We Know the Shrine is Void: Sacralizing the Status Quo

I had a friend that once was going in a different direction -- a radical one.  The life they were pursuing was selfless and Kingdom-oriented and hard and unpopular.  Their family and many normal people opposed them.  Then, something happened and they changed course.  Recently, I was talking with this friend and listening to their description of their job and life.  They felt happy, content.  The job was easy and they had friends.  Their family life was good.  They had just bought things like a car and a house.  They had cute little children running around.  We didn't talk about the past -- about what they once said they wanted to be and do.  As I listened I felt discouraged as I realized that I had nothing at all to say that could "tempt" them back to the radical path.  If comfort and contentment are what you want and the Kingdom is no longer interesting to you, I simply don't know how to compete.

And then I think about how the Church basically celebrates this kind of life anyway -- sacralizes it through media and books and bad movies and ridiculous Christian book stores and endless pats on the back and retweets of all the right things.

Years ago I stood in a field in Memphis and heard preacher-types tell a bunch of young people (I was one of them) to go and be martyrs for the sake of the Lord Jesus.  They didn't tell us not to take them too seriously -- which, I think, in retrospect is what they might have meant.  I did take them seriously and its a bit too late to turn back now.  I have often felt like Peter in John 6 after the Jesus had alienated thousands of people with a really weird sermon that seemed to be about canabalism -- "Where are we going to go, Jesus?" 

I read somewhere recently the phrase "sacralizers of the status quo".  I don't recall from where I read it, but it stuck.  I've been mulling it over and find it almost haunting me.  Then, I turned to Kipling (which I do sometimes when I can't sleep) and read this:

L'Envoi (Departmental Ditties)

The smoke upon your Altar dies,

    The flowers decay,

The Goddess of your sacrifice

     Has flown away.

What profit then to sing or slay

The sacrifice from day to day.

"We know the Shrine is void," they said,

     "The Goddess flown --

"Yet wreaths are on the altar laid --

     "The Altar-Stone

"Is black with fumes of sacrifice,

"Albeit She has fled our eyes.

"For it may be, if still we sing

     "And tend the Shrine,

"Some Deity on wandering wing

     "May there incline;

"And, finding all in order meet,

"Stay while we worship at Her feet."

I know the scene of Kipling's poem both in the literal and metaphorical sense -- as did he.  There is little difference between the two in terms of their danger and appeal.  Keeping up the cult of an absconded deity is much easier than going after the Living One.  Keeping up the vanity of the status quo is much easier than trying to change the world -- and nearly everyone else knows it!  And once someone or many people have decided upon the status quo as the preferred thing -- and then developed a means for sacralizing it through innoculizing spurts of activism, religious sentiment, and first world theologizing -- well, it is very difficult to drag someone away from that Altar.  Very difficult indeed.

The Mother of Exiles

Photo by UNHCR UN Refugee Agency

Have you ever read the complete poem by Emma Lazarus entitled "The New Colossus"?  It is engraved upon the base of the Statue of Liberty.  I read it again the other day in light of the growing Syrian refugee crisis and was deeply moved.  In case you have never read it, take a moment now to reflect upon Lazarus' incredible words:

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. 

From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she

With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

The Gospel according to Woman

Photo by: Moyan Brenn

In that moment, it seemed like a good thing

to eat the fruit -- plump, beautiful, juicy.

But then her lips started puckering,

her throat felt dry, her stomach empty.

With her face burning and heart pounding,

she tore off branches and hurriedly

covered her raw skin before hiding

as the rustling steps approached, slow and steady.

All she could think was that he knew.  He knew.

The color drained from her pores as the pool

of bright red soaked the dirt beneath the trees.

With wet cheeks and trembling lips, she received

the new work -- the garment, another gift

to replace what she had tattered and ripped.

Years later, through her sweat, pain, blood and tears,

she looked to the day when they'd smile to hear

those slow, soft, measured footsteps on the Earth

and her laughter rang out as she gave birth.

