Awaiting The Manger

So I came across this article, thanks to random news e-mails I now receive.  It's actually more worth reading than I expected, especially when it examines what "Churchome" is all about:

Which begs a question: Is Churchome truly expanding what it means to be Christian, or are the Smiths sleek storytellers who know what it takes to stay popular with Gen Z and millennials?

And the answer seems to be:  "Yes."

Regarding his 2005 comments on abortion, Judah says (through his publicist), “We have grown significantly in the past 15 years. I wouldn’t agree with my approach when I was a young pastor on many issues and understand that no life decision is easy. We hope to be a loving home for humanity, no matter what someone has experienced.” When I ask Chelsea what she would say to a member of her congregation considering an abortion, she is quick to clarify that, unlike a priest, a pastor—at least at Churchome—isn’t meant to provide counsel. “We know what we’re good at, which is the Bible and Jesus and telling His story. And we know what we’re not good at. There are amazing trained professional psychologists and counselors [for that].” That’s why, on the Churchome Global app, the Smiths titled a section of videos “Question and Response” rather than “Question and Answer.”

Throughout the two days we spend together, Chelsea has few answers for me. So I call her up a few weeks later to ask more questions: What is Churchome’s position on LGBTQ members, for example? “Every individual is entitled to their own persuasion, and it’s not our job to persuade. It’s just our job to proclaim. They feel just as loved and welcome and a part of our community,” Chelsea says. Have Judah’s views on homosexuality changed since 2005? “We are a church who love and welcome people regardless of their beliefs or background,” he says. Would Churchome be open to having a gay pastor? After a long pause, Chelsea says, “We are very much in the category of ‘We love everybody. God is for everybody. And God’s heart is for people.’ So our hearts are for people, and that is where we land, absolutely.”

A response, certainly, but not an answer.

The thing I had to learn as a pastor was that dodges don't work that well.  When the grieving mother of an infant asks you why God wanted her baby to die; when the shocked wife turns to you to ask "What should I do?" when the doctor has just advised removing life support from her husband, freshly arrived via ambulance to the emergency room; when someone asks you point blank does God think newborns are sinners?; you can't prevaricate or say "I don't do that."

Because is you do, you aren't part of a community that loves and welcomes people.  You're running an organization for your comfort and convenience, and that's all.  Which is not to put me in the judgment seat and to declare I am holier than them; I'm not.

But whatever this is, "church" is not the right term for it.  If they aren't pastors or priests, then what leadership do they provide?  When I first read this, I thought of this post over at Thought Criminal, and especially this prayer:

God of the prophets, who interrupts and makes new beginnings, we thank you for prophetic words that continue to sound among us.  Give us attentive minds and hearts,  that we may heed when addressed and obey when summoned,  in the name of the living Word,  Amen. 

Who prays like that? If the center of your religion is prophet based, and your central religious figure is a prophet, you should.  It is, as Brueggemann points out, a "word of hope...and judgement."

Jesus is in the temple, the citadel of entitlement and certitude.  He himself is here located in the prophetic tradition.    He deftly combines two prophetic utterances, a hope-filled word from Isaiah,  "My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples" (56:7), and a word of judgment from Jeremiah (7:11) "Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers."   He does more, however than quote the prophets. He effectively performs their words that judge the temple as a venue of exploitation and that anticipate a revised temple of embraceive faith.   His performance of prophetic reality is compelling enough that he evokes a confrontation which the "chief priests and scribes,"  managers of the citadel.  They sense, quite rightly,  that sometime dangerous and subversive is stirring around Jesus,  specified by the messianic affirmation on the lips of the "children in the temple."

Prophetic speech breaks open our settled opinions,  our treasured ideologies,  and our uncritical social practice.  Thus Amos condemned the "violence and robbery"  of a systemic kind. And the Epistle reading presents prophetic words as "a lamp shining in a dark place."

Our world is "a dark place" of fear, anxiety, greed and violence.   The prophetic light exposes such destructive practices and requires us to consider both the ideological rootage of our practices and their concrete overcomes from which we often benefit.  Advent is a time for being addressed from "elsewhere"  and being unsettled.  It is a time to ponder exposés that we do not welcome.  Sometimes we are like priests and scribes resisting the raw word of God's intrusion that shatters our citadels.

(You can get links to the readings mentioned there at Thought Criminal.)  "Advent is a time for being addressed from 'elsewhere' and being unsettled."  After all, if you're going to prepare the way of the Lord, you have to do things quite differently.  Being humble before God is not the same thing as being judgmental about those who aren't as humble as you (isn't that the definition of "humblebrag"?), but it also doesn't mean letting everybody off the hook to do whatever moves them at the moment:

“Every individual is entitled to their own persuasion, and it’s not our job to persuade. It’s just our job to proclaim. They feel just as loved and welcome and a part of our community."

Loved and welcome are acts of persuasion, too; after all.