and the mission
pitifully shallows to the depth
of a Sunday show. What should be
a rushing, out-flowing river of
living water becomes a thin shimmering
mirage. Like the kind you see on
a hot asphalt highway about a quarter
mile ahead of your car on a steamy
Summer day. Looks like a refreshing
water ahead, but when you get there
… there’s nothing there.
Church doesn’t
have to be a man-centered mirage
where everyone is consumed with
the utilitarian quest of getting
the best bang for their buck. When
the church is about God and His
mission for us, it joyfully widens
and deepens beyond measure. Suddenly
a community of people are borne
who share a common passion to pursue
God’s glory, through the faithful
loving of His Son and each other.
Red Pill, Blue Pill
Now, allow me to be
Morpheus for just a minute. There
are two pills held in the hand of
our church’s future. One is
red, one is blue. The red pill is
safe, the blue dangerous. Red pill,
about you. Blue pill, about God.
Take the red pill
and you won’t be disturbed
by social injustice, the oppression
of the poor, or the plight of the
orphaned. You’ll be way too
doped up on pursuing your own problems
and needs to worry about all that
ugly stuff. Take the blue pill,
and you will ache in prayer for
the poor and lay down your life
for them in self-sacrificing service.
Swallow the red pill, and church
continues to be an inward-focusing,
self-consuming hazy glaze lived
out Sunday to Sunday. You won’t
see the vital need to come together
as one.
Swallow the blue
pill and you will enter into a missional
community of Christ-exalting, cross-clinging,
church planting, people in pursuit
of God’s glory. But, mind
you, you’ll have to suffer
through actually relating with people
and submitting your passions and
gifts to God for the sake of His
Kingdom. By the way, the red pill
doesn’t come with lasting
joy, just a small self gratifying
buzz for a moment. But, hey, at
least you don’t have to give
anything up, right? Take the blue
pill and there is unbelievable,
lasting joy, but you will have to
lay your life down and share another’s
burden.
Some of you may choose
to take the red pill and tuck yourself
into a nice, easy, sleepy Matrix
where everything is eerily pleasant,
but nothing is really real. If that
is you, I’m sure you can find
a church like that somewhere in
the city. But I pray you’ll
take the blue pill that leads down
the dangerous and delightful path
of loving community and missional
service for the Glory of God.
Christ’s Prayer
for The Well
In the end, here’s
what I’m saying. Our desire
should be that we become a church
community shaped by God’s
desires and not by our own. What
are His desires for The Well (or
any church for that matter)?
Consider Jesus’ prayer for
us in John 17:
” As You sent
Me into the world, I also have sent
them into the world. For their sakes
I sanctify Myself, that they themselves
also may be sanctified in truth.
I do not ask on behalf of these
alone, but for those also who believe
in Me through their word; that they
may all be one; even as You, Father,
are in Me and I in You, that they
also may be in Us, so that the world
may believe that You sent Me.
”The glory which
You have given Me I have given to
them, that they may be one, just
as We are one; I in them and You
in Me, that they may be perfected
in unity, so that the world may
know that You sent Me, and loved
them, even as You have loved Me.
”Father, I desire that they
also, whom You have given Me, be
with Me where I am, so that they
may see My glory which You have
given Me, for You loved Me before
the foundation of the world. ”O
righteous Father, although the world
has not known You, yet I have known
You; and these have known that You
sent Me; and I have made Your name
known to them, and will make it
known, so that the love with which
You loved Me may be in them, and
I in them.”
Can you believe that
Jesus prayed for The Well? That’s
amazing isn’t it? What did
He pray? His prayer was that we
would be in Him and the Father as
one. And that sanctifying love of
God would bind us together as one
community in Christ. And that this
community would propel us into the
world to celebrate His glory and
make Him known among the nations
so that other believing communities
blossom like flowers in a junk yard.
This is our vision
and mission you guys. To glorify
God and make His name known by loving
His Son with all our hearts. Not
individually and narcissistically,
but collectively and selflessly.
This love for Christ produces within
us the kind of love for each other
that looks like that New Testament
community I was talking about earlier.
A community that cannot be contained
within itself, but brims effervescently
with visible, touchable, tangible,
multiplying love and grace into
the greater society.
Meditation &
Prayer
