I know, I know. I am a conservative Lutheran and using E-words like “emotion” and “excited’ is more taboo in that crowd than using the F-word. We are pretty business focused people, for example I have been recently invested heavily in developing some real estate technology for Salesforce, But then again a pretty famous Lutheran defined the proper attitude towards God as fear, love, and trust, words very loaded with E-type feelings no matter how much we try to rob those words of them.
I suppose if your life contains no emotion in general, then so can your relationship with God. But I haven’t met many such people in real life.
It just seems to me that in trying to dogmatize many things, we have forgotten that true conviction affects the entire person. True conviction of the guilt of one’s sins causes inner turmoil and perhaps at times outer manifestations of such turmoil. True reception of forgiveness brings inner peace and joy and yes perhaps outer manifestations of such peace and joy.
Granted, many churches focus on the external manifestations without any connection to the proclamation of God’s word. Sorrow is caused by peer pressure and joy by the beat of the music reverberating under the chairs. But much has been written on this in the circles I run in.
But in my circles we seem to let God’s word have its way with our minds but not our hearts. And that is not biblical at all. God is clear that His word is to move the heart and the mind.
So what gets you excited? Does the beauty of your spouse or significant other cause excitement but the thought of Jesus leave your heart beating normally? Does your spirit mourn when you team loses in the last minute but you can watch a depiction of the crucifixion without a sinking feeling in your gut? Does seeing a long lost friend bring a smile to your face that you can’t hide, but hearing that your sins are forgiven only leave you waiting for the next part of the service?
God’s word is more powerful than that. The reality of the sacraments is way too impressive for such a response to be genuine. Yes, I’ll say it. God is worthy of excitement, sorrow, joy, and any of the manifestations of those things which might just happen.
I can’t help but tell you..that in my recent sickness, not sure if you’ve heard or not but I have a very bad case of the flu (aparentley the flu shot I got didn’t cover this one!) I’ve been much, much more emotional and even somewhat insane b/c of how little I like things being out of my control, and when watching a new rather shotty movie depicting the crucifiction on TV I couldn’t stop wailing! I have also felt Satan himself laughing at me each time I encounter a new part of my body which aches b/c of my symptoms. I have cursed, cried and cunvulsed more in the last week in my brokenness than I usually do in my “wholeness”. hmmmm Maybe this spiritual warfare thing isn’t just a charasmatic phenom!
I think what you are getting at here is the frustration of seeing little to no connection between the faith that is preached and the faith that is lived. People get exicted about local sports and would think nothing of freezing their nards off to watch a local football game or to go deer hunt at 3:00am. Yet ask someone to come to church on Sunday and you get hit with a list of reasons why they can’t. Among them, “Johnny has a game today”.
My feeling for some years now is that church is seen as a place not relevant to real life and/or it is simply that place you go to do certain events in your life (baptism, confirmation, weddings, funerals). I wonder if, in the minds of many, we are more a civic/socal institution than the living, breathing, community of God.
So Jeff, what causes that? Our preaching, our traditions, lack of true faith? etc?
I’m not saying that this is the answer, but author Brennan Manning makes an interesting observation about the Church today. In his book, “The Wisdom of Tenderness”, he suggests that it is simply too easy to call yourself a Christian these days. In the early church many years of catechesis was required prior to baptism. Those who were not baptized were not only not allowed to take the Lord’s Supper, but they had to leave the worship service and the doors were shut. I have a five week adult membership class – my how times have changed.
Further, Manning advocates that the church go underground for ten years and maintain what he calls the “discipline of the secret” around unbelievers. Christians would meet only in secret and worship out of site.
I’m not sure that I’m in favor of that – but I think that Manning’s intent is to point to the fact that when God’s people are persecuted, it becomes a time of strengthening for the Church (ie. Exodus 1 and 1st Century AD).
So, could it be that we have it so easy in North America that we have, dare I say, the luxury of Church as an institution and it is poisoning our collective soul? (Sounds like the Borg!)
By the way, did you notice my use of the word “nards” in my last comment?
Yes, I first I thought you went out all out with nads, but nards is certainly notable still. I meant to note it before. It is too easy indeed to claim to be Christian and too easy to remain claiming that with no real persecution connected to that claim in our day. So what do we do? Pray for persecution?
Well, I’m no hurry to be persecuted for my faith, but perhaps pastors and lay leaders need to work together on breaking the “church as Sunday morning ritualized institution” idea on work on build the “church as community”. A place where worship and the breaking of bread, and prayer and attending to one another’s needs is central (Acts 2)- not how many do we have in worship today or is the budget balanced. Could it be that we are simply doing church wrong in North America?
Also, I try to instill in my catechism students the seriousness of the promise they make in confirmation. We ask them to promise to die for their bapstimal faith rather than fall away from it. That is a big promise for an 8th grader to make and I doubt if most of them even realize it. Maybe a longer period of catechesis is necessary? Maybe make parents more involved in the process? But then again, it would be very easy to then to turn church into a works-righteousness haven.
I don’t know if I have the answer, but I know this – Dr. Gibbs at seminary said being a pastor will make you pray for the eschaton. He was right. Even so, come quickly Lord Jesus.
One more thought. We should not forget that even with all its problems this is still the Church – and Jesus is still Lord of it. His work will get done throught it and perhaps even despite it. Satan and hell itself will not prevail against it. That should give us no small amount of hope.
The Church is a gift and so are the people in it.