“Father, forgive me the bread I’ve stolen from my brother.” ~ St. Vincent de Paul

“Make me an instrument of Your peace.” ~ Prayer attributed to St. Francis of Assisi

“Christianity means community through Jesus Christ and in Jesus Christ. No Christian community is more or less than this.” ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

I had a hard night sleeping last night. I just did. It used to happen to me all the time in my early twenties. The pattern usually goes: I wake up at some ridiculously early hour, my mind becomes abuzz with all sorts of profound or absolutely unprofound things, then after laying there for over an hour I decide to get up and pray. How close to midnight I get up determines how long I pray. Since it happened at 3:20 am this morning, it means that I’ll be praying until 7 am (when my alarm goes off)…unless by a miracle I get tired and am able to sleep again. Regardless, it looks like I’ll be taking a nap this afternoon.

In moments like these I pray for the persecuted church: those Christians all over the world who are imprisoned, tortured, or even put to death for their faith in Christ. As I was praying this morning the Lord challenged my heart on community. We western Christians have a propensity to be so focused on ourselves by the nature of living in an individualistic society, that we continually make licenses for our self-centeredness. We are guilty of creating barriers to shield ourselves from actually encountering the poor, broken, outcast, or from being poor, broken or outcast. We are taught a pragmatic morality (Lenski, 1984) that is upside down from the right-side up ideal morality (1984) that Christ taught, personified, and invites us to.

Power in the church is ridiculous. I am continually amazed at how people often try to define themselves by how much power they can attain. Someone creates a ministry ‘niche’ for themselves and all of the sudden, that is their territory. It goes to their head. While I’m not pin-pointing an exact instance, church political power can go to the Christian’s head regardless of how little the power is. Like Jim said to Dwight on “The Office,” “this is so sad, this is the smallest amount of power I’ve ever seen go to someone’s head.” And they are often insistent that they must get their way. James speaks to our micro-power mentalities when he writes:

My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. For if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in, and if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, “You sit here in a good place,” while you say to the poor man, “You stand over there,” or, “Sit down at my feet,” have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor man. Are not the rich the ones who oppress you, and the ones who drag you into court? Are they not the ones who blaspheme the honorable name by which you were called?

If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture,”You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing well. But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it. For he who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.” If you do not commit adultery but do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. So speak and so act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty. For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment. (Chapter 2:1-13 ESV)

The micro-power displays in the church may be subtle. It may be more subtle than the pragmatic act of treating the rich better than the poor, but just as hypocritical and devastating. Whether it be insisting on getting your way in church politics, slandering, being critical, and making no repentance for lack of humility, it all contains a filthy film of self-focused sin that James warned us against. Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, “Our community with one another consists solely in what Christ has done to both of us” (1954, p. 25), and if truly the ground is level at the foot of the cross than who are we kidding?

“Lord, save us from ourselves, and purify Your Bride! Purge each one of us from self-centeredness. Bring us to the end of us so that we can begin to live in You. Teach us how to be one.”

Reference:

Bonoeffer, D. (1954). Life Together. New York, NY: Harper & Row, Publishers, Incorporated.

Lenski, Gerhard, E. (1984). Power and Privilege: A Theory of Social Stratification. Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press.