- By Katherine Lorance

Haste Breeds Shallowness & a Dash of Prufrock: Lausanne Theology Discussion (5 of 7)

Welcome to the fifth of seven articles in response to the Lausanne Theology Working Group's paper on "The Whole Church Taking the Whole Gospel to the Whole World."  If you've not had a chance to read the paper, you can do so by following these links:

"The Whole Church Taking the Whole Gospel to the Whole World: Reflections of the Lausanne Theology Working Group" (condensed version)

"The Whole Church Taking the Whole Gospel to the Whole World: Reflections of the Lausanne Theology Working Group" (full version)

You can also read all seven parts of this series here.
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2. Regarding the Whole Church (Continued)
Finally on the Church section, I just want to stand and applaud for the entire second paragraph on page 21 (full version).  “History shows us that haste breeds shallowness.”  This is so true and so critical.  And yet, my heart just sort of groans within me.  How do we get fully behind such a statement?  This is very much related to what I said before about my concern that we might in Cape Town get excited and feel supportive of such ideas but then not have the follow through to really bring about change.  The reality is these 4,000+ delegates at Cape Town actually represent the whole Church and every segment thereof.  The potential to bring about real change is undeniable.  But is the will there?  Is there the level of commitment necessary to faithfully and perseveringly speak these things back to the global Church? Or will we come back to another Lausanne gathering years from now and simply repeat, “haste breeds shallowness” and confess that nothing has changed?  Am I just a naïve little boy?  Let me share an experience I had recently.

I sit on a council that provides some level of administrative governance for a large group of local churches.  I’m one of the youngest at the table so I try to simply serve, to do what I’m told, to be a help.

"Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use ..."

But in this past year, I was asked to lead a subgroup focused on helping to elevate the local-global value of the entire body of churches.  The idea (at least as I saw it) was, “How can we become collectively more valuable to the global Church and more connected to the wealth of the global Church?”  Well, as our subgroup began the process of brainstorming ideas about how to accomplish this, I heard the news that the Lausanne Global Conversation was soon to be launched.  I knew that this was the answer for our organization. 

I began spending hours studying the site and considering different ways in which we could use it in our organization.  After some time, I brought a full report and recommendation to the council.  All seemed convinced.  There was a unanimous vote of affirmation to pursue or organization’s full engagement with the LGC.  I drove home feeling excited.  All members of the council were to create profiles, add content, create profiles for their churches, and together plan to introduce it to the full body of churches in our organization.  I waited, waited . . . nothing happened.  Not one individual from that council followed through with creating a profile after that meeting.  It was extremely disheartening.

Now this story serves to illustrate two issues.  First, will our Cape Town experience be just like that?  Will there be great swells of affirmation and a massive “getting-behind” certain ideas and calls and priorities and then no follow through?  Will our commitments have any teeth?  And secondly, if we do have the passion and commitment to actually go home and call our organizations, churches, etc. to these commitments, will we be able to persevere when they look at us as say, “Ummm . . . well, not sure if we really want to do that.” For myself, I simply wanted to write off that council – a verse about pearls and swine came to mind.  But I know I don’t actually have the liberty to do that.  I cannot simply drop these things when they are met with opposition or (worse) apathy.

"Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
'That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all.'"

Here is the feeling that fills my heart right now.  As a worker in God’s global mission, I feel in myself a great dependency on my 4,000+ brothers and sisters to not only verbally affirm those things that we agree on at Cape Town, but to use every opportunity and platform God has given them to announce, explain, and defend these things to the larger Church.  I am absolutely counting on my brothers and sisters from the U.S., Europe, Latin America, India, and elsewhere.  I’m counting on the 30-40 from Nepal, the hundreds from Africa, the one from Bhutan. I’m counting on them to go home and proclaim and teach with perseverance to the church where they are that “haste breeds shallowness” and all the other things that God lays on our hearts.

"Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: 'I am Lazarus, come from the dead
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all!'"

In short, Mr. Prufrock . . . yes!!!

Question #5 – Am I ridiculously naïve to think that God could actually give us (the Church) a lasting and significant common ground at Cape Town that we will be so deeply compelled by that we then univocally, unswervingly, and perseveringly take back to the whole Church?