a rant

I wrote this email a few years ago to a friend of mine who had left the church years before ... he finally decided to attend a church gathering again, and in his words, "was treated like someone who had just vomitted all over himself." He wrote me to tell me about it, and I wrote this reply. I confess it is angry, so keep that in mind ... but I hope it will provoke thought.

I have some spare time and wanted to share with you a little bit about where i am in my understanding. Not with Jesus. With church. With the church.

The unattractive buildings with irrelevant clever rants plastered on their sign in big letters such as

"Death is just a promotion to the home office."

The too tight suits complimented and accented by a tie that neither matches or was made before 1984. The guy annoyingly jingling change in his pocket as he sways ever so slightly backward and forward in his boots while singing all five stanzas of God's oldest hymn. The dimly lit, poorly decorated, musty smelling sanctuaries with uncomfortable pews designed so to keep the parishioners awake. The oversized Bible at the end of a long aisle that has been opened to the same passage for seventeen years. It was only changed when someone accidentally knocked it off the table while dusting. The slow droning songs containing old English words that none understand, like "here I raise my Ebenezer." What is an Ebenezer and why am I raising it? The brass offering plate that has been worn green from contact with hand after hand proudly plopping in dollar after dollar. The wide wooden pulpit, with shelves behind it that are never used, that serves only as a buffer for the insecurities of the pastor who is losing touch with the world around him. The library, better called, "the room in the basement with a few books that Sister Hanbury donated when she died in '88." The plastic colored windows made to look like stained glass, but mush cheaper, not to mention uglier than what it was created to imitate.

It is funny. I think can handle all of what I described previous. I cannot handle the people that have made those things what they are. I cannot handle the people who live only to manage their sin into neat little piles that are easy to clean up. I cannot handle the people who think that spirituality is measured by what you don't do. I cannot handle the people that say they are pro-life, and then say "let's bomb the hell out of Iraq." I cannot handle the people that talk of love and create division. I cannot handle people who ask you a question and just wait for you to finish answering so they can speak again. I cannot handle the people who preach compassion and attend a gay rights rally to tell gay people how hot hell is. I cannot handle the people that place the label Republican over or next to the label Christian. I cannot handle the people who see Jesus as white to make it easier to be racist. I cannot handle people who look on the outside and pretend to be speaking to the inside. So I guess I cannot handle the church.

Why, if this western institutional construct is truly what Jesus came to start, do so many within it have so little faith? Why do those without the church hate it for its bigoted judgmental attitude? When I look at Jesus. Prostitutes ate dinners with him. He hung out with the social elite who were crooks. He hung out with "the pagans." they loved him. They accepted him. They listened intently to his stories. They came to him. And he changed their lives. Hmmm. This does not sound like the separatist, inclusive, bureaucratic machine that we have created today.

Why? Why do I say all of this? Because I do not want you to lose sight of the fact that the Jesus that lived is not the one who is spoken of or lived out in many churches today. Because I think the church has messed-up the image that he gave to us. We have taken his long haired, tunic wearing, ancient near eastern Jewishness and turned it into a flat-top, blue blazer and khaki wearing, Modern Western Christianity.

Know Jesus. Find him in his world. I have found myself saying often as I look at the church. "Is this it?" I think. "There has to be more than this." I am starting to believe there is. It is about reading the teachings of Jesus. Hearing his heart. Following after what he said was good. Not being weighed down by the trappings of this world. Finding meaning and fulfillment. Connecting deeply with other humans. Loving those who do not deserve it. Laughing. Crying. Singing. Dancing. Living. Maybe there is a reason why I do not understand the church. Maybe the church does not understand Jesus.

I am sorry that this diatribe went so long. I just wanted to tell you where my heart is. This is why I am not passionate about “winning you to the lord.” I am passionate about telling you about the person I follow. I am telling you about what I have given my life to. That is living. Living life to its fullest.