Balance

I’m wearing my preacher’s hat today.

Although most of us want balance in our lives, history is more like a pendulum swinging from extreme to extreme. Historically, the church has mirrored secular culture and more closely proclaimed political party talking points than it has preached and lived the kingdom.

My own awareness of church/cultural dynamics dates back to the 1960's: "flower children", bell-bottom pants, sideburns and peace symbols. My ministry was emerging, and the church whose call I answered was more about social relevance than about stained glass and brass plaques; more about justice than doctrine. Matthew 25 and Luke 4:16-28 were frequent preaching texts, often to the neglect of more personally edifying texts.

Were things better then? No. It was a time when part of the Church neglected crucial elements of faith and practice, like evangelism and spiritual discipline; and in our concern for being non-judgmental we diluted views of morality and erased some lines that should never have been crossed.  Much lost ground was never recovered.

Perhaps the greatest fault of the church in that era was the rigid, non-negotiable lines that were drawn between various manifestations of the Body of Christ. In the last six decades the church has sinfully wasted much time in-fighting over specific differences, instead of finding common ground and working from there to build up the kingdom. “Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand” (Matthew 12:25 NIV). That may explain the six-decade decline of the North American Church. A partially united kingdom is better than a broken, divided one.

So, were the 1960's worse than today? No. The social consciousness then was a needed corrective to a tunnel-vision evangelicalism that was suffocating the church. It presented the church as hardly more than an ecclesiastical maternity ward: its only purpose to get people "born again." But if the Church prior to the 1960's was too narrowly defined in terms of maternity, many churches of the 60's and 70's closed down the maternity ward altogether, and attempted to define the church more like an ecclesiastical Department of Human Services.

Again, both are good and necessary dimensions of Christian Disciple­ship. On balance Jesus talked more about ethics than about prayer; more about money than about salvation; more about social justice than about heaven. His kingdom parables were filled with images and metaphors of justice; and, he more frequently spoke of just and ethical relation­ships than of prayer. The Hebrew prophets consistently called God’s people to repent from two sins: idolatry and the unjust treatment of the poor.

But to diminish either focus is to weaken the Gospel, and the pendulum of history brims with correctives that become more destructive than the evils they were designed to correct, and each swing of the pendulum provokes its own hostility. The rigid moralism of Victorianism led to a reactionary swing to "19th century liberalism". When liberalism seemed harmful enough the reactionary swing was toward biblical literalism, which, in turn, created yet another reactionary swing into the 1960's cry for relevance.

NOTE: each reaction was a valid corrective, but when each became an end in itself, rather than a means toward a more balanced, holistic end, it became counterproductive to the Gospel.

Today, for the first time in the church's history, the pendulum may have stopped, and nobody seems to know what to do. An emerging generation is sick and tired of watching people "play church"; sick and tired of watching people who call themselves Christians fighting with each other over style and semantics; sick and tired of seeing Christ represented by people who come across as judgmental and intolerant.

What a wonderful opportunity for the church to become real again! What a wonderful time for the church to hear, as if for the first time, the Word of the Lord:

"Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—when you see the naked, to clothe him, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?  Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard." (Isaiah 58:5-9 NIV)

And what a wonderful time to acknowledge that the same Bible also says,

"I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit.  Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, 'You must be born again.' (John 3:5-7 NIV)

And that same Bible says,

Pray without ceasing. In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. (1 Thessalonians 5:17-18 KJV)

And,

If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.  But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.  For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man.  For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. (1 Corinthians 15:19-22 NIV)

What a wonderful time to proclaim the balance: the Word of GRACE that leads to the peace and wholeness that is God's Shalom (salvation); the PROPHETIC Word that calls God's people to repent and to seek justice and to love mercy; the INSTRUC­TIVE Word that teaches God's people how to walk in the ways of the Lord; and the Word of PROMISE that fills us with hope. I believe it is only through hearing and believing and living such a balanced diet of God's Word that Jesus' words make any sense:

"You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden.  Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house.  In the same way, let your light shine before everyone, that they may see your good deeds and praise God in heaven." (Matthew 5:14-16 NIV)

And that’s how I see it through the flawed glass that is my world view.

Together in the Walk,

Jim