Gut Check and More

I don’t even remember what was said that precipitated this line of wondering in my mind.  I think it was something like, “I’ll just walk out of church.”

It just strikes me as odd in a place where we are with Jesus, bending our knee to his authority over our lives, to pick up the scepter of our life and storm out if we don’t like something.  It strikes me as odd in place that is about surrender and about humility.  But it is part of the American spirit, I suppose.  It’s a virtue of defiance, of chutzpa, of machismo, of ….

 

It reminded me of how we can exercise authority over the Bible or it can exercise authority over us.  Who’s smarter?  Who has the right to direct?  Who’s in charge?  Me??  God?? 

And there’s something similar with the church.  I know as a pastor I have put myself under the authority of the presbytery.  If I choose to live in violation of our confessions and rebel against my denomination’s directions, then I can renounce their jurisdiction over me or have them defrock me.  But there is a placing under the authority.  We don’t have this going on in the local church very much. 

We don’t have the notion that in becoming a church member we are agreeing to not only attend and tithe and pray for the church, but we are also saying that they have a say in our lives.  Should a pastor and a session show up in the home of a church members getting ready for a divorce and say, “We’re Christians and you are under our leadership and instruction so we want you to go to counseling.”  What about insisting on it or else they renounce church membership?

We are good for insisting that as a member I have a right to use the sanctuary for a wedding or to have the pastor there at the hospital bed.  But can the church “insist” in the other direction? 

No one wants a bunch of lockstep, unthinking people.  We all answer in our conscience to Christ.  But the church can be like herding cats.  Each one is pretty separate, pretty independent, pretty much the sole authority over what they think, say, and do. 

Jesus and the Roman soldier with the sick servant understood being under authority.

If you are tempted to just walk out of church one day, unless it is because you have to go to the bathroom, maybe we ought to do a humility check, a what’s the church all about check, a how does God shape our life and ego check. 

I’m just wondering